#the conflict of a werewolf is so external and the conflict of a vampire is too but its sooooooo internal too

[grinchwrapsupreme]

ooooughg the scene where Mitchell is confronted by the ghosts of his victims oughroguu the forced acknowledgement that he is a monster and not a victim ghghhghghghg the confession of his love for the monstrous things he's done and the inevitable regret that cannot prevent him from doing monstrous things again uuuughguhgghgooghohghggh

[since0202]

Hi ~

New fan here ~

I honestly don't know how to start this without it sounding like a love letter, but here goes...

I FUCKING LOVE YOUR WORK, ALL OF IT, really seriously. I took a deep dive into all the stories, the truth is I started looking for stories about Paul Lohote in a moment of longing for my teenage love of the Twilight movies, I didn't expect to find much knowing that the saga already has more than 10 years since I finished in the movies, but oh my goodness, if I came across pure gold with your blog, I seriously finished the Taking Time series easily in 5 days. The beautiful and detailed way in which you describe not only the aspects of the main characters, but you also go into giving context and depth to the characters that many would later use only as background (the pack, the imprints, their families and side characters ) It's simply, I mean you left me hooked for more.

And then when I saw that you updated recently, you don't know how happy it made me to know that I can know more about this wonderful story and its next development.

I have come across several works on the page that for many reasons or few were left half done, and it is not to put pressure or anything like that, I am new here, I just wanted to send you a message of my pure admiration for your work and therefore you.

Because you have created a wonderful work of literature and I can't wait to see how it continues.

I think I'll leave this message here, I don't want to seem too intense at first. I only want to say, gracias, thank you very much, for sharing your talent with all of us, whatever the reason for your hiatus, I wish you a good night, or day depending on when you receive this message, and all the good vibes that arrive to you so that you have a good life.

P.S. An apology if my writing is not so neat, English is not my first language, I am from Mexico, and right now I am using Google Translate and I only have to trust its grammar.

Sincerely, Dania P., a new loyal fan.

This message is just...wow. Thank you so much for saying such kind and thoughtful things. I'm so glad you found my story and I always love seeing people progress through my chapters when they like them.

This story is such a self fulfilling joy for me to write and I'm glad that others are enjoying it just as much. Your message totally made my day and I'd be lying if I didn't say I hoarded it in my inbox for awhile so I could read it over and over again.

Its folks like you and many other silent readers that make me know this story means something not just to me.

I can't wait for you to see where Maya and Paul go next. We've got some external conflict, and the vampire/werewolf threat coming into play soon. But of course, I need to throw a couple of wrenches in there first to whack it all up.

Thank you again for reading and thank you even more for writing this amazing message. I absolutely can't express how much happiness (and the push it gave me to finish this last chapter) it brought me.

<3

[huntunderironskies]

Hey thaks for responding my other question but i have come to bother you once more (i am really sorry btw). But do you think that werewolves are weaker in comparison to the other cofd splats in a 1on1 fight ? Like how would like a wofle compit against an obfuscated (invisible) vamp for example?

No worries, I love talking game design and the details of mechanics. :>

Quick terminology note: I use the abbreviations RAW and RAI which are, respectively, rules-as-written and rules-as-intended. RAI can include edge case rulings of "this makes sense but the writers didn't specifically say it" such as death mimicking powers like Cold Embrace which stop your metabolism also halting the progression of illness or poison. But it can also mean things like "I know what these rules are supposed to be and what they're trying to communicate but they're not doing it the way they're supposed to so I'm tweaking some things," which is about the position I ended up with regarding down and dirty combat since it's wayyyyyyy too swingy for trying to show a one-sided beatdown.

The term "whiteroom" is used in English-speaking tabletop communities to describe the most basic possible combat scenario, two guys facing off in a white room without any confounding factors like terrain, the roleplay setting, external resources like allies the characters might have, and so on.

Now, I'm going to have to put this behind a cut because it got very long.

