#i probably should have put that stuff in the main post instead of rambling in the tags. oh well | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miraculouslbcnreactions · 4 months

Note

Sorry if you've already talked about this but I just found your blog and I have a question. I basically stopped watching the show and Gang of Secrets but I'd like to know your thoughts on how the show handles secret identities?

Personally I really like secret identites as a trope and the way you can use it to make different character dynamics, and I feel like the show underutilizes it at best and at worst seem actively annoyed by the constraint they gave themselves.

Like this is somehow a show where when Alya and Nino found out each other's identities, it directly contributed to them each getting taken out in Heroes' Day, and when Marianne got Akumatized she instantly spilled the Guardian's existence, and both time the two leads have had identity reveals it lead to a world-destroying catastrophe, and yet half the fandom and seemingly the writers act like it's at most and inconvenience?

Let me know if I'm off or seasons 4 and later do anything to contradict me but it was one of my issues at least and I felt like there were so many fun things they could have done with the set up. Sorry again if this is too long/rambly or whatever lol

Long asks are fine! Heavens knows I tend to make long posts. It's why I use the queue instead of just posting things as I get them.

Anyway, secret identities and identity shenanigans are the things that brought me to this show. They're nothing new in superhero setups, but most shows in this genre have the identity stuff as more of a fun bonus element than the main focus. The idea of a show that was more centered around these concepts via a romance plot sounded like a blast!

It has not been a blast.

The main problem with the identity stuff is that the show's guiding rule seems to be maintaining the secret identities at all cost because a reveal means no more love square and, at this point, it's pretty clear that thy're going to drag the love square out until the bitter end. This means that they actively avoid anything which puts them into a position to push a reveal. The problem with that is that the love square isn't some cute running gag that has no real impact on the plot. The love square is the show's main focus, so you cannot treat it the way you normally treat an identity shenanigans setup.

To give an example for contrast, the show Phineas and Ferb has a running gag involving the titular characters' pet platypus Perry. Unbeknownst to the boys, Perry is a secret agent who saves the world on a regular basis while his "owners" remain oblivious to the fact that Perry is anything more than a normal pet platypus. It's a good running gag because there's no reason why the boys need to find out Perry's secret. There is no overarching plot that's in limbo until this moment happens. It's just a silly thing that could be completely removed from the show without any major impacts.

Consider the difference between that and the love square. You remove the love square and you have a wildly different show because the love square isn't a gag, it's a plot and plots need to progress to feel meaningful. Marinette and Adrien should be growing closer on at least one side of the masks and they should be doing so in a way that makes it feel like the reveal is drawing ever closer.

For example, the fact that they're now dating should be a source of tension. The last time these two dated someone, they both ended up single due to the lies that come with a secret identity. But while Lukanette and Adrigami both lasted a few weeks at most, Adrienette got a whole season without a single identity-based conflict because acknowledging the identity conflict means progress on the reveal and we can't have that because the reveal is apparently being saved for the end of the show.

We don't even get much in the way of developing their relationship because letting them grow closer in a meaningful way means knowing more about each other which, once again, means that a reveal becomes inevitable. This is probably why we got the Derision retcon where Marinette suddenly couldn't talk to Adrien while dating him. No talking means no growing meaningfully closer means no reveal.

It's incredibly frustrating because reveal plots simply aren't structured to be long running plots. This is why most identity shenanigans media either focuses on the reveal and ends up relatively short (ex: the movie You Got Mail) or does the running gag thing where the identity stuff is a source of comedy, but the actual plot is something else that would technically work perfectly fine even if you removed the identity hi-jinx (ex: the anime Spy X Family).

When it comes to the love square, my preference is to take the first option and make it resolve within the first few seasons, but if we must draw it out until the show's end, then I would make all of the following changes to turn the square from a serious plot to more of a running gag:

Do NOT let Chat Noir confess. Instead, make it that he's always setting up romantic dates or confessions for Ladybug that end up stopped because of an akuma or fans or whatever. This would make Marinette's ongoing failures feel more balanced as they're both doing the same thing. It would also turn the confession into more of a comedy element instead of a dramatic one.

Focus more on plot elements unrelated to the love square, distracting the audience from the romance with shinny subplots like a Lila take down.

Don't have the secret identities be a source of conflict. Have Chat Noir totally uninterested in a reveal.

Have Hawkmoth be someone other than Gabriel. The less serious the show's basic setup, the less serious audiences will expect it to be

Of course, all of those are pretty massive changes to the show's basic setup, which is why I say they should have just let the reveal happen. Then they could have actually let all sorts of fun moments happen as we build to the reveal because it's no longer a thing that they writers have to avoid. As someone who has written multiple stories with a reveal, the fun really is planning it all out so that the tension and/or the comedy builds and builds to a dramatic crescendo where everything feels oh so satisfying.

When you live in fear of the reveal and awkwardly shoehorn things in, you get boring things like Gabriel's identity being leaked from a random play, Marinette's crush being revealed by freaking Andre, and Nino's identity reveal leading to nothing interesting because it can't because then we'd be drawing closer to a love square reveal and, well, you know the drill. It's also why you get messed up crappy episodes like Chat Blanc and Ephemeral. Episodes that are just there to prove that the reveal is a bad thing you shouldn't want!

There actually is solid logic as to why a reveal might not be the best move, but we don't even get to see that discussed. Chat Noir just pushes for a reveal because love while Ladybug stays focused on risk mitigation and it's so boring because a good show would let them have an honest discussion of the risks verses the rewards to help drive the conflict leading towards a reveal as a lot of the rewards are only realized if these two already know each other, which is a great tension build! But we can't build tension like that because then you'd be letting them have actual team dynamics where they talk about things and talking about things means bonding which means a build up to reveal and I think you know the drill by now...

This was a bit of a ramble, but hopefully it addressed your question! This is a broad topic that has a lot of ground to cover, so feel free to clarify if you wanted my thoughts on something else. I love identity reveals, so I am happy to babble about them. There's nothing more satisfying then setting up a good one, even if it takes tens of thousands of words to make it hit just right!

#ml writing critical #ml writing salt

29 notes · View notes

cupoftaae · 1 year

Text

Forever And A Day (KTH x READER) series ♡ sunrise in versailles (part 3) (chapter 15)

Summary: your lifelong friend is forced to face his true feelings for you once he breaks the number one rule of becoming friends with benefits: dont fall in love. He knows he loves you, but you on the other hand need more convincing of the most important thing: the right decision.

Genre: fwb. Roommates, friends to idiots to lovers, fluff, angst, smut, the whole 9 yards tbh.

Pairing: taehyung x female!reader

rating: 18+ (minors dni!!!)

word count- 5k

warnings- swearing, fighting (waaa), emotional distress, mentions of miscarriage, lots of sad shit tbh. I think this is all? lmk.

a/n-Hi m'loves, I hope ur all doing well and having a good summer so far!! I will update the main masterlist asap so all of the chapters are easily accessible through pinned post on my page! -Nini

"so....he's saying that it just happened and there wasn't necessarily any reasoning behind it. Its normal....its not your fault." Taehyung whispered, translating the english speaking doctor's words into Korean as you remained seating in a hospital bed.

No reasoning? normal?

You would scoff if you had the energy.

Instead, you just blinked a few times in understanding, putting your head back and looking up at the obnoxiously bright lights in the room. Really- they werent comforting in the slightest.

The doctor kept speaking to Taehyung, who then would refer to you, "they are....gonna give you medicine to help pass any, um, tissue? left inside..." his voice was thick, slicked with grief as he tried to explain everything.

After they handed you a few papers and pamphlets, they passed a bottle of pain reliever and extra medication into your hands, then pushed you out of the clinic, as if nothing happened, or if anything changed.

The car ride back to the hotel was quiet, you refused to even hold Taehyungs hand, which, yeah...you felt bad for shutting him out, because you know he was hurting just as much as you were, however you wanted to just process it by yourself. It perhaps was selfish to do so, but you didnt want to talk about it.

even with him.

"maybe its a good idea to look into a flight back home...?" he whispered, hand on your lower back as you walk back into the room. You winced before crawling onto the bed, hugging a pillow.

"no....." you mumbled, closing your eyes. The thought of going on a 12 hour plane ride in this condition made you queasy. You just wanted to lay in bed for the next few days to recover.

He put the stuff down and stood in front of the bed, looking down at his feet as his mind rambled of ways to help. "are you hungry?"

You shook your head.

"thirsty? You should probably have some water......do you want me to run you a bath-?"

"taehyung!" you looked over at him, he was taken back for a moment upon hearing your voice, the loudest you've spoken since the miscarriage began. "I want to be left alone, I dont need anything"

He frowned, "but you-"

"but nothing" you sighed, resting your head back down. You swallowed any trace of sadness in your voice, any signal you were ready to break down. "I just....I want to sleep."

"okay" he nodded, upset at your dismissive behavior. All he wanted was to hold you in this moment, for you two to mourn together so you can heal, and you were practically pretending he didnt exist.

He grabbed his cellphone and calmly left the room, walking out to clear his head. The weather was now much sunnier, air was hot but nice. He wondered what adventure you both would be up to right now if this never happened.

Reluctantly, he began to ring up his mother to discuss whats going on, knowing that you will probably be mad for doing it without you, but he needed someone to talk to so desperately.

"mom...." he whispered when the ringing on the other line stopped, signaling someone picked up.

"Taehyung? whats wrong?" her voice was groggy, He suddenly remembered that it was really late over in Busan, and she was most likely asleep.

"im sorry for calling so late" he mumbled, "I just really need to talk to you"

"what is it?" her voice was more awake now, obvious curiosity and panic.

He sighed, taking a breath as he looked around at the people walking down the street. "Y/N....this morning, she had a miscarriage." he swallowed roughly, feeling the familiar lump in his throat. "we just got back to the room after going to the clinic, shes okay, but she wont talk to me...and I know this doesnt concern you in the slightest, you were upset to begin with, but....im hurting mom." his voice cracked at the last sentence, face hiding into his arm.

He heard a stilling of breath on the other line.

Taehyungs mother wasnt all too pleased to hear you both were expecting a child together, but she never wished for something like this to happen, it was heartbreaking.

"ah my son... im terribly sorry my dear." she exhaled, "its okay to cry, its okay to be upset, you know?"

He sniffed, wiping his eyes with the collar of his shirt, "yeah but, I just wanna be with her and shes getting mad at me"

"Its a difficult situation, She is hurting just like you maybe even more, and she needs space....she will come around okay? where is she? where are you? did they specify what caused it?"

"im outside of our hotel, sitting on a bench, she doesnt want me in the room....and shes okay, they gave her medicine and stuff but they said it was natural, like nothing inflicted it or caused it"

She nodded on the other line "okay...maybe you both should come home. I know you worked hard to be there right now but if shes sick you guys need to be close to us. I will make some meals and bring them over so she doesnt have to cook, or you can just stay with us, whatever you two decide."

He brushed his hair with his fingers, listening to his mothers soft soothing tone, one he wasn't particularly used to hearing too often. "I asked her if we should go back and she said no"

"she wants to stay in a foreign country during this? what if something else happens?"

"I dont think she wants to deal with the plane ride" he sighed

"thats understandable, but she can just sleep the entire time, then i'll order a cab to our house straight from the airport, how does that sound?"

"I'll try to talk to her again about it, I just want her to be okay"

"she will be okay, but these things take time. She may not act like she needs you there with her but she does, go back to the room okay?"

"okay....thank you, I'll text you after, love you..." he mumbled, grateful that for once, his mother was supportive in such a time of pain.

"you showered?" he asked, walking back into the room as he saw you on the floor, looking out the large window by the bed. Your long wet hair gently dripping to the carpet below you.

