#this might not be articulate to anyone else but im feeling a certain type of way abt it

[omegalomania]

ok listen obviously like everyone else i am Fucking Devastated but the fucking sHRIMPLICATIONS here are KILLING me.

the two last "new" songs we got before the hiatus were alpha dog and from now on we are enemies (equally fucked up song btw) and pete namedrops alpha dog as the last song they wrote before the hiatus and it's such a. it's SUCH a fucking. augh.

like it's so painfully and clearly a farewell. the lyrics all telegraph it. your time has passed. never means forever. walk off into the sunset. the discussion of how much effort is required to maintain this life and how they already feel burned out, past their prime when they were all in their mid-twenties and early thirties. and the sheer fucking POETRY of the way it was the last song they recorded - tell rock and roll i'm alone again - until they announced their triumphant return with save rock and roll in 2013. welcome to the new déjà vu.

and oh yeah the last word issued in the song's studio version is the word "abracadabra," which pete cites as the word that christian bales character in the film “the prestige” says he will utter before he disappears from prison. "abracadabra" was a key word in the viral ARG-esque marketing campaign leading up to the release of believers never die...right before fall out boy seemingly vanished off the very face of the earth.

and, OH YEAH, the first shows they played after reuniting involved a multi-song medley spanning all the stages of their career, with one of those songs being the first time they ever played alpha dog, albeit partially.

the notion of the wizard through the curtain speaking to a sense of bitterness (at least if pete's ten year old genius annotation is anything to go by) which is the exact same phrasing to the way joe would later talk about the band's fraught, strained feelings leading up to the hiatus in a podcast with kerrang while promoting his book.

many people have pointed out the parallels between flu game and alpha dog - the way they both discuss the exhaustion of being so visible and constantly putting yourself out there and how taxing that is, especially when you're simultaneously trying to cover up how hard it is. how isolating it is, when the whole world is squinting against the starlight feathering off you. it's worth noting that these parallels are not merely implicit, either. "flu game" is in and of itself an explicit reference to a famous game michael jordan played while sick in which he claimed that he didn't want to give up, no matter how sick and tired he was. and how did pete annotate a specific couplet, ten years ago?

we must make it hard to look so easy doing something so hard

another explicit reference to michael jordan, years and years prior.

and this is the first time they've ever played alpha dog in full. nearly 15 full years after the hiatus started. by now, fall out boy have been together for far longer than they've ever been apart. by now, fall out boy has been in their "posthiatus" era for longer than they have their "prehiatus" one.

i dont really have a conclusion to this. just, i dunno man. something about the repeated lyric "never means forever" on a greatest hits compilation titled "believers never die." something about i'm a star vs. so much for stardust vs. no more stardust. something about motifs that span decades, that span years of hurt and cracked-open wounds that have now been poured over with liquid gold, mending them anew. something about reclaiming old scars and ugly histories and reforging them into something filled with streaming starlight and sun-drenched smiles.

abracadabra.

#*making poasts #id in the alt text #im pure fucking wrecked about this in case you couldnt tell. im also tired as hell #this might not be articulate to anyone else but im feeling a certain type of way abt it #fucked up for them to debut this one in full when i tumblr user omeglomania was not even there. fucked UP.

[nightswithkookmin]

chile i'm so glad i came across your blog, the amount of "i'm not going to assume they're dating" or "we can only draw certain conclusions but i can't say for sure" "we don't know their sexuality, BUT" type blogs i follow is getting kinda wack lmao. while i appreciate their perspective and nuanced takes i need to strike a balance. like let's get a lil delulu every once in a while. 💀

lol the im-not-a-shipper-but-call-jikook-boyfriends-every-other-post blogs are the funniest to me. the shipping hierarchy, so to speak is so weird. maybe just because im not a "shipping real people is bad" person i don't see the big deal. gonna get called delulu anyway, might as well go full out. they is gay/queer and they're fucking. i'm so sorry.

*also can we touch on the fact that shipping in this type of fandom (kpop) is kind of inevitable and unavoidable??! these boys are the other people we see them with day in and day out, interacting with each other and no one else. i feel like it's natural to ship when there's no other people around to break up everything, idk maybe someone can articulate this better than me. and people who are made to feel stupid for thinking that 2 members could actually be dating is so dumb. like is it really out of the realm of possibility that two people (jikook, cause all them other ships are....😬) who spent almost every waking minute together for like 8 years could fall in love. really?

