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its-an-inxp-again · 3 years

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SP/so vs SO/sx

Not sure how much this can be generalized since it's only my personal experience. When I was a pre-teen my best friend used to be a so/sx 6w7, while I am 9w1 sp/so. Sp dom vs Sp blind... some stuff went down and it’s fascinating to analyze such differences to me (I feel like I'm fascinated by sp blinds in general wtf).

She was the V immature of the pair, throwing herself in any possible weird experience she could have just for the sake of it. She would always cause so much drama it was legit concerning and I always was on the sidelines, not participating and sometimes suggesting her to stop, but did she listen to me? Never, and also, in some ways, I think I did in fact understand her desire to feel alive and feel stuff and do dumb stuff, possibly in that I am sx-blind and I won't fucking allow myself to do that, while she totally did. I guess, I don't usually pay any mind to my sx-blindness but the only time that it kind of felt like I was missing on something was when I would spend time with her? And also now that I'm actually studying the instictual variants I guess I'm starting to realize it (but also not really there's a shit ton of work to do). She would always act as if she was the protagonist of some weird 19th romantic novel but, make it dumber (we were 11-12 after all, how smart could we be?).

I deeply, deeply understand her need and wish to be like a novel protagonist. I do think of myself in that way quite often. But while she did it by acting and getting actively involved in stuff, I’ve always done the same by hyper-interpreting my simpler, more boring experiences (9 basic bitch here, feeling attached to something while being withdrawn and out of touch with your body results in amazing fantasy sky castles). She was never satisfied by this.

If she wanted intensity, she would create it by idk, doing some dumb stuff she would for sure later regret. While she went on to feel so alive, I would stay in the back overthinking my more boring life. An example would be that while she actually acted so that everyone around us hated her and shunned her, I would simply feel and think I was being shunned as well, but in practice I would never do something that would elicit a strong reaction out of others. I basically fantasized about it. As you can tell her being a Social Dominant I guess she got the sx juice she wanted through social stuff (her reputation, going against the social system (social 6s often do that)).

In so many ways, if I were to simplify it, she was a mixture of Dorian Gray and Heathcliff and I was Des Esseintes. She was an edgier version of Dorian Gray, wanting to experience everything but make it dark and painful and tormented (a là Heathcliff), not once holding herself back. Des Esseintes, on the other hand, would also feel like a misfit and a tormented soul but he did so by staying inside his house and hyper-interpreting his experiences to an insane degree, until he basically starts to hallucinate. He barely goes outside of his home and when he does everything seems weird, scary, magical in its own way, and while a bit creepy that’s also part of being sx-blind I think? You secretly want that way of feeling alive via the dark things in life (not sure if my fixes have a part in this as idk other 9s may not relate to this maybe) but also you want to go about it safely (sp) and by not exposing yourself (9), so it becomes like wearing a pair of glasses that adds a layer of poetry and beauty and suffering to an otherwise normal, boring and inane reality (again, 9 fantasy shit). But that’s about it. It’s a magical pair of glasses that at times I feel like I can remove and put on at will when I’m bored and I feel like I want more out of life. Outsourcing sx if you will w/o ever acting on this shit. I relate to Des Esseintes even though he was possibly a sp 4 but whatever I guess...

My old friend, being sp-blind, of course did not feel the same need for “safety” and had nothing to hold her back, really... the 6w7 sp blind brings a lot of energy and a way to never be able to fucking stand still, so yeah... it was so fascinating to see her act that differently from me, but also empathizing with her desire to get MORE out of life and dive into the darker aspects of it. I guess that’s why I sticked with her even when I thought she was being unreasonable and annoyingly melodramatic. Most people would shun her and don’t get her ways and while I can’t say that I got her, I would at least sympathise with her wish to experience more and be dramatic, even if I couldn’t quite elaborate it at the time and I superficially thought she was being too immature (this is so funny, we were fucking 10 and we were already doing instictual stuff with me acting like the adult one idk. Also w1 may play a part in this shit. Me being sp dom felt like I was supposed to check on her but also I didn't really do it because it was fun to tag along with her dumb stuff). But while she had the courage(?) to act on such a wish, I did not - I never had it, and instead compensated by having an hyperactive mental landscape...

There was a Wilde’s quote that went like, “the artist always represents what they themselves cannot live and experience”, or whatever, and I’ve always related to it way too deeply, lmao. I would represent, think, imagine, write the stories, and instead she would actively live them. Also Wilde was a so/sx so I guess that means something

While I may be bitter, because even as a sx-blind I at times feel....... like I want to live and get involved in stuff more? also I guess 9s have a way to dissociate with their life quite easily so that doesn't help (a sx-blind 7 would probably feel like they're getting involved more). Plus possibly having a 5fix makes it worse? it kind of sucks tbfh. Like it feels I've been dissociated since I was 4 yo and never got back to actual earth wtf. 95x sp/so may be the most fucking boring thing on earth + it may bring a neurotic need to keep your little bubble untouched by real life and finding security in that bubble, to the point that you're actually missing out. Idk. I may *do* stuff to make me feel like I'm going around with people more but it doesn't really affect me that deeply so yeah... fuck all of this. It's not even the same as being stuck in your comfort zone? I guess it is but again I may at times challenge myself in some small ways and have new experiences but it's like nothing really reaches me idk.

Again, I usually prefer to go about stuff safely (aka not disrupting my little bubble too much), and in this way, I’ve always had way less regrets than her - so in this, I’m actually fine with my way of playing it safe. I like letting myself wear that pair of glasses when I feel like it and call it a day. I’ve always been content with very little...

Though honestly I’ve not been hanging out with her in years (at least 8 years, wow) and while I do hear from her I can’t say I can get to see how much she’s changed, lol

It was weird, you’d expect that with such a melodramatic friend the break up would be at least as dramatic, instead it has been quite the opposite - we simply slowly stopped reaching out to each other once we had nothing much in common anymore, and something else going on with our lives, lmao...

Also I mistyped her as a 4w3 in the past but it's so funny I got that little about the enneagram and IVs and somehow got her IV right at first try wtf I guess she's just that obvious

#enneagram #enneagram 5 #enneagram 4 #instinctual variants #so/sx #social instinct #long post #sometimes i say stuff #ennea5 #ennea4 #enneagram 6 #enneagram test #ennea9 #enneagram 9 #ennea6 #ennea 6 #ennea 9 #sp/so

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imbellarosa · 4 years

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Let’s Talk Calm-ly about Two Loves

OR: When you’re a grown man who writes stories for a living, you definitely wrote your own weird bedtime story, too.

The TLDR here is that H has taken one specific listener around the globe, notably to Tokyo and Jamaica. He quotes an old Victorian Poet who was an awful human but who’s lasting legacy is the phrase “a love that dare not speak its name” which is - you guessed it - a reference to queer love. He also is super excited to spend what seems like the foreseeable future with this listener and has bought a little house with a garden of daisies with them and it’s very sweet and domestic. Anyways this is a wild time and it’s all under a cut because it’s...really a lot.

Anyways I think the people I owe thank yous this times around to are @queenlokibeth who had to listen to me scream about this for a while, Astrid, who screamed with me when this came out, and “M” who convinced me to finally get to work in this fandom. And, of course, all of the lovely people tagged below who’s work I used to build my argument.

1.) Who Wrote “Dream With Me”?

Well, not H, or so the story goes. Two other people (Steve Cleverly and Sanj Sen) did! I mean, right, okay, for a while I was like...that seems like an odd choice for a man who didn’t want to hand Two Ghosts over to his own band because it seemed too personal. He wrote on every song in both albums’ he’s released thus far, because he seems to be passionate about telling the stories he wants to tell (even if he won’t tell you explicitly what they’re about). But for a while, I was totally going with the flow there, and the rest of this analysis would still stand: the writer of this story definitely referenced a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and Harry’s own songs.

However, I then read this fun quote from the Co-founder and CEO of Calm:

“Well,” he said, “The the Harry Styles one is interesting because that came purely from Harry Styles himself...we took the approach of creating a sort of musical epic poem – he doesn’t sing, it’s spoken with poetry, but there’s a sort of musical sound bed to it and it’s pulling on things and themes that Harry’s fans really adore about him and associate with him. So his story was driven really by him – we really created a concept around him.”

- Chris Advansun, July 7th, 2020 via @hlupdate

And I thought, hmmm. This does not sound like a project that he was not involved in creating. From this point on (July, 7th 2020), I began to think of it as a three way co-collaboration between him and the other two authors. But this confused me a bit, because there was largely a nonreaction from the fandom. I was waiting for an actual transcript, because I always fall asleep to these meditation stories, but it was being referenced to as some sort of Y/N fic, which was...honestly not what I expected, but also not implausible, thanks to the ~lovely~ image this man has had since the age of sixteen. But also, twitter seemed to be concerned by other things at the moment, and no one was analyzing the story. .

In fact, I messaged a friend the day that this story dropped, because it had been kind of a shit show day on Twitter. Rumors were sort of flying about everyone and everything: had Liam shaved his head? Was he engaged? Had he and Maya broken up? Were Zayn and Gigi engaged? Had they broken up? Did Niall have a girlfriend? (this one was true lol). Were Elounor engaged? Were they pregnant? Had they broken up??? My personal fav was the bald Liam rumor, which he promptly put to rest in LP Act 1 by...having a huge mane of hair.

So then I thought - huh. Why has today looked like this? I’m not saying that there aren’t days that twitter goes wild because of boredom, because there definitely is - the articles about secret meetings in Italy that are coming out this week (8/12/2020) are proof positive. So that definitely does happen, but it doesn’t usually happen on the days that there’s a lot of content. And maybe I’ve just been starved for content in this fandom, but I would consider a 40 minute video quite a bit of content.

Then the transcript dropped. I’m using two as references - this one on Wattpad and also @carl-and-pearl ‘s version here (thank you so much for the transcript!!). We’re going to get into a more detailed description of what’s going on in the story, but the first thing I recognized immediately is that it was first person POV. I knew that going in, based on the number of Y/N jokes going around on twitter. Then I read it aloud, and I realized that it read like a letter. Like an experience specific to the writer and the reader. And while that’s not super uncommon to write about an experience from the author’s POV - I listen to a podcast called Nothing Much Happens: bedtime stories for adults which has a similar concept - I thought it was odd that they were trying to include both the author and the listener. I completely understood why the y/n jokes were pertinent. But at the same time, it felt like something had snagged in my mind - like a particularly annoying splinter.

