By Talos, this cant be happening
Gone Phishing
maybe I should make an eddsworld side blog just so I have a dedicated area for ew stuff as well as fanfic updates so that people who follow me for that and not the random gata of my main blog wont be bombarded.
The lesson here is that your main characters can be as special, overpowered, and unrealistically skilled at everything as you want, as long as this has the purpose of driving the plot via all the problems they cause (because they're an egotistical nightmare and a gigantic raging asshole).
The second lesson here is that no matter what randos on writing blogs say, people like stories where the characters are unique and iconic. Or at least they remember them.
(I have a theory that the stories that form long-lasting fandoms, and/or are recognized and referenced frequently in pop culture, are stories that have the same sort of "iconic" elements that are long-lasting in folklore and mythology. I think superheroes are particularly well suited to lasting centuries/millennia into the future because they're just so simple and memorable conceptually.)
Hi my name is Gilgamesh Hammurabi Ziusudra Euphrates Ishtar and I have the same heroic build as my lordly ancestors (that's how I got my name) with bulging muscles and chiselled features moulded by the goddess Aruru, and icy blue eyes like the limpid waters of the Great Flood, and a lot of people tell me I look King Enmebaragesi of Kish (AN: if u don’t know who he is get da Kur out of here!). I’m not related to Ishtar but I wish I was because she’s a major fucking hottie. I'm a demi-god but I'm not immortal. I possess extraordinary strength. I'm also a king and I rule a city called Urduk, where I force my subjects to erect lots of ziggurats (I'm known for my cruelty). I’m a Sumerian (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly animal skins. I love the forbidden Cedar Forest and I slay and skin all my beasts from there. For example today I was wearing a skin made from the Bull of Heaven with a matching sheep hide skirt, gold armlets, a carnelian headband, and black combat sandals. I was wearing black kohl eyeliner to ward off conjunctivitis. I was walking outside the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of the earth. I came across a tunnel which no man before me had ever entered, which I was very happy about. Two guards that were giant scorpion monsters stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.
This is objectively genius writing but the size of the audience that can properly recognize its brilliance is so small
I'm just glad to be part of it
I am simultaneously hella mad and hella impressed at how well this narrative style FITS Gilgamesh
I mean, when you think about the main narrative arc, “My Immortal” actually wouldn’t be an unreasonable title for the Epic of Gilgamesh to have.
He's not immortal though, that's the whole point
"My Mortal" would be a very accurate title
But it’s about his quest for immortality! And the ultimate realisation that his only path to everlasting life is to loom large in the memories of those who come after him. Having a legacy is his immortal 🤣
I am THRILLED by the existence of My Gilgamesh and I read it out loud, with true fangirl inflection, to my partner. We are laughing and this is fantastic.
He looms large in our memories, just as Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.
Going back to the point about Mary Sues, though...
Everyone: You're the worst character I've ever heard of!
Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way: But you have heard of me.
Edd just chilling out maybe?
SHIT I MEANT 9 INSTEAD OF 8 SORRY
LKDAJSDJASD HILARIOUS that you came back to clarify, lmao okay
9. Favorite/Least favorite tropes?
Favorite tropes: Villain redemption arc/Hero corruption arc. I think villain redemptions are obvious as to why I could like it, its essentially someone who learns how to be a better person after every wrong thing they did, I think it’s sweet.
Now hero corruption on the other hand…..I think it’s just an interesting concept, I don’t need to put in pretentious things like ‘oooh morality is fickle and humans are bad to the core’ no no, I just think the angst that comes with it is fun and honestly dark literature gives me a kick, it’s just fascinating.
Least favorite: Love triangle, definitely that, ESPECIALLY the straight variety. Actually, no, JUST the straight variety.
Love triangles can be interesting if executed well and if people weren’t such goddamned cowards bc love triangles can’t be straight, ONE of yall is falling for the same/nb gender in that group. The reason I strongly dislike the usual straight love triangles is that it ISNT EVEN A TRIANGLE. Usually its a fucking love corner and these two guys are just cornering the shit out of the girl, like damn bestie call 911.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
The critter community is so artistic, and I just felt some of you needed to hear this💜
really did need this today thank you
35, 31, 25, 20, 8, 1 (sorry it’s a lot ‘^^)
Oh no, I don’t mind at all if its a lot :] ask away~ I’m assuming this is from the writer ask meme so:
35. Post the last sentence you wrote
- Is this considered spoilers if this is drafting? Lol
“It was the last thing that Tom heard before his world became unfocused and hazy.”
