#pivot installations

[skinnerfarms01]

Skinner Farms Irrigation

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[falllpoutboy]

everything that should be monumental in this show is somehow done incidentally and thats what so annoying about hotd

[nzoth-the-corruptor]

despite it all, I remain an Iridikron = Zorix truther.

[alicenotalice]

The next step in Joe Hills’ current project involves “bothering Etho” (presumably about the redstone to be installed in the TCG shop Joe recently built next to the arena) but alas, Etho isn’t on the server as of this writing. Naturally, Joe has pivoted to the next most obvious subject for his stream—learning to play some sort of newly acquired percussion instrument for the first time live on camera

Highly recommend!

[reignpage]

Vice President!Sukuna

Quisling: crumbling defences

Contents: just a little insight into a day with modern au!sukuna and his president, there's cursing, slight sexual language (very minor), mostly fluff, a little angsty

“Having conducted semi-structured interviews with a substantial number of students and staff across all departments,” you prattle on, standing on the stage of Conference 3 in front of the other members of the Student Council and key senior members of faculty, “our research led us to conclude that security around campus could be improved in various ways, beginning with installing more lamp posts in certain areas, such as around the green house, which as you know has been targeted by the campus vandal informally known as ‘Cursed Womb’.” 

These meetings are always so tedious, and they last far longer than they should, always overrunning for reasons that escape you every time. As you summarise the weeks and weeks worth of work you’ve been doing into a short, snazzy powerpoint presentation, you can’t help but think about the mountain of paperwork waiting for you back in your room, covering the entire surface area of the desk until you’ve actually had to move onto your bed to work. 

It’s an irritating stain in your otherwise clean and tidy room; you aren’t a messy person. Everything has a place and everything is in its place. But the class action against Professor Mahito has overtaken your life. When you’re not talking to the lawyers Sukuna has hired, you’re hosting support sessions with the other victims or writing up notes on every meeting, jotting down times and collecting as much evidence as possible.

“Y/n, if I may interject,” a shrill voice interrupts you, “are you suggesting that the disruptive behaviour of a deranged individual can actually be discouraged with a few light bulbs.”

Light laughter breaks out. 

Your left eye twitches. 

Some of the trustees and senior lecturers with tenure, and decades of research upholding Eden’s reputation, have been undermining you. They interrupt, disregard, and scoff at your suggestions. And you know it isn’t because your work is insubstantial or lacking in anyway at all. The simple truth is, they are friends with Mahito, and you are now their enemy. 

When he slid his hand up your thigh during a one-to-one support session over time management, you could only shift uncomfortably, and clear your throat. You hadn’t said no, is Mahito’s rebuttal to the skeleton argument your team had sent to the courts. And now his other professor friends have been holding it over your head. 

You didn’t say no. 

That mistake is haunting you. 

“Professor Jiro, respectfully,’ a pink-haired guy in the corner drawls, ‘research displays that crime rates decreases by a significant amount after increased visibility. It does, in fact, discourage criminal behaviour. And if you let my president continue, she’ll tell you all about how lamp posts are just one part of her overall plan to tackle crime on campus.”

He’s leaning back in his chair, a pen dancing fluidly between his fingers to a subconscious rhythm, spinning and pivoting effortlessly with a flick of his wrists. A habit of his when he gets restless and irritated. 

You hate that you know that. 

Silence befalls the conference room once more. 

You clear your throat and gesture to the projected slide behind you. “We should install lamp posts across campus, especially through the field behind the Psychology department which many students have reported feeling uncomfortable crossing to get to the Southside Halls at night.”

And the presentation carries on as planned, still a little over time, but otherwise uneventful. The staff members file out, leaving you and the other council members to pack up. 

“Hey, sorry to leave so soon, y/n, but I’ve got to help Gojo out with something,” your treasurer says. 

She’s got an apologetic look on her face and you sigh. 

“He’s not bothering you, is he?” You shuffle the papers in your hand. “Alpha Phi Delta has proven troublesome time and time again for the council, even before Gojo’s presidency.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Frat and trouble tend to go hand-in-hand, don’t they?”

The deadpan expression on your face is the only answer she needs and you wave her goodbye, watching her black figure weaving away, going god knows where to do god knows what for the sunglasses-wearing, second-biggest pain in your ass. 

“She gets to go and I have to stay? Playing favourites, prez?”

And the first biggest pain your ass speaks up, leaning back in a chair a couple of metres away from you, having moved unnoticed by you somehow. He’s balancing precariously on the chair’s back legs, his legs draped over the table, and eyes sparkling at you. 

You ignore him. 

His eyes narrow. “Why’d you let that bald headed old man interrupt?”

You gulp. 

“Did you get the minutes down, Sukuna?”

A ping goes off on your phone and, like a reflex, you pick it up. He’s sent you an email with a subject line titled, ‘Obviously.’ You resist the urge to smack him over the head with the stack of papers in your hands. 

“You really shouldn’t let those old fucks talk over you like that.”

“Fuck. Off. Sukuna.”

He ignores you. “You coming to our hearing later? The lawyers got the warrant approved for the CCTV recordings.”

Your hands still and when you turn he’s looking at you with a firm stare, daring you to make an excuse not to come. He’s been like this the entire time, pushing you further and further and deeper and deeper into this protest, placing you at the centre of it all. You don’t want to be. You’ve done your part by making a statement and signing up as a defendant, and just that small step had forced you back miles. 

People glare at you, whispering ‘liar’ and ‘whore’ to themselves, and the staff interrupt and ignore you, whittling you down into a little girl, instead of the President of the Student Council of Eden University. 

Even some of the city papers have taken a stance against your cause, claiming that Mahito has contributed so much to the development of the university and his field, advancing understanding of the human psyche, that there's no way he could ever be the monster you and the other girls claim he is. 

Sure, those hateful, short-sighted adversaries of the cause are far and few in between — most people have been kind, supportive, and passionate for your cause — but you can’t help but think about all the people that don’t believe you. 

You’ve worked too hard to be disregarded. 

“I don’t know.”

Sukuna scoffs, heat rising to his eyes. 

“The losers getting to you? Is that it? They scaring you off?”

You can’t stand the judgmental tone of his voice, that undercurrent of anger weighing down every word like he’s pelting you with tomatoes in the town square. He has no right. Your chest begins to rise and fall with shallow breaths, your palms growing clammy, and you feel your cheeks burn. 

“Fuck you. You don’t get to judge me! You don’t get to say my coping is right or wrong. You said it yourself. You’re only in this to have something to add to your CV, so that your political career will begin with a legacy of ‘fighting for the innocent and the voiceless’ and whatever other shit you’ve got.”

Everyone else has cleared out, maybe having done so way before this conversation began. It’s just you and your number one enemy staring at each other, the fire raging between your figures suffocating the large room, swallowing all oxygen. 

You’re becoming lightheaded. 

You hate arguing, hate shouting, hate all types of negative energy. It’s bringing tears to your eyes and you flush even harder. There’s no way you’d ever be able to face him if you cry. 

Sukuna lowers his long legs to the floor, standing up to his full height behind the desk. He tucks his hands into his varsity jacket pockets and scans your body from the tip of your shoes to the top of your head. The look on his face resembles disgust, and you wonder if that’s what he sees when you look at him. 

“If you seriously think I’m only in this for my career, then I guess I’m a bigger monster in your eyes than I initially thought.”

You inhale sharply like you’ve just been punched in the gut. 

And he’s turning away, broad back growing smaller and smaller as he nears the doors. You take a step towards him like you can’t hep yourself. Your fingers itch to grab his jacket sleeve, to apologise, and explain yourself. 

But did you even say anything wrong?

No, Sukuna’s manipulative. Always has been, always will be. This guilt wracking through your body is what he wants you to feel so you’ll cave, so you’ll devote yourself wholeheartedly to this class action. And once you do, surely the chances of success of the suit against Mahito and the university will increase, and he’ll win, and he’ll be set for every campaign he ever runs for the rest of his life. 

You’re so sure of this, so set in your analysis of his character that you force your body to still. You don’t chase after him, you don’t even open your mouth to argue back, to have the last word. 

He stops right before he opens the door, tilting his body ever so slightly to channel his words to you and you only. 

“I wish you could see how strong you actually are. Maybe then you wouldn’t let them get the best of you.”

Your nails dig into your palm. 

“See you around, y/n.”

———

Is it guilt that brought you to the hearing located in an empty office just a ten minute walk from campus? Or the sudden realisation that Sukuna’s right?

