#like YES exposition is necessary but there are good and bad ways to do it

[springcatalyst]

reading a new book and going 'ooh I love how implicit the worldbuilding is they dont do annoying internal monologues that dont make sense to explain the setting they just say things and let you figure it out as you go how neat' and then I look closer at the back cover. book three of three

[oneatlatime]

Bitter Work

Life took me out at the knees for a couple of weeks but I'm back! I'm hoping this is a nice restful episode after the relentlessness of The Chase.

I have to say, Toph's nicknaming skills are on point. I never would have thought of Sugarqueen, but it fits perfectly.

This is me. Every morning.

Full nose plant from Appa.

And the beat up Sokka quota is fulfilled. Very funny Toph, but completely uncalled for. If someone had catapulted teenage me 50 feet into the air while I was trying to sleep, it would have been fully justifiable homicide.

Aang is always trying to run before he can walk. What was Iroh always saying to Zuko about basics? Aang needs that speech too.

I was really on the ball in my post about how airbenders aren't homicidal, actually. Rock is a stubborn element. Yay me!

Aang earthbends = Earth bends Aang.

Seriously, how did he mess up that badly?

Cozy.

Thank you Zuko for the incredibly obvious exposition that's somehow completely in character. Interesting to see that Iroh and his son had brown hair, but Zuko seems to have black hair. More hair variety in the Fire Nation than I thought.

Tangent time! I love the contrast in social intelligence (I guess that's the term?) in this scene. Zuko wakes Iroh up with an infodump, some bad tea, and then gets straight to discussing strategy. Iroh's first actions are to compliment the bad tea, then dispose of the refill in a way that won't hurt Zuko's feelings (probably not necessary, as Zuko seems to be the type that's oblivious to all things other than the task at hand when he's focused). Iroh, injured and awake for all of 15 seconds, jumps straight to actions that help look after his nephew. And Zuko is trying! That's why he made tea! But still, he doesn't even ask if his uncle's feeling ok. Zuko has such a massive gap in his education - he can probably reel off the specs of all Fire Nation battleships, but he doesn't know how to be a human person. Contrast that with Iroh, and especially Katara, who makes friends and connections with such aggressive forwardness that she's at times more steamroller than teenage girl. It's funny how privilege plays into this too - Zuko comes from probably the single most privileged (on paper) family in the world, yet it's the children of the impoverished water tribe who have the more well-rounded education/socialisation.

"She's crazy and she needs to go down" go a full belly laugh out of me.

"What if I came at the boulder from a different angle?" Jesus I was REALLY on point with my post about the airbenders. Credit where credit is due, this show has such good writing/worldbuilding that viewers have picked up what Toph is laying out in this episode already. Also a little bit of stealth character work in there - since Toph is putting into words what we've been thinking this whole time, she now reads as trustworthy. This show is so good. So thought out.

Maybe it's just VLC being weird, but methinks Katara is having some trouble with her eyeball.

Katara STOP BABYING HIM. This is why I don't like Aang having a crush on her.

Honestly it's refreshing to have Toph giving it to Aang straight, no softening the blows.

I really like this texture.

Sokka's club is a giant bottle opener. Or at least a multitool.

ROCK SUITS

wait

ELEMENTAL FASHION

oh this is going to be haybending all over again.

They are totally going to have to nerf this girl. She could defeat the Fire Lord right now.

Earth beats water tribe

Someome who knows more about tea than I do: Why are both pots necessary?

"requires peace of mind" well that's out. Sorry Zuko, we'll have to get you a taser instead.

"So we're drinking tea to calm down?" "not it's to get the nasty ass taste of the sludge you brewed out of my mouth. I mean yes." For what's looking like an extended training montage, this episode is far funnier than it needs to be.

I pretty much don't notice Zuko's scar anymore (it's just part of his character design) then every so often a certain frame of animation will come out of the blue and remind me that this kid's missing half his face. I don't know if it's intentional on the part of the animators, but his scar is prominent this episode.

So it sounds like bending lightning actually corresponds with how lightning in our world works. Neat.

In an absolutely Shocking turn of events (pun absolutely intended), Zuko fucks it up. Fucking shit up: the autobiography of a Fire Prince. Has a nice ring to it.

Toph I know you go hard, but maybe apply a sense of proportion to this?

It kind of looks like Aang's about to be run over by a giant scoop of caramel ice cream.

Toph is such an interesting mishmash of bluntness and emotional intelligence. I don't think I've seen a character like that before.

Zuko being self aware for once! Everything always does explode in his face. Except when he's being the Blue Spirit. Seems he's more capable then.

It's a tragedy that this boy wasn't around for the emo movement. He would have single-handedly sustained Hot Topic.

Zuko going "WHAT TURMOIL?!?!?" is like Katara going "I'M COMPLETELY CALM!!!!!" last episode. Also got a laugh out of me.

"I'm as proud as ever." OF WHAT?!?!? What could he possibly be proud of? He's a homeless fugitive with a stolen horse bird and a half-dead uncle that he can't even properly brew tea for. The self-delusion is strong.

Is pride the source of shame? Honest question, I don't know.

There's a surprising variety of trees in this part of the Earth Kingdom. Where Zuko and Iroh are there are fluffly hardwoods, probably deciduous; Toph's training ground is ringed by cartoon pines.

This whole bit is too cute for words.

"Now come back boomerang" This is a training episode, it's not supposed to be this funny!

Are there voice acting awards? Like voice acting oscars? Sokka's actor needs one. Or several.

I should have waited to answer the ask about airbenders and just copy pasted Iroh's speech here. Except for the water = change bit. That doesn't make sense.

What can I possibly say about Iroh's speech? It's the thesis for this show in a single paragraph.

Pretty.

Are characters' eyes a different shape this episode? Aang's eyes change colour all the time, but everyone's eyes seem more cat-like.

I do love me some constructive bullying.

Sokka is so refreshingly self-aware while still totally oblivious. He is meat and sarcasm, but he's so much more!

"Have you got any meat?" He said that in an Irish accent.

"You're gonna pull my fingers off and I don't think the rest of me is coming!" Do you ever come across a sentence that is so obviously an innuendo that your brain trips over itself trying to decipher it?

Sokka's hair must be so fluffy. It's got so much volume.

Why can't he go get Toph? I think being stuck in a hole outranks avoiding an awkward encounter.

FOO FOO CUDDLYPOOPS

"You must not let the lightning pass through your heart, or the damage could be deadly." Foreshadowing?

Today in 'things Zuko thinks it's acceptable, nay, expected, for parental figures to do' - attempted murder as a teaching method! What went on in that palace?

Is this the closest Sokka's come to dying?

He's earthbending the air! Doing air but earthlike. You know what I mean.

I thought she was levitating.

Toph is so smart. She does the airbender thing and comes at the problem from a different angle. Telling Aang to stand up for himself doesn't work? Fine. Let's bully him into standing up for himself. And it works!

This episode's MVP is Sokka's patience.

"You tried the positive reinforcement, didn't you?" uhhhhh sure!

Appa getting vengeance for Sokka. Nice.

Theatre kids.

I wish Zuko would just have the breakdown he's obviously hurtling towards so we can get started on the rebuilding arc. Every time I think he's a rock bottom, he keeps digging.

Luten is Katara. Let's not read too far into that one.

Final Thoughts

I defy any episode from this point on to fulfill the Beat Up Sokka Quota as thoroughly as this one did.

In a lesser show, the 'Aang learns earthbending episode' would have had Aang & Toph as the A-plot, and Sokka & Katara doing something completely unrelated as a b-plot, and probably no Zuko at all. Sokka does have his own thing going on this episode, but the fact that they managed to weave in both water tribe siblings so organically is so satisfying. Of course a team member struggling to learn a new skill would seek out his friends. Of course his friends are in the area, observing the lesson to varying degrees. It feels so much more real to have the characters who aren't 'useful' that episode still there, rather than conveniently absent.

Zuko was very Zuko this episode. He's correct that he needs more training for his inevitable next encounter with Zuko jr., but Iroh is also correct that Zuko is a bundle of issues held together by a different bundle of issues. Not to jinx it, but I thought I detected a hint of self-awareness from Zuko this episode, although it seems to have occurred despite his best efforts to suppress it.

Iroh's Zuko-wrangling skills were sharp this episode, despite being injured. And his wisdom was off the charts. Zuko was also not as annoying as I usually find him, and unlike in Zuko Alone where I found his quieter self to be out of character, it fit this episode. Maybe he's turned over a new, quieter, leaf? I loved "she's crazy and she needs to go down" both as a joke and as a statement. Shared blood doesn't trump someone's actions, and I'm glad to see a show meant for kids acknowledge that. Although, given that this show has no problem depicting objectively BAD parents and families, I can't say I'm surprised.

In a testament to Jack de Sena's skill, Sokka get a soliloquy this episode and pulls it off flawlessly. Kudos to the animation team for making Sokka's face fit the words so well. Double kudos for whoever had the balls to approve 'stick Sokka in a hole and put an apex predator on his head to force self-reflection' as a plotline.

There was a lot of exposition from a lot of different characters this episode, but it's mostly unnoticeable. It just makes sense that that's what they would be talking about at that point in time.

I think I said it above, but I'll say it again: the worldbuilding in this show is phenomenally well done. How do I know this? Because I was able to construct most of Iroh's monologue before watching this episode, just by paying attention. This show rewards focus and attentiveness. (Almost) nothing that Iroh said was not something the audience has already observed for themselves. Not heard, but observed. That 'show, don't tell' thing.

This episode was way funnier than it needed to be too. Not just the obvious stuff like *inhales*

FOO FOO CUDDLYPOOPS

but tiny one-liners buried mid-conversation and character interactions too. Momo turning into a reed didn't have to be there, but it was, and it was funny. It wasn't exactly restful, but it was a relief to have an episode that really didn't move around after The Chase.

What I like most about this episode was that it went farther than it had to. This was a training episode. It could have been just training. Anyone familiar with training episodes would expect just training, and be satisfied with just training. But Avatar said 'nope, we'll do better than that' and organically incorporated a heap of character stuff, worldbuilding from multiple perspectives, humour, multiple characters undergoing self-reflection, the next step in the domestication of Zuko, what I'm hoping wasn't a heap of foreshadowing, and pretty backgrounds as the cherry on top. They didn't have to go so hard, but Avatar always goes hard. I like that.