So, the short answer is that it's super hard to whiteroom this stuff. CofD characters are way more varied and have more potential iterations than, say, DnD characters. One of the complicating factors is that drawn out fights are actually discouraged in CofD versus other games (unless you're a mummy, then you'll be fine.) The general answer to this is supposed to be "werewolves are most deadly in groups" but even that's not quite right. A smart werewolf won't get into a protracted conflict, period, unless maybe they're a Blood Talon. They're an ambush hunter, they're going to harry any prey and disappear off into the night, repeat until something's dead.

However, that doesn't really answer the question, so let's talk about hard counters. You mentioned vampires specifically, which isn't surprising since Obfuscate and any physical Disciplines tend to be...problematic for combat encounter balancing and tend to be the first realization for GMs that if monster PCs want something bad enough and are willing to spend all of their resources in pursuit of it, they'll get it and you just have to accept that and plan around it.

When talking about Obfuscate I generally assume people are referring to using Obfuscate 3/Cloak of Night specifically since RAW Obfuscate 1 doesn't help with anything other than people being much less likely to intervene when they see you doing something suspicious. I think the rule people overlook here is aura effects end Cloak of Night. Werewolves RAW have an aura effect in their Hunter's Aspect, which all werewolves have as of Shunned by the Moon, not just werewolves with an Auspice. So they would need to survive one strike (which, unless you're at an extreme of Harmony, you can shift to Gauru as a reflexive action in some way or another, meaning it's absolutely doable given the healing factor involved if you are sufficiently desperate) and then they'll be good for a turn and just need to successfully impose their Hunter's Aspect on the vampire.

(RAI I politely disagree with Player's Guide to the Contagion Chronicle about not giving other supernatural beings aura effects and one of the houserules I've bootstrapped on is giving other things aura effects given how useful they can be for these kind of rules interactions. I mean, CofD is not balanced and isn't supposed to be, but you know. Some are pretty straightforward like a Sin-Eater using their liminal aura and some I had to get creative with.)

Werewolves also have an equivalent to the Obfuscate > attack > Obfuscate > repeat death spiral maneuver if they have access to Evasion Gifts, which gets even more potent if they have Stealth or Strength paired with it, because they get what is arguably the best damage reduction power in all gamelines with Hit and Run. Burn one Essence for a guaranteed escape from one attack, and then roll if there's a hiding place to see if you can re-establish stealth and repeat an ambush. I had a (....highish ranked, he was effective Spirit Rank 3 and hit Cunning 4) Irraka in one of my games who took out three ancillae vampires without taking a level of health damage between that and clever usage of Eviscerate + Divide and Conquer so he wasn't getting ganged up on, and using Feet of Mist so the vamps couldn't pick up on his heartbeat.

Probably worth mentioning he was also on the Sacred Hunt so he was getting his bonus from Relentless Hunter which put him around 15 dice on ambush rolls in Urshul, though, and it did cost him almost all of his Essence and most of his Willpower but still pretty impressive.

Anyway, this can kind of turn fights into a game of rocket tag depending on the builds which means that at some point in time a smart monster is going to say "fuck it" and leave because it's now no longer worth it to risk health and other resources on. Vitae and Essence aren't easy to get and once a vampire ends up looping around into lethal damage (which werewolf bites do cause rather than bashing) it starts getting painful to heal. Werewolves can at least sit it out without burning off their fuel stat.

Speaking of going "fuck it," for more general purposes of dealing with invisibility, getting out is also a viable counter. Insight gives a very good utility power in One Step Ahead, which once the werewolf catches a vampire attacking they can intuitively sense where that vampire is. This is more RAI but it's not tracking in the same way that Know Thy Prey isn't reading someone's mind to figure out their names and social Merits. The world is just telling you where to find someone because you're hunting them, and as an inheritor of the God of the Hunt it's bowing to you.

Evasion (which I maintain would be the best Gifts to dip into were it not for Deny Everything being a bit of a dud, instead it's only among the best because of that) also has the fantastic Exit Strategy, which just automatically tells you where to go if you need to get away from someone. Regardless of whether or not you can see them. This isn't specifically anti-vampire but it's anti-invisibility in general. Again, utility powers are disproportionately useful in just about every gameline, the one thing better than being good in a fight is making sure you don't get in one.

