I’m literally haunted by the fact there’s an arrow pointing to a blood stain that looks like a heart. 🫨

I have a story that I've been working on and off about exactly that. And you know what the one being examined was fully aware that it was going to be explicit! And guess what it was still interesting.

I am so tired of people not including consent into this stuff. Consent can be sexy! Honest!

but anyway I was reading a manwha that had an examination scene. Male character was evaluating the female for magic. It's a smut manwha so naturally it gets explicit. But my problem is, he led her in there under false pretenses.

You can write an examination scene with the other character's consent.

I know we've got some artists in the community so hopefully you can see that even if you're not where you want to be right now. Eventually you'll get there as an artist.

Honestly the biggest thing I kept seeing is baby bottle starting to understand concepts in art but had no one to coach 'em.

It's interesting to see how far things have come over the years. I was hoping to see maybe some signs that I'd end up doing omegaverse content but there was nothing.

Then again it wasn't really a thing back then either. Anyway I hope you guys got a kick out of seeing some early work.

Okay that's... that's just too far in for me. I barely remember watching a couple episodes of TOME. I don't remember liking Dark Magician Girl.

This was... Interesting to flip through to say the least. The computer I had that had those files is LONG gone. So this was effectively a time capsule

When did I have a Yu-gi-oh era?! I don't understand!

Is that TOME fan art?! When did I make this?! It's pretty good though... Why didn't I finish this?

Now I'm not the type to typically poke fun at my younger self. Some of the stuff that baby bottle did was pretty cool. But... I don't understand the phase I went through with smoking?

Is she supposed to be an angel made from the smoke?

I'm regretting my decision to plug in this usb... 🫠

If you're like me, you'll never want to bring it to life.

But if you don't approach this trade without first deciding to enjoy yourself. You're never going to finish anything. You're going to end up with a stack of half finished drafts and nothing to show.

Ideas are easy. It's bringing them to life that's hard. And if you don't love your idea...

But more than anything beyond formulas and tropes. Write the story you want to read. Write what's fun and silly, or interesting. Don't worry about writing something that's going to get you awards or attention.

Most of the time you're not going to get it anyway. Hard pill to swallow I know.

Anyway all of this is to say that while I do have that weird maladaptive thing going on with the flashes of stories. Most of the time just having a general knowledge of genre tropes and story telling can lead into interesting directions and stories.

I guess I still kind of look at original writing as fanfiction with extra steps. Genre is your fandom, tropes are your tags, and archetypes are your characters. I don't really care if someone else's character is similar to mine or not.

I all care about is if my version of my character is good.

Of course I might be biased because I started out writing in fanfiction. And no, before you ask I will never tell you where it is and who I was when I wrote it. 😆 That stays buried where it should be.

Anyway I guess that might be the reason why I've never understood the need to be wholly unique.

It eases them into taking a risk on your stories and writing. It's why I personally believe fanfiction as a writing genre continues to grow in popularity. It takes away the mental labor of having to get to know new settings and characters while still maintaining novelty.