[nekropsii]

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I am saying this as someone who has Vriska as one of my favorite characters. She is a deeply complicated, very well written character who, yes, has done a lot of fucked up things... But she was ultimately a severely troubled 13 year old girl who grew up on Alternia who, in being completely disabled from the ability to heal from abuse and trauma, perpetuated the cycle of abuse because it was all she ever knew. I love how she is written. I think she is a very good character.

With that out of the way...

A major reason why the position of "Vriska did nothing wrong" provoked such a harsh reaction from fans back in the day doesn't just have to do with how controversial she was as a character. It doesn't just have to do with people already hating her, or thinking she's irredeemable. It's not irrelevant by any means, but there's a lot more to the reaction than just "Vriska Bad, and I disagree with you" than I think a lot of younger fans especially do not realize. The online culture in and around the 2000's and 2010's was rife with extremism and bigotry. Yes, it still is, but it's genuinely hard to compare how things are in the online political landscape right now to how they were in the 2000's and 2010's. It was fucking severe. Naziism was a substantially more open and honest part of meme culture, and shockingly bigoted phrases were parroted left and right like it was a serviceable punchline. A major part of what contributed to this culture was 4Chan, particularly /pol/- these were back in "the glory days," when 4Chan was considered an internet giant that wasn't to be trifled with, rather than just... A bunch of anonymous nerds on an imageboard.

This exposition is necessary, but I won't keep you here all day. Onto the main point.

"Vriska did nothing wrong" is a troll position. It has a lot of... Political charge behind it. Intentional political charge.

A part of why it invoked such a nasty response was that it was directly and intentionally echoing an oft-repeated phrase at the time, born directly from 4Chan's /pol/: "Hitler did nothing wrong."

Again, I need to stress this: This parallel is intentional. It was literally part of the bit. That was the entire meme, that's why people said it- it was extremely shocking to say, not just because of how contrarian it was, but because it was literally parroting Neonazi Rhetoric. I see a lot of people using that phrase as a defense still, or saying it as a joke, but from the way people talk about it, it seems like the history behind it has been forgotten.

This post is a reminder. This is not an attempt to stir the pot, this is not an invitation to start more Vriscourse, nor is this post Vriscourse in itself. I am reminding everyone that this phrase is loaded for reasons that have nothing to do with Vriska being controversial. Tread a little more carefully. At the very least, be aware of what joke you're making.

[tuiyla]

NATLA Ep. 1 "Aang" thoughts

It might not be the Avatar but it's still an Avatar show which means I'm giving it the respect of not doing anything else while watching, so I'm not gonna liveblog, as such. BUT, I do have many many thoughts after just episode 1 so before I proceed I'm gonna digest a bit and do a word vomit of those thoughts. Maybe I'll get around to a more in-depth and critical examination later after watching the whole thing but for now, a few thoughts here and there. Spoilers inbound.

The opening

The first huge difference is of course how the whole thing kicks off. Trust me, despite having been a huge ATLA fan for over 15 years I'm not trying to approach this in a way where I automatically shit on everything the new show changes. It's a different era, different medium, different audience. Well, in a way. So some changes are outright necessary and, in some cases, even good! Therefore I don't automatically roll my eyes because we don't open with Katara's narration and the Southern Water Tribe. Modern audiences, Netflix audiences are more fantasy savvy than Nick's target audience in 2005 so it makes sense to open with the war's beginning. I'll even take the Sozin scene, though it feels a bit wrong, in a way, to introduce a character like him so early on. I wanted to say, without much sense of threat, too, but it's not live action movie Ozai levels bad and we do get our arguably most brutal scene when Sozin straight up burns an earthbender from pretty much inside out. This level of violence is something I'll perhaps get into more in another post but long story short, I think it's the right amount. This ain't a Nick cartoon anymore but it's also not gratuitous. What it is, is war.

Part of the opening is the intro, of sorts, a twist on the beloved opening sequence as narrated by Katara. The twist itself, I'm okay with, but I have Feelings on Kyoshi being our narrator that are again for a more in-depth look. In short, it makes no thematic sense for it to be the Avatar from before the last to narrate this. I know Kyoshi is the fan favourite, pun intended, but that's all the justification they have. If anyone other than Katara, who is done dirty by taking her narration away btw, it should be Roku. You know, the actual last Avatar? Having it be Kyoshi is fan service as much fans are symbolic of her. Bad pun, I know. I haven't seen ep 2 yet but do tell me we're shifting to Katara, pls pls pls. Another gripe I have is the title, "Aang", since the OG show has such beautiful symmetry with its first and last ep titles but this is a nitpick. Also, nothing to indicate that this is the season of water? Titling the seasons after the elements matters very much.

And then, just when I think we're jumping to 100 years later, we meet Aang. I'm already going into more detail with thoughts here than I intended but I just do not like how we drag this on and on. Show Aang's backstory and the details of the attack later, mid-season. Yes, like the original did it, because the original did it for a reason and that's to not info dump in the very first episode and have sloppy exposition that would have felt more natural had it been delayed for later. We don't need to know everything about the world and the role of the Avatar right away. I do like how the Aang and Gyatso relationship was established but we didn't need All That, and we could have had the vast majority if not all of this as a flashback later on. Random idea, but maybe even in the episode where Zuko's backstory is covered. I'm really innovating here, I know. I'll explain why this was too much in another post, maybe, but for now I'll say the positive that I do think these scenes are done well, I just don't like their placement. And I don't like what we're doing to Aang's ch in terms of his responsibility and role so far, such as him not actually wanting to Run Away run away, but I'll wait and see where they take him for the rest of the season.

Wolf Cove

Omg what, the Southern Water Tribe? Finally. The ch who started off the whole thing in the OG appears 21 minutes into this episode, almost the length of an entire ATLA ep. So far, the sibling dynamic is Fine. Again a bit too heavy on the exposition but what can you do when you cut Katara's opening narration about their family and tribe. Some things I take issue with include the way Katara breaks the iceberg open, i.e. lack of feminist rage and in general her lack of strong presence in this first installment. It feels like they're trying to give Sokka more but you can showcase Sokka without making it feel like Katara is less of a presence, less of a driving force, and frankly more of a kid than she is in the OG. I do like her and the actress, her interactions with Aang and role in the story just feel lacking so far. And then they actually include her intro word for word, just said by Gran Gran! Like yeah we know Katara tells the story like Gran Gran told her but damn, straight up theft.

I'm also not satisfied with Kanna's place in the story. Her breaking the news to Aang feels flat and devoid of the tension that was present in the OG where Aang and Katara put two and two together on their own. Also no goodbye to Gran Gran? No big sendoff to her grandkids? No speech about destiny? Disappointing. What is done well is the sense of dread when the Fire Nation ship arrives at the village and Zuko's whole entrance, that's good. But again, he and Iroh give away way too much way too early about his mission and banishment and such. You guys, you have a whole season to get into it, why rush. I have a fear as to why they're rushing but we'll see. It just feels like a rookie mistake to try and shove so much into the first ep. We get it, the world is so much bigger and these chs so much richer than they first seem but that's the point, the audience will watch and learn as the season goes on. Just because Avatar has all this lore way beyond the first installment doesn't mean we have to go back to Wan and explain everything before we can head to the North Pole. I joke and exaggerate, but there were times I rolled my eyes at the dialogue. Again, not Shymalan levels bad but that is not where the bar should be.

Overall

I have less to say about the Southern Air Temple as it is quite brief, all things considered and because we already got so much of it before even making it to the present. I do think it's funny people thought the live action would let the story breathe more just because the eps are longer because look, here we are, three 23 minutes eps shoved into less than an hour with expanded stuff from the very beginning. This is not it breathing more because there aren't 20 eps to work with. They have a lot of content to get through and as a viewer you can feel it, which doesn't bode well. The whole script does have this first/second draft smell which is sus, when this thing has been in development since at least the end of 2018 and the OG eps it's based on just turned 19. Yeah, that's right, nineteen.

As for things like the visuals, the costumes, the acting, the score, bending, I think it'll make more sense to pass a judgement at the end of the season. Besides, what I'm most interested in is the script and I don't pretend to know much about things like costuming. First impression, it looks good. CG is a bit stifled at times but I like how oversaturated it often is, especially with the nations' colours. It's probably the closest we'll ever get to Avatar in live action and I'm okay with that, since I still believe they should stick to animation anyway. But yeah, good. Nothing mindblowing and bending so far but I'd also rather it didn't try to razzle dazzle with just flashy CGI and no substance. As is, there's not too much substance so far anyway so I'm waiting for subsequent eps to be more confident in what they're doing, whether that's building on or steering from the source material.

[charlie-rulerofhell]

So here I am with yet another rant (what has this show made of me??). And yes, it‘s about Daemon again, although this time it‘s no analysis or admiration for detail. This post is simply about bad writing choices that deal with the topics of evilness and ✨unpredictability✨, as depicted in episode 5.

The bad writing in question stems from two problems: lack of a proper exposition and sheer ridiculousness. It‘s clear what the authors wanted to show with that last episode considering Daemon: he‘s not the good guy and he‘s so unpredictable. However, what Daemon wanted to achieve stays extremely vague because we get no explanation whatsoever — you know the fun thing about unpredictable characters is that while their actions might seem unpredictable to the ones around them, to themselves they make perfect sense. Daemon‘s actions though? Are we just to believe that he was married to Lady Rhea for over a decade, then suddenly decides to murder her to make room for Rhaenyra, and then upon realising that she is already engaged, he‘s like: ah shit nevermind, i‘ll take someone else then. (And then not pay any attention to his feelings for Rhaenyra for 10 more years?) And what even was that scene? If they wanted to paint him as the villain, fine, let him murder Lady Rhea, murdering characters exist in fiction. But the scene was written and executed so poorly, that half the fandom is now like: He absolutely came there to murder her, I can see it in his Darth Vader cloak!, while the other half is like: The only way this was his fault is if he turned a wizard now.