Back on the more general topic, however, since that doesn't answer the question: I would say if you're talking about werewolves that are going to handle one-on-one conflict well and might actually do it are Storm Lord Rahu and Blood Talon Irraka (though Rahu do pretty damn well, unsurprisingly, those 8-agains and extra health levels add up.) Storm Lords get innate access to the above-mentioned Evasion Gifts, and have the usual Rahu nonsense going for them (namely, Strength and Full Moon Gifts.) Dominance also has some applications in combat, and Weather gives some debuffs, but that shouldn't be at the top of your priority list for spending Essence. All that said, you're intended to be funneled into a very long-term, slow, exacting hunt as a Storm Lord. You want to pile on as much pain as possible so you can do one final strike without much resistance, making sure you're always just one step behind to catch that opportunity to give a lethal blow. This does, however, technically count as one-on-one combat I guess.

Blood Talons are....Blood Talons. Strength gives you just about everything you want and the ability to make some truly deadly neck bite grapples due to Unchained if you chain it off Primal Strength. More turns in Gauru, damage reduction, weapon modifier bonus, and all of these become free effects if you're in Death Rage. This is, uh, very nasty to deal with and since Death Rage is very difficult to redirect your choices are mostly to just run and live to fight another day. The catch is that you could endanger your pack or any bystanders and you have absolutely no control over what's happening, but in a whiteroom scenario, yeah, this is probably the nastiest combination.

Hunter in Darkness Rahu deserve an honorable mention here. They've got the capacity for some absolutely deadly ambushes with the phenomenal Shadow Pelt and Primal Strength combined together, while Black Earth Red Hunger is great for longevity. That aside, even more than most werewolves Hunters in Darkness really thrive with a home turf advantage. They do get Nature's Lure to try and peel off a target to make sure it's a one-on-one fight.

A lot of your other Auspice/Tribe combos aren't really going to try and go for that sort of thing. And some of them will just wait until they can kill someone while they're asleep. Not a Glorious action, but probably Cunning.

With all that said....this doesn't mean much alone. I can think of some absolutely turbo busted combat builds even for splats not normally thought of as being combat-ready (four words: Stoneskin Ogre Summer Courtier. A combination of applying Tilts and having an insanely high armor rating will make it so eventually they don't have to kill you, you just stop getting up off the ground.) Most splats have at least one power that will hard counter another splat, it's all a matter of what you pick, and in some cases there's a lot less available for you and the resources you need to pull it off might be harder to get.

[perkwunos]

The hatefulness of capitalist exploitation, I argue, is that it is contranatural or monstrous. Pay heed to the language Marx uses. Capital is “an animated monster.” It is “vampire-like.” It is “werewolf-like,” and guilty of “monstrous outrages.” It quotes Shylock’s arguments for a cutting of flesh. It is bloodthirsty and cannibalistic. This language is new to part three.

By contrast, the labor process is consistently portrayed by Marx as both natural and full of life. In the labor process, a human being—“a natural object, a thing, if also a living, self-conscious thing”—“confronts the stuff of nature as a force of nature,” “works on external nature” and “simultaneously changes his own nature.” Labor is “an appropriation of what exists in nature for human needs,” “the metabolism between human being and nature,” “an eternal natural condition of human life.” It is the “living agent of fermentation,” which is incorporated into the “dead objectivity” of the factors of production. Indeed, the natural labor process is so full of life that “it raises the means of production from the dead merely by entering into contact with them, ensouling them.” Even the instruments of this process have a “life” and a “death”; their “vitality [Lebenskraft]” continuing so long as they are able to serve in the labor process.

