#writer rambles

Link is confused by it at first, but doesn't push Revali away. He understands the feeling of being out of place, especially in a place that used to be home. So he doesn't say anything about the Rito tailing him like a duckling to its mother. Or when Revali grabs his hand, squeezing a little too tightly, as the children run past them in excited play.

Link doesn't question when Revali asks him to stay the night in his new roost, instead of sleeping at the inn. He allows the Rito to pull him into the hammock, laying against Link with his head on the knight's chest despite their difference in height. He doesn't say a word when he starts to run his fingers through the warrior's hair, ribbons and beads sitting on the shelf on the other side of the room.

He doesn't complain when Revali's hold on him becomes just a little too tight. Neither of them are asleep, if Revali's mumbling is any indicator — the Rito quietly repeating that this is real, they're not dead, the Calamity is gone, Windblight can't hurt him anymore.

Link holds Revali a little tighter, the other letting out a shaky breath, a whispered "thank you" leaving a trembling beak. An apology spoken so softly, Link almost misses it — he knows why Revali says it, even if he doesn't remember their strained relationship.

"Let's just start over, okay?" He responds.

When you’re adding a “dialogue tag” to dialogue, for example “She said,” you are still writing one sentence. The person doing the speaking is the subject, and the entire dialogue bit attached to it is the object.

The basic sentence format you want to think about is:

Subject Verb Object

So you wouldn’t say:

“The boat is red.” She said. ❌

That’s two sentences, and one is incomplete. “She said” what?

She said, “The boat is red.” ✅

or, equivalently,

“The boat is red,” she said. ✅

“The boat is red,” said she. ✅, but this one may make you sound a bit outdated

But what about when you put dialogue before and after? That depends on if it still belongs as one sentence.

If you’re splitting a line of dialogue in the middle of a sentence:

“Then you’ll do it,” she said, “like this.”

Otherwise, if you’re starting a new sentence in the dialogue:

“You would end the sentence after the dialogue tag,” she said. “That way, it’s clear that the next bit of dialogue is a new, separate sentence.”

If there’s no tag attached to the dialogue, it’s just its own thing, hence why I colored that second sentence differently.

Also, splitting dialogue up with a dialogue tag sometimes reads like a pause, so keep that in mind when choosing where to put it!

What if the verb you’re using doesn’t require an object? Then:

“This example means that she is screaming these words,” she screamed.

“Whereas this example technically implies that her scream comes after she speaks, or maybe even that this wasn’t her speaking to begin with.” She screamed.

The same works the other way around, like she screamed, “Holy shit!”

Versus if she just screamed. “Then someone else starts talking and maybe it’s her, but it’s still separate from the scream.”

When it comes to other punctuation that ends the dialogue before a tag, you don’t change anything about the format except the punctuation.

“What do I mean by that?” she asked. “See how that pronoun ‘she’ was lowercased? Just like it would’ve been if that had been a statement.”

“It’s the same with exclamations, by the way!” she shouted.

If you are ending your sentence with dialogue, maybe because it has no tag at all or the tag came before, then it gets its proper punctuation, and whatever sentence that comes after it is capitalized as normal.

“So, this sentence has a follow up sentence, but it’s not actually a dialogue tag, so I’ll end it with a period.” She raises an eyebrow as she speaks, like she’s wondering if she’s making sense to you.

Here’s a bonus fact for you, with its example wrapped in it:

Hands on her hips, she said, “I know what you’re wondering next. What if your dialogue is getting soooooo long, and the paragraph needs to end, but your character needs to keep talking? We know the rule that, typically, each change in speaker should get a new paragraph break. So how do you indicate to the reader that it’s still the same character talking?

“You do it like this. We didn’t end the quotation yet in the prior paragraph, because the dialogue isn’t over, but we start the paragraph with an open/start quotation mark as a courtesy indicator that the prior dialogue is continuing. That’s how you know it’s still me talking!” She didn’t add a dialogue tag here, because she started it in the prior paragraph with a tag. “Remember how I mentioned that the whole dialogue you attach to a tag is the object? So your ‘sentence’ didn’t end until the dialogue was closed with a closing quotation mark.”

“Oh, and while it’s relevant. If dialogue has another quote in it, that’s when you use single quotes. Like in this example here, where I’m telling you he said, ‘No way, he’s not reading all that.’ Single quotes, baby!”

Okay, I think that covers what I wanted to ramble about after seeing the post lol! I dunno if this will be helpful to other people’s brains besides mine? But I really love thinking about it this way.

Well... this get dark. FBI Agent, I'm a writer I promise! This is all hypothetical! There is worse out here in the internet wilds!!!

I think for the most part, it's a game of orange-and-blue morality for a bit. There are things the Decepticons pull (Shockwave just existing) that immediately make human prosecutors start prepping the war crime cases and some things that humans do make the cons pause for a minute. At the same time, certain things the cons do, while horrible, just make humans nod because of course they would do that, and most human torture techniques just don't translate well to Cybertronian biology.

