#answers 5 hours later

[nina-ya]

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE HAPPIEST OF TUESDAYS TO YOU ALL!!!! I hope you all have an amazing day I'm sending you all the bestest of vibes!!!

[women-of-malevolent]

I genuinely don’t mean this from a place of malice, and do think the podcast both has a history of handling its women characters poorly and would like if it were better in that aspect. But I don’t understand the specific criticism of the work having a running theme of “male characters uncritically sacrificing their daughters.” (Key word uncritically.)

The titular Bella episode directly forces Arthur to confront the idea that him and Larson are similar, that the callousness they showed to their loved ones is intentionally paralleled. I don’t think it’s something the story is unaware of, and I’d hesitate to argue that Arthur (or Daniel, later) is presented as being in the definitive right. (In this regard.)

I don’t think you have to love the prevalence of the concept in the narrative, but I do think some of your critique feels like you’re taking the worst interpretation you could from the story and arguing that because the characters themselves don’t actively stop the plot to condemn it (and honestly, they do sometimes) it means the actions are presented as wholly value neutral. Some of your analysis feels like you’re starting from a conclusion and working your way back.

I want to reiterate: I really enjoy most of your critiques, and it’s refreshing to have someone in the fandom both document female presence in the podcast and speak candidly about its flaws. I’d honestly love to know if/why you disagree, either with regards to intentionality or necessity of inclusion.

Hello! Thanks for writing in!

I'm not sure which post you're referencing where I said the daughter-sacrifice theme was uncritically portrayed? Because I don't think it is. The story portrays daughter-sacrifice as varying shades of terrible, graded according to intent. These less-than-ideal men keep hurting the women they should have protected.

My problem with the daughter-sacrifice theme is the same as my problem the rest of the show: it's exclusively about men. Daughters aren't people, they're glass sculptures for men to carry for 18 years, and what those men do with that piece of glass in that time tells you about the character of that man.

Who are Addison, Faroe, Emily, Samantha, Murdered Daughter Of A Senator, fuck even Sarah, if you take away the men who hurt them? Looking at just the text of Malevolent, none of the liveplay games lore or headcanons etc, there's little to nothing to these girls.

You're not invited to spend time inhabiting any woman's life like you are with Arthur (or John, to a significantly lesser extent). You can, and I do, but it feels like reading against the text because their lives are boring, horrible, difficult to parse, and they usually end in childbirth or femicide. It's fucking miserable!

The men are trapped in the same bleak, violent story, and a lot of them die graphically and onscreen, but most of them also get some combo of moments of triumph, personalities, voices, independence, quirks that narratively make that violence go down smoother. (Also smoother because there are so many fun and fascinating male characters)

Also, honestly, I don't enjoy how the theme is explored. It feels shallow and lame to me. I personally, as a listener, don't feel like this specific story has ~earned~ (in my personal, idiosyncratic, things-I-like-in-fiction, subjective assessment) exploring the horror of femicide when 1) there are zero normal, living female characters (Marie is very close, but no cigar); 2) all it seems to really say is basically… murder is bad (sometimes) (usually?) (sometimes, at least), and it's extra bad when men kill their dependent women?

Standard disclaimer that it ain't over 'til it's over, what we got is not great so far but it ain't over

Thank you again and I'd be so happy to continue this conversation if you want!

[blueberry-ink-93]

ELECTRICITY IS OUT

and my phone is at 12% how convenient as usual. see yall tonight lol or tomorrow after my exam ive got so much to yap about hehe

[mike-wheeler-ik-what-you-are]

I hate hate HATE when men treat you like you’ve just been lobotomized just because you’re a girly girl!!!!

[devilsparda]

ive been sitting in this askbox for so long im not even sure if im in the right askbox but i think so<-i wrote this last ..... my honest opinion is that youre genuinely one of the funniest ppl ive ever met. like i remember the first gc we were ever in together back in back in 201*mumbles* some of the mssgs youd send would have me CRYING LAUGHING esp when we'd all get on call tgt; you make any space youre in genuinely so welcoming and fun.... I also just had to delete an entire paragraph bcs i went off on an unrelated tangent nd i think thats also a testament to how easy it is to talk to you like just knowing im sending you an ask i was like. ok i can write 7000 characters n jannah will read them and reply 2 them<3 I also alr told you i love your writing but im saying it again... u were always a brilliant writer but you've only gotten better! ive only ever played 15 minutes of dmc 3 on my brothers old ps2 but i feel like i know dantes character just from how you talk about him + the combo of your pretty narrative writing and dialogue...i just love to read your posts. anyway (for the 93729837th time) im SOOOOOO happy youre back+love you + kiss you + follow wherever your interests take you till the ends of the earth <3

ANONYMOUSLY TELL ME YOUR HONEST OPINION ABOUT ME. I CAN’T REPLY/COMMENT, JUST PUBLISH.