/rant

It's the delulu hat for me

Lmho.

I guess for me being queer, I feel it's gaslighting for these people to be saying things like that. As silly as it is, it inadvertently deny and invalidate the existence and queerness of gay individuals and so I struggle with it.

This is the consequences of straight people in gay people business. They like defining gay parameters for us and it's like who asked you?? I feel people who say things like that are just plain ignorant or tone deaf or willfully homophobic.

I don't think everyone in BTS is gay but it makes me feel safe to see half the community assume them to be and celebrate them in that way. They are not cussing at them and threatening to leave the fandom or cancel them for this assumption and that is huge inspiration to me.

Those parts of the fandom are a safe space to be in as a queer army.

When people assume a person's queer sexuality they are simply admitting to themselves at the very least that LGBTQ EXISTS. This is important to me because I grew up in a community where LGBTQ didn't even exist in the collective consciousness of the people and EVERYONE IS AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED TO BE STRAIGHT AND EXPECTED TO BE.

People read people's sexuality all the time and have done so since time immemorial and a lot of the time when they have had a sexuality read it's in the lines of straight, cis, rich, poor, superior or inferior. And that is a problem for some of us too because that discrepancy in the assumptions is as a result of homophobia and heteronormativity.

That whole don't assume a person's queer sexuality debacle sounds to me like a boujee way of denormalizing and preventing the normalization of queerness disguised under care, disguised under intelligence and disguised under wokeness. Especially when straightness is the default setting in this giant blue bulb.

We need to radicalize that. We need to change the cis straight default setting and if you are perpetuating this narrative you really aren't helping the situation. SIT DOWN.

I'm rarely assumed to be queer in certain circles and while that makes me feel comfortable within those circles it often times make it hard for me to admit my queerness openly in those circles too because I fear I will lose that comfort and respect and love and privileges that comes with being percieved straight in those spaces.

When I started my blog, I noticed some people assumed I was white and would use certain black descriptors as slurs when describing other people to me. I quickly had to switch the formal way in which I wrote to a much casual tone so my blackness would show through. Don't get it twisted. She black. She blackidy black black.

Then on the other hand, I was hesitant to let my queerness be known too because being black, I was marginalized as it is- you is black, or sound black💀 you know how it is- it's that intersectionality of oppression at play. Double double homicide.

When certain people realized I was black POC minority, their attitude towards me changed. I had those who didn't so much understand what black language is or perhaps wasn't used to being in black spaces and were uncomfortable with my blackness- these would take offense at me saying certain things in certain ways. Like chilee relax Karen, all I said was these motherfukkers gay as shit and they gay. Why you acting like I called them twinks or sommin. Right there, I'm cancelled for calling Jikook motherfuckers. They get sirens and everything😭😭😭😭😭😭

Same vein, I struggle destraightening myself or correcting people who assume I'm straight because I fear they will treat me differently if they knew I wasn't.

Straight privilege exists in the same way as white or even pretty privilege may exist and because these exist there's that automatic conception of queer, poc, ugly, fat disemfranschismet to run along side it.

People treat you differently based on how they perceive you. That's a fact. And for queer people, perceiving us as straight is the only way we get to be treated as human by the masses. And a lot of us embrace that- straight until proven gay am I right 🤣🤣🤣🤣

It's the duper's delight for me. Untill you catch me with a 5'8 melanin skinned silk pressed auntie on my left nipple good luck proving I'm gay.

It can be fun, I akekeke when some people around me are totally oblivious to the fact and even sometimes defend my straightness with their dying breath when nasty friends throw them shades or try to out me unprovoked.

A lot of us don't want to admit we are gay because we don't want to be disenfranchised.

I speak for myself when I say this.

But 'Don't assume someone's sexuality' is a double edged censorship used for and against queer people. It seemly offers protection on the surface of it for queer people but underneath it promotes heteronormativity and standardizes straightness and it is also used to promote closet culture, under the disguise of care and concern for the autonomy of queer people but that is a fallacy because our autonomy has never mattered to anyone since the dawn of homophobia.

And I don't know where this interpretation comes from. Why do people not want to assume queer people's sexuality but it's ok to assume straight people's???

It feels like a hijacked movement to me.

THIS IS THE ACCURATE MOVEMENT AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED.

Don't assume all people are straight. It's ok to assume some people are queer because queer people exists too.

It is wrong however to assume queerness based on how a person talks, walks, dresses or even on their body type. That is stereotyping. And stereotyping is wrong.

