#spinels execution

[ask-horizons-au]

Lizzy come to spinels execution day, he is getting electic chaired :3

Lizzy: BET

Amethio: I'm coming too istg-

[void-thevoid]

pure impulse won this time. i don't even know.

[cloudbends]

Ouh... Pokemon horizons....

[manicpixieyandere]

The Genius Of Not Labeling Jinx

The Messiness Of Labels

Jinx from Arcane is known as the poster girl for borderline personality disorder, but today we wanted to talk about some of the other conditions she has symptoms of (but doesn't necessarily qualify for) and why it was smart to not label her.

Let's go over the different conditions Jinx could have:

Of course first we have BPD. Not gonna spend too much time on this one but she hits all nine of the diagnostic criteria!

Schizophrenia:

Jinx is seen to hallucinate many times in the show. She gets visual hallucinations of her family she has guilt over killing. She experiences overlays of child like drawings. She has auditory hallucinations and delusions as well.

BPD can come with hallucinations and delusions but it tends to more often be auditory hallucinations and delusions of grandeur than anything else. Schizophrenia and bipolar are the conditions more likely to cause the type of psychosis Jinx experiences.

DID/OSDD:

An argument could also be made for Jinx nearing a dissociative disorder. We haven't seen much of the show from the season two trailers, but they do seem to be hinting at Jinx embracing Powder a bit more.

It is common in BPD for the person to believe they are a completely different person than their past self. We think this is well represented in characters like Spinel from Steven Universe or Ashley Graves (Leyley) from The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. This is of course also shown in Jinx with Powder.

But Jinx and Powder's differences go a bit beyond the typical BPD self image issues. Their personalities while similar, are quite different. And instead of Powder staying purely in the past, Jinx switches between the two personalities. You can see her face change to be more soft like Powder in certain scenes. (They quite literally transform her face).

Some other differences are; Jinx is represented by pink, while Powder tends to be blue. Jinx is left handed while Powder is right handed (she uses her left to shoot, right for other stuff). Jinx is the daughter of Silco, Powder is the daughter of Vander. Both are the child of Zaun.

Jinx is of course also known to dissociate in many scenes. (As a side detail we just love how well animated the face acting is).

While Jinx fits BPD best it is also important to note that comorbidity is a real thing. While rare, all three of these conditions can be had at the same time. Personality disorders and dissociative disorders especially tend to be comorbid.

The most likely reason Jinx isn't diagnosed with anything is stigma. Giving a terrorist a mental illness may come off a demonizing. But Jinx is still loved by the neurodivergent community because her symptoms and trauma are treated with care. She's a fun relatable character. But we think another genius reason is because she's all encompassing. Saying she has BPD may make anyone who doesn't have BPD immediately think "oh, well then I won't find her relatable". But in an age where fandom likes relatability and kins the most, you cannot afford that. Instead really any neurodivergent can see themselves in her.

This is both a smart strategy but also just an accurate portrayal of how real life ends up looking. Medical conditions are technically social constructs. That's not to say they aren't real, but that they are labeled by humans. It's a list of behaviors the body or brain executes. But humans are messy! Who's to say one person is gonna nearly fit into that BPD box? Eventually you get to a point where you have someone diagnosed with 10 or so mental conditions! (Hi yes it's us, we have been diagnosed with 10). Humans were not made to fit into boxes. You see this pattern with queer identities all the time as well. The creation of microlabels has greatly helped people categorize and understand themselves, but at the end of the day the most accurate label is: you. You are you. Insert name here is Insert name here.

Thanks for listening to the ramblings of a mad Jinx kinnie. Here's to hoping season two is just as good as the first one! Still absolutely loving Jinx's new look!

[comrade-emma]

Why the Diamond Redemption Doesn’t Work

About a year ago I wrote a post defending Steven Universe and Steven’s character writing. Since then my views have changed a bit and while I don’t think Steven is as much of a wuss as those Jack Horner or Hitler memes make him out to be, I can understand some of the gripes with the Diamond’s redemption. While Lily Orchard is a shitty person, I do side eye some of the people who hate her especially due to transmisogyny getting worse and her being a trans woman that doesn’t pass well and while some of her criticisms of the show are unfair, others were those black fans already had discussed regarding the show’s anti blackness with Sugilite and Bismuth and I’m going to explain why the Diamonds redemption doesn’t work by comparing them to similar characters.

In most stories that redeemed a fascist, abusive or genocidal villain, something was done to ensure that they would be incapable of causing further harm. Darth Vader, Kylo Ren and Gendo Ikari all died. They may have committed a heroic sacrifice and gotten acceptance from Luke, Rey and Shinji but that’s it. Vader and Kylo did go to Jedi heaven and Gendo was allowed to reunite with Yui in death but they still had to die as their crimes were too great to forgive. People can criticize how well executed these redemptions were but they only reconciled with one person and no one was forced to forgive them.

As for villains who were given a second chance and continued to live, something was still done to prevent them from hurting others. Lord Ozai had his powers taken away by Aang. ATLA has also been criticized for falling into white liberalism but at least Ozai still faced consequences. Ben directly targeted the Highbreed’s racist ideology by forcing them to walk in the shoes of those they tried to genocide by mixing their DNA with the omnitrix’s aliens. Lord Garmadon was corrupted by the Great Devourer and later Oni blood after his resurrection and he had to prove both times he had changed by taking a vow of nonviolence and helping the Ninja. Harumi’s redemption was criticized for being rushed but at least she had lost her powers and was implied to be under police surveillance in Crystalized. All these villain characters got off easy but at least had something done to remove their ability to cause harm.

