E.J McMoon

They/them | Writer | Photo Editor | Video Editor | Actor | Also posts original content as well as fanwork, but is too lazy to change their brand name | To find excerpts and original posts go to #my writing | Picrew credit to @sangled of the icon

[mylordshesacactus]

This got long so it’s become its own post.

I explained this to my seven-year-old cousin once when she expressed distaste over anyone possibly enjoying horror movies, and she understood perfectly, so adults have no excuse: 

People read dark fiction for the same reason they ride roller coasters. 

It’s a simulation of danger without anyone actually being under threat. It gets the brain worked up, releases a bunch of adrenaline into your system, you experience a whole rush of emotions and excitement and fear; but a safe kind of fear, where you know the danger isn’t real and there are dozens of measures in place to protect you. And then it’s over and you can get off the ride.

That doesn’t mean everyone is obligated to ride roller coasters. I, for example, am scared of heights, and most coasters are scary for me in a way that isn’t fun. The fear isn’t that I’ll die, the fear is of experiencing more of the ride and thus it’s not a safe fear, because it’s real and I have no control over it. As such, I don’t ride large roller coasters. But the fact that large coasters are not mentally or emotionally safe for me to ride doesn’t mean they should be illegal, or that there’s “something wrong” with anyone who enjoys them.

Similarly, sometimes accidents happen. Sometimes people have conditions they don’t know about until a coaster aggravates them in the worst possible way because they didn’t know to avoid it…and that’s no one’s fault. People have died or been injured in coaster accidents, and those accidents are pretty much always the result of human error, carelessness, laziness, or poor communication. It’s the responsibility of the amusement park to make sure that basic safety features are built-in and maintained–or at the very least (mangling the metaphor somewhat because this would obviously be illegal in real life) to make it clear that those features don’t exist! I feel like most people would avoid a ride clearly labelled “HAS NEVER HAD A SAFETY INSPECTION! NO RESTRAINT BARS! RIDE STAFF HAVE NOT BEEN TRAINED AND THERE ARE NO EMERGENCY SERVICES ON-SITE! OPEN FLAMES!” but if you click on a fic clearly labelled “author chose not to use warnings” you know the risks and they’ve met their obligation to warn you of them. And sometimes the people providing this content don’t perform that basic due diligence, and people get hurt as a result–but that’s on those specific bad actors, and doesn’t mean we ban all roller coasters. It also doesn’t mean every single ride operator on earth should be tarred with that brush, especially when they’ve openly spoken out against such practices! Furthermore, if you KNOW you have a heart condition and willingly get on a ride that says it is not safe for people with heart conditions, you cannot then blame the amusement park!

What makes roller coasters safe for me? Well, for one, the fact that I’m an adult now so my family has finally stopped trying to force me onto them. Pressure was a constant part of interacting with coasters for me for YEARS, and THAT fucked me up. There was “mild” teasing, frustration when I refused, anger if I changed my mind, and a lot of guilt-tripping about how it was my fault that they couldn’t go on the rides they wanted to because of me. That shit was not okay, and anyone trying to force someone to engage with content they don’t want to is obviously in the wrong.

The OTHER thing that helps me is content warnings the heroes who upload on-ride video of coasters I’m interested in trying. Knowing exactly what to expect–being able to see for myself all the drops so I can judge if they’ll be too much for me, and know in advance where they are so I can brace myself–can turn a ride that otherwise would have been a miserable and stressful experience that I chose not to subject myself to into a really good time. These are especially valuable, because what’s safe for ME is not automatically safe for everyone else. The only thing that makes a ride too much for me–my only hard limit–is extremely tall drops. I love inversions, fast twists and turns, I don’t mind rough coasters, it’s just drop height. But I’ve known people with medical conditions that made rough jolts dangerous, and plenty of people like tall drops but find tight turns and high speed overwhelming. Do I wish more coasters were designed to have the elements I enjoy without the ones I don’t? Yes, and not being able to find many frustrates me. But that doesn’t mean I expect everyone to have the same limits, or that I think people who design tall coasters with big drops and lots of airtime are malicious.