"mhm" your eyes stayed glued to the city, watching cars drive around as the sun began to say its goodbyes, setting beautifully and coating the sky with a purple and orange tint.

His eyes looked down to the pillow in your lap, you squeezed it tightly.

"how...uh, how are you feeling physically?"

"mm" you shrugged, finally turning back to look at him. You were pale, and you looked exhausted. The dark bags under your eyes didnt lie. "im managing"

"you dont have to manage alone" he whispered, sitting beside you.

"taehyung..."

"y/n"

You looked at him as he sat on the carpet next to you, your body tightening up once more.

"why wont you let me be here for you?" he whispered, eyes directly on yours as he tilted his head. Taehyung didnt want to come off as aggressive or forceful.

You shook your head, eyes darting out the window once more. "I dont wanna talk about it"

"why no-"

"because it fucking kills me!" you cried out, covering your face, "it hasnt even been a day, im processing it, it doesnt feel real and I just..."

He looked at you, his own expression softening as he felt his stomach churn.

"I just wish it never happened" you choke out in a faint whisper

"I know baby, I know...." he mumbled, slowly bringing his arm to yours, pulling you into his lap. "me too, this is awful, I know it is, and I know I will never understand how you feel....but im hurting too. lets process this together? please?" his fingers laced through your hair as you softly cried, you could feel the exhaustion and emotion seeping through every ounce of your body. "I think we should just go home..."

"but you worked so hard to be here....we arent going..."

Taehyung sighed, "its not important. I...I called my mom and explained the situation, shes offering us a room at the house, she will cook for us and everything, allow you time to heal, and-"

You stopped crying, climbing off his lap and looking at him as if he slapped you in the face. "you called your mom? why? what?"

"I know, im sorry, I shouldve asked you if it was okay-"

"yeah you should have" you wiped your nose and stood up, huffing and tossing the pillow back onto the bed. "thats so....you dont need to go telling everyone. Not to mention she gave me shit when she found out I was pregnant, and now she wants to be all supportive? bull fucking shit"

He was taken back at your sudden outburst, he rose to his feet and turned to you "baby, hey, I know my parents arent the best but they are offering support right now, put all the fighting aside, she knows your hurting and is just trying to be nice"

"I dont care, I refuse to let her do that, especially given the fucking comments she through at me" you ran your hands through your hair. "I mean, shit, taehyung, my own mom didnt know I was pregnant yet and now I have to tell her I already miscarried?" you sighed "this is a lot on me! this is a lot mentally, and you cant just go telling people, im embarrassed"

"you shouldnt be"

"I am, I dont really want to be coddled or get sympathy calls and texts from people, I just want to be alone, and to be honest, I am really fucking mad at you right now"

He raised his brow, he was upset at your behavior but tried to understand the situation from your point of view. "okay..." he exhaled, "I get it, I know, and im sorry"

You threw your phone across the room, walking into the bathroom and shutting the door.

Taehyung felt lost, his attempt of helping seemed to only make shit worse for the both of you. How was one person supposed to navigate or fix the said situation? you wanted help, but you refused it.

He didnt want to leave again, but he grabbed his coat and walked out once more, this time it was to sit on the fire escape stairs out near the balcony.

It felt like hours, he cried, watching cars drive around. It was selfish, but he wished he was one of those people.

he wished he was away, he wished you and him were doing what you had originally planned for the day instead of this.

His heart was in his throat as it suddenly hit him, the loss of the child he had learned to grow so fond of. Taehyung had not known them for very long, but oh, he fell in love at the first heartbeat, the first sonogram that still sat in his wallet at this very moment.

He was in love the moment he walked into his bedroom and saw it as a nursery for the first time, eager to push everything out just so he can decorate it 7 months early.

The moment he saw your bump beginning to form, snapping photos left and right. The moments of holding your hair back so you didnt get vomit in it during your morning sickness days. The moments of him talking to your stomach late at night when you pretended to be asleep and watch.

Taehyung would whisper his fears but righten them as promises of love and nothing less. the role of a father.

It seemed so scary at first, but as he settled into it, the idea became somewhat comforting, at least knowing he wasnt alone.

But now what?

Where do you even start to pick up the pieces of loss of a life you never even got to taste?

Everything that was finally looking up was ripped away in a matter of moments. He was angry at the world, angry at himself, angry at the innocent people walking around below...but he wasnt angry at you, no matter how much you deflect his compassion.

He tossed his cigarette and began to look up at the stars, trying to mentally keep track of the number of them. It was something to distract his brain, it was something to do other than feel pathetic.

The slider door to the balcony slowly opened, presenting you tightly wrapped in a robe as your hair was now thrown into a pony tail.

Taehyung waved his hand, too afraid to speak up.

"I just got off the phone"

He nodded, looking over.

"with my mom" you exhale

"oh?" Taehyung sat up quickly as you walked over, sitting beside him.

"yeah" you whisper, of course you had been crying, there was no way to hide it. "I told her everything, mine as well not wait"

He nodded, unsure of how to react

Its quite for a moment, the overwhelming tension between you both choking you as the night sky blanketed the city, the air thick with love and grief.

"are you okay?" he whispered

"yes...or, will be anyways" you sniff, taking a deep breath and allowing your lungs to receive a moment of calmness for the first time today. "are you?"

He shrugged, looking at you. "mad..." he murmured, watching his heel continue to dig into the cigar that was already on the ground.

"mad?" you whisper

"yeah, mad."

"why?"

"because..." it was his turn to cry, his fists bunching up his white shirt. "I left you, I fucking left you while it happened."

You frown, watching his eyes look anywhere but your own. "My love...whether you were in the room or not, it still wouldve happened"

"At least you wouldnt have been alone..." he choked, "I keep getting images of how scary it mustve been, and how you kept calling me and I was just...not there"

You wiped your eyes, scooting closer to him.

"so fucking dumb, im so stupid. I hate everyone and im mad. Im angry, its not fair" he mumbled

You were unsure of what to say to him, opting to pull him into your arms as you embraced eachother.

"where were you anyways...?"

He sniffed, whispering lowly "I went to get you flowers, and breakfast" his cheeks were slightly red. "just my luck, I do something nice and the world spits in my face"

You couldnt help the small smile that found its way onto your lips, "well thats very sweet...."

"doesnt matter. it was dumb and I shouldnt have left you"

"you cant blame yourself for this" you look at him, turning his head so he sees you. "we need to stop blaming ourselves. This is going to take a while to recover from, and we gotta realize that now more than ever." you whisper, pressing your forehead to his.

He nodded, lifting slightly to kiss you delicately.

Taehyung held both of your hands as he rested his head on your shoulder.

"Im going home"

He sniffed, "you are? I think thats good, we dont have to stay at my moms house, I understand how awkward that might be for you, and it was my wrong doing to just go and talk behind your back. We can just go back to the apartment okay?"

You shake your head slowly, "no, Tae, home...Gwangju." you spoke into his ear gently, your hand running circles on his back. "I need to see my mom, I need time to recover, and to be honest, I need to recover from a lot more than just this one thing...."

He sat away, looking at you. "Gwangju?"

"yeah. Ive been thinking about going back for a while, remember? my mom isnt getting any younger and she still has troubles with her back. She wasnt doing too well when we visited. I need to be with my mom to help her, and so she can help me with everything Ive been dealing with, which....is a lot." you exhale, trying to offer a small laugh to lighten the mood. "she misses me too, all the time"

His face was contorted, mind racing. "well...okay..." he nodded slowly, "thats fine...when do we leave?"

You bit your bottom lip and looked at him, "not we, just me tae..."

Taehyung frowned, "what do you mean? you....are leaving without me?" his voice was thick with emotion as the realness of the sudden situation sunk in.

"yeah...not for long, I promise, I just need time-"

"what are you talking about?" he chokes out, standing up and looking down at you. "I offered to take you back home so we can recover and rest, I offered you anything I could, and you refused, now suddenly you are hot and eager to hop on a plane to Gwangju to....get away from me?"

"its not like that"

"then please explain what it is like because it seems as if life isnt the problem, its me"

You roll your eyes slightly, "stop jumping to conclusions, you know first hand how bad the past months have been, between kaito, the pregnancy, school, work and the drama with you and I. I lost all my friends, I switched to online classes just for the situation, I have to manage everything, all of my shit including yours"

"What do you mean?"

"its just a lot, tae, I am only one person. I love you, I really do, and I wish you would calm down so I can explain."

He sits, face in his hands.

"Listen" you begin "everything is just a lot right now, this...loss..." you whisper "it was the sole decider for me to make the move to go back home for a while. I need to fix some shit, because im not the best person, and I need to be away from people"

"you sound so crazy"

You scoff, looking at him, "crazy?"

"yeah, crazy. so what? we break up? you know, couples dont just leave or abandon eachother when something bad happens, you turn to them when you need support, just as we done with everything else so far." he tries to plead with you, hands trembling a bit. "I know its a lot for you, I know your body is tired physically and mentally, and I can only imagine how the past 24 hours have been, but....you do realize that I am hurting as well? this doesnt just involve you, it was my baby too?"

You sink into your seat, sighing as you shake your head, "obviously I know that"

"then why are you acting like its only your problem?" he winced, "we....we are missing out on so many experiences. we will never get to hold or see that baby ever, you think that doesnt rip my fucking heart out y/n??" his voice wavered, now slightly louder as he tried to get you to see his side. "this is so selfish, you are being so selfish"

You felt tears seep into your eyes, quickly getting up so he doest see your reaction as you open the slider, feet guiding you back into the cold hotel room.

"yeah run away" he scoffs, tears streaming down his face as he attempts to follow you, tossing his jacket to the floor in rage.

"where will I be? where do I go?" he yelled, watching you silently search the closet as you rip clothes out, tossing them to the bed.

When you dont respond, he grows more upset and desperate. "so fuck me then? right? because my feelings on this dont matter?" he cried, standing at the door and watching you. "please tell me what ive done, what ive said, to make you feel like you cant talk or confide in me? why is there no comfort between us? what the fuck happened?"

Tears freely fell as you aggressively threw your suitcase together, you heard his words sink into your blood, your own emotions tugging at your heart as you tried to convince yourself you were capable of making your own choices. "its not a break up, its just some time away from everything, I will come back" you spoke, teeth gritted.

"you are being so selfish y/n" he shook his head in disbelief, "why am I not enough to help? why cant we both go to your moms?"

"because im tired!!" you yell, throwing the shoes in your hands.

He laughed, eyes scanning over you "you are tired? from what? ....oh I get it, me giving you every limb I have, spending my time and money on you must be so exhausting. Im just the fucking worst huh? Jesus, y/n, you are acting like I fucking punched you" he spit

You glared at him, pinching your thigh as he referred to Kaito "Im tired of drama following me everywhere I go. I never fucking asked you to give me anything, ever, at all." you whisper, eyes sinking into his. "How dare you say that to me....." you grew angry at your voice wavering "this was a mistake"

His eyes widened, "a mistake..?"

"yeah..." you scoff "a mistake, clearly the biggest one ive made" you were quick to wipe your eyes. "we should have stayed just friends, you feeling forced to provide and love me just because of the baby is pathetic. You dont have to worry about it anymore anyways, asshole" you spit, turning around.

He felt like he had gotten stabbed in the chest, his breath leaving his lungs as you sat there and accused him of not only not loving you, but the child. "y/n, you know nothing...you have no idea what you are saying"

"oh but I do"

"you are angry, and thats why you said that, I really hope thats the case...because what you just accused me of...." his voice was tight and shallow. "how can you say I only stayed because of the baby....who, by the way, I was willing to give up everything for"

"you felt compelled to, you dont have to lie anymore"

His tears continued to fall, he was shocked at your words. "y/n I love you and that baby more than anything....why are you saying this?"

He regretted yelling, and perhaps he said words that dug deeper than he meant them too, however what you threw back at him was worse than any conversation prior.