In some cases a villain would be offered redemption and chose to reject it. That would have been a way to keep Steven a pacifist while still destroying the diamonds via their own actions. Lord Shen was offered a second chance despite everything he had done to Po and rejected it which caused his own death. Emperor Belos tried to manipulate Luz and was rightfully treated as the liar he was. The Diamonds for all we know could be doing the same and only acting nice to placate Steven until he dies, given how little they seem to regret abusing Rose and tried to get a replacement with Steven and later Spinel. They didn’t need to be shattered but as @thewoollyviking said, they needed to lose their powers so they could never be able to take back their empire if they returned to their old ways.

Something else that’s been on my mind is the idea that wanting the diamonds to suffer consequences is a “culturally Christian” or “Tankie” worldview. Like maybe some people are influenced by a punitive view of Christianity but i have also seen Christian fans who insisted that Steven had to forgive them based on their religious views. Wanting someone to face consequences isn’t always to be cruel and unusual. It’s to prevent them from harming other people and restorative justice is not the same as letting people off the hook. They still need to face some sort of justice to recognize what they did was wrong as a catalyst for becoming better people.

I think the problems with the diamond’s redemption came down to it being intended to be an allegory for an abusive family while having them commit all sorts of crimes like purging any gem that didn’t align with their beliefs and creating the cluster to blow up the earth. SU suffers because it used magical girl solutions to deal with sci fi/irl political issues which came off as tone deaf to a lot of people. Not everyone who dislikes it does so because of one person’s video essay and while it didn’t need to kill the diamonds, them losing their powers and being banished from Homeworld would have been more satisfying as a compromise because people like the diamonds will never change in real life and letting them off like that does have real world implications.

[sage-nebula]

Come to think of it, I think the meta reason behind why Sango didn't expose Liko and Roy as Rising Volt Tacklers is because the writers didn't want to have to deal with how absolutely fucked Liko and Roy would have been if she had.

Think about it: she wouldn't have been exposing them just to that auditorium of people. Dot says herself that the exhibition match was recorded and posted online. Meaning that, had Sango exposed Liko and Roy as members of the Rising Volt Tacklers, everyone who uses the internet would know who they were. The story would have been spread across social media, and picked up by news outlets. Every other person on the street would recognize them from the video (and clips and screencaps of the video) and would react accordingly.

And what this means is, Liko and Roy wouldn't be able to go anywhere safely, and they'd likely be turned away from many accommodations. They chose to stay at a hotel in the past few episodes, rather than a Pokémon Center, but how many hotels do you think would give them lodging if they were internationally wanted criminals? How many stores do you think would do business with them when they needed supplies? And what about the police? It's a safe bet that Mollie went home to her family's Center because she had to, because her family will give her cover and help her fly under the radar as a Rising Volt Tackler. (Or former Rising Volt Tackler, as Mollie would say.) But that's not really an option for Liko and Roy, is it?

Now, I want to be clear that I think it would have been an excellent decision for the writers to do this. The stakes feel far lower in Arc 5 than I expected they would when Spinel dropped that bombshell at the end of Arc 4 that the Rising Volt Tacklers were the ones who destroyed Rakua. (Or well, the reporter dropped the bombshell, but he's the one who put the narrative out there.) Yes, we had the other students at Liko's school and LittenSuperfan express anger at Rising Volt Tacklers, but otherwise we really haven't seen Liko or Roy face real consequences for admitting to their allegiance. Roy even seemed surprised that someone would hate the Rising Volt Tacklers, almost as if he wasn't aware of the lies put out by Exceed. I really expected them to face more of a challenge because of who they were allied with, or at least to see that the adult members of the crew were taking a lot more heat.

So if they were exposed as Rising Volt Tacklers in a very big way, a way that they had absolutely no control over and beyond the scope of what they're able to convince (because it's one thing to convince one person; it's another altogether to have thousands, or tens of thousands of people who hate you on sight) . . . that would up the stakes in a big way, and it makes me even more sad that the writers didn't do it.

But again, I understand it.

Having to write that in would mean having to really deal with those consequences. There's a huge difference between writing an episode where Liko and Roy have to convince one person, or even a handful of people, and having to write episodes where they're turned away from hotels and shops, where they're constantly getting jumped and challenged to battles out of nowhere on the streets, where Pokémon Centers only treat them and give them lodging because they're legally required to, where they have to go at least partially off the grid for their own safety and how that conflicts with the burning desire they have to reveal the truth of what really happened. With the stakes presented as being lower, the writing is much easier. The more you raise the stakes, the more difficult things get. And especially for a children's show, there might have been executive concern over making the children watching the show feel upset over what's happening to Liko and Roy each week, and perhaps having their parents no longer allow them to watch it if each episode is a constant struggle against grief, trauma, and the never-ending onslaught of negative public opinion.

But still, as an adult fan of the show, I really do wish they had gone there.

[d3adbr3inc3lls]

So far you've written RVT readers being a spy joining the Explorers but why not the opposite?