When it comes to Jikook, Jimin is often stereotyped as gay more so than Jungkook because they have different body structures. Jungkook is stereotyped too solely because of the way his wrists hang, or based on moments he's femininity shines through.

But I don't think shippers stereotype Jikook in that way at all. I dont think shippers believe Jikook are dating eachother simply because Jungkook applied setting powder to his face that one time. They assume they are gay only because they believe those two to be dating eachother. That is not stereotyping. If those two were heterosexuals I don't think people will accuse their shippers of stereotyping.

It's one thing to assume Kai is gay because he looks skinny and dances well. It's another to assume he is gay because in a relationship with Gdragon. And if people can't tell the difference between the two, they should get some education and stop talking about things they know nothing about or only know because they stumbled across user69 on Twitter. They are not helping.

Untill people get offended when people assume others are straight, that rhetoric doesn't matter in its inequality. If you ask me, everyone is gay until proven straight.

Yet how many people will take offense at that?

Assuming people can be gay is not delulu.

It's ok to assume people can be gay. It's wrong to stereotype them as gay. If you can't assume they are gay, don't assume they are straight and don't assume at all. Run with this sis.

Wait, they don't ship Jikook but they call Jikook boyfriends???????👀👀👀👀👀

The fake woke syndrome will kill people in this fandom with these mentally confused thought crisis bunch💀💀💀💀

Jikook themselves are shippers💀

Smh

GOLDY

[sunbeams-and-honey]

hi im new to astrology and i just wanted to know what does it mean/how it affects me and my future if i have sun, mercury, venus all in gemini 10th house, moon in aquarius 6th house, virgo rising and also pisces mars in 6th house. thank youuu.

Hi darling! Thanks for the question.

Your combination of a Gemini Sun and an Aquarius Moon makes you a very captivating person. You're someone who can definitely trust in your intuition and you also benefit from a witty foresight. You are absolutely capable of improving yourself and making positive changes for yourself. You're intellectually energetic, which means that you can go on for ages with any activity involving your mind, such as writing or solving puzzles. You have a deep need to express your individuality as much as you can, as well as being stimulated at all times. You are more or less terrified of being bored. You are so busy so much of the time that boredom seems to affect you more intensely as you're not used to staying still and relaxing. You really enjoy and benefit from finding new ways of looking at and thinking about something, and also from establishing connections between different things. It's really satisfying for you when something finally clicks in your mind.

Your Sun is in the 10th House, which means that you work hard in order to achieve your goals and to also reach a certain status. You are excited by the idea of having power, but make sure that this desire does not make you cruel. You might want to be famous at some point in your life but you want to live an honourable and dignified life while doing so. That being said, you may be prone to getting into scandals if you're not careful. You want to be in charge where possible and you aren't afraid of the responsibility that comes with it. If you were to be put into a position of leadership then you'd know exactly what you'd be getting into. You're very determined to make a name for yourself and to be a good role model to others. You're likely to have a good reputation.

You have your Moon in the 6th House, which makes you someone who is obsessed with being healthy and organised at all times. A lot of your emotional satisfaction and stability depends on how hard you work, which can be a problem if you don't work as hard as you think you should. You have to understand that you have limits and you're allowed to relax without having to work for it. You are caring and emotional, and very empathetic. You get very stressed when you can't be of any help to anyone else. You may be prone to have physical pain when going through emotional distress or pain. You tend to feel very energetic and alive when there is nothing worrying you and when everything is going your way.

Your Gemini Mercury means you have great social skills. You are charming and eloquent in your speech. You are a quick thinker decision-maker. You always have something interesting to say so people always want to talk to you. You may find that you're the one carrying the conversation a lot of the time. You have the tendency to exaggerate sometimes. People are fascinated by your intelligence and knowledge. You know a bit about everything. You're constantly thinking about more than one thing at a time and because of this, you can forget about very important things every now and then, such as birthdays or anniversaries.

Your Mercury is in the 10th House, which makes you very good at solving problems under pressure. You're not one to back down from a challenge just because everyone else does. In your personal life, there will be a huge emphasis on self-improvement and general achievements. You highly value your goals in life and you are a natural communicator and public speaker. Even if you're shy, you have a great way with words, which leave a huge and lasting impact on those around you. You're very articulate. Your career is very important to you. You don't see it as merely a job, it's something with which you put effort into and care about.

