#its really... [insert big complicated emotion here] to find a character you relate to on such a deep level

[the-yearning-astronaut]

As if I need something else to dwell on right now, I'm having a hard time with my orientation again. Like I just.... Idk. I feel like I don't fit in with the queer community because I'm aroace spec but I also feel alienated from the aroace community because I'm demi aroace. And it makes me feel very lost and very isolated.

[aelaer]

Re: Blood in Your Veins

Hey so uh.

As anyone who’s been following me for a while knows, I started the serial “The Blood In Your Veins” about this time last year (it used to be ‘my veins’ but retitled it on its move to AO3 because execution of prompt had changed a bit over writing). It’s a prompt that I couldn’t stop thinking about and just dabbled in slowly to see where it went. Then 2020 fully hit and my writing came to almost a complete stop until about October, which is when I began again on Illuminating the Shadows, which was finished and posted in December.

Anyway, I’ve been poking and prodding fairly continuously at The Blood in Your Veins. The first four parts that I posted originally here on tumblr are now all on AO3, and once part 5′s up I’ll link it here and link everyone who wanted alerts to the updates then so they can see the new part. Then all future parts will be linked here as well.

(Cut because why the *hell* did I write this much about this?)

I’ve been slow in posting because I, against better judgement but why not, decided to post it as a WIP. But that means I keep on making edits to older parts because I think of something new that should be addressed earlier in the story. Like uh, when I was writing part 9, I realized I needed to go back to part 5 and add an addendum. When I was writing part 12, I realized I totally forgot a part that I ended up adding in part 8, because I needed it for a future connection. This happens all the time in my writing and makes posting WIPs almost dangerous because my thinking is rarely linear if the story takes place over a course of more than a couple days. Thus the very slow posting.

So this silly little prompt thing that I was just prodding and poking at to see where it went? The farking doc passed 50k words tonight. Yup.

Granted, like 10k of that is probably outlining, personal notes, and A/Ns filled to the brim with meta, medical science, fake science, and technical/computer engineering because I love talking about it and giving people info to access easily for their own knowledge. I figure I can’t be the only one who finds this stuff super fascinating and fanfic makes it unique in that it’s not a book where the research is irrelevant, you can show off all the interesting stuff right here and talk about it with people! I love that about fanfic, so much. Sometimes the A/Ns are just as interesting as the story in some stories.

So it’s gonna be a bit slow for however long, but I finished 11 parts (with 10 betaed), have the 12th largely written out (though I’m not 100% sure about it yet so I want to poke at it more), and parts uh, 13 to 17ish outlined. But considering I was like “yeah this is 8 parts at most” like, at the beginning of this, that number is bound to change because characters keep saying things and doing things (including the supporting OCs, who are demanding to be fully fleshed out within the bounds of supporting character roles).

And yeah, this is just a ramble of what I’ve been mostly doing as I haven’t been super active on tumblr this month as this has consumed most of my free time. I haven’t read a lot of works either, and once this is completed I hope to remedy that, before I go into my next two big projects (which were meant to be what I was working on *now*, but then this took over and what will you do. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to complete three novel-length fics in the course of the year, but I’ll see what I can do. I really want to tell these stories).

Uh, this was really long. Sorry, I’m super verbose and don’t know how to be like, succinct. My old boss, two bosses ago now, used to quote Twain about brevity being a sign of wit, but if it is, call me 100% unwitty because I like to ramble. And then I always feel a little bit guilty for writing *so much* about my bullshit, so I feel like if you read this far, you 100% deserve to read a preview of an upcoming section. Especially since you pressed the Read More button! So here you go, thanks for reading my rambles. This is a section from the longest part so far, part 8. It’s a long little bit!

---

"How high's the toxicity now?" Tony asked as he stepped off the scale.

"Yesterday's blood sample came back at 0.45 milligrams per kilogram of your weight," Stephen replied. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

Tony offered his arm for the blood draw. "And if 3 milligrams is the magic number for fatality, that'd put my current blood toxicity at 15%."

Stephen inserted the needle at the crook of Tony's elbow and watched the tube fill up. "That's not quite how it works."

"It makes sense to me."

"That's still not how it works." He removed the needle and capped the tube, and as he put everything away, explained, "Saying that your blood toxicity is at 15% implies that you're talking about the whole volume of blood in your body. You're probably at about 5,500 milliliters with your weight, and with the density of blood equaling about 1.06 grams per milliliter, it is like you're saying—"

"That 874.5 grams of my blood is toxic, yeah, yeah, I know," Tony interrupted. By now he was setting up the table for their breakfast.

"I was getting there."

"You were going too slow," he shot back easily. Stephen gave the engineer a look at the comment, but Tony ignored it. "Yeah, I know it's not my whole body's blood volume. Obviously. But putting a percentage on how long until I reach the point that I'm dead makes sense to me. I'm not measuring the whole volume of my blood, I'm measuring how much more can I handle until I'm dead."

Stephen shot him a frown. "It doesn't make sense to call it 'blood toxicity' then."

"Maybe not to you, but it does to me. And I'd design such a measuring tool for me."

The statement caught him off guard. "Design?" He finished packing up the kit and joined Tony at the table.

"Well, if I wasn't stuck in here, I'd design something to automatically read a blood sample, like how glucose meters read blood sugar levels. Wouldn't be hard to engineer something like that. And I'd have it give me the amount of toxicity as a percentage relating to how far along it was until the amount was lethal. Sure, I could memorize the numbers, but the percentage would be more concrete in my head."

Stephen smeared butter over a piece of bread as he listened. He shook his head at the end of Tony's explanation. "Wouldn't work for the consumer market; there's too much room for interpretation as to what the percentage means."

Tony huffed. "Well, like I said, it'd be for me. Not the consumer market."

His brow furrowed. "You're telling me that you can make a blood test as simple as the one used for testing blood sugar levels for something as rare as palladium poisoning?"

He narrowed his eyes. "... yes…"

"You can make it portable like the glucose meters?"

"Yeah, of course."

"And affordable to most hospitals?"

Tony looked up in thought. "I don't usually factor in the costs of materials and manufacturing in personal projects, and others do the number crunching to see if my ideas are viable for production in company projects. If they aren't, but I really want them to be, I'll tinker a bit more, sure."

Stephen couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you realize the amount of money you could save for both hospitals and patients across the country with such technology? Specialized blood tests—like for many metal poisonings, for instance—aren't offered at every hospital. It may not be available even in every state. Those types of lab results can take weeks to get back to a doctor and the patient. And you're saying that you can not only potentially create this type of technology, but that you may be able to make it affordable if you really want them to be?"

"Well yeah, sure. I've done it a few times with other things. I could probably do that with a blood meter thing. I doubt the tech's that complicated."

His mouth was partially hanging open, Stephen realized this, but he couldn't bother at the moment. He was flabbergasted. The first thought that came to mind went to his mouth, unfiltered. "And you spent the last two decades building weapons."

"Don't." The word was sharp and filled with an overabundance of emotion.

Stephen fell silent. He crossed a boundary he had yet to see before now, and he was not so callous as to push against it. Instead he turned to his meal and focused on eating. He avoided looking at the other man.

A couple minutes later, Tony spoke again. It was low, pensive. Thoughtful. "There was a good reason I shut down weapons manufacturing after I got back from Afghanistan, you know. If the department ever comes back, it will be with major restrictions and modifications. Likely more defensive than offensive. More shields, less missiles. But in the meantime I've been restructuring. Expanded in commercial aerospace and industry. We entered the energy market properly. Consumer products is coming soon—end of the year, probably." A pause. "Don't see why we can't look into medical tech, either. Certainly wouldn't hurt to try."

He could only nod and say, "It certainly wouldn't."

[hereisisa]

I saw Frozen 2 and there’s a lot to say. I’m not gonna write in any particular order so I apologize if this seems a bit...disconnected.

- Elsa is a cute little angel when she sleeps. Expecially in the wagon scene. I wanted to take a pic. lol

- Elsa and Anna entering the castle, arms in arms at the end of “some things never change” is something I’ll need to rewatch over and over.

- I didn’t like how ready Elsa was to leave at any time (night and day) forgetting she has Anna following her. Even after the fire, she’s following Bruni and boom, Anna hugs her from behind. Of course she’s fast to recover and ask her how she feels...but if they wanted to show her priority was to find the voice....mission accomplished. It shouldn’t have been this way tho.

- One of the K’s proposal was really ridiculous, Anna’s watching the dam, she casually talks about how it may break, and he has to “reassure her” it’s gonna be fine and she needs a hug over it. Fanservice. It was a casual convo, not a dramatic scene. There was no need for all that thing even if it didn’t bother me, it made ma laugh. They did it to prove Anna cares about him and it explains why she says yes later...otherwise the audience has no idea the relationship evolved since last time we saw them. Anyway it seemed weird as fuck and totally ridiculous. Nobody needs a hug over something that it’s ... NOT happening in that very moment.

- Kristoff’s song. It totally stopped the movie. The song is cute, but it’s one of those things that could have been cut to give more space at the end.

It was “pee time” for all kids in the theater who were bored, and it was “let’s check the time” for the moms who reached for the phone in their purses. I would have cut it, but if you cut that...well you also cut the only thing he does in the whole movie. :/ Cause it’s his only storyline.

- I loved how furious Anna was when Elsa made her leave. It was a dick move, Elsa, and again, instead of opening up to her sister she sent her away. She may have “changed” into a 5th spirit, but this is NOT growth. Not at all. She’s still not sharing her pain, and still not opening up. She didn’t change, and she should.

Anyway if this is all the “fighting” they did during the movie...lol I’m on board. It’s not a fight at all.

- “Show yourself” is amazing. I loved how Elsa is crying when she’s reaching the glacier. She’s so beautiful when she wipes the tears from her face.

- I’ve cried a little bit over “show yourself” but the fact that it was in italian really stopped me from being emotional. I need to watch it in original language.

There were young kids there...3/4 year olds, who didn’t understood most of the movie. It was too difficult for them, the plot too complicated, and what’s happened to Elsa wasn’t properly explained in a way kids would understand it.  They were annoyed at Olaf’s “big words”, and didn’t cry cause they didn’t even understood Elsa died. They cried when Anna cried, cause it was obvious what was happening there.

