#but maybe i can do something about the conditions people have to work in

[megtrns]

Hello! Wanted to start off and say how much I love your writing, and it's awesome you feel able to do it again. Thank you, and I hope you're having a good day!!!

Secondly, if your inbox isn't too full already, could I maybe request a little scenario of idw megs receiving a painting from a secret admirer so to speak? It's not exactly hard to find out who made it, doing a painting at cybertronian scale is a huge undertaking for a human, and would likely require some assistance (something i doubt would stay secret for long), but, despite their usual spunkiness, the human just got a little too nervous to gift it directly.

a/n : hi dear, thank you so much for the sweet message, i'm glad to hear you enjoy my writing ! i hope you're having a good day too. i hope i do justice to your request because it was so fun to write for <3

florence. megatron / gn!reader. sfw !

You once told him a story about a (rumoured) condition in which people, when confronted with profound artworks, are seized by a range of mysterious symptoms—from mild dizziness to falling to their knees, with some even fainting—the Florence syndrome, as they called it. A strange and rare phenomenon in which one crumbles at the sight of intense beauty.

Megatron is aware of your passion for art. Your hands are often smudged with ink or paint whenever he sees you, dried flecks of grey and red adorning your forearms. Once, you had infamously splashed an entire bucket of paint over Rodimus, pleading to your captain that it was not premeditated. That he just had the spoiled luck of entering your makeshift art studio while you were 'experimenting'.

Work for you above the Lost Light was scarce, and in space, the days all blur into one — long and seemingly endless, no one stopped you from indulging in your hobbies. You had a range of artistic passions, but one Megatron finds curious: painting, both the act and the result of the action. The technique is different from what they did back on Cybertron. And Megatron cannot remember the last time he saw one, denied of such privileges as someone forged for the mines (and by the time he could roam the streets freely, there weren't many buildings left for him to set foot in. Regrettably, he made sure of that.)

He has seen you do it before, wrist moving in delicate concentration, guiding liquid paint — which he learned to be particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil — across a white canvas. You made it look effortless, like a dance you perform for yourself, one he privately wishes he could see more often. But these days, you were being secretive, often excusing yourself away from your usual table at Swerves to return to your studio, where the windows were tinted so that not even sly, conniving mechs like Whirl could peek inside. Everyone assumed you needed the solitude; living in a ship with over a hundred rowdy bots can overwhelm a person. So he lets you go to tend to your latest project, disappointed that even when suspended in space, the time you two shared passes so quickly.

He would be lying to himself to say that he wasn't curious, going as far as surprising himself by feeling jealous at the sight of Ultra Magnus and Fortress Maximus walking out of the studio — idly chatting in the hallway as if they hadn't just entered what is (currently) known as the most secretive place aboard the whole ship. Even Rodimus had thrown a fit at the rumour that the two point-one-percenters had seen your latest painting before he did, and Megatron was somewhat relieved that the former Prime acted as a distraction, afraid that you saw right through him, past his armour and down to his envy.

Until he sees the painting in front of his hab-suite, leaning against the door.

His servos twitched to touch, optics widening at the sight.

It was him.

You've painted him as he is, iron and silver, standing proudly under the light. His eyes red like a rising sun. It was almost like staring into the mirror, yet his image was looking away from the viewer — both he and the audience acting as discreet observers. But there was a sudden, slow pulling at his spark when he realised that even when he's not smiling in the portrait, you made him look kind. Gentle.

And the ex-warlord didn't know how to feel aside from astonishment. Is this how you see him? That despite his marred and ugly history, you see art in him ?

When he saw you the next day, optics skimming the crowd to land on a pair of nervous eyes, Megatron didn't even notice he was smiling — a small, rare gesture that had you blushing so beautifully.

You tried to act as if the painting wasn't from you, dismissing his 'thank yous' and shrugging it off with both hands in your pocket (as if Ultra Magnus and Fortress Maximus had not admitted to being the one to carry you above their open palms for hours so you could reach the corners of the giant canvas.) Megatron, however, doesn't need a confession. He didn’t miss the satisfied grin you tried to hide when you saw the painting in his room, clearly cherished by the way it hung right where he could see it at all times.

Megatron has barely received anything in his life worth treasuring, but this painting was almost like a silent admission — intimate, sweet, something so far removed from what he thought was possible in his life.

So yes, he has heard of people trembling and shaking at the sight of grandiose paintings, going so far as to weep and collapse. Megatron couldn't understand it until he pictured you standing in the middle of your studio, neck craned to admire your portrayal of him — the vision enough to make his processor spin.

[biowaredisasterbisexual]

So, obviously, everyone has their own opinion and experience. How much Andrastianism in Veilguard is to your personal taste I couldn’t say. But based on your statements, I feel like we’ve played not just one but possibly several different games despite them having the same names.

Andrastianism isn’t “absent everywhere,” whether in plot, imagery, or even audio. As you yourself said, we go to the Temple of Andraste in Minrathous where people are both milling about and praying both inside and outside. So we see the Andrastianism happening, visually. And there is, contrary to your experience, ambient dialogue from NPCs we pass that reference the Maker (Andraste I believe as well, but I’d have to double-check that, and less reference to her would be expected as a schism over her importance is part of why the Northern and Southern Chantries split) both near the Temple and in other parts of Dock Town.

We also, in Minrathous with Neve, visit the Wall of Light, the city’s memorial for the dead and an explicit reference to the Chant of Light. Something of enough significance to Neve that she feels the need to go there before the end of her quest line. A Shadow Dragon Rook can even speak the traditional words of remembrance at that point. It’s fairly explicit Andrastianism. Different than it would look and be done in Ferelden, but that’s because we aren’t in Ferelden we’re in Tevinter.

I’m not entirely sure what the mixture of Northern to Southern Wardens would be at Weisshaupt, and I’m less certain than you are that Southerners would have a significant presence. Orlais’ Wardens were decimated at Adamant and may have even been disbanded at that time (dependent on player choice). Their numbers suffered regardless, and would have been hard to build back up since it has apparently gotten around that they tried to build a demon army (which is why in Veilguard the First Warden is so quick to throw them under the bus). Ferelden didn’t have any wardens to speak of until a cup of coffee before the Fifth Blight, as we see in Origins. And at the end of that blight had one or two. After Awakening maybe six? But there’s a bunch of conditional stuff to even hit that number, if I remember correctly. They’ve had some time to build up since then, but we don’t know how many went down from Ferelden at Adamant and Ferelden’s Wardens also don’t have spotless reputations due to the whole coup thing.

In any case, I agree that there probably are some devout Andrastians in the Wardens. But I think devout Southern Andrastian wardens - those whose Andrastianism we would recognize - are probably a very, very small minority. Not only for the reasons I already gave, but because they are competing with religious military orders that can recruit soldiers as children while generally only recruiting adults. I’m not surprised, since based on what we know their numbers are fairly small, we don’t personally run across a bunch of vocal devout Andrastian Southerners at Weisshaupt.