"Yeah well I dont even know if the baby was yours or Kaitos so It literally doesnt matter" you threw clothes into your bag "its gone anyways" you sobbed, "so just go on and do whatever the fuck you were doing before I pulled you down with me, okay?"

Taehyung gasped softly, eyes widening as he watched you.

You knew it was wrong, you regretted saying it as soon as it left your mouth, but you couldn't go back on it, not anymore.

"you....you dont?"

You didnt reply, instead, picking the pace up as you gathered your things.

"baby....baby talk to me this isnt funny anymore" he ran over to you, desperately seeking your attention. "look....i...I dont care if it was mine or not, I wouldnt have treated them any differently, baby please listen to me, its okay"

"taehyung I have to go" you whispered

"no..please my love, why are you....what did I do? im sorry...im sorry" he grasped your hand and fell onto his knee

"stop" you choked out, looking at him with tears in your eyes. "listen...Its not forever, just give me some space....please"

"why...this is so...." he whispered, crying as he looked up at you, "please think this through. let me come with you-"

"taehyung....look at me, Im not breaking up with you, I just need space, and if you wont let me do that..." you shrug, "then what are we doing here?"

He looks down at his hands

"thank you, okay? thank you for giving me all of this, and Im sorry it didnt work out, but we need to have time away so we can come back stronger, okay?" you choked out before going back to what you were doing.

Taehyung at some point in the conversation gave up at trying to convince you to stay, he realized his words were no longer effective, and you were gonna walk away from him no matter what he said.

He felt your grip loosen, specifically within the past few weeks. You were slowly slipping away and he knew it, but he didnt want to think it was anything you two couldnt fix, he needed you just as much as you needed him.

He knew he would wait, and if you left and needed space, then he would let you do so.

"fine..." he whispered, feeling one hundred percent defeated as his eyes watched you gather your things. "w-when....are you leaving?"

you sniffed, "tomorrow morning"

"i'll go with you to the airport" he said quickly, making your grasp on your bag tighten.

"okay" you mumbled.

Its not that you didnt love Kim Taehyung, its that you loved him too much to be wrapped in this drama with him all the time. Things will be well for a while then something happens, something always happens, and its not fair.

to either of you.

You regretted saying the baby thing the moment it came out of your mouth, but you were always bad at dealing with emotions. After some time alone with your mom you would need to do some major damage control.

You only wanted 2 weeks alone, its not like you were leaving for 2 years, why was he being so stubborn about this?

It was a fairly quite car trip at 6am the next morning to the airport.

The grey clouds that toppled over you set the tone of the day for taehyung as he parked among the cars in the lot. The last time you two were at this airport was when you arrived here, hopes high for not only the trip, but a positive change in eachothers future.

one that never came.

he walked you inside all the way to your gate, watching as crowds of people gathered nearby.

"well...." he whispered, watching the way his feet scuffed the floor beneath him.

"well..." you repeated, turning to look at him. "its only a few weeks"

Taehyung nodded, repeating the extent in his brain like it would reassure him.

"we will come out of this as better people" you mumbled, reaching up to hug his tightly, hands finding the familiar pattern of running down his back, squeezing him.

"I hope" he exhaled, hugging you just as tight.

Once you pulled away, your faces close together, you looked into his eyes and took every ounce within you to avoid tearing up. Before bed last night, you both discussed the properties of this situation, and what exactly it would entail. You apologized for your words, as did he, and now here you both were at the end of the terminal waiting for your plane to be called so you can head back to korea without him.

"about the baby...." you whispered, looking at him

"I know...you dont have to apologize again. y/n, I dont care who's it was, I honestly dont. nothing would have led me away from you" he reassured, "I just want to make sure you will be okay on the flight"

You nod slowly, "i will be fine, moms picking me up when I land so..."

"good, thats good"

"yup, and i'll text you when im at home okay?" you spoke

"got it"

"you'll wait for me?"

"i'll wait for you" he whispered, kissing your forehead.

"even if im the most awful person?"

Tae laughed softly "you arent, but even if you were, yes"

You nod sadly, finally allowing the tears to spill as he immediately hugged you close to his chest again. its not a goodbye, its a "see you later", right?

"dont cry...this is what you wanted"

You pull back, wiping your eyes "yeah...yeah"

The speaker above your heads announced boarding for your plane. Grabbing the tickets from your bag, you looked at taehyung once more and smiled weakly, "i'll see you, okay?"

He smiled, nodding "i'll be there when you need me" please need me

You waved, quickly turning so he wouldn't see you crying again as you made your way down the tunnel, your body now hidden behind the herd of other passengers.

"love you" he whispered to himself, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he realized his current state, alone.

He hasnt been alone in months, and it provided a certain uncomfy feeling that ran through his body, almost disturbing. He knew he would be returning to the hotel and packing so he could visit his own mother and father back in Busan. Explaining that situation to them will be its own event.

How could something so sweet and beautiful always find its way to trash? to devastation? it was what you two thrived on, and perhaps time apart was needed after all.

He would wait for you

He would wait for your laugh, your eyes, the way you whispered, the way you nagged him over being messy, or how you fussed when he forgot to eat again.

But....how long exactly would he do so?

taglist-

@turnthepageandbeburnt @taebangtanbabe @borahaexoxo @lelefoodlover @tan-veee

#bts #bts fanfic #taehyung #kim taehyung #bts fluff #bts smut #kim taehyung fanfic #kim taehyung series #taehyung fanfic #taehyung smut

25 notes · View notes

faejilly · 9 months

Text

jilly's week in review?

I guess or something. Idek y'all, I was gonna try and do reviews but then I just rambled about what I did instead, so this is clearly gonna need a format revamp next week

anyway

READING

Finished Daughter of Witches

and also St. Peter's Fair, which I had started AGES ago and sort of lost track of, but I'm doing the January Challenge on TheStoryGraph and couldn't decide what to read next but needed to get my pages in, so I went digging for random shit and I have read it before and watched all the Cadfael mysteries so it's not like it was hard to get into to finish it so I could save my streak.😅

Read A House with Good Bones (on purpose from start to finish in one day!) because T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon is absofuckinglutely one of my favorites. (There's a thought here about my occasional forays into the horror genre, and how some horror is almost kind of cozy because it's about protecting what we love from what we fear, and that is very much a Kingfisher kind of thing, but that might need a new post and a more functional brain to figure out where I'm going with that.)

Listened to a little bit more of IT while doing housework; I'm not great at audio books except when I'm driving, but sometimes I can manage a little (and I didn't want to distract myself from dishes by picking up a new book instead). Stephen Weber is an excellent narrator btw, for anyone who's curious.

WATCHING

The husband was sick last week, and I was only sort of doing shit either, so he kind of just put the TV on and let it go and I definitely will not manage a nice list with links like I did with books. There was some M*A*S*H, (oh, I did finally watch the special that recently came out on Hulu), and RoboCop (largely because Thing 1 gave the husband the new game for Christmas) and several different Predator movies of various quality, and a bunch of other stuff I am not thinking of at the moment. I know I picked a couple and watched them myself but with everything else I can't remember what?

Also some Mythbusters when Thing 2 picked something to watch for awhile, which is pretty much always entertaining even when we're like: your sample size is nonexistent and just because you can't do it doesn't mean someone who knows what they're doing couldn't have done it so are you SURE you should have busted that? 😅

PLAYING

I got Garden Story for Christmas and got through the quest-lines and realized I was quite far away from all the upgrades, so I've been periodically poking at it and trying to get my villages/tools better before trying the Final Boss. I have had a good time with Concord though, it's fun, I'm just not sure the leveling functions, such as they are, are paced/balanced quite right? 😅 (Or perhaps I'm just Bad At Fighting In Cozy Games? This does seem to be a bit of a trend tbqh, probably why I liked Wylde Flowers' lack of combat so much.) I also have found VERY FEW of the memories/weird achievements so that's a thing I'm probably going to have to look up hints for soon-ish...

(I did finish Potion Permit last year, which is great, I recommend it whole-heartedly: the potion building mechanic is usually pretty solid, it has good characters, a nice aesthetic, I did actually mostly have fun rolling around and fighting things/gathering stuff, but I did reach the end of the main quest and then go... huh, is that it? just because it, yk, kept going after the finale but there didn't seem to be anything there beyond like, a couple personal quests that needed materials I couldn't unlock until the end.)

MORE ENTERTAININGLY I THINK, we did also play some board games

Paint The Roses is QUITE HARD with only two people even if you stick to the medium level whims; or maybe I'm just not that smart?!? We did in fact survive without getting our heads' chopped off by the Queen of Hearts, but we legit guessed the last two puzzles so. Dumb Luck™️ is not nearly as reliable as actually figuring out how to plot your plants better.

We did Escape the Dark Sector (with more people this time, tbf) on our first try though! That was pretty delightful. It is atmospheric and potentially almost deadly without feeling too awful at any point! Also I got to punch a tentacle monster!

Mice & Mystics can go dramatically bad if your dice aren't on your side and you do like, one stupid thing to compound that, and then if you're invested enough to start over you can suddenly realize you've been moving tiny plastic mice and bugs around the table for like four hours and still only got through the first chapter... but not regret it at all because you like your mice and are very proud of them for finally making it!

Can you tell we like co-op games? 🤣🤣🤣

(I did also do some rearranging so the game room was comfier, so like, win/win I adulted and played!)

THERE WAS NO WRITING OR CROSS-STITCHING OR PAINTING OR ANYTHING ELSE THIS WEEK, so uh. Clearly my balance of activities is bonkers and I should maybe get off the couch/game chair(s) a bit more often.

#jilly spam #jilly reads #jilly has a gaming problem #favorite shows #I guess for the brief MASH mention?#I can definitely recommend #a house with good bones #for feels and family dysfunction and weird/terrible magic shit and a Vulture and terrifying roses!#plus some interesting tangents on how batshit people can get #including historical examples!#(not that historical)#that makes no sense sorry I'll stop now #tag spam #week in review #will probably need a better tag for that too #but that is a problem #for tomorrow!jilly

9 notes · View notes

the-shield-anon · 6 months

Text

Rules + About

((Updated June 10th 2024 (Just some minor edits)))

((Hi, mod Humble here. I decided to make a quick pinned post for the rules and info about Shield. Let's get this bit over with, shall we?))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About me:

((First things first: this is a sideblog. My main/personal is @iambutahumblememe, so if that blog follows you, that's me following you. Hello! 👋))

((I'm autistic, so I may misread situations or messages. Feel free to tell me if it seems like I've misunderstood something or said something wrong.))

((I use double brackets when talking OOC. There's also the chance I'll talk OOC in the tags sometimes. You don't need to talk back or anything, I probably just felt like getting my current thoughts (or bad jokes) out of my head.))

((While my schedule is pretty clear at the moment, it's important to remember I've still got a life outside of this and quite enjoy doing other things too. Also, I can feel anxious when writing with others (especially new blogs) which can make me slow to interact, if at all. And I simply may not have the energy to write much, particularly at this point in time. Please keep all this in mind.))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Content warning/Rules:

((This blog has the potential for things like swearing, blood, gore, abuse, mental health issues and death, given the fandom this was born from. A warning for anyone not wanting to risk seeing that.))

((Shield's not interested in any romantic or sexual stuff, but I don't mind suggestive talk or jokes as long as it doesn't go further than that. I also don't mind someone else's character having a one-sided crush on them if that's how that character feels, but like. Who would crush on this loser-))

((Killing them without my say so is a big no-no. I feel that should be obvious, but you never know.))

((Final thing that comes to mind, don't take control of my character to make them say or do things without my permission. I don't think I need to explain why that's annoying to deal with. Stick with the character you made, pal!))