By this logic, actually, darkfic is much safer than roller coasters–once you’ve committed to a coaster you have to ride it out even if you change your mind. But the moment a dark fic or horror movie takes a turn you don’t like or becomes suddenly too real, you can turn it off and walk away.

And if you think enjoying roller coasters means someone will conclude that it’s okay to fling people off cliffs without their consent, then, well, in that case you’re just ungodly fucking stupid. Sorry you had to find out this way.

Have fun on those hypercoasters, you crazy bastards. Keep uploading ride videos for me.

[alexseanchai]

ratings are the “must be this tall to ride” sign

[mylordshesacactus]

Hot take: Actual literary analysis requires at least as much skill as writing itself, with less obvious measures of whether or not you’re shit at it, and nobody is allowed to do any more god damn litcrit until they learn what the terms “show, don’t tell” and “pacing” mean.

[mylordshesacactus]

Pacing

The “pacing” of a piece of media comes down to one thing, and one thing only, and it has nothing to do with your personal level of interest. It comes down to this question alone: Is the piece of media making effective use of the time it has?

That’s it.

So, for example, things which are NOT a example of bad pacing include a piece of media that is:

A slow burn

Episodic

Fast-paced

Prioritizing character interaction over intricate plot

Opening in medias res without immediate context

Incorporating a large number of subplots

Incorporating very few subplots

Bad pacing IS when a piece of media has

“Wasted” time, ie, screentime or page space dedicated to plotlines or characters that are ultimately irrelevant to the plot or thematic resolution at the cost of properly developing that resolution. Pour one out for the SW:TCW fans.

The presence of a sidestory or giving secondary characters a separate resolution of their personal arc is not “bad writing,” and only becomes a pacing issue if it falls into one of the other two categories.

Not enough time, ie, a story attempts to involve more plotlines than it has time or space to give satisfying resolutions to, resulting in all of them being “rushed” even though the writer(s) made scrupulous use of every second of page/screentime and made sure every single section advanced those storylines.

Padding for time, ie, Open-World Game Syndrome. Essentially, you have ten hours of genuinely satisfying story….but “short games don’t sell,” so you insert vast swathes of empty landscape to traverse, a bunch of nonsense fetch quests to complete, or take one really satisfying questline and repeat it ten times with different names/macguffins, to create 40 hours of “gameplay” that have stopped being fun because the same thing happens over and over. If you think this doesn’t happen in novels, you have never read Oliver Twist.

Another note on pacing: There are, except arguably in standalone movies, at least two levels of pacing going on at any given time. There’s the pacing within the installment, and the pacing within the series. Generally, there’s three levels of pacing–within the installment (a chapter, an episode, a level), within the volume (a season, a novel, a game), and within the series as a whole. Sometimes, in fact FREQUENTLY, a piece of media will work on one of these levels but not on all of them. (Usually the ideal is that it works on all three, but that’s not always important! Not every individual chapter of a novel needs to be actively relevant to the entire overarching series.)

Honestly, the best possible masterclass in how to recognize good, bad, and “they tried their best but needed more space” pacing? If you want to learn this skill, and get better at recognizing it?

Doctor Who.

ESPECIALLY Classic Who, which has clearly-delineated “serials” within their seasons. You can pretty much pick any serial at random, and once you’ve seen a few of them, you get a REALLY good feel for things like, for example…

Wow, that serial did not need to be twelve episodes long; they got captured and escaped at least three different times and made like four different plans that they ended up not being able to execute, and maybe once or twice they would have ramped up the tension, but it really didn’t contribute anything–this could have been a normal four-episode serial and been much stronger.

Holy shit there were WAY too many balls being juggled in this, this would have been better with the concepts split into two separate serials, as it stands they only had four episodes and they just couldn’t develop anything fully

Oh my god that was AMAZING I want to watch it again and take notes on how they divided up the individual episodes and what plot beats they chose to break on each week

Eh, structurally that was good, but even as a 90-minute special that nuwho episode feels like it would have worked a lot better as a Classic serial with a little more room to breathe.

How in the actual name of god did they stretch like twenty minutes of actual story into a four-episode serial (derogatory)

How in the actual name of god did they stretch like twenty minutes of actual story into a four-episode serial (awestruck)

If you’re not actively trying to learn pacing, either for literary analysis or your own writing…honestly? Just learn to differentiate between whether the pacing is bad or if it just doesn’t appeal to you. There’s a WORLD of difference between “The pacing is too slow” and “the pacing is too slow for me.” 

