#if you need plot

[teecupangel]

So, I'm watching The Witcher: Wild Hunt gameplay - it's amazing and I want to cry because in total it's almost 30h of videos and aaaaAaaaaaaaAAAAAA - and I noticed that when you use the witcher's senses, things glow red, gold and silver (?) according to importance, functionality and usefulness. And my ADHD brain immediately: hey, doesn't that look like eagle vision?

Me:

So! Witcher Desmond, anyone?

Here’s the Desmond (and some more characters) gets isekai’ed into the Witcher world ask I got before for more Witcher AU idea.

Witcher 3 is one of the greatest RPGs. Honestly, the main reason why I haven’t finished it is because it keeps crashing my PS5. XD

So a witcher!Desmond has been knocking on my head for quite a while now.

Of course, we are taking a lot of liberty from Witcher lore in this one, mainly to ‘preserve’ some of the core elements of AC lore.

Now, Witcher is known to be made so, in this setup, Desmond came to the School of the Eagle in mysterious circumstances that only their leader, also called the mentor, knows. Some say he was sold off by his parents. Some say he was a bastard son of a high-ranking noble that wished him to be striken off the ‘records’.

Regardless of the reason, Desmond grows up to be a witcher with three other kids.

Altaïr is an orphan who was sold off to them, supposedly of unknown origin. He’s quite close to a veteran witcher named Umar who treats him like his own son. (You decide if Umar dies in this one or… just goes on his own Witcher travels)

Ezio had a family. Or… he believed he had a family. His memories are fuzzy but he believed he had siblings once but he’s not sure if it’s real or if he was dreaming them. Giovanni, an older witcher and one of their training instructors, found Ezio as a small child near their headquarters with a letter saying that the child’s name is Ezio. That’s all he knows about Ezio’s past.

Ratonhnhaké:ton was actually taken from his mother when he was young and was supposed to be sold off when Bayek, one of the oldest witchers in their school, got into a fight with the slave ‘traders’ and Bayek had tried to bring Ratonhnhaké:ton home, only for them to find his village gone. Even with the witcher sense, the villagers’ trail ends by the nearest coast and Ratonhnhaké:ton decided to become a witcher to become strong enough to find his village (and his mother).

The four of them develop a close bond with one another, one which the other witchers don’t really try to push because folks get testy with just one witcher… four witchers traveling together? It’s unheard of and, frankly, would get them more in trouble than it’s worth. They do tend to find one another even though they usually travel alone, usually because they decide (on their own) to hunt the same monster or follow the same rumor.

Unorganized Notes:

Altaïr is the most proficient in signs in general and uses them regularly with his regular attacks. It’s normal to see him use Igni in close combat after striking his opponents with his sword or Aard to keep other enemies back while he’s focused on one of them.

Among the four though, Desmond has the highest mastery over Axii and he has no qualms about using it to calm down other people or make them do what he wants. During battle, Desmond usually uses Axii to confuse his opponents and create an opening.

Ezio rarely uses Axii as he feels uncomfortable manipulating other people’s minds. He usually cast Quen before charging into battle, just to be safe.

Ratonhnhaké:ton prefers to use Yrden as a trap for his opponents and also uses a bow with specialized arrows (poison, silver, etc). He’s also the most skilled in hunting his target and sometimes doesn’t even need the witcher senses to find clues.

Among the four, Ratonhnhaké:ton’s the one to mostly use potions and decoctions. Altaïr mostly just creates them out of curiosity and experiments with a lot of possible combinations but rarely uses them, most of the time just giving them to Ratonhnhaké:ton or the other two if they meet and his inventory is getting full. Ezio tends to only use them if he has no other choice and Desmond… uuuhh… Desmond mostly forgets them. They oil their swords liberally though. That’s just good sense. (“Good sense would be drinking-” “What’s that? I don’t hear you. I think you’re too far away.” “I’m right beside you.” “Huh? I might be getting something with my witcher senses. Please wait.” “That… that’s not how it works.”

Cristina and Sofia are two sorceresses that Ezio has… past dealings with. The other three don’t want to know the details.

I was contemplating if Leonardo should be their Dandelion but I think it’s better if we keep him as he is, the multitalented mad man we all love. He’s also a very avid Gwent player who taught the boys how to play Gwent. Most of the time, he provides information and rumors to them.