It can’t be the latter. 

If society began accepting that devil spawns like Sukuna actually have moral high ground in some situations then the world will never know peace. 

That’s what you keep telling yourself as you push the door open, cringing at the creak, and ignoring the eyes that dart over to you as you settle into a seat at the back. The place is full of students tonight — there are the girls who have been victimised by Professor Mahito, and the friends they’ve brought along for moral support. There are also lawyers and paralegals typing furiously to the side but they quickly become invisible when your eyes settle on a fiery pair already fixated on you. 

He’s not smirking like he always does, like you had expected him to be. There’s not a drop of arrogance or amusement in his eyes, and that makes you feel worse. This hadn’t been a game from the start. Looking now at how he’s organised the whole thing, using his family’s money and connections to get something concrete going, you realise he’s been more into this than you have been. 

One foot has only ever been through the threshold for you, if even that, but Sukuna? Sukuna’s had his feet planted firmly on the ground, placing himself at the forefront of the whirlwind. And you had shrugged off his efforts for justice as mere pragmatism and a feeding of his political agenda. 

You’re a terrible person. 

Mouth zipped and hands clasping each other, you sit there, watching intently every detail presented on the TV screen. Every CCTV recording available displaying Mahito’s advances on a terrified first year in the hallway, against a library bookshelf, in the park, and so on and so forth. 

The evidence is so irrefutable, so in your face, you feel stupid you had ever doubted the class action. And looking around, the horror on people’s faces as they watch the real monster at work highlight just how necessary it is to put things on the line for the greater good. Sukuna had realised that and you didn’t. 

Some kind of president you are. 

Eventually the night draws to an end, conversations fizzle out and people file out one by one. The lawyers had given everyone a thorough talking to, advising everyone not to share any details about the case, the contents of the recordings, and to stay vigilant about any protestors who may be looking to deter the movement. 

There's a sense of hope fizzling in the air, like a weight lifted. Still, there's a long way to go but there's no doubt in anyone's mind that the win is within reach.

You stand outside the office building, just at the top of the stairs, watching the last people disappear into the night. It’s a little cold, winter is approaching after all, but you’ve forgotten your coat. Some things just keep slipping your mind these days.

“Changed your mind, huh.”

Without needing to look, you already know who it is. You’d recognise that voice anywhere, with its low tone and deep cadence, a mocking undercurrent always running through every word, lacing it with something sweet and poisonous. 

You glance at him. He’s wearing the clothes he had on earlier, hair ruffled slightly and you want to fix it. On the other hand, you’ve stopped by your dorm to freshen up, feeling a sudden need to be thoroughly scrubbed and cleansed. But you had mistakenly put on a thin sweater and tied your hair up, forgetting the time and place, like you could only think about what he was going to say or do when he sees you there. 

“Yeah,” you begin, mulling the words in your head before speaking them into fruition, “I suppose, after much consideration, I realised you had a point.”

Sukuna laughs. It’s dark and menacing, the kind a sadist lets out in a horror movie. And it makes you shiver. You want to hear it again. 

“What a long winded way of saying ‘you’re right, Sukuna’.”

The way he says it makes your eyes twitch. He’s put on a shrill, overly feminine voice and practically moaned his own name. That’s probably how all the girls he’s been with has said them. 

A blush is rising to your cheeks and you descend down the stairs, feeling him follow behind you. “It’s just one time. Don’t let it get to your head.”

“Yeah, well, it was good to see you there.”

You’re both walking down the road, you don’t dare acknowledge that his apartment is on the other side of the campus, and he doesn’t mention his intentions. Being side by side, this close, makes your palms sweat. His jacket sleeve brushes against your arm and you move to the left slightly. 

Sukuna only moves in closer. 

“Were you hoping I’d come?”

You hate the melancholy tone your voice has taken, the way you sound so hopeful and wistful. It’s pathetic. Just remember who he is, his true nature, how he hides behind a facade of propriety, of manners and kindness, the perfect gentleman.

Except perfect gentlemen don’t have tongue piercings which sometimes catch the light of the lampposts when he speaks. 

And perfect ladies don’t stare and run their tongue over their teeth absentmindedly either. 

He shrugs and the jacket presses against you. “Wanted to win our little stand-off, of course, so yeah, I guess I did.”

“You won this one but this’ll be the last time.” You huff. “Mark my words, Ryomen.”

He looks down at you, a thoughtful look on his face as he scans your features. You see his jaw tense and you know he’s rolling his piercing like he rolls a pen between his fingers. When you raise a brow in question, he only lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. 

It’s irritating you that he’s being mature. You want him to poke and prod like he always does. You want to watch him crack his neck as a way to control his real thoughts and feelings, want to see that challenging smirk, the burning embers in his eyes as he sizes you up, like a snake does with its prey. 

You just want to see him in his true form. 

Well, if he won’t poke, then you should do it. Set nature back on its course, reset the balance of right and wrong, and ensure all is right in the world. So you stop. You literally stand stiff as a board, falling behind a metre before he realises you’re not beside him. 

A muscle in his jaw ticks, you see it flex under the streetlight. It highlights every sharp edge, chiselled features, and makes his threatening eyes even more alarming. 

“Give me your jacket.”

Sukuna scowls. He looks confused. 

“I want your jacket.”

“Get your own,” is all he says before he turns back around and continues walking, flashing you the Ryomen and 13 on his back. You don’t move. He notices and stops, letting out an exasperated groan, hands on his hip like he’s dealing with a child. 

“I swear to god, not even Yuji is this much of a pain in my ass”

You don’t know who this Yuji person is but you don’t care. You’ve made your stance clear. Sukuna being all nice and wise makes the hairs on back of your neck stand; it’s just plain wrong. You don’t want a friend out of him, you want an enemy. You need him to be your enemy, because anything else, anything more, would be disastrous. 

Sukuna must have seen something in your eyes, whether it’s just the steely determination or your inner thoughts, but whatever it is it makes him stalk over to you. His long legs take him to where you stand, just at the edge of a circle of light, and he’s stepping away from his own light and embracing your shadows. He’s tall, with broad shoulders and thick muscles. It’s easy to forget that he's an athlete when he’s always slouching and lazing around. 

Craning your neck, you watch him watch you. He’s tilting his head to the side, assessing the situation and it feels like it lasts for hours, but only a couple seconds pass before he takes off his jacket and throws it over your face. Pulling it down, you see he’s already walking ahead. 

It smells good. Like burnt wood and cherries. You’ve smelt this scent in passing, when he breezes past you to shake hands with a guest lecturer, or in the hallways when you pretend you don't know each other. But now it’s right under your nose, so strong and overwhelming you feel like you might start swaying on your feet. 

How ridiculous. 

You wear the jacket, zipping it all the way up. It’s still kinda warm from his body and you curse at your tits for aching at the feel of them rubbing against the material. With fast feet, you catch up to Sukuna, who's wearing a plain black shirt, tucking his hands into his jean pockets. 

His short sleeves reveal thick arms, veiny and tattooed. Having seen him leave Uzumaki, the tattoo parlour your friend works at, and been told directly via text that he has ‘many’ tattoos, you shouldn’t be surprised at the sight of the thick lines encircling his wrists and peaking through the collar of his shirt. 

And you definitely shouldn’t be thinking about what his tattoos look like under his shirt. 

“Take a picture.”

His drawl knocks you away from your silly thoughts. You scowl at him and distract yourself by untying your hair and tucking your own hands into the jacket’s pockets, fiddling with your hair tie. It felt necessary to have an extra boundary between you and him. The jacket's engulfing you; it's both too big and too long.

“I was just wondering how you managed to convince everyone you’re such a good guy when you’ve got tattoos like that.”

You stumble when his elbow nudges you suddenly. 

“You always so judgey? Think people with tattoos are all degenerates, is that it?”

Rolling your eyes, you nudge him back. He doesn’t budge. “No, of course not. But I’m just saying, you have tattoos, pink hair and a tongue piercing, and yet when I complain about you to my friends, they all insist I’m the problem. It’s like you’ve got them fooled.”

He’s grinning now.  “You talk about me to your friends?”

You ignore that. Your words seemed harmless enough in your head but somehow he’s managed to twist them into something that works in his favour. You hate him. 

The dorm is in front of you now, and you both slow to a stop, just on the grass. You take off the jacket and hand it over to him with a mumbled ‘thanks’ and awkwardly shuffle your feet. It feels wrong to just leave it at that, so you look up at him and clear your throat. 

