#the fun thing about writing this man is having PARAGRAPHS for every two words of speech.

[fairytaletold]

@yxkanna // continued.

This shouldn’t have happened. What had even happened? One second they’re kissing: Nick’s hands are sliding deftly past the belt line of his pants, legs locked to keep him in place, and Vasile is turning his head to expose the delicate flesh of his throat —

He shouldn’t have gotten hit at all. He’s quick enough to have dodged, to have caught the wrist as nails came for him, but truthfully, he’s not on guard at all when he’s around Nick. Even the uptick of his heart is only the barest warning, and then his skin raises in welts dragged across from eyes to chin, and he’s left blinking as his husband scrambles away.

The fear in the air chokes him. It hits harder than any slap — the fact that he’s somehow done this, caused this to the person he’s never wanted to scare. What had happened? ( What did he do? ) Should he apologize or just give Nick space? Is it better to be close or not be there? Long moments pass, silence heavy, cloying, each inhale an active fight to draw in breath. He wants to run away, to hide, but he knows well enough by now what Nick thinks of being left. So he stays. Even if he’s not wanted, he stays — stupid, loyal dog ready to curl up here and die. To wait until he’s wanted again.

Nick’s pain is palpable to him. He tastes it against his tongue, feels it in the constant vibration of his leg against the ground. Say something! But he doesn’t know what’s wrong, so his encouragement falls flat.

❛ But I do. ❜ This, at least, he knows for sure. It’s a certainty that runs bone deep, a promise he can make blind eyed. It will be okay — because Vasile won’t settle until Nick is good again. ❛ I know. ❜ Maybe his determination adds some backbone to his tone; he hopes it does.

Trust me.

( Forgive me. )

[on-leatheredwings]

Dirty Laundry (18+)

Yandere! Dick Grayson x (Fem) Reader

> romantic, 18+ > Request: I think Dick would be a major creep and your rules didn't say anything about no nsft, so can I ask for a fic with this scenario: Dick stealing reader's underwear and using the dirty ones to get off while cumming into the clean ones. And putting the "clean" ones back into her dresser hoping she doesn't notice the stains and wears them? Thanks! > a/n: …………………………………… Ohhhh, so you’re crazy. Meaning, you’re just like me . thanks for the dick request i want to write him better/more ;u; had fun writing this! > tw: someone cumming in your panties without your consent or knowledge, so sexual assault. As well as yandere-typical thoughts and behaviors. > Word count: 1847 (Ugh this was supposed to be like 3 paragraphs max but i’m me.)

Dick’s your best friend. 

… You guess.

He was new to Blüdhaven, and you two just seemed to keep bumping into each other in the rare times you left your apartment. Might as well get to know the guy. You didn’t have much choice in the matter, once he attached to you. And that was okay, because you liked him back and, frankly, were in quite desperate need for friends. The man currently lounges on your bed, sifting through a magazine while you’re mixing audio for this indie rock cover band that’s commissioned you. That’s your side hustle and passion, when you’re not being a work-from-home researcher for S.T.A.R. Labs. 

You’re an hour into your work and Dick Grayson is lounging on his spot on your bed, because he has claimed a spot at this point. All is well with the world. Then, your stomach lets out a groan, and so do you.

A pair of eyes, all ocean blue and twinkling, slide over to you without a second’s hesitation. You meet them, unblinking and unperturbed. Does he know he’s kind of a freak? Being all light-eyed and adoring?

You stand up without fanfare, removing your headphones from your ears and letting them sit around the column of your neck.

“I’m going to get food from the place next door.”

You yawn and walk away from your desk. That usually was much harder for you, but Grayson’s presence in your life had made it more of a priority for you to care for yourself. “Don’t touch anything,” you say, plainly and without venom. Without another word, you’re gone, and Dick launches up from his seat once he hears the front door to your flat close.

He told himself he was going to do this today. He told himself, and he is a man of his word.

He opens the bottom drawer of your dresser, where he knows you keep your clean pairs of underwear. Then he trespasses into your closet, where he knows you keep your laundry basket.

Dick knows where a lot of things are in your apartment, and he has made it his job to know every inch of your bedroom specifically. When you leave the room, like times like this, he enjoys going around and familiarizing himself with everything. And he’s planted cameras, of course. He does leave your en-suite restroom alone, an act he pats himself on the back for. You deserved your privacy, after all. To his disappointment, you do tend to masturbate exclusively in the shower, and he must tide himself over with the audio his cameras pick up, rather than visuals.

After a moment’s hesitation, Dick buries his hands into your laundry basket. These were the things… you wore. His eyes twinkle as he smiles. Still, he had no time to waste. While often busy, the Chinese place you were at was also known for its fast service. Dick grabs the first pair of panties he sees: blue lace-trim, white in color, with blue gingham. You’re so cute. 

He sits in your closet, back to your hamper, slides off the jeans that look really good on him which he hopes you’ve noticed. All of these actions are done a little clumsier than normal because his pulse roars in his ears.

He lets his head fall backward, and he begins pumping his cock with your panties in that same hand. He thinks of your face, your body, your hands. He really likes your hands, so adept and amble, always flying across a keyboard or strumming a guitar. He thinks about the honest things you say, truthful but usually with tact. He thinks about your eyes crinkling when he’s being a show-off, and your pretty lips that you’re usually wetting with your tongue rather than finally just getting lip balm. 

At this point, Dick is a wreck, eyes glazed over and only half-open. His eyelashes flutter as he struggles to keep them open. He goes slack-jawed, pink lips only a little swollen from his biting down on them. He’s about to finish, he knows he is. It’s building in him like the birth of a tidal wave. Pre-cum and his sweat have soiled your gingham pair, and he looks at the very plain pair of navy blue boyshorts in his free hand, clenched into a fist. He finds himself blushing. Your underwear is so… you, and it’s hilarious that holding them in his hand is what is flustering him so much. Considering what he’s doing.

Dick whimpers, a sound that’s both embarrassing and utterly liberating. Pleasure pulses in between his legs, his back shoots into an arch, his balls hike up to the base of his cock. He cums with a raspy cry, right onto the crotch of your boyshorts. He had initially planned to just finish anywhere on the fabric, but at the last second decided to cum where your cunt would touch. He’s kind of romantic like that. (He’s also kind of a pervert, and he knows that.)

He pants in the afterglow of his orgasm, cheeks painted over with rosy pink. He tosses your white pair back into its home, the laundry basket.

His calloused fingers reach up for the corner of his mouth, which had been agape this whole while. 

… Was he drooling? 

Dick robotically proceeds to rub his semen into your underwear until it's just a dark stain. He pulls his dark jeans from the pool of black denim they formed at his ankles, he runs his fingers through his hair at a job well done. He returns your boyshorts to your dresser, neatly folding them like all the rest. And finally, he wipes his mouth. He returns to your bed, and it’s like nothing has happened since you left.

Dick Grayson – Gotham pretty boy, badass superhero – should probably cringe; in any other context, isn’t that so lame…? But considering it was you, honestly, what could he have expected…

You come back into your bedroom, a bag of takeout swinging from your hands. His eyes don’t leave you for an instant.

… You simply have that effect on him. 

You stomp through his room until you’re right in front of him, where he pretends to be scrolling on his phone. Your arms are akimbo as you stare down at him, blocking your room’s overhead light with your skull and casting your shadow over him. He looks up and smiles cheekily.

“Alright, Dickard.” Dick’s lips quirk. “Get out. I’m going to shower and change.” Sniffing yourself on the way back, you decided it was high time you did. 

Dick’s brain goes a mile a minute. Shower. Change. Underwear? His heart skitters but he doesn’t show it. 

“Aw, don’t let me stop you. Feel free,” he teasingly sings.

Your eye twitches and you take it upon yourself to physically move him. Not that you could if he chose to actually resist. You know that he must be strong, stronger than ‘doing acrobatics as a hobby’ must make someone. You’ve caught a peek at his abdomen and biceps now and then. Guy is ripped. 

“Go eat,” you order, throwing the takeout into his hand. “I got enough for the both of us.” Why, Dick could twirl his hair and kick his feet right now – despite a prickly exterior, you really were a sweetheart, weren’t you? He refuses to have you pay for him though. He will definitely be returning the favor thricefold.

You successfully shoo the six feet tall model out of your room. 

Once he’s out, you take your shower, standing for five minutes in the spray until it grows warm. You think with amusement at the idea of movies and TV making women showering such a sexy, erotic scene. Bitch, you are in here scrubbing pots and pans. 

After the job’s done, your feet land on your worn shower mat from college, and pad towards your bedroom once more. You catch a towel on your way there, belatedly remembering that Dick Grayson may still be loitering in your bedroom, and you weren’t too keen on the idea of him seeing your private bits. Warily shifting eyes from behind the door, you see no one’s around.

Knock knock. 

“Are you done?”

Dick’s voice from the hallway makes you panic, fearful that he may burst in before you’re ready and presentable. 

“Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt a woman while she’s getting ready in her boudoir!“ you yell, hoping some rich person’s instinct suddenly clicks in him. You thought rich men were supposed to be gentlemanly. Really, ever since meeting Dick, who is son to the richest man in the state, you’ve learned rich people all must be whiny, clingy, braggers, show-offs, and sometimes, just plain brats. In your hurry, you swipe a panty from your drawer and slip it on past your thighs. Body still damp from the shower, you don’t notice anything. 

The rest of your clothes follow, and you choose to sit back down in your desk chair. You turn back to your double monitor set up, ready to become a screen zombie once more when you remember someone’s waiting for you.

Without turning around, you holler, “Come in.” 

Without a moment’s pause, Dick reenters, takeout plated for the both of you in each hand. He places one smoothly in front of you with butler-like precision. 

“Your meal, madam,” Dick says in a Parisian accent, and you do smile in amusement. His eyes dilate, but you don’t notice.

“Thank you, my fine sir,” you return, a little embarrassed, accent weak, but willing to keep up the bit.

Dick knows not to disturb you too much while you work, so he wanders away as you slip your headphones over your ears once more. But before returning to His Spot on the bed, he quietly treads to your dresser. He sneaks a glance to make sure you’re still occupied. And you are, that blue wash of light painting your skin. 

He pulls out the drawer, and– hhhhh.

