Well played, Cecil. Well played.
CONGRATULATIONS TO CECIL GERSHWIN PALMER, WINNER OF THE 2023 TUMBLR SEXYREMATCH
Wow, Georgie. What a fantastically adventure you're having.
The power of imagination is limitless, use it to your advantage. Art By ChrisAustinArt.
https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/727841287119814656/ehh-generally-they-were-like-ask-specifics-about Can you expand on writer’s block not being real?
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Sure!
I think everyone who's ever made art has hit points where it's hard to go on making art or where a particular project isn't moving. So from that perspective, sure, a version of it is real...
But there's a particular version of it that's what a lot of people mean where you're A Writer™ and then the magic inspiration gnomes come and steal your inspiration juice. This is mostly nonsense, and quite a few author types who've actually finished long projects will tell you so.
When you sit down to a blank page and it stubbornly stays blank like your head, that's a symptom of something... and the something in question is often either depression and overwhelmed feelings that are taking over your whole life or an entirely correct instinct that your project is flawed and the next step is not writing that next scene.
Many people try to be pantsers instead of planners, get maybe a quarter into a project, and then choke. It's because they started with the kind of concept that requires planning, but they haven't planned. If your plot revolves around the characters eventually learning the meaning of life, you'd damn well better start with what you, the author, think that meaning is and work backwards. Same if your characters are solving a twisty mystery or complicated thriller conspiracy: you will not come up with a genius idea that ties everything together just by writing by the seat of your pants. If you don't go in with the ending in mind and some waypoints to write towards, you're going to choke. This is exceptionally common in grandiose fic concepts that are like "What if this true blue hero were a viiiiillain, oooooh!" where it's neat, but 99% of the point is showing us the work of getting from A to B. People write the prologue showing us the big concept and then flash back to how it all started... and then stop.
I see it a lot in projects that start with a character sheet for RP. Yeah, for RP itself, noodling along and figuring out what X would do in situation Y is great fun... but for many longfic/novel plot types, you will not arrive at a workable plot this way. You'll end up with a mess that can, at best, be used as brainstorming and completely rewritten from the ground up, using only key cool images or character observations. There are authors that start from individual characters and then see where they go. In my experience, they don't tend to be working in the genres that fic fandom types tend to want to work in. It's also something that often takes a lot more experience and skill than starting with a basic plot outline, and inexperienced writers often overreach.
It's not writer's block. It's a project that needs to be taken out back like Old Yeller.
Even the salvageable projects that are making you pause usually have some other issue like you not being clear on the central emotional themes even if you've outlined some factual plot. Or you've demanded that your characters do a particular thing for plot convenience, but you know deep down that it doesn't ring true. You can't write the next scene because there is no next scene. You need to rework the forced part till the rest can make sense.
And even more common than any of the above is people thinking that just because Danielle Steel sits down every morning and writes for eight hours, that means they can and should with no warm up or experience. Trying to force yourself to be a type of writer you're not—majorly overdoing it on any work, in fact—just leads to burnout and inability to function.
the thing about sans and cecil both getting to the finals is that they're both the platonic ideal of what a tumblr sexyman is, but on opposite sides of the scales, covering the entire spectrum as a result.
on one hand you've got cecil, who is chronologically a classic. his lack of a canon appearance, his charming voice and his semi-fancy job allowed the tall white + suit twinkification phenomenon to run rampant. as the series progressed, he was actually revealed to be more of a babygirl (eat your heart out, arataka). he was drawn with tentacles. and he was sexy, sure, but the amount of porn generated for him was overall pretty standard.
sans, on the other hand, is a complete outcast in the classical definition of sexyman. he's chubby, short, charismatic not like an evil villain, but like some random guy with the local bar wrapped around his finger, constantly dressed casual. sure, there were white haired anime boy gijinkas, but that's not who people were here for, right? they wanted to jump his bones (literally) as he was. despite (or maybe because of...?) all this, the mind boggling amount of porn that resulted from him is a still gaping wound in the internet to this day. oh and he also got the tentacle treatment.
perfectly balanced. polar opposites. there isn't really a better candidate here. as far as I'm concerned, they both won tonight. but at least sans can finally break his curse. who knows! maybe we kill someone this time too.
The Spot By Raza Shahid
Awww. I love this two. I hope we can see them bonding in the future
‘aight, mate, we’re done! Looking like a proper little punk now, eh?
Vibrant Patterns Envelop Dozens of Mythical Animal Sculptures That Explore the Folk Art Traditions of Mexico
reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something