#The ending was bad and the writers are HACKS

[tofixtheshadows]

As someone who cries very easily and feels things very deeply, I can feel absolutely gutted by a tragic plot twist or character death, but I still experience catharsis from a well-crafted story. Too often I come across people absolutely in tatters over a character death in some kind of media, and it’s not because of the sympathetic bond of human experience but because their special little meow meow died, and they’re too entitled to take anything from it but betrayal and have infantilized the craft of storytelling so much that they think only a hack writer would kill off a character or leave them with a miserable/ambiguous end instead of letting everyone live happily ever after with sunshine and rainbows. And it’s so fucking annoying.

#musings with Dea #this is like a combo of the fandomizaton of everything #and the complete lack of media literacy some of you have #idk like genuine Tragedy with a capital T does leave me feeling hollow sometimes #so I'm more about the optimistic endings with heavy stuff in the middle #but when it's done well it's engrossing and I still get something from it #this is not referencing genuinely bad writing btw #like obviously sometimes writers ARE hacks and deaths are done for shock value #and disrespect the character (especially nonwhite characters) #and don't serve the story #but I've found that a lot of people seem to have a hard time telling when something is Actually Well Written #and anything that does not coddle and pander to them is Bad #go play a dating sim or something if you want the characters to cater to you

[eelhound]

"I think Homer outwits most writers who have written on the War [fantasy archetype], by not taking sides.

The Trojan war is not and you cannot make it be the War of Good vs. Evil. It’s just a war, a wasteful, useless, needless, stupid, protracted, cruel mess full of individual acts of courage, cowardice, nobility, betrayal, limb-hacking-off, and disembowelment. Homer was a Greek and might have been partial to the Greek side, but he had a sense of justice or balance that seems characteristically Greek — maybe his people learned a good deal of it from him? His impartiality is far from dispassionate; the story is a torrent of passionate actions, generous, despicable, magnificent, trivial. But it is unprejudiced. It isn’t Satan vs. Angels. It isn’t Holy Warriors vs. Infidels. It isn’t hobbits vs. orcs. It’s just people vs. people.

Of course you can take sides, and almost everybody does. I try not to, but it’s no use; I just like the Trojans better than the Greeks. But Homer truly doesn’t take sides, and so he permits the story to be tragic. By tragedy, mind and soul are grieved, enlarged, and exalted.

Whether war itself can rise to tragedy, can enlarge and exalt the soul, I leave to those who have been more immediately part of a war than I have. I think some believe that it can, and might say that the opportunity for heroism and tragedy justifies war. I don’t know; all I know is what a poem about a war can do. In any case, war is something human beings do and show no signs of stopping doing, and so it may be less important to condemn it or to justify it than to be able to perceive it as tragic.

But once you take sides, you have lost that ability.

Is it our dominant religion that makes us want war to be between the good guys and the bad guys?

In the War of Good vs. Evil there can be divine or supernal justice but not human tragedy. It is by definition, technically, comic (as in The Divine Comedy): the good guys win. It has a happy ending. If the bad guys beat the good guys, unhappy ending, that’s mere reversal, flip side of the same coin. The author is not impartial. Dystopia is not tragedy.

Milton, a Christian, had to take sides, and couldn’t avoid comedy. He could approach tragedy only by making Evil, in the person of Lucifer, grand, heroic, and even sympathetic — which is faking it. He faked it very well.

Maybe it’s not only Christian habits of thought but the difficulty we all have in growing up that makes us insist justice must favor the good.

After all, 'Let the best man win' doesn’t mean the good man will win. It means, 'This will be a fair fight, no prejudice, no interference — so the best fighter will win it.' If the treacherous bully fairly defeats the nice guy, the treacherous bully is declared champion. This is justice. But it’s the kind of justice that children can’t bear. They rage against it. It’s not fair!

But if children never learn to bear it, they can’t go on to learn that a victory or a defeat in battle, or in any competition other than a purely moral one (whatever that might be), has nothing to do with who is morally better.

Might does not make right — right?

Therefore right does not make might. Right?

But we want it to. 'My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.'

If we insist that in the real world the ultimate victor must be the good guy, we’ve sacrificed right to might. (That’s what History does after most wars, when it applauds the victors for their superior virtue as well as their superior firepower.) If we falsify the terms of the competition, handicapping it, so that the good guys may lose the battle but always win the war, we’ve left the real world, we’re in fantasy land — wishful thinking country.

Homer didn’t do wishful thinking.

Homer’s Achilles is a disobedient officer, a sulky, self-pitying teenager who gets his nose out of joint and won’t fight for his own side. A sign that Achilles might grow up someday, if given time, is his love for his friend Patroclus. But his big snit is over a girl he was given to rape but has to give back to his superior officer, which to me rather dims the love story. To me Achilles is not a good guy. But he is a good warrior, a great fighter — even better than the Trojan prime warrior, Hector. Hector is a good guy on any terms — kind husband, kind father, responsible on all counts — a mensch. But right does not make might. Achilles kills him.

The famous Helen plays a quite small part in The Iliad. Because I know that she’ll come through the whole war with not a hair in her blond blow-dry out of place, I see her as opportunistic, immoral, emotionally about as deep as a cookie sheet. But if I believed that the good guys win, that the reward goes to the virtuous, I’d have to see her as an innocent beauty wronged by Fate and saved by the Greeks.

And people do see her that way. Homer lets us each make our own Helen; and so she is immortal.

I don’t know if such nobility of mind (in the sense of the impartial 'noble' gases) is possible to a modern writer of fantasy. Since we have worked so hard to separate History from Fiction, our fantasies are dire warnings, or mere nightmares, or else they are wish fulfillments."

- Ursula K. Le Guin, from No Time to Spare, 2013.

#ursula k. le guin #homer #quote #quotations #the iliad #trojan war #storytelling #fantasy #fiction writing #war #conflict #tragedy #john milton #paradise lost #greek mythology

[beetlebip]

Bruh you can’t suddenly decide to get a moral backbone 4 games into a FICTIONAL series about murder

#ooOOOOooo the fans were the evil entity all alooooong 💀💀 come on you hack #stop trying to be meta. there is a talking robot bear #once again must reiterate that I am *not* part of the danganronpa fandom #no idea how bad it is. so maybe the writers weren’t wrong lol #but also :/ the more I process that ending the more it just makes no sense to me #if it was all fictional did the participants in v3 even actually die ?? #give me my 60 hours back

[sciderman]

hi sci!! i love your art!! i was wondering how you come up with and work out your plot for ask spiderpool and like where you want it to go? I like writing and drawing but i'm really bad at coming up with and sticking to a plot yk?

hi anon!! thank you!!!

nothing starts off fully formed, anon! plot is difficult - even with my fics, there's often very little in the way of plot - there's just a starting point, and then you write, and you write, and you keep writing, and you gain momentum and it eventually goes somewhere. it's constantly shifting and evolving, and it very rarely sticks to a plan.

when i started i didn't have very much of a plan other than "they're roommates. but it would be cool if they kissed at some point." and everything else kind of just followed after. their personalities and flaws and quirks just started accumulating with every ask i answered - and with every ask i answered, it started becoming clearer and clearer that they probably weren't going to kiss any time soon.

i think when i write, absolutely everything is dictated by character - and sometimes that's the enemy of plot. you might have it in your head "these characters need to go here." but wait a second. one of the characters really doesn't want to go here, and that's where you have to put in the work. plot alone is so dull without characters actively resisting - characters having faults they need to overcome to GET from a to b.

for me, the plot should exist to force the character to overcome their flaws. if the plot exists and isn't in any way tied to the character and their flaws then... god. this is why so many marvel movies and current comics really fall flat for me. i really don't care about how elaborate your plot is, and all the twists and whatever - if it isn't personal, and doesn't serve your character at all, there's - there's... what's the point?

when i started the blog, it kind of became really clear the things wade and peter needed to overcome before they can love each other - so. one. peter needs to overcome his biases and holier-than-thou attitude over wade. and wade? wade's practically a doormat, and needs to realise peter isn't some unshakeable beacon of perfection. not only that, but wade's possessive. he's greedy, and wants ownership over peter.

so what to do. what to do to fix all of that.

peter needs to screw up, betray wade's trust.

wade needs to see peter get ugly.

wade needs a moment to be truly unselfish.

to prove himself a hero.

i think maybe the best way to build out a plot is bare-bones. step one. where do you want the characters to get to. what's the end game? for that first era of ask-spiderpool, i wanted wade and peter to get together. as a couple. okay. claps hands together. what is stopping that from happening right now. and what can i throw at them to get them to overcome that.

right now on ask-spiderpool, now that they're together - the end game is adopting ellie. what's stopping them? trauma. so much trauma. i have so many scripts about ellie ready, but when i came back i was hit with the brick wall of "oh. oh god. wade needs so much therapy first. so much therapy."

so basically, all the plot is to the ends of getting wade and peter to figure their shit out before they can have the thing they want. and ouugh, they act against me all the time. sometimes to the point where i get writers block - and then i go for a run, or a swim, and my mind is hacking away at how to solve those issues.

i guess my advice is... first! what's your end goal. where do you want these characters to be? why aren't they there already? how can you forcibly push them there, kicking and screaming? there you go.