He heaves with breath involuntarily, although it’s nearly imperceptible. You do make him slip more than he likes, but he’s experienced. He glances once more to make sure you didn’t hear that, and of course you didn’t. You’re still fiddling in Ableton Live.

He shuts the drawer and stalks to His Spot on the bed, and anyone who knows Dick Grayson would see that he is tense. He is stiff.

And how could he not be? You’re wearing the underwear he had cum on. Did you notice? Is this your way of coming onto him? No, you’re too forward to play games… Something he finds both refreshing and a shame, because he loves games. You simply mustn't have noticed. Regardless, the knowledge fills him with such ecstasy and arousal… and longing. 

He eyes you discreetly as his skin reddens. He tries to act natural by eating steaming orange chicken, plucking it from his plate with a chopstick. One day, he’ll have you, in body and soul. 

Until then, he can entertain himself with this game, however one-sided.

[whackacole3]

do you have any tips for new writers? you write fast and your fics are pretty damn good so i thought it would be good to ask you!

omg yeah, i can try! here’s a few things that come to mind. this stuff is mainly for writing fanfictions, but i guess it can apply to books as well?

reminder this is just what i suggest, if you think differently that’s okay! every writer is different.

and if anyone has any more suggestions, feel free to either comment and/or reblog with your suggestions.

(also idk what speed has to do with anything but that just comes with practice and motivation 😭)

1.) stop caring and stop worrying. i know this might sound counterintuitive but it's really not when you look deep into it. once you sit down and decide to just have fun is when your best work comes out, at least for me. writing is supposed to be fun, you’re supposed to enjoy it. if you find yourself stressed and dreading writing you’re doing it wrong. remember to take breaks if you need it to refresh yourself. writing is extremely hard, but i believe in you. just try to have fun!

2.) find more ways to come up with ideas. i think most people would agree that prompts are hard and many people don’t know how to come up with them. personally, i use quotes. if you know anything about me, quote fics are my fucking life, man! you can use lyrics from songs, a funny moment that happened in your life, a saying your parent always told you while growing up, literally anything! go wild.

3.) find your unique style. when it comes to writing, everyone has a style just like when it comes to any other art form. i write in a more casual, organic style because that’s what comes naturally to me. don’t try to mimic other’s styles because you think yours isn’t “good enough” or something of the sort. you can take inspiration, but don’t forget to be true to yourself and your own style.

4.) write how you want. piggy backing off the last one, don’t let anyone tell you something is “improper” or whatever. if you think adding a million commas best suits your story, then so be it! i use dashes, ellipses, and semi-colons like my life depends on it. it’s an important part of how i write and that’s that’s okay.

5.) make sure to commit to it. while it is important to not push yourself too hard and to take breaks if you need it, don’t forget to commit to it. try and write everyday. whether it be only a paragraph or the entire story in one go, every little bit helps. it gets you into the groove, basically! i’ve heard some people say that 250 words should be your daily minimum, but personally mine is 100. so it’s whatever works for you.

6.) don’t expect it to be easy. writing is hard, that’s just the case. you are making up your own stories (with already set in characters or not) and coming up with things is hard! it’s going to get confusing at points, it’s going to get frustrating, it’s going to make you want quit sometimes. this will happen especially if you write longer form content.

7.) don’t give up and always believe in yourself. feeding off of the last one, no matter how hard it is, don’t ever give up. take breaks for however long you need, but never give up. you can do this. and if no one else believes in you, believe in yourself. you are what matters.

8.) don’t forget to edit and revise. you don’t exactly need to go over your work once you finish, but it’s a very good practice. if look through it at least once or twice: you’ll find mistakes that you maybe didn’t notice; you’ll notice scenes/sections that you can elongate to better serve the purpose/narrative; you could find things don’t matter and can be removed; and so much more. you don’t need to go crazy over it, but it’s definitely something you should do.

9.) don’t forget/be scared to ask for help. everyone needs help from time to time, even the best authors/writers need guidance from others. ask your friends to help with a scene/part or two if you need it, if they’re willing ask them to edit/beta for you, and so forth. you’ll never get anywhere without the help of others, you can’t do this on your own and that’s okay. you might want to be independent and get there by yourself, but that will be ten times harder than if you just ask for a little bit of help.

10.) write for you and nobody else. i would say this is probably the most important one. don’t worry about what others think, story telling is for you! yes, you might share it with others (directly or by posting it online) but at the end of the day, it’s for your enjoyment and no one else’s. if you want to write an OC and canon character, do it! doesn’t matter if no one cares about your OC other than you. YOU ARE WHAT IS IMPORTANT!!!

[cb-writes-stuff]

Solid writing session today. 392 words, hot off the presses, adding up to a total of 8,294 words.

I’m wrapping up the market outing montage at the moment. It was fun to write, dropping little details about the culture as well as the characters’ responses to it. I’m a bit sad to see it go, but I’m also excited for stuff that’s coming up.

Today, I have a treat. I wrote two paragraphs I’m really fond of, so you’re getting BOTH. That’s right.

Favorite THINGS (plural!) I wrote today:

They passed a stall of perfumes, a motley of odors—sharp spices and rich incense and heady oils all blending together. Standing among dozens of shattered bottles, a small Vandeth woman was in the midst of swearing out a lanky, well-dressed man at breakneck speeds. Lynn was glad she could only catch a word here and there.

(This is just the first draft, so some of the wording is bound to change. It likely won’t sound as modern as this.)

The sun was starting to set, giving them a few more hours of light before the lamplighters made their nightly rounds. Starting back towards where they’d met that morning, they weaved their way through crowds, slightly thinned now. Hawkers’ voices rang out, shouting about commissioned porcelain figures of you and your family, rugs, fine rugs, the best flatbread in lon-Dalan, hunting knives that only need sharpening once a year, on and on and on. Lynn had to tune it out, or else risk a headache trying to understand every bit of it.

[crushingcasanova]

More.

Darling, Kisses, Obsessed, Vent.

WAVES. HELLO AMORISIMO :D Darling: What makes your darling special compared to everyone else? Why them? - Alright let me type two paragraphs really quick LMAO. I like @zennotixs because she is herself, and she is incredibly sweet and kind and generous with bun's love. I like that he has an active social life, knows what rot wants, and isn't afraid to take it. She's adorable, like fleeting clouds or like a delicious cinnamon roll--only around every once in a while, but appreciated and savored when he is. I like you because... well, it's hard to put into words, I suppose. I could write endless letter and poems to try and encapsulate the ways in which I love you, but none would come close to describing the majesty that is you. You are like the rainbows split from the sun, the gentle breeze outside, the quiet beauty of a flower's first bloom, the smell of perfume both familiar and tantalizing. I want you in ways in which I could never possibly verbalize; soft and tender, passionate and intense, and so much more. I want you to learn me and yet I want to learn you even more, each facet of your being worthy of admiration and praise. Do you understand the way in which you make me feel, loved and cherished and chosen above others? I want you to feel the love and obsession you have always craved from another being from me, and none else, because nobody else is worthy of loving you as I do. Does that make sense? Kisses: How do you act around or with your darling? Is it different from the way you act around everyone else? - More uncaring of upholding my image, I suppose! I let them see more of me as I am without keeping appearances. My definition of darling is a little strange, because it's only referring to people I'm obsessed with, but theoretically speaking, everyone I surround myself with (who see the real me, at least) can be considered my darling to some level. Darling specific, though, gets a lot more of my constant affection and doting throughout conversation (saying random "I love you"s during conversation, pestering them with specific thoughts I had about them, etc). Obsession: How obsessed are you with your darling? Have you ever stalked them? - I have differing levels of obsession for my darlings, I'd say, because of the frequency of which we correspond and such. I've stalked both (online) however, and have a shrine for one (whereas I memorize the stuff for the other). I have a lot of love to give for those in my inner circle, especially my darlings, so I would say on a scale of 1-10? at least a 9 for one of them. Vent: Gush, rant, or vent about your darling or anything in general. - Man you want me to talk about you so bad... /teasing Okay, let me think. I kinda already yapped about why I like them, but both of them are sooooo busy. That's the problem of being into someone with a busy social life and someone who has so many people to tend to... I wish I could just totally monopolize them and always be by their side! Maybe I could shrink myself so I can always be in their pocket or something...? But stars above, I just want their attention all the time, and I want to learn about them even more, so it's like... torture when they're away (but fun when they're back, since they always have cool things to tell me!)

[amporella]

Kyle, Aggressiveness, and Anger

I see a lot of posts around about how Kyle is an aggressive character (as opposed to other characters in the show), and I was curious about how much that label actually applies as opposed to the more generalized one of angry. So, I figured the best way to go about it would be to take a look at all of the notable fights he's been involved in, in chronological order, and then draw a conclusion based on that. Let's take a look!

(Warning that this may not be as clean as some of my other metas; I am writing this in the actual Tumblr interface instead of Google Docs because I got 500 words in here and I am stubborn.)

First, as usual, some brief (<- lying) clarification:

The word "aggressive" actually has some slight variance in its definition, which I'm going to try and explain. I haven't done this in any of my past metas because the definitions tend to be very similar, but in this case, there are a few key differences; Merriam-Webster specifies that aggression is typically unprovoked, and often

Below are the definitions of 'aggressive' (or 'aggression') from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary, respectively.

There are actually some key differences between the above dictionaries. Synchrony and diachrony are two different perspectives within linguistics; Merriam-Webster is synchronic, and Oxford English Dictionary is diachronic. Synchrony, within the context of linguistics, essentially boils down to taking the definition of the word within a modern lens. Diachrony is the opposite; it relates more to the history of the word rather than how it's currently used. This means that Merriam-Webster's definitions are more technically accurate within the modern day; when considering what someone is saying on Tumblr.com, for example, they are probably subconsciously using Merriam-Webster's definition. It's the one that's more ingrained into modern culture, while Oxford English Dictionary's definitions may quickly become antiquated.

Hence, because this post is referring to aggressiveness in the context of how it's used on the internet within the past ten years (which is considered recent within a linguistic timeline), we're going to be using the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition. Thus, for us to consider Kyle an aggressive character, he must not only engage in forceful actions, but they must also tend towards being unprovoked, AND he must have intention to dominate or master the other person involved.

That's your Linguistics fun fact of the day; let's move on!