Older kids (7/8) as my daughter cried for the minute Olaf started to melt, and on. Elsa’s death wasn’t too emotional to be honest.

Kids cried but were also annoyed after 1 minute of Anna’s song. It’s not “harmonious” enough, people got bored.

- The moment when Anna apologizes to Kristoff for leaving him behind felt totally wrong. It wasn’t the right moment. Any sane woman who just lost a sister would even remotely THINK of something else, like...apologizing for something like that. Again, the way they had to bend the storyline to prove the proposal made sense, it’s unbelievable! I said it was fanservice but it’s not.

It’s about the little things they had to insert here and there to show it makes sense for them to do the next step.

Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Every one of those moments, as the one in front of the dam I’ve discussed before, feels out of place, exaggerated, like they were “reaching”.

- When K does the proposal and calls Anna an extraordinary person look at Elsa, she’s nodding. Not because she agrees with the proposal as “they” said LMAO but because she is confirming how amazing her sister is. I loved how after the proposal Elsa bends her head trying to catch a glimpse of her sister’ eyes, to see how she really feels. She goes to look for her face, to look at her in the eyes. Very human, I loved it. She didn’t react in any particular way to the proposal tho, as expected.

- Honeymaren. It’s nothing. Nothing at all. A not-existent relationship. I don’t understand what’s there to see. Now that i’ve seen her interaction with Elsa and Anna I have 2 things in my mind:

1) there was NOTHING REMOTELY SEXUAL in their enteractions. No flirting, no hints to anything, it confirmed to me what I already knew, that Elsa is asexual.

Yes, in my mind she’ll always be a lesbian and in love with Anna, but this is my ship, my dream. In the reality of the show, in canon.....I strongly believe they’re painting her as asexual.

There is nothing about Elsa that hints to romance, to flirt, to interest towards women or men. She’s pure as a virgin, she’s an ethereal goddess, an angel. And I’m perfectly fine with it.

2) Since there is this...not existent relationship between Elsa and the Nolthundra, I’ve found extremely arrogant from Honeymaren’ to say “your place is in the forest”. Like uh??? Who asked you? You are you? Who cares about your opinion? Why do you believe you know what’s better for Elsa? It irritates me, but I’m wrong to be irritated to her. I should be irritated with the writers who didn’t find a better way to explain why Elsa should stay there. I know, they changed your story and you couldn’t kill Elsa....but a better “plan B” had to take place!

- The end: it’s clear as the sun that Elsa lives with the Nolthundra and that she’s doing a trip to the glacier in the end. You can absolutely see Anathollan in front of her, the same shape we saw before in the movie, as she runs towards it. Yes, the dark sea is iced cause it’s almost winter now, but it’s there. She’s NOT going to Arendelle at all, not in that moment anyhow.

- Anna as Queen feels extremely weird. She looks like Iduna. My daugther noticed how her clothes matched..................Mathias’ ones. lmao. I see now how naive we were to think we’ll see a coronation. We saw it in one movie, no chances in hell they’ll do another similar scene, it would feel like a unnecessary copy.

Now....on with the characters and ships’ reviews:

KA: there’s nothing sexy at all. The wagon scene was innocent and pure and I can’t believe people thought it was flirty. Even the “leather” comment.....I think the italian translation here really helps to explain what Anna meant. They translated it with “I prefer you when you wear animal fur”, which is exactly what Kristoff wears. Translators didn’t see an innuendo and I don’t think there was one. Anyway Kristoff’ only plot was to propose. If you take the proposal out of the movie you LOSE NOTHING, and you gain 10 minutes who could be spent on expanding the rushed finale.

elsanna: I felt an enormous affection and love between the 2 sisters, for Anna it lasted for the whole movie, for Elsa I didn’t feel it when she was too focused on her trip, but every little gesture screamed “love”. I didn’t think it was “too much”, it could 100% pass as sisterly love only, and if you don’t rewatch the scenes in slow motion and don’t see the little things as Anna staring at her lips....it’s really NOT “too much” for the anti-elsanna viewer.

elsamaren: not registered.

Elsa: she’s larger than life. She’s everything. Of course I didn’t like when she sent Anna away, or when she ignored her, or when she dumped her responsabilities like that.....But she was magnificent. My Elsa is still Queen of Arendelle and I’m taking home from this movie only the good things. She definitely has to apologize to Anna, and if there will be a third movie, I would like it to be about Elsa running after Anna, about Elsa showing how much she cares and about Elsa making sacrifices for Anna. She has to. Otherwise it’s not fair.

The kids loved her tho....it was like she was the only thing they saw on screen.

Anna: I’m sorry to say it but if Elsa was more popular before.....now they’re not even on the same planet.

If this movie accomplishes one thing, is to increase the gap between the love/attention Elsa will get from kids, and the love/attention Anna will. And there’s nothing to do about that. Elsa is this gorgeous magic being, pure and beautiful, who rides an ice horse and control the elements....and Anna destroyed a dam once. I’m sorry for Anna cause there is really no game now. It’s the sisters’ franchising but this is this movie consecrates Elsa as its star.

My daughter is in love with Nokk and her favorite scene is when Elsa turns Nokk into ice. She thinks it’s “not fair” that Elsa isn’t Queen anymore, she laughed at the Kristoff’ song (she liked it=, and she would want Elsa to live with her sister because “I don’t like the idea that when you grow up you have to go to live elsewhere”.

LOL @ Jenn who wrote a movie for kids with adult messages they may not like.

I will probably find more to add later, but this is for now.

I want to ask a favor to my anons.....instead of sending me questions about what I’ve seen, please, interact with this post. I want to keep it all together. Otherwise (no big deal!) I will screencap your anons and add them here, if they’re related to this post. :)

[thesunnyshow]

EPISODE 4: MILLY

Writing Blog URL(s): @bumblebeenct 

Name: Milly

Age: 18

Nationality: Welsh

Languages: English

Star Sign: Capricorn

MBTI: ISFP-T

What fandom(s) do you write for?

 I write for NCT, but I have written for Harry Potter in the past

When did you post your first piece?

Around the empathy era I’m pretty sure, 2018? I used to do moodboards only but I was inspired by other writers to give it a go

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why?

I find that I stick to the fluff/angst tropes because they’re easier to formulate because I can relate myself to the scenario more. I also find that its also more interesting to write angst because there's complications to a story that take longer to form and you have to really think about the different emotions the characters are feeling.

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc?

I write x reader mostly, but at some point in the future I’m thinking of writing an OC purely because the concept I want to focus on has a particular emphasis on name and I don’t think it would work with y/n

Why did you start writing on Tumblr?

I used to use Wattpad but it was very difficult to promote myself and I struggled to meet anyone through it. On tumblr it was much easier to orientate and the community was so much nicer. 

What inspires you to write?

My mutuals! And other writers on tumblr, everyone is so supportive and kind it’s amazing. Also the feedback I sometimes get from readers, it makes me really happy whenever I get a comment or someone interacts with a piece I enjoyed writing, or alternatively when someone supports a fic I wasn’t confident in as it really boosts my confidence :)

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most?

School/ College aus because they’re very familiar and I am confident in getting the tropes and ideas right. But I also like works inspired by movies or songs because there’s so much to work from and it’s nice to see where you can take the plot and lyrics in your own story.

What do you hope your readers take away from your work?

That writing is for everyone, honestly at the end of the day I’m just a kid in my room writing stories about artists I’m a really big fan of. If you want to write you can, and you don’t have to necessarily be a “big” blog or writer to do it. 

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively?

Take a break, that’s my first port of call - usually in the method of food or I look at the inspiration material again, I listen to the song, read the lyrics, consult my friends and mutuals for help. It’s always good to be able to put something down to start again later when you’re struck with inspiration

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful?

My favourite personally at the moment (since one I really like is currently, as of answering this question, unpublished) is ‘Remember Me’ purely because it was the work I was the most passionate about writing and it really let me explore a new field of writing, since a lot of my stuff had been fluff before. My most successful in terms of notes is my Mark one shot ‘Sugar and Spice’ and I’m very proud of it.

Who is your favorite person to write about?

Park Jisung, my ult bias, I have to convince myself to write for other members sometimes as I often resist the urge to be a Jisung blog. However I have been enjoying writing for Mark and Hendery recently, as my other NCT biases

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose?

To a certain extent yes, it really depends on the writer. For many fanfiction stories, including ones we may label “cliche” the only difference is who it’s about, there are countless amazing fics I’ve read which I would assume could be made into a novel, the only thing making it fanfiction being the characters themselves.

What do you think makes a good story?

Feeling! There’s nothing that really constitutes a “good story” as it’s all subjective, but if you can read a story and feel what the characters feel, or even just see the emotions the writer is trying to portray then it’s definitely a good story. I’ve cried while reading most of, if not all my favourite stories.

What is your writing process like?

I plan first in a little notebook so I don’t forget any of my ideas or plans and then I try to churn it out whenever I have access to my computer, my speaker and a comfortable blanket. I like to “get in the zone” and then write as much as I possibly can. I usually think of ideas as I write so the notebook helps me put them in order and make sure I don’t get too ahead of myself.

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story?

I have thought about it and honestly, I’m not sure. My fics are not series’ and they’re all very short - most of them under 4k so I’d have to turn the idea into a full length thing you know? But I have thought about doing the opposite with a very old original story of mine I’ve otherwise given up on but still holds a special place in my heart.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand?

I am a sucker for the enemies to lovers trope mainly because the character development in these stories can be so much more interesting and complex. On the other hand I’m not fond of “yandere” type fics, however I have read several well written ones which I cannot speak against because they were actually really good.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you?

I’d say a lot, in terms of how much I write feedback means a lot to me - it’s also nice to hear what people think of things you’ve written because it’s a different view from your own and sometimes can boost confidence. I am also open to constructive criticism if any writers have any tips or suggestions for future works I’m always open to listen. 

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)?

When I see anyone interacting with my work it’s really rewarding and I love when people reblog with custom tags because it lets me know that people actually like what I do and to me, that’s a success.

