#and i was getting self conscious about my own writing being SUPER boring in comparison

[frankmillerturnonyourlocation]

Spotify Wrapped Prompts #20

The moon hung in the sky like half of a sand dollar and Emerson tried to fold his napkin into what he remembered being a goose.

It wasn’t quite working, half because it had been a while since his high school Mandarin class, half because the napkin was that flimsy brown shit found only in the greasiest of diners and the most public of schools, three quarters because his left pointer finger was in a splint, and about a teaspoon because he was blitzed out of his mind.

The moon was beautiful tonight, he thought as he bent the napkin this way and that and tried to remember the bit of poetry that started something like that. If one of the few souls in Griddy’s Doughnuts had asked this young man what he was doing in this little diner and when was he planning on ordering something, anyway, he would have told them that he was watching the moon. This would have been wrong on two counts: the bright white light that had captured his attention was in fact not the moon but a streetlight, and he was at the diner waiting for a friend.

He wasn’t quite sure which one of his friends had called from an unknown number and asked to meet at a little doughnut shop, at least not at this very moment. He couldn’t remember being too anxious about it, though, so it must have been someone he wanted to see.

And it probably wasn’t anyone from the party, either— they would have said something to him while he was there, and he didn’t really know most of the people in there, anyway. A friend from high school ran into him at the gas station and brought him back to their new apartment in the city for some chips and dip, and also a few swigs of alcohol, and also a handful of Strawberry Bomb or Girl Scout Cookies or Blue Eyes White Dragon or whatever the hell that pretty girl said her weed was called. Remembering the party, Emerson’s chest welled with gratitude for the kindness of strangers who say they knew you when you were both teenagers.

A teenager stepped into Griddy’s, opening the door like he had expected it to dematerialize as he approached and was, frankly, disappointed that he had to bother with touching it at all. The bell jingled in sympathy.

“Emerson,” Five said, sliding into the booth across from him. “Glad you could make it.”

Eyes wide and perhaps a little red-rimmed behind turquoise-rimmed glasses, Emerson blinked, made one last, hasty fold to the goose’s head, and reverently slid it across the table. A precious gift for a dear friend. Five stared at it. Its neck slumped over.

“I’m here,” Emerson said, as if explaining. “Right where you said. This is where you said, right?”

Five’s eyebrows slanted just a half-centimeter lower. “Emerson,” he began, feeling silly even as he asked, even as he knew the answer, “are you high?”

He pressed his hands against his cheeks, the gears in his head whirring. Five, uncharacteristically, allowed them the time they needed to turn— perhaps enjoying the smell of smoke. “Would I know if I was?” he answered, pointing his finger gun at the folded goose as a perceived gotcha.

After a moment, Five laughed into his hands. “Of course you are,” he mumbled. “Unbelievable.”

“Sorry, what?” Emerson asked, now whispering for some reason. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

“I just asked if you had money,” Five whispered back. “We should buy some doughnuts.”

Emerson’s eyes practically sparkled in the dim light. He nodded once, twice, three times, and then started rummaging in his coat pockets.

Shaking his head, Five leaned back in his booth. “Can you believe they managed to sell this place?” he asked. “And the new owners even kept the name. Other than the, uh—“ He looked around the near-empty diner. “—cosmetic interior design changes, the place hardly looks any different. The more things change, huh?”

He was speaking mostly to himself. Emerson’s attention was focused solely on exploring the contents of his jacket pockets. With the triumph of the sun illuminating clouds from behind, he drew forth a tiny, mint-green wallet with a zipper. He placed it on the table ahead of him, right next to the slowly-unfolding goose.

Five’s eyebrows quirked. “Are you asking me to order?”

“You’re allowed,” Em justified. “You’re old enough. Even if you’re little.” He suddenly grew mournful. “And getting littler by the day.”

His fingerless-gloved hand gesticulated in a way that implied that he thought he was illustrating the concept. Five reached across the table for his wallet without looking away. “Em, do you think I’m aging in reverse?”

“You could be. Like Mork.” He cracked a knuckle with one hand. “Or maybe you’re just weathering? Off the top? From the wind. Or, no, eroding. Maybe time’s eroding you and turning you into sand.” He reached out to fuss with Five’s hair and was promptly swatted away.

“That’ll be my cue,” he said, smiling that one smile he did that felt like a punch. It didn’t quite land, glancing off Emerson’s shoulder and leaving him smiling peacefully back. Before stalking off, Five slid the black pepper shaker in front of Emerson. “Smell it,” he ordered. “Pour it in you hand, not just the shaker. And I swear, don’t eat it straight. If you think it’ll taste good you’re lying to yourself.”

Em looked at the shaker thoughtfully. As Five walked away, he gasped in realization. “Is this something you learned from Klaus? About weed?” he asked, in his normal volume. Seeing that Five was no longer present, he turned around. “Hey, Five!”

Five was leafing through Em’s wallet up at the counter. “Get me a dozen donuts, mix of flavors,” he said, in that brusque sort of way old men talk to young servers, “and a black coffee.”

“Five, did you learn it from Klaus? Is pepper a hangover cure for...” He searched for the words. “For when you’ve had drugs?” he finished, loudly whispering the last word.

