halfmoth-halfman

[halfmoth-halfman]

MOTHMAN?!?!

MOTHMAN!!!!!

#meadow-of-daisies-and-lavender #answered #moth answers

[halfmoth-halfman]

finally updated my navi post a million days late lmao, but here's some notes from it and updates about this blog:

i've worked out a little posting schedule to help get myself back into writing and posting in may. it's queued along with a fic poll for sunday, the 28th, and it'll be linked in my navi post after it's posted.

speaking of, i'll be working on said navi post to make it less cluttered and adding/adjusting a few masterlists in the next few weeks so if my blog's a mess then that's just the vibe.

anon is off, and will be staying off for the foreseeable future, except on wednesdays when i'll be doing wip wednesdays and taking asks about my wips and drafts. if there's any weirdness, i will shut it off until i feel comfortable with having it on again.

i'm completely redoing my fic recs blog so hopefully that'll be done by the end of may-ish, and whenever that's done i'll start taking fic recs again.

that's pretty much it, hope everyone has a lovely day 💜

#navi update #q

[halfmoth-halfman]

hi. go buy esims for gaza. go preorder a kufiya from hirbawi. buy insulin for palestinian diabetics who need that help. if you live in the states use this to email your reps (this takes maybe 5 seconds to do). check out this massive list of resources where you can educate yourself in a meaningful and actionable way even if you don't have the financial means right now. from the river to the sea palestine will be free. 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #palestine resources #gaza resources

[halfmoth-halfman]

They are already selling data to midjourney, and it's very likely your work is already being used to train their models because you have to OPT OUT of this, not opt in. Very scummy of them to roll this out unannounced.

#tumblr #tumblr bullshit #🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

[halfmoth-halfman]

omg after seeing the first fandom post, i really just wanna ask about your thoughts on winx club

mainly im tired of the new reboots and the animation changes. also can they stop making Aisha lighter and lighter. like damn, who goddam white baby is that!

omg hard agree

i wouldn't even mind the reboots as much if it weren't specifically for the animation changes. like i get the original series animation wasn't the best cause it was 2004 but the 2019 animation looks like a completely different show. and the changes to the character design and fashion is severely lacking imo.

if i start talking about aisha i'll never stop cause she's my favorite character and the whitewashing with the way they did her and nabu dirty will make me mad until the end of time.

#lovelymaneskindays #moth answers #answered

[halfmoth-halfman]

I hope you’re having a great day!❤️

thank youuuu!!! i hope you're having an amazing day anon!! 💜

#anon #moth answers #answered

[halfmoth-halfman]

what was your original fandom. like not the one you first started with on tumblr. the first bit of media that you made content for

#winx club i think?? #after winx it was full speed ahead into kingdom hearts #about me

[halfmoth-halfman]

Palestinians: Please don’t stop talking about what’s happening to us. This is the only thing we’re asking for.

White CoD Writers: I’m sorry, but your suffering is causing me too much mental stress. I need to keep writing ff about war criminals and thirsting after voice actors who support the people killing you. Sorry, but you’re in my thoughts and prayers <3

idk if this is the same person cause i keep getting asks like this but please stop sending me your grievances about cod when i've said i don't participate in the fandom anymore.

and, disrespectfully, maybe use some of this energy to advocate for palestine, congo, and sudan yourself instead of wasting it complaining in my inbox.

#anon #moth answers #answered #tw: genocide #idk if it's all you #but i have like six more asks like this #and they're getting blocked asap #if you want to bring awareness and advocate for palestinians #or the congolese #or the sudanese #there's better ways to do it than bitching about what people aren't doing in my inbox

[halfmoth-halfman]

its dope how the CEO of this website can casually drop the fact that he had at least one content moderator on payroll who was accepting bribes to take down blogs on request, without revealing who was affected by this or what actions were taken to reverse the damage, and were all just supposed to be like oh ok thanks for taking care of that :D

[halfmoth-halfman]

i love going back to find my favourite fics from when i was twelve only to realise that they’re poorly written and messy and full of mistakes and bad dialogue and melodrama. and also at the same time holding in my mind how absolutely enraptured i was by those fics when i read them, when i was twelve and desperately alone.

how often in the intervening years i’ve replayed those stories in my mind and how bright they feel to me when i think of them, even now. and here, at the root of it, is this flawed and human piece of art made by someone who probably doesn’t realise that i’ve clung to the echoes of their voice for more than half my life. taken solace inside the giants i’ve made of their little words.

it’s just… no matter the quality of your writing there’s always going to be someone (like me) to whom your fic becomes a lifeline. someone who’ll spin your words to gold in their mind because underneath the shaky narration and the bits of dialogue that don’t work, underneath the fact that the fic i’m talking about stopped at chapter 14 and i checked my email every day for a year hoping to see it updated again, there’s still the fact that what you just made is art.

this messy little fic, which has an oc as the main character and broke so many of the cardinal rules of making fic… it stuck with me, became a part of me. so, no matter what kind of art you make - good or bad or mediocre or profound, ordinary and inexpert and poorly-plotted - there’ll be someone who reads it and carries it with them forever. even the art you make when you’re twelve and not good at anything yet is still art and it still had the capacity to do all the things that art does.

