District Four Mermaid

That ‘comment on your a03 work’ email hits like a line of cocaine every time. unmatched dopamine increase. shoutout to everyone who leaves a comment on fics. you deserve the world

earlier i saw someone on here say "god forbid men do anything" as though society holds men to any kind of standards at all

in seriousness you can learn about the isolated Appalachian communities that were up here until quite recently by checking out the foxfire books. it is true that there were many isolated communities that remained pretty separate from mainstream American life for a longish time but most of the last ones were my grandpa's generation. and they were regular? can't overstate how regular they were. just rural and isolated with their own culture. do check out the foxfire museum if you want to learn more about them and their lives! those books are based on real interviews conducted by local high schoolers and college students of the old folks in their communities and they are very interesting windows into day to day rural life up in the mountains in the early to mid 20th century.

I absolutely 100% do not mean this in a like derogatory city slickers way; I myself grew up mostly in a city and I think that it is morally neutral to not have experience with The Outdoors. having said that, I have noticed that a lot of people who do not have regular interactions with "landscape that can kill you" do seem to have an internalized idea that "landscape that can kill you" is something that only happens to other people, or not very often, or only under extreme circumstances. which I think often leads them to assume that there must be something else out here that can kill you. but I fear I must inform the people who wanna believe scary Appalachian woods monsters are real that it's Landscape. inclusive of the beasts that dwell there such as the cougars and bears. its Landscape! (GRASPING EVERYONE ON THE SPOOKY APPALACHIAN TRAIL SUBREDDITS) IT'S LANDSCAPE THAT KILLS YOU! ITS ALWAYS LANDSCAPE! Old Man Hidden Ravine and his best friend Exposure!

you ever hear a new song and immediately go “oooh the fake scenarios in my head are gonna love this”

“denied the catharsis of punishment” is an underappreciated but hugely effective narrative consequence imo 

piece of media you feel crazy about at formative age is truly like the hotel california. you can check out but you can never leave

suicidality is the best trait you can give to a character

second best is an unbreakable will to live in spite of it all. and bonus points if both apply to the same character at different points in time

I feel like we really lost something when we started looking at writing as a reader-centric product meant to appeal to the desires of a specific audience rather than a writer-centric approach of someone writes whatever particular thing particular compels them/whatever weird thing the demons in their head want to talk about, and people out there who are also compelled, and/or relate, find that writing. A lot of discussions of writing really center around what readers want rather than a writer's exploration. Sometimes as a reader I don't know what I want. I click on a fic or pick up a book I'm not sure about but that looks interesting, and I love it. Reading what I expect to get is it's own joy, but we always need to expand our horizons and not get mad at creators for not always writing what we want/expect.

so many people post like they are from the dimension of No Misogyny because the misogyny all around them just registers to them as fine and normal