Furthermore, we need to discuss what I meant by 'notable' fights in the intro paragraph. What makes a fight 'notable'? It's a very blurry line, so I'm going to try and set some guidelines:

For a fight to count as notable, it needs to involve Kyle and only one other person. This excludes situations such as in Tweek vs. Craig where all four of the main boys get into a fight played for laughs, and in Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society, where every boy engages in a huge fight over Bebe. Neither of those would apply as notable fights, namely because they're not Kyle-specific.

I'm also going to only be covering fights where they're at least somewhat plot-relevant. Kyle hitting Cartman once and not engaging further doesn't count as a notable fight, especially when it's exclusively played for laughs within the context of the show. Otherwise, there would be WAY too much content to cover, and this is already longer than I wanted the whole meta to be god dammit. That's the same reason why I'm not counting verbal insults as attacks; all of the boys sling insults at each other constantly, and most of Kyle's verbal insults (especially in later seasons) are a response to an insult rather than an initiation.

CONSIDERING ALL OF THAT, I've narrowed the fights we need to focus on down to nine, all within separate episodes. The episodes we're going to consider are Cow Days, Prehistoric Ice Man, It's Christmas In Canada, Cartoon Wars Part II, Tonsil Trouble, It's A Jersey Thing, Doubling Down, and Post Covid: Part 2. We're also going to take a brief look at a deleted scene from Gluten Free Ebola, which I'll touch on at the end because the events aren't technically canon.

Not all episodes are created equal, either, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Kyle. Matt and Trey have explicitly stated that Kyle's character was changed around season 6 (and likely even more later) because he was too similar to Stan; hence, while I do very much hold a flame for Kyle being a little asshole in earlier seasons, I'm going to take his behavior more seriously the later it occurs in canon. Doubling Down is a much more accurate portrayal of Kyle's current aggressiveness than Cow Days, for example, but I've chosen to cover all them anyway to try and paint the best picture that I can.

SO, one by one, let's talk about them! I'm going to give a few screenshots, summarize the events leading up to the fight, and then give my take on whether Kyle's behavior fits the definition of aggressive. Then we'll sum it all up!

Cow Days (Season 2, Episode 13):

The first episode in which Kyle gets into an Actual Real Fight is as early as Season 2, albeit in the second half. Seriously, does anybody even remember this episode? I didn't until I started looking. Here's a brief summary of the episode premise to jog your memory:

The main four are attending South Park's Cow Days festival, and they're trying to win Terrance and Philip dolls from a ball throwing game. However, the game is rigged and the festival sucks, so the rest of the episode consists of shenanigans as the main four try to rustle up enough money to win the dolls. The instance in which the fight occurs in this episode is when they run out of money to continue trying to win, and Kyle is pissed at Cartman for miscounting the money.

Okay, this was actually kind of a dick move. I don't think that Cartman miscounting the money technically counts as provoking Kyle, and in this instance, he is technically trying to assert himself over Cartman; the last few lines carry the implication that he will kick the shit out of him again if he doesn't figure out a way to afford another few rounds of the game.

In this episode, I would actually consider Kyle's behavior aggressive; yay? Whether that's a good or bad thing, that's a point for canonically aggressive Kyle.

Prehistoric Ice Man (Season 2, Episode 18):

Prehistoric Ice Man is an interesting one; I wasn't quite sure whether I should incorporate it, but it's also one of the only scenes on our list where Kyle fights someone other than Cartman (in this case, Stan) so I figured it was worth bringing up.

In this episode, Stan and Kyle fight over various aspects of a man frozen in ice, and eventually 'schedule' a fight. They then engage in the most unenthusiastic fight in the history of South Park.

To be honest, even calling this scene a 'fight' is a stretch; it's very obvious that neither one of them actually wants to fight, and it's actually Stan who implies that he wants a fight first; he's the first one to threaten Kyle, and Kyle only agrees to fight when Stan does. Kyle puts up his fists first in the actual fight, but not before both of them hesitate.

One of the reasons I included this fight was because if Kyle had been willing to attack Stan without hesitation, it would have been undeniable evidence that he was an aggressive character; he would have been feeling violent towards someone who he's close to, and it would have been fairly unprovoked; arguing over a name generally isn't a good reason to start a fight.

But Kyle doesn't attack Stan; despite being very obviously angry at him, that anger doesn't translate to the desire to fight him. For a seemingly aggressive character, Kyle rejects all expectations in this episode; therefore, that's a point for him not being aggressive.

It's Christmas In Canada (Season 7, Episode 15):

It's season 7! We're still not in modern South Park era, but we're past the seasons that are very dubiously canon. We can take the following episodes a little more seriously in the grand scheme than we did the prior episodes.

In 'It's Christmas In Canada', the boys end up in Canada to try and bring back Ike, whose birth parents suddenly want him back. Cartman is pissed that he's spending his Christmas in Canada (title drop), and he picks a fight with Kyle. Kyle ends it quickly.

Something notable to consider about this fight is that Kyle ends it as quickly as he possibly can; he doesn't pummel Cartman, or threaten him excessively; he clocks him enough to get him to stop posturing, and that's it. He may engage in a fight in this episode, but he's not violent.

Was Kyle provoked in this fight? I would say definitely! Cartman actively goads him into a fight and threatens him, and Kyle gives him a good amount of time to shut up before he ends up engaging. All things considered, this was a pretty reasonable reaction. I don't think this episode counts in favor of aggressive Kyle.

Cartoon Wars Part II (Season 10, Episode 4):

In Cartoon Wars Part II, Kyle and Cartman battle over Cartman trying to get Family Guy pulled from the air. In a previous episode, Cartman manages to stall Kyle by sabotaging his Big Wheels using Cheesy Poofs, and this fight picks up when Kyle tracks Cartman down again.

A few things to note about the actual fight in this one; Kyle makes the first threat, but Cartman is the first one to initiate the fight by pulling off his mittens. Furthermore, Cartman calls for a time out in the fight, and Kyle actually adheres to it; similarly to the fight just above, Kyle isn't particularly violent here. He doesn't want to fight; he's only doing it out of necessity, and he stops as soon as he thinks that Cartman's conceded. Kyle's not trying to dominate him here, as the definition of aggressive suggests; he's just trying to get him to stop.

But was Kyle provoked in this episode? Maybe not in the overarching plot, but considering the events of the previous episode, absolutely. Cartman knocks him off the side of the road, and does so viciously enough that Kyle injures his shoulder. Kyle very much has a reason to want justice; before Kyle even considers threatening or fighting Cartman, Cartman hurts him first.

Is Kyle's choice of adult comedy show absolute garbage? Totally. Was he justified in fighting Cartman? I would say so! Kyle has a good reason to be angered, and he's willing to let go as soon as Cartman ends the fight and concedes. This episode doesn't seem to contribute to aggressive Kyle.

Tonsil Trouble (Season 12, Episode 1):

In Tonsil Trouble, Cartman is accidentally infected with HIV during a routine surgery. When Kyle laughs at him, he gets revenge by sneaking into his room and infecting him during the night. Kyle finds out, and confronts Cartman to kick his ass.

I honestly don't think this fight involving Kyle needs much justification. Cartman gave him an (at the time) incurable disease; Kyle was absolutely provoked and well within his rights to kick the shit out of Cartman. Any character in his position would have done the same; it wouldn't be fair to consider his behavior in this episode aggressive. Cartman totally deserved it.

It's A Jersey Thing (Season 14, Episode 9):

In It's A Jersey Thing, a Jersey family moves into South Park, and it's revealed that Sheila conceived Kyle in New Jersey. This brings out Kyle's 'Jersey side', during which he has an angry, impulsive streak, similar to the other Jersey folks who are moving to town.

This also isn't technically a fight, but Kyle shoves Cartman against a tree, so I figure that it falls within the general category of Kyle 'attacking' someone.

Is Kyle provoked in this episode? I would say that he is. Cartman says that his blood is tainted and insults him for being Jewish; I don't blame him at all for being pissed, especially when the obviously bullshit concept of 'blood purity' to justify discrimination against Jewish people has been a thing since the 1400s. I doubt the mention of 'tainted blood' was unintentional.

And even beyond Cartman provoking Kyle, it's important to note that the way Kyle behaves in this episode is not his normal behavior. Were Kyle naturally aggressive, there wouldn't be a reason to differentiate him between normal Kyle and Jersey Kyle; seeing as aggressiveness is one of Jersey Kyle's primary traits, if Kyle was already aggressive, Jersey Kyle would have no point in existing.

It's a similar concept to Goth Stan; in Raisins, Matt and Trey take Stan's occasional tendency towards depression and turn it up a notch by making him a member of the Goth Kids. The same thing happens for Kyle; they take him exhibiting anger and turn it up to the next level of active aggression.

Did Kyle attack Cartman in this episode? Yes, he did. Did he attack him for less than Cartman usually says to him? Definitely; Kyle's dealt with much worse from him. But was he aggressive? No, and I'd actually say the very existence of this episode proves that Kyle isn't as aggressive as he's often made out to be.

Doubling Down (Season 21, Episode 7):

Season 21! At this point, we're pretty much in the modern era. That means we're almost done with this meta (<- lying)!

Doubling Down is the last actual episode we're going to look at. In this episode, Kyle convinces Heidi to break up with Cartman, citing his abusive behavior as a reason. She initially agrees and decides to date Kyle instead, and Cartman is furious; he responds to confronting Kyle in the school hallway and initiating a fight.

The key words here are that Cartman initiates the fight, and Kyle remains calm about it for an impressively long time. Cartman insults him and slams him into a locker, and Kyle only decides to retaliate when Cartman actively goes in to hit him. Even then, he takes him down in one punch; he doesn't shove Cartman, or kick him, or attempt to drag out the fight any longer than he has to. He ends it as swiftly as he possibly can.

Was Kyle provoked here? Definitely. It's implied he only even hit Cartman to defend himself; there's a reason he didn't try and hurt him until Cartman was swinging. Could Kyle be considered aggressive for what he did here? Definitely not.

Post Covid: Part 2

Post-Covid has a LOT to sum up, so I'm just going to sum up the part leading up to the fight; Cartman, who has seemingly converted to Judaism (which I hope we all know is absolute bullshit by now), wants to go back in time and kill Kyle to make sure he can't reunite their friend group as children. He does this under the justification of wanting to protect his family.

