#adverbs of place definition

[an-ruraiocht]

90% of the time when i see reviews and posts saying "this book needed editing" i don't think the reader have any idea what editing actually entails. usually this is actually code for one of several "problems" with the book:

it's too long, or it's slower paced than this reader's preference. they believe "editing" would mean making it shorter

it has a heavily descriptive style, which the reader doesn't like. they believe "editing" means paring every sentence down to hemingway-style prose with no adverbs

it doesn't follow the very rigid "save the cat" style 3-act story structure, disrupting the reader's sense of narrative tension. an editor, they believe, would've made sure it did

there were a few typos or formatting errors, and they believe it's the editor's job to catch these (it's not, it's typically the proofreader and the typesetter who have responsibility for that kind of thing)

and finally, most often:

the author had different narrative priorities than the reader, who thinks an editor would have made the author change their priorities.

the thing is, there are actually issues with editors in trad publishing being overworked to the point where things aren't getting the thorough, thoughtful editing that they need to be the best version of themselves. there are plenty of badly-structured, poorly-researched, and clumsily written books out there. moreover copyediting is typically freelance and perhaps because of that, this is the area where i see the largest number of issues: continuity issues, grammar issues, factual errors etc that someone should've spotted and didn't.

but this is not typically what people's "this needed an editor" reviews are focusing on. most often it just means they didn't like the book and they've decided editing is an all-powerful force that would have transformed it into a book they liked. but that's not how it works. and disproportionately what this comment means is that the book doesn't match what current fashions have decided is The Correct Style to write in

"this book needed an editor" if it's traditionally published, it had one. like. by definition. it was an editor who bought the book. that doesn't mean the editor did a great job but they definitely existed. there were probably at least two (acquiring editor who does the dev edits; copyeditor who does copyedits), and the proofreader, and a bunch of other people besides.

also i think people think editors are the ones who like. implement the changes. but they don't. they give comments and recommendations and ask questions and the author is the one to act on them. the editor will not rewrite the book. they will not fix the problems themselves, they will highlight the problem and the author will figure out a fix for it, or they will decide they don't agree that it's a problem and leave it as it. and a lot of the sentence-level style stuff is entirely on the author so if they don't have an ear for the rhythm then nobody's going to fix that for them. editors do a lot less than people seem to imagine they do, tbh

anyway

for reference—

structural/developmental edits: is this chapter in the right place and does the plot make sense and is the characterisation consistent and effective

line edits: is this sentence in the right place and is it as stylish as it could be

copy edits: is this sentence grammatically correct and consistent/factually correct within the story/its world and do the spellings follow the publisher's stylesheet

proofreading: are there any typos in this sentence and was the formatting preserved correctly when it was typeset

[suenitos]

dream and language is kinda beautiful. his british tendencies (pro-cess priority). the way he says literally like litchrally. melk. woofs. chalant. "fastly". the concept of dranguage. oh come on now. repeating/mirroring whatever george says at times. how expressive his voice is and his range of being soft sweet and quiet versus loud bright and energetic. his little stumbles and stutters whenever his brain goes faster than his mouth. his tone going softer when he talks to patches and george. when he places the adverb after the statement instead of within the sentence ("im so excited that youre in the us finally"). when he says "ya" instead of "you". his use of definitives ("objectively" "undeniable"). 30mish. his occasional lisp that comes out every so often. "well....". him mostly spelling out his laughs instead of using lol or lmao as shorthand. love you guys. him going in all caps to EMPHASIZE things. alright.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Parts of Speech

These definitions explain the 8 parts of speech in the English language.

Noun

A noun identifies a person, place, thing, or idea.

Common nouns are generic: girl, boy, city, ship, desk, courage

Proper nouns are specific: Juliet, Romeo, St. Louis, Titanic

Pronoun

A pronoun renames or refers back to the person, place, thing or idea mentioned earlier in a sentence.

Personal pronouns: I, me, you, they, them, she, her, he, him, it, we, us

Relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, that, what

Interrogative pronouns (used in questions): who, which, what, whose

Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these and those

Indefinite pronouns (a partial list): all, anybody, anyone, both, each, everyone, everybody, many, none, several, someone

Verb

A verb expresses action or state of being. “Helping” verbs (such as modals and auxiliary verbs) are used with base verbs to make a verbal phrase.

Action verbs: see, run, jump, sing, study, dance, cry, shout, buy, sell, fix, think, wonder, etc.

State of being verbs: am, is, was, were, will be, became, appear, seem, look, feel, etc.

Modal verbs: can, could, will, would, shall, should, ought, must, may, might, etc. These verbs are found in verbal phrases, seldom by themselves: can see, will run, might study, must sell, etc.

Auxiliary verbs: am, is, are, was, were, have, had, etc.

In a verbal phrase, remember that the modal or auxiliary verb may be separated from the main verb, especially in a question:

Did you hear me call?

She is not going with us.

How long have you been working at McDonald’s?

Adjective

An adjective describes or modifies a noun or pronoun: For example:

brown eyes

that person

ten players

Adjectives tell...

what kind: brown eyes

which one: that person

how many: ten players

Adverb

An adverb modifies or describes a verb, adjective, or another adverb. It usually answers “question” statements: how? when? where? why? how often? how much? to what degree?

The orchestra played beautifully. (How?)

The band has played there. (Where?)

The choir sang long. (To what extent?)

He is extremely capable. (How capable?)

She danced very slowly. (How slowly?)

Preposition

A preposition shows a relationship between a noun/pronoun and another word. Most prepositions show motion toward a place or location of an object. The English language has more than 40 prepositions, including: above, across, behind, below, down, in, off, on, under, through, into, of, on account of, in spite of, etc.

Conjunction

A conjunction joins words or groups of words. There are three major classes of conjunctions in English:

Subordinate conjunctions: when, while, although, because, since, if, until, even though, etc.

Coordinate conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Correlative conjunctions (used in pairs): neither/nor; either/or; not only/ but also; both/and

Interjection

An interjection expresses an emotion such as delight, surprise, or disgust. It usually appears at the beginning of a sentence and often is followed by an exclamation point:

(Delight) Wow! Gosh! Golly!

(Surprise) Oh! Ah! Yikes! Gee!

(Disgust) Yuck! Ugh! Bah!

Note: A Word as More Than One Part of Speech

Remember, a word can be used as more than one part of speech. The function of a word determines what part of speech it is.

For example:

Appearances can be deceiving. (Can is a modal verb)

The tin can of tomatoes is dented. (Can is a noun)

We should can peaches and plums. (Can is an action verb)

The French actress danced the can-can. (Can-can is a noun-noun)

[toyalove]

haven posting

(please bear with the note sfx i play at like... everything max lol) he’s especially nasally in this cover but i think that is what makes me love it so much. i may be delusional, or i might be remembering things wrongly but there's something different about the nasally feeling of his voice here. you know those moments when you’re so happy and colorful it feels unreal, there’s that very airy and floaty happiness that makes your throat choke up a bit, and your nose gets little stuffy because you’re on such cloud nine you can't describe it. i imagine the scenery in toya's head, up in the clouds flying and dancing around, singing about all things beautiful, with the sun shining on his face. it gives me the image that toya, who doesn't usually cry, is almost about to because he can't contain the sheer amount of pure joy he feels, because he is surrounded by all the sounds that make him feel. there's a "i'm so happy my nose and throat is a little stuffy and my head is spinning with colors" aspect to the emotions in the voice. i especially love the line 笑い飛ばしてくれよメイリー "Let’s laugh away! měi lì" it is a very freeing lyric befitting of toya. to rediscover his joy and love for experiencing even when he's battling with loving himself for who he is. to laugh together with the people you love the most because they are your safe haven. specifically it felt like a reference to mirai when toya sings "i found a place where we can all laugh together", that's what this line means to me. i also love the final seconds of the song where it goes:

ヘイヴンは きっとあるから/ 絵空事でも愛していくよ/ がらんどうな部屋 灯る光/ 君と共に選んだ 確かな今/ ヘイヴンは きっと見つける/ 自分だけの鼓動を "My “Haven” is definitely here somewhere!/ I’ll love you even if you’re just a pipe dream/ In a hollow room, a light shines through/ I chose this moment with you, and now, I’m sure of it/ I’ve definitely found my “Haven”/ One where I’ve found my own heartbeat"

"haven" , at its very core means a safe place where one can retreat to. even at toya's darkest moments, he has always turned to music as an avenue to release those feelings. for some reason, even when he was frustrated with classical music, he instead turned to street music and found his spark there. it is quite a testament to how much he can't bear to let go of music. so at the very end of the song, when toya goes どちらの意味も今は解る, "I know what both of them mean" — he now knows what its like to finally embrace his love for music (internal haven), and to finally have a place with all his friends (exterior haven). the final few lines are all very definite, as if telling us about toya's newfound confidence with the use of きっと (definitely). the transition to the use of adverbs of certainty was important in that aspect, leaving no doubt.

i think, that throughout toya's entire journey, he has come to find out that his "haven" is a place where all his friends are, and most importantly, where his biggest love, music is. despite all the pain he harboured over his guilt, i think he is learning to overcome those chains, which has actually been indicated multiple times through using birds and cages as a metaphor. its a very beautiful one.

no matter how much toya struggled with himself, vbs was his haven where he could express himself freely. the newfound freedom that made his heart soar.

even if none of this was real, or everything was a fantasy chapter in toya's novels, he loved every. single. moment. he now knows what it means to love this world.

