#I used to write poetry when I was a kid - narrative poetry but still poetry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

melancholysway · 1 year

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Were you serious about wanting to receive asks for the 2007 movie iteration of the turtles? Because I would die for a caring reader wanting to spoil the boys with a hot, relaxing bath with scented candles and maybe a bit of a massage, they deserve to be pampered!!!

I GOT YOU OMFG I LOVE

IM SPLITTING THIS UP BC I LOVE TMNT 2007 & I WANNA SPACE IT OUT SO PEOPLE CAN SEE A BUNCH OF '07 CONTENT ON THEIR FEED

i also had this done and rly rly wanted to get this out

also i love '07 raph and leo (i know i just said I hated him in a previous post but idc rn i love him)

TMNT 2007! Imagines: Caring S/O [Leo/Raph]

looking for Donnie and Mikey's? Click here !

Leonardo

Imagine surprising Leo with a relaxing bath.

It’s the first time since Leo’s return that you’ve all gone to Casey’s grandma’s farmhouse. Now, the good thing about it is that it’s always available for your use!

So as you all pile up in the shell-raiser while Raph drives his bike with Casey, you’re all ready for a nice relaxing, well-needed vacation

Especially Leonardo.

It’s been hard on him after Winter’s. Sure, he’s rebuilt his relationship with Raph, and they’re cool now- everything was. But…

Something’s been weighing on his mind.

Was he really stronger? He didn’t even see the dart hit him, he was so caught up that he forgot about his own safety, and almost got sacrificed by some 3000-year-old stone guys because of it.

Not only this but, was your relationship still the same with him?

He beats himself over not sending you letters anymore during his training. He knows (thanks to a slightly irritated Donnie,) that you thought he wanted nothing to do with you while on his training; with no distractions. Or worse, that he was dead.

“You should talk to Y/n, your absence has also been hard for them, much like Raphael.” He remembers what his father said when he came back. It rings through his head all the time because he didn’t mean to leave you hanging like that.

You work on rebuilding your relationship after the whole Winters thing because Leo comes home at the perfect time when everything was chaotic.

He starts by apologizing. He should’ve at least told you the reason why he was going to stop, but, he doesn’t remember exactly why.

“I was caught up in my own world, and all of a sudden, I just stopped. I stopped writing.”

This was a double entendre, writing to his brothers, yes, but writing in general for Leo was one of his strong suits. He loved to write. He was great at poetry and had a thing for short narratives.

He has a dream that he can be an author- that’s what he would love to do.

When you forgive him and take him back with open arms, he’s so happy he could scream.

Because he fucked up. He’s lucky that you loved him as much as you did.

As he sits next to you and watches the farmhouse come closer into view, he’s excited. This trip meant that he could spend some overdue quality time with you.

“Please, I’m beggin’ ya, there are kids here. And by kids I mean Mikey,” Raphael says to Leo before retreating to his room with Mikey already whipping out his comic collection for him and his older brother to browse. This innuendo makes Leo blush, but it’s not something on his mind as a priority. Yes, he’s missed you, and yes, he’s missed loving on you, but right now, he wanted to ease back into things.

If it happens, it happens. He was content with anything.

He’s excited, especially when he comes into your shared guest room and it’s dimly lit. Sharing a bed and room with you was something he had been looking forward to. It meant quality time.

Alone time, a romantic time. Something that had been lacking for the year and change of his training.

As you both got the room with a bathroom inside, he sees the candlelight become more prominent under the bathroom door, almost glowing in an enticing manner.

It’s left open a crack, but he doesn’t know where you’re at. It can’t be you in there, so he opens the door slowly, wondering what could be on the other end.

He’s shocked when he sees it. He sees the tub filled with bubbles, as the humidity from the hot water clings to his skin. The smooth music from his favorite indie group playing on the speaker- your speaker. The eucalyptus leaves hang from the showerhead, and the scent fills the room.

“Hey.” Your soft voice tickles his ears, and he’s set.

As he turns around to you, he smiles at your form. You stand in the doorway, laughing softly at how happy he seemed as you explain what the hell this all is.

“It’s…for you. You deserve a night off just relaxing. Some Leo time, if you will.”

He accepts your offer as he could almost cry at how nicely you put this all together, that you thought about him this whole time.

“Join me?” Leo couldn’t help but ask.

You do. You do in fact join.

And…it’s amazing. Leo unwraps his bandages and unties his mask, getting inside and immediately feeling relaxed as soon as the hot water touches his body. Leo’s favorite thing had to be baths, especially when he was younger. He loved to just sit inside and let time pass until the water became cold.

You take off your clothes, walking over to the tub as you sit in front of Leo, his hands immediately wrapping around you.

He feels like home to you, as you do to him.

“I’m sorry.”

He apologizes. Once you both get comfortable and sit in stillness, enjoying each other’s presence, he just says it. He’s apologized for being absent and the letters stopping before, but he can’t help but continue to feel guilty for it.

Your fingers draw circles in his hands, and you look back at him, kissing him gently on the cheek.

“You’re here now, that’s what I care about.”

That just sends him over. Because you truly forgive him after all that. After all that he’s done- or his lack thereof.

You forgive him.

“How did I get so lucky, seriously.” He mutters just loud enough for you to hear. He could die in this position. He was holding you, while you both shared a rather platonic intimate moment with each other. You chose to mix Epsom salt with the tub water, and Leo’s muscles and joints had never felt so relaxed in a bath before. That was your secret ingredient, just for your boyfriend.

So when you both seemingly cuddle in the tub, Leo, for the first time since being taken and having to battle for the curse of Yaotl, is 100% relaxed and calm.

Because that’s how Leo is. He’s cool, calm, and collected. At least, he tries to be. Most of the time he is, depending on the situation.

But right now, with you, he has nothing but positive thoughts running through his mind.

He thanks you with a kiss on your forehead, followed by a tight squeeze around your waist, he’s missed this.

Being so close to you, so happy, so at home.

He can’t thank you enough.

Raphael

Ah Raph

My favorite turtle out of this whole movie

King behavior king energy and he’s getting the king treatment yall!

Leo’s absence had been hard on him, honestly.

He’s around you more, not that he didn’t already spend his time with you, but he seemed to gravitate toward you at any point. Like he HAD to be around you.

You comfort him a lot of the time. Yes, Leo was your friend; yes, you miss him dearly. But, he should have continued to write to everyone.

Raph comes over all the time because the Lair reminds him too much of the memories of Leo.

He thinks his brother is dead at one point.

It crosses his mind while patrolling as the Nightwatcher, after being a few weeks overdue for a letter from Leo

He comes to your window, broken, with a frail state of mind. Because he really doesn’t want his brothers to see him like this, but he can’t deal with the thought of losing his older brother-his mentor-his right-hand man- alone.

You take him in, of course, and it’s the first time Raph has cried in front of anybody other than his Sensei. You just sit there and hold him for hours, eventually falling asleep with his head on your lap once he calms down.

You hoped Leo was okay, and when months go by, April sees him while on a business trip

“Baby, he’s alive, look-“ you show him the text from April, and he gets the same one just a few moments later from the redhead.

He’s relieved but mad at the same time.

So, he begins to resent his older brother. He had no business putting Raph in that headspace.

So when Leo comes back and everything goes down, he’s so glad he has you. He appreciates you so much.

After the fight with the stone generals, he sleeps the whole day, getting up to shower and see you. Because he wants to tell you how much he appreciates you.

He’s cried in front of you, and that’s the ultimate sign of comfort from Raph. He often keeps more fragile emotions inside him. So for him to break down like that in front of you (and Splinter as well,) is a beautiful realization that he feels safe being vulnerable around you.

He comes up to your window, smiling as he watches you brush your hair, admiring your body and facial features. As he knocks on your window and takes you out of your own little world, you welcome him inside, giving him a slew of kisses on his lips, and ending it with a soft peck on his forehead.

He needed that forehead kiss btw

That’s his weakness. He likes loving kisses like that. Though he may not be vocal about it, you can tell by his face that he enjoys it.

“Hello ta ya too, angel.”

And as you sit together, your hands make their way around Raph’s body. Your hands seem to gravitate toward his shoulders, and before you know it, you’re massaging Raph’s arms and shoulders.

“Wha…what are ya doin?” Not that he’s complaining, but he HAS to ask.

Because it feels good, and you’ve never done it before

“Judging by your soreness and tenseness lately, you could use a calming massage.”

He just looks at you for a moment, before he gives in, with a small smile dancing on his lips as he turns around and lets you go back to what you were doing.