Favorite color: Purple

Favorite food: Pasta

Favorite movie: Heathers (1988)

Favorite ice cream flavor: Cookie Dough

Favorite animal:  I would say bees, but I don’t think that counts so I’ll say dogs

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering?

Coffee, either black or a really fancy one with frothy milk

Dream job (whether you have a job or not)

 I’d love to be a singer honestly, but at the moment I’m working towards education I hope one day to be a lecturer

Go-to karaoke song

 Best Part by Daniel Caesar or Escape (the pina colada song) by Robert Holmes because it’s funny

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?

 Stopping time because there’s so much you can do - except the question is, would I continue to age even if time has stopped?

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose?

My mind goes to two extremes, I think either ancient Greece because why not and the 1950’s purely for fashion and music.

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you?

No, but I think if I could restart specific moments I would. There are so many good moments but some things you don’t want to relive even if you can change the outcome.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken?

100 chicken sized horses, I’d be terrified of a horse sized chicken it would probably be able to eat me and I’m not about that life, tiny horses I can deal with. Kill them with Kindness or whatever haha.

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been?

A mix of quiet teachers pet and loud side character friend. The duality kills me, I can be shouting with my friends one minute but whispering the minute the teacher asks me a question.

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures?

I’d like to, I think some are really cool and it would be amazing to live among them, but also some are dangerous, but I would love to see or meet some creatures. Imagine living with dragons man that would be epic.

What are some of your favorite hobbies and how did you get into them?

I really like reading, courtesy of Harry Potter, but I also enjoy singing and playing the piano which I started doing more often in secondary school when my piano teacher suggested I started to sing as well :)

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know?

I did Karate for about 10/11 years, and I’m a black belt *insert awkward smile here*

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged?

A lot of the time yes, there is a stigma around fanfiction and often paints us in a negative light but we just happen to be a community of creative fans who want to share and support the people we write about. But I can see where the stigma comes from, sometimes it can be taken a bit far and I am aware that some things make the artists themselves uncomfortable. I think if people who judge fanfiction are referring to it as a single idea it becomes unfair because it is all different, but I also think that writers of fanfiction themselves have to make sure they don’t cross any boundaries when writing that could make readers or the artist (if they ever happened to stumble across your work) uncomfortable.

Do you think art can be a medium for change?

Yes in some ways of course. Art is not only a way to express what the creator themselves is feeling but it is also a way to teach others about issues, prejudices and ideals. For literature specifically it allows you into the shoes of another person you may not have understood before, in art pieces there’s a clear message and encourages people to educate themselves on certain issues which in turn makes room for change.

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself?

Sometimes if i’ve been suggested or requested to write something because it isn’t an idea that comes for me but mainly if I am aware that someone is waiting for a fic or someone has said they’re anticipating it I feel like I’m writing for others, but I don’t particularly mind it because it almost encourages me to write to a better standard.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?

Not particularly, I'm often as clear as I can be when portraying meaning, or I will straight up say it in a different thread or to different people because I can’t keep secrets and I’m a sucker for a spoiler. Although I am constantly worried about the way I come off in messages and things like that - I am a terrible overthinker.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr?

A few of my closest friends and other kpop stans I am friends with irl are aware of my blog and support me as much as they can with what little information I give them. I think only one of my irls has my url because she reads and I send her my binge reviews when I do them.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers?

Thank you so much, honestly it’s cheesy but without them I don’t know where my blog would be. The amount of them surprises me everyday and I don’t think I believe it half the time. Also if anyone ever needs help or support or just wants a chat I’m open, its 100% likely that if you interact with me or my posts on the regular then I will recognise you when you come say hi, I’m not that scary I promise.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there?

Just do it! It’s better to get your stuff out there and circulating to get a better idea of what people like and where your strong suit is, the more you put out the more you grow. But if you’re scared, talk to other creators, we’re always open to help and we can let you know what to do, it was something that helped me out :)

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr?

When I first started there was a lot of struggle with me trying to figure out my style and what I wanted to do, and it was a learning curve of what can I do, what should I avoid and who am I doing this for. Sometimes when I’m really down I will question why I do it, but I never regret it because it has allowed me to make some wonderful friends and be exposed to some amazing creations and get more into something I’ve always liked doing, writing.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey?

I don’t want this to be too long, but I feel like it could be. I’ve met so many wonderful people and I love all of them so much, but in terms of being formative and supportive these are some of the people I talk to the most. @renjunwrites - I am a huge fan of Denise and to even be able to be in conversation with her about the stuff she writes is mindblowing to me, @nanasarea - nana was one of the first people I spoke to (before I joined discord) and was really accepting of my antics from day one. @glossyjaems - me and Louna have become very close recently and I can’t wait for our project to launch, keep an eye out for that. @mjlkau Anie is really one of the biggest supporters I have, always willing to read what I send her and give me support and love. There’s so many more people I’d love to mention but this would go on forever, to anyone ever involved in my writing process I’m thinking of you as I write this and I love you all (I feel really bad not talking about every single one omg).

Ending thoughts:

“We’ll be alright, I want to try again” - Try Again d.ear (ft. Jaehyun) because this is something I hold close, ‘try again, we’ll all be alright in the end’

BONUS: K-POP CONFIDENTIAL

Interested in your very own episode of The Sunny Show? Find out how to apply here.

[kashikoikawaiisaschachen]

Hello Charlotte explained

I want to torture myself by trying to understand the complicated universe of Hello Charlotte and what actually happened in all the episodes, so here I go lol.

PSA: This post isn’t a complete guide to Hello Charlotte. It will be updated from time to time as I figure out more about the story.

Warning: Long text ahead to explain the whole plot.

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First, we have the True Realm. This is where Charles Eyler writes his fanfic to cope, regularly plagued by the illusion of his unborn younger sister Scarlett Eyler and pressured to become a doctor. His mother is mentally ill and bedridden after her husband had forced her to abort Scarlett. To make matters worse, she sees her son as Scarlett due to the trauma. Anri also exists here as his fake girlfriend and Charles wrote her into the story as Charlotte's best friend. Charles inserts himself as C/Vincent borrowing his internet friend Vincent's appearance.

Later, he gave up and committed suicide after his mother died, unable to pass the Trial. He failed to overcome his hardships, thus his own life became a story about giving up. Every event after that happened after his death in the True Realm.

The False Realm is where most of the story takes place, especially before EP3. The House is what the False Realm is called with many floors, each inhabited by different people. It's essentially a fiction within a fiction. Some floors have a Charlotte inhabiting them. The 1st floor is Charlotte the protagonist's house. 2nd floor is where the school is. The 4th floor is where another Charlotte caused the Great Cluster by absorbing its inhabitants to herself. The 6th floor is where Charlotte 091 is, although merely a bunch of organs and merged with the Charlotte from EP1, she’s kept alive for a little longer to please the audience. The 9th floor has a Charlotte who consumed everything to keep its inhabitants alive (probably a reference to EP2's Grey End). The 11th floor is where Mother takes resident.

The Father and the Mother of the House are based on Charles own parents. Mother (possibly Lilith), unlike Charles/C is the true God of the House and she produces Charlotte vessels assigned with different roles for their own stories. She also manages a network from which a Charlotte can draw power from and use it to grant her wish at the cost of ending her story, thus dying permanently. Charlotte/Scarlett made a wish to save the Oracle from dying in EP1, which in return should have ended her story. But the Oracle/091 intervened by creating a channel made of Scarlett’s soul data (more info a few paragraphs below).

Father aka the Umbrella Man oversees the False Realm and provides guidance to Charlotte. Seth the Puppeteer aka us the player is named after Seth the Umbrella Man. When Umbrella Man called himself Charles in EP2′s Grey End, he wasn't Charles himself, but rather his impostor as C told Q84 at one point. Though sometimes Father may refer to Charles himself, due to the False Realm being the universe of Charles’ mind. In fact, Charles has always used a Vincent vessel in the False Realm, way back since EP1 when he helped Charlotte/Scarlett in the TV world.

After Scarlett died by Q84's hands in EP3, so did Q84. Umbrella Man granted Charles' wish to resurrect her so that her story could continue. And so Q84's soul data was uploaded into another Charlotte vessel.

Shortly after that, we were shown a flashback of V19 killing all 2nd floor inhabitants except Scarlett and taunt her to find her. She's the Charlotte unit Umbrella Man was talking about who became self-aware without Charles' interference. After Scarlett found her on the 11th floor, V19 revealed the truth of the world they live in. In disbelief, she used the Oracle’s power to transfer her consciousness into one of the Charlotte vessels to atone herself and try to understand Charlotte better. She and Charlotte from EP1 and 2 were the same person with martyr complex.

As we already know, many concepts in Hello Charlotte are based on Charles' real life experiences, including his friend Vincent's theory on how the world works. According to Vincent, every time someone dies, their soul expands like a Big Bang, forming a new universe made of entirely their own mind. Each Charlotte's soul cube is a world in itself in a form of TV box with soul data aka channels. In EP2, she didn’t think the tenants were real, so imaginary they became. She was also obsessed with the Trial, which in return manifested in her world.

With that said, those TVs we saw in EP1 were most likely Charlotte's soul cubes with their own stories. Since the Oracle in EP1 was Charlotte 091, the Pythias were actually the many Charlottes that Mother has produced in the House. Each time the channel is switched, the TV shows a different outcome - eg. one where Felix didn't die. In EP3′s bad ending, the Phythias were apparently multiple vessels for a single Charlotte.

(Btw, in EP1 many Phythias were apparently killed by the Executioners. Perhaps this is a metaphor of Charles killing off the Charlottes once their stories end?)

As we can see in EP3′s bad ending, Charlotte/Scarlett's soul cube had many channels that can be switched around yet it won't change the outcome of the story, ie. the alternate realities she was trapped in all for the sake of entertainment - proving V19's statement. The only way to put her out of misery is by destroying her soul cube, essentially killing her. On top of not being able to die until her story ends, it’s understandable why Q84 went rogue and wanted to die so badly.

