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Some Return to Neverland art
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I've already said that my number one piece of writing advice is to read.
But my number two piece of advice is this: be deliberate.
Honestly this would fix so many pieces of bad writing advice. Don't forbid people from doing something, tell them to be conscious and deliberate about it. This could help stop people from falling into common mistakes without limiting their creativity. Black and white imperatives may stop a few annoying beginner habits, but ultimately they will restrict artistic expression.
Instead of "don't use epithets": "Know the effect epithets have and be deliberate about using them." Because yes, beginners often misuse them, but they can be useful when a character's name isn't known or when you want to reduce them to a particular trait they have.
Instead of "don't use 'said'" or "just use 'said'": "Be deliberate about your use of dialogue tags." Because sometimes you'll want "said" which fades into the background nicely, but sometimes you will need a more descriptive alternative to convey what a character is doing.
Instead of "don't use passive voice": "Be deliberate about when you use passive voice." Because using it when it's not needed can detract from your writing, but sometimes it can be useful to change the emphasis of a sentence or to portray a particular state of mind.
Instead of blindly following or ignorantly neglecting the rules of writing, familiarize yourself with them and their consequences so you can choose when and if breaking them would serve what you're trying to get across.
Your writing is yours. Take control of it.
It probably sounds like I'm preaching to the choir here because most of my mutuals are already great writers. But I'm hoping this will make it to the right people.
reading nabokov is maddening because his writing is so playful and evocative and effortless and english isn't even his first language. he's doing things in a second language most people could spend their lives trying and failing to replicate in their first language. makes me feel like this
"my very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when i was three" like come ON how did you write the funniest sentence ever by adding a two word parenthetical. leave something for the rest of us
Mercury, Venus, (uh oh) Pearth, Mars (phew), Djupiter (never mind), Faturn âď¸, Luranus (kinda French actually), Pneptune
I got to âFaturnâ and burst into horribly loud laughter Iâm now crying over this in bed fucking Faturn
I'm being a hater but I think one reason so many fixit fics bug me is because the authors don't buy into the characters belief systems because they're not actually interested in it and don't care to try. But also. Even when people do, they don't seem to have any personal experience with (or ability to empathetically learn about) changing a deep rooted belief system and so don't actually know how to write it out. Like sorry but no they would not Simply Realize the fucking answer. Because the problem was never that they were Just Too Stubborn or not smart enough or not good enough or anything else.
FOR REAL. There is nothing worse than getting obsessed with a complicated tragic character, going to ao3, and finding that 90% of fixits for them fail to engage with the core of their character so utterly that it feels less "What if things worked out for this character somehow" and more "What if this character was a different person, the kind who could be saved". I wanted to see things get fixed for Blorbo, not for this character who shares their name and a few superficial traits but none of their load-bearing issues. Heartbreaking!!!!!!!!
It's funny to me that due to my icon a bunch of people in the tags are assuming this was about Thistle. There aren't enough Thistle-centric fics out there for me to have an opinion on how people write him. I haven't checked out the situation on ao3 in awhile, but during my Dungeon Meshi Hyperfixation Summer i read (or at least started reading) every single fic on ao3 that had Thistle tagged as a character. There were not that many. I'm just happy when people are interested in him
Okay this is actually so funny because I wrote this mostly about a character who doesn't have very many fixit fics that are. Fixits for him? Or fics centered on him at all. He's often There but fixits centered on him and his problem and working through it are like. Ten maximum and that's being generous.
And I actually hadn't thought much about how I phrased it, and I see why most people in the tags seem to be assuming this was about fics centered on fixing the character who's being mischaracterized for the sake of the fixit. Which is also a thing, and one your initial reblog alludes to and I agree with it.
But for the sake of my own idk vanity mostly I did want to clarify. That the particular frustration I was expressing in this post. Is about like. How fixits which are mostly a fixit for character A, even if they take character As problems seriously, will only do so for character A. And in the process, anyone else with related problems becomes? Collateral? And so if character B, in the original story, would be an obstacle for character As "happy ending" (regardless of whether it's a good rendition of said ending or not) is simply. Made to think better⢠and different according to the author, in whatever way is necessary to make them less of an annoying obstruction to the goal (character A fixit).