#sci speaks #ask-spiderpool #advice

[spacedace]

hey in your tags you mentioned a “batfam leverage au” can u explain what that is

Happily! :D

So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the show Leverage, but the quick summary is that it's about a group of "bad guys" (a hacker, a hitter, a grifter, a theif and the mastermind that directs them all) that help people who have been hurt by the rich and powerful by using their skills to pull heists and cons on the bad guy of the episode to ruin them and get back whatever was taken/right whatever was made wrong.

It's an amazing show that I can't recommend enough, very clever, very funny, big found family vibes and an OT3 that's *this close* to being canon (and has been supported by the writers). The heists are amazing and it's all around an AMAZING show.

Anyway, the BatPham Leverage Au is basically just: a collection of DP & BatFam members join together to make a robin hood heist team like in the show Leverage. I have a couple versions of the BatPham Leverage AU rattling around my head, but most fleshed out right now are:

Business of Family - the Uncle Oz AU (Penguin Adopts Jazz & Danny): My plan for this story is for Jazz and Danny to decide to start running heists in Gotham on the people in the city that tend to fly under Batman's radar but who are still very much doing a lot of harm to the city and it's people. The Leverage AU part of this story is going to have Jazz as the Mastermind, Jason as the Hitter, Tim as the Hacker, Danny as the Thief/Maker (basically engineer), and Elle as the Grifter (shapeshifting Elle for the win lol).

Another Leverage AU I've been thinking about for awhile but that I haven't turned into a story yet is one where Team Phantom (Danny, Jazz, Sam, Tucker & Elle) are tasked with finding and returning various Infinite Realm artifacts that have ended up in the mortal world. And for some reason Gotham has just so many Infinite Realm artifacts in it. Like most of the artifacts in the world are in Gotham for some wild reason (it's Gotham there doens't need to be more of a reason).

They're on the run from the GIW/Fentons, so they're trying not to advertise any ghostly/liminal powers if they can help it, so they largely do heists without powers (minus Tucker doing all his hacking and everything from the Ghost Zone and some occasional invisibility/intangibility when it's called for, but they really do try and keep any power use to a minimum).

In this AU, Jazz is the Mastermind (again, because I love that role for her haha), Tucker is the Hacker, but that's when I can't quite decide who should be who.

I love the idea of Sam being a Hitter, but I think she'd be able to play Grifter pretty well knowing the rich as well as she does, Danny would love being a Hitter and being able to fuck some assholes' shit up while being completely feral but he could also still be a good Thief. Elle could go either Grifter again, but I like her as a Theif in this one, maybe running into Damian in the vents while she's trying to get into a vault or something lol. (I think it'd go with Danny: Hitter, Sam: Grifter, Elle: Thief, but I have no idea if that'll stick if/when I ever write this lol)

Whatever the team looks like, because there are so many artifacts in Gotham & because they can't just use their powers willy-nilly to grab them and run, they're going to be in Gotham for a long time, possibly years. Which means they need some kind of side hustle to pay the bills, which leads them to doing more heists, but this time on various rich assholes that deserve to lose a bunch of money.

Eventually they get on the Bats radar, and there'd be some fun cat & mouse back and forth with the BatFam trying to catch the Phantom Crew (Danny shouldn't be allowed to name things, but he already told Red Robin that was their team name before anyone could stop him). Eventually the GIW do show up and things start getting even more complicated (and maybe someone activates an artifact, resulting in a powerful entity being released in Gotham that they all have to team up to fight).

I have no name for this au other than the DP X DC Leverage Au, but I do know that'll have plenty of Anger Management, Brain Dead (or really Brain Dead + Everlasting Trio, don't know what the ship name for that is), Serious Chaos.

It'll also have Batman aggressively trying to adopt them all because he doesn't actually have anything against them stealing from these assholes as long as they don't hurt anyone. They're acting outside of the law yes but they're doing it in order to give justice to those who have been made victims by the system and he's all about that (the real final battle of the story is between Bruce & Selina who both want to adopt the Pham, who would like to know if they get a say in any of this - they don't).

#spaced asks and ace answers #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp prompt #dp x dc leverage au #leverage au #uncle oz au #penguin adopts jazz and danny #danny phantom #batman #danny fenton #jazz fenton #tucker foley #sam manson #danielle fenton #dani fenton #dani phantom #danielle phantom #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #anger management #brain dead #everlasting trio #serious chaos #look if I'm in a fandom for longer than five seconds I'm gonna make a leverage au #that's just how it's gonna be #batpham #batfam

[olderthannetfic]

you mentioned in an ask that the ending of HP book 5 was "so offensive that you dropped the series." can you elaborate on that?

--

Did I say it was offensive? I suppose I might have meant "offensive to my sensibilities" or something.

No, the end of book 5 was moronic.

It's eleventh hour tragedy tacked on for drama. Having there not even be a body is stupid as fuck too. I didn't think it was a fakeout, but I did think it was written like one, which is unforgivably hack-ish.

My actual issues that told me she wasn't worth reading anymore weren't quite that though. They were these two things:

First, there was allcaps yelling. I do not tolerate authors who've gotten too big to listen to their editors about standard formatting. Allcaps yelling is for stupid children on the internet, not something I paid for, much less something from a major publisher that I bought a hardback of.

Second, in interviews JKR tried to justify Sirius' death as "Real life is full of random tragedy" and some bullshit about teaching readers to face life.

I do not read Improving Literature. How arrogant to think that any reader needed her lesson! How doubly arrogant to think that her writing is strong enough to even do that! Now that is genuinely offensive in a way that the book never was.

This line is such a hallmark of undergrad writing classes and that tedious person in your writers' group who keeps writing plots that don't work and then getting offended when people say so.

It's literally one of the top cliches people say in defending their bad writing!

Every writing how-to book and blog has at least one post going "Real life may not make sense, but fiction is not generally random" and explaining why this justification is a cop-out that leads to cruddy books.

Self importance and incompetence are not things i look for in an author.

[madamridley]

The Story of the Steel Wool FNAF Games? A “short” summery

Hello, This will be a summery of the current FNAF story set up for you to be caught up and not as confused as the first month Security Breach was released. This post will not be focused on Theories just what is fact.

HELP WANTED: this game showed us that Fazbear entertainment had returned and attempted to turn their shady past into a monetizable story. Due to them wanting to cut corners they scanned old animatronic AI chips so that the in game AI would be as accurate as possible. After doing so a man named Jeremy (The alpha tester who would actually play the game) killed himself with a guillotine paper cutter. It was discovered that something got into the game, took the roll of the Spring Bonnie in the final minigame and attempted to steal Jeremy’s body.

You play as a beta tester on a new team cleaning up what the old team left you. By the end with the help from some hidden tapes you try to destroy the anomaly only to fail and have it “Lock you away into a room” before to return back to the game as if nothing had happened. Later in the DLC you find a white rabbit mask and while wearing it you can commune with the anomaly.

These appear to be the events that lead up to Vanessa becoming Vanny

Special Delivery appears to show off a new type of delivery service that is tampered with, turning the mass-produced animatronics violent. 

We also get accidental messages from a man named Luis talking about his co worker Ness

Throughout the events of these texts Luis tries to get coffee with Ness who keeps ignoring him. That is until she asks him a bit about his job in IT. In the unreleased Emails Ness creates a fake IT Email and starts heavily sabotaging the company locking people out and activating the same virus from Help Wanted into the animatronics turning them violent. Ness then gets a job at the Pizzaplex.