((And that's everything that comes to mind! I just wanna make sure I'm clear about these things. Some facts about Shield Anon are under the read more, along with a picture @mod-teacup made as a gift. ❤️))

Their name is simply Shield Anon or Shield for short (Shield!Anon if you're feeling spicy I guess). They don't exactly have a "normal" name, given what they are.

They're 6'0" exactly.

They're a AAA battery (AroAceAgender) and go by neutral pronouns. They're used to being mistaken for a man due to having a male sounding voice and being on the taller side.

Not in the picture due to it being old, but they have a visible mouth now, thanks to Smith Anon.

Surprise surprise, they're good with making and using shields of all kinds. They can do some pretty ridiculous things with one too. Not that odd, given shields are their thing.

They can do M!A stuff (Magic Anon for those unfamiliar). They usually don't see much of a need though.

They can store and pull random objects out of their nonexistent pockets. They can even make objects with their magic. It's not always precise though, it depends on factors like size and power.

They can make force fields with their magic, tough ones to boot, no M!A required! But they honestly tend to forget this, hence why they aren't really seen doing it much.

They have a habit of rambling. It comes out easiest when they're scared or particularly excited/interested in whatever they're talking about.

They can use swinging weapons along the lines of a crowbar, a staff or even a blade, but they'll most likely use a shield as a weapon instead. It depends on the situation.

Enjoys talking to new people, but they also sort of don't. Nothing to do with them, they just fear putting their foot in their mouth, so to speak. Definitely not projecting here-

Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows the blog where they first originated, their favourite Smiling Critter is CraftyCorn. She's a unicorn, an artist and generally very nice, so she's cool in their books. They just think she's neat. (They also think she needs to stop getting put into situations.)

#Pinned #Shieldcanon

2 notes · View notes

i-like-eyes · 2 years

Text

DevLog 2

We are at log 2 and real life has already got in the way. As I don't got a lot to show off I'll post some non-spoilery asset stuff and hide the rambling under read more.

While I did get a good chunk of the script done, there is still plenty of dialogue I need to get to. As a result, I didn't get any maps done. I'm trying to make this game with RPG Paper Maker's strengths in mind, but every once in awhile I'll realize I made an assumption of what the engine can do and the script has to be put on pause because of it. For example, a lot of this game I had already planned out having pictures on screen for more cinematic scenes. Literally two days ago I realized I don't actually know how to do that in the engine. Thankfully there is a Discord for RPGPM and the people there have been a huge help.

To supplement my question I had drawn a reference of what I meant; it's nothing significant I just think it looks funny.

I'm probably not going to show off the script itself because words on a doc isn't terribly interesting. Here are talk sprites in the mean time.

In order they are Holly, Jim, and Micheal. I might talk more about them next month.

Grant herself I debating making a talk sprite for, I probably will in the end but I'm wondering if how she reacts in those sections should be left up to the player to interpret. I'm thinking about how you see Phoenix clearly while in a courtroom because of the more cinematic approach to that section of the game, but when talking to other characters you don't see his face; instead the characters are talking directly to you because it's more personal. That (and a stupid amount of over analyzing the portraits of FE13-16 because FETH criticism is fucking weird) contributed to the npcs in this game looking directly at you. Also because horror game, things are supposed to be a bit unnerving. If Grant had a sprite she wouldn't look at the player because you are playing as he;, she should reflect the fact that you are looking at the npcs.

While this is the first game I've taken really seriously as a personal project, it's development cycle still throws me off because of what I've done beforehand for school.

It's weird, normally when making a game I'd focus on gameplay first and story last. I've done a handful of small scale projects at school, and the number one thing teachers drill into your head is to have the gameplay and the narrative play off each other. Most students go in with this epic idea for a story and only really want to make it a game because games are cool, not that they think they can have the gameplay enhance the plot. This combined with a lot of demos we made were based on popular genres (FPS for example) meant our development cycle looked a lot like gameplay first then story built to compliment that. My other game ideas either looked like that or smth more equally balanced, I think of a story element and a gameplay element I thought of happens to compliment that, but I've never had to come up with the majority of the plot first then the gameplay afterwards. Part of it was trying to discourage students from doing that, because they tend to have far too ambitious plotlines in mind. The other part was like fucking hell they are teaching us that weird niche visual novel shit because we are being trained to work for some company's Toronto division pumping out sequels.

But ultimately I've just never had an idea like this one before. Half my game ideas are fighting games and the rest are platformers, puzzle games, etc. I have thought of two -ish TRPG's, and briefly came up with a couple of other visual novel ideas, but they never stuck with me as long as the likes of Red Spikey Hair Guy Needs To Let Out Some Anger The Platformer (WIP name). If that title is any indication, the plot isn't my main concern for that game yet. That's because I want to figure out the gameplay more before I further flesh the story out because I want it to blend together. And then it gets put on hold because I forget how to program. Anyways, with Riverside there is very minimal gameplay. The reason why it is still a game and not just a comic or smth is because I think it is very important that you are put in the shoes of a patient at a nursing home, because you can't really get the same empathy with any other medium. Or hell, you don't get that same experience in real life until it's too late.

#devlog #rpg maker #rpg horror #riverside game

16 notes · View notes

lorkynn · 2 years

Text

Pathfinder 2e vs. Dungeons & Dragons 5e

And why I switched to PF2e from D&D5e.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if this blog-post was ever gonna happen. I was sure if I was gonna put on my main blog or my side blog, Mindelves. I feel like it should go here because I am probably not gonna use my main blog for its original purpose anymore. Though I’ve rambled long enough, time to actually get to the meat-and-potatoes--or rather the pen-and-paper--of this blog.

I was an early adopter of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition (D&D5e), because I was not happy with the state of Pathfinder 1e. It was just too bloated and the power creep was pretty much identical to the issues with D&D3/3.5. My other issues with pf1e was it was way too easy to get locked into a dead build that was no longer fun to play because it wasn’t optimal. D&D5e offered a fresh take on the zeitgeist of the Dungeon Crawling Fantasy that Dungeons & Dragons popularized.

In the beginning, before the adoption of it in pop-culture, the game was fun and it honestly shook things up like they needed to be. Skills were simplified into proficiency bonuses and this worked extremely well. Spellcaster Cantrips were made into at-will abilities, identical to how they worked in Pathfinder 1e, and the classes + archetype design worked well. Outside of these changes, they made pretty safe choices and didn’t rock the boat much.

Early on, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) was focusing heavily on Modules instead of expanding on character choices. Which was good in the beginning, but it slowly caught up to them. Now, the biggest issue is that WotC is too busy listening their Shareholders and the Beholder/Mindflayer know as Social Media & Twitter. The game isn’t fun, the adventure paths make you’re rushing through to get to the “good parts” of the adventures. They’re also too scared to do anything that might upset the Twitter Gods, so they back-peddle on every decisions that gets the tiniest push back. To add insult to injury, the last few releases, weren’t just bad, they constantly contradict themselves in the same book. Success through Pop Culture really ruined the system.

As for Pathfinder 2e(PF2e), I wasn’t impressed with at first. Every review that I had seen of it painted the picture of it being different for different’s sake. I wanted nothing to do with that mindset. The irony is, PF2e saw that the D&D3.75 just wasn’t working anymore and they really needed to do their own thing. They changed Races into Ancestries & Heritages. There is no longer the standard action economy, and we now have the Three-Action Economy, and I tell you what, it makes it hard going back to older/other systems. It just works, and it makes you think far more tactically and strategically.

Classes are highly customizable. In the beginning the customization was an issue because it was very easy for all the classes to repeat builds because there wasn’t much options. Now, Paizo has two-years under the belt with pf2e and it shows. The have released multiple Adventure Paths and the Lost Omens books. This has given PF2e the much needed injection of options that the original release just didn’t have. Paizo themselves are doing a great job listening to their community instead of the people that don’t actually play their game, and it shows in their products.

Sadly, I haven’t ran a custom campaign or I would speak of that full here.

My friends and I have been playing PF2e with Foundry through Forge, and I gotta say, using virtual tabletop(VTT) definitely makes a lot of the tedious stuff easier to swallow. Normally I hate keeping track of weight and ammo, but because the VTT does all this for you automatically as you play, it makes for a much smoother and enjoyable experience.

Will I ever go back to D&D5e after having played PF2e? Probably not. The changes that the Three-Action-Economy does too much good for the game for me to even think about trying to old Action-Economy anymore. If you have the time to try it, I recommend giving Pathfinder 2e a try, especially since all the rules are up for free through Archives of Nethys. WotC are now trying to charge you a subscription service, and they still refuse to produce PDFs of their books. The next version of D&D, One D&D, is already looking like a train-wreck that is only there please shareholders and the twitter zeitgeist.

#ttrpgs #d&d 5e #pf2e #Dungeons and Dragons #Pathfinder #Opinions

28 notes · View notes

fun-mad-ochouse · 1 year

Text

Hi lol

You may know me from my main blog! If not, that's okay. I have been a creator (writer and artist) and OC enthusiast for roughly 8 years. I have a 'meet the artist' thing, but technically it's outdated (I am older now, the art is older and I look slightly different) so you can have my sona instead!

Its a puppet named Morgan. (It/it's and it/he pronouns!)

((Link to the picrew:

Morgan speaks through that parrot, named Bestie, and bc I have multiple other sonas, Morgan is kinda like the main one, has all the others inside of itself! He's got lore of his own, so he technically can and probably will be included in OC stuff here.

Speaking of OC stuff,

I have a kind of ludicrous number of OCs, who rotate and take turns consuming my attention. You can ask about ANY OC at ANY time, but I do have a few favorite favorites who I will list below, and the blog description will be updated to include whoever is on my mind at the current present!

Consistent Favorite Faves:

Jesse

Peek

Marvin

Friday

Robin

Reaper

Anything involving these guys will all have the tag '#top 6'. If the list ever changes, it'll stay consistent! As for other tags:

Genres:

'#whump' this will be anything dark or torturous, often involving physical or psychological abuse. If this isn't something you want to see as a whole, block that tag, but I'll put content warnings on specific subjects as well. Always feel free to ask me to tag something if you feel like I missed it! (Keep in mind that I don't have to say yes. I probably will, but I don't HAVE to.)

'#adventure' this covers journeys mostly. Characters going from one place to another to accomplish something and probably learning a thing or two along the way.

'#fluff' cotton candy shit. Gonna be honest you'll probably never see this from me (/hj), I'm not very good at being NICE to my characters. Encouragement is welcome. 💀

'#scifi' easy enough, anything involving futuristic tech, dystopian themes, etc...pretty self explanatory tbh. (Jesse is going to hog this tag /silly)

'#fantasy' also p easy. Backwards instead of forwards in time. Mythical creatures and magic being more prevalent than technology. I surprisingly don't use this a lot.

'#modern magic' I don't think I have a single world without magic, this is gonna be anything set in a modern era with whatever fantasy twist I've applied.

'#multiverse' this covers a LOT of my stories, I work with and within the multiverse a LOT and the lore behind it all is as much my pride and joy as any OC. I will scream for hours about it, please feel free to be curious! It'll come up a lot. ;D

'#nsft' OC stuff that's uhhh 18+. Lol.

Subjects:

'#oc lore' information that is specific to characters and how they respond to their environment!

'#worldbuilding' information that is specific to location (universe, country, city, street, house, etc) and the environment the characters are responding to!

'#story lore' information that is specific to character journeys and, y'know, stories.

'#magic lore' technically this could go under worldbuilding, but a lot of my worlds borrow ideas from each other, and I can talk about magic so much alone that it deserves its own tag!

Post Content:

'#oc game' I'll put this tag on any post I reblog with the intention of talking about OCs. Ask games for others to interact with, but also those "reblog with the OC that...." type things!