When capital employs labor, rather than this natural life overflowing and enlivening the dead factors of production, the dead seizes hold of the living, reanimating itself to the detriment of the source of its animation. This is why Marx sees capital as a vampire. It is the “inversion, indeed derangement” of the natural relationship between “dead and living labor,” by which “the mere transformation of money into objective factor of the production process” transforms these objective factors into “a rightful claim and a compulsory claim on alien labor and surplus-labor.” Motivated by some of these textual considerations, Chris Arthur has identified capitalist exploitation with “the subjection of workers to alien purposes.” In a closely related manner, Julius Sensat has argued that “workers are exploited in capitalism because they are used as means of expanding value, and this use is contrary to their nature.” I think this line of argument is insightful and wish to extend and clarify it.

There is, of course, an ancient tradition of condemning capital precisely in terms of use contrary to nature. In Aristotle, one finds the claim that both usury and commerce—Marx’s “antediluvian forms” of capital—are contrary to nature. … Here, the notion of being contrary to nature means misusing something, failing to see or respect that to which it is, in and as itself, directed. It is this sense of nature and its violation that Sensat locates at the core of the notion of exploitation. And violating something’s nature means, as Arthur says, subjecting it to an alien purpose. Hence, there is no anachronism in saying that commerce and usury are, for Aristotle, forms of exploitation.

Of course, Aristotle did not call the misuse of things exploitation. Rather, Aristotle called the disruption of the natural constitution or action of things bia, force or violence. In his Physics, bia is defined as a motion proceeding from an external source. It is opposed to natural motion, which proceeds from an internal source, the nature of the thing moved. Hence, “what is by force (biai) and what is contrary to nature are the same.” …

…

The aim of capital and the aim of labor are divergent. Thus, when capital takes command over labor, this divergence in aim becomes a conflict, and the victory of capital in this conflict manifests itself as the “unnatural extension of the working-day,” and the precise length of this unnatural extension cannot be established by any right, but only by “force,” by a continuous “struggle” between capitalist and laborer. …

… There must be something wrong with the capitalist production process if it predictably and consistently leads to terrible overwork, and hence to a constant struggle to limit work. This something is that it does violence to the labor process.

Indeed, it is a strength of Marx’s account of exploitation that it is not formulated as the exploitation of human nature. This is an advantage of Marx’s account because it is much easier to admit that labor has a teleological nature than to admit that humanity does. As a form of instrumental action, labor only makes sense as a means to an end outside itself, the final product, and to the enjoyment of that product. …

In order to make sense as labor, therefore, our laboring activity must give way to a type of enjoyment that is not itself for the sake of returning to labor. This implies a hierarchy of ends. The ends of enjoyment, of the uses of things made, are higher than the ends of labor. This hierarchy is implicit in the activity of labor itself. Labor is absurd without it. Marx’s criticism of capitalist exploitation presupposes such a hierarchy of ends. Capital, by exploiting labor power for the sake of accumulation, makes labor absurd or pointless for the laborer. This conclusion can be drawn without implying any claim about the point or purpose of human existence as such. To be sure, Marx is committed to the claim that the purpose of human existence is not labor, but labor itself tells us that. Beyond this negative claim Marx is not committed by his criticism of capitalist exploitation to any teleological doctrine of human nature.

Overwork and meaningless work are the rule and tendency of capitalist production, according to Marx, because the end for which capital exploits labor power is the augmentation of surplus value, something of which there is never enough. This criticism of capitalist exploitation does not commit Marx to a teleological account of human nature, but only to the claim that, in fact, human beings do engage in labor, and that, in fact, capitalism rests upon turning our capacity for labor into a resource for the endless accumulation of wealth. Neither is it based in a claim that laborers possess a right to their full product, but only on the claim that there is a fundamental conflict between the commitment of the laborers to pursue the means of enjoyment and the commitment of the capitalists to pursue the endless accumulation of wealth.

This indicates that Marx was quite an odd socialist. In the face of the predominant socialist demand that the laborer receives the full product of his or her labor, Marx insists that, both as useful things and as values, the products of labor cannot be traced to any discrete set of individuals. In the face of the socialist complaint that capitalism is, like feudalism before it, based on the exploitation of man by man, Marx emphasizes the specificity of capitalist exploitation, the way in which it is an unprecedented marshaling of labor power as a natural resource. In the face of the socialist project of eliminating exploitation, Marx sets the more modest goal of eliminating the exploitation of labor power for the production of surplus value.