The people of the Anderfels are devoutly Andrastian, you’re absolutely right. But we don’t meet nearly any of them. Our only exposure to the region is through working with the Wardens in a fortress that is Wardens Only tm and in a town that has been so overrun with blight that nearly all of its inhabitants are gone. I’d be more inclined to agree with you, solely vis-a-vis the people of the Anderfels, if we interacted with more than a handful. But we don’t, we pretty much just interact with the Wardens which I already discussed above.

What you didn’t mention were Treviso and the Necropolis. We do get ambient dialogue in Treviso explicitly referencing both the Maker and Andraste (sometimes to blaspheme, but that was probably more than half the Andrastianism we got in DA2, too). Lucanis references them, and talks about having lost his faith while imprisoned and tortured (and reaching a state of hopeful agnosticism by later in the game which he is also open about). He has statues of Andraste in his house. It’s part of his character arc, even if it’s not the main focus.

The Mourn Watch is an Andrastian religious order. Their whole deal, different though it is to what we see in the South, is them being devoutly Andrastian. Just Nevarra mortalitasi-style. And we go through and attend to religious rites in that style with Emmrich.

We witness the results of slaughter by the Southern Chantry in a quest in Rivain.

Harding at one point straight up asks if we just disproved the Chant of Light.

Religion is discussed, where relevant, multiple times. (See, e.g., all of the above.)

Is it enough Andrastianism for you, or any individual player, personally? Maybe not. That’s okay. You’re allowed to feel that way. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Is it not there or in someway incorrect based on the lore of the game? I have a hard time understanding that argument.

I really don’t understand the criticism that Veilguard doesn’t include enough open, devout Andrastianism. Like, it just perplexes me?

Unlike the first three games, which take place in Southern Thedas (the purview of the Orlesian Chantry, the Sunburst throne), Veilguard takes place almost entirely in Northern Thedas. And it’s clear the Chantry’s role there is very different than in the South.

In Southern Thedas, the Chantry is a power unto itself. The Southern Divine, holder of the Sunburst Throne, occupies a place of real significance and power. She has her own militarized forces (the Templar and Seeker Orders). She politically has to interface with the rulers of the various places in Southern Thedas (Orlais, Ferelden, the Free Marches, etc.), but is not formally associated with or dependent on them. The South is comparatively poorer than the North, and we see a majority of services (taking care of orphans, medical care, the Circles, and very significantly education) being taken care of by the Chantry without necessarily much assistance from the relevant countries.

The Southern Chantry is an ever present figure in Southern Thedas, even for those that aren’t devout. And that is reflected in those stories and the cultures we learn about there.

The Tevinter Imperium is not like that. And that’s not terribly surprising. First, the Imperium pre-dates Andrastianism. They have another, older religion that helped form some of their cultural touchpoints. The Imperium did adopt Andrastianism, but did so as a consolidation of empire (which tracks with the Imperium being, in no small part, a reflection of the real life Roman Empire). As such, the Chantry is folded into and subordinate to the Imperium’s government. The real power in Tevinter, and control over the incidents of daily life that we see the Southern Chantry involved in, is the Magisterium and the Archon.

The Imperial Divine doesn’t control the Templars, the Magisterium and Archon do. He doesn’t control the Circles/education. That’s the Magisterium and Archon again. He is, in practical terms, less powerful than Dorian. He can’t make any real change as the Imperial Divine, so he dons a mask and runs a vigilante group to free slaves and make change that way.

The Northern Chantry simply isn’t as omnipresent as the Southern Chantry in the areas it exists, and it competes with a preexisting cultural backbone in a way the Southern Chantry doesn’t (because it largely stamped that out, though some of the Avvar and Chasind are still around).

I think a lot of people are comparing the impact of Andrastianism in Veilguard to that in Inquisition, because it’s the most recent, and the criticism spawns from that. But that…doesn’t make sense. The Inquisitor is leading a religious organization, ultimately affiliated with the Southern Chantry itself and founded by the left and right hands of the former Divine. It claims its legitimacy from Andraste herself (even if the Inquisitor doesn’t believe a single bit of it). The people who join the Inquisition are all okay enough with Andrastianism to affiliate themselves openly with it (Solas aside, but of course he has other reasons), and many are devout.

The Veilguard are just…random people. Skilled, powerful, talented people, but not people with any real affiliation with any Chantry. Davrin and Bellara have complicated relationships with the Dalish religion they grew up with, for obvious reasons, but they weren’t raised in Andrastianism or an Andrastian culture. Neve, per her, “barely keeps the holidays.” Her relationship to Andrastianism seems closer to the average non-church-attending American who celebrates Christmas and Easter, but isn’t particularly Christian beyond that. Lucanis does seem open to belief in the Maker and Andraste, but isn’t kind of ambivalent to it. More agnostic than anything else. Taash wasn’t raised Andrastian, their mom largely still embraces much of the Qun even if she left, and Rivain was always kind of religiously funky anyway. Only Emmrich and Harding are particularly Andrastian, and even then Emmrich is from Nevarra which although deeply Andrastian is unique. Harding is the only companion whose Andrastianism we’d recognize from the prior games.

So in a game set in a region where Andrastianism is culturally less of an influence, where the Chantry holds far less power, and that has companions that aren’t devout Andrastians…how is it a failure of the game that it isn’t brought up more. That makes sense. It’s consistent with the world building that came before it and the continued reveal of that world in game.

I don’t get it.

[drdemonprince]

This might not make any sense, but do you think ageplay (especially outside the bedroom) can be a way for someone (typically the little) to avoid self responsibility and maybe even emotional regulation? I’ve been doing some reflection and I’m worried that I might be putting a lot of pressure on my partner in that sense. Maybe we need to tone it down for a bit and recenter? Or rework our terms and conditions of the dynamic?

I think that in any 24/7 power-exchange dynamic, there is a risk of the submissive partner offloading more emotional and logistical responsibility onto the Dominant partner than that partner can sustainably handle. I have been party to that before -- in my frenzy to submit to someone and create the kind of all-encompassing power exchange that I wanted, I stopped ruling my own life, including the domains I was frankly the most competent to run, and it led to my then-Dominant becoming stressed and overwhelmed and caused me to doubt their judgment and brat against them, because they weren't doing things the way I would want them to be done.

Ultimately, this partner of mine concluded they just weren't suited to serious power dynamics outside of the bedroom. But plenty of people are interested in forging that kind of dynamic! It just requires a lot of work, the mutual interest and enjoyment of both parties, and some form of breaks from responsibility for the Dom.

Here's just some general, disorganized thoughts on the matter:

Does giving up power bring you relief from stress, or does it feel as if remaining with the power exchange is essential to you and any intrusion from regular life is a threat? There is a difference between finding intense kink to be a source of relief and pleasure, and trying to escape from reality, and I think where you currently fall with regard to that may give you clues about how sustainable the dynamic is for you as it currently is.

Does your partner have an interest in a 24/7 power exchange? Do they get something from the small moments that aren't especially sexy, be that acts of service around the house, casual on-the-couch bondage, protocols in how you speak or behave around them, or just you being little most of the time? Or do they seem to be going through the motions for a lot of the mundane daily aspects of the stuff?

Does it feel as if your partner and you are "playing a role" all of the time that is separate from reality, or are you able to incorporate daily life concerns into your relationship's power dynamic in a natural feeling way?