He’s all for touching, and this right here was something he needed.

It’s no surprise that he just relaxes under your touch. As you go to work on his (very sexy) muscles, you can feel just how tense they are. Raphael doesn’t like to stretch after a workout, so it’s really not a shock that his sore muscles are enjoying everything that your hands are doing

He just sits there in front of you while his shell is back to you, and you can’t help but feel his shoulders- his biceps- every muscle this turtle has been working on perfecting.

And he loves it. He loves that you find him and his body attractive because it’s something he resented about himself.

“I love you.”

Now, you’ve said I love you to Raph only a handful of times. It wasn’t something that he or you said too much. You didn’t overuse the word. It held meaning, and it wasn’t something he wanted to just throw around. So when you told each other that you loved each other, it was seriously special.

“And…I’m glad that Leo came back alive. For your sake..”

You say that sincerely, seeing Raphael break down as he did was hard for you. He’s always so strong, that it hurt to see him like that. He truly needed you to comfort him that night, and he’s been so glad that you did.

And as he’s sitting there in front of you, eyes staring off into a dark abyss since they’re closed, he thinks that he fell in love with the right one.

“I love ya too Y/n. Really.”

He makes small grunts when you touch particularly tense areas on him, and even lets a quiet moan out when you successfully got a knot out in his neck. It all felt so good. He could just sit with you doing this for hours; days even.

Because honestly, 2007 Raph just needs someone to appreciate and love him. To be there at the rare times he is weak. That’s just how he is.

SELF PROMO: I have a 2007 Raph x Female Reader posted on literally every fanfic site you can think of except for fanfiction.net LMAO, it’s on here as well just go to my masterlist! [its called serendipity!] enjoy!

Taglist:

@bee-1n-space

Masterlist

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2007 #tmnt headcanons #tmnt imagines #raphael #leonardo #tmnt x reader #leo x reader #raph x reader #tmnt fanfiction

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akatsukitrash · 2 months

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1 - 19. all the numbers >:^)

most overrated character?

Doing this again because there are so many of those : Shikamaru and Hinata. Before someone kills me I do like Hinata, I just hate her fans. Like in what way did she surpass Neji when she can't be arsed to run without falling. Bffr Neji's the strongest Hyuuga. And Shikamaru isn't smart when his entire victory hinges on dumbing down and nerfing both Hidan and Kakuzu.

2. was sasuke right?

Answered

3. were naruto's intentions with sasuke selfish?

Answered

4. are the romantic undertones between naruto and sasuke intentional or accidental?

Accidental. Kishimoto's misogyny made him fly too close to the sun of yaoi.

5. can kishi write romance?

When he wants to? Yes. It's not the wildest romance, but he showed he can write a decent one with Tsunade and Dan (and arguable Minato and Kushina although I hate that couple for other reasons). Even ShikaTema aren't too bad. He's just clearly not interested in writing romance

6. what makes the Naruto ending bad?

Everything leading up to it. The way the antagonists (especially Madara) were treated both by the narrative and characters, the way Kaguya came out of nowhere, the way Naruto and Sasuke kept getting unearned power ups. Hell on earth. Then all this culminates into a VOTE2 fight I never wanted to see with a Sasuke who's blabbering nonsense, and then suddenly, skyscrapers and ugly ass kids of ships that got little to no development. None of the questions brought up by the story got resolved

7. should Naruto have become hokage ?

Answered

8. show a screenshot of your latest draft with no context

9. which Naruto fandom words are you allergic to?

"deserve" (always used in ship wars), "who has the saddest backstory", "babygirl", "yandere", "actually kishi didn't intend-" (amazing under theory posts /s) and such

10. is sakura a shitty character or shitty-ly written?

Shittily written. That girl did not catch a break from the moment she got introduced, and she's not the only one, pretty much every female character is shittily written. They're just one of two misogynistic stereotypes, with no fulfilling arc, no space to throw hands like the male characters etc etc. Yeah yeah Tsunade isn't too bad but she still suffers from misogynistic writing

11. is Itachi a martyr, a victim, or a perpetrator?

Perpetrator. There could've been an argument for him being a victim, but adult Itachi does say he regrets nothing so clearly he's fine with the massacre and would've made the same decision as an adult aka he's nothing but a shameless genocidal murderer. I'm not very interested in waxing poetry about how hard it was for him to kill his own parents when he had like, so many choices to make, and I think such discussions are stupid when Sasuke (and the Uchiha clan) are the biggest victims of both Itachi and Konoha and yet don't get a fraction of the sympathy that Itachi gets

12. who should've died in war arc?

Gai first of all. Why the hell did he survive 8 gates? What was the point? It cheapened his sacrifice, and made it obvious that the stakes, no matter how high, are never that serious. Frankly I didn't even want him to be the one to open the 8 gates, it should've been Lee's moment (and yes, death) but well. At least one of the Gokage (preferably Onoki and/or Gaara) should've also died. And Hinata or Hiashi should've died to protect Neji, it would've been THE perfect symbolic end to the Hyuuga issue. Oh Shikamaru should've also died, he was useless and it would've made more impact. Probs another death in Konoha 12 would be great (like Kiba maybe?) but Lee's and Shikamaru's deaths (with potentially Hinata also dying) would've been great for tension and emotional impact. Oh also neither Obito nor Madara should've died

13. was kakashi trying his best? / was he a "good" sensei?

He was a good sensei bc he made good child soldiers. He was also a good sensei bc he did try his best to keep them safe. I don't know why people argue he's the worst. Gai, Asuma, and Jiraiya are fucked up, and Kurenai got 0 screentime teaching. Kakashi also trained Sakura, and recommended her to Tsunade. The idea that he completly neglected her is fanon

14. openings or endings?

Openings, most of them are so iconic

15. Is naruto white coded for having blonde hair blue eyes?

No??? his name is literally Uzumaki Naruto, and he has monolids. He's Japanese.

16. Is tobirama racist against uchihas?

Tobirama is Japanese. The Uchiha are Japanese. No he was not racist, and he didn't do half the shit people claim he did (he didn't disrespect Madara's body or Uchiha's funeral practices, he didn't segregate them, he didn't force them to be in the Police Force, he didn't focus solely on the Uchiha and no other threats, he didn't call them slurs (cant believe i even need to say that), he didnt hunt them specifically, he didn't kill Izuna for shits and giggles, he didnt seek out Kagami to use him as the "black friend", he didnt spread rumors, he didnt spy on them, he didnt blame them for Madara's actions etc etc etc. He was prejudiced, as was Madara (who even went as far as to cut Tsunade in half just bc she's Senju. That's way more violent than Tobirama calling Sasuke an evil brat). I think it's perfectly understable why he was so cautious about them, and I wish he was given half the understanding the Uchiha get for their own backstories and actions, considering he too was a traumatized child soldiers who watched his siblings die and was abused by his father. He's a product of his times, and even he acknowledges that. That's why he has faith in the younger generations, and why he died for them twice.

17. Is Sakura useless?

Not at all. Naruto would've died in the Waves arc without her, and that's just the first arc. People just hate female characters, and belittle healers.

18. ship wars or power scaling debates?

I prefer ship wars bc I'm not rlly a shipper so I don't get annoyed and can make fun of people who get mad at me for my opinions. Power scaling tho....I'm a great power scalers and when ppl just make shit up (like saying Hinata is stronger than Neji or Itachi than Obito) I get pissed.

19. pettiest fandom opinion you've blocked someone for?

not an opinion but i've blocked people for misspelling kakuzu's name

#naruto #anti itachi #anti hinata #im not anti hinata i just dont want her fans calling me slurs in my inbox #tobirama senju

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kookaburra1701 · 9 months

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Hi KBfriend <3

Excuse me marching in here unannounced. I decided to send some asks, and well, I thought that perhaps you might also like these questions. (Feel free to answer in your own time or ignore as your spoons allow. <3)

I know we love to talk about breaking the rules in writing and obviously, that not every piece of advice is one-size-fits all, but there is a lot to say about being able to speak with each other about what we have learned during our journey. I was wondering if you wouldn't share. (I also plan on poking some of the others to see what more we can shake out. The more the merrier, no?)

What is the most useful/helpful pieces of advice you ever received during your formal education in relation to writing?

Once you started to write, what was the most important thing that you learned about writing or its process?

Has your real life/job had any influence on your writing? If so, how?

What advice would you give to aspiring writers (be it fanfiction or original)?

Hi friend! Thank you for these asks. I will never turn down an opportunity to natter on about things, my inbox is always open!

