jynxes

[jynxes]

Silly drunk dialogue

Can also be under the influence of other stuff.

"Oh, look at the stars! Ursa Major… so beautiful!" "We're inside. Those are just ceiling lights."

"Please don't leave me!" "I'm just going to the toilette." "Can I come with you?"

"My arm is floppy. I'm like a puppet."

"Can you be my girlfriend?" "I already am." "Oh, lucky me!"

"Let’s go play baseball!" "Your shoulder is dislocated, maybe not right now."

"You look almost as pretty as this moon." "That's a street lamp." "And you're almost as pretty."

"Have you ever thought about penguins? I think we should think more about penguins."

"You have a stupid face and it's my favourite one to stare at."

"I will definitely remember this tomorrow! How could I ever forget?" *doesn't remember anything in the morning*

"Oh, I think we haven't met before." "We have been in a relationship for five years now."

"You should go, otherwise I'm doing something stupid. Like kissing you or falling asleep on the bathroom floor."

"Let's get you home." "Oh, mine or yours?" "Ours." "Oh, wow!"

"I'm totally, absolutely, not at all drunk at all. Like... at all."

"Why are you all laughing? That is not very nice. I haven't even told my joke yet."

"How many drinks did you have?" "Yes, yes I am."

"You are too beautiful for me." *starts crying*

"Why are you undressing?" "Because it's hot! And I'm hot!"

*starts singing a remix of all their favourite songs*

*then starts crying, because their own voice is too beautiful*

[jynxes]

Pirate Terms and Phrases

-> Pirate Lingo

-> A Pirate's Glossary

Batten Down The Hatches - tie everything down and put stuff away for a coming storm.

Brig - a prison on a ship.

Bring a Spring Upon 'er - turn the ship in a different direction

Broadside - the most vulnerable angle of a ship that runs the length of the boat.

Cutlass - a thick, heavy and rather short sword blade.

Dance with Jack Ketch - to hang; death at the hands of the law (Jack Ketch was a famed English executioner).

Davy Jones's Locker - a mythical place at the bottom of the ocean where drowned sailors are said to go.

Dead Men Tell No Tales - the reason given for leaving no survivors.

Flogging - severe beating of a person.

Gangplank - removable ramp between the pier and ship.

Give No Quarter - show no mercy.

Jack - flag flown at the front of the ship to show nationality.

Jolly Roger - black pirate flag with a white skull and crossbones.

Keelhaul - a punishment where someone is dragged under the ship. They are cut by the planks and barnacles on the bottom of the ship.

Landlubber - an inexperienced or clumsy person who doesn't have any sailing skills.

Letters of Marque - government-issued letters allowing privateers the right to piracy of another ship during wartime.

Man-O-War - a pirate ship that is decked out and prepared for battle.

Maroon - to leave someone stranded on a. deserted island with no supplies, typically a punishment for any crew members who disrespected the captain.

Mutiny - a situation in which the crew chooses a new captain, sometimes by forcibly removing the old one.

No Prey, No Pay - a common pirate law that meant crew members were not paid, but rather received a share of whatever loot was taken.

Old Salt - experienced pirate or sailor.

Pillage - to steal/rob a place using violence.

Powder Monkeys - men that performed the most dangerous work on the ship. They were treated harshly, rarely paid, and were expendable.

Privateer - government-appointed pirates.

Run A Shot Across the Bow - fire a warning shot at another boat's Captain.

Scurvy - a disease caused by Vitamin C Deficiency.

Sea Legs - when a sailor adjusts his balance from riding on a boat for a long time.

Strike Colors - lower a ship's flag to indicate surrender.

Weigh Anchor and Hoist the Mizzen - an order to the crew to pull up the anchor and get the ship sailing.

If you like what I do and want to support me, please consider buying me a coffee! I also offer editing services and other writing advice on my Ko-fi! Become a member to receive exclusive content, early access, and prioritized writing prompt requests.

[jynxes]

Extremely nitpicky but I hate white wedding gowns in fantasy, especially when they make absolutely no sense in the setting. No, that culture in the far north that prioritizes function over form and mostly wears heavy furs would not have the means, ability, or desire to make a sleeveless ivory silk gown with a semi-sweetheart neckline. Please be sensible about this and use your creativity instead of just slapping a Kleinfeld wedding gown into a medieval fantasy setting.

[jynxes]

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists

Antagonists, whether people, the world, an object, or something else are integral to giving your story stakes and enough conflict to challenge your character enough to change them. Today I’m just going to focus on people antagonists because they are the easiest to do this with!

1. Your antagonist is still a character

While sure, antagonists exist in the story to combat your MC and make their lives and quest difficult, they are still characters in the story—they are still people in the world.

Antagonists lacking in this humanity may land flat or uninteresting, and it’s more likely they’ll fall into trope territory.