Are your submissive and Dominant personas expressions of yourselves, or do you feel that you have to stifle a lot of your natural feelings and reactions in order to maintain the role?

Do you ever find yourself feeling irritated at your Dom, uncertain of their judgement, angry at the requests they make of you, understimulated, or not fully cared for? This may signal that you two are both a bit out of your depth and may need to recalibrate.

What method do you two have for stepping out of the role or giving you both a break? Do you have regular check-in sessions or contract renegotiations? Areas of your life that you do have control over, even if it's just tasks that your Dom trusts you to execute in a way they'd be happy with? Are there signals you can give one another to indicate it's time pump the breaks a little and make the dynamic less intense? Are there spaces or activities where the power dynamic feels relaxed?

Does your Dominant ever get to be vulnerable and weak and lean on you?

Do you have space to provide your input on all major decisions in the household? Being a submissive doesn't mean lacking your own opinions. There should be an open flow of communication, at least during some point every week, so that your Dom understands how the decisions they make will affect you. Even if your Dom goes against your preferences in certain decisions some of the time, they should be able to anticipate how things will impact you, and you should feel like you've been heard.

On a more basic, practical level, what are some of the household responsibilities that cause your Dom the most stress? Taking over responsibility for tasks like meal planning, driving, reorganizing rooms, arranging the payment of bills, sorting through documents, planning trips or dates, picking out your own outfits, looking after the pets, etc may allow you to feel more capable and take the pressure to hold everything together off of your Dom. Your Dom can formally delegate these tasks to you, or provide some input as to their preferences, so that you taking "charge" doesn't feel like a violation of the power dynamic or a stepping out of role.

Anon, it is completely possible for two people to sustain an intense power-exchange relationship all of the time, or virtually all of the time -- but both parties need to find that desirable, and be able to communicate about everything about their lives in a frank way while within those roles. If that doesn't feel feasible or healthy for you and your Dom, you can place more guardrails around the dynamic: tasks that are done outside of role, spaces or times of the week where you relate to one another as equals, responsibilities you can carry, ways for you or your Dom to temporarily tap out, and so on. I think it's also worth examining how the dynamic has been affecting you: do you feel like it makes your life better or worse? Has it made you stronger, happier, more adaptable? Is it what you wanted it to be? Or is something not quite gelling right now?

[novathesheltie]

such a difficult life

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.

It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I find it kind of silly that so many of those "time based life rule" sayings are like ~deep serious guidelines~ of some sort, but then there's that one other Well Known Rule that's just like "hrmm can I eat something off of the ground or not"

[dogearedheart]

8i've been thinking about the last asks i got today. and i think it's better for me to take a step back from this account. i know the anon didn't mean anything by it, but i still feel like i am being a negative presence on here and weirding people out with who i am is nothing i want. so, i am not deleting or anything. i am just gonna be less present with sharing personal things or leaving tags. I'll probably be more active on my second account where i don't have that many followers :)

[kateis-cakeis]

people are really so weird and so fatphobic huh

(and oops most of my commentary is in the tags XD)

[noonrise]

Another mainstream Fallout game without mulchable human enemies. Instead, there is a tight intercommunity on a much smaller map, where the player begins in long stretches of isolation. The first NPCs the player see is through the scope of their trusty rifle, with names like Bandit and Raider. It's a Fallout game.

Do you take the shot?

[ukulelegodparent]

Apparently I'm feeling very strongly about language once again atm. Like just. I have to eat it. I have to let it wash over me and through me. I need to read good opinions on like. The connection between the heart and the soul and the language they are expressed and the language they developed and grew up in. Like. it is so intricate and so complicated and so personal and yet so simple and such a universal experience.

[techmomma]

Facts about your body after you turn 25, AKA things I wish someone had told me:

you will get hair in fun new places. this is normal and fine.

these places include (but are not limited to) if you don't already have them: your asscrack, your back, your ears, and moles. it's fine.

some of you, dick or not, will also lose hair. this is normal, but also if you have ovaries maybe get this checked out for PCOS.

your acne will probably change. some people get better. some people get worse. it's fine.

your nails will probably get an infection or a fungus at least once in your life. this is fine. (but also let your doc know).

how you gain and lose fat and where you do so will change. this is fine.

how you smell will change. this is fine. (fishy or rotten smells mean doctor time though)

if you have a prostate: it gets harder to pee. prostates enlarge as you age (get this checked regularly). this is fine.

if you do not have a prostate: it gets easier to pee but not in a good way. as in as you get older, your pelvic floor muscles tend to lose some of their strength. this makes it harder to keep pee in. this is fine.

all breasts and pectorals eventually sag, with the rest of your body. this is fine.

a decent percent of the population will experience a cyst at least once. some of you will make up for the rest with multiple. this is fine, but keep them checked out by a doctor. (sometimes this is a condition! get checked for that too!)

almost half of everyone gets hemorrhoids. it's a good idea to just expect them since your chances of getting them get higher the older you are. your toilet will look like a murder scene. definitely get your booty checked out BUT this is almost always perfectly normal. just eat more fiber. "but I already-" eat more fiber. and maybe suck it up and buy some hemorrhoid cream, you'll thank me later.

yes, this means you will probably need to make an appointment for a doctor to see your butthole. it's okay. not only do they really not care but 1. they've seen weirder that day and 2. they'd far rather you see them now than later when it's been going on for forty years and now it might be colon cancer. it's okay. consider it a rite of passage.

adults need more sleep than children. don't believe the myth that you need less than they do. that is capitalist propaganda to make you give up more of your life to the work grind, comrade.

vitamins and medicine, something you are more likely to take as you get older, sometimes make the toilet turn weird colors. it's okay.

if you still have your tonsils and get those little stones and get sore throats more than once a year you should plan on getting those suckers out before the tonsils cause an infection and go septic. if you're getting stones at all you should get those reevaluated every year, especially if the stones are bigger than a needlehead (or get bigger over time). it's gross and yucky. I don't care. get them looked at before you end up in the hospital.

you'll probably need to add foot support to your shoes if you don't already do. this is fine.

your body changes. sometimes it can feel sorta weird and upsetting that it isn't what it used to be. that is okay, and it is okay to be upset. just know that this is normal, it's normal to be upset or not upset, but don't let it hinder your quality of life. trans or cis, there is a certain level of acceptance you just gotta give your body and forgive your body for as you get older. it's okay.

it's okay. I promise.

[obsessedwrhys]

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ The Seven x Deadpool!Reader

t/w: loooots of dark humour/jokes, reader is insensitive and an asshole since they're also a supe working at vought, your powers are the exact same as Deadpool (even the skin condition), mention about killing, death, gore, r-pe, n@zis?!?!, alcohol, some intimacy (?). Also reader is gn!!

ᯓ★ here's a version with the boys <3

HOMELANDER

This man hates you so fking much

Has tried to kill you multiple times, he tried lasering you, tearing you in half and even throwing you into the sky but you just always manage to come back like the damn plague

Eventually he gives up trying to kill you and just had to deal with the fact you'll be kept alive... just temporarily though... he's still looking for ways to kill you

However, your powers gave you dozens of advantages when around Homelander.