Friede x Explorer Spy!Reader | Headcanons

A/N: I was going to make it just a general RVT & Reader before I realised that Friede can be used for this pretty well. Spoilers for the newest ep at the very end, somewhat angsty ending I dunno

Before you joined, you had a whole plot figured out. You'd pretend to betray them and fight against them in their battles before you help the RVT.

When the plan was executed, the RVT were suprised to see you fight against your own team to help them.

You were an experienced trainer, that much was certain. You helped them fight off Spinel and Amethio whenever they'd cause trouble for you which gained you their trust.

Over time, you had gained their complete trust, meaning that they'd tell you things they otherwise wouldn't.

At first, you didn't report it. You kept it all to yourself, making sure that they know you're "trustworthy".

After a while, you slowly began to feed information back to the Explorers,

You gave them small droplets before you began to tell them everything.

No-one caught on, and eventually you began to date Friede.

It was all one sided at first (him loving you).

He truly believed that you had changed, and part of you felt guilty about feeding everything back to the Explorers, but this was important.

Late nights you used to spend with the RVT, learning about their plans and what they're doing slowly became late nights cuddled up at Friede's side.

He'd constantly express his gratitude towards you and how nice it is to have another strong trainer part of the group to help fight off the Explorers.

And in the end, you truly fell for him.

Sometimes, you'd get lost in the warm meals full of lively chatter and the affection you'd receive to remember why you're there in the first place.

You forgot all about the Explorers until Spinel messaged you about any updates, and unluckily, Friede almost saw the text.

You managed to cover it up with the blanket, mumbling about how it's someone from highschool messaging you again.

Thankfully, he believed you without much suspicion, but you had to think of some excuse for Spinel.

Weeks later, when you meet the Explorers at Rakua, you continue to fight against them -you convinced Spinel that it was better in the long run, you could gain more information out of the group.

In the end- you couldn't save Friede. And as much as you wanted to hop on the back of your flying 'mon to save him, the team held you back, not wanting to lose another member.

The crash was brutal. You made sure that the kids were safe- but you sustained injuries.

Injuries that never healed, reminding you of all you had lost.

You left the team shortly after you were cleared from the hospital,, you didn't want to see the faces of the people that once made up your family.

You told that to Spinel, and how the team later disbanded.

He kept any mentions of you out of his story demonising the team, only mentioning that Friede was allegedly dating someone, but that person was probably "manipulated" into loving him.

A/N 2: I'm gonna try writing more proper fics in the form of drabbles and stuff later to help prepare me for my assignment for Lit,, so,, expect some of those,, but I'll also have headcannons too.

[sevenines]

I think the main restrictions that the crewniverse had for SU were related to the LGBT+ themes but i don't recall them getting toned down in other ways? Then again, CN as network let its shows get away with a lot of things

no definitely, rebecca sugar even said they had an amicable relationship with S&P, a department notorious for various restrictions in other networks. instead network/executive changes were… odd? in other ways, like adding the injector or insisting spinel be killed.

the only instance i know where they seemed to want to tone something down was in the second crystal gems fight against spinel. in the pitch you can see miki brewster’s original version, but the final product/true kind of love animatic commentary got modified, apparently because the crystal gems were “beating up on spinel too hard”. since the change made it all the way to the pitch to the execs, we can assume it was a note from them and not the crew. in general, miki said he got a lot of notes for being too harsh.

[3dmonstermaze]

Rose Quartz, fundamentally, did not think she was deserving of love. Starting with the way the other Diamonds - especially White - treated her, it profoundly affected her ability to relate to others. For this reason she accidentally abandoned Spinel, 100% believing that Spinel would just forget about her and not keep playing the game that she came up with off the top of her head just to get Spinel to stop following her around forever. This lack of self-regard culminates in her functionally committing suicide to re-incarnate as a human boy. All of this stems from an internalized belief that Pink Diamond was fundamentally unworthy of love, and that all the things she felt attachments to - her Pearls, her Diamonds, her Greg, her own self - were extremely conditional and would forget about her at a moment's notice.

The decision to functionally erase her "hard drive" and install her hardware into a new flesh chassis she could operate with zero previous life experience almost pragmatic to her. If Pink Diamond was truly unforgivable and unchangeable, wouldn't sacrificing her life for the opportunity to learn how to really love be the right choice for everybody, including her? Could Pink have learned how to "love like you" without becoming Steven?

I headcanon that Rose could've terminated Steven's pregnancy at any time, and possibly may have been able to give birth to a normal human boy independently of herself. The idea of becoming something entirely new, something that was capable of loving itself and loving being itself, was far too tempting.

Her faked shattering was the prototype for this. By assuming her Rose Quartz personal full time, Pink thought the other Diamonds would just forget about her and leave Earth forever. She genuinely did not expect that the other Diamonds would be driven almost mad with grief and attempt to destroy an entire colony's worth of Gems all at once, and it's only by the grace that the Diamonds were working on 3/4ths full power they didn't succeed.

Her new plan wasn't even totally successful, either. Steven accidentally accesses data still stored on his Gem hard drive all the time, mostly when he falls asleep in particularly triggering places for Pink. In Steven Universe Future we see Steven fall into the same patterns of self-loathing Pink did in her first life, and these trigger wild fluctuations of his Diamond powers the same way Pink Diamond accidentally injured her original Pearl during a tantrum. Steven's own emotional problems all stem from people treating him like he's not a separate entity from Rose, and this triggers what we could define as arbitrary code execution.

