#scaffolding part

[bitchfitch]

being a writer is fun because sometimes you notice a trend in the stories/themes/characters that you work with, and then make a connection between them and your life and or self.

And then you magically know what you're talking about in therapy next week.

[sysig]

Without me, who am I (Patreon)

[thecaffeinatedlich]

Asexual!Viktor Headcanons/Thoughts/Rambles

(Hi Jayvik nation. Yes, I know. But I'm ace and these are my headcanons (and my self-projecting on the blorbo). I'm not against the ship at all. I just want to ramble about my various ace shipping ideas.)

Also, i'll be upfront and say I don't want perfect "good representation." My fave romantic relationships in fiction tend to be ones where everybody has something wrong with them and is a little fucked up and things are sometimes messy and weird. Sometimes they are messy and weird on the way to everyone figuring their shit out. Sometimes they just stay messy and weird because that works, more or less, for these characters. So, jsyk, I am not looking for or trying to create Good Ace Rep here.

If any of this bothers you, please move on. I'm just chatting to find like-minded folks in fandom, not trying to convert anyone to my ways, yanno?

Asexual, not necessarily aromantic, but rather oblivious to it. I think he knows he's not really sexually attracted to anyone and finds this a relief because he'd much rather focus on science and has assumed that he also doesn't do romance. Compartmentalized other feelings or perhaps attributes them to admiration of a person. Romantic feelings steal in on the back of appreciation for competency.

I'd also say some internalized ableism is a part of it. It's hard to recognize and accept that other people may find you interesting or desirable when you resent your own body or are dealing with pain and other complications. (There's a whole side-talk to have about S2's "you don't need to fix yourself" bit but it's complex enough that it would derail this list.) Being ace can sometimes feel a little like another way to be a little broken.

Viktor seems a little touch-averse, which isn't necessarily an ace thing but sometimes goes hand in hand. Again, pain and disability can contribute to that. But even when he's fairly healthy he tends to have a little moment of like "what are- why are you doing that?" whenever he is touched. (Which. Relatable. As someone whose brain briefly turns to static when ppl touch me unexpectedly. Jayce is BIG on casual touch tho. Like, "Jayce reaches out to touch" should be on your drinking game lists.) There can be an interesting internal tug-of-war between not really desiring touch yet having some touch hunger. You might not be hungry for hugs and kisses or sexual acts and if that was the only menu you've ever been shown, you've never known how to get your touch hunger sated. The slow discovery that you would like to be touched by someone actually if they can cater to your tastes. The exploration and negotiation of how you'd like to be touched, in the hands of someone who cares enough to listen and follow your lead, and who you trust enough to stop when you need them to stop. I don't know if it's "sexy" really, but there can be a potent fantasy in bodily autonomy when you have a body where being touched at all is Complicated.

The man is oblivious to the idea that anyone would be attracted to him or interested in him. Pretty normal for aces. I've been on at least one date without realizing it was a date until someone pointed that out to me. Yes, I think this is great fanfic fodder and more people should write about aces being absolute dumbasses and failing their perception rolls when it comes to people trying to date them.

Speaking of dumbass asexual moments. The "bedroom door" line. This is 100% the sort of thing that would come out of my mouth without a thought regularly when I was in my twenties. (and sometimes now....). Like "night + door = bedroom" clearly that is the most natural explanation with zero thought about the implications that he is ostensibly taking an attractive man to his room in the middle of the night because that is not a thought at the forefront of his mind. (certainly not when he's thinking about science!). Please imagine someone having to explain the impression he may have made on Mel if she read a sexual implication he did not mean into that. (or Jayce)

Asexual-romantic yearning. Sometimes, when you're ace but not entirely aromantic, you still get crushes on people. Sometimes you don't entirely figure that out until you find yourself resenting your best friend's new romantic partner for taking up all their time (away from you.) TBH, I don't think Viktor would mind Mel that much if she wasn't dragging Jayce into politics that are interfering with the sciencebro goals. But it's fun to add a soupçon of romantic jealousy to that. A "hey how dare you get between me and my Best Friend and our special something I haven't examined too closely but oops it's load-bearing!"