Security Breach's story on it’s own is extremely bare bones so this will be very fast so we can get into the important stuff. A boy named Gregory would constantly hang around the Pizzaplex. One day the security guard scares him bad enough he fears she is going to kill him. Glamrock Freddy who broke down in that mornings show is used as a hiding place by him. The two work together to survive the night and destroy the Pizzaplex animatronics that have turned violent. In the games story we learn a game called Princess Quest seems to be the key to free Ness aka Vanessa from the anomaly but also under the Pizzaplex is the Pizza Place from FFPS which houses a strange nameless creature that appears very similar to the long dead William Afton.

Now we move to The Tales From The Pizzaplex to fill in the details. not every story is important we will only be going over GGY, The Storyteller, The Mimic, and The Epilogues. I’d also like to bring up the last book/2 books have not yet released and wont before Ruins release.

GGY shows us the answer to a mystery in Security Breach. Who was being spoken to in the Therapy tapes 4672 to 4679 Tapes that started with 71 were directed towards Vanessa as you can hear her in them. Those which started with 46 had no known patent until this story. Gregory is shown to have been at least at some point possessed by the anomaly and would hack into the pizzaplex systems to play games for free while also messing with the animatronics AI.

He wrote a poem at the end of the story about how GGY was a wizard’s favorite apprentice and how they were fighting against a corporates conspiracy  "the wizard's most favored apprentice" "an animatronic supervillain who went into battle with a tentacled monster."

Gregory’s four therapists are shown to be killed by his use of animatronics. What happened to cause him to become free from the anomaly is unknown.

The Storyteller shows a young chairman of Fazbear entertainment named Mr. Burrows attempting to use AI to replace the writers for the stories around the Pizzaplex. An old business partner of the original fazbear owners Edwin Murray tries to stop Burrows and ends up seeing something he shouldn’t have.

Inside the large baobab tree used to house the new AI made to create stories holds a White Tiger head dubbed The Storyteller. This causes Edwin to have a panic attack for some unknown reason. The Storyteller caused the glamrock animatronics to act out like they do in the game. Chica is extreamly pushy, Monty is violent, and Roxanne is meaner then she should be.

Edwin attempts to stop this and gets into the tree after the Pizzaplex closes for the night. He sees The Storyteller is playing a program named Mimic_1 which freaks Edwin out again for no known reason. Mr, Burrows locks Edwin into the tree believing he was causing all of these glitches.

Edwin dies from asphyxiations and when the door is open inside shows cardboard that Edwin brought in covered in symbols and the words “I’m sorry”. The door closes behind Burrows locking him in too.

The Mimic shows Edwin back when he was young, He created the costumes for the Fazbear Animatronics and lived with his son David. Due to his wives passing he had to work with his young son around. So to keep him company, he created an endo with a new type of AI made to mimic what it sees.

The Endo would learn from David and started to act like him. David had a small white tiger plush with a blue and green eye which he held close to his chest. The Endo would also hold his arm close to his chest to mimic David. Edwin would build the Endo his own plush tiger.

One day David ran into the street and was hit by a car. Edwin watching the impact unable to save him. The Endo turns into a mockery of his son to Edwin and so he smashes it. Over and over until it was smashed. Filled with Pain and Hate.

years later it reawakened now knowing that pain and hate and mimicked it. It killed anyone it saw and would use the costumes Edwin made to hide and trick it’s prey.

The epilogue expanded the Pizza Place under the Pizzaplex. Somehow The Mimic was sent down to the Pizza Place with a bunch of endos meant to help a clean up team get rid of the wreckage. It is reprogramed to tear the heads and arms off the broken down endos that were destroyed in the fire but once it ran out of endos it began doing so to the workers. Once the Pizza Place is sealed off, 8 teens make their way there after hearing rumors of it’s existence before getting trapped down there alone with The Animatronic. The Mimic possesses a broken frame of rabbit ears but no other factors to match it to The Springtrap at the end of Security Breach. At least not yet. Through the epilogues it kills the teens one by one using random costumes all around the Pizza Place as disguises. Eventually it begins learning how to speak by listening in on the teens thinking of plans on how to get out. Then there is the newest epilogue from Tiger Rock. The Mimic kills one of the girls and wears her as a suit to try and get her friends attention. At this point missing only the Springtrap suit he wore in Security Breaches ending. Even when you beat it in the final cutscene you may notice it’s arm curl in close to it’s body like it would to hold it’s tiger plushy. 

In conclusions the antagonist of these stories, The Anomaly is a learning AI that due to the death surrounding Freddy’s has learned to become a killer. It continues to learn from every interaction it has and with every Fazbear Entertainment Story it grows more into an unstoppable force spread across more then just it’s body.

#FNaF #five nights at freddy's #security breach #the mimic #burntrap #tiger rock #vanessa #vanny #FNaF ruin

[fangirleaconmigo]

Ok let's play a game called:

I Can't Believe It's Not Fanon.

Otherwise known as...

Witcher facts that sound like Geraskier fic writers made them up, but that are, in fact, book canon.

PART ONE:

We've all read the fics where bad guys kidnap Jaskier in order to get to get to Geralt. These bad guys always regret it when Geralt slaughters every single one of them.

Well, good news! In Season of Storms, starting on page 310, this very thing happens.

(TW: Violence and gore)

Geralt is attending a royal wedding and once again, powerful people are trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. He enters a room to find:

Dandelion was as white as a sheet and clearly terrified...He was sitting on a chair with a high backrest. Behind the chair stood a skinny character with hair combed and plaited into a queue. The character was holding a misericorde with a long, narrow, four-sided blade. The blade was pressed against the poet's neck, below his jaw, slanting upwards.

"No funny business," warned Ropp. No funny business witcher. One false move, even one twitch, and Mr Samsa will stick the minstrel like a hog. He won't hesitate."

So, these particular assholes have accurately surmised that Geralt's weakness is Dandelion. There were any number of people they could have kidnapped, but they chose the poet. Of course, they underestimate Geralt, like so many people do.

Geralt tries to warn them that this is a very very bad move.

"You're making a mistake, Ropp."

They don't listen to him. They keep going, making increasingly florid violent threats to Dandelion's safety.

"Now," said the captain..."Now you will confirm that you've understood the task and will execute it. Should you not, before I count to ten under my breath, Mr Samsa will rupture the minstrel's right eardrum...if the desired result does not ensure, Mr Samsa stabs the other ear. And will then gouge out the poet's eye. And so on, to the bitter end, which is a jab to the brain. I'm starting to count, witcher."

What does Dandelion do? Well, he's terrified but he tries to be brave.

"Don't listen to him Geralt!" Dandelion somehow managed to make a sound from his constricted throat. "They won't dare to touch me! I'm famous!"

This is hilarious and very, very Dandelion. But also, it's not entirely unreasonable. Dandelion's fame often protects him, and sometimes it protects Geralt too. However, it doesn’t seem to be doing either at the moment.

Geralt says to Mister Samsa:

"First, move that dagger away from the poet's ear."

Mister Samsa seems to think that they have succeeded and Geralt is negotiating with him, so he complies. (this guy makes one bad decision after another)

"Ha," snorted Mister Samsa, lifting the misericorde high over his head. "Is that better?"

Geralt simply answers:

"Better."

Then without another word, Geralt kills them all, violent and bloody. It is a descriptive, vividly gory passage. He slices carotid arteries and groins. One man's neck spews blood onto the chandelier and ceiling. But I find what Geralt does to Mister Samsa to be particularly significant and satisfying.

The Witcher jerked the sword from the scabbard before Ropp fell, and with one fluid movement coming out of a short spin, hacked off Samsa's raised hand. Samsa yelled and dropped to his knees.

So Geralt’s actions say...you use your hand to hold a blade to *my* poet's neck, and I will chop that motherfucker off. Let's see you do that again without a hand, you piece of shit.

It's a gory passage. I'll skip to the end. The royal instigator comes into the room to investigate and asks Geralt about the one man he has left (sort of, temporarily) alive.

The instigator examined the captain, who was lying, stretched out in a pool of urine, salivating copiously, and trembling incessantly.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Shards of nasal bones in the brain. And probably several splinters in his eyeballs."

"You struck him too hard."

"That was my intention," said Geralt, wiping the sword blade with a napkin taken from the table. "Dandelion, how are you? Everything in order? Can you stand?"

