#HOWEVER... it is fun in fiction... and yknow what.

[deoidesign]

Worry free, guarantee!

loved painting this one, I love illustrated advertisements

#for some reason everything I was sketching was coming out really violent idk so I just went with it #tbh I'm not even really into the like 'girlboss kill your husband' thing I love my partner dearly #HOWEVER... it is fun in fiction... and yknow what. #sometimes you gotta kill your husband #anyways. as per use if I think it's funny I have to do it so. #my curse strikes again #illustration #digital art #my art #art #artists on tumblr #digital painting #digitalart #not ocs #I had to research vintage shampooers for this #when no one else got me I know extremely niche forums that look straight out of 2004 got me

[herebecritters]

I’m not very well-versed in Happy Tree Friends BUT if your trio of kooky sumerian gods were actually canon to the show, I’d push everyone away just for them, words can’t describe how even though I don’t know shit about the source, I love these three so badly! And the amount of detail and depth you go into them is so astounding and AUGHHHHH!! And quick question! What would they look like as humans? I gotta know!!

Holy cow! This was such a nice message to receive thank you!!! Don’t worry I got plenty of Idol Trio stuff planned and in the works! 💪😤

Basically htf is just…Cute critters being violently killed by random silly bouts of bad luck only to come back for the next episode. Think Looney Tunes but gorey ehehehehe

And lemme clarify, the three are not Sumerian, they are Mesozoic cave people (well technically burrow people but yknow what I mean) However, considering people didn’t exist back during the Cretaceous….and considering that ancient Mesopotamian/Sumerian/Assyrian civilization has the oldest historical records to go off of, it does provide a lot of inspiration for them. Specifically for First Civilization.

But I also pull a lot from the little bit we know about Neanderthal life as well as many various Paleolithic hunter/gatherer societies such as the Ohallo II site and the ancient Natufian settlements. These sources help especially for the Dino-Sore days era of their lives. But of course, there’s no WRITTEN records from these times so it makes it a bit difficult when it comes to research and understanding how these people really lived. You can only tell so much from stone tools and bones sadly.

Because of this, the trio has been inspired by a hodgepodge of a bunch of different ancient cultures, not just one. Not to mention the occasional fictional liberties I take with them. I mean it’s a cartoon after all. ;D

Shoot I rambled a lot ANYWAYS

the HILARIOUS thing about this message is that literally the day before I had gotten this in my inbox I actually DID do some human trio doodles while at dnd so I went ahead and finished one of ‘em up for you! :D

It’s been a little while since I’ve drawn humans so forgive me hehehe Again thank you for asking this humanifying them has been so much fun!!!!

#happy tree friends #htf #htf ocs #htf be brave #htf nergal #htf geshtu #htf dumuzi #htf idol trio #htf god trio #I’m actually currently a little obsessed with drawin em like this now oops #I forgot Nergals hat shhhh shhh

[arthurtaylorlester]

whispers into your inbox "jmart was the worst thing that could have happened in tma; it wrecked Jon's character and is the most transparent 'how do we not have our mc become suicidal?' I have ever seen. TMA then falls into the hole of the only important or good enough relationships being romantic, discarding previous character development to throw everything into romance solves all ~ ♡ I hate it and I hate how much Jon is woobified and infantilized in the fandom to drool over Martin and I hate how everyone acts like their relationship is good, when I think either of them with 5 years of a normal life would realize how awful the relationship was for both of them." Anyway lol I expect no response or post of this I am just being spicey on anon

oh anon you thought i was gonna see a take like this and not post it?

i need you to out yourself to me because goddamn this is an interesting take!

look, i love jmart, but even with 5 seasons of development they still somehow managed to feel rushed?

i disagree in that their relationship being unhealthy is a bad thing for them, because like the appeal of podcasts for me is the fucked up relationships. fucked up characters = fucked up relationships, yknow? like john and arthur from malevolent, normally, they'd hate each other without much of a second thought, but that's not the point, they love each other despite that, and that kind of extends to jmart for me.

i also totally agree with the fandom criticism, woobifying jon is like the only tma content i see on twt and it is soooooo annoying.

my personal qualms with tma however is in part the lore decisions and how the fandom treats the lore (and also the whole podcast).

s1 is easily the best season, mostly because you have no fucking idea what's going on, but after s2 things really start feeling like they're being drawn out, at least to me? like i think season 3-4 couldve been one thing, and um. season 5 is fun if you like jmart and the eye ig. i know most of this is a gross oversimplification (not forgetting yall basira&daisy fans) but after the core cast of season 1-2 i could not really get the other characters being fundamental in the story (not georgie. i love georgie)

don't get me wrong, the not-sasha arc was amazing! but after tim died, and martin fucked off for most of a season being sad, i was a bit bored. the buried isnt interesting to me sorry.

and also they under-utilize basically every fear, including the eye, and the one that upsets me the most is the stranger. oh what is it? circus and clowns ig. LIKE OPEN UP YOUR EYES THE WORLD IS OPEN TO YOU THE UNCANNY VALLEY AS SO MANY NICHES PLEASE

and by the end of the show, it just feels like they keep rotating the same 3 fears, and the others just kind fade into the bg

and then there's the fandom. i'm sorry but some of you guys act like tma is the end-all-be-all of fiction horror podcasts. when it's just not. sorry, but the magnus archives, after s1, just isnt scary. you know what's going on, the fears! which are neatly tied into these categories of oddities!