'#answered' asks I answer about my characters! Asks about my personal life outside of OCs should be directed to my main, by the by, please and thanks. Asks answered here are going to be solely about characters :]

'#ic' in character responses to asks or posts! These are going to be as frequent as I can manage /lh

'#ooc' out of character responses to asks or posts, or just rambling about OCs.... will probably end up being the majority of my content lol

'#sona stuff' the inclusion of OCs that are also me, lol

'#not mine' the inclusion of other people's OCs-!

'#art' I draw sometimes!! Really hoping to start posting art here, haven't done that on Tumblr in a good several years.

'#writing' same deal as with art, self explanatory really-

'#memes' this will include incorrect quotes, filled out meme templates, some shitpost art, all the sillies!

'#tag updates' for when I add any tags to this post! Mostly for the purpose of keeping track of that.

'#other' general tag for "no existing tag really fits rn so have this". Hopefully this will be sparsely used.

Ho boy, this is getting long.

Last little things you should know about me, boundaries and a DNI.

- I'm an adult

- I love to rp

- I'm in many fandoms, mostly BATIM (for years and years and years now)

- my favorite number is 6

- Boundaries are really no discourse and be respectful lol

- dni is just pro contact paraphiles, radqueer and transid, and other general creeps. I don't give a fuck what you do in your personal life, I don't condone anything that harms other people though! This is a fun space, keep it fun.

That all said:

Enjoy your stay!! Feel free to interact, I don't bite :D

#introductory post #top 6 #oc lore #my ocs #ocs #roleplay #art #artists on tumblr #writeblr #artblr #original character #original art #writers on tumblr #writing #lol hello #tag updates

4 notes · View notes

fractoluminescence · 2 years

Text

Self-Intro

Hi! I'm Fract (it/they), I'm a 22-y-o Bleach fan. I struggle getting stuff done in general so updates (on anything, really) may not be regular and if I go missing for months it's probably normal, I just have periods like that. That aside, I make art and write, although right now I'm working on a series and it's taking ages so don't expect chapters for that to come out any time soon. I may occasionally post shorter pieces of writing though, or discuss my worldbuilding and stuff like that. I reblog whatever I like, but have a couple of tags that have my name in them, so you can follow just those instead of following my blog if they interest you.

Tag and Pages Guide

Featured Reblogs (#featured) -> Posts I particularly like if you don't want to wade through all my reblogs

Bleach (#bleach) -> Anything Bleach-related should be here

My Art (#fract art) -> Art made by me

Thoughts (#fract thoughts) -> Reflective posts that tend to be on the longer side. May be reblogs or original posts

Writing-Related Stuff (#fract writing) -> General tag for anything related to writing fiction (and sometimes reading)

Writing Thoughts (#writing thoughts) -> Me sharing moments of my writing journey

Fic Thoughts (#fic thoughts) -> Me sharing thoughts about fanfics I'm reading or reblogs about fanfiction in general

My Fics (#fract fics) -> Find my writing here

Lydia (OC) (#makitova lydia) -> Posts about my OC Lydia. Dw if you don't know who that is, I haven't written enough of her story yet

Personal Stuff (#fract personal) -> Me reblogging things I relate to or rambling about my life

Body Horror (#gore) -> Started tagging this so as to make it easier to avoid, but if you're looking for it, here it is. May be very, or be downright realistic mutilation or actual photos at times - I don't tag them differently because I didn't want to have to wonder whether every single post was disturbing enough to deserve it (just blood on its own isn't included though)

Resources (#fract resources) -> Things that are useful - writing tips, masterposts, tutorials, external links such as the online shops of artists, links to places to donate to charities or people in need of monetary help, useful information to know, etc.

Writing Resources (#writing resources) -> Writing tips etc.

Reading List (#my reading list) -> More for me than anyone. Works or longer posts I'd like to read or have read. Exists in part because I'd rather not put something I haven't read in 'featured', but also don't want to lose them, and they likely deserve attention too, so. Go there if you're looking for fics to read or longer things in general that aren't mine

Flight Rising Stuff (#fract flight rising) -> Mostly contains buttons I make for fluffmoth's Free Tiny Identity Buttons thread, which I currently host on here, and occasionally some other stuff too (Note: I changed this tag recently from 'flight rising' to 'fract flight rising' to reflect the fact that most of what I use this tag for is to host images I make for myself and other users on the site - i.e., I don't make these posts with the intention of spreading them around. Just wanted to clarify that this was my own idea so people wouldn't think FR staff forced me to take the posts down or something, I dunno)

I also tend to tag fandom stuff with tags such as bleach, jjk, one piece, good omens, marvel (those are the main ones currently). And Bleach characters can have their own tags, so you can type in their first name for any fanart and the like that I've reblogged that feature them (except Harribel - she'll probably be under 'Harribel', not 'Tier' or 'Tia' - and Chad, who's under 'Chad').

#as of January 2024 #masterpost

8 notes · View notes

idleglowingpixels · 1 year

Text

Can't remember if I said this already or not, but I finished the drawing I had made, I'm just nervous about posting it XD Bianca's not really in Ch. 6 outside of the beginning if memory serves me right, so it doesn't exactly fit with the chapter but I might release it with the next update anyway

Incoming ramble, only adding the Keep Reading thing so this long post doesn't clutter my blog as you scroll haha, it's kind of an XXY mini-update but also just a blog update in general

I think my main thing is that initially, I wanted to keep my Tumblr & AO3 separate from my main accounts but my art style would very clearly give me away if you happened to find my main username. But at the same time I also...Don't really care??? Like I'm a very passionate person about the things I make, and while it may be seen as cringe or some stupid shit, without fanfiction, fan art and just fan work in general I would NOT be nearly as good at most of what I do as I am now. Fandom over the years has brought me a LOT of like, unruly mess, but it has also brought me so far along on my creative journey.

In fact, the only reason my username here & on AO3 is different is because I had felt a sense of like shame in it at first ig, especially since I started on AO3 posting XXY at 17 and wanted to be able to abandon the account if I felt the need to. (Don't worry, I no longer feel that need, I wouldn't have made a Tumblr blog for my fics if I did)

But now I'm the furthest into XXY than I ever have been, and Ik the pacing has been relatively slow (we've progressed a grand total of like...3 days within the span of 5 chapters XD) but a lot goes on in the beginning and dynamics are re-established for the characters and the Teen AU thing -- point is, I'm proud of how much work I've put in and with I believe a 22k word count by the time Chapter 7 drops, that's already a lot of work I'm proud of for me.

Also since G3's release last year I've been working on releasing my Monster High AU character designs around this October/November (1 each day for a total of I think 33? Cause Jackson & Holt and Meowlody & Purrsephone were gonna have their designs posted together, I have to double check my list), along with a few one-shots if I ever find time to get around to them, and those designs do NOT take a short amount of time for me to complete so I was gonna be like "idgaf" either way eventually XD

Thing is I like both of my usernames so instead of altering all of my accounts to one or the other, my main will be where I'm more professional and focusing more on developing a portfolio of completed works, whereas here I'll just be a little more unhinged lmao

Might make an alt Instagram to match this account so I can focus my fanfics and art and stuff over to that account XD But idk

Now enough about me and my self-reflections, here's what to expect next month:

Chapter 6 is looking just fine for release on July 7th, I'm feeling pretty good about it (probably because it's Butch's POV haha) and I'm excited for his and Buttercup's dynamic to really be shown off since Chapter 3 didn't have them around each other much. I've got an event to attend tonight and a couple of things to do tomorrow but I should be able to give Chapter 6 the usual final edit on Sunday.

Like I said before, I'll probably share my Bianca & Barbara drawing on the Chapter Update post and I'm hoping I'll have a drawing of our 6 leads by the time Chapter 7 rolls around. I've been very much in an art mood lately so it's been taking up a lot of my time, and I've also felt really rejuvenated by drawing to get back to writing little by little.

Also before you ask, unfortunately I might have an update gap between Chapters 7 & 8, as my writing has been very slow over the last 3 or so months. I do apologize for that, but I hope you understand. The last few months have been a lot on me to say the least, but I love sharing XXY with you all, and I just really enjoy seeing emails from AO3 when I check it pretty much every morning. I'm so happy to have others enjoy my work. That being said, I'll do my best to make the gap as small as possible, and hopefully I'll only have to skip a month or something.

Thanks for reading my rambles, and as always, the link to XXY is in my introduction post.

#linposts #xxy #mini update #link in intro post #ppg #fanfic authors #fanfic writing

1 note · View note

lucascsinclairs · 2 years

Text

Making gifsets look cohesive: a few tips and tricks

When I wondered aloud in my tags if I should compile some of my tips on how to make gifsets look cohesive, I got at least one ask saying that it could be helpful so here goes! Hopefully this won’t all be just rambling and that there might be at least something informative in here. Also let me preface by saying that I'm in no way an expert. These are just some tips and tricks I've picked up during the three years I've been making gifs, through trial and error and developing an eye to what looks good to me. And that's another thing, these are just my preferences and things I like to focus on, so these are in no way concrete rules that you have to follow in order to make a gifset (and the tips probably apply best to the grid layout gifs i make for my aesthetic sets so feel free to adjust). These are just some tips for those moments when you're putting together a set and it's being annoying and refusing to work with you.

The main three things I'd say I tend to focus on when making sets and arranging them to be balanced and cohesive would be:

The flow and direction

The density and space

The color

The main thing I've really taken to heart and apply all the time now when making gifs, is making sure things are facing towards the middle of the post. It can seem like an obvious and small thing, but it really makes all the difference. Especially in gifs that are close-ups of characters. If characters are clearly looking in a certain direction or moving that way, it is helpful to place the gif in the set in a way that has them facing the middle of the post.

Here's an example from my recent Max episode set. You can see I placed the two gifs in a way where they're both directed towards the center, both of them having a pretty clear “line” for the eye to follow towards the middle upright corner. There is probably a proper name for this in art and composition, but I'd just call it direction of the focus or something. Having the focus directed to the middle makes the set look more cohesive, at least in my opinion. In the example below where I swapped the two gifs, you can see that while its still looks fine, it’s just a bit disjointed. The focus is going out and outside of the “frame” of the sides of the set, instead of pulling you in in a way. I don't know if I'm explaining it super well but I hope the examples help to illustrate it.

The flow also applies to making sure the gifs flow together nicely, that there aren't too many similar gifs all lumped together. For example, if there are a couple gifs with a lot of movement and stuff happening, I wouldn't lump them together, but spread them among slower gifs.

This leads into the next point I like to focus on, which is density and space. This applies to my point about spreading out busy gifs amongst slower ones, but it also applies to gifs that are otherwise busy. Take for example these gifs from my episode one gifset.

Two of the gifs (top left and bottom right) are busy, with a lot of people and a lot of movement. If I put them right next to each other, it would be pretty heavy, and affect the balance of the whole set. So to balance the busy gifs out, I put them next to gifs with less movement and much more still, negative space (I was about to call those calmer gifs but one of them literally has an possession going on so maybe not the best choice of wording lol).

In a general aesthetic gifset, I like to have a combination of shots of many kinds: close-ups of characters, landscape shots farther away, close-up details, general mid-distance shots. And with these it is once again nice to mix and match, to not put all the close-ups next to each other etc.

This point kind of goes in the middle between density and color, but I've noticed that I generally tend to put lighter gifs to the top of the set, and the darkest ones to the bottom. It isn't a hard and fast rule but just something I tend to do that I think looks nice. For example, if there's a gif with a lot of bright open sky at the top, I tend to put it in the top row, and then place the darkest gifs on the bottom (you can see that in the episode one set) .