Charles and Q84 left the room, leaving Charlotte/Scarlett to her fate for a while. Q84 decided to use White Society members as new vessels for Charlotte/Scarlett as an attempt to save her. We can see the old Charlotte together with Oracle, their sprites and surrounding distorted. Charlotte/Scarlett was still alive as her soul cube wasn’t destroyed. Oracle invited her to stargazing, as in leaving the story together. Seemingly depressed, she claimed everything Umbrella Man said was a lie. In EP1, Charles/C whispered something that triggered her memories, which in turn made her suicidal in EP2 (it explains the horrifying environment her channel has turned into), although that recollection somehow disappeared at one point. This could mean she didn’t stay clueless forever and at one point realized what is actually going on and that she failed to create a good ending.

In the true ending, Q84 destroyed Charlotte/Scarlett’s soul cube to free her from her fate. Charles entered the False Realm to come in terms with himself, throwing away his Vincent vessel and killing off Mother, ending the stories for good. Q84 hugged and assured him among the ruins of the House, even when Charles’ world has crumbled, a new day will still come.

(I find it really sweet how Q84 developed some empathy in both endings. It shows that she can be a semi-decent person if she wants to, however it’s hard to sympathize with people when you know the world around you is fake, you exist to please complete strangers and everything you’ve been taught is a lie.)

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tldr;

Hello Charlotte is an unnecessarily complicated story about a depressed young man who writes a self-insert fanfic about his dream girl named Charlotte Wiltshire. She has a different personality and role to fulfil in each scenario he had written. She is predisposed to be fascinated by Vincent, his own self-insert and a false God. At the same time, this also represents his own fascination with Vincent in real life.

EP3 explores the self-fulfilling nature of this as a fictional girl is made just to be abused without fighting back to create an emotional connection with the audience. Some of the defective Charlottes who lack parasites in their brains (as in what grant the Puppeteer control over a character, it’s the reason why Q84 never addressed Seth when making decisions nor can you the player influence her actions, because she lacks your guidance) became self-aware. Q84 in particular fought back against her script by being outright sociopathic, and thus much less relatable to the audience contrary to Charlotte from the previous episodes. Charles or rather Umbrella Man in disguise later asked for Scarlett’s help to stop Q84 from murdering the NPCs. She got killed in the end, so Umbrella Man suggested we should switch to a different story where Scarlett avenged her classmates instead. This is what kicks the plot of Hello Charlotte 1 & 2, separate from the events of EP3.

Some questions remained unanswered though. Judging from what was said, is White/Black End the canon ending of EP2? Charlotte/Scarlett didn't survive the Trial after all. How did Q84 materialize in the True Realm when she’s a fictional character within the House? This is perhaps a metaphor to Q84 being Charles’ favorite Charlotte. After all, Charles is the only ‘real’ person here. Even Umbrella Man’s True Realm’s appearance was only a metaphor. We all know Charles loves his imaginary friends ever since Scarlett appeared as a tulpa and Charlotte existed to fulfil his fantasies  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Since this happened after Charles committed suicide, he can bring pretty much anyone in False Realm with him. And this was probably the False Realm in fact, since Charles’ world has crumbled.

If you made it through this wall of text, I’d gladly like to hear your input :) Thanks for reading!

[thebestplltheories]

My TOP 10 episodes in all of television - spoiler free!

1. How To Get Away With Murder: Season 4, Episode 8 - Live. Live. Live

On the edge of my seat from start to end, this episode was extremely satisfying as we finally learnt what happened that night. One “what the actual fuck?” moment after the other, there is no better adjective to describe the story than ‘exciting’. Having just spent a season trying to prove that they are good people trying to move on from tangled murders, it was beyond juicy to see their lives unintentionally take a U-turn down Old Habits Road, even when their intentions were good. The writing needs to be commended in this episode not just for the witty and snappy dialogue, but for the actual intellect of the writers to think of stories of this caliber. The way the events unfolded that night were insanely satisfying and beyond my theory-brain’s ability to have ever imagined, yet, still managed to make me say “of course!” once revealed. Topped with EMMY-worthy acting from more than just the sensational lead Viola, the pure creativity and ingenuity of this episode left me feeling like these television writers could get away with murder.

2. How To Get Away With Murder: Season 4, Episode 9 - He’s Dead.

The perfect follow up to the perfect finale. This episode flowed from the previous so well that if we eliminated the “previously on”, the two episodes can stand alone as a mini movie revolving around one never-ending messed up night. The roller coaster doesn’t slow down, actually, it speeds up, which was a shock as I thought it was already going full speed. Seeing the characters fall deeper into the rabbit hole of their old habits, and then trying to dig themselves out, was entertainment at its best. Just because there were not as many “what the actual fuck?” moments as the previous episode, there were still plenty sighs of relief, grunts of anger, and throwing of the hands in the hair. The episode was very fast paced with lots of complicated stories occurring simultaneously, and successfully keeping up with them all felt like a reward in itself.

3. Pretty Little Liars: Season 7, Episode 20 - Til Death Do Us Part

Although this episode was generally not well received by most PLL veterans, I can only love this episode as it was essentially an on-screen adaptation of my written theories I made leading up to the episode. It was beyond satisfying to see that I had successfully theorised, almost to a tee, the series ending to a show that will forever be in my heart. The execution lacked, specifically in intensity and any sense of danger, however the overall story being told was very detailed and mostly clever - certainly free of plot holes, which was impressive given the convoluted state of the series at the time. The story was by no means flawless as the writers certainly missed easy opportunities to go out with a louder bang, however, after the difficult mental task of setting aside all the thoughts of what could have been, the episode can be perfectly summarised as satisfying and bittersweet. I think I will forever remember this day. June 27, 2017. It was an unforgettable experience.

4. How To Get Away With Murder: Season 2, Episode 9 - What Did We Do?

This episode elevated the show to a level I never knew it was reaching for. Other finales of this show had me screaming WTF out of pure disbelief and shock, however this finale had me screaming WTF out of disturbance - I was genuinely bothered, and made to feel uncomfortable, at the methods they used to get away with murder. This episode features one of the most iconic scenes of the entire series to date, which, if this episode had aired prior to the EMMYs, would have made Viola Davis the no-brainer winner (if she wasn’t at the time). As if the finale wasn’t gripping enough, it ended with a scene that was like a superfluous yet delicious cherry on top. The final scene redefined everything we thought we knew about two major characters and the episode overall was twisted and exciting to say the least.

5. Pretty Little Liars: Season 7, Episode 19 - Farewell, My Lovely.

The penultimate episode to the loveable series can be summarised with one word: satisfying. Unusual for this show, so much action and plot progression was perfectly fit into one episode. Further, the show finally reached my desirable ratio of mystery to romance: all mystery and no romance. An impressive amount of story was wrapped up, answering enough questions to begin the series finale without an immensely overwhelming amount of content to sort through. Whilst the answers themselves weren’t overly shocking, actually, some fan theories were more exciting than what the writers delivered, the story that was provided was undebatably logical and cohesive which made it tough to argue with. Unfortunately the writers missed a great opportunity to name-drop the show. “You’re not criminals. Not really.” Insert here: “You’re just a bunch of pretty little liars”. Whilst it would appear corny in that moment of first viewing, those feelings undoubtedly would pass with time and it would have been iconic in Pretty Little Liars history. Nonetheless, the penultimate episode served its purpose very well: it set up the series finale by answering questions that were not worth dwindling on for one more second.

6. The Fosters: Season 5, Episode 1 - Resist

Bone chilling. My goosebumps had goosebumps as I watch a mother race to find her daughter who is being held captive by a group of rapists - an action packed, nail biting story I would’ve never envisioned back at the show’s conception five years ago. Watching Callie value her friend’s lives more than her own, is upsetting but admirable, and the passion of the students protesting against the privatisation of their school that they are so proud of, is nothing short of beautiful. Leave it to The Fosters to make you feel what the characters feel, even when the character’s experiences are un-relatable. I for one, have never faced the problem of school privatisation, or, touch wood, rape. But the emotions are so raw and expertly crafted through the lens of the camera that it’s actually impossible to not feel for the characters.

7. The Fosters: Season 5, Episode 10 - Sanctuary

I’m not easy to crack, but this episode marked the first time I actually shed a tear or two of pure happiness at a television show. Trust The Fosters to pull on your heart strings. The episode deals with an immigrant who is wanted because her DACA status is pending, and the lengths that her friends go to to help her stay in the country she was raised in and calls home. It was somewhat surreal to reflect on what the show had now become: no longer is this show about a girl who wants to be adopted by a family. This is about a girl who constantly walks on fire for her friends and expects nothing in return. Police are involved, and stakes are higher than ever. The episode preached a message that isn’t said loud enough, and is one that any television-lover can watch regardless of their history (or non-existent history) with The Fosters. Whilst the juicy parts of the episode co-existed amongst a lot of romance filler which I do not care too much for, the story was so important to tell, and was told so damn well, that on this rare occasion, I was able to forgive and oversee the filler.

8. Riverdale: Season 1, Episode 12 - Anatomy of a Murder

Bombshell after bombshell, this episode surprised me not just in terms of the story’s reveals, but also the reveal that the writers want this to be a twisted thriller series. So much happened in a short time span yet it never felt overly condensed. It moved at an impressive pace that comfortably told the story in enough depth. This had everything a mystery show needs in its big important episodes: family drama, a death, alternative suspects gained or freed, the reveal of the true killer’s identity, impressive acting, another death, and a cliff hanger (literally, wink wink). It’s clear the writers gave this everything. All of this occurred in a visually stunning episode; beautiful and grand sets, vibrant and punchy colours, and powerful camera perspectives. This episode definitely could’ve proudly served as the season finale and actually, is my benchmark I use to compare all other Riverdale episodes, whereby this is what a ten out of ten looks like.

9. Supergirl: Season 2, Episode 22 - Nevertheless, She Persisted.

Excuse the cliche, but never judge a book by its cover. I never would’ve thought, ever, that a superhero show will make me feel more than just excitement at the action-packed dangerous story lines: this episode made me feel heartbreak, sorrow, shock, fear, disbelief and joy. Ruling out superhero shows because you’re not into fantasy and super-powers, is a silly move, since this episode proved yet again that Supergirl is grounded in reality, and the powers and super villains are just extra for the sake of fun. The emotions Kara goes through are human and relatable, and the emotions Supergirl goes through are still relatable, but you must dig to find the underlying meaning rather than take the red cape for face value. This episode flows so perfectly from the previous episode, Resist, that they could both pass as a two-hour movie. I struggled to decide which episode to place on this list however I ultimately decided to place this one because of its slightly higher stakes.