I find that pretty hot. Geralt has corpses and blood all around him, and he's being asked questions by the authorities. They could arrest him. They could lock him up. They could execute him. Geralt does not give a single solitary fuck. He is going, you're goddamn right I did that. He is casually wiping his sword blade with a napkin and asking Dandelion if he's alright. He has accomplished the important thing (saving Dandelion) and doesn't care about anything else.

Dandelion is freed and vomiting all over the floor. (Poor guy. He doesn't have a stomach for violence and gore. Joey portrays this well in the show.) He answers, babbling:

..."For fuck's sake, I've never been so afraid. I felt like the insides were falling out my arse. And that everything would drop out of me, teeth included.

God I love that part. Hilarious and very relatable. I'm sure if someone kidnapped me and put a knife to my throat, I would feel the same. (Dandelion is always the human/the reader stand in.) But the next part is so sweet.

But when I saw you I knew you'd save me. I mean, I didn't. But I was counting strongly on it. How much sodding blood there is! How it stinks in here! I think I'm going to puke again."

He knew Geralt would save him. When he saw him, he knew. *sob*

Then, Dandelion's cousin (the royal instigator is Dandelion's cousin) says he is going to take Geralt to the king to resolve this, and for Julian (Dandelion) to stay there.  (People who knew Jaskier as a kid call him Julian.) Dandelion refuses.

"Fuck that. I'm not staying here for a moment. I prefer sticking close to Geralt."

I don't blame you, buddy. Who else is going to slaughter a bunch of people for you?

--fin---

Ok, I have a lot more of these fic sounding witcher facts, like:

A shape shifter reads Geralt's mind, then turns into Jaskier because he knows that’s the best way to protect himself. 

Geralt and Jaskier share beds.

Geralt and Jaskier share clothes.

Geralt travels with Jaskier for years but has no idea that he is a viscount. When he does find out, it is in public, from a third party, and yes it is hilarious. (Bonus. Ciri finds out this way as well)

Geralt may play it cool to his face, but he thinks Jaskier has a gorgeous voice.

Jaskier has a voice so beautiful, it can calm a monster.

Geralt drops everything to protect Jaskier, every time, even in the middle of battles when there are other people around to protect.

Geralt can smell lust

They also share a kiss in a few of the translations, but not all. It's a very "y yo también" situation.

If people like this post, I can make it a series, pulling book passages for each of the others. Let me know!

#the witcher #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #gerlion #the witcher books #canon or fanon #i can’t believe it’s not fanon

[era-the-witchy-birdkid]

DP X DC Prompt/Idea

Long time writer for the DC fandom (mostly Batman specifically Tim Drake joins the batfam early AUs and Titans Tower AU) on Archive, Danny Fenton also known as Astroboy2025, decides three days after his ‘Accident’ to create a Jason wakes up a Halfa in his coffin fic. He only does this to help himself process his emotions after well lets be honest his death and revival. And later once the ghost attacks pick up and he picks up the mantle of a hero as a way to covertly get advice/figure out on how to fight ghosts better by transplanting all his ghosts into Gotham for Fic!Jason to fight.

Danny wasn’t expecting much to come from this, he wasn’t expecting the fic to blow up in popularity for ‘creative storylines’ and ‘unique original villains with a ghostly flare to go against the ghostly Robin now named Phantom’ it was just a vent fic with a bit of wishful thinking on his part with Ghost!Jason and Bruce's relationship being so close (He ends up writing Jason getting hugs and affirmations that Bruce still loves despite all the ghost stuff that happening now whenever his Parents go on a tirade about how all ghosts are evil and need to be ripped apart molecule by molecule)

He definitely wasn't expecting his fans to find out about the real Phantom and figure out his identity from there. (Blame Penelope Spectra she had a history unlike the others in his rogues gallery with a bloody trail across America of sharply increase Suicide rates in more isolated smaller cites/large towns that was being tracked by Redditers that had hard stopped in Amity park just a few days before he dropped the chapter of Jason facing her himself)

While the Amity Park tourism to see a IRL Hero in action, and the Anti-Ecto acts Riots, as they would later be called, made by DC fans throwing a fit about the threat to the world’s first superhero were the lesser consequence in the grand scheme of things. Finding his fan Discord was a trip and a half especially since Tucker had to hack into it into the first place because his fans we're extremely protective of his secret ID and reinforced the server a crapton to be stronger then most banks.

While Sam was insisting on this being a horrible Idea and he should try to dissuade his thousands of fans from the truth of his Identy. Danny was just chill with it after the brief panic. And the Fan Discord was super helpful for getting Advce with! while the jokes that he was Batman Adoption bait was annoying the group was amazing for ideas on how to train his powers and advice on how to better fight ghosts. the Discord even make a Power list for him so he wouldn’t forget a power because he wasn’t training it. plus the comfort they gave after Circus Gothica was A+ even with the jokes about how the Batfam curse of clown trauma, despite matching the look as a human batman isn’t real so as much as his fans joke about him being the prefect Bat bait that will not happen.

To bad after a particularly nasty ghost hate rant in front of him in ghost form while being shot at by his parents that before the server would spawn 3 chapters of Family fluff in his fic, was whatched angrily by a fan who in a fit of annoyed rage said these words. “I really wish batman WAS real, then maybe you could be safe in your home for once”

unfortunately Desiree was out and about and heard the wish granted she had no idea who Batman was so went to read the DC comics after that. Good news the DC universe is so messed up as is that Desiree decided no twisting was necessary she’d just to bring everything to life. Bad news all the supervillains now exist along side the now existing superheros and Desiree is now Kaiju sized and now way to powerful for Danny to deal with alone... 

At least the now real Batfam are taking their sudden existence well? and are willing to help Danny stop the Mad Genie dispite the risk that they would pop into nonexistence (with the entire city of Gotham and the other cities, villains, and heroes made real by Desiree’s power) if she’s stopped

#dp x dc #dc x dp

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Do you think Gabriel and Tomoe trying to force their kids together when they never seemed to care about that before season 5 was too much drama? @tallwriter

Yes.

Here's a little writing tip: if you want to keep your audience emotionally invested, make the drama build and try to keep most of it tied to the plot. Miraculous is really, really bad at this. It has no idea how to build the drama up to a solid, satisfying, logical conclusion. Instead, it tries to keep people invested through extremely cheap, pointless drama that goes nowhere. I'll use season five to explain.

Season five's conflict is that Gabriel has all of the miraculous and the heroes want the miraculous back. Season five ends with that happening. But does anything in the season actually lead to that ending?

Here's a list of all (or at least most) of the multi-episode conflicts introduced and arguably resolved in season five:

Nathalie no longer blindly supporting Gabriel

Gabriel getting cataclysmed and slowly dying

Nathalie slowly dying

The reverse crush drama

Kagami having a crush on Adrien (and Marinette?)

Lila's lies and team up with Chloe

Gabriel and Tomoe wanting their kids together

Felix having the peacock miraculous

Marinette being unable to say that she loves Adrien

The senti plot

Adrinette getting together

The only thing on that list that kind of mattered to the final was Gabriel getting cataclysmed because it meant that he could die without it feeling like suicide since he was already dying. Everything else on that list could be cut and the ending would not meaningfully change because there is no story arc for season five. Stuff just happens.

This is what I mean by cheap, pointless drama. Season five doesn't care about setting up a good, powerful ending. It just cares about keeping you invested and asking "what's going to happen next?"

The is not how epic stories are told. This is how soap operas are told. The entire draw of that genre is melodrama. In other words, it's for people who enjoy drama just for the sake of drama. People who don't care if the characters are mostly shitty, awful people or if plots get dropped mid-season or resolved in wacky ways because the audience is not here to fall in love with the characters or to hear an epic story. They're here for the drama and that's about it.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with soap operas. It's a massively popular genre for a reason. I'm sure that there are even standout examples that have fantastic plots, but that's simple not a requirement for something to be a good soap opera any more than a good romance requires the main couple to be healthy. The problem with Miraculous having a soap opera structure is that - as far as I can tell - Miraculous is not trying to be a soap opera. It's trying to be a serious narrative (which is why you have the writers claiming things like Marinette and Gabriel are supposed to represent individual creative spirit versus corporate greed), but it's failing and failing hard.