William Clare Roberts, Marx’s Inferno: The Political Theory of capital

[fipindustries]

(writing all of this down in this format because i have an entire whole ass idea for a story but i dont have the time or the energy to sit down and actually writing it all up)

i love taking tropes that i enjoy and try and dissect them as thoroughly as possible, to see how it works, what are its core components, what parts of it work for me and what ports down and why.

it helps me understand the mechanisms of story telling and is a great excercise as a writer to understand the desition making process that goes into writing. what are the themes that i want to explore? what is the emotions that i want to evoke? what is the precise idea, the feel, the mood, the sensations that i want to convey? how best to convey them? what elements do i need to include to conjure up this specific precise response that i want to convey and why do i want to do it in this way?

with all that said, lets explore a type of story that i love, which is the flesh rebelling against the body, usually mixed with body horror. the conflict between our higher mind “wanting” or prefering something that is good and correct and proper and normal and healthy but our base impulses overtaking both our actions and our very shape  to accomodate a much baser, depraved, “toxic” need and deep deep down enjoying this process. 

enjoying something that you shouldnt enjoy, that you dont want to enjoy and being unable to fight against it because the flesh is stronger than our will and then finding yourself surrendering to it, much to your humilliation but being unable to stop because you know that its easier and on some deeper level beyond the rules of society what is actually truly right for yourself because is how you feel most like yourself by adopting and even embracing this thing that is wrong but that feels right.

the reason why i like mixing it with body horror is because its something that can shock our emotional senses and base intuitions. the entire core of the subject is the tension between being both repulsed by something but also inexorably called to it. werewolves and vampires and aliens and robots all held this allure once but today they are played out. noone feels conflicted in fiction over being a werewolf or a vampire, in fact people love it, half of you reading this would probably become a vampire at the first chance you got. or if you wouldnt it would be because the idea is merely impractical and inconvenient or simply because you are not interested in it. body horror on the other hand is always fresh, its always shocking, it will always bring out an instinctive gut rejection against it, so the rejection part of the equation is fulfilled.

but the other part is also important, it cant be so disgusting that literally you wouldnt want to be it under no circumstance, it has to have an allure, again, is about the tension between rejection and temptation.

now the temptation cant come in the way of literal brainwash or hypnotism because then is not you the one who is being tempted and a big part of it is being disgusted at oneself. is knowing that this is a part of who you are and there are no excuses for it. the mind has to stay intact because the point is that this new shape you are taking is still you, this is who you really were. by that same token the rejection has to come exclusively from the inside. it cant be that they dont want to be this or that thing because it would be inconvenient or because how other people might react. now of course in here we are talking about one surrendering to a deeper, baser, “truer” self while also trying to reject it and that rejection will always inevitably be something that was learned and indoctrinated by an external society, but this rejection has to be so thoroughly internalized that it has to feel fully genuine and that it comes from the honest desires of what one wants, even if simultanously they also desire, deeper down still, the wrong thing.

finally the reason why i like the idea of the body itself changing on its own (as opposed to being deliberatly and purposefully modifyed by external factors like a malicious actor or the enviroment) is because that comunicates two things, first that the desire is so potent, so powerful and overtaking that is chaging your flesh by sheer force of will, that these things that you are trying to repress can manifest out of sheer intensity, and second, what more starker display of your true nature than your very flesh adopting that new shape on its own? what a bigger proof that this is how it was always meant to be?

usually other elements that help sell the idea even better, if there is an spectator, a witness (to further push the feelings of vulnerability and humilliation, of having to confront who you are by having to admit to someone else that this is who you are) usually a close friend, someone who can be horrified alongside you but not so judgemental that they would outright reject the main character. someone that struggles to understand what the character is going through (and it has to be a struggle! again, the tension between what should be and what is)

so later, as the character begins to finally come to terms with their new nature, once they begin to embrace it, we still have the friend, unable to let go of their previous conception of the main character to help us contrast both past and present and see the maginute of the change here. 

everything that comes after the character accepts themselves is kind of boring to me and im not really interested in extending the story any further, there is fun in exploring a new world and a new way of being but once the main character integrates their desires and finds a new balance in ther identity and sense of self the tension goes away and the possibilities for drama and conflict (inner conflict, the one that i am actually interested in exploring) are no longer there and the story is over.