[nihongoseito]

vocab from my 耳をすませば reread!

(featuring one singular adjective lol)

if you aren't aware, the ghibli movie 耳をすませば (whisper of the heart) is adapted from a manga of the same name by 柊あおい (aoi hiiragi). if you haven't read it, i really recommend it! there's some fun differences from the movie but it's just as sweet. anyway, here's the vocab i wrote down this reread!

nouns:

登校日（とうこうび） = school day

バウンド = bounce, bound

一目散（いちもくさん） = running at full speed, as fast as one can

詐欺（さぎ） = fraud, swindle, scam; saying you're going to do something but not doing it

憂鬱（ゆううつ） = depression, melancholy, gloom

面会（めんかい） = meeting (face-to-face), visit

自意識（じいしき）過剰（かじょう） = excessive self-consciousness

言い草（いいぐさ） = remarks; way of talking (cf. 仕草)

自信（じしん）満々（まんまん） = brimming with self-confidence

奥手（おくて） = late bloomer

verbs:

なつく = to become attached to, take to

立ち直る（たちなおる） = to regain one's footing; to recover

めくる = to turn (pages), leaf through

待ち伏せる（まちぶせる） = to ambush

損（そん）する = to lose (e.g., money); to waste one's (time, effort, etc.)

サボる = to be truant, cut class

巡り合う（めぐりあう） = to meet by chance, meet fortuitously

adjectives:

敏感（びんかん） = sensitive, susceptible, aware

adverbs/onomatopoeiae:

今（いま）どき = nowadays, these days

ほどほどに = moderately, in moderation

ついでに = incidentally, while (we) are at it

ぎょっと = being startled

ごろごろ = all over the place, everywhere, in great numbers

グスグス = sniffling

ずっしりと = heavily, profoundly

よっぽど = very, greatly, considerably

きっぱりと = clearly, plainly, definitely

どうせ = in any case, at any rate

expressions:

〜ったら = indicates exasperation after a name

おまけに = to make matters worse, on top of that

浮かない（うかない）顔（かお） = looking depressed, long face

言葉（ことば）に詰まる（つまる） = to be at a loss for words

気（き）が抜ける（ぬける） = to lose heart, be discouraged

[barisistill]

Hi! Your writing is amazing! I want to start writing fanfiction but whenever I try it seems bland? Flat? Idk it feels like there isn't enough to describe what's going on and it just feels like everything is rushed.

I get that practice makes perfect, but other than that are there any tips you might have?

I'd really be grateful if you could, and sorry if this is worded weird (I'm not good with asking for things lol) anyways have a good day and remember to drink water !!

First off, thank you SO much for reading my fics, and I definitely hope you join our little guild of writers still clinging desperately to Barisi in [current year]. You have no idea how much it means to be told my writing is tip-worthy!!

I can give a few philosophies that I use as guides, but these are just ways I've developed my own writing style over time—I'm sure plenty of people think these choices suck.

Overdo the first draft: In my first draft, I just throw in every detail that seems even potentially relevant—thoughts, feelings, details about the room, the lighting, how characters are positioned, etc. This gives me a robust starting point so, for the most part, I'm not trying to figure out what's 'missing' later. I'm just taking out the trash. It made my first drafts feel like they took forever to write in the beginning, but over time I started to be able to anticipate what would be trash and not write it down in the first place.

Trim the fat: I used to have my fics overloaded in crap that didn't matter and repetitive phrasing, etc. because I had an attitude of "Well, I spent the time writing it, so it would be a waste to not include it." This only hurt the work in the end. If something fundamentally sucks, I just accept that it sucks and pitch it.

I'm nothing if not indulgent in establishing general vibes: I generally keep sentences that ONLY give an action to a minimum. There are a million ways to enhance sentences—throw in what a character is thinking or feeling, take a spin on a metaphor, toss in an adverb or two. I find that this helps me keep the pacing from feeling rushed. For example, I would change the following, because it doesn't do anything to establish the mood or general vibe. It's just A happens, then B happens, then C happens: "It was the middle of a hot day, and Carisi was sitting on the couch in Barba's office while Barba was sitting as his desk. They were barely getting any work done." I would change it to something like: "The midday sun was cutting harsh stripes of light across Barba's desk, and the air conditioning unit was giving a half-hearted performance. They'd long since shed their jackets and vests, ties loosened and sleeves rolled up. Carisi sprawled across Barba's couch, while Barba had kicked his feet up on his desk, having lost his shoes sometime since Carisi last looked over. Carisi tried to read the same paragraph of a witness statement for the third time before tossing his folder in the general direction of the coffee table." Is this overkill? Perhaps. Not my problem.

The "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" Principle: If I'm on the fence about keeping or tossing a detail, I ask myself why I care about that detail. If I can't come up with a decent reason, then I pitch it. To use the last example: "The midday sun was cutting harsh stripes of light across Barba's desk [time of day], and the air conditioning unit was giving a half-hearted performance [it's hot]. Barba's desk was a rich mahogany, and there were two chairs across from him. They'd long since shed their jackets and vests, ties loosened and sleeves rolled up [they're so hot that they're a little undone]. Barba was wearing a blue shirt and green tie, while Carisi was wearing a white shirt and gray tie. Carisi sprawled across Barba's couch, while Barba had kicked his feet up on his desk, having lost his shoes sometime since Carisi last looked over [it's a lazy sort of heat]. The leather couch probably cost more than Sonny's rent. Carisi tried to read the same paragraph of a witness statement for the third time before tossing his folder in the general direction of the coffee table [they aren't getting any work done and it's too hot to care]."

Similes are out, metaphors are in: A metaphor almost always gut-punches me more than a simile. I literally just say that A is B, rather than A is like B. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, so I just follow my heart. Some out-of-context examples: - Rafael Barba was nothing if not a self-serving martyr, a savior who couldn’t resist the sound of his own crucifixion.  - What a small price to pay, Sonny thought, when he was moonlight touching the ocean. - Rafael was a storm chaser, and being with Sonny was like standing in tornado country. (it's a halfsie, shhh) - Rafael cut himself off, not wanting to show his cards, but knowing it was time for him to either go all in or fold.

If someone does something bad/bizarre/out of character, ponder on why: I once heard a critic say, "Every time a character does something baffling, we can't just throw up our hands and say 'bitches be crazy.'" Sometimes the narrative takes care of it if the bad/weird decision is part of the plot itself, but sometimes it's just a single moment. One way I deal with this is by suggesting things that might drive that bad/weird decision (especially if the characters themselves aren't exactly sure why they're doing what they're doing). Some examples (with a little context explaining why they're bad/weird): - Maybe it was in his blood, this desperate faith in destiny. Or maybe it was just that he had spent so long being alone that the promise of someone made for him had become too seductive to resist. ^^^ (Barba wants to find his soulmate even though his job and parents' bad relationship makes him logically aware that it doesn't always end well) - She moved her hand to cup his face. He couldn’t help but lean into her warmth, maybe because of the bite of the autumn breeze, or maybe because it was the same warmth that once flowed through Sonny’s veins. ^^^ (Rafael leaning in to Sonny's nonna's touch at Sonny's funeral, even though he doesn't know her) - Sonny came equipped with anatomical features Rafael hadn't requested, and didn’t want to look at. Maybe it was an occupational hazard, or maybe he just wasn’t as modern as he pretended to be.  ^^^ (Um... Rafael orders a Sonny robot and he mistakenly comes with sex upgrades that make Rafael uncomfortable even though it's totally normal in this universe)

Write from the POV of one character: I believe that @margoblack taught me that this is called "third person limited POV." I do this (sometimes, not always) for a couple of reasons. First, as a reader, it can get tedious (in my OPINION) to read multiple characters' thoughts and feelings at once, especially when there are multiple characters with the same pronouns—and especially especially if it's nonstop (i.e. within the same paragraph or sentence). As a writer, omniscient POV limits my use of pronouns because I have to constantly clear up which "he" I'm talking about. That usually results in 1) overusing their names into oblivion 2) using 'the detective/the attorney," "the taller man/the shorter man," "the other man," etc. which I personally don't jive with or 3) forcing the reader out of the story to go back and sort out who the hell was doing what. Second, me trying to write a bunch of characters' thoughts and feelings at the same time makes for a disjointed and confusing narrative. I try to avoid forcing the reader to have to backtrack to be able to follow the story.