It took me awhile to think of one, because the vast majority of my formal writing education was for nonfiction and the little bit of creative writing we were assigned was generally poetry and I HATED poetry as a kid. BUT. I distinctly remember one of my middle school English teacher saying that the worst thing our writing could be wasn't being "bad" (whether technically or narratively) The worst thing our writing could be was boring. I remember her saying she'd rather read 100 bad stories that were interesting, or at least where the author's passion shone through, than one "good" story where nothing interesting happened or the author clearly was just checking boxes about what should happen in a narrative arc. She would forget a good-but-boring story immediately while every terrible-but-interesting-and-passionate story was very unique and memorable. This leads into my answer for question 2...

When I started writing fanfic on FFN waaaaay back in 2002, I realized that some people were going to hate what I wrote no matter what - after all, I hated some perfectly fine fics for reasons that had nothing to do with their quality. The people who wanted to read the things I was writing would find me, and they did! I still have friends from way back then, even though we've all moved on to other fandoms and hobbies. So yeah, that was what I learned - fuck the haters, write EXACTLY what you want, your people will find you. It was heady stuff for someone who was always That Nerdy Weird Horse Girl in school.

Oh yeah. I was a paramedic for almost a decade. I'm now a biologist in a medical pathology department. I definitely use my knowledge of A&P and quite a bit of the trauma I witnessed and ended up being subjected to as part of the USian For Profit Healthcare system. Also, it wasn't ever my actual job (unless you count the under the table farm labor I did for a goat dairy in college) but growing up in a rural farming community and around animals has given me a big interest in the history of agriculture, and I love writing about people doing subsistence farming.

My advice builds off of my answers to 1 & 2. Don't put things in your story or write stories out of a sense of duty. Don't censor yourself because you think it might be "too much" or "turn away readers." Write (and draw and create) what you want with your whole chest. I have devoured fics that were barely readable due to atrocious grammar and spelling about characters I didn't even really like with a premise I thought was stupid and pointless because the author made it interesting, and a big part of making it interesting despite the shortcomings was how much the passion they had poured into it came through, and that they were clearly having a blast the entire time they were writing/channeling their id. This is related to something that kills me when I see it on fanfiction discussion communities especially about fics with explicit sexual content - people snickering about how obvious it is that "the author had their hands down their pants while writing this." MORE HANDS-DOWN-PANTS SMUT I SAY. NO SHAME. So I guess that's my advice. NO SHAME. Want to write the filthiest, most ✨problematic✨ smut ever? NO SHAME, WRITE THAT PORN. Want to tenderly describe every step of the main villain disemboweling a unicorn? NO SHAME, SHOW ME THAT SPARKLE BLOOD. Want to write yourself as the Maryiest Sue who ever Mary Sue'd having fun in the fictional world of your choice? NO SHAME, YOU 👏GO👏GLEN👏COCO! Life is short, and late stage capitalism robs us of joy every chance it gets. Don't rob yourself of joy.

#kbs asks

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lajulie24 · 11 months

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For the fanfic writers ask- would you mind answering R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

R. Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

This is a really interesting question! For writing outside fandom, I would say bell hooks (whose mind just continually amazed and challenged me, and whose writing was both lyrical and accessible, I wish she were still with us), Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar is wickedly funny even as it is heartbreaking), Sandra Cisneros (her poetry is funny and powerful and beautiful and truthful all at once), and various other poets or essay writers (Naomi Shihab Nye, Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Maree Brown, Lindy West). Anne Lamott has great advice about how to get out of your own damn way for writing, though ironically I am not a fan of her novels. My beloved Carrie Fisher sort of straddles the fandom and non-fandom worlds, and I’ve enjoyed her novels but her memoirs and essays are the things that have most influenced me.

For fandom writers, I’m going to start with some commercial Star Wars writers, because I think writing in the GFFA is sort of a different beast. Of the commercial writers, I especially love Claudia Gray (big fan of Leia, Princess of Alderaan, less so of Bloodline though it’s still well-written), Martha Wells (who really has a great sense of Leia’s character), and Rebecca Roanhorse (Resistance Reborn is SO GOOD, somehow managing to make the events of The Last Jedi make any kind of narrative sense as well as bringing some characters I LOVED back in believable and in-character ways). Aaron Allston’s X-Wing novels helped me get to know the Rogues and the Wraiths, and really do this great mix of action and character arcs that I strive for when I’m writing fic — he creates worlds that are so full and the characters feel fully realized too.

I feel like just about everyone who writes and shares HanLeia fanfic has influenced me and my writing in some way. I joined Tumblr so I could read more of @madame-alexandra ‘s snippets and fics on a regular basis. Bouncing ideas around with folks like @otterandterrier, @organanation, @graciecatfamilyband, @yoyomarules, @soloorganaas, and others has been incredibly influential. I blame @drinkupthesunrise (in the most grateful possible way) for my affection for Wedge Antilles and the Rogues, and for my Luke/Wedge shipping. Reading @chancecraz’s fics has caused me to think about Leia and the galaxy in brand new ways (and also to cry about droids damnit), and introduced me to @this-acuteneurosis’s Don’t Look Back series which shows what one can do with a mix of politics and relationships and the Force and so much more in the GFFA. And I’m not kidding about other folks influencing me — every time I read a different person’s perspective on the Rebellion, or on Leia’s state of mind, or on how Han’s past has influenced his approach to life, or Han and Leia’s interactions, or how Luke fits into everything, or different takes on our heroes’ sexuality or gender identity, or mental health, or what would happen IF, I feel like I have a better sense of who these characters are to me, and what’s possible.

Wow, that was long-winded. Thank you for your patience, and for the ask!

Fanfic writer ask meme

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loyalhorror · 1 year

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🍊🍉🫐🍒🍍🍅

🍊- what sort of language do you use when referring to yourself/your system? What’s your reasoning?

i alternate between considering myself "a person with DID", "a system of dissociated parts," and just like... "i have a DID system", idk. i generally use fairly medical terminology because a) it resonates more with me and b) i don't really like the anti-psychiatry stuff in wider DID circles even if i understand and agree with some aspects of it.

for alters, i kind of default to saying 'parts' and i think that's because i'm still kind of self-conscious about calling them alters because of the misinformation around DID? idk.

i also use 'multiple' rather than 'plural' for myself!

🍉- what are your collective interests?

we all vibe pretty hard with just like, character creation and roleplay/writing i think! also like, poetry/words/storytelling. there's something about narrative and the telling of stories that fucks with all of us real good.

🍇- do you have a big sweet tooth? Who’s the worst of the bunch?

hmm not really, i don't think? i (bard) am usually the one who eats/deals with all that shit anyway so i guess it would be me!

🍍- what’s one thing an alter/part loves, that another one hates?

max is one of the only alters that can really front strongly enough for his influence to override my own and that fucker loves black coffee, the freak. if i remember right, HAL also likes chamomile tea, which i HATE.

🍅- ..what’s your controversial opinion? (warning for sys.course i guess? but specifically just 'here's a misconception about disordered vs non-disordered multiplicity/plurality I see a lot', rather than any kind of 'you dont exist' bullshit)

A lot of people (I would argue most/all of them, honestly) who think they're endo.genic do, in fact, meet the criteria for DID but they think that because their alters only appeared later in life, or because their alters come from traumas that happened later in life, they don't/can't have DID.

That isn't how it works, though it's a very understandable misconception - it's kind of like... the initial trauma* happens in childhood and prevents your personality from fully integrating, but you might not necessarily have or remember having 'full alters' at that age, particularly not ones that take the form of anything you'd register as an alter as an adult.

*(which, again, can be anything - DID isn't caused by certain types of trauma, it's caused by prolonged childhood exposure to perceived danger that there's no perceived escape from, and that can be anything when you're a child)

Then as you get older, new traumas can split new alters or bring out pre-existing ones. It doesn't mean those new traumas caused your plurality - you already had a dissociative disorder to begin with, you just hadn't developed these particular symptoms of it yet. When I was a kid I still had DID, but Max (the first alter I recognised) didn't show up properly as his own entity until I was about 17-18 - until then I just thought I had weird episodes of being very detached or angry, and that my personality would 'shift' unpredictably, that my memory issues were caused by stress or ADHD or whatever else, etc etc.