and the show explicitly states that the 14 fears categorization is arbitrary and that they all bleed into one another, but the fandom just. ignores that? like i've heard so many people go to other podcasts and say ''oh x is so eye avatar-coded!!'' and then x just has some vague eye symbolism that isnt even the point (this is about arthur lester)

and like i don't understand how tma manages to be the most mainstream fiction podcast nowadays, when welcome to night vale is right there ! and yes, i am implying that wtnv is objectively better than tma, because wtnv despite running for 12 goddamn years has never bored me with an episode, and it has roughly the same amounts of episodes! they both have similar formats that could repetitive quick (radio show vs statements) and even though i'd say statements have more creative freedom, wtnv still manages to not be boring. this might also just be a fact of better and more varied authors but hey, this is just my opinion

i want it to be clear that i'm not trying to start discourse, i still like tma! the fanartists are some of the most talented artists i've seen, and the fics are just aughhhhhhhhhhhh /pos

#podcasts fandoms have next to no discourse but that also doesnt leave room for criticism #tma critical #<- just in case #2 magnus 2 arch-ives #!! red !! #anon #red replies #sorry to anon if you didnt want this to be public i needed to rant about the tma-glorification #i did listen to all of tma in 2 weeks but um that may have something to do with it #fandom critical #discourse #<- not really tho this is just my opinion

[eirian]

not to be that guy again

but i also dont fuck with anybody who talks about "anti culture" or anything like that when it comes to how shit's portrayed in fiction. i super try to stay out of "proship vs anti" discourse bc its stupid as shit and i have other things to worry about than internet discourse. but i still cant help but express my beliefs which relate to the core argument

dont make me tap the sign. fictional exploration of pedophilia/incest/abuse/etc at all isnt the problem, its the way its portrayed. if youre out here portraying that shit as bad and inexcusable, then youre fine. if youre exploring it in a way that doesnt defend it, then youre fine. if youre out here saying that a 40 year old man getting it on with a 14 year old is cute or sexy, or that two brothers having a sloppy makeout is hot, then yeah im going to burn your house down with you in it

the thing about the "what about fictional murder??? ppl romanticize that all the time and you dont see people turning into murderers irl!" argument is that. well. people dont groom people with murder fics. ppl dont show others art of their favs getting murdered and then try to use that to justify them murdering someone. that just doesnt happen. what Does happen is that ppl use incest/pedophilic ships and art portraying it in a "cute" or "fun" light and they use that to justify their grooming actions. that does happen. ive Seen it happen.

and no, im not saying that getting rid of this depiction of these subjects in media or fanworks is going to Stop All Grooming. thats silly. i know that if theyre going to groom someone theyre going to find a way to do it anyway, im not an idiot. but all im saying is that this shit makes it easier, makes it more accessible, and may even make it more normalized, which i hope you can agree is a bad thing.

exploration is one thing! lots of gothic media has "problematic" shit like that in it. lots of fiction has gross shit that the author doesnt condone irl, theyre just exploring it through writing. however, romanticization is another thing. portraying it as cute and fun is another thing. trying to excuse it by saying its fiction is another thing. thats when you ascend to freak status in my book.

youre not ~making a statement~ by declaring yourself a Proud Proshipper--at least not the one you think you are. youre giving me the signal that you dont care about how certain subjects are portrayed even if theyre harmful, and youre telling me that i should stay far the fuck away from you.

last thing i'll say on this is that for the record i am also against purity culture. i dont think ppl should be watering down media to be Acceptable and Pure all the goddamn time. i dont think ppl should stay away from "problematic" media entirely as long as they can use their brains and be critical and not excuse or defend said problematic content. everything is problematic bitch lets get you some fruit. yknow? theres nuance and context to everything; things arent black and white. trying to take the problems out of everything is a waste of effort and frankly makes everything boring as shit. having said all this, the way things are portrayed and how you interact with them are still important factors and i will stand by that

aight rant over o7

[megabuild]

i've had a lot of time to think in the last few days about a lot of things, but for whatever reason what i keep coming back to right now is that same topic of the special place mcrp occupies somewhere simultaneously in and out of fiction and the inherent nebulous nature of a series like that, where some interactions are labelled as explicit out of character and some explicit in character and some are written roleplay and some are improv and already i'm starting to lose my train of thought just figuring out where to start explaining this but like, stay with me for a minute.

humans by default will seek pattern and sort things into little boxes because it feels good to organise, it's nice to label and set things aside in the "right" order, and that's everywhere, so naturally it's in mcyt too. we have c! and cc! and we have "lore" and theories and if a cc takes notice and "canonises" that then it's cause for celebration. everything is a callback to something. everything is a parallel to something. and there is fun in all of this! i'm not for one second suggesting there is not merit in this behaviour because i enjoy it myself and there is always merit in art and what humans create and enjoy because if there wasn't then what would life be worth living for yknow? but mcyt like i said before is a special case because the way it's designed is inherently muddied and so fans have a habit of cutting bits up and saying well this was canon and this wasn't, this is just friends having fun and this is the story, and everyone has different views on where that boundary lies. and- this is the important part, everyone has different views on what that all means, and that comes in a lot of different ways. so obviously you have people who are casual fans or younger viewers or just not interested in wider potential storylines who might watch an episode of grian's limited life smp and go "hey, this is a group of youtubers having fun" and then you also have people on the other end who view every interaction as canonical and rigid and character based, and then you have all sorts of people in between because i don't think any one mcyt fan will have the exact same opinions on anything and they fucking shouldn't is the point i'm trying to get to here. and this isn't just that but also not caring if someone interprets a dynamic differently or has a different headcanon or, like, maybe they disagree with what the ccs have said is "canon" and maybe they thought the ending to one series sucked and maybe they really like a decision you didn't, and the objective level on whether or not those decisions and series were actually good writing doesnt matter, yknow? i'm not going to sit and shoot down the narrative choices some ccs have made with their "canon lore" or when they "confirm" popular fan theories because at the end of the day it's also human creation but it's also like, i have the space to criticise that and interpret it however i want.