And then finally, color. I won't go too much into coloring here, since that's a whole nother huge topic. But just a couple general notes about making sure the colors look cohesive. This isn't really about color specific sets that have a very set color for all the gifs, but about sets that have some kind of a common coloring, like my episode one set. There the main colors are while, black, orange and blue. When I had my gifs ready, I separated them by their main color and then started to play around with their order to see what looked nice. Here again the same thing applies, you don't want to mess with the balance by putting all the gifs of the same color all grouped together, but to spread them out to make a more cohesive whole.

An example of this is my recent Lucas episode set, where there's a lot of blue, just given the background of the scenes and the color of his clothes. But even still there were some differences between the coloring, with some of the gifs also having a blue background, and some having more white or dark in it. So I spread them out, switching it up between the whole blue and blue and white and blue and black. This again helped to balance out the colors (as well as the lightness and darkness) and make the set look more cohesive.

So there we have it, some tips I can offer from my three years of making gifsets. Again, I didn't really get into coloring, or the actual selection of the shots from the show since those are huge topics on their own. But I hope these tips were useful in some way and maybe can help you in the future when you're in that annoying situation of the gifs you planned to include in a set not working with you.

The last thing I’ll just quickly point out is that at least personally, I pretty much always make more gifs that I know will fit in a set, that way I can try different combinations and pick the ones that look the best together. You don’t have to get it right on the first try, with the gifs you initially planned on using. Leaving out gifs you worked hard on and really wanted to include is annoying but it happens. But then you can tweak the coloring and use it in another set in the future!

#kaisa talks #long post #gif tutorial #tutorial #(not sure if this counts but anyways)#gif making #i hope this was a little helpful at least!#i remember struggling with the ordering and placement of gifs when i was first starting out #so i hope the tips are helpful!#my gifs #mine

66 notes · View notes

serendipitous-magic · 3 years

Note

What is your writing advice for young people who want to write fanfiction and original stories in the near future?

If this is just Way Too Much, skip to the end (#16). My most important piece of advice is there. I also happen to think #5 is pretty good.

-_-_-_-

1) Literally just write. Write whatever you want, and do a lot of it.

_-_

2) You don’t have to post everything. In fact you don’t have to post anything. You can, don’t get me wrong, but it can be intimidating to sit down and think “I will now write something that other people will see and read and judge with their eyeballs.” Because that’s probably gonna lead to nerves and writer's block. Just write down the ideas that you have, the things you want to write, whatever’s in your brain that you want to explore and expand upon and make into something. And then if you want to, share it. Or don’t share it. I have plenty of half-baked ideas and documents and random story chapters and shit hidden away on my Google Drive that will never see the light of day, for a whole number of reasons. I wanted to write it but it wasn’t ~Spicy~ enough to warrant posting, or it’s only like an eighth of a good idea, or it’s like one scene with no story around it, or it’s just something incredibly self-indulgent I just wanted to write for my own enjoyment.

Point being, don’t write for other people. Don’t write so that other people can read it; write what you want, write for yourself, and then if you want to share it, do.

_-_

3) You can pretty much ignore any and all of these for fanfiction. In fact, you can ignore pretty much any rules or guidelines you want for fanfiction. Fanfic is a sandbox. You don’t have to be a “professional writer” to post fic. No one expects you to be Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. Fanfic is just for playing in a fandom and having fun. If you wanna write a 50 chapter slow burn with very little plot aside from the OTP slowly getting to know each other, and no real stakes or central conflict, I guarantee people would read that. Really, fanfiction is the Old West of writing: lawless, wild, unpredictable, and free.

However, here are the rules you must follow:

-Separate your paragraphs. (I’m sure you know this already, but I’m gonna say it anyway just in case.) Do not post one big block of text. Make a paragraph break when someone new is talking, when the characters are in a new place, when a new event occurs that changes the scene, when a chunk of time has passed, and when there’s a major change in subject.

-I know it’s obvious, but... grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. They exist to make writing easy for readers to read, and more people will read your stuff if they don’t have to stop and try to figure out what you meant.

-Use tags and labels, as is possible with whatever site you’re using. Especially if you include possibly triggering content in your story. Again, I know it’s obvious, but it’s common courtesy. Bonus: tagging the themes and content of your story helps readers find it and read it :)

-If possible, limit the use of all-caps and exclamation marks / question marks. 99% of the time, one ! or one ? will do. If you overload the page with a lot of all-caps and long rows of exclamation marks or question marks, it hampers readability.

... That’s literally all I can think of. And, like I said, it’s all pretty basic stuff. You were probably rolling your eyes like, “Uh, yeah, Gwen, I know.” But that’s literally it. You can pretty much do whatever you want in fanfic.

That being said, here’s my advice for both fanfiction and original work...

_-_

4) A quick and dirty rule for coming up with a plot, starting a story, keeping up pacing, or maintaining tension: figure out what dreams, desires, and goals are nearest and dearest to your main character’s heart (see #16). Then set up the main conflict to be directly in opposition to that goal. It doesn’t have to be in a tangible way, though it could be. But, if your main character wants more than anything to reach the ships on the southern coast of your world and sail to a new life, make sure the main conflict immediately prevents them from doing that - in fact, make sure to send them north. If your main character just wants to keep their loved ones safe, kidnap the loved ones. If your main character just wants to date their best-friend-turned-crush, make sure they think they have no chance - or, make them cocky about it, and make sure it makes Person B determined not to ever like them. You get it. Figure out what your character most wants, and then keep them from having that. Boom - your conflict now ties in with your character's motivation. It's like instant yeast for plots.

_-_

5) If you’re anything like me, you want your first draft to be Good, despite all that advice about how the first draft doesn’t have to be good and it’s just to get words on the page, yadda yadda. And if you’re somewhat of a perfectionist (like myself), it’s easy to get stuck looking at a blank page because you don’t have The Perfect Words, and you want what you write to be Good the first time.

Here’s how I cheat that:

Instead of trying to write a Good First Draft from a blank page, hit the enter key a few times, skip a little down on the page, change your ink to red (or blue, or whatever - just something immediately identifiable as Not Black) and just thought vomit. Write whatever the hell you’re thinking, exactly as you think it. Don’t worry about it being readable, don’t worry about narrative flow for now, don’t worry about covering all the details, don’t worry about anything except either a) getting all the details of your idea out onto the page, whether that’s a lot or whether it’s just a sentence or two, or b) if you don’t have an idea yet, finding your way there.

Because this method is also very good for finding your way to ideas when you’re stuck in writer’s block.

Because of how human brains work, getting this stuff out onto the page - in all its messy, stream-of-consciousness glory - will likely spark more thoughts. As you write your original idea about the scene, it’ll likely spark more ideas. Creation begets creation. If you just start thought-vomiting your ideas onto the page, chances are you’ll think of more things as you go, and you’ll start filling out description or dialogue or tone or action or whatever, and pretty soon the scene starts writing itself.

Not sure where you’re going with the scene or which ideas you wanna use? Use a lot of ambivalent language in your “thought-vomit draft.” My pre-writing notes are chock-full of the words “maybe,” “perhaps,” and the phrases, “At some point...” and “...or something like that.” In this way, I don’t tie myself down to one idea; it’s just an idea, and I’m keeping it on the page in case I use it, but I might chuck it in the trash or change it or whatever.

And then, once your ideas for the scene (or story, or chapter, or whatever) are on the page, then go back to the top and start translating them into a “real” first draft. Use black ink, and start copy-pasting chunks of the thought-vomit up into the top part of the document and translating them into Draft 1. Separate out paragraphs where paragraph breaks should be. Add the correct punctuation and whatnot. Change “describe the lobby here - include potted plants, fancy carpet, blood stain, etc.” into an actual description of the lobby. Flesh it out, or condense, or whatever it needs. And if you’re still stuck, change back to red ink and ramble some more until you find a path that feels right, then plug that in. This keeps you from looking at a blank page, and it allows you to generate a kind of Draft 0.5, somewhere between a plan and a first draft.

You don’t have to use every idea. Like I said, jot down whatever comes to mind, put a “maybe” before or after it, and keep working. If the idea grabs you and you wanna keep expanding on it and exploring it, cool. If you just wanna jot it down so you don’t forget it and then move on, also cool. Red-ink draft / “thought-vomit draft” is your time to jump around in the timeline, add or finesse details at whatever point your brain moves to, etc. Don’t try to do it exactly in story order, because you will get tangential thoughts and ideas, and you will not remember to write them down five pages later when you finally get to taking notes on that scene. Trust me. On that note...

_-_

6) Write everything down the moment you think of it. Seriously.

“I’ll remember it when I get around to writing that scene in a couple days / weeks / months (/years).”

You won’t.

Write it down.

Phone, journal, google docs - hell, my family regularly laughs at me for grabbing a napkin during dinner and scribbling thoughts down alongside pasta sauce stains.

And then, once you have it written down somewhere...

_-_

7) Consolidate your writing ideas in one place.

Maybe this isn’t really your style, and that’s totally chill.

Buuuut, if you’re Type-A like me - or if you tend to be somewhat unorganized and you know you’ll lose track of your writing notes if they’re scattered across multiple notebooks, journals, napkins, phone notes, etc. - having one consolidated document of notes is a life saver. I keep mine on Google Docs so I can access it, add to it, and look through it for inspiration anywhere at any time. When I have one of those Shower Thoughts that I jot down on my phone or on a napkin during dinner, I set myself a reminder on my phone to type it up in my Story Ideas document later.

(Or, if the idea I had was for a story of mine that I’ve already started planning / drafting / whatever, I put it in the document for that story instead of the Big Random Story Ideas doc. You get it.)

_-_

8) Have other ways to collect and save writing ideas, besides just writing stuff down. If you like Pinterest, make pinterest boards of your characters or stories or settings or whatever. If you’re big into playlists, make a playlist for your character / setting / story / etc. Or both. Or something else. I’m not good at drawing, but maybe you are, and maybe you like to draw your ideas. Whatever form it takes, having another way to save ideas and think about your stories is invaluable.

_-_

9) Some writers can just start writing with no idea where the story is going, and they just kind of figure it out as they go. I envy those writers. And I do that sometimes for fanfiction, where the stakes are somewhat lower and the audience is reading more for scene-to-scene enjoyment (and to see their OTP kiss) than for a Driving And Compelling Narrative.

But here’s the thing: especially if you’re just kind of starting out, writing without some sort of plan is really, really hard, and will likely lead you into a slow, meandering narrative that will likely frustrate you.

Even if you think you’re someone that just can’t write with a plan (and again, I have the highest respect for pansters out there - I don’t know how you do it, you crazy bastards, but you keep doing you) - even if you think “I can’t work with plans, they’re too prescriptive, I just want to write and see what happens -”

Try at least making the most skeletal of plans.

Even if you have no clue what 90% of the story is, yet. That’s fine. But you need to have some idea of what you’re building to, even if that’s nothing more specific than a feeling, or a turning point for your character. Even if your entire plan for everything beyond Chapter 1 is, “At some point, Charlie needs to realize that Ed was lying to her.”

This is where those Draft 0.5 notes come in handy. Because, more than likely, working on your current scene that way will spark ideas for later scenes, which you can put down at the bottom of the document and save for when they become relevant. In my experience, the line between planning ahead and making a Draft 0.5 is exceptionally thin. One can quickly turn into the other.

If you’re really, really resistant to the idea of planning ahead, that’s okay. It’s not everybody’s style. But for the love of all that is holy, write down your ideas for future scenes, even if you’re a person that doesn’t like to plan and writes only in story order, because you will not remember that idea once you get to that scene.

_-_

10) You don’t have to write in order.

Here’s the thing: I’m a person that can only do my Draft 1 in story order (meaning, chronological order). I just have to be in that flow; I need to write in story order for me to best channel where the character is at from scene to scene, both narratively and emotionally.