10. The Fosters: Season 4, Episode 1 - Potential Energy

Here The Fosters tackles the prominent issue of school shootings. It was captured in a way that sent chills down my spine, and I thanked God that I never experienced anything like that, and, honest to God, said a prayer that night that this madness stops. The brilliance of the episode is that it emphasised the shooter’s perspective too in a way that obviously didn’t justify the decision to bring a gun to school, but instead showed a range of variables that can lead someone to do this - therefore sparking conversations to potentially avoid such horror and danger. As with every single episode of The Fosters, it is simply a joy to watch Stef and Lena show their love for their kids and this episode in particular, when their lives are at risk, was heightened for the show and a damn joy to watch.

[bookwormguri]

I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to take a moment to gush about Re:Creators and why I think anyone who is a creator of art should watch it, while also not-so-subtly grumbling about the reception it’s gotten. I’ll try to remain as spoiler-free as possible.

First I want to talk about my grievances so it doesn't seem like I’m incapable of seeing the flaws of the series. Although, if you’ve read any reviews about it, nothing I say will be new info. 

Pacing: The biggest issue I had was with the pacing of the series. Unlike some, I don’t think the story could have been told in 12 or 13 episodes. Doing so would have made the large cast seem extremely unwieldy and would have sacrificed characterization. However, it seemed very obvious in the middle part that they struggled with pacing. 

For example, I practically marathoned the series, but when I saw the preview for the next episode was a hot springs episode I stopped watching for the night, convinced that an episode like that probably wouldn’t lend much to the plot (I was right). The hot springs episode was probably by far the largest annoyance, but there were many many scenes that could have been trimmed for fat. After Mamika left, almost any scene in the bad guy’s camp had me reaching for my phone to scroll through tumblr. Those scenes lacked depth after the moral compass Mamika was gone. They mostly amounted to getting a small glimpse of a new baddy and Altair brooding and being maniacal.

Altair’s Power: Which brings me to my second biggest gripe, Altair. I love her concept. The reason for her infinite power shows that the showrunners have their pulse to fandom. I know people harp on her because she’s basically a Hatsune Miku rip-off (which, if you’re pissy about characters in this show being similar to existing characters and franchises BOI do I have bad news for you about the entire concept of this show), but I don’t think that is where her weaknesses stem from. 

Part of Altair’s being is that she in infinite, almost god-like in her own right. In the universe of Re:Creators this powerset makes perfect sense and plays well into the big questions the show is asking. However, the showrunners need to remember for as meta as Re:Creators is, it is still a show. Having Altair being a walking Deus Ex Machina and coming up with a new power to perfectly counter the heroes every time is dull and gives zero constraints to her. Basically, I mean there wasn’t an ending I could see our heroes beating Altair with her infinite number of reality-bending scores. That unknown is nice for some people, but for me, it just made me afraid they were going to pull out some power of friendship bullshit at the eleventh hour.

Altair’s Motivations: I think I’m in a small camp, but I LOVE Altair’s dialogue. In the beginning, she seems like a very complicated character, the kind of wickedly smart villain that happens once in a blue moon, the kind that makes you go, “Well, they aren’t wrong, but they’re going about it all wrong.” Unfortunately, this part of her characterization gets severely played down in the second half. She turns more into a one-note villain that means nothing to defeat. In addition, since we see so much less of her in the second half it makes her resolution mean less imo (I say this and someone who cried the whole time). I adore her speech at the end. I think it was a nice callback to the line she had said only an episode or so earlier:

“Clever logic is a slave to emotion.”

And that’s what I think defines Altair as a character. She is someone who has so much despair and anger, but she justifies it with logic and simplicity. And in the end, it’s also what becomes her end. The problem is, we don’t get to see the illogical and emotional side of her often enough. Clever audience members can infer it, but this pivotal part of her character isn’t given the spotlight it needed to avoid the finale feeling OOC of her to most.

Now that we’ve gotten those out of the way, I’m free to gush and rant as much as I please! First I want to address some common critiques I’ve seen on the series:

Sota: One of the most common issues people bring up is the blandness of the “main character” Sota, or rather, the audience insert. I won’t say he is not that, but for vastly different reasons than I think others would slap that “warning” on him.

Many people are quick to label Re:Creators and reverse-isekai show. Again, I won’t argue with the genre label, but I do think that out of all the genres and themes within the series, isekai is actually pretty insignificant. Re:Creators at its core is not about “what would you do if anime characters came to the REAL WORLD,” moreover it is tackling questions about the essence of creation, media and our relation to it. So how does this relate to Sota?

I think Sota is often written off as just a “self-insert” character because that is a staple of the isekai genre, the genre that I propose is not actually that prevalent, I estimate the same with Sota. Sota is passive, yes, but he also has his own story arc and despite him saying that he is only the narrator, I think the story of Re:Creators is really all about his struggle as an artist, something I think many audience members can relate to, making him their insert. It’s not because he’s Kirito and is amazing at everything, but rather his struggles mirror our own, much more so than the larger-than-life Creations. 

(Also, I don’t stand for any BS about him being a Deus Ex Machina in the final battle. He followed Re:Creators inner world logic despite it being ‘cheating’. No foul.)

The scene in episode 9 with Sota and Magane is what I showed other people to get them into the show, to show this human character break down, hear some hard truths and get back up. Also, the fact that he was able to bring you-know-who back in the final battle shows that while he feels immense guilt, he doesn’t shy away from it. He could have very easily let his own guilt make him soften his final product, but no, he wanted something real and tangible, not something to make him feel better. To me, that shows his depth as a character.

This post here also encapsulated how I feel about Sota’s character.

Exposition: Another common critique I see is about the amount of dialogue and exposition in the series. Maybe it’s just the DM and lore-junkie in me, but I’ve never minded a lot of exposition and in Re:Creators I LOVED it. Even Meteor’s long-winded explanations. I liked them because the through them the show was promoting difficult questions, the kind that would have my old existentialism professor jumping with glee. I’ve debated sending him this series for his next film class actually, but I don’t want him to know I’m anime trash. 

I think a lot of people take issue with the exposition because of its often theoretical in nature. Naturally, the audience wants some payoff for these big ideas any rarely gets any. Unfortunately, that’s how philosophy rolls, yo. But if you’re someone like me who finds joy in pondering about multiple-world theory, film tropes and subversion and meta, this show scratches an itch you didn’t know you had.

I know that shows like this that don’t give you all the answers, that are subtle in the execution often get ragged on for their supposedly “poor writing,” often are snubbed, but that doesn’t make me appreciate them any less.

Now the things that I love unabashedly:

Music: Hiroyuki Sawano. Those no other reason I fucking need. Even though Aldanoah Zero turned out to be a big dumpster fire, you bet your ass I have the whole soundtrack on my iPod. Those OSTs are some of my main background music fodder for writing. There’s nothing quite like Sawano’s music that can convey hype with such a heroic and hopeful feeling

Theme: This is a story that touches on a lot of issues, artist block, feelings of inadequacy, working together creatively and above all, the power of imagination. I love that this series shows there is no shame in the real emotional connections we have when interacting with media. I also goes out of its way to show the power and value the audience brings to creations. It is a hopeful story that I think many of us can relate to.

I saw this line in another post, but I want to repeat it here; If you are a creator, an artist, a writer, a crafter, cosplayer, anything, this show is for you. It will show you how special and how important you are, how your contributions are valued and how you should continue to create despite hardships. It is a story that needed to be told, it is an important story. 

Thank you for reading my babble. Talk ReCre to me!

[taz-writes]

10 Questions Tag Game

@micastarsandmirrors tagged me on my main blog for this, but I’m posting it here because it seemed more appropriate. :>

1. Which author(s) inspires you the most?

Oof, hard question! Recently I’ve been really inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series--I love how he deconstructs fantasy as a genre. Guards! Guards! is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. 

2. Someone from a different world asks you, “Show me the song of your people” which earth song would you play for them?

Madeon’s Pop Culture. It’s such a genius reimagining of SO many other songs, and it encapsulates modern pop musical culture in a way that’s really fantastic. I love it. It’s not actually my favorite song, but as an example to an alien of what Earth music is, it’s a pretty good case study. 

3. How did you get the idea for your current WIP?

Feilan is drawn from the mythology of a recess game I used to play with my friends in elementary school. My friends and I would team up and LARP as our super cool powerful fairy avatars and fight the annoying boys from the classroom next door evil! As we grew up, the lore of Fairyland grew darker and more complicated, and I borrowed bits and pieces of dozens of other stories to glue them to my self insert and my friends’. We grew out of the game, but the paracosm we’d created stuck with me. Around sixth grade, I started putting those old recess games into writing! 

4. Which of your characters is a lover not a fighter and which is a fighter not a lover?

Honestly, most of my characters are both! Feilan is an action story and the majority of the cast is prepared to throw down at any time. I think Lavender is the lover-not-a-fighter. She’s a healer, after all, and she prefers to avoid conflict. The fighter is definitely Amalie. 

5. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what do you listen to?

Sometimes! It depends on my mood, and what kind of scene I’m trying to write. Usually, I prefer instrumental music. I have a class at school where the homework is just listening to a few hours of classical music, so I’ll do that a lot while I write. Otherwise... video game music is the way to go. Undertale has a freaking amazing soundtrack. Also, I’m still quite fond of the Homestuck music albums.... They have a lot of great songs for setting a mood. 

6. What’s the best way to piss off your main OC?

Tell her she’s not good enough to be worthy of something. Bonus points if you imply her opinions don’t matter, or bring up her birth status. That’ll get her riled up in half a second flat. 

7. What inspired you to write your current WIP(S)?

Oh boy here we go, here’s the novel. Feilan’s backstory is long and very emotional.