a long time ago i got complaints because i interpreted pixlriffs' empires series as a metaphor for very serious mental illness and it turned me away from creating content for a while despite it being something i loved, but now it's like, well, what the fuck? how can you be a mcyt fan and not look at what other people are making, given that it's not harmful or disrespectful, and think to tear it down when at the end of the day we're all just looking for different meaning in videos of a video game? i don't hate "canon lore" or "popular fanon" but i hate this constant push that it's the one true meaning. there is something special in it all as it being something created by people as a group like a patchwork of a little bit of all our brains but also the search for a definitive meaning and story in any of this will exhaust you, because you will never get something rigid from a media form that is anything but.

so just do whatever the fuck you're doing and what your friends and the artist you look up to and the blogger you follow are doing and stop trying to tuck it into little neat folders in the hopes that the cc will like it because while ccs can make good content and have as much a right to their own character and content as any of us it's also like, the exact opposite of what mcyt has always been to me to try and apply that meaning to a meaningful canon. i had more fun retroactively interpreting things from hermitcraft season 5 and 7 then i ever have with 8 and onwards. and then ccs turn around and play the same lore they were just trying to appeal to and profit from as a joke and it's like fuck man, i'll just kill myself, but anyway- all this to say that you're all wonderful people, mostly, and perhaps i'm just overly emotional and trying to get something out of my head and failing but please don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to comply to canon or seek out the exact meaning or only care about what other people want to care about because that's not the point, that's not the fucking point. and i fucking hate lore.

#what rotting in bed waiting for your prescription to be approved by the health board does to a mf #crit #< not really but that's the closest thing i have #mine

[daz4i]

coming here bc with ur dazai bdsm & control post i think u'll understand my point. i always feel weird when i read skk and specifically filter out "top dazai" because its like it shouldn't matter but it DOES end up mattering. i can't describe it but somehow it feels like whenever people write "top dazai" there's this level of extra control he has over their dynamic. again hard to explain my ick about it but it's feels like (to me) that skk aren't equal. does that make sense. there's always a layer of "dazai is Possessive and Controlling over chuuya" while chuuya's just along for the ride. meanwhile when people write a dominant chuuya its feels more balanced?? like they're both active in the relationship. (not saying top = dominant but we know how heteronormative society thinks of sex roles. everyone writes a top as dominant unless they specify otherwise nowadays :/) i think this stems from like. as readers we all Know that (adult) dazai is the smartest one in the room at any given time. we know he can manipulate and control the situation however he pleases if he wants to. that level of control isn't a given with chuuya. so when chuuya has this (superficial) control in their relationship it's like "sick! dazai trusts chuuya! dazai views chuuya as an equal!" which is what i'm always craving from their dynamic. (i also think i'm truamatized from prior fandoms and quick to think something is heteronormative. i can acknowledge where i'm being dramatic but some people out there really do just think of chuuya as a girl i'm sorry. stop making dazai your harry styles wattpad badboy that is NAWT MY MANS!)

oh anon i get you 🤝 (and i do the same tbh, it's quicker than trying to find fics that DON'T fall into the trope of top = dominant / bottom = submissive)

[also as a usual disclaimer when talking abt this topic that I'm sure you probably agree with; this is all talking abt a fictional couple and the way fics are written about them, speaking realistically they would probably switch but this discussion isn't for the sake of realism but rather talking about characterization through smut. we know it's not that deep, this is an observation for fun and bc it's interesting and harmless, and this isn't judging anyone who writes these fics or subscribes to a different characterization. okay now we can keep going]

the trust thing you point out is honestly the biggest thing here for me!!! like it's not even just dazai letting go of control, it's about letting chuuya take it, too. we see them do it time and time again in the context of battles and strategies and well. why wouldn't it extend to this area too, yknow? same way chuuya gets to have the final word in their plans - they're both involved in every step, but in the end it does hinge on chuuya and his choices. also unironically i think it'd be good for chuuya to get control over smth in his life in a less chaotic way than, say, he does as an executive.

and 😭 god i agree with that part abt people turning dazai into an edgy wattpad bf, esp when it comes to like his current canon self who is just a silly little princess whose entire arc is about trusting people and letting them take control of situations for him

and while I'm at it, i think he COULD be possessive but not in a dark yandere bf way or w/e, first of all he'll be more subtle about it lol, but mostly his possessiveness, to me, is more "no one can hurt those i love" (see: his anger when finding out fyodor is "controlling" chuuya. animezai dni) or "please don't leave me" than "you're mine, no one can touch you, you can't leave me" as people tend to fall into in those fics. does that make sense

#this. may not be 100% coherent i apologize i am very sleep deprived lol. sorry for any grammatical errors too 💔 #bsdm tag #<- technically. and so all these posts are together in the same tag

[wander-wren]

Ok, here goes! I wanna preface this by saying that I've been in a serious writing rut for like the past six months, to the point where I've pretty much given up on my WIPs. It's not that I don't want to write, or that I don't have ideas, but the actual work of sitting down and getting words on the page feels like pulling my own teeth out. So I'm conducting research on writers I admire to see if I can learn anything from their processes. And so, without further ado:

How long have you been writing?

Do you start out knowing what's gonna happen in the story, like with a plot chart and everything, or does the story take shape as you go along?

Do you write in big chunks or a little bit at a time?

How many drafts do you typically do? Is your first draft usually like word vomit or something a little more polished?

Do you have a beta reader?

What's your editing process like?

Is there a certain time or place where you prefer to write?

What do you consider the hardest part of writing?

Have you ever struggled with perfectionism in your writing? Do you have any tricks for bypassing that "EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT" wall in your brain and just get words on the page?

