W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?
As I believe we’ve established, my writing operates on a very strict rule: the less specific a prompt is, the faster it gets out of hand. Do I like general prompts like “Hamilton Star Wars AU” that I can write about at length? Absolutely. But I also really don’t have time to do a lot of them, so perforce I’m going to say ‘specific’.
X: A character you enjoy making suffer.
…all of them. Ever. Specifically? Um…nah, I’m going to stand by that. The more I like a character, the more I want to see them cry over the bodies of everyone they’ve ever loved. One of my most beloved original characters actually has that exact experience in the canon plot of her novel, and everyone I killed for it were characters I adore. No one is safe.
Y: A character you want to protect.
I’m going to assume that it’s perfectly feasible to both like making a character suffer and want to protect them, so…yeah. Wanda Maximoff is the first one to come to mind, also Kurt Wagner, Jean Grey, and Warren Worthington III, John Laurens (I can include historical characters, I do what I want), Grantaire, Enjolras, Cosette, Eponine, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff…Veronica Mars, Logan Echolls…the Animorphs if anyone gets THAT reference…Aerin Dragon-Killer, which is even MORE obscure…Rogue, Gambit, Kitty Pryde, Colossus…this list could go on.
Why do so many people assume that liking Eponine means you want her to end up with Marius? Like, no, I want Eponine to end up with supportive parents and a nice flower garden
Let’s play a game. Type the following words into your tags box, then post the first automatic tag that comes up. you, also, what, when, why, how, look, because, never
do you ever get so annoyed at everything that you start to get pissed off at even little things like a spoon clinking against a bowl or sounds of people talking
I think it’s called sensory overload. It’s really common in people with anxiety
it can also be a result of sleep deprivation, stress, or ever dehydration !!
this week the senate will vote on whether or not to give the fbi warrantless access to your browsing data. this is extremely dangerous and a violation of privacy. not only would the fbi be able to essentially hack into your computers and internet service, but they might also hack into ones overseas. anything on your computers, they’ll be able to have access to. this is an extremely dangerous power the fbi is trying to get, and it CAN be stopped, but only if you guys are willing to put forth the effort.
how do you stop it? first, get the word out. twitter, tumblr, facebook, just get the word out by either making your own status or sharing this link.
secondly, call your senators. on this website, just enter your phone number and it will give you a script to read off of. it will take you less than 30 seconds, trust me. you can also tweet them, send them emails, etc. all the contact info is on this site here. they will listen. dont know who your senators are? go here and scroll to the bottom. it lists all the senators and who you can call. also, you can tweet at them or send them an email. (all the links in this paragraph lead to the same source)
guys, it is extremely important this bill not get passed. PLEASE reblog this and at least tweet at them? you dont even have to think of anything to type. you literally click the tweet button and it does it for you. please, guys, please.
guys!!! please do this and at least tweet your senators!!!
u can even send a complaint through the website. COME ON GUYS THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Just remember. There is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are only fake geek boys. Science fiction was invented by a woman.
Specifically a teenage girl. You know, someone who would be a part of the demographic that some of these boys are violently rejecting.
Isaac Asimov.
yo mary shelley wrote frankenstein in 1818 and isaac asimov was born in 1920 so you kinda get my point
If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels
Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms)was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it
even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?
PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame
And if you want to go back even further, the first named, identified author in history was Enheduanna of Akkad, a Sumerian high priestess.
Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:
Mary Shelley was the first to make use of a new finding of science which she advanced further to a logical extreme, and it is that which makes Frankenstein the first true science fiction story.
Even Isaac Asimov ain’t having none of your shit, not even posthumously.
You know what else was invented by women? Masked vigilantes, the precursor to the modern superhero. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905.
The character would later inspire better known masked vigilantes such as Zorro and Batman.