“Thanks for all your hard work with this class action, by the way. And I’m sorry for accusing you of not caring or whatever.” You, the ever eloquent president of the student body representatives, are stuttering like you’ve never spoken a day in your life. 

Sukuna looks amused.

“You’re welcome, or whatever.”

It’s still not enough. 

You need to hear him say one word. Just one word that’s been bugging you the entire day. He needs to say it so you know he’s forgiven you, so that there’s no bad blood, none more than usual, so that you can face him tomorrow and scowl at him again like you always do and not feel guilt. You need to know where you stand with Sukuna. 

“Thanks for walking me back, too. That was,” you bite your lip, “really…nice…of you.”

He’s trying not to laugh, you can see his eyes crinkle at the corners, even as he presses a hand to his mouth, hiding the grin that’s definitely there. You’ll let him have this victory, just this once.

Sensing your growing irritation, he exhales through his nose like he’s just had the greatest laugh of his life. “Yeah, you’re welcome for that too.” You gulp and he smiles, sharp teeth on display. “See you tomorrow, bright and early…prez.”

You exhale too. 

And then you’re nodding and turning away. 

You reach the reception doors and feel a sudden itch. Something that makes your hand pause and your head turn. 

He’s still standing there. 

Hands in his jacket pocket, and head tilted at you. 

You ignore the fluttering in your chest. Sukuna’s standing there because he has a penchant for watching girls in the dark, you remind yourself. It’s definitely not because he wants to make sure you get in safe. Everyone might think he's a gentleman but you know he isn't. You learn that lesson a long time ago. The hard way.

With a blush on your cheeks, you look away, paying no attention whatsoever to the little wave he gives you and you disappear inside the building. 

Sukuna is not a gentleman.

You repeat that to yourself on your way up to your floor and again when you receive a text from him saying, 

Sweet dreams, prez.

He just isn’t. 

[hayatheauthor]

Everything You Need To Know About Writing Gunshot Wounds 

Welcome to the latest installment in my ongoing series on crafting realistic wounds in fiction! After covering stab wounds and burns, it's time to explore the next wound category frequently explored in fiction—gunshot wounds. 

Gunshot wounds are a recurring motif in the realm of storytelling. They're something you can easily come across in every genre, however, authors often poorly portray gunshot wounds due to lack of proper research. I understand finding the right resources to aid with your writing can be hard, so here's my comprehensive guide on how to write gunshot wounds. 

How To Categorise Gunshot Wounds

There are certain factors you need to consider before writing a gunshot wound. These details are instrumental in crafting a vivid and plausible narrative while avoiding plot holes. The first and most important one is identifying the type of firearm used to inflict the wound. 

Picking The Right Firearm 

Selecting the appropriate firearm to inflict a gunshot wound is a pivotal decision. It's not just about choosing any gun; it's about picking the right one to align with your desired outcome and the narrative's overall impact. Here's a quick guide on how to pick the right firearm.  

The Impact of Firearm Selection

The firearm you choose can significantly influence the severity and appearance of the gunshot wound. Whether your goal is a graphic, gory injury or a precise, long-range shot, the choice of firearm plays a crucial role. Here are some guns you to consider:

Handguns: These are versatile and commonly used in close-quarters combat. They can result in gruesome, close-contact wounds with a higher potential for damage due to their stopping power.

Shotguns: Shotguns disperse shot pellets upon firing, making them suitable for creating a broader pattern of injuries. If you aim to depict a devastating, close-range gunshot wound, shotguns can be a fitting choice.

Rifles: Rifles are known for their accuracy at longer distances. When you need a precise, long-range shot, rifles are the go-to option. They tend to produce a cleaner wound channel, especially when used for a targeted, well-planned injury.

Choosing the Right Firearm for Your Narrative

The type of firearm you select should align with your story's objectives. If you intend to evoke visceral, gory reactions, opt for handguns or shotguns used in close proximity. On the other hand, if precision and long-range engagement are key, rifles can achieve your desired outcome.

Keep in mind that firearm selection can affect the wound's damage, trajectory, and overall portrayal in your narrative. 

Categorising The Wound 

Once you've identified the type of firearm, you need to establish what type of wound your character will incur. 

In order to bring your character's injuries to life, it's important to first identify what you're dealing with. You can do this by categorising the injury based on several factors. For gunshot wounds, this includes the type of firearm used, the bullet's trajectory, and the specific areas of the body affected.

You can categorise your character's gunshot would into seven main categories, here's a quick breakdown of what these categories look like and the level of severity associated with them: 

Penetrating Gunshot Wounds: These wounds occur when a bullet enters the body but doesn't exit. The bullet remains inside the body, causing damage along its path.

Perforating Gunshot Wounds: In this case, the bullet enters the body and exits on the opposite side. This type of wound can have a different set of implications due to the bullet's trajectory.

Ricochet Gunshot Wounds: Ricochet wounds happen when the bullet bounces off a surface before hitting the character. The nature of the surface can influence the severity of the wound.

Through-and-Through Gunshot Wounds: As the name suggests, these wounds occur when the bullet enters one side of the body and exits through the other. The trajectory can greatly affect the injury's severity.

Close-Contact Gunshot Wounds: These wounds result from the firearm being fired at extremely close range. The proximity of the gun to the body can lead to unique wound patterns and burn injuries.

Shotgun Wounds: Shotgun wounds differ from those caused by handguns or rifles. The shot pellets disperse upon firing, leading to a broader pattern of injury.

Long-Range Gunshot Wounds: When a character is shot from a considerable distance, the wound might appear different due to factors like bullet tumbling and loss of velocity.

The Anatomy of a Gunshot Wound

To create a vivid portrayal of a gunshot wound, writers need to grasp not only the external appearance but also the internal effects it has on the body. A well-executed description captures both the physical trauma and the emotional turmoil experienced by the character. Here are some symptoms you should take into consideration.

1. External Appearance and Bleeding:

Wound Size: The size of a gunshot wound can vary significantly based on the type of firearm and bullet used. Smaller calibers may leave entry and exit wounds that are relatively small, while larger bullets or high-velocity rounds can create much larger wounds. Be specific about the size, which can help readers visualize the injury.

Blood Loss: Gunshot wounds typically result in bleeding. The severity of bleeding depends on factors like the wound's location, the size of the blood vessels damaged, and the bullet's trajectory. Mention the amount of blood, but avoid excessive gore unless it serves a specific purpose in your narrative.

Coughing Up Blood: If the gunshot wound affects the chest or lung area, characters may cough up blood. This symptom often signifies a more critical injury and can add drama to your story.

2. Internal Damage and Symptoms:

Pain: Gunshot wounds are painful, and the character should express this pain through their actions, dialogue, and internal thoughts. Describe the sharp, burning, or throbbing sensations as they resonate through the character's body.

Shock: Depending on the severity of the wound, shock can set in. The character may appear pale, sweaty, and disoriented. This state of shock can impact their actions and decisions.

Loss of Function: A gunshot wound may impair the use of the injured body part. Describe any loss of function, such as the inability to move a limb or use it effectively.

Fainting: In extreme cases, characters may faint due to the pain, blood loss, or shock. Be sure to contextualize this within the narrative, as fainting can have significant consequences for the character.

By diving into the details of a gunshot wound's anatomy, you can craft a compelling and realistic portrayal that draws readers into the character's harrowing experience. I haven't exactly covered every symptom out there, but these are the major ones you should take into account when writing. 

Medical Assessment and Treatment

Once you've established your gunshot wound, it's now time to focus on the aftermath. One of the main factors to consider is the medical process that follows. If your character is supposed to die from the gunshot then you could probably skip this section, but if they're alive here are things you need to consider. 

1. Initial Assessment:

Scene Safety: In a real-life scenario, safety is paramount. First responders will ensure the scene is secure before approaching the injured person. Consider factors like the presence of firearms, potential threats, and the safety of medical personnel.

ABCs of Assessment: Medical professionals follow the ABCs—Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. Writers can reflect this in their storytelling by highlighting the character's ability to breathe, cough, or speak after being shot.

Vital Signs: Mentioning vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation can help convey the character's condition and the urgency of their medical treatment.

2. Trauma Assessment:

Focused Assessment: Medical personnel perform a thorough examination to identify the gunshot wound's location, entry and exit points, and any associated injuries. This assessment informs their treatment plan.