Finally: I'm not saying non-DID plurality doesn't exist, because the human brain is fucking weird and I think denying someone's experience based off of "well I think it IS a childhood trauma disorder and not what you say it is" would be kind of fucking stupid (and I also don't personally think DID is the only form of plurality that exists anyway - I just think it's the only one that can be called a system of dissociated parts, you know? it's still plurality/multiplicity, just not necessarily the same as mine even if there's overlap). This is just a VERY common misconception I see a lot, where people think that their alters don't come from DID because it wasn't a childhood trauma that formed them, and it's like... No, the childhood trauma gave you the potential to form those alters in the first place. It's still--most likely--DID.

#rat.exe #system shit

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joeys-piano · 11 months

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Writer Ask Game: 4, 8, and 11

Thanks for the questions, peep!

4. When did you start writing? How?

December 2011. So I've been writing for about 12.5 years at this point. In the summer of 2017, I started writing more consistently. I believe in the summer of 2020, I had a personal challenge of completing a story from start to finish in one month so I could get used to sharing my works and how to finish things. In April 2022, I switched my posting schedule and made it a free-for-all; this gave me the opportunity to work on longer, more ambitious projects without me trying to kill myself to get so much done in one month. And well, I'm a slow writer - so this change was such a big help for my physical and mental well-being. Publicly, I've shared over 200 stories across fandoms in my writing life. There are some original poetry here and there, but all of that energy goes into fanworks because I feel more of a connection there. I started writing in December 2011 because when you're a young Asian who is not good at math and can barely draw and feel like you're a black sheep amongst the Asian kids, there's writing. Writing was the one endeavor I never heard any of the other Asians around me doing. Essentially, I pioneered this hobby in my early grade school life because I wanted to do something that I could do and know that no one else I knew did it, so that translates to being cool. (It doesn't work like that, but kid!me was convinced) I liked telling stories already, so I just had to put it down onto paper or something. And that's how I started. I basically felt like a failure Asian child for being so average, which I didn't have a name for at the time but it was something I could tell because of the people around me, so I went out to do a thing. And while the thing is hard and ugly and has tried to murder me, writing is stuck with me. It's just how it is.

8. What do you love about your writing style?

This sounds cliche, but my style is unique. I come from a literary fiction background. Or let me rephrase that: I'm inspired by the old-school classics and the pre-WWII British and American writing styles. Francis Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and the such. And I'm inspired by the Beat Poets of the 1940s and 50s. So that cheddar cheese potluck of queer and strange things did a doozy on my writing style. The best way I can describe my writing is that it's indulgent, in that I've been force fed writing rules from the internet and stopped giving a fuck in my 20s so I could tell the stories I wanted to tell. And my writing is a love letter to the things I love about writing - it's pretty much poetry disguised as a narrative: you have the meter, you have the rhythm, you have the techniques more commonly see in poetry than prose writing, but in the format of a story with characters and arcs and tragedy. Somewhere about that isn't typically seen in the fandom scene, unless you're in a fandom that pulls on that through the canon material. And that's what my writing style is. Granted, I didn't start with this style. It was one I started developing in 2020 and have matured it like a rich wine since then, and will continue still with every story I try. I've only ever found one other fanfic writer whose style was really similar to mine. So I guess that's a bonus.

11. Character/WIP Lore! (blabber about character/ WIP of choice)

I think I'm at the skill level I want to be to fulfill a writing bucket list item that I've had since 2020 or 2021. I've been wanting to write a story that features the critiques I have about the Christian religion and more openly, write about a story of why people are gravitated towards having a faith even if it makes them do things they don't normally do and how they grapple with that and eventually, if they choose, deconstruct from those ideals. And Black Polish, my current WIP, is a culmination of personal projects in the past that had to fail before I could get here. And in its own way, it is finding closure and closing a door on something I'd rather choose for myself than be nudged into just because I was a kid at the time. It's all about finding the right fandom for the project you want to do. I'd say I struck the land mine with Trigun.

Writer Ask Thingies

#Joey Speaks

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irarosleneeee · 1 year

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"I want to write"

My life has always been heavily influenced by literature. I write whenever I'm happy. I write whenever I sense a wave of strong emotions rushing over me. I take a piece of paper and just start writing whenever I feel as though the world is ending and my melancholy will be the last emotion I experience before passing away. That way, I can somehow imagine that the pen would be the cure for my conflicted feelings and that it will take it away, making me feel much better than I did before. As they say, write all your issues away. It is that simple. Though it is difficult to pinpoint exactly the factor that draws us to literature, I'd like to presume that everyone's experience is unique. Just as I would never deem myself a math expert or even faintly, mildly "good" at math, which is fine, some individuals have a knack for reading whereas others may not.

I've always admired writers for their ability to express their ideas in words. Their imaginative creativity has such a profound effect on those readers, like me, who view literature as their means of adventure. Their exquisite, creative use of words and phrases, the organic blending of complex terms, the pictures, and the processes of the mind, Alliteration and word sounds that are closely related to actions are used to set a mood: all of which are beautiful and it takes skill. Some authors can even leave you feeling as though you are there in person while others may make your heart race with anxiety or anticipation. All of that results in stunning writing.

Growing up as a child I loved reading and being read to.

I was a curious kid. Many books were scattered, some are organized into its respective place in a shelf far from my reach. The thought of me having to call out my mom for her to get it for me still stays a funny memory on my mind up to this day. I'm glad to say that, at the age of 17, I am able to choose my own books. Extending my story, I have always loved the concept of fantasy novels and read about them frequently as a child. Up until this point, the idea of reading about princesses, enchantment, and happily ever after’s has been incredibly intriguing to me. I vividly recall the moment I rummaged through my lola's bookshelves and discovered books with little to no content of tales of a prince and a princess; it turned out that a literature book had unexpectedly revealed itself to me. Nonetheless, I was still able to comprehend the bulk of it, and the only plot I could recall was the complexity of the words considering I was still a little child. On that day, I promised myself that I wouldn't let such unfamiliar words cause me to feel foolish in the future. I suppose I do dread the unfamiliar, but that's perfectly normal. It instead pushed me to explore more of literature.

I had this idea that I should compile all of my ideas into a book. So I did. But since I was just starting off, I instead posted some of my early writing on my writing account while I was in the eighth grade. Since I was interested in watching animations of all genres at the time, it was primarily made up of fan fictions featuring my favorite characters. I believe my writing abilities have increased during those times. I am also really grateful for the acquaintances I made and the constructive feedback they offered on my work in hopes of letting me develop and discover more about it. Nevertheless, as I got older and busier, it became harder for me to freely do what I want to do given how packed and hectic my schedule was. Instead of composing as I usually do, I've been reading stories that have caught my attention as an alternative for the lack of time. I quit writing because of writer's block as well, but occasionally, when I'm encouraged, I would compose narratives and poetry.

I was happiest when I could express my thoughts in writing. But admittedly, as I grew older, life got in the way of my childhood fantasies. I gained lessons through disappointment and heartache. Tales lost their purpose, and the idea of a happily ever after appeared unattainable. Yet, I am the happiest when I am expressing myself in ways that I adore. In light of the incredible things writing can accomplish for my mind, literature has a special place in my heart. It allows me to experience sensations I've never felt before, acknowledge feelings I've repressed and realize I'm never alone.

Literature is where my heart and mind become one after all.

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elaynajeanne · 1 year

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Readerly Exploration 3, Semester 2

Due Date: February 20th

Reading(s): Tompkins Chapter 9, “Promoting Comprehension: Text Factors”

The Big Take-Away(s):

Educators teach students that stories, nonfiction books, and poems each have unique text features and encourage students to apply their knowledge of text features when reading and writing these genres.

Nuggets:

The three most important types of text features include genres, text structures, and text features.

Genres are made up of three broad categories: stories, nonfiction, and poetry. Each Genre has its own subgenre.

Text structures are used to organize and emphasize texts and important ideas. Three examples include sequence, comparison, and cause and effect which are internal patterns used to organize nonfiction texts.

Text features are used to achieve a particular effect in their writing. Examples in nonfiction texts include symbolism, headings, and indexes. For poems, the page layout is an example.

Stories can categorized in different ways, one of which is according to genres. Three general subcategories are folklore, fantasies, and realistic fiction.

Folklore usually are short, have characters that are animals and one-dimensional, the setting is barely sketched and could be anywhere, and the theme is stated as a moral at the end. Folklore includes fables, folktales, myths, and legends.

Fantasies usually include extraordinary events, have realistic settings, have human or animal characters, and the theme can be a conflict between good and evil. Fantasies include modern literary tales, fantastic stories, science fiction, and high fantasy.

Realistic fiction stories usually include real people or animals as characters, with the real world as its setting, and the story dealing with ordinary occurrences. Realistic fiction includes contemporary stories and historical stories.