“And a hot chocolate.” He spun around, exasperated. “No, Emma!” he hissed. “I didn’t learn shit from Klaus. I thought telling you to play with a pepper shaker might keep you occupied for the minute it takes me to order!” He turned back to the server with a tired, half-sarcastic smile. “Babysitting. Can’t believe I’m giving him sugar this late.”

The employee behind the counter was in their mid-twenties and working a late Friday night shift at a shitty little donut place. But in just two and a half more hours, they would be fresh out of the shower with a bottle of wine and ready to marathon the entirety of Galavant for the first time since college. So for now, they kept their customer service face on and prepared Five’s order.

He leaned against the counter as he waited, watching Emerson watch him from back at the booth. Em waved at him. He waved back.

“Sorry I was so loud,” Emerson whispered.

Five craned his neck towards him. “What was that?”

He cupped a hand— the one that was not cradling a handful of black pepper— over his mouth and leaned out of the booth. “Sorry I was so loud, Five.”

“No worries,” Five responded in full voice with a lopsided smile, projecting just a bit louder than he really needed to. “Not like there’s anyone here to care.” Em smiled softly and went back to playing with the pepper in his hand. Five watched him.

“Would you like your donuts in a box or a bag?” the server asked, dreaming of their doormat.

“Better make it a bag,” Five sighed, fishing a few bills out of Emerson’s wallet and sliding them across the counter.

At the booth, Emerson was staring at the false moon again, humming a tune so earnestly he might have been singing to the night sky.

Five returned with a bag of sticky donuts under his arm and a drink in each hand. “Here,” he said. “Sober up.”

Emerson peered into the bag, eyebrows raised. “Can I have some?” he asked, so childlike that Five just had to stare at him.

“Yeah,” Five said, the venom catching on his tongue and dissipating into the air. “I got them for you. The hot chocolate too.”

The headlights of a passing car illuminated Emerson’s face in a mosaic of triangles of light. Their eyes reflected something that Five had only seen a few times before. Then the light was gone, and Emerson seemed a little less high. “Thanks, Five,” he said, and reached into the bag for a donut wrapped in wax paper.

Five watched him eat about a fourth of the donut in one ambitions bite. He folded his hands in front of his chin. “You never really struck me as a... hobbyist substance user, Em.”

“Oh, it wasn’t mine. A friend let me smoke some. I got invited to a party.” Em finished his donut, and then waved a powdery hand. “Not you, a different friend.”

Five’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Do you consider us friends?”

“Of course,” Emerson replied, so quickly and so easily that Five wondered if he was answering a different question.

The gears of Five’s mind, for a brief moment, faltered. He felt the hours of the night slipping through his fingers. “Did it occur to you, when you were getting stoned in a basement somewhere, that maybe this wasn’t just a courtesy call?

“Can I have another chocolate one, or do you want that one?”

“Dammit, Em!” Five snatched the bag away. “I’d expect this from my degenerate of a sibling, but not from you. I called you here for a reason, and if you’re not lucid enough to hold a conversation with—“

“Don’t call Klaus a degenerate.” Emerson almost spilled his hot chocolate with the force of his words. “And who the fuck are you to talk? Why couldn’t you just tell me on the phone or, or— at least tell me your name when you left a message? Made it less ominous?”

“Are you trying to insinuate that it’s my fault you smoked a stranger’s pot? That you just had to get high because I made you so anxious?”

“No!” Emerson slammed his styrofoam cup down on the table. “I’m just saying that I’m not the only one who’s being a fucking idiot today.”

Five brought his coffee to his lips.

Em pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. “What are you trying to hide from your siblings, Five? And is there even a good reason for it?”

“Of course there is,” he said before he could remind himself that he didn’t need to justify what he was doing, didn’t he know how much Five had already done for his family? Didn’t he understand that everything he did, every choice he made, was in some way for them?

Em nodded as though his stupid psychic abilities extended to telepathy as well. “Sorry I ruined the night, Five.” He sounded heartbreakingly genuine. “But can we talk about whatever this is in the morning? I want to sleep. The world’s not gonna end before then, is it?”

Five waited until Emerson’s eyes flicked to his face. “No,” he said softly, when they settled somewhere around the flaccid half-goose of a napkin on the table. “Not tonight.” Small miracles. He allowed his jaw to unclench. “Come back to the mansion?”

The thought of Emerson wandering back to his apartment in this state, even as the high was wearing off, made his stomach twist up in a way that usually meant someone would be dead pretty soon. And what would be the point of walking him home and then having to teleport back to the mansion? He would be walking the same distance either way— give or take— so he might as well make it easier for him to make sure Em ate something in the morning.

A small, shy half-smile bloomed on Em’s face, brightening the whole damn town. “Sure,” he said, “Thanks, Five.”