The climactic moment of the series, where White Diamond removes Steven's gem, is the closest that Steven can hope for to a mother-son reunion.

[chaifootsteps]

Steven Universe Anon

To that other anon pointing out the Rose twist

Yeah the Crew definitely kept that under wraps for so long. And outright said Pink wasn't Rose.

I really feel like Viv is gonna pull some Rose Quartz/PD shit with Lilith/Rosie, where she'll magically change her appearance to reflect being Lilith.

For a show she's "hyper critical" of (or at least hates?) She sure is doing a piss poor job trying to do her own version of it.

Oh wait, the similarities are there! Broadway Actors, check. Shitty twist that SU did far better? Check. Songs/musicals? Check. Trying to have Sinners redeemed (Steven trying to redeem all gems?) Check.

Except Rebecca is a way better musician, better writer (even though I have issues with her writing), and a better fucking human being.

God Viv, I bet this is subconsciously her trying to compare herself to Rebecca.

"I can take your concept and ideas and execute them far better!"

Except she can't.

Because she's a terrible writer.

And a terrible human being.

And a terrible musician, and a terrible showrunner, and a terrible friend...

You're no Rebecca Sugar, Viv. You never will be. You'll never pull off a character like Rose Quartz, and although you can nab the same voice actress, you'll never pull off a character like Spinel.

[hearth4days]

(The template is for ocs but you mean fandom ships, right?) Spinnerdabiiiiiiiii

This thing is so tiny how the hell am I supposed to type this info in omg

Spinner:

Flower- peony, symbolizing passion, honor, and loyalty

Gemstone- garnet, symbolizing passion, courage, and protection

Songs-

The Worst Person by Nashimoto

Wanting to Die in My Teens, Wanting to Kill in My Twenties by Nashimoto Ui

Self Esteem by The Offspring

Island of the Misfit Boy by Front Porch Step

Nobody by Mitski

Notes: Nashimoto in general is very Spinnercore <- least biased guy in the world

Today I realized I have not updated my Spinner playlist since I was like 15 and most of them did not apply at all I need to publically execute myself right this second. Know that I can do better than this

Dabi:

Flower- lily of the valley, symbolizing pain, loss, death, and with ties to religious (mostly Christian) symbolism for tears

Gemstone- spinel, symbolizing passion, devotion, resilience, and immortality

Songs-

Pyromania by Ime44

Won't Back Down by Fuel

Arsonist's Lullabye by Hozier

Hollowness by Minami

Amygdala's Rag Doll by Ghost

Notes: Nevermind I made this playlist when I was 15 too and it had plenty. Sorry Spinner. Anyway I tried to give you some I haven't given you before yay

[glisteningfreak]

five star burger with all the fixings for a Looey fictive!

OF COURSE YOU CAN!!!!!!

REMINDER ALTERS MAY NOT TAKE TO EVERYTHING LISTED !!!

★

NAME • Looey ° Loo ° Lewis ° Jest ° Buster ° Chester ° Pierrot ° Pogo ° Heckle

PRONOUNS • He/Him ° They/Them ° It/Its ° Ha/Has ° Lol/Lols ° Squeak/Squeaks ° Pup/Pups ° Joy/Joys ° Yap/Yaps

AGE • 20 - 25

SPECIES • Balloon Dog ° Toon

ORIENTATION • Pansexual ° Panromantic ° Polyamorous

SOURCE • Dandy's World

ROLE(S) • Motivator ° Mood Booster ° Vernalion ° Compulsion Detractor (made by us, essentially helps to distract or prevent someone with OCD from doing compulsions)

SPIRITUALITY • Neutral/Apathetic Agnostic

TRANSIDS • Permasilly, Transdog, Transtoon, Permahappy, Permacute, Comedian Occuden, Clown Occuden, Transperformer, Transpet, Permaharmless

BIRTHDAY • December 6th

HEX CODE • #ffe600

SIGN OFF(S) • 🎈, — 🎈🌭, ~ 🌭°🎈

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

★★

TITLES • The Clown of Gardenview, Circus Trio Guard Dog, He Who Floats and Barks

TYPING QUIRK • types in all lowercase but with a lot!!! of expression!!!! exclamation points in between!! sentences for emphasis! uses a lot of emojis! 🎈

POSITIVE TRIGGERS • Rainbows, Dandys World, Fun activities such as the fair or going to the movies, Bright colors, Clowncore, Art of the circus trio

NEGATIVE TRIGGERS • Others being disillusioned in front, executive dysfunction

VOCAL NOTES • Slightly nervous with a small hint of nasal, very expressive

LIKES • Kidcore/Clowncore, Source, Art, Saturated Colors, Being outside, Video games (especially Nintendo games + party games), Board games, Pranks, Music, Joking around, Oddities and curiosities, Parties

DISLIKES • Negativity, Being bored, Cringe culture, Sharp objects, Elevators

PERSONALITY • Funny ° Talkative ° Insecure ° Nervous ° Social ° Joyful ° Optimistic ° Energetic ° Affectionate

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

★★★

KINKS • Plush/Pool Toys/Balloons, Petplay, Gloryholes, Hypno, Impactplay

PARAPHILIAS • Ω, 💥, 💤, 🔪, ⛏️, 🔧, 🩸🦵, 💥🎈

STANCES • Radqueer, Proship, "Do whatever you want forever"