[yukipri]

Thought you'd like to know I rotate The Prime Override around in my head a minimum of three times a week

I know this ask is from months ago, but thank you so much!!

It really truly is an incredible feeling to know that people think about my work, that I've provided enough substance for people to think over. I feel like as someone coming from a heavily art background in fandom, it's just such a refreshing experience to hear people's thoughts and to know that my work means more than a fleeting 5 seconds of "pretty picture"!

I also wanted to let you, specifically, know that I truly adore the comments you leave! (assuming you're the person with the same icon and similar username on AO3!) I do my best to respond to all comments, and I recognize and am so happy to see people who keep coming back. So thank you—for being one of the reasons why I can find the motivation to continue updating!

As of last night, I completed writing Chapter 63, which is the last chapter of the Early War era. Part of me was unsure I'd ever get there, but somehow I did! So again, thank you, to you and all my readers!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

[batsplat]

i don't know if you've answered this before but how do you think 2013 would've gone as a season if casey and marc had been teammates?

I HAVE talked a couple times by now about marc and casey as teammates - here and here - though I guess this prompt is a little different in that it's asking me about the 2013 season specifically. I'm kinda traditionally resistant to giving actual predictions of... results, because to me it gets into kind of boring territory about who's 'better' or (even more irritating) who's 'more talented' and I just. do not care. BUT, sure, I can do a thought experiment localised to 2013 specifically. so this post will focus more on the actual state of competition than it will on interpersonal vibes, how casey and marc deal with the rivalry on a psychological level, or how long the teammate relationship actually lasts - for that stuff, you can check out the other two posts. just take it as read that I think all these riders are very good and very talented, this is just a thought experiment, I don't feel super strongly about this, obviously this could've gone a thousand ways

also we're going to assume for our purposes here that casey and marc are actually teammates in this and dani is.................................. uh, idk man, he's with ducati, he's not having fun. which is far from guaranteed... one of honda's attempts to convince casey to stay was by offering him a pretty unusual one year deal that would've almost doubled his salary. the rookie rule preventing rookies from joining factory seats was still in place at that point... so it's quite obvious honda's preferred approach here would to keep casey at least one more year while marc gets his rookie season out of his system at a satellite team. but let's just say they're teammates fighting for the title, whatever

do think the obvious answer here is to say casey wins the title and call it a day. it's certainly a likely outcome. it's not detracting anything whatsoever from either marc's ability or 2013 season specifically to say that he needed a fair bit of luck to win the title as a rookie. luck is part of sports and you've still got to put yourself in the position to benefit from luck. and in a way it's also part of like... marc's career-long reservoir of luck... generational talents do sometimes have a bit of that blessing about them where the fates seem to be on their side... so in a way it's establishing a pattern that remains relevant for much of his prime. jorge and dani crashed a hell of a lot less in 2013 than marc did. marc walked away relatively unscathed from pretty serious crashes, including at least one that was actively stupid - whereas jorge and dani were seriously punished for quite minor infractions. the injuries for the other aliens (esp jorge) were just seriously poor luck (dani is just generally more breakable); the former goes beyond 'luck' on a season-to-season level and becomes more about 'luck' in the genetic lottery + an ability to crash in ways that make severe injuries relatively less likely (aka by being lower to the ground while sliding off)

all this means that if you change anything major about 2013, like for instance introducing a whole different rival, then you consult the tea leaves and fresh up your butterfly effect lore and assume that jorge probably wouldn't get injured in the same way to the same extent. maybe he'd get injured in a completely different crash, who knows. but like... anything that isn't related to strict riding ability would obviously play out in somewhat different ways. you could argue that marc himself suffered a serious stroke of bad luck by being black-flagged at phillip island, but ultimately there's less reason to believe his team wouldn't still have fucked it - that was an error based on competitive paranoia and, to put it politely, rank stupidity on the part of marc's team. ultimately ofc marc does bear some responsibility for that since he's the rider. but it's like... excusable from a 20 year old (less so from the people advising said 20 year old), doesn't mean it couldn't have been competitively penalised considerably more if he hadn't already built up such a buffer to jorge