When I was growing up, I could never find stories to read that actually gave me what I wanted. I was raised on that early-2000s strand of Girl Power(tm) that was really obsessed with characters who are girls fighting the patriarchy and everyone cares that they’re girls because there’s clearly nothing more important about their characters........ Either that or they were just straight up annoying. I adored Winx Club but every time the girls went shopping another piece of me died. I had a well-established Not Like Other Girls complex but at the same time reading characters who thought like that was really annoying? There were a lot of things I hated in the stories I read growing up: inescapable love interests, tiny sparkly boring fairies, the anti-sue genre of Plain Modest Protagonists who aren’t allowed to be powerful or even aware that they could be, female characters who can’t do anything without reminding us that they’re girls and girls can’t normally do this but I can and look how special that is!!, the inevitable Girl Media Shopping Montage... et cetera. 

I didn’t want that. I wanted Lord of the Rings, but with girls, and maybe a cute boy!Galadriel. I wanted a story where girls being heroes wasn’t a big deal, or even worth questioning. I couldn’t find those things, so I decided I’d make my own, drawn out of my shameless childhood power fantasies. Feilan is an aggressive defiance of pretty much all the tropes in the last paragraph. I’ve stuck to it so doggedly because even now, I still have trouble finding stories with the kinds of characters I want to read about. I’ve always been super invested in stories about characters who are Like Me, who are girls with feminine and masculine interests, who have ADHD but are still smart anyways, who are short and built strong instead of slender. I used to refuse to watch cartoons unless there was at least one blonde girl that I could latch onto who wasn’t a stereotype Popular Girl. More recently, I want to see characters who are bi like me, where nobody makes a big deal out of it. I don’t even like romance stories, I don’t understand why it has to matter if X likes girls and boys! Just let her do that and get her girlfriend and get back to saving the world! And I fucking hate stories that pretend to be progressive by driving in over and over again how X character is a girl, X character is so gay--the ultimate result is just reminding me that I’m weird somehow. By... being a person, I guess. I hate those narratives so much but especially in mainstream YA, they’re practically inevitable? 

So I wanted to write Feilan so I could have the story I wanted to read but never found, about characters who are like me and dealing with my problems and my strengths and my fears. And I’ve kept writing it because I still want that, and I want Feilan to be that story for other people too, because I don’t think I’m alone here. It’s also a major outlet for my emotions. 

This is a long answer, but I think it’s pretty clear why. :)

8. What is the last book/series you finished reading?

The last book I read was an English translation of Ghost Opera by Mercedes Roffe, which I read for a class I’m taking right now in the art of translation. It’s very far away from my usual fantasy genre, but I really enjoyed it! If you like neat artsy poetry, give it a look sometime, especially if you speak Spanish and can experience it in the original language. 

9. What finally made you say, “Wow! I really like writing, I’m gonna keep doing this”?

When I was in fourth grade I won a local writing contest with a cute little poem about nature, and I got to go to a book fair event and read it out loud in a fancy auditorium, and I was SO UNBELIEVABLY STOKED. My mom was really proud of me, too. A couple people complimented the poem to me afterwards and it made my year. I decided that I wanted to win again the next year, and started taking poetry more seriously. 

10. What’s your favorite thing about writing?

Rereading my work. It’s so incredible to me sometimes, because I can and will cry over events in my own story, and I get so happy reading over the triumphs of my own OCs that I wrote out with my own hands and there’s something so beautiful and powerful about seeing these ideas that I created in my brain grow wings and fly. I cried a lot, when I printed out the first draft of Feilan’s book 1 and held it in my hands. That’s mine! I did that! I did all of that, and now I can hold it and see it and show people! 

I’m now tagging @pumapauus @greenhousewriting @jaidynwrites @hklunethewriter and anyone else who’s interested to answer these 10 questions, then write your own and pass it on! Feel free to ignore if you don’t have the time :) Anyone else who sees this and is interested, you’re welcome to answer too and say I tagged you!

1. What does your workspace look like? Do you have a designated ‘writing area’? 

2. Do you prefer to write solo heroes or ensemble casts? 

3. Which of your characters reminds you the most of yourself?

4. What’s one trait your main OC has that you wish you had, too?

5. Have you changed or removed any major elements of your current WIP since its original draft/concept? What was the biggest change, and why did you make it? 

6. If you had to give your main WIP a theme song, what would it be?

7. What’s your favorite non-writing-related hobby?

8. What are some of your favorite books? 

9. What’s your favorite trope to read and/or write? What’s your least favorite? 

10. What do you love most about your own work and why? 

[sneakystorms]

I’m compiling my “reading campbell as an utena fan” reblogs into one post cuz that was getting ridiculous. 

Literally no one asked for this but i took Campbell’s hero with a thousand faces out of the library and I’m going to note anything that reminds me of revolutionary girl utena. Here we go

Literally the first thing in the book, a picture of medusa’s head. I’m suddenly reminded of how much emphasis there is on anthy’s coiling locks of hair as well as her eyes. I read in a liveblog that it’s significant kanae was struck by seeing anthy’s eyes when she removed her glasses - the glasses serve as a protective measure meant to conceal anthy’s emotion, but also her power. Reminds me of how modern reimaginings of medusa always wear dark glasses to not turn people to stone.

Page 7, on unsolved childhood issues: “we remain fixated to the unexercised images of our infancy, and hence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood” It’s not very revolutionary to suggest that this is one of the main themes of the show; akip remains in his adolescent state of having left behind his childishly idealistic self (or rather been forced to leave it by anthy) but refusing to progress to true adulthood, choosing rather to fruitlessly chase that childhood state. Other characters are guilty of this too, of course, but it’s less striking because they’re actual adolescents - this is a somewhat expected (though Campbell wpuld argue, not natural) stage in their development, whereas akio is clearly past his due date and dragging everyone down with him.

Page 30, on myths and fairy tales - “typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historical, macrocosmic triumph” Not super relevant to rgu itself, but I’d often wonder about the relationship between myth an fairy tale, seeing as rgu relates heavily to both. Utena’s revolution, in the end, is microcosmic - she helped a friend, and achieved a higher degree of self awareness than before.

Page 32, on the world navel: “the torrent pours from an invisible source, the point of entry being the center of the symbolic circle of the universe, the Immovable Spot of the Buddha Legend, around which the world may be said to revolve. (…) the tree of life, i.e., the universe itself, grows from this point. It is rooted in the supporting darkness; the golden sun bird perches on its peak; a spring, the inexhaustible well, bubbles at its foot. Or the figure may be that of a cosmic mountain, with the city of the gods, like a lotus of flight, upon its summit, and in its hollow the cities of the demons, illuminated by precious stones.” WHEW. Where to even begin. In the context of ohtori this would obviously be the gate in the forbidden forest, and the arena itself. There is a spring of sorts at its bottom (even a wall of water), and a bird figure features at the gate. The arena with its staircase resembles a rose, which is close enough to a tree. You could even see the black rose’s basement as the demon hollows.Of course, we eventually find out that it’s all fake, a stage set by akio with anthy’s help, which in this context positions akio as a sort of false god.

Page 35, again on the world navel: “wherever a hero has been born, has wrought, or has passed back into the void, the place is marked and sanctified. (…) someone at this point discovered eternity. (…) the one who enters the temple compound and proceeds to the sanctuary is imitating the deed of the original hero. His aim is to rehearse the universal pattern as a means of evoking within himself the recollection of the life-centering, life-renewing form.” This one mostly caught my attention because of the word eternity, but then i thought of dios’s grave… Since his grave, the arena and akio’s planetarium are really one and the same, it could easily follow that anyone who enters it is seeking to emulate dios, or the prince archetype in abstract. This certainly applies to utena and akio, and perhaps other duelists as well to some extent.

OH WE GETTING TO THE TASTY PART NOW…… ANTHY TIME BITCHHH ITS THE MEETING WITH THE GODDESS CHAPTEROk immediately I’m struck by the phrase “the queen goddess”. I know akio says he thought of anthy as a goddess once, I’m trying to remember if anyone ever refers to her as a queen… she’s mostly seen in context of the princess-witch dichotomy but once you really get down to it it’s more complicated, like is the rose bride basically the epitome of the princess archetype? It does include hyperfemininity, victimhood, obedience, passivity and power that can be obtained by marrying her but which she cannot wield herself… but the rose bride role is also explicitly tied to the witch, since it’s anthy’s punishment for imprisoning dios… It’s also interesting how despised she is - the princess role is supposed to be respectable (especially if we connect the princess witch dichotomy to the Madonna whore complex) but anthy is constantly mistreated and degraded - which, yes, makes her more of a princess in Utena’s (and the viewer’s) eyes, but is also a direct result of her role as the rose bride. If the rose bride position is basically the dragon that the prince has to save the princess from then can the rose bride be synonymous with the princess?Wait I was originally going to talk about something else I think. Well anyway I guess the Ockham’s razor is that the narrative had to make sense somehow and couldn’t JUST be metaphors but. Idk man food for thought. Maybe the rose bride as a role is supposed to be a blend of the princess and witch traits, or maybe it’s meant to showcase how the two are just different sides of the same coin. Anyway I’m one sentence into this chapter and my bedtime is in 7 minutes

Campbell describes the two types of goddesses as representing the good mother - forever youthful, beautiful and kind - and the bad mother - split here into four types but generally cold and distant. I’m tempted to connect the two to the princess and the witch (or the Madonna and the whore) but Campbell explicitly connects the bad mother to Diana and emphasises her chastity, when sexuality is such a big part of both the witch and the whore… hmm

K it’s late so I’ll continue sometime else but I wanted to mention that this whole thing was a result of reading this fantastic essay on anthy and specifically the part about Campbell’s goddess

Page 97, still on the goddess: “woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his fetters. And if he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known, will be released for every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. ” This is the passage quoted in the essay that inspired me… The part about transfigurations is painfully reminiscent of anthy for sure, but the “she can never be greater than himself” sounds more like utena to me, makes me think of that digibro quote about how romantic interests in self insert power fantasy shounen anime (either Sao or asterisk war in this case) are often supposed to be the second best warrior right after the number one hero because they’re a sort of status symbol but of course can’t undermine the hero’s ego. Similarly akio wants utena at her strongest and only wants her because she is the strongest but still wants her beneath him. Also the phrasing of “the knower and the known” is so telling…. Even if a woman is meant to signify great knowledge it’s still in a way that makes her something passive, an object for the hero to consume. This reminds me of the born sexy yesterday video where he remarks on how even if the female character is supposed to be impossibly wise it just means the male hero is the one who gets to “discover” her