[xantchaslegacy]

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Multiverse

A quick and dirty rundown of some of the premier MtG planes, ranked by how nice a place they would be to live. Very subjective obviously, and I’d love to hear if people agree/ disagree/ have any strong feelings on the matter at all~ I stuck mostly to planes where I felt enough was known about it to make a tentative judgment call on its general safety/ enjoyability.

Note that for the below list, the criteria is that you are a) a human, who b) is primarily interested in living a long, peaceful life c) ideally with minimal external control by outside powers.

1) Kaladesh

– Periodically corrupt government, but overall a plane which offers lifestyles for urban and rural preferences, has plentiful clean energy, and supports both the arts and the sciences for public benefit.

2) Kylem

– Not many options for a quiet life, judging by the admittedly small sampling of the plane seen so far. Does seem to have a fairly lower fatality rate for all that, and Cloudspire City ranks high on places to visit for a fun time.

3) Eldraine

– Surprisingly benevolent monarchy, even verging on democratic in areas. Dangers of wilds exist, but odds of random monster death are reasonably mitigated compared to other planes. Limited career options for the layperson, though more fields open up if willing to take on the life of a knight.

4) Equilor

– Peaceful but dull, which is basically exactly the criteria for this particular test.

5) Dominaria

– Lots of world to see if you fancy adventure, and a diverse number of places to settle down if you don’t. Options for scholars, warriors, farmers, traders, artists, and writers alike. Currently no pending apocalypse, but the track record is not so good. Death machines just a few layers of dirt down.

6) Alara (Bant)

– Not a bad life to be had, if a bit over-codified. Even life as a warrior is not bad, at least pre-conflux. Peaceful and well-ordered, and passes the criteria for this list, albeit only for a brief period of time.

7) Theros

– Many options re: career path, from farmer to warrior to philosopher to herder. Do have to contend with sudden, violent death from monsters, minotaurs, or gods getting bored, so constantly on edge, probably.

8) Ravnica

– Pretty much the gold standard for variety in life paths. Entertainer, provider, lawyer, doctor, scientist, artist, spy, usurer...the world is your oyster if you’ve got the gumption. Semiapocalyptic events fairly frequent in recent years,  though nothing has stuck. Very few options for the non-urban inclined that don’t involve joining a cult or grafting new parts onto your body.

9) Shandalar

– current status a bit unclear, but a great plane for anyone looking to incorporate casual magic into their day-to-day life. Likely still a ripe target for planeswalker visitors looking to harvest the rich mana therein.

10) Fiora

– Fairly interesting and relatively low-key place to live if you keep your head down and out of the hardcore politicking. Rural living options exist.

11) Plane of Mountains and Seas

– limited information, but seems pretty chill.

12) Bablovia

– here for a good time, not a long time.

13) Alara (Naya)

– Not too bad, if you don’t get stepped on. Mostly jungle living, but if you’re down with that, there are fun adventures to be had.

14) Kamigawa

– Sure, your Daimyo may occasionally invoke the wrath of the sizeable and omnipresent spirit world, casting the whole of the plane into bitter, arcane civil war, but in any other situation you’ve got a fairly diverse and interesting world to live in, and nowadays there’s even a pair of spirits protecting you from extraplanar threats.

15) Lorwyn/Shadowmoor

– Depending on the side of the aurora you find yourself on, you will either want to seek out the elves for sanctuary, or avoid them at all costs. Lorwyn is pleasant enough, if you resign yourself to not seeing any other humans, and are good with extremely rural living. Watch overhead for giants at all times.