And then there‘s the exposition of it all: We can tell that the authors wanted to go through with their plan of making Daemon the villain. But quite honestly, I don‘t buy it. That‘s not to say that Daemon can‘t do 'bad' / morally questionable things in the future, and judging by the book there might be some 'evil' things to come, but here we can only go by what we‘ve seen so far in the show. And that wasn‘t a villainous character. In fact, Daemon hasn‘t done much else yet than supporting his family and acting petty. The only thing we could possibly chatacterise him as aggressive with was the City Watch scene, which we are told though was necessary as King‘s Landing had a huge problem with criminality and was even welcomed by the smallfolk of the city. Apart from that he has been rather neutral and oftentimes even chivalrous. Took the shame of yielding in the tournament against Ser Cole, other than the other knights we saw before. Never tried to take Rhaenyra‘s claim to the throne, and refused to kill her to make himself heir when given the chance. Told Rhaenyra to support her father at her mother‘s funeral, and told Viserys that he would love to stand by his side to protect him. Beaten a messanger? Honestly, in medieval times the bringer of bad news could consider themselves extremely lucky if they didn‘t end up with a knife through their throat.

Daemon was shown as impulsive, yes, petty and easy to provoke. But he wasn‘t shown as the 'villain'. He was the one who was to his best abilities by Rhaenyra‘s side, and she is portrayed as our main character after all.

Tl;dr: If you wanna make him evil, make him evil. But do so properly please. Because otherwise you‘ll just end up with inconsequent storytelling that will leave your viewers rightfully confused and one of your multifaceted characters a big questionmark of incredibility.

[wanderingwolpertinger]

finished Six of Crows yesterday (yes I skipped shadow and bone entirely the opening exposition was annoying me buuuut I'll go back later. Blame my friend she said I should start with SoC) and I haven't started Crooked Kingdom (no spoilers please!) however I wanted to dump my thoughts for a bit (I probably ended up being overly critical so if this is your fav series maybe scroll by lol)

-the characters were the highlight of the story for me, super well executed banter. Tie between Kaz and Matthias for fav POV. (Kaz's backstory was especially well done, the way it influenced his actions throughout SoC was very natural)

-worldbuilding/lore was pretty easy to follow even though I did not read S&B or watch the show. magic system is pretty cool, excited to see it fleshed out in S&B

-not sure how I feel about how ship-happy this series is (maybe the author was trying to outrun ship war potential idk). possibly makes more sense when viewed as a series? (will have to update my opinion later) but overall having every main pov character paired off somewhat sappily by the end of book one was ehhh? I'm not opposed to romantic subplots but I felt they may have held too much influence in the main plot here.

-hrrmmm love me some GrimDark (not) (ok not when it's not done very impactfully imo) (mmmm let's not explore the ethics of casually taking lives for more than 0.5 seconds) (yes it's a fantasy book but still) (particularly Jesper's pov was ... odd) (he seemed to have issues with his actions but also didn't?) (maybe it will make more sense upon reread)

-Standard Heist Plot (no notes) (yes to explosives)

-ok back to the crit. one of the reviews in the front of my copy compared SoC to ASOIAF (haven't read it but I know enough to verify) and like yes actually it really did feel somewhat like aggressively PG-13 Game of Thrones. (I dunno this is more of a personal gripe with authors feeling the need to inject the sexual exploitation of women into their fantasy novels in order to be more Realistic) (especially when it's minors) (bleh)

-idk a lot of the side worldbuilding choices felt like something an edgy 14 year old would choose because they were Dark ™️

-however props for character design, the appearance/physicality of each of the Crows was wonderfully distinct

-not in loooove with the ending. It sets up book two nicely yes but kinda gave me KOTLC cliffhanger flashbacks

-sort of feels like this book is a sanitized adult fantasy novel with de-aged protagonists (could be being unfair here) and a YA plot

-no actually the number of times Nina's breasts are mentioned is absurdly high, the heck was up with that

-so Matthias being a ex-witch hunter = bad (duh) cause he was going to send Grisha to their deaths. Ok makes sense. Now tell me why Kaz/Inej/Jesper killing somewhat indiscriminately is not really addressed in moral terms beyond "necessary"? (Actually ignore this one for now I would need to do a reread before I have full thoughts on this) (But there will be thoughts)

-overall, I had a good time reading this book. Yeah I had problems with it but some of that could honestly stem from the fact that I am not 15 anymore and have different taste in books. (ok ok also I am actively comparing this with Lockwood and Co and I feel that series took equally dark topics but explored them much more maturely) (and honestly also Mistborn. That series also had dark worldbuilding but didn't linger on what it didn't have to?)

[mittensmorgul]

Do you have a tip for a newbie writer that's not mentioned everywhere all the time, but still very important? It seems to me that most people repeat the same 10 tips everywhere & I've started wondering more about the importance of mindset and life experience & less about phrasing, grammar etc.

Hello there!

I should start by repeating the best writing advice I ever got:

ignore like 90% of all writing advice

which 90% is entirely up to you, though. your 90% is probably different than my 90%. Like, I ignore everything about "stick to a schedule!" and "make time every single day to write or else you'll fail!" and pretty much anything that says "follow this one neat trick or you're bound to fail!"

No piece of writing advice works for everyone, and that's fine. Try stuff out, see what works for you. Even when it comes to grammar and phrasing stuff.

Like, obviously grammar and phrasing is important to understand as a baseline, but that doesn't help you have a unique voice. It'll really help you construct a cogent business letter, but if you are listening to everything grammarly tells you to do, you're gonna sound like a robot writing fiction.

There's some pretty solid writing advice, like "only use epithets sparingly, and only when it's for a specific reason like for a character who hasn't been introduced by name yet," and "please just use 'said' and not those ridiculous lists of words that are not actually synonyms for said."

And as for getting help from something like grammarly (or even that little red squiggle of doom that sometimes suggests bizarre alternatives to the actually correct word you typed-- this happens WAY more than I'm comfortable with lol), PLEASE double check that what it's telling you to correct your word/phrase to is ACTUALLY what you are trying to say. Because a lot of the time, it really isn't.

And yes, like anything else you learn to do, experience and practice works. The whole "make many bad pots instead of struggling to make one perfect pot" thing is really true. (It crossed my dash again the other day, and I didn't reblog it, but it was on page 17 of my "writing is hard" tag, where I stick writing advice if you're interested in reading a lot of it, after I suggested ignoring most of it... >.> anyway this post explains the shitty pots concept of creating anything really)

And read what you write, too. Like let it sit for a while (like weeks if necessary) and then go back and reread it. What would you change? Read it out loud. Do the character voices sound authentic? Is the exposition clonky or plodding? Does it race in spots and drag in others?

Would you write it differently if you sat down now and tried to write it again? How? Why? This is not just an exercise in editing, it's an exercise in finding your writing voice and understanding how YOU write. Not from an objective outsider perspective, or a judgmental "is this good or bad" perspective. But from a place of understanding your own writing.

And then write something else, and repeat the whole process, probably until you die lololol.

that is not intended to sound grim, it's intended to sound hilarious... I couldn't stop writing at this point if I tried.

my writing: i'm not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with me

Life experience does help sometimes. The older you are, the more you've experienced, the more... let's call it spice you have available to you to season your writing with. But more than that, just the practice of writing poorly, assessing your own work, writing something else a little better next time.

I think I got a good spice metaphor. Someone could've lived such a rich life assembling flavorings and spices and have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER how to mix them all palatably and cook them into a delicious meal. If you never bothered trying to cook until you had a full spice cupboard and don't even know the basics of like... how to fry an egg, can you imagine the atrocities such a person could produce?

meanwhile someone might only have a handful of different spices but out of necessity and laborious toil in making the most of what they have so far has learned to prepare AMAZING dishes and can crank out a dinner that would blow your mind with everything perfectly prepared and seasoned-- even if the seasoning is limited in flavor, they know how to make the most of it because they practiced until they succeeded.

So yeah, basically the only writing advice I ever listened to was practice, write a lot even if it's awful, reread all your old stuff once in a while both for the hilarity factor but also to see how far you've come, and to really think about how you'd write it differently now, and WHY. What changed? How has your understanding of your own writing evolved?

Yeah, I think that's all I got (in addition to the 40-something pages in my writing tag lololol)

[fayesdiary]

ohoho, 1, 21, 22, and 25 for the complaints ask game!

Peace was never an option🔪

Complaint ask game

1) The character everyone gets wrong

Camilla. No question. It's so bad even the devs get her wrong.

Although it's understandable when they take a character who has clearly defined positives and flaws as well as a reason for why she is the way she is, and turn her into miss fanservice by quite litterally constantly showing her boobs and ass to your face. Also the Cowmilla comment. (I will forever be salty about her Birthright cutscene. All the other siblings besides Sakura and Elise get cool cutscenes and she gets... that. Just to show off her private parts)

It's just- there is so much more to Camilla than meets the eye, so seeing most of the fanbase as well as the devs view her as nothing more than a sex symbol that may have incestous feelings for Corrin (granted, that one's more on the fandom), and it's just so disappointing and frustrating. Also I may be wrong but I remember people diagnosing her in the early days as in, a derogatory way. Because nothing like vilifying mental illness.

21) Part of canon you think is overhyped

*whispers*... Genealogy's writing.

Don't get me wrong, it has plenty going for it, but at the same time it sometimes won't stop bombarding you with so much exposition at once for things that aren't even necessary at the moment (less of an objective flaw, more of an "my ADHD ass will never remember everything you throw at me this way"), stuff that even gets to the optional dialogue, as usual most of the characters have very little dialogue unless you hit very specific conditions (and don't even get me started on the marriage mechanic), the game kinda peaks at Gen 1.

Not to mention Jugdral is definitely good as a world, yes... But unless you start factoring in outside material and Thracia, it's not as deep as some fans make it up to be. Which is not a problem for me but at the same time look, it ain't no Similarion.

Most of it could easily be fixed with a remake, I'll admit. Provided they don't fuck it up by, say, adding an avatar. (and if I do I will start killing)

22) Your favorite part of canon everyone else ignores

Valla. Or, well, more the idea of Valla than the actual execution, but I will still die on this hill that it could have been so good if the writers actually bothered doing something with it to make it an actual place that people used to live in.