Imaging: Depending on the complexity of the injury, X-rays or other imaging may be required to visualize the bullet's trajectory and any potential damage to internal organs or bones.

3. Treatment:

Bleeding Control: Stopping the bleeding is a top priority. This may involve applying pressure, packing the wound, or even tourniquet application in extreme cases.

Wound Care: Depending on the wound's severity, cleaning and suturing may be required. The character's response to this procedure can add an element of realism to your narrative.

Pain Management: Gunshot wounds are excruciatingly painful, and medical personnel will often administer pain relief or anesthesia during treatment.

Monitoring and Observation: Patients with gunshot wounds require careful observation and monitoring for signs of infection, complications, or changes in their condition.

By accurately portraying the medical assessment and treatment of gunshot wounds, you not only enhance the authenticity of your writing but also depict the physical and emotional toll such injuries can take on your characters. This attention to detail helps your readers connect more deeply with the story.

The Psychological Impact

Gunshot wounds don't just inflict physical harm; they also leave lasting emotional and psychological scars. It is important to note that the extent of the psychological impact on your characters will heavily rely on various factors. 

For example, you need to consider whether or not this injury is something normal for them. Do they work as a spy, assassin, or other such roles that would mandate such dangerous injuries? You also need to consider who shot them. Does this wound come with emotional damage as well? Think of Aaron Warner’s reaction to Juliet shooting him. 

If you’re sure your character will have some extent of a psychological impact, here are some factors you should consider. 

1. Shock and Denial:

Immediate Response: Characters who have been shot may initially experience shock and denial. This can manifest as disbelief, emotional numbness, or a surreal sense of detachment from the situation.

Physical Symptoms: Shock can lead to physical symptoms like trembling, chills, or even fainting. Incorporating these details can make the character's reaction more genuine.

2. Fear and Anxiety:

Survivor's Guilt: Characters may grapple with survivor's guilt if they are the only ones to emerge unscathed in a violent encounter.

Anxiety: The threat of recurrence or the fear of returning to the location where the shooting occurred can trigger anxiety and panic attacks.

3. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):

Flashbacks and Nightmares: Characters who have survived a gunshot wound may experience recurring flashbacks and nightmares, vividly reliving the traumatic event.

Hypervigilance: PTSD can lead to hypervigilance, where characters are constantly on edge, expecting danger at every turn.

4. Depression and Isolation:

Emotional Withdrawal: Characters may withdraw from social interactions, experiencing feelings of isolation and sadness.

Emotional Numbness: Some may describe feeling emotionally numb, unable to experience joy or pleasure.

5. Recovery and Resilience:

Therapeutic Support: In your storytelling, consider how characters seek therapy or counseling to cope with their emotional scars. Therapy can be a path toward recovery and resilience.

By addressing the psychological impact of gunshot wounds on your characters, you create more layered and relatable individuals within your narrative. This depth allows readers to connect with the characters on a profound emotional level.

I hope this blog on Everything You Need To Know About Writing Gunshot Wounds will help you in your writing journey. Be sure to comment any tips of your own to help your fellow authors prosper, and follow my blog for new blog updates every Monday and Thursday.  

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Haya’s book blog where I post writing and publishing tips for authors every Monday and Thursday! And don’t forget to head over to my TikTok and Instagram profiles @hayatheauthor to learn more about my WIP and writing journey! 

[dokidokitsuna]

The Diary of Penny Polendina

The other day I was inspired to try working on a different NeverFell Projects installment, one that would probably be a lot shorter and quicker to write, because it's not like I care that deeply about Penny, right??

Well, I was incredibly wrong. ^^; So wrong that I'm actually having trouble with this story now...essentially, Penny goes through a bit of a 'rebellious phase' (gross oversimplification, but that's all you get for now) and there are, surprisingly, a lot of aspects of that character arc that I want to explore. Plus, a pivotal connection with Pyrrha, the climax of which I haven't quite figured out yet...

God only knows if I'll be able to finish, or if I'll just write the first 2/3rds of the story and leave it at that. But I figured I might as well warm up by talking about the designs. ^^

Penny's new look is basically 'Disney's Pinocchio, color picked from Arthur Watts' character design'~

I didn't necessarily want her to look evil, just...bolder. Like she specifically picked 'daring' items that maybe her father or Ironwood's PR team would rather she didn't wear, at least not compared to the more innocent frilly pastels she had on before. Between the chest window, midriff, and short sleeves, she's actually showing a lot more skin than before, despite still being 90% covered up. ^^;

Those multicolored wrist accessories are prototype weapons invented by Dr. Watts, that mix and pressurize Dust from the cartridges to cast "artificial magic". This way I get to do a bit of the 'Winter Maiden Penny' stuff in this Vol. 3-locked AU~

Penny's magic usage is one of the things that stumped me when writing this story...In NeverFell, magic isn't just glowy rainbow lasers or weather powers-- it essentially allows the user access to any conceivable semblance at any time; its potential is limitless. Being a beginner, Penny would probably just come up with one signature 'spell' to use in tandem with her Floating Array...but I can't decide what I want her to do. ^^; I think I'd like for her to do something connected to dance, because I feel like that's something unique to her, the way she dances with her weapons before striking. Nobody ever points out how the "robot" in the cast is the one who chooses to spend energy on unnecessary movements that aren't even used to maneuver around an enemy; they're just cute and fun. ^^ I think that's a great encapsulation of who Penny is~

Redesigning Pyrrha is always super difficult, because her original design is so perfect. But I like this end result a LOT. ^^ I may need to adjust the pant legs a bit, but overall it feels like a very believable alt outfit that keeps the spirit of the character.

Pyrrha is another one of the stumbling blocks in this story, because I'm now forced to create at least one malleable personality trait for her-- i.e. one that isn't intrinsically tied to Jaune and/or the plot. Something that she could actually take into a meaningful relationship with a different character... I had the idea to expand her "I'm sorry!" gag into a real guilt complex, where she has trouble letting go of instances where she's made mistakes or hurt someone. In this case, dismembering Penny 1.0 and essentially ending her life. :T She seeks out 2.0 in a desperate effort to make things right, and ends up helping her with ...things, and growing as people or whatever, and all that other stuff I have yet to write. ^^;

I just realized that Pyrrha could use her polarity semblance to pull Penny towards her in a situation where they need to reach each other...that's so cute. ^^ I gotta remember that~

[komsomolka]

The Ukrainian state is US/Western controlled and, in its alliance and arming, is effectively NATO-like. Washington, according to coup-happy Victoria Nuland in 2014, pumped some $5 billion into Ukraine since the Western-intelligence induced “Orange” revolution in 2004; an additional $15-$18 billion in arms, loans, and grants (from the US and EU) were poured into Ukraine since the 2013-2014 CIA-backed, far-right enforced regime change of the democratically elected Ukrainian government and until before the war began.

With on-the-ground CIA direction, power in Ukraine was consolidated among a small sociopolitical base of venal Russophobes, political pluralism representing genuinely alternative visions to the essentially nationalist, ultranationalist, pro-NATO parties disbanded. The Ukraine army, neo-fascist death squads, and small, Nazi-throwback extreme right-wing parties, celebrated by the new leaders and incorporated into the Ukrainian state, went on a repression spree, a terror campaign, to crush protests and dissent against those who were unhappy with what transpired and to erase all things Russian, including an eight-year shelling and sniping war on civilians designed to create terror and ethnic cleansing in eastern Donbass. This was not a democracy but a monopoly on power to consolidate a vociferously, fanatically anti-Russian state.

Ukraine is (or now, was) merely a platform for a Western proxy war against Russia, a forward operations base, a front line state, its “foreign policy” directed by the American proconsul, its institutions “advised” by American/Western intelligence functionaries and embassy officials, whose job since 2014 was to ensure continuing aggravation and antagonism in Donbass to elicit, in fact, a Russian response justifying long-prepared sanctions, escalation and pretext for “confronting” Russia. [...]

The Russian offensive, therefore, occurred for a much more ominous reason than the Ukrainian state terrorism visited upon eastern Donbass: the US/West’s wordless wish is no less than demoralizing, weakening, bankrupting, and territorially fragmenting the Russian Federation, controlling its markets and resources, indebting its people and rendering them dependent on US-dominated financial institutions, and bringing Russia under American dependency.

A pivotal principle of American hegemony is to obstruct and destroy friendly, normal ties, much less integration, between Russia and Europe, Germany being the fulcrum.