“I really prefer a slower build into a universe; the fact that it opens in medias res and you piece together where you are and how the magic system works over the next several chapters from context is way too fast-paced for me and makes me feel lost, so I bounced off it” is, usually, a much more constructive commentary than “the pacing is bad”. 

And when the pacing really is bad, you’ll be doing everyone a favor by being able to actually articulate why.

[mylordshesacactus]

Show, Don’t Tell

This is a very specific rule that has been taken dramatically out of context and is almost always used incorrectly.

“Show, don’t tell” applies to character traits and worldbuilding, not information in the plot.

It may be easier to “get” this rule if you forget the specific phrasing for a minute. This is a mnemonic device to avoid Informed Attributes, nothing more and nothing less. 

Character traits like a character being funny, smart, kind, annoying, badass, etc, should be established by their behavior in-universe and the reactions of others to them–if you just SAY they’re X thing but never show it, then you’re just telling the audience these things. Similarly

To recap:

Violations of Show Don’t Tell:

A viewpoint character describing themselves as having a trait (being a loner, easily distractable, clumsy, etc) but not actually shown to possess it (lacking friends, getting distracted from anything important, or dropping/tripping over things at inopportune moments.)

The narration declaring an emotional state (”Character A was furious”) rather than demonstrating the emotion through dialogue or depicting it onscreen.

A fourth-wall-breaking narrator; ie, Kuzco in The Emperor’s New Groove directly addressing the audience to explain that he’s a llama and also the protagonist. This actually serves as a flawless example of showing rather than telling–we are SHOWN that Kuzco is immature and egotistical, even though that’s not what he’s saying.

A fictional society or setting being declared by the narrative to be free of a negative trait–bigotry, for example–but that negative trait being clearly present, where this discrepancy is not narratively engaged with. 

(For example: There is officially no sexism in Thedas and yet female characters are subject to gendered slurs and expectations; the world of Honor Harrington is supposedly societally opposed to eugenics, yet “cures” for disability and constant mentions of a nebulous genetic “advantage” from certain characters’ ancestry are regular plot points that are viewed positively by the characters and are not narratively questioned.)

A character declaring that their society has no bigotry, when that character is clearly wrong, is not the same thing.

The narrative voice declaring objective correctness; everyone who agrees with the protagonist is portrayed as correct and anyone who questions them is portrayed as evil, or else there is no questioning whatsoever. For example: in Star Trek: Enterprise, Jonathan Archer tortures an unarmed prisoner. What follows is a multi-episode arc in which every person he respects along with Starfleet Command goes out of their way to dismiss the idea that he should bear any guilt, or that his actions were anything but completely necessary and objectively morally correct. No narrative space is allowed for disagreement, or for the audience to come to its own conclusion.

NOT Violations of Show Don’t Tell:

A character explaining a concept to another character who would logically, within that universe/situation, be the recipient of such an explanation.

An in-universe explanation BECOMES a SdT violation if the explanation fails to play out in reality, such as a spaceship being described as slow or flawed in some way but never actually having those weaknesses. Imagine if the Millennium Falcon was constantly described as a broken-down piece of junk…and never had any mechanical failures, AND Han and Chewie weren’t constantly shown repairing it!

Information being revealed through dialogue, period. Having your hacker in a heist movie describe the enemy security system isn’t “telling” and thus bad writing. Having information revealed organically through dialogue is what “show” means.

The “as you know” trope is technically a Show Don’t Tell violation, despite being dialogue, because it’s unnatural within the universe and serves solely to let the writer deliver information directly, ie, telling.

Characters discussing their own actions and expressing their motivations and/or decision-making process at the time.

The existence of an omnipotent narrator, or the narration itself confirming something. Narration saying “there was no way anyone could make it in time” is delivering contextual information, not breaking Show Don’t Tell. 

Keep in mind that “Show, don’t tell” is meant to be advice for beginning authors. Because “telling” is easier and requires less skill than “showing,” inexperienced authors need to focus on getting as much “show” in as possible. However, “telling” is also extremely important. Sometimes, especially in written formats, the most appropriate way to deliver information to the audience is to just say it and move on.