25) Common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Wildly gestures at everything about Fates

Look, I really like Fates and it's far from a perfect game, but most of the criticism it gets it feels either in bad faith or from someone who hasn't played it for a long time or is just parroting something someone else said because Fates is the acceptable game to clown on.

And oh my god, it's been seven years, consantly whining about a game you didn't like is not constructive criticism, move on.

[kradogsrats]

Rewatch Shitposts: S2, Ep 1-4

i.

JANAAAAAAI

Amaya definitely knocked those other two dudes straight into lava, though

God I hope we see Ellis again and she’s a weird teenage girl now

NO ONE HAS CLEANED HARROW’S ROOM??????

Ezran just straight yeeting Zym oh my god

I hope we see the other primal nexuses? Star Nexus should be like the Ninth Gate in Abhorsen, don’t @ me

We’ll just not talk about the elf Argonath there, nerds

Crow Master also perfect character

ii.

Oh come on Soren, a coup de grace is an automatic critical hit

Yeah probably a good thing Claudia knew about the mirror, because Viren talking to himself to exposition about it is… something

Really appreciate the faux medieval two-tine forks

Awkward teen date is go

Does Ezran’s “it could be more up” critique of Callum’s hair explain Callum’s s4 style?

“You built a zip-line today!” “I took no joy in that!” plEASE

“Or was it just differently true?” I really hope Claudia gets to grow old and become exactly like Lujanne

Okay just remember… no matter how bad your first date was it can’t have been as bad as Callum and Claudia’s

iii.

ugh the moon nexus sequence is also so loooooong where’s Aaravos

NO Soren protective big brother feelings, I can’t handle this

Real pointed with the “prince who will have to learn to be king without his father to teach him” thing, here

AARAVOS

… looks for a book and then leaves without taking one with him?

… you just KNOW he’s been walking back and forth like that for two hours waiting for Viren to wake up and see him

man if I was Rayla though I’d probably also get violently motion sick riding Phoe-Phoe

iv.

Wow that is a really pretty sky matte painting

Yeeeah I’d definitely puke during that rapid air descent, dislike

Aaravos immediately seeing the fucking staff and smirking oh my god

He has absolutely had that box ready for like 500 years waiting for some idiot to appear, and here he is, that idiot

Incidentally they’d better fucking explain at some point the way the novelization calls out Viren remembering that Kpp’Ar had one of the same boxes, or I will explode

FUCK the music cue on Villads’s second eyepatch reveal, I’m dying

“The Ruthless, named after me dear wife, Ruth. Who sadly… don’t enjoy sailing.” is the joke from this series that I relentlessly quote to people not familiar with it

VIREN PLEASE he’s hot yes but is he that hot? Is he?

yeah so... I have a lot of questions about that lava waterwheel that will definitely never be answered and yet haunt me

Aw man, it’s only the novelization that has the Crow Master’s response to Viren’s “I was in the bathroom” as “Sounds serious!” which imo is way funnier

Having once felt it necessary to poke an exposed wire with my bare finger specifically to see if it was carrying live current (it was, and do not do that), I sympathize a little with Callum’s dumbass lightning rod moment lmao

Amaya like “bitch you did NOT just ruin my SECOND sword”

Nothing will ever be as sexy as that exchange of “come at me” gestures between Amaya and Janai

Aaravos literally just standing there with the knife for like eight hours

fdsfffdd and the fucking thirst trap in the credits sketches, they all knew exactly what they were doing

[craftycheetah]

Bitter Reminder

↩ previous||Snacks & Stacks||next ↪

warnings: language & allergic reaction

Stupid bitch…thinking she had the nerve to leave me. Me! Of all people! Who does she think she is?! He sucks his teeth in annoyance, frustration building just by imagining her face. She thinks she can just humiliate me like that and walk out? Who the fuck does she think she is? She’s nothing without me. It’s about time someone put her in her place.

I’ll get her back for this. “Now let’s see….” Akhi smirked. “(Y/N) goes on in about 30 minutes. Her ingredients should be…ah! Here we go.”

A wide grin spread across his face as he stared at the batches of oil in front of him. The pale yellow of the grease stared back at him as it sat still in the fryers, no ripples or bubbles to be seen. He poured the old, unused oil into a couple of empty mason jars. Carefully, he placed the old oils under the table and dug into his bag to pull out another jar, except this one was full. He held in a laugh as he poured the new equally yellowish liquid into the fryer, switching out the chef’s avocado and canola oil with peanut oil.

“Good luck, Babe.” He smirked as he dashed out of the room, merging himself back into the crowd as he transformed into another bystander.

As the last of the crowd filed into the room the next day, Y/N breathed heavily behind the curtain, trying to calm herself down.

“I can do this…” she mumbles.

“Yes, you can,” Katsuki smirks, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be okay. Come on, let’s go out there and boss the shit out of this collab.” Y/N grins as one of the workers attach a microphone to her shirt before she steps out, waving at the crowd.

“Thank you, everyone, for coming out!” She put on her best smile as she stepped out next to Katsuki, who looked stoic and gruff as usual. “It’s such an honor to be here! So today, Katsuki and I are gonna whip up something special for you.”

She smiled as Katsuki nodded silently. “We’ve got our ingredients set up here. I’m going to be making Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls. You decide what you were gonna make, Y/N?”

Y/N giggles into the mic with a nod. “Yep. I’m gonna make cheesecake egg rolls. Luckily, they gave us a freezer to keep the batter I made nice and cold. But, I’ll let you go first. Maybe help you along the way, if you’d like.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“So what do we do first, oh master chief of cooking?” “Pass me the bag of shredded chicken?”

Y/N looks around before finding the bag in the mini-fridge. “Here you go!”

“Thanks,” he nods. “So, after dicing up the chicken into small cubes, we add a third of a cup of diced celery, hot sauce, a quarter cup of cream cheese, a quarter cup of blue cheese, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.”

Katsuki announces what he’s doing, adding the ingredients while you start to make your dessert.

“Alright, so while Katsuki makes his dish, I’ll start on my Cheesecake Eggrolls. So in a large bowl, we take one softened package of cream cheese, a quarter cup of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and mix that all together. If necessary, we can add a little milk if the mixture is too thick.”

The crowd made noises of astonishment as they both made their dishes.

“Now we roll out an egg roll and add two tablespoons of cream cheese filling down the middle.” She did the steps as she repeated the instructions out loud. “After that, we want to sprinkle some chocolate chips on this bad boy, then roll it up! Then before we start cooking, it’s basically just rinse and repeat.”

She repeated the steps, humming calmly to herself as she placed the chocolate chips and rolled the egg rolls.

“And now for the cooking portion of the exposition!” She announced.

“Time to cook the rolls over medium heat for one to two minutes on each side! But since we have fryers, we’re gonna use those instead!”

She dropped the egg rolls in the fryer one by one, lowering them into the oil as they started to bubble and cook.

Katsuki smiles softly before dropping it and continuing to narrate what he’s doing. She’s a natural. “After we add our mixture to the egg wrapper, we seal them with water and put them in the fryers.”

Both cooks place their foods in the fryers and wait a couple moments before flipping them and eventually lifting the baskets to shake off any excess oil.

“Yours done, Y/N?”

“Yup! You want powdered sugar on yours?”

“Sure, why not.”

Adding the powdered sugar to the confection, she shows the food to the camera and smiles eagerly. “And that, dear fans, is how you make Cheesecake Egg Rolls. It’s pretty simple and a great snack to share with your friends and family.”

“Bon appetit,” Katsuki chuckles before taking one of her eggrolls and handing you one of his. Taking another one upon finishing, the crowd chuckles as he licks the plate clean. “Damn, these are delicious. You want any hot sauce?” “Hmm, just a little bit.”

Drizzling some sauce onto her plate, they both eat and react to the taste of the other's creations.

"Well, looks like I was right about your food. This is good. Guess I won't have to go burn down the parking lot," he jokes as the audience laughs with him.

After another hour of meeting their fans, Y/N and Katsuki are given a lunch break that they take with the others. Meeting up with their eight friends, Katsuki is pushed back by a green blur.

“What the hell! Don’t you have eyes? Why can’t you watch where you're going, you idiot!”

“Izuku?” Y/N giggles when Katsuki looks down at him.

“Oh, great. Hi Deku.” Bakugo rolled his eyes in a slightly playful manner.

“Kaachan!” Izuku squealed, entrapping him in a big hug.

“Get off me, nerd!” He snapped after a few seconds of hugging.

“Kaachan?!” Y/N couldn’t help but laugh at the nickname and the two’s playful dynamic.

“Childhood name!” Katsuki quickly barked.

“Yeah, those two have known each other for a long time.” Kirishima grinned alongside the baker. Her grin increased as she watched Izuku clap his hands at "Kacchan," recognizing the name.

“You never told me you two knew each other let alone tell me you were childhood friends!” Y/N exclaimed.

Hitoshi crossed his arms in amusement and bumped her side. It reminded him of him and Y/N.

Y/N snickered at the action and looked at him with a caring gaze. Just like us, but instead of a tired purple insomniac, it’s a tsundere, loud blonde.

“Where’s your booth, nerd? I wanna see your merchandise and compare it to mine.”

“Oh? You’re interested in my merch? I recently got another artist that draws the anime style so well! Cmon, I’ll show you all!”

The ten friends walked into the ground, maneuvering their way through the crowd until they finally made it to Izuku’s booth. They stopped on their way for roasted cinnamon almonds, which had everyone snacking on the delicious treat by the time they got to the booth, which was on the other side of the convention hall.

“Ta-da!” Izuku did jazz hands and extended his leg.

He got out of his position and went behind the booth to grab a box and place it on the counter. The box had red writing on it that read “pins”. His large grin never left his face as he began explaining the pins, showing off the fantastic art on each pin of him in different poses in a chibi art style.

“Very cool, Izuku!” Y/N complimented him.

“Tsk! It’s okay!” Bakugo quickly corrected her.

“So, how'd the panel go?” Izuku asks.

