Yea

Something I've been thinking about lately is the shame around writing slowly, and how prevalent it is for people to be upset about not being able to write a lot really quickly. About how so much of writing advice is "how to write more faster," and how many people seeking advice are asking how to write a thousand words a day, and how big of an annual thing NaNoWriMo is because it's difficult but there's this general vibe of condescension for those who don't participate or who don't "win."

And I used to feel ashamed too. I'd get frustrated by my apparent inability to write more than a few hundred words in a sitting on a good day. I'd beat myself up for only managing my bare minimum of fifty words, I'd try again and again at NaNoWriMo and hate myself for not being able to do it.

But I've realized that if I didn't write slowly, my stories wouldn't be what they are. I wouldn't love them so much, because they wouldn't have become what they did - because they had time to bloom.

And I've also realized that while I have had moments in time where I wrote like that - multiple thousands of words a day for days or weeks on end - that's... not something I aspire to.

I write slow! That's okay!

I'm proud of writing slow. I'm proud of having gotten to the point where I put myself and my process before what others expect of me.

You don't need to be fast. You don't need to be ashamed.

And you don't need to want to be fast, either.

I certainly don't.

sanzaru better have a doggone good reason to completely murderize Penelope’s entire personality like that, omg it was awful

come on guys, she deserved better than that

Even more so if you want to talk about it.

Here's a link to it in case you somehow missed it.

penelope can box, guys-

Sly 3 Screencap re-draw

I just dug up one of my first attempts at humanizing the Sly Cooper cast because it fits in with the current “Re-Draw a screen cap” trend.

Basically, I wanted to see how well my humanized versions worked within the context of an actual scene from the game. I also tweeked it to focus more on the characters than the background (that’s why the drawing cuts off the vault and shows Bentley & Penelope’s faces)

Are Penelope's parents still alive and if so, do they approve of Bentley?

Her parents have not met him yet.

I think I finally understand why people write fanfiction. it’s so aggravating when a piece of media doesn’t engage with its premise - like maybe the implications were too dark, maybe if we followed it to its logical conclusion the main character would be irredeemable, maybe it’s too complicated, maybe it’s too flavourful (weird, horny, unflattering) so we only get a liiiitle bit of it sprinkled on top of an otherwise generic story

whatever the reason, we end up with a diet lite homogenized version of what the initial story promised us. it makes me pace around my house biting at my thumb, going “no…..no it could’ve been better…..I could’ve made it better…..”

Thieves In Time Redux Meme #13

Here's how I fixed Thieves In Time...

Anyway, these changes are only the tip of the iceberg...

I know making Penelope the main protagonist is a bold move, but I can't see this story going any other way. Yes, this also means making her fully playable as well.

Listen, you can’t write perfect characters. No one cares about reading about someone who never screws up. Your characters need to make bad decisions, they need to hurt people, and they need to be hurt. They should doubt themselves and do things they regret. That’s where the magic happens, when they’re flawed, messy, and human. People don’t fall in love with characters because they’re flawless; they fall in love because those characters remind them of the chaos inside themselves. So don’t be afraid to put your characters through hell. Only then will their journey mean something.