wip

I like when fic length/book length/movie length is its own punchline

I've recently been doing a lot of reading about what makes the Romance Genre™ the Romance Genre™ and as it turns out the most important thing a story needs to be a romance is that the couple have to be unambiguously happily together in the end. That's it. Apparently, if this isn't true of your couple in the end then your story cannot be of the Romance Genre™, then it's just literary fiction. And this is actually such an insane revelation to me like I can't stop thinking about it because it explains why so often when I've attempted to read Romance™ and 9 times outta 10 I'm annoyed because I feel like these characters get together and it costs them being interesting. I cannae get over that the reason so much romance sucks ass is because the only hard rule is basically "these people MUST be together even if it would be better if they weren't because god forbid the reader is confronted with the notion of impermanence" like....I can't really explain the depths of how silly I find this rule and how much it goes against what I find compelling to read/write about wrt to romance. It's akin to finding out that the Hayes Code is fully enforced in 2026 and everyone agreeing the Hayes Code is how movies should be made because otherwise it doesn't count as a movie. That's how this revelation of "you haven't written a romance story™ unless your characters unambiguously live happily ever after" makes me feel. I personally prefer to think of romance as a method, as means, as a set of knives to cut characters open and go rummaging around for hidden treasure that can't be found any other way, if you will. Who cares if the characters will live "happily ever after"? Here's a better question, are they even yet living?

It's a bit like how the genre convention of a detective story is that the crime will be solved. It would be much more realistic if that wasn't the case (at least some of the time), but that's not what people are looking for when they reach for an Agatha Christie book!

Carl Bloch -  In a Roman Osteria, 1866 (detail), oil on canvas

I passed a flower shop next to a tattoo shop and at first I laughed because I thought it was ironic and then i freaked because IMAGINE YOUR OTP IN A FLORIST/TATTOO ARTIST AU

OMG I COULD TOTALLY IMAGINE THEM LIKE THAT IT WOULD BE SO PERFECT

I cannot BELIEVE a post I made when I was 13 is circulating! And also apparently started this trope? I thought somebody had the idea separately and it blew up that way😭

I can't count how many times I've researched a word because I don't know exactly what it means, only vibes

Confused by the numbering choices here

that's the order numbers go in.

choosing to have hobbies regardless of whether you are good at them or not is so important. you don't live to do things well. you live TO live. that is the joy of life, living, enjoying, experiencing. what does it matter if you can't draw the way others expect you to? what if you can't sing like the others or dance or move like them. so what if you don't look like them? you don't live for their opinion, you live for your own enjoyment

Write a story that just takes place inside one pathetic little person’s head. Do it. It’s enrichment in your enclosure.

Do the writer’s equivalent of playing with finger paints. Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it

It’s the middle of the night and I should be sleeping but listen. Listen. Just get weird with it. Open your soul up a little bit. Like actually don’t worry about it being palatable. I’m serious. Get weirder. Get weirder right now. I’m demanding that you get weirder right now. It’s not your responsibility to make your reader feel good. It’s your job to make art, goddamnit. Make art. Make weird art. Open up your third eye and eat an entire cheesecake.

the thing I love most about how tumblr users use tags is that it’s like what if a social media website had a footnotes system

this sucks so bad i need to [remembers sleeping under the stairwell with a small briefcase jokes only worsen my mental health] write the best symphony the USSR has ever seen

why is this post completely broken in every way imaginable

It’ll be almost impossible to find this post unless it wanders across your dash.

It wandered across mine. I shall help it travel forward.

this is not a place of honor

Oh hey post of Ozymandius, good to see you again standing on your feet in a desert where no one remembers you

Seen it before and ill see it again