Icon Facebook Icon Google+ Icon Twitter Icon Share Icon Reblog

bettsfic:

dark-magical-ships:

l1atena1:

Don’t you sometimes get an absolutely extrodinary, mind blowing, such an awesome idea for a story, but you just don’t have enough skill level to pull it off?

Write it anyway.

Write it anyway, write it anyway, write it anyway.

There are so, so, so many reasons:

  • You gain that skill level only through practice. So practice.
  • No matter what you’re writing, no matter how badly you think you’ve written it, there is ALWAYS some audience that will love it and cherish it.
  • You can use what you write the first time around as a first draft and just rewrite it again later when you feel like tackling the story again!
  • Rewriting the same story over and over is a valid writing process. It’s literally just creating new drafts. Each iteration will be better than the last, because each is building on your growing skill and experience.
  • If you love the story, it will always be worth telling simply for your own enjoyment. If no one else ever sees it, that’s okay! Your art should be for you first, anyway.

Write it anyway.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

hacash:

when people talk about writing ‘the next Lord of the Rings’ they think it’s all about the wars and the languages and the histories, and Aragorn brooding in the corner of an inn and the Balrog roaring in Moria and the ruins of Isengard, and that’s how we got Game of Thrones and several dozen cheap fantasy knock-offs every year, not to mention whatever nonsense the Amazon show is going to produce

but Tolkien’s wars and languages and histories stemmed from his love of creating - of words and history and mythos - and that love infuses into everything he writes, and if you miss that then there’s no way in hell you can replicate it

and the people who want to write the next Lord of the Rings because they want to write the next epic don’t get that the story is about the hobbits’ soft and simple lives and Bilbo’s poetry and Sam’s love language being food and Eowyn discovering hope after depression and Gandalf making fireworks for hobbits even if he is a literal angelic being, and Aragorn weeping over Boromir’s body and Theoden’s kindness to Merry, and Beregond betraying his most prized orders to save Faramir, and the unlikely friendship between Gandalf and Pippin, and the even unlikelier friendship between Legolas and Gimli, and Sam and Frodo singing to each other in Mordor, and Boromir sacrificing himself for the hobbits, and Sam’s simple love for Rosie, and the restoration of the Shire, and the friendship of the Fellowship surviving down through the ages, and peace after war and hope in darkness, and the love between a gardener and a gentleman pacifist being literally the only thing that saves Middle Earth

and that is why people who try to recreate Lord of the Rings by starting with war always get it wrong. you have to start with the love, or it’s nothing: just another empty history

athingofvikings:

the-nightwing-thief:

emma-d-klutz:

teaboot:

admiralrainbow:

talkingsoup:

ckret2:

riotlion:

gooseweasel:

“Can One Punch Man beat-”

Yes. Always. Good lord. I never understand why people can turn this into a big serious discussion. Yes, One Punch Man would beat Thanos. He would beat Luke Skywalker, Superman, every single character from Dragon Ball Z, and every ninja from Naruto. He would beat Thor and Wolverine and the Hulk in a tag team match. 

Because he plays by different rules. One Punch Man is a PARODY character. His skill set is defined by comedy, not power levels or physical strength. One Punch Man not Superman facing off against an ever-more powerful lineup of villains. He’s the Roadrunner against Wil E. Coyote’s ever more convoluted plans. Deadpool is the only other super hero type character who comes close to living in the same realm of parody, but frankly, Deadpool repeatedly getting the crap beat out of him would be funnier than Deadpool winning, so One Punch Man would win that fight too, even if he can’t actually kill Deadpool in one punch. Because parody.

If I see another Youtube video recommended to me like “Could One Punch Man beat-” really, truly, I do not care. 

I saw somebody also make this point once in another great post, I’m paraphrasing from what I remember; how strong is Saitama? However strong he needs to be in order for it to be funny.

The only possible matchups that Saitama might lose are ones where:

1) it’s conceivable that, due to the rules the other character is operating on (as in, whatever rules of comedy govern the other character’s universe), he might not be able to get in one punch.

AND

2) A compelling argument could be made as to whether it would be funnier for Saitama to lose that fight.

Canon example where both came into play: he lost the fight against that one mosquito, because it was tiny, fast, and flying, and because it was hilarious. Rule #1 alone isn’t enough, because if it isn’t funny for him to lose, he’ll find a way to punch through whatever restrictions are preventing him from punching the target.

So “could One Punch Man beat Superman/Thanos/Unicron/the Death Star?” will always go to OPM.

But you could have a compelling debate over “could One Punch Man beat the Animaniacs?”

Could Saitama beat Roger Rabbit

Saitama could beat Roger Rabbit similar to the way he could defeat Deadpool, but he could never beat Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny is at the top of the food chain.

No no no, but ROGER RABBIT OPERATES ON THE SAME PRINCIPALS.