Use suggestion as a way to keep the other characters from feeling flat when writing from a single POV: Speaking of POV, not having access to the other characters' emotions/decisions can make them feel flat. I use the same suggestion method I mentioned previously to sneak-attack dimension onto the NPCs and dolphins. Examples: - Rafael sank back into his seat with drugged-up relief at hearing maternal reassurance, or maybe just that the attention was back on Sonny. - Carmen found Sonny’s eyes, flicking to Rafael and back, biting her lip like they were sharing a private joke. - Barba was still smiling at him, not quite like he was laughing at him, but something adjacent, like he was delighted by Sonny’s floundering.  - The dolphins were especially active, maybe because they weren’t fighting a strong current tonight.

Writing accents is like a comedy skit with a song—it has to be good or it's bad: IN MY OPINION, reading accents can become grating really quickly and rip me out of the story. I trust readers to know what most characters sound like (bc this is fic) or otherwise trust them to be able to map voices onto the characters' dialogue based on something I mentioned once. For example, I trust the reader to do the rest if I said a character has a lisp or a Japanese accent or a toddler can't pronounce her R's yet. THAT SAID, I am not immune to Sonny's accent. But I try to keep any accents and other verbal variations to a minimum and in contexts where it makes sense. For example, I write out Sonny's accent sometimes when he's talking to his family or when he's joking around or emotional (I'm not a linguistic expert, but those are instances when my accent thickens). Examples: - “Ma,” Sonny cut in. “I was gettin’ there. Raf has kidney stones.”  - "Jesus, keep your voice down, Carlos’s mom is in the fuckin’ office," Sonny hissed. - "I'm trying to see about farm work. Any knowin’ who might need a hand for a couple days?" - "And Nonna, god, she'd be furious right now. Yellin' at me in Italian about how I'm doing everything wrong."

Write human beings: My #1 goal in writing—if I achieve literally nothing else—is for my characters to seem like they could be real people with feelings and personalities and backstories. Especially because I write the same handful of characters over and over, it gets grating to write the same 2-D traits from the show with zero expansion. Like, we get it—Rafael is biting and performative, Sonny is brash yet sensitive. Now do something with it—they don't need to live their whole lives having sex, talking about work, and making lawyer jokes. Add little human details: - Sonny telling Rafael to close his eyes before turning on the light in the morning - Rafael being irritated with a customer service person and having to remind himself to be nice, that it's not their fault - Sonny pressing a cold water bottle against Rafael's neck as he walks by to make him jump Stuttering and hesitating dialogue, interruptions, italics for emphasis: - "Okay," he said. "Okay. We're gonna... we're gonna deal with this. Later. For now, we're gonna put a pin in it, okay? Just... put a pin in it." - "I'm alone," she said, the words emerging between ragged breaths. "I have no one left. No family, no—" / "You have me," Rita interrupted. - Liv was probably rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. "He's willing to reopen the case if you can bring sufficient evidence." Callbacks to details that describe a real past: - Rafael tried to forget all the details Sonny's family would never know he’d accumulated. The color of Bella’s high school graduation dress. The name of the boyfriend that Gina brought home for Christmas in 2011. The fact that Bella liked ‘Bells’ and Teresa liked ‘Tess’ but Gina hated ‘Gigi.’  - Rita held Camila steady, rubbing firm circles on her back the way she had when Camila was a fussy baby. - Marlene's laugh was dry. "Honey, I've lived on this coast for fifty-six years, and I even remember most of ‘em. I've seen red tides that killed everything for miles. I've seen hurricanes that rearranged the entire shoreline in a couple of hours. A few dead sturgeons? Not exactly keeping me up at night." Jokes: People tease and joke around. Not every single line has to be significant to the narrative and not every joke has to be about their stupid fucking jobs. Be normal during sex: Without the characters having conversations or joking around during sex—or at LEAST having some compelling internal dialogue—it just turns into a stale blur of forgettable "oh yeah baby harder just like that you were made for me fuck yes fuck oh my god please fuck kiss me here touch me there hanky panky." Let characters have flaws: Mary Sue's and "I don't like that the show made X Character this way, so I just ignore it" aren't my favorite. I know it stems from writer turnover, but I tend to take the characters' inconsistencies in the show at face value—cognitive dissonance rather than "they would never do that." Rafael is an impulsive martyr and can be an asshole in a way that isn't endearing, Liv is a hypocrite who puts too much pressure on everyone else and has weird opinions about disabled people, Fin used to be homophobic and transphobic and now he's the poster child for absolving the fact that the show is copaganda, Sonny was an overcompensating douche who couldn't keep a girlfriend to save his life for a while and now he's a mid lawyer. In my OPINION, it's more fun to engage with imperfect characters who are layered and inconsistent, who yell sometimes and make tongue-in-cheek jokes and have opinions that I don't agree with.

Women are not allergens: Take or leave the rest, but for this one specifically, I am speaking directly to you, dear reader: if you want to write porn, write porn. If you want to write stories, write women. They are SURROUNDED by women—Rafael's mother and grandmother, Sonny's immediate family is canonically two-thirds women (plus two canon nieces), Liv and Amanda (and Jesse and Billie), Carmen, Rita Calhoun, Melinda Warner. OCs are also permitted to be women. Any variation of "It's kinda hard to write women when we write fic centering two men in a relationship" is um... let's call it a 'you' problem and not an 'us' problem.

Other things that just make writing fic more fun (that usually come with time): - Develop some 'things.' My things are Barisi pressing their foreheads together a lot and finding literally any excuse not to use a condom. - Make some OCs who show up as minor characters. I used to use the same names consistently for minor characters, but recently I've fleshed out Belle and Yasmin, who just pop in as things like nurses and Carmen's friends, and I now I look for excuses to use them. - Related, it's fun to make inside jokes, even if they're just for yourself. Reference your own headcanons, your friends' headcanons, other fics, other writers' names. MargoBlack, @chiazu, and @malevolent-muse especially reference other writers, and it's a nice way to connect and make writing feel less like a solitary activity. - It's cliche, but don't get caught up in the numbers game. Just write what you want to write. My favorite fic of mine is "1929 post-stock market collapse, pre-dust bowl farmer!carisi x former stockbroker!barba" AU, which—believe it or not—is not something the general public is itching to consume. - Also cliche, but leave kudos and comments. Nobody is getting paid for this shit in anything but encouragement. It's like a "pay what you can" event—no, you're not obligated to give anything, but you're kind of an asshole if you don't. And finally, if you read this whole post, please get your head checked. XOXO, Regina George

[steviewashere]

WIP Game

I was tagged by @adverbally who gave the word, SWEET. Thank you :]

Rules: you will be given a word. Then you share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that starts with each letter of your word! (however, I am excluding my holiday exchange fic right now because I haven't started posting it quite yet. but it's coming along and should be here soon)

S

Steve’s eyeing him, his eyes wide and calculating and his lips stretched into a small, sad smile. There’s a steady rumble coming from him, almost a cat’s purr if Eddie were to try and place it. Reverberating between them, a soothing soft sound. He takes his hands and cups the sides of Steve’s face, fingers gently carding into his hairline, and he runs his thumbs over Steve’s jaw. “You are, aren’t you?” Eddie quietly speaks, “but you’re a whole lot more than that to me, Stevie.” The purr is disturbed by a low questioning hum, but then rumbles on immediately after. Steve’s eyes widen another fraction, his eyebrow raising with it. “What does Ed-die mean?” He huffs a little chuckle. Almost incredulous. But it’s too fond, too…warm. Like soup. Like love soup. “You’re my friend, Steve,” he answers simply. But that doesn’t sound strong enough.

A little excerpt from the still in progress chapter of "Want to Go Home With You (Bring Me a Home)"—also knows at the Mer Steve fic.

W

“Watch it with that thing,” she squawks at him, “you could’a run me clear over!” “Sorry,” Steve apologizes sheepishly. She huffs, her arms crossed over her chest. A foot popped in front, leaning her weight away. Can she see me? Can she see me? Can she—“Dingus! Did you forget your lunch again today?” she teases. An out. She’s giving him something like an out. “Yeah,” he lies, “left it on the counter, I guess.”