He can be having a meeting about something serious and everyone would be listening to him due to their fear towards him, then there's you who'd be doing your own thing and just shout out unrelated things like "Donald Trump just blocked me on Twitter!! HAH!! SUCK IT CORNFLACKS!!"

Everyone turning to you with startled expressions while Homelander simply rolls his eyes before continuing his presentation.

You are a complete nightmare to the PR team, that's why for interviews or any events, you'll always be paired up with Homelander so he can keep you under control and stop you from saying weird shit that could ruin the company's image.

"So Deadpool, how does it feel being in the Seven working alongside Homelander? You've been working together for almost 3 years now" A reporter would ask as you two are surrounded by screaming fans.

"Like I'm in the twilight series, not because of the fantasy but because I'm still waiting for the part where he impregnates me—"

"O-kay! That's enough, just silly ol' Deadpool with those inside jokes"

"You can tell in this eyes that he wants to fuck me right now. HE'S GONNA FUCK ME!!" You shouted as you're being dragged away by him.

Obviously when you had found out about his relationship with Stormfront, especially her background, you had to say some shit about it. Not giving the slightest care about the fact he could be grieving over her death.

He'll be in his room standing in front of the window and you'd just storm in, being as loud as possible.

"I can't believe you dated a N@zi!! Is it because I'm Jewish?!" Which may or may not be true, nobody knows your origin.

He may hate your guts but if he ever needs someone to help him do some dirty work, you're the person for the job, you never ask why or how, which could be the only thing he likes about you.

"Y'know, maybe if you didn't have such a big mouth, you'd be tolerable"

"All the people I've slept with have said otherwise"

Compatibility? 50%

STARLIGHT

Before she joined the Seven, she had an image of what kind of person you were, she just didn't know it was this worse.

When you found out she used to work at this Sunday School Church, you just haaaaad to say something about it.

"So like, you say that prayer always works, but every night I pray for my hair to grow and it never does. Do you think God has me blocked? How do I get unblock?"

"Uh..."

You two surprisingly get along without one wanting to slice the other's throat, except sometimes the things you say can really piss her off. Which is why when the company assigned her a new costume, she was trying her hardest to avoid you, but you found out anyways.

"Holy shit Starlight! Nice costume, is this your Miley Cyrus breakthrough? Girl power!"

Insert her groaning out of annoyance.

Again, the second you discovered she was dating a guy behind the death of Translucent, you were heartbroken :(

"Of course this happens right when my therapist gives up on me!"

Despite your behaviour, you pitied her when it was revealed that she was taken advantage of by The Deep, so like any good friend, you took revenge by cooking his friend octopus and eating it happily in front of him.

"Revenge does taste sweet" You'd say happily while Starlight just watches by the side, both grateful and horrified at your actions.

In my opinion, you would definitely be the person she goes to once she starts working with the boys, you'll always be providing whatever information that happens in the company for her to use.

It helps her worry less about getting anyone killed 'cause you literally can't die.

Compatibility? 60%

QUEEN MAEVE

You're half the reason why she rethinks about her life choices when she wakes up in the morning

Not because you're a handful (which you are) but because you're always paired together on missions

"Deadpool! The hostages!"

"OKAY! God... you act just like my drunk uncle"

Which is a joke/nickname you like to address her by because of her alcoholism (yikes)

Whenever the company needs you for something, half of the time she's the one assigned to search for you.

There was this one time she caught you trying to have Anika track down Kanye West's location, nobody knows what shenanigans you were up to.

Another thing to mention was that you two were chosen by the company to sing a Christmas song for the year's Christmas ceremony.

Just imagine during the bridge of the song, she's singing normally while you're completely going off, your high note so high you were sure you had Mariah Carey a run for her money.

Even though she finds you a lot to deal with, you're actually her buddy to train with.

Since you're very skilled with Katanas, she likes to practice her swordsmanship with you.

You like to tease or make fun of her everytime she fails to strike you which is good motivation for her to get better. Maybe you guys bring out the best of each other?

Last thing I'd like to add is when she was found out by the public that she was a lesbian (She's bi but you get the running joke), you had gifted her a t-shirt that says, 'Biggest Dick in Town'

Compatibility? 80%

THE DEEP

Your human punching bag

If Vought was a high school instead of a company, you'd be the bully and he'd be the nerd getting stuffed inside the locker room.

For example, Homelander could be confronting Starlight about her relationship with Hughie and everyone would just start raising their voices til you come in yelling "SHUT UP!" to the Deep who had not said a single thing during the entire time.

Just imagine him staring at you like 😐

To be honest you also ate his friend octopus so you guys are actually never getting the chance to make up.

"Look dude, I don't appreciate your tone"

"I don't appreciate your haircut either but we can't all get what we want"

You may be a crazy person but you weren't going to be okay with the fact he violates every woman he sees, so not only did you cook the octopus but you also called in a male stripper disguised as a woman just for him to celebrate on his birthday.

Just imagine him all happy when you tell him the news and later that night he'll run inside your room, completely pissed off at your act after finding out but you just laughed and said.

"Happy April Fools 😚!"

"That's next month dipshit!"

Also, you never understood his weird fantasies. He has a thing for sea animals??You've caught him multiple times either flirting or getting off to one. It was concerning even for you.

"From how many animals you've fucked, you might just turn from the ocean's 'Seaman' to 'Semen'." You joked which he did not find funny.

Maybe you messing with him could just be your way of getting along with him since you're the same with everybody else, it's just he has more flaws to poke fun of and he's sensitive about them.

Compatibility? 5%

A-Train

He thinks you're fucked up in the head.

Half of the shit that comes out of your mouth just has him reacting like in the GIF

Buuuuuut you're the one he always brings to the club because you always know ways to give the party life.

You've somehow even got on the wall of fame, a lovely portrait of you with your hands making out a heart.

Also, you know about his business with Compound V waaaaay before anyone else did. He's still grateful you didn't tell anyone.

Just like everyone else, you also enjoy messing with him except he's fast and constantly avoiding you.

"Hey A-Train, how much do you wanna bet that I can die faster than you?"

"Dude... seriously?"

You guys rarely get sent on missions together because you're always slowing him down, not basing off the fact he's fast but because you get easily sidetracked with other things.

"Alright, we're here now, how much C4 do we use?"

"Fuck math! Let's use all of 'em!"

You ended up detonating all of the C4 on you before he could object the idea, he was able to run out in time, your action nearly getting him killed while you ended up dead.

But it's fine you'll just grow back.

You know that race he has against Shockwave? You'd be at the VIP section standing near where Homelander and Queen Maeve is, waving your huge banner that has a picture of A-Train's face and yours pasted over a figure carrying the other in bridal style.

Compatibility? 55%

TRANSLUCENT

He makes people paranoid but you make him disgusted.

There was this one time he was bored so he snuck in your room to see what you were doing.

At first he was confused why you had so many cute plushies but then the more he explored your room, he realised your room is basically every collector's dream.

You even had a huge teddy bear in the corner of your dressing room.

The reason why he doesn't like to spy on you is because the last time he did, he saw you putting your hand in the blender, then proceeding to put your private part into it.

