Be the manic pixie dream girl that you fuckin ought to be

Day 1: Childhood | Elia and Oberyn in the Water Gardens

“As children Elia and I were inseparable”

Some people, it's clear, learned almost entirely through absorbing the world around them. Grammar and punctuation will be all over the place, spellings are approximate, but the voice of the narration will come through so clearly. You can hear the dialect of the people around them as of they're telling the story. It's not a written story, it's a transcription of how they talk in their day to day life.

Some people learned through reading a gazillion books as a kid. Grammer and spelling will be rock solid, formatting occasionally based on the single tab of physical books rather than the double tab of online scrolling, but dialogue is often stilted and overly formal. You might notice a lack of contractions and very rigid rules they made for consistency that actually have a lot more flexibility than they think. They tend to have a fantastic grasp of sentence flow, though.

And other people formally learned how to write. This could be anywhere from taking school classes seriously because they enjoyed writing stories as a kid to literal certifications and jobs in the field. Grammer is flawless. Punctuation is triple checked. Foreign words are in italics. Characters have distinct voices. But their self indulgence is tempered by perfectionism. They know precisely what they want from a fic. Authors notes often feature mutterings about their happiness with the chapter. Kaomojis often appear! They seek a style to their writing, and it makes for some wonderfully clever plots! These are the ones most likely to get fun with formatting!

And some people.... Some people examined it all. They dissect dialogue, people watch, cross reference behaviours and compare characters to people irl. You can tell almost immediately who had formative experiences with Terry pratchett and/or ghibli, because it's these people. While others see writing as fun, expression, craft, they see it as art. Plain and simple. Sure, the grammar is occasionally sacrificed on the altar of creative freedom, and the occasional sentence might miss a full stop, but these people seem to self reflect on themselves as part of the art making process. On occasion, these people have the most masterful grasp of dialogue and invocation and hand sewn characterisations. Formatting is pretty standard because all the focus is on the actual words. These fics can be edited to the moon and back!

All of these can vary wildly in forethought and quality, and betas can often catch individual problems before they hit post, but just. Isn't it so cool? What's that one Oscar Wilde quote about every mask just being another fragment of yourself?

I love that Jude isn't love-struck and following Cardan like a puppy. I am glad she's not constantly talking about how "hot" he is and she is not instantly in-love with him. She is her own person with ambition and is willing to actually do what it takes to get what she wants. She doesn't only think about it or have it suddenly handed to her, she acts on her desires and achieves them. Frequently getting hurt in some way in the process, too.

Cardan has genuine cruelty that he isn't afraid to lean into, genuine vulnerability and the ability to fully admit it without making excuses. He isn't physically domineering and built so big he can't fit in a doorway. He's a spoiled little pretty boy.

These two were backstabbing each other and pissing each other off constantly. They were taunting and threatening and angry. They were frustrated. They were disgusted. The hate between them was real and mutual.

The Folk of the Air trilogy isn't a one-sided 'MMC is shitty and abusive to the soft, loving FMC but he's really been a good guy all along and he's loved her since before she was even born and all the hate they felt was sexual attraction because of a mating bond created by the stars' story.

Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Making a difficult choice 👑