Remember when Roger slides out of his handcuff for a joke, then slides it back on and suddenly can’t escape because it wouldn’t be funny?

That sort of implies that it’s less a question of, “is saitama MORE POWERFUL than roger rabbit?” than it is, “Could saitama’s victory be FUNNIER than roger’s?”

At that point, the power is in the hands of whichever character would be the FUNNIEST to come out on top.

And in order to decide that, we would in turn have to decide:

“Which is funnier: a totally jacked man whose single dream in life is to find an opponent who could stand a chance against him finally, finally finding a worthy adversary in a goofy rabbit in a bowtie…

…or a goofy cartoon rabbit getting his absolute ASS handed to him in a gloriously-animated anime smackdown, complete with a killer soundtrack?”

What about the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl?

Ooh, that’s a good one. Saitama can beat anyone in one punch if it’s funny… but Squirrel Girl can defeat any opponent she wants if it’s also funny. I think Squirrel Girl has the edge here primarily because of the ridiculousness of the character.

I second the vote for Squirrel Girl. It would be utterly hilarious if she beat him, but him beating her would just be kind of sad.

wangxianficrecs:

batinaburnouse:

wangxianficrecs:

mondengel:

In light of this sad post, I just want to FYI anyone that might be anxious about it:

I will never delete any of my fics for any reason.

1 - I take the Archive part of AO3 very seriously.  I’ll edit and update, but not delete because in my mind it’s been archived once it’s posted.

2 - I’ve seen too many fics/authors I loved disappear, never to be seen again.  If I posted it, then someone who loved it might have found it and someday get the intense urge to read again like I do for those fics, and I want them to be able to find it.

3 - What better way to get back at someone heckling you than to just stone-cold ignore their mean-spirited demands?  To leave a fic up that infuriates the person bothering me so much for existing on AO3 at all?  Even if it was really bad, I would just walk away.  Make it written by Anonymous.  Abandon it on the site.  Comments can be turned off.  Notifications can be turned off.  An entirely new account can be made to start over with. 

The fic can be orphaned.  

For any author who is being bothered into deleting their fics/account, please at least consider orphaning your work instead of deleting it wholesale.  Orphaning is a wonderful, innovative feature of AO3 put there specifically to thread the needle for people in exactly your situation.  To bridge the gap of those who no longer want to be associated with a fic, and those who loved what you wrote and want to be able to revisit it.

An Untamed fic I really loved got the author a lot of harassment and they contemplated deleting it while they were still posting chapters because of the awful comments a handful of people were leaving with each update, but instead orphaned it after finishing.  I have reread that fic at least five times since then.  I don’t remember the author’s name anymore, just as they certainly wanted, but I still enjoy that fic and I know I’ll come back to it again and I’m so grateful that I can.

No amount of hate erases how much someone else genuinely loved what you wrote. 

And there is ALWAYS someone to love it.  Even if it’s just one person.  Even when things are hard and the horrible people are very loud, try not to forget that they are there too.

Don’t make the hateful one the most important one.

The fic can be orphaned.

This is so important, and I wish more authors used this option. (Thank you, @mondengel, for your reassurance!)

I honestly understand wanting to withdraw your fic: from harassment or just the vague embarrassment that something you wrote 5 years ago doesn’t really reflect you as a person or a writer anymore.

But. … there is ALWAYS someone to love it.  Unless you are withdrawing the work to publish it as an original piece, I will always encourage an author to simply orphan the work. Your name vanishes. You get no comments/notifications. It is entirely separated from you. And then… the fandom community remains enriched with something many of them love.

I truly understand the urge to strike back, especially if you’ve been hurt or harassed. And the only weapon an author has is taking their piece away from the fandom. But. That hurts so many innocents, too.

In this fandom, we have many AO3 fics hidden behind collection/mystery walls, and I live in hope that the author is just taking some time to cool down (and allow the harassers to target someone else) before putting them back up for the rest of us to enjoy.

Be kind to your authors.

And maybe they’ll be kind right back to you!

And if you want to maintain control of the work you can (temporarily or permanently) add it to an anonymous collection (instructions for how to do that here). Your name will be removed from it and it will no longer show up on your author page but you will still receive comment notifications and if you go to your statistics page you will be able to see it. You can still edit the work this way and choose to orphan it later if you so desire.

Another option is to create a second account and shift works you don’t want associated with you there and then turn off all notifications from that account (which can be done from the preferences page). You may already have invitations (check the ‘invitations’ tab on your AO3 dashboard) or you can request one to be sent to you here (there is a waiting list, but you should get one within a week). Then once you have a second account set up, go to the preferences pages on both accounts and click the ‘Allow others to invite me to be a co-creator’ button. Then edit the work and add in the new account as a co-author, save the change, then edit again and remove your original account author and save it again. Ta-da! You’re main account is no longer listed as the author to the fic!

Oooh, this is very useful, thank you @batinaburnouse.