Never again, he thought, never again.

He doesn't need to witness you carry out your intrusive thoughts.

Surprising enough, you're close with his son, I'd like to think that after his death, you practically became the kid's godparent. Though you can be sort of a bad influence, leading up to how he is in Gen V.

You always tell him you hate kids but he thinks otherwise.

After all, he can read people well.

You guys like to pull pranks on each other since you guys like competing on who's more sneaky

There was this one time, you woke up to find your suit gone so you ended up walking around the building, completely naked and unfazed by people's stares.

It was when you walked around the corner that you found your suit worn by someone else, turns out it was Translucent under it.

"Why is it so fucking tight dude? How do you stay in this shit all day?"

"You get used to it"

Compatibility? 85%

BLACK NOIR

Lovers.

He doesn't mind your attitude because he actually can't say anything about it.

No seriously... he can't talk.

But hey he's got a good shoulder to cry on.

"I just... hffgh... I can't believe my album didn't surpass lady gaga's... She doesn't even know how to use Katanas like I do!" You'd let out a loud sob while he just stares at you for a while before placing a hand on your shoulder, patting you gently.

You know the scene where he's playing the piano for one of the company's party? You'll be laying down on top of it and singing in your usual overdramatic high pitched voice.

He finds your humour amusing so he always does this little head tilt like in the GIF when you say some weird shit while waiting for his response.

Since both of you are the only members of the Seven that wears a full body suit, obviously you had to try on his but since it was impossible to achieve that, you just had the company make a copy for you.

He'll be walking down the hallway doing his normal routine until he notises another person in his suit, the moment you speak and he realises its just you is when he let's his guard down.

"I just got some transplants done to my ass, that's why I look different"

You both are never sent on missions together 'cause you guys don't work well, pretty much nobody works well with him since he's the silent type.

Example, you two were hiding behind some crates ready to jump on the bad guys who were snucking in illegal drugs. He gestured for you to wait as he went to check again, only to turn back to see you gone.

"Marry Christmas motherfuckers!"

He heard your voice shout and he found you standing on top of the stacked crates, machine gun in hand and began shooting aimlessly.

He didn't even do anything but just watch until you ran out of bullets. However, multiple survived and began shooting at you so you ended running towards where he's hiding at.

"Yankee yankee!" You yelped.

You know the video of the two girls taking off their wigs to reveal that they're bald and they start bonding over it? I'd like to imagine that's you and Black Noir with the skin condition under the suits.

One more scenario I wanna add, you guys could be having a meeting but since you were bored and you always hated meetings, you'd draw a big heart on a piece of paper and show it to Black Noir from across the table. Surprisingly he'd draw a heart back to you.

You were overjoyed so you began to draw you and him doing it, doggy style. He stares at your doodle for a while before choosing to just focus on the meeting instead.

Compatibility? 90%

(This took a while cause I was on vacation)

[deebris]

Save you from yourself

Silco (from Arcane) x Wife reader

Synopsis: The tender moment between you and your daughter, Jinx, is interrupted by your sudden fainting, and Silco takes control of the situation.

Warnings: Fainting, self-neglect, based on real symptoms of dehydration, the reader is a motherly figure for Jinx, and Silco is somewhat possessive in the end, angst with fluff.

Word count: 2.3k

Zaun tonight was surprisingly quiet. For the first time in a long time, you could hear the water flowing through the windows of your room, and a cool breeze carried the scent of your daughter’s freshly washed hair through the corners. It was an incredibly comforting moment to care for her blue locks; it always brought an inexplicable peace to your mind. You really needed it after the exhausting day you had.

The affection that surrounded those moments, with both of you sitting on your bed, gently running your fingers through her strands and laughing at how Jinx always ended up sleepy, warmed your heart. But tonight, that warmth felt strange and discomforting. You tried to ignore a sudden dizziness and the chills, keeping the window open as you brushed through her long hair to continue braiding it. Was tiring work, but you loved.

“Is it going to take much longer?” she asked impatiently, something you had already expected. Complaining about the time was part of Jinx, but you took it with indifference.

“I’m almost halfway,” you tried to reassure her with a gentle, maternal tone, something she liked. “Just this one left.”

“Ugh, I hate when it takes so long,” she grumbled irritably, throwing herself back into your lap. Her movement made your hands lose the strands, messing up part of what you had done.

“Jinx!” you called her name, annoyed, but softened when you felt her cling to you even tighter, wrapping her arms around your waist and burying her face in your belly. Her body started warming yours even more, pushing the cold away, and you stayed silent, appreciating the closeness.

“Can we do it later?” she asked in a low voice, almost needy. Jinx had a thing with physical contact; it was something she appreciated when it came from the right people. That’s why she was now closing her eyes while you stroked her cheek and the side of her head.

“It’s going to be harder to fix,” you tried to argue, struggling with the duality of wanting to stay cuddled with her or return to the hard work of finishing her hair.

“You’re warm,” she murmured, and you couldn’t see, but she furrowed her brow, feeling your body temperature against her pressed cheek.

“I think so,” your whisper came without weight, not caring about the statement. Or maybe you just didn’t have the strength to think properly anymore.

You felt drained, and your daughter had noticed your lack of energy when she took your hand to play with your fingers, interlacing them in a sort of waltz but seeing how you barely reacted to her movements, letting her have fun on her own. And you always used to play along.

“Let me finish,” you asked with much effort, confused by the new sign of your condition that had just emerged: a sharp pain in your forehead. But it wasn’t common for you to get headaches.

Luckily, Jinx obeyed without further rebellion. She stood up to allow you to finish what you had started. She pulled her legs up to her chest on the bed, pouting with a dissatisfied expression while she felt you place the golden pins.

When you had just finished braiding, your fingers fell, sliding down the braid’s length, as if keeping your arms raised for just one more second was extremely difficult. And it was.

Your dizziness worsened, leaving your limbs weak, and now you couldn’t avoid feeling a hint of nervousness as your breathing became irregular, along with the dryness in your throat.

“My love, can you close the window?”

Your request alarmed Jinx, who turned toward your voice but not enough to look directly at you. Hesitant, she stood up, and when she returned, a look of confusion took over her face.

“What...?” The word got stuck as she quickly approached, placing one hand on your back and the other on your shoulder. “What’s going on?” Her desperate tone cut through you like a blade, filling your chest with guilt.

“I... I think I’m not feeling well.” You tried to hold back the tears, but your trembling voice betrayed the effort. Just a few tears fell, as if they had run out, and the pain in your muscles and joints, which had started as a discomfort in the morning, had become unbearable. The discomfort had been easy to ignore before, but now it seemed impossible to divert your attention from it.

You hadn’t paid much attention to the dizziness that had disrupted your day, but sitting for a moment seemed to amplify all the symptoms. Maybe they had always been there, silently growing, until they reached this point.

“Say something!” Jinx’s voice sounded choked, pulling you out of the haze. You tried to open your eyes, but it was hard. She was scared—you could feel it in the way her hands trembled as she held your face. She shook you gently, the urgency clear in every movement. “Don’t close your eyes!” she screamed, her voice breaking as darkness overtook your vision.