From an upcoming WIP, that is definitely going to be out a lot later than I expected. Some insecure chubby Steve coming right at you.

E

Eddie didn’t see him at all. That locker door still has a dent, Eddie believes. Though, the word has since been wiped away—also forgotten. He had cleaned it off late one night after Hellfire, scrubbing at it until he couldn’t even see the vague, spotty outline of the letters. And that was that. The world turned, kids graduated, and Harrington was a name no more.

From an upcoming Steddie Bingo prompt fill fic. Keeping it under lock and key right now.

E

Eddie looks at the tape in his hand. Squeezes the cardboard cover tight and hefts it up into the air—showing it off as if Steve didn’t just hand it to him—with his eyebrows raised. “The Poltergeist, Steve? This movie isn’t scary at all!”

From a half-scrapped Steddie spooktober prompt last year, but if it interests anybody, I'll return to it.

T

They were probably going to ask about Family Video. And Jesus Christ, Family Video’s fucking gone. It’s gone, down in the ground. And I haven’t seen Keith, you know. Not that we were friends or anything, but he was probably manning Family Video. Probably trying to get some girl on his arm or maybe marking down some of the tapes or doing fucking inventory. But I haven’t seen any of them. Where did they go? If they got sucked underground, are they trapped in the Upside? I could try and find my mom’s Sinatra records. But I don’t even know if that’s got her favorite song, any of her favorites to keep her safe down there. I don’t know much about my parents at all. I just know they’re gone. Gone somewhere I can’t reach them. They’re all probably fucking dead. And I’m here? Christ.

The bottom half of a journal entry of Steve's from my Steddie apocalypse fic, "Words to Keep Us Moving".

Tagging (no pressure): @alwaysurvalentine @wheneverfeasible @queenie-ofthe-void @sidekick-hero @scoops-aboy86

Your word is: JEST

[scentedpepper]

Oranges

EDDIE MUNSON X MALE READER

Summary: This HAS to be Eddie's year.

Content Warnings: (Spolier) Character Death

Other Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Male Reader

AUTHOR NOTE(S):

Fuck ya'll for making it cringe to like eddie

On other, more important notes, some background info and sincere warnings for ya:

This scene takes place s4 era. Reader graduated last year (s3) currently 18 going on 19. Felt like this was important to note given that our dear little failure here is a grown ass man and it'd be a tad bit strange to pair the little fucker with a highschool student.

Reader works as an intern at the school, hence, Eddie Munson.

Could possibly turn into a series (I have big dreams and not enough energy)

For those of you who have NOT seen s3, you will get spoiled by the end of this little thang so yk proceed with caution or wtv

Ummmmm

Oh right so, I know it says x Reader but this scene was in fact written with the intentions of putting an OC into the series. So for now, you're Joey.

That's it 🫶

_________________________________________

"No- No! See? This is- 'and it is'. Use an adverb to explain the connection and create... emotion. "

Eddie sinks in his own posture and slides a hand over his face, knocking his fringe sideways and out of the way. They have been at this for a while, and he's had enough. "You're not connecting the dots like I'm connecting the dots. "

"Those are literally dots. " Joey gestured towards the piece of paper that sat between them, littered with penmarks, of Eddie's choosing. He couldn't quite decphier why the man was lazily scratching the paper with color in certain areas. He peered closer at the margin on the left, words written across the blank surface that seemed made up. "How are you gonna connect something that wasn't written... this is an argumentative essay, Eddie. You're not allowed to just make up facts. " He wants to jab those pens underneath his eyelids. "What're all these marks for?"

"Alright, say, say this little orange, " Joey watches Eddie move his pen towards the tiny round doodle with squinted eyes, "what if it was in an orange?"

He's going to fail this.

Joey stares at the man unimpressed. "I've been sitting here trying to teach you how to write an arugmentative analysis on an article for the last hour, and you're drawing oranges on your paper?"

"With faces!" Eddie counters, pointing his orange pen– Joey's orange pen in the opposites face.

Joey snatches the pen from his hand abruptly and drops it, clattering down and across the wooden floor.

The pair of them have only gotten so far in this session of teaching. 'This session' being 1.5 hours, and Eddie had yet to pick up on the technique Joey had used to teach himself the tricks and secrets to these things years ago. Though, maybe he was giving him too much credit. The way the doe eyed mans head tilts to the side when he goes to the page and scans the lines for his answer seemed too much to bear.

They're in his trailer, surrounded by textbooks on the table that once belonged to Joey. This place, now that their studying system wasn't some figment of Joey's imagination brought to life, was a lot messier than he'd have liked it. But Munson came first.

Eddie wasn't dumb. Far from it, really. But in this moment he was. Maybe not, if you don't count the fact he wasn't listening. For the last hour. Or two. Joey definitely couldn't count because that sounded too depressing and he really did need to rethink his strategy.

"Sometimes doing homework is like sticking a fork in an electric socket. "

Nancy's words, not his, but either way he believes that now as well.

Joey stared at the older man's frame as he lay with his back against the rug on the carpet, eyes closed, another pen, teal, or at least the closests thing to it, hanging out of his mouth and some paper resting next to the upper half of his body.

"Eddie. "

"Yes, kind sir?" He quickly gets up, the second he hears his voice. He rests his arms on top of the surface of the round coffee table. "I'm totally paying attention, go on. "

Joey manages a breath before he rips the pen from Eddie's mouth and places it aside. Eddie gaped like a fish for a few moments too long and then took his pen back.

"You can't draw oranges in an analysis essay, please pay attention. "

Joey can feel his hair stand on end when he turns back to the English work.

"Yeah but hear me out, everyone is an orange. "

Joey's eyes flee back up to the man. "Eddie–" He protests.

"Just..." The man's mouth opens and a hint of an apology graces his soft facial structure but is soon replaced by his stubborn stance, his leg jolts slightly with his arms as he pushes his palms forward to the table. "C'mon. I'm smart, right?"

"...Yes?"

Eddie smiles triumphantly. His hair, resting in beautiful knots beside his ears. "Think about it. " He puts a finger up to his temple, tapping it twice. "People are oranges, and each orange is unique. Alike, but totally different. Maybe the ones with the nugget are rotten, or they taste more bitter or whatever. But someone likes 'em–"

"For their orange flavour?"

"Orange flavour. " Eddie grins at him. Joey has his suspicions about that grin.

"Sure, Ed. " He picks up his pencil and twists it around. "Now sit down. " He deadpans, eyes scanning the book passage in front of him.

Nonetheless, Eddie prevales. "You're my favorite orange. "

Joey gives him a look, his features remaining blank but there's a strange– almost longing tension to his jaw.

"You know why?" He drags out the last word while simultaneously circling the others nose with the orange pen he'd reterived without notice before giving the tip of the mans nose a prompt 'boop!'. "Because. "

A pause. Longer than Joey would have liked.

"..What?"

His eyes trace down his face.

"You're bigger. "

"Bigger?" He stares down the man incredulously. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means–!" Eddie's eyes turn back into his and he smiles coyly, "that you give me bigger... biggaaa— heart boners. Every time we are alone. Y'know? Just us. " He pauses to watch the anger burning in the others eyes, "You... bein' all tall and broad and... strong. "

The end of his sentence is like a purr but it lacked the proper 'o' sound to make the word seductive. –The ridiculous flexing didn't do much to help him either.

"Heart boners?" Joey cracks a smile, unable to keep his face muscles strewn tight. "Jesus. Shut up. "

"We could play house. I wouldn't mind being a house wife. " Eddie tucks his hair behind his ear, sitting pretty. His eyes reflect a perverse joy.

In turn, Joey rolls his eyes, teeth peaking out from beneath his lips. "Analysis first –then you can cook and clean for me all you want. "

Not a minute later does Eddie get on his knees before lunging forward, throwing his arm around his shoulder and ruffling the brunettes hair. Joey struggles, laughter spilling out in unsteady puffs of air. "Hey, what the hell is your problem?!"

Eddie let's him loose after a few more moments of struggle and the sight Joey offers makes him beam. "It's nice to see you smile. " He admits. "You've been all, edgy, lately. "

Once again, it's always so very easy to lose this man's train of thought with simple distractions such as putting his hair up in a high bun and pushing stray strands behind his ears.

"Used to be all kind smiles and doe eyes. "

Somethings got to give.

"Ever since the mall fi–"

"Didn't realize you paid so much attention to me, Eddie. " He interrupts.

"Well, you just make it so hard not to. " Eddie grins widely at him, his eyes practically twinkling.

Eddie tries not to get too sore over things. Least of all with Joey. Especially since he's got a knack for tip toeing his way out of things himself. Today isn't the day for that, apparently. Because Eddie isn't having it. Which is annoying.