That was a lot lol. Of course you don't have to answer all of them, but any insight you're willing to give will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much <3

woo okay let’s tackle this!! under the cut bc Long. strap in folks

How Long Have You Been Writing?

in any shape or form: since maybe 6 years old? but i started writing fanfiction at 12, started getting serious about writing in general at 15, and threw myself full tilt into fanfic at 17, so currently i haven’t written original fiction Really since june. which is a complicated answer. you didn’t specify if this is about original stuff or fic, but i’ll try to answer from both perspectives bc my process for each is wildly different.

Plotter or Pantser?

for both original fiction and longfics, i’m solidly in the middle; i usually start with a list of things i want to happen, and i always need some idea of where i’m going to end, even if it changes later. from there, i start writing the first few chapters. when i feel like i have a more solid grasp of where i’m going, i outline chapter-by-chapter through one “section” of the story, however i define that. once im done that section, i outline again. this gives me a lot more freedom to change things as i go and adapt to new decisions i make. i also add random ideas to my masterlist of stuff that i might want to include further down the line as i go.

with oneshots i never, or almost never, have a plan beyond the premise/summary, so they frequently get away from me and do all kinds of random things.

Big Chunks or Little At a Time?

i’m gonna say big chunks? i have adhd so i frequently hyperfixate on my projects and can work on them for hours and hours on end, which i don’t exactly recommend, but it happens. at any given time i have a “main” wip or two that i work on pretty much daily, and then others scattered around that i might pick up for a few hours if i get bored. but i try to finish fics as fast as possible bc if i move on there’s a 50% chance i won’t come back, at least not for months.

How Many Drafts?

for fanfic? one. every once in a while if something is REALLY not working i’ll rewrite sections, so that’s like 1.5 drafts, but it’s free labor i do for fun so while i take pride in it and want it to be good, i’m not going to expend THAT much energy, yknow?

for original stuff, like if we’re talking novels…at least three drafts? i haven’t gotten that far with most of my projects so i’m still learning about myself, but my general process seems to be that the first draft is about getting the main story beats and the emotions down. my first draft is always very heavy on the angst and catharsis, sometimes overdramatically so, bc there’s less plot to hold it up. then my second draft is more about plot and realism and structure, but i tend to lose some emotions in trying to do that. my third draft is about combining the two and continuing to polish stories/characters. i haven’t written any fourth drafts, so i’m not sure whats beyond that.

and my first drafts tend to be very polished. i wrote a little rant explaining the history of that aspect of my writing not long ago, so i won’t get into it again. part of that is just how i’ve always been, part of it is practice. i do feel sometimes that i write pretty enough to cover up structural/realism/continuity issues, which can be frustrating when looking for critique from people who can’t see past it.

Beta Reader?

yes! i have a small group of writer friends that i share things with, but that is pretty much always for cheer-betaing and minor critiques unless i ask for actual criticism, which i only do with my original stuff when i get to the second/third draft, partly bc it’s not ready before then, and partly because it’s a lot of mental work for the other people. shoutout to my main bnha betas, @rangerlexi and @spacetime-enthusiast, who are, as i said, mainly cheer betas, tho mav is also my resident bakugo expert bc he’s very hard for me to write sometimes. getting better tho!

can’t recommend finding betas enough, even if just to cheer you on. hell, i can’t make promises about super long works or original fic, but i’m always down to read fanfiction. i don’t even bite, i swear. obligatory note that you do gotta trust ppl tho yada yada thieves exist and mean people exist etc etc

Editing Process?

for fanfic: typically i reread one or two times right away while all my thought processes are fresh in my head. i’ll make spot edits and add or delete things here and there. then depending on how impatient i am, i wait a day or a few to send it to my betas and/or reread and edit again myself. then i post and i’m done!

for original works: i don’t bother to edit first drafts, or even second drafts sometimes. when it’s time to prep for a second draft, i reread and make notes on what i want to keep and what i want to change, then use those notes to make my next skeletal outline. usually my stories change drastically from one draft to the next, but the last time i did a third draft, i wanted it to be pretty close to the structure of the second, so instead of outlining at all i just did splitscreen and wrote the whole third draft while looking at the second, sometimes basically retyping a page word for word, sometimes going “well, that chapter is pointless” and skipping it entirely. when it came to line editing, i used hemingway bc i don’t trust computers to do my editing, BUT the different colored highlights were helpful to break up the monotony. hemingway is a lot more focused on concise/readable sentences and cutting adverbs than anything else, which was good for me as an overwriter. i cut 22k words the last time i used it, from a 130k draft.

Best Time or Place?

not really? i write everywhere and constantly. the advice about finding your niche of productive time never seemed to work for me because, as long as i’m not blocked/stuck, i pretty much always kind of want to write.

Hardest Part?

DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS OH MY GOD IT’S THE WORST. sorry. i hate. doing that. becoming friends? becoming family? falling in love? god. kill me. i love all [thing] to lovers in reading but in writing i tend to drift toward best friends to lovers bc then it’s kind of close. i love writing about people in relationships, tension and banter and softness and fights, but getting there is so awful.

Are You a Perfectionist? Tips?

hm. gonna try to answer this honestly and in the least asshole-ish sounding way possible lmao.

i’m not really a perfectionist? not in writing, anyway, idk about other stuff. but also it’s just like…i know i’m good at what i do. not perfect—i can see flaws in things i wrote even a few months ago—but good. More Than Satisfactory. sometimes fics just don’t work and i abandon them, sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what i’m doing, but i’m not generally paralyzed by the need for anything to be perfect because i’m happy where i am?

that’s a hard mindset to get to, though. and you will for sure feel good about something and then dislike it in a few months or years. that’s just the nature of improving your craft. i think if i had any tips, though, i would say a few things.

watch this video essay, the whole thing but specifically 5:39-9:20. i love cj the x and i agree with many of his takes on art, so. some of his other essays might be helpful as well but that one i know talks specifically about perfectionism.