When consciousness started to return, you opened your eyes slowly, blinking to adjust to the dimness of the room. A faint light illuminated the room enough for you to realize you were lying down, now wrapped in a blanket. Your hearing seemed muffled, as if you were submerged, but amid the confusing sounds, Silco’s voice emerged.

He was calling for Jinx, trying to calm her. “Jinx, listen,” he repeated, his voice deep and firm, but filled with concern. His tone seemed to seek her attention, trying to contain the emotional storm that was overwhelming the girl. “Jinx, I told you it is fine. It is nothing serious.”

Silco’s deep voice, usually so controlled, was now filled with a disturbance he could barely disguise. As he spoke, he repeated those words mentaly, as if trying to convince not only her but also himself that this was just a temporary illness.

“B-but...” Her voice broke, and the rest of the words got stuck in her throat. Jinx seemed unable to look directly at her father; her eyes nervously scanned the room, searching for an answer where there was none. “She... she just suddenly got like this.”

“Was not sudden, Jinx.” Silco took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. “We just did not notice before.” He adjusted his tone, seeking a firmness he didn’t feel, hoping to convey some confidence. “It is common. People get sick all the time. She will be fine.”

He continued, repeating the words like a mantra, silently praying they were true.

“Do you promise?” Jinx’s question came loaded with urgency, almost like an ultimatum.

Silco hesitated for a moment, swallowing hard at the weight of that word. Promising meant more than just reassuring her; it meant banishing any possibility of loss or failure. He knew he couldn’t say “yes” lightly, but he also couldn’t imagine denying that reassurance to his daughter.

His gaze shifted behind him, seeking your figure lying down. When he noticed you trying to sit up, despite visible effort, Silco felt an unexpected relief. It was a sign, even if small, that gave him the strength to respond firmly.

“I promise.” His voice came low but firm, as he squeezed Jinx’s shoulders, trying to convey a security he could barely feel.

Jinx followed her father’s gaze, and upon seeing you move, her behavior shifted instantly. With the frantic energy characteristic of her, she ran to you.

“Calm down!” Silco tried to call to her, but she was already on top of you.

You, however, were lost in confusion. Your mind felt like a blur, and the unbearable weight on your eyelids made it impossible to react or understand what was happening. The last thing you felt was Jinx’s hesitant touch, quickly replaced by the touch of calloused hands, before everything went dark again.

Silco watched as your eyes opened and closed again, what seemed like the thousandth time that night. It was as if you were waging a battle against your own consciousness and body, trying to hold onto reality as it slipped through your fingers.

He hadn’t slept. He had spent the night by your side, patiently waiting for that moment when you would finally wake up for real. Making sure you didn’t hurt yourself with the needle stuck to your wrist, connecting you to the IV that kept your body hydrated, had been an exhausting task. Every time you briefly stirred, it seemed like you were compelled to move your arms, as if testing your own strength, and he found himself forced to intervene.

“I thought you were going to pass out again,” he murmured, his voice low and strangely gentle, something rare coming from him. He carefully placed his hand on your forehead, checking the fever that, to his relief, was starting to subside.

“What do I have?” you asked, the words coming out slowly as your mind pieced together recent memories and adjusted to your surroundings.

Silco let out a long sigh, somewhere between irritation and relief. The corner of his lips curved into a dry smile, as if he found the situation so absurd it was almost comical, yet no less serious.

“You spent the whole day without drinking water.” His voice carried a hint of exasperation and he carefully brushed away the hair that was sticking to your face. “Dehydration. How, for the love of everything, did you not feel thirsty?”

His question was genuine, a mix of confusion and disbelief.

“I don’t know,” you whispered, feeling small and stupid under his analytical gaze.

Silco didn’t say anything more right away. Instead, his eyes studied you for a moment longer than necessary before he leaned back in the chair next to the bed.  

“Whatever the reason, this will not happen again,” he declared firmly, his voice carrying a tone almost possessive as he crossed his arms, as if imposing his will on the universe itself.

“Sorry,” you said, the weakness still evident in your voice, but there was also a trace of embarrassment, making your words almost a whisper.

He watched you in silence, his gaze fixed as you stared at the pillow. Even pale and visibly fragile, you were still the most beautiful woman he had ever known. The soft moonlight illuminated your face, highlighting a few strands of your hair, and in that moment, something inside him softened. The hard expression he always carried melted away, replaced by a rare tranquility—a surrender to the simple relief of seeing you there, breathing.

You saw the IV, something Singed must have done, and noticing it was almost empty, Silco carefully leaned forward to remove the needle. His movements were almost methodical, but there was an uncommon tenderness. His fingers slid lightly over the skin of your wrist before touching the catheter, and that seemingly small gesture sent a shiver down your spine.

It was as if, in that touch, he wanted to send you a message: I’m here, and I will be gentle.

“Jinx will be on your case the whole week,” he stated casually, though his tone was firm, as if warning you about your foolishness that caused all this.

You laughed, the weakness in your voice softened by the playful tone. “I can handle it.”

Slowly, you pulled his fingers, as an invitation for him to come closer. Silco accepted without hesitation, climbing onto the bed beside you. He positioned himself behind you, wrapping his body around you in an embrace that, though silent, carried a desperate intensity.

His hands tightened around your waist, the fingers interlacing as if he feared that if let go, you might slip away. The warmth of Silco’s breath brushed against your neck, bringing with it the scent of the cigars he always smoked. On anyone else, or in any other situation, the smell would have been overpowering, almost repulsive, but from him, there was something strangely comforting about it. It was a subtle reminder that, despite everything, he was there—solid, present, and, above all, familiar.

Silco squeezed your waist tighter, his deep voice cutting through the silence, almost a controlled growl as he whispered against your ear:

“Do you really think you will achieve something important if you forget the basics? Forget to drink water, to take care of yourself… That is not just foolishness, it is pure recklessness.”

He held you close, his eyes wandering to a distant point in the room, as if searching for something to focus on, while trying to make you understand the weight of his words. Silco knew you had this habit of putting yourself second, neglecting your own needs for what you thought was more urgent or important.

“Stop putting yourself at risk like this,” he continued, his voice firmer, “or I woll not have any choice but to take care of everything.”

His voice, cold and incisive, sounded almost like an attempt at humor, but you knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t one for jokes. Silco didn’t care for casual remarks, and the lightness in his tone was just a mask for the frustration he felt. You worried so much about not overburdening him that you ended up ignoring your own well-being, making his biggest concern a reality: he would have to carry the weight for you.

“I take care of you… even if I have to save you from yourself,” he whispered, almost like a mantra. The words were both a promise and a necessity. He was speaking to himself, trying to reaffirm his own position, and you didn’t dare interrupt him. You just cuddled closer to his body, feeling the warmth and firmness of his words as a protection that, somehow, also felt like a prison.

[girlivealwaysbean]

.