Keep in mind that a viewpoint character in anything but…a portal fantasy, essentially…is going to be familiar with the world they’re in. Not every protagonist needs to be a raw newcomer with zero knowledge of their new world! In most cases, a viewpoint character is going to know things that the audience doesn’t. Generally, the ONLY natural way to introduce worldbuilding in this situation is to just have the narration point them out. (It makes sense for Obi-Wan to have to explain the Force; it would make no sense for Han to explain the concept of space travel to Luke, who grew up in this universe and knows what the hell a starship is. So, if you’re writing the novelization of A New Hope, you need to just say “and so they jumped into hyperspace, the strange blue-white plane that allowed faster-than-light travel” and move the hell on.)

For that matter, in some media (ie, children’s cartoons) where teaching a moral lesson is the clear intent, a certain level of “telling” is not only appropriate but necessary!

The actual goal of “showing” and “telling” is to maintain a balance, and make sure everything feels natural. Show things that need to be shown, and…don’t waste everyone’s time showing things that would feel much more natural if they were just told.

But that’s not nearly as pithy a slogan.

[19b-archive-deactivated20250525]

No: “You have to be X to write about X.”

Halfway there: “Anyone can write about anything.”

Yes: “Anyone can write about anything, but your content does not exist in vacuum. If a POC tells you your portrayal of a character is racist, or a queer person tells you you’re playing into harmful stereotypes, listen to them. Fandom is an escape only for privileged people. Being inclusive means listening to marginalized voices instead of dismissing us as fun police.”

[toysoldiers-rwby]

[luimnigh]

[id: Tumblr tags that read: “if fan content is a legitimate form of media then it is not exempt from criticism”. end id.]

[sazandorable]

Yes+: “The same content can both be playing into stereotypes of a minority, upsetting people, triggering people, and also be healing for other people of the same or another minority. Your finding a content repulsive and legitimately harmful does not mean it has no right to exist and that you have a right to harass the author. It doesn’t even automatically mean that the author is morally in the wrong.”

Camp queer content, trans 101 content, etc. is going to make some queer readers roll their eyes, and to make others happy to create or consume. Noncon fic is going to be horrifying for some survivor readers and validating for other survivor readers. Horror stuff involving a trans character is going to be horrifying for some trans readers and validating for other trans readers. Etc., etc.

[grandfloridians]

white women are always like “more strong kickass female leads!” and when i say i want to see a black female love interest who is allowed to be girly and fall in love they give me weird looks and say that i’m supporting gender stereotypes and heteronormativity but what a lot of white women don’t get is that black women we’ve had hundreds of years of having our femininity ripped from us, of being deemed unworthy of male (especially non-black male) attention. black women in media are never allowed to be the “cute” ones or the love interest, we’ve always been the “strong kickass street smart woman” trope that white women want so badly. so basically if a black girl says she wants to see another black girl fulfill the role of “love interest” there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and it isn’t a hindrance to feminism

[19b-archive-deactivated20250525]

No: “You have to be X to write about X.”

Halfway there: “Anyone can write about anything.”

Yes: “Anyone can write about anything, but your content does not exist in vacuum. If a POC tells you your portrayal of a character is racist, or a queer person tells you you’re playing into harmful stereotypes, listen to them. Fandom is an escape only for privileged people. Being inclusive means listening to marginalized voices instead of dismissing us as fun police.”

[toysoldiers-rwby]

[luimnigh]

[id: Tumblr tags that read: “if fan content is a legitimate form of media then it is not exempt from criticism”. end id.]

[sensitivesiren]

i think something that i love so much about AO3 is the mistakes. the typos and the name slips and the unedited rawness of the storytelling that sometimes filters itself into the work. i am completely in love with the sincerity that i feel from these authors publishing their content for free for us to read and enjoy. every time i see a typing mistake my brain lights up with emotional recognition and i love the author even more. like they were so in the zone that their brain dropped some things in its haste to tell their story and i suddenly cannot love them more. my heart melts because it feels like i'm getting the real raw unedited version of the world that they've created and i want to throw glitter on each and every one of them.

