Sirstickbug - Stickbug!

Police raiding The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The CUHK campus is facing siege and there are over 60 heavily wounded student protesters at this very moment. This could become Tiananmen Square 2.0 if they do not receive help.

life tips

make yourself hard to kill

say fuck it we ball whenever something bad happens

if your therapist cant fix you you can make her worse

Hi, I'm a HUGE fan of you and your work! I think my favourite so far is Selfless. You constructed everything perfectly with his identity issue to his addiction. As a writer, if I may ask, how do you know just how you can write around intercations and actions without it growing tiresome? I always end up too straightforward or too redundant so I was hoping for some pointers if it's something you learned. And another thing is how you always find the words and metaphors to explain something. I always find myself unable to explain the feelings and sensations or just plucking it from another story somewhere. Is it because of experience, something you learned, or does it just come to you eventually? Sorry for all the questions. I'd be really happy if you could provide me with some pointers or stuff you learned because your writing truly boggles my mind more than I honestly wished it would lol. Have a nice dayy!!

YOU ARE SO INCREDIBLY KIND! 😭 Thank you! I'm so glad you liked Selfless. And someone liking my stuff enough to ask for WRITING ADVICE? 🤯😍😭 I'm a wreck over here.

I know every writer is different and what has worked well for me might be extremely unhelpful to someone else, but I'll try my best!

If a scene feels tiresome it might be because it lacks purpose. Without a clear direction to move in, it's easy to write yourself in circles. Having the foundations of your scene clearly in mind, like what your characters are feeling going into it, what they will learn/how their opinions or attitude will shift as a result of this exchange, and the end goal that will mark the end of the scene, can help keep the pace appropriately brisk and the interaction meaningful. As a "discovery writer," I often find myself asking those questions halfway into a scene (or even after it's written), which can lead to a lot of editing or even just erasing paragraphs that aren't contributing. If you can answer those questions before you get started, that's great; but if you're like me and have characters that often surprise you with their reactions, there's nothing wrong with editing or rewriting the scene to include what you've learned along the way.  

If a scene feels too straightforward it might help to inject a little subtlety. Showing how someone is feeling rather than telling can breathe a lot of life into a paragraph. (Not "She felt happy," but "She smiled so hard her eyes crinkled.") Introducing a third unrelated element for your character's feeling to manifest towards is also a neat trick I've been playing with recently that can add another layer of depth. (She bought a pie she's excited to eat when she gets home, but after something disappointing happens, she no longer wants to eat the pie.)  

If a scene feels redundant it might help to trust your audience more. Writing is among the most participatory art forms in that your reader's imagination is going to supply a lot of what you don't say. Over-explaining not only leads to rambling paragraphs but can also inhibit your storytelling. Let your reader infer things. Leave them breadcrumbs in your characters actions (drifting eyes, twitching fingers) or in the unsaid (like in Selfless, when Zelda says, "The moon looks beautiful tonight," and Link scoffs, "You think so?"). On the sentence level, less is usually more. Because I'm wordy, I can almost always cut a good third of the words in my sentence with no impact on clarity. Especially look out for overused whisker words (however, still, and, but, yet, etc) or qualifiers that aren't adding anything ("She smiled at him" vs "She smiled").  

That brings us to metaphors, which I struggle with immensely so I'm both flattered and shocked that you like mine. 😂 Of course skills inevitably improve with practice and I think aging in general helps (more life experiences = more to pull from), but two things I consciously try to work in are character perspective and mouthfeel. Character perspective: Dryad!Link is a tree, so he sees the world through the lens of nature, plants, the seasons, and the like, so as my narrative character his metaphors will likely pull from those sources. Huntsman!Link is a hunter, so he's more likely to think in terms of snares, traps, weapons, prey animals, stealth, a kill, and so on. Obviously this works best with a close narrative character, but it's a good trick for adding cohesion with the environment of the scene or story as well. Mouthfeel: Aligning the emotional undercurrent of the metaphor with the image usually works better for me than worrying so much about literal parallelism. Do I want this metaphor to feel melancholic, bright, hopeful, uncomfortable, creepy? Really clinging to that and running with it can lead to some unexpected (and sometimes illogical) places. I once wrote a line, "slipping through front-tooth gaps in time like pond water through soft-cupped hands," and my first inclination was to erase it because I thought "front-tooth gaps in time" didn't make any sense. But it felt like what I wanted to say, so I left it, and now it's one of my favorite little lines I've ever written. So. Don't be afraid to run with the feeling and see where it leads!

WOW THAT IS A BOOK 😂 Sorry for rambling, but apparently I like to talk craft! 🤪 If you ever want some more personalized feedback feel free to send me a DM! Thank you so much for the ask! 🥰

Please gush more about her, I love her as a character so much and would love to see your theorise

What's your opinion on Vader Eloha? And if you're feeling generous, could we also get some Vader art? That one animation made AGES ago where Vader reaches out for Batter's bloody hand and falls still makes me cry to this day

Vader Eloha is my next favorite character in OFF. She just gives so much boss girl energy, and that entire segment with her was amazing, dialogue, battle, and lore. GOD. I could gush about her forever and wonder about her mysterious angsty past.

That said, I definitely would love to make more Eloha art, not so much animations as her hair takes up so much time to animate xD Thank you, I'm glad it's still remembered and I'm proud of that animation until now.

The laugh that I let out when they showed Earth >>>