An important bit of context to consider here is that Kyle showed up here to stop Cartman from killing him. Did he necessarily punch Cartman in the face for that reason; maybe not, as Cartman was obviously taunting him directly beforehand, but it's worth considering. When determining whether Kyle was provoked in this scene, I ask you not only to consider Cartman's actual words - which taunt Kyle for his lack of a family - but the implications behind them.

This is Eric Cartman we're talking about - the same Cartman who's spent his entire childhood hurling antisemitic insults at Kyle, and going so far as to literally attempt genocide - and now he's calling himself a "real Jewish person". He's fetishized Judaism to the point where he's built his whole life around it after making Kyle's life absolute hell for being Jewish, and he's now rubbing it in. While simultaneously trying to send someone back in time to literally kill Kyle.

I don't think there's at all a debate on whether Kyle was justified here; responding to Cartman's antisemitic attacks is not aggressive.

Gluten-Free Ebola (Deleted Scene):

In this deleted scene, Clyde insults Kyle's startup company (from the previous episode, Go Fund Yourself) and Kyle punches him in the face. Woah, okay. Kind of an overreaction there. This is very out of character for Kyle; the HUGE majority of fights that he engages in are with Cartman after being provoked, and right now, he just clocked Clyde for a snarky comment. Wtf.

This would be great for aggressive Kyle (as his behavior up there would definitely be considered aggressive)... if the scene wasn't deleted. I don't know exactly why it was deleted, but it's worth noting that it was; I personally think it's because they acknowledged that Kyle's behavior in that scene was out of character. This is the first time (at least in fairly modern South Park era, early Season 18) where Kyle does something like this to someone he usually considers a friend with no provocation at all.

A deleted scene generally shouldn't be seriously taken into account when determining a character's personality trait, but I found the fact that it was deleted to be interesting enough to bring up!

Finally, we're done looking over the episodes: let's talk about what we've learned.

Conclusion

First, let's take a count: out of the eight non-deleted episodes I mentioned above, Kyle fits the definition of aggressive in one of them, and doesn't fit it in the other seven. Further worth noting is that the episode in which he IS aggressive is in Season 2, when Kyle's personality was not solidified yet. In fact, I'd go so far to say Kyle's behavior towards Cartman in that episode was much more similar to how Stan would behave; that's further solidified by Matt and Trey stating that Kyle was too similar to Stan before Season 6.

So, it doesn't look like Kyle really fits the definition of aggressive; he rarely if ever engages in a fight when he's not actively provoked (whether that's verbally, or with a character actually choosing to fight him), and even when he does, he typically doesn't drag it out. Kyle is not a character that relishes in fighting, or violence, or is impulsive enough to pick fights without being provoked; he simply isn't an aggressive character.

Is he an angry character? I think so! A great example of this would be in Post-Covid, when the doorbell won't shut up and he's getting increasingly pissed about it; he's absolutely prone to being riled up even by really little things, but he doesn't fight the doorbell. He interacts very politely with every person who comes to the door, even though the noise of it is pissing him off. His temper is fairly short, but he's not aggressive.

But why does it matter that we acknowledge the difference between short temperedness and aggression? Isn't it really just a difference in semantics?

No, it's not. The reason why we need to acknowledge that Kyle isn't naturally aggressive is because it plays a HUGE role in the tendency to diminish Cartman's attacks against him. If we say that Kyle is a naturally aggressive character, we can't blame Cartman's antisemitic insults for Kyle's hatred of him, and his tendency to fight him in particular; we can say that Kyle just happens to be that way, and that Cartman's insults don't actually have a significant effect on him. It forces the logical conclusion that Cartman and Kyle are actually on the same level, and that there's no difference in power between them. This is harmful for a myriad of reasons, the most obvious one being that it fuels the false concept that Cartman and Kyle are abusing each other, as opposed to Cartman merely abusing Kyle.

If Kyle attacks Cartman for no reason (which he would do, were he aggressive), then he's the abusive one. Calling Kyle aggressive hands Cartman apologists literally everything they need to claim that Cartman isn't that bad on a silver platter.

And even furthermore, calling Kyle aggressive for nearly any of the fights up there implies that someone being abused - or someone of a marginalized group - fight back against their abuser/oppressor is aggressive behavior. It's not. The word 'aggressive' carries the connotation of unprovoked behavior, and of irrationality; it's a terrible thing to imply that someone abused is for fighting back.

On the other hand, admitting that Kyle isn't an inherently aggressive character solves that issue; it acknowledges that when Kyle lashes out at Cartman, it's because of something Cartman did, as opposed to his natural personality. It acknowledges that Cartman's antisemitism is a serious issue that has legitimately traumatized Kyle.

Acknowledging the effects of Cartman's antisemitism and calling Kyle an aggressive character are not thoughts that can exist simultaneously; you have to pick one or the other, because the logical conclusion from one naturally contradicts the other.

South Park is a very long running show - there's leeway in determining personality traits for most characters. It's really hard to keep track of 25 years of character development! And the point of this essay isn't to say that Kyle is extremely passive, or that he's not opinionated, or strong, or prone to anger; he clearly is all of those things. But it is to say that Kyle's aggressiveness is not something that should should be up for debate, and that if you're about to make a post about a select number of Kyle's more 'powerful' personality traits, such as the above ones mentioned, choose your words carefully.

[50cal-fullauto-astarion]

Going all out on this because Dot did an amazing job with these questions:

🧩, 🦴, 🥝, ❄️ & 🦷 for the ask game, please <3!

KEZ YOU OUT HERE SPOILING MEEE 🥰🥰💖💖

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

9 times out of 10 it’s either first person POV, a character waking up for the day age describing themselves as they look in a mirror, or WALLS of text. Formatting and first paragraph will always destroy my perception of a fic, and it doesn’t matter how good it is even two sentences after that.

Another more esoteric thing is any kind of dad’s best friend or stepfather or barely legal/he’s too old for me trope. I think those are literally the most vile fucking shit, and I just block on site. And I’m all for taboos, and people writing what they want, but I’ve never seen that shit written well nor on a blog that isn’t sparkly and pink and giving off major DDlg vibes. Fucking stomach turning.

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

Answered this guy here! But I���ll add a few others that aren’t pieces of media dfhj. The words: abattoir, incandescent, butcher, slaughter, dappled. Different deep jewel shades of blue and green. Animal eyes. Bones in odd places. Videos of interesting women cooking. Dreams about: mothers, children, fire, the apocalypse, all my lost true loves, every corner of the town I visit that I should mark on map.

🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what’s the most recent lie you told?

I lie quite a bit, but it used to be that almost every word out of my mouth was an exaggerated abs pointless lie dfhjd. Yay growing up in dysfunctional household! These days I’m much more conscientious and purposeful about being honest, and I’m always trying to improve, just going with white lies about stuff at work to make my life easier (“I need to use the restroom” means I’m going for a smoke), or at home to keep things smoother (“They were out of X creamer” means I forgot).

Most recent lie was this evening when I told my sister I had left the store and I couldn’t get her a certain brand of energy drink, but I was in the checkout line and didn’t want to go back through lmao.

❄️ ⇢ what’s your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

HO BOY SO MANY DFHJ. These are more vibes than anything solid sfhj. In alphabetical order:

@alittleposhtoad grieving in a cold place, love that has kindling in friendship, oranges peeled by one set of hands for another, tea in an old electric kettle on a black night, you can always come home here and home is what you call my head on your chest.

@dotcie two weirdos walk into a dive bar, and their mutually assured obsession exhibits as mutually assured destruction, sweating under a street lamp in a town where tourists don’t go at 3am with a man you swore you’d never see again, bedsheets they smell like sweat and home under an open window.

@kastlequill cannibalism as a type of taboo and closed religion, rage wielded elegant and precise like a blade, thought put into evils until they’re extrapolated into facets of humanity, the dichotomy of suffering as holiness and pointlessness, dangerous men they have either accepted or full on love the blood in their mouths, cities at sunset with the lights glittering on.

@parttimeprophet hey babe hehe. Animal hated paid back in animal brutality, cold women with colder determination, hell and religion and the death of god and the apocalypse, lipstick that glimmers like rubies, men that love the collars around their necks.

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

More wisdom: take breathers as much as you can in any area of life - steal then when you can at work, in hobbies, in talking, in cleaning - whether it’s 5 mins or 5 months, you need to rest, shit will be waiting for you when you get back. Don’t write down anything you don’t want read. Horses and boats are fun hobbies, but you can have the same financial experience by throwing wads of cash in a bonfire.

More life hacks: if you want to buy a used car, go for a Honda, bc you can beat the dog shit out of them for 30 years and they’ll still run like a clock. To save money, don’t get addicted to coke. The secret to the best homemade fried chicken you’ve ever had in your life is a pinch of cinnamon in your seasoned flour, and to make it crispy add a tablespoon of baking soda. Cream of tartar will make it meringue not break, but if you use too much it will taste hella metallic. 2 drops of dandelion tincture in a shot glass worth of water helps with liver and gallbladder inflammation - that’s Appalachian not crystal woowoo medicine. Don’t whistle outside at night.

[stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu]

happy to see you writing again, there’s a severe lack of vinnyskinny on here. could you do one with the word mate or bond?

Sorry that this took a moment lovely Anon!! You don’t even know how excited this prompt made me!! I hope that you enjoy!! :)

I did put this into a similar verse as my own little fic with these two lol

.-.-.-.-.-.

Vincent had been acting weird. That’s the only thing Stuart was sure of at the moment. He had been acting weird for weeks now honestly, but it had only become really noticeable the last couple days, all cultivating into today.

They were hanging out less and less. They were busy, they all were of course, but they normally always managed to find time to spend together. It was probably nothing and would end up being fine, but it still irked him slightly.

It was an off day for them, no practice, no game, just time to relax. He had wanted to spend the day with Vincent, lazing on the couch and watching a couple movies on their watch list, maybe try and cook dinner together, get up to some other things, whatever floated their boat.

So he had been surprised when Connor had asked him to come over to hang out. He had nothing against Connor, and considered the two of them to be great friends, he had just assumed that the other man would rather spend time with Leon.