Stick that in your international pipe and smoke it
I have literally been telling people this for over a year.
the first extended prose piece - ie a novel, was not, as many male scholars will shout, Don Quixote (1605) but The Tale of Genji (1008) written by a woman
The first autobiography ever written in English is also attributed to a woman, The Book of Margery Kempe (1430s).
The day may come when I find this post and do not reblog it, but it is not this day.
If men stopped working…the world would continue on.
If women stopped working, then things would get ugly.
What?
there has been an instance where this happened. it was 1975 and icelandic women decided not to work for one day.
working as in cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, doing chores and so on, not only “not showing up to your workplace”. women did nothing that day, except showing up in reykjavik and protesting for gender equality, equal pay and equal representation in parliament, you know, cool stuff.
you know what happened? havoc. men were left with food to cook and children they never took care of to pick up from kindergarden and entertain for the day. they went en masse to the food shops buying sausages because they could cook nothing else, they had to bond with children they never spent more than a couple hours a day with. they struggled combining their work day and the domestic tasks they had to sort out. and this just for one day.
iceland in 1975 stopped working and things indeed got ugly. so ugly that women in the following decades became woke AF and soon it happened that women became president, took half of the seats in parliament and achieved one of the best living environments in the world.
Something that’s almost never covered in fantasy mediums is common names.
Like we all know fantasy names are unusual, but any name to a foreign culture is considered unusual English names to Indian people are very unusual for example. But naturally, given that it’s an entire culture, there will be some common names, it’d be refreshing to at one point here this exchange.
“So I was talking to Vicnae and-”
“Wait which Vicnae? You can’t just say Vicnae. There are ten Vicnae’s in my village alone.”
This has 100 notes yesterday and 300 this morning what the fuck happened.
People understand the truly important things.
DSA (a German fantasy P&P RPG) actually has the name Alrik, which is hugely popular in the universe. Everyone is Alrik.
This is also a great excuse to use “X the Y” or “X of Y” type names without being pretentious. Calling someone “Thognor The Stout” goes from pomposity to practicality if he lives down the road from Thognor The Small.
my family is from a town in Ireland where everyone has the last name Ryan. literally like everyone. so they differentiated families by calling them by their professions, right?
Marquis de Lafayette’s last political act was resigning as commander of the National Guard because he refused to order the Guardsmen to fire on the rebels of the June Rebellion–the very same June Rebellion of Les Miserables fame
i was babysitting a little boy and girl once and the boy asked me if i had a boyfriend and i said “no!! but i have a girlfriend!” and he said “like a friend thats a girl?” and i said “no like a boyfriend but they’re a girl instead of a boy! we still do couple things but we’re just both girls” and he said, without missing a beat, “oh ok! are you gonna marry her?”
like it’s literally that easy for kids to understand
the cutest part of this was when afterwards the kid said ‘so i could have a boyfriend if i wanted to?’ and i said yes, but to be careful because some people are mean to boys who have boyfriends and he pushes up his sleeves and goes ‘well then i’ll beat them up! if i wanna have a boyfriend i’m gonna have a boyfriend!!! i’ll even marry him if i wanna!’
I believe in aliens but not like in the conspiracy theorist sense more like in the “the notion that in this infinitely-huge universe our planet is the only one with life on it is fucking absurd” sense
when did we replace the word “said” with “was like”
When it occured to us that “said” implies a direct quote, while “was like” clarifies that you mean to communicate the person’s tone and general point without quoting them word for word.
I was listening through Hamilton today, as you do, and it occurred to me that there’s probably a parallel universe out there in which Washington suffered a bout of insanity and answered the question of “Treasury or State” differently.
I am ready to bet that this hypothetical alternate America with Secretary of State Hamilton and Secretary of the Treasury Jefferson didn’t make it through the first five years.
i just imagine jim kirk joking about his death sometimes bc maybe his humour’s a bit twisted like he’ll be acting super happy and say something like “i’m positively radiating!” and suddenly every single person in the room snaps their heads around and glares at him bones would probably punch him tbh
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
This conversation, from this untitled Sam/Steve/Bucky friendship ficlet.