Which. I get it. You can't save everyone I guess. And maybe if this were something done to a limited extent I'd be less grumpy. But given the amount of times it's more like "character A would be better off of anyone in conflict with them simply died or stopped disagreeing with them", to such an extent that no matter what the disagreement was about, character B ends up an annoying and unreasonable hysterical little inconvenience to write around, and any interpersonal inconveniences which might have been load bearing to the broader plot are invalidated for the sake of some removed idea of a #happy ending. And that's why it rings hollow to me.

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on the whole I do think that getting really defensive about how chivalric narratives aren't problematic in the specific way you wouldn't defend is funny, firstly because it's literally doing the progressive cowboys thing again, but also because my initial reaction to hearing about knightposting backlash is that it had to be shadowboxing, because it would be literally impossible to have even a passive familiarity with the matière de france or arthuriana without noticing the element of crusade
and then I remembered tumblr generally Does Not Do That
like I'm trying to think of the best way to articulate how the primary difference between the average vibes-adhering tumblr user's understanding of medievalism and the average trivia booklet beating deus vult guy's understanding of medievalism really is just a difference in view on what crusading was, and those views being projected onto the literature
Nowi and Ricken for @heroofspiritsisthebestlink I couldn't decide between them so i did both hehe
at the fishing tournament yesterday btw there were age categories bc it was all-inclusive and we didn't want like 60 year old anglers competing against 4 years olds obviously.
so anyway this 14 year old boy entered in the 11-15 age bracket and he saw a huge fish in the water he became absolutely determined to catch. i don't think he even wanted to win anymore. he just wanted that fish specifically. but his line wasn't strong enough for such a big fish and didn't have the ideal bait.
enter: two 15 year old boys who didn't know him. they saw what he was trying to do, and they were clearly experienced anglers, and they got involved in the chase. they got the right bait and the three of them spent hours with their lines in the water, until the first boy finally hooked the fish. they talked him through the slow challenge of endurance. he couldn't reel in all at once because the fish was too heavy for his line and it'd break.
he finally reeled it in, but they didn't have a net. it took all three of them, lying on their bellies, six hands on the fish, to pull it out of the water. they put it in a big bucket of water for the weigh-in (we just subtracted the bucket+water weight after), gave their new friend careful instruction on how to handle the fish so he could pose for a hasty photo without injuring its spine, and then carefully placed the fish back in the water.
in the end, he won first place in his age bracket. one of the other boys who helped him tied for second with a 12-year-old competitor, and he gave her the trophy.
then during the drawing, where participants won prizes randomly if I pulled their name from a box, I happened to pull his name and he got a great prize so it all came around.
Idk. the teamwork. the serendipity of friendship. the graciousness. the consideration for the fish. Just some things that made me happy.
She hates the rain and lightning so we're just curled up in bed holding each other and watching rat videos on YouTube.
It's a good life with Fancy.
Scaredy-kitten requires cuddles again.
A torrential downpour began quite suddenly. My door was only open a sliver; I was on the bed. Fancy HOWLED in the hallway and I called for her. She came running and literally LEAPED through the door, slamming it open, then ran onto the bed.
She literally jumped into my arms. No animal has ever done that.
And my hand to god I have never, ever loved any animal as much as I love Fancy. I have loved some of my cats beyond all reason, but she is something wonderful and new.
I held her until the storm was past. I was able to be her harbor. She's on her Lisa Franket right now, washing up. She feels a lot better, and so do I.
Unsettled urchin finds safe haven from very loud storm.
It IS very scary out there, Fancy! It's a good thing I have you to keep me safe!
Another storm, another snuggle.
Brave and not scared AT ALL.
Baby's first hailstorm!
She hated it.
Another storm.
Another snuggle!
ANOTHER storm, ANOTHER snuggle. Just til the worst was past. The cuddling was for ME, you understand. NOT her. She ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT scared or nothin.
Another storm, another snuggle!
Big, big thunder has our girl a bit spooked tonight. That's okay. We're here for each other. đ
Another storm, another snuggle!
This time from inside Daddy's shirt. đ
Another storm, another small cat banging on the door to be let out after she TOTALLY did not hide under the Lisa Franket with me and was not scared even a little bit at ALL.
Another storm, another snuggle.
Days of storms now, with much snuggle time. Tonight she got a little crumb of my muffin. She's the special only kitty who gets people food sometimes.
Another storm, another snuggle.
She asked to go into the Baby Sack a couple of minutes later, (folded up in my shirt) and emerged all better. Another storm, another, well, you get the idea.
Please I love her so much.
Purring but her face looked like this.
Another storm, another snuggle.