He had almost turned Connor down, but then Vincent had encouraged him to go and have fun, claiming that he wanted to come with but that he had ‘errands’ that he had to run.

That had made Stuart a little suspicious, since Vincent hadn’t mentioned having to do anything today, but he decided not to press, even if he was a little hurt. He had wanted to hang out with Vincent, his boyfriend, but he guessed they could always hang out a different time.

At least Vincent drove him to Connor’s, so they had some time just talk and joke around. Before he had gotten out of the car, Vincent had stopped him, asking him to send updates every once in a while. The request wasn’t anything strange or out of the ordinary for them, so Stuart hadn’t even batted an eye while agreeing, pressing a kiss to the side of Vincent’s face and telling him that he would see him later.

But that had been hours ago, and although he had been sending texts to Vincent, keeping him updated like he had asked, the other man hadn’t responded to a single one. He didn’t need a whole paragraph or anything like that, hell, he didn’t even need a sentence, but a thumbs up or smiley face wouldn’t have killed anybody, especially when he was able to boast about being undefeated in Mario Kart against Connor by the end of it.

Connor shot him a look from where he was sitting after Stuart checked his phone for what had to be the millionth time that hour. “Everything all right?”

“Hmm?” Stuart turned to him, having not been paying attention since he had been scrolling through his text thread with Vincent, feeling a lump form in his stomach slightly.

“You seem to be worried about something.” Leon chimed in from where he was scrolling on his phone, sitting right next to Connor. He and Connor had tried their best to get Leon to join them in their little impromptu Mario Kart game, but the man had vehemently disagreed. The two of them weren’t particularly surprised by his answer, but still slightly disappointed nonetheless.

“It’s nothing too important. Vinny just hasn’t responded to any of my texts, nothing major. I know that he’s been busy, we all are, but it feels like he’s been busy for weeks now, I don’t know.” Stuart blew out a breath as he sunk into the couch more, trying not to feel too dejected.

He heard Leon let out a long suffering sigh, and then watched as the other man got up, rummaging around for something before holding up another controller, taking a seat next to Connor again.

“Whatever, I guess I’ll play a couple rounds, not like it’ll kill me.” Stuart and Connor shared a look with an each other, laughing slightly at the other man, who simply gave them a disparaging look.

Playing with Connor had been fun, but the three of them competing had been a blast, so much so that he barely noticed as the time passed by, until there was a knock on the door.

They paused the race, and Stuart looked down to his phone to see that Vincent had texted him, simply stating that he was there. He bid farewell to Connor and Leon, making sure to rub in the fact that he was the undisputed champion from their little game.

He closed the door behind him, and was a little surprised to see Vincent standing there, waiting for him, a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

“What are these for?” He asked, gently taking them from Vincent when he held them out, a blush making its way onto his face.

“If I told you, then it would ruin the surprise.” Vincent said, a smile on his face. He took Stuart’s hand in his own, leading him to where the car was parked and helped him in.

The entire ride him was full of chatter, Stuart talking about that he had done while he was hanging out with Connor and Vincent refusing to give any hints to what he had gotten up to all day.

When they finally arrived home, Stuart could almost feel the nerves radiating from Vincent.

When he finally entered the house, he noticed that all of the lights were off, instead multiple candles having been lit to light the house. And it smelled good, it smelled really really good.

He followed what seemed to be a trail of candles to the dining room, but found that it was empty. He turned around to see Vincent behind him, holding out a box.

“What-? What is this?” Stuart asked, taking the box with shaking hands. Opening it, he could’ve sworn that all of the breath was knocked out of him.

Inside of the box was a thin silver chain, one that was normally given by one partner to the other when they planned on bonding. He felt his hands tremble as he gently picked it up to examine it.

“Are you- are you serious? If you’re joking, I swear to god-”

“I’m not joking, I swear!” Vincent laughed out, sounding suspiciously choked up. “Ever since we started courting, I’ve wanted to bond with you.” Vincent walked up to Stuart, gently taking the chain, undoing the clasp and gently putting it on Stuart, doing the clasp again and watching the beta preen at the feeling of the chain on his skin.

“Oh Vincent, I would love nothing more than to get bonded with you.” Stuart said, a blush high on his cheeks, still so shocked at what was happening.

He and Vincent were going to get bonded.

[torchickentacos]

What is your favourite thing about contestshipping?

Sorry this took a couple days to answer but I gave you an essay, because that's what I do. OK this is DIFFICULT to answer because... where do I start, but I'll try! NO shade to you but this is so vague that I'm not sure where to start, but at the same time it means I have a lot of freedom to work with here so thank you!!!! I think the one thing about them that keeps me coming back is the push-and-pull. Their relationship is dynamic and fun. I think the best way to explain this is to briefly talk about Sapphirepearlshipping or advanceshipping, both of which I'm fine with or even like, though obviously it's not my area of expertise. Under cut, infodumping, no this will not be about those two ships- I am using them as an example of what Contest has that gives it that kick that other ships just don't have for me!

With advance/sapphirepearl, I think it comes very easily. I think those ships are quintessential best friends to lovers ships, and it's sweet, but it lacks this depth that Contest has, in my opinion. If I want to write saccharine fluff, then I know I can go to advance or sapphirepearl. Advance bickers every now and then but for the most part it's actually a very wholesome, sweet ship. (The manaphy movie is, quite admittedly, a guilty pleasure of mine for this reason [I know, I know. High treason.]). Which, not that contest ISN'T sweet and saccharine, but I'll get to that in the next paragraph.

So, contest. We've briefly discussed the simplicity of sapphirepearl and advanced, and I appreciate that simplicity but I get to a point where it stops interesting me. There's just not enough for me to parse through, not enough of an interesting dynamic to keep me focused on it. It starts sweet, it stays sweet. Contest has NEVER ceased to fascinate me. There's this constant push and pull between Drew and May, this utterly captivating dynamic between them that never grows stale because it's constantly changing in canon. There's always a power struggle. But before that, let's talk about them as individuals.

As individuals, they're interesting enough-especially Drew. I love to analyze him. We have two interesting people. May, a bubbly people person who is slightly 'no thoughts head empty', but she's actually incredibly talented and quick-thinking. She uses a ton of improv in contests (assist, metronome), which shows someone who is great at thinking on her feet. She's ditzy but also quick-witted, and she loves adventure and fun. She's an optimist who forgives a little too easily, but that same kindness serves her well in many situations. But that's not to say she's a pushover-she is definitively not.

Drew. Outwardly aloof, arrogant, and cool-headed, intelligent and, at times, a jerk. Inwardly? A hopeless head-over-heels romantic (though that's rather outward too), suprisingly emotionally intuitive towards others (as lostlegendaerie pointed out in the comments of... some post I don't remember, actually, I say a lot of shit on this website and cannot remember it all-he's actually incredibly good at encouraging May in a specific way that works to fire her up). He's also very good at it in the sense of realizing that ignroing Harley is the best way to deal with him-Drew actually is incredibly good at ignoring Harley, but I digress, this isn't about cactus ass man. Drew's words and actions often contradict on the surface, but they make sense the more you look at it. Will move on since I can spend the entire post on Drew's emotional state at any given point in time.

So, we have two fascinating, dynamic characters. Guess what? They're even more interesting together, be it romantically, platonically, or argumentatively.

Let's go back to the thing I mentioned earlier. The power struggle.

So. In the beginning. Drew's debut episode, he realizes one thing. That May is INCREDIBLY easy to get worked up. If he taunts her, she will take the bait every time- or so he thought. And we see this dynamic continue for a bit- he taunts her, she takes it beautifully. There's an undercurrent of romantic feelings all throughout it, though, with some roses, actions, and body language juxtaposing the teasing.

Enter Spontaneous Combusken.

No, I'm not kidding. I know my friends and I joke about that episode being a goddamn mess, which it can be (cough, Brianna's line about Drew not respecting women, cough), but it gives us a single vein of GOLD. (several actually, but I mean a vein of gold in a serious manner and not a comedic one.)

In Spontaneous Combusken, May turns the tables on him. May gets her turn on top (oops, wording, but you all know what I mean. Like, on top of the situation??? Moving on). And Drew's walls, so carefully constructed, start to fall as she learns to turn it back on him. She brings Brianna over to Drew, who is not prepared for the situation and would rather keep laying in the sun photosynthesizing. But no, May is the one who in that situation has an edge over him. She flips the tables on him, and Roselia even joins in! We get blushy Drew who retreats from the situation entirely, prompting Max to say my favorite line in all of pokeani aside from everything Harley says, which is: "Drew is such a weenie!"

And THIS is why I love contestshipping. Not just that specifically of course but as a specific example indicative of a general pattern. It's just INTERESTING! There's this back and forth between them, this pull of the tide that just keeps me coming back. I love writing both of their POVs because they're so interesting as individuals, especially Drew. I Love exploring the intricacies of the dynamic, the back and forth, the magnetism between them where they push and pull. I just LOVE that shit so much. Ask me later and I can get into the more mushy romantic aspects of it but the overarching reason I keep coming back to it is it just interests me and gives me a lot to parse through and dissect.

[isnt-it-pretty]

any advice for someone who never wrote a fanfic before?

Writing is a skill like any other. You wouldn't expect to pick up a flute and know how to play, would you? So no matter what, just keep writing.

Beyond that, here's a few pieces of general writing advice:

- Make sure your dialogue formatting is correct. A new paragraph every time a new person speaks, proper quotation marks, etc.

- Remember your tense. If you're writing in past tense, make sure everything is in past tense. The same applies if you're writing in present tense. It's an easy mistake to make, but people will notice.

- Don't use physical descriptors in place of nouns. Like this:

"Dialogue dialogue," the raven haired man said.

It's one of the quickest ways to turn people off your work. Use pronouns or the character's name unless the reader doesn't know the character's name. Sometimes you can get away with character relationships, ("blah blah," his father said), but use them sparingly.

- In a similar vein, just use 'said.' Words like whispered, shouted, etc., should be used for emphasis, not for regular dialogue.

- Don't learn to write from reading fics. You can tell when somebody does because they use all the tropes common to fanfiction, but honestly, those aren't very good (we've had passionate debates in my discord server about whether "golden orbs" or "the bluette said" is a greater sin. There is still no agreement.)