so that's the generic argument that it just becomes less likely for marc to win the title. obviously it's still possible - another title contender inherently makes things more chaotic and maybe jorge and casey end up tripping over each other. but the percentages go down. now casey specifically.... I mean, first of all, I think it's worth pointing out that casey didn't retire as the defending champion. did casey lose the 2012 season because of injury? ............ maybe he would've won without the ankle injury at indy, but it's worth pointing out that he was already 32 points adrift in the championship standings. the way 2012 works is that with the shift to 1000 machinery, honda struggles with chattering problems for the first half of the season before becoming the best bike in the second once they've figured it out - at which point jorge holds onto his championship lead through grit and consistency. this is where dani goes on that run of victories, winning six of the last eight races. basically if casey is still in there and plays the rest of the season smart, it does become quite marginal about whether casey can rediscover his title-winning form AND dani finishes ahead of jorge enough times to steal enough points to make up the difference (rather than casey and dani stealing points from each other). idk, it is quite a substantial points difference and it's the best season of both jorge and dani's premier class careers, but it is at least... plausible for any one of them to win in this scenario. jorge's still the favourite, but it's certainly not a done deal

the reason I bring this up is because casey was definitely also to blame for his points deficit in 2012. less so for the arm pump in qatar, but more for that sachsenring race where he chucked it out of second place while fighting dani or that.... vaguely embarrassing mugello race where idek WHAT he was doing. incidentally, here's a really good piece analysing jorge's 2012 season, which includes this line:

ntm buddy

the point is that 2012 casey - whether related to his imminent retirement or not - did still have a few mistakes in his system. (is worth pointing out that right before he had his indy disaster, casey was talking about how he was less motivated. the rhetoric changed by the time his autobiography was written, but in 2012 itself the picture is clearly more complicated.) look, I don't want to talk up one crash and one messy race TOO much because it feels like a bit of a silly standard, and also the quality of the 2013 title fight just was quite a bit lower than 2012. but if we're game planning 2013, all these things are relevant data points!! and, aside from jorge's injury, obviously we also know that casey's body isn't the most durable either and HE could've easily not been competitive for the full 2013 season, for whatever reason. it's not particularly narratively satisfying to say that 2013 would've come down to whether anyone who isn't marc could manage to keep their bodies in one piece for nine months, but it's not wrong exactly either

that being said. with the injury proviso, even with the casey headloss in 2012, I do suspect that a reasonably healthy casey would've been comfortably enough the strongest rider in 2013 to allow for a little headloss. basically he would've built up quite a nice championship lead early that he could have managed for the rest of the season. lemme show my working

so, here's the 2013 season as it happened irl:

first off - unlike in 2012, honda didn't have any teething problems early in the 2013 season, and it was on average defo the strongest bike that year (albeit with a less substantial margin than the following year). secondly, I'd say it's fair to characterise marc's season as really clicking when they got to sachsenring - before that he's done a very good job to be consistent enough to amass the points that would ultimately drag him over the line, but the performances are still a bit spottier. which is ofc fair enough because he's a rookie, but worth keeping in mind here

the season starts off in qatar, which is definitely more of a yamaha track than a honda track. then again, it's a casey specialist track - I'm kind of willing to buy his arm pump excuse for 2012 and am ready-ish to believe that he would have won that race, even ahead of quite a dominant jorge performance. at worst, he would've finished in second; remember the irl!hondas were slow enough they allowed themselves to be caught by valentino coming from the shadow realm. let's say jorge still wins that, ahead of casey and valentino. next, we have cota. now, look. I think on the balance of their respective careers, if they had both raced repeatedly there, marc would have had a distinctly better cota record than casey. but in 2013 specifically.... both marc and casey are good at tracks they're visiting for the first time, but this was casey's primary calling card and also like.... it's marc's second race in motogp. marc at his specialist circuits that year was 'very good' and he did WIN them, but he didn't win them with the utter ease that he did in his prime prime. anyway, I do think casey takes that one