You should treat your antagonists like any other character. They should have goals, objectives, flaws, backstories, etc. (check out my character creation stuff here). They may even go through their own character arc, even if that doesn’t necessarily lead them to the ‘good’ side.

Really effective antagonists are human enough for us to see ourselves in them—in another universe, we could even be them.

2. They’re… antagonistic

There’s two types of antagonist. Type A and Type B. Type A antagonist’s have a goal that is opposite the MC’s. Type B’s goal is the same as the MC’s, but their objectives contradict each other.

For example, in Type A, your MC wants to win the contest, your antagonist wants them to lose.

In Type B, your MC wants to win the contest, and your antagonist wants to win the same contest. They can’t both win, so the way they get to their goal goes against each other.

A is where you get your Draco Malfoy’s, other school bullies, or President Snow’s (they don’t necessarily want what the MC does, they just don’t want them to have it.)

B is where you get the other Hunger Games contestants, or any adventure movie where the villain wants the secret treasure that the MCs are also hunting down. They want the same thing.

3. They have well-formed motivations

While we as the writers know that your antagonist was conceptualized to get in the way of the MC, they don’t know that. To them, they exist separate from the MC, and have their own reasons for doing what they do.

In Type A antagonists, whatever the MC wants would be bad for them in some way—so they can’t let them have it. For example, your MC wants to destroy Amazon, Jeff Bezos wants them not to do that. Why not? He wants to continue making money. To him, the MC getting what they want would take away something he has.

Other motivations could be: MC’s success would take away an opportunity they want, lose them power or fame or money or love, it could reveal something harmful about them—harming their reputation. It could even, in some cases, cause them physical harm.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but the antagonist has to believe it’s true. Such as, if MC wins the competition, my wife will leave me for them. Maybe she absolutely wouldn’t, but your antagonist isn’t going to take that chance anyway.

In Type B antagonists, they want the same thing as the MC. In this case, their motivations could be literally anything. They want to win the competition to have enough money to save their family farm, or to prove to their family that they can succeed at something, or to bring them fame so that they won’t die a ‘nobody’.

They have a motivation separate from the MC, but that pesky protagonist keeps getting in their way.

4. They have power over the MC

Antagonists that aren’t able to combat the MC very well aren’t very interesting. Their job is to set the MC back, so they should be able to impact their journey and lives. They need some sort of advantage, privilege, or power over the MC.

President Snow has armies and the force of his system to squash Katniss. She’s able to survive through political tension and her own army of rebels, but he looms an incredibly formidable foe.

Your antagonist may be more wealthy, powerful, influential, intelligent, or skilled. They may have more people on their side. They are superior in some way to the protagonist.

5. And sometimes they win

Leading from the last point, your antagonists need wins. They need to get their way sometimes, which means your protagonist has to lose. You can do a bit of a trade off that allows your protagonist to lose enough to make a formidable foe out of their antagonist, but still allows them some progress using Fortunately, Unfortunately.

It goes like… Fortunately, MC gets accepted into the competition. Unfortunately, the antagonist convinces the rest of the competitors to hate them. Fortunately, they make one friend. Unfortunately, their first entry into the competition gets sabotaged. Fortunately, they make it through the first round anyway, etc. etc.

An antagonist that doesn’t do any antagonizing isn’t very interesting, and is completely pointless in their purpose to heighten stakes and create conflict for your protagonist to overcome. We’ll probably be talking about antagonists more soon!

Anything I missed?

[jynxes]

I kind of suck at tagging, so I made this infographic to help make it easier.

[jynxes]

PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

#i have a few somewhat “filler” scenes in ny fics #especially with Fianna #but i like to think that they have purpose #yes there are scenes with peter thats just banter #or that one coffee shop scene #but the banter shows her getting closer to peter as a person‚ feeling comfortable enough to laugh and joke with him #the coffee shop scene shows hiw she analyses people‚ gives insight into her reflections and relation to these strangers #also theres a mini cameo from a future character that will be called upon

[jynxes]

their apartment is their own world, separate from everything else. from everyone else. out there they can be so horrible to one another, but inside their apartment they have movie nights, and they play chess and tables and other silly games, they drink tea every night before bed, they sit on the same couch and talk and they're just with one another. a love that is so cruel, and so devastatingly painful because neither knew how to accept it for so long

#flamewolf

[jynxes]

fic planning be like:

#me with the max storyline in The Lupune Saga #if it ever comes to pass that is

[jynxes]

"This story is a tragedy because it didn't have to end this way."

vs

"This story is a tragedy because it was always going to end this way."

#the umbra pentalogy? yes #the lupine saga? mayhaps

[jynxes]

AO3 Tagging Inspiration.

