Xenobean

when people say stuff like "you need to have hobbies that aren't media" i agree with the letter of it, because i think that you have to have at least one or two tactile hobbies to stop you from descending into madness. but its never actually about that it always comes with the smug, condescending implication that media is a kind of consolation prize for people who aren't able to have Real interests. and its just like. well i actually do think the collective body of books, film, plays, television, comics, and video games produced by the human race is vast and meaningful enough that a life spent mostly picking through it and reflecting on it could be perfectly fulfilling

social media has really warped our perception of creativity and hobbies. Stop doing things to post them. Just write. Just journal. Just sketch. Just read. Just annotate. Just sing. Just crochet. Just do the thing you’re going to do with the assumption no one will ever see or know you did it. Stop performing. Just enjoy it.

At this point I've seen like three unconnected pieces of American media set in a superficially idyllic small town with a big fuckoff lake that functions as a liminal boundary between the Known and the Unknown and in which a major character attempts suicide by drowning, and now I'm wondering if the Liminal Death Lake is just a thing American small towns have.

unfortunate truth of reality is that oftentimes 15 year olds will say/do/believe some stupid bullshit because they are 15 but telling them that they believe that because they are 15 is probably the most counterproductive thing in the entire universe

i remember being 15 and wanting literally nothing more than to be taken seriously and listened to and every thought and feeling i had was dismissed because i was a hormonal teenager. i was well aware at that point that a lot of the things i felt were probably because i was a kid, but that didnt make any of it less real, and being dismissed because of my age 1. did not help 2. did not make me feel better 3. made me angry at and untrustworthy of adults because they refused to listen to me. teenagers are people. kids are people. one of the only major things separating them from adults are experience and wisdom. they have like. you know. interiority

one genre of fanfiction that seems to have mostly disappeared since i became an adult is shenanigans-type fics. like not exactly crack but just "the gang goes to 7-11" type, extremely low-stakes plot stories. the beach episodes of fanfiction. i just feel like i don't see those around so much anymore. whered they go. i miss them :(

Your character doesn't need to be likeable. They need to be legible. The reader needs to understand every decision they make even when it's wrong, even when it's ugly, even when they want to shake them. Likeable is easy and forgettable. Legible is what makes someone stay with you for years. Make the logic of every bad choice visible. The reader doesn't have to agree with it. They just have to follow it.