But my Thought Vomit Draft is another thing entirely. By using the brain hack of putting my notes in red (or another color, it doesn’t matter) and going down to the bottom of the document / page and taking notes there, and then integrating them into whatever plan I have, and then translating them into Draft 1 once I get there in the story - by doing that, I can get my good ideas onto the page (and expound upon them and let my muse carry me and ride that momentum while I’m in the moment of inspiration) without writing out of order.

Maybe that’s just me. But if you’re a person who really prefers to write in story order, that could be hugely helpful to you. It is to me.

_-_

11) Emotion and motivation will do more for your story than technicalities of plot.

If your characters really care about something, and their journey through the (shaky or weak) plot is emotionally engaging, it will be a much more compelling story than a story with a “perfect” plot and unrelatable or unmotivated characters.

If your characters care about what they’re doing, and it means something to them, and their goals and actions are driven by dreams or fears or emotions that are integral to who they are, your audience will care too. If you have a perfectly crafted plot that hits all the right beats and has high stakes and fast pacing and drama - but your characters don’t connect with what’s happening in a way that’s deeply meaningful or emotional for them? You’re gonna have a hard time engaging readers.

When in doubt, prioritize character emotion and motivation over plot. Emotion is what drives story.

This power is highly exploitable. (Just look at pulp novels and shitty but entertaining movies.) You can even use it to glaze over plot holes or reinvigorate a limp narrative. Use it that way sparingly, though. It’s a band-aid, not a surgery.

_-_

12) Evil villains are hard to write - mostly because there are very few truly evil people in the world. (There are a few. Billionaires and several big name politicians come to mind.) But by and large, there aren’t that many evil people. There are plenty of bad people, but bad people have some good in them, somewhere in there. Trying to write an evil villain is hard, because they often turn very cartoony.

Here’s a tip: it’s much easier to write antagonists who aren’t evil. Even if they’re bad people. Of course, there’s no reason you can’t write a villain that’s just truly evil - a serial killer, or an abuser, or a billionaire, or someone who legit just wants to hurt people or blow up the earth or stay in control of an oppressed population, or whatever. But chances are, it’s gonna be really hard to make them feel real, and even harder to create a plot around them that doesn’t feel forced or contrived.

Instead, try writing an antagonist / villain whose motivations and goals directly clash with your protagonist’s - but not because they want to take over the world or see people suffer. Write an antagonist who’s chaotic good, but whose perception of the situation is completely opposite from your hero’s. Write an antagonist whose only desire is to save people, and who will do anything to achieve that goal - anything. Write an antagonist who believes in the letter of the law, and will hinder and oppose the hero’s methods even if they agree with the hero’s motivation. Write an antagonist who got in way over their head and did some things they regret, and now they don’t know how to get out, and they’re doing their best but whatever they set in motion is too powerful for them to stop now.

Write villains who are human. Write a killer who thought they were doing the right thing by taking their victim out of the equation, who vomits at the sight of the body and sobs over the grave they dig. Write a government leader who truly believes she’s doing what’s best for her people in the long-term, even if it might hurt them in the short term, and is willing to endure the hatred and belligerence of the masses if it means securing what she thinks is a better future for her people. Write a teenage bully that thinks they’re the one being picked on by the world, and they’re just fighting back, standing their ground. Write a scientist who will break any code of ethics and hurt anyone he needs to - in order to bring back his baby sister from the grave, because he promised her he’d protect her and he failed. Write an antagonist who is selfish and self-centered and capricious - because in order to survive they had to look out for Number One, and that habit ain’t about to break anytime soon.

Write villains who aren’t even villains. Write antagonists who oppose the hero because of moral differences. Write antagonists who are trying to do the right thing. Write antagonists who treat the heroes with kindness and dignity and respect and gentleness.

They don’t have to be good. They don’t have to be Misunderstood Sweethearts who “deserve” a redemption arc. They can be cruel and nasty and dismissive and callous and violent and etc. etc.

Just hesitate before you make them Evil-with-a-capital-E. Because evil is hard to write, and honestly, boring to read. Flawed human beings with goals and motivations that directly oppose the main characters’ are much easier to write and much more interesting to read.

Ask why. Why is your villain trying to take over the world? What does that even mean? Are they trying to create a Star-Trek-like post-capitalism utopia, but they know that won’t happen in a million lifetimes, so they’re trying to do it by force? Are they actually super in favor of human rights, but they got very impatient waiting for the world to do anything about poverty and war, so they decided to take it into their own hands? Are they determined to fix the world - no matter the cost? Are they terrified and overwhelmed, but committed to see it through to the end? Or - maybe they’re just doing it on a dare. Maybe they don’t really give a shit about world domination, they were just a mediocre rich white guy who decided to fuck around and find out, and now he’s kind of curious how far he can take this thing. And now he’s kind of an internationally-wanted criminal, so he’s kind of stuck living on his hidden private island in his multi-billion dollar secret base, strapping lasers to sharks’ heads for the hell of it. Gross, selfish, uncaring, and dangerous? For sure. Evil? Depends on your definition. See, now we’re getting somewhere.

_-_

13) It’s tempting to let the plot control the characters. It’s easy to drop your characters into a situation and see how they react. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t drive plot. In fact, it bogs down pacing. Instead, try to build you plot off of your characters’ actions and decisions. Let your character build their own situation. Not to say it should go they way they wanted it to go; in fact, usually, their grand plans should go to hell very quickly. But having the characters take action and make decisions, and letting the plot develop based on that, is much easier to make compelling than making a rigid series of events and then trying to herd your characters into them.

_-_

14) Having trouble justifying a character’s actions? Consider having them make the opposite decision, or having them approach the situation in a different way. For example: you need your character to go meet the bad guy, for plot reasons, even though there’s no way it’s not a trap. If the character goes, readers are gonna be groaning with their head in their hands, because c’mon man, that was really fucking stupid. But he’s gotta go, because the plot needs that. Two ways you might handle this: a) He knows it’s probably a trap. He decides not to go. The plot conspires to get him near the villain anyway. Or, b) He knows it’s a trap. But he needs to go, for (insert reasons here). So, he approaches it in an unexpected way. He brings backup, recruiting a side character we met earlier in the story. Or he arrives on the back of a dragon, because ain’t nobody gonna fuck with a dude on a dragon. Or he goes - early, and ambushes the villain. It may work, it may not. He may get himself kidnapped anyway. But it moves the plot along without having Stupid Hero Syndrome.

_-_

15) This is a legit piece of advice: if all of this sounds overwhelming, literally just ignore it and write what you want. For real. Writing should be fun, and every single writer operates differently. If you’re sitting here like “I’m getting stressed just reading this,” just flip me a good-natured bird and get on with your life. I promise I won’t take it personally. Same goes for literally any other writing advice you see. Lots of rules and guidelines can very quickly make anything thoroughly un-fun. Just write. If you’re passionate about it and you do it for long enough, you’ll start figuring out the tips and tricks on your own.

_-_

16) Here’s the best piece of advice I can give you: know your characters. More importantly, know what’s important to them. Build their personality and decisions off of that, and build your plot off of their decisions.

I see a lot of character building sheets that ask a shit-ton of questions like “What’s their most prized possession?” “Do they like their family?” “What’s their favorite food?”

And while these are good questions, my problem with this type of character building is that if you start there, with the little stuff, you’re building on nothing. IMO, to make a truly strong character (not strong like Inner Strength, strong like effective), you need a strong foundation.

Here are the things you must know about your character:

a) What are their greatest fears / deepest insecurities? And I don’t mean “wasps” or “heights.” I mean the deep shit. I mean fears like “living a meaningless life,” or “turning out just like their parents,” or “that no one will ever love them,” or “being powerless.” You may say, “But they’re really scared of wasps! They fall into a wasp nest when they were little and got stung so much they almost died!” Great! That’s a fantastic bit of backstory. They should absolutely be afraid of wasps, and that should absolutely be an impediment later in the story. But dig deeper. What about that event actually scarred them? Was it the helplessness? Stumbling around, swatting at the air, not being able to do a single thing to stop what was happening to them? Was it that they were alone, and no matter how loud they screamed, no one was coming? Was it the bodily horror of feeling themself turn into an inhuman creature as they swelled up from the stings, unable to move their fingers or face normally anymore?

And don’t forget insecurities, because those factor in, too. Are they deeply insecure about their identity? Do they believe, deep down, that they’re ugly? Did they grow up poor and they’ve always been really touchy about that? Why? Dig deep. Figure out what really, really bothers them.

b) What are their hopes and dreams? What do they truly want out of life? What do they consider the most valuable to their experience here in this thing called life? Is it the freedom to forge their own path and be independent? Is it the approval of their family or peers? Is it a home? Is it knowledge, or understanding? Spiritual fulfillment? Is it deeply important to them that they contribute to their community, or protect those they love? What do they need in order to feel truly and deeply fulfilled in life?

Figure out those two things (each one encompasses several things, btw, you don’t have to stop at just one for each), and then use that to inform how they behave and the types of decisions they make within the story.

It also informs character behavior and personality.

Let’s say we have a character who’s afraid of helplessness. They’re probably gonna be the person that always wants to do something, try something, no matter how hopeless the situation seems. They’d despise just sitting and waiting, probably, because it makes them feel powerless. They might even be the person that makes rash decisions and acts impulsively and puts themself in danger unnecessarily, because in their mind it’s better than being at the mercy of fate. This is one way you could use a character’s personality to inform their decisions, which in turn helps to inform plot.

Or, let’s say we have a character whose greatest fear is being left behind or forgotten. We may have a chatterbox on our hands. They might be obnoxious. They might love the spotlight, constantly vying for attention no matter the situation, because deep down they’re so afraid that they’d be forgotten otherwise. Or, it may go the opposite way. They may be so afraid of people leaving them that they’re terrified of bothering people. They don’t want to do anything that could annoy people, anything that might give people a reason to leave them. They might be exceedingly polite, quiet, accommodating. A push-over, really.

These are two nearly opposite types of personalities, both stemming from the same core fear/insecurity. You can go a lot of different ways with it. But if you build on that strong foundation, you’ll have a strong character, and a stronger plot.

Likewise, the structure of your story can and should inform the design of these character traits. If you need your characters to team up near the end, it may be impactful if you give your main character a deep fear of commitment, an insecurity about being unwanted or left behind, and make them highly value independence and freedom. That could make their team-up for the final battle very meaningful. Conversely, you can use your character’s deepest fears and desires to help design the plot. Is your character deeply insecure about voicing their opinions or taking a stand, because of trauma they faced in the past? Make them face that. Build that into the climactic third act. Give them the big inspirational speech where they stand up and talk about what they believe to be important, what they think the group should do. And then design that character arc to run through the story, giving you more handholds and stepping stones, more pieces of foundation on which to design the plot.

In this way, character should inform story as much as story informs character. It’s a feedback loop.

Bonus: if you build your character and your plot off of each other in this way, it automatically starts to build in the foundations of that emotional investment I mentioned earlier. If your character’s decisions are based on what they most want and do not want in life, you basically have your character motivation and stakes pre-built.

Note: you need to know these things about your villain, too.

-_-_-

I’m genuinely sorry about the length of this, lmao. But you did ask.

Best of luck!

Edit: I forgot an important one:

17) Start when the scene starts and end when the scene ends.

What do I mean by that?

If your notes say “Danny asks Nicole out after school and majorly flubs it,” start the scene when Danny approaches Nicole after school. Better yet, cold-open the scene on “I was wondering if, you know, you’d wanna. You know. Hang out some time?”

Don’t start that morning when Danny goes to school, unless you’re gonna cover the school day in like one or two sentences. Don’t spend whole paragraphs going through the school day, unless it’s to cover other plot points first (in which case apply these same guidelines there), or if the paragraphs are there for a specific reason, like to illustrate how stressed he is and how it seems like every little thing is going wrong. Even then, trim the fat as much as possible. Expounding and describing everything Moment-to-moment is for the meat of the scenes, not the leading-up-to and coming-away-from.