The conversations I was having around this story - completely based on the content, concept, and my own instinct - was that this story contained specific references to one person. I thought that it did read like a love letter, and that most identifying features would have been taken out, but the essence remained. Which, once I thought about it, was something that H excelled at doing. Think about Sunflower Vol 6 and Adore You and Canyon Moon and even Watermelon Sugar and Golden. Ask yourself, What do I know about the person they are about? They have skin that browns, they have a secret, they have mesmerizing eyes, they’re willing to dance in the kitchen with him (to dancehall), they have a belly, they’ve been through hard times, they’re witty, they have an accent, and they have lips. I know - super specific right?

So the splinter grew into a thorn - what was I missing? And then - when I was looking for something completely different - I stumbled upon this old interview Harry did with Zach Sang and the Gang Show back in 2017. For context, he was being asked about Sweet Creature. As you can imagine, it’s hard for people to believe he wrote such a beautiful love song when he hadn’t ever really had a long term relationship (two hearts in one home?? Who did you move in with, you can imagine them asking. When did you have time?). So what did he have to say about this?

"In my opinion,” he explained, “I think most songs are written for one listener. Maybe there's one thing in there that only they'll notice about them.... It's so much easier to say something in a song than it is to say it to someone and I think it's really amazing to be able to communicate through that and be able to wrap up everything that you want to say in three and a half minutes and say it in a song."

- HS, May 3 2017

By this time, please believe that I was screeching. Seeing this felt like he put into words the exact feeling I had about “Dream With Me”. It felt like a nod to someone that I didn’t know, which made the story hard to listen to, tbh. Although, I will say that when I did finally listen to it, it knocked me out and gave me odd dreams so. Once was enough for me haha!

So my new operating theory is exactly what Advansun said: I think that H was the primary writer/the driving force behind the story. Because of the references I’m about to run through, because it feels like the way he tells stories, and because they admitted to him being more involved than they originally claimed. That’s going to be how I write the rest of the analysis - under the impression that H had a direct hand in the story that was being put forth. However, I think that the analysis itself would stand whether or not he wrote any of it. It would just be a more tenuous reflection of him than I believe it to be.

2.) How Do I Love Thee? In Two Ways.

Before I jump into the story, let’s talk a little about the poem that I want to compare it to: Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas. Let’s be clear this is not at all a defense of who Bosie was - he was a terrible person, particularly in his later years, when he’d converted to Catholicism and turned his back on his younger self, and his partner, Oscar Wilde. He was violently anti-Semitic, and turned his back on his own community. I want to get this out of the way because I very much believe that we should examine artists for who they are. That is, after all, what I am trying to do here.

But his poem Two Loves has often been used - much to his disappointment, I’m sure - as an exploration of queer love in Victorian times. A line that I will be exploring more deeply in a second was in fact used against Oscar Wilde in his trail for indecency . He attempted - unsuccessfully - to explain it away, but it was too blatantly about their relationship for even the British Victorian society to ignore. I really, really recommend a read of this poem, because it is - despite it’s author - a good piece of work, which explores the themes of shame and love and longing between two men in that time.

I’m going to start with my own background, as someone who’s analyzed fandoms before. I first came across this poem in the Sherlock fandom, with this analysis by @the-7-percent-solution, when I was running in that fandom, and she explains the poem brilliantly in just a few lines. I’m going to take a little longer to run through it, but if you want a concise explanation and a brilliant meta, I encourage you to run to their blog and check it out. That fandom taught me most everything I know about catching symbols and recurring themes and “clueing for looks” and I love it desperately, still.

But we’re here to talk about this fandom, so on with the poem! Essentially, the poem outlines a dream the speaker had: In his dream, he’s standing in a field with flowers - beautiful ones of all kind - and he meets this young man with clear blue eyes and bright red lips and they kiss a bit and have a picnic, and it’s all lovely. If you think I’m kidding, I’m really not. Please, read it for yourself.

Anyways, after they did they did the whole picnic thing, the speaker and his date go on a walk in this field, where they come across two figures. The first is described as,

“...fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were.”

- Two Loves, 1894

The speaker, however, was drawn to the second figure:

“He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame..”

- Two Loves, 1984

Of course, the speaker immediately asks the second man who he is. The second man says, “My name is Love”. The first man corrects him quickly:

“ He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.”

-Two Loves, 1984

The second man sighs and acquiesces, “Have thy will. I am the love that dare not speak its name.”

It was, of course, this last line that really gave the meaning of the poem away. It was the line that was put to Oscar Wilde as proof of a romantic relationship, it was the line that went down in history as a way to refer to queer love, and it was the line that first stuck out to me when I was reading “Dream With Me”.

The reading here is clearly that “Love” is the love that is acceptable to society - easy, sweet, and cherished. “Shame” is the love that happens in secret - beautiful, alluring to the speaker, passionate, anxious ( as can be seen in the clenching and unclenching of his hands), and proud. He refuses to call himself as anything but what he is. The first man may call him Shame, but he refuses the name, and instead, offers a qualifier to his own descriptor. He is still love, he is just the love that can’t be spoken about.

3.) Walking in Golden Fields of Sunflowers

Now let’s talk about “Dream With Me”. I’m ignoring the first few stanzas (from the line “Have you ever wondered” to “What the two of us can find”.) because those are pretty standard introductory paragraphs to a guided meditation. So we start with the line “Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys...”.

I’m going to do the same thing I did with “Two Loves” first. I am going to describe literally, in general terms, what happens in the story. Warning, I change pronouns from “they” to “you” because the whole thing confuses me, but note that I’m always talking about the speaker and the listener:

So after doing the standard intro, the speaker and the listener take a walk through the woods enjoying nature, particularly the grass, the trees, and the blue sky above. You’re already clearly in love. Then you’re magically on a raft, with cherry blossoms all around you. If you want a good visual for that, here’s a site that has pictures from a boat rental in Tokyo where you can snuggle on a raft in the Chidorigafuchi moat. And then suddenly it starts raining, and they (you) watch the rain for a hot second, and then the scene magically shifts again, and you’re under a porch (although I guess it could be the boat rental’s porch. They do usually have covered areas).

Kind of furthering that theory, they then lounge by the shoreline, skipping stones and hanging out, looking at the snow capped mountains. In case you’re curious, because at this point I sure was, you can see mountains from certain areas in the city of Tokyo.

Anyways, then it’s snowing, and you’re magically in a cabin, just chilling by the fire, and you fall asleep again. You wake up somewhere else.

Where are you now? Well, you’re on a tropical island filled with palm trees. As an American, my mind immediately jumps to the Caribbean, but I suppose it could absolutely be in the Mediterranean as well. The island has white beaches, mangroves, a turquoise ocean, and a gorgeous, peaceful atmosphere.

If you’re curious as to what a mangrove looks like - and I certainly was - they are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone and Jamaica is doing a massive restoration project involving primary school children to regrow this vital part of their ecosystem. More interestingly, there currently exist no mangrove forests in the Mediterranean, so my initial feeling that this scene would take place in the Caribbean was correct. On that note - again, because I was curious - Jamaica has gorgeous white sand beaches with turquoise oceans.

But I’ve gone off topic again! After you’re minds are “in tune” once more (trying to find a heartbeat, anyone?), you reappear in a meadow, with beautiful flowers of all kind, where you are now walking hand in hand through a field of sunflowers, which give the feeling a “warm and golden hue”. Then you come across a little farmhouse with daisies poking out (clearly I have no way of locating this anywhere in the world, but I assume that the UK has both sunflowers and daisies). It’s an empty house which was loved and left because of the passage of time, which inspires my favorite line in the poem: “ The thought of passing time inspires/A feeling that grows stronger”. It’s just...really sweet to me.

So, of course, they do what anyone would do when they come across an empty farmhouse, they go inside. And there, they begin to fall asleep, reflecting on all they have just seen, referencing other scenes of the poem: “ Moonlit valleys, Burdened forests, Gazing at the ocean. Summer meadows, Tranquil sunsets steeped in emotion”.

The next few stanzas are just going to be copy-pasted, and then I’ll go into them a bit, but this is the end of the poem, so they’re the final reflections;

“The tenderness we feel When we are close Two minds as one Surrounds us and connects us But we’ve only just begun.

For now we dream together Of all there is to follow. And know that sleep will keep us safe From now until tomorrow.

Maybe all the memories That we’ve gathered here tonight Are all dreams now remembered Or wishes in plain sight.

No matter what They’re with us now. For this night and forever. And every time we close our eyes They’re yours and mine to treasure.”

- HS, Dream With Me, via @carl-and-pearl

And that’s it! The literal story, in short, is that you started in a forest, then went to Tokyo (maybe) and then Jamaica (perhaps) and then back to a field of sunflowers and daisies in the UK (which is also a guess, it could be Italy or France or Idaho for all I know, but let’s call it an educated guess).

4.) My Dream Journal

So now that we know what happens in the story, how do we interpret this? Well, There are a few lines in the poem that I want to draw your attention to: the first takes place in the first part of this story, when you’re still in the forest. This is, I must say, the most direct reference to Two Loves in the whole poem/song/story. Both works are describing a walk in the woods with your loved one, and, in a fun reference in the middle of the story, Dream With Me says

The shimmering reflection Shows us smiling from above. But what we think But dare not speak is L-O-V-E love.

-Dream With Me, 2020

Remember that line I mentioned before? I am the love that dare not speak its name. Right, so that’s almost a direct quote. It also has a really fun nod to “I Would” (Would he say he’s in L-O-V-E?/Well if it was me then I would), but I digress.

This first part of the narrative, I feel, really sets up what the rest of it will look and feel like, in the same way that “Golden” sets the tone for Fine Line. (You didn’t think I was going to make a post about Harry and NOT mention Golden, did you?? If you did, I’m disappointed!!). So let’s take a look at what’s happening, and the language he’s using to describe it.

One of the best things about this poem is how vivid it feels. Of course, I’m about to argue that it’s vivid because it was based in reality, but let’s talk about the sheer amount of detail he uses to describe the place he’s walking through. The valley (canyon lmao) is moonlit, the grass and the leaves make mosaics of green, you’re walking by the heather (the symbolism of heather is good luck, admiration, and protection), the sepia sunlight breaks through the trees.

You know what it kind of sounds like? Sweet Creature. You’re about to roll your eyes at me! I can feel it! But listen, okay?

“Sweet creature Running through the garden Oh, where nothing bothered us But we're still young I always think about you and how we don't speak enough”

Which, to be honest, sounds like what they’re doing. They’re walking through the garden in the sun, not daring to speak about the Love that he (they both) feel, and instead refering to it in veiled Victorian terms.

And then we head to Tokyo! I know that you’re about to ask me why I think it’s Tokyo versus...idk, anywhere else? Well, for one, he went to Tokyo (to let it go) publicly in 2019. He was there for a few months, and there are some great pictures of that time:

Look! Here he is with his club owner friend and his dog, and a fun red bandanna! But let’s be honest, the dog really steals the show here. But wait! there’s more! More dog content, too!