I am really enjoying reading about the University of Wisconsin chancellor fired after the university discovered all the pornos he and his wife were making.
Generally when someone has a public sex scandal (or âscandalâ) you get the standard âI am sorry. I regret it. It was a misjudgment on my partâ but this guy is like âfuck you I didnât do anything wrong. I didnât violate conflict of interest clauses, you are violating my first amendment rightsâ
SEXY HEALTHY COOKING
I want to see this legal battle
We canât do anything about hate speech but if there is consensual sexual activity involved!
I want the details about how this was discovered because it has a real âI saw the professor at the devilâs sacramentâ âgirl what were YOU doing at the devilâs sacrament đ" vibe
I know this is funny haha to a lot of people but I need yall to really internalize that this is a gentle example of what happens to sex workers. This is a white man in his 50s who turned to sex work for fun and lost his professional career. Now imagine how fucked it is for disabled impoverished sex workers to advertise themselves in a way that separates their identities and lives from their real ones because if they can't they're barred from most other jobs if ANYONE happens to find out. Aside from jobs, imagine how this affects custody battles and abuse cases and housing availability. Maybe it seems like everyone and their dog has an onlyfans and a pornhub channel and things are cool now, but we live under a christofash oligarchy and sex workers will always be trampled and spat on by most of society. This story is absurd but this isn't funny at all.

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theres this maneuver people do online (& sometimes irl) where they just sort of pretend not to comprehend sexuality for the sake of trying to embarrass somebody--like whenever theres a post to the effect of "so i saw a funny thing on this gay porn website" there's inevitably a heap of comments like "why were you on a gay porn website đđ" as if it's like this really unusual uncommon & scandalous thing. like. it takes negative effort to deduce why somebody might be browsing a gay porn site lol. & in addition to being self-evidently reactionary, this like theatrics of mediating a performance of being scandalized over porn or fetishes or hookups or whatever through feigned ignorance is just. really deeply annoying. like if you want to call somebody a pervert degenerate etc then say it with your whole chest instead of verbally hoverhanding your insult
I want to talk about that article that wrote about Dragon Age: The Veilguard and used the title, "This Game Kills Facists." If you've seen it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't. Well.
I think before I dig into this, I want to put forth a few caveats. This won't be a formal essay, but I'll do my best to cite my sources and previous argumentation. I also don't have any real animosity toward the author of this article, I'd never actually even heard of her until someone directed me to this article, and I don't think the problems with this article are unique to the author. But. As I said in a different post late last night, I think the article itself such a textbook example of this kind of left-liberal politics that doesn't actually understand the terms they're mobilizing about, stakes their identity on their consumerism habits, and seems to think that vibes-based opinions are in any way, shape, or form equivalent to critical analysis that interrogates the text and the meta of the media they're engaging with.
The analysis in this article is bad, I'm sorry to say. Just from a structural standpoint, it fails to understand how the structure of rhetorical argumentation functions, and doesn't bother to provide any concrete support for its claims. It highlights an inability to formulate an argument that I think is rampant among fandom discourse and I would perhaps argue is a common issue with liberal political argumentation in general, although that's another essay and isn't central to what I want to dig at today. I also fundamentally do not think this author understands what fascism is, which is frustrating at best, and I find it irresponsible although I don't think the intent is malicious. I'm also not convinced that the author really has a good grasp of media analysis or how to interrogate the thema of the stories she's talking about, but I'll leave that for you to determine.
So. What is the thesis of this article, which purports that this game "kills fascists"? I had to chew on it for a hot minute while reading, and as best as I can tell, the thesis is "Wokeness is the point of Dragon Age."
I've realized that there were two components of the author's inciting article on what makes this game "fascist bane" that I didn't really follow up on, and I wanted to do that (with thanks to the girlies in the group chat for helping me clarify ideas and ) in an informal shortform while continuing to talk about fascism. The first is the idea that this is the queerest BioWare Game yet [and therefore it is antithetical to fascism] and the second is the attempt to frame the heroism of this game as unique and also antithetical to fascism.