or if you don’t want to, just have this quote that melted my brain a little when i heard it. “perfectionism is not an inherently bad impulse. but you have to earn that. you don’t get to be a perfectionist if it is unproven up to this point if you can even make a thing.”

read bad stories. like genuinely i’m such a petty spiteful person oops so. i don’t really seek them out much but reading like, really really badly written work is like “well, if that’s the bar, at least i’ve cleared it.” obviously don’t go attacking creators or posting the work to make fun of it, but read it. maybe make notes of exactly why it’s bad for yourself, even, it might help you get better at identifying problems in your own work if you can figure out why things are bad beyond just “i don’t like it.” there, that sounds less mean, right?

just post your shit, tbh. put it out there. most people on the internet, in fandoms, they’re nice, if you curate your space properly. it’s a confidence boost! put something out there that’s less-than-perfect, get a couple of kudos and realize the world didn’t implode, and maybe, maybe it’ll be easier to start/finish next time.

you kinda just gotta accept that you need practice, my dude. like. you can’t closer to perfect without work!! we know this!! just do it. i know i just said to post things but also if you hate what you made no one!! else!! has!! to!! know!! it can be a secret. it’s okay. this coming from a chronic oversharer lol i have the worst time trying not to shove my stuff at people….which, actually, kinda worked better as motivation for me, bc i couldn’t share something unfinished, so i had to Do The Thing in order to get validation/feedback/critique like i wanted. so either way, whatever works better for you.

The End

so yeah, those are my answers, i guess? i hope that makes sense and helps and everything!! i’m really sorry you’re in a rut, that’s the worst. if you have any more questions or just wanna chat about what you’re writing feel free to come say hi again!

#a little birdie asked me #wooo this was fun #i love talking about writing and as such ive already infodumped to most of my friends :(( #i love how my approach to og stuff is like so much more meticulous and then fanfic is like #it exists? cool my work here is done #not that i dont care a shitton about my fic. i absolutely do #but i got better things in life (read: more fanfiction) to be working on #i cant be agonizing over here #esp for 0 american dollars lol #wren wrambles #always forget the longpost tag

[scattered-winter]

BOOK ASKS!!!! 1, 4, 7, 11, 17, 20 <3333

book you’ve reread the most times?

ooh...probably either the six of crows duology by leigh bardugo (I have the whole thing practically memorized at this point...) or pjo/hoo.....theyre sooo <33

4. what sections of a bookstore do you browse?

YA, usually, just because that's generally where the authors I like are, but I'm SUPER picky about which YA books I actually read because well. *gestures at most of them*

7. is there a series/book that got you into reading?

I've been an eager reader for LITERALLY as long as I can remember (the way my mom tells it, I literally taught myself to read which tbh I don't remember enough to dispute that fact and it makes me sound cool so I'll take it) HOWEVER as a kid I was a huge fan of the magic treehouse and bailey school kids series. idk if they were the first ones I ever read tho

11. what non-fiction books do you like if any?

oooh ok ok so when I was a kid my parents had a whole STACK of these nonfiction books for kids called "I wonder why" and each one had like. a different theme. my favorite one was "I wonder why triceratops had horns (and other questions about dinosaurs)" and the whole book was about dinosaurs and answering different "questions" that kids might ask about them. and bro I ate that shit UP. I think my family had about 15 to 20 of these books, in a range of topics from extinct animals to ancient egypt to reptiles to plants, and I used to stack them all in a big pile on my bedroom floor and just read each one, cover to cover, one by one. I must've read those books at LEAST 7 times each, and I loved them soooo much. a lot of the topics are STILL interesting to me (like dinosaurs and extinct animals and ecosystems) and it was so funny because the other day my mom was talking about all the old books the family used to have and she offhandedly mentioned those ones and said something like "yeah none of the kids liked them so they just sat on the shelf :(" and I had to tell her that I actually had them mostly memorized at one point lmao

the series had a revamp pretty recently so most of the search results are the new covers but here's one of the old ones that I used to have :]

17. top 5 children’s books?

the "I wonder why" series (as seen above, because autistic kids deserve a fun little treat :]), magic treehouse (fun historic adventures !!! ALSO a fun lil autistic treat :]), the bailey school kids (THEE OG DETECTIVE GANG), animorphs (war crimes <3), and warriors (more war crimes <3)

20. what are things you look for in a book?

mostly I just look for a good time !!! I loooove complicated/fascinating worldbuilding, like with six of crows, and I also want to be reading about characters who I like/connect with !! if the book is romance-centric I'm less inclined to want to read it UNLESS it's very well written (six of crows is largely about romance but they're all sooooo well crafted that I just ??? love them all ???? and it's also balanced out by the platonic dynamics and overall worldbuilding and plot so they're very enjoyable to me even though the romance plays a big part in it) BUT OVERALL I just wanna have a good time yknow

book asks!!

#in hindsight my enjoyment of the i wonder why books should have been an indicator of me being neurodivergent in some way tbh #like literally i would read those things for HOURS. #i was filled with so many facts about so many different topics as a kid. lowkey wanna revisit the books now so that i can still know Facts. #anyway this was fun :]]] BIG trip down memory lane w the i wonder why books fr #leo 🌻

[wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj]

so it almost seems like the standard for diversity now in like popular western media seems to be like. there's one of this ethnicity and one of that ethnicity, which is technically what diversity means i guess, but it also means you have this nice lil group of different characters who all check off different boxes or smth

and like even media with good rep does this

so usually you get:

main character white folks who take up all the screen time

one or two of each minority ethnicity they want to put in

now i understand that a lot of settings are extremely white, and also that this is something that can happen; however, i grew up in a city with an immense immigrant population so i'm super used to having the majority of my class being filipino like me, so when i see main ''squads'' in fiction, especially when they're kids and/or the cast is larger, where it's just one of each, it kinda makes less sense?