This was on Jan 31st, 2019, and he’s taking the dog for a walk! Very cute! If nothing else, he spent a lot of time with dogs in Tokyo! And the city fits the description of the story. So I feel rather comfortable with my interpretation that this first date is a memory of this trip - or another - to Tokyo.

So what did “you both”do in Tokyo? Well, chill on a raft while the cherry blossoms flutter around you, clearly. You also refocused your purpose. What did he do in Tokyo in 2019? Well, he took time to think about and write songs for the album he was about to go record. Kind of like refocusing on what’s next, right? And then, in the story when “you both” had time to think amongst the lake and the water and the rain and the moon, and you’d come to the conclusions you needed to, you left. What did he do when he did the things he needed to? Well, he left, too.

And where did he go? Well, in real life, I suppose he went to do his job. But, in the story, you’re meant to be falling deeper and deeper into sleep, so it’s sort of like traveling backwards, you see? Like counting down to one. So you end up on this island with turquoise ocean and mangrove forests. I’m calling this Jamaica. Why? Well, the description fits, for one, down to the four types of mangroves that exists within its ecosystem.

And - probably the biggest reason - I can place him there, too. Here’s him in 2017:

I added this picture because the water around him....looks rather turquoise, doesn’t it? Kind of like he’s enjoying his time on a tropical island by the beach?? Oh, and here’s another one!:

The red bandanna makes a comeback!

So what are you doing in Jamaica, according to the story? Well, you’re hanging out, basically. Enjoying the beach and each other, of course! What else? To be exact, “[Your] thoughts dovetail and unify/ In tune two minds together”. I’m so glad that you’re tuned like an old guitar now! Congrats! Really happy for you!

What was he doing in Jamaica three years ago? Why, he was recording his first album, or so the story goes. I’ll tell you something: finding press for that album was literally the most difficult part of this whole analysis. I got a fair bit of the tattoo roulette with Kendall Jenner, and some things about Carolina, but the interview with Zach Sang took me like an hour and a half to find again to link. The fact that a lot of it has been buried is...not great, for posterity purposes. He’s going to want that one day.

But I’ve gotten off track again! We gotta go back and finish our story, right? What happens now? Well, this does:

hahahaha okay, I’m really sorry, but I had to. I’m not, actually, making it up though! According to the story:

“ As minutes turn to hours We drift off somewhere new. And visualize a stairway To a door we now walk through”

- Dream With Me, 2020

So maybe Louis was just...demonstrating for you.

Anyways! Where do you walk out to? A golden field full of sunflowers. You walk for a minute, then come across an old house with daisies popping up out of the garden. And that’s where the story ends. I guess you’ve made that farmhouse feel like home.

Now to the little reflection he does on the outro. The lines I want to bring your attention are: “The tenderness we feel when we are close two minds as one surrounds us and connects us but we’ve only just begun” and “Maybe all the memories that we’ve gathered here tonight are all dreams now remembered or wishes in plain sight.”

Let’s talk about the first sentence first. In the context of finding a home that could be a shared home, and a future, this is very much an “end of the story, beginning of our lives” sort of thing. You’re back from all over, and it’s time to settle down, and see what’s next.

And now the second sentence. I think this is the one that really drives my point about this story being a collection of memories he has - that’s what he calls it. The story is “gathered memories” that might also be called “remembered dreams” (think of how people say of vacations, “oh it was a dream!”) or you might call it “wishes in plain sight”. This feels in line with the rest of the story. In this stanza, he’s sort of letting you in a bit. If I’ve read this right - and I really think that I have - he’s giving the larger context for the story. It’s a collection of memories he’s had with someone he loves.

5.) Cool! Can you prove it?

I mean, I’d argue that if you read this far, I have proved it, but let’s make some more links, shall we? This was called a “muscial epic” that was “driven by him”. I’d argue that if I know my Victorian literature (thank you, Sherlock!), then he definitely does. Then there’s the fact that he quoted it, so. That did happen. And he knows what it means. And even if he didn’t, there were two other people on the story. Someone was more than capable of catching that one, and the fact that they didn’t speaks to intent. They want you to think of that phrase when you read this poem. They want you to think of that walk in the woods while you’re going on this one.

And, as for my assumption that this is for and about one person, well. Think about it. He said that he writes his songs for a single listener. I’m not saying it’s the same listener each time, let’s get that right, but it is always just for one person. With that, and with the assumption that he’s been involved in the writing of this story, I’d say that the same rule applies. He went with someone to Japan and Jamaica (J^2 haha). And, if I had to guess, it was the same person.

Why, you ask? Well, for one, if that weren’t the case, then this poem would no longer be for one listener, it would be for multiple. And, for another, imagine how awkward it would be to listen to it with his current partner and have to explain “oh, yeah that was the super romantic vacation I took with someone else” . And, I suppose that because I think that attitude of “refocusing” and “dovetailing” and “tuning” and getting excited about imagining all of the tomorrows with your partner speaks to a long term relationship breathing easily, you know?

I’m also going to argue that describing the aura around the house as “golden” was intentional, especially when paired with the location - in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Those are both direct references to his songs. And those two songs are particularly linked by the number 28. The third song that features 28 is Fine Line the song, but that’s a different story. Anywho! “Golden”’s bridge just repeats the word ‘golden’ twenty eight times (if you go here , you can count the bridge) and “Sunflower Vol. 6″ ends the song with 28 “boops” (believe me, I wish I was making this up. I’m not.). So then, once again, you’ve linked a story to two already linked songs.

And, even if you don’t buy the intentional repetition, they’re linked another way, aren’t they? The color scheme and the sun symbol. Sunflowers were named because of their sun-like appearance. They turn to face it. They symbolize loyalty and adoration. And then, of course, the sun is - say it with me - golden. And it - like the person in golden - waits in the sky, beautiful and dangerous and constant. And here that symbol is, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. At home.

This whole story feels like you’re taking the time to find that heartbeat that you think you might have lost, and sort of coming back to a space where you understand that this is what you want, now and forever. It feels like finding a home that could be yours forever, and it feels like walking through some of the moments that remind him of that.

It really is rather lovely, if you think about it, especially since he has a tendency to attribute “home” to people rather than place, in his songs. So it’s like. Going all around the world and always being at home.

#harry styles #calm #dream with me #two loves #honestly man #im happy for you #but ewww #be less sappy please #i mean #SOME OF US DONT HAVE THAT YET HAROLD #hahahaha i think im funny #long post ts #idk how else to tag this but im really proud of it #okay now i'll do the penguin song #promise hahaha

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chitsangenthusiast · 3 years

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fic writer review

tagged by @bisexuallsokka thank you 🧡 🧡 putting my tagging here so @maderilien @dickpuncher420 @marriedzukka @zukoscalzones @babydotcom if any of you are interested!!

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 27! only eight of those were written within the past two years tho lol

2. what's your total ao3 word count? 163,360.....which felt fake bc of the long break between writing so i counted only the recent fics and that's. still 91,749 holy shit lmao

3. how many fandoms have you written for and what are they? if i'm remembering correctly, then six! (atla, harry potter, that singular fruits basket fic when i was 14, kpop (shh), marvel, mdzs, and atla again lol)

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos? useless facts (clintbucky - and tbh only bc it's a 5yo fic lol)

hold me like you do, cover me in blue (zukka)

hands, knees, please, tangerine (zukka)

get a glimpse of this candy paint (clintbucky - also a 5yo fic lol)

don't go wasting your emotion (sangcheng)

5. do you respond to comments, why or why not? i actually didn't use to, but i do now. i feel like the 'leave a comment' game has changed significantly on ao3 and i like showing my appreciation back now! (oh man i have so many comments i still need to respond to omg)

6. what's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? lmfao none. i'm not a huge fan of writing angst-based stories or endings, BUT i guess technically it's the mallrat in me can be considered for this one since chpt 4 did end with some angst (for now!)

7. do you write crossovers? if so, what's the craziest one you've written? i don't write fandom crossovers but i do like writing ridiculous au's, and i would say that the funniest jobs i've given any character was the clintbucky exterminator/locksmith story that never got finished lol (rip)

8. have you ever received hate on a fic? holy shit poor little 13yo kath used to get OBLITERATED for my characterizations lmfaoooo please know that my attempts at writing good characterizations now come from blood, sweat, and (literal) tears

(still salty i never received hate from the sangcheng troll last year tho. they loved to attack me on twitter but NOT my fics??? i feel slighted smh)

(more below! felt it got long!!)

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind? l m f a o

anyway keep me humming, keep me going is now the second fic that has a title from beyonce's song 'blow' bc those lyrics have a chokehold on me when i write nsfw!

10. have you ever had a fic stolen? no but i've had specific passages from some really old stuff that was stolen and very obviously rewritten/paraphrased, which is. harder to prove lol

11. have you ever had a fic translated? nothing recent but a few of my old hp fics on ff.net were translated!

but omg the best time it ever happened was a year ago when i found out that not only had a 15yo fic of mine been translated (and credited!), it had also been converted into a beautiful pdf!!! complete with cover art and border art!!!! wasn't even aware it was done bc whoever did it had only done it within the last few years i think, but it was such a wild experience to find it i have the pdf saved on my laptop lol

12. have you ever co-written a fic before? i have not! i don't think i've ever had a dedicated beta either, which probably explains a lot lol

13. what's your all-time fave ship? ALTAIR/MALIK they're not even my first otp (which draco/ron and zukka still go strong, followed by clintbucky) but THEY are the ones that seize my heart like no other ship has done 🧡🧡

14. what's a fic you want to finish but don't think you ever will? the zukka ba sing se/blue spirit poetry fic 😔 which is unfortunate bc i'm still so excited to write it/there's a lot written of it, but chaptered fics are nerve-wracking lol

15. what are your writing strengths? idk if ppl necessarily like it, but i really like my writing style! sure it's obvious i write for fanfic vs anything publishable, but i enjoy that lol

also ppl tell me i'm really good at banter, characterizations, and immersing them in the story, which is wonderful bc i do work really hard on that!

