Is It Bad That I Like This Fanfic So Very Very Much Because Clarke Punches Finn? I Know - It Is Not Cool
Is it bad that I like this fanfic so very very much because Clarke punches Finn? I know - it is not cool to punch people but: Finn didn’t tell Clarke about Raven; he didn’t tell Raven about Clarke so Clarke ended up telling Raven; Finn set fire to a village’s food stores then executed unarmed villagers; Finn told Clarke he had performed the massacre for her; the attack delayed the grounders and sky people uniting against the mountain men
So ... on second thought, maybe I really don’t like what happened to Finn. What happened to the Peace loving dare devil of the first season?
More Posts from Thequeerish and Others
I’m going to try this!
how to make a story file
As I am preparing for Camp NaNo*, I have been working on my story file. It occurred to me this might not be common or popular practice. “Story File” is a name I gave it and maybe some of y’all have a different name with the same contents.
*There’s still time to apply to join my Camp NaNo cabin!
My Story File contains everything about my story that doesn’t go in the outline.
It’s broken up into major categories and specific templates. So without further ado, here is how I structure my Story File.
Intro
Title
Logline
Synopsis
Genre
Estimated Total Length (word count)
Draft Length Goal (word count)
Character Bank
Main characters and brief, one-sentence descriptions with ages
Themes and Character Development
Central Question
The Yes/No question that is being asked through the whole story
Should have objective qualities, rather than subjective
i.e. “Will they fall in love?” (subjective) vs. “Will they leave their partners and become a couple?” (objective)
Thematic Questions
These are the internal conflict questions that reside in your character(s) and your story
ex. “Can there really be a successful government?”
ex. “Does grief excuse bad actions?”
Themes at a Glance
Words or phrases that relate to the themes of the story
ex. person vs. nature
ex. isolation
ex. grief
ex. first love
Motivation / Stasis State / Final State
for each main character, you should write a sentence or two pertaining to these three things
Motivation: What is the drive behind this character and their past, present, and future actions? What part of their background makes them the way that they are? What are they looking for? What do they want out of this/a situation?
Stasis State: What are they like before the inciting incident? What problems and questions do they have?
Final State: What has changed about them and their outlook? What questions have they resolved? What has happened to their internal conflict?
Relationships
I usually make a little web of the MCs and their relationship to one another. One for the stasis and one for final.
Stasis: How do these characters see each other? How do they act toward the other? (All before the inciting incident)
Final: How do these characters see each other now? How has their idea of one another shifted?
Even if a character dies before the end, include the most recent relationship status in the Final web.
ex. this is how I organize it, using the Draw feature of Google Docs
Character Bank
This is just a very preliminary character bank. If you prefer a more in-depth one, check out my 6 Box Method.
Per (relevant/important) character:
Name
Nickname/preferred name
Age
Field/Occupation
Physical Description
Personality
Personal History
Education/Occupation History
Extra Notes:
Worldbuilding Bank
(Check out my worldbuilding posts on Categories Pt. 1 and 2 for better context)
Seasons and Climate
Languages
Other Cultural Pockets
Folklore and Legends
Fine Arts
Dress and Modesty
Classes
Jobs
Currency and Economics
Shopping
Agriculture and Livestock
Imports and Exports
Literature, Pop Culture, and Entertainment
Food and Water
Holidays and Festivals
Family and Parenting
Relationships
Housing
Religion and Beliefs
Government
Health and Medicine
Technology and Communication
Death
Transportation
Plants, Animals, and Human-environment Interaction
Education
Beauty Standards
Gender and Sexuality
—————————
I hope this helps y’all and supplements what you’re probably already doing. I know it’s helped me tons to have everything in a central place.
Best of luck!