#warning for alcohol and drug use #writing #this one wENT SO OFF THE RAILS AAAAAAHHH #it just like. BARELY connects to the prompt #but ive been tapping along at it for like. maybe a week or so now and its like yeah time to open up my notes app. where was i. hey WHY #WHY DID I MAKE MYSELF HIGH WHY WAS THAT A CHOICE I MADE #I'll tell you why its because i was reading going postal and i was like DAMN sir terry pratchet deserves that knighthood #and i was getting self conscious about my own writing being SUPER boring in comparison #and so at like nine o clock as im in my bed doing a little bit of Stuff I Enjoy before going to sleep i was like you know what? #this is the spice this story needs #instead of like. taking actual knowledge of plot and shit from this really good novel i just finished. its okay im working on that #also can you tell that i 1. have never smoked weed and 2. had no idea why the fuck five would need to talk about #i just needed SOMETHING that would fit in with of a friday night by anais mitchell!!!! and just sitting in a cafe thinking about #an old poet and how this fading town was once something else #doesnt make for an active story i cant COMPARE to reacher gilt showing up at moist's date right before the post office is on FIRE #that was the point in the book btw where i was like oh. oh. this is masterful work what do i need to do to write like this #and part of the problem maybe. is that i can't set that sort of narrative trap for my characters when i get tired out writing 2000 words #reverse urashima taro

[summerspn]

Batwoman

2019 series > Ep 1-3

*sigh*

Okay here goes...I’m going to break it down for you:

The trailers & ads:

I was skeptical about watching this show as all the trailers for it were terrible.

As a woman I can honestly say each and every trailer made me cringe & go ‘stop!’. They were SO bad.

But, that’s not the actors’ fault. They’re given lines they have to deliver on & Ruby Rose seemed to deliver on those decently enough I suppose.

In the trailers, my biggest issue was the terrible dialogue & poor makeup/wardrobe.

The campy style Batwoman costume & the sloppy bat tattoos...ugh! Why would anyone think that would be appealing?!

Now, onto the show...

There is one & ONLY one reason I watched this show...my mom! I figured I had to give it a shot. But it was not because my mom like it. She in fact, hated it!

My mom, who loves everything from medical & criminal dramas, to shows about witchcraft & medieval times. She somehow even loves campy movies like Dark Shadows. She’s a huge fan of Wonder Woman (comics, tv show & recent movie). She loved the Captain Marvel movie. She is a comic fan and loved Batman & Batwoman growing up.

Yet, she hates this show!

After seeing videos & online posts ALL saying it’s because non fans hate the show because they’re bigots, that’s not true.

The show is awful - so I suppose the trailers were accurate.

My mother could care less what people do for their own pleasure- and like she taught us, “as long as no one’s being hurt & it’s consensual, who cares?”

So right now, just to paint you a picture, neither her nor I care about the lesbian storyline in Batwoman. I don’t care if she’s gay straight, bi, attracted to pumpkins etc. Have at it.

The reason I chose to watch this show is because my mother loves fun well written entertainment & sometimes just silly fluff to get her mind off reality. And as my best friend we have that in common. Our viewing tastes are very similar. So when my mom says something was terrible, it piques my interest (much more than those awful trailers).

The actors:

Most of the actors aren’t bad. Since Dougray Scott is in this I take it as a comparison amongst the others. If you don’t know who he is ...he was in Ever After, Desperate Housewives, Fear the Walking Dead, Hemlock Grove and a thousand other projects. He’s a good actor. However, in Batwoman he has a few mistakes with his accent & delivery of a few lines (much fewer mistakes than the rest of the cast).

But all the actors have mis-steps with their lines & delivery of the lines. Whose job is it to stop them & try again until it’s good? The director

Some actors aren’t as strong as others but after watching the show, I think the strongest actors are: Dougray Scott, Nicole Kang, & Rachel Skarsten. They seem to work with what they’ve got. Trying their best. But the dialogue!

There was a line about Kate Kane having mixed feelings for her sister & didn’t want her hurt because “Duh, feelings”. .... 🙄...she’s a medical student?? The writers gave the actor THAT to work with? Okay...um, they couldn’t have done a second draft and tweaked it? You didn’t find it needed a little more work? Like wrote this instead “it’s only natural to be conflicted...” which makes her sound intelligent. Instead, “Duh, feelings”?!

Unfortunately we come down to Ruby Rose. She’s not a good actress. She seemed to be more talented in the trailers than the actual show but that was because she showed something I like to call emotion.

What happened? Every single line RR delivers has zero affect. Even when she’s literally smiling there is no emotion in her eyes....what only makes her look psychotic. And she moves her eyebrows up & down sooooo much. It’s distracting.

However, she (like the other actors) does seem to be trying. With that said, if you can’t be pulled into the character or the actors’ take on them then it suspends disbelief.

I have nothing against Ruby Rose but knowing she was a model gives context. They work with their eyebrows a lot & any acting they do is for about 20 seconds of a commercial. It’s clear that RR is tackling the tv show like she would a modeling job. Only now she has a s****y wardrobe.

However, she can’t act. She is monotonous & sounds robotic.

I do think though that’s made worse by the director probably not pushing to do enough takes. Sometimes directors instruct actors to act a certain way which makes them sound worse.

Ie) Hayden Christensen acted beautifully in an old tv show where he played a victim of molestation. In Star Wars a Phantom Menace he was apparently told to act more annoyed then angry so voila he came across as a brat...

So I do wonder what influence the director had here.

The wardrobe/makeup:

Papa Kane, Leaders of the Crows, my man Dougray...yes he still looks good in his suits but he’s always shown wearing the same suit. Wardrobe actually helps tell a story especially in a show like this. But it’s like the budget is too small or the director forgot about anyone other than Kate & Beth.