16. what are your writing weaknesses? finding the right words. in general, it's so extremely hard for me in that i don't have much of a mental dictionary/thesaurus i guess. it can be upsetting at times, especially when i know there's a better word or way to phrase the line but just have to let it go. i am simply not one of those people who can come up with big words (or words that are like. normal ones to use when describing smth lol)

17. what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages on a fic? it can be a good touch to the fic! i don't have very strong feelings on it, i suppose

18. what was the first fandom you ever wrote for? atla, tho harry potter is the one that actually survived the period of fic deletion i once went through on ff.net lol

19. what is your favorite fic ever written? everyone is going to know the answer to this one, but hmlyd hands down my actual baby <333 after a 4yr long break from writing, i knocked out 3 fics but it was hmlyd that really got me excited! writing it was a BLAST, my entire heart went into it, and it's one of my fics that i actually do genuinely go back and read frequently bc it makes me so happy lmao

tbh if i hadn't written hmlyd, i probably would've stopped writing for the fandom after hands, knees, please, tangerine and gone back to lurking lmao

(keep me humming, keep me going is a good contender tho. which goes to show that the fastest way to my heart is just inundating myself with tender competitive lovers lmao)

#i liked these questions!!#i'm also still in shock by that word count wtf lol #kath tagged

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xcziel · 3 years

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get to know me

tagged by @vishcount (thank you!!) and i'll follow her format bc making two posts seems a little much - i'm not that interesting!!

(hilariously, this post shows up as blocked for me bc of the tag 'joker' which? tumblr?????)

Part I

name: i'm an internet old, so i never use my real name online, mainly because it's spelled in a very unique way (thanks mom & dad) - i mean like, if you googled it you could find my home address in a few seconds kind of unique - but also, though i do enjoy the spelling, i actually don't like it very much when it's said out loud? (is it weird that my name written down is 'me', but my name aloud has never felt like 'me'?) always wanted a nickname but never acquired one :/

at any rate, i've had the username xcziel forever and i go by that 😊 (pronounced ex-SEE-zee-el, similar to etc. or ex-SET-er-ah! thanks @xia-xueyi for pointing out that it can be confusing to guess!)

rest behind a cut because it got long!

pronouns: she/her

star sign: i don't ... really *do* astrology? but technically saggitarius

height: 5'4" (162.5cm for the intl folks)

time: 5:43pm but these thing take me forever to type out so ... ???

birthday: playing the 'internet old' card again .. but it floats around american Thanksgiving depending on the year

nationality: american

fave bands/groups/solo artists: lumping these together because i just .. don't really do music much anymore. if you had asked me this back in my 20s i'm sure i would have had all kinds of opinions and things to share, but these days i actually mostly prefer to listen music from when i was a kid. part of it is also that as an old, i prefer to buy my music, even digitally, and i don't really use spotify - which does so much to enable diverse music exploration i admit! but i mostly have earplugs in all the time and music does not work for me as background noise, so...

so i guess my answer would be 70s disco and classic rock and 80s new wave artists? i've never liked any artist's entire discography and prefer greatest hits-type compilations, but i guess duran duran and def leppard and depeche mode would be considered formative? i love new order but specifically late 80s new order, NOT joy division. the only concert t-shirt i've ever worn was the cult? i loved sonic temple but i can't listen to most of it anymore though i still adore love removal machine. i think maybe if you get old enough, for some of us there's TOO MUCH good music and we can't pare it down anymore

song stuck in your head: jamiroquai's canned heat

last movie you watched: re: the above, i re-watched center stage, the 2000 one with zoe saldana and the mandy moore soundtrack, bc it's a happy comfort movie and i just got a digital version

last show you binged: i can't really "binge" very often bc after a couple of hours i need a break, so i guess i'd say the tgcf donghua on netflix since it was short enough to get through all in one go

when you created your blog: in 2012 i stopped lurking so i could post about the avengers movie

the last thing you googled: 5'4" in cm? lol before that it was chinese wrapped street food

other blogs: everything is here! i discovered i compartmentalize about as well as i tag reliably (😓) but i do have several automated ao3feed-tag style sideblogs. and i did, very briefly, have a *winces* hockey sideblog too

why i chose my url: ooh i know i've done this before, sorry if it's repetitive, basically it was the username i picked back when my family first got aol: short, unique combo of letters - 14-year-old me really thought about it! and then it wouldn't let me use anything other than my name. thirty-some-odd years later, trying to come up with a livejournal username that wasn't already taken and getting fed up, i plugged it in and went: good enough!

how many people are you following: like 760-something last i checked? although many, many, many of them are deactivated

how many followers do you have: idk i don't like looking at that stuff, but way fewer than i am following

average hours of sleep: it varies too much day by day, my sleep schedule is too wonky, i have no idea what the average would be

lucky numbers: 7? cliché i know, and again not really buying into it, but somewhere in my hindbrain i like it that my first, middle, and last names all have seven letters

instruments: none. i like singing

what i'm currently wearing: giant black t-shirt and baggy black drawstring shorts, standard sitting around the house gear

dream job: don't have one. if i did it would give me something to be working towards *sigh* this is how you end up in retail for decades, kids! but also, to quote a random post i saw in true tumblr fashion "i simply do not dream of labor"

dream trip: covered this one before but: back to the uk and some railway daytrips, or a really fancy northern cruise, atlantic/pacific either one

fave food: uhhh, don't really have a favorite but i'm almost always in the mood for pizza

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: none really, if i had to still be me..maybe some kind of actually utopian future? but the pandemic has confirmed for me that i do NOT like living in interesting times, so most fictional story universes are RIGHT out. my favorites to read about like discworld or diana wynne jones' worlds would be way to chaotic for my comfort. possibly diane duane's young wizards universe would be safe enough to be okay?

Part II

last song: watching center stage made me think of my dance playlist so sunrise by simply red

last movielast stream: i don't watch streams or youtube often, so it was the same as you, vish! liu chang's birthday stream was SO enjoyable i screenrecorded the entire thing just so i could play it back (and maybe gif sometime if i ever get the drive to actually do it)

currently reading: well i just finished the translated quan qiu gao kao or global university entrance exam novel, which was sparked purely from catching a single rec post here on tumblr and basically just *falling* into this 166 chapter epic that is *amazing* and not coming up for air until i got to the end, which is typical novel-reading behavior for me (yes i was the kid who read through lunch period and got hassled by people who kept pestering me with "what're you reading" questions and yes i realize probably a lot of you on tumblr were too) plus, the new murderbot novel is out tomorrow!!!!! so that'll be where i end up next!

currently watching: the entire dmbj verse (that i can get my hands on) but ... sporadically and stopping at random different parts because the thing is ... this type of show is not really the kind i enjoy so much? so since it's more for "research" and learning character arcs (and let's be honest: shots of liu sang), etc. it's easy to get distracted by other stuff. i'm also watching the sleuth of the ming dynasty, mr queen, bromance, the expanse, re-watching farscape and stargate sg-1, just finished the falcon and the winter soldier, and then anytime something new and short gets introduced it jumps the queue. there are just. so. many. things. to. watch! (now i have to look into anti-fraud league too!? you all are cruel ...)

what is antipoetry to you: i ... don't really think much about poetry? i know what i prefer is usually the more basic rhymed kind like lewis carroll, emily dickinson, poe, coleridge, etc. so i suppose i don't have much use for classifying non-rhyming verse? i can appreciate stuff like rupi kaur which i guess would qualify? or that william carlos williams plums poem? but it doesn't really stick with me the way lyric-like verse does

currently craving: i never know what exactly this is meant to be in reference to ... hmmm, i would love a new high-concept, high production-quality movie like say, pacific rim, to be released, just for that massive, excited energy that comes with something new that hasn't already got tons of disappointing or conflicting history behind it - that would be so fun!!

other than that, right now, i mostly kinda want some fried fish? but that will have to wait until i go to get my second vaccine shot on wednesday since it's on the way there. i'd also like my internal body parts to settle down and fly right but it's been more than a month and they don't seem inclined :(((( maybe once i'm fully vaxxed i'll think about consulting somebody about it

tagging @foxofninetales @xia-xueyi @momosandlemonsoda @memorydragon @thewindsofsong @elvencantation @mylastbraincql @hesayshesgotboyfriend @aurawolfgirl2000 @smaragdine-galaxy and anyone who wants to! but never feel obligated and if you don't get around to it for like half a year that's totally fine, i am still interested!!!

#xcedit #is my only like 'me' tag #tag game #long post #i wanna do one of these with more unusual questions but not like those themed ones ...#tell me if the cut doesn't work i'm still not used to having them on mobile!

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boylebingo · 3 years

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fic writers tag

@montygreen tagged me in this ages ago but I have been having the nuttiest couple of weeks so it took me a hot sec to get to this, but I do appreciate it and if you somehow don’t already follow leila on here, you should go do that rn

now down to business :)

1) How many works do you have on AO3? only 3 at the moment!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count? 45238 as of today

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? just never have i ever! although i’m sure there are a few unfinished, never-published, years-old stories from assorted fandoms from when I was younger floating around in the void somewhere

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

haha well I’ve only got 3 published, but the number one spot goes to vanilla ice cream, which makes sense since it’s the only one i’ve actually finished so far 🙈

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

none of them? i feel like the reason i often read fic is because there is some unresolved canon-angst that i want someone else to resolve so while i definitely have points of tension, all of my stories tend to end (or are planned to end) happy

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

i think vanilla ice cream will still probably be the fluffiest bc of that epilogue i decided to write last minute, even once i finish all the others. but they’re all pretty happy 🥰

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

not so far, though i try to make it a habit to never say never. I think its one of those things that’s really difficult to write well and I’m just not sure it’s in my skillset to do so. but who knows? maybe one day!

8) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

see above haha. it’s pretty much the exact same answer :)

9) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try to answer all of them, although I know I missed a bunch while I was on a sorta unplanned writing hiatus. It’s only been a year of me posting anything I’ve written and it still genuinely baffles me that people not only read but also enjoy the things I put out there into the world, so every “thank you for reading” is from the heart for me and it’s so worth taking the two seconds to make my appreciation known.

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

no, thankfully! i think part of that is just i haven’t been around that long haha

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t... think so?

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

no but how cool is that? i wasn’t even really aware that was a thing that could happen!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no! but if anyone wants to feel free to hmu 👀 i am super busy rn but i would love to eventually cuz so many of the folks who write for this show are so talented

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

oh gosh. all time is really, really hard. obvi for NHIE i’ve fully boarded the ben/devi train, but some other all time TV faves of mine are ben/leslie from parks&rec, david/patrick from schitts creek, and josh/donna from the west wing. you might be able to tell i love a rivals to lovers moment from some of these lol 💀 but there are so many that i love for different reasons it’s like picking a favorite child lmao

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I do have plans to finish the 2 remaining fics up on ao3, but I will admit, the rosy dot over the i of loving was... ambitious, and not exactly well thought out when I started it. so it may be a while. i haven’t started much else new since those 3 went up, since i’ve been trying to finish what i’ve started. but i have had this ben/devi idea rattling around in my brain ever since i read the book “the unhoneymooners” that I am just not sure i’ll ever quite get around to.