[halfmoth-halfman]

it is, i think, symptomatic of the way larian has built this brand: bg3 was always marketed as being mature (read: sexual), and that was one of the big draws for players - myself included! especially as media pulls more towards extremes, with mainstream video games starting to get increasingly graphically sexual, graphically violent, and the vogue for 'grey morality' becomes the norm, those boundaries get pushed, and it becomes more and more of a selling point.

larian obviously focused on this, along with the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids brand, the increased accessibility of game devs on twitter, and adopted it heavily into their marketing strategy, and are now pretty reliant on the horny gamer crowd for a lot of their audience, and more importantly, they're doing this on purpose.

which is how you end up in situations like this.

characters (white men) the players want to fuck get centred: they get updates, they get more content, they get favoured. halsin's gone from a side character in EA to a half-fledged romance option, to a full romance option: he shows up in the promotional material, is larian's poster boy for the sex scenes, he gets more content with every update.

now gortash gets more heavily implied situationship lines with the dark urge, because players are horny for him. nevermind that some people aren't playing that way, or that he was originally set up to be a lower-level antagonist; nevermind that if the durge's storyline needed expansion, it should've been with orin and sarevok and bhaal, or that it muddies the writing for the rest of gortash's arc + characterisation: people want to fuck him, so it gets put in the game. it's not even to do with karlach, whose quest so desperately needs expansion! it's specifically catering to the people who want their character to have a Relationship with the slaver, because they're either not interested in or not able to focus on strengthening the weak spots in the narrative: they're just doing things that will net the 'my favourite dating sim' people lmfao.

meanwhile, literal main character wyll gets his quest demoted to a subquest, doesn't get bugfixes, doesn't get a single unique romance greeting after 6 patches and months of requests. he's not a Horny character, so he doesn't get the focus: he's not a player favourite, so he gets nothing. it's just... so unbelievably, indisputably racist, and it's incredibly grim and disappointing to watch it happen in real-time.

#bg3 #larian critical #bg3 fandom critical

[halfmoth-halfman]

sweet words overflow from my heart and turn into gentle blooms. be my valentine? 🌷

.

valentine's day was made for wyll :) i was sad that he wasn't used to promote the holiday at all, so i made some valentine art of him to compensate <3 i hope you all had a lovely day surrounded by love!

#haverdoodles #bg3 #wyll ravengard #wyll bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #art

[halfmoth-halfman]

Fandom Inclusion

Some helpful posts I’ve found about BIPOC, Gender, and Body Neutral inclusion in writing.

Posts/Resources:

Quick points on writing more inclusively by @otomeman

How to be More Inclusive in Your Reader-Inserts by melanimed

Inclusive Moodboards by @jynzandtonic​

​Tips for Inclusivity with Reader Inserts by @flightlessangelwings​

Rec List/Resources:

Rec List by @writingwithcolor​

Black and Brown stock photos - Nappy.co

Articles:

 Media’s portrayal of Asian women hurts

Who Get’s to Escape into Fandom

What’s the Problem, Papi?

#writing resources

[halfmoth-halfman]

i got an ask about advice for writing when you're discouraged, so i thought i'd make a post addressing some of the points because i think this is something that everyone has gone through and can relate to. most of this is just what's helped me/what i'd tell myself in the past, but if anyone has advice to add on please feel free! i hope this helps at least a little bit, anon!

"I’m not good at (dialogue/atmosphere/prose/etc)."

write it anyways! one of the best ways to build a skill is to keep doing it. even if you don't ever post it, or only share it with a few friends, or just read it to your pets, or whatever you choose to do, it's better to write something "badly" than to not write at all. or even asking for help on how to improve from other writers. i struggle a lot with atmosphere and scenery, and something that helped me a lot was talking to other writers whose fics i really enjoy and inspire me. i know it may seem intimidating, but there are plenty of writers on tumblr that would love to talk about how they compose their scenes, their dialogue, anything and everything if someone asks.

"I can’t make moodboards/headers/aesthetic posts."

the good news is, you don't have to! fics don't have to have anything other than the fic itself. i can't speak for everyone, but while aesthetics may get my attention, it's the person behind the blog that i stay for. if you want your blog or your fics to have a pretty aesthetic, it shouldn't be because you feel forced to but because you want to do it. if you don't find making moodboards or headers or aesthetic posts fun, then you don't have to do them. and if you want to, but don't know how, there are a ton of resources, links, and blogs dedicated to helping on tumblr.