onto jerez. traditionally, jerez was a bit of a casey bogey track (weird track to be mid at but whatever) and he'd actually only gotten his first and only win there in 2012, where he beat jorge. but... well, crucially he did beat jorge, and irl in 2013 we had a honda 1-2, so again on the balance of probability I kindaaa think casey wins that. (remember I've sent dani off to ducati hell so he's being deleted from the equation.) and marc gets to have a bit of fun and bump jorge off the road. the next place is le mans, which is a wet race - obviously there you never really know, casey was a very competent wet weather rider but it's also not like you can pencil in his victory by default (though dani did win that irl race). what you CAN say about casey, however... while it's marginal who out of him and valentino is the best alien wet weather racer, he's the alien you'd give the bike in the wet with the directive not to chuck it down the road. remarkably, he never crashed in a single wet or f2f race in the premier class except... *squints at notes* *taps earpiece* I'm hearing something about a jerez 2011? who can say what happened there. anyway, crucially jorge canonically had a pretty poor race so let's say both hondas gain on him in the standings

at a certain point, psychology does come into play for marc. if we compare this to his irl rookie season, what we have here is a 'very very good' season that also misses a couple of the same wow factors as he got irl - which inevitably is going to affect how he approaches the rest of the season. bluntly speaking, we know from his record over the years that marc is considerably more capable of being risk averse when he knows there's a championship on the line. at times, errors beget more errors because of a mix of frustration and a sort of 'might as well' attitude and a desire to get a big result At All Costs. irl, marc suffered his first race crash at mugello - butterfly effect goes both ways and maybe marc can avoid that particularly nasty experience, but I do think it's coming at SOME point, probably sooner rather than later. AND if marc never really feels in the title fight, then at a certain point I do think those mistakes could multiply. whereas casey is actually super consistent when he gets into title-winning groove. across his two title-winning seasons, he only records a single dnf, which happened at... *taps earpiece again* apparently that's also jerez 2011. huh. yes, it's somewhat circular logic to go casey didn't make mistakes in seasons where he won the title and thus he won't make mistakes and will win the title'. casey is ALSO susceptible to errors multiplying - as you could see with the whole sachsenring to mugello 2012 situation and, more memorably, the aftereffects of laguna 2008. but you kinda need something to set that off!! in 2008, casey's bike was a bit of a mess early in the season and that made him frustrated, then he had a bit of an unfortunate experience at laguna that I've heard made him rather unhappy. in 2012, he'd kill me if I said this to his face but, again, there was a bit of a retirement factor, like he just was 5% less locked in idk. (worth pointing out he was leading the championship *at the time of his retirement announcement*.) and the 2013 honda was just so well-handling, little cause for frustration there... idk. I think he'd be fine

mugello is still a jorge victory, both due to track characteristics and because it's one of jorge's strongest tracks. catalunya I could probably see casey launch a stern challenge there, but it's also a bit more of a yamaha than a honda track so sure let's keep those 1-2's in both where casey replaces dani. then you've got assen - I don't really have any strong opinions on the order here, it's not a particularly strong marc track, it's a... fine casey track... I'm not sure what would've happened between valentino and jorge if jorge hadn't gotten injured. since it is a very strong valentino track and valentino doesn't have to care about the title fight, I tend to think he still wins that race, but it's fairly marginal. (jorge's assen record is kinda weird but crucially it also gets severely worse specifically after being taken out through no fault of his own in 2012 and then after the 2013 injury.) a non-injured casey probably finished on the podium there in some constellation, because - as established - a non-injured casey in good form feeling good about life really wasn't particularly error prone

I've typed in some very fake numbers into a spreadsheet and I've got about 40 points between them headed into sachsenring. marc's best chances for beating casey in individual races are cota, le mans and assen I reckon. marc gets his first premier class race win in germany; casey got beaten at the sachsenring by dani in both honda seasons, his only win there was a torrential rain affair, he's fine there but nothing special. but... y'know, at this point I kinda feel like it doesn't matter *for this specific season*. unless casey gets injured, if he gets into his groove and is sitting on a comfortable championship lead, he can see that thing out. he probably holds off the jorge challenge fairly well too - he's traditionally very strong at the flyaways and I don't think jorge would be able to pull off quite as many wins as he did in the irl season (and obviously you can pencil in phillip island as 25 points). marc gets going mid-season, spurred on by the sachsenring win. do suspect casey beats him at laguna... again, if they'd both raced there a bunch it would've been slightly more of a marc track I reckon - but it very much was a casey track, and he usually had a pretty good excuse for not winning in his less fruitful years at that circuit. (satellite honda; victim of attempted murder; mystery illness; evil bike.) hey, maybe that marc-on-vale corkscrew overtake happens for p2 and we can do an experimental study in rancid vibes in the presser. maybe marc wins indy, I kinda suspect casey wins aragon (by leading from the front - irl!marc had to cut his way through the pack by which point casey would've checked out). I'm not going to work out the maths for this but vibes-wise I reckon casey wins aragon, sepang and phillip island and that's where he seals the title