16) What are your writing strengths?

i like to think i’m pretty good at writing dialogue! in college, i took a creative writing class for playwriting, where it was drilled into our head that you want to get as much of the story as humanly possible out through words, rather than actions. basically my professors argument was that any stage direction could be ignored by a director if the action/object/setting/etc. wasn’t directly referred to in lines said by a character. so if it was important to you, we should make someone talk about it! i think because of that my narration tends to be a little sparser (but hopefully that’s to the benefit of the dialogue!!)

oh, and i also took a class in humor writing and got an A, so.... 👀

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

i think i could be a lot better at coming up with themes/symbols/metaphors/etc. Having not really planned out the WIPs on AO3 now, this was hard to do, so I guess that also goes hand in hand with my time management haha. But yeah I find it a little difficult to have those sorts of literary devices in longer works (i used to write a lot more poetry and it was a little easier for me in that format so i have faith that i can get better).

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i only fluently speak english and you do not want to see me butcher french or german, let alone a language I’ve never taken courses in. so it’s a hard no for me personally haha. that said if you know more than another language, first of all i’m jealous, and second of all, go for it!

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

i don’t really know! like i said i used to write things without publishing them anywhere, so it’s hard to remember. maybe harry potter, when I was like 10? i feel like i probably wrote the same self-insert hogwarts moment that literally every 10 year old in the late-aughts was writing haha

i know for sure there was a b99 fic that was almost published on ao3 back in like season 2 or 3? that’s why my username is what it is 😊

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i’m really proud of finishing vanilla ice cream. buuuut i am also really proud of the poems in the rosy dot over the i of loving and i think if i ever finish that one, it will be my favorite for pushing me out of my writing comfort zone.

Tagging: fellow benvi advocate and @gross-vishwakumar and anyone else who would like to answer that hasn’t already been tagged by someone else cuz i know i got to this a bit late lol 🙈

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firewoodfigs · 3 years

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catch up!

tagged by @bringingglory, @meridianheroine and @by-nina - all equally lovely people!!! I hope you’re all holding up well <3

Three Ships: I know we said three, but let’s pretend I can’t count because I’ve been on a bit of a shipping spree recently xD

ROYAI!!!! enough said I think the fact that I spend a good portion daydreaming and waxing all kinds of sappy poetry about them is testament enough to how much I love them. I love them sm I replaced my wallpaper (which was of my bf) with them instead

Beth & Benny from The Queen’s Gambit is another golden ship for me cos like. the ~ intellectual understanding ~ like they just gET EACH OTHER AND I LOVE IT love is everywhere but common sense and understanding are not

I really, really love Chuck & Blair from Gossip Girl. they just work so well together and their chemistry was /chef’s kiss also that one prom scene where someone was like who even voted for Blair to be prom queen and chuck was like me. I voted for her about a hundred and fifty times. like??? iconic ma’am

BEN & LESLIE FROM PAR so wholesome and I love that we r finally getting portrayals of what healthy relationships ought to look like on mainstream media. so underrated

in my middle school days I was head over heels over minakushi aka Naruto’s parents LMAO I still think they should have done away with Boruto and just given us a backstory on Minato & Kushina but oh well. guess that’s what fanfic is for

I also shipped Squall & Rinoa before I even knew what love was. Also Cloud & Tifa MAN the FF7 Remake gave me so many feels!!!!!!

ALICE & JASPER FROM TWILIGHT LMAOOOOOOOO yes I was obsessed with twilight as a twelve-year-old sigh but also proud of my twelve-year-old self for having the ~ taste ~ to ship them!!

anyway yes I cannot count this is clearly >3 but whatever......

Last Song I Listened To: Paganini, 24 Caprices, Op. 1: No. 24 in A Minor LMAO HAHAHAHA I don’t even play violin but I just like listening to classical music when I'm at work because it helps me focus (and also I can’t sing along to it so that reaaaally helps)

Currently Watching: I’ve been binge watching all the meme videos from TwoSetViolin ‘cos they’re hilarious LMAO haven’t really been watching anything on Netflix lately tbh but oH I tried watching a bit of Bling Empire and it is kinda cringe but also oddly addictive LOL someone stop me pls I m trash. ALSO I STUMBLED ABOUT COMEDIC GOLD if u go on youtube and search synthetic rose you will find a bunch of hilarious twilight memes. I laughed so hard I cried

Currently Reading: The Queen’s Gambit, The Grape’s Of Wrath, The Handmaid’s Tale, clearly fanfic has permanently destroyed my ability to focus on one book at a time but I ain’t complaining lolol

How’s it going? I am not thriving, but I am surviving xD last week was especially rough at work because the workload was pretty bad, but this week is manageable so far and I’m looking forward to having good food with good company!!! Hope you’re all doing well^^

idk who hasn’t been tagged yet (I'm always late to the party LOLOL), but if you see this and would like to do it just say I tagged you <3

#not fma #personal

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hanaasbananas · 3 years

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Fanfic Year in Review 2020

thanks for the tag @2manyfandoms2count! This took me a while to get to but here we are!

Ok I feel like this is just gonna end up being a post where I just gush about Phantoms in the Dark but like...c'mon

This is gonna get long so i've put it under the cut:

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

Most of my stories are one shots of varying lengths, but I did actually finish quite a few so we have:

A Chance Encounter and So it Goes- both zenmaster fics for That 70s Show

Touch the Rain: I honestly forget I wrote this last year, it feels like I wrote it years ago but it's just a standard identity reveal in the heat of an argument type thing.

Ladybug Luck? What's That? The fic that really started my spiral into writing for the ML fandom, and the birth of the Bollywood Playlist series.

Post reveal, where they didn't know each other irl, Marinette sees Adrien at a Gabriel party, realises who he is, and does some property damage in the process.

our eyes speak (but on our lips is silence) At a wedding where Adrien is best man and Marinette is a guest they immediately recognise the other as their partner. Pure fluff and giddiness ensue

The Seduction of Marinette Dupain-Cheng Post reveal-Chat bets Ladybug that he can woo her as a civilian, employing good old fashioned tactics like flowers and poetry

Pink Snapshots of an Adrinette relationship. I just wanted to see if I could write an entire fic with no dialogue whatsoever, and this one got a huge surge in popularity recently so...guess I can!

Exposed Another fic where they don't know each other as civilians. When their identities are revealed in the worst possible way, Ladybug and Chat Noir hide out in a hotel room as they try to process the situation.

This Red Love My first enemies au! In which Adrien joins Hawkmoth from the beginning, but still goes to school and ends up dating Marinette. When he realises who she is, he has to re-examine everything he thought he ever wanted.

i have found someone (like a nomad finds a home) In the last one, Adrien willingly sided with Gabriel, but in this one, he is forced to after Stoneheart. Years later, he meets Marinette, who makes him feel like he isn't a monster.

Memory Chat Blanc in the aftermath when there is nothing left.

Phantoms in the Dark My biggest accomplishment last year! And the longest story I've ever written at 30k words. A historical marichat story based off my favourite poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. I'm currently working on the sequel.

I only bow down to worship (but I come to a stop when I see you) In which Adrien knows Marinette is Ladybug, and she knows he knows. However, he hasn't told her he's Chat Noir. This is just cute relationship stuff in the same vein as Pink

Collect your Courage, Loyalty, I'll never be the thief (to bring in hot scattered hell) Thought I'd branch out to other fandoms and landed on ATLA. This is a series (eventual zutara) where Zuko realises almost immediately post banishment that he can't follow in his father's footsteps and rebels.

Dancing Lessons Chat Noir and Ladybug decided to reveal their identities at age 20, and now Chat has chosen the venue as well. The only problem is he needs to teach Ladybug how to dance first.

Wish Ok I hurt a lot of people with this one but it's one where in the final fight, Adrien is mortally wounded and Marinette uses the miraculous to save his life, forfeiting her life in the process.Flashes back and forth between her death and how Adrien is coping in the aftermath.

2) Number of words written: 79663. I actually wanted to hit 100k by the end of the year but as those in the guild know, I spent most of December doing kitchen renovations and being pissed about my lack of free time lmao

3) Your most popular fic: Phantoms in the Dark. it has yet to surpass my all time most popular fic it's all a game of chance (they say in wonderland), but it's catching up

4) Your personal fav: Dancing Lessons I wrote this way back in July last year but only posted it in December and I just, it's so sweet I really like it with the flirty banter and just the two of them being SO CUTE

5) Your fav scene: The scene at the end of ch6 of Phantoms where Marinette and Chat talk after their kiss and realise they both are very much into each other.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

I am really bad at action sequences, and even though in Phantoms Adrien was out fighting people on the regular, I just sort of...glossed over them. Except for in chapter 8, where I wrote a proper duel between Chat and someone he was robbing.

What I struggled with was describing the movements, not wanting to make it too complicated whilst not having it be 'he feinted and stabbed' or something really simplistic. There was a lot of pen acting involved, but I think the end result is quite good, if I do say so myself.

7) A line of writing you’re proud of: From Phantoms (of course)

In every lifetime, in every land, we shall find each other.

8) A comment that touched you:

I love every single comment that I get, but someone left this on my musketeers fic Going Through the Motions (posted as a series on ao3 to motivate me to finish the fic but when it was done I compiled all the parts and posted it on ffnet as a oneshot lol and one of my absolute fave fics I've written-no surprise that it's historical 😅) on ffnet, which was a HUGE compliment:

"I like the way you wove dialogue from the series with your fiction. Your story gives us a more complete picture of Bonacieux and explains why Constance rejected D'Artagnan, which we did not get from the series. Your version is better. Well done!"

9) Something that inspired your writing:

I mean...I have an entire series on ao3 that is just fics inspired by bollywood songs/scenes-and those were my main inspiration for so many things. (I actually realised the other day that a scene from the movie Kalank is what inspired me to write Wonderland lmao)

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

Honestly, just writing consistently! I graduated in 2019 and in the past, I've started and abandoned so many projects and ideas, and even the first fic I posted on ao3-it took me a year to get the second chapter up and then I only finished it because I wanted to post other stuff but didn't feel like I could until I finished that one lol.

So yeah, that, and of course, actually writing and finishing Phantoms instead of abandoning it like so many of my other ambitious projects. I'm really proud of the 30k I wrote for that story because it's the most I've ever written for a single thing

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

I want to finish Forgotten Promises, and the third story in the series. I have the vague plot for that one, and know what's going in the epilogue to end the series but I just need to get there.

Oh! and see 100 ways to say I love you to the end.

This was fun! I tag @theanxiouscupcake @an-elysian-tree @quarantined-fics and anyone else who wants to have a go!