More simply, the strategic US/CIA goal is to ensnare Russia in a protracted war, deplete it, damage it, regime-change it, install a supine leader—all as a prelude to the big fantasy: bringing down China.

The multifaceted war on Russia has been ongoing since at least the late 1990s, but really, it never stopped with the Soviet state’s disappearance. This veiled hostility and aggression certainly existed when Boris Yeltsin was in power (a good vassal according to Washington, this silly and funny man that made Bill Clinton laugh) but took off around 2005, after Washington understood that Vladimir Putin was putting Russia on an independent course, reversing the conditions overseen under the preceding, deplorable Yeltsin era, including steep economic, social, military, and developmental decline and the immiseration of the vast majority of the population, looting oligarchs, and economic “liberalization” designed in Washington. [...]

Russia has literally allowed itself to be cornered since 2014, though it needed time to achieve a conventional and nuclear deterrent. It’s not hard to see reality: Russia is given no quarter, no voice, its real concerns and grievances dismissed, its leader demonized, its marginalization doggedly pursued at every level of international and bilateral social and cultural interactions. No appeal to reason, to international law, to security, to evidence will do for the West, no amount of patient legal argument, explanation of Russian concerns, appeals, professional warnings, consummate diplomacy and transparency of Russian interests made an impression. Instead, the Western response was and is always to double down. [...]

Finance capitalism, the system of speculative bubbles, derivatives, debt, declining standards of living, and hyperinflation, is ruining Western economies, states and societies, destroying the middle classes. The US cannot tolerate Eurasian integration and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, determined to stop any alternative development model to hyper-capitalism enriching the few, cannibalizing the many; that reduces the US to one of a handful of important multipolar players.

Washington’s grave mismanagement of international relations, its self-defeating policies, has actually weakened genuine American interests and national security and the well-being and safety of the American people, a phenomenon that cannot be naively attributed to Democrats or Republicans, this or that president. Instead, the war-state is deeply embedded in the American political economy, in factions such as the “intelligence community,” the military-industrial complex, influential establishment neo-cons, and liberal interventionists, all living in a world of yesterday.

We are rushing headlong into extremely dangerous times in which facts are a threat to the state narrative and any dissent or differing opinion is treachery. Fascism does not come from below, always from the top.

[visenyaism]

haven’t read fire and blood but i wanted to ask, why do aegon ii’s men poison him? like he’s won more or less the war since the other claimant is gone and he has the throne an they were supporting him and his claim so why did they end up plotting for his death? and turn against him to then support aegon iii’s claim? thanks i’m advance for your reply

well that decision is mostly corlys and larys maximizing their joint slay. here is my lecture:

arguably corlys had designs on aegon ii’s life the whole time given how he treated his granddaughter baela. corlys only sided with aegon because 1)rhaenyra pissed him off bad by trying to have his son alyn killed for being a bastard and 2) because aegon had baela in jail and was going to kill her unless corlys flipped.

as for larys and everyone else: you may recall that way back at the beginning of the war rhaenyra sent her son jakey way up north to secure an alliance with cregan stark and by extension the whole north. and jake locks it down which would be great for team rhaenyra except it’s the fall right before one of those years long westerosi winters, so cregan is like baby i will get the northern army down there as soon as we finish harvesting our beets in like a year.

it’s like B minus group project partner participation because in that year, pretty much the whole war happens. if you’re asking me this question im going to assume you know how that resolves: rhaenyra is dead and aegon ii is king. aegon iii and baela are in custody. in order to accomplish this goal both armies kind of just obliterate each other. The greens do not have a formable defense force in the capital, all the dragons are dead, and Rhaenyra’s strongest military ally. Corlys is now on team green.

Except at this point Cregan Stark finished counting his beets and he and the northern army as well as the Riverlands forces which seem to be made up of bisexual goth girls 12 year old boy soldiers, and presumably also others are making their way down south and eating everyone in between winterfell and Kings Landing for lunch. after completely obliterating Criston Cole and the remaining big greenie army they are the only army left intact and capable of doing anything and what they are clearly winding up to do is sack Kings Landing in (dead) rhaenyra’s name to put aegon iii on the throne.

The writing is on the wall here. even though aegon ii thinks they’re going to defend the city, they’re absolutely cooked. so many of the green council come to the decision that the best thing they can do is just speed things along a little bit by killing aegon ii and installing aegon iii and hope that the Starks are cool with their last-minute pivot because it benefits them. and then they do that. I think larys also did it because he thought it would be funny. and it was. the end

[14dayswithyou]

I was thinking over the landlord situation because a small detail stuck in my mind. Ren seemed surprised that the issues in Angel's building weren't being dealt with.

Possibly it's just that a negligent landlord would never happen to him with his fancy apartment, or he owns it, and he's out of touch with normal renting problems.

But for fun maybe he secretly is the landlord and wasn't getting the complaints because he doesn’t pay much attention to duties? Is he getting the complaints but putting himself in the position to fix them as 'Ren', impressing Angel? He already volunteered for guard dog duty against… himself.

Was it faked surprise because he's responsible for causing those issues for his own benefit? 

I feel Ren potentially did ruin the air mattress in advance hoping to be invited into the bed, blaming rats when it was discovered. Maybe it was done that day while waiting for Angel to get off work. 

Maybe he remotely jammed the elevator too because... idk why he'd do that, there should be cameras already in the lift and they should be hackable. Or maybe he just uses the stairs for stealth and only spies on Angel’s flat, so genuinely didn't know the crappy elevator wasn't working. Possible. Maybe he also wants the flat to be shitty and seem dangerous to push Angel into moving in with him.

Perhaps Ren knows who the landlord is and was surprised for that reason? It's not likely that he's installed a friend into the job if he's a loner, but I think he did once have family friends (of his parents) into some shady business. Perhaps they pivoted their legit real estate investments into a money laundering front and no longer attend to the tenants needs well. Maybe he knows the building layout from visiting them years ago as a child, and that's how he avoids being caught.

Or is Ren making a mental note to kill the bad landlord for inconveniencing Angel? and potentially take over the job

Anyway don't mind me, I like to puzzle on things.

✦゜ANSWERED: In case some folks might not know: if you make the right choices, you can actually meet the landlord in Day 3 instead of Olivia! They also address the rat complaints — though their response is kinda meme-y — and the overall scene isn't intended to be taken seriously.

Ren, however, does know the landlord’s identity already, but doesn’t do anything about it because they actively play a massive role in his plans.

⚠️ Day 3 + general lore spoilers under the cut!! ⚠️

Essentially, Ren wants Angel to move in with him — which is why he’s so adamant on giving them a key to his place. And like you picked up on; he keeps bringing up how awful it is to live in Angel’s neighbourhood in hopes of having them realise this and depend on Ren instead. After all, the only thing he wants is to be Angel's top priority and the person they go to first in any given situation.

Ren is also no stranger to rent problems while growing up. I've mentioned this before, but prior to living in a small, rundown home; Ren and his family used to live in a trailer park. There was hardly much room or privacy for everyone, and the maintenance there was awful.

I do like the theory about Ren using shady connections between his friends/family for his bidding!! Canonically though, Ren has no friends outside of Angel and River, and he hasn't been in contact with any of his blood relations in years.

Also!! I do want to restate that the rats in the demo genuinely are rats. It wasn't Ren tearing up a hole in Angel's mattress (he didn’t think you'd invite him over in Day 1 + he respects your comfort level), but it was him stealing specific items.

[shattered-eagle]

CHAPTER V UPDATE

Total Word Count: 363,478 (322,457 w/o code) Average Playthrough Length: 93,599

After over five months, I have finally delivered Chapter V and with it the entirety of Act I into your hands! Much larger and broader than I expected when first outlining, I frankly admit that Shattered Eagle has become almost too big to copyedit and playtest by my lonesome, so I encourage all of you to share typos, bugs, inconsistencies, and any constructive criticism that you have to offer. I will do my best to respond as quickly as I can and make corrections/additions as needed to benefit the story!

Chapters I → III Changelog: I have made some adjustments, including to character ages (Ceto is now a younger 38, Consentia is slightly younger at 54) but overall these have been minor. I will update older posts accordingly.

Chapter IV Changelog:

Considering many of these characters did not play as great a role on screen in Chapter V as I originally envisioned, romance scenes for the Legate, Consentia and Ceto have been moved up into Chapter IV. These scenes vary in length and intensity, but offer one (but not the only or the last chance) way for the MC to express romantic interest (be it from the heart or a desire to manipulate) for these three characters.

