#i write metas because when i notice cool stuff in media i have to shout it out to the world

[fluffypotatey]

any tips and tricks for getting into the writing zone?

ok so i have 2 methods and they depend on what i'm writing on: story writing and essay writing (waring: this is a mini-ramble)

with essay writing,

get mad, get super fucking mad, write that shit with spite flowing in your veins. even when i'm writing essays and stories i enjoy, i drag my feet.

i whine and complain like a toddler in my head because despite this topic being one i enjoy, putting my excited tones and rambling into coherent words always tends to feel like i'm butchering that (which is why academic papers should simply let me swear in them and use the 1st pov bc it is sO easy and my thoughts flow a lot better but noooOOOOoooooOOOOOooooo, i have to be formal and proper and-)

also, outlining. fucking godsend with essays. it's why a lot of my longer essays have headings bc i use them to outline and keep my thought on one line of thought bc i have a rambling issue (which is then easily solved with parentheses, my beloved)

with story writing (notice how this is basically a heading? good job! you've found my mini outline for this reply! have a cookie 🍪)

i find that jotting down that scene that is nagging at your brain immediately is super helpful. and do it even if you're now writing out of order. pro-tip: writing out of order is THE best, endorphins be going crazy bc you're actually not fighting with your brain with the story but writing alongside your brain-map.

personally, i find it very difficult outlining a story (how contrary) because sometimes my mind changes ideas or switches the order of scenes, and it is exhausting trying to keep up with all of that in your outline. but i guess, my "outline" with stories is simply me jotting down a very quick summary of the plot that invaded my mind in one document, never touching it again, but staying true to it because i wrote it down. therefore, it exists no longer in the recesses of mind but it a physical statement/promise to complete.

also (this advice goes for both story and essays) it is ok to take a break, step back, and not look at your writing for some hours, days, weeks, months, years--fucking whenever.

my midterm essay? a fucking nightmare. loved the topic, would write something similar about it for fun, but the reason it took me so long to complete (and why i dragged my feet) was because of the "short" timeline i had to complete it. i felt like i was on a time crunch and that led to me procrastinating, stressing over it, and taking my grand old time researching for it. however, when i was able to work on it? i allowed myself to simply do as much as i could. if i was unable to look at that stupid document, i didn't look at it. if my mind had a really good thought or example for the topic rotating in my head? immediate sit down and get that thought onto the paper. it must exist.

i have fics sitting in my folders that have been unfinished in so long, but i still consider them as wips because (and here’s another subpart-advice) i tend to work on them when i am unable to touch my current work. to be frank, working on something else helps keep you in the writing zone even if you cannot stand to look at the blank/unfinished work you wanted to complete originally. when i was incapable of writing for the Monkie Destiny Challenge, i switched to working on writing and editing my teen wolf fic (a fic i had not looked at since July) because while i still had that itch to write, something was blocking me from completing the prompts. and when i switched fics, getting into the zone was a lot easier.

so, to recap:

when jumpstarting the writing zone for writing an essay, you get passionate (can be read as mad/spiteful), and outline your thought process of the essay with headings to keep the writing flow flowing (the headings do not need to stay in the final product but they are good to have in the draft) .

when jumpstarting story writing, write! that! shit! down!!!! chronological order doesn't mean shit when you're in the planning/writing phase. your readers don't have to know that you wrote/planned a character's death before writing/planning out the beginning. they just read it in the order you publish it in!

to keep the writing zone stable and in working condition, TAKE THOSE BREAKS BOO! who cares about your personal deadlines???? if you feel exhausted before opening up a doc, then take that break, babygirl. again, your reader(s) will not need to know (nor do they need to know) how long it took you to get your writing piece done. hell, if you still feel the itch to write but the thing you wanna do is not working, then work on something else you haven't touched in a while because that itch WILL get its scratch somewhere, so help me god.

so yeah, i hope this was helpful, anon (and coherent jfc there better not be a plethora of typos T^T). happy writing, and may your weekend be a healthy dose of eventful!