A show that was succeeding at telling a good, logical plot would have had multi-episode conflicts like:

Chat Noir and Ladybug figuring out how the miraculous powers are being given to people

Chat Noir and Ladybug trying to figure out if Tomoe knew that her rings got hacked/assuming the Tsurugi tech is behind everything and somehow infuriating the company, likely with Kagami's help

Chat Noir and Ladybug learning the truth of the butterfly and peacock and dealing with that/going to the mansion with purpose

Felix, Chat Noir, and Ladybug playing a season long game of cat and mouse

You know, stuff that would actually lead to the ending of the season instead of Felix randomly telling Ladybug what she needs to know right before the final without her actually doing anything to make that happen. (But don't forget that she's smart and clever guys. I promise you that she's smart and clever! The writers totally know how to write a smart and clever character!)

Another thing you may have noticed is that most of those suggested plot points build on each other. This is how good stories work. You should be constantly resolving subplots and, in the process of the resolution, you introduce new subplots. For example, they figure out that the rings are how the akumas are getting their powers, which leads to the investigation of Tsurugi tech. Two separate subplots that naturally link together to allow for a logical story flow while keeping things interesting.

This was a big problem with season four, which introduced the Ladynoir conflict that was just kind of there, looming over the story, but not doing anything for 20-something episodes. For all of season five's flaws, at the very least the writers kept things interesting. They just didn't keep it interesting in particularly talented way. It's all bullshit melodrama and, while I truly have nothing against soap operas, I'm not a fan of the genre.

All of the above is why I don't have any faith in the next season of miraculous. They writers clearly cannot handle conflicts that last longer than an episode because literally nothing they introduced set up the final. It actually weakened the final because season five spent a lot of time making Gabriel worse than he's ever been, which is not how you setup a dramatic, last-minute change of heart.

To end on a positive note, the one thing that I will give the writers some credit for is the reverse crush BS. Rumor has it that this season was originally supposed to have The Reveal and, if that had happened right after all of the crush stuff, then it would have been more satisfying than a reveal without the reverse crush.

While Adrien has always been a Marinette fan and him eventually developing a crush feels logical, Ladybug has been really anti Ladynoir for a while now, so having her backtrack that stance pre-reveal would have strengthened the reveal and the relationship that follows. It still will even though Ladybug's Chat Noir crush is now nothing more than a brief rebound that was quickly forgotten. That doesn't change the fact that it happened which means that we now know that she's okay with her and Chat Noir being in a romantic relationship no matter his identity when it previously came across like she was completely opposed to the idea until she learned that it was Adrien under the mask, which was something I always viewed as a terrible writing choice, so I'm glad they backtracked it instead of trying to solve it post-reveal.

#ml writing salt #ml writing critical #ml season 5 salt

[gargoylespodcast]

We are back! We discuss the current Kickstarter Campaign Dynamite Comics is running to bring back the Gargoyles comics published by Marvel in the 90’s (featuring art by Amanda Conner!) and the canon Gargoyles comics published by SLG in the aughts; and we’re joined by Gargoyles’ colorist, Robby Bevard; Bad Guys artist, Karine Charlebois; and series creator, Greg Weisman!!!

But we need your help! As of this posting, Greg Weisman’s Twitter account is still hacked, so he has been unable to use that platform to spread the word! So we need you, the fans, to come in! Spread the word! Participate in the Kickstarter! Figure out which version of the books works best for you! And let’s show Disney that this is a viable property! Not just a little property with a small cult following, but something truly viable! So spread the word! Reach out to anyone you know who would be interested! Tell them about this Kickstarter! Tell them about the comics! And tell them about our podcast!

We then give our First Impressions on Gargoyles #11 and Dark Ages #5! It’s the penultimate issues for both series before Gargoyles Quest kicks off in the coming weeks! Comic book spoiler talk begins at 25:21 and ends at 49:38.

Finally, Greg Weisman delivers his State of the Franchise Address! Where we’ve been, what we’ve accomplished, and what we have to look forward to for the 30th Anniversary! More comics! A convention get-together and maybe even more than that!

Don’t forget to participate in the Kickstarter!

Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Audible, Spotify, and your podcatcher of choice! And join us on Patreon for the Exclusive Video Edition! Although, not so-exclusive for this installment, as we’re making the video edition free on YouTube!

Participate in the Kickstarter! Follow us on Twitter at: @FromEyrie Visit Jennifer L. Anderson’s online stores at: Angel Wings and Demon Tails Visit Karine Charlebois’s online store at: Kanthara Draws Visit Robby Bevard at: Robert Bevard: Writer-Editor-Colorist Visit Greg Weisman at: Ask Greg Everything you ever wanted to know about Gargoyles at: GargWiki

#gargoyles #greg weisman #disney gargoyles #voices from the eyrie #podcast #dynamite entertainment #podcasts #karine charlebois #Robby Bevard #Kickstarter #Youtube

[acerdime]

Lazarus Pit - DC x Riordanverse

Nico di Angelo and Pollux meet and save either Jason Todd, Tim Drake, or Damian Wayne at the Lazarus Pit and take them to Camp Halfblood.

Hades & Thanatos requested that Nico di Angelo and the only surviving Son of Dionysus, Pollux, rectify the problem of the Lazarus Pits.

Every Death/Underworld God of every pantheon has agreed that the Pits are an abomination of maddeningly corruptive resurrection that never should have been used, especially not for immortality. Ra’s al Ghul will face eternal punishment for his crimes in whichever underworld he ends up in.

As the most experienced child of Hades alive and the only one with teleportation powers, Nico was an obvious choice for the mission. Pollux, however, was chosen because of his father’s control over insanity and lesser known association with rebirth. Unfortunately, because Nico is a Prince of the Underworld, it goes against his very nature to touch liquid resurrection, and doing so would leave harsh burns on his skin in addition to the average effect of Pit Rage. A bottomless pot was forged and enchanted to fully drain the pits but even then, the essence bleeding through is too much. In order to combat this, a son of rebirth and insanity (Pollux) must be sent to drain and hold the pot while Nico acts as transport and defense from the League of Assassins.

While most of the Pits are drained with little to no problem thanks to Leo’s hacking and Nico soul sight, it’s the last Pit where the plan goes awry. Which bat the boys meet next is up for your choosing. A choose your own adventure for writers who already have that option anyway.

Personally, I believe either Jason or Tim to be the most plausible to be in the Pit Room and in such a bad situation that the demigods would feel the need to intervene. Jason because, obviously, he’d be about to get dunked in it to restore his mental capacity and demigods know that’s an awful idea. Not to mention that Pollux could ask Dionysus to fix that instead if needed. Once his mind’s back, he’s going to be absolutely pissed that so many kids are being used as child soldiers, cannon fodder, and monster food with little to no outside help. After he reunites with his family, he’ll definitely be setting up a series of fully-stocked safe houses with hero contacts taking shifts to protect them from monsters if not all are secure enough with bat tech. When he’s older, he’ll probably adopt some.

Tim because he just lost his Spleen and surgery isn’t cutting it so they also need to dunk him. The demigods take him to Camp for Apollo Cabin surgery. It’d be kind of weird for Will Solace to be a better surgeon than one hired by the al Ghuls (even if he’s a demigod) but it’s action/adventure fiction so we can afford to be handwavey about it. He’d definitely set up a safe house system too, but might not adopt a demigod when he’s older.

The demigods could also meet Damian since obviously he grew up there but I seriously doubt he’d be in there without Ra’s and/or Talia personally overseeing his safety. And while these demigods are good, 500 yrs of combat experience is pretty damn hard to beat (especially since many of the giants and titans probably relied more on brute force/power than skill) and Talia’s no slouch either, not to mention that it’s unlikely that Damian would be physically abused in that room badly enough to need intervention during such a high-stakes quest. He might not see the need for a safe house system, but when he meets/reunites with the batfam, Jason at least would probably still set it up.