You have your Venus in Gemini, which means you are very talkative and witty, especially when with your friends. You are very skilled with your words. You may love deep and complex subjects such as philosophy and once you find someone who shares this appreciation, then there will be no one stopping you from discussing it at all hours of the day and night. You are skilled with mediating conflicts and settling arguments before they become too big and destructive, and this is largely down to your persuasive skills. You need someone who appreciates and, to an extent, shares your intelligence and thirst for knowledge. You are very transformative, most likely going through many important changes throughout your life.

Your 10th House Venus makes you someone who wants to make a valuable contribution to the world. You want to change things for the better and will do everything in your power to make that happen. You want to make the world a brighter place too, spreading love and positivity wherever you go. You'll probably make a good career out of one of your hobbies. You might be the type of person to have an Etsy shop. You like being the centre of attention because you want to be appreciated for the things you have done. Some people can see you as pretentious because you want the nicer things in life and because you surround yourself with influential people. They don't realise though that you do this to keep as many doors open as possible when it comes to opportunities.

All of this means you have a Gemini stellium, which means you really embody Gemini qualities, more so than your average Gemini Sun. You are quick to both crack a joke and to put the pieces together and solve a problem. You are probably the life of the party. You have a great ability to relate to anyone, which is something that really helps other people. You may find that others often turn to you for comfort and support because they feel seen and heard by you. People can struggle to keep up with you at times albeit entertained by the stories you have to tell. You always have something interesting to say.

This also means you have a 10th House stellium, which makes you someone who loves their independence. You're not one to typically listen to authority figures unless you absolutely must. You might benefit from working for yourself one day rather than for somebody else. You are ambitious and not one to mess around once you get down to something. You may have had some kind of issues with a parent, or someone you viewed as a parental figure, at some point in your life. You know the best path to success, and are hellbent on staying on that path.

I've already gone over what it's like to have a Virgo Rising! You can find the post here.

Your Mars is in Pisces means that you are the kind of person to fight for your dreams. You are a walking contradiction, both sensitive and powerful, though perhaps it is your sensitivity itself that makes you powerful. You prefer to go with the flow rather than planning for the future or being in control. You want and expect things in your life to just happen naturally. Even if you are a hardworking person, you don't expect all your hard work to just go to waste. You want to get something from it. This can make you confident enough to go after your goals and dreams, but it can also lead you to getting easily disappointed.

You have your Mars in the 6th House, which makes you someone who is prepared to work incredibly hard for your dreams and goals. You love helping other people, but you have to watch out for people who use this kindness of yours and exploit it. Remember you can say no. You are productive, efficient, and almost always ready to work. You rarely ever seem to get tired so you do run the risk of burning out because you work so hard. You have the tendency to become impatient and irritable when other people do things in a different way to you. You have an amazing capacity to pick yourself up after failure or mistakes.

Words Of Advice:

Learn to relax more, maybe even meditate!

You need to learn how to balance your work life and your personal life.

Try to depend less on validation from others.

Maybe choose an area to specialise in rather than knowing a bit about everything and not properly committing to something.

Be more open to new experiences.

You don't need to take on every single challenge thrown at you.

Try changing your ways of doing things every now and then.

Remember to slow down every now and then.

You don't have to be working 24/7.

Pay more attention to your friendships.

Be mindful of who you spill your secrets to.

Try to keep your expectations realistic.

Thanks for the question darling and I hope this helped! Sending good vibes your way and have a wonderful rest of your day!

#asks #astrology #perfectesny #gemini sun #Aquarius moon #sun in the 10th #moon in the 6th #gemini mercury #Mercury in the 10th #gemini venus #venus in the 10th #gemini stellium #10th house stellium #virgo rising #pisces mars #mars in the 6th

[meggannn]

concrit, and notes for the self

So this is a bit of a weird post I've been wondering how to articulate for a while. I know people have different ideas on fandom courtesy in this regard, and opinions on this topic can be heavily divided.

This is my post to get it out there and say I don't mind, and in fact encrouage, people giving me concrit in my fic in AO3 comments or reblogs. Everyone is different and everyone writes fic for different reasons; some people write for fun and don't care about improving. I totally respect that and that's why I don't offer concrit unless someone specifically asks for it. I'm writing for fun, but I also take my writing seriously, maybe more seriously than I should, so if you've ever read my fic and thought "hm, that bit's not great," please consider this an open invitation to give me all the constructive feedback you want. I try to say I welcome it consistently in my notes when I post fic, but I guess people don't really register that. In fairness, I've seen people say they welcome opinions on their fic and then turn haughty and defensive when someone gives any feedback that isn't praise, but I've always respected writers who freely share the negative concrit they receive (so long as it’s not a troll) because as a reader, it also encourages me to read and interact more with them. If you don't feel comfortable sharing it publicly or want to talk about a certain thing at length, you can always feel free to IM me privately here, or leave the comment on anon on AO3.