I identify as a fattie queer. All other sexual orientation labels feel like a lie to me and don’t fit right when I wear them. I’m queer.
queer is literally a slur. like you’ve never been called that in a derogatory context like most lgbt people? you think your experiences escaping homophobia make it okay to justify the use of a homophobic slur?
queer is an identity.
it has also been used as a slur. there is no denying that. but using a word as a slur does not make it a slur. because before queer is a slur it is an identity. before it is derogatory it is a label. the use of queer as an identity is infinitely more important than the use of queer as a slur because the people who identify as queer are infinitely more important than the people who use queer as a slur.
say a lot of people decided they hated me. despised me. were disgusted by me to the point where my own name became a slur. would you tell me not to say it? would you tell me i could no longer be helena, and instead must come up with a euphemism for the name that belonged to me decades before it belonged in the mouths of bigots?
because that would make you an enabler.
you would tell me i can’t say my name anymore because some lowlife decided he could use it to insult me?
you would tell a gay man that he can’t be gay anymore because some teens in the early 2000’s started calling everything they didn’t like “gay”, and now he has to say “same sex oriented male identifying individual”?
does that enrage you? because it should. that’s exactly how you sound.
you are telling me i cannot use my label. you are telling me that when my great-uncle shouted until his face was red and he spat tobacco and the word queer at my feet, he was right. he was right to insult me, and i was wrong to say my name.
you are shitting on every single one of our predecessors. you are slandering every person who fought for their rights to exist and and be tolerated and be celebrated in their countries, every person who was lost to the aids epidemic, every person whose country criminalizes love and gender expression, every child whose parents abandoned them for straying from the norm, every person who was born and will die in the closet longing to be themselves. the queer umbrella is a safety net, a security blanket, the comfort of being known without being pressured to tell. it is near and dear and important as fuck to every member of the lgbt+ community and you are a blight upon the earth you walk.
how dare you speak upon my experiences with homophobia. how dare you disguise your own homophobia as activism. and how fucking dare you have the audacity to come to my blog and hide behind an anonymous ask and preach to me about how i’m oppressing myself. go look at the fucking wikipedia page for queer and read about how 1980s lgbt+ activists, especially lgbt+ people of color, fought to call themselves queer in a world that still hates peculiar things. and here you are forty years later spitting queer back at their feet.
i don’t give a fuck if people start using my name as a slur. my name is still helena. i will not change it. i chose it, i like it, and it belongs to me. it does not belong to bigots no matter how badly they want it. your discomfort with my identity is not my fucking problem.
i am helena. i am queer. die mad & go fuck yourself
Thank you for sharing this.
Here is a very useful resource where FOG is an acronym for “fear, obligation, guilt”. The website is intended for those who are in relationships with people who have personality disorders but the toolbox is useful for everyone.
it's hard to explain because inevitably you sound like an asshole, but some people are allowed to lose their temper, lose their mind - you're not, though.
when your friend never texts you first and misses your birthday and never makes an effort; you don't mind. you know she's struggling, and you want her to get the help that she deserves. you give her every excuse and every chance.
it shouldn't matter to you so much that people are always coming through for her. you want her to be happy, you love it for her. you love that her community rises up to the occasion. why does it bother you that when she snaps at someone, says horrible mean things - but two hours later, everyone is comforting her while she's crying. you know she's stressed. why do you kind of hate that she is welcomed back to her job, that her parents are endlessly wiring her money.
and you're - fuck, are you envious?
but when you don't text back, someone sits you down and says i know you're struggling, but you're being a bad friend. when you're too numb to show up for work, your boss just shakes his head. i'm sorry. i can't approve more time off. we have the company to protect. when you finally snap back at your family for making that shitty comment again, you're forced to apologize for being too sensitive.
god forbid you need something. people aren't used to you being the one asking. you're the giver like the book you hated; your pages all open and rumpled. you always have the answer, always have the solution. you are reliable, trustworthy. people like you don't struggle with things. you're supposed to be lifted by tragedy. you are given a maximum of 24 hours to grieve, and then you need to just behave at the party.
you can't read the giving tree without feeling like crying, and even that feels like it's too much emotion. like, nobody looks at you and assumes you're the tree; they'd name five other people before even considering you in the running. you're just there, never-asking.
your friend gets to say mean shit, that's just her personality. when you make a snide comment, you're just being petty. people laugh when your friend stands you up for another event; they say she's just like that. you were 5 minutes late to a meeting with friends and they were mad about it for the rest of the evening. your friend sets everything on fire; everyone applauds her through the ashes. you so much as light a candle: and suddenly now you're an arsonist.