The most important story elements are plot, characters, setting, point of view, and theme. They work together to structure a story, and authors manipulate them to develop their stories.

Booklist: Stories Illustrating the Elements of Story Structure on page 298

One thing I have learned this semester is that science isn’t really about memories all these facts about the world, its about asking questions and looking for answers. Nonfiction books are an important resource for students to use when they ask questions. I hated and still struggle with nonfiction books. As a kid, I wish I had realized the beauty of these books and taken them more seriously and not considered them as boring had tos but exciting get tos. How can I teach this to my future students or even the students in my field placement today?

Text factors in poetry are more varied than I would have thought. There is picture-book versions of single poems, specialized collections, and comprehensive anthologies. There is also more forms of poetry than I would have guessed, including rhymed verse, narrative poems, haiku, free verse, odes, and concrete poems.

There is also such a thing as poetic devices, which are tools poets use to express their ideas. These devices include assonance, consonance, imagery, metaphor, onomatopoeia, repetition, repetition, rhythm, and simile.

It is not enough that students can name the characteristics of a myth, identify cue words that signal expository text structures, or define metaphor or assonance: The goal is for students to actually use what they’re learned about text factors when they’re reading and writing.

Paragraph:

After prereading and noting the various topics the chapter would discuss, I choose to do the activity where I noted any questions I had as I read. I then read the chapter. I especially enjoyed looking at the book list and wondering how these books would compare to my inquiry project. As I read, I noted some questions or thoughts I had. While reading, I also filled out the notes above. I would say this was a fairly easy thing for me to do as it really only took a few extra seconds of my time to write down questions I had while also enhancing my reading experience. I was able to relate what I was reading to my inquiry project and my personal reading experience. I did struggle with coming up with too many questions, although the questions I did ask were very helpful to my reading experience.

Multimedia Document:

THE QUESTIONS

If poetry is so important, why do the PA standards barley mention them?

Some of my favorite poems to read are by Shel Silverstein because of his use of pictures and page layouts. What makes authors choose the look of their ending product?

The students in my field classroom just finished reading about fables and folktales. It made me remember when I went through a phase of reading fables and folktales. What made the curriculum, school, my mentor teacher, whoever, choose to look at fables? How do folklore, fantasies, and realistic fiction relate to my inquiry project of what makes a book worth buying for my personal use or use in my future classroom?

How do books and TV shows and movies overlap within their genres? Is the requirement for each genre the same across the board, whether it be book, movie, or TV show?

I remember studying these in drama and creating stories that had to have these elements during improve. It was hard. And writing a story with all of these is very different. I wonder how different authors plan and prewrite their stories.

Inquiry Project. While I know fiction books have been the majority of what most elementary students read, and there is a current rise in nonfiction books, what does good look like in between these categories?

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the-al-chemist · 2 years

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Happy FFWF! 💙 What made you decide to rewrite the HPHM story (besides JC's incompetence)?

Happy FFWF! 💛 (Yes, I know it is no longer Friday in any time zone, but I’m disorganised and busy. Sorry.)

Okay, a long story. I always loved writing stories as a child/young teenager, to the point that as a kid I wanted to be an author when I grew up. Getting older, this seemed like a unrealistic goal, so I kind of lost my spark for writing, and though I had the occasional idea strike me, with life getting busier the older I got, the less I had the time to get back into it.

Fast forward to 2020, and suddenly I had a lot more time on my hands. It seemed as good a time as ever to try my hand at writing again, especially since the story ideas that never really stopped coming to me now were really trying to push at my conscience. The problem was that I no longer remembered my writing process, I had no recollection of my writing style, and I had absolutely no confidence in my own abilities.

One of my friends writes poetry and has self-published two incredible anthologies. She once told me that writing fanfiction was the best thing she ever did for developing her skills, style, and method of writing, so I thought that maybe this would be a good place to start.

So, there’s the backstory. Here are the reasons for my choosing a full HPHM adaptation for my writing practice:

I knew that if I was going to write fanfiction, it would have to be Harry Potter. I know these stories, this universe, and these characters very well, and the HP universe is so wide and has a lot of potential for writing material that draws on familiar characters and worldbuilding but has a semi-original plot. I even had a character in the universe: Artemis, my MC from the game of HPHM, which I had just started playing again whilst furloughed.

Unfortunately, Artemis was still very much the MC of HPHM at that point, so she wasn’t really developed as a character in her own right. I wanted to get to know her more as a person before I started using her to write original stories, so I started to think more about her backstory.

At the same time, I hadn’t played HPHM since it first came out, and a lot of the friendship activities kept asking me for details about the previous years, which I couldn’t remember. So, I looked up the plot of the first few years to jog my memory, and remembered how cute and fun the game was when it first started, before it started becoming about romance sidequests in which Charlie Weasley wasn’t even a date option. After I accidentally spoilered *that* event for myself, I realised that there really might be potential in this story that was being missed.

I love mysteries and fan theories, and whilst reading about the plot of HPHM as a whole, thinking about Artemis’ lore, and speculating about the possible lore of the Cursed Vaults, I started pulling the two together. Then the lightbulb went off in my head: if I adapted the story - the entire story, weaving together the main plot, sidequests, Quidditch story, and my own lore/headcanons - into a novel series, I would be able to solely concentrate on the writing process and my narrative style.

I originally planned to write the adaptation until I was comfortable enough with what I was doing to write my own material, at first fanfic, and then OG stories. Basically, it was meant to be a tiny baby step on my way to becoming a “real” writer. I wasn’t intending to even publish any of it, just my post-Hogwarts stories. But after writing the first draft of Year 3 and moving onto Year 4, I decided that I actually loved what I was writing and was proud of it. So, I finished the first draft of Year 4, went back and basically rewrote Year 1, and published the whole thing on AO3.

Fifteen months later, I’m still here adapting. But I’m finally writing Year 7, which is probably fifty percent original material. And there’s the Rockstar AU, Learning to Fly, and a few short stories for Artemis already published, so the original plan has sort of worked. I’ve just done it in a very long-winded way, that’s all…

#al speaks #the hexley saga #hogwarts mystery #hphm fic #happy ffwf!

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redotter · 2 years

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Bit of an odd question, but I saw you write in Romanian and I was wondering how do you do it. I speak Romanian as a native but I find the language too bland to write in at times. Like I feel like I could be more expressive in English than in Romanian. Any advice?

Oh hi, thanks for the ask! I don't only write in romanian, besides poetry and the soarers series, where it makes sense for me from a technical and cultural point of view. From a marketing and online-ness perspective, writing directly in english is a better idea, so if you're already comfortable with that that's great!

But I know exactly what you mean, I also (ironically) have a really hard time expressing myself in romanian, since i emigrated a long time ago. I make a point to not forget it though, which is why both the country and the language come up a lot in my writing. So here's what works for me:

Write on topics you're comfortable discussing in romanian - 95% of my political and social justice vocabulary is in english, if i had to write an essay on stuff like internalized misogyny i could only do it in romglish. So Soarers is about kids with magical powers - this doesn't mean they don't have "woke" points to make, just that they're not gonna be very literate and detailed about them

Write about romanian stuff - if put in the right environment the brain will remember the right words. Set up the story in romania, give your characters some sarmale and then all of a sudden english doesn't fit as well anymore

Read romanian books - this somehow normalizes how the language sounds in a narrative format? For example perfectul simplu (ea/el merse și fură niște ridichi) sounds really clunky at first since it's never used in daily speech, but once you're familiar with it it's the most natural thing

Take advantage of language specific perks - romanian words somehow have more gravity to them: mi-e dor de tine hits 10x harder than i miss you. Soarers is overall less dramatic and flowery than my english wips (because otherwise it sounds cringey), but when it needs to be dramatic and flowery, boy IS IT

Take advantage of language specific perks 2, humour - an oc of mine once called a big snake șărpălău and i laughed out loud for 2 minutes straight. I especially like writing casual dialogue in romanian, "ce faci?" "da uite, m-am întins un minuțel, da de m-oi dez-îmbăta" has a certain ✨flavour✨ English has it's own untranslatable flavor, but try not to emulate it when writing in romanian, even though it's really tempting because of all the media

Find romanian writers online - i know a couple but they all write in english... It's still nice to know that at least some of your mutuals will understand your snippets lol

So that's my perspective on it (but obligatory disclaimer, I'm no expert, ask more people if you want to get a more nuanced opinion)! I hope it helps, let me know how it goes and feel free to talk more to me about it or your stories :)

#asks

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myfinalform-kaz · 1 year

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Tbh I think teachers shouldn't be allowed to have narrative input on students creative writing projects. Like yeah sure give grammar advice and how to make descriptions and characters more compelling but the core story should be whatever story the kid wants to tell. I use to write poetry all the time and got a few awards for it and I remember entering a poem of mine into my school's talent show. It was called 'There's a monster in the attic' and it was about fear consuming the narrator as they contemplated and fretted over this creature that supposedly lived in their attic and the descriptions of the monster get more outlandish and grotesque as the narrator goes on making it clear to the audience that the narrator has never actually seen the monster and has no idea what it looks like but harbors such a fear of it that the narrator is sure it must be this massive terrifying thing. It ends with the narrator approaching the door to the attic, hand on the door knob, about to turn it and then backing away too terrified to find out whether the monster is really there or not. because if it is he will be torn apart and if it isn't then he's wasted his life being terrified of something that was never even there and isn't that worse? There must be a monster, there has to be because if there isn't then what was all that fear for?