so that's how I think that season plays out! I also kinda think that if marc isn't in the title fight, he doesn't intentionally start any MASSIVE drama. the attack dogs in marc's camp are probably still trying to establish themselves within honda - but as long as this isn't actively annoying casey, he doesn't really care. marc probably has a somewhat crashier (in races) somewhat messier rookie season, still racks up 2-3 wins, sets himself up very nicely as the next generational talent and is generally seen as highly impressive. he has at least a couple on-track incidents with casey, both in practise and in races, that make casey... not happy. there's also the potential for canon events like the whole laguna situation to stoke tensions. I have a bit of a two year rule for feuds where I think it's really hard to start a proper feud in a single season... I just think you need to have a bit of an established interpersonal dynamic for things to get really nasty. you need a bit of history to your rivalry, a few past incidents on both riders' minds, a few plausible grievances for both sides to draw on. basically I think by the end of 2013, marc and casey have had enough brushes that everyone can kinda see where this is going - maybe at least one proper on-track incident in the style of jerez or aragon that casey pretends to get over in the moment but will remember until the day he dies... so he can harbour a grudge that will come back with a vengeance if the opportunity presents itself. the proper title fight happens in 2014 and that is where things get really (and irreparably) ugly between marc and casey. my kind of season

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

I am like so giddy for when the really controversial vs. start happening like the idea of a dragon vs. one of those snake people who got a lot of votes has me vibrating in excitement

Oh yeah, some of these are going to get spicy! especially past the first round. What I'm interested in right now is which turn out to be sleeper hits, like how the the bone devil is a LOT more popular than initially thought. The first month or so people had very specific tastes and put a lot into pass, but the majority taste has DEFINITELY changed.

[the-gene-mile]

hi!! if courtney got an episode about her/centred around her what would you want it to be about?

OH AN OPPURTUNITY TO TALK ABOUT MY GIRL THANK YOU THANK YOU.

just. ANYTHING about her mum. where is she. iirc we saw her once in the unbearable like-likeness of gene and then never again. what's up with that. i'm pretty sure they've confirmed courtney's parents are married so is she like a business mum that goes away a lot or something?? the writers really need to update the mrs wheeler lore

if we wanted to get actually serious about her i feel an episode focussed on how people obviously find her annoying could be something (they did somewhat retcon that since like. the gene and courtney show but not the point). we never really properly saw her with her friends from her first appearance so there is the potential to do something with that; maybe they were spreading some dumbass rumour about her or something and she tries to do something about it (maybe like a mix of some like it bot and itty bitty ditty committee? idk.)

ALSO the THINGS I WOULD DO for a proper gac peck episode. i fucking love roller i hardly know her and the gene mile (obviously) but the former forces alex and courtney together (in-universe) and the latter just kinda has them stand next each other like twice. making them do a group project is the obvious setup here and maybe they go to each other's houses or something and the whole bit is how their families are like. complete opposites. no love triangle shit (affectionate) either like we have roller for that just let them be best friends and annoy everyone in their grade is that too much to ask

also an episode about her but not about music. don't care what but we've had two and dance is just music's cousin so roller is basically another music episode. even half the episodes where she just appears for a single scene are music-based (wag the song, gene's christmas break, the plight before christmas). like let her have more than one hobby PLEASE oh my GOD.

honestly thinking of hypothetical episodes with her is tough bc we don't actually know that much about her so there is a LOT we can do w her. she's kinda just used as girl gene in a lot of episodes she has like 3 total personality traits. the easy answer is to have her interact w tina and louise properly, ESPECIALLY tina since she wasn't in the a-plot of the gene mile. idk they could do something where they split the school into girls and boys for whatever reason and she talks to louise and tina about whatever the fuck kinda situationship she's got going on with gene at that moment. louise can try and sabotage it and tina could try to steer her in the right direction? that's something right? (and it could give us more gene and zeke content but this isn't about them)

alternatively they confirm her trans mtf and that's the whole episode the end

[spaciebabie]

me being online is an illusion. you think im online b/c i reblogged something 4 seconds ago? nope that was a scheduled post. i posted a spacie spoinks post? gotcha numbnuts! thats been in my queue for months

[zapsoda]

how are you gonna miss my point that fucking badly when i was so verbose about it

[yoohyeon]

I barely slept today and I feel like I won’t be able to sleep again tonight cause my nose is BURNING