“Pretty well. Food was decent,” Katsuki grumbles, looking around his body. “Ah, shit, I left my spice bag in the hall. I’ll be right back.”

“That's not what the video shows," Y/N teases before coughing slightly.

“You okay, Y/N?”

“Yeah. Is it hot in here?” she pants as they start walking towards the other food stands.

“No, but lemme go get you some water in the meantime,” Kirishima offers.

Nodding softly, she walks with the other girls as the boys trail behind. As her vision began to blur, she shook her head to try and push it away before stopping for a bit.

“Y/N? Are you sure you’re okay?” Momo asks, stopping next to you.

“Yeah, I just….” she mumbles before collapsing.

“Y/N? Y/N!” a voice shouted.

As Y/N’s hearing grew muffled, the world faded to black. The last thing she felt was strong arms wrapped around her as her knees gave out.

taglist: @milkmademozzarella @headcannonxgalore @x-kermit-x @wundersou @theechointime

©️craftycheetah: all rights reserved. Do not edit, modify, repost, or claim my works as your own. Likes are okay; reblogs are better!!

[takerfoxx]

And immediately following the new RD chapter, have yet another installment of the Walpurgis Nights girls watch The Rebellion Story! This time it'll take up Kyubey's explanation to Homura up through Homura fully turning into a witch.

Reminder:

G=Gretchen

H=Homulilly

Op=Ophelia

Ok=Oktavia

Ca=Candeloro/Mami

Ch=Charlotte

...

Ch: Well, we all good to continue?

H: I do not believe that word really qualifies, but I’m ready.

Ok: We are going to need so much therapy after all this is over.

G: It might be good in the long run. You know, help us appreciate what we have all the more.

Op: I was appreciating things plenty without this horror show.

H: I don’t see what you have to complain about. You actually seem to be doing quite well so far.

Op: True.

Ch: All right. Let’s go.

=Kyubey enters the scene=

H: I knew it! I knew it! He’s behind it all! He’s the one who did this to me!

Op: I mean, it was an easy bet.

H: I know, but now I have someone to blame!

Ca: I really wish I had shot him. Just once.

…

Op: My God, he sounds like a little kid. An insufferable little kid that I would very much like to strangle.

Ca: Pick a number. Stand in line.

Ok: I just realized that this is technically the first time I’ve ever actually heard an Incubator’s voice.

Ca: You aren’t missing out. I can’t believe I ever considered him a friend.

Op: He’s a con-rat, we’re the marks. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

Ch: At least we’re finally getting something in the way of exposition.

…

Ok: Okay, what the hell is that thing on that plate? Because that is disgusting.

Ch: It looks like someone took a bite out of some kind of root and found flesh!

Ok: I see ribs. There are ribs in that thing.

G: Was it really necessary to focus on it? Because I agree with Tavi. That’s gross.

H: Yes, you rat! Please answer those questions!

Ok: I know we’re about to learn some really important information but I’m still kind of fixated on the bleeding root that the camera decided to focus on for some inexplicable reason.

…

H: Oh, so that’s what’s going on? It’s all just an Incubator ploy? I’m just some kind of grand experiment for them?

Ca: You have to admit, it is consistent with their nature.

H: Well, it’s sick, but it is sort of a relief. At least now we have a definite villain, one that-Hold on, I told him about the witch system?!

Op: Looks like.

H: But why? If this Madoka sacrificed herself to end witches, why would I ever tell the Incubators about it? I had to have known that they would go after her!

Ch: Um…

H: What?

Ch: Maybe…Homura was unhappy with how things turned out, and was secretly hoping that they would do something like this? You know, if it meant bringing Madoka back.

H: …

G: …

Op: …

Ok: …

Ca: …

H: That…actually makes a disturbing amount of sense.

…

Ok: Question.

H: Ask.

Ok: I get why you brought all of us in there. But why Kyousuke and Hitomi? Did you even like them? Did you even know them?

H: Excellent question. I have no idea.

Op: No accounting for taste.

Ok: Hey, we saw Madoka’s parents, but what of mine? I mean, I had them, right?

Ca: Yes. But…I don’t recall Homura ever meeting them.

H: But I met Madoka’s.

Ca: Naturally.

Op: Man, you were down bad.

H: I literally reshaped the course of history for her. Of course I was. Still am, just in a more…healthy and less psychotic manner.

G: Yeah, I definitely prefer what we have to what they have.

Ok: Hey, does that mean that Ophelia and I have my house to ourselves?

Op: Oh, we must be so loud.

…

H: I suppose you were right. I wanted Madoka back, and they made it happen.

G: I doubt that you wanted it to happen like this.

H: It still happened. I got you ensnared in the Incubators’ machinations.

G: Lilly, again, it’s not really you. You didn’t do this.

H: I would have, had we not died.

G: But you didn’t. Please, stop beating yourself up over something that didn’t even happen.

H: Is it strange, though, to see an alternate version of myself, where things happened differently, and wish that I had died?

Op: But you did.

H: I mean, I wish that this Homura had died. That she had what I have and was spared all of this.

Op: I don’t find that strange at all. I mean, I feel bad for her, I think we all do.

…

H: Wait, is that an army? I have an army?

Op: Oh, I like where this is going!

Ch: I really appreciate how once you finally realized what was going on, you were like, “Fuck this!”

H: Yes. This is my labyrinth. And there are no rats allowed.

…

Op: YES! This is what we want! Fuck ‘em up, Homura!

Ok: Kill those rats! Get ‘em.

Ch: This must be so cathartic.

Ca: I don’t know. I mean, yes, but I have a very bad feeling about this.

…

Ok and Op: Fuck ‘em up, Homura! Fuck ‘em up!

…

G: Do witches ever attack Incubators?

Ca: Not that I remember. Probably a red flag I should have caught.

…

Op: This smug son of a bitch. Look at him, being all calm while he gets ripped apart.

Ca: I mean, it is a hivemind. He probably isn’t concerned about the fate of a few spare bodies.

Ok: Kind of puts a damper on all of this.

G: I don’t care! Wipe them all out!

Op: Whoa.

G: They hurt my girlfriend.

Op: Hey, not arguing! Just…whoa.

…

Ok: Oh, he is so infuriating! Of course she wouldn’t be happy, come on!

Ca: This is getting bad. She’s going too far.

Op: Or not far enough.

Ca: I mean for herself. She’s letting herself slip away completely.

Ok: Damn, even Kyubey’s starting to sound worried.

H: I do look rather terrifying.

G: Good.

…

G: Never mind, I take it back. Not good, not good!

H: Is this what happened when we became witches? Is this what it looked like?

Ch: I really doubt that it was that dramatic.

Ca: It’s true. When we all changed, it was…dramatic, yes. And horrible. And heartbreaking. But not quite to this extent.

Ch: Oh. Um, I’m sorry.

Ca: Don’t be. I’m over it, really.

…

Ok: Oh, shit! She just turned into Homulilly! That is definitely a skull!

Ca: I think I saw her eyes fall out!

H: Well. It was inevitable. And now I can really ruin that rodent’s day.

Op: Damn, look at them go! They’re ripping all those Kyubeys apart!

H: Not enough. No nearly-Wait, what’s going on?

G: That’s me! Why are we in a field? Why am I standing on chair?

Ok: T-Posing to assert dominance?

G: On Homura?

Ok: And now you’re falling! And-Okay, now you’re bubblegum. Okay.

Ch: This would be horrific if it wasn’t so weird.

Op: Those are some long-legged Homuras, and…Okay, now you just crushed yourself. Okay.

H: I mean, the self-loathing metaphor is evident, but now I’m mostly just confused, and…Oh. Now I’m finally a witch. Literally.

G: That…doesn’t look like you.

H: I suppose this version of Homulilly would appear different.

Ok: Is she a skeleton? I can’t tell.

H: I don’t know. Maybe.

Op: And…Okay, your little floating cup fortress is bleeding from the vag, you’ve got a bunch of birds flying, and-Oh! Oh, those are skeleton arms! That is definitely Homulilly!

H: Aaannnd the top part of my head just fell off. Why did the top part of my head fall off?

Ok: AND THERE’S THE SPIDER-LILY!

H: Well, I guess that is what I looked like.

Ch: You’re taking this part surprisingly well.

H: At least it’s familiar.

Op: She’s got some kind of horn coming out of your ass.

H: Yes she does.

Op: How come this you don’t have a horn coming out of your ass?

H: Well, I don’t know!

Ch: It’s called a phonograph. It’s like an old-fashioned music player.

Op: So your ass is literally playing music.

Ok: You know, despite everything that’s happened, the idea that this Homulilly had musical farts is somehow the weirdest.

Ca: Hush. You’re ruining the tragedy of the moment.

H: I’d actually prefer to have it ruined.

[weaver-z]

25 writing tips for new or aspiring writers!

I’m incredibly bored today, so I thought I’d share some advice I like to give to young writers who are planning a novel or work of fiction. Check under the cut if you’re curious!

1. If you’re writing a novel, you should really have an outline written before you start. Yes, some authors have written great works without outlining! However, this is an incredibly risky move that often leads to burnout and a directionless, meandering plot. 

2. On that note, don’t feel afraid to alter or break from your original outline if you have a great idea or a new and interesting plot point to incorporate! 

3. Exposition is a delicate balancing act. Avoid info-dumps, but don’t leave your readers completely in the dark. 

4. Well-written imagery is critical to most works of fiction. Your job as a writer is to craft a rich, vibrant world for your characters (and, by extension, the reader) to inhabit. Even mundane or ordinary settings can be described in ways that make them feel immersive.

5. Your characters should be interesting before they are likable. 

6. Internal conflict makes characters interesting. Explore your main character’s inner life and relationships to others. What ties bind them? What forces and people pull them in different directions?

7. Dedicate yourself to a premise. If your plot can’t be described in one or two sentences, make your work more focused. 

8. While worldbuilding is important to many works of fiction (especially fantasy and sci-fi), worldbuilding is not writing. Don’t fall down a rabbit hole of research or setting-building that will burn you out and distract you from your plot and character development.

9. Show your work to your friends and, more importantly, to people willing to beta-read for you. Try to find people who will give you honest and constructive criticism about your writing, and react positively to their feedback.

