:,) of c i will answer and thank u v much for asking :,,,) 2. How did you first hear about Heated Rivalry? my dear friend @citrusses gently suggested "there is this beautiful show i'm into and i think you might be into it too" and instead of listening to her i waited a while and then watched it in the worst possible way: w my siblings in muppet balcony mode on a laptop screen while i maybe also had a laptop open. in essence, not watching.

i wish i had either waited (years??? centuries?) until the hype ebbed or that lived on an isolated mountaintop where i wasn't going into it w one eyebrow raised at the overwhelming praise (which on it's face, this is beautiful. people saying 'i love this show' is great. people saying 'its the first piece of media to ever depict a nuance of emotional experiences through facial expressions during a gay sex scene' obviously made me insane hahahhah)

so ya i was like fuck this show. also my initial vibe on something is usually way off. the blend of autism i have def requires familiarity for connection (ya you see the problem) and it always takes me time to gnaw for a while til i can understand how anything tastes. i thought carrie and lowell, possibly an album i've played over 200,000,000 times, sucked on first listen. i didn't know it so i couldn't feel it. ya you see. the problem.

i don't think it's a perfect show, and if i did, i wouldn't write fic about it. it's one of the most potent shows i've ever watched in terms of stuff placed on the table and then not picked back up or peeled it apart, which is ideal for me in terms of fanfic. it changed how i watched things and how i understand genre! i was just going to say "it single-handedly stopped me from watching things and deconstructing/nitpicking/criticizing every inch that i think is done incorrectly", but i remembered this is absolutely what i do w every episode of euphoria. so.

i guess for me deconstruction is a little bit married to understanding. i do not deconstruct bc i want something to die....... i am doing it to find out what's inside. i'm not very formally educated when it comes to writing or structuring a story so i love pulling the shell off and pushing my fingers into the meat to find the bones and feel around and finally get it. once i had some time and had pulled off the shell ya it became some really fucking decadent meat for me

28. Rec a fanfic! Or fan edit! Or fanart! Or fan artist! for fic: leave your number on the locker by scenedenial

for art: @lazypunch!!!!!!!!!!! they post more on their instagram........ god they are. PERFECT!!!!

as always i let this marinate for a long time waiting to be imbued w some vague worthwhileness until eventually giving in to the fact of my disposition, time to answer with the clumsy words currently available to me.

which, i would say, tritely, tragically, is my only advice for writing ::) i don't believe in inspiration as a compulsive substance, i do think it's a bright snag on an idea. the rest of it, sitting down and making something, is mostly arduous and occasionally free-flowing. the free-flowing portions, for me, have ended up being the most useless. the ground out, winced-with-every-word-choice pieces have been the most helpful.

who said the thing about writers having a few different active influences inside of them, including idiot and critic? how you need idiot to be able to draft....... critic for the polish edit a long ways off, but critic can slaughter the first draft for sure. my own inability to quiet critic means my drafts are a sloppy mess. i like things to feel pretty so the pretty stuff goes down first which results in 45 gdoc comments like "greg i dont know what you mean" "whats happening" "what the actual fuck. are u talking about". the better approach, if i were less afraid of putting down anything but plushly worded vaguely seussian lines, would be to write the roots and trunk in first and know i can bloom whatever branches into loud petals out of it later.

maybe better isn't the word, though. i think the most important thing in regards to 'how to write' is to not spend too much time worrying about the approach. or the words. or the outline. all of these things are better understood in retrospect. discovery is always the goal for me, on a sentence, story, and process level.

for imagery, this is just plain translation of the world. if your friend hands you a glass of water, what does the steady gaze and slight shake on the surface through the glimpsed the rim do in your chest? i love that writing means you can swell open a single moment or fit two years into a seven word sentence. mostly i'm into how anything feels. what is the feeling of the chair under you - not how does the chair feel to you, just how does the chair feel. i am big into personification, or humanization, or PATHETIC FALLACY as a thesaurus just told me its called. i think most of our emotion leaks out of our internal body and gets smeared around our surroundings, and writing makes for a nice record of that. it takes away the boring limitations of reality - why can't a magazine, already kinda greasy and too smooth, spill, and what does it cover if it does. etc. really leaning into idiot (a mentality that never snorts and says what? ugh? that woudn't happen) is particularly beneficial for this.

editing is very important, something i don't like to do, and sadly have not done at all for the above.

thank you for asking this question. i really hope you write. i feel so strongly that you simply have to write. the words on the page part is awful. i usually write about 3-8k a week and i will tell you it has rarely felt easier or smoother for me. everytime i haven't done it in a few days i think "well it's gone. i never had it, but it's now absolutely lost and out of reach and my true fraudulent empty nature has arrived to put these boring terrible inaccurate phrases to page."

thank u vermin this is not a cultural artifact i previously knew about......... without having seen it i know it is flawless because:

1) boy with perfect hands

2) james duval

3) the solar flare/asshole made of pure light effect on dvd covers in this era. i feel the butterfly effect looked the same