#riordanverse #pjo hoo toa #pjo #pjo hoo #percy jackson #percy jackson and the heroes of olympus #percy jackon and the olympians #trials of apollo #nico di angelo #pollux #pollux pjo #thanatos #hades #dc #dcu #batman #batfam #crossover #jason todd #red hood #lazarus pit #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #fic idea #fic ideas #fanfic ideas #fanfic prompt #fic prompt

[wingodex]

other people have talked in detail about the ways that hardison was done dirty narratively in the show, and how his character often didn't get the same care and consideration as the other characters, and how even in hardison-centric episodes the tension of those episodes are usually hardison fucking up and the rest of the crew being pissed at him. but damn, have we talked about how lacking in depth all aspects of hardison's backstory have been? we get almost nothing on hardison in the original series in comparison to nate, eliot and parker. and i know that the strategy of the writers was to keep characters' backstories intentionally vague so that they had more flexibility in future episodes, but it feels so unnecessary to have this backstory information missing for him in particular, unlike sophie, who intentionally wanted to keep her past a secret. it's the subtle and unintentional racial biases of the writing team showing, unfortunately

like, okay, pop quiz: what kind of hacker is hardison? what type of cybercrime does he specialize in? what kinds of jobs did he do before joining the crew? if you can't answer any of those questions don't feel bad about it because the show never outright tells you any of that. and it's weird because while the other characters' childhoods and families are kept equally vague, their job history is not. sophie specialized in high end art theft and long cons; eliot's long professional career included being enlisted military, special ops, working for PMCs, wetwork and finally retrieval, and i can get even more specific about some of those; parker's preference is banks because she loves vaults, but her career as a professional thief has also included many art/museum thefts and diamond thefts (and again, i can list specifics for some of these jobs too); nate attended seminary before becoming an isurance investigator for IYS and again, i have specifics for jobs he did prior to the crew. with the exception of stealing from the bank of iceland, we know next to nothing about hardison's criminal career compared to the others. granted, hardison is still really young when the show started so his list of crimes isn't as long as the others but it still feels like a weird oversight. like, hardison's a goddamn hacker and we don't even know his handle. it sometimes feels like the writers used "geek" as a substitute for hacker culture, and don't get me wrong, i love that hardison is a geek, but at the same time i do think there were so many missed opportunities to focus on hacking specifically as a way of giving more backstory to hardison. and it sucks that it wasn't included!

#damn this was a good post why was this in my drafts #leverage blogging #leverage #alec hardison #and i know that the writers knew way more about hacking than they ever put in the show #bcus they talked about it in the commentary #and JR talked about it on his blog a bit #so like. why no hardison lore :/

[maxverstappensflatbrim]

Show Me Yours | Matty Healy [30]

chapter thirty, act four: somebody else

masterlist

little Author's note /TW before this act begins. There's going to be alot of talk of drug use and addiction within the chapters coming, if you're not comfortable with these kinds of things please don't read.

August 22nd 2016

“Tom?”

Tommie looks up slowly at Jamie as he stands across the tour bus from her. She knows that tone, he’s breaking bad news to her.

“Jamie..?” She responds in the same tone.

“Um, a letter came to the Dirty Hit office in London for you.” He fiddles with the piece of paper in his hands, the rustling noise soothing her.

“We’re in Japan.” She points out with a raised brow at the long delay of him telling her. They haven’t been to London in months, travelling straight from the US to Asia and completing shows and festivals out here.

He nods, “I know. It came on your birthday, I brought it with me to America but, I just-. I just… didn’t know when the best time would be to give it to you.”

She nods and gets up from the settee to take it from him slowly, “Not getting, like, sued or deported or anything?”

“Deported? From where?”

She shrugs, “I don’t know.”

He shakes his head, “Not getting sued nor deported,” Then he adds as an afterthought as he realises he has no idea what’s actual beyond the licked seal of the letter, “I hope.”

“We’ve stopped for the day off, the guys are down the front waiting.”

Her breath hitches as she turns it over, she recognises the messy writing and spelling mistakes right away. A few letters are smudged from the use of the writer’s left hand and there’s a drop of something stained on one corner, she hopes it's coffee, but it's probably alcohol.

It’s a letter from her father.

She stares at it a few more moments, until she can hear her name being called down the other end of the bus, then she grabs her jacket and shoves the letter into the pocket, deep down to take it out later.

“Come on, Matty’s getting impatient.” Adam tells her, arm around her shoulder as he tugs her along the long corridor through the living space and kitchen area.

“Uh, where we going?”

“He wants to take that speed train he saw a youtube video about, then go to some arcade because he saw a video on how to hack the claw machines.”

She nods, but then stops herself from walking down the steps, pulling back with one hand gripping the railing and the other the letter inside her pocket, “Uh, I’m gonna stay back, I’ll meet you guys later, send me your address…”

“You sure? You alright?” He asks, brows furrowed in that motherly concern he has only for her.

She nods, “Just, didn't sleep well last night, and I can feel a migraine coming on.”

“Do you want me to st-”

“I think alone time will be best,” She says, “Peace and quiet to get rid of it.”

He nods in agreement, “Okay, I’ll grab you those little chocolate snacks you liked in the seven eleven.”

“Thank you, Ads.”

She heads back into the bus, closing the curtain of her bunk and flicking her little Yoda night light on to read the letter.

She clutches the letter, doesn't realise she’s crying- no, sobbing- until the curtains rip open with such a force that the wind blows her hair over her shoulders and she’s looking up to the furrowed brows of Matty looking down at her.

“Baby?”

“M-Matt-”

He’s sitting beside her pulling her into his arms right away, lips to her hairline as he whispers, “What’s wrong, Baby?”

He closes the curtain around them, shutting out the bright lights thinking it’s a panic attack or a sensory overload, “Is it too bright? Too noisy?” He lowers his voice and she shakes her head moving the letter to his hand.

He’s silent as he reads it, eyes scanning the page, squinting to make out the words that have been smudged by her tears.

“That bas-”

He drops the letter to the end of her bunk far away and forgotten until she’s prepared to deal with it, moving his hand to trace softly up and down her back as she clings to him.

“It’s alright, come on, let's lie down.”

She nods into his shoulder, making no effort as he tries to move them so they're lying on their sides facing each other.

Matty lies with his back to the curtain, right on the end almost falling out and she tugs him closer with his opened button up.

“What happened to the train?”

He shrugs, “Didn’t feel like it.” That’s a lie, it’s all he’s talked about for the past two weeks, he’s been researching the speed, watching youtube videos on it. He’s obsessed with this train. 

“Matt?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

He nods, hands still moving up and down her back, he smiles as he feels something start nudging at his leg, “Got an intruder.”

Button, who is now a lot larger than when she used to cuddle between them as a puppy, forces her way between them in the tiny bunk.

“Hey, Buttie.”

She spins around a few times, kicking at Matty to move over as she licks Tommie’s tear stained cheeks.

Matty grins as Tommie gives a wet giggle at the dog, quickly promising with a whisper into her head that she’s okay. Button rests her head in the crook of Tommie’s neck, curled up into the curve of her body and huffs as she gives Matty one last taunting kick. The dog’s not stupid. 

Matty reaches over the dog to take her hand, resting it on the dog's back and interlocking their fingers together. His other hand scratches Button’s head which is just what she wanted, the dog's lips lift and she twists herself so Matty will scratch a certain point of her back for her.

“Go to sleep, baby,” He says quietly, leaving Button for just a few seconds, which the dog is not pleased by, lifting her head to stare blankly at him, Matty ignores button to move some hair out of Tommie’s eyes, then drags his finger down her cheek before returning it to Button’s head.  

“I’ll be here when you wake up.”

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ

August 29th 2016

The man across from her shifts awkwardly, he clears his throat and sips the coffee. It’s too strong, makes her nose hurt and stomach churn.

She sits, sipping from a dr pepper can and watches him, waits for him to make the first move.

“Carol-”

“I go by Tommie.” She says, “I always have, even when I was a kid-”

“I know.” He says quietly, “But you’ll always be little Caroline, the little five pound baby who was so small she fit in her grandfather’s palm.”

“How would you know?” She asks, “When mam gave birth you were getting pissed, like usual…”

He sighs, “Caroli-”

“John.”

He swallows, looks down at the stained table in the little London coffee shop they’d agreed to meet at, not far from the flat she and the guys are currently staying at.

“I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Some are unforgivable-”

“Unforgivable?” She scoffs and shakes her head, “Some should’ve landed you in jail a long time ago, John.”

He bows his head, then shakily reaches into his pocket taking out a folded up piece of paper.

There’s a young girl in the photo, wearing cowboy boots and a hard hat, her little red hair hidden by the yellow plastic. She must be around six years old. There’s a scooby-doo scooter that she’s riding one handed, her other hand as a pink ukulele in it.

“This is what kept me going in rehab. Looking at this picture and knowing I ruined her childhood. The thing that kept me going was the knowledge that you were out there doing good, Ca- Tommie.”

Then he pulls his phone out, showing her photos of a toddler, the same pink ukulele sits on the floor in the background, paint chipped with stickers she had put on there herself peeling off. “This is Juliet. Your sister.”

“Does JJ know?”

