cheddartheguin

[cheddartheguin]

[cheddartheguin]

 I do beat him up a lot. For Spike that's like third base.

[cheddartheguin]

While all of Europe is responsible, I think it’s also important for people from the UK to acknowledge the particular and direct culpability of our government in what has happened in Israel and Palestine - mostly because it never is. Politicians don’t mention it, the media never mentions it, they tell you nothing about it in school, no one talks about it. I was just saying exactly the same thing about India, but if you ask an average British person if they think their country did a good job of ruling Palestine you’ll get a blank stare, maybe they’ll pull a massively uninformed opinion out of their arse, I doubt many could tell you exactly when it was. But the fact is that when Britain assumed control of the Holy land in 1918 both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism were relatively minor concerns, and when we left in 1948 there was a civil war raging between those two sides. All of the important seeds of the conflict were sown and took root while Britain was in charge. The first major Palestinian uprising of 1936-39 was an anti-colonial struggle against the British Empire. 

But today, watching the news, British people are like ‘wow guess we’ll never understand why Jews and Arabs just naturally hate each other’… just like those Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan, and those Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland’….. and all of those other places on earth where the legacy of British occupation and partition is division, violence and misery. The Empire is not a distant memory we can feel vaguely proud and nostalgic about (as most British people apparently do) it was a global crime of almost unimaginable proportions and it’s still (in some cases quite literally) blowing up in our faces. 

[cheddartheguin]

Do you guys remember how kidnap fantasies were popular on wattpad because young girls and queer teens were both made to feel shame at the thought of their own sexualities, so the fantasy of being kidnapped totally against their will was a way for them to engage with a romantic or sexual fantasy without feeling morally in the wrong for doing so? Added bonus that the fantasy involved being whisked away from repressive environments like home or school, right?

Finding out that Bram Stoker was in a sexless marriage and that scholars believe that he very likely was closeted gay puts the entire book into perspective as to WHY it reads EXACTLY like a self insert wattpad Dracula kidnap fic:

“I TOTALLY love my wife and would never do anything that an upstanding Good Straight Working Man wouldn’t do but oh nooo, big strong man with broad back and strong enough arms to carry me back to bed like a princess trapped me and claimed me as his, completely against my will 👉👈 But he protects me against the bad evil sexual women (who I assure you, I am TOTALLY sexually attracted to, as any straight man with a choice would be) but trust me, I do NOT want ANY of this. What’s that? The Count is not capable of feeling love? Would be a shame if I had the special ability to change tha-”

[cheddartheguin]

subtle ways to include foreshadowing

one character knowing something offhandedly that they shouldn't, isn't addressed until later

the crow rhyme

colours!! esp if like, blue is evil in your world and the mc's best friend is always noted to wear blue...betrayal?

write with the ending in mind

use patterns from tragic past events to warn of the future

keep the characters distracted! run it in the background until the grand reveal

WEATHER.

do some research into Chekhov's gun

mention something that the mc dismisses over and over

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOU PUT. don't leave things hanging.

unreliable characters giving information that turn out to be true

flowers and names with meanings

anything with meanings actually

metaphors. if one character describes another as "a real demon" and the other turns out to be the bad guy, you're kind of like...ohhh yeahhh

anyways add anything else in the tags

[cheddartheguin]

Character Flaws

When creating characters, it's all too easy to envision the most perfect people, especially when it comes to creating love interests. Even our loveable morally grey characters are mostly perfect, if only they would stop killing...

So, here are a list of some flaws (based on personality, not appearance) to help round out your characters. While it's nice to be good at everything, it's abnormal. No one is perfect, and your characters will be much more relatable if you knock them down a bit.

Please note, none of these are (specifically) mental disorders, as I don't consider those a character flaw.