[houseofglass]

Supernatural: the cheesy season

Okay, we’re halfway through the last season of Supernatural and I feel like it’s time for me to weigh in on it. There’ve been a lot of posts about how disappointed people are, or how they feel like the returning characters are a waste of time, and how awful the story line seems to be.

Whelp. Buckle up, I’ma gonna give you my lovely opinion. Some stuff I like, some I don’t, and some I’m really neutral about.

First: returning characters. I don’t mind this at all. I like seeing how some have evolved (looking at you, Becky) and how some were in the early seasons and are now playing a similar part this season. The return of Garth was nice. I don’t catch all the returners, but some of you do and point them out. If I could remember who you are, I’d give you a shout out to reminding us which episode/season the actor appeared on first, but I don’t, sorry. I think Supernatural should include as many returning bit-part actors as possible, just because it’s cool to watch.

As for regular characters, I loved Alexander Calvert’s portrayal of Belphegor and was mucho saddo to see him dead. I wanted more of his sass. Lots more. Sigh, I miss Crowley.

Second: set design. I’ve noticed the return of some things, like the motel room divider, and I love that! More please. Bring back sets that aren’t the bunker or Baby, bring back cluttered living rooms like Bobby’s, bring back a seedy motel, bring back a rough bar. The show has evolved to look very soap-opera-y: clean lines, organized set, everything in its place. This isn’t a bad thing, shows evolve and change, but it’s a nice callback to see a set that resembles the early seasons when things were messier, grittier, and more working-class.

Third: the plot. I mean....Chuck as the Big Bad, I can accept that. Sure. But, he’s, like, God. Normally, in a game or movie if someone has god-mode that means they’re basically indestructible. I don’t know how our boys are going to resolve this or bring it to a satisfying conclusion and still maintain that Chuck is all-powerful. When the finale of season 14 presented Chuck as the One To Vanquish I immediately decided how I was going to watch this last season. More on that later.

Fourth: Jensen and Jared’s performances. Jared has done an excellent job in keeping Sam consistent. Truly excellent. I don’t particularly love Jared as a person (anyone who plays pranks on people loses points with me, extra points if it’s sexual-based pranks on the job) but he’s a good actor and has done a good job on his, well, job.

Jensen’s acting....is lacking. He’s not as good lately. Actually, he hasn’t been for the past couple of seasons. I’ve wondered if he was ready to move on around season ten and started the wheels moving then. Wheels like getting his beer company off the ground and firmly established so he can have some passive income when the show ends. He’s a bit OTT, notably with the silent communication with Sam when Rowena wanted a drink in episode, uh, I don’t remember. The one with the cheap pink dress she wore. Also with his crying over Cas recently. I get it, he’s sad, but Dean doesn’t break down like that. Only once that I can recall, and he had to set himself up for it (driving to a secluded location alone, finally letting go). I feel like Jensen has lost the core of Dean somewhere, and it’s magnified by how well Jared is performing.

Fifth: Jensen’s audition reel. 15x04 was promoted heavily as directed by Jensen. I expect this and have little/no problem with it. He’s directed before and seems to enjoy it, and it’s the last season, so of course it would be promoted. I don’t have any opinion on his directing style as I don’t know what a good or bad director looks like. But the heavy promotion along with the heavy media presence is getting tiring. I understand, he’s about to be out of work and needs to go job hunting, but it’s wearing thin on me. Like the tap dancing. I watched the episode and thought he wasn’t particularly good at it. DJ Qualls was better, and I thought DJQ had more training and was surprised to learn he didn’t. When I found out they only had two hours’ rehearsal I thought, “yeah, it shows” because it missed the mark. Good attempt though. Nice to highlight Jensen can learn on the fly. I expect to see more of Jensen’s abilities as the episodes wind down. Actually, honestly, it feels desperate to me, but I’m not an actor and I don’t know if other actors do the same thing.