Like, the Decepticons would do things that are definitely against the Geneva Convention (and I think they would find our concept of a Geneva Convention laughable) so they would shrug off a lot of similar precedents humans have. Removing limbs, sensory depravation, experimentation, and electrocution are all familiar concepts so it is just a shrug of shoulders and a "why not?" attitude.

And then they look deeper.

In my mind, Cybertronians above all are efficient. Unless it's personal, or you are with someone who has a truly skewed brain module (Yes, Airachnid I am looking at you) the point of torture is to get information as fast as possible. Tortured to death, unless it's an accident, isn't efficient.

Humans, unfortunately, don't always care about efficiency.

They see the Human Centipede and the Terrifier, and bots are praying to primus like they've never done it before. It's entertainment, its art to mankind and it is some of the most protective vomit-worthy levels of shit they've ever seen. They see the Jigsaw franchise and Shockwave is joining discords and emailing directors to get notes.

It's fictional. It's fake. It's an unhinged level of creativity completely separated from ethics and morals, or in some cases leveraging those ideas to better stamp in some emotional torment. It's not just physically taking apart a victim, or trying to manipulate them mentally; it's full-on destruction. Complete evisceration performed in the name of delusional curiosity, sadistic glee, or self-righteous theatrics.

But, again, it's all fake! So what does it matter? Soundwaves says to himself as he bans any vore content from the Nemesis' servers and scrubs his drives

And then someone brings up Vlad the Impaler.

Imagine the horror as it just clicks. While Cybertronains may not produce excrement, they do have scraplets, so the concept of leaving someone in a tub to slowly rot or forcing rats to dig through bodies just sings a song of pain they are vulnerable to. Of slowly dying in a painful, inevitable method that's meant to leave a lasting mark.

And then a human starts thinking.

Art isn't efficient, but a masterpiece is never meant to be so mere as efficient.

Why not remove t-cogs? the element that helps these creatures transform, a crucible of their identity and self-worth?

Wait, that's not meant to be torture, that's just containment.

No. Torture is using small limbs to unwind and peel back layers of wiring. Torture is leaving portions of a frame to decay and rust, poking at the open wound, and flinging acid inside. Torture is pulling limbs off and reattaching them only to do it again. Torture is removing optics and turning sensors to maximum sensitivity before turning them off again.

Torture is taking those old methods and being creative enough to apply them on a blank canvas with new rules and no precedents.

The issue is not our brutality, it is our cruelty and creativity. And that's something that even the most vile Decepticon can respect.

Have you ever felt that empty void deep within your soul and heart? The kind that doesn’t ache loudly, doesn’t scream or demand attention, but instead settles quietly, making everything feel distant? Like you’re standing in the middle of something that once meant everything to you, and yet you can’t quite reach it anymore.

That’s what this feels like to me right now.

With the final episode “More”, My Hero Academia anime has officially come to an end. And though I thought I would cry, or feel something sharp and overwhelming, there’s nothing but this quiet, echoing space where something used to live deep within me.

It’s strange, trying to explain what MHA was to me without making it sound like just a fandom, because it never was. It was one of the two worlds that carried me here, to this personal blog, to this version of myself. It was the reason I stepped away from the shared writing blog I ran with friends for years on Tumblr, choosing instead to build something on my own. I didn’t know then how much that decision would change me.

But it did.

From 2023 onward, I wrote like I was chasing something I couldn’t afford to lose. Over 300 MHA stories, can you imagine that? Entire nights dissolved into words, entire days shaped around requests. Sinful Sundays became a ritual. Emergency requests, commissions - they weren’t obligations, they were something I held onto. Something that made me feel needed, grounded.

MHA shaped me in ways I don’t think I’ll ever fully untangle. It deepened my love for anime, for manga, for Japan, for storytelling itself. It gave me characters I held onto like they were real, like they could understand parts of me no one else ever quite reached.

If you’ve been here for a while, you probably saw it before I could admit it. The updates became less frequent. The energy shifted. The words didn’t come as easily, didn’t burn the way they used to.

By the half of 2024, I was already losing that fire.

First came the ending of the MHA manga. I wish I could say it gave me closure. That it felt like a proper goodbye. But it didn’t. Watching it end and struggling with how some of the characters I loved most were treated, only deepened that hollow feeling. It was like losing something twice. First the story as I knew it, then the version of it I carried inside myself.

To those who say it’s childish to care this much about a manga - I understand how it might look from the outside. But it was never just about a story, or characters I happened to like. It was something that found me at the lowest point of my life. When everything felt heavy, repetitive, and unbearably real, that world became somewhere I could breathe. A place where I could step out of my own thoughts, even if just for a while. Where the noise of everyday struggles softened, where I didn’t have to carry everything all at once. Diving into that story gave me space. It gave me something to hold onto when reality felt like too much. It reminded me that I could still feel excitement, attachment, even comfort - things that were hard to find anywhere else at the time. And that’s why it mattered the way it did.