[the-bitch-mob]

fuck it. be creative even if you never really *make* anything. write out plot synopses of stories and then move on. design OCs you’ll never use. make mood boards and concept art and don’t do anything with them. life’s too short to forget everything that inspired you and creation doesn’t have to be “complete” to be worth the time you put into it.

[the-writers-bookshelf]

This is for the slow writers out there. Those who take weeks to write one chapter. Those who take years to finish one manuscript. Those who regularly write only 100-300 words in several hours. Those who take months to put out a new chapter. Those who haven’t touched their stories in years but it’s still a WIP because they can’t stop thinking about/taking notes for scenes/etc.

I see you. You’re valid. Keep up the good work!

[coconut-cluster]

*walks up to couple* so which one of you is the charismatic antagonist with a superiority complex who ends up helping the hero they’re in love with despite the impending backlash from the villain they work for and which one’s the tired, practical hero who would die for their found family and only realizes they have feelings for the antagonist when it’s almost too late 

[marewriteblr]

friendly reminder to write stories for you. you explain your idea to a friend and they’re not over the moon about it?? you’d really like to write it just because it’ll be fun and someone tells you not to?? you wanna use a concept you know is important to you right now and could really help you cope and they tell you that this “trope” has been overdone??? FUCK IT. write that stuff. do what’s best for you. do what you want to. your personal insecurities are more than tropes. what you need to read will never be overdone. if someone doesn’t like your idea, it doesn’t matter, you like it. you might be the creator but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the audience and it certainly doesn’t mean you can be kept from creating if that’s gonna help you heal

[jessicamiriamdrew]

Christianized gentiles as a whole really have no idea how isolating fandom is right now. Winter events are inevitably called secret Santa and use Christmas color schemes. Elves is considered a neutral winter prompt. People rarely make the barest of effort to mention Chanukkah in their posts.

Jewish fannish ppl are telling you how frustrating it is for everything to be Christmas and begging for scraps of Jewish content and it never changes.

[jessicamiriamdrew]

and i know there is concern about misrepresenting Jewish customs. I offer myself up every year, honestly year round, as a resource for Jewish stuff. Whether that’s answering questions or beta reading. I know the internet is daunting and complicated. I also know there are other Jewish ppl who offer similar things.

Goyim have created Jewish content for me that isn’t 100% accurate and it’s wonderful!!. I cherish it and sometimes even more so because i know it took going beyond comfort levels.

It’s not an impossible task!!

[jessicamiriamdrew]

“It’s a Christian country” shut uppppp

[ao3commentoftheday]

there’s nothing wrong with learning about characters by writing them

there’s nothing wrong with writing characters out of character

there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind about a headcanon

there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning something that’s unpopular

there’s nothing wrong with changing characterization from one fic to another fic

[aye-write]

It’s good for the soul okay

[kallistoi]

[image description: a meme with text on top reading, “writing a self indulgent fanfic like.” the bottom is an edited version of the ‘i’m gonna give the gays everything they want’ meme, with a woman talking into a phone and saying, “i’m gonna give me everything i want.”]

[cushfuddled]

In the spirit of writing advice…

1. Write whatever the hell you want

2. “Except—” NOPE! No exceptions! Write literally whatever! 

3. If you’re posting a story somewhere online, be careful to tag it and age-restrict it responsibly

4. If your goal is to portray something that you don’t have experience with in a non-offensive way, then sensitivity readers are a GREAT resource

5. Your writing isn’t shit. Brains are mean.

6. Like…even if your writing WAS shit, that’s still somebody else’s problem

7. For traditional narratives: You can usually mess up the plot and hold onto your audience?? From what I’ve seen, people tend to get annoyed at plot holes, but PISSED at messy character writing. If you have to save one element, I say let it be the characters.

8. Themes are yummy and can unify an otherwise patchwork story

9. If you don’t like/believe in the story you’re telling, your audience will be able to tell

10. I luff u

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hey do you know any conflicts I can add in the story other than 'person vs person' conflict?