The Good (aka little flaw):

Absent-minded, aimless, argumentative, audacious, awkward, blunt, bold, boring, capricious, childish, clumsy, competitive, complainer, cowardly, critical directionally-challenged, dubious, finicky, fixated, flake, flirty, foolish, gossipy, gruff, gullible, hedonistic, humourless, hypocritical, idealist, idiotic, ignorant, illiterate, immature, impatient, impetuous, impulsive, incompetent, inconsiderate, indecisive, indifferent, indomitable, irrational, lazy, lustful, materialistic, meddlesome, meek, mischievious, nagging, naive, nervous, nosey, obnoxious, overambitious, overconfident, overemotional, overprotective, overzealous, passive-aggressive, paranoid, peevish, perfectionist, pessimist, pest, predicatable, pretencious, prideful, rebellious, renege, rigorous, sarcastic, skeptic, seducer, selfish, self-righteous, shallow, slacker, solemn, spacey, spoild, squeamish, stubborn, supersticious, sycophant, tactless, tease, tempermental, tenacious, theatrical, thoughtless, timid, unpredictable, unsupportive, vain, workaholic

The Bad (aka big flaw):

Addiction, adulterous, aloof, anxious, apathetic, arrogant, belittling, belligerent, bigmouth, bitter, bully, callous, deceptive, dependant, deranged, dishonest, disloyal, disrespectful, egotistical, envious, erratic, exploitive, fanatical, fickle, fierce (at the extreme), gluttonous, greedy, harasser, hubris, impious, infamy, intolerant, judgemental, lewd, liar, meglomaniac, morally grey, narcissistic, negligent, obsequious, obsessive, offensive, prejudiced, quixotic, reckless, rigid, self-martyr, self-righteous, short-tempered, spiteful, squanderer, stingy, unethical, unforgiving, untrustworthy

The Ugly (aka cross the street when you see this person):

Abusive, bigot, controlling, cruel, explosive, immoral, inhumane, intolerant, machiavellian, manipulative, murderous, neglectful, oppressive, racist, remorseless, possessive, self-destructive, threatening, treacherous, vengeful, vindictive, violent

The seven chief features of ego: self-deprecation, self-destruction, martyrdom, stubbornness, greed, arrogance and impatience.

Some of these may not even be considered flaws, and some may jump from one category to the next. It's all about how you present these flaws in your characters.

Have any more to add? Did you find this useful? Let me know down in the comments :)

[cheddartheguin]

HEY! I'm a huge fan of your writing. I was wondering if u could possibly talk a little about ur writing process(spcially outlines) or already have a tag for that? (Or if u don't want to share that's fine, :D) was just checking your amazing wordcounts, how u write so much & I'm trying to START writing smth but always get stuck wanting to do more research so everything will be plothole-less. It's a vicious circle i can't break out of, feels like I need to know everything about my world to start!

Oh, thank you so much! All my writing stuff is tagged #writing advisements, but I can speak very briefly about outlines because… I don’t use them. I’m not necessarily advocating that (generally when I get close to the end I do start to detail things a bit more to make sure I close up plot holes and tie up loose ends) but I’m more of a ‘scribble random notes in my phone so I don’t forget the scene I just daydreamed’ sort of writer. 

There’s more detail on specific stages of writing in some of my other posts, but my basic process is that I spend a lot of time in a pre-writing state I call meditation. I take this very, very seriously—I’ll usually write ‘meditate next chapter’ into my daily to-do list (I determine the list for every day of the week on Monday mornings), and very often it will be my primary writing task for the day. It usually involves going for a walk or a run, and is mostly time to let my mind wander wherever it wants to. Well, that’s not quite accurate; I pick a starting place and then set my mind on a specific wandering path, like “what would happen next if this character did this thing?”. Sometimes I’ll listen to music that I think will aid the wandering, or put me in the correct mood. 

Part of the meditating phase is the research phase, when I usually pick names or setting details. This is pretty brief. A lot of times I’ll research a lot of names I might want to use at once and then make lists of them, in case I want to add a character but don’t want to interrupt my writing by thinking a lot about their name. In any given note for any of my original stories, there’s probably a list of names and surnames labeled ‘just in case.’ I also will scribble out a timeline if there are any necessary dates.

This is what my notes look like for a random chapter of How to Win after having daydreamed the scene:

Okay, here’s what happens when I write/edit:

1st draft: Word vomit, which is what I recommend for you. You’re worried you’ll get caught up in research? Don’t research. Fuck research. You can do it later. Just start writing. Even if what you write looks like this:

She walked in. Then she sat down. She looked up at him. He looked back at her. She was incredulous. He didn’t seem to care. Still, she asked, “Are you serious?”