31. Top five favorite books in your genre?
- “My” genre, I’m not sure what that means exactly, angst?? General bullshittery?? Well in any case I’ll just tell you my favorite books:
1. Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld
2. Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
3. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
4. Vicious by V.E. Schwab
5. Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami
25. What’s your worldbuilding process like?
- Well, for worldbuilding I like to look at actual world maps if I’m basing it on real places, then I do things like go to google earth and look around the streets and views to get a general feel of what the area is like. This is also for more fantastical locations since we do base things off reality, then add a little bit of a twist to it ourselves. Sometimes, when I feel motivated, I sketch out the environments to full detail so I can get a clear visual for what everything looks like.
20. Any advice for young writers/advice you wish someone would have given you early on?
- Make.A.Comprehensive.Skeletal.Structure.Of.Your.Story. Direction, direction, direction! When I was younger, I used to throw caution into the wind and just write along without knowing what happens next, I would be just as surprised as my readers when seeing what happens in the story. When I say comprehensive skeletal structure, I mean it for every single chapter, you can have one BIG outline for the general course and plot for the story, but for every individual chapter, at least try to list down what happens so you can see how well it will flow with the rest of them. E.g.
Chapter 1:
>MC is introduced through a flashback from an outsider’s POV
>Cut to present day where MC is being questioned by authorities over a recent murder that they witnessed
>MC is uncooperative, makes it clear they do not like cops
>Reveal in the end that MC is a victim of police brutality, and that the flashback may have more of a story to it regarding MC’s hatred for police.
Then if you cut to Chapter 2 you’ll get to see if the points of the story connect well or not, example being it would be good to follow MC into a new location brooding over their interaction with the police instead of let’s say, a sudden cut to a side character with nothing to do with the current story progression. Unless of course, you mean for it to be jarring and such. Though take my advice with a grain of salt, I’m a professional (or so I like to think given it’s how I earn a living) visual artist, not a professional writer.
8. Do you have any writing buddies/critique partners?
- Ahaha I already answered this in a previous ask but, yes I do, only for original works though, not fandom works.
1. Tell us about your WIP!
- My WIP is the last installment of a grievously long fanfic with a word count over 40k+ rejected scenes already. I have been gnawing at my brain trying to make it make sense and going virtually insane doing so, cursing the gods who listen for taking away my muse and leaving me a hollow grey shell of a man I used to be.
Other than that, I’m having fun with the drafts, I relearned that this is supposed to be a fun hobby and I’m treating it as such.
being queer and seeing historical queer love is like a punch to the gut in a good way every time
crying and sobbing crying and sobbing etc
some more vintage photographs that make me weep and wail, now including trans people!
Happy tears
love is stored in the historical queer pictures
sometimes i think about gay people who lived centuries ago who thought they were all alone who imagined a world where they could live openly as themselves who met in secret spoke in code defied everything and everyone just to exist and i’m like..i gotta sit down. whew i gotta sit down
this is why this sappho fragment hits me so hard
If this little book should see the light after its 100 years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the political equality and social and moral elevation of women.
“The Great Geysers of California” by Laura De Force Gordon, 1879, unearthed from a 100-year-old time capsule in San Francisco, 1979.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”
reading these fragments always makes me cry
I wanted to leave this in the tags but
Short anecdote that my family have actually asked me to create a sort of family history record/book. The book is supposed to trace back to our known ancestors until the present day members. Supposedly, I am to gather facts and stories about every member and detail them into this book, I’ve been explicitly told that everything I record should be accurate and entirely truthful down to the smallest detail. I intend to keep that promise, except for my own page and some others.
I am not out to my family as gay, and I doubt I will ever be, especially not in the country I live in now. Some members of my family are also the same, and we feel we are not safe enough to out ourselves this way, even at the cost of single sentences and blank pages to be all we’re remembered for in our own family history.
And it hurts that it’s still this way sometimes, even now, but one thing I wanna do is keep a separate book about us, and keep it somewhere safe until came a time we can be remembered by our family as someone who existed.
random bitter aspiring authors on "writing advice" blogs: Don't make your main characters super special mary sues. don't make them better than other people or more interesting. your main characters should be boring average guys with the personalities of wood pulp
the Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh was objectively the best man ever. He was the hottest, sexiest, most gorgeous hunk of pure manly awesomeness that ever lived and he used a sword that weighed 120 pounds.