Mainly a reference for me bc I always blank when it comes to tags. Sharing in case it helps anyone else, but not intended to be prescriptive. Further references:

Ao3’s Rating System Explanation

Difference Between "A/B" and "A&B"

Fanwork Ao3 Accepts Beyond Fanfic

How tagging a pairing in the “Relationship” field vs in “Additional Tags” changes search results

List of Writing Genres

Trope Examples

Most Popular Tags on Ao3

My humble plea for people to cross-post their meta & other fannish nonfiction to ao3, and tag it with “meta analysis” so I can find it and adore it

[jynxes]

Canis Lupus 03 Teaser

A/N: I rediscovered last night that I thrive on attention so being the attention whore that I am, here's a snippet from the next Canis Lupus chapter :)

Warnings: Name calling?? ig

Word Count: 571

Full Chapter Word Count: 3.8k and climbing

“Hey, Fianna, so lovely of you to pick up. I know that you’re good with technology, so I thought that you’d know, when the phone rings, someone wants to talk to you. And when my name pops up on the screen, that means it’s me,” Tony rants the second I put the phone to my ear.

I roll my eyes at his dramatics, “Hey, Anthony, what the fuck? Yes, I know how mobile phones work, do you know how the American school system works? Essentially, I was in class, in which taking phone calls are typically frowned upon, you bawbag. So keep that in mind next time.”

“Wow, okay then, calm down,” Tony starts, “Also Anthony? How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?”

“At least another five.”

“Great. Well, you know how I told you a few weeks ago that I was thinking of selling the tower?” he asks. I think back to the conversation we had.

He told me about his idea of moving everything upstate, said that the tower was far too big, that there were other locations that the employees would be relocated to. He mentioned something about the tower being far too isolating, for me as well as him and Pepper.

He had made it very casual and hypothetical so I never really thought about it, especially since he never mentioned what would happen to me. He’s laid off me a bit lately and I haven’t heard Thaddeus Ross’s name in weeks, that paired with the possible move worries me. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Yeah... I remember,” I say, quietly. Things have been good lately; I’ve had more stability in my life in the past couple of months than in a long time.

“We’ve found buyers. We’re selling up and packing up, Anna,” he tells me, using the nickname he’s claimed for me.

“So... you’re moving upstate? You and Pep? All the employees are being relocated?” I start to ask a string of questions, before quieting, “What does this mean for me?”

“Don’t you worry about that, I’m working everything out. I just wanted to let you know what’s happening. Wanted to keep you in the loop, Anna, make sure you don’t hear from someone else,” Tony explains himself and while I’m still left in the dark about what’s going to happen to me, it warms my heart.

He's keeping me in the know. Making sure I’m aware of what’s going on every step of the way. Other than Eoghan trying his best, I’ve never had someone care for me like this. He makes it really hard to dislike him when he does things like this.

“...Thanks Tony. For letting me know,” I practically whisper. “Just, tell me when you know what you’re going to do with me.”

“I’m not going to do anything with you, Fianna. I’m going figure out the course of action that will best benefit you. I’m working it out with Pep and making sure everything follows the requirements you have for your parole. I’m figuring everything out,” the man reassures me.

I can’t help but melt, “Thank you, for everything. I might not say it, practically ever, but I do appreciate all you’re doing for me.”

“Of course, now get back to class sweetheart. I hear it’s frowned upon to take phone calls during class,” Tony snarks.

#damn ant u making me blush/lh

[jynxes]

not me suddenly getting the motivation to write Canis Lupus again 👀

not me thinking I might try and finish the chapter tonight 👀👀

not me being wildly confident about this despite only starting to write again last week after a year if nothing 👀👀👀

#idk why but i really think i might finish this chaoter either tonight or tomorrow #jynx rambles #jynx teases?

[jynxes]

lets hear it for transgenderism and faggotry. can I get a round of applause for transgenderism and faggotry

[jynxes]

Okay writers listen up

I'm gonna tell you about how I wrangled my shitbird brain into being a terrifying word-churning engine and have written over 170K words in under a year.

I wanna be clear that before unlocking this Secret Technique I was a victim of my unmedicated ADHD, able to start but never finish, able to ideate but not commit and I truly and firmly believed that I'd never write a novel and such a thing was simply outside of my reach.

Now I write (and read!!) every day. Every. Single. Day. Like some kind of scriptorial One Punch Man.

Step the First

Remove friction between yourself and writing.

I personally figured out how to comfortably write on my phone which meant I didn't have to struggle with the insurmountable task of opening my laptop.

I don't care if this means you write in a Discord server you set up for yourself, but fucking do it. Literally whatever makes you write!

(if you do write somewhere that isn't a word processor PLEASE back your work up regularly!)

Step the Second

Make that shit a habit. Write every day.

For me, I allow myself the grace that ANY progress on writing counts. One sentence? Legal. Five thousand furious hyperfixated words? Also legal.

Every day, make progress. Any progress.