“It’s Captain
America, Barnes,” Clint said, a laugh hidden beneath the deadpan. “He doesn’t need taking care of.”
Bucky stopped and
gave the plane at large a pitying sort of look.
“You poor sonsabitches, you fell for it.
You fell for the spiel. Let me
tell you somethin’, when I say I left for five minutes, I mean five goddamn
minutes. I turn my back on this little
shit, last time I’m gonna see him before I go off and get my ass shot at by a
bunch of dickless Nazis, and he runs off and signs up to be a guinea pig for Stark. I wasn’t even out of the city, I was a hundred yards
away.”
“So
compared to that, this seems like a much better plan, don’t you think?” Steve
asked, grinning.
BECAUSE I FELT LIKE BUCKY NEEDED TO GET THAT OFF HIS CHEST, AND I AM PROUD TO HAVE BEEN A PART OF IT.
I’m also very proud of literally all the dialogue in this untitled Rogue/Remy ficlet, but I couldn’t pick a favorite bit.
-Beliving that none of your friends actually want to be your friend and they hate being near you
-Hating normal things because they were used to mock you
-Having to seek constant validation for your existance
-Remembering particular insults you’ve been called for years and will probably never forget them
-Beliving you’re too ugly for anyone to ever love
-Not wanting to go to a new school/further education because you know the same thing will happen there
-Having your parents tell you that you’re only being ‘teased’
-Having people wash their hands in disgust if they accidentally touch you.
Remember, you don’t have to feel all of these to understand
-Having people say you like someone as a way to gross that someone out -Never quite trusting anyone. -Having people ask you out as a dare -”They’re only making fun of you ‘cause they’re jealous!” -”He’s only mean to you ‘cause he’s got a crush on you!” -Having to deal with bullshit ‘zero tolerance’ policies
-”hey, my friend thinks you’re cute!”
This. I dealt with almost all of this bullshit all my life and it still haunts me today…
-being unable to process genuine acceptance and compliments when you finally get them -fear emotional intimacy will result in betrayal
- being hyper aware of specific body parts you got bullied for & intensively hating them even when its been like 10 years
- never really missing your childhood or wanting to go back
- just straight up thinking youre below everyone and have less worth and having that issue so ingrained to your very being that you never even realise how big of an issue it is
Seriously, though, I’m not sure how I’d describe my style, since I tend to vary it depending on how I want the story to feel. Something like things we lost in the fire, my Les Mis Avatar AU, is supposed to feel very different from, like, this, my First Order Rey AU. I guess my style is very character-driven–I perceive my characters (and other people’s characters, in fic) as very real people, so I try to model the feeling of the story after the way the POV character thinks. Which is how I end up with things like the Hamilton Star Wars AU, which has A LOT of commas and run-on sentences because…Alexander Hamilton.
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) who you consider an influence?
Oh buddy. Oh buddy buckle up. First and biggest nod goes to Robin McKinley (GO READ HER STUFF IMMEDIATELY), who I aspire to be when I grow up. Robin McKinley taught a very scared and very lonely kid who had just been told that she was too old for playing pretend that there was still magic in the world, and I’m always going to owe a massive debt to her for that. If this was a ‘pick one’ sort of question, it would be her. JK Rowling, obligatory honorable mention, Lions for the Cup. PC Hodgell, who is better at sweeping world-building and not-cliche battles between Good and Evil than anyone I can think of off the top of my head (see my rant about her tragically unknown series here). Neil Gaiman, who balances the creepy with the daily with the mystical in a way I desperately envy. The innumerable mediocre authors I trucked through in my school libraries, who taught me what NOT to do, which is just as important as what to do. For fic authors… @notbecauseofvictories, because her Tumblr fics showed me that it was okay to be messy and wild and just…happy about what I was writing at a time where I kind of needed it. @determamfidd because Sansukh was, like, fucking life-changing, buddy, I am living a post-Sansukh life right now. The author of the first fic I ever read (no idea who it was, but it was a Buffy fic with a rewrite of Season 3, and I was PRETTY CONCUSSED at the time, so the fact that I even remember the plot should earn me brownie points, it was a great fic and I should find it again). Um…I can think of maybe twenty more people, published and otherwise, off the top of my head, but I think this massive block of text is long enough, yes?