Page 99, still on the meeting with the goddess: “and when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is the one who, by her qualities, her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends to her and conducts her to his bed-whether she will or no. And if she has shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire finds its peace” God, what a creepy and accurate way to portray utena and akios relationship. He sees her as worthy of becoming his bride, he rapes her, he almost has her serve herself to him on a golden platter until she decides to pick up the sword and fight him. He sees himself as her god.

desktop is really fucking this up depending on what device i rb on but alas. lets continue. surprisingly enough i don’t have much to say about the woman as temptress chapter in relation to anthy because now that i think about it, the men of ohtori don’t really see her as one? nanami does, and maybe kozue too, but anthy generally isn’t very proactive when it comes to romance or sex… I guess Miki would be the closest example, since she seems to consciously try and get his attention by playing the piano, but Miki is pretty oblivious to it, so.Trying to think of other characters who might fit that trope… Kozue does act pretty provocative both towards the random dude she flirted with and Miki, but their relationship is one I don’t have much of a grip on tbh. Really the tempting spotlight is pretty firmly on Touga and Akio in this show haha

reading the “atonement with the father” chapter and, like, it’s kind of annoying how much the male hero is the default in this book, with the female hero only an occasional mention, but it does remind me of anthy’s incredibly fucking disturbing line about how akio is “more like her father” since their parents are nowhere to be seen. i don’t really have anything profound to say, but it is pretty interesting that parents are such a non-entity in rgu, given how prominent the mother and father figures are in psychoanalysis and archetype theory. should akio be read as anthy’s father, acting as one in the absence of the real thing, the same way he acts as the chairman? i’m not super familiar with the electra complex theory, but if the resolution to the oedipus complex is letting go of the unhealthy attachment to to mother and reconciliation with the father, i guess the analogous resolution to the electra complex would be letting go of the father? which anthy, in this reading, does do… but then again in rgu it’s akio who rapes anthy and we see him rather than her initiating sex so i doubt the writers had uncritically reproducing freud’s theory in mind

nothing too insightful but in the chapter the magic flight campbell talks about a welsh myth about Caridwen and she seems like a perfect witch character

page 209, on freedom to live - campbell quotes the end of the grimm brothers’ little briar rose, but precedes it with “When the Prince of Eternity kissed the Princess of the World, her resistance was allayed”. the phrasing of course caught my eye, but i’d never really seen anyone go in depth about the similarity between sleeping beauty and utena’s childhood story… the shadow-faced version that sometimes appears at the start of an episode omits utena sleeping in her coffin, but includes the prince kissing her tears away - something that did happen in the ep34 flashback, but was not what made baby utena get up. i suppose i don’t have anything terribly profound to say about the relationship between rgu and sleeping beauty, aside from some similar elements - the sleeping princess kissed awake by her prince, the princess in the grimms’ version being called briar rose, and the unspecified thorny bushes possibly being roses as well… and the witch, of course

page 259, matrix of destiny. “The universal goddess makes her appearance to men under a multitude of guises; for the effects of creation are multitudinous, complex and of mutually contradictory kind when experienced from the viewpoint of the created world. the mother of life is at the same time the mother of death; she is masked in the ugly demonesses of famine and disease. The Sumero-Babylonian astral mythology identified the aspects of the cosmic female with the phases of the planet Venus. As morning star she was the virgin, as evening star the harlot, as lady of the night sky the consort of the moon; and when extinguished under the blaze of the sun she was the hag of hell” campbell continues to insist on tying every female character back to the mother, which doesn’t really seem to be very relevant with anthy, but i’m digging the various aspects of the woman. seems interesting to me how this is at least the second time he’s characterised the woman in myths as someone constantly changing roles and aspects (first time was on page 97) whereas i don’t really see this tendency in male characters. women seem to need to constantly adapt, shift their identity to suit the male character, who is allowed to remain stably himself. also fascinating are the particular archetypes campbell brings up - the virgin (princess), the harlot (rose bride? the position does seem to be given respect on some level, but in practice she doesn’t get much... add to that the design elements tying her to the “scarlet woman”, and possibly even the playboy bunnies, and her duties do seem to include sleeping with every Engaged if the movie is anything to go by), consort of the moon (we all know what akio and anthy’s connection to the moon...) and the hag of hell (witch)

this has very little to do with rgu but reading the Mwuetsi/Massassi myth kinda makes me sick lol!!! not only does it include the first man being given a woman but he symbolically impregnates her with some oil from a horn (subtle, also done without her knowledge since she was asleep) and she gives birth to all the plants on earth. ew

UH OK HE THEN GOES ON TO SLEEP WITH HIS DAUGHTERS.... AND THEN TO RAPE HIS NEXT WIFE.......... MR CAMPBELL CAN I GO like i know it’s old myths so it’s all symbolic or whatever but that doesn’t make it any easier to read lol

page 296, an offhand comment of “The characteristic adventure of the first [type of hero] is the winning of the bride - the bride is life” and my brain automatically supplied “life... eternity... that which shines... the power of miracles... the power to revolutionise the world” LMAO

[wanderingthroughwickford]

Thank you! My responses are super long (especially for M asdflkasdfjkasdf) so most of them will be under a cut.

A – How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?

Since no fic was specified, I think I’ll just go back through some of the ones I’ve got up on FFN. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, to be honest. ‘Eternity’ is so named because Myrtle is stuck at Hogwarts, in her teenage form and mindset, for, well, eternity. ‘And Then There Was One’ (a probably discontinued Hunger Games/Nancy Drew crossover) is also fairly obvious; it’s the Hunger Games so it’s inevitably going to come down to one person, and I also couldn’t resist shoehorning in a completely unnecessary reference to And Then There Were None since it’s also based off a mystery series. ‘Unstained’ refers to Wiress’ promise in the game to not ‘stain’ herself by committing murder in the games, and if I ever write its sequels they’ll follow the ‘Un’ formula – I’ve always intended the final fic in the prospective trilogy to be called ‘Unchained,’ but we’ll see if I ever get there.

I think the one that actually gave me the most trouble coming up with a title was ‘Goodbye,’ a Pirates of the Caribbean one-shot I wrote way back in 2009. I couldn’t seem to come up with a clever enough title for the fic, until I asked my mom for help and she suggested simply ‘Goodbye.’ I decided that in this case, less was more, and so the title stuck.

C – What character do you identify with most?

The ones that I’ve written for, I guess this means? I suppose I’ll have to go with Myrtle and Wiress. Although they definitely both have more tragic lives than I do, I still put a lot of myself into them – I outright headcanon Wiress as having Asperger’s Syndrome and being uninterested in romance, so I find her quite easy to write in that way, and a lot of her moralistic, somewhat self-righteous attitude at the beginning of Unstained (which she’ll eventually grow out of, fortunately) draws a lot from how I now see myself as having acted as a young teenager. Her somewhat morbid obsession with past Hunger Games and their victims has roots in my own (sometimes borderline depressing) fascination with shipwrecks such as the Titanic and Lusitania. 

Myrtle I headcanon with some sort of unspecified mental illness, or at least deep insecurities and oversensitivity, and having trouble making and keeping friends. Her friendship with Murcia draws on some of the tentative friendships I had with girls in older grades, and – though this didn’t come through in the story for various reasons that would take a whole other ask to explain, and which I’m not entirely satisfied with but anyway – I definitely see Myrtle as having had a complicated crush on her, but never fully recognizing or accepting it for what it was because she wasn’t raised in a time or a society where girls loving other girls was normalized. Which, again, big part of my teenage years. Plus, the social awkwardness, introversion, and anxiety that both girls have is something I definitely relate to in general.

F – Care to share a favourite hurt/comfort fic?

Oh boy, that’s a tall order as there are so many, but the two that jump to mind immediately are Intersection by yadon/Copernicus Jones/Jake-Marshall and Pity the Child by Tanglepelt/Bookworm555. Intersection holds a very special place in my heart as it was written by my friend Leanne, featuring one of her favorite Ace Attorney characters, Jake Marshall, interacting with my OC Denise Swallow. Pity the Child was written by my friend Becca and involves two more of my faves – America and Latvia from Hetalia – having heartwarming interactions. Both are very good fics.

M – Got any premises on the back burner that you’d like to share?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha

Well

It’d be easier to list fics I’ve actually completed than fics that are in various stages of planning

But if you insist

(This is the super LONG part and gets a little emotional towards the end) 

The fic that I’d most like to complete within the foreseeable future is ‘Unstained,’ my story about Wiress’ Hunger Games. I’d say it’s about half-finished now, and I haven’t updated it in almost 4 years. That might change in the future; I’d like to get at least a few more chapters done this summer, but I don’t think it’s humanly possible to get it finished before I leave for Ontario, and then I’ll be so busy for a solid year that I doubt I’ll be able to write anything. And that’s not even counting the two prospective sequels I’d like to write. But even finishing this fic would be a major life accomplishment for me, as it’s one of those that I’m proudest of.

Then I have at least three fics about my Ace Attorney OC, Denise Swallow, which I’d like to write, though they’ll probably all be one-shots. Two of them are partially written, one isn’t even started yet. One of them would be a brief overview of the few times she met Dahlia Hawthorne, the infamous culprit who ended up murdering her brother. Another one, the longest and weightiest of the three, would involve her meeting Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, who channels the spirit of her brother so that she can properly say good-bye. The last one would involve her meeting up with Dahlia’s sister, Iris, and coming to some sort of closure there.

A lot of my fic-writing is taking a backseat to a much more personal fic-universe-of-sorts that I’m working on, involving practically all of my favorite fandoms thrown together into an incredibly complicated storyline. It’s completely self-indulgent and not something I’d really want to share a lot about here, but one of the major plotlines I’m constructing in it would involve a villain-to-anti-hero redemption arc for Lucy Bauer from Agents of Shield. I’ll admit that I have toyed, very briefly, with the idea of converting this into proper FanFiction if and when I ever complete it, but that’s honestly very unlikely because 1) I’d have to remove it from its crossover context, 2) I’d have to insert it into either AoS season 5 canon, which hasn’t even been filmed yet, or an alternate version of season 5, and 3) it seems completely implausible within the story’s canon. Plus, there’s the inevitable ‘no one would read it’ problem. 