Morning scenes, have him with a little extra stubble, some make up to look like he has dark circles under his eyes. Ruffle his hair. Have him sitting in a hideous vintage t-shirt while they have breakfast. Kate could see how awful he looks and ask “did you get any sleep?” Then they could talk about how worried he is for the city, Kate, or even thinking about Beth! Kate could see the shirt & go “didn’t I get you that?” And he says “yeah for my birthday” and she says “that was ten years ago”.Boom! Shows he loves his daughter & a tiny bonding moment. ...but this never happened.

Luke Fox. Somehow they took an attractive actor and made him look about 20 years older just by wearing glasses that belong to Angela from Who’s the Boss!

Give Luke some 2019 glasses that sit properly on his nose! And the same for the rest of his clothes. They don’t fit right. The show is trying to nerd him up but you can make people awkward, nerdy , or quirky without downplaying their looks. Have Fox wear jeans with his vests, or a fun t-shirt with a suit jacket etc.

Kate Kane. She has the worst wardrobe in the show! Though Batwoman’s suit looks tacky & campy...

Give Kate nicer clothes! They do not need to be expensive but they do need to give her a personality.

1) Plaid...why? Lesbians wearing plaid is a stereotype so WHY would this show advertising itself as modern & breaking the barriers have their main character wearing something so cliche? Makes zero sense. However, since plaid (aka tartan) is making a comeback in fashion they could have used it (if they really had to) in another piece of clothing. A scarf, gloves, shoes? (I actually have a pair of red plaid boots which are durable and adorable). Throwing on a plaid shirt is just lazy.

2) Her hair. Okay so if they’re going for the short-during-military-training look I get it but Ruby Rose has the same hairstyle in everything. I wish she’d just either grow it out or chop it all off. They could have had a scene where she’s fiddling with it in the mirror like she’s self conscious about the new do...showing human insecurities.

3) The leather jacket. Sigh... okay this is my personal opinion but I think the black leather jacket in shows is used too much. It immediately signals strength & a tough exterior right? Well literally everyone knows this. It’s not subtle. I mean I love how it was used on Supernatural where the coat had a history but it was tied into a backstory and eventually was used less and less. But the leather coat was used more in early seasons (which was as far as 15 yrs ago). Other shows always have the ‘bad boy’ wear the jacket. It’s so boring. I’d rather if Kate strolled you wearing a fun typographic shirt or a basic t-shirt and have an expensive belt because she has a thing for belts (subtly nodding to one Batwoman has to use).

There were many choices other than a basic plaid top and black leather jacket. Wardrobe decisions that could give the character/actor subtle layers or tools to work with. But that too was done lazily.

Set design:

Dark & gloomy? ✅

Isolated & abandoned feeling? ✅

Appropriate to the corresponding event... 🙈 not so much.

Ie) the bridge where the family’s car fell off. Whether it’s done with cgi or finding the right location, the bridge in question was generic. Now if the bridge was higher up and/or there were super super wild & crazy rapids maybe, just maybe we’d believe Batman thought Beth was a goner. But it was actual fairly tame so it made Batman look like he just saw the car hanging and go “hey my shift ended an hour ago” and walk off.

And,

The “secret” entrance to the bat cave is in Wayne enterprises? Wouldn’t that be hard to get to? I can picture Bruce hanging around in the garage waiting to go in...he starts over to the door, someone comes, he stops...ya know because everyone knows him...

It’s just weird. There were so many other options.

Special effects:

Some have been pretty bad so far. This is a CW trait. I don’t know if they separate the budget for the directors or not. Is it all one lump number or are they told ‘this is for the production & this is for the special effects?’. I wonder because other CW shows seem to have tiny budgets allocated to the effects. In any case, a show about super villains & heroes needs bigger budgets so it looks more believeable.

The writing:

The writing is just bad. Writing lines like “duh sisters” for a character who is supposed to be educated & intelligent seems ridiculous.

Question - if Bruce Wayne has family why didn’t he stay with them when his parents died? Or they with him? Is this a plot hole from the comics or just this show?

Unrealistic. Yes it’s a superhero story but we care less if the person has all their skills & abilities immediately.

My bff and I love superhero shows but we both had the same problems here as with Supergirl. She just had her powers & didn’t really struggle with them. I watched 2 episodes & was bored already.

Batwoman was so boring but I wanted to see if it got better. It hasn’t.

This show needed to spend episode 1 where she’s discovering how bad Gotham was without Batman & where he went. Is he doing a really long pub crawl? Saving people in another country/city? Dead? Kate shows zero concern for her missing cousin & for some reason, hates him.

Kate immediately knowing how to use the bat equipment with zero practices...how at the beginning she’s swimming in ice water for no reason and doesn’t get hypothermia?? That’s all very unbelievable.

Kate is written as Mary Sue. She knows all & has the most skills in the world! Why??? Okay so she was in the military so yeah give her a backstory of taking taekwondo classes or something but for her to know how to do Luke Fox’s job better than he does? Or where the cameras are at Wayne Enterprises...more than the security team?? And to know what the computer password is, okay... basically she has to be great at everything & the other characters have to be written dumb in order for Kate to be appealing. Why?

