Realization of Feelings

showing your writing to the quiet reader friend is like submitting a draft to the most judgmental literary journal imaginable

WRONG. talk about it. shout about it. yell about it. scream about it. so what if it’s a fanfic? it’s done with love and passion. it’s art created by a fellow human being who, despite life and lord knows what battle they may or may not be going through, probably stayed up all night writing it before they shared it with the world for free. they’d probably spent months or years writing it. it’s as much a piece of art and literature as any other art and literature that aren’t fanfics. and unlike artists who make profit off their works, fanfic writers truly write for free, because they are that passionate about their stories. the least we can do is show them our love and appreciation.

And if you really want to make their day? comment. That devastatingly beautiful sentence you’re losing your mind over? It might’ve taken them hours. Days. Weeks. It might’ve been the sentence they sat there staring at, thinking oh. this is the one. this is why i’m writing this. Fanfic writers don’t get paid. They don’t get reviews in the back of books. They get comments. And sometimes that one comment is what keeps them writing.

So if you’re reading this and thinking about leaving kudos and moving on — say the thing. Tell them the line. Tell them it hurt. Tell them it stayed with you. And if you’re holding that sentence in your chest, still not sure how to put it into words — try anyway. That attempt might mean more than you think.

Writing villains people actually fear (and remember)

It’s not about darkness. It’s about precision.

1. Give them a contradiction. Villains are scariest when they’re almost human. “He always apologised before hurting someone.”

2. Let them think they’re right. No moustache twirling — just conviction. “I’m not saving the world. I’m correcting it.”

3. Give them a normal habit that becomes unsettling. • humming off-key • straightening objects mid-argument • collecting people’s abandoned pens

4. Make their kindness selective. Kind to dogs. Cruel to friends. Kind to children. Absent to their own.

5. Make their presence change a room. Not with theatrics — with tone. “The laughter thinned when he stepped inside.”

How to make antagonists who aren’t evil (but still hurt you)

Some of the best antagonists are just… people.

1. Give them the same goal as the hero — different methods. Hero wants peace. Antagonist wants peace. Hero uses unity; antagonist uses control.

2. Let the antagonist be right sometimes. That stings.

3. Make the hero almost agree with them. “You’re not wrong,” she admitted. “But you’re not right either.”

4. Show glimpses of softness. “He tucked the child’s drawing into his coat.”

5. Let them break their own rules. Instant complexity.

// river’s dictionary defines writer’s block as

people saying “don’t use your full government name for your ao3”, “create different emails for work and personal use” but personally I think it’s both sad and dystopian how capitalism/companies/even schools think they have the rights to cross your personal boundaries and insert themselves into your personal life. like, I get it, safety wise, why checking digital footprints can be important sometimes. but a gay fanfiction is not a fucking threat that could ever cause anybody harm. it’s funny (not really, it’s still sad and dystopian) how they now think they can control your personal life and prevent you from having hobbies

my daily affirmation as an author

Bleach ending in nutshell

Just found out you can change the kudos message on ao3 and honestly? Best day of my life

Every time you leave kudos on one of my fics, you’ll get one of these messages:

this isn’t what i normally post here but firefox just switched ceos and this “anthony” dumbass is trying to put more “ai” slopware into it, meaning more bloat and privacy loss

if you use this browser you should go to their support forums and complain about it

Link to the support forums so you can leave your feedback.

Also, how to remove AI features from Firefox:

irritatingly, the list of AI settings in Firefox has grown. to kill them all as of today (Nov 20, 2025), go into about:config and set all of these to false (yes, you’ll have to copy and paste them one by one):

in addition to nuking AI, it’ll also speed up your browsing

Know your characters

If you’re stuck about what to write, and you’re sitting there wanting to write, but nothing comes to mind, just try freewriting.

Whats freewriting? Well (for me at least, not the probably proper term it has… unless is this and I’m not going go search it now) Freewriting is just starting to write randomly without anything coming to mind.

Just begin writing whatever and let the words take you with them to the next sentence, paragraph, page. You can use this to get ideas about your world. Probably practice or anything else you like. More often than not, whenever I freewrite, i figure out some character voices, plots, locations, character ideas, story ideas, etc. You can also use it to try practicing stuff you wouldn’t normally write.

The freedom of not having to drop it in your main WIP helps with the creative juices. You can then delete it or keep it. It depends on what you would like. Below is an example of my freewrite.

“Lights flashed in the foggy darkness of the city, reds and blues as the police cops hovered by, patrolling lazily in the horizon while I scanned the skyline. It was merely waiting game at this point, killing time until my target appeared in his apartment across the street. All around me the buildings glittered like a million stars blinking in the cosmos, all bleeding their artificial light upon this canvas of metal, concrete and indifference that permeated across the city.”

The above example may not be the best in terms of narration, but it is what freewrite is for. Lets you practice things, discover more things about your world and also get the hand down on description styles you would probably not normally use.

Anything is better than being stuck on your desktop staring at a blank page for four hours before you give up and go watch a show or something. Is worth trying at least.

Stick around for more tips, tricks, rants and other random bits with me as I share what worked for me, along with examples and feedback. And feel free to shoot me a DM. I’ll welcome a conversation.

The vibes were so good though

Fandom Problem #12,222:

Small artists or fic writers who struggle to get any engagement at all or who rarely receive more than like 20 notes, get a massive shout out from me.

It takes guts to keep producing work that doesn't get embraced by the fandom at large, and a level of creative stamina that's highly admirable. You are the people who actually run on "do it for yourself" energy and it is far from easy but you keep doing it anyways.