ICONS •

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

★★★★

PLAYLIST • Polkamania! — Weird Al ° Asleep At The Wheel — Bloodhound Gang ° Whole Day Off — Oingo Boingo ° Doctor Worm — They Might Be Giants ° Tubthumper — Chumbawumba

KINLIST • Source ° Cheese Sandwich — MLP ° Wander — Wander Over Yonder ° Papyrus — Undertale ° Spinel — Steven Universe ° Fizzaroli — Helluva Boss

AESTHETIC LEAN • Kidcore ° Clowncore ° Scene ° Decora

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

★★★★★

INNER WORLD BEDROOM •

FAVORITE ANIMAL • Dogs ° Cats ° Ferrets

FAVORITE TIME OF DAY • Mid-day

FAVORITE WEATHER • Sunny or lightly cloudy

FAVORITE FOOD TYPE • Sweet, Salty

MUSIC GENRE PREFERENCE • Comedy (Weird Al, Bo Burnham), Indie Alt (Oingo Boingo, They Might Be Giants), Alt Rock (Bloodhound Gang, Weezer), Vocaloid, Breakcore

MOODBOARD •

[cloudbends]

I wasn't ready for it to be so sad and gentle.... Ohhhhhhfhchhfhcd

[fandomstars]

inspired by that SU circus AU

Writing request for Amethyst and Pearl attending clown college where theyre surprised to find Spinel is their teacher

Btw to those just reading, here is the Circus AU thing.

Clown School

Pearl hadn’t want to go to clown school of all things, but she was given a fully paid scholarship after one of the executives watched one of the gymnasts competition she was in.

She meets Amethyst there, and while they don’t hit it off right away, they are roommates so they kind of had to at some point.

Amethyst definitely signed up for the school. She loved to act and make people laugh. Plus these people didn’t mind her love of wrestling (not even in the hallways!).

Pearl impresses many with her gymnast skills, which get her to advanced classes in tight rope walking. Elective wise was a ribbon dancing course she just happened to see while walking around the campus on day.

Amethyst made a wrestling team the minute she heard the school didn’t have one. Got many championship wins during her stay.

Amethyst would always take on a dare, many just happen to be with food.

The two eventually got the impressed looks of a certain ring master that wish to have them on his show.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Hi, I just read a couple of your fics, I love your writing! How do you build suspense or add details into your stories? Do you have any sort of writing tips? Thanks!

Wow, thank you so much! I'll describe some of my thought process behind those elements and a few others below if that helps.

And if anyone wants WIP news, there's some buried in here.

⸻

First, I almost never execute an idea right away since I either don't have the time to, or want to let it incubate for a while. Most of my ideas stay in outline form for months before I execute them, and I add and add certain details over time.

The one exception to this inclination so far has been "In Unrecognition of Rhian..." that I wrote in almost one sitting. In my experience, the pre-thinking, outlining, and Draft Zero (not One—I can explain if you'd like) can sometimes be longer than any of what I consider the "real" writing.

A tip: Carry your phone or a notebook with you everywhere. Sometimes, you have to record something immediately to preserve the wording exactly as you had it then because you can't always reconstruct it from memory.

⸻

If you want to know about the inclusion of details, a lot of the time, I try to make every detail count, so it moves something forward. In fact, one of my greatest wishes in the act of writing is for everything I (consciously) put into the text to have a reason to be there. Though, I imagine not everyone wants that. I'm sure some writers handle randomness and serendipity better than I, so do what you see fit.

Nevertheless, front-loading decisions is usually a method that works out well for me, to pick things apart and question them before I write and well before I think about whether I like the phrasing.

Be outrageously mean and discerning about certain things, like you're a set designer. That way, you'll be forced into thinking about decisions more deliberately and sooner, leaving less work for yourself in the end. If you were working with physical objects, you would probably have less leeway in changing your mind anyway. You might have a deadline or demand to get the furniture arranged so to speak. You can't just change the color of an item you've already bought and may be unable to return. There's only so much manpower you can invest in dying that sofa a new color, and so on. However, this is where you, as a writer, can upstage the hypothetical set designer. If you can't decide or don't want to commit to a decision yet due to gaps in the information/plot, leave yourself a placeholder like this: [COLOR of MATERIAL(?) fabric], [SYNONYM], [FIND BETTER VERB] or [JET STONE or SPINEL - DECIDE ON ONE LATER] and return to fill it in whenever you're ready. You have the ability to change things at any time, unlike the set designer of a film.

Essentially, interrogate the element you chose, to see if it could do more and better. For instance, if the default thing you chose more thoughtlessly at the start was something like a blue sky, ask yourself: Could a different sky or time of day serve the story better? Could it do more than what it's already doing? Or, if you want to keep the blue sky, what precisely do you want it to accomplish?

It can be incredibly fun to be as arrogant as you want about this, by the way. And, this is no lie—you can think of yourself as someone high-up, marshaling and deploying troops to enact your bidding, which is ultimately, telling a striking story with some substance to it.

Anyway, interrogation of some kind sometimes helps me, but that's only because, again, I happen to be a very outline-oriented, front-loading, do-the-heavy-lifting-on-the-front-end-of-things type of writer. I usually start with word vomit or a bare-bones script of a near-complete draft before I do the "real" writing, which is sometimes closer to re-ordering lines or putting thoughts into readable, complete, better sentences, and that is why the "outline" or Draft Zero of my longfic is likely longer than the fic itself will actually be, at something under 260 pages currently.