You can fix it later, finesse it, but editing is always easier (though more time-consuming, don’t be fooled) than writing. Just sit down, write a scene, walk away. If you’re having trouble getting started, then my best piece of advice to you is very simple: just write.

2nd draft: First edit. This is where I usually add 1-2k words of, as I said, ‘finesse,’ though it can sometimes be unnecessary. This is when my half-formed thoughts become sentences, so the above scene might now look like this:

She took a seat beside him, waiting for a reaction. He wasn’t particularly shamed by her eye contact—managed to meet her eye with a spectacular lack of concern, in fact—and for a moment she considered turning her head, but if anyone should have been averting eye contact, it should have been him. “Are you serious?” she asked, once it seemed obvious she was going to have to do the asking.

If I want an alpha read, I send the second draft to someone else. This is because all the ideas are out somewhat cogently by then, and everything I want the characters to be doing is present, but if their purpose in the narrative is unclear, I want someone to tell me so before I spend more time on where I put the commas.

3rd draft: This is tightening up, polishing for perfection (or something close to that). I’ll usually cut words during this read, so that the above can sometimes become:

She took a seat beside him, waiting for a reaction. He wasn’t particularly shamed by her eye contact—managed to meet her eye with a spectacular lack of concern, in fact—and for a moment, she wondered if she might have been the one in the wrong.

No, she thought. I am wronged.

“Are you serious?”

I don’t typically use beta readers because I think I should be responsible for my own editing (it’s part of my craft, after all) but if I want someone to read for spelling/grammar/punctuation, I send them this draft.

4th draft: Before I publish anything, I read it in either a different font or in a different window. The FFN editor, for example, uses a different font from google docs, so it’s easier to spot errors. I highly recommend this. Personally, I’ve found that when I don’t do it (or I rush it), there are almost always errors I blatantly missed.

Hope this helps!

[cheddartheguin]

hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate

BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard to get rid of it!

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3

[cheddartheguin]

Hi,

It’s you friendly neighbor fanfic author here. In the light of this apparent new trend of people feeding unfinished fics to AI to get an “ending,” and some people even talking about “blanket permissions,” let me just say this:

I EXPLICITLY FORBID ANYONE TO FEED MY FICS TO AI. DUDE, THAT IS ABOUT THE LEAST RESPECTFUL THING YOU CAN DO. IF YOU DO IT, SHALL YOU BE EXCOMMUNICATED FROM YOUR FANDOM AND WALK ON LEGOS BAREFOOT TILL THE END OF DAYS.

That is my anti-permission.

Thank you for your attention.

[cheddartheguin]

Hi,

It’s you friendly neighbor fanfic author here. In the light of this apparent new trend of people feeding unfinished fics to AI to get an “ending,” and some people even talking about “blanket permissions,” let me just say this:

I EXPLICITLY FORBID ANYONE TO FEED MY FICS TO AI. DUDE, THAT IS ABOUT THE LEAST RESPECTFUL THING YOU CAN DO. IF YOU DO IT, SHALL YOU BE EXCOMMUNICATED FROM YOUR FANDOM AND WALK ON LEGOS BAREFOOT TILL THE END OF DAYS.

That is my anti-permission.

Thank you for your attention.

[cheddartheguin]

I love will graham being jealous and insane about a guy he would literally have to beat with a stick to keep away. who’s gonna steal him from you

[cheddartheguin]

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

[cheddartheguin]

COMMENT ON OLD FICS, I BEG YOU!

I swear to god after like a week people will still be reading but nobody leaves comments anymore and I just want to make it absolutely clear that I would be excited and elated to get a comment on these fics one hundred years after I post them.

A FIC IS NEVER TOO OLD TO LEAVE A NICE COMMENT ON. GO FORTH AND COMMENT!

[cheddartheguin]

Need to be mindful for our feathered friends!

[cheddartheguin]

I went to see this really great Talking Heads cover band on Friday, and before the show started one of my friends ran into a guy she vaguely recognized, and while they tried to figure out how they knew each other, one of that guy’s friends started chatting me up.

Gang, I can’t stop thinking about this guy. Not because he was hot (though he was), but because I have never in my life felt so wildly unmoored while speaking to another human being.