In the past couple months I’ve considered writing an And Then There Were None Hunger Games AU, as well as a brief oneshot about Soldier Island being haunted by the ghosts of the ATTWN victims, but I’m very unlikely to do anything with those. There’s still my Nancy Drew Hunger Games AU left unfinished, but if I get back to that, it’ll be entirely as a way to blow off steam, rather than to try and write anything especially good. Just today I was attacked by the idea of writing a Lord of the Rings fic about Aragorn returning Boromir’s arm braces to Faramir and telling him how his brother died, but again, just a passing fancy that I’m very unlikely to write.

And that’s just the tip of it. There are so many FanFiction ideas I’ve considered writing and abandoned. The 8 fics I have up on FFN are the few lucky ideas that actually came to fruition, even though a good deal of them are unfinished as well. I’m honestly amazed that I was even able to finish ‘Eternity,’ or get as far as I have on ‘Unstained.’ I have an X-Men Evolution fic up that was originally supposed to be a multichap of 10-15 chapters, and it hasn’t been updated since 2011. When I was in high school I planned out a whole series of Pirates of the Caribbean fics chronicling James Norrington’s life, from childhood until his death, but I only ever got the first chapter of one written and never posted it. (Partially because I sort of balked at the HUGE amount of research I’d planned to do on 18th-century naval life for that fic). I’d like to go back to this one idea I had for a Hetalia fic, a series of one-shots about times in which the characters have wished they were humans rather than nations, but again, research would be necessary and it’s so draining.

That’s the problem. I love thinking up ideas and planning stories and having them finished, but at the end of the day, the act of writing itself is such a chore for me. And I hate that. I wish I could write effortlessly, like I used to as a kid, but I haven’t been able to do so since I was 12 or so. Which, coincidentally, is the time my depression started to majorly set in. I don’t know if the two are connected, but I can’t help but wonder if mental illness robbed me of a pastime that I dearly loved, and of countless fics I could have written by now.

(I know this is long and cheesy and overemotional, but cut me some slack, it’s almost 1 am) 

O – How do you begin a story – with the plot, or the characters?

You know, this is strange, because when I first saw this question I thought, of course I start with the plot, who would just say “I want to write a story about [character]” without even having any idea of what the plot would be yet? And then I realized that that’s exactly what I do – start with a character I want to write about and come up with a plot based off that. In fact, most of my stories aren’t even plot-driven much as just general looks into the lives of certain characters.

Y – A character you want to protect

Hah, it seems like the characters I want to protect and the characters I end up putting through torture are exactly the same. The two that jump to mind right away are – my sun and my stars and everything, the one and only APH Latvia, and my precious ghostly daughter, Myrtle Warren (Moaning Myrtle). And yet I endlessly read fics in which the former, and wrote a fic in which the latter, suffers. Whoops.

[woe-and-grow]

tbpdfw*

Those Childhood behaviors & experiences that I now get knowing I have bpd like:

Oh yeah identity issues:

Not understanding why when actors’ spoke about a character they were playing they treated it like a separate person because for me playing pretend meant becoming that character, another version of myself

Transfixing on my friend’s TigerBeat magazines even though I didn’t care about celebrities and getting a subscription myself just for the quizzes 

Getting really attached to specific words or phrases that you thought fit you or that other ppl used to describe you (for me it was “unique”, “empath”, not “normal”)

Using others’ descriptions of you as the way to describe yourself and your role in your own life (has big eyes, has nice smile, intelligent, artist)

Going to the bathroom in school to escape and end up just staring at myself in the mirror and asking who am I? I don’t recognize myself

Taking in bad descriptions of yourself and mean comments as truth as well (annoying, loud, talkative, sensitive, judgmental; you interrupt too much, you complain too much, you always think you’re right)

Getting really attached to IPod Touch backgrounds and saving ones that I thought represented me

Saving screencaps of the results of random silly quizzes as if collecting “facts” about myself

Taking on personality traits from a TV show character I liked and wanted to be like, wanting to dress like them, and wanting ppl to call me by the character’s name as a nickname

Quoting “Forgive and forget, that’s my motto” from a TV show character because it sounded cool and Right even though it wasn’t at all true about myself

Trying to copy some self-harming techniques I had heard to make my depression feel more valid

Throwing out a chocolate with caramel inside even though I liked it because I had previously always said I hated caramel and couldn’t contradict that

Acting like moments between you and another person or you in general were part of a movie and you had an imagined script of what dramatic thing you should say

Wanting attention & validation:

Doing and saying whatever to make adults you liked laugh or give you positive attention 

Finished painting a picture I was proud of (around age 3-5), my friend/neighbor who I’m painting with just finished finger painting something as well. My mom praises her and calls her choice to finger paint creative. I immediately smear my entire picture with my fingers

Carrying around a book of writings that I covered the outside with notes about it being “top secret” and “do NOT read” in the hopes of attracting interest so that someone would try to read it

Telling my best friend I *insert suicide ideation here* to hear her reaction in the hope of concern and attention

Biting at my mouth and lips in attempts of (unsuccessfully) hurting myself and getting attention after reading the book Speak in which a girl does the same in response to trauma

Talking nonstop, loudly and quickly in attempts to be heard; Having problems interrupting people in conversation  as I was used to being ignored and having limited time to be heard

Oversharing in class about personal experiences

Black and white thinking

Seeing my darker shift in mood as the new “bad” me vs the younger happier idealized version of myself as the old “good” me

Drawing images of broken mirrors, broken hearts, and thorny plants to represent this Bad new me vs regular hearts and thriving pretty plants as the old Good me

Seeing ppl as either minor acquaintances or Best Friends, no inbetween  

Feeling like ppl, even best friends, couldn’t get me and therefore we shouldn’t be friends anymore

Getting mad at ppl for having different opinions because they were Wrong

Unstable moods; Depression and thoughts of suicide or self-harm 

Feeling broken, wrong and messed up constantly for not being as happy as I once remembered

Writing dramatic sad poems about a perceived loss of innocence aka growing up which I concluded was the reason for the change

Leaving class just to wander under the guise of going to the bathroom, linger at windows and fantasize about running away somewhere happy

Continuously thinking about and wanting to break the mirrors but knowing it would be messy and probably hurt and I’d get in trouble

Feeling like I wanted to die before knowing what that meant and feeling like no one could save me

Punching my desk and the school porcelain sinks to feel my knuckles sting; scraping my hands with pens by drawing rough repeated lines over the skin to “punish” myself for being “bad”

Self-harming before knowing what that meant

Prolonging eating to punish yourself with hunger but giving into eating eventually

Feeling weak about not being able to commit to doing serious harm to myself

Having episodes of loss of interest in all things I found fun; feeling numb

Erratic sleeping patterns

Wanting to call in sick from school or pretend your sick to stay home because you just feel awful and don’t know why

Wanting to die on the way to school, passively feeling okay with the thought you might get hit by a car or bus

Unstable relationships; Imprinting, FPs, (Perceived) Abandonment & Splitting

Getting super attached to my first best friend in kindergarten and being convinced we’d be best friends forever 

Coming home crying every other day the next year when she got new friends who all didn’t want me around them

“Testing out” a new friend group everyday to try and find a place I felt like I belonged  

Spending recess after recess walking around alone and watching all the other kids play together reasoning everyone has a friend but me

Not playing with other kids who invited me to because they weren’t my Best Friend (cough baby’s first FP cough)

Getting super attached to my new neighbor/friend and jumping at any chance to hang out with her even when she was mean to me or didn’t really want to hang out with me

When she suddenly started avoiding me and stopped talking to me after years of friendship I went from hurt to completely uncaring as if we were never friends at all

At my new school, I once again spent my time trying out new friend groups and dropping them when they didn't fit me and ended up in the small assortment of “rejects” 

Going back and forth between being best friends, feeling better than them, feeling bad that they were putting energy into someone who really didn’t care

Feeling like I was pretending and didn’t care about them as much as they cared about me (none of them were my FP) and therefore we shouldn’t be friends at all 

Getting super attached to a new girl in school because I didn’t have any close friends and we were both Guyanese and therefore somehow connected; saying embarrassing things to her about how I felt detached from other friends and much closer to her in the span of only a few days

She told my other friend that I was like an annoying “dog” following her around and she switched schools within the next few weeks

I immediately into the “she never existed” mode of detachment 

Writing dramatically “I’m sorry I wasn’t a good friend to you when you were such a good friend to me” in my friend’s yearbook (knowing he wouldn’t see it until years later)

Getting super attached to and oversharing with teachers who showed me particular kindness and attention

Getting depressed when I noticed they showed kindness and attention individually to other students

Feeling not good enough or healthy enough to be in relationships

These are my personal experiences but maybe they are relatable to others with bpd.

((This is super long but I just felt like it needed to be said and shown that ppl with bpd often have signs of early symptoms in childhood that get worse later and that they often don’t understand until later. Hope this gives others with bpd some clarity.))

(EDIT: Remembered some more)

((EDIT - PLEASE READ:

This post is making large rounds recently and I feel I need to address it. A lot of time has passed since I made this post and I am in a much better place than I was when I made it. All of what I posted here is still true, in that they are my personal experiences. HOWEVER, I am no longer certain if bpd is what I have/had experienced. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, and extreme emotional highs and lows, as well as the symptoms listed in this post, but as I have grown and removed many of the more toxic elements and behaviors from my life, I no longer feel the daily swings that fit bpd. I am removing the bpd tags as such. I believe mental illness can be complicated and overlap with various disorders/conditions. Life and its effects on us as children and adults can be complex as well. 

I am glad people can find some comfort or clarity in this post, but my intention when I made it was NOT for people to use it as a clear sign they have borderline personality disorder. I want people who read this to access what they are experiencing and take everything here with a grain of salt, before self-diagnosing and talk to a trusted professional.

Take care.