because unless you're living in a small community that's very predominantly one ethnicity, there's going to be others of your culture around, and you tend to gravitate towards those people because what do you know? you have things in common.

actually within my main friend groups there are two where it's a 50/50 split and then one where it's 25/75 where the white person is the 25

so while ofc i think that those plots where kids of a certain ethnicity showing other kids of other ethnicities their culture are good, i think it's equally as important for non-white people especially kids to be represented as bonding over shared backgrounds, yknow? i can relate to all the iterations of showing your white friend your culture, but i'd also like to see more laughing about cultural references and making fun of how the white kids don't know what you're referencing, more complaining over issues of those who share your ethnicity---between the shared prejudices among those of the same culture and the shared discrimination faced---

more: youve heard of getting your white friend to eat your cultural food get ready for: getting your friend of the same culture as you to eat your cultural food because they've apparently also never tried it vfdghj

it's also more just. having people to relate to???

idk man. i could probably say more on the subject but i'm just a teen and i haven't had that many friends anyways and i also have bias because again very immigrant-heavy community (so much that white people were actually more of a minority in my elementary and middle school) but even if my experiences aren't universal i can assure you that they aren't an outlier

anyways tl;dr: there are too many predominantly white friend groups with one or two of each non-white ethnicity in media and not enough friend groups with multiple people of the same non-white ethnicity goddammit

#thoughts tonight #ajhg i dont even have anything against the media that does this it's just so. not my experience #shit i want represented: my filipino friend talking to my parents in tagalog when i don't even know tagalog myself #i think that specific scene could either be hilarious or devastating depending on how you go about it #the potential #i just wanted to make a post about the hypothetical of marcy also being filipino so she and chip could bond😭 #the fics i could write

[riverstardis]

hopelessly addicted:

ethan coming in a hat going “morning gents, who fancies drinks tonight? we are getting on it like a bonnet” and cal goes “like a car bonnet” skfkfkfk

“lily, are you joining us?” “we’re working tomorrow” “yes but tomorrow is not today” “what’s on your head?” “it’s a hat. people wear hats?” “sure they do” 😭😭😭 i love him

lmaoo lily bringing up the hat again after ethan’s changed and says this act of “playing the fool” might not be the best way to deal with his condition and he’s like “it’s just a hat, lily” and says he has patients to attend to

watching max rescue this kid from a bin is stressing me out so much. i can’t even touch a bin lid to open it sans anxiety so seeing someone being totally calm about actually being in a bin, however fictional, is making me want to die, i would never feel clean again🤢

dylan asking the kid how he ended up in a bin and max goes “don’t worry, dylan’s one of us. yeah he was definitely bullied in school” and dylan just goes “okay, yeah, fine, if you say so” SKSKFKFK😭

robyn saying she married an 11 year old last week afsgdh

aww lily apologises to ethan, saying she was insensitive

this fight between these two old men lmaoooo

lily’s following ethan and he asks “are you following me?” and she says “i think perhaps you didn’t quite accept my apology” “you’re very astute” “i’m just worried about you. you’re putting on an act, and for what?” he’s pretty much always putting on an act lily, this is just more and different to usual

“i just want to have some fun. before… yknow. be more cal.” “what does ‘be more cal’ even mean? standing around, sulking, pouting?” LMAO GET HIM LILY “it means be less sensible, take more risks, make mistakes. and i don’t want to be judged for that.” “okay, that’s fair, my only worry is how bad i’m gonna feel in the morning” “why?” “didn’t you say we’re ‘getting on it like a bonnet’” “car bonnet” I LOVE THEM SJAJSJDJFJ

oh big mac stealing medication for the first time after his prescription pain meds were stolen. so the start of his exit sl!

zoe’s thinking of leaving :(

LMAO the junior doctor trio coming off their shift and lily goes “lads, are we ready for some pubbage?” and ethan goes “oh very good dr chao! all aboard the banter bus!” and cal looks INCREDIBLY embarrassed to be associated with them😭😭😭😭

#classic casualty #hopelessly addicted

[vapour-ofthe-moon]

thank you . blisters are so annoying

i& have felt more like a monster than normal today. we always feel nonhuman to some degree but lately we've just felt extra monstery. i don't mind it though. i think being a monster is great [even if it's . a delusion {our therapist said it's harmless as long as we don't get like. too obsessive over it etc}] so we have been enjoying that :] i'm also like . wondering what being kin is like compared to being endel [i think that's the term?] cause i know they're very different but they're. similar yknow? [not pressuring you to explain or anything!! it's just a thought i have]

aside from that we are going to write the bass part for a song today! i am not the one doing it but i like watching zeph when they write cause its. fun :]

also i am sorry if i am not giving you the chance to talk i. fully intend space for you to say whatever you want but i don't know if i've expressed that !!

i actually dont think i heard the term endel before

my understanding of kinning though is "thats me/i am that" but not to the degree its a delusion or an irl source like you can still recognize the character from a show you kin is still fictional. ex. i kin steven universe, that guy whos stressed out and part gem is absolutely me but i know hes still a fictional character, however for a source like say stolas, im literally stolas, thats my reality, that exists to me, im a demon prince irl but for whatever reason im in a human body stuck in the human realm. (it gets super complicated and confusing when you have multiple sources but i try not to think about it) i dunno if that helps or makes any sense, sorry ^^;

oh!! yes music!! that sounds like a lot of fun and i bet the song will turn out great ^^

no its okay! im better and listening than i am talking most of the time. /g

#players speaks

[chronic-high-achiever]

Forgive me, but I accidentally stumbled across an article that was basically making fun of people shipping fictional characters, particularly gay ones, and saying that they aren’t a thing and they’re just best friends and people are reading too much into things and we’re all crazy… so gaslighting and making a person question their own similar experiences. And I know that these types of articles are everywhere but the way this one was worded really ticked me off; it was very much so a “Wow, look at these gross little people trying to project onto these perfectly good characters!” situation.