[habibisagi]

it’s so wicked that i have to be on campus from 6am to 6pm in this heat and have to walk fast because my classes are back to back and scattered across our big ass campus AND have late attendance penalties 😭

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

✨ HOW TO ACTUALLY START A BOOK

(no ✨vibes✨, just structure, stakes, and first-sentence sweat)

hello writer friends 💌 so you opened a doc. you sat down. you cracked your knuckles. maybe you even made a playlist or moodboard. and then… you stared at the blinking cursor like it personally insulted your entire bloodline.

here’s your intervention. this post is for when you want to write chapter one, but all you have is aesthetic, maybe a plot bunny, maybe a world idea, maybe nothing at all. here’s how to actually start a book, from structure to sentence one.

—

🌶️ STEP 1: THE SPICE BASE ~ “WHAT’S CHANGING?”

start with this question:

what changes in the protagonist’s life in the first 5–10 pages?

doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. they could get a letter, lose a job, run late, break a rule, wake up hungover in the wrong house. what matters is disruption. the opening of your book should mark a shift. if their day starts normal, it shouldn’t end that way.

🏁 opening chapters are about motion. forward movement. tension. momentum. if nothing is changing, your story isn’t starting, you’re just doing a prequel.

—

⚙️ STEP 2: THE CRUNCHY BITS - CHOOSE AN ENTRY POINT

there are 3 classic places to start a novel. each one works if you’re intentional:

The Day Everything Changes most popular. you drop us in right before or during the inciting incident. clean, fast, efficient.

pro: immediate stakes con: harder to sneak in worldbuilding or character grounding

The Calm Before the Storm starts slightly earlier. show the character’s “normal” life, then break it. useful if the change won’t make sense without context.

pro: space to introduce your character’s routine/flaws con: risky if it drags or feels like setup

The Aftermath drop us in after the big event and fill in gaps as we go. works well for thrillers, mysteries, or emotionally heavy plots.

pro: instant drama con: requires precision to avoid confusion

📝 pick one. commit. don’t blend them or you’ll write three intros at once and cry.

—

🧠 STEP 3: CHARACTER FIRST, ALWAYS

readers don’t care about your setting, your magic system, or your cool mafia politics unless they’re anchored in someone.

in the first scene, we need to know:

what this person wants

what’s bothering them (externally or internally)

one trait they lead with (bold, anxious, calculating, naive, etc.)

that’s it. just one want, one tension, one vibe. no bios. no monologues. no “they weren’t like other girls” essays. put them in a situation and show how they act.

—

⛓️ STEP 4: OPEN WITH FRICTION

first scenes should create questions, not answer them.

there should be tension between:

what the character wants vs. what they’re getting

what’s happening vs. what they expected

what’s being said vs. what’s being felt

you don’t need a gunshot or a car crash (unless you want one). you need conflict. tension = momentum = readers keep reading.

—

✏️ STEP 5: WRITE THE FIRST SENTENCE - THEN IGNORE IT

okay. now you write it.

no pressure. you’re not tattooing it on your soul. this isn’t the final line on the final page. you just need something.

tricks that work:

start in the middle of an action

start with a contradiction

start with something unexpected, funny, or sharp

start with a small lie or a weird detail

💬 examples:

“The body was exactly where she’d left it - rude.” “He was already two hours late to his own kidnapping.” “There was blood on the welcome mat. Again.” “They said don’t open the door. She opened it anyway.”

once you’ve got it? keep going. don’t revise yet. don’t edit. just build momentum.

you can come back and make it ✨iconic✨ later.

—

📦 BONUS: WHAT NOT TO DO IN YOUR OPENING

don’t start with a dream

don’t info-dump lore in paragraph one

don’t give me three pages of your OC making toast

don’t try to sound like a Victorian cryptid unless it’s on purpose

don’t introduce 7 named characters in one scene

don’t start with a quote unless you are 800% sure it slaps

be weird. be sharp. be specific. aim for interest, not perfection.

—

🏁 TL;DR (but make it ✨useful✨)

something in your MC’s life should change immediately

pick a structural entry point and stick to it

give us a person, not a setting

friction = good

first lines are disposable, just make them interesting

and if you needed a sign to just start the damn book, this is it.

💌 love, -rin t.

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

[digitaldiseas3]

i just need everyone in the world to Get Their Shit Together Or I Will Fucking Hurt Someone

[toucansafari]

i am so close to crying rn -___-