S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
Um…many. I’m a sucker for soulmate AU’s, I really am. I am also pathetically weak for mutual pining, particularly the whole “X person will never love me back and it’s okay I’ll just sit here and quietly pine away because I WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY” thing. It’s probably a good part of the reason I like Enjolras/Grantaire so much, the Enjolras/Grantaire tag on AO3 is here for you and all your pining needs. Those are probably the two biggest ones, although I’m also weak for size difference because I’m FIVE GODDAMN FEET TALL and everyone I could hypothetically date is a fucking giant.
if you’re feeling a little erased this LGBT history month, please remember:
• alan cumming
• alexander the great
• alice walker
• amber heard
• amy winehouse
• anaïs nin
• andy dick
• angelina jolie
• ani difranco
• anna paquin
• anne heche
• billie holiday
• billy joe armstrong
• carrie brownstein
• cary grant
• cynthia nixon
• david bowie
• debbie harry
• dusty springfield
• evan rachel wood
• fergie
• frank ocean
• freddie mercury
• frida kahlo
• gillian anderson
• greta garbo
• gore vidal
• hercules (heracles)
• herman melville
• iggy pop
• james dean
• janis joplin
• joan crawford
• john nash
• julius caesar
• ke$ha
• kristen stewart
• lady gaga
• lindsay lohan
• lord byron
• lou reed
• malcolm forbes
• malcolm x
• margaret cho
• marilyn monroe
• marlon brando
• megan fox
• michael stipe
• miley cyrus
• montgomery clift
• nathaniel hawthorne
• óscar de la renta
• oscar wilde
• pete townsend
• sandra bernhard
• sapphire
• sarah paulson
• sia
• sir alec guinness
• vanessa carlton
• walt whitman
• and me. and you. and probably someone you love, too.
A: How did you come up with the title to [insert
fic]?
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal
experience?
C: What member do you identify with most?
D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate
with [insert fic]?
E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what
would it be about?
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite
dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
G: Do you write your story from start to finish,
or do you write the scenes out of order?
H: How would you describe your style?
I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading
or writing)?
J: Write or describe an alternative ending to
[insert fic].
K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up
with?
L: How many times do you usually revise your
fic/chapter before posting?
M: Got any premises on the back burner that
you’d care to share?
N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would
write (or finish) for you?
O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or
the characters?
P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call
an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in
advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)
Q: How do you feel about collaborations?
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise)
you consider an influence?
S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?
U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and
why you like them so much.
V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to
any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
W: Do you like more general prompts, or more
specific ones?
X: A character you enjoy making suffer.
Y: A character you want to protect.
Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read
it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?
The Republican Party is about to approve its 2016 platform, and their proposed draft takes a stronger stance against LGBT rights than ever before.
Among many other backwards views on social issues, the platform says:
Marriage equality should be overturned with a constitutional amendment
Judges to be appointed (ahem, SCOTUS) should be advocates for “traditional family values”
Parents should have the right to put their LGBT children through conversion therapy
States should be able to dictate which bathrooms trans people use
Kids who have one mom and one dad are less likely to be drug addicts or “otherwise damaged”
Religious principles should guide lawmaking: “man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights”
Please do not vote Republican in this election. This platform could literally mean life or death for LGBT youth, transgender people, and so many others who will be targeted – strategically and legally – for being who they are.