Like, he told me his name, I told him mine, and then I made a very in context joke about a lizard - too much to explain here, but I promise it made sense at the time. He responded, and I am not taking any liberties as I quote this:

“A lizard? Aren’t those the little guys that run around on two legs sometimes?”

It is hard to know what to say to that. I am good with conversational curveballs, but this was out of left field. I hesitated, then put on a very polite social smile and responded “yeah! I guess lizards do run around on two legs sometimes!”

“You are much like a lizard, then.” He said. “You’re also on two legs.”

Well.

I was briefly saved from having to come up with a response because the opening act started playing. Opening acts are hit and miss, but I was happy to discover that this particular one, Ruby Dear, has a frontwoman with an absolutely incredible voice. Like holy shit, after the first song my friend and I looked at each other and simultaneously said “PIPES.” I got pretty into their set, and would have been bummed out when they had to wrap up if the promise of a truly spectacular Talking Heads cover band wasn’t on the horizon.

I had by this point forgotten about my new friend The Lizardman, but he tapped me on the shoulder and said “Did you like the performance?” Okay, that’s a normal question, I could handle this conversation.

“Yeah, I thought they were great! Did you like them?!” I said.

“Yes! I’ve never been to a concert before!” He replied.

Well.

“…HOW?” I finally said.

He shrugged. “I just haven’t.” I had to study him to see if he was fucking with me. He did not appear to be.

This presented a new question. He looked like he was roughly in my age range (late 20s/early 30s), but was it possible that he was very young?? He had to be at least 21 though, he’d been carded at the door and was drinking a beer. Furthermore, the friends he was with were in their late forties at the absolute youngest.

“You must really like the Talking Heads, if this is the show that got you to come out!” I finally said.

“Oh, I’ve never even heard a song by them.” He replied politely. “That’s the band that’s playing next?”

Well.

“The band playing tonight is called Start Making Sense.” I finally explained, after I had wrapped my mind around this. “They play songs by the Talking Heads. The Talking Heads broke up in like 1990.”

“Oh! Cool!” He said. “Were they any good?”

“… Yes.” I said after another few moments of interal debate about whether this guy was fucking with me. He had to be fucking with me.

Per the awestruck expression on his face after the band opened with Psycho Killer, he was not fucking with me. And he had questions.

“EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE KNEW ALL THE WORDS?!??” He exclaimed.

“YEAH WE ALL LIKE TALKING HEADS ENOUGH TO GO TO A TALKING HEADS COVER SHOW!” I yelled back.

“THAT’S AMAZING!” He decided.

And like, putting myself in his shoes (by which I mean the shoes of a time traveler from either 1600 or 2400), I had to agree with him.

[cheddartheguin]

farmer’s market

i went to a farmer’s market

with my mom and dad

and we passed a bookstore

in the window of the shop, a sign:

“book signing today! by some old man!“

“i know him!” cried my mom

so in we went – like perseus, unaware that he was about to face

(probably medusa)

(i forget)

(i’m not looking it up and also don’t tell me)

fuck me, he was a poet.

the book guy, i mean.

worse, he read a few poems out loud

directly at me

while i tried to figure out where to look

(because eye contact would only make it worse)

a brief summary of these poems:

some old fuck’s memories of how

Mountain Towns Once Were

and how

Mountain Towns Are Not Like That Now.

guess whose fault it was

it was cellphones.

i thought: this guy has a book because he took his sentences

and he pressed enter

a lot in

the middle

and did some weird things with The Capitals

and now he calls himself a poet

and reads at people who just wanted to

buy some fucking produce

jesus

it’s not that fucking hard jeffrey

i bet your book is from a vanity press and cellphones rule and poems are dumb

[cheddartheguin]

I know I’m like a groundhog popping out of my hole here, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

I haven’t been able to find my favorite Fexi story on AO3 when I searched for it recently. I can’t remember the author, but the premise is that it’s an AU where Rue goes to Lexi for help because she owes Fez money, and Lexi goes to see him and they end up entering into a sexual arrangement to pay off the debt. Lexi is in an unhappy relationship with Nate Jacobs, and of course feelings develop between her and Fezco.

Does anyone remember the name of this story? Or know how to find it? I would be eternally grateful 🥺🙏