"I’m not at (insert someone else)’s writing level."

and you might never be, and that's okay! every writer is different - they have different styles, write at different paces, perceive their skill differently. basing your progress on someone else's isn't going to help because you're not them. you have your own time, energy, ability, and ideas, you'll grow and improve at your own pace, just like they did. don't force yourself to try and follow the same timeline of someone else, and don't put yourself down because you're getting better - and you are getting better - at your own pace.

"I can’t find the motivation to write."

honestly same. i think it's a pretty universal experience to lose motivation for something you were excited about at one point. sometimes the vibes aren't it and the story doesn't want to story, but that's alright. it can be hard to stay motivated, and what gets someone inspired again is different everyone. i can't give advice for anything outside of what's helped me, but a few ways i've re-motivated myself to write something are: making a fic playlist, stepping away from the fic for a day or two, giving it to a friend to read, re-watching/reading the source material, doodling fic ideas, and skipping to a different part of the story.

"I can’t write fast enough."

unless it's for something like work where you have a fixed deadline, there is no "fast enough" in writing. don't let anyone tell you otherwise. when i first started writing, in the very early days of ao3 and tumblr, fic updates could takes months or even more than a year and that was fine! one of my favorite fics took a six year hiatus, and that didn't diminish any of the enjoyment i had when it came back. you are not a machine, you're a human being with needs outside of writing. it's always okay if you need to take a break, if there's a long wait between chapters, or if you want to stop a project altogether and come back to it six years later. if someone gives you grief because you can't write within their time-frame then they're not worth having as a reader - do not overwork yourself for the sake of finishing a fic.

"It’s hard to stick to one idea at a time."

then don't! write all the ideas. write every single one. working on a project and you have a drabble that you just keep thinking about? write it. you get a sudden idea for a one-shot in a different fandom? write it. woke up in the mood to start a new five-chapter fic? write it. you can start or stop writing about anything at any time. there is no rule that you have to stick to one idea and finish it before you can write anything else, don't make yourself stick to something if it's not what you want to write, and don't punish yourself if you need to take a break from your current project.

"Maybe I’m not made for writing on tumblr."

tumblr is a shitposting website that barely works at the best of times. half of my drafts get deleted every other week for no reason - there is no way to be "made for writing on tumblr"! but tumblr is huge, there's a bajillion communities on here that would be so excited to have another writer, and a ton that are solely dedicated to helping writers and providing different resources. i guarantee there is someone on this website that will love and adore your writing.

"The things I read are better than anything I can write/comparing myself to other writers."

i don't have the cake picture saved, but we all know the gist of it: the audience (generally) isn't going to care about how decorated your cake is compared to another, they're just happy to get two cakes. and that's really all it is. your fic might not be the same preferred flavor as the audience of other writers, but there is someone out there who's going to enjoy it. i won't tell you to just not compare yourself to others, i know that's not how it works, but what has helped me is changing the way i view other fics. instead of thinking "i wish i could write like this person", i look at like "this inspires me to improve my writing". and don't get me wrong, i still have moments of doubt about my writing compared to some of the people i read, i don't think that will ever really stop, but the best thing you can do is not let yourself give in to that feeling. try and stop that train of thought before it leaves the station. no one else can write the way you can. no one else can tell your stories the way you can. no one else has the same voice as you do. if everyone wrote the same way, everything would be boring. the heart of a fic is seeing the author's personality shine through it. if you see someone write a good fic, that doesn't mean yours won't be. you have to give yourself a chance even when you feel like your writing won't be as good as someone else's. you have to bake your cake anyway.

"How do I find joy in something I know I’ll never be good at?"

you won't. full stop. if you keep telling yourself you'll never be good at something, you'll never improve, there's no point in trying, then you'll never enjoy it. i know it's easier said than done, but you have to have some level of confidence in yourself and in your writing. not only will you not enjoy it, other people will see the lack of enjoyment, the "i wrote this and it sucks" comments, the self-degradation, and they won't enjoy it either - no one feels good about a fic the author clearly didn't want to write. and, if you try everything you possibly can and still can't find any joy in writing, then maybe writing isn't the hobby for you. and that's perfectly okay! i tried quilting and glassblowing several times before i realized i just didn't like it the same way i liked writing. you owe it to yourself to find something that's fun, that makes you smile, that you're excited to do. there's a million hobbies out there, i promise you'll find something that brings you joy.

#moth talks #writing advice #long post

[halfmoth-halfman]

[halfmoth-halfman]

Stars + Casual

#prinnay #art

[halfmoth-halfman]

Here's a huge post of me checking various online fundraisers for people in Palestine or their families. Lots of people won't notice it because it's cut off right before I even start writing anything but please do refer to it if you're wondering where else your money can go. If you have any rich friends go guilt trip them into donating on those fundraisers.

Link.

#palestine #fundraisers #gaza #palestine resources #gaza resources