- Run your work through Grammarly. Copy and paste it into Grammarly's word processor since that works better than their google docs extension. Even the free Grammarly will help you a lot with little grammar things you don't notice. I know it picks up typos and such for me all the time.

- Personally, I suggest checking out some nonfiction writing books too. I'm fond of Stein on Writing by Sol Stein, and The Story Graph by Shawn Coney, but most people never do that, and they write fic just fine.

- Depending on the topic you plan on writing, research. I'm serious; the number of stories I've read that just toss in a deaf character because the author likes the headcanon is insane. If you want to deal with topics like disability or social issues, you need to research.

- If you post on ao3, learn the tagging system and use it properly. For example, "/" is romantic, and "&" is platonic. In general, don't use both for the same two characters.

- This is an excellent master list of writing advice by tumblr user she-who-fights-and-writes. Not all of it will apply to fic writing, but the basics are the same.

None writing but still important things:

- You'll never be happy if you compare your work to others. You can look at your pieces all day and wonder why they don't sound right or feel right or why it isn't like your favourite fic author, and it won't to make a difference.

- Coming off that, jealousy is a natural part of being involved in a skill-based community, but don't let it sour your friendships or make you bitter. I've seen it happen, and it makes everybody involved feel shitty. Meet people with kindness and move on, even if you think they don't deserve their popularity.

- Make friends! Fandom is a community. Authors should make friends with each other and with their readers. They should participate in the community by leaving comments on fics, reblogging art on social media, etc. This is supposed to be fun, so let it be.

- It is illegal to earn money off fan works. Don't mention anything to do with money on ao3. Don't link a kofi, paypal, say a work was a commission, etc. It breaks the terms of service.

- Just be kind and have fun.

[semperama]

10 and 18 🙏🙏🙏

Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

To me, if I said a piece of writing "haunted" me, it would just mean that I cannot stop thinking about it/am obsessed with it to an unreasonable or unsettling degree, and yeah, that happens to me with other people's writing all the time!! Both with published fiction and also with fanfic. It's so basic of me, but I definitely felt that way after reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and also My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. And probably others too, but those are the two books that first come to mind when it comes to things that consumed my every waking thought for days after I read them.

For my own writing, hmm. I feel like when I'm haunted by my own writing, it's only during the writing process, and it has a more negative connotation. I often get this feeling where I'm obsessed with the world and the idea of what I'm writing, but when I'm in that phase, I'm usually failing at actually putting words on the page, probably BECAUSE I'm overthinking. I'll lay awake at night drowning myself in little scenarious, but never actually write them down, or when I try to write them down, they don't live up to my imagination. That's a bad place to be!! As fun as it is to be consumed by something like that, I definitely don't do my best work when it's happening.

Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

Oh dear!! I'm so bad at these commentary things, mostly because, as I hinted at above, I think I do my best writing when I'm not thinking too hard about it, so it's often hard for me to go back and talk about how I came up with things or my thought process behind it, because...ideally I wasn't having too many thoughts! But I guess I'll attempt to talk about the opening paragraphs of A Praise Chorus:

Max gives him a birthday card. The envelope is blue, and Daniel thumbs it open carefully to find a picture of two cats in party hats and a hand-scrawled message inside about how he’s over the hill. He laughs and pulls Max into a hug, his mind racing a mile a minute about how—It’s weird, right? It’s so weird. The only people who send him cards anymore are his parents. No one else here got him anything. A lot of them have probably already forgotten it’s his birthday, too focused on their own plans for the weekend, getting laid or getting high.

“Thanks, man,” he says, squeezing Max’s shoulder as they break apart. He can’t look him in the eye. Something itches between his shoulder blades, where Max’s palm rested for maybe a second too long. “Let’s get a drink, huh?”

“I got it,” Max says. Daniel scoffs and waves him off, but later he catches Max slipping a credit card into the hand of a passing waiter. He’s a fucking kid, not even 20 for a couple more months, not even through his second year of F1, and Daniel can afford to buy his own bottles. But Max catches his eye and gives a thumbs up, two bright spots of red high on his cheeks that Daniel would think were sunburn if he didn’t know better.

So, I've recently talked about how the idea of the birthday card saved this fic, because I was totally lost about how to begin it when I first started writing. I originally was trying to open the fic with Max doing the shoey, but I think the reason it wasn't working is because that wouldn't freak Daniel out enough. Which is a weird thing to say about a guy drinking champagne from a shoe, but ultimately I think that's the kind of thing a guy can shrug off as just guys being dudes, you know? Whereas showing up to a San Tropez birthday party with a card of all things is just uncanny enough to send Daniel into a crisis, lol.

I think the part where Max insists on paying for the drinks really drives it home, because again, it'd be totally normal for your buddy-pal to insist on buying you drinks on your birthday, but since Daniel is already off-kilter, it takes on a different kind of meaning for him. I think it sets the tone for the rest of the fic, where Daniel starts to question what's normal and what's not and what it is he's actually feeling. The road to untangling his denial had to start with something he couldn't deny--the birthday card and how it made him feel--and then suddenly it became harder for him to cope with even normal friend stuff.

I hope all that rambling made sense, ahaha. Like I said, I'm bad at this!!

[tokkias]

DIRECTORS CUT ON SECRET MOMENTS IN A CROWDED ROOM 💳💥💳💥💳💥

directors cut || open

secret moments in a crowded room

this is by far my most popular fic right now and i understand because i think it's kind of banging

fun fact, when i got the request for secret relationship trope nalu i was initially convinced that it was @nalunalu who sent it because it's their favourite trope for nalu and at that point we weren't the crazy close duo we are now, so i genuinely wasn't sure lmfao

title is taken from the song dress by taylor swift which i had not heard until after i had written this fic because i specifically sought out songs about being in a secret relationship, and i think legally every fic writer is obligated to name a fic after a taylor swift song?

Natsu was always a handsy guy. He was a man with no physical boundaries when it came to the people he was close to, so it was no surprise to anyone when he just couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of Lucy. They were an inseparable duo; wherever Lucy was, Natsu was sure to be there too, never once keeping his hands to himself. It was always something—an arm slung around her shoulder, a hand on her thigh, his head resting in her lap. It wasn’t Natsu’s overzealous affection that left guild members scratching their heads, but rather the way Lucy seemed to indulge him in it.

these two paragraphs were written on my phone in the corner of a thrift shop while my friend was searching for an outfit to meet dan howell in

i think this fic and this section specifically really changed the way i write nalu because it's definitely not canon that natsu always wants to be touching her, but it's something that i've implemented into lots of my fics since then (see taking the hint, heartstrings and indiscreet)

"There is no way they’re not already fucking," Cana slurred, a little louder than necessary, causing a deep blush to cross Erza’s face. "I don’t know," Levy pondered, "but I think Lu-chan would tell me if she and Natsu were dating." "Don’t need to be dating for him to stick it in~"

i'm not a sub watcher so i don't know why i felt compelled to use lu-chan, but i think that's the one fic specific thing i put in my writing

i don't write cana a lot aside from little scenes like this so my understanding of her character is very surface level. it was originally much lewder and i think subconciously i was having a throwback to my danganronpa days and writing miu iruma over cana lol. do i think it's in character? no, not necessarily. do i think it's really funny? absolutely yes i do

"I didn’t know Natsu could be so..." Erza paused, searching for the right words to describe the scene they had just witnessed, "tender...?" Natsu had always been like a baby brother to Erza; she’d watched him grow up from a loud, reckless, and aggressive child into a loud, reckless, and aggressive adult, which made it all the more unusual to see this type of behaviour out of him. The sentiment was shared in murmurs amongst the girls, their attention turning away from the pair as they began to reminisce on the ways he had changed since Lucy had came into their lives.

i feel like we don't talk enough about natsu and erza's relationship, like, that's her baby brother. erza has only ever known natsu as foolish and stupid and reckless, and to be fair, he totally still is, but lucy has absolutely mellowed him out and i think erza has not only noticed that, but she really appreciates it. makes her life a lot easier lol. erza would be really happy to find out that they're dating because she loves both of them so much and she just wants to see them be happy.

"What the fuck?" He choked out, trying to compose himself as he coughed and sputtered, "Did you guys just kiss?" Those who weren’t paying attention before then certainly were now, and the group of gossips in the corner whipped their heads around, hoping to catch a glimpse of exactly what Gray was talking about. Expectant eyes moved to Natsu and Lucy, who were sat looking completely innocent to the accusation. Lucy cocked her head to the side in confusion. "What are you talking about?" "Yeah, why would I kiss Lucy?"

ah poor gray. this was my first time ever writing gray and i had a lot of fun with it even though it was just him getting gaslit. natsu would gaslight gray for fun but that's not something up lucy's lane which is exactly why she's the one to first be like "what? no we didn't" which really throws gray off guard

"Yeah, Lucy’s right, maybe you need to get your eyes checked or somethin’" "Hey man, I know what I saw!" His confidence had certainly wavered as a result of their genuine confusion, but he was not going to back down and let Natsu be right while everyone was watching.

for lucy he might admit he was wrong, but absolutely not for natsu, and never fucking ever in front of the entire guild. i think the dialogue "hey man, i know what i saw!" immediately followed by he did not know what he saw is really funny which is exactly why i wrote it.

"Luuuccyyyy," Natsu whined, "When are ya gonna be done reading that book?" "Well, I couldn’t finish it earlier because someone," she flicked his nose, "started a guild-wide brawl by kissing me." "Hey, not my fault Gray can’t keep his eyes to himself," he shrugged. Lucy shut her book, placing it on her nightstand, before looking down at her partner. "You knew Gray was looking at us, didn’t you?" "Yeah," he confirmed with a mischievous glint in his eye. "So you kissed me because you wanted to start a fight?" "Nah, I just thought it’d be funny to mess with everybody, getting to punch Gray was just a bonus," he grinned.

there was no way the both of them (natsu especially) wasn't going to notice the way everyone was staring at them and there was no way gray was going to pass up a chance to get into a brawl. that man has too much excess energy. maybe the whole getting to kiss lucy thing was actually the bonus.

also maybe my first time writing nalu banter? i've come a long way since then dfhjdgds

Lucy let out a soft laugh, realising she should have known better to think otherwise. Her hand rested on his cheek, guiding him up towards her so she could place a soft kiss against his lips. Everyone else could talk all they wanted, but for now, this was just their little secret.

when i was looking for songs for the title the song dirty little secret by the all american rejects kept coming up. i didn't feel like it was right for the title and it felt a bit... 2014? which is what i try to avoid in all aspects of my fics, but it did contribute to how i wrote the last line and i think it was a really nice line to neatly wrap up the whole fic in a neat little bow

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

BTS!! Don't Hurt Yourself

BTS: Write a dvd commentary about a passage from the fic (I cannot pic a fav so I'm just gonna give any old passage, I chose this one because I have a fun backstory about when I wrote it)(Full disclosure I own dvds but its been so long since I watched dvd commentary that I don't really remember what it's like so I'll just talk about the passage and how I made the decisions I did and how it came about, you know, the making of the passage.)