#will i ever shut up about phantoms in the dark?#no. the answer is no.#lol but honestly this was fun i didn't even realise how many fics i wrote last year #my posts #ask game #writing #fanfiction #miraculous ladybug #atla #marichat #adrinette #ladynoir #2020 year in review

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britneyshakespeare · 3 years

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tagged by @david-watts!!! thank you let’s have some fun >:)

name: Diana

nickname: call me whatever you want, but also don’t acknowledge me

gender: womanish

star sign: 🌟🛑

height: 5′6 and three quarters... but that’s bitchy so I say I’m 5′7

time: about 6 pm

favourite band: I like a lot but I’ll just take the L and say the Beatles. I also love like Blondie and the Stones and No Doubt and blah blah. Idk I haven’t been /as/ into music lately. My interest in music goes up and down. I like a lotta weird stuff. I don’t really have taste. I’ve been lapsing back into the kpop I loved as a teen lately though so feel free to tack on Super Junior and Seventeen.

favourite solo artist: Marianne Faithfull for the everything, also love Francoise Hardy and Sinead O’Connor and uh a bunch others. Donovan comes to mind... yeah.

song stuck in my head: I had SHINee - Sherlock stuck in my head but right now I’m playing Express Yourself by Madonna

last movie: uhhh before Christmas I was watching Susan Slept Here on TV w my dad... and I HATED it lol, turned it off halfway, if it has a better ending than middle that’s cool, don’t tell me about it

last television show: Malcolm in the Middle

when did I create this blog: August 2012 ._.

what did I last google: your mom

other blogs: @creatediana

do I get asks: Sometimes on here. Never on my poetry blog lol.

why I chose my URL: I’m a Britney scholar and a Shakespearean popstar

average hours of sleep: more than it feels like lol

lucky number: deux

instruments: can I say guitar if I haven’t taken mine out of its case since I was 18? It’s okay I don’t really miss it. I don’t have the time for it anymore and I don’t feel overly sad about it, I had a good run with it and it served me as much as it could as a hobby when I was younger. Sometimes when I say “I used to play guitar” people look at me with pity like “you can start again!” and I’m like that would be... literally a bore. I’ve moved on lol what is with this Chase Your Dreams Supremacy... not everything is a dream! Some things are good and fleeting and we do not want them back to re-experience joy we have transcended comfortably! Sorry that turned into a rant. I never think about playing music anymore.

what I am wearing: Jake from State Farm...

dream job: I would really love to be a translator of poetry and theater, I’m obsessed with the way art is attached to its language inextricably, and the task of equalizing it into another tongue is a task I find daunting and worthwhile.

dream trip: blaaaaah I just wanna go shopping again but like, safely. I can’t even think. I haven’t even thought about recreationally leaving my home in too long to be able to answer this question.

favourite food: anything I don’t have to cook.

favourite song: Idk but Is Ar Eirinn Ni N-Eosphainn Ce Hi by Mary O’Hara lives in my head when I think about peace and tranquility.

last book I read: Book book as in novel or just anything? I’ve been reading Ugly Music by Diannely Antigua, the Complete Poems of Anne Sexton and the Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara in the past day or two. But if you mean something with a /plot/ then I guess I’m in Act V of Richard III by Shakespeare. I’ve been reading that this whole month when I realized the only Shakespeare play I read in 2020 was King Lear as opposed to like, a lot more in 2018 when I first got the Riverside Shakespeare, and still a good number in 2019. If you mean the last time I read a novel, though... go fuck yourself. I’ve been reading The Professor by Charlotte Bronte on and off for over a year. Haven’t opened it once since like March. I can’t read novels bitch I have ADHD.

top 3 universes I want to live in: Buffyverse, because I wanna be a vampire, duh. I would also maybe like to live in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a fairy... and. Hm. I wanna live in my dog Sandy’s head, she always seems to be at peace. She’s a sweet and beautiful old lady.

thank youuuuu!!! George!!! I’ll tag some other friends now :) @octopussy25 @sneez @szappan @mylittlehappy @buddyhollyscurls @beatlesgirlfab @sinnamonsam @pavlovers @nebylitsa @mypointremains @aliceic @mirrorball-moon

#anyone i forgot is also welcome to play!!!! tag me. i forget everyone all the time. i miss you all i love you all take care #tag #this was fun #i'll have you all know i'm listening to jesse mccartney now #it's the other guy from 2014... bc i'm a REAL FAN SO I KNOW THIS MASTERPIECE

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vermin-disciple · 3 years

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Fic Writer Interview

Thank you to @sapphosewrites for tagging me!

Name: Vermin

Fandoms: Currently Star Trek, and DS9 specifically has eaten my brain. But I’ve been in and out of fandom for the past 20 years, so there have been many. I’ve more often been an avid reader and lurker than an active participant, though. The last fandom I was most actively involved in (and wrote the most fic for) was Life on Mars (UK), and that was a while ago. Other fandoms have included: Good Omens, Due South, Sherlock Holmes, and of course my very first gateway fandom, Harry Potter.

Where you post: AO3 and Tumblr. You can still find a lot of my older fic posted on my LJ, although I don’t post there anymore. Every once in a blue moon I get a notification from FF.net and am momentarily reminded that I still technically have an account there (though I can’t remember the last time I used it).

Most popular one-shot: That depends on your definition of a one-shot, lol. My top fic in terms of kudos is False Friends and False Prophets, which is technically part of a series (Where No Occult [or Ethereal] Being Has Gone Before), but then again, all the works in that series are written to work as standalones while existing within a shared crossover universe. If we exclude those then the next option is Freedom’s Just Another Word, except that while that is not currently listed as part of the This Be The Verse series (for thematic reasons), it is based on a flashback in Tell Me You See Me and I do consider it part of that universe, even though it can be read independently.

So I guess my most popular indisputable one-shot would be my first Garak/Bashir fic, Bound in Shallows and in Miseries.

Most popular multichapter: Tell Me You See Me (not that I have a lot to choose from)

Favorite story you’ve written so far: This was more difficult than I expected! Here are the ones that particularly stand out in my mind:

Tin Star (Life on Mars, 2009): Not counting a few drabbles, this was my second work for LoM. The first one, Convergence, is from the POV of a character who doesn’t appear onscreen in canon (and probably doesn’t exist), so Tin Star was my first real attempt at writing the POV of one main cast. I found the idea of writing Gene Hunt pretty intimidating, and was (and still am) very pleased with how this came out. Also, my favorite LoM writer, @lozenger8, beta-read it and told me it was awesome, and 11 years later I still feel all warm and fuzzy about this.

Mater Familias (I, Claudius, 2009): My first and longest work of I, Claudius fanfiction, written for a once annual ficathon on LJ called Femgenficathon (shoutout to @gehayi who modded it - it was a great event). I’m not entirely sure why I landed on this particular idea. I’d been joking about writing IC fic for years, but if you’d asked me prior to writing this what characters I’d most like to write about, Antonia the Younger wouldn’t have been high on the list. But once the idea occurred to me, I really relished delving into Antonia’s psyche. I’m also fond of this fic because there’s so little IC fic out there, and I’m rather pleased to have contributed something. (There was a point a few years ago when there were 6 works of I, Claudius fic on AO3 and 4 of them were by me.)

On the Benefits of a Classical Education (Jeeves & Wooster, 2012) – To quote my author’s note: “at about 1:00 a.m. after a round of grading undergraduate papers, I reached that point of giddy insanity where the idea of writing one's grading comments in Wodehousian pastiche seems like basically the funniest thing, ever. My coping mechanisms, let me show you them.” This is definitely one of the weirdest and silliest things I’ve written, but it still makes me grin when I reread it. (Yes, I do laugh at my own jokes.)

On Transmutation [and Tortoises] (Good Omens, 2011): As someone who has studied (and now teaches) evolutionary theory, I got a big kick out of writing about evolution in a universe where creationism is canon. Not to mention telling jokes about Darwin riding tortoises. (I make a point of reading that particular passage in The Voyage of the Beagle to my students.) And I owe @anthean some credit for giving me the prompt that produced this. :)

Writ in Water (Sherlock Holmes [ACD], 2015): This is essentially an interplay between two brilliant people trying to suss each other out while avoiding talking about their own respective existential crises. There’s no romance between them – it’s just Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler having a meandering conversation while meandering around Rome, after an accidental meeting during the Great Hiatus. My characterization of Irene Adler came out of my dissatisfaction with her characterization in recent adaptations. I think I started c. 2011, and I didn’t finish it until years later. There’s a lot of self-indulgence in this one. I majored in Classic Civ and spent a semester abroad in Rome, and my love for the city is pretty evident throughout. It’s littered with references to ancient history, there’s some gratuitous poetry, and the climax is set in the Protestant Cemetery, which is one of my favorite places in the city.

I honestly think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written.

This Be The Verse (Star Trek: DS9, 2020): This fic is about my strained relationship with kidfic as a genre lol. I periodically get the urge to binge-read all the kidfic for a particular fandom/pairing, but then I usually end up being disappointed by most of it. So this started with me idly contemplating why kidfic often doesn’t work for me (and why I keep reading it anyway). And because of my current fandom preoccupation, this inevitably involved taking a hard look at the delightfully dysfunctional DS9 cast and wondering just what sort of parents they would be, and how their flaws might affect their children, and how the found family aspects of the show might manifest in the next generation. (Not sure how all this idle speculation ended up spiraling so wildly out of control, but here we are, and now I am just overflowing with ideas for this universe.)

I’m not 100% satisfied with all of this fic, but the epilogue is definitely one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. It also has a special place in my heart for being the first multichapter fic I’ve ever finished. (And the first one I’ve posted since I was in high school.)

Fics you were nervous to post: I used to get nervous about all of it (less so, these days). But one of the ones I was most nervous about was probably Convergence, which was my first substantial work in Life on Mars (I’d only written a couple of drabbles prior to this). I was really nervous about writing for LoM, because the setting and the dialogue style were pretty far outside my wheelhouse. Being a 21-year-old Californian, 1970s Mancunian copper slang wasn’t exactly part of my day-to-day vocabulary. (Oh, hey, I’d totally forgotten that you beta-read this for me, @sunnyrea!)

How do you choose your titles: I tend to gravitate to quotes (usually poetry or song lyrics) and/or wordplay of some kind. Sometimes I just pick out a significant word or phrase from the fic itself.

Do you outline: Frequently, although I rarely stick to my outlines religiously.

Complete: Nearly everything I have on AO3 is complete

In progress: Just counting posted WIPs, there’s Tell Me You See Me and Attack of the Giant Mutant Killer Rabbits

Prompts: Sure, but you have to come write them on my shower notepad. ;)

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: I have a number of ideas for additional works set in my This Be The Verse AU, but the one I’ve already written a substantial amount of (~13,000 words) is tentatively titled A Bag Full of God. This I originally had saved as ‘The Other Kind of Kidfic,’ although that’s misleading: it is de-aging fic, but they’re de-aged to 19-year-olds, so they’re not technically kids. It’s one that starts off fairly comedic and then gets progressively darker.