Also, like, after being the focus of someone who you Admire, with your life entwined with theirs, your goals aligned, feeling like a partner in more ways than just work....and then they go off and fall in love with someone else? Someone who can satisfy their sexual needs? Well. He knows he can't do that. Time to double down on science time! Not just because of the, yanno, rapidly imminent death thing. That's a big part of it, of course. But also, there are feelings here that make no logical sense. What better way to tune them than delving into work! The work you SHOULD be doing with your PARTNER! It's fine! (It is not fine.)

(That said. I'm totally here for some sort of Viktor-Jayce-Mel poly thing. Mostly for fluff and fun reasons, but I think it's just barely workable in more canonical works too, fwiw)

Pining. Imagine. Viktor is asexual and full of complicated feelings about his own self-worth and desirability, but he's got this Partner situation pretty locked down and that's great and then in comes this gorgeous, intelligent, powerful woman who seems to effortlessly entice his partner away and can offer him so many things he can't or doesn't want to offer Jayce. Imagine belatedly figuring out that some of his feelings are romantic but not being sure that matters if Jayce has found someone who can fulfill him, mentally, emotionally and sexually. And Jayce is his friend and, as annoying as the politics are, he knows bringing these raw untested emotions into the light isn't going to help anyone and anyway Jayce is happy. Right? But he has to sit there. With those feelings. Pining for an idea of the future that slipped out of his grasp even before he realized he wanted it.

Again, the "you didn't need to fix yourself" bit at the end of S2 has problems, but boy howdy, if you're ace there's definitely a fear that an allosexual partner would always choose someone they can have sex with over you. That scene hit like a truck for me. Seeing an allosexual character choose a partner I had categorized as ace over his allosexual lover? BAM! And it looked like it hit Viktor that way too. Being SEEN. On so many levels!

[pochapal]

multiple people being like "omg pickle route is back. forgot everything that happened in this story but im excited" dont worry lol me too! me too

[garaviel]

Seeing how far i can get in shattered throne lmao

[squidaped-oyt]

Can't find the OP again for the life of me but someone said that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain don't actually escape until after Solas stabs Varric with the lyrium dagger, and since I played the intro again looking for it ... yeah, that's what it looks like to me lmao

[sammyloomis]

having to do these health and safety videos for this new job is reminding me of when, at my last job, i apparently hadn't secured the hand rail on a set of scaffolding properly and i got knocked back after a sign we were removing hit me and i fell into it and almost fell a storey backwards onto the fkn concrete 🤪

[bluastro-yellow]

I see some of the place I live in Martinaise. of course the situation is not the same, and it's not as bad, but this part of the city is a shithole on the beach with so much potential to be great left to rot on its own (it has an even worse fishing "village" too)

but still. the sea and pinewood forest are so beautiful and full of life, and there's still people who're trying to live their lives and change the situation. "but I love it nonetheless. It belongs to me as much as it belongs to you" is changing my perspective

[lulabo]

“I’m 33, I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19”

Ma’am explain Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve

[screambirdscreaming]

One time on the bus I sat next to a visibly very stressed and exhausted middle-aged woman and, upon offering basic social niceties, recieved an absolute deluge of information about everything that had gone wrong with her day

During the course of which I was gradually able to put together that she worked in middle-management / marketing (?) for a candy corporation (?) and had spent the day at a fair in which candy was marketed *to be marketed* (???)

Like. The attendees of this fair were candy corporations, presenting new candy-brand ideas, and grocery corporations, deciding which of these new candy types they would stock at their stores. Which she did not tell me, exactly, so much as rattled off a bunch of incomprehensible things about trends in candy marketing which I was somewhat able to put together were not about *customer* marketing, but about marketing to other corporations about what you thought their customers wanted - or rather, would want, once you'd made other entirely different marketing campaigns to convince them they wanted it.

There was however a person-sized standee of an m&m. Not an insignificant portion of rant time was devoted to logistical problems involving the standee.