Possibly, one of the most extreme examples I have of front-loading is how I have one WIP fic I already have the exact start and end sentences pre-written for and (so far) have plans to write to those ends.

I'll share them to illustrate my point (though, unfortunately, there is a reason I can't yet disclose what exactly justifies them being the way they are):

First line:

There the bones lay, sun-bleached and white.

Last line:

Sun-bleached and white, there lay the bones.

Basically, all I'll divulge for now is that I'm trying to write a story that is cyclical in nature, which is why it needs a circular ending, to mirror back with. That is the (currently vague and unspecified) purpose these lines will serve. My ambition is that these lines will impact the reader each time differently. (Hint: The bones aren't the same bones each time. It's two different sets of them, at different points in time.)

I will also add: I love word order, emphasis, and italics, probably because I'm a control freak. Still, it's a really cool feature of language, the way you can assemble a sentence to either spotlight it or overshadow it.

It's all about the importance or weight you have the power to assign. Oftentimes, the last thing in a sequence is the most memorable while something placed in the middle is the least remembered or processed by the mind and the most overlooked—due to the Serial Position Effect in psychology.

Ok, now back to details, whether they be for plot or characterization.

For the characterization details, I try to think of them in terms of: How could this thing I want to convey manifest itself physically, through movements, the surroundings, the overall environment, and the environment's response to the character's action or inaction. In the case of fairy tales, the genre allows for things to be uncanny or overly fitting, for there to be slightly more deliberate cause-and-effect than there would be in reality, which I like to play with (most prominently seen in my whump fic.) These details help me give a sense of something easily, and that's why, for me, it's better not to shoot for absolute realism in descriptions, but more... things (especially adjectives) that are fitting and "too eerily convenient" and "matching pairs" above all.

For example, I once described Rafal's shirt buttons as restrictive, and this, in turn, serves as a tangible signal that alludes to his standards, his rigor, his need for oppressive control over the world and himself. Basically, you have to find a way to translate or transfer over the abstract into the visual, like you're exchanging one medium for another.

That's also why I like to think of myself as writing for density, trying to fit the most I can into the narrowest of crevices, jam-packing the majority of sentences with stuff that, even if a reader happened to overlook it, could (hopefully) make someone's mind click upon closer inspection, in the same way mine does since I already know it's there. The last thing I want my writing to lack is substance.

Everything must serve a purpose, and serving a dual- or triple-purpose is best, your "purposes" here being: character, plot, and setting. (A fourth addition to those could be: interest/intrigue, which is more your call.) Be ruthless. Ask: Is this is accomplishing something for you and has it earned its keep, its right to stay in the text?

Furthermore, as a writer, be more ruthless than you would be as a reader in tolerating the excess. If it does zero of those three things, you must ask yourself: Should it stay? Does it add to a coherent whole? Does it work well with its brothers (the sentences around it)? Is it out of place?

Do not let your manuscript give you guff. At the same time, you can let the so-called "nonsense" stay if you have plans to rework it. No point in deleting something unfinished, when you're still drafting or editing! Also, save everything you scrap. You might need it again.

Then again, about cutting and brevity (something I'm definitely still learning) I love to elaborate and compound things and (at times) overcomplicate them more than they need to be, so use your own subjective judgment, as in everything and anything else besides.

If you're writing for a genre that allows for drama, write like a sensationalist. Use verbs that pull their weight. Don't always fall back on cliches. Go for impact, syllable, and sound at times over simply opting for your favorite word. Sometimes, decisions feel more "objectively" right or fitting if you develop your "internal ear." I don't know what to call it exactly, but since English is my first language and since I often consume ungodly amounts of the written word, even lowbrow stuff more often than higherbrow texts, honestly, I just have a decently developed sense of what flies and what doesn't.

But, consciously, deliberately learning to have a command over language could also help. A lot of the learning process comes down to paying attention and forming insights. Personally, I have a persistent obsession with language and words, so part of that is something I focus on automatically because of my interest. If that doesn't happen to be the first thing that comes to mind for other people, I'm not sure, but you can direct yourself to look for what you want to train, I think.

Accumulate some kind of varied, critical mass of texts, literally just a high enough volume of texts, to let them seep into your brain over time. This could be like what adults tend to tell young children who are reluctant readers: read, read, read.

It doesn't matter what they read as long as it captures their interest and gets them started on reading at that early stage. It usually tends to be later on when critical people start to care about children's highbrow and lowbrow reading choices, I think.

At some point, I think that if people who followed through with this were to continue with this passive "process," I think they would hear others' voices, the "echoes" or the "phantoms," and be able to replicate them. This would function in a similar way as how we can often imagine the speech patterns of people we know well, to a lifelike degree in our internal monologues, like how we may recognize them by their unconscious verbal tics, or otherwise distinctive phrases, not necessarily by the actual sound of their voice but by how they deliver what they say, by the form, not the content.

And then, possibly, the writer's voice could likely emerge as something that's an amalgamation of the others' voices, all reconstructed. Or, that's partly how I see it, because, I feel like in my case, I can't exactly stray as far as I'd like to from some influences I've had, or that at least one of my "voices" formed through imitating fictional narrators, real writers, and registers of speech I liked at different times. Basically, all this is to say: learning voice seems to have a lot to do with observation and imitation.