"Look, " he tries again, "I'm not saying you have to –ya know? Say anything. You've just been different...than before. "

That much he knows, Eddie's always noticed things. Because that's who he is and all the time he spent to by himself over the course of his many highschool years has taught him to be an observer, and it just so happened that he had the knowledge to tell when and how things were off.

But there was always something about the way the brunette carried himself, stiff on his feet and jittery like a trapped mouse, no one gave it much thought.

Not even Eddie really.

"You didn't even know me before, Eddie. " Joey's looking at the man with tired eyes, he wonders where his reasoning is coming from. Had they talked more? And how did he manage to create this image of him into a person he had no inkling of a memory towards?

"Hey, I beg to differ. " Eddie counters, "I've known you for like..." He counts on his fingers, recalling he was supposed to garduate two years before Joey. "Six years!"

Joey scoffs. "And out of all those years, we've only had a real conversation in these past few months. "

Eddie goes a little quiet after that.

"So you can wipe that memory of... whatever you have in your head. " His chest swells with an unwelcome pain and he holds his breath.

The man doesn't waver. "Thats not how this works. " His brows furrow, etching serious lines into his forehead. "I've seen you. You've changed since then. "

"No I haven't. " Joey's gaze flickers towards the man, eyes stern but deep within them stir the turbulent anger Eddie had become quite familiar with his whole life.

"You have. " Eddie continues. "Your laughs not as loud, " He gestures vaguely towards the brunettes chest. "You seem more sad than, -than you usually are? Is what I mean..."

Eddie draws his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down nervously.

"Eddie, just drop it. " He's turning in his place, pulling one foot beneath him on the floor as his butt brushes the fabric beneath his thighs.

Eddie goes silent but for only a few minutes because without much reluctance he's lifting the forgotten orange pen from the wooden floorboard again and twirling it between his fingers.

"...Joey. " He says softly after a few long moments. "This town's shitty. "

And if he'd said this to the man about a year ago, he wouldn't have agreed. But now, he feels like he's being stabbed in the chest at the mere sight of it.

Eddie, himself, makes him forget sometimes. The bad and all it's misery.

He's not all that happy about that.

Not as much as he should be. Would've been.

"You know, I'm here. " Eddie leans in a bit, in hopes his friends words along with his guts may spill right out from him, "As much as you are for me with these–" He lifts one from the table before promptly letting it fall from his fingertips. "shitty textbooks. "

Joey swallows roughly, the lump in his throat straining but after a few seconds, he can't help it.

He lets out a long sigh, containing himself all in one breath. "I knew someone..." He starts slow and doesn't seem keen on finishing.

"In the mall fire?"

A huff this time. "Yes– the mall fire. " It felt funny to adress it as such. A false statement.

He feels tense all over, skin rubbing against the denim pants he wore like sandpaper against dry wood.

"My friend–" He pauses to scoff. "If you could even call the asshole that. " And of course, he's still trying to conceal it, the fact that those months apart had been the worst months of his life.

Billy. Fucking, Hargrove. Who would've thought he'd end up on his mind so often?

"He– passed. " The words come out heavy, sitting cold on his tongue and tasting bitter when the admission leaves him. "In the fire. "

Bullshit. Fucking fire. Really?

...

[books]

Writing Workshop Week 1: Show & Tell

Hello, writers of tumblr! It’s @bettsfic again with this week’s generative workshop. 

Today we’re doing what might be my favorite class activity: Show & Tell. 

You might be thinking, do you teach kindergarten or something? No, I teach college. But my students are often weary, downtrodden 20 year olds who are more than happy to go back to basics. Tumblr—being a website of people who care deeply about things and share that passion with others—seems like a great place to host Show & Tell.

Speaking of basics, let’s first talk a bit about…

The Writing Identity

The goal of many writers is to become better at writing. While I think this is an admirable goal it’s also a complicated one, because good writing is entirely subjective. Everyone has their own definition of what good writing looks like based on their knowledge base, history, and personal tastes. And so I often encourage my students, before they begin their journey of becoming a better writer, to step back and ask themselves, “What does good writing look like to me?”

And that’s the thing: you can’t really become a better writer. You can become a more patient writer, with the ability to write and revise multiple drafts of a work. You can become a more ambitious writer, with the ability to write longer stories and deeper themes. You can become a more detailed writer, with the ability to render images and the small details of living that maybe other people don’t notice. Writing is a skill that requires practice, but it also requires joy. You have to enjoy the work more than you fear the potential for failure. And to enjoy the work, you need to honor yourself, your interests, and your ideals. In other words, to become a better writer, you have to become more you.

I remember when I first started writing, I frantically sought out writing advice. I clung to simple adages and rules: active verbs are stronger than passive verbs; remove words like “think” and “realize” and other indicators of your characters’ interior experiences; take out adjectives and adverbs. If you were to adhere to all this advice, your writing wouldn’t become stronger, it would become colder. You would write like Hemingway. There’s nothing wrong with Hemingway, but Hemingway already did Hemingway, and that means you’re free not to be Hemingway. 

Don’t we read to feel closer to people, to experience that which we couldn’t otherwise experience? The beautiful thing about prose is that it’s the only medium that conveys consciousness, because language is the way we contain our thoughts, and writing them down offers others the chance to understand them. E.M. Forster in his book Aspects of the Novel says that the only difference between a character and a person is that a character’s secret inner life can be known, but a person’s can only be understood in observed behavior. Novels are stories of consciousness; biographies are stories of deeds. 

In my early days as a writer, those inane adages of “good writing” began to weigh on me, and I found myself frequently opening a blank document and telling myself, “I’m just going to write something for fun, for me, and so I don’t have to follow any rules.” Every time, that lawless thing I wrote would become better than anything I’d written when I followed the rules. And in this case, “better” means I was proud of it; in writing as close to myself as I could, I was able to help my technical skill reach the level of my personal taste. 

Good writing advice doesn’t spout shallow adages of what should be, it tells you all the things that could be; it opens your mind to possibilities and techniques. “Should” restrains creativity; the entire point of writing is to be creative. To be creative means to make something that has never existed before. And so one of the first things I tell my students is: You already know everything you need to know about your own writing. You already have good and important stories in you. You just have to sit down and write them.

“Show, Don’t Tell”

One such adage that still really gets to me is “show, don’t tell,” which a lot of writers believe. Many people take it to mean that you should describe the exterior circumstances of your narrator in order to allow the reader to interpret meaning. Instead of describing how your narrator feels, these people would rather have you describe their facial expression. But if you’re so interested in rendering the exterior rather than the interior, you’re better off becoming a director. 

Others take it less literally: you show your story instead of tell your story, which, sure, is a valid personal belief for your own work but it’s ambiguous and impractical, and also denies the nature of people to tell stories. Fairy tales and fables are stories that are told. Telling stories came long before showing them.  

In some ways, “show, don’t tell,” can be useful. If you spend a thousand words of character A lovingly and carefully describing every detail of character B, you don’t then need to say something like, “She was pining for him,” because you’ve allowed your description to do that work for you. So no, you don’t need to say it, but maybe you want to. Maybe you want to make it inarguable that character A is pining for character B; you don’t want a reader to say, “I think she’s paying that much attention because she wants to kill him and she’s looking for his weak points.”

And so that’s what it comes down to—choice. Ultimately, writing is about making decisions, and those decisions are stronger when you understand all your options.

Behind the adage is a more difficult truth to swallow: prose is both infinite in its potential and also frustratingly limited, because you have no control over your audience. You can lovingly describe every snowflake that falls in a blizzard, and your reader will be taking their own meaning from it—for people who can mentally visualize things, it’s the images their mind conjures; for those who can’t, it’s a mass of facts. And there are also those who are sleepy and missing details, or who are skimming to get to the bits they’re most interested in, or who accidentally dropped their book in the bath and now the bottom half of every page is warped and unreadable.

Or you can say, “It snowed.”

No matter what your beliefs are on “show, don’t tell,” the truth is that it’s a false dichotomy. The very nature of prose is to navigate this divide. Some stories call for more showing, for example when your narrator is at a distance, when we don’t have much access to their thoughts or feelings. Other stories will ask you to tell, especially if we’re deep in your narrator’s head and they’re giving us everything. Showing lends itself to setting, imagery, and plot. Telling lends itself to character, voice, and style. One is not inherently better than the other, in the same way that a screwdriver isn’t better than a hammer—the tool you use depends on the task at hand.

Any time you encounter a trite rule in writing, it’s usually pointing to something much greater and more fun to think about. In this case, showing and telling are two integral tools in meaning-making. For this week’s activity, we’re going to use both show and tell to make meaning.