Chapter V Changelog

This chapter now exists! It is by far the largest, about twice the size of my first chapter, though much of it is broader than longer in order to accommodate the branching from previous chapters as well as open new paths. We say goodbye and hello multiple times during this (hopefully) climactic installment as the Prefect embarks on new journeys and encounters new dangers that will prove pivotal in the story to come. Come one, come all!

[apas-95]

small reminder stalinism isn't communism, there is no such a thing as "socialism in one country" + stalinists are often queerphobes helping bigotry + you're still an environment killer

surrendering 100 years of successful revolutionary practice and theory to the immensurate wisdom of your 'vibes-based analysis'. I'd suggest you go read desert and then kill yourself but I guess reading isn't your forte so like. idk live a long life and watch as your ideology does literally nothing, just like it's done literally nothing so far in history. btw the people's republic of china just reached peak greenhouse gas emissions and has been installing more green power than the rest of the world combined. it's weird you only learned the word 'han chinese' when the US started its "Pivot to Asia" and funneled billions of USD into "countering Chinese influence", but hey, no need to think about that when you know 'stalinists' are homophobes

[luna-rainbow]

CATWS and its building of stakes

Part of the reason why CATWS was so memorable in its appeal was the way it built the stakes throughout the story. Each of the major characters had something(s) at stake by the final act, and that was pivotal for the plot to sustain its tension and for the satisfaction in its final payoff.

The overarching conflict was the global, existential threat of Hydra getting their mass murder machine up in the air, and the ideological question of what the middle ground between freedom and security should be. But what made the final act so moving was the intimately personal stakes for many of our characters.

There was, obviously, the very personal stake Steve had to surmount in having to physically get through Bucky in order to protect the freedom he was advocating for. But apart from Steve, every other major character was challenged with a personal sacrifice in the final showdown. Nat was faced with having all her covers blown and her past - that she had tried so hard to hide - revealed to the world. Sam was confronted with going back into the field after losing his partner so traumatically that he changed careers. Fury was grappling with dismantling the organisation that he had devoted his life to build. And on the other side, Pierce and Rumlow had invested decades of their lives in an ideology which if successful would install them at the top of the food chain.

There was a great meta from years back talking about how well the movie established the competencies of the characters before introducing threats -- and how we were then able to quickly understand the threat because of how competent we have seen our protagonists be. Every action sequence served a purpose and built upon the previous one.

The Lumerian Star sequence was fantastic in how effectively it established the competence of not just Steve and Nat, but the entire Strike team. Rumlow and Rollins were good at their job; they're not super soldiers or super spies, sure, but they were skilled enough to keep pace with Steve and Nat.

This was an important foreword for the elevator fight, which itself was a pre-requisite for the Causeway fight. We have seen both Steve and the Strike team capable of taking down multiple pirates swiftly, so when the elevator fight started, there was a genuine sense of threat to Steve, even if he would make a quick job of disabling them. Then, after seeing Steve's skills against a very capable Strike team, it became all the more terrifying when the Winter Soldier almost nailed him to a van about 2 minutes into their fight.

On the other side, the Winter Soldier's introduction was an assemblage of horror story tropes -- of unexpected manifestations and impossible disappearances, and urban myths stretching back through half a century. The two characters used to introduce him were extremely competent from what we had seen of them. There's Fury, normally prescient and wily, scraping by a very determined assassination attempt, only to be stopped by the Winter Soldier materialising in the middle of the road...which he escaped, only to be later shot through the wall. There's Nat, normally cunning and cautious, telling Steve of how the Winter Soldier successfully ambushed her, of how his kills spanned 50 years, a logical improbability.

Not only was Steve about to meet the Winter Soldier with the weight of these legends behind him, from the vantage point of Hydra, they were sending out the Asset to meet Captain America with his historical legends behind him (oh look, another narrative parallel). All of this build-up culminated in the Causeway fight. The technical impressiveness of the stunts aside, part of why that fight worked so well was because we have had all these story beats that showed us how capable Steve and the Winter Soldier were, then we see them both genuinely struggle to overcome the other.

We can't talk about the final fight without talking about the emotional stakes, and we can't talk about the emotional stakes without discussing what Bucky means to Steve. We already had the "not without you" and the "I'm following the little guy from Brooklyn"; we've also had the "I don't want to kill anyone" turn into "I'm not going to stop until all of Hydra is dead" and the "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn" callback. This movie added the "even when I had nothing I had Bucky" and the "I knew him" and the "he will (know me)" and of course the "end of the line" exchanges.

But there were also more subtle cues -- that came from Steve's frequent rebuff of Nat's suggestions for companionship, the string of betrayals Steve had to grapple with, and Steve's lamentations of guilt and regret and uncertainty. Steve could not deny that he was lonely, but he had 101 excuses for why he could not make new connections. Steve did not know what he's looking for or why he's fighting or how long he wanted to continue, until he found out what was behind SHIELD and, specifically, what Hydra had done with Bucky.

Even removing the shipping angle, the final showdown between Steve and Bucky was unique in superhero movies, even for a friend-turned-enemy battle. It was not like the fight between Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane, or Peter Parker and Harry Osborne, or even Thor and Loki or Charles and Erik -- because there was no ideological divide between Steve and Bucky. Bucky did not and could not believe in the cause he's fighting for - he simply did not have that capacity for choice. The ideological battle was carried by the other characters - between Fury and Nat vs Pierce, between Sam vs Rumlow, and between the rest of SHIELD vs Hydra.

For Steve, his fight was much purer, dearer, and more heart-rending. The final battle held such emotional significance, not just because he's fighting his best friend, but also because his best friend was an unwilling participant in the circumstances. Bucky was Steve's physical equal, but he's also Steve's shared life experience, his tragically failed mission, his unfulfilled childhood promise, his betrayed faith in SHIELD, and the price that was paid for Hydra to grow under SHIELD's nose. This fight offered closure for all of these narrative and emotional threads.

He was also, once again, Hydra's asking price in exchange for the freedom Steve wanted for the world...and Steve so desperately wanted, this time, for that world to include Bucky.

[vidavalor]

Ok,Since the Good Omens Finale is only going to be 90 minutes,I have a feeling we might not get a flashback sequence.

Hi there, @rougeside4 💕 I made an apple pie, if you want some. 😊Allow me to offer a different take? I wouldn't worry about this. There will be flashbacks. It's not the show without them.

Short thing on why we're definitely getting flashbacks and on which ones we can maybe see as being very likely still in The Finale.

The secret sauce of Good Omens, imho, is that the real juice of the story is actually always in the flashbacks. The flashbacks that we see are not random; they're always written to support the story in the present. There's a point to why it is these flashbacks we are seeing-- and when and in what order we are seeing them--when Crowley and Aziraphale have been on Earth for over 6,000 years and we could see any of their adventures. They're designed to inform our understanding of the story in the present. The real beating heart of the story is in the scenes set in the past and the story in the present would lack... *searches for words* emotional resonance? thematic weight? general, dramatic oomph? all of these?... if they were to cut the past. Put more plainly: it would suck 😂, and they're smart enough not to do that.

I think some of the most exciting parts of The Finale are actually going to be the flashbacks, just like how they were always the biggest treats in S1 and S2. In the way that they roll those out to us, piece by piece, they're changing our understanding of what we're watching in the present. The meaning of the story in the present is driven by the flashbacks in the past to a point that you cannot have one without the other.

Good Omens is actually driving all of its suspense and anticipation through the story in the past and that's what makes its non-linear storytelling clever. After all, right now, most people know this thing has a happy ending and aren't worried about that, right? We know Crowley and Aziraphale will get back together and be fine and no one is stressing over that. (And if you are... really? Guys. Honestly?! It's called Good Omens. It's a romance. It's a sweet, cuddly show. It's going to be fine. 💕)

So, what are we curious about, if not where it's going in the present?

1941, Part 3, right? Whether or not there's an ancient times vavoom coming our way? What the deal is with Jane Austen and/or 1650? Whether or not we might be surprised with a flashback that hasn't already been set up earlier in the story and what that might be?

Our biggest questions in the story aren't about what will happen in the future but about what we might get to see that has already happened in the past.