Additionally, go for an emotional illusion of "truth-ness" over the objective truth. Write for the mood or the sense of conveying what you want to convey, immaterially, instead of writing the literal plot exactly how it went. Sometimes, it may be acceptable to sacrifice complete factual accuracy for the sake of story, depending on what you're dealing with.

If you want to make more conscious, active progress sooner rather than passive progress over time by letting things inculcate themselves, you could always change the "lens" with which you read. Read for more than story. When you see a technique done somewhere else, you can reverse-engineer it and apply it to your own writing. Doing so gradually builds your understanding of what writing is capable of accomplishing, in comparison to other mediums, like screenwriting. Basically, I'll just say: "learn to read like a writer."

⸻

As for suspense, I rely on having a sense of story beats, drop-offs, and shorter sentences at certain pivotal points. There are lead-ups, set-up, pay-off, but those aren't always something that I think about on a conscious level. By a certain point, if you ingest enough of others' fiction, you will likely end up with a sense for it, to know where things slot into place. That's how it appears to me, at least.

Maybe an example from one of my fics could help make it more concrete:

Rafal sighed in relief. He'd served the absurd, seemingly arbitrary punishment the Pen had dealt him and it was now well over with.

Then, the Storian moved.

To my great satisfaction, Rafal is absolutely wrong.

The reader knows there is a false sense of security, and I want the reader to know and anticipate with bated breath that something could go wrong because suspense, by definition, is built on a foundation of anticipation, not jump scares or shock value alone.

This article on suspense versus surprisingness as qualities could also help explain, and this second article has a great example involving a bomb.

One brief digression into what I could call "stream-of-action," specifically: the fewer "interruptions," the better. Do not deviate from that line of suspense you've been building. Action sequences aren't the place for extraneous descriptions. Do not cut into a sequence with those descriptions. You have to hold back and wait for the right moment to include your more content-filled sentences. All you need are clear, unbroken lines of action to go by, so you do not fall into the trap of defusing tension.

Anyway, false beliefs or subversions tend to help, from my experience. You, the reader, knowing more or anticipating more than a character could in their position is of prime importance. We sometimes call that device "dramatic irony" or dread. (If you want a few examples of that, my whump fic, the source of the above excerpt, used it.)

You, as the reader, clearly know more of what's to come, even getting a vague sense of it before Rafal does, which I would hope contributes to the dark humor of it all? Basically, you can lord your superior knowledge over him in a low position right then.

Oftentimes, readers love to feel smarter than a character as long as the character isn't annoying them. (The converse is when a plan is withheld and you get to piece together the machinations in Rafal's head before the plan plays out, to keep with my particular example.)

You can also start with something little and anticlimactic, sometimes, so the reader gets a sense of something being "off" or as being less than they were expecting, essentially, underwhelming in effect before the true flare-up. You can't always go into something with full force, loud and raucous and blaring, with glaring headlights, see? If you start playing an instrument at full volume, to the top of its capacity, then you'll have nowhere louder to go when you want to achieve a crescendo.

I, personally, for action sequences, to sustain the sense of movement (and overlap depending on the number of subjects) like to cram in as many active verb clauses as I possibly can into one sentence, as long as it seems readable.

Then, the shorter moves are brief, brisk and punctuating, like staccato. That's how I view it all.

Pacing is controlled by the speed at which the reader can read. So, shorter, more comprehensible sentences or longer, flowing sentences tend to work best for anything intended to be fast-paced. It also helps to keep verbs closer to their subjects; the fewer intervening phrases there are, the easier something will be to read. Basically, don't divorce the subject from its verb by too far, generally.

Here's one other example from one of my fics that may be of use:

In an instant, the room hushed as the elusive School Master of Evil entered the foyer, appraising Hedadora’s cloud of white hair and pink-rimmed glasses.

He was positively saturnine, Hedadora noted as she saw the sunken shadows beneath his eyes.

Rafal picked up a pitted olive from a dish. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

The most build-up occurs in Hedadora's pov, which is why I intentionally chose a somewhat unsympathetic, outsider pov, to generate more emotion than Rafal's pov could reach on his own. His eating an olive instead of doing something grand or impressive is the anticlimax. The sentence in which Rafal acts is the "nothing," the lacking response, before the "everything" that follows shortly after. It's all about timing.

It also helps to picture imagery if you can (I myself don't have fully rendered or vivid images in my mind, but I do have a vague sense of positioning for characters and objects). Events can unfold either in a sequence, or all at once, depending on what fits your purposes. Though, usually, all at once is the more intense option because the reader has to juggle multiple things happening at once in their mind.

And generally, I also love the idea of crescendos for plot structures. I drew a lot of inspiration from this very particular excerpt from a book because it reminds me of my objective to imitate this collision-like sense when I write. The excerpt, taken out of context from How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, is probably the single most memorable, unintentional description of suspense I've ever read, meaning, it's greatly influenced me:

“Life has a strange rhythm. It takes a while to fully be aware of this. Decades. Centuries, even. It's not a simple rhythm. But the rhythm is there. The tempo shifts and fluctuates; there are structures within structures, patterns within patterns. It's baffling. Like when you first hear John Coltrane on the saxophone. But if you stick with it, the elements of familiarity become clear. The current rhythm is speeding up. I am approaching a crescendo. Everything is happening all at once. That is one of the patterns: when nothing is happening, nothing continues to happen, but after a while the lull becomes too much and the drums need to kick in. Something has to happen. Often that need comes from yourself. You make a phone call. You say, 'I can't do this life any more, I need to change.' And one thing happens that you are in control of. And then another happens which you have no say over. Newton's third law of motion. Actions create reactions. When things start to happen, other things start to happen. But sometimes it seems there is no explanation as to why the things are happening—why all the buses are coming along at once—why life's moments of luck and pain arrive in clusters. All we can do is observe the pattern, the rhythm, and then live it."

