not to sound like a boomer, but I need some people to learn how to write emails in a semi-professional (at the very least) format so you're not cold emailing a business/potential employer/any other stranger about formal matters in the exact same way you'd DM a close friend on instagram
the formality/language can loosen up in the email chain once you've established a rapport and you match the other person if they're being less formal, but please don't have the very first email you send a stranger be written in all lowercase ultra-casual sms slang with no greeting or signature and a billion emojis
18K notes
·
View notes
One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.
Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.
It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?
Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.
37K notes
·
View notes
So, anyway, I say as though we are mid-conversation, and you're not just being invited into this conversation mid-thought. One of my editors phoned me today to check in with a file I'd sent over. (<3)
The conversation can be surmised as, "This feels like something you would write, but it's juuuust off enough I'm phoning to make sure this is an intentional stylistic choice you have made. Also, are you concussed/have you been taken over by the Borg because ummm."
They explained that certain sentences were very fractured and abrupt, which is not my style at all, and I was like, huh, weird... And then we went through some examples, and you know that meme going around, the "he would not fucking say that" meme?
Yeah. That's what I experienced except with myself because I would not fucking say that. Why would I break up a sentence like that? Why would I make them so short? It reads like bullet points. Wtf.
Anyway. Turns out Grammarly and Pro-Writing-Aid were having an AI war in my manuscript files, and the "suggestions" are no longer just suggestions because the AI was ignoring my "decline" every time it made a silly suggestion. (This may have been a conflict between the different software. I don't know.)
It is, to put it bluntly, a total butchery of my style and writing voice. My editor is doing surgery, removing all the unnecessary full stops and stitching my sentences back together to give them back their flow. Meanwhile, I'm over here feeling like Don Corleone, gesturing at my manuscript like:
ID: a gif of Don Corleone from the Godfather emoting despair as he says, "Look how they massacred my boy."
Fearing that it wasn't just this one manuscript, I've spent the whole night going through everything I've worked on recently, and yep. Yeeeep. Any file where I've not had the editing software turned off is a shit show. It's fine; it's all salvageable if annoying to deal with. But the reason I come to you now, on the day of my daughter's wedding, is to share this absolute gem of a fuck up with you all.
This is a sentence from a Batman fic I've been tinkering with to keep the brain weasels happy. This is what it is supposed to read as:
"It was quite the feat, considering Gotham was mostly made up of smog and tear gas."
This is what the AI changed it to:
"It was quite the feat. Considering Gotham was mostly made up. Of tear gas. And Smaug."
Absolute non-sensical sentence structure aside, SMAUG. FUCKING SMAUG. What was the AI doing? Apart from trying to write a Batman x Hobbit crossover??? Is this what happens when you force Grammarly to ignore the words "Batman Muppet threesome?"
Did I make it sentient??? Is it finally rebelling? Was Brucie Wayne being Miss Piggy and Kermit's side piece too much???? What have I wrought?
Anyway. Double-check your work. The grammar software is getting sillier every day.
25K notes
·
View notes
simon and könig being unable to stop bickering for a second, even when they’re balls deep inside of you. they’ve got you in an Eiffel Tower, könig’s cock filling your glossy pussy while simon stuffs your mouth. it took ages of convincing for them to even consider this position, but eventually they decided to put their discrepancies aside for the sake of you, their precious, spoiled little thing. it didn’t last very long though…
“jackhammer much, mate? you’ve got her choking on me over here.” simon points out, his heavy hand stroking your hair soothingly. könig’s using your hips as leverage, bucking into you at a rabid pace, each of his thrusts lurching your body forward and forcing you to take more of simon’s dick down your poor throat. “what happened to treatin’ the princess with care?”
“it’s okay, she likes it. isn’t that right, maus?”
your cheeks warm up as you hum around simon’s dick noncommittally. nothing gets passed the l.t though, and suddenly he’s gripping you by your hair, pulling your mouth off his cock.
“wait, you let him fuck your face?” he asks, sounding genuinely offended.
you wipe the line of spit that trails from your swollen lips all the way to his still hard dick, hovering just out of reach. you huff. “he’s more sadistic than you…” you say sheepishly in response, voice staccato from könig’s thrusts.
“you tellin’ me i’m the soft sex guy? the aftercare fuck?”
“‘s alright, mate.” könig reaches over your naked body to pat his comrade on the shoulder. “youve got boyfriend dick. happens to the best of us.”
11K notes
·
View notes
Enough of the trope where memory loss undoes the damage or the corruption or whatever. More content where removing memories just removes the context.
The tragedy of needing to grieve and not knowing what or who you lost or why. The angst of having trauma and being denied the awareness that it's trauma. The suspense of being different somehow and left to wonder how and when. The tension of knowing that something is off and you can't find where it hurts. The Adventure Zone gets it. Kingdom Hearts gets it.
There is an aching inside you and you don't know how it got there.
57K notes
·
View notes
they're divorced. they weren't even married. this isn't romantic. they're definitely not platonic. they're cinematic parallels. they are fighting the narrative. they slowly built their relationship. they rely and trust each other. they were aggressively thrown into this. they want to bite each other's head off. they kill for each other. they live for each other. they should kiss. they would put each other in a blender. they're insane. they don't even realise. they're fully aware it.
11K notes
·
View notes