Strontium @strontiumsun@wandering.shop

#introduction
Eyeah! I'm Stront from the US. Currently I write and draw a webcomic called Heroes of Thantopolis, and I read way too many books on my Kindle. I want to write YA novels someday and I have a lot of ideas! Love sci-fi-fantasy blends, neurodiverse and queer characters, magic systems, ghosts, and explosions. If you want to talk to someone about your story, hit me up!! I'll listen fo sho!
My webcomic: http://heroesofthantopolis.com/
Writing samples:
https://izzyhall.carbonmade.com/projects/6518318

When it came time for the spirits to leave him, they hadn't completed their work. He couldn't use magic at all, and this special piece of spirit string that resided in the hand wasn't in the right position. He had suddenly become disabled in the eyes of his society. One other teen - a girl, daughter of someone important in the society - had the same problem as him, so they decided to team up and pretend to know what everyone else knew, but they were constantly afraid of their secret coming out.

My Dream p1:

I dreamed of a society where children couldn't emote, and as teenagers they were given a connection to spirits who would embed them with emotions and the ability to do small bits of magic necessary for being an adult in this world. But when my character was given spirits, instead of fading into the background, they lingered in the forefront of his mind, and he became very close friends with all of them, learning their names and personalities. It was fun, but it had consequences.

Since the Law of Conservation of Detail demands that dreams must be meaningful in focused stories, and dreams are hard to write convincingly, then what's the best way to write a meaningful dream that feels "realistic"? How do you get that dream feeling onto paper? What's your favorite example of a meaningful dream in a piece of literature, and can you share it? Do you ever write down your dreams? I used to write often about my dreams on my blog: http://strontiumsun.tumblr.com/tagged/dreams

Today's #trope talk is about Meaningful Dreams! This is a very widespread trope that even I use in stories. However, most of my stories that use this trope are cartoon stories that I intend to present in images. I think it's much harder to write dreams than to draw dreams, which makes all dream tropes very noticeable and somewhat contrived when in written media.

Happy birthday @DialMforMara!

A bit of Self-Promo: my nearly 4-years-old #webcomic just launched with #Hiveworks on Monday! It's a great time to start reading the #comic, and the first new page since December will go up tomorrow (may 3rd)
Perfect for fans of #animation and #fantasy!
http://heroesofthantopolis.com/

I suppose looking into someone's eyes as a romantic gesture is how this trope got its start, at least in writing. But as someone who dislikes eye contact, I usually don't notice the color of someone's eyes until I get to know them. Also, it's such a telegraphed "he's the love interest" trope that I get annoyed seeing it these days. What do you guys think? Can you name an example where eye color didn't indicate love interest?

This week's trope talk is about eyes! Specifically, the trope in which Love Interest Has Beautiful Eyes.

I find in books that the color of people's eyes is often an indicator of how much of a protagonist they are. The main character's eyes are always discussed, but so are her love interest's. USUALLY that's before she knows who he is or before they've formally met. It might be before we, the readers, even know his name. But when we see the eye color described, we know - he's the love interest.

ESPECIALLY when I come across book descriptions on Amazon or Goodreads that are like "you can't trust her, she takes pills and sees a psychiatrist!" Like... people who see doctors and take meds... they're not automatically decitful or manipulative. That's where this sub-trope crosses the line for me. How about you?

On one hand, I love depicting how neurodivergence changes the way I/a character think(s), but on the other hand, I'm a bit tired of NT writers using the Unreliable Narrator trope to make their (usually mentally ill) characters unreliable, as if mentally ill people cannot communicate honestly or clearly ever.

This week's trope talk: Unreliable Narrator! I like this trope when written well, because it adds another layer of mystery to the story. I feel like a sub-trope of this trope has evolved recently that I would probably call "Brainweird Unreliable Narrator": when a neurodivergent character is an unreliable narrator because they're neurodivergent.

Maybe this is a trope not meant to be very realistic, which is why people name it a guilty pleasure. I think I find it more believable when one enemy has a crush on the other that is not reciprocated (like in, of all things, High School Musical)

Time for another trope post! This time it's Enemies to Lovers. This is a trope I often see people list as a guilty pleasure, and recently I've come across it more in books I'm reading. Unfortunately, these books didn't make me believe it. I can believe you'd fall for a rival in your field, but falling for someone who up until then was hunting you, hurting you, and persecuting you? How could you ever let your guard down around someone like that?

Me: what if I wrote a story about snakes! Elemental shapeshifting snakes!!
Me also: ok but what would it really BE about?
Me: um... the joy of being a snake IDK

Two for two on finding the afikomen that our friend Seth hides in his house, this year took me less than 5 minutes.

But on the other hand, authors of mainstream published books don't get to write their own blurbs. Leading to the expectation of a book not meeting the actual content of said book, which can cause audiences to react negatively even to otherwise good writing.

I mean, if I'm reading a book description and see the words "mysterious" or "dangerous" in front of "boy" I KNOw that the main character character will fall in love with him, often to the detriment of the plot. So I avoid books like that.

Personally I think a lot of things writers stress about, especially the members of the TVTropes writing forum, come down to audience reactions rather than the actual quality of their work. And there are ways to control for that... but only so much, you know?

Posing a #question to readers on the instance:
How important is it for any given book you read to have a romance element in it?

There was something I wanted to post here but I forgot so let's talk about my nearly 10 year old OC, Panic!
A few months ago I was frustrated with the lack of stories about seriously mentally ill characters who were the heroes of their own stories, characters with intense anxiety, depression and paranoia, and then I was like, "Oh yeah, I already have a story like that! The Panic stories!"
In the meantime, there's always UnREAL if I want to see a mentally ill character as the Protagonist