10. Kill your darlings. Be your own critic. Your work is a labor of love, but it is NOT your baby. Be willing to edit, alter, and outright scrap portions of your work if something isn’t working.

11. Related to points 5 and 6--give your characters a strong philosophy and convictions, then challenge them.

12. Main characters need to fail, and bad things need to happen that are their fault. Your character needs to struggle, to strive, to fall and get up again. This process makes them human.

13. All of your characters should have key traits that differentiate them from each other in their interactions. These can include tics, manners of speaking, vocabulary, habits, and the ways in which they move. This helps your reader to remember key players in your narrative and makes your work FAR more entertaining and easy to read.

14. When describing the physical characteristics of your characters, focus on traits that make them stand out. Describing a character’s hair color and eye color is expected and a decent way to put an image of the character in your reader’s eye. However, describing a character with hands that twitch and tremble as though constantly grasping for a knife will intrigue your readers and make them want to learn more about this person.

15. Diversity is a great thing in fiction! Try to seek the counsel and advice of people in the minority groups you’re representing if you’re not in those groups yourself. Sensitivity readers are great if you’re planning to publish and share work that tackles social issues.

16. Find a place where you can get into a “flow” to write. Different people prefer to write in different environments; find one that suits you.

17. Villains have to do villainous things. A lot of young writers, concerned with making their villains “too problematic,” create designated villains who do little to further the plot and pose no real threat to the protagonist. Yes, this is a real issue I’ve encountered.

18. When writing science fiction or fantasy, find ways to break from the tropes of the genre. Tolkienesque fantasy settings and StarWarsian science fiction settings are extremely common in genre fiction and thus are hard to write well due to their oversaturation. Having said that, if you have a great plot that fits well into a “typical” fantasy or science fiction universe, don’t be afraid to write it!

19. Read the work of great authors, especially the work of authors in genres you want to write. Reading is, to put it in an extremely trite way, exercise for your mind. You will develop as a writer by reading.

20. Accept that you need experience, time, and planning to publish good, high-quality work. Hone your skill in writing before making your debut.

21. Here’s a petty and very specific tip: if you see one of those horrible “50 words to say instead of ‘said’” lists, which often circulate around tumblr, pinterest, and instagram, ignore it. “Said” should cover 90% of your necessary dialogue tags, as it is a word that facilitates the flow of speech rather than halting it. Other words, such as shouted, whispered, called, or hissed are sometimes necessary to indicate volume, but use them sparingly.

22. Don’t obsess over your first draft. Wait until it’s finished to start doing major edits.

23. Ask your friends for ideas and feedback beyond simple criticism. One of my friends helped me massively expand on a specific part of my worldbuilding that is critical to the novel I’m working on.

24. Don’t incorporate romantic relationships into your plotline without reason or for paper-thin reasons (e.g. “it’s expected in this genre” or “I made these two characters sexy”). Critics have a field day with poorly-developed love triangles for good reason.

25. On that note, don’t waste space on anything that is filler or feels like filler. Padding is the bane of many a good novel. Be efficient, and your work’s pacing and readability will drastically improve.

That’s about all I have for now! If anyone wants me to expand on any of these points, I’ll do so in the comments.

[bisexuallsokka]

Fic Writer Review

tagged by @zukkaoru thank u my beloved <3

1. how many works do you have on AO3? 

73!

2. what’s your total AO3 word count? 

285296

3. how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

only two on my current ao3 (les mis and atla/lok) but i also wrote harry potter and supernatural fanfic way back in the day

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

gone fishin’ 

emergency boyfriend

the one with the hot cashier

the strategy of harmony (sequel to gone fishin’)

to the moon

5. do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i try to!! i have been really bad at it recently and my inbox is overwhelmingly full rn but. i’ll get around to it. 

6. what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? 

hahahahaha. yours

7. do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written? 

nope

8. have you ever received hate on a fic? 

probably? i cant say for sure because i just focus on the sweet sweet comments from everyone

9. do you write smut? if so what kind? 

oh my god oh my god i forgot about this until this very moment but sometime this year i wrote one smut fic and posted it under a different account but i cant for the life of me remember the name of the account or the name of the fic soooo 

10. have you ever had a fic stolen? 

yes -_- i never said anything to anyone about it but. it was pretty clear.

11. have you ever had a fic translated? 

yes! el cajero atractivo is a translation of the one with the hot cashier. i speak fluent spanish so i was like pssh i got this but thank god i had help because i do not write well in spanish lmao

12. have you ever co-written a fic before? 

i sure have!! (this love is) a long time coming was co written w the lovely sonny <3

13. what’s your all time favorite ship?

stop reading if you don’t want to lose all respect for me. everyone out? okay great. yeah stevebucky til i die i will never be over them. honorable mentions to courferre and zukka ofc

14. what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? 

ugh i have this one that takes place in the swt after sokka and zuko have gone through a break up and they obvs are still in love and get back together and i have a few scenes written for it that just. i love so much. but unfortunately if i ever try to write something outside of those things it’s a load of shit so i dont think i will ever finish. which is a shame. just know the ending is really good.

15. what are your writing strengths? 

i have been told i am good at writing dialogue! people enjoy the conversations and banter i write between characters. i have also been complimented on my characterizations, which i work really hard on

16. what are your writing weaknesses?

uhhh everything else? lol for real i really struggle with describing things or having necessary paragraphs of exposition. i just feel like they suck and want to get back to dialogue 

17. what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? 

i think it’s fun, i like when authors include the translation in the same line or even in the author’s note

18. what was the first fandom you wrote for? 

h*rry p*tter </3

19. what’s your favorite fic you’ve written? 

ahhh i love the zukka tangled au, now that i see you, mainly because i love tangled so much and zukka so much and writing it got me through a hard time and i was just. really proud of it. (let me be) there for you and seven(teen) minutes in heaven also come to mind as others i love.

tagging @beachytablecloth @chitsangenthusiast @zukkababey @feng-xin

@verdanthoney and anyone else who wants to!

[brazenautomaton]

Fixing Afterlives: The Maw, First Visit

So our Shadowlands journey starts with the Maw. You know what? People hate this scenario now because you can’t skip it and have to go through it on every character, but the first time through, this is actually really good. You’re kicking in the gates of Hell with a platoon of Death Knights and then everything goes tits-up and you don’t have a beachhead and you’re lost and wandering and there are awful, awful things everywhere and you’re hiding and isolated and need to learn how to escape. You just need the option to skip it on your alts.

Plus the aesthetics of the Maw are great. They sell what it is -- the hostile architecture, sinister crystal formations, the way everything seems swept and shaped by a windstream of souls. We’ve seen plenty of environments that look like a Hell of flames. This is a Hell of pure suffering. Pain is what lives here. Pain is all that enters and pain is all that is produced. It’s only after you went farming Stygia for a while that the pain gets inflicted on you.

So we assemble the crew, get the exposition while we put together the Helm of Domination, get given a portal stone to establish a beachhead, and we bust in to find the four captives: Anduin, Jaina, Baine, Thrall. We rally the Death Knights into enough of a formation to make it in and find the evidence of Jaina, and I like that, I like how you track her by the huge formations of ice -- it shows you her power and the mark she leaves. Finding her is mostly the same although her dialogue is less generic and content-free (from now on assume I apply this caveat to all dialogue). She’s more confused and disoriented and even though she’s fighting it’s with a resignation that she knows it won’t work and she’s starting to think she’s only hurting herself by trying. She acts like she has been there for years. But you say you and the DKs are here to save her and she follows against her better judgment and agrees to try and find Thrall, who she struggles to remember, but seems to be trying very hard to be able to remember.

Then the Mawsworn Kyrian show up and laugh about her hopelessness, and you fight them. And they kill the shit out of you. 

More and more and more of them keep coming and they’re level 60 when you’re level 50 and if you do some bullshit to survive eventually one of them will grab you by the neck to Silence you, lift you into the air, and do the ol’ Val’Kyr Special and fatally drop you. You unavoidably die.

This is necessary early to establish what dying in the Shadowlands means. Play a special graphic effect when the player dies, something more drawn out and grasping. Play a sound effect appropriate to race/gender of the PC of them struggling against great pain and gasping. Then you appear next to a Spirit Healer (yes normally in the Maw you just respawn alive so you have to pick up your Stygia like in Dark Souls, we’ll explain the discrepancy later), a Mawsworn Spirit Healer, who says “No. Your suffering will not end. The Maw claims you.” and then starts to chase you the fuck down with a bunch of shades. You need to run, as a ghost, to claw your way back into your body. Obviously, if the shades catch you, you get dragged back to the start and the Spirit Healer fucks with you a bit. 

Your body has been dragged over to the area where Jaina and the rest are hiding; they fled while you were being merced. Jaina sees you stir. And she says “I’m sorry, champion. Death is no respite here. It is so hard to fight the pull… I struggle to even remember my body when I try to return.”

Jaina has been brutally killed over a dozen times. This is not her first rodeo. This is not her first escape attempt. This is not the first time she’s killed that particular Mawsworn tormenter whose name I don’t recall. It doesn’t end. It never ends. She doesn’t know why she tries any more, when she knows it will fail and she will die and suffer and claw her way back to her flesh and every time it gets harder and harder. All it buys her is the ability to offer futile resistance and maybe that isn’t even worth it.

Mood: established.

From there it goes mostly the same. You try to pump the shades for info about how to escape and they don’t know, they can’t know, they can’t even want to escape. The info you get is a memory of spitefully hating someone who fled to the waystone. You rescue your buddies. You see the Jailer fuck up Baine, only instead of giving him a spirit poison, he fucking snaps the dude like a Kit-Kat and drops his lifeless corpse, and you drag it to safety. You don’t need to find a poison dagger to counteract the spirit poison; you need to keep him safe and clear a path for his spirit to flee back to his body. Thus reinforcing what the danger here is and how it’s different and what they fear.

And while you do this, at some point, you run into Sylvanas. Maybe she just walks up to you while you’re all collected around Baine trying to help him revive. Since the Jailer won’t be saying “it’s not like you won anything b-b-baka, it was just a temporary setback,” you need to establish that feeling that he views your victories as completely meaningless. Sylvanas knows you’re here saving Baine. So does the Jailer. It does not matter. You cannot accomplish anything. 