Bashing Batman...in a show based in the bat-universe. Terrible move. Kate doing this repeatedly makes us think she’s a villain. Not a hero.

Bashing everyone with male genitalia...makes Kate look like a pr*ck. You can hate certain men you’ve known but to constantly reference women as being superior to men...

1) negates equal rights. You can’t be equals if you act/think/say you’re superior.

2) any boys watching this show is going to feel like something is wrong with them.

3) it’s sexist.

Just like many of us women grew up hearing repeatedly that men were better at this & that...

4) male bashing IS spreading hate. STOP.

That is actually why (more than anything) I didn’t want to watch in the first place because of how the trailers made it sound like they were bashing a whole gender.

Too much too soon. Revealing Alice is Beth in the first episode? Why? Drag it out an episode or 2. Each episode is both boring and yet they try to cram everything into a single episode it’s bizarre.

Ridiculous scenarios. Like Batman would leave a child to drown. And why didn’t Beth/Alice just go home or contact the police...or anyone...when she got out of the water all those years ago? Why does Kate keep letting her sister go when the woman is a multi-murderer?!

Yes, Kate is still hung up on her ex but it was years ago & she was the one dumped. And Sophie is married so Kate is coming off like a stalker 👀

All of it makes Kate look unsympathetic & unlikeable. The show isn’t funny except when we hear bad dialogue. It’s trying to be overly dramatic like a soap opera but it still doesn’t work. I think that’s due to the writing & the directing.

Now don’t get me wrong, even with RR’s lack of acting skills there are ways of making it work...that weren’t done.

Keanu’s Reeves isn’t the most skillful actor but he tries. He’s good at certain things & sticks to it. He knows where his skills are. Yes he’s improved but he’ll never be able to pull off an intense dramatic role. So he sticks to what he’s good at. He’s also a good person & tries to talk openly & intelligently about things so he has people’s respect IRL.

Ruby Rose has been touchy & volatile about people criticizing Batwoman. That made me lose what little respect I had for her.

Awhile back I had tried watching this design show (yes I like those too) Love it Or List It Vancouver. The show was fine but the designer Jillian was being critiqued left right & Center on social media after the pilot episode for sounding like a child. She used phrases such as; “totally”,”for sure” , and used the word ‘like’ a thousand times... she really did sound like a valley girl. However, about 5 episodes later that was gone. She was speaking more eloquently and more grown up - which in turn made people like her more. She & the show worked to help improve her speech patterns so it wouldn’t be distracting. And the show has been around for years now.

My point? RR could have taken the criticism & worked with it. I get she’s probably upset as she worked hard but we all go through it. We all have a project of some kind at work that falls flat. We take the criticism & try to improve. RR could take acting lessons or at the very least, practice in the mirror.

Most of the other issues I’ve mentioned are a result of the awful writing, poor direction & likely some interference from the network.

What this show should never have done was act superior. That’s being a douche. Anytime I see or hear someone being arrogant like that I just roll my eyes and walk away (or in this case, turn the channel).

If anyone working for the CW and/or Batwoman reads this I hope you’ll take some pointers.

I like myself too much though to subject myself to anymore episodes though. I’m done. ✌️

#batwoman #tv serials #tv #tv shows #cw #ruby rose #dougray scott #elizabeth anweis #rachel skarsten #nicole kang #camrus johnson #gabriel mann #giles panton #meaghan tandy #kate kane #batman #batman bashing #woke #woman

[kaleidodreams]

40 Questions - Meme for Fic Writers

Well, I only got one ask for this game, but I really wanted to answer more questions, so I’ve just decided to answer all of them!

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic. - I don't know if I really have a "comfort zone"... Maybe family drama and dealing with characters' backstories?

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to? - Hmm, fake dating seems like it would be pretty fun to try to write. I just wouldn't know which characters to use.

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole? - The whole A/B/O thing... Yeah, no.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them? - Maybe five or six? And you can check out the answer to Question 37 if you want to know what most of them are.

5. Share one of your strengths. - People seem to like my original characters.

6. Share one of your weaknesses. - I'm not very good at description.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. - This is from Ashes to Ashes:

However, the more time that passed, the more otou-sama lost himself in his work and the more distant we became. Our house, which had always been full of laughter and smiles when okaa-sama was alive and healthy, might as well have been a cemetery itself, the ghost of her memory haunting us who remained. Even as young as I was, I realized that otou-sama would never be able to truly recover from his grief as long as we stayed there, where the scent of okaa-sama's favorite perfume still seemed to linger in the air and every room remained a museum to the woman who once lived there because otou-sama couldn't bear the thought of putting her things away.

I just really like the "house is a cemetery" metaphor. (By the way, that story is written from Rei Hino’s point of view, if that wasn’t clear from the title.)

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. - This is from To Build a Home:

"Take if off and put it back the way it was," he ordered, crossing his arms over his chest.

"But why? You always said my bed looked so cute."

"Yeah, your bed. But this is my bed, and I don't want it to look cute."

"Your bed?" She set down an ugly-cute hippo plush and arched an eyebrow. "Isn't it our bed now?"

He rubbed at his temple. "Yes, of course, but… You know what I mean." Mamoru pointed an accusing finger at a very familiar blanket – one that was too small to properly fit the queen-sized bed. "I am not having sex on a bed covered in bunnies and crescent moons!"