Spicy. alright I can do spicy.

Stede had always thought that a desire to hurt another individual out of malice or hatred was something that was intended to be done without their consent, that it would be dampened by the thought that the other person was into it. He was somewhat surprised to find that Izzy’s openly asking for it did not cheapen his own sadistic pleasure in giving the bastard what he deserved.

And he did deserve it, Stede decided as he pressed the head of his cock into Izzy’s tight, wet cunt. Izzy deserved to get smacked around and spat upon. Not just for the stunt with the blow job and the secret phone call, but also for calling Edward a whore, and a twat, and every other unkind derogatory thing he’d said in that courtroom and out, and for being generally an unpleasant, nasty little man that no one wanted to be around, and for causing Ed so much grief.

First of all, Bonnet, you are also causing Ed grief by fucking his husband but I digress

anyway. Backstory: This is from Chapter 7 of Don't Hurt Yourself. A chapter which I slaved away on for I think about two months, because I had written up to the point where Stede and Izzy Yaoi prat fall onto each other and Stede ends up with Izzy's tit in his hand or whatever, and I had no idea where to go from there ie how to get Stede's cock in Izzy's cunt in a way that was at least realistic enough for me to be satisfied with it.(emotional realities not physical realities, as is my right as an ofmd fic author, David Jenkins school of writing ect.) It's a problem I have with writing both Jack/Stede and Izzy/Stede, I have to seamlessly bring them from bitching at each other like they do in the show to fucking each other. Its not as easy as it sounds.

The breakthrough of the writers block came for me the same night I did magic mushrooms for the first time. My dealer told me that they would take about 3 hours to kick in (they took half that amount of time) and I was like, well I have three hours to spare so I might as well try to bang out a couple paragraphs. (it was the day I posted "why is it so much easier to write when the edible is about to kick in" It was not an edible I was waiting on. Idk why I said edible I regularly admit to drugs on here lmao.) So I managed to write a lot of the dialogue and then these two paragraphs. But the shrooms kicked in as I was finishing up the last paragraph, which meant that I ended it with some absolutely inebriated drivel about the word fuck and how it's used to convey both hate (e,g. shut the fuck up, fuck you) and sex that I had to delete when I was sober and I very rapidly lost the ability to write after that.

Anyway now that the fun back story is out of the way let's actually talk about what's happening in these two paragraphs. Stizzy hate sex! Stede and Izzy are sometimes hard to make fuck because Stede simply does not think about him, but they're also incredibly fun to make fuck. Muppet vibes off the charts especially when they're doing bdsm (which is the only kind of sex Izzy knows how to have). Miss Piggy slapping Kermit energy but they're not married.

I also tend to think Stede has a dark side. He's as mean as he is nice and he's real fucking nice. I love it when he's evil, because I'm horny about evil men. I think if Stede would think about Izzy long enough he could get dark with it (a vibe which is not incompatible with muppetry broaden your horizons for the possible.) and I think the only way to make him think about Izzy long enough is to have Izzy wrong Ed and make it clear to Stede that Ed was wronged and put Izzy in Stede's direct line of sight.

Basically, I want Stede to have hate sex and I want him to realize he's a sadist. I tried to convey that here. I think that Stede as a character has the capacity for so much love and so much hate. It's an important balance to strike when writing him, if you go too far in one direction you turn him into an unrecognizable monster (which I've seen certain people do) but if you go too far in the other he becomes an unrecognizable woobie baby which is so fucking boring dude. I hope I got across his sadist awakening well. he still needs a second one where you learn you can do it to people you like tho...

The ask meme

[arrow-dodger]

I have been spending increasingly less time on social media. I basically don't even use Twitter anymore and haven't for like at least this entire year so far. I mostly open Facebook to look people up for things or keep track of events, and I basically never spend time scrolling on there because videos autoplay with sound enabled and that's fucking insane to me.

I'm on here sometimes, if this even counts. I kinda don't think so. I only have TikTok so I can view things people send me, but I actually legitimately hate being on there for more than a video or two at a time. It gives me anxiety.

When I open my phone for mindless scrolling I actually typically end up on reddit now. And I was a reddit hater in the past, believe me. But the idea that I can follow pages for all the different things I'm interested in, and those pages are what make up my entire feed, is so novel amongst all these other sites that constantly push OTHER shit in my face. I know there's an algorithm there, but it's kind of fine? I mean I'm still just seeing fandom discussions, posts of cute animals, uhhh kinda everything tumblr was for me in like 2012, if I'm being honest.

One thing I do that is probably actually bad for me though is read those "relationship drama" kinds of subs. There are a lot of those and I kinda can't get enough of them. They definitely make me think deeply about human relationships and how complicated that shit is, and playing thought experiments like that is fun for me I think.

And man, I used to think that the people writing posts on those subs were the people with issues, but the people who frequent those subs and COMMENT on those posts are the ones with the worst issues, I'm finding. Every single post has at least a couple of people very concernedly explaining to OP some variation of "your boyfriend is an abusive narcissistic sociopath and is going to murder you and you need to get out YESTERDAY," no matter the conflict. It's actually wild to me to see people talking so confidently and prescriptively about the lives of strangers they've only read a few paragraphs about. It's like they're trying to explain to the poster what that person's own life is sometimes. The lack of nuance and critical thinking often startles me, but the patronizing tone REALLY does me in.

It reminds me of the black and white thinking of a teenager (which I was guilty of a thousand times over, as evidenced by this blog), except it's way worse because everyone these days fancies themselves some kind of psychology expert because they've read and watched things on the internet. They've read all the pop psychology "facts" and articles, they listen to true crime podcasts, they watch youtubers and TikTokers spew psychology jargon with the confidence of someone with a PhD even though they're like 22 and probably work at like, Target. So now everyone knows all the big fancy words and uses them freely.

But I personally can't get past the idea that being overly clinical and pathological about every human interaction or characteristic just leads to a lack of real empathy, self reflection, and accountability. If everything everyone else does that is bad or harmful is because of some disorder you are deciding they have that makes them Evil, then they're irredeemable and you can write them off entirely. You can take yourself completely out of having contributed to any conflict you had with that person. And if you have some self-diagnosed disorder that is an untreatable innate part of who you are that you can use to attribute any bad behaviors YOU have to, that means you may get trapped in a cycle of feeling like you never have to grow or work on yourself ever again. Which is... bad!

I dunno, it's like, sometimes people just suck. There doesn't have to be anything deeper to it. They're selfish, maybe, or a bad communicator, or they have trauma they've never worked on, or something "ugly" like BPD, or maybe you and them aren't compatible honestly, or in VERY few cases in my personal opinion, yeah, they're just vindictive. I think less people are truly cruel and vindictive than we like to think. People aren't sitting out there in armchairs with their fingers steepled, plotting evil plots about how they're going to next ruin your life. And if you think they are then consider that you're not the main character. They're usually reacting to things moment to moment just like you, and they're the hero of their own story, even if they're a shitty hero. A Game of Thrones tier hero. Hot take, but even people who are abusive are usually not evil fucking masterminds.

We should, uh, cut each other more slack. In general. We're all out here learning how to person, together, in a world and a society that is constantly trying to crush us. So yeah. Also, existing systems of classification are not the end-all-be-all and are not meant to be. Those evolve over time, and I truly think we're seeing at a rapid rate these days how a lot of our current ones are broken as fuck.

[luveline]

jade baby hiiii! hope you’re not getting tired of reading my thoughts on your work cause i always have so much fun writing these heheh

okay first of all your writing!!!! you know (at least i hope you do) how much i absolutely love your writing but omg it’s SO GOOD in this one!! so easy flowing and so nice to read!! the first few paragraphs where eddie is talking about how every vampire representation on media is a lie was so fun to read 😭

All they have now is debt, each other, and the Great Munson mug collection. 

He turns the pedal and your back wheel spins in time with his heart. You're awesome. When was the last time somebody who wasn't Wayne said anything like that? 

Eddie doesn't know what he thinks. Wayne sets the record straight every now and then with a clap on the shoulder. You did what every parent wants their kid to do. You lived. I can't ask for more than that. 

i love every bit where we can see how much wayne loves eddie!! the fact that we never got to see them interact on the show makes seeing it in fics so much more special 😭

the “don’t say her fucking name” line physically hurt. i really had to take a moment to breath.

He looks like a man who has been tired for a very long time. You make a mental note to bring him some lavender for his pillow on your next visit. 

r caring for wayne as well 🥺💘

Making his bracelet had been a challenge, lots of knotting and double knotting, three restarts and one small under the breath tantrum. It's not anything special, black and white hearts seven strands wide, but he'd been very appreciative. 

baby 🥺 the heart bracelets 🥺

“Sarah, I was born with butterfingers and you know that.”

okay me

"He said he's gonna throw himself off a bridge," Eddie informs. "Poor guy. I know the feeling." 

okay me again (IM JOKING)

Funny how Steve's hair speaks as much as his expression, bobbing as he nods his head to emphasise each word

baby that was SO FUNNY i can picture his hair moving as he talks and i’m obsessed with the image in my head

It's all in the way you — he says this with love — perform the words. You speak like each word you're saying has equal importance, and it's calming.