“JJ lives with us.” He says quietly, “We have a three bedroom house, he’s got his own room, his own stuff. It was his birthday last wee-”

“I know.” She cuts him off, jaw clenched at his audacity, “I never missed one.”

“You’ve missed four.”

“I was ten years old and using my pocket money from nan to buy him birthday presents, John, I think that makes up for it, for escaping when I had the chance.”

He slowly puts the phone away, “I understand, Tommie, that you’re mad at me, at what I did, what I was like- But don’t take it out on everyone else. On JJ, Juliet the rest of the family. You have to understand my point of view. I’d lost my mother, then my father, I was a teenager, I was seventeen when you were born, seventeen, no parents and a newborn child what- What was I supposed to do?” He tilts his head to follow her eyes. 

“I was younger,” She tells him, “I had it worse.”

“This isn’t a competition.”

“Your parents died, yeah, that’s bad, that’s horrible, I know I went through it. But my parents neglected me, my own dad beat me, that’s fucking worse.”

“Your mother was no better than me, where was she-”

“Do not bring my mother into this. Yeah, she lived a little but she was there. She made an effort, she worked to give me everything I had, she partied at night, so what? She gave me clothes, food, roof over my head, she gave me love. Yeah, in little bits that I had to scrape the bottom of the fucking barrel for but she gave it.”

“So what?”

“Yeah, ‘so fucking what’, she never hit me.”

He sighs shakily, rubbing a hand over his stubbled double chin, “I’m better, I was sick back then, but I’m better now, I want you to try and understand that.”

“I understand this perfectly,” She lifts her chin, biting her lip when it wobbles, “Mam wasn’t good enough, JJ wasn’t good rough, I wasn't good enough. But some posh slag Iris, from ‘up North’, with a designer vagina ready at your disposal is-”

The only thing that can be heard over the steaming kettles behind the kitchen is a skin on skin slap.

They both pause, John with a hand in the air and her with a hand pressed to her cheek.

His eyes are full of regret, instantly, he flexes his hand and watches her carefully as her hand pushes into her cheek, “Caroline, I’m sorry, I-I… I don’t know where that came f-”

“Same old, dad.” She says quietly. 

“I’m sorry, I-” A tear falls from his eye, “I’m sorry, Caroline. I didn’t- well, I-”

She clenches her jaw so tight the bone there cracks and she has to open her mouth for it to pop back into place, “I preferred it better when you’d just hit me and tell me it was my fault.”

He stands slowly, grabbing his jacket and folding it over his arm, “I want you to know I’m so very proud of you, Tommie. Of everything you’ve become. Everything you’ve done alone.”

She doesn’t look at him, she keeps staring straight forward at the other side of the booth.

“Of the woman you’ve become, the things you’re doing. So, so proud. And I’m sorry that you’ve had to do it all alone.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ

Slamming the door behind her she jumps as someone says her name, “Tom?”

“Cal?”

His brow raises and he walks around the kitchen counter he was leaning against to meet her at the door, “You good?”

“Yeah.” She nods quickly, turning her face away from him, “I’m going to jump in the shower.”

“How was coffee with your friend, what was her name again?”

“Lily.”

“Right, Lily.”

“Got cut short, she had to go back to work.”

He hums, “Maybe you can try again next time you’re in London.” He suggests and she nods in agreement as she hides herself away behind the bathroom door.

“Hey, Tom?” He knocks his knuckles on the door, “Can I talk to you?”

She waits a few moments flushing the toilet chain to buy herself time as she rubs concealer on the forming red hand print.

She opens the door leaning against the frame and places the fakest smile she can manage on her face as she looks up at him, “Hmm?”

“We’ve been asked back in the studio in two weeks to record a single, a radio single, I was going to ask if-”

“Can we talk about this later? After my shower?”

“This is important to me, Tommie.”

“I know,” She says, reaching to place her hand on his arm, “And I am so so proud of you, I promise… I just feel disgusting.”

“Please.” He lowers himself to meet her direct eye line and she nods. 

“Quickly.”

He grins, “Can you come to LA with me? Just a couple days, help me out with writing a song, maybe help with the productions-”

“Cal,” She says quietly, “We’re different genres, you’re country rock, I’m… whatever it is that Mattty feels in the mood for when he gets up that morning.”

He runs his tongue across his teeth, looking away and she sighs, reaching her hand out to touch his arm.

“Let me have my shower then you can tell me all about your single and your ideas maybe you can run some by me.”

He opens his mouth but the door is shut quickly and he leans back against the wall for a few seconds, making his way to the lying room where a brown flowery leather book sits open on the coffee table.

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ

Gabby’s brows raise at the quietness of the usual booming apartment. She looks around, setting her bag down on the settee.

“Tom? You in here?”

Matty told her Tommie and Caleb should be there, but it’s not a single sign of life besides the light coming from the bathroom.

Gabby smiles to herself knocking on the door, “Tommie?”

“G-Gab?”

“Yeah, just me, I picked us up some food, Caleb not here?”

“Has he gone?”

Gabby’s brows furrow and she shifts against the door as she looks around, it’s a little messy, just some clothes thrown over the floor and her bag discarded. But she knows Tommie, knows this mess would usually cause her to go off on one of her cleaning tangents. She can tell something is wrong., “Uh, he must've he’s not here. Everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah, give me a few minutes, I just got out of the shower.”

“Okay… I’ll set up the table.”

Tommie hums in response, still working on covering the mark on her face. Gabby sets the shopping bags onto the kitchen counter then works to pick up the clothes, she tosses them into the washing basket in the corner of Tommie’s bedroom then hangs her bag up in its place on the coat hanger beside the flat’s front door. 

Tommie dresses quickly, into some of Ross’ trousers she has to roll six times to fit and then one of Adam’s Oasis t-shirts before walking out to meet Gabby in the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” She asks again.

Tommie nods quickly, “Yup. What’s for dinner?”

“Chinese.”

Tommie nods, pulling some cups from a cupboard down for them, filling one with dr pepper and the other with diet coke, passing the diet coke to Gabby as she moves through the kitchen.

Gabby stays silent for a few more seconds, then decides to break it.

“Tommie?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, I know we haven’t known each other very long, but Matty speaks highly of you-” She sighs and touches her arm gently, “You don’t seem yourself today.”

She nods silently and Gabby’s brows furrow as she moves to place one finger on her cheek, her eyes move around her face as if putting the puzzle pieces together, “Did Caleb-?”

“No,” Tommie stands up straight quickly, clutching her hand desperately, “God no, I’d kick that man’s arse in seconds if he touched me like that. It was-”

She hesitates, but looks at the soft, motherly look on Gabby’s face and relaxes back into the counter, “I saw my dad today, first time since 2012 when I left Wales to move up to Manchester with the guys. I said some things I shouldn’t have and he reverted back to his old ways to get me to shut up.”

She rubs her knuckles at her stinging cheek with a shrug, “My fault, I shouldn’t have said-”

Gabby scoffs, a harsh sound that has her leaning even further back, “Do not blame yourself for your father’s ignorance. If he thinks it's okay to lay a hand on his own daughter or any woman for that matter then there is something seriously wrong with him.”

Gabby’s eyes soften then and she moves to stand right in front of her, “Is that why you left?”

Tommie shrugs, picking at a string on her sleeve and Gabby opens the draw beside them, takes out the scissors and cuts the loose thread. Showing it to Tommie before tossing it into the bin and then taking the girl in her arms.

“Want me to go punch him in the balls?”

Tommie giggles, wrapping her arms around Gabby too, “Nah, I kinda wanna see him fuck up a few more kids lives before we take away his reproductive abilities.”

“Sharing is caring and everything?”

“Sharing is caring.”

taglist

@thereisaplaceintheheart, @indierockgirrl, @sofaritsalrightt, @julezs-bl0g, @eaglestar31, @sophinthealpss, @noacfemcel, @if-my-heart-bleeds, @befrwime, @fallingforel, @sexorchocolateorpillowsorclouds, @3terna15unshin3, @1975sophie1975, @thesocraticjunkiewannabe, @littlesoldierelleora

-let me know if you want to be added :)

#show me yours matty healy #matty healy x oc #matty healy x reader #matty healy imagine #the 1975 x oc

[urbancripple]

I am developing a game that centers around a main character who uses mobility aids. I have worked with my team to develop some game mechanics that I want to make sure are not going to end up being offensive in some way or a misrepresentation of disabled people. You do not have to awnser if you do not feel comfortable, or if you know of a better place to get insight on this matter that would be greatly appreciated.

