well, that went well

#hello again martin and bosco!! sending you boys round for another go :)

"No." Says the tuna, "Do you?"

"I have never seen it." Says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it."

"Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it."

"There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." Says the whale.

"They will disappear." Says the tuna, "one day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."

"Maybe I don't want to forget," Says the whale, "The forests were once my home."

"I have seen the forests." Whispers the salmon, almost to itself.

"Tell me what you have seen," says the whale.

"The forests spawned me." Says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."

"Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" Asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own."

Last year I finally had an excuse to illustrate this simple little Tumblr story I've had bookmarked forever for class.

@littencloud9 I hope you'll forgive me if I just copy-paste the explanation of this that I gave on reddit like a year ago:

KEEL are actually named after warships from the Imperial Japanese Navy. This is also where the name of the gang originates, with the "keel" being the first part constructed and what the rest of the ship is built around. Here's a full list of the relevant ships:

Nagara-class light cruiser Natori (sunk 18 August 1944)

Tone-class heavy cruiser Tone (sunk 24 July 1945)

Tosa-class aircraft carrier Kaga (sunk 4 June 1942)

Kongo-class battlecruiser Kirishima (sunk 15 November 1942)

Mogami-class heavy cruiser Mogami (scuttled 25 October 1944)

Kongo-class battlecruiser Kongo (sunk 21 November 1944)

Super-dreadnought Nagato (sunk 29/30 July 1946)

YOU - "Stop being a b--"

REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - Wait a minute.

DRAMA - Sire, the word you're about to use is historically feminine! Applying it to your transgender child is tantamount to misgendering him.

1. [Suggestion - Legendary 14] Think of a masculine equivalent to "bitch."

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

stop putting your own writing down. I'm serious.

scrolling past on ao3 and seeing in the tags and almost back-to-back I see these on two different fics:

I'm holding everyone's hands gently when I say this: PLEASE stop, this doesn't help you nor the people reading.

constantly putting your own writing down isn't going to help you get better, or help you feel more confident—it's going to make it worse.

and I'll let y'all in on a little secret, too: if you, the author, are telling potential readers that you think your own work is garbage, they're probably not going to read it.

"But Jericho, I genuinely suck at writing!" I hear you say. Well listen here, so did I when I was starting out, and that period lasted years to me (in actuality, it was probably a lot more brief). Just keep writing, reading, practicing and learning, and you WILL improve. Have more confidence, you've got stuff to bring to the table that nobody's thought about or had the guts to do.

"But I'm only trying to warn others that my writing is bad!" Let the reader decide if it sucks or not. Don't decide for them if they're going to like what you write or not. a fic doesn't have to be well-written for people to enjoy it.

"But people leave comments telling me my writing is bad!" If you didn't ask for critique or the critique (if asked for) isn't constructive, those people are assholes and you should nuke their comments to hell and forget about them.

"But I don't know how to improve!" Find what works for you. Maybe reading and breaking down the books and works you like will work, or maybe finding people giving out tips, or maybe just a series of trials and errors will work. Just stay writing.