Sixth: showrunning. This entire season could have wrapped up by now. The plot is thin (fight God and win!) and not a lot of information is given in each episode. Instead the episodes wander around and highlight Jensen’s audition reel. The best wrap-up so far is finding out Rowena is the King of Hell. I freaking love that! It wraps up her character arc nicely.

Seventh: oh the cheese. This season is cheesy. Holy moly such cheese. Monsters in hot summer daylight? Oh my. VampChesters? Goodness me. Even that episode where Lilith returns as the girl who falls on the antlers. Man, that poked fun at the boys in a way I enjoyed, but it was still cheesy. Is this new fromage because Chuck is an unreliable narrator? Is this some meta accounting presented as fine Brie? Only time will tell.

Final thoughts: I mentioned above that the season 14 finale helped me choose a pair of glasses to use while viewing the show. Now, I’ve seen many finales in my day. Some I’ve loved and some I’ve hated and some I’ve been left disappointed. So now I understand something this social media generation seems to lack: I have no control over how my favourite character/show will end. No amount of whining, complaining, justifying, yelling, shouting, or cajoling will get the writers/showrunners/actors to do my bidding. Fandom has become toxic in this regard. FFS people, the only reason to contact those people on SM is to say thank you. Nothing more. You have no control or input. Nor do I.

So I sat in front of my TV with my cheesy goggles on and decided, “Fuck it. Fuck it all. I’m gonna taste the cheese this season.” And I have. Although I have complained, like, see above, I’ve also let go of any expectation of the show. It’s too long in the tooth at this point, with too many side characters and too much soap opera makeup (seriously, Dean was lit like a soap opera mistress in a few episodes. Like, wtf?) to take seriously.

So I invite you to enjoy some cheese with me. There are ten episodes left. Just ten. Ten more times to watch my favourite character, Baby, drive across the screen. Ten more times to have a new opportunity to write a coda or fix-it fic. Ten more times to imagine an OTP in a new scenario provided by the writers.

Have a slice of cheese with me. Watch the show with lightheartedness. Wish these actors adieu and expect nothing. We have no control over the ending, and no matter how much it hurts, we will have to say goodbye to Sam and Dean’s adventures at some point. Might as well do it with a smile.

[ursae-minoris-world]

Fans tend to forget that most Voltron viewers are casual viewers who don’t notice all the foreshadowing

I think a lot of people get frustrated with Voltron’s writing because sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for so long between the moment when we suspected something due to foreshadowing and the big reveal. What makes it worse is that in the meantime we keep projecting how we would like it to happen. And with fanfiction writers, comic artists and so on, we also see how others see it and we get excited about it, and sometimes are a bit disappointed when what happens in the show is not how we expected.

For instance, one of the first things that lets you suspect that Keith might have galra blood is in “return to the Balmera” when he interacts with Galra technology with his hand and it works. At least it’s the first thing I’ve personally noticed (I know he had his knife since episode one, but you couldn’t conclude much about it aside that it seemed important to him). And then evidence piles up, and the wait is kind of agonizing specially considering how we see Keith getting anxious about it...until the actual reveal in “Blade of Marmora”, 12 episodes later, right ?

Well yes, if you noticed this. Thing is... I’m pretty sure most viewers don’t.

Look, I’ve got 3 irl friends who are watching Voltron. They’re all adults, and I wouldn’t even call them “casual watchers” because they can be quite analytical in the media they consume, and some of them are actually storytellers themselves (in one case in a professional way as the person is a comic artist). At least two of them had realized Pidge’s identity from the photo in the pilot episode (which I had missed hahaha), so they’re definitely not blind.

None of them had caught that anything was weird with Shiro after his return. They all were REALLY surprised and not entirely convinced when I talked to them about clone theory and possible brainwashing.