6 Types of Conflict in Storytelling

When it comes to conflict in storytelling, there are six different types of conflict that can be used in a variety different ways: 

1) Character vs Character

Or, as you put it, “person vs person.” This type of conflict is created by the opposing needs of two different characters in the story. For example, a brave knight wants to unseat an evil usurper from the throne of the kingdom and restore the rightful ruler. Conflict: the usurper wants to be on the throne, the knight wants them off the throne.

2) Character vs Nature

This type of conflict is created when the character’s goals are in opposition with nature in the form of weather, climate, the wilderness, disease, anything that arose naturally. Additionally, the character’s beliefs, feelings, and emotions create further conflict as the natural foe/s forces the character out of their comfortable human element. For example: a shipwrecked man tries to survive on a harsh and unforgiving island, dealing with wild animals, poisonous plants and animals, shark infested waters, and dangerous storms. Meanwhile, the character deals with loneliness and processing regrets in terms of the life they led before they were shipwrecked.

3) Character vs Society

This type of conflict places the character in opposition with their society, government, or cultural/societal traditions or norms. The opposition may arise out of a need for survival, wanting to change their world for the better, or simply out of wanting happiness for themselves. For example: a girl is born into a society where a machine chooses her mate, but they’re both in love with someone else and band together to fight the government that enforces this tradition.

4) Character vs Supernatural

This type of conflict sets the character against a supernatural force or entity, such as ghosts, vampires, monsters, witches, evil wizards, aliens, etc. For example: a girl must fight an invasion of hungry evil vampires in her small town.

5) Character vs Technology

This type of conflict places the character in opposition with some sort of technology, typically because the technology is malfunctioning in some way or has become sentient and is fighting against humanity. Example: a woman--who is a highly regarded engineer--is aboard a luxury spaceliner when it flies into an unexpected asteroid field and begins to crash, and she must figure out how to save the failing ship.

6) Character vs Self

This type of conflict is entirely internal, and it pits the character against themselves due to some type of moral dilemma, conflicting desires, conflicting want vs need, or mental health struggle. For example: a man must battle his addiction to gambling after losing his marriage, children, and job and find a way to win his life back.

Typically, a story will revolve around one of these conflicts, and all of the problems the character faces will be an aspect of that conflict. However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a little crossover into other conflicts. For example, you can have a “character vs society” story where one of the obstacles the character faces is a pack of wild beast set after them by their evil government. In The Hunger Games, for example, although “character vs society” was the main conflict, Katniss had to deal with her own internal conflict, natural obstacles placed in the arena by the gamemakers, and the other characters she was competing against. However, all of those obstacles/conflicts (internal conflict, natural obstacles, other characters) were a direct result of the evil government ruling her world, so still part of the same main conflict.

I hope that helps!

————————————————————————————————-

Have a question? My inbox is always open, but make sure to check my FAQ and post master lists first to see if I’ve already answered a similar question. :)

[ms-demeanor]

I saw a video talking about why schools shouldn't grade or assign homework the other day (interesting video! I support a lot of what the speaker was saying!) But at one point word searches were described as obvious busywork - what's the point in teaching kids to read diagonal words, after all?

Diagnosing dyslexia. Diagnosing dyslexia. Diagnosing dyslexia.

After going through IB classes in high school, after finishing my BA while working full time, after failing algebra with the same teacher two years in a row, there is no kind of homework that has ever made me cry so hard as word searches did in the 3rd grade.

If you've got a kid who has been working on a word search for an hour and is crying and telling you "the words aren't there," if you've got a kid who never knows what the pictures are in connect-the-dots because they can't connect the dots in the correct order, if you've got a kid who can't read analog clock faces after months of being taught how to read time, if you've got a kid who retranscribes all their music class handouts as letters because they can't wrap their head around reading music, I'm begging you to get your kid tested for dyslexia/dyscalculia.

And I'm begging you to get them tested before they learn how to mask so hard that it's difficult to get an official diagnosis because if they need disability accommodations in college they're going to need a diagnosis but they're going to be so good at masking their disorder that it's going to be difficult to prove that they need accommodations. And 'well if you can get by well enough that as an adult you can pass a test designed to diagnose children you must not need help' is bullshit because those tests don't make you do algebra or learn a new character set.