Worlds I would love to write for in the future: No idea. Fandoms tend to sneak up on me. But I have a feeling I’ll be stuck in the ST universe for a while. There’s just so much to play with, there. And I’ve found the fandom a very hospitable place to hang out in both on and offline (talked to a lot of lovely people at ST Las Vegas when I was there a few years ago, for instance). That said, I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at writing more Sherlock Holmes fic some day. (I have a thing for old school fandoms, apparently.)

Tagging everyone I’ve already tagged in this and anyone else who wants to fill it out!

#about me #vermin rites #my fanfic #wow I really do ramble on don't I

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captain-of-the-historicfuture · 3 years

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~hello~ !! For the meta asks!: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, and 25 :))

Hello!! Thank you for sending these; I was really excited to see that ask game and I was hoping somebody would send some in. It still took me a while to actually answer them though, and for that I apologise. But without further ado! Some meta answers (under the cut because they ended up being fairly long, whoops):

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (Consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway.)

I thought of a few examples, but they could basically be grouped together under a common theme: whumpy/angsty scenes that were self-indulgent as all heck. The whole self-indulgent aspect often required the characters to be just the teeniest, tiniest bit OOC and/or necessitated rather unrealistic plot circumstances. So it was simply easier to keep such scenes as maladaptive daydreams, rather than trying to think of explanations for the character/plot issues…or exposing myself to judgement for them LOL.

Receiving permission to write/share one such scene anyway is an opportunity I can’t let slip by though. It might be because I’m writing this while running on zero (0) hours of sleep—let’s hear it for insomnia, y’all!—but I suddenly couldn’t remember any of my newer ideas under this category. However, I did recall a one-shot I had started writing a couple of months ago that sort of counts? “Sort of” because I could actually be arsed to write it since I was, ya know, writing it. Only got about six hundred words down though.

…should I share those six hundred words…?

………nahhh. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet.

But here’s the gist of it: Coulson and May (because of course it’s Philinda) were married for quite some time before the Attack on New York. But then Coulson DiedTM and then got ResurrectedTM. But gasp of horror, he had to lose his memories of his romantic relationship with May because reasons. (I actually did have some ideas for those reasons but sshhhh this is about me yeeting context and setup.)

The first half of S1 still happens as normal (except MayWard doesn’t happen because??? Vows) and it’s now post-E20 “Nothing Personal”. The morning after (or a morning soon after, whatever) the T.A.H.I.T.I. reveal! May’s mom—who doesn’t know about GH.325 and whom May fed a cover story about Coulson divorcing her or something equally as oof, IDK—shows up at the hotel and starts ripping into Coulson for breaking her daughter’s heart, then dragging her back into the field with her ex-husband (him), then accusing her of terrible things and forcing her away again.

Poor guy’s confused as heck, and so is the team, and soon enough so is Lian. The only one who understands what’s going on is May, and she’s freaking dying off to the side like why is this happening to me and eventually everybody’s like! Explain??? (Was thinking about including something from Coulson like, “Are you still keeping things from me?” Just for that extra smidge of angst, yay!)

So yeah then May gives a, like, two-sentence debriefing that elicits more questions than answers. Coulson decides to take May aside and they have a heart-to-heart. Lots of feelings and angst and hurt/comfort and at some point plenty of kissing too. Just! May hiding her feelings for Coulson’s sake but really magnified, plus some actual apologies and consideration of the grief May’s been through on Coulson’s part.

And uhh yeah that’s basically it I dunno hdsjncjshd. I warned y’all it’s OOC, plot-bendy, and very self-indulgent!

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

I don’t think I could name a single character for this. I get different things out of taking on different voices, you know? I guess recently I’ve found myself gravitating towards more taciturn and introspective points of view, like JQ from my original novel Rosewood or M. Yisbon from my…other original novel Temple.

Generally, however, I like tackling stories from an outsider’s perspective. That’s why I so rarely write my more “substantial” (serious? demanding? for lack of better words?) projects from the PoV of my “preferred” character. This usually means writing from their love interest’s perspective, but not always. With shorter fanfic, using a more removed/unconventional/niche PoV can be really fun. Like, I once wrote a canon compliant ficlet purely(-ish) about Philinda from Tony Stark’s perspective. That isn’t always sustainable with stories that demand more character development or closer character studies, however, which is why it’s a good thing I like writing drabbles!

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?

My word counts tend to run long, but I usually only write one-shots for fanfic. If I’m even inspired with a novella- or novel-length story idea for a fandom, you already know I’m in deep with them. And if I actually find the motivation to plan and execute that idea? Dangg. That’s only ever happened…twice, maybe thrice, and I’m in a lot of fandoms.

At times, I wish I could go for more of a middle ground ’cause, like, you know what I love to see? An AO3 dashboard with several completed novellas for my ship/character of choice. I mean yes, I hecking love >90k fics, but sometimes I’m in the mood for quick reads…and what am I supposed to do when I burn through all the drabbles and 2k one-shots? (Besides despair and/or reread my faves desperately.) Novellas are basically always safe for me LOL, and I’d hope to be able to give as much as I take.

Ultimately though, I think I’m okay with where I am with regards to that. I wish I could write more in general, but I’d be okay with “writing more” just meaning “writing more one-shots”, ya know? More than okay, really. I have mad respect for fic writers who have, like, a hundred or more one-shots under their belt for this one ship. The fandom ecosystem would be incomplete without them (as well as every other type of writer, but sshhh that’s the type of writer I’m closest to being right now).

I’m definitely a plotter, and I definitely prefer it that way. It’s cool having such a detailed record of my process. I like feeling like a frazzled genius on the brink of a major discovery with all of my different outlines and colour coding and many drafts and various websites.

12. Do you want your writing to be famous?

Not exactly. It might be cool if my original works were recognisable in the world, but I don’t think I’d want to be recognisable. As for fanfic, I’d low-key enjoy gaining a place in that fandom��s community as a fic writer. Like someone who gave and got fic gifts from fic writer friends, who participated in challenges and GCs, who received writing prompts on Tumblr, whose name was known for doing a certain trope/genre a bunch of times… Ya know what I mean?

Unlikely to happen when I’m so hecking hesitant to publicly (i.e., outside of AO3) claim credit for my writing, but fjnskfsjhfjs. A writer can dream, right?

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Of those three, tags are the easiest for me, for I have a reliable system for figuring out those.

Next easiest would probably be titles. For fanfiction, I like to use titles that are a quote from the source material. You should have seen all of my old Hamilton fanfic… I was really proud of some of those titles. And I don’t mean, like, whole lines—usually only two to five words. It’s a unique type of wordplay that I just love dabbling in.

And lastly, summaries. Sometimes inspiration strikes me and a snappy and intriguing synopsis just jumps out—one that I’m quietly pleased with—but most of the time I’ll spend way too long trying to think of such a synopsis and eventually just go with whatever I’d come up with so far. And live with my quiet dissatisfaction for the rest of time.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (Plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations...?) Tell us about them!

Typically, no. If I have deleted scenes, I save and publish them separately, but that’s about it. I sometimes think of AUs for my own work and might talk about them in my author’s notes—might even talk about writing them—but I never really do anything with them.

Although…

It’s not uncommon for me to decide a plotline isn’t working for a certain story or to think of an interesting but undoable arc for a certain character, but what I’ll do is make a whole new story for those ideas. Once I’m done developing the original idea and the branched-off one, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell they grew from the same roots. Does that count?

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as (film, webcomic, animated series, etc.)?

That depends on the story. I’ve actually written stories in other mediums—movie screenplay, musical stageplay, poetry, TV show scripts, play scripts, roleplay—but the novel does tend to be my comfort zone. Sometimes, if I have an idea that I think could work, or would even work better, as another medium, I’ll label it as such in my folder of ideas and decide not to write it as a novel.

Most of the time, my non-book projects are collaborations. I’m working with five different people on six different story ideas: two webcomics, one stage musical, one anime, and two animated TV shows. Little concrete progress has been made in any of those, mind you, but they’re still fun to discuss!

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Absolutely. But I’ve been writing stories since I was five years old, so we would hope so, huh?

I wouldn’t say my writing’s changed completely, though maybe that’s just my insider’s perspective.

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

Oh gosh, I can’t believe you’d make me choose. Writing is just such a wonderful experience for me; I love just about everything to do with it. Admittedly, not all the time, but. Since that barely qualifies as an answer, however, I’ll give you this—

The endings. Not only that intense feeling of rightness when you wrap up that last sentence, but also the moments before. The adrenaline of knowing you’re almost there but you gotta push just a bit more to actually get there. And also the part right after—the real wrap-up, honestly: the revision and the editing. Heavens, I love revising and editing my work.

Which is not to say I don’t like writing it out for the first time, too—there’s nothing quite like seeing your cursor scroll to the next page, like going from a blank expanse to a Oh man, how many more lines are even going to fit on this page?, like watching that page counter tick up another number. However, there’s something cathartic about finally ironing out those problems I had to force myself to stop worrying about earlier because “just finish the first draft dangit”.

I guess that’s not really the end of the writing process, but whatever. Close enough (as fic writers are wont to say).

Another thank-you for these asks, and feel free to come back with more at any time! ;P

Send in fun meta asks for your friendly neighbourhood writer!

#thou canst not then be false to any man #ask game #invictusmaneo #to write and read comes by nature

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kaptain-k-pop · 4 years

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(13/13) Now on to the new mission (which is about to be old real quick sorry 😭 I’ll try to get better at replying in a timely manner). How about Adore U, Mansae, Pretty U, Very Nice, Clap, and Call Call Call? I hope you’re having a good week so far! ❤️

Omg don't even worry about it!!! look at how long it took me to finish answering all of these (I'm so sorry, I had a busy week and totally forgot that I didn't finish answering this last one!!)

Okay, so

Adore U: What’s your favorite aesthetic?

Hmmm I like lots of different aesthetics, one that I really appreciate is cute but also i'll-fuck-you-up vibes? lmao. Like wearing my leather jacket with a cute skirt and a bow or when I have my nails done all pretty and I'm cleaning them out with my pocket knife, lol. I also like listening to loud/heavy/aggressive/rock/punk/rap things like that in my headphones while I'm knitting or crocheteting because I find the idea of people seeing this tiny girl knitting a sweater and being like 'I wonder what she's listening to?' And it's like, secretly Day6, or Dreamcatcher, or MCR, or something very humorous 😂😂😂

Mansae: What is something you really want right now?