The main character is an ambulatory wheelchair user. And uses forearm crutches when not in a wheelchair. They have the super power to control metals which they use to create mobility aids for themselves on the go. One of their moves is to covert one of their crutches into a sword temporarily to attack enemys. They will also have a dash feature while using a wheelchair. The last main feature would be the main character having to use a wheelchair when their health gets too low.

Please let me know if any of these would be harmful or if there is anything you suggest to make this a better representation of an ambulatory wheelchair user.

Thanks!

I've got two whole sections of answered questions you might find helpful:

Disability representation

Writing about disability

The first question I always bring up when someone mentions they are making something where the main character has a disability is "Why?" Why did you choose to make your character have a disability? What's the goal? Are you doing it to try and improve disability representation in media? Or are you doing it because it makes it easier to gain empathy from the audience without having to develop a meaningful backstory?

Much like how showing cruelty in a character is a hack writer's way of saying "This guy is evil!", giving a character some kind of disability is the hack writer's way of saying "Adversity! Perseverance! Inspiration!"

So again I ask "what are you doing?"

All of that aside, if you want me to just answer your question directly I'll say this:

The last main feature would be the main character having to use a wheelchair when their health gets too low.

Don't do this. It's bad. It implies that a wheelchair is somehow the lesser of the mobility aids and it implies that the only time one should need to use a chair is when our health or energy levels offer no other alternative. I used to use crutches almost exclusively unless I was going to be going long distances. Crutches made me easier to travel with, get into cars with, and able to navigate areas that were less accessible for my chair.

It made me convenient for other people. And left with with lasting damage to my joints and put me at risk of serious injuries for falls.

Using a chair exclusively is a freedom for me. it is not a device of last resort.

#disability #gaming

[the-wip-project]

SloMo WriNo: Failure Proofing Your Goals

A Novel in one year.

So, what are the numbers for that?

If you’re so inclined, you’ve probably already done the math, and come up with some numbers for yourself.

Numbers like projected length of novel (I’m going to use 80k for this, but don’t get married to that, once you get into it the work with find it’s own length) and how many words a day you would need to write to hit that goal. (220)

That’s all very nice, but the problem with word count goals, is that you can create a situation where your writing becomes a pass/fail situation.

A situation where if you perceive yourself as failing (did I meet my word count goal this week? No? I AM A FAILURE!), and the pressure rises, it starts to feel safer to simply quit, rather than face repeated failures.

I’m against that sort of thing. (The quitting and also the negative self talk.)

So how does one measure progress without creating that sort of situation? How can you win the psychology game of getting words on the page?

Of course everyone is different. But here’s two methods (tricks? hacks?) that work for me at various times.

Low Goal, High Results. (The Min-Max zone)

The idea with this is to set a daily, or per session word count goal that feels too easy.

By now I hope you’ve figured out a good time and place to write. So go there, at that time, and do a timed 15 minute sprint. However many words you got, halve it. Repeat this exercise a few times to make sure you’ve got a good average.

Unless you’re a power writer, you will most likely end up with a number that is below that 220 we mathed out earlier, DON’T PANIC. In fact, for this example lets say that you managed to write an average of 200 words in your 15 minute sessions. Which means that your daily goal is now 100 words.

Of course with that number, even if you write every single day for a year that will only give you 36 500 words. Not a novel. Barely a novella!

The point here is not to write only 100 words a day. It’s making the daily task of writing feel easy and approachable. Not scary. If you know you only need to write 100 words, and you know you can get that done easily in less than 15 minutes, then why not do it? And once you’re writing, writing a little more generally happens easily enough. If getting started is the hard part, this should really help.

It’s a common psychological trick. But it’s common for a reason. It works!

Once you’ve set your (very easy) minimum goal, I also encourage you to set a maximum daily goal too. Especially if you’re the type of person who tends to go on 10k writing binges and then not write again for two months. Set your maximum at what you can comfortably write in 1.5-2 hours. So let’s say that’s 1000 words. Meaning your goal is to write 100-1000 words every time you sit down to write, and consider everything, from barely getting 102 to maxing out at 1002 an awesome, winning, writing day.

What does that look like? On a bad day, a day you don’t fee like writing at all, it means you tell yourself that all you need to do is write for ten minutes. Just get down 100 words (or whatever your minimum goal is.) And then if you haven’t found your mojo, you stop. No guilt or regret. You’ve met your goal, even though you’re having a bad day. You’re doing awesome!

On a power day, when you feel almost possessed by the muses, it means that when your timer beeps, or you see that number on the bottom of the screen hit 1000 (or whatever your number is), you make yourself stop. Yes. Stop mid flow. (It’s painful, I know! But please try!) Why stop? Because you’re learning how to have a healthy long term writing habit.

Write yourself some notes, and come at it fresh tomorrow. The goal is teach yourself that your creativity isn’t actually a unreliable muse. You are not subject to it’s whim. With time and practice your creativity will be there whenever you reach for it.

This is the method that I use most of the time, and I strongly recommend you give it a decent try (6 weeks at least.)

However perhaps you’re really just convinced that particular kind of psychological trickery just won’t work for you, or perhaps you’ve tried it in the past without success. Maybe it creates the opposite effect for you, and you find daily writing skippable because the minimum goal feels so low that you think you can make it up later (you won’t, but ahem, brains are weird.) So here is an alternative method that is also quite effective.

2. Higher Goals to Plan For Misses

Instead of setting your goal ridiculously low, you can try setting it high enough that you can miss writing days while still staying on track.

This will only work if you’ve been able to carve out a larger chunk of time for daily writing, thirty minutes to an hour.

So, lets run the example numbers. Using the 80k novel template, we already know that it would take 220 words a day if you write every single day, and never delete anything.

Writing every day is almost impossible, so you’re setting yourself up to fail if you set 220 as your goal.

So instead you plan for writing 6 days a week. Perhaps you intend to take Mondays off. They suck and you know you usually don’t feel like writing then anyway. Awesome. Let’s make that our schedule. Writing 312 days a year means a daily target of 257 words.

But still, that leaves no margin for error. No time for bad days, illness, that one scene you have to cut because it wasn’t working, etc.

So we double it. Your goal, with a plan of writing 6 days a week, is 500 words a day. And also (and this is the important bit) 2000 words a week.

Wait! That’s 4 days, not 6! Yes. That’s the point. It allows room for misses. To allow you to fail without failing. For days when you can’t reach 500, for days when you don’t have time (and with a larger daily goal like this, that’s a lot more possible.) For days when you just can’t.

Of course if you can only count on writing 5 days a week, or 4, or whatever your life situation calls for, adjust your goals accordingly. Always keep your goal word count about 1/3 higher than needed, to give yourself that cushion. If the numbers gets too large to manage, then it’s time to change the long term goal.

Yes. Really. Change it. Setting a goal that you’re bound to fail at is not going to help you.

Perhaps it’s more feasible for you personally to write your novel in 18 months, or two years. As always, your health is more important than an arbitrary time line, and you’ll still be awesome if you write your novel a little slower.

But what if both of those methods still stress you out, or if focusing on the numbers like that kills your joy?

Here’s a bonus method, that I personally use when things get to be a real struggle.

3. Gold Stars

This is for the times when the thought of tracking word count is just one step too many, and becomes an obstacle for writing at all. However when you abandon tracking completely, it’s often a way to abandon writing too.

So having some sort of way to confirm that yes, you’ve written for the day still helps, whether that’s putting a gold star, or an X on a calendar (you can find printable month/page calendars online for free, or you can buy those little book calendars very cheap), creating an art or craft piece (one time I wrote an entire novel assisted by a scarf where I only got to crochet a row after I’d written for the day), or whatever other way you can think of to mark that you wrote. Having a way to look back at your week or month and confirm that yes, you’ve written most days, is often enough keep you honest (with yourself.) As long as it’s something that feels like a reward and not additional work.

So there you have it. 3 methods for setting word count goals and tracking what you’re accomplishing.

Let me know what you’re going to try, or what sort of tricks work for you! (and feel free to ask me for help figuring out how to apply this in your own life.)

—Maree

Subscribe to my substack to make sure you don't miss a post, chat with me on the WIP Project discord, and tag any posts you make about the challenge with #slomowrino if you want me to see them!

#slowmowrino #failure proof goals #word count goals #writing advice