[derinwrites]

The Three Commandments

The thing about writing is this: you gotta start in medias res, to hook your readers with action immediately. But readers aren’t invested in people they know nothing about, so start with a framing scene that instead describes the characters and the stakes. But those scenes are boring, so cut straight to the action, after opening with a clever quip, but open in the style of the story, and try not to be too clever in the opener, it looks tacky. One shouldn’t use too many dialogue tags, it’s distracting; but you can use ‘said’ a lot, because ‘said’ is invisible, but don’t use ‘said’ too much because it’s boring and uninformative – make sure to vary your dialogue tags to be as descriptive as possible, except don’t do that because it’s distracting, and instead rely mostly on ‘said’ and only use others when you need them. But don’t use ‘said’ too often; you should avoid dialogue tags as much as you possibly can and indicate speakers through describing their reactions. But don’t do that, it’s distracting.

Having a viewpoint character describe themselves is amateurish, so avoid that. But also be sure to describe your viewpoint character so that the reader can picture them. And include a lot of introspection, so we can see their mindset, but don’t include too much introspection, because it’s boring and takes away from the action and really bogs down the story, but also remember to include plenty of introspection so your character doesn’t feel like a robot. And adverbs are great action descriptors; you should have a lot of them, but don’t use a lot of adverbs; they’re amateurish and bog down the story. And

The reason new writers are bombarded with so much outright contradictory writing advice is that these tips are conditional. It depends on your style, your genre, your audience, your level of skill, and what problems in your writing you’re trying to fix. Which is why, when I’m writing, I tend to focus on what I call my Three Commandments of Writing. These are the overall rules; before accepting any writing advice, I check whether it reinforces one of these rules or not. If not, I ditch it.

1: Thou Shalt Have Something To Say

What’s your book about?

I don’t mean, describe to me the plot. I mean, why should anybody read this? What’s its thesis? What’s its reason for existence, from the reader’s perspective? People write stories for all kinds of reasons, but things like ‘I just wanted to get it out of my head’ are meaningless from a reader perspective. The greatest piece of writing advice I ever received was you putting words on a page does not obligate anybody to read them. So why are the words there? What point are you trying to make?

The purpose of your story can vary wildly. Usually, you’ll be exploring some kind of thesis, especially if you write genre fiction. Curse Words, for example, is an exploration of self-perpetuating power structures and how aiming for short-term stability and safety can cause long-term problems, as well as the responsibilities of an agitator when seeking to do the necessary work of dismantling those power structures. Most of the things in Curse Words eventually fold back into exploring this question. Alternately, you might just have a really cool idea for a society or alien species or something and want to show it off (note: it can be VERY VERY HARD to carry a story on a ‘cool original concept’ by itself. You think your sky society where they fly above the clouds and have no rainfall and have to harvest water from the clouds below is a cool enough idea to carry a story: You’re almost certainly wrong. These cool concept stories work best when they are either very short, or working in conjunction with exploring a theme). You might be writing a mystery series where each story is a standalone mystery and the point is to present a puzzle and solve a fun mystery each book. Maybe you’re just here to make the reader laugh, and will throw in anything you can find that’ll act as framing for better jokes. In some genres, readers know exactly what they want and have gotten it a hundred times before and want that story again but with different character names – maybe you’re writing one of those. (These stories are popular in romance, pulp fantasy, some action genres, and rather a lot of types of fanfiction).

Whatever the main point of your story is, you should know it by the time you finish the first draft, because you simply cannot write the second draft if you don’t know what the point of the story is. (If you write web serials and are publishing the first draft, you’ll need to figure it out a lot faster.)

Once you know what the point of your story is, you can assess all writing decisions through this lens – does this help or hurt the point of my story?

2: Thou Shalt Respect Thy Reader’s Investment

Readers invest a lot in a story. Sometimes it’s money, if they bought your book, but even if your story is free, they invest time, attention, and emotional investment. The vast majority of your job is making that investment worth it. There are two factors to this – lowering the investment, and increasing the payoff. If you can lower your audience’s suspension of disbelief through consistent characterisation, realistic (for your genre – this may deviate from real realism) worldbuilding, and appropriately foreshadowing and forewarning any unexpected rules of your world. You can lower the amount of effort or attention your audience need to put into getting into your story by writing in a clear manner, using an entertaining tone, and relying on cultural touchpoints they understand already instead of pushing them in the deep end into a completely unfamiliar situation. The lower their initial investment, the easier it is to make the payoff worth it.

Two important notes here: one, not all audiences view investment in the same way. Your average reader views time as a major investment, but readers of long fiction (epic fantasies, web serials, et cetera) often view length as part of the payoff. Brandon Sanderson fans don’t grab his latest book and think “Uuuugh, why does it have to be so looong!” Similarly, some people like being thrown in the deep end and having to put a lot of work into figuring out what the fuck is going on with no onboarding. This is one of science fiction’s main tactics for forcibly immersing you in a future world. So the valuation of what counts as too much investment varies drastically between readers.

Two, it’s not always the best idea to minimise the necessary investment at all costs. Generally, engagement with art asks something of us, and that’s part of the appeal. Minimum-effort books do have their appeal and their place, in the same way that idle games or repetitive sitcoms have their appeal and their place, but the memorable stories, the ones that have staying power and provide real value, are the ones that ask something of the reader. If they’re not investing anything, they have no incentive to engage, and you’re just filling in time. This commandment does not exist to tell you to try to ask nothing of your audience – you should be asking something of your audience. It exists to tell you to respect that investment. Know what you’re asking of your audience, and make sure that the ask is less than the payoff.

The other way to respect the investment is of course to focus on a great payoff. Make those characters socially fascinating, make that sacrifice emotionally rending, make the answer to that mystery intellectually fulfilling. If you can make the investment worth it, they’ll enjoy your story. And if you consistently make their investment worth it, you build trust, and they’ll be willing to invest more next time, which means you can ask more of them and give them an even better payoff. Audience trust is a very precious currency and this is how you build it – be worth their time.

But how do you know what your audience does and doesn’t consider an onerous investment? And how do you know what kinds of payoff they’ll find rewarding? Easy – they self-sort. Part of your job is telling your audience what to expect from you as soon as you can, so that if it’s not for them, they’ll leave, and if it is, they’ll invest and appreciate the return. (“Oh but I want as many people reading my story as possible!” No, you don’t. If you want that, you can write paint-by-numbers common denominator mass appeal fic. What you want is the audience who will enjoy your story; everyone else is a waste of time, and is in fact, detrimental to your success, because if they don’t like your story then they’re likely to be bad marketing. You want these people to bounce off and leave before you disappoint them. Don’t try to trick them into staying around.) Your audience should know, very early on, what kind of an experience they’re in for, what the tone will be, the genre and character(s) they’re going to follow, that sort of thing. The first couple of chapters of Time to Orbit: Unknown, for example, are a micro-example of the sorts of mysteries that Aspen will be dealing with for most of the book, as well as a sample of their character voice, the way they approach problems, and enough of their background, world and behaviour for the reader to decide if this sort of story is for them. We also start the story with some mildly graphic medical stuff, enough physics for the reader to determine the ‘hardness’ of the scifi, and about the level of physical risk that Aspen will be putting themselves at for most of the book. This is all important information for a reader to have.

If you are mindful of the investment your readers are making, mindful of the value of the payoff, and honest with them about both from the start so that they can decide whether the story is for them, you can respect their investment and make sure they have a good time.

3: Thou Shalt Not Make Thy World Less Interesting

This one’s really about payoff, but it’s important enough to be its own commandment. It relates primarily to twists, reveals, worldbuilding, and killing off storylines or characters. One mistake that I see new writers make all the time is that they tank the engagement of their story by introducing a cool fun twist that seems so awesome in the moment and then… is a major letdown, because the implications make the world less interesting.

“It was all a dream” twists often fall into this trap. Contrary to popular opinion, I think these twists can be done extremely well. I’ve seen them done extremely well. The vast majority of the time, they’re very bad. They’re bad because they take an interesting world and make it boring. The same is true of poorly thought out, shocking character deaths – when you kill a character, you kill their potential, and if they’re a character worth killing in a high impact way then this is always a huge sacrifice on your part. Is it worth it? Will it make the story more interesting? Similarly, if your bad guy is going to get up and gloat ‘Aha, your quest was all planned by me, I was working in the shadows to get you to acquire the Mystery Object since I could not! You have fallen into my trap! Now give me the Mystery Object!’, is this a more interesting story than if the protagonist’s journey had actually been their own unmanipulated adventure? It makes your bad guy look clever and can be a cool twist, but does it mean that all those times your protagonist escaped the bad guy’s men by the skin of his teeth, he was being allowed to escape? Are they retroactively less interesting now?

Whether these twists work or not will depend on how you’ve constructed the rest of your story. Do they make your world more or less interesting?

If you have the audience’s trust, it’s permissible to make your world temporarily less interesting. You can kill off the cool guy with the awesome plan, or make it so that the Chosen One wasn’t actually the Chosen One, or even have the main character wake up and find out it was all a dream, and let the reader marinate in disappointment for a little while before you pick it up again and turn things around so that actually, that twist does lead to a more interesting story! But you have to pick it up again. Don’t leave them with the version that’s less interesting than the story you tanked for the twist. The general slop of interest must trend upward, and your sacrifices need to all lead into the more interesting world. Otherwise, your readers will be disappointed, and their experience will be tainted.

Whenever I’m looking at a new piece of writing advice, I view it through these three rules. Is this plot still delivering on the book’s purpose, or have I gone off the rails somewhere and just stared writing random stuff? Does making this character ‘more relateable’ help or hinder that goal? Does this argument with the protagonists’ mother tell the reader anything or lead to any useful payoff; is it respectful of their time? Will starting in medias res give the audience an accurate view of the story and help them decide whether to invest? Does this big twist that challenges all the assumptions we’ve made so far imply a world that is more or less interesting than the world previously implied?

Hopefully these can help you, too.

[phantomrose96]

The conversation around AI is going to get away from us quickly because people lack the language to distinguish types of AI--and it's not their fault. Companies love to slap "AI" on anything they believe can pass for something "intelligent" a computer program is doing. And this muddies the waters when people want to talk about AI when the exact same word covers a wide umbrella and they themselves don't know how to qualify the distinctions within.

I'm a software engineer and not a data scientist, so I'm not exactly at the level of domain expert. But I work with data scientists, and I have at least rudimentary college-level knowledge of machine learning and linear algebra from my CS degree. So I want to give some quick guidance.

What is AI? And what is not AI?

So what's the difference between just a computer program, and an "AI" program? Computers can do a lot of smart things, and companies love the idea of calling anything that seems smart enough "AI", but industry-wise the question of "how smart" a program is has nothing to do with whether it is AI.

A regular, non-AI computer program is procedural, and rigidly defined. I could "program" traffic light behavior that essentially goes { if(light === green) { go(); } else { stop();} }. I've told it in simple and rigid terms what condition to check, and how to behave based on that check. (A better program would have a lot more to check for, like signs and road conditions and pedestrians in the street, and those things will still need to be spelled out.)

An AI traffic light behavior is generated by machine-learning, which simplistically is a huge cranking machine of linear algebra which you feed training data into and it "learns" from. By "learning" I mean it's developing a complex and opaque model of parameters to fit the training data (but not over-fit). In this case the training data probably includes thousands of videos of car behavior at traffic intersections. Through parameter tweaking and model adjustment, data scientists will turn this crank over and over adjusting it to create something which, in very opaque terms, has developed a model that will guess the right behavioral output for any future scenario.

A well-trained model would be fed a green light and know to go, and a red light and know to stop, and 'green but there's a kid in the road' and know to stop. A very very well-trained model can probably do this better than my program above, because it has the capacity to be more adaptive than my rigidly-defined thing if the rigidly-defined program is missing some considerations. But if the AI model makes a wrong choice, it is significantly harder to trace down why exactly it did that.

Because again, the reason it's making this decision may be very opaque. It's like engineering a very specific plinko machine which gets tweaked to be very good at taking a road input and giving the right output. But like if that plinko machine contained millions of pegs and none of them necessarily correlated to anything to do with the road. There's possibly no "if green, go, else stop" to look for. (Maybe there is, for traffic light specifically as that is intentionally very simplistic. But a model trained to recognize written numbers for example likely contains no parameters at all that you could map to ideas a human has like "look for a rigid line in the number". The parameters may be all, to humans, meaningless.)

So, that's basics. Here are some categories of things which get called AI:

"AI" which is just genuinely not AI

There's plenty of software that follows a normal, procedural program defined rigidly, with no linear algebra model training, that companies would love to brand as "AI" because it sounds cool.

Something like motion detection/tracking might be sold as artificially intelligent. But under the covers that can be done as simply as "if some range of pixels changes color by a certain amount, flag as motion"

2. AI which IS genuinely AI, but is not the kind of AI everyone is talking about right now

"AI", by which I mean machine learning using linear algebra, is very good at being fed a lot of training data, and then coming up with an ability to go and categorize real information.

The AI technology that looks at cells and determines whether they're cancer or not, that is using this technology. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the technology that can take an image of hand-written text and transcribe it. Again, it's using linear algebra, so yes it's AI.

Many other such examples exist, and have been around for quite a good number of years. They share the genre of technology, which is machine learning models, but these are not the Large Language Model Generative AI that is all over the media. Criticizing these would be like criticizing airplanes when you're actually mad at military drones. It's the same "makes fly in the air" technology but their impact is very different.

3. The AI we ARE talking about. "Chat-gpt" type of Generative AI which uses LLMs ("Large Language Models")

If there was one word I wish people would know in all this, it's LLM (Large Language Model). This describes the KIND of machine learning model that Chat-GPT/midjourney/stablediffusion are fueled by. They're so extremely powerfully trained on human language that they can take an input of conversational language and create a predictive output that is human coherent. (I am less certain what additional technology fuels art-creation, specifically, but considering the AI art generation has risen hand-in-hand with the advent of powerful LLM, I'm at least confident in saying it is still corely LLM).

This technology isn't exactly brand new (predictive text has been using it, but more like the mostly innocent and much less successful older sibling of some celebrity, who no one really thinks about.) But the scale and power of LLM-based AI technology is what is new with Chat-GPT.

This is the generative AI, and even better, the large language model generative AI.

(Data scientists, feel free to add on or correct anything.)