"That's never stopped you before. We did it all the time –"

"You're missing the point, Usako! We're adults now. Isn't it about time you outgrew all this cutesy crap?"

He regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Oh, I see. I can move into your oh-so-sophisticated apartment, just not my 'cutesy crap'." She grabbed an empty cardboard box from off the floor and started throwing her plush toys in it with a force that made Mamoru very glad she wasn't pummeling them at him. "If that's how you really feel, then maybe we shouldn't move in together at all!"

I like it because I tend to have trouble writing arguments, but this one turned out exactly how I wanted it to, and I can just picture the scene so vividly.

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write? - Hmm, probably Melting Ice? It took me about eight years -- I started writing it a couple of years before I actually started posting it -- to finally finish the whole thing. Sure, it’s a long fic (over 150,000 words), but in comparison, I managed to write Spirit of Fire, which is almost twice as long, in only two or three years (ignoring the side stories added later).

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write? - Probably my first fics because back then I wasn’t as self-conscious about my writing. But later in my career, I seem to recall Blood On His Hands being really easy and fast to write until I got to the last chapter. Honestly, I think the ending took me longer to figure out than the rest of the story!

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby? - Both!

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more? - This is easiest to choose with Sailor Moon, so can I just say the entire SuperS season/Dream Arc? Obviously because of the Chibiusa/Helios OTP factor, but also because we learn about the Inners’ families and Elysion/the Golden Kingdom, both subjects that I love exploring.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across? - I learned about this from a post on Tumblr, but it’s REALLY helpful to run your story through a screen reader (I just use Google Translate). I think I’m pretty good at catching spelling and grammar errors, but one thing I have trouble with is missing words. Hearing the story read aloud instead of just reading it to myself and mentally filling in the blanks makes the skips so much easier to find. I also worry a lot about the flow of my writing, so I figure if it doesn’t sound too terrible being read by a computer, it’s probably not as awful as I think it is!

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across? - Probably the "avoid adverbs" rule. Sometimes using an adverb is the best choice!

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose? - Oh, man, this is totally impossible to choose... Um, To Be By Your Side? I really don't know.

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be? - If I had to, I would no doubt pick Chibiusa/Helios, but I’m really glad I don’t! I enjoy being able to write a variety of couples and imagine I would get bored fairly quick if I was limited to just writing one OTP forever, as much as I may love them.

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order? - It depends on the story, but most of the time it’s out of order, which is frankly annoying, but it seems to work for me.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines? - Not really, unless you count screenwriting and research tools.

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse? - Haha, I remember when I first started writing fanfiction as a teenager, there were four characters I considered my muses: Helios (obs!), Shigure from Fruits Basket (who is a writer himself), Touya from Card Captor Sakura, and Tooya from Ceres: Celestial Legend (not sure why, though, since I never wrote for Ceres). I guess I would still consider Helios my muse?

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions. - At my desk in my bedroom, with the room at a comfortable temperature and absolute quiet.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? - I tend to edit while I write, which I know isn’t generally considered the best way to do things, but it works for me. So I can’t really answer this question definitively.

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions). (Skipping this one unless someone wants to make a suggestion for a passage.)

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why? - Spirit of Fire, because while I love the story and the characters, I think it could be better written, especially the earlier chapters.

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics? - I did take down a first chapter of a planned multi-part and reworked it into a one-shot when I decided I didn’t want to write the rest of it, if that counts. (The Legend, if you’re interested.) Otherwise, no.

25. What do you look for in a beta? - Basically someone who wants to beta for me. *laughs* Like I said before, I consider myself pretty good at catching spelling and grammar goofs, so I don't feel like I really need a beta, but if someone offers, it doesn't hurt to have a second pair of eyes!

26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you? - I've done so in the past, and if somebody asks me, I would probably be willing to do it again. I would say I focus mainly on spelling/grammar, occasionally making suggestions or asking questions if something seems off (like a character feels OOC or something).

27. How do you feel about collaborations? - I've never really been a part of one, so I don't have much of an opinion. If you're good friends, it seems like it would be a lot of fun, but maybe a bit difficult if you have different styles.

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much. - his lordship Chaos, Allekha, and commas_and_ampersands 

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose? - I honestly can’t think of any. I have enough sequels and prequels of my own stuff to write! *laughs*

30. Do you accept prompts? - Not unless I’m doing a drabble game, which I haven’t done in years, or I’m taking part of some writing challenge. Just random prompts, though? No. I like to write what I want to write.

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant? - I’d say I’m middle-of-the-road between the two, closer to being strict about being canon compliant.

32. How do you feel about smut? - Despite being asexual, I’m a fan!

33. How do you feel about crack? - A lot of it is really stupid, but with the right writer and idea, crack can be brilliantly funny. I usually only read it on recommendation, though.

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con? - It’s not something I go looking for as a reader, but I don’t mind if I come across it and it’s handled well. I’ve written some dub-con myself, mostly in the form of drunk sex, but also some incidents involving magic. Overall, though, I’m really a HUGE fan of consent when it comes to sex scenes. Consent is sexy!

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character? - Yes, of course. Done it before and I’ll probably do it again!

