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Largishcat I just want you to know that they found that trans men on T start developing functional prostatic tissue in their vaginal walls, which... ya know... do what they do. Secrete components of semen. So your post about tboy pussy tasting more like dick is.... scientifically supported. You're welcome
WHAT. wait for real, that’s so cool
For a moment, Skoodge’s world was red. The red of Zim’s eyes, the red of the hallway, red red RED.
“...Nothing happened, Skoodge.” Zim said, low and intense and just a touch off-center, “and nothing is GOING to happen. Because Zim is perfect.”
A gift for @sparrowhawkandco who wrote an amazing follow up fic to that one comic I made a while back where Skoodge asks a few too many questions about Zim’s rumored deactivation. Spoiler; Skoodge hasn’t learned his lesson yet.
OP sent me this fic when I was in a pretty bad place and it really gave me that inspiration kick I needed to finally dust off my drawing tablet again. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did!
Read Perfection by Sparrowhawk1031 on ao3 [here]
SARA. You answered the ask a while ago, BUT. I am NOT over what you said about Zim petting Dib's hair. Like? You're really telling us that in Spacedust and Nightlights, Zim made ACTIVE EFFORTS to be comforting beyond just holding Dib? Even after he fell asleep? And he may have done it other times too, outside of the stories you've written? Aahhh?! I'm picturing all of this and it's too much??
Yeah! He’s had to practice being kind in a way he’s was never taught how too.
In my head, it’s funny because Zim doesn’t really know what he’s doing at first, especially at the beginning of the series. All the soft touches when Dib is asleep, he’s hesitant and doesn’t really have an example of a good physical comfort action aside from Gir’s attempts at hugs. So brushing his hair, rubbing his back, holding him, all of that is from watching other humans, seeing what works and carefully applying that to Dib when the chance arises
Do you have any advice on how to write faster? Though I do struggle with perfectionism and am working on letting stuff be mediocre on the first pass (done is better than perfect, etc), I'm more talking about the speed with which I can generate words in the first place. It takes me a long time to come up with what I want out of a sentence/paragraph, and even longer to actually put it into words. I've dismissed it before as a personal brain thing, but I'd appreciate your thoughts in case it's not!
I don’t have any advice you’re going to like, honestly.
Because the thing about writing is that it’s just a skill. You do it faster and easier by virtue of doing it more. Except that it’s a skill that you can’t practice somewhat mindlessly to develop muscle memory like you can with sports, and it’s not something you can pull up references for when you get stuck like you can with art. You just have to, like... do it. Over and over and over and over and over. And then do it some more after that. That’s how you learn writing patterns for yourself. That’s how you learn to recognize what you need to do in order to accomplish X without thinking about it for as long.
The other thing is something you’re somewhat already working on but I want to... like... I dunno how to say this but I see it repeated so very often in writers. It’s not just that people get hung up on things being perfect the first time (which they can’t be perfect the first time, and you’re doing AMAZING working on letting go of that). People get hung up on... like.... Every Story Must Matter.
I don’t... know where this came from, or why I never... I dunno, why it was never something I believed or saw, until I started interacting with more writers. I’ve seen so many people with this idea that every piece of writing must be something publishable. I don’t even mean Real Life Bookshelf publishable, even just publishable in some “finished” way on AO3. But oh man, I can tell you, as soon as you let go of that idea, you get better.
When I was in the TW fandom, I used to do askbox prompts. Just... you know, I’d take little prompts and USUALLY limit myself to 300-500ish words, and I’d slam out 2-3 in a night. The writing wasn’t great. It often had spelling mistakes. I never reread them before slapping them up on tumblr. They were just gifts (or attacks, like the Chimera fic was but Annabeth deserved that for what she SAID to me). But importantly, they were practice. And not just, like... I don’t mean that they were “writing an amount of words” practice. The prompts I took were “give me a pairing and 3 words” and then I had to figure out how to fit those things together and tell a story in under 500 words with no editing, 2-3 times a night. That helped me develop my ability to figure out how to put down what I wanted to say, and quickly (in both the time and the space meaning).
The thing is, I never intended for those to be anything polished. They were the equivalent of an artist doing sketches. Some of them were better than others. Some of them were just awful. I had no intention of putting them anywhere useful (I did, eventually, collect them into a chaptered fic on AO3 just before the Tumblr Purge, as a precaution). Most of them got 10-15 notes. Literally it was just a tool and a way to interact nicely with fandom for a while. They were writing doodles.
But that, too, boils down to “doing it over and over and over again.”
And finish things. I cannot stress this enough. I know people with a thousand WIPs and nothing really finished. The problem with that is... you don’t learn how to finish a thing. Which means you’re missing out on how to develop a complete story; because the ending SHOULD have some kind of relation to the beginning, even if it’s just “this is how things have changed/remained the same since the beginning” or something. Without writing the ending, you don’t get to see the whole picture, and that makes it hard to build. Finishing things teaches you which building blocks you’re holding while you’re writing in the beginning, and that’s a REALLY important tool for writing quicker. Without finishing things to learn how whole stories written by you look, you’re putting together a puzzle with no picture on the box.
Which is just “do it over and over and over again- completely.”
There’s a story about a ceramics class that I feel like I try to tell people all the time to express that sometimes it really is just quantity over quality. There was a post going around that pointed out that like less than 1% of Picasso’s works are considered masterpieces. I wrote around 200 of those ficlets I was talking about, and only ever turned a couple of them into worthwhile stories; maybe like 3 or 4.
So just... i dunno. You’re struggling with perfectionism so I don’t know how much this advice will help at all, but just let yourself be bad sometimes. Let stuff not matter as an end goal, not just a “first pass” sort of deal. Sketch some words sometime, doodle something silly in words and toss it. Make lots of small things just to see what shapes they make or what you can do with them.
Artists don’t polish every line they put down. Neither should you, that’s exhausting.
Trick or tweet! Could I have a kea or a cool variety of raven? Your choice!
Have a Little Raven! They’re also called Australian Ravens. I think their eyes are super neat.
I don't have the mental energy to fully articulate it right now, but I needed to yell at somebody about the devastatingly Five-y vibes the song Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes has. I can't fit all my thoughts in an ask anyway, but like. A bunch of individual lines AND the overall theme of the song are so fitting in such a painfully bittersweet way for him. Like. DAMN.
Me, reading this, also being someone who can make too many songs about Five if I want to: Eh it can’t be THAT perfectly fitting.
Me, reading the lyrics: HOLY S H I T
Like this???
Christ.
Hey - saw your post about your chest getting tight when you lie down, and resolving when you sit back up. That's called orthopnea, and usually is indicative of some kind of heart or lung condition. I'm an EMT, not a doctor, plus this is just going off a single post from a person I've never met, so I don't want you to get too stressed about it. But I would go get yourself checked out if you can.
I’m gonna try and get a doctors appointment but I’m gonna have to wait until I’ve done this covid test because otherwise you know they’ll be throwing holy water at me through the phone like “do NOT come in here if you have breathing problems” hakjsdhaj
I read your last ask (about Zim taking care of a starving Dib) and first of all, hooooo boy. Second of all, it got me thinking about all sorts of possibilities, and I'm wondering: do you think Zim, if he was actually, really trying, could keep a conscious Dib (who presumably is actively trying to escape) captive? And how?
A good combination of drugs and Dib-proof restrains (developed over a decade of feuding back and forth, fo course). I mean really, the guy takes three steps and collapses from exhaustion and near starvation, how hard to keep still could he be? (says Zim, as he gets surprise poked in the eye by the Dib hand he never realized he managed to free)