So about this Jedi AU I see that you have all the things about John and Ham but what about Burr? Ham and John have perfect moral compass that doesnt stray but what about Burr and maybe straying between Jedi and Sith and getting corrupted by TJeff idk
All right, my bespectacled buddy, how fortunate, because I have Thoughts about Jedi Aaron Burr. Also, there is now a tag for this AU.
I suppose I should mention that I actually have no idea where the Sith fit in this universe. For a story of sweeping good and evil, the Sith and the Jedi are the logical ends of the spectrum, but a revolution…isn’t that simple. For every General Benedict Arnold ready to turn on his country for wounded pride, there’s a plain soldier ready to go too far in defense of what he believes is freedom, ready to tar and feather someone for the crime of an accent or a birth–the line blurs. The opponent of a revolution is, in fact, lack of emotion. Passion drives a revolution. The Jedi…are not at ease with this. Honestly, the Sith are probably sitting in some corner of the galaxy sulking over the fact that they are suddenly quite superfluous. Between the Empire and the Continentals, there’s more than enough chaos to go around.
First, Aaron Burr is actually the best Jedi–he’s not like Washington, putting up a good facade while he gets secret-married and bides his time for a revolution, nor like Lee, who basks in the glory and honor of being a Jedi Master. Burr really believes it, there is no emotion, there is no ignorance, there is no passion, there is no chaos, there is no death. He’s uncannily good at it, taking whatever the universe throws at him with the same serene smile. He’s so good at it, in fact, that his Master, upon recommending him for Knighthood, added that they would do well to find him something to fight for. That he could be great, if he had something to fight for.
Even a Jedi needs ideals, is the thing.
The first time Burr meets Alexander Hamilton, the feral Force user challenges him with if you stand for nothing, what’ll you fall for?
He…doesn’t have an answer, he doesn’t even think he understands the question, and that…that’s new.
Aaron Burr goes to Washington, with his glowing Jedi record and an offer of help, and it goes about how it did in reality/the musical.
Washington: I am in dire need of assistance!
Burr: Hey, I am 100% down to be a secretary.
Washington: It’s not that dire, take it easy. Hey, angry fighty barely-not-a-teenager Hamilton, you want a job? No? Sure you do.
Aaron is left standing there, overwhelmed with emotion for the first time in his life, and the envy is almost baffling. But it’s all right, it’s fine, he can take a couple of deep breaths and let it go, there is no emotion, there is no passion, and he smiles and smiles and nods and takes the command he’s offered as…the word consolation rises in his mind and he dismisses it with a vengeance. Aaron Burr is a Jedi, like his Master and her Master before her, and his Master crafted a new lightsaber form, she was a genius, her Master did a lengthy stint on the Council, he commanded respect–no lineage of theirs is unstable enough to need consoling. He has a legacy to protect. The hot twist in his gut is only discomfort at how wrong-footed Hamilton makes him, the rushing in his ears only the Force spinning wild in the war.
Aaron Burr fights in the war. Makes quite a name for himself, actually, as crisp and efficient in every way. It’s not a bad reputation to have, especially once he brings that reputation to bear and puts down a mutiny about a year before Monmouth. Admittedly he’s not close with his men, but that’s fine. He’s a Jedi, their commander, and that’s all he needs. Even once he suffers a mild Force burnout and a much more serious heat stroke over Monmouth, he is still of use to the army, even if he can’t fight anymore, and that’s fine, that’s enough, he’s all right with that, because there is peace, serenity, harmony, Force.
He crosses paths with Hamilton often, the man apparently permanently installed in Washington’s orbit, opposite Lafayette and beside Washington’s own padawan. Burr refuses to admit to that flare of bitter heat through his chest every time Hamilton comes bounding up to him, grinning, and greets him like an old friend, spilling joy-irritation-grief-anger-laughter through the Force. Hamilton is a never-ending torrent of emotion, always preferring to fight a battle rather than let it stand, and just being around him feels like it’s contagious.