Prompt time!

In Donald Barthelme's essay “Not-Knowing,” he calls objects magical. “What is magical about the object is that it at once invites and resists interpretation. Its artistic worth is measurable by the degree to which it remains, after interpretation, vital.” 

So what does that mean? Although this essay is a hot mess (lovingly), part of its intended work is to be a mess. In fact Barthelme describes the mess of his desk and allows it to define him. It’s covered in coffee cups, cigarette ash, unpaid bills, and unwritten novels. In reality, those objects are just objects, but when rendered in prose, they give us an impression of this particular world and the character within it. The writer renders; the reader interprets. The things we own, that mean something to us, are also things that can define us. Who is the person who carries a leather wallet embossed with their initials, with the inside holding credit cards and a stack of neat bills? Who is the person who carries a canvas wallet with a faded Punisher logo on it, attached to a chain, and the only thing inside it is a Subway rewards card?

Objects are important. Especially in this world we live in where so many things have become virtual, tangibility will always be integral to us. We are a species that reaches out and touches. We like to hold things in our hands. We love things which cannot love us back. 

For this week’s prompt fill, I want you to find a magical object for Show & Tell. Ideally, it’s something with a long personal history that’s important to you. Maybe it’s the object you would save in the event of a fire, or maybe it’s something you lost long ago. 

First, I’d like you to show us the object by describing it. Then, tell us the story of it.

You can write about how you acquired it and the memories it conjures. Allow yourself to link and associate memories and feelings. Don’t box yourself in too much—just see where it takes you. 

But you can also put a spin on it. Here are some ways you can do that:

If you want to try fiction, you can write the same story about your favorite character’s beloved object, or you could completely make up an object and its history. 

If you want to try something experimental, you can write a story from the perspective of the object, and maybe its beloved thing is you. 

If you want to try poetry, write a poem of your object. This is a separate lesson, but T.S. Eliot’s concept of an objective correlative may be illuminating to consider. 

The purpose of this activity is to dig through your memories and/or observations, connect them, and use something external to conjure meaning from them. You begin with what your object is and it will eventually lead you to what it means.

Questions? Ask ‘em here before EOD Tuesday so @bettsfic can answer them on Wednesday. And remember to tag your work #tumblr writing workshop with betts if you want her to read your work and possibly feature it on Friday!

And, for those just joining us: @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. Want to know more? Start here.

[exorcqism]

𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐎 𝐊𝐀𝐌𝐎

„𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃”

: ̗̀➛ GENERAL CONTENT!!!

: ̗̀➛ afab!reader, possible gore, blood, death (?). not proofread so i apologize in advance for any mistakes if they’re made.

: ̗̀➛ art creds by;; currently unknown. dividers are not mine, if you own these, you may claim them in comments.

: ̗̀➛ WORD COUNT;; 1.40K

* dark mode recommended

* do not copy this plot. i’m perfectly fine with inspirations but give creds. if this plot his stolen in any way, the post will be taken down and you will be blocked.

𝐃𝐀𝐊𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 ✉️🖇️;; imma switch it up a lil. i been going through writers block cuz i can barely think of plots for myself. sum scary cuz why not??

REBLOG TO SUPPORT MEEEEE AND IF YOU WANT MORE :D

what a night. an incredible amount of men and women died this particular night. interesting. why? how? who would’ve done such a thing? a pure red dagger cut through the flesh of these people. now, these cuts weren’t quite deep at first…but they began to get more deep and the deaths were more brutal than the last.

bleeding through the mask, a red substance peered out of the fabric of the eyeholes. a 5’11 figure, wearing an all black robe looked down at their victim. they bend down before stabbing into their victim repeatedly.

the deed was done. “that was easy…” they thought. they would remove the mask to give themself some air. they took a breath. a pair of dead eyes fluttered, adjusting to the dark room that was lit with dim lights. eyes narrowed, staring at the blood that was splattered across the floor and the wall before a sinister smile stretched across their lips.

a beautiful night it was…for him, that is.

“that’s so sad…all those poor people.” your mother said as she looked at the tv, explaining the incidents. you sucked on your bottom lip, feeling the unsettling energy kick into your system. finding all those bodies around the shibuya station. you heard a name being tossed around called the “shibuya slasher”.

it felt like a horror movie. hearing this made your stomach turn. your mother placed your dinner down in front of you and smiled softly. “you eat good, okay? and don’t waste it. put it in the refrigerator or the microwave if you don’t want it.”

you nod at your mother’s simple request and begin to eat after thanking her. you turn the channel to something more happy. you didn’t wanna be depressed and scared while you ate your favorite meal.

later that evening, you make your mother aware that you would be hanging out with your boyfriend for a couple hours. though, she agreed that this was fine, she’d warn you about the shibuya slasher one final time. you assure her that you’d be fine and you leave in a hurry.

two twintails bounced lightly as the owner’s head turned to look at you. their lips stretched into a smile as you entered the car.

“hey,” the deep voice says, sounding slightly excited at the sight of you. it was definitely a change compared to how he usually sounded. his voice was low adverb and it would catch you off guard if you never heard it or if the room was filled with silence and he began to speak.

“hi, cho!” you beam at the male, leaning over to kiss his cheek, to which his pale cheeks flushed a reddish color.

“did you hear the news? that slasher case is…interesting.” choso queries as he begins to drive away from your home, on the way to your next destination, wherever it may be. you sigh and nod, not feeling up to talk about the case. you didn’t like it. it made you sick actually.

“yes, i heard,” you reply, “but it’s…not something i wanna talk about now. we should just enjoy our time together…and maybe do our thing.” a smirk is plastered onto your face and choso has that usual dull expression on his face but he nods.

“very well…”

the two of you spent your evening at a fair, playing the games, eating…even though choso wasn’t really eating. he was just enjoying his time with you. before the night was over, the male had gone do the bathroom, washing the blood from his hands after he had finished another deed. just the sight of seeing you talking to another man drove him up the wall.

it was a bit hard for him to kill in a social setting like this but his body reacted before he could even think. choso came back to you and took your hand and led you back to you car. as you sat in the passenger seat, you noticed a small red stain on his neck. it looked fresh too.

“um…choso, you got something red on your neck.” you spoke up. you wanted to touch it but you didn’t want to distract choso from driving either.

“nothing.” he answered bluntly.

as the weeks passed on, the shibuya slasher was still on their killing spree. your mother would drill it into your brain to watch your surroundings and be careful to not get kidnapped or anything. as annoying as you thought it was, you know your mother was just looking out for you…so of course you take her advice.

out of curiosity, you and a male friend of yours make your way to shibuya station. because it was a bit late at night, the station was empty. you and your friend would have conversations about anything you could possibly think of. completely ignoring the fact that a killer would be nearby.

this is where the murders took place, after all…

amongst your talking between the two of you, there was a sound. it sounded like footsteps and something dragging. you were pretty sure no one was here…maybe you just assumed and didn’t think that maybe some janitors would be here. even the night security guards would probably be here….but there was no one.

your friend wanders off to go check the sound and tells you to wait…but your anxiety was starting to kick in and you didn’t wanna be left alone in a station where you could get kidnapped or murdered. you and your friend go towards the sound, you trailing behind because you were that nervous.

the two of you tread lightly and slowly as if you were attempting to sneak around and locate the noise and confront the person…if there is one. but that’s when you saw it…such speed and power. you saw nothing like it….but you did. it was familiar. that red arrow piercing through the flesh and the skull and eventually the brain, drilling a hole into its victims.

you scream and jump back when you see a 5’11 figure wearing a ghostface mask and a black robe, holding a pure red blade. there was a crimson substance staining the mask…but you were guilty. you couldn’t be scared when you were guilty of a killing yourself.

staring down at the body beneath you, you suddenly feel your tense body relax. blood travels over to the drain and you glance up at the figure in front of you who had been in the middle of removing their mask. revealing their true face.

in front of you was a pale face with blood streaming down its nose and cheeks. even on the side of the owner’s head. you also noticed a little bit of blood coming from their ear but it didn’t concern you as much as their dead eyes that had black rings around them and their brown hair sticking to their face.

“there you are, princess,” choso smirked at you, lifting his bloodstained glove to place under your chin, staining your soft brown skin. his eyes traveled down to your outfit.

“did you wear this for me?”

you put your hands around his arm gently and looked up at him. the two of you were smiling at each other as if death was your favorite thing to bond over. well, the both of you had the same game. killing for each other. that was the goal.

“i do everything for you.” you reply. this only made choso’s existing smile grow. it was sinister but there was also something about it that you liked. you couldn’t place a finger on it.