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic? - I like AO3 and FF.net equally well.

37.Talk about your current wips.

Friends With Benefits (Kaleido Star) - This is the only WIP I’m actively posting. It’s a sequel to Blood On His Hands, and it’s about Layla and Yuri engaging in a, well, “friends with benefits” arrangement, leading to complications when they fall in love. 

The Bonds We Choose (Yuri!! On Ice) - A sequel to It’s Complicated, taking place about four years later. Yuri, Otabek, and Mila have settled into their unusual relationship -- Yuri and Otabek are queerplatonic partners while Otabek is also dating/living with Mila -- when a drunken mistake at the Olympics changes their lives forever.

Metamophosis (Sailor Moon) - This is kinda a prequel to To Be By Your Side, telling the story of how Helios became priest of Elysion.

Stolen Dreams (Sailor Moon) - Ha, this is the only non-sequel/prequel story on the list! But it’s about an incubus who plans to get revenge on Helios by seducing a grown-up Chibi-Usa, who’s under a lot of stress due to her upcoming college entrance exams.

38. Talk about a review that made your day. - I was really happy when @floraone favorited and wrote a review for my Sailor Moon Smutember entry, Head of the Class. Knowing that someone like her, who IMO writes the BEST sex scenes I’ve ever read, enjoyed it... Well, like the question said, it really made my day! I also was pleasantly surprised to get any reviews at all for my last two YOI fics, Lonely Hearts and No Risk, No Reward, since Minako/Celestino and Sara/Emil are both extremely rare pairs. I seriously didn’t think anybody would read them, so I was thrilled with the reviews I got.

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them? - Occasionally, and I just ignore them.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one). (Again, skipping, unless someone wants to suggest a story.)

#meme #question #sailor moon #sailor moon fanfiction #yuri!! on Ice #yuri!! on ice fanfiction #kaleido star #kaleido star fanfiction #fanfiction

[mrtroy]

The Joy Thief Detox

I have long prescribed to the idea that comparison is the thief of joy. This school of thought argues that when we compare ourselves to others, we ultimately rob ourselves of some of the intrinsic joy that we would enjoy on our own if not for engaging in the practice of comparison.

Before I get too far into the greater point I’m going to make in this post, I do think that some amount of comparison can be healthy, and some of it is unavoidable. I think healthy forms of comparison can be used positively for motivational purposes.

However, what I’m going to write about today is what I believe is an unhealthy, and avoidable form of comparison. And maybe, for some people, it’s not as big a deal. But, for me, it has become a bigger deal than I’d like to have present in my life.

And so, I’m going to take some steps not to have it impact and thieve me of any more joy.

The source of the thievery of which I speak is social media. And so, as of today, I’m going to take a break from social media.

--

I feel like social media has become a joy thief in the way I compare myself to others based on the content I see, and the way it projects about the lives other people are living in comparison to mine.

I’m going to be somewhat self-deprecating in this post. I’m not super ‘down’ at this moment, but many of the thoughts I’ll share here represent a composite of ways I have felt, or feelings that I have had on this topic at different points over the last few months.

For many, what they share on social media becomes the online representation of who they are, where they’re at, and what they stand for.

At any given time, if you participate in social media as an observer, you’re likely to see a lot of pictures and posts about many spectacular things. Vacations, wedding announcements, birth announcements, birthday celebrations, people buying houses, cars, stereo systems and many more.

I found myself flipping through photos on Facebook the other day, and I saw Bob was in the Bahamas, Pat bought a Porsche, Abby and Andy’s kid, Addie, was adding a sister at the end of April, and Karl had just PR’ed in a 5K.

As I saw these alliterative examples play out, I felt myself comparing my life to those of my online friends.

No trip I had ever been on looked as bougie as Bob’s Bahamian beach-capades. The likelihood of me ever purchasing a Porsche like Pat barely seemed precipitous. How would I ever add a sister for Addie, if my Andy could never even find an Abby? And maybe it was Karl’s 5k that really pushed me over the edge, but as I looked at the medal hanging over his neck, all I could think about was what a vein act it was for someone in their mid-thirties to flaunt their success in an event that was over in roughly the same amount of time as a short-block sitcom.

--

I could feel bitterness and jealousy just emanating from my being as I closed a browser window on my phone.

Why did my friends and acquaintances have things in their lives that made them seem like they were doing ‘better’ than I was?

What had I done wrong in my life that I hadn’t been able to enjoy rewards with a similar level of richness as I was witnessing in the lives portrayed by my friends’ online profiles? Obviously, they were smarter, more well-adjusted, better able to ‘play the game’ to build lives that were pleasing to them.

Meanwhile, I was taking a train to a sleepy town, to plod my way through another day in a sleepy office, working for a company nobody’s heard of, doing things that most people would never see. Twelve hours later, I would return home to my one bedroom apartment, do laundry, make my 15th trip of the month to the grocery store, eat a frozen dinner that was exorbitantly high in sodium, and go to sleep. Tomorrow, I’d get up, and aside from doing the dishes instead of laundry, and paying bills instead of going to the grocery store, the day would have a very high likelihood of being nearly identical to many before it.