All witchers of the School of Eagles have a Hidden Blade made of silver. It’s mostly not used because, as veteran witchers say, “If you’re close enough to use it, you’re too close to death itself.”

Honestly, the plot is more or less ‘witchers doing witcher stuff and finding each other in the big world for some reason’.

If you really want a more solid plot, Desmond’s parentage has been left a mystery so we can play it with later. Making him the Ciri with William Miles being king would lead to an actual plot of the most powerful people in the world looking for him.

And hey, if Desmond is meant to be Ciri, he would have elder blood in him that has been mutated by becoming a Witcher, making him more powerful even if the powers of the elder blood should only be activated by women.

Or… you know… Desmond is an anomaly all by himself not because he’s the Ciri of the plot but because he’s the actual Desmond Miles from AC world that got deaged and transported to this world after the Solar Flare and he has no memories of it. The Wild Hunt is after him because he doesn’t belong in this world and becoming a Witcher granted him more powers than he should have.

… there was also this vague idea I had of Desmond being sold off to become a witcher but he ran away before he could become one then things happened and he became a sorcerer instead. Then he meets up Altaïr who is now a witcher and remembers him as the boy who ran away. But… that’s as far as I got. XD

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[moldypoff]

Minced Meat Man and his Trash Husband

Wait wait wait- let me explain-

It’s you! (And you with the rest of the crew!)

No I am not missing anybody-

Haha, yeah, sorry, this is just the full image

(Someone please teach me how to not use one canvas for all of my drawings, this took like 27 layers 😭)

[bamsara]

I think that one thing people fail to understand is that unsolicited literary criticism coming from an online stranger who is reading with no knowledge of what the authors intended goal is, is not going to be received the same as say: the authors beta reader or friends who know what the authors intended goal and has the sufficient knowledge and input to help the author reach that desired outcome.

"But I'm only trying to be helpful" How do I know you have the knowledge and literary skill for you to be able to actaully do that when we don't know each other and you are essentially a stranger to me? Are you applying this criticism based out of personal biased experience and desire to see the story or characterization be driven in another direction or tweaked, or do you know the author's intentions for the character? If the story is incomplete, are you basing your criticism of a character on the incomplete narration with only partial information available of them or are you building up a report until the story's completion? Did the author provide you with the information needed to make a fully informed criticism?

Have you discussed with the author what their plans are or are you assuming them based off the narration, especially if the narration is proven or implied to be unreliable or missing key points of the plot? Are you unbiased enough to help them reach their desired outcome for the characters and story regardless of your personal feelings towards the characters/antagonists and setting? Can you handle being told your specific input isn't wanted because you're a reader and/or have no written anything relating to their genre or topic? Do you understand and respect that the author's personal experiences might influence their writing and make it different than how you would have done it personally? Do you understand if an author only wants input from a specific demographic relating to their story?

If it's for fanfiction or other hobby media, are you holding a free hobby to a professional standard? Are you trying to give criticism because you feel like the author has produced 'subpar job performance' of their fic? Are you viewing their work as a personal intimate outlet or something that must conform with mass media? Are you applying rules and guidelines when the fic is shared for simple sharing sake? Is your criticism worded appropriately and focused on the parts where the author has requested input on rather than a general dismissal and or disapproval?

Have you put yourself in a place where you assumed you have the input needed for the story to evolve better, or have you asked what the author needs and what they're having trouble with? Can you handle having your criticism rejected if the author decides their story doesn't need the change and not take it as a personal offense against your character? Are you crossing that boundary because you think you are doing the author a favor? Are you trying to be helpful, or do you just want to be?