This is a weird thing to post on Tumblr, since I don't think I have a big writer presence here, but AO3 doesn't really have a good platform to share this kind of message. And I realize this is a bizarre thing to want to post about -- if I'm not receiving any concrit, like, shouldn't that be a good thing? am I really complaining I'm not receiving any? -- but the few times I have received concrit in the last five years, one was from a friend who knows me well enough to know I welcome it, and the other two were strangers who seemed hesitant to bring it up at all, that made me wonder if they were scared of my reaction so they sandwiched it between complements to soften the blow. I don’t want people to worry about my reaction and apologize for giving negative feedback. I’m always down to talk about ways I can get better. Chances are more likely I’ll probably apologize to you, lol.

Not to say people should look for things to criticize if they think there aren't any -- I'd be flattered -- but I don’t want people thinking giving me concrit will make me resent them, or that bad feelings will fester if we’re mutuals. I promise there isn't anything mean enough you can say about my work I haven't already said to myself. (Though I will say, I'm writing this with the implication people will be reviewing recent or future works judging my talent as a writer now, not dig into my '09-'13 fic history back when I didn't know the word for ellipses and criticize me how I was.)

I have a weird history with concrit (it all started with a flame war back in ‘10...), but now I take the smallest comments from both positive and negative feedback so seriously to the point it does affect how I look at my future works, possibly because most of the feedback fic writers -- including myself -- do receive is just a single bookmark or anonymous kudos with no words attached. Sometimes when I think of people hating my stuff it makes me never want to share anything again, but a large majority of the time when I do receive it, I find that I have a thicker skin than I thought and I'm very easily able to separate the work from my personal feelings. Again: there's nothing anybody can say will be as bad as what I've already told myself, lol.

I'm putting the rest of this behind a cut because it's somewhat related, but it's mostly me blabbing about ways I think I can improve. I've been trying to narrow it down to a few specific areas I want to get better in. Some are going to be on me and only on me to make happen, but I feel like others might better spotted by readers.

This is about to get very mopey and self-indulgent, so if anyone actually reads this bear with me.

Vocabulary. It’s not that I think I have a limited vocabulary, but I think my tendency is to rely on the same words or phrases, which... just feels lazy and fake after a while. @thunderheadfred suggested I don’t try to hard with this one, because trying too hard to include big words can often lend to a convoluted mess, but I think the solution to my problem might just be “read more” and “get creative with how words interact with each other.” Part of this is also just learning relevant jargon or legalese or whatnot and getting familiar with it to the point that I finally don’t feel like I’m playing Mad Libs when I’m talking about something I don’t understand.

General... logic editing. I'm not sure how to describe this one, but I've had moments occasionally while rereading fic where I just think, “Life doesn’t work like that,” or “Megan, you pulled that one completely out of your ass.” You ever just read a fic and think “Goddammit, this makes no sense,” or even with smaller things, just “that’s not how that works”? Some of them are going to be things only specialists will know, which is okay because at that point I feel like learning to get it right is more a bonus than an obligation especially if it’s not plot relevant, but I generally want to make everything as accurate and realistic as possible to the point that the story unfolding in the reader’s head matches the film I’m imagining in mine. Most of the time, I can bullshit my way through stuff I don’t know, but bullshitting also takes talent, which... well. The thing about talent is that you need to have it or develop it, it’s not always something someone can help you with. But still, it’s a bit of a weird problem to articulate when the crux of it comes down to me saing like an idiot, “Uh, I don’t know how things work.” I kinda vaguely know how governments work. My knowledge of science and technology and math is in the negatives. And I don’t have a goddamn clue how the military works, which is a great joke on me for falling in love with a character like Shepard and wanting to write a million fics about them. So, just, part of this is research, but oftentimes research is only half the problem. The other half of the problem is sitting down at my keyboard and thinking “Great, now how am I going to write it?” because more often than not what happens is that the information I just read off Wikipedia or an obscure informative website just collects dust in my brain. I’m trying to be patient with myself about this kind of thing, because on some level I realize I’m pretty damn young and sometimes you just learn things by! going through life! But I am also an impatient ravenclaw motherfucker who wants to be a good writer Right Now. I want to know how things work and how they affect the people around them! I want to be able to make my story and understanding of the world as accurate as possible! I want people to go “yes, this makes absolute sense” not just “oh, that sounds kinda right I guess?” One thing I try to remind myself is, when I think a small thing sounds wrong or try-hard or that that thing doesn’t quite sound right for whatever reason, most of the time, the reader has no idea. The reader might be skimming over it, they may be digesting it without any sense that something is wrong about it whatsoever, hell they might even like it. I mean, if you asked me to read a friend’s fic and point out an error, I’d have to pull out a magnifying glass to find one, and they’d probably be able to recite a laundry list’s worth within five seconds. So there’s that.