Other than a government that doesn't make me feel more and more frustrated and hopeless about the future every day I wake up? Haha. Ha...

Okay on a less melodramatic note, I used to have a debit account that I opened at a bank in the town I went to college in, but since I'll no longer be living in that town obviously I closed the account before I left. And so now the only card I have in my wallet is one that's attached to an account that's in my dad's name (he gave it to me for gas when I started driving so I wouldn't have to worry about carrying cash on me for gas, and I've been the only one who uses it since then) and I do have cash, and most of the time I pat for things in cash but when it comes to buying things online *cough*likekpopalbums*cough* you need a card to pay for that... and the only card I have in my wallet is my 'gas card' since I closed my debit account when I moved back home... so whatever I use that card for my dad can see because that account is still under his name, and I mean I have the cash for it in my own savings it's just the the actual online transaction requires a card and currently the only card I have is to an account he can see... 👀

so I really need to set up a new debit account at the bank in my hometown so that I can have a card that I can use to spend my money without my dad knowing about all of my purchases

And so that he doesn't get emails like "we think that this $140 charge is probably fraud" and then me having to be like "haha no, that's your disappointment of a daughter trying to buy kpop albums 😅" and having to explain to him why on God's green earth I am Like This™ ahdhsksagdhskdjdj

Tl;Dr: I wanna set up a new debit account so that I'll be able to spend (my own) money without my dad knowing about the things I buy 😅

Pretty U: If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

Hmmm, I've never thought about writing a book 🤔 I do write poetry (sometimes, when I feel like I have a good idea) so maybe a book of poetry? Although when I took a poetry workshop class in college we had to complete a portfolio to submit at the end of the semester so I had to have like, 18 poems that I was happy with written by the end of the semester to put in a booklet, and that was a little challenging for me because I'm a chronic procrastinator and a lazy perfectionist... 👀 so it might be a struggle for me to write a whole book of poems and be happy enough with it to get it published, lol 😂

Very Nice: What has made you happy recently?

My sister moved out in May and has been living in a house near her college with some of her sorority sisters this summer (cause that's where they're gonna live during the school year) so I haven't really seen her much at all for a while, aside from short visits, usually with her boyfriend tagging along (and I like him! He's very sweet, I don't mind when he comes home with her, it's just that I haven't really had much time spent with just Maren and my parents in a really long time), but we're going on a little mini-family trip to Wisconsin this week so I'm gonna get to spend some time with her and that makes me happy :)

(Also my favorite beer is only sold in Wisconsin so that's also an extra bonus of this trip... 👀👀👀 lol)

Clap: What’s the most recent show you’ve binge watched?

I'm currently binge watching Touch Your Heart and it's soooo good!!!

The last thing I fully finished bingeing was Strangers From Hell/Hell is Other People..... so that's, a very abrupt turn around 😂😂😂

Other than kdramas my mom and I recently finished bingeing Parks and Rec together! Haha

Call Call Call!: What is the last meme you saved on your phone?

This probably doesn't count as a meme, but it is my most recently saved pick and dear Lord is it relatable:

Lmao,

This is my most recent meme, and I think by now I've gone on enough tangents that you're probably well aware of my tendency to overshare akdhdlskd:

#relatable

I'm so sorry that I blanked on this!!! How about you? (except the meme one obviously, unless you wanna describe it I guess?? lmao, up to you 🤷) I hope that you've been doing well!!! 💗

#caratanonevent #💎 anon #kaptain's mailbag

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ren-c-leyn · 4 years

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QnA tag game

I was tagged by @hyba to play this. Thank you very much.

rules: post your answers, and tag some pals.

1. When did you first learn you enjoyed writing?

Honestly, I used to hate writing. It wasn’t fun, it was boring school essays and annoying prompts on exams. That being said, I had always enjoyed storytelling, and had been telling stories since before I could remember.

How I reconciled that gap between the written and the spoken was I went through a really shitty period of time in my life and I took up poetry to help vent. And it was so freeing and fun that I kept with it.

I had been doing that for a while when I decided to try writing some fantasy story that popped into my head, though I can’t quite recall why I bothered to try. It wasn’t a very good story, but I filled up like an entire notebook with it and started writing it on another, and I discovered ‘hey, writing can be fun... if it isn’t about something boring.’

And over the years, fantasy has over taken poetry. I still write poems from time to time, but not like I used to.

2. Tell us about the first project you ever wrote.

It was one that tried cramming way too much into one story, but there’s elements of it that I still use a lot of. I can’t remember the exact plot I had in mind for it, because it was all over the place, but I remember there being some sci-fi, a lot of fantasy weirdness, and a chosen one who was both angry and horrified that her world ended when she had the power to save it, because no one knew what she was or that their world was in danger. It never got finished, but I had fun with it while I was working on it.

3. How does your favorite media shape who you are as a writer?

In ways I don’t even realize it did, I’m sure. Particularly since I binge read without really analyzing the writing techniques of people. My writer brain turns off and reader brain takes over. Which many people say is bad, but it works for me. That being said, I can draw some obvious parallels between things I’ve read and my own works.

I know that Tolkien was a big influence for my ‘this string pulls on this person’s string, which does that, which leads to a poor hobbit having to lose his finger to throw a cursed ring into a volcano and save the world’ kinda plots. I also enjoyed his world building, but, and this is just my opinion, it slowed the Lord of the Rings triology down a lot and made it a little clunky to read. So it taught me both what I kinda wanted to see in my world building, but also how I didn’t want it to come out in the story. Plus, The Hobbit is the book for me. It is one of the first ones I got when I finally learned ‘oh, reading can be fun’ (because child me hated reading like she also hated writing boring essays), and it’s the one that got me stuck on fantasy.

Douglas Adams, there are many who will probably consider it a crime I have not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and yet still list his name in this, but my favorite book of all time is probably The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and it was the way the characters existed and the hidden easter eggs that I’m still finding like 7 read throughs later and the pacing and red herrings. I learned from and loved a lot about that book alone.

There was also J.A. Jance, the author of many of the murder mysteries my grandmother loaned me, and it was from her and other mystery authors that I finally, finally figured out how to set up suspense and tension. They were also really good studies in character motivations and how a character’s mindset can change the way they perceive the world and the things they notice and miss.

Video games is another thing I know has influenced me. I like story and lore rich games. Dungeons and Dragons is another thing I play a lot of and has followed me through my writings. The stories that get told can be every bit as awesome as a book, and the mechanics are also part of what helped me learn to structure my magic systems. Because if the wizards didn’t have rules, who would play a fighter who does? The same idea got translated into my writing very early on, ‘if I don’t give my wizards rules, why would warriors exist?’

And I can keep rambling, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now ^^

4. What’s something you’ve wanted to write, but aren’t sure you could? (A tv show, a genre, a style, a time period, a video game, etc)

I had an idea for a fantasy world inspired by various Asian myths, and even had a basic map drawn out in my head and some ideas for a magic system, but I’ve been too terrified to actually do anything with it, and it’s been so long since then that I don’t remember anything about it. Plus, I had no plot to use for it at the time.

I also wanted to write a mystery, but when I tried I found that while I has suspects and everything, I couldn’t think of the crime or how the heck anyone would just kinda figure it out from a bunch of random things normal people could just play off or not notice XD

5. What is the thing that keeps you from writing the most?

Procrastination is sometimes a problem, and I do occasionally need to kick myself in the shin. But there’s also life and plot snags and just days when a story isn’t working for me.

6. How do you deal with an inner editor?

That depends. Sometimes the inner editor saves me a lot of headaches later, and sometimes a tiny mistake can break the flow of writing. I normally don’t have an issue with fixing things on the spot, but on nights I need to focus on writing I just keep myself from reading back.

7. How long have you been writing?

I mean, they make kids write really young for school, so begrudgingly that long. Creatively and for fun? I’m not sure. I can’t quite recall how old I was when I started with the poetry. But considering the notebook I have the earliest pieces in is falling apart, I think it’s been a long time. lol

8. What is your general writing process? Do you write chronologically? Do you do a lot of planning?

I normally get this idea that shows up out of the blue as a daydream or a random thought. Then, there’s at least a month. If it’s still there, it gets considered. If it’s grown and expanded into something resembling either a world or a plot by then, it’s probably getting written.

After the idea finally bugs me enough, I’ll start world building and building a bare-bones plot, complete with bare-boned characters. I never flesh anything out completely, since I do most of that while I write and having strict outlines suffocates my story.

If the world building, characters, and whatever I have of a plot are interesting, I’ll start chronologically and keep moving from there.

9. Assign a scent to your writing style.

A scent for my style? Um... that’s kind of a weird question and I have no idea how I would even begin to think of an answer for that. Like, how do you translate comma usage and word choice into a smell? I mean, I use roses a lot in my stories, so maybe that would work?

10. One book you hope everyone reads?

I have to agree with hyba that I hope everyone just finds their version of the book. The one that gets them through a hard time, the one they really need, and that that book won’t be the same for everyone.

11. What is it about your least favorite genre that makes it your least favorite–and how might you change that to better appeal to you?

Oh that’s simple, it’s because horror does it’s job. That’s it. It’s nothing particularly about the style or anything besides that the genre is what it is.

12. Design a “collector’s edition” for your first novel. Include items that might be of interest to your audience.

Never thought about it, but I guess I could throw in the world map I drew for The Plight of a Sparrow into it.

13. If one thing was real from your project, what would you want it to be?

Nothing in particular? I can’t think of anything that would make sense to transfer from my projects to the real world, because I don’t want magic to be real, because my magic systems tend to be brutal, but also, we have stuff like or better than a lot of what doesn’t run off magic. Maybe some of the creatures would be cool, but I don’t know how that would affect ecosystems.... probably not for the better.

14. What’s something you always include in your work? Do you have any other Easter eggs?

As far as easter eggs, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. If I do, it probably wasn’t intentional.

15. What is your favorite passage from your own work?

I still am not really comfortable with sharing things out of my WIPs on here. As far as things I’ve written for the blog itself go, there are quite a few pieces and passages that turned out really good. I think one of my favorites is from a really old piece I did back before I was doing fusion stories. It’s from this one specifically, if anyone would like to read the full tale, it is a grim one, though.

The very edge of the forest was about as welcoming as a gallows. Crows watched us hungrily, like we were dead men about to sway. None of them made so much as a peep as their dead eyes followed our trek through the knotted mess of brambles, ivy, knotted shrubs, and gnarled trees. We hacked at the plants, and they hacked right back at us. We traded blows like it was a war. hatchet and sword blows countered with sharp thorns and parried with thick branches.

I’m going to leave this an open tag, jump in if you’d like to. =D

#tag game

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