It's a story about trauma, particularly forgotten trauma. When you can feel the shape of those experiences weighing on you but aren't able to remember them. Your suspicions of what might have happened to you build and build and ruin your life through fear, anxiety, and trauma responses. But when you come close to remembering you shut down. Partly because knowing what happened may be too much to handle and partly because what if nothing happened at all? Or it wasn't nearly as bad as you imagined? What then? Why are you so fucked up over something that hadn't even occurred? The narrative was important to me and personal and I submitted it at the recommendation of one of my teachers. However, through this talent show we worked closely with our teachers to "improve" our acts. Ya know what advice I got? "Have the narrator open the door and surprise! It was just a cat making a ruckus in the attic" He said it would make my poem funny. I told him it wasn't meant to be funny, what the monster really was or wasn't doesn't matter, what matters is the narrators experince of the monster. I explained the allegory to him and he continued to pressure me into changing the ending. So I did bc I was a kid who wanted approval and wasn't going to fight my teacher. I felt miserable when I performed it, I knew it wasn't good, it wasn't what it was suppose to be and I never performed poetry again. I still write it but I don't show it to anyone. I'm afraid it won't be funny enough.

#thats not the only time something like that happened but it was the most impactful #like unless the kids asking for narrative input dont tell them what their story should be #bc ulitimatley these stories arent new york best sellers and its more important that the kid gets to tell their story #than you finding it interesting #stop crushing kids creative freedom #especially when it has no academic value

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ecoamerica · 20 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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julescollins · 1 year

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Due Date: Week 6, Due Feb 13th

Title: Tompkins, Chapter 8, “Promoting Comprehension: Reader Factors”

Big Takeaway: Students should be able to comprehend and recognize a variety of genres, story structures, narrative devices, text factors, and text structures, as well as apply these in their own writing.

Nugget: I learned that there are two types of alliteration - assonance and consonance. Assonance is when vowel sounds are repeated in nearby words, and consonance is when consonant sounds are repeated.

For my readerly exploration, I chose to explore the world through reading by using texts to answer questions about the world or generating new questions about the world from texts that are read. To do this, I made a list of three or four questions about literacy classrooms that came up for me as I read and then did some preliminary research on one of them. Here are my questions:

What categories of narrative genres correlate to which grade levels (ie. Do students read more folklore in K-1st, and then move into realistic fiction in higher grades?)

How can elementary writers be encouraged to understand and use narrative devices?

How can students reflect on their writing and reading growth as they learn about text factors and narrative devices?

The first step I took to complete this exploration was to skim through and pre read the text. As I close read, I put stars in my book next to anything I was curious about. Finally, I skimmed back through, developing questions from each starred section that I was still curious about after reading the whole way through. The question I decided to focus on was the last one about reflecting on writing and reading growth and I found some helpful information on how to implement reflection strategies in the article ‘Goal Setting and Performance among Elementary School Students’ by Betty Punnett from the Journal of Educational Research. Students could approach this reflection by setting student-created goals, monitoring their own learning and comprehension, and doing a journal entry each week where they write about what they’re struggling with, what they’re finding easy, what they want to learn more about, their favorite examples of different text factors/devices that they encountered that week. It was easy to approach this task by using an annotation system, but I found it difficult to phrase some of my questions. One thing in this chapter that was particularly interesting to me was reading 2 fifth grade girls’ poetry they wrote about friendship during WW2 on page 316 - I thought it was really beautiful for having been written by kids so young! This readerly exploration helped me better comprehend what I read because it helped me to slow down and recognize where I was confused and needed more information, and it encouraged me to seek out those answers when necessary. My mastery of the course content was deepened because I have a better understanding of the different narrative devices and text factors and an understanding of activities I could use to teach them.

Caption for multimedia: For my Zine project I am focusing on the overlooked value and meaning of everyday objects… and now I know what that is called! An ode :) and I plan to read a few before I start my zine.

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hannah-reads-too-much · 1 year

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The Anthropocene Reviewed

...reviewed.

(I must be the first person to make that joke!)

John Green was probably one of my first ever favorite authors, alongside Rick Riordan and the author of the Junie B. Jones series (Barbara Park, you are a treasure). I remember the feeling I got when, as a 14- or 15-year-old, I read Paper Towns for the first time, and I was like, “Oh God, no one gets me but this book, this is so true, I need to get out of this backwater small town in Nowheresville, USA and do BIG and IMPORTANT things with my life, and I also have no idea who I truly am, and I have so much angst and I’m so awkward (and probably mildly autistic)” and what was I saying again?

Many people have said that Green’s writing is annoying and pretentious, to which I say, yes! And what about it? Part of the joy of being a largely ignored, geeky kid is growing up into a pretentious adult. Just let us have this one.

I don’t read much nonfiction, so when I saw that John Green’s next novel would be just that, I’ll admit that I was slightly disappointed. Fiction provides so much freedom, and it’s often so much more interesting to me than nonfiction. And, as Neil Gaiman said, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Many truths can be articulated completely adequately in a story that didn’t really happen, because in a way, it did really happen. And probably does, repeatedly, many times a day, all over the world.

This being said, I read the first essay in Anthropocene and my mind was changed. I haven’t read a Green novel in a few years, so even though this one is different than his others, it still felt like catching up with an old friend. Not every single essay in this collection resonated deeply with me and changed my life, which is okay, because some did. I particularly enjoyed the “Harvey” essay, and I think I will be revisiting both that essay and the movie many times in the future. I love when art references other art, and Green was extremely correct in saying that there are lessons in that movie which a deeply depressed young person might really need to hear. One of my favorite quotes from the movie that Green highlights is: “’In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart, or oh, so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.” And I will, Elwood P. Dowd.

There are some real nuggets of truth in this collection of essays that made me feel like something inside me had been cracked open and revealed to the world, which I always enjoy. Green doesn’t always offer a solution, however, and being a fiction enjoyer I missed the narrative conclusion, but that’s real life, and nonfiction, for you.

There must be a concession made that this is a pandemic book. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling “pandemic art” fatigue - yes, people were scared and lonely, I was there, I felt it too. However, this doesn’t feel quite so heavy-handed, and it doesn’t even mention the pandemic by name too many times. So it could be worse. And, it was indeed a rough time, and during the toughest times, humanity almost always finds itself turning to the arts. To quote again, as Robin Williams’ Mr. Keats says in the movie Dead Poets Society, “And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love: these are what we stay alive for.”

Altogether, it’s a fairly easy read, and very digestible with bite-sized essays, and I ended up flying through it once I got into it. Green’s depictions of the biggest feelings one can feel truly feeling apocalyptically big hits as close to home at age 22 as it did at 14; and I, for one, do enjoy a slightly pretentious read once in a while. And you may quote me.

I give The Anthropocene Reviewed four stars. (sorry Mr. Green, I had to)

#john green #the anthropocene reviewed #reading #literature

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nevermeyers · 1 year

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For the writing ask : 7, 10, 15, 27 and 40 ?

Have a lovely day 💖

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

There are several things that are my deepest joy about this. The first is being able to create entire worlds and characters that feel real in my head. It's a skill that will never cease to amaze me. The human being is impressive, right?

The second is to be able to express what I feel through narrative. Even if it's not about myself and I write about other characters, they all carry a part of me, my feelings and insecurities, my fears. Seeing the final result of what I write also makes me very happy :')

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

My own writing has scared me in a strange way. I've been doing it since I was a kid and it got to the point where I could easily write twenty pages a day without a problem. I have too big an imagination and the feeling of being disconnected and living my stories more than I live my life scares me . Yet at the same time, I wouldn't know what I would do without it, because I really like being able to unplug like that whenever I want. The hard part is coming back to reality :') I don't know if I explained myself well.