It doesn’t help that Aaron still feels (or rather, refuses to feel) that twist of envy every time he watches Hamilton spin words out of thin air, feels him move through the Force like he’s a part of it–abrasive and emotional as he is, Hamilton is better than Aaron, and he doesn’t understand why. Peace over emotion, serenity over passion, and yet…and yet Hamilton is wild as anything and still better.
It’s made worse by the fact that Hamilton doesn’t seem to notice. He considers Burr a friend, and he thinks Burr is brilliant–that’s just how he works. Hamilton doesn’t grant friendship to fools, and therefore all his friends must be as wickedly knife-edge sharp as he is, Laurens and Burr and Lafayette and Washington and, and, and….
Hamilton is a hurricane, and all that can be done is to let him sweep you up and trust that you’ll understand eventually.
He is not, cannot be, will not be jealous. He is a Jedi and he will let go his emotions and if letting go feels more like swallowing down, these days, then surely it is only the stress. He just needs to meditate. It will go away.
And now here is a question. Suppose a man spends all his time, for years on end, forcing himself into the trap of the Jedi code and withstanding Hamilton Feeling in his direction constantly, whether it’s the man’s oddly pure and childlike delight with having friends or his eternal aggravation with Burr’s indeterminate politics and philosophy and everything else. Now suppose that man finally, finally, loses his temper.
i think one of my favourite things in hamilton is the line ‘and they say im a francophile, at least they know i know where france is’ bc it implies that aaron burr is so secretive that he wont admit that he knows where france is and that just resonates with me
Baby boomers have to switch life situations with a millennial for a year. The millennial gets to live in their house (which they paid off like thirty or forty years ago) and work at their job that provides a good salary and benefits. The baby boomer has to live in the millennial’s shitty, overpriced apartment and struggle to pay rent and work a minimum wage part-time job as well as an unpaid internship in their (the baby boomer’s) field.
The show can be called Switching Cribs and every time the baby boomer throws a tantrum a little cartoon of a baby crying appears in the corner of the screen.
oh! I have to tell you guys a great story one of my professors told me. So he has a friend who is involved in these Shakespeare outreach programs where they try to bring Shakespeare and live theatre to poor and underprivileged groups and teach them about English literature and performing arts and such. On one of their tours they stopped at a young offenders institute for women and they put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet for a group of 16-17 year old girls. It was all going really well and the girls were enjoying and laughing through the first half - because really, the first half is pretty much a comedy - but as the play went on, things started to get quiet. Real quiet. Then it got up to the suicide scene and mutterings broke out and all the girls were nudging each other and looking distressed, and as this teacher observed them, he realised - they didn’t know how the play ended. These girls had never been exposed to the story of Romeo and Juliet before, something which he thought was impossible given how ubiquitous it is in our culture. I mean, the prologue even gives the ending away, but of course it doesn’t specify exactly how the whole “take their life” thing goes down, so these poor girls had no idea what to expect and were sitting there clinging to hope that Romeo would maybe sit down for a damn minute instead of murdering Paris and chugging poison - but BAM he died and they all cried out - and then Juliet WOKE UP and they SCREAMED and by the end of the play they were so upset that a brawl nearly broke out, and that’s the story of how Shakespeare nearly started a riot at a juvenile detention centre
Apparently something similar happened during a production of Much Ado at Rikers Island because a bunch of inmates wanted to beat the shit out of Claudio, which is more than fair tbh
things that are beautiful:
• brown eyes
• dark brown eyes
• light brown eyes
• brown eyes with a lil bit of a different color mixed in
• brown eyes that are the same shade throughout
• eyes that change to different shades of brown
• brown eyes so dark they blend with the pupil how COOL is THAT
• when the sun shines on brown eyes in that certain way so they kinda glow
• brown eyes the same shade as the person’s hair and/or glasses
• brown eyes
• eyes that are brown
• BROWN EYES