In my case, when Shiro (or Kuron) escaped in “the Journey”, I was already wary at how easy his escape was, and was wondering if it was set up. When he saw that operation room with that other Shiro strapped to the table... for me it was such a punch in the gut that I literally had to pause the episode while cursing like a sailor and trying to catch my breath. Seriously.

Well... None of my friends had noticed anything. They just thought it was part of Shiro / Kuron’s flashback, and they hadn’t thought that usually his flashbacks are triggered by something...

So I asked one of my friends when she had started noticing about Keith’s origins. She told me “well given he looks entirely human, I hadn’t suspected anything at all until the Blade of Marmora episode.”

I’m putting the rest behind a "read more” because as usual this got really long.

Same with Keith becoming a Blade. I think a clever viewer realizes as soon as he sees the BOM episode that it looks kind of like an initiation. I personally only realized it in “Best laid plans” when Kolivan stepped in when Keith wanted to go on what he called a “suicide mission”. I thought something along the lines of “wait Kolivan why are you stepping in here he’s not one of your... oh sh!t he is one of your Blades now, isn’t he ?!” and Thace calling Keith a fellow Blade cemented it. So I got excited : are we going to see Keith join the Blades next season ? But, it was not addressed at all in s3, so I thought the show wasn’t going that route and that I had gotten excited over nothing. And then season 4 , 13 episodes after the BOM episode ? Keith joins the Blades. I was super excited first and then when he left Voltron I thought  “nooo I wanted it BUT NOT LIKE THAT !!!” lol.

I haven’t asked any of my friends about that. But I bet the casual watcher’s reaction is... to not think about this at all until they see Keith being a Blade in “Code of Honnor” and go “Oh ! Cool ! Keith’s a Blade, now !”

From the 2 more in depth conversations I had, my friends hadn’t noticed anything about Keith and Shiro’s backstory either, aside from “they knew each other”. They hadn’t realized at all that Keith got expelled from the garrison around the time where the Kerberos mission failed, and that those facts could be linked. We’re all here, trying to imagine it, writing / reading I don’t know how many “pre-kerberos” metas, fanfictions, fancomics, edits, etc. The average viewer probably just realizes they knew each other and seemed to be friends (and some even miss that). Even if they are curious about the back-story in the moment, when they don’t get it they don’t think much about it.

And look at Allura’s space magic ark : there are 17 episodes between Allura using magic to heal the Balmera, and her using it again against Haggar in “Blackout” ; then 13 episodes again before she uses it in “a New Defender”, and then 6 before the “White Lion”. Frustrating ? Yes. I bet the average, casual viewer, doesn’t think much about it and goes “oh, right, she does have space magic, that’s cool !” when she does use it.

And 23 episodes between Keith’s dad explaining that Keith’s mom gave him the BOM knife in “Blade of Marmora” and Keith finally finding Krolia in “Bloodlines”. But not every watcher expected Keith to find his mom. I know I hoped he’s find some answers, but I didn’t expect him to actually find her.

So here we are, waiting for season 6, and being impatient that “project Kuron” ark to finally come to an end, because we have been worried about it since season 3. Well, if, like me, the foreshadowing about Shiro’s arm being used to alter his memories in “Shiro’s escape” (s2) made you worry, then you’ve been anxious about it quite some time now.

After all, it’s been 14 episodes since “the Journey” so it feels about time for this to come to an end... Which is not that much longer than for Keith’s galra reveal (13 episodes) or Keith becoming a Blade (13 episodes). I admit it’s a particularly distressing ark : for “Kuron” who is in a dreadful situation ; for Shiro, if there is a double, because if that’s not Shiro... where is Shiro ? Is he ok ? Is he even alive ?! (oh please let him be alive). For the rest of the team, because of the way Haggar uses Kuron to spy on them. For Keith because he will be impacted by anything that affected Shiro, and because it really seems to me that his departure from Voltron was at least in part due to feeling rejected by Shiro (and the team).