I remember something specific. I remember coming back from school every day by bus. The journey took between half an hour and forty minutes, depending on traffic. I used to put myself in the same place and ignore everything to get into a story in my head while listening to some music. I didn't close my eyes, but I could disconnect from my surroundings. And it was not only images that formed in my head, but also narrated it 🐝

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

NO NO NO NO 😭 Books are sacred to me. I'm the type of person that if there was a fire I would grab all my books. They're like my children. I even usually wash my hands before reading because I'm terrified of somehow getting them dirty. All my books are perfectly neat and clean, with no things in the margins, no stains.

Yes, I judge people who do that. It's unavoidable sorry :')

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

I won't say that writing them stresses me out, but I would be anxious to be with them if they were real people.

The first is Ran from Ephemere, who has a big problem with internalized homophobia and often treats his boyfriend badly almost without realizing it. It's infuriating, especially for his partner, to see how he thinks it's even normal to say that gay people are promiscuous by nature, or that being gay isn't normal. This Ran hates himself deeply and, despite the fact that he finds the strength to try to change, he is unable to leave behind all those thoughts that his family has transmitted to him.

The second one is from a fic that I haven't published yet. It's from a Drakenui in which Seishu has an ED that he has dragged through without going to therapy since his childhood. He's a boy obsessed with the idea of perfection, as he has grown up watching his sister Akane (who also had an ED) trying to please boys by being perfect, also their family. After Akane's death, Seishu does the exact same thing, not only does he develop ED, but he starts hanging out with guys to heal his emotional emptiness, guys who treat him like crap the way they treated his sister.

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

I haven't written poetry in years, so I'll put up an Oscar Wilde poem that never fails to inspire me to write <3

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.

#Have a lovely day too! 💖 Thank you for the ask <3 #@meyers #—asks🌸

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00towns · 1 year

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emails i wrote in november

In November, several of my friends challenged themselves to do NaNoWriMo, but with poetry. I've always been more of a prose gal myself. Last spring, I read The Idiot by Elif Batuman, and became enamored with the endless possibility of the email. I challenged myself to reclaim longform email as the one-to-one, one-to-many sandbox media habitat that it could be from the clutches of the corporate. Here are some emails I wrote in November.

Sun, Nov 6, 1:06 AM

Subject: Hellooo

Dear Avery,

I'm writing this on the train from New York to Virginia, heading home after a week-long museums conference that I attended for work. The conference was interesting but traveling for work always feels like more of an out-of-body ethnography than an academic experience. There's something so surreal about eating cold quinoa salad and tuna salad wraps as fast as you can just so that you can be done eating sooner, trying to network with literal giants in the field as the least qualified person in a room (the director of Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center said she liked my shoes, and I just laughed), and saying awkward goodnights to my coworker as we both try to ignore how work-y it all feels. I was haunted all week by how much I felt like just a flash in a montage portraying a character's average life - buttoning up my business casual shirt, almost spilling coffee on the subway, nodding off in the back of a dark auditorium, even writing this on my laptop on the train. Maybe this is just me getting older, but moments in life that are analogous images to movies or TV (think looking out the window of a taxi as it rains, driving with the sunroof down blasting music, journaling at a coffee shop in the morning) feel more burdened by a set of archetypical narrative expectations than original. Vying for originality is so tiring!

My brother likes to joke that he could never move to the West Coast because there are too many Asians like him there. He's mostly kidding, but I know there's a little real horror there too because I feel it too - like I'm a little too well represented in urban California. New York feels like that to me sometimes too, like the lingua franca developed between young people inhabiting certain corners of the Internet has edged itself into the way we dress, groups, and speak a little too much, and suddenly seeing yourself reflected in someone else is excruciating instead of liberating. The museums conference used the turn of phrase "being able to see yourself" on the walls and in the stories of a museum as a vehicle for assessing outcomes of DEI - if everyone can see themselves in the museum, the museum has succeeded in representing them. In the same way that trendy, wealthy, young New Yorkers eating at hole-in-the-wall Chinatown restaurants turn my stomach (not because of what they're actually doing, but because I'm young, and trendy, and also want to eat there, but not in the same way), I fear the day the actual most intimate parts of my identity are filleted and splattered across an exhibit claiming to represent me.

I've recently reconnected with some friends from high school that I thought i'd never talk to again after graduating and moving to the US. In a strange way, looking back to where I came from and finding I still have friends there has helped quell a lot of my anxiety about how I am right now. Surprisingly, their disconnect from my physical life right now (one lives in Tokyo and one lives in Seoul) has been refreshing - almost as if the last four years of college and all its changes, growth, and contours can still be bounded, as if I can continue to be known in many different ways. After all I've learned, it's still just me. We mostly text, but one of them just left for boot camp for his Korean mandatory service and we won't hear from him for three weeks. Now, I'm challenging myself to have something interesting to tell him when he gets back. I'm wondering if this might be it - instead of a November writing challenge, I may just send emails to all my friends and see what I get back. The only thing I can think of is how the end of the year is coming, and it's almost time for me to look back through the neurotic list I keep of everything that I watched every month this year and decide what I liked the most. Right now, November is battling between Severance (the TV show with Adam Scott, not the book, but both very good), Hadestown, which I just watched this week, and the League of Legends world championships, which I reluctantly watched with my brother but ended up having a lot of fun with. I have a lot of reflections from this museums conference, the most preeminent one being Ireally can't decide if I want to work in museums or not, but that still doesn't really beat the apartment.

Just some thoughts on the mind over the last few days. No pressure to reply - was thinking this form would be something you might appreciate, and this was probably more of an exercise for me than it will be an experience for you. Hope all is well with you, and if reclaiming the email form from work is as appealing to you as it is to me, excited to read anything you might send my way.

Love,

Gabi

Fri, Nov 11, 1:27 AM

Subject: A message for Dan

Dear Dan,

I've been thinking recently about the rhythms of transience that have seemed to be the drumbeat to our lives lately. We move, our friends move, our friends visit, we travel, and anything from just a few days in a new place or three months at home can all just feel like change jangling in a pocket. My family's recent move has taken it all out of me. I'm exhausted sorting out boxes, rediscovered long-lost belongings, trying to maintain a regular life during it all. There's so much mental and physical work to do. Underlying it all, I've been increasingly intrigued by the fact that since finally settling down and carving out my space in a foreseeably permanent home after being in a transient stage since June, something in my brain seems to have shifted into sharp focus after being blurry for a long time. This change in my attitude I've noticed is characterized by slightly improved anxiety, greater executive function, and stronger routine-keeping habits, and is likely congruent with a side of myself that I tend to keep relatively private: I can be extremely particular, anal-retentive, picky about my space in a way that I think is surprising to people. If you'll allow me, I'll muse on this point a little bit by pointing to a behavior that isn't new to me.

I've always been someone who likes to collect things. There's something so incredibly satisfying to me about owning every item in a set, or having a determined set of objects chronicled and dedicated to a single project, activity, or outcome. Being a 'stuff' person has always been a little bit of a point of shame. My family moved a lot growing up, so we were constantly assessing the amount of stuff we have and hauling it into boxes to unpack in a new home, the grueling process of which can turn even the most valuable keepsake or useful item into junk, clutter, crap. After going to UVA, I kept moving a lot as most college students do, but there seemed to be a new avenue open to me to start something of my own personal effects anew because of the skeleton crew of things I brought to my first year dorm. I can only say this in retrospect, but I became a bit of a squirreler, and developed several small but neurotic collections through four years away from home: a robust bullet journal kit, a small army of kpop-related trading cards, and an amassment of yarn for fiber and textile related personal projects, among others that I'll probably unearth as I continue to parse through my things. I've been going slowly through the process of learning how many of these categorical groups I truly have as I unpack in my new space. In facing the 'things' that require endless sorting, I realize that perhaps collecting as I imagine it is less about owning the things, but the process of sorting, assessing, organizing, reorganizing, and storing that can seemingly repeat infinitely that I crave, and the sense of having completed something that comes with it all.