Thrall kills her dead. She just gets back up. She has an escort for her soul to go back to her body. “How many times are you going to try that before you learn it’s futile? Come now, Thrall. I know you’re smarter than this. I know you respected me more than this.”

And then stuff like “How could you do this, Sylvanas? How could you betray the Horde?” Thrall is incredibly angry and offended at her. He thought he knew her. “Neither of us had any illusions you were not a monster, Banshee Queen. But I trusted you anyway because I knew you wanted what was best for your people. You were a monster, but a loyal one. How can you now turn your back on what little principle you had?” Sylvanas is hurt by this, but she doesn’t linger on it.

Jaina, however, is desperately trying to flatter her. Do this to sell the kind of impact this has had on Jaina, and what this suffering drives her to. “Please, Sylvanas. I know you were my enemy but you were an honorable one. It isn’t too late. Someone as cunning as you must know that this will end in ruin. I promise… I promise… I will surrender if you let me return. Kul Tiras will become servants of the Forsaken. Just, just let them live… please, you could rule our world, not slaughter it…”

Jaina breaks down in tears. Yes, she just tried to surrender her people to the enemy for mercy. Jaina is breaking. All of them will. The Maw is a Bad Place and makes them give up hope. That’s how we sell the threat. Not by making the enemies bigger or spikier, showing how they have broken these heroes. Less screaming anger. More pain.

Sylvanas scoffs at her offer. “It doesn’t matter where your people’s loyalty lies, Lord Admiral.” And then she says the phrase that will become a motif: “Nobody escapes the Maw.” She leaves. She doesn’t care what you do. It doesn’t matter.

But you have to still hold on to that sliver of hope that maybe the waystone is a way out. So you get Baine up and you sneak past this big-ass Maw army that can fuck 31 flavors of your day up. The jailer notices you and sends out a force to stop you at the waystone, and he repeats the phrase when he sends out the order: “Nobody escapes the Maw.”

So there’s the event, you fight off the army while the waystone charges, the army gets bigger and bigger, the charge meter gets stuck at 90%, you go to kick it and it teleports you to Oribos.

The mob descends on the other captives. Sylvanas and the Jailer look completely unconcerned with your escape. After having clearly seen you physically leave the Maw, Sylvanas brushes it off with “Nobody escapes the Maw.” Dun-DUNNN! Cutscene end.

You appear in Oribos. The Protectors stop you because you stink like the Maw and what the hell dude, yada yada. This is when you get a tour of the city, here’s the profession trainers, the bank, the transmog. Only secondary details need to be changed here. One, this is an instanced version of the city where no other players exist (you are the first one there, nobody else is). Two, Lich King Bolvar (hashtag #notmylichking) arrives from Azeroth and says SOMETHING to justify other players coming from the Maw but being less important than you. Something like, he saw what you did, there are other adventurers from Azeroth still in the Maw, his DKs are hunkering down in defensive positions and will try to make their way to the Waystone once it cools off because you already activated it, since you are the more special one, and there might be a chance that a couple others might have an echo of your power because they have had similar adventures. You are the True Maw Walker, and the context of the massively multiplayer element is “for your story, all those other guys have shitty Maw Walker powers that only work once you opened the pickle jar for them.” They can’t bring passengers, either.

Third, not the most importantly but yes the most importantly, if you are Forsaken or a Death Knight or Mechagnome or whatever you get a special dialogue where you say “Why do you keep calling me a ‘living mortal’? I’m not alive. I’m undead / a machine / maybe something else like maybe I missed the fact that vulpera are made of rocks and string.”

So Tal-Inara or whoever can be like “Oh, THAT’S what that is. Something was odd about you, mortal, that I couldn’t quite place. I call you ‘living’ because your soul is still tethered to a body. To us in the Shadowlands, to be bound in a vessel like this is far more important than the nature of the vessel itself.” That’s why people keep calling you “living”, to them you’re easy to mistake for one.

Kyrian in the Maw is disturbing news, and also WEIRD, because as Tal-Inara reminds us, “Nobody escapes the Maw.” Why would the Kyrian go down there when they can’t come back? It is terrible but not unheard of for mortals to try and speak to the Jailer but they never GO there because they can’t get out. And yet Sylvanas just walked in there? And he is mustering armies? Better go to Bastion and find out what is up. Let’s crank open this gateway, and...

[writingquestionsanswered]

hi! i was wondering if you have any advice for writing that feels juvenile at times? when i write action scenes/serious scenes i feel my writing is fine but when i have slower chapters where my characters are bonding, etc. i feel like my writing makes the scene come off childish. do you have any tips for that? i’m not sure if it’s just in my head honestly. thanks!

Help for Writing That Feels Juvenile in Places

Here are some of the things that commonly make writing feel juvenile:

#1 - Scene Problems

1. Scene is Aimless - If you don’t know where the scene is going or what it’s trying to accomplish, you’re going to end up with a meandering jumble of moments that isn’t fun to read. What is the purpose of your scene? Why does it absolutely have to be in the story?

2. Scene is Unbalanced - Every scene should be a balancing act between exposition (explaining things), dialogue (characters speaking), and action (someone does something.) If your scene is mostly exposition, mostly dialogue, or mostly action, the balance will be off and it will feel amateurish.

Read more in my post: Balancing Dialogue with Action and Narrative 

3. Scene Doesn’t Accomplish Enough - Scenes need to do double, triple, or even quadruple duty. They should accomplish at least two of the following: world building/setting description, development of characters and/or character relationships, delivery of back story or other important information, setting things up for future scenes. If you have a whole scene focused on just characters bonding, that’s going to be boring which makes it feel amateurish.

4. Scene Starts Too Early - One hallmark of amateur writing is scenes that start way before they should. If the bulk of your scene takes place in your character’s 10 a.m. biology class, do we really need to see your character wake up that morning, brush her teeth, put on her clothes, and walk to class? Unless anything story critical happens during that period it shouldn’t be there. Start with the character walking into biology, not the moment she opens her eyes that day.

Read more in my post: Beginning a New Scene or Chapter

5. Scene Has Weak Transitions - Scenes work best when you transition into them from the last scene and out of them into the next scene. For example, if your scene ends with your character sitting at home thinking about an upcoming trip to Mexico, and you know the next scene begins with your character boarding her flight, you might end the scene with her looking at her flight confirmation e-mail and thinking about how she can’t wait to get out of town. Then, the next chapter begins with her standing in line to board her flight, looking around and thinking about how she won’t miss her town, then handing the plane ticket to the gate agent. This makes the transition from one scene to the next less abrupt and more refined.

Read more in my post: Subtle Scene Transitions

#2 - Dialogue Problems

1. Too Much Dialogue - Even if you have a good balance of dialogue, exposition, and action, it’s still possible to have too much dialogue. Look at every line and ask whether it’s really necessary. Make sure every line is as straight and to the point as possible. Determine whether something said might work better as exposition.

2. Overly Realistic Dialogue - We want dialogue to feel real, but real dialogue also looks terrible on paper, so it’s important not to go overboard. Avoid a lot of interjections like “um,” “uh,” “ugh,” and “hmm.” (Use them sparingly.) Watch out for “small talk.” Don’t write five lines worth of back and forth about your character’s experience in a coffee shop unless what happened is somehow critical to the plot. Don’t go overboard with idioms, wisecracks, and one-liners, and as tempting as it is, don’t have your characters say each other’s names all the time. We typically only use names in dialogue when we’re really trying to get someone’s attention.

3. Stilted Dialogue - Sometimes dialogue sounds stiff and overly formal, which makes it sound amateurish. For example: “I do not know what you’re talking about! We have been dating for over a month. It is not as though we are perfect strangers!” Most people in modern times don’t speak like that. We use contractions and we don’t use words like “thus” and “must” unless we’re being silly. But, there are reasons why a character might speak like that. In my book, one of the characters comes from a super upper class society where using contractions is considered to be vulgar. That’s fine, but don’t do it unless you have a good reason. 4. Misuse of Dialogue & Action Tags - This is a really big one. Dialogue and action tags are what let the reader know who’s speaking: Dialogue tag: “Let’s get out of here,” Harold said.   Action tag: Harold stood up and jutted his chin toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.” 

Every line of dialogue doesn’t need a tag, and you should also alternate between no tag, action tags, and dialogue tags.

Also: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using “said” as a dialogue tag. In fact, you should be using “said” most often. Replacing “said” with words like: “yelled,” “posited,” “offered,” “whispered,”  “demanded” once in a while is fine, but doing it too often makes your writing sound juvenile.

Read more in my post: Avoiding Repetition with Dialogue Tags

5. Dialogue is Unnatural - Dialogue can be a great way to deliver information to the reader, but you have to be careful about how you do it. For example, let’s say you want to describe the dress your character’s friend is wearing. 

But: “Oh, wow, Rosie! You look so great in this green floral print dress. These spaghetti straps are so cute, and I love the matching green shoes!” 

That’s just now how we speak in real life. You would never say that to someone. Instead, it would be better like this:

Rosie walked in wearing a green floral print dress with matching shoes. “Wow! Spaghetti straps? This is a new look for you. I love it!”

Any time you include important information in dialogue, read it out loud. Act it out if you have to. Ask yourself if it sounds natural. If not, keep it outside of the dialogue.

#3-  Other Common Problems

1. Too Many Cliches - Remember, tropes are good, cliches are bad. Cliches are tropes that have been used the same way over and over again. It’s fine if you want to use a trope like love triangles or “the chosen one,” just find a way to put a fresh new spin on it.

Read more in my post: Tropes, Clichés, & Finding Which  Clichés to Avoid

2. Tense/POV Switching - Make sure you know what tense and POV you’re writing in and stick with it. Yes--there are times when you might choose to include both tenses or first and third person in your story as a storytelling device, but generally speaking you shouldn’t be falling out of third-person into first-person, or going from past tense in one paragraph to present tense in the next.

