(ง✿◕ ‿ ◕)ง

hey everyone, this is a heads up that fightingfish will be going offline soon. i’m spring cleaning my life and i need to get rid of all the baggage associated with this tumblr, not just change urls. 

Breathe from In the Heights

Legally Blonde from Legally Blonde

You Gotta Die Sometime from Falsettos

Words Fail from Dear Evan Hansen

She Used To Be Mine from Waitress

The World Was Wide Enough from Hamilton

One Song Glory from Rent

Empty Chairs At Empty Tables from Les Misérables

So, as you guys know, AO3 has those icons that indicate whether a story is complete or not. There’s the “this story is complete” icon: 

And there’s the “this story is incomplete” icon:

But “incomplete” is a really, really broad category, and WIPs are incomplete for lots and lots of reasons, right? I bet many authors wish they could put a little more nuance into that statement, in order to better communicate details to their readers, and I bet readers would totally appreciate that. I think AO3 should do away with the trite old circle with a bar through it, and give the authors access to some more flexibility and detail! So, I thought about some of the things an author might want to say about a story’s “incomplete” status, and I came up with some new icons! 

First, the “still writing!” ones:

“I’m still writing this story!” (This would be the default icon for a WIP)

“I’m still writing this story, and I promise I will post a new chapter… just as soon as I figure out what’s going to happen next.” 

“I’m still writing this story, but I’ve just realized that it has to be much, much, MUCH longer than I originally thought, and I’m currently rearranging everything.”

“I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I will finish this story even though the last time I posted an update was 2 ½ years ago.”

And then the “not writing anymore” ones:

“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore.”

“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore because fuck that show/movie/book/fandom right in its fucking face“

(of course we wanna be multi-racial, so there are some options for this one):

(And multi-cultural!)

“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore because I’ve been sucked into a new fandom and have already written 37 stories for it!”

“Sorry, I’m not writing this story anymore–but if someone else wants to take over and continue the story, I’m fine with that!”

And one I can’t believe AO3 didn’t put into use years ago:

“WELP I DUNNO YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE YOU FOLLOWED A WIP OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL LOL”

i had no idea what this meant, and when i asked him to explain he said something that absolutely blew my mind. 

he said, between solids, liquids and gases, a gas is the only state of matter that completely fills the vessel in which it is kept. out of these three, only a gas can entirely fill a given space - no matter it’s size or shape. 

so writing is gas, because (if you consider yourself a writer) no matter how long you’re given to write something, you will almost always find yourself writing or editing that piece of work, until the very last moment in which it is due. 

therefore, writing is a gas because fills up all the time that it is given. 

I don’t ever assert my artistic opinions as universal - I’m not here to comment on people enjoying her poetry - but that Rupi managed to very obviously plagiarize Nayyirah, disrespect Nayyirah in the confrontation process, and then continue her business and collect acclamation while her poetry doesn’t compare to many big ‘internet’ poets let alone WOC poets outside of the blogosphere (in depth, complexity, or form)….is frustrating. 

There is such thing as artistic simplicity but the simplicity of Rupi’s poems doesn’t concern me - you can achieve minimalism and emotional weight (and avoid plagiarism). Rupi’s tone, rhythm, meter, and vocabulary - let alone sense of sincerity or sense of deliberation or fundamental things like line breaks - are exceptionally limited and disjointed, and her book is not uniform (suggesting that this limit isn’t intentional). Meanwhile, much of her good syntax and specific imagery is lifted from poets like Nayyirah and Warsan.

And yet: my local B&N has at least 30 copes of “milk and honey” while it carries max 2 copies of any other poet, including classics. She’s a bestseller. I don’t know how but Rupi Kaur somehow surpassed the phenomenon of white mediocrity in poetry (possibly through tokenization + manipulation of online spaces) to promote woc mediocrity, and as a woc poet/artist I Can’t Abide.