Happy 38th Birthday To Dazai Osamu's Seiyuu (Voice Actor) Mamoru Miyano 🎉🎉🎉

And this is exactly at least part of why I'm rewriting HYLY on Ao3. That and the just all around more secure filtering system.

you read stuff on wattpad for shit and giggles where most of the fics there are reader-inserted ones written in 1st person pov where y/n is a barely legal white girl with blonde hair and blue “orbs” who’s so smol and fragile that she’s dependent entirely on this morally questionable guy who’s killing people for a living but for some reason happens to have a soft spot for her.

you read real actual literature on archive of our own where it’s two middle aged men, who are each other’s sworn enemies, with tragic past, trauma and strong homoerotic tension. and while they’ve made each other bleed, killed each other’s friends and loved ones out of jealousy / possessiveness, lied and betrayed and manipulated, the rawness, depth, complexity and slow burn will keep you up all night, haunt you during your day and possibly change your life forever. and also the sex isn’t just smut. the sex is poetry that puts Shakespeare to shame

"people who stay up at night are either insomniac or In love" people who stay up at night read gay fanfiction on AO3 what are you on about?

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

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➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

“When I describe Dazai to the staff, there is a phrase that I always use, “an unworldly being with a mental age of two thousand years.” Dazai has far surpassed the mental dimension that human can reach, thus no-one can even tell if the emotions he shows are the real things or not.

There are rare moments when that Dazai shows his very “human” side. That is when he talks to another superhuman who is on the same level with him. The other is when he talks about his old friend who has passed.

This is the scene when Kyouka wondered “Maybe I’m, after all, just a murderer at heart.” and refused to be saved. And Dazai’s reaction to that. When he said “Don’t give me any of that!” here, he really meant it. That was an outburst from Dazai, as a 22-year-old boy, in this scene.”

(Bungou Stray Dogs Chapter 35 - Easygoingscan’s version)

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TN: I went to the BSD exhibition in Ikebukuro today and they have Asagiri’s comments on each character and their important scene, that I find very nice so I’m gonna find time to translate them little by little.

『𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚛 𝚞𝚗𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜.

𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜.

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚊 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚍𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕.

𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜.』

— 𝙳𝚊𝚣𝚊𝚒 𝙾𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚞, 𝙽𝚘 𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝙷𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗

Just a psa for fic writers who use the “trauma bond” tag, please make sure you’re using it correctly. A trauma bond is not two people who experience similar trauma and bond over it. It’s a carefully curated, manipulative bond between abuser and victim to keep the victim coming back because of the addictive highs and lows that come with abuse.

If you want to tag two characters bonding over shared trauma, a good substitute tag would be “bonding over shared trauma.” Trauma bonding is, by definition, an abusive relationship and may steer people who have experienced it away from your fic. Please spread the word and happy writing!

that feeling when youve written down 2k+ words and havent even got CLOSE to the main part of the fic yet </3

Revising and Self-Editing

I’m currently revising and self-editing my mermaid x human boy romance novel, so I thought I would share some resources that may help other writers revise and/or edit their stories.

A list of resources to help you during the revision process or when you’re self-editing your story.

Editing and Proofreading An article written for college students from The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina. While most of it applies to writing academic papers, it has helpful tips (under the section titled “Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading”) that can apply to any writer who is revising or editing their own work.

Beginning the Awesome Journey of Revision Provides helpful tips on how to get started on revising your story’s draft. The list of additional resources includes a few broken links, but most of them work.

How to Survive the Editing Process Provides tips and suggestions for how to get started on revising or editing your story’s draft and what to look for when editing.

The Big Bad Guide to Novel Revision A lengthy, comprehensive guide to revising and editing your story’s draft. Explains in detail the elements to consider when going over the story, the characters, and grammar. Includes a few broken links, but the guide itself is helpful.

When to Say You’re Done Revising Offers realistic advice on how to know when you’re done revising and editing (or how to know when you’ve edited your manuscript as much as you possibly can).

For a more thorough guide on editing, check out my post The Different Types of Editing, which also includes links to even more resources on editing.

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I’m a writer, poet, and editor. I share writing resources that I’ve collected over the years and found helpful for my own writing. If you like my blog, follow me for more resources! ♡

Hair all tangled this morning - Shall I smooth it With spring rain Dripping form the jet-black Wings of swallows?

- Yosano Akiko, “Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami”

In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one percent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine per cent is just living in waiting.

Dazai Osamu, The Setting Sun