I’m pretty sure they were homophobic from how they were talking so it’s not like their opinion matters, but it riled me up quite a bit (probably more than it should have). And as a frequent enjoyer of lots of media which involves these ships, I’m gonna just state my opinions on a few for a second:

AZIRAPHALE and CROWLEY are in LOVE and have been for 6000 years (also I want to acknowledge that the author of the article mentioned this one as one of the main “problems”, failing to realise that their story is considered a love story by the author himself)

DEAN and CASTIEL are almost certainly in LOVE (To be truthful, I haven’t watched the show but it’s tumblr, you see stuff, yknow?)

SHERLOCK and JOHN are in LOVE, there’s definitely speculation about this one but like… there’s too much there to ignore

MERLIN and ARTHUR are in LOVE and are literal SOULMATES (I know and appreciate that that can be platonic however to each their own)

I’m honestly kind of tired of the condescending attitudes of people who don’t have the same opinion so they decide to ruin other people’s’ experiences. The forever-annoying “Oh… I mean okay, if that’s what you think” type of comments from people.

It’s so upsetting when the community that the ship comes from is made fun of and picked on for finding something to relate to in media. God knows there isn’t enough LGBT+ representation in media, so why take away what there is?

#random #serious #gay #lgbtq #lgbtqplus #pride #storytelling #good omens #crowley and aziraphale #bbc sherlock #johnlock #tjlc #tjlc is real #Merlín #merthur #arthur pendragon #dean x cas #destiel #I don’t really have anything funny to say about this one #sorry guys #it just really upset me for some reason today #and just so we’re all aware #this is by no means invalidating anyone who does believe that any of these ships are platonic #you are more than entitled to your opinion and I value that #right now I’m just stating my own #I just think it’s funny how filmmakers don’t make any (or good) queer movies #and then get upset when the community takes preexisting characters and tries to relate to them instead #I’m not saying this wouldn’t happen if there were more gay movies because it’s not just the lack of gay characters in film #it’s just when some characters have really similar experiences so you relate part of yourself into that character #which is why it’s so damaging when people say you’re wrong for doing so

[headspace-hotel]

can i ask a really dumb question about books? it makes me feel like a total idiot and someone who deserves to be bullied on tumblr dot com but like im in my early 20s and i know at this point i should definitely stop reading YA books and move on. but im having a really hard time doing it cause i keep looking for adult books that fit the kind of genres i like and.... they end up not being that interesting to me. like. of the books ive read they all end up taking themselves very seriously or having these tense plots and characters which isn't a bad thing but like its all so??? based in real struggle and bleak and self important. even romance or thrillers i think look potentially great they end up boring cause of how i dont enjoy seeing these actions portrayed in such a grounded or gritty setting that feels all too real in a Bad Way. gosh how do i explain this properly so i realised ive mostly been reading YA books cause they thrive on melodrama and these ridiculously over the top ideas of what life and romance and stopping the bad guys should be. its fun! its a little dorky! but id love to see this in adult books and i dont know how to find ones with this same level of melodrama so all the ones i try end up being deeply uninteresting to me and it feels like im wasting my money. how.... do i help myself here? do you have any recommendations? is it dumb of me to wanna go back to the YA section just to have some fun? im not a total idiot i promise i read nonfiction intended for people my age i just want adult fiction to be more fun like that yknow!!!! im so sorry for asking this it does make me feel like something is wrong with me

(I’m sorry I know it’s been like a week but I’m going to answer anyway)

This is not a dumb question, anon. Be a lil bit kinder to yourself, okay?

I don’t think you’re an idiot! In fact you’re very articulate about expressing exactly what things you like about the books you read and why, which I think is a sign of a mature and thoughtful reader. I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel stupid for enjoying the books that you enjoy.

I will say that you don’t have to give up on YA books at all. I’m taking a YA lit class right now and many, many adults still do read and enjoy YA fiction. However, there are definitely “adult” books out there that you’ll probably like. “Adult” isn’t a category with specific bounds, it’s just…all books that are not children’s or YA lit.

I don’t have any specific recommendations right now but maybe my followers will be able to help?

#books #reading #young adult books #ya books

[eirian]

I'm no expert at the subject like at all, but what usually is the very first thing that attaches you to a fictional character?

Have you also had characters in fiction you have consumed that you initially got attached to but lost that attachment to later on? How about the characters that you stayed attached to? Why do you think that stayed?

And what usually is the difference between these two types of characters for you?

HMMM...good point i should try to find Patterns

i tend to like Fun characters, usually protagonists (though i also really really like villainous/antagonistic characters and even anti-heroes. im pretty spread out actually). i like characters who also have the potential for corruption

actually if i sat here and listed all the character traits i adore we'd be here for A While LOL so im gonna spare u

but yeah as for characters i liked but dont anymore um...hmm. i guess it depends on how u mean "lost attachment" bc theres characters i used to obsess over but no longer do, however i do still like them as characters and theyre still my favorites though ive moved on from them (amaimon and yukio from aoex, undertaker from kuroshitsuji, clear from dmmd, all are good examples of this). i think the only ones i genuinely dont have attachment for anymore even tho i used to are fucking...tavros, sollux, and eridan from homestuck LMFAO

i think the ones i still like (albeit lowkey) have some of the character traits that i enjoy and thats why i havent dropped them from my heart yet. clear for example, he's sweet and kind and also nonhuman and he has a great design. amaimon and yukio are demons and though theyre different types of characters (amaimon is an antag, yukio is a protag) i still love them both

the homestuck characters i lost attachment to...im not actually sure why that happened. it could be bc im not into homestuck like at all anymore so i dont feel attached to their world and story so why would i be attached to them yknow? not rly sure

[lesbianrobin]

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity. 