The fact that luck and pain arrive in clusters could definitely apply to fortune harming or helping characters in the very same moments. If used correctly, I'm fairly sure "busyness" (a.k.a. overlap and subplots) tends to grant you the illusion of complexity.

Honestly, I love reversal-of-fortune tropes. They are some of the best out there, and they're the reason why some longstanding stories like "Cinderella" have withstood the test of time. We get human satisfaction from deserved reversals. (Or, at the very least, I happened to get satisfaction from bringing down and torturing the torturer in my fic.)

If anyone has any more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them!

If any of this sounds like a lot or like information overload, you certainly don't have to take everything at once or at all. Some things I've attempted to describe kind of become less conscious queries you "sense" while writing.

[comrade-emma]

After reading @rosaq’s post about Rose being a metaphor for a disabled adult instead of a child, I felt compelled to write my own essay about why she gets way more shit and way less credit than she deserves. While I’m not as big of a fan of SU as I used to be, it still has a place in my heart and was important to me. I relate to a few “problematic” characters in it such as Lapis and Pink Diamond and I think Rose deserved better than how Future or the fandom treated her.

The idea that Pink wanted a colony to prove her worth as an equal to the other diamonds and not just be seen as a joke hits hard for me. I’ve been there especially now where I feel like I have to move out and prove I can be a successful adult to my parents. The way the other diamonds treated Rose is very relatable to a lot of autistic people. They liked her when she acted goofy and made them laugh but when she struggled with social awareness, they yelled at, degraded and abused her by locking her away.

A lot of people, especially parents, only like autistic children when they’re the quirky kind that gushes about dinosaurs or astronauts, but flip the moment they inconvenience them. I’ve felt like my parent’s acceptance has often been conditional. They praised me when I was being goofy but dad would flip and make me feel like I was bad for having struggles with awareness or was hesitant to try new foods not to mention making me do Keto for almost a year because they felt it would “help” me. I’ve often felt babied whenever they lectured me over small things yet was also never given actual accommodation.

Some may disagree but I don’t blame her for leaving Spinel behind. It was wrong but because of her upbringing that taught her Diamonds were superior, she didn’t understand Spinel was an individual and not a toy. Rebecca was inspired by a toy rabbit she left behind when writing Spinel. To Rose, Spinel represents everything she hated about herself and how the other diamonds viewed her. To her, she was giving up a toy to prove she could be mature. I’ve been there before such as when I gave away toys or ditched certain hobbies such as paleontology, especially at a conservative school full of creationists I was forced to be friends with because my parents liked them, so people would take me more seriously. Let’s not forget that Spinel isn’t innocent and decided to wipe out all life on Earth and hurt Steven out of petty revenge yet never got as much hate as Rose did.

After reading some of @thewoollyviking’s posts, I’ve come to agree that Future felt very mean spirited towards Rose and that it seemed to just confirm the idea that she was a bad person incapable of change. I don’t hate Steven and relate to him at points too but he acted downright cruel by shoving her picture away and telling Greg who he learned had a similar upbringing that it wasn’t that bad despite being in Rose’s position and nearly dying because of how bad it was. That episode was poorly executed to be honest since most people don’t understand how curfew, chaperones and meatloaf can be abusive or stifling as I’ve seen some call Greg spoiled or “incredibly immature” for being angry about his childhood.

The way Steven acted in Future kind of reminds me of the Ultimate Kevin arc from Ben 10. A character who’s normally forgiving and willing to give second chances suddenly becomes very cruel and mean spirited. I’ve defended Ben from people who called him a narc or psychopath for deciding to execute Kevin but the writing in that arc was very mid. I don’t know if it’s due to the time constraints CN put on the show or was intentional but Steven never reconciled with or at least let go of his anger towards Rose and refused to emphasize with her despite being so similar. Rose never got a chance to redeem herself in life and thanks to Future will never be able to do so in death either. Everyone hates her and acts like they’re better off without her which is gross since it just confirms her self hatred that she was incapable of doing better.

Rose is a character that I relate to hard especially as someone with autism and is transfem. The way the diamonds treated her rings true to my own experiences with how people will act friendly to your face but then treat you as a joke and never give genuine respect or accommodation to. I’ve written more about how my dad treats me regarding my queerness here but I don’t blame Rose for acting the way she did. She needed help and was just treated as bad for her outbursts and was only appreciated when “cute”. I’ve thrown out things to prove I can be mature and don’t really hold her abandoning Spinel against her. The other characters are never given as much hate as Rose and I actually like Blue, mainly for her VA, but the other diamonds and Spinel did way worse yet got off far easier than Pink. People can dislike Rose if they want but it does say something about how the fandom views a victim of abuse who did a lot of wrong but did her best to change and struggled with loving herself.