And then came something I don’t think I’ll ever fully make sense of, the final nail. I had been working on Sangreal - my vampire MHA AU - for nearly a year. It wasn’t just an idea. It was my little obsession, my pride, the world I had been building piece by piece for nearly a year. Over 60 pages of a handbook - lore, structure, character arcs, things I poured hours and pieces of myself into. It was, without question, the greatest achievement of my writing journey. And then, one day, it was gone. Deleted. Discarded like a trash by someone I once trusted. Someone I once called a friend, because they couldn’t accept that I chose to step away from them. There’s no clean way to explain what that felt like. A hollow so complete it almost had weight to it. Like reaching for something you know should be there, something you’ve touched a hundred times before, and closing your fingers around nothing but air. I cried for days. Everything I had built, everything I had spent months shaping, refining, caring about - erased with a single click.

And I know what people would say. I’ve heard it more than once. “You’ll rebuild it.” “You can reshape it.”

Maybe they’re right. Maybe, technically, it’s possible.

But they don’t understand that it’s not about simply rewriting it again. It’s about that version. The one I spent hours, days, months shaping. The one where every detail had been questioned, reworked, reconsidered until it finally felt right. I poured time into it - real time, the kind you don’t get back. Hours I could have spent doing anything else, given willingly because it mattered to me that much. And now I’m supposed to just start over? Knowing it won’t be the same? Knowing it won’t feel as precise, as intentional, as perfect as that first version did in my hands?

I can’t. I can’t just move past something that was taken from me like that. I can’t pretend it didn’t matter. And I can’t bring myself to pour that much of myself into writing again, not after knowing how easily it can all disappear. That was the moment something in me truly broke. That was when I gave up fully. I don’t think people will ever realize how final something like that can feel. Because there are things you don’t rebuild. You just learn to live with the space they left behind.

And somewhere between those losses, I realized something I didn’t want to admit. I’m tired. Not in a way that a single break resolves. So I’m making a decision that hurts more than I expected it to.

I’m taking a hiatus.

And I want to be honest with you: I don’t expect the series I’ve started to be publicly finished. If they ever are, it will likely be something I share only with people closest to me. I don’t see myself returning to posting the way I used to - not with that same consistency, that same openness, that same heart. But maybe I'll change my decision one day, who knows. For now, I want to write only when something truly inspires me again. When it doesn’t feel forced. When it doesn’t feel like I’m trying to recreate something that’s already gone.

I’m still here, though. I still want to talk and laugh with mutuals, to exist in this space with you all, just without the pressure of constantly creating, constantly pouring parts of myself into writing.

These past three years, they meant more than I can put into words. Every message. Every reblog. Every comment. Every moment you chose to stay, to read, to feel something alongside me - it built something I’ll carry long after this fades into memory. So thank you. For everything.

And maybe, one day, when this quiet emptiness isn’t the only thing I feel when thinking about creating stories, I’ll find my way back to writing again.

"Myself...? "

"I didn't ask who, writer. I asked what. "

"Oh... I... I write for... "

"For? "

"I am not sure. There are so many things. "

"Tell me one of them. "

"I can't. "

"Why? "

"Because you wouldn't understand. "

"I wouldn't understand what? "

"That I am not a writer. "

"... no? Then, how come you have a lifetime of journals full of words to their last lines? "

"These are just... words. They're meaningless. "

"Meaningless. Wow, writer, that's amazing. In my long lifetime, I've never read a book or a journal of meaningless words. I've never seen a meaningless line. How fascinating. "

"You're mocking me. "

"Truly not. I wonder how could a word descend in its value so awfully to be called meaningless. Or do you not realize the heaviness of such a claim? "

"... because my writing is different. "

"If that's not writing, then what is it, writer? "

"It's... it's... it's just me in letters. "

"I've asked you what you write for. Because the act of putting ink on paper is writing and the person is a writer. "

"No, I am not a writer. "

"Why? "

"It's... hard to explain. "

"You're a writer. Explaining in words is your job. "

"Explaining with my pen. Not my tongue. "

"You only explain with one thing. And that is your thoughts. Pen, tongue, or fists. They're all different tools serving the same notion. You're a writer for using ink as your tool. "

" I am not. A writer scribbles such words to entertain a bored soul or make someone out there feel less lonely. A writer stays up late so his lines could point a finger at the villain among society. A writer... "

"Hm? "

"A writer is a politician. A healer. A jester. A Heartbreaker. A rebel. A storyteller. A companion. A messenger. "

"Are you not? "

"No... I am not... because I am a selfish being. I don't write for the world. I write to blame the world for what it had done to me. I write to be my own companion. I am careless to use my pen to be the messenger of any other pain but mine. I am a lonely person in the hat of a writer. "