“good girl…”

despite the blood the was covering the both of you, choso smashed his lips against yours, biting and sucking on your lip whenever he got the chance to. you felt his tongue slip into your mouth, making you moan in between the kiss.

he pulled away from you and took a glance down at his mess, then at you. “did i overdo it?”

any normal person would tell him yes but you were obviously just as unhinged as he was. you shake your head no as your answer.

“no…you didn’t do anything wrong.” you answered. “you just wanted to keep me safe, right?”

“that’s right. i just wanted to keep you safe.” choso dropped the mask down and pushed a lot of pressure against his blade, making it shatter.

“and nobody will ever get near you again.”

𝐄𝐍𝐃.

⋆｡࿇ ·࣭࣪̇˖ 𖦹°༅༚

[canonically47]

i just watched disney’s wish. after months of seeing only negative feedback, i decided, as a major disney fan, to dive into it myself - sadly influenced by some of that negative feedback, i couldn’t form an opinion completely of my own, but...

it’s bad anyways. there are some good parts, but not many.

the characters feel flat and one-dimensional (this one is dumb, this one sneezes, this one is quiet, this one is best friend, this one is sleepy, this one is sarcastic...) or ridiculous. magnifico is a good guy turned bad for plot purposes - like, i UNDERSTAND HIM. he has built rosas from the ground and he is the only one who knows magic, of course he should get to decide which wishes are granted and which not!

the songs are... really really REALLY bad. the lyrics make no sense in the english language. for example you could definitely get away with “felt this, no, i haven’t”, “system solar” or any other of the sort in my own language, but in english they are very bad and rather avoidable mistakes. adjectives and adverbs are thrown around with no care, allegories and metaphors fall flat, and also, THE VILLAIN SONG FUCKING SUCKS. IT IS ABYSMAL. there should be A CHILL to it. it should make you fucking hate the guy. it should make you want to yell at the abusive and overwhelming mother gaslighting her child, it should make you want to give the lion another scar as he boasts about his plans to kill the king, it should make you want to jump in to defend the poor victims of a deceitful and unassuming villain - not jump around and dance with joy and whismy!!!! this is the thanks i get is a good song if you were looking for a pop parody of a top tier musical, not an actual song for a disney movie, much less the one made for its 100th anniversary!!!!

THE ANIMATION??? it looks so unfinished. i genuinely felt as if i was watching somebody’s unfinished WIP in blender. the characters and backgrounds never get along, either one or the other looking out of place at all times.

the message is not there. so many moments are cringey with barely any moments that got a genuine smile out of me. the heroine feels like a stereotype rather than an actual character i should be rooting for. the character design for most suck. the story makes no sense. so much is left unexplained.

i am so disappointed with this movie

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

MTG or YGO?

Long post? Long post!

Are you asking what I prefer? YGO. Are you asking what I think is better? That is wholly dependent on what a person wants out of a card game.

YGO's biggest barrier to entry is the fact that the cards are written in their own form of legalese. I mean this very literally, too. They use "Problem-solving card text" where it makes use of deliberately placed adverbs in effect descriptions to dictate moment to moment interactions. It is almost like learning a new language, and has been compared to learning how to read through legal documents. It becomes comprehensive once you wrap your head around it, and is the reason you can do some properly crazy/funny shit in the game, but wrapping your head around it and understanding what new cards do is a whole thing. Having someone who's played YGO before teach you how to play the game is basically the most reliable way to learn it. It's genuinely a problem.

MTG is, comparatively, much easier to learn. Very low floor of entry, and sequenced in such a way that you can understand basically how the entire game works in a few hours. MTG's complexity 100% exceeds YGO's at the uppermost levels, but the way game comprehension builds on itself is much cleaner, so it feels less obtuse overall.

MTG is mechanically more casual friendly. The current MTG darling format, Commander, is basically a 2ish hour social game where four people engage in a free for all that hinges partially on social politicking. It's typically chill. You also have a lot of assorted 1v1 formats and such. There is likely a "way to play" that will resonate with you, and the games tend to be slowish.

YGO doesn't really have multiple formats in a meaningful way. You can absolutely do group stuff and set informal rules, but the game ultimately hinges on 1v1s. With the frontal complexity of card text, these can and will feel very lopsided and frustrating until you understand what's going on. Once you do know, it's super cool, but getting to that point can feel like a chore. The games are also typically quite fast (maybe 3-6 long turns) and very dense with card interactions and timings. I enjoy it for the way it makes me strategise (or not), but it's definitely a preference thing.

Cost is something where YGO absolutely curb stomps. I can get a whole deck of picked out cards, plus a suite of "staple" (eternally meta relevant) cards, with lots of cool foiled versions and stuff, for like 50-70 bucks USD. You are NOT doing that with MTG. MTG is a stupidly fucking expensive game, where reprints of important cards are rare to encourage market speculation (I am not kidding) and finance bros have an ACTUAL PLACE in the community. There is a reason that casual MTG encourages proxy use. It's fucked. Also, as an aside, MTG's shiny/foil cards are dogshit. Same-y and super prone to curling. YGO foils are extremely good and pretty.

Cost feeds into another issue; set rotation. You can argue merit in both directions with this one, but for the average person with average money to spend, MTG takes another L here. MTG has set rotation. Basically, in the standard 1v1 format, cards that have been out more than 3 years will no longer be playable in that format, and you have to get the new cards. A lot of the alternate 1v1 formats in MTG actually just boil down to "1v1s but you can use cards as far back as X" because... people want to use their cards they bought. YGO doesn't have this. It instead has a banlist, updated every couple of months, that aims to curb problematic card interactions. Ultimately, though, if you buy a thing and like the thing, you can basically always use the thing. (MTG, as an aside, also has banlists for its formats, but it's in addition to the rotation stuff. The fact so many formats are there to ignore X years of rotations is also kinda telling, imo.)

Art direction and flavour are a personal thing. I like both, though I think that YGO's reputation for archetypal/thematic variation and card art quality are well-earned. That'd be wholly up to your preferences.

So yeah, I have a fondness for both games, but I ultimately prefer YGO because I like doing unhinged bullshit in it, I like the art a whole lot, and I like that all my cards are affordable and retain usability in a typical play environment.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

When is it okay to use adverbs? I'm currently paranoid and pondering about deleting every single one from my wips

Here are excerpts of writing tips and advice from editors, publishers, and writers:

Adverbs in your novel must be minimal.

Adverbs are necessary for the English language and have a rightful place as one of the eight parts of speech.

In literature, some adverbs are less desirable than others.

Adverbs with -ly tend to slow the pace.

They also tell what’s happening. They don’t show.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' —Elmore Leonard

Stephen King:

The adverb is not your friend.

Adverbs, you will remember from your own version of Business English, are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.

They’re the ones that usually end in -ly.

Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind.

With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.

Consider the sentence He closed the door firmly.

It’s by no means a terrible sentence (at least it’s got an active verb going for it), but ask yourself if firmly really has to be there. You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between He closed the door and He slammed the door, and you’ll get no argument from me . . . but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before He closed the door firmly? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, isn’t firmly an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?

Someone out there is now accusing me of being tiresome and anal-retentive. I deny it. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day . . . fifty the day after that . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late. I can be a good sport about adverbs, though. Yes I can. With one exception: dialogue attribution. I insist that you use the adverb in dialogue attribution only in the rarest and most special of occasions . . . and not even then, if you can avoid it.

There is a core simplicity to the English language and its American variant, but it’s a slippery core. All I ask is that you do as well as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ Writing Refresher: Adjective or Adverb

Hope this helps! Some sound advice here from different perspectives. Definitely choose which ones are most appropriate for you, as a writer, and for the specific story you are currently working on. I'd also recommend you read the entire sources to get a fuller context since these are just excerpts I handpicked. And because more examples are provided as well, particularly in Stephen King's book.

"Since advice is usually ignored and rules are routinely broken, I refer to these little pearls as merely 'suggestions.'....There’s nothing binding here. All suggestions can be ignored when necessary." —John Grisham

[an-spideog]

What is the difference between using 'go freisin' and 'freisin' or 'cinnte' and 'go cinnte' ?

Grmma!