I'm not sure what to do with this element of my personality that loves to own things. it comes with its own idiosyncrasies, like being extremely meticulous about my possessions, even those not a part of a collection. It is a material tendency, and sometimes makes living differently unimaginable - minimalism, tiny-house, digital nomadism, even expatriatism all seem out of reach for someone so intensely committed to their space and the things that inhabit it. I suspect it comes from my mom, who is also very particular about her stuff, a Virgo, and probably has OCD, undiagnosed. In today's world and with the set of values I'd like to think that I espouse, being a collector feels supremely unimportant, but it seems to occupy my mind at least a little all the time (in the cruelest manner, I'm reminded of diaspora poetry, and how one might 'wax poetic' about half a mango or half the heart that lives across the ocean, a constant distraction). How might I come to acquire my next 'thing'? How does this complete or fit into my existing assortment? My obsessive tendencies over these collections ebb and flow and move from locus to locus; lately I've been wickedly attached to the process of organizing and storing a shoebox of ticket stubs, programs, and playbills that was unearthed in the process of this move. I have to imagine that this is not an individual affliction, but sometimes I wonder exactly where my head is when I'm thinking of something entirely else when I try to complete actual tasks or move on to other activities. Alternatively, maybe I just actually need to get screened for something rather than trying to write, reflect, digest it away.

Do you collect anything? If you do, do you notice the same unsettled foundations of the habit? If you don't, what's something abstract that you do have that you could call a collection? Perhaps, thoughts, imaginations, observations.

Just a few murmurings that I've gathered over the last few days - I've REALLY been enjoying this email format as a writing challenge. I'll call it a bid for connection, but I cannot communicate any stronger that I'm sharing with the hopes of reciprocity if you choose to do so, not entirely narcissism. I thought this form would be something you appreciate - but it is slightly more of an exercise for myself than for you. Let me know if this structure is something that inspires you too, and I'm happy to read whatever may come back my way. Otherwise, no pressure to reply. Hope all is well.

Love,

Gabi

Wed, Nov 16, 5:28 PM

Subject: Re: CAJM Follow Up

Luis!!

So lovely to hear from you. Your portfolio is incredible - you really have an eye for intimacy!

Wishing you all the same, and hope you're staying warm.

Love,

Gabi

Wed, Nov 23, 2:09 PM

Subject: drinks for thanksgiving

I’m in charge. Beer and seasonal bold rock

What kind of beer and/or any other requests?

Requests are entertained. Not guaranteed

Wed, Nov 24, 1:59 AM

Subject: cold that gets colder every year

Dear Pasha,

I hope you're staying warm where you are! I love living in a house but it is so much colder than an apartment. When the weather changes my hands get really chapped and rough, and because of that journaling by hand has become a bit tedious. I hope you won't mind if I send you some thoughts and musings from the past few days via email to a dear friend instead.

As I find myself now, almost six months after graduation, I've noticed that I've developed a new hunger for words in a way that didn't exist when I was at school. It's reminiscent of the way I used to devour books as a child, or fixate on fandom in high school. My job isn't particularly challenging, which has its upsides and downsides, but what it has allowed is that my free time is now the time I spend trying to push myself in new ways, rather than recovering from work. I read more, I (try to) write more. I throw things at walls and see what sticks. I learn something new every day. While this isn't entirely distinct from the intellectual curiosity I experienced in college, it's something of a new beast to be pursuing it entirely on my own terms: to no particular end, with no intentional timeline, and with nothing to prove. I'd truly developed a slight fear that I wouldn't continue learning without being forced in the months since leaving school, so this new drive is a welcome one. The only conclusion that I can draw from this fresh way of experiencing myself is this: things tend to self-correct. I don't mean this in an 'everything will work out' way, but perhaps in a way that makes more room for less-than-ideal outcomes -- maybe that things, no matter if troubling or tender, tend to become more legible, more digestible with time, stillness, subconscious reflection. For me, this has been a renewed interest in reading and writing that I'm disappointed that I left unpursued for so long, but can now condense in a way that doesn't emotionally upset me into a logical outcome of the academic environment that we were in. Everything that has happened is correct because it has happened. Everything that will happen will self-correct.

I won't pretend that this new desire to read and write more is coming out of pure strength of character on my part. I'm significantly more lonely now than I was at UVA, meaning I have more time on my hands to do the work of reflecting that prefaces reading, writing, creating. There's no longer something to say 'no' to in order to write for something that holds no water, has no particular purpose. In the best times of fourth year, I felt like a mirrorball of all the people around me so much that I would go home and have to strip down to my underwear, sit in my bed, and stare at the wall for a while before I felt normal enough to fall asleep. As much as I love my friends and feel comfortable around them, I've always been the type of person that feels the most like myself when I'm alone. The hours spent in my room, on walks, in the car have been kind to me. Much of even finding the patience to think, even if just to journal by hand, is developed in the hours spentnot reading or writing. Have you had luck with your November writing challenge? Has the framework of a 'writing challenge' been helpful or counterproductive to writing more?

So: life has slowed, I'm more lonely, I'm not unhappy with it. One thing I hope tonot lose is an orientation towards entropy, an open invitation for disruption, a tendency for discomfort. I'm coming into a new relationship with myself within which I may be 'my own person' but I want to keep open to embodied, proactive experiences of things that are still strange, odd, and affronting for whatever reason. For some strange reason, as I think through how I might continue to keep myself open to new moments of weirdness, I keep coming back to one experience I had with a high school peer. We had had some strange, stupid, high school conflict earlier in our sophomore year and had come to an almost bored truce into our senior year. We definitely weren't friends and had no plans on continuing to be friends after graduation - she was moving to California for college and my family was leaving Korea. I remember leaving school one day with plans to go to a film store I had never been to before to get some film developed and to buy a new lens cap. I ran into her as I was walking down the big hill to the bus stop, and it was one of those instances where a myriad of weird unspoken social rules and obligations all cook together to create a situation where neither party is really happy with the outcome, despite having done everything 'right': we made small talk, I invited her to come with me, and she said yes. It was the end of senior year, in the strange time after exams and before graduation, and we literally had nothing better to do.

To this day, I recall this trip viscerally and sensorily. It was a hot summer day, so we sweated and panted our way down the big hill, turning already awkward small talk into painfully awkward small talk. Once on the bus, we kept sweating and both tried to take off our backpacks to relieve some of the sweat. We changed from bus to subway with me navigating, got off the subway where we were supposed to transfer to another bus, but I had read the Google Maps instructions wrong and was actually supposed to transfer to another train, so we had to tap back into the subway, costing us an extra 1,175 won. She took my phone out of my hand to help me with the instructions, an act so strangely intimate and scary that she did so easily. When we finally arrived at the store, we heaved again up a few flights of stairs before entering the tiny shop and holding our backpacks close to our chests so as to not accidentally swing and break anything. The whole affair was underscored by continually trying our hardest to chat like regular people. I had planned on just struggling through communicating with the staff using Google Translate, my limited Korean, and (hopefully) the staff's limited English, but as embarrassing as stumbling through basic interactions through a language barrier already was, it seemed particularly stupid to do with another person watching who spoke both languages. She helped me ask the staff questions, put my film order in, and buy a new lens cap by acting as translator, something that I usually had too much pride to ask of anyone except my very best friend. We parted ways without having ever gotten past small talk, and I can't remember a single interaction with her I had after that day.

I'm sure there are a thousand reasons that I remember this excursion so clearly despite its overall mundanity. It was terrible and awkward in every single sense. We were both clearly in minor distress the entire time, both physically and emotionally, yet neither of us cared enough about the other to really be able to do anything about it. If I had to put a name to what it was exactly that I felt was so important about this experience was that it was one of the very, very few times in my life where I did something with someone and truly did not give a single fuck about what they felt, what they thought about me, and what we were doing. As antithetical to the situation as these outcomes may seem, I really believe that I was truly comfortable for the first time with having absolutely no idea how something was going to turn out. It was a situation where I was extended grace and also extended my own grace in a weird, synergetic rapport that myself and this peer established where we were so terribly, terribly uncomfortable with each other, yet both entirely willing to be present and sit with the discomfort. How can I continue to orient myself to these types of exceedingly strange interactions? I find myself thinking back to this situation because I think I was taking myself seriously, something that doesn't come easily to me. Instead of laughing at the absurdity of this outing, or breaking the awkward silence by acknowledging it, I allowed it to be serious -- not in tone or mood perhaps, but in that I stopped myself from laughing it off, from overcompensating, from trying harder than I wanted to. Discomfort, in this roundabout way, is an entry point to attunement. How might I allow myself more grace to be uncomfortable?

What are some things that have made you uncomfortable recently? Have they been opportunities for reflection?

I really enjoyed writing this email, although it is definitely more of an exercise for me than for you. Let me know if this structure is something that inspires you too, and I'm happy to read whatever may come back my way. Otherwise, no pressure to reply. Hope all is well. Happy Thanksgiving.

With love,

Gabi

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