[ms-demeanor]

Kid *sitting at the table with a book of sheet music for recorders open, carefully counting lines on the staff and then writing down a letter next to a line of letters in a spiral notebook, checking off the note, then carefully counting down the lines of the staff again*

Adult: Why are you making this so much harder on yourself? Just read the music.

Kid *stares into the camera like The Office the memorizes the fingering for a three minute piece of music so they can pretend to read along with the class*

LEARN TO RECOGNIZE THE SYMPTOMS OF LEARNING DISABILITIES, JERK. YOU'RE A COLLEGE PROFESSOR FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

[ms-demeanor]

Kid *counting a scheme of dots they've made up on a series of numbers to add the numbers*

Adult: Don't count, just add.

Kid *head rotates 360 degrees like in the exorcist*

Like. That's the thing. Nobody is helping you and they're telling you you're lazy and making excuse and to just work harder so you make up these little systems and mnemonics and you flex your right arm because that's the pledge of allegiance arm and you've memorized that so now you can tell left from right pretty quickly and you can count the dots on the numbers without moving your lips and you've memorized enough words that you can mostly read at a college level so you don't get told to "just sound it out" or "just look it up in the dictionary" all the time and you've got this just MASSIVE infrastructure going on under the surface to just get by and then you're thrown a monkey wrench like memorizing the quadratic equation or learning the IPA and it feels like you're climbing a mountain but everyone else is just walking along in the park and then one day you read the symptoms of dyscalculia and maybe have a little cry and you go to the disability office on campus and they show you a test and it's this tiny little hill that would have looked huge to you fifteen years ago but you've been climbing mountains for fifteen years and you realize that you have to keep climbing mountains only you could have had some ropes or some crampons but nope, you're just clinging to the rock by you're fingertips and looking at the rope you COULD have had if anyone had asked you "does this seem like a walk in the park or like a slog up a hill?" And believed your answer when you were ten.

I can read time *now.* if you give me a second and understand that I'll get it wrong the first time, at least, I cam tell you what the clock says NOW because I've had 30 years of getting made fun of over it and it's expected and people treat you like an idiot if you can't read a clock. So I can pass your test with the clocks NOW but there's a whole bunch of infrastructure that I need to make that happen and apparently most people don't need that? So can I have some help?

"Why would you need help? You can read time perfectly well."

And your brain is a Rube Goldberg machine full of marbles and dominoes and apparently other people can just add the numbers without setting up a chute and a counterweight but nobody told you that so you keep feeding ever more complicated inputs into your contraption and eventually it collapses and people are just like "if you could do geometry by hand algebra should be easy, you just aren't trying" and that's about when you decide that failure is an acceptable outcome, actually, and your parents are disappointed in your wasted potential forever after.

The End.

[tanadrin]

wait, other people do the dots on the numbers thing?? that’s a Thing???

[ms-demeanor]

Yeah, apparently it's enough of a thing that there are a couple standardized patterns they teach to kids now if they get diagnosed with dyscalculia.

[krakenartificer]

Hold up. Music dyslexia is the same disorder as regular dyslexia?

[ms-demeanor]

I'm not sure, but I've got dyslexia and dyscalculia and I'm a clever person who has had many music teachers over the years and I've made a genuine effort to learn to read music and it is Not Happening.

It seems like some people have problems with some character sets or orthogeaphy-to-concept more than others; my dyslexia is generally not a problem but my dyscalculia is bad enough that I have trouble putting my phone number on resumes and job applications and I have to get someone else to check it.

And music remains totally opaque to me but it feels much more similar to the problems I have with numbers than the problems I have with letters.

[kipplekipple]

They almost wouldn't diagnose me dyscalculic because I learned to compensate for the dyslexia when I was very small because I really really really needed to learn how to read and write (special interest #1).

It's like disabilities don't exist unless you would literally die without accommodations, for some people.

[clonerightsagenda]

I understand that a lot of people enjoy writing shipfics where they transplant characters into a college setting. Since some writers may not be in college, or may have graduated a long time ago, I thought I’d offer a helpful list of realistic college meet not-so-cute scenarios. Forget baristas. This is where it’s at. 