The problem is, neither of these concepts are objectively anti-fascist.
the "canon isn't real we make our own rules" to "i am begging you people to revisit the source material" pipeline
#you have to know the rules so you can break them with intention and precision#otherwise your work will never be truly transformative
literally the first step in jazz is to get the original piece down, that's the only way you can riff in a way that works
Our favorite phrase for advice for people is "you learn the rules so when you break them it means something" and it's very nice to see other people getting this idea
not all ships are For wanting them to be in a happy healthy relationship together. sometimes shipping two characters means you want them to be erotically obsessed with each other and become entwined in a mutually toxic love affair for a few months and then horrifically break each other's hearts and never speak again. sometimes you want them to be codependent best friends with enough repression to explode a submarine who only make out/have sex when they're at their worst. sometimes you want them to pine after each other for years, never say anything, and then die. sometimes you want them to kill each other. this, too, is shipping
Re: dramatically changing 19th century dress silhouettes, thinkin about the time a whaler finally came home from a 4 year voyage and was just like âWHAT IS GOING ONâ when reencountering hoop skirts.
I don't know why this made me think of you. @elodieunderglass (probably age of sail interest is the reason) I apologize if this distresses you. Say the word and I will bother you no longer.
My friend I REQUIRE that if whalers perplexed by junk in the trunk makes you think of me, you tell me.

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i hate this weird trend in fandom where subtext is seen as a Bad Thing and is only done if the creators are too cowardly to commit to showing something. i hate to break it to you but nuance and layers are what make stories interesting, if you have no subtext then you have a very flat story
sometimes things are subtext because they donât quite fit the tone of the story, or because the story isnât about that (and if they showed it outright they would have to take time to explore it), or sometimes the characters arenât ready to face it, or sometimes subtext is just the right choice for this specific story, or SOMETIMES itâs just fun and interesting to have underlying themes and implications!!!!
also just because itâs subtext doesnât mean itâs not deliberate or not meant to be part of the story. âwell if they WANTED it to be canon they shouldâve SAID SOâ some of us can understand implications. some of us enjoy thinking about the media we consume and donât just want everything handed to us on a silver platter. âwow i canât believe the writers didnât even realize what this impliesâ im going to beat you to death with hammers
I keep hate-reading plague literature from the medieval era, but as depressed as it makes me there is always one historical tidbit that makes me feel a little bittersweet and I like to revisit it. Thatâs the story of the village of Eyam.
Eyam today is a teeny tiny town of less than a thousand people. It has barely grown since 1665 when its population was around 800.
Where the story starts with Eyam is that in August 1665 the village tailor and his assistant discovered that a bolt of cloth that they had bought from London was infested with rat fleas. A few days later on September 7th the tailorâs assistant George Viccars died from plague.
Back then people didnât fully understand how disease spread, but they knew in a basic sense that it did spread and that the spread had something to do with the movement of people.
So two religios leaders in the town, Thomas Stanley and William Mompesson, got together and came up with a plan. They would put the entire village of Eyam under quarantine. And they did. For over a year nobody went in and nobody went out.
They put up signs on the edge of town as warning and left money in vinegar filled basins that people from out of town would leave food and supplies by.
Over the 14 months that Eyam was in quarantine 260 out of the 800 residents died of plague. The death toll was high, the cost was great.
However, they did successfully prevent the disease from spreading to the nearby town of Sheffield, even then a much bigger town, and likely saved the lives of thousands of people in the north of England through their sacrifice.
So I really like this story, because itâs a sad story, because itâs also a beautiful story. Instead of fleeing everyone in this one place agreed that they would stay, and they saved thousands of people. They stayed just to save others and I guess itâs one of those good stories about how people have always been people, for better or worse.
It gets better.
Hereâs the thing. One third of the residents of Eyam died during their quarantine, but the Black Plague was known to have a NINETY PERCENT death rate. As high as the toll was, it wasnât as high as it should have been. And a few hundred years later, some historians and doctors got to wondering why.
Fortunately, Eyam is one of those wonderful places that really hasnât changed much in hundreds of years. Researchers, going to visit, found that many of the current residents were direct descendants of the plague survivors from the 1600s. By doing genetic testing, they learned that a high number of Eyam residents carried a gene that made them immune to the plague. And still do.
And it gets even better than that, because the gene that blocks the Black Plague? Also turns out to block AIDS, and was instrumental in helping to find effective medication for people who have HIV and AIDS in the 21st century.
Here is a lovely, well-produced documentary about Eyam and its disease resistance. Itâs a little under an hour. Trigger warning for general disease and epidemic-type stuff, but also, maybe it will help you have some hope in these alarmly uncertain times.
[Image 1: a photo of Eyemâs abbey and graveyard.]
[Image 2: a photo of a stone basin.]