She had with her a grocery bag full of candy which she ate pieces of, semi-compulsively, between sections of the rant. She did not offer me any.

I guess it's not that hard of a job to describe, but, it tops my personal charts for "job I would not ever have been able to predict existed," and also "job for which I cannot begin to imagine the day to day work experience". And also for that matter, "job which I can't really see the point of having exist", although that last one is a pretty hotly contested category.

[tianjinwellmadescaffold]

3 Board Corner Infill Bracket - Kwikstage Scaffolding Corner Panels - W...

[fideidefenswhore]

sure, dude.

[valeriehalla]

(a realization about dialogue formatting, from a comic artist turned novelist.)

One of the first things a novice writer learns about speech tags is that they’re part of the “scaffolding” of prose. They should be largely invisible to the reader: use them when necessary, omit them when not, and be sparing in the application of verbs other than “said”. They serve only the function of clarifying who is speaking when it is necessary to do so.

Except:

Sometimes you might want to use a speech tag in spite of the redundancy. The fact that the reader’s eyes slide right over them is an exploitable property. By slicing a line of dialogue in half with a speech tag, you can force the reader to perceive a meaningful pause between two utterances—and the effect is much stronger than you might get out of an ellipsis or an em dash. Developing an intuition for when and how to do this is a huge part of learning to write dialogue, I think.

(And yes: if you ever wondered, this is exactly same the reason why comic artists sometimes “double bubble” their speech bubbles. Same end, different means!)

[space-writes]

clawing my way to the end of chapter ten today and ouaghhh the middle of this book feels like such a mess TT_TT

it will get better but graaahhhh

[spyglassrealms]

yes, things are bad right now. some even say it's irreparable. it's hard to imagine a world that is better with such crushing evil everywhere.

but I need you all to remember that we live in an age of miracles, too.

about three weeks ago, my dad almost died. he had a brain aneurysm rupture at 2 in the morning. if he had not been staying at his girlfriend's home, he very likely would have died. as it was, he ended up at the hospital very quickly. the neurology team diagnosed the problem and placed a drain tube in his head to moderate pressure while they formulated a strategy for the impending surgery. the day after, they placed scaffolding inside the broken blood vessel. they kept him on certain medications for several weeks to ensure he healed properly.

twenty years ago, my dad would have come out of this ordeal with at least minor —more likely moderate to severe— brain damage. he could have lost the ability to walk, or see, or speak, or remember anything for longer than ten minutes.

yesterday we shared some jokes about terrible hospital food and then he walked out of the hospital on his own two legs.

it's going to take more time for him to fully recover. he lost a lot of weight. he's still in some amount of pain. but he is here, whole, with a life expectancy of twenty to thirty more years.

yes, it is probable that a large part of his incredible recovery is due to sheer luck, and his natural physical resilience. but an even larger part is the fact that a team of highly trained, highly skilled people, armed with modern knowledge and technology, saved his life.

we live in an age of miracles, and I don't mean the divine type of miracle. every day, millions of human beings across our planet dedicate their waking hours to beating back the four horsemen their damn selves. and it is working. all of human history is defined by those who chose to look Old Grim himself straight in the eye and say: "I am smarter than you, I am faster than you, I am stronger than you, and I will not stop until you loosen your grip on all of us. Blink, motherfucker."

And by force of will, they make him fucking blink.

yes, things are bad. but don't you dare forget the good we can do.

[lightspren]

ok so I edited chapter 43/65 today, this one needed some p extensive edits but it’s good now

i have one more chapter next that should need light edits I think. It shouldn’t be bad

then i have two chapters that i’m afraid are gonna need like. entirely rewritten lmao. and idk what to dooo with them

i hope work is quiet tomorrow so I can rotate the story in my mind and try to work out the holes. I should reread those chapters too so I can be thinking on it. tho one of them is barely even a chapter and UGH

i’m excited about this story tho and I should try to find a snippet from what i’ve already edited to share. i’ve like almost exclusively talked about the process here and none of the actual story lmao maybe i should actually talk about the story itself. would ppl want to read snippets?