At the same time, it was also highly likely that the next time I opened Twitter, or Instagram, I would be barraged with 100s more examples of people doing more and more cool stuff that made my life seem more and more below average with every further example.

--

Two Sundays ago, it finally smacked me upside the head what I needed to do. My phone sends me ‘screen time’ reports that summarize how often, and on which applications, I spend time on my phone over the course of the previous week. It adds up all the screen time and breaks it down into a daily average. Then, it allows me to see which programs comprise the total time spent on my device. My total for the previous week had averaged out to more than six hours per day looking at my screen.

Six hours.

I was usually only awake for sixteen hours per day. Eight of those hours were spent working where my screen time is limited. That only leaves another eight hours to be awake each day. And so, of those eight hours, I was spending 75% of my free time staring at my phone. Of that time, Instagram was a huge percentage. Then Twitter, and Facebook.

Good grief.

I reflected.

What was it that was happening on these platforms that was so interesting? I barely ever post on Instagram. I never post on Facebook. And while I read a lot on Twitter, a lot of the content I see on it just aggravates me.

Instagram and Facebook breed jealousy in me. Twitter seems to have turned into a cesspool of recycling different forms of hate from different points of view to make yourself feel smart, and make others look dumb.

I looked further down my most commonly used apps in my screen time report.

My Bible app only accounted for 2% of my screen time. My Audible app – the audiobook service I love – was only 1% My baseball app was only 3%. Golf was only 3% as well.

The things I love, I was spending less than 10% of my time on them.

What a terrible balance.

--

This past Sunday, after a week of trying to make a conscious effort to re-direct my screen time, I again looked at my weekly report. This past week, my average daily screen time was up over eight hours per day. It was Masters week, and well, the Masters App was just too good not to get lost in.

But as I thought about it, eight hours of screen time represented nearly every waking hour I wasn’t working during the week.

Sigh.

And despite having witnessed a great golf tournament, as I thought back through my week, none of the highlights happened on my phone. Last Saturday, I drove two hours to play golf with friends I hadn’t seen in ages. Saturday night, I made bread to take to a breakfast party my friends put together to watch the final round of the Masters. I walked at lunch with two of my co-workers and we enjoyed two days that felt like Spring.

Nothing on those walks was really ‘social media worthy.’ It was me and two old guys walking around town commenting on the construction progress of the new library.

My own golf game was so unspectacular, I posted my worst score since middle school. And yet, it will forever go down in my mind as one of the funniest time I’ve ever spent with this group of guys because of the unsalted peanuts that one of the guys brought to snack on during the round.

The Masters breakfast was amazing, but the bread I made never really leavened correctly, so any picture I may have posted would have just looked like a gross attempt at fulfilling my social obligations of attending an event.

As I spent Sunday afternoon thinking about the week, I realized it had been a great week.

I like taking the train every morning. I like the walks with my older co-workers. I love walking to the grocery store in the evenings. I feel accomplished when I get my laundry folded and my dishes washed. My blueberry bread may not have been IG worthy, but I was happy that I tried to make it.

The larger issues with jealousy and malcontent with some of the larger things that are either happening or not happening in my life are still issues I need to work through. No doubt. But it has become pretty obvious that comparing my life to the lives of others on social media isn’t helping at all.

And so, I’m going to leave the space.

I realize that in almost every instance of something that’s happening in life, you can’t always just leave, or run, or avoid your way out of a situation.

At some point, there are bigger things going on for which social media is an outlet to try to explain them. And those things need to be met head on.

If I wanted to dive down a few levels, I could probably surmise that my jealousy and longing that I’m feeling from social media are the result of other needs that aren’t being met in my life, but at least in this post, that’s as far as I’m going to go on that part of the topic.

What I will say, is that I want to try to stop comparing.

By every measurable, and immeasurable metric, I live a life that is blessed beyond compare. I’m healthy. My brain works, my family loves me. Anything you could possibly ask for on a macro level, I have it in spades.

As I look at a lot of the things that the world deems as being valuable – and a lot of the things I see on social media that I either don’t have, or am not partaking in – a lot of those things aren’t really my style.

Truthfully, if I were to go lay on a beach in the Bahamas for a week, I’d get bored. The sensible (and cheap) side of me would never want a Porsche. I have at least three options of where I could live, and I love Oak Park. I love my apartment. If and when I have kids, I don’t foresee being that person who will post everything they do for the world to see.

The more I look at it, the things that are getting me bent out of shape, they really aren’t even things I want in the first place. I just think I do because I have exposed myself to such a high saturation of other people who do like those things.

And so, I’m signing off. For a bit at least.

Here we are, it’s the day after Easter. Lent just finished. For 40 days, people observe Lent as a way to prepare their hearts for Easter. I’m going to do things in reverse. I’m going to stay off of social media for at least 40 days in recognition of all that I have, and as a way to recognize that life is going on all around me, and that my joy need not be impacted by comparisons to others.

I will miss certain parts of what social media does have to offer – updates from far away family, significant happenings from friends I don’t talk to on a regular basis, etc.

But, for now, those benefits don’t outweigh the overarching benefit I hope to gain from taking a step back.

Until then, I’m working on another book, Gramps’ birthday is soon, Mother’s Day in STL, hopefully some good golf, and lots of prayers.

And undoubtedly, a lot of joy.