Read more in my master post: POV & Tense

3. Head Hopping - If you’re writing in first-person, your POV character can only know what they already know, can observe, or are told. If your character is people watching at the mall, they can’t know what another shopper is thinking or what’s happening at home right now unless they’re psychic or there’s some other reason why they know that. If you’re writing in third-person and we’re in Susan’s POV, we shouldn’t go from what she’s thinking to what John right next to her is thinking in one paragraph.

4. Telling vs Showing - Yes, sometimes you need to tell, but a lot of the time you should be showing. “The moon hung high in the sky” isn’t as interesting as “moonlight scattered on the surface of the lake.”

Read more in my post: When “Telling” is Okay

5. No Structure - Good stories fall a general structure beyond just “beginning, middle, and "end.” Stories that are devoid of structure feel disorganized and pointless, which can be another hallmark of amateur writing.

Read more in my post: Basic Story Structure

————————————————————————————————-

Have a question? My inbox is always open, but make sure to check my FAQ and post master lists first to see if I’ve already answered a similar question. :)

[page-doctor-bekker]

Exposé - msbp!au

(A/N) So this is like, an exposition I guess. It’s necessary for the rest of the story. Ginormous trigger warning for allusions to child abuse, gaslighting + manipulation.

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Sarah's vision blurred, as she faded in and out of consciousness. The pain is intense, and she feels like she might die. This isn't survivable. The worst of the pain hits her all at once, and she lets out a blood-curdling scream into her gag. After that pain, nothing.

"Oh Sarie, I have some bad news," His voice cut through the pain, like a scalpel in her lower back, "You're going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life..."

"Good morning Sarie," Sarah's dad sung, turning on the overhead lights as he walked into her room. He was holding a medium-sized pink bin, lined with a sterile sheet to create a sterile field, with a few syringes and medications, as well as sterile gloves, alcohol swabs, and a few other supplies. Sarah was scared awake, letting out a short groan. Her dad pulled a chair up, before pulling on a pair of gloves and disconnecting Sarah's PICC line from her overnight infusion.

He opened up a 10mL saline flush, screwed it onto the end of her line, and slowly pushed the plunger, drained the syringe into the line. Next, he pulled out another syringe, this time a 3mL syringe, half-full with clear liquid. He connected the syringe to the line, and administered the medication. She almost instantaneously felt calmer and sedated, as the Ativan coursed through her system. He proceeded to flush the line with more saline, then a syringe of Heparin. After that flush, he finished off the line by screwing on a swab cap. He tucked the line under the PICC cover, and pulled off and disposed of his gloves. Lastly, he helped Sarah sit up, and guided a small cup of pills into her shaky hand. He gave her a water cup with a straw, and helped her take her pills.

Sarah's dad moved her wheelchair closer to the bed and locked the wheels. He gently took the blankets off of her body, and threaded his left arm under her knees, and his right arm under her armpits around her body. He lifted her into her wheelchair, and buckled up her seatbelt. He hummed to her as he put her minimalist neck brace on to keep her head from flopping forward. The brace had a strap around the back of her neck, with two hard plastic pieces at the sides of her neck. The top of those plastic pieces split off onto a chin pad to hold her chin in place, and the bottoms of the plastic pieces split off into two rods that joined in a v-shape at her sternum.

Sarah’s dad turned off her overnight oxygen concentrator, and started peeling the cannula tape off of her prominent cheekbones. Sarah coughed a few times as the oxygen stopped.

“Today is tube change day,” Her dad announced, and Sarah was wheeled into the kitchen where she was sat at the table. Her dad started rummaging through the formula cabinet, "Do you want something to eat before we leave for the hospital?"

Sarah was quiet for a moment, trying to process those words through her Ativan-jumbled brain, "...Yes..." She finally decided, speaking slowly, "Can... I have... a..." She paused, thinking of what she wanted, "Cereal..."

"Yes," Sarah's dad confirmed, moving to fix her a bowl of cereal. A few quiet, zoned-out minutes later she was presented with a bowl of fruit loops. Her dad fitted the rings of her adaptive spoon onto her pointer finger and her thumb, and she started to spoon her cereal into her mouth. Her dad sat down to supervise as always, to make sure she didn't aspirate.

He multi-tasked, filling her feed bag with four cartons of formula and 8 ounces of Miralax mixed into water. He closed up the bag, and fitted the tubing into the Infinity pump. He flipped the bag upside down, and pushed the button to prime the tube. Once formula started dripping out of the end of the tube, he stopped.

Sarah's dad lifted her shirt, gently pulled the split gauze off from around her tube, and cleaned the area, "Today we have..." He grabbed the small fabric circle from the table, "Purple and pink stripes!" He fitted the tubie pad around her tube and clipped it together, and let her shirt fall.

Sarah finished her cereal, and watched as her dad tucked the bag of formula and the pump into one of Sarah’s various backpacks, and hung it on the back of her wheelchair. This particular backpack was a pale pink, with a panda on the front. On the lower right side of the backpack there was a plastic port where the tubing came out of. On the right side of Sarah’s wheelchair, between the back of the chair and the armrest was a velcro strap that held the tube out of the way of the wheel. He left her for a moment, grabbing an ice pack to tuck into the bag with the formula.

Sarah watched him, puzzled and confused, “Why aren’t you starting feeds?”

“Yes, we are going to the hospital today, you are due to have your tube replaced,” He started a sterile field, and started to draw up the day’s medications, five IV syringes and one G-tube syringe. He capped the syringes and tossed them into a plastic bag. He put her nighttime pills into a small pill container, and put it in the bag as well, “Just in case we aren’t home in time,” He put the bag into her backpack, “

Sarah started coughing a dry, rough cough. Her dad rubbed her back with one hand, and reaching over onto the table for her portable oxygen concentrator. He tucked the cannula into her nose and turned it on. She started to breathe easier, and her dad smiled.

Once she started to feel better, he spoke up, “I need to stop the machine so I can put this in your backpack and organize the tubing, okay?”

She nodded, and he turned the machine off and unplugged the tubing from the machine. Working quickly, he looped the excess tubing up and secured it with a tubie clip that he clipped to her shirt. He fed the tubing through the the velcro port in the back of her wheelchair, then through the port in her backpack. The oxygen concentrator went into the backpack, and he turned in back on once it was set up.

Once she was all set up, her dad looked at his watch, “I think it’s time to get this show on the road!”

Sarah nodded, and leaned against her headrest while her dad pushed her through the house, then out the door.

Sarah dozed all the way to the hospital, barely lucid enough to realize when she was being taken out of the car, and into the hospital.

“Let’s take a look at the ol’ g-tube then, ready?” Sarah was woken from her daze by the doctor, a brunette woman that Sarah had seen multiple times before, Dr. Manning.

Sarah nodded at the doctor, leaning back and lifting her shirt up to the underwire of her bra, exposing the tube.

“Mind if I give her her 11:00 meds?” Her dad inquired, looking at his watch. The doctor nodded and Sarah’s dad stole a pair of gloves from the wall and started fiddling with her PICC line. He pushed her morphine first, which immediately started to chill her out even more than the Ativan. The next medication was Benadryl, which was followed by saline and Heparin.

As the Benadryl kicked in, Sarah dozed off just in time for Dr. Manning to pull the tube out for the change.

An indiscernable amount of time later, Sarah woke up in a hospital bed, a different room from the procedure room she had been in before. 

“Sarah?” Her dad whispered, looking up from his phone. Sarah made a noise in the back of her throat, feeling a thin tube down her throat, and rubbed her eyes, before looking at her dad.

“Dad?” She croaked, “Where... Why are we here? Why do I have a nose tube?”

“You have an infection,” He explained, scooting closer to her bed and grabbing her right hand, “In your tube. They want to keep you here because of your immunodeficiency, they want to be a little more aggressive this ti-”

There was a knock at the door, and a doctor and a nurse walked in. They both helped themselves to some hand sanitizer off of the wall, and greeted her dad. Sarah settled back down, staying quiet.

“Whenever ANYONE in the hospital comes to talk to us, you stay QUIET. Do you hear me? Sarah, look at me. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? You are to remain absolutely silent. Do not tell them anything, you don’t understand what you’re talking about anyways. I’m the only one that can advocate for you. You’re only going to make things worse.”

“Do you have any idea how this infection might have started? Any other signs of illness, maybe another infection that spread? Have you travelled recently?”

“No, none of that.”

“And you’re always touching the tube with clean hands, cleaning it twice a day, using clean gauze, clean supplies, bathing often?”

“Yes, very clean. I’m very careful. She’s immunocompromised, and I would never do anything that could put her in danger.”

Sarah’s stomach churned. No, not clean.

“And you’re the only one who handles her tube? Is mom involved? Home healthcare nurses, babysitters?”

“Nope, it’s just me,” Sarah’s dad laughed, “Her mother took off, left me in the dust. No help I ever see! And I don’t let anyone else handle her tube.”

“Well, I think we’re going to go in for endoscopy to see what’s going on inside, see if the infection is in her stomach as well, maybe bacterial gastroenteritis, ulcers, buried bumper syndrome. We’ll see what we can find and take some more cultures.”

“Dirty tube...”

Sarah’s dad looked at her with a wrath hotter than a thousands suns, and then chuckled at the doctors, “Sorry, she just woke up. Sometimes she echoes what she hears from others, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“My tube is dirty,” She asserted groggily.

“Sweetheart, they just cleaned it an hour ago, it’s not dirty,” Sarah’s dad reassured, squeezing her hand. She sighed, and laid back.

The doctor left, and Sarah’s dad dropped her hand aggressively, “What do you think you’re doing?” He hissed, “They will take you away from me and hurt you. Is that what you want?”

Sarah shook her head.

“You will die without me. Do you understand? I do everything for you. I care for you, I do everything with no help. God forbid I make mistakes. God forbid I forget things sometimes.”

She looked away.

He grabbed the tube and pulled her to face him, which yanked the tape off of her cheek. She coughed as the tubing shifted in her throat.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” He scowled at her, before putting on a worried face, “Nurse!” He flagged down a nurse walking by their door, “She pulled the tape off. Poor thing, she doesn’t understand.”

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(A/N) anyways sorry ava wasn’t in this one, i just needed to set the scene lol. hope you enjoyed!