You're willing to change your plans now that he's asked to go with you. It's a gesture as lovely as you are. Eddie doesn't think you'd ever think it of yourself; your kindness is so intrinsic you don't notice it, like the fine stitching of a leather bound book. Integral and widely unappreciated.

i love how eddie likes her so much that he not only appreciates things like the way she talks or her kindness but also sees it as something like deeply innate to her and likes it even more for that

WAYNE BEING SUSPICIOUS OF THEM I LOVE HIM 😭

For a time, he'd been a normal (debatable) person having a normal (horrifying) conversation with his dad. Not a vampire. Not somebody who ruins everything he touches. 

you had no right to make me laugh with the “(debatable) (horrifying)” just to make me ugly sob with him calling wayne dad and saying THAT LAST LINE. that was actually insane.

"I know I can be a lot to deal with." “Who told you that?”

crying in a corner rn. thank u

They come apart, blood smeared in both your palms like two halves of a dripping heart. 

listen. i know it’s blood and eddie was probably losing his mind. but that was such a beautiful imagery 😭

You realise as he says it how much his wanting you to go had mattered to you. Eddie's your friend, and you don't think that you're going to stay friends much longer.

i don’t really have anything to say about that. just wanted to highlight that bit

"Steve," Eddie says, jaw dropped down to his chest, "do you have a crush on me?" 

the steddie nation keeps winning!!!

I can't believe I put you through that. I can't believe I put you through that. I'm so sorry. 

NOOO HE FEELS SO GUILTY

And for a while, Eddie hadn't felt the same. The world he'd woken up to was hard. There had been lawyers and grief and guilt and becoming. He doesn't have the words to describe how it feels to become something new, something that needs to hurt people to live, something that will hurt people to live, whether Eddie wants to or not. 

The loss of choice is suffocating. 

He can live with the grief of what he is if it means other people don't have to live with grief of what he isn't. 

it’s honestly painful to realise how guilty eddie feels about putting everyone around him through what happened even though it’s not his fault, and how he’s willing to go on and live in suffering for all his life (or all eternity? im not sure how long vampires live) just so he doesn’t have to make the people he loves go through that again. he’s always so selfless :(

"Tuned into the wrong station." 

You pet the back of his head. "Yeah," you say softly, "I think I was." 

i keep thinking there’s a deeper and secret meaning in this dialogue and i can’t articulate my thoughts around it but i’m so sure in my mind that way she says that she was in the wrong station just means she was seeing things in the wrong way until now? you can totally disregard what im saying though

You make the worst sound anyone has ever made as he moves back, like something has been ripped from you. A gutted gasp, near silent. 

“the worst sound anyone had ever made” and it’s just a gasp from breaking the kiss. i’m actually going insane.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks when he gets a look at you, your unreadable expression. He takes care to keep his head angled down so you can't see the lower half of his face. 

"I don't think you could." 

STOP

He's been in here enough times to know what it looks like, but for some reason you find yourself checking his face, worried about what it is he thinks of your things, all your mismatched trinkets, your stained glass lamps, your life as you let yourselves in.

“your mismatched trinkets, your stained glass lamps, your life as you let yourselves in”. being worried about how her life seems as she lets him go into. sick and twisted

His touch is like the tide. He wades in, away. His thumb strokes inward over something soft and then his whole hand moves back to your thigh. 

‼️‼️

He's not confined to all his softest parts and he never will be. He's snarky and angry and loud. He plays guitar like a real rockstar and he doesn't take anyone's shit. He's a survivor. A glass of blood every now and then was never gonna stop him. 

that first line???? INSANELY GOOD OH MY GOD

"Least it wasn't Snoopy." 

of course there’s a snoopy reference. love u for it

jade my love that was soooo good!!! exploring eddie’s life as a vampire not only through his enhanced abilities but through all his loss and suffering and self doubting made the character so realistic (i know, he’s a vampire, but you get what i mean)!! baby you’re the best writer i know and it makes me so proud seeing you stepping out of your comfort zone and writing horror themed stories without losing your touch and your way with words and feelings!!! you’re insanely talented and i’m always thrilled that i get to read your work and to know you!! that is genuinely one of greatest joy of my life!! hope you’re being extra nice to yourself and getting enough rest and taking care!!! love u 💌 - lu

I don't ever get tired of what you think!!! Our red string of fate means you pick up on all my favourite things and it always makes me feel so special

Writing Wayne was super fun because we know literally nothing about him besides the fact that he's Eddie's guardian and he doesn't think for a moment that Eddie could do something awful, his unwillingness to give up the search in vol2 breaks my heart so it's really nice to write him with his Eddie all safe and sound

Eddie's pretty infatuated with r from the get go and not just because she's accepting of who he is and doesn't believe all the bad shit around him, he genuinely likes her and I wanted to make that distinction (like at the start when he was practically waiting for her to tell him to get gone but was trying to spend time with her anyways because he was intrigued and endeared)

Writing Eddie's voice in brackets was SO fun and so different for me, I love experimenting with third person to show the characters voice even if it isn't technically from their point of view, rest assured I made myself laugh with (debatable) and (horrifying)

Eddie feels so fucking guilty! That's basically what shaped him for me. I keep getting comments saying he was very different in this one and I kind of agree and disagree. He wasn't much like the fanon version of himself which idk if people hate that, but I think the basis of him was as true to Canon as I could get it! The basis being his innate goodness, the thing that DROVE him to feel so fucking guilty even though none of that shit was his fault, but when he goes off to be the hero in the show and "doesn't run away" that was his courage and his character showing through and so I really used that as the original thread and then built up his guilt, his humour around that. He's not as snarky as he was in the show because I felt like basically dying and going through the upside down made him very depressed and he really struggles to separate himself (though i can't take all the credit for that part because the original request wanted to see him struggle and wanted to see reader help him through it!!) From that. I love him and I needed him to have somebody like the reader character who just wants to take care of him and be his friend (and more)

Wayne being suspicious of them was so fun, I worried people might find it weird and then I was like I don't care if its weird these are real conversations people have, and Wayne in my mind is absolutely the kind of guy to be like Eddie, son, be a goddamn gentleman

That aprt about being tuned into the wring station was one thousand percent on purpose! Not so much a "Oh my god I didn't see what was right in front of me" moment, but just a you were here in Hawkins this whole time and we missed each other ! cos they're soulmates

And absolutely there's a Snoopy reference, that's my dude.

I am so lucky to have you as a friend and a reader, I fricking love hearing what you're thinking and I feel so spoiled at the end it's unbelievable, and you know I like talking about my writing probably more than I should so this is like a gently excuse /pleasure for me to ramble about the decisions I make. I think people have such different mindsets to one another that not everyone will agree with everything, but I'm lucky that we are always on the same page!

And yeah I was super psyched to dip (literally just dip) into the horror genre. Most of the time I felt like love bites was horror in the we cannot go back. my body has been changed without my asking and there's nothing i can do and im trapped kind of way rather than anything truly scary or gruesome, but I still loved doing it!

thank you my lu baby im genuinely soooooo lucky to know you and so grateful that you read my silly stories with so much love 😭♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[b12deficient]

Book Review: 'Telugu: The Best Stories of Our Times'

Short Stories Edited by Volga. Translated by M. Sridhar and Alladi Uma

I would grade this short story collection a two out of five. So I’ll talk about two positives and a lot of negatives.

One, the stories selected by Volga do a good job of highlighting the oppression and hardships faced by the minorities in our country. It has stories covering a wide demographic of people, like farmers, prostitutes, teachers, naxalites etc. Every story has something to say on the state of the Indian society, and the various injustices meted out to women, Muslims, Harijans and Girijans (I did not know that this word exited before reading this book, pairs well with Harijan).

Two, some of the stories were genuinely nice. Some of them critiqued capitalism.

And now, I’ll start with my rant. Let’s gooo.

The book, is titled “Telugu: The Best Stories of Our Times”. However, the word “best” was interpreted in a very specific by the editor. The very thing that I praised the book for in the earlier paragraph is also it’s biggest blot. Since every story presented here can be labelled as misery porn, exploitation porn, poverty porn, sexism porn, racism porn, casteism porn, bigotry porn etc. etc. Every single story. And the problem isn’t that the stories leaned too heavily into these subject matters, but that there isn’t anything else to most stories than the social commentary itself. No subtlety, no satire/comedy, no romance, no magical realism/fantasy no fancy literary schtick, nothing. Nothing to lighten the mood. I know that this is an unreasonable demand, especially since these stories are based on real life experiences that millions of people go through daily. But then maybe the title should have been something other than “Best”. How many stories do I need to read about oppressed backward caste women and their husbands who spend everything on alcohol, leaving the family destitute and hungry? Most, if not all of these stories could have been from any part of the country, and there isn’t much to highlight that these stories are from Andhra Pradesh/ Telangana. These stories have been picked only to shock the Indian liberal. What about the Dalit boys and girls who might be looking for a story to escape into? Barely any stories where the people from marginal communities had fun, or lived a comfortable and happy life.

Coming to the translation, I think the translators did a good job of conveying the plot. But nothing of the dialect/tone of the original seemed to have made it across to the translated English version. I have no idea if this was the translator’s fault or of the selection. They wrote that they made a significant effort to capture the different nuances, but all the stories felt the same to me. So none of the literary merit, if any at all, broke through to the translation.

And as always, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of the Indian liberal when it comes to animal consumption was evident throughout. Protagonists compared their treatment to cattle, while happily enjoying buffalo curry afterwards. One muslim man whose obsession with beef destroyed his and his family’s life. A Christian woman is shocked that her Hindu friends shunned her Christmas party where most of the menu comprised animal products. One man who slaughtered 20 pigs for his daughter’s marriage. These instances of animal cruelty were peppered throughout in almost every story. Except for one where treatment of circus animals is showcased as barbaric. I find it hard to be sympathetic to these kinds of people.

Another point that struck me while writing this was about how almost all the stories are depicted in a black and white manner. There is the evil oppressor and the poor and innocent victim. There are hardly any grey characters in the stories. Reminds me of the first short story of, “The Adivasis will Not Dance”. I DNFed after the first story itself, not only because of the animal cruelty that is bound to play a central role in any story written by an Indian liberal, but also the pretence that the SC/ST community stands like a bulwark against the xenophobic and Islamophobic acts committed by the Hindutva right wing. Stories like this one highlight the line of thinking prevalent among the people, which Indian liberals won’t acknowledge. If they do, they blame it on propaganda and move on.

All in all, I was excited to read this book for quite a few months, but it turned out to be a damp squib. The word “best” turned out to be misnomer, because I’m sure there are lots of better stories out there waiting to be translated.