Environmental building. I feel like I'm improving on this simply because I've finally started acknowledging where characters are even located in a place at all, lmfao. I'd like to upgrade to "being so good at describing locations and environments that someone other than me can ‘see’ where they are," but atm I'm settling for, "remember to at least TRY to transcribe the physical locale I see in my mind, because half of the time you forget to do even that, dumbass."

Characterization. This is a big one because it affects so much else, namely, the course of the entire fic. I say this all the time to reviewers but I mean it. A fair amount of time I can type on autopilot and it’s like the characters are doing all the work for me, but other times I sit for an hour scratching my head saying “Jesus, what would Varric say in this situation?” and then I realize “Maybe Varric wouldn’t even let himself get into this situation in the first place,” and that starts a whole chain of doubt and thinking about rewriting and actual rewriting while wondering if the rewriting is even necessary. I've recently been able to put my most consistent problem to words, and that's that I will always have staple issues with the POV characters. The nature of my style means that I spend a lot of time in the POV's head, which sometimes means less energy is spent developing their actual actions. E.g., say I write a fic with Shepard as the POV. If Garrus is in the fic, he is absolutely going to be the snarky, confident, more proactive version of himself to make up for all of the angst and moaning I will inevitably write as a result of digging into Shepard's mind. But say I write the same fic with Garrus as the POV. Depending on the time setting, I will be so caught up in his head as he worries about his mom dying and his guilt over losing his team and his place in the Hierarchy or if his dad will ever forgive him or his insecurities over his relationship with Shepard, that Shepard-the-deuteragonist will have to be the talkative, confident marine to draw him out of his own head. And again, imagine this is, like, the same story -- the same story written from a different perspective shouldn’t go a different way! In this example, some of the gap can be excused with the fact that by necessity, the POV has them viewing each other. Garrus and Shepard know each other well enough to know each other's bravado and strength can be a facade for their seriously fucked up emotional issues, so it's not that they imagine the other never has these moments of darker reflection that they do. And the same thing about Varric and Hawke or Hawke and Fenris, etc etc. Depending on how you play them, they could also be looking at each other through rose-colored glasses, or be so used to accepting and supporting the other through their private uncertainties that for the sake of the fic, that what they mostly register in the other is just the best or most confident side of the other's behavior. Narratively, I've realized it might come out of a subliminal urge to balance one's introspective side with the other's more proactive side, which may work sometimes (if they're both serving aggressive roles in the story, for me, the fic might get too 'loud'; if they're both too quiet, it'll just get boring), but most times I feel like it doesn't do justice to the "loud" parts of the POV character, since they are always the one who gets caught in paragraphs on paragraphs of angsty introspection in their own head due to my inability to write anything else. Shepard and Garrus are undeniably “loud” characters no matter how you slice it. Shepard may mope and pine and nearly drown in her depression in her private moments, but she's also a marine, and she’s proactive and brave and assertive. So I'm trying to be hyperaware of when I lose those facets of her personality through the trees when I try to capture the forest that is her darker side. And I would be wholly welcome to anybody who has comments on that type of thing in the future, if I write a character that isn't acting like themself.

This got a lot longer than I thought it would so now I’m not sure how to end it. I think I’m just going to sit in silence for a moment then heat up some soup. Hmm.

ETA: I would be ashamed if I didn’t mention @tetrahedrals, who consistently provides me wonderfully helpful feedback on my ME fic, and none of whose fault this is. All remaining errors in my fic after they’ve been beta’d and workshopped are entirely mine, but she’s helped me a lot to ensure there are far fewer than there might have been. xo

#writing notes