There is actually no conceivable way to do The Finale without flashbacks because the entire story is built towards having at least a couple of essential ones happen in its end game. I would not be surprised if at least somewhere around a third of The Finale is set in the past. Are there ones that we would have had with a full season that will be cut? Yes, but, are there also ones, though, that are too essential to cut because the entire story for two seasons has been building towards eventually revealing them to the audience in the final part of the story? Oh, yeah. 😉

Guaranteed: 1941, Part 3. There is no chance that they cut this-- none. They have built the ending of this trilogy of flashbacks to support the ending of the story in the present so it has to happen. It doesn't need to be an entire minisode in length. Part 2 really did all the heavy-lifting with plot and themes here, and Part 1 was a single, brilliant, not terribly long scene. If Amazon reduced The Finale to 15 minutes long, I think the show would still find a way to put 1941, Part 3 in there. The first two parts were so pivotal to the themes and parallels of the story in the present and it's the only flashback that we keep getting installments of throughout the story so its Part 3 is going somewhere massive. If there's one flashback that's in The Finale, it's this one.

Extremely, extremely likely: the ancient times vavoom to which they have been building in clues and hints for two seasons that is going to flip the entire show on its head by going back to The Flood. It would parallel and add extra weight to all the conflicts we have in the story in The Finale that were set into motion by the end of S2-- the kiss, one of them leaving/them being separated, the threat of an apocalyptic-like event, etc.. It would, in almost no time at all, complete the narrative magic trick of the show by turning it inside out for the audience.

The show that shows everything backwards has been sitting on the real first kiss the entire time and saving it until the end game of the story and that end game is The Finale so expect that angel and that demon to be sheltering under a canopy from a rainstorm in the very long ago days and break the internet in the process.

If I were them, I'd even open The Finale with this flashback, just because of how much it's going to pull the rug out from under The Final 15. After all, the first two seasons opened with a canopy-and-rain-themed scene, did they not? Just one wing at a time, though... no under a canopy together yet. No gazing into each other's eyes and vavooming. That bit of the beginning of their story has always been going to be shown to us in the end of the story. It could well be the, well, beginning of the end of that story by opening The Finale. We'll have to see. Either way, it's in there.

It's also worth mentioning that both of these above flashbacks would be going back to eras we've already visited in the story so no time would need to be devoted to setting up the scenes. That would seem to make them easier to not cut, in addition to how narratively important they are.

Going To Be In There In Someway, Somehow: A flashback that sets up the South Downs Cottage ending, which is suspected to be the Jane Austen flashback because of her living in real life in the South Downs around the years that it was mentioned in S2 that Crowley and Aziraphale knew her.

When this was set up for S3 back in S2, the Jane Austen story felt juicy enough to potentially be a whole minisode in length. Maybe especially since it's probably how they are going to be build a history of the cottage between Crowley and Aziraphale to help give emotional weight to them going to live there in the present at the end of the story. I've no idea what this looks like with a shortened run time. They might abbreviate or maybe it was never even that long in the first place? They might do something different in its place? It's hard to say, since we don't know, but they've got to do something to set up the cottage, so...

Whatever this winds up being, though, we're now up to three flashbacks that have to happen because of how they connect to the story in the present in The Finale. These are three, non-negotiable ones, basically-- and we are obviously only looking at ones that we can see having been set up already.

There is also the fact that there's usually a surprise flashback that wasn't set up but which is crucial to the story, like the Job minisode was in S2. It fits in perfectly, retrospectively, but we were intentionally not really given enough in S1 to see it coming in S2 so that there was something unpredictable for us to enjoy. I'm not expecting anything as long as Job again but there could still be a scene more 1.03 Cold Open in length that we don't even know is essential at this point because we aren't meant to know at this point but, much like we did with Bildad 😊, we will see as vital to everything once we see it.

Including that as a possibility, we're now up to four flashback scenes that seem unlikely to be chopped from The Finale. What I just described, give or take and depending on the length of 1941, Part 3, is probably collectively getting within shouting distance of the run time of the 1.03 Cold Open-- and that's going really bare bones and only talking about the scenes that seem too story-essential to consider cutting. There's also one more that might meet that criteria...

Could Go Either Way: 1650. If this has nothing to do with Agnes Nutter, it's probably gone. If it's how Agnes has an appearance in the end of the story to pull stuff together, they'll probably find a way to put it in there because... Agnes. 😊

No one knows what this thing is supposed to be about but we do know that it was set up in S2 for S3 and, between Aziraphale mentioning it, the historical ties to eccles cakes to this era, the fact that it could potentially show a Whickber Street in early development and, most importantly, that it's set five years before Agnes Nutter died, whatever this thing is? It's intriguing. We don't know how long it was meant to be but if it's something that was minisode-length but could be reworked to be shorter-- or if just was always short in length-- it's probably still in there.

It's very possible to have many, quality scenes that hop throughout time in a very short period of time. The 1.03 Cold Open is about 23 minutes long and jam-packed with goodness. I have no idea if they're going to sprinkle flashbacks in throughout The Finale or if they're going to do a flashback sequence like 1.03/Ineffable Bureaucracy again but I do think that at least a third of The Finale-- so, roughly 30 minutes of it, give or take-- are likely flashbacks.

We are going into this movie a lot closer to the end of the story in the present than I think it may appear to some at this point. All the set up work to get the characters into place to overthrow The Metatron in The Finale was already done in S2. It's not going to take 90 minutes for Aziraphale to be in trouble, Crowley and Ineffable Bureaucracy to find out and rally the troops, everyone to challenge The Metatron, expose him as a fraud, and kill the threat of Armageddon by overthrowing Heaven and setting it up to be democratized. That's pretty much what everyone knows needs to happen in The Finale and what is likely going to be the main story in the present in S3.

We know what is going to happen because we know it has a happy ending and we know that we need the Armageddon threat gone for the South Downs Cottage happy ending to occur. We know the only answer is that they've got to overthrow The Metatron. Whether you think the plot is Supreme Archangel Aziraphale or whether you're like me and think the plot is that Aziraphale is in mid-fall as of the end of S2 and that's the thing that triggers the other characters to come together against Heaven, the end result is still going to be the same: The Metatron's gotta go and everyone's got to come together to make that happen if we're getting the happy ending we already know we're getting.

We are all sitting here knowing pretty much exactly what the story in the present is going to be in The Finale and that's because the story has set it up so that we do. Yes, there's going to be joy in watching that unfold but a story designed like a magic trick has to have suspense and give the audience a sense of anticipation. We feel that from this story and from where are we getting that?

The past. The flashbacks.

Everyone knows what the end of this story in the present is but no one knows for sure where, say, 1941 is going, or what new things about Crowley and Aziraphale the past will show us in The Finale. Every new thing we see in the past? Changes our view of the present. That's what makes the story clever. It's also what makes it enjoyable. They cannot cut flashbacks because they'd be cutting the most interesting parts of the story and what makes Good Omens the quirky, unique bird it is.

The present and the past are so interwoven in the story that I'm pretty sure that it is impossible to do Good Omens without flashbacks. The only question going into The Finale is which ones they're going to surprise and delight us with. Don't lose faith or sleep over it-- at minimum, we'll see Crowley's 1941 hat again and that, truly, is all any of us really need to survive.

[greenerteacups]

What do you think of jkr as a writer? I for one has always felt like she didn’t treat her female characters well. It felt strange, being critical of her when she was god queen of the earth, and also being 10

I think most of the problems in her books can be chalked up to genre hopping. Books 1-3 are perfectly good and serviceable children's books — great children's books, even! They have compelling, relatable characters and juicy mystery plots. They have problems, sure, but for the first three books someone's ever written — especially someone with little or no background in creative writing — they're really fucking good. So: there's her flowers.

The last four books pivot sharply into much more emotionally complicated and sociopolitically loaded territory, because they're describing a war. And it's hard to write children's books about war. I would venture you can't really do it, at least without dramatically misrepresenting what war is! And so Rowling makes the executive decision somewhere during the writing of Book 4 that she's not going to flinch away from that, she's going to go for dramatic realism, and she kills Cedric Diggory to let us know. People had died in Harry Potter before, of course — Quirrell gets sent to the fucking shadow realm, for example. But children haven't. (It also gives parents who are reading these books with their children a warning shot: shit is about to get significantly more real, think twice before you buy the next one of these for your 10-year-old.) After that, Rowling starts leaning much more into dramatic realism, and the fast-paced mystery-novel plotting of the first few books is replaced by a slow, simmering political conflict that unfurls over the course of about a million words.