Here’s my rule of thumb: study how and when movies cut from scene to scene. Movies have exceptionally strict, limited time for storytelling; they’re excellent examples of starting a scene when the plot point starts and ending when it’s over. If you can’t picture a movie showing everything you showed, start the scene later and end it earlier.

#asks #anon #writing advice #writing tips #writing #fanfic writing #fanfiction #character creation #plot development #character development #my advice #original writing

730 notes · View notes

ruby-whistler · 3 years

Text

therapy psa

hey there! have you ever said, “(character) needs to go to therapy! they need to get them help they need” in fandom context?

that’s cool! nothing wrong with that! i used to say and still say that a lot both before and after i went into therapy, because to put it simply, characters in nowadays’ media face a lot of very traumatizing and stressful situations in quick succession. however before i got my own treatment i had a lot of very confusing thoughts about what therapy actually entails, so as someone who has been going through cognitive-behavioural treatment (for ptsd and anxiety) for about a year, i’d like to perhaps just inform people who are unsure about the concept.

so uh, welcome to my essay! the gist of it is:

1. what a therapist does and doesn’t do 2. why that matters when talking about therapy or writing about it

just a quick note, again, that i am not licenced or professional or anything of that sort. i have an interest in psychology, but i’ve picked all of this stuff up by observing my own psychotherapist. if you feel like you need professional help, please reach out and try to schedule an appointment close to where you live.

1. so... what is therapy?

let me preface this by saying the main point of this post, which i will probably be repeating a couple of times throughout this: therapy =/= emotional support. your therapist isn’t there to hug you and tell you everything will be alright. so, what does a therapist do?

- professional diagnosis

your therapist will most likely give you sheets of paper to fill out at your first appointment, ask you questions, give you tasks to complete, psychoanalyze you and diagnose you. they will find out exactly what is going on with you; after all, they’ve been to school for that and as much as you might feel lost in your problems, they know what they are called, why they happen and how to solve them.

- instructions

the psychologist will not “therapize” you on the spot. think of it as piano lessons; you come there once to twice per two months for a one to (rarely) four hour session. most appointments sit around the one hour mark. much like on a piano session, you show off your progress in that one hour and talk about what things you’re having difficulty with. your therapist will then give you advice as to what you should try to do, and send you off for a few months to deal with life.

your therapist, and this is hard to swallow but important, will not coddle you. if you keep bringing up a problem over and over again because it seems large to you, but they keep changing the theme to something else, you might even get frustrated. but a (good) therapist knows more about your brain than you do. they’re not there to validate your feelings, they’re there to help get rid of the ones that stop you from functioning normally.

what they will do, is go; “hey. stop focusing on that so much. i know it makes your life hard, but it’s part of a larger problem. from an objective perspective, you should shift your attention to this issue and solve it instead. if it keeps happening, you do the breathing and mental exercises i taught you, but the only way to stop it is to try and resolve this underlying problem.”

a therapist 99% of the time will not have an emotional attachment to you. you’re a name in their many alphabetically sorted files from which they take out yours and check through their notes before each session. then they will help you solve your issues by explaining the things happening in your brain and instructing on how to fix them. nothing less or more. you will usually not have an attachment either, because that’s not the point of going to therapy. therapy isn’t emotional support.

- further help

if your mental health issues/mental illnesses cross a certain line, your therapist will direct you to a psychiatrist for further help such as medicine or other kinds of treatment. most therapist do cognitive-behavioural therapy, which “helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions.” however, in intense cases this is not enough. your psychotherapist will help you get the additional treatment you need.

another thing they can do is legal things! documents, things to give to your school, job, the authorities, other technical things. they are a higher authority when it comes to a lot of things, and can make your life easier.

- other

this doesn’t mean you can’t talk about life or must be all objective or only talk about the negatives. your therapist will often try to get you to view your issues in a more positive light, ask about other things that make you happy or distract you. you are pretty much free to ramble to them! they’re happy to know, and if it makes you feel better, there is no need to be all gloomy at your therapist appointments. if your therapist is alright with you rapping the entirety of hamilton at some point, or you explaining c!dream’s arc on the dream smp, feel free. if you feel happy talking about something, that’s good! you have something to latch onto and distract yourself from the hell in your brain.

i’ve learned that thinking about things that give you comfort when things get rough is a big part of cognitive-behavioural treatment, in order to stop that good ol’ thought spiral of anxiety.

2. why is this important to know?

well, i think a thing many people overlook when talking about fictional characters going into therapy is the fact that,, therapy by itself often isn’t enough.

i asked my therapist a few days ago what my family could do when i’m having an anxiety attack. she replied, “they can be there for you. they can keep up conversation, distract you from the stressor, assure you that nothing bad is really happening and that they care about you.”

this is something really important that people forget; emotional support does wonders. your friends, family, whoever, if they provide support it’s suddenly much less terrifying to go through the healing process.

a character being sent to therapy and left to fend for themselves is not a happy ending. it’s not going to heal them quickly, it will be extremely difficult to go through all that on their own. the more the people who care about you understand your struggles and try to be there for you, the less scary it gets. they’ll ground you, they’ll hug you, they’ll make you a mug of hot chocolate and they’ll hold your hand and say “everything’s ok. everything will be ok”. because the mental harm in your brain is more often than not a consequence of things being not ok in the past. remembering that it is ok now is important. having emotional support can both remind your that it’s all in your head, and assure you that your feelings are valid and people will be there for you for as long as it takes for things to finally be ok, or as ok as they can be.

as much as professional help is very important, this is vital to the healing process. having people be there for you and just having people who support you in general.

i think people should put more weight on that than just “character needs therapy.” character needs therapy and emotional support. these two go together, and character needs both. you might be, or try to be strong, but it’s comforting to be.... well, comforted. “get them the help they need” no. get them the help they need and then on top of that provide the help they need.

that’s all. just something i thought was important to remember.

- ruby

147 notes · View notes

evilvarric666-archive · 3 years

Note

This is gonna be long, so sorry in advance, but as someone who enjoys long fics here are my two cents:

I get why some ppl may not want 75 tags in fics, but this is gonna hurt long fic writers. On a long fic there are probably gonna be more relationships that are central to the plot that aren't the main ship. And side pairings that may be a squick to some ppl. Not to mention trigger warnings and tone tags.

For example: a long fic with the pairing Y x Z. Z had an abusive relationship, and that's gonna be explored. So the author tags abusive relationship, bc that's a trigger, but an explanation next tag saying "not current ship" or smth.

Then Y has very important friendships with some of the cast. These are central to the plot so they're tagged too.

Turns out, character W is controversial in the fandom, but they're central to the fic too. The author is gonna tag after the character tag W positive/negative; so ppl who don't wanna see positive/negative things about W can skip this.

And guess what? Ship A x B appears in this fic too. Maybe it's not that central, but this ship is also disliked by some people, so the author will tag it, so ppl can filter through.

Another problem is with media that has different mediums, like, the media Y, Z, etc are from has movies, and books, and games and a tv show. All these things actually have different stories, different enough at least that ppl may only want to see fics written for the movies! But the author wants to take plot from the movies and the books. So instead of just tagging the all media tag for that media, they also tag media (movies) and media (books)

These tags end up accumulating. And especially in long fics. The author could make the first chapter a list of tws and stuff that they keep updating, but that destroys the purpose of ao3 tags: you can't filter content like that, you can only filter tags.

I honestly think they should just find a way to delete the fics with the trolling tags, or make a readmore thing so it doesn't hurt the browsing. At the very least make the tag limit longer.

sorry in advance that this is going to be rambly and weird. I have a lot of thoughts.

I get where you're coming from but I also still disagree. Like it's definitely going to change the way longfic writers tag, but I really don't think it's going to hurt them. I think it's going to encourage more effective tagging and that that's going to be better for everybody in the long run. If anything, I think that overtagging is what's hurting longfic writers, it makes their works look unappealing, and actually important information gets buried in a wall of text.

i will admit though that I do understand better now why less room for trigger tagging is going to be an issue. My preferred tagging style is "General/umbrella warnings in the tags, with whatever elaboration/specifics the author deems necessary in an author's note/author's notes at the beginning of each chapter" (example: "animal death" in the tags, so that the filters catch it + people who can't handle the subject At All know to keep scrolling, and then the author's note specifying that its in the context of game hunting & not a pet death, so that people who were uncertain and needed more info could click in and get the specifics.) and I thought that preference was pretty universal? But apparently a lot of people use the tags as an exhaustive list of warnings, which I didn't know because when I see a work with more than, well with more than 75 tags, I just start scrolling until it's gone.

(this is a tangent and I get that my experiences are not universal. but I genuinely dislike full warning lists in the tags because, for me at least, it makes it harder for me to figure out if the story is something I can/want to read. The things I Really Do Not Want To Read about are rare, and rarely tagged the same way twice, so the exclusion filter isn't really helpful for me. I have to actually read the full list of warnings and if the things I'm looking for are sandwiched inbetween a bunch of trope/character tags in a big wall o text I am going to miss it. This has happened to me multiple times.)

I think that that's an ineffective tagging style, basically. Lots of tags is kind of the opposite of useful tags, imo. Short, to the point and consistently worded warnings are better and I think having less space will encourage people to do that. I understand why people do this other style, though, and also why it would frustrate them that they can no longer do that. I think it really sucks that ao3 let everyone wild west their website for so long that it managed to spawn like three distinct groups of people who all use the website in completely incompatible ways, and now it's at the point where any new rule implemented is going to screw a lot of people over no matter what. But I digress.

Anyways, as long as someone isn't putting Revolutionary Girl Utena levels of warnings in their tags (and if your fic needs that much... maybe you should just put yur top 10 biggest warnings on there and slap a Dead Dove Do Not Eat on the end there, yknow?), I think that 75 tags will fully accommodate them. I get that tags start adding up, but also I think a lot of people are underestimating how many tags 75 tags is.

Like to just add up how many tags are used in your example: three / pairing tags, lets go crazy and say three more & pairing tags, tag every character tag in those pairings that's twelve, #abusive relationship + #not main pairing tags, three fandom tags bc multiple source mediums, a #[controversial character] positive tag... that's 24 tags. Like all the necessary character & pairing tags are handled in less than a third of the space given (and personally I consider this slightly over tagged. I think the only character tags you should put on a fic are the very mainest/pov characters, but yknow) and honestly if you can't then figure out a way to communicate the rest of the necessary information about your fic in 51 tags and a 1250 character summary then I really don't know how to help you. I personally would have to really push myself to figure out how to put more than 75 tags on one fic, regardless of the length of the fic. And I can't help but notice that a lot of the fics I could find with over 75 tags while searching last night had a lot of... unnecessary duplicate tags, often for information that could've been easily otherwise intuited (tagging #mandolorian #mandolore #mandolorian character and #mandolorian culture on a Jango Fett pre-series fic, for example)

I do have some criticisms about the current change though. I think it would've been better to have individual tag number limits for each individual field (x number of fandom tags, x number of character tags, etc.) instead of a 75 tags over all limit (or make a "warning tags" field that's separate from "additional tags" but that's a separate essay and would... probably mean overhauling the whole site. so not very practical.) A readmore option would be good too, and I'm not sure why they didn't go for that? I also think that this change will be most effective if done in combination with other changes. Like posting very loosely or not at all enforced official tagging/style guides for the site. I really think that even a tepid attempt at standardization will increase the site's usability like, A Lot.

I'm not sure how cohesive that was. TL;DR I appreciate hearing your thoughts, mine are that I still think this is a step in the right direction. And that cutting back on overtagging will lead to more concise, effective tagging which will make browsing and filtering easier in the long run.

#ao3 tag

10 notes · View notes