I think sometimes when people hear authors go 'please don't give me unsolicited writing advice or criticism' they automatically chalk it up to 'this author doesn't want ANY constructive feedback on their stuff at all' and not "i already have trusted individuals who will help me with my writing goals and- hey i don't know you like that, please stop acting so overly familiar with me'

[stealingpotatoes]

it's funny whenever i post dinluke i always get comments along the lines of "why do people ship these two they only met once" and its like bestie. babygirl. ok first off it's about the Themes™/dynamics/potential, not how many times they've met in "canon" and 2. when i was a teenager the biggest ship in my favourite fandom was two guys who'd never even interacted and you think its weird people ship two guys that acually met?? in real life canon?? they literally made eye contact, that's like the fanon-shipping equivalent of third base

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

What they don’t tell you is that if you get good enough at doctor who tumblr you don’t even need to go looking through the tardis wiki, your mutuals will just know that shit

[collgeruledzebra]

the thing about trying to recommend fiction podcasts to someone who isn't familiar with them is that not only are so so many genres represented but also the level of production can fall anywhere from "basically an audiobook" to "major motion picture minus the pictures"

[taraxippos]

I think people tend to assume that any criticism of worldbuilding is ultimately a demand for a story to grind itself to a halt and give the reader 20 paragraphs of exposition, and like. Most of the time good-faith criticism of this nature is coming from a core aspect of the story not being grounded in the setting in a way that outright detracts from the story's quality. You fix it not by Explaining but by Showing it passively in the makeup of the world.

Like the last instance I saw this critique in was like 'you can't expect an author to stop and exposit the nuances of gender roles/Queerness in a fictional society' and it's like yeah I don't, and in fact this is actually one of the easiest things to show in the text without exposition. If a society has gender norms to begin with you'll see aspects of these norms baked into EVERYTHING. You'll see it in its stories, its religion, its taboos, its etiquette, its clothing, its family structures, its language, its insults, its labor, its leadership, etc. It will have massive impacts on how characters interact with one another and how they perceive themselves. It will help Shape your characters.

If you do this legwork to begin with for the core facets of your story, you will find very natural places for these concepts to be demonstrated without derailing the plot and with little to no exposition. THAT sort of thing is what's being asked of you.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Never underestimate the healing power of a good meal!

(For @nibbelraz!)

[zuzu-romeave]

“this episode could’ve been an email” WHY DO YOU HATE STORYTELLING SO MUCH!!! WHY DO YOU HATE WORLD BUILDING AND GETTING ANSWERS AND EXPLORING CHARACTERS!!!!

[yelrabmena]

fnaf analog horror series where each episode is just 20 minutes of william afton kicking puppies, stealing candies from and popping balloons of small children, causing 9/11 sixteen years earlier (he does it again on the correct date later on don't worry) , all including a loud screaming audio for everytime he does something evil that goes for longer than it should. Also Freddy's barely if is important except for it being where he does the evil and there being a fazbear branded plane

at least 10 videos, each by different people, will be made for each episode talking about how it's "the scariest fnaf content ever made" and "made fnaf ACTUALLY SCARY again!!!" while the thumbnail is something like a monochrome photo of the twin towers with a fucked up looking springtrap facing the viewer with "HE DESTROYED THEM" written in bold, big red text

[anthyies]

the thing about disco elysium is that it has women in it. what you see on the internet about it might lie to you about that but it has women, gay women even, very compelling women even, in it.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[cosmosnout]

The real reason Oda had to get rid of her was not for plot convenience, but bc she would have kicked everyone’s ass. (Source: trust me bro)

[magicpiano]

Bruce Wayne had a child that was somehow kidnapped right out of the hospital just hours after being born. He of them ever stopped looking despite how cold the trail had grown.

Years later there is some rouge attack and a civilian child was injured and taken to the hospital. Bruce does a DNA test on the blood found at the scene and concludes that the child is actually his long lost kid.

Dani was planning to sneak out of the hospital the moment the doctors stopped looking at her. Then Bruce Wayne of all people comes in and claims that she is his long lost child. She knows that this is very impossible because she is a clone, but Bruce won't listen to her and she really doesn't want to explain the clone thing to a "normal" stranger.

This does brings up a lot of questions about how Danny ended up living with the Fentons though.

[violetwolfraven]

The timeline of the Tinkerbell movies is so fucking funny like Tink was out there getting bullied attempting to fundamentally change what she is and revolutionizing the talent of tinkering all within like. A week tops. of her birth. At the queen’s revue Queen Clarion goes “Tinkerbell sweetheart has no one explained?” (about tinkers not going to the mainland) and it’s like!!! No shit they haven’t explained!!! Homegirl was born yesterday!!!