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax. 

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind. 

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective. 

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow? 

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally. 

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.” 

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway. 

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season. 

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still. 

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered. 

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

#asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things #if u actually read all this i love u and im sorry #these r just my opinions!! and im sure i misremembered some shit my brain is swiss cheese #i did my best tho

[idiotic-genius]

Hello!! I was wondering if you have any tips or advice for how to write a good "insanity" arc? A character I have goes through one and I want to do it right, yknow? If not that's ok, thank you if you do do one though :]

TW: Mentions of suicide, talking about mental illnesses and insanity

Thank you for the request, it's such an interesting topic! I found that there isn't that much information on it, but I'm glad to say that I'm pretty confident in what I did find. Anyways, let's get to it ^^

How to write an insanity arc

1. What is an insanity arc?

The first step to writing something is to understand it, so here is a quick definition that explains insanity itself, taken from Oxford Languages: "the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness/extreme foolishness or irrationality". Therefore, an insanity arc means that a character changes throughout the course of the story, descending into madness and irrationality. Sometimes, insanity is equated to certain mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, but personally, I wouldn't define it like that, at least not in fiction, because it could be confusing and also build harmful representation. To sum it up: An insanity arc means that the character slowly spirals into madness until they are mostly unrecognizable.

2. Symptoms of insanity (sorted by possible appearance)

Confusion/irritabbility

Extreme moods

Excessive fear or anxiety

Social withdrawal

Drastical change of eating and sleeping habits

Anger issues

Delusions/Hallucinations

Unability to cope

Suicidal thoughts

Denial

Physical problems

Substance abuse

3. What's the reason?

Insanity can be caused by heavy abuse, trauma, corruption, and also by experiencing mental illnesses that gravely impact the person's daily life (it has been discussed whether or not genetics have an impact as well, like in Alzheimers etc., but theory is yet to be proven). So, with all those overlapping symptoms, you can basically choose any reason for the insanity arc to happen, as long as you make it seem reasonable. Typical examples in fictions are:

Getting kidnapped by villains and corrupted

Turning against the system the character has originally chose to support because of betrayal

"Yandere-Symptom"

Something that could be hard about choosing a reason is the fact that as an author, you're probably trying to make your characters feel complex and realistic to the reader. So, if you haven't chosen why a character has an insanity arc, you should think about what would break them. Sometimes, the process of becoming insane is the arc itself, but, especially when it's not the main character experiencing the arc, sometimes it's about the process of noticing. In that case, maybe the character already went insane, but nobody knows yet and only slowly realizes because of the symptoms mentioned above, which means that the character could have a snap-scenario instead of a "slow burn". What's important is the knowledge of Where does the character start? and Where does the character end up? because the point of an arc is some kind of character development. It really depends on whether your character is going to end up broken and pale-skinned in a prison cell, happy as a psychopathic mafia boss or dead as the new "crazy" villain.

4. Writing from the character's perspective

Even though it could get tricky to only drop hints in the beginning that get more and more, it would probably be real fun to hide those little details and confusing the reader, because in the beginning they won't realize what's going on until they notice that they are the ones going insane with how they see the world, because they only viewed it from the character's eyes. Also, speaking as a reader, there is little greater than re-reading a story and finally noticing all the red flags and small hints, realizing Oh, that's what it means! One big advantage it has to write from the perspective of the character that goes insane is the illusion of clarity, especially when the character has been a reliable narrator so far. If the reader trusts their perspective, they can easily fall victim to believing anything they read without second thought. They might even think that the other characters are going insane! A huge aspect of insanity is a delusional view on the world, causing the symptoms mentioned earlier. The character will keep thinking that they are perfectly fine, or at least they'll be unsuspecting of what's to come. Their overreactions will seem normal, whereas the other characters could be portrayed as unbothered and therefore "weird". Their actions have to seem reasonable in their own mind, even though they do not follow moral codes. For example: An insane character would kill someone for being suspicious and "planning to murder them"- when they were really just trying to to some small talk.

5. Writing from someone else's perspective

If your to-be-insane character is not the main character, you will have to turn the whole thing explained in 4. around. The main character may notice all the symptoms from 2., but the question is: How do they deal with that and how do they react? Just from the symptoms, your character will probably not know what exactly is going on with the other, they might even suspect other mental illnesses, depending on what caused the beginning of the insanity arc. But there's probably going to be a moment of realization at some point. It could be because someone else tells your character "Hey by the way your friend's kinda insane" (unlikely), or, and this is what is more realistic, the insane character does something so out of the ordinary that the main character notices- whether that's an evil speech declaring war to all morals or them showing up by the villain's side fully depends on the story. In that case, the main character will only consciously notice the insanity arc when it has almost fully reached it's end. However, they will probably notice some things before that- like, to keep the example, the insane character being a lot more murderous than before.

6. Things an insane character might be doing (sorted by "heaviness")

Not getting social cues they used to get

Not understanding jokes

Reacting heavily to minor news

Feeling uncomfortable or annoyed around their friends

Binging/Having no appetite at all

Not liking the food they used to

Have depressed phases

Sleeping/being tired all the time or not sleeping at all

Developing insomnia

Getting overwhelmed by things they were fine with before

Getting angry easily and letting it out on other

Develop unhealthy coping mechanisms

Thinking more black-and-white

Ignoring obvious problems / their own mental state

Feeling nauseous, getting a migraine etc. all the time

Being paranoid and untrusting

Ignoring morals / only following their own

Not caring about consequences of illegal actions

Mad at system -> mad at individuals and vice versa

Find relief and happiness in their (sometimes) horrible and weird actions

That's it for this post! I hope this helps, and good luck writing your arcs and stories!

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing prompt #request #how to write #insanity #insanity arc #character tips #character advice