- I’m really passionate about this cause and I will give you this flier if I have to shove it down your throat

- vicious battle over the only left handed desk in the room

- my roommate’s boyfriend is staying over so can I please sleep on your floor

- it’s pouring and my final paper is in my backpack so I guess we’re stuck under this tiny awning together. do you think they’d deliver pizza here

- hey I have to photograph someone for class will you be my model

- hey I have to take someone’s blood pressure for class will you be my victim

- variations of the above

- I know I keep coming to the cookie shop and for some reason it’s always your shift but don’t you dare judge me I need these for my sanity

- all our friends are drunk

- it’s 3 am and I’m still in the library studying for finals and I’m losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost

- we’re the only two people in this club. what is this club even for

- humans vs zombies (see you can still have your zombie AU, best of both worlds)

- we’re the only people who ever talk in discussions it’s awful

- GROUP PROJECT

[kiriani]

#both of us turned up at the wrong room for this lecture but don’t know where its meant to be  #waiting outside for pizza to be delivered and both of ours are super late  #you keep parking in the space outside my student house you absolute asshole  #we live in halls opposite each other and I keep seeing you changing through your window  #you’re the only other person in the room when I break the printer and I’m panicking (little-smartass)

[cliffnotesofanerd]

- Neither of us bought the expensive textbook but there is only one copy in the library and it can’t leave the building

- This awesome professor only has one TA slot and we’re rivals

- I found your USB drive still in the computer

- I thought I was the only one who liked the waffle station in the cafeteria

- You keep reserving the good study room in the corner of the library with the windows

- We’re studying in the library and there are two people very obviously fucking in the stacks and we keep sharing embarrassed glances

- We’re both donating blood in the blood donation van in the quad to get out of the same class

- You decked me in the head while you were playing frisbee golf

- Wait, I actually have a competent lab partner?

- You’re the RA and you’re trying to bust me for having hermit crabs

- You’re baking cookies in the communal kitchen at 3am and I’m angry but also really hungry

- What are you doing at this table at the career fair

- Waiting for office hours

- I’ve been sitting in this seat all semester why did you decide to sit in it today

- Clearly we’re both really uncomfortable at this party

- You peed on my car. You were drunk. I was in the car. There will be hell to pay.

- We started racing up the three flights of stairs to class for some reason and we can’t stop

- You’re REALLY GOOD at using the right search terms for the academic databases and I’m on a deadline

[unsungfury]

-my friend dragged me to this party and I just saw my ex quick make out with me

-we’re always at the fitness center at the same time and end up competing on the treadmill

- Sorry my roommate puked on your shoes

- Can I borrow a dryer sheet? I ran out and the ones in the vending machine give me a rash

-Your school mailbox is right next to mine

-I saw you sneaking captain crunch and cutlery out of the dining hall

-My roommate borrowed your contraband hotpot and managed to set it on fire

-You keep using my preferred shower stall in the floor bathrooms when I’m trying to get ready for class

-My computer crashed and you’re the student worker at the IT center

-we’re both on althetic teams that aren’t as cool as the football team and they give us shit

- You’re part of the guerrilla theater club on campus and crashed my class for a performance

-What do you mean we’re under a tornado warning?

[fwizard]

also for your consideration

-the last two people on campus during an extreme weather alert and oh great we’re snowed in

-we both want that chair in the student lounge at the same time

-we keep running into each other while skipping that class each of us hate

-I was looking at an art display and you were asleep behind the display case

-I fell asleep in a weird place and you almost called the paramedics

-we’re both running on three hours of sleep and oh my god how did my entire coffee spill down your shirt

-unwilling participants in a prof’s teaching example

-slacker vs. straight A student

-you keep stealing my mac and cheese out of the microwave in the dining hall and I assumed the first time it was a mistake but now it keeps happening

[believingballerina]

- you’re the only writing tutor who ever has slots available when I’m free

- we have all the same study spots on campus

[aces-and-anime]

- we’re the only ones who turned up to this 8 am lecture

- dude I left my coat at a party and now you’re wearing it???

- C students who got paired together for a presentation doing their best

- I fell asleep at the library and a kind stranger draped their jacket over me… HEY! There’s a student ID in here!!! Oh shit

- you always write up the best class notes

- there’s only one pizza slice left at the cafeteria and our eyes lock

- looks like the most popular student now needs a proof-reader for their essays