The problem — besides the fact that she's picking one of the hardest things to write about, like, in all of literature, war is really insanely complicated and emotionally intense and hard to portray well — is that she's now trying to use characters, plot points, and technologies she developed for a children's series to enact a sprawling war drama among teenagers and adults. So Hermione, who was a reasonably precocious snobby eleven-year-old, becomes this sort of encyclopedic all-knowing savant of the wizarding world, who somehow remains functional and mostly even-headed despite her identity being the chief target of a prolifically murderous terrorist group. Draco Malfoy, a schoolyard bully whose primary tools included 1. namecalling and 2. telling teacher, JOINS said terrorist group (and admittedly does react reasonably, i.e., has a total crashout and takes to sobbing in a girls' bathroom whenever he gets a free minute). Dumbledore, who starts out as "whimsical friendly winky-wink trustworthy grandfather type", ends up being Magical Winston Churchill in a violent game of spycraft and espionage, eventually revealing he's only been keeping Harry at all these seven years because he wants to KILL him! And like, maybe really good technical writing could smooth out these transitions and make the first-order dramatic choices seem more natural, but Rowling is like, a Fine Writer, technically speaking. meaning she's reasonably consistent in characterization, her plotting is well-paced and believable, she has a clear authorial voice, and her prose is readable. personally, that's not enough to get me to buy into some of the changes that happen in the later books, and because she stuffs these things so full with new elements every installment, a lot of stuff ends up getting glossed over.

And like, I still love the books. I think they're wonderful, and they taught me how to read. but i can say that and also say that Rowling probably did herself a disservice by trying to write four giant war novels as sequels to her first three mystery children's books.

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 2: Walking With Victorian Dinosaurs

[Previously: the Permian and the Triassic]

The next part of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur trail depicts the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Most of the featured animals here are actually marine reptiles, but a few dinosaur species do make an appearance towards the end of this section.

Although there are supposed to be three Jurassic ichthyosaur statues here, only the big Temnodontosaurus platyodon could really be seen at the time of my visit. The two smaller Ichthyosaurus communis and Leptonectes tenuirostris were almost entirely hidden by the dense plant growth on the island.

Ichthyosaurs when fully visible vs currently obscured Left side image by Nick Richards (CC BY SA 2.0)

Head, flipper, and tail details of the Temnodontosaurus. A second ichthyosaur is just barely visible in the background.

Ichthyosaurs were already known from some very complete and well-preserved fossils in the 1850s, so a lot of the anatomy here still holds up fairly well even 170 years later. They even have an attempt at a tail fin despite no impressions of such a structure having been discovered yet! Some details are still noticeably wrong compared to modern knowledge, though, such as the unusual amount of shrinkwrapping on the sclerotic rings of the eyes and the bones of the flippers.

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Arranged around the ichthyosaur, three different Jurassic plesiosaurs are also represented – “Plesiosaurus” macrocephalus with the especially sinuous neck on the left, Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus in the middle, and Thalassiodracon hawkinsi on the right.

They're all depicted here as amphibious and rather seal-like, hauling out onto the shore in the same manner as the ichthyosaurs. While good efforts for the time, we now know these animals were actually fully aquatic, that they had a lot more soft tissue bulking out their bodies, and that their necks were much less flexible.

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The recently-installed new pivot bridge is also visible here behind some of the marine reptiles.

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Positioned to the left of the other marine reptiles, this partly-obscured pair of croc-like animals are teleosaurs (Teleosaurus cadomensis), a group of Jurassic semi-aquatic marine crocodylomorphs.

A better view of the two teleosaurs by MrsEllacott (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Crystal Palace statues have the general proportions right, with long thin gharial-like snouts and fairly small limbs. But some things like the shape of the back of the head and the pattern of armored scutes are wrong, which is odd considering that those details were already well-known in the 1850s.

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Finally we reach the first actual dinosaur, and one of the most iconic statues in the park: the Jurassic Megalosaurus!

Megalosaurus bucklandi was the very first non-avian dinosaur known to science, discovered in the 1820s almost twenty years before the term "dinosaur" was even coined.

At a time when only fragments of the full skeleton were known, and before any evidence of bipedalism had been found, the Crystal Palace rendition of Megalosaurus is a bulky quadrupedal reptile with a humped back and upright bear-like limbs. It's a surprisingly progressive interpretation for the period, giving the impression of an active mammal-like predator.

This statue suffered extensive damage to its snout in 2020, which was repaired a year later with a fiberglass "prosthesis".

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Reaching the Cretaceous period now, we find Hylaeosaurus (and one of the upcoming Iguanodon peeking in from the side).

Hylaeosaurus armatus was the first known ankylosaur, although much like the other dinosaurs here its life appearance was very poorly understood in the early days of paleontology. Considering how weird ankylosaurs would later turn out to be, the Crystal Palace depiction is a pretty good guess, showing a large heavy iguana-like quadruped with hoof-like claws and armored spiky scaly skin.

It's positioned facing away from viewers, so its face isn't very visible – but due to the head needing to be replaced with a fiberglass replica some years ago, the original can now be seen (and touched!) up close near the start of the trail.

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Two pterosaurs (or "pterodactyles" according to the park signs) were also supposed to be just beyond the Hylaeosaurus, but plant growth had completely blocked any view of them.

Although these two statues are supposed to represent a Cretaceous species now known as Cimoliopterus cuvieri, they were probably actually modeled based on the much better known Jurassic-aged Pterodactylus antiquus.

A second set of pterosaur sculptures once stood near the teleosaurs, also based on Pterodactylus but supposed to represent a Jurassic species now known as Dolicorhamphus bucklandii. These statues went missing in the 1930s, and were eventually replaced with new fiberglass replicas in the early 2000s… only to be destroyed by vandalism just a few years later.

(The surviving pair near the Hylaeosaurus are apparently in a bit of disrepair these days, too, with the right one currently missing most of its jaws.)

Image by Ben Sutherland (CC BY 2.0)

The Crystal Palace pterosaurs weren't especially accurate even for the time, with heads much too small, swan-like necks, and bird-like wings that don't attach the membranes to the hindlimbs. Hair-like fuzz had been observed in pterosaur fossils in the 1830s, but these depictions are covered in large overlapping diamond-shaped scales due to Richard Owen's opinion that they should be scaly because they were reptiles.

But some details still hold up – the individual with folded wings is in a quadrupedal pose quite similar to modern interpretations, and the bird-like features give an overall impression of something more active and alert than the later barely-able-to-fly sluggish reptilian pterosaur depictions that would become common by the mid-20th century.

(Much like the statues themselves, the "modern" reconstruction above is based on Pterodactylus rather than Cimoliopterus)

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The last actual dinosaurs on this dinosaur trail are the two Cretaceous Iguanodon sculptures. At the time of my visit they weren't easy to make out behind the overgrown trees, and only the back end of the standing individual was clearly visible.

Named only a year after Megalosaurus, Iguanodon was the second dinosaur ever discovered, and early reconstructions depicted it as a giant iguana-like lizard.

The Crystal Palace statues depict large bulky animals, one in an upright mammal-like stance and another reclining with one hand raised up. (This hand is usually resting on a cycad trunk, but that element appeared to be either missing or fallen over when I was there.)

Famously a New Year's dinner party was held in the body of the standing Iguanodon during its construction, although the accounts of how many people could actually fit inside it at once are probably slightly exaggerated.

A clearer view by Jim Linwood (CC BY 2.0)

Considering that the skull of Iguanodon wasn't actually known at the time of these sculpture's creation, the head shape with a beak at the front of the jaws is actually an excellent guess. The only major issue was the nose horn, which was an understandable mistake when something as strange as a giant thumb spike had never been seen in any known animal before.

(The fossils the Crystal Palace statues are based on are actually now classified as Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis, but the "modern" reconstruction above depicts the chunkier Iguanodon bernissartensis.)

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Image by Doyle of London (CC BY-SA 4.0)

I also wasn't able to spot the Cretaceous mosasaur on the other side of the island due to heavy foliage obscuring the view.

Depicting Mosasaurus hoffmannii, this model consists of only the front half of the animal lurking at the water's edge. It's unclear whether this partial reconstruction is due to uncertainty about the full appearance, or just a result of money and time running out during its creation.

The head is boxier than modern depictions, and the scales are too large, but the monitor-lizard like features and paddle-shaped flippers are still pretty close to our current understanding of these marine reptiles. It even apparently has the correct palatal teeth!

Next time: the final Cenozoic section!