I don't think people say "go freisin", but freisin is a way of saying 'as well' or 'too' in Galway (People also learn it in schools all over the place but it's only very common in Connacht Irish)

Tá mé go maith - I'm good Tá mise go maith freisin - I'm good too

cinnte means "certain, sure" and the typical use of go with adjectives is to turn them into adverbs so go cinnte = "certainly", but people do often use cinnte on its own how we would use "certainly" in english. Tá mé cinnte - I'm certain Bhí sé ann go cinnte - He was definitely there I think your main question was about the go? but I'm not super sure so feel free to ask a followup if you need to, in general it's for adjectives -> adverbs

Bhí sé ciúin - He was quiet Labhair sé go ciúin - He spoke quietly But it's also the case that for a good few common adjectives, they get go whenever they're used with tá Tá sé go maith - It's good Tá sé go haoibhinn - It's lovely Tá sé go holc - It's bad

(and others)

[scampir]

Another cohost repost

So the question is, can a dungeon be designed that can be explored in a way that is not imperial. To beat semantics out of the gate, I want to say that the Dungeon is a game artifact (toy) of an unknown place broken up into serial, self-contained rooms (though exceptions are made to subvert expectations). For Imperial, as an adverb, I want to throw out a definition from Tom Nairn and Paul James' Globalization and Violence: where Empire can

"extend relations of power across territorial spaces over which they have no prior or given legal sovereignty, and where, in one or more of the domains of economics, politics, and culture, they gain some measure of extensive hegemony over those spaces to extract or accrue value"

I'm using this definition because I think it aligns well with critiques of the use of "dungeons" as this kind of toy framework in ttrpgs.

Maybe i'm wasting my breath here, but there's a trifecta of verbs that's tied to the og dungeon crawl that I argue fulfills this definition, where we can say that we're playing at imperial relations. It's to Explore (which is not obligated to be but can be read as creating an encounter with an imperial "other"), loot (which is to say, to take regardless of who it belongs to), and to fight, which is to say to use physical violence to overcome obstacles that get in the way of the former two verbs.

Empire can seem too big an organization to apply to a band of haggard thieves who could die to a stiff breeze. With the backdrop of AD&D's lore being tied to a civilization v savagery conflict of law vs chaos it's a lot clearer, but even if you ignore or simply never touch the lore things are happening at the table that make a game out of the imperial relation. So, consider this shitpost allegory:

Dungeon Wildcatting

Let's say that instead of gold for xp it was Oil for xp. By the barrel. That's right. The more barrels of sweet elven crude you get on your character sheet the faster you get your next hit die. Here we are, trying to follow a rumour to where an untapped well of oil might be located. What happens when people are already there who disagree with your goal of setting up a derrick?

What if this is an NSR game where the pcs are in debt? Does that make it interesting? I'm all for compromised characters but I think it's a touch too charitable to forgive violence for economic gain because someone was in debt. It reads very pretty but spoils under scrutiny. In this light, debt as character motivation was really only revolutionary in that it was a way to victimize a player character and make their choices more sympathetic.

You know the A to B from here. It's been in the discourse for like, 6 years now and beyond. This is the dungeon as we know it, as some of us enjoy it, and as some of us critique it.

And now, the Dungeon as Prison

Dungeon is such a misnomer for what the toy is used for. Dungeons are prisons. They lock people away and control them. It's a different kind of game when you go into a prison, because your freedom is what's at stake. This is what I tried to achieve when I ran The Bureau by Goblin Archive in Robins by Coffee as "The Brut". An exercise in trying to scratch away and find a new kind of dungeon politic.

Let's posit this: Is it an imperialist politic when the "dungeon" is a prison complex for a government that persecutes you (in this case a Robin) and others like you, but would happily divide your community into groups that could be bent into useful purposes and those that were too dangerous to even see the light of day? Can you even sell the ritual knives you find in vaults that grow stronger the more blood it drinks? When making sure the best-made boot to put on your neck is their 9-5, are you actually encountering the other, or is this someone in your society that you understand very well actually? When you trespass around a government blacksite, is this actually replicating the colonial adventure just because we use similar verbs? Or does the political context of this imagined oppressive state actually matter? Is there enough substance to connect walking through shared office space or well-funded research labs to connect the two to the point that we can say they are the same or are they different?

I wanted to ask that question and I had been asking it for the 7 months that I ran that megadungeon. What I found was that the players never went in with the plan to make money; only to find out how to stop the place from harming them further. It was all very para-brechtian, and, I am going to say that I'm very happy with myself for at least trying to run a dungeon in a different kind of way. For three design choices I made for this dungeon:

The reason that the game revolved around exploring the dungeon and mapping it was because a state organ built to persecute, assimilate, or exploit Robins built it (or rather, dreamed it) to resist infiltration.

The reason that you have to use violence is because the dungeon was a centralized hub of information used to persecute Robins.

The reason that there are objects of wealth in the dungeon is because there is profit to be made by the state and it's collaborators in rendering the Robins into an underclass.

It's still violence. I didn't let the players forget that the people working in the facility were people too, but at the same time, I am not satisfied playing devil's advocate for fascists. Does this mean that the Dungeon is a container for the dehumanized? That's something I've tried to develop while running ICON 😜. For Robins (playtest version) It was more about reflecting on that dungeon artifact. Toy.

[chouxcats]

VRVSUNI CH.9 Resources

HSR Lore

I feel like most people know this already (and I’ve also mentioned it once or twice), but Thalassa is an oceanic planet, so naturally its candles will be flameless.

From the wiki — the Lone Voyage era is marked as the start of Xianzhou civilization after the 9 ships departed their home planet 7 millennia ago.

The pipa Leevhĩ mentions uses craftsmanship styles from the Xianzhou Yuanqiao, one of the 2 Xianzhou flagships (Yuanqiao and Daiyu) which had their populations decimated by viscorpus corrosion. 

Remember that gigantic beast in Firefly’s trailer? That’s a Swarm Mother. 

Totton is a cavernous rocky planet plagued by storms that destroy everything in their paths, leaving only the strongest and most resilient alive. Whoever found and transported the Leviathan skeleton is / was a trooper fr. And it was DEFINITELY not done alone lmao.

Anaria is a planet mentioned in one of Boothill’s parts in the Penacony quest. According to the NPC, it throws extravagant parties a lot, so they would probs also have a hand in the Auction pie.

Planet Screwllum is powered by a planetary engine that processes punched-tape calculations. Leevhĩ’s date (?) is saying he has enough money and power to power the planet for a century. Bullshit or not? Up to you to decide.

Pteruges-V is Kafka’s home planet. She seems to enjoy fashion, so I just extrapolated that into “attention to fashion is a cultural thing on Pteruges-V”. 

Hellem, where the unnamed princess is from, is a planet mentioned in one of the IPC radio broadcasts in the AE parlor car.

Ratio recognizes Leevhĩ’s charm as one from Mendasia, an Idrila-worshipping planet that was a paradise until the disappearance of the Beauty’s blessing led to its demise. When Ratio says pre-Idrilan, what he means is pre-fall of Idrila, because Mendasia is known to have believed in Idrila since the dawn of civilization. It just doesn’t sound as nice LOL — and it’s probs a common academic colloquialism or wtv.

Other Notes 

Leevhĩ and Biihpæ are drastically different sizes because Leevhĩ is a half-Attouinean — that’s also part of the reason Biihpæ is a bit hostile towards Leevhĩ, although Ratio doesn’t notice. Obviously I don’t condone discrimination against mixed-race people, but this particular situation is more complicated due to multiple reasons, which I hope some of you managed to pick up on. I’ll try to describe it simply: native Attouineans are victims of IPC colonization and rightfully feel angry towards their oppressors, and Leevhĩ is working for them, so Biihpæ’s anger is justified in this context. On the other hand, native Attouineans aren’t the friendliest to non-purebreds in general, which could have been what spurred Leevhĩ to try find work off-world in the first place — of which the best and easiest choice, with Attouine’s connections, would be the IPC. It’s not the clearest, mostly because of the limitations of Ratio’s POV and also because I don’t have time to explore such a complex issue, but it’s a fun fact about Attouinean racial social dynamics. 

If you run the characters “baɨχppʋε” through Enrique or “baɨχpʋε” through Conchita (both Castilian Spanish) here, you should get the approximation of what Biihpæ’s name sounds like. 

The structure of the Native Attouinean language is based on Japanese grammar, with a few alterations made. It follows an “Object-Subject-Verb” construction, with adjectives next to nouns and adverbs next to verbs. However, there is no specific way to construct adverbs, e.g. “-ly” in English. There is no conjugation in native Attouinean, or even things like “un”, “ist” etc. — instead they put modification-words after the noun or verb they’re supposed to modify. “Singer” = “sing-person”, “fearless” = “scared-always-not” and so on. As with all things in linguistics, there are exceptions, but that’s how it generally goes.

“That is convenient”, I make Ratio say, pretending I didn’t just make shit up to desperately make the masquerade plot make sense

Aventurine’s ball outfit is inspired by Romani men’s clothing, but with some galactic pizzazz (+ what I assume to be his personal taste) added!