But the casual viewer ? The casual viewer has only realized something was wrong in season 5 when he saw Haggar actually watch through Kuron’s eyes, and with the mindscape incident. He’s certainly hooked now on what will happen next, but not nearly as worried as the viewer who has suspicions since s3 (or even before).

And those viewers ? The viewers who catch the foreshadowing, and who try to see what’s coming ? They are a very little part of the general viewership of the show. And I’m just talking about the engaged viewer who notices stuff. The fans who discuss all that online, listen to every interview, dissect the show image by image, write long metas, or fanfictions or create art around it ? A very very small fraction of the viewership. We’re immersed in it; because well... we interact, and because we see those who interact (for the best and the worse) with the various creators of the show but... a lot of the viewers just enjoy their episodes, don’t dwell on them, and move on until the next season.

Voltron is written in layers so that different kinds of viewers can enjoy it !

Don’t forget that the most important target are young children who might want to play with the toys. Most of them will enjoy the fight sequences, the action, the funny stuff. Later, they’ll remember something like “oh I watched this show, the transformation sequence was cool, my fav lion was the red one and my fav character was Pidge !” and maybe a few of the most significant plot events. Maybe.

Older children might catch a bit more of the story, character arks, and themes. And start to enjoy the more emotional scenes.

The casual teenage or adult viewer will just... go with the flow and enjoy the plot twists when they happen.

The fans of the 80′s Voltron (another target, specially considering that they can have children in the age of watching too)  will mostly either enjoy the changes, or be frustrated about them. They will enjoy shout outs like Sven in “Hole in the Sky” or Allura’s pink armor, and so on. Other than that, their level of involvement can vary from “casual viewer” to “fan”.

Attentive viewers will notice some foreshadowing. They’ll probably be more engaged than the casual watcher because they’ll be more curious about how things will get solved. They might get frustrated when it takes to long to unfold, but mostly they should enjoy the story. (That was me while watching the first 2 seaons). I think attentive watchers are already a minority in the viewership. Honestly, most people I know are not that analytic about what they watch, and are casual watchers, whatever they’re watching.

And then, fans who are attentive watchers but also discuss and exchange theories on internet, and as such, miss even less of the clues ? They are the most engaged, but obviously also the most frustrated. We notice the most, we get more excited about it, we have more expectations because, as we’ve seen the signs, we start thinking about how we would like the story ark to be solved. Even if it feels there are many fans because we see a lot of them in our online experience... they are a very small part of the general viewership.

So when people get frustrated that we don’t have the answers for everything yet, and say it’s bad writing that it takes so long, or that some stuff isn’t addressed immediately... I’d like them to consider that the show isn’t written only for them. It’s actually quite impressive that this cartoons provides enough depth for us to be involved that much, to make crazy theories because foreshadowing, to make big character analysis because they are that well developed. In many tv shows, even ones for adults, you just can’t analyze that far. Because there’s just not that much to analyze !

But at the same time, it is still targeted towards kids. And it is still meant mainly as, well... commercials for robot toys.

Also, Voltron is clearly written as one, long, story. The seasons are only chapters. It doesn’t work like, say... Doctor Who, where every season is a story ark on its own that reaches a conclusion. It is normal to still have questions at the end of a new season. When we will have all the answers... the story will have reached it’s ending !

-----

So yeah, just my take on this, and I might be wrong but... really, I keep seeing fans being frustrated and considering that every watcher experiences the cartoon as they do but... I know that they don’t. A lot of people don’t.

And yes, people, it’s a cartoon for children. Stop comparing it to stuff written only for adults. Here the writers have to juggle so that children stay engaged and that adult viewers still have fun. And they managed to have a part of the viewers who have become deeply engaged fans. Honestly, I find it quite amazing.

[iamshadow21]

Questions and Answers: a conversation about privilege, fandom, representation, and boundaries