you don't want your friend to suffer, though. the thing is that you just wish that the empathy and kindness your friend gets - you wish you had that option, that everyone offered you grace and money and a gentle reception.
the other day you were fighting down the bad urge; the void call, the end note. you tried-anyway. you went to the family event, tried laughing at the right moments. nodded and smiled and all of it. one of your siblings threw a fit, but she's allowed to, so everyone just rolled their eyes about it. you took 3 whole minutes to stand outside when you got overwhelmed. you literally set a timer about it.
in the morning you woke up to a text from your parents: you were a complete disgrace last night. idk what your attitude problem is, but you really need to fix it.
How to stop researching (or worldbuilding) and start writing
This is actually advice my mentoring professor gave me when I was writing my first thesis.
He said: Accept that you are never done. There is always more to know, more to research, more questions raised than answered. At some point, you just got to start writing.
Now, “easier said than done, this accepting”, I thought.
I started writing because my thesis deadline was looming. But what if you’re writing a novel and you have no deadline? How do you know when it’s okay to stop researching? When is it okay to stop worldbuilding? (Which is just like doing research, but in your own head instead of in reality.)
My advice to you is: start writing, and you’ll run into the gaps you still need to fill. Then you know what to research before starting your second draft. Let your story tell you what it needs.
For example:
Just fill your margins with a to-research-list for your future self.
That way, it’s also managable: “I finished my first draft, and I have a list of 317 things I need to decide on.” Instead of: “I saw on tumblr that you can’t build a world without knowing everything about the sewage system! And gosh, I haven’t invented three languages yet!”
Advantages:
You get things done.
It’s not overwhelming.
You don’t spend your time inventing things you’ll like so much that you want to infodump them into your story.
You mainly research things that are relevant to your story.
Well, knowing you, you already researched enough irrelevant stuff too.
You get things done.
I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing!
Follow me for more writing advice, or check out my other writing advice here. New topics to write advice about are also always welcome.
Tag list below the cut, a few people I like and admire and of course, you can be too. If you like to be added to or removed from the list, let me know.
Keep reading
Make the most of the next two months
Get all your vaccines
Travel while we have a functioning DOT
Read and buy books on feminism, anti-racism, pro-lgbt
Attend drag shows
Don't skip any of your classes
Read and buy history books
Find your out-of-state networks
Learn to carry cash
Get birth control solutions
Support the Biden/Harris administration
Postpone large purchases and save money
Be careful of what you say online, like un-ambiguous attacks against the incoming administration, especially in spaces that contain your full name or personal information
Feel free to add on.
not a meme but i think it would be pretty fuckin cool if we all did this. and not just for a month, but until we start getting what we deserve. they only profit off of us. they don’t deserve our attention. eat the rich.
Day 7: Do I have a writing day? When do I get most of my writing done?
The majority of my writing occurs after I’ve dropped my kids off at school and before I start work. During my drive back from dropping them off, I think about my wip. By the time I’m back home and brewed myself some tea, I’m ready to write down my ideas. I usually get half an hour in before I check work emails.
this utopian canada that is portrayed by the government and the media is a lie. it's propaganda.
canadian society is not anti-racist. our government is the product of centuries of colonialism and oppression.
I know it's nice to think/pretend that everything is great here, but when you pretend that you are telling every person who has suffered under oppression and discrimination that our stories aren't real, that we are lying or exaggerating.
stop trying to convince yourself that there is equity and respect (especially for Indigenous people) on this land, and start working to make that a reality.
some things to get you started:
read up on the national centre for truth and reconciliation, and what the truth and reconciliation commission report says
learn about and donate to the unist'ot'en camp
support, donate to, and get involved with black lives matter canada
get involved with the canadian council for refugees
check out the rainbow railroad- an organization that helps LGBT+ people escape violence, oppression, and persecution
there are so many more great organizations and groups out there doing amazing work, so please if you can take the time to do some research and get involved, that would be wonderful.
tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics
