#discussion guide

[ocshowandtell]

thought it might help to have a starting point for anyone who isn't sure how to begin! (these are just suggestions, and not required by any means!) use these as a guide for submissions if you like, or for your personal use!

Short OC show and tell template

[Image of character]

Name of character:

What’s their story’s setting/context?

What do they do with most of their time?

What do they want? Why?

How do they plan to get it?

Who do they know? How do they feel about them?

Favorite bit about character:

Longer OC show and tell template

[image of character]

Name of character:

Gender, sexuality, age, general vibe, species (if relevant):

Favorite bit about character:

What’s their story’s setting/context? What’s the general plot?

What do they do with most of their time? What do they do for fun?

What do they want? Why? What’s stopping them?

How do they plan to get it? Do they plan to get it? 

Who do they know? How do they feel about them? Which/what sort of relationships matter the most to them?

How will/have those people changed their life, for the better or worse?

What’s their biggest flaw?

What do other people think of them?

What genre is their story? What genre do they think it is?

How do things work out for them?

if you would like more character questions to think on, check out @characterbabble!

[edhelwen1]

Discussion Guide for Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers

Have you read Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers? Are you still on the fence about it? Is your book club reading it?

Check out these discussion questions to see if this is the right book for you! (also, the printable looks super awesome, if I do say so myself. 😉 )

We tried to keep them spoiler-free. 😇

Read more at our website! (The Discussion Guide is a downloadable PDF on our website as well.)

Art by @pinkpiggy93

[tahbhie]

Creating Emotionally Devastating Scenes.

Crafting a scene that earns the total sympathy of your readers can be challenging, but it's not impossible. Most emotionally devastating scenes fail at two things, but when these are done right, the results can be powerful.

⚪ The Important Concepts for Writing an Emotionally Devastating Scene

1. The Build-Up,

2. Breaking the Dam.

Before I explain these concepts, let me share a case study.

⚫ Case Study

I wrote a story about a young orphan named Jackie and her younger brother. Their village was burned down, leaving them as the only survivors.

For the next few chapters, readers followed their painful journey and their struggle to survive. The younger brother had a heart problem, and Jackie vowed to become a cardiologist to save him.

She was very ambitious about it, but at the time, it was very ironic. Later in the story, when they encountered a tragic living condition with a family, the brother died while telling his sister how much he missed their parents.

When her brother was fighting for his life, she was sent out of the room, only to be let in again to see his cold, lifeless body.

⚪ Explanation of Concepts

1. The Build-Up

The build-up is extremely important when you aim to convey strong emotions. Here's a secret: if you plan for a scene with strong emotions, start leaving breadcrumbs from the very beginning of the story.

Take the previous case study. I carefully built up their journey so people could easily relate and feel the pain of the older sister during her brother's sudden death.

You need to give the situation enough reason to feel utterly hopeless and devastating. Gradually cultivate the tension until it's ready to let loose.

⚫ Understanding the Use of Breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs in stories ensure you utilize the time you have to build up certain emotions around your characters.

At the beginning of my story, Jackie’s fate was already pitiable, but she survived every hurdle. This gave the readers enough to feel for her while still leaning away from the outcome. When I built enough, I introduced her brother's sudden death.

Hence, leave your breadcrumbs while leaning away from the outcome.

⚪ How to Properly Leave Breadcrumbs

When building up your story, consider these elements:

☞⁠ Character Relatability: The characters need to be realistic to draw readers into the story. This helps readers invest themselves in your story.

☞⁠ Realistic Emotional Pain: Just as characters need to be relatable, their emotions need to be realistic and not appear forced.

☞⁠ Create a Strong Emotional Attachment: Give them something they care about or that has the power to ruin their lives in any way. It could be something that makes them happy or something their happiness relies on. When it's time, snatch it away without remorse.

☞⁠ Have a Backstage Struggle: This struggle keeps readers occupied, so they won't see the outcome coming. For example, Jackie’s constant struggle to find food and shelter keeps readers engaged while the impending tragedy looms in the background.

☞⁠ Attach Believable Elements: For a realistic character, emotion, and struggle, attach believable elements. It could be death, ailments, sickness, disorder, disappointment, failure, etc.

Now that we've covered the build-up, let's move on to the next crucial part.

2. Breaking the Dam

This is when you make your readers feel the strong emotions alongside your characters. All the tension you’ve been building up is released, making all emotions come into play.

☞⁠ Break Your Strong Attachment: Cut off your strong attachment from your character when they least expect it or at a point when they couldn't use more struggles (i.e when they are helpless).

This will not only evoke readers’ emotions but also pique their curiosity as they wonder how the character will survive the situation.

☞⁠ Description of Sensory Details to Invoke Emotions: The advice of "show, don't tell" will be really helpful here. It's crucial to ensure that the final execution matches the build-up.

A well-crafted build-up can fall flat if the emotional release isn't handled effectively. To avoid this, blend the climax seamlessly into the narrative, making it feel natural and impactful.

Reblog to save for reference! 💜

[wolfythoughts]

5 Short LGBT Book Club Books

So, you want to bring an LGBTQIA+ book to your book club. But Pride month is already upon us, so it needs to be short! Or maybe reading an LGBTQIA+ book will be a bit of a stretch for your group so you want to entice them into it by promising a short read. Never fear, your friendly queer and bisexual book blogger has your back with 5 books all under 300 pages. Plus, I have discussion guides…

[afterthelambs]

i adore Maruki as a character because he's simultaneously the most relatable depressing character that will make you cry with empathy, and the goofiest wettest cat loser in the game like what do you mean youre a licensed therapist and your first response to trauma is to brainwash a girl, project ur relationship issues onto a 17 yr old boy, and then rule the world in a golden leotard? bro went from 0 to 100 so fast??? anyway he's like 30% of the reason why p5r works as well as it does

[sforzesco]

I got. thoughts. about valens and voices in imperial roman history. but I also got a lot of thoughts about uhhhhhh choosing your brother for co ruling the Fratricide Foundation Story Empire. many thoughts about themistius' oration too

Brotherly Love, Themistius (trans. Peter Heather & David Moncur)

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / insta

[mothmanavenue]

can i confess something else that will absolutely get me stoned in the town square since im dropping my unpopular opinions. I don’t like altean broadsword Lance. i already disliked red paladin Lance. the broadsword was like rubbing salt in the wound. why couldn’t he have his own niche. why was his character development just making him keith. i understand that it was like “he accepts that he doesn’t have to be a leader and excels as a co-leader and you can find happiness that way yada yada yada”. but you could’ve done that without making him keith. also now give him something unique, cool, that falls in line with his sniper bit. i’m not saying just give him another gun, im saying give him something quiet and lethal. like a garotte. yeah i want garotte lance.

i yap a lot more in my notes by the way if you were interested in other unpopular opinions. don’t send me hate messages or comments i won’t read it and will block viciously i also will not be debating this this is my hill to die on <3

[swordscleric]

I can't stop thinking about the post from a few days ago about how Critical Role has been great at doing personal faith but didn't put the necessary work in to discuss the religious/god angle of c3 in-depth. Like the fact that Cardinal Respa was linked to both the Dawnfather and the Chained Oblivion is, on a personal level, very interesting (fallen/corrupted priest goes hard) but like does that mean that there's a Papacy somewhere in Exandria dedicated to the Dawnfather? If so, are there more cardinals who ordain the bishops of the Dawnfather? Are there Conclave-level intrigues going on in the Dawnfather's Sistine Chapel? Why is the Dawnfather so Christianity-coded in vibes alone if there's no actual outline of his religious organisations? With Downfall the Dawnchild/Dawnfather thing makes the allusions to Christ as Son of God co-existing with the Father textual - was there a Dawnfather Schism around whether the Dawnchild was a separate mortal? Was there a Reformation about how the Dawnfather's Pope kept selling indulgences? Is that why the priest of the Dawnfather Grog & Pike offer a drink to doesn't partake because of a cultural shift between Protestant-Temperance-League-coded and Catholic-coded Dawnfather congregations? Why do I have so many questions about the religious organisation of one of the most important Prime Deities in Exandria and to Critical Role's 3 campaigns? How on earth were the cast (and us as the viewers!) meant to care about the gods if all they had were "really tall kings" instead of interrogating how religious organisations provide both a place of healing and community to a wide range of people and also a place of horrific harm and abuse for a wide range of people?

[watercraver]

Two of my friends just read the original HDG in a discord VC.

They seemed to enjoy the world building but were kinda put-off by Elvira and Miss Nele’s dynamic.

They commented on how Elvira was constantly unhappy and how the concept of domestication is sorta framed as a negative, at least if you’re not already into it.

I sent them both Dog of War, since I think it’s just… better than the original, especially when it comes to how it frames and executes being a pet and I think they might enjoy it more, even if it has ‘weirder’ kinks and explicit sex scenes.

They’ve said they won’t be reading it in-call (primarily due to the aforementioned sex scenes) but I think it’s generally a better read.

Yeah so TLDR; I accidentally got my friends interested, even if morbidly, in the HDG setting.

[bogkeep]

idk how relatable this is but there's times where i've wanted to experience a piece of media that has been deemed Cringe or Pretentious, but i need to experience it With someone, so that someone must be non-judgemental and equally interested in accepting sincerity into their heart, and sometimes a particular friend becomes a repeat designated driver for that particular ride. anyway call that partner in cringe

[bug-in-a-cage]

Occasionally the Culture and the Affini Compact bump into each other in deep space. For the most part, the Culture is...intrigued, albeit not repulsed, by the Affini Compact's whole deal, but prefers to maintain a delineation between the two societies.

Following a few misunderstandings (involving high-powered weaponry that would make most civilisations roll over and crawl back into the sea), the GCU Shameless Exhibitionist presided over the signing of an accord amounting to "It takes all sorts to make a universe, Kumbaya, and all that", with the solemn promise that neither civilisation would try to annex the other, provided the parties follow certain stipulations.

It turns out that a small, but significant percentage of Culture citizens rather like being kept as pets, and the Affini Compact is endeared by the novelty of a spacefaring society with a standing army and a commitment to doing right by people.

Bless their hearts.

[rxttenfish]

have yuo ever thought about what if aaravi was a merfolk? i think she would be badass.. ((not that she isnt already))

i have, actually! ironically i've even drawn her as a merfolk before, albeit. it's very, very old art... when i was still giving merfolk hair even! this puts it around 3-4 years old, though i did get minorly obsessed with this as an AU when i did.

there's really no way to translate aaravi into a merfolk without making her some variety of low royal bastard. it's technically true with her dad as-is — while it's not nearly the kind of thing that has actual power and weight behind it, he would be considered somewhere in the general realm of courtly nobility for fae (whatever that means for fae, i haven't fully figured it out myself) and this is something that does have a minor influence on aaravi herself. it's far from the only thing giving her issues with authority and especially with nobility, but it certainly doesn't help either.

in this case, aaravi would be considered a hybrid between an abyssal merfolk and a pacific-migratory merfolk. in terms of physical appearance, this is what gives her the reddish-gold coloration. effectively, she got the abyssal pigmentation for red and pink, but with a major diluting effect from the silvery-blue pacific-migratory side, with her patterns and patterning showing up from that side of her genetics. if you swapped out the red pigment for blue here, she'd look a lot closer to a pacific-migratory, and the yellow pigment shows up in both. she has a mild case of gigantism, hence the latter picture here — ironically, she'd be larger than miranda, when it should be the other way around, because miranda's growth was stunted at a young age. otherwise, most of her body shape is closer to a pacific-migratory, with a longer, narrower skull than a full abyssal, and thus is not quite as adept at bone-crushing as someone like miranda.

(miranda should likewise probably be considered partially hybridized herself... but honestly no part of the abyssal population should be considered "full abyssal" anymore either. miranda is pretty close to what a full abyssal should be like, due to various gene treatments involved in her conception, and due to the reigning king being considered just abyssal enough to count, despite the outcrossing in his background — but these are the strains of a population that's wedged itself deeper and deeper into fatal inbreeding and the attempts to both fix that as well as desperately not being willing to let it go. miranda's family tree is a wreathe, to put it lightly.)

in terms of what this means socially: pacific-migratory merfolk are the most common type of merfolk in the capital city and the surrounding area, but they're also pretty widespread in general, being the majority population in things like the great nomadic families and their communities. the organized whale hunts come from these, and they're still the most common merfolk to see involved with them, both serving a spiritual function and managing the whale populations, while also providing whale meat for the rest of the population. they're considered in the realm of middle royals by default within the kingdom, though not all in these communities are, and i see aaravi's mom as having come from one of these groups, not being a middle royal nor a part of that group herself, but in an esteemed position as a whale-hunter.

aaravi's dad, then, would have to come from one of the low royals — not considered part of the royal family itself and thus not a part of the ruling line, but part of the periphery of that, the other Big-Fucking-Deal families surrounding and supporting that rule, those who are inside of the royal courts and those who both marry into the royal family and who get the non-inheriting royal family members when they undoubtedly have to do something else besides wait in the wings. whether or not he was an inheriting member of his family line or not... well, i don't know! it'd matter a lot more if he was, and aaravi's existence would be even more strictly punished if it came out, but there's really no way for her to exist at all without it being something that would cause major issues in the line of inheritance and disgrace for the family lines involved.

royals don't like bastards. i've mentioned this before, but it still rings true. as much as they like to sleep around and reap the rewards of their position and what it allows them to get away with, the family lines themselves originate from miivt'ia groups that only allowed other merfolk to join them if they were born into them, and long-term agreements in the form of "marriages" between them and other groups were used to form political agreements between those groups and ensure those agreements were being held, while also guaranteeing that some members of their family line were being allowed to join another's, thus enabling them to move up. having kids outside of this system starts to pull it into question: should aaravi be considered a part of this family line? what about the fact that she was raised outside of it, by someone else, and thus doesn't meet criteria for an effective member? does this weaken or call into question current agreements between those who have married into this line and the family lines they come from? has the royal in question behaved improperly, by weakening this family line and the responsibilities they should be held to?

royals do not like answering any of these questions. not only does it provide a major weakness for themselves and their own position to be called into question and potentially face consequences for opening their family line up to such doubts, but now the family line itself is in jeopardy, as other royals tangentially or even uninvolved with the creation of a bastard can use it as leverage to further their own goals and agendas. the discovery of a bastard can easily prove to be the last straw in making a complicated web of political maneuvering fail and a family line to be destroyed, so royals are quite invested in making sure no bastards in their line come to exist, destroying any bastards they do find before anyone else can discover them, and discovering the bastards of other families to use as leverage against them.

unfortunately, royals do sleep around a lot. they're merfolk. monogamy isn't really a thing they tend to do, and they're already biased towards multiple partners in a short period of time and a low barrier to having sex at all to encourage community-building and to remove tensions. they're also royals, so they're seldom at want for a lack of partners either, and royals having sex in ways that doesn't weaken their family line isn't really discouraged beyond cases of obligate birth control. it's why miranda being considered a virgin matters — she doesn't have kids and she's never been involved in one of these political "marriages". it doesn't matter if she's had sex before, it's even encouraged due to the political implications of her "performing well", so long as these two criteria are met. as much as it pains the royals, bastards are a lot more common than any of them insist.

so! about that destroying!

when i say royals are determined to destroy any of their bastards they find, i mean that involves killing them as quickly and as quietly as possible. this nearly always means also killing the non-royal communities they were born into, as group parenting occurs not only within the miivt'ia but the miivt'ia adjacent to them, and anyone who might have ever known about the bastard and their birth. information about a dead bastard is nearly as valuable as the bastard themselves, and so royals want a clean slate, to ensure absolutely nothing gets out that this ever happened.

bastards still do occur, of course, and they can even fly under the radar, but the issue then starts to form in the communities they're a part of, and the non-royal part of their inheritance. this salted-earth approach to the finding of any bastard at all puts them in direct danger as well, not least of all because if they knew, they could be considered to be either helping the bastard and working against the royal and the throne at large. although your average merfolk is a lot less... enthusiastic about the royals than the royals themselves would have you believe, this is still the kind of thing that puts them at risk, and thus the kind of thing they very seldom view positively either. they're just as much at risk of entirely shunning any bastard that they find and cutting all contact, pretending they do not exist and never existed, or just outright revealing their existence to the royal in question, in a bid to try and save themselves and limit damage.

it's not a great position to be in! aaravi could have flown under the radar as a grouper-hybrid instead, as grouper merfolk are the closest other species to abyssals and share most of the physical traits of them, that red-gold-pink coloration would absolutely betray her as an abyssal hybrid instead. i never designed salil, but i imagine he would have even more noticeable "tells" as well (though i also never fully worked out what salil's existence would mean in this AU).

hence, while aaravi could get away with repeatedly obscuring and "dyeing" the color of her scales, salil would need more than that, and from the moment they were born, there was no way their mom didn't know exactly what happened and exactly what was at risk. in this AU, i can only imagine she began to isolate even harder than she did as a human and a slayer, being even more insistent that absolutely no one should see either of them without limiting as much contact as possible, and that she's the only one of them who is allowed to meet and talk to other merfolk. while this wouldn't be enough to kill a merfolk from loneliness, it WOULD still have a major impact on their health and very nearly kill them, so aaravi's mom dying of an illness likewise checks out.

it depends from there — ironically i imagine the two siblings going their separate ways from a disagreement in what they should do. aaravi would be more of the type to insist that they can only trust each other and only look after each other, that salil cannot be allowed to be seen by other merfolk without everything falling apart, and wanting to stay together with him in a similar, isolated manner. salil would be more likely to insist on separating, so that if one of them is found out, it'll be harder to find the other, and having safety in being able to each obscure themselves, likely finding the way both his mother and aaravi treated him to be uniquely isolating and punishing and, perhaps, wanting to try his luck elsewhere than to continue to be treated as untouchable. aaravi wouldn't be able to do much to stop salil from leaving, if he feels like she's not listening to him and deciding to go his own way regardless, and she would have to do something to ensure she's not left completely alone in the world, a death sentence for a merfolk.

where her interactions with miranda start varies from this point... aaravi probably would similarly join a group of merfolk living outside of the law, obscuring her identity and her history and her bastard status as much as possible, and it's not unlikely that said community of merfolk might be mercenaries or similar, as she would have fairly applicable talents and they would be more willing to look the other way or not ask questions. miranda does have more dealings with mercenary groups within the merkingdom than she will EVER talk about, and it's possible that they start to interact from here, though again, it varies and i'm less solid on this.

miranda's position in turn, if or when she figures out aaravi's an abyssal hybrid and thus can only be a royal bastard, would be... well. like i said. royals keep making bastards for a reason. being able to bond with anyone outside of the bounds of their title would be tempting enough for anyone, and especially enough to not consider or not care very much about the position that they're putting the other party in. royals also just tend to like "that which they aren't allowed to have", the same as anyone. and miranda, as much as she is normally and as much as she would be in this AU, really would just have a Thing for bastards. they're just her type and they just hit her brain in exactly the right way to make her obsess, and she wouldn't be able to deny that she finds them deeply attractive. she would never admit this, not even to herself, but yeah, the moment this comes out she would start getting the hots for aaravi really bad.

and, honestly, they could likely use this to their advantage? like i said, other royals DO have an investment in finding the royals of other lineages and using them in political maneuvering, and it's pretty hard to get any better than the Crown Princess Herself discovering the bastard of a lesser low royal and deciding to keep her around. it would likewise provide a safer position for aaravi, because, again, Crown Princess Herself, and who is going to challenge her rulings or how she wants to toss around her power? especially since miranda is considered special for multiple reasons inside her title, reasons which aaravi could very much use to her advantage on top of being half abyssal herself.

as for where the rest of this goes, who knows! i never fully developed this AU, and although i do still continually return to it, it's never solidified in my mind as one thing or the other.

[pioneer-over-c]

blorbo from my prison break

[charmtale]

before everyone gets sent to the middle of the galaxy*, we don’t see chibichibi do that much that could be described as interference with the past timeline but one thing she does do- the first thing she does at all- is rescue kakyuu. it's at least implied that kakyuu would have died otherwise- she even tells the starlights "Several times I tried to go to you. But my body's recovery took longer than expected... ChibiChibi was the one who helped me a lot." ultimately kakyuu helps usagi get to the galaxy cauldron, meaning her presence isn't inconsequential.

chibichibi also attempts to prevent the starlights from meeting kakyuu. she refuses when they ask and also did not at any point bring kakyuu's incense jail to them. now she obviously didn't feel that strongly about preventing it, she could blow up the starlights if she wanted, but i don't think she would've initially been against it for zero reason. and there is no way she doesn't already know their relationship even if you ignore that chibichibi is sailor moon from the future because she's been regularly talking with kakyuu about the starlights over the past few weeks or so.

this leaves me with some questions:

-what happens in the ‘first’ timeline that chibichibi/sailor cosmos originated from? mainly, does kakyuu live or die in that timeline? we don't actually know for sure despite the implication. does she live, but in a worse/damaged state? if she did die, how does chibichibi know her at all- hearing about her from the 'first' timeline starlights?

-why try to keep kakyuu from the starlights? attempted damage control to prevent the timeline from getting too different?

-if chibichibi’s interference caused kakyuu to live when she originally died, why do this? did she want someone to temporarily keep usagi company after all her friends died? did she just feel bad for kakyuu? did she know having kakyuu alive would get them to the galaxy cauldron more efficiently? clearly sailor moon got there one way or another in the ‘first’ timeline, and kakyuu implies that her star system (and by extension herself, as a princess) is just one of many that are all less powerful than our solar system, meaning she likely doesn’t possess the unique ability to travel there. it seems she just CAN help usagi get there because she knows where it is. but chibichibi herself could fulfill that role. so kakyuu is not necessary to get to the galaxy cauldron. therefore...?

i don't have answers. maybe to her it's like a videogame she's playing for the second time and she's like Ok This time i will see what happens if kakyuu lives. maybe she genuinely didn't know/forgot who kakyuu was and found her on the side of the road and was like 'well i might as well help this random passed out cosplayer while i'm here' and then it was thee alien princess and she was like I can't kill her now it'd be awkwarddddd. intergalactic toddler of mystery

[chaztalk]

This is for the anime that aren’t officially shoujo/josei, but they likely could pass as one.