I deleted Twitter from my phone and did my best to replace doomscrolling with writing. If I caught myself idly scrolling I'd close whatever I was looking at and open my draft and write one (1) sentence until I made THAT a habit, too.

Step Two-point-Five

DO NOT REWRITE. If you are creating a first draft, don't back up or restart. Continous forward motion. Second drafts and editors exist. Firsts are for ripping the fucking thing out of your brain.

If you're working on revisions after an editor or beta readers or whoever has given you feedback, then you can rewrite that's OK (and it counts as your writing for the day!)

Step the Third

Now that you've found a comfortable way to write and are doing it every day, don't stop. Keep doing it. Remember, just one sentence is all you need. You can always do more, but if one lousy sentence is all you can manage then you're still successfully writing.

Remember: this is what worked for me. Try things until you find what works for you.

You can do it. I believe in you.

[jynxes]

The Shadow Realm 02 Teaser

A/N: okay so it's been ages since i've done one of these but i desperately need the motivation so uh... here's a teaser pls give feedback

Warnings: None

Word Count: 239

Full Chapter Word Count: 1.2k and climbing (hopefully)

We both slowly make our way to his bed, him lying down and I sitting on a cushion on the floor next to it. Loki begins throwing a cup in the air rhythmically, I watch as it flies and falls through the air back into his hand.

I rock back and forth and hum softly as I watch him, I pick at my skin, scratching and my cuticles almost creating hangnails. I don’t even realise how excessive the skin picking is until I feel Loki’s hand softly take mine, I look up at him as he slowly guides my hand into my hair. He knows about my habits, the good and the bad and it’s clear that he’d rather I twirl my hair than pick away at my decaying skin... we’ve both come to realise that while my illusions give me a full mobility in my limbs, if I pick at my skin too much, especially at the tips of my fingers, it can crumble away when I’m in my true form.

A small smile graces my lips, and one almost ghosts his own lips too. He turns back to face the ceiling and begins throwing his cup again, my rocking soothed, my hair twirling and my humming slightly louder. This... this is comfortable, comfort beyond what I’ve ever experienced before, no words need to be spoken, no raised voices, no questions, just silence. Comfortable silence and tentative touches.

#AHHH VAL IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT!!! #THE SKIN PICKING AND ILLUSIONS THING IS SOMETHING I CAME UP WITH ON THE SPOT BUT LIKE I DEFINITELY WANT TO EXPLORE IT A LITTLE MORE #AND YEAH THIS IS THE BEGINNING IFY THOR 2 SO DEFINITELY GET EXCITED FOR THAT AHHHH

[jynxes]

Please guys, I wanna start writing again

HALLOWEEN THEMED SENTENCE PROMPTS

“You can’t tell me you’re actually afraid of this movie…”

“I think she lied to you. This isn’t a costume party. No one here is wearing a costume.”

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

“Did you want to hear a scary story?”

“Love your costume. What made you choose it?”

“Are you sure you want to go into that haunted house?”

“Don’t you think you’re a little too old to be trick-or-treating?”

“What’s your favorite scary movie?”

“The fact that I’m single for Halloween sucks.”

“If we’re both single next Halloween, you’re allowed to put a curse on me.”

“Do you really think the curse is real?”

“Have you ever been kissed in a pumpkin patch?”

“Do you want to go through the corn maze?”

“I told you we should have done couple's costumes.”

“I’m not easily scared, but right now I’m terrified.”

“Do you like my costume?”

“Guess I’m the little devil on your shoulder, huh?”

“I like to think of myself as the angel on your shoulder.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to dance?”

“Do you want to dance?”

“The Monster Mash is a classic. If you say otherwise, you’re a liar.”

“How do you feel handing out candy tonight with me?”

“Are you sure you’re okay? We can leave if you want.”

“We should leave the costume party.”

“Do you think I could win the costume party?”

“I hate bobbing for apples. It’s always such a mess.”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

“Sorry I have to take the fangs out before we kiss.”

“Do you believe in ghosts or not?”

“That’s a mighty sexy costume you’re wearing.”

“I like your jack o'lantern!”

“Do you like my jack o’lantern?”

“Shut up, that’s not what I meant.”

“Stop using the Dracula accent, it’s not cute.”

“What are you even supposed to be?”

[jynxes]

Okay so Val and Plank are both bribing me with fanart so I think I'm going to suppress the suffering that will be watching Thor The Dark World and write for Helena because I really do neglect her a bit too much

This'll give me a chance to better think out Act II of the fic as well oop- I'm inspired already, teasing y'all

@thedragonemperess @angelwiththeblue-box @depressedtransguy

Please inspire me to write more Fianna and Helena it's been over a year and I really want to do it but inspiration is just fizzing out any time it comes

I wanna start posting fics again but the inspo just isn't coming

#jynx writes