16) Alara (Esper)

– Long life options available, if you are good with artifacts™, and cool with swapping out some of your fleshy bits. A wee bit classist.

17) Kephelai

– peaceful and ordered enough, but definitely leaning on the oppressive side of the political spectrum. Not the most fun people to live among, either.

18) Regatha

– Some like it hot; some might not.

19) Muraganda

– The perfect plane for all you paleo diet enthusiasts out there. Living might be a little too bare-bones and dinosaur-filled for the average person.

20) Ixalan

– A few options here, all pretty narrow. Piracy and vampire imperialism both involve a life of violence and in the latter case, a high degree of servitude. Sun empire pretty viable option for humans comfortable with dinosaurs, and, as of the most recent story, going full aztec.

21) Tarkir (Khans)

– A varied lifestyle options to pick from. Very few leisurely ones available, barring a life of deceit and treachery with the Sultai. Inter- and intra-clan conflict more or less unavoidable, but not of a disastrous scale that you’ll find on different planes.

22) Zendikar

– Excellent opportunities for forging your own path in life, and endless options for adventure. Lacking in safe places to settle down and live without sudden death by avalanche/tidal wave/typhoon/ eruption/ sinkhole/ eldritch horror.

23) Mercadia

– Opportunities for rural and urban living, if you are at peace with living in a trash heap/ dust bowl. Forest living is an option if you don’t mind the mercenary raids, but at least others will have your back. Options for piracy as well, though not as flashy as the Ixalan variety. No apocalyptic events to worry about, which puts it head and shoulders above a few other planes on the list.

24) Gargantikar

– See Segovia; this time, it is you who gets stomped. May be ideal for anyone who saw Disney’s jack and the beanstalk and decided life on a giant kitchen table was the life for them.

25) Segovia

– Oh jeez, please be careful where you step. If you could just – we’ve got a lovely hundred acres of pasture for you to take a seat in if you would just take care not to step on OH MY GOD YOU’VE KILLED THEM ALL (Yes, Segovia corrects for scale with planeswalker visitors, but I stand by the joke)

26) Serra’s Realm

– Fairly peaceful in theory, but the oversight is pretty strict, and it’s no good if you’ve got a fear of heights. Very limited time to enjoy living there if floating fields and angels are your jam.

27) Vryn

– Regularly corrupt government, in constant conflict with other major power over contested energy sources, with everyone else placed firmly in the middle of the meat grinder.

28) Innistrad

– You can certainly live long as a vampire or free as a werewolf, but as both are of dubious desirability for the average person, this plane will rank a bit low.

29) Mirrodin (Pre-besieged)

– Prospects for living a quiet life exist, with major caveats regardless of which human society you wind up in. Basically take your pick between constant danger of attack, subservience to another species, living in a place not designed for habitation by any form of life, or some combination of the three.

30) Tarkir (Dragons)

– Much narrower lifestyle options than the khans timeline, and higher odds of dying within your own clan, though which dragon you end up under makes a huge difference in the quality of life. Dromoka and Ojutai probably the best options if your goal is longetivity.

31) Ulgrotha

– Dead/ dying plane, and the management sucks.

32) Rath (pre-overlay)

– Mercadia situation amped up to 11. Oppress or be oppressed, with an uncomfortable middle ground where you will experience both. Also a generally hostile landscape due to nanomachine silly putty.

33) Alara (Jund)

– Spicy Naya. Probably can last a while if you’re quick on your feet, but no one dies of old age here.

34) Amonkhet

– Dead/ dying world, even if it wasn’t host to a horrific logan’s run/ hunger games inspired colonialism. Not so bad short-term, if you want to work on your beach body. At least you have a god looking out for you, unlike...

35) Alara (Grixis)

– The living hunted for their life-force...hellscape of zombies and demons...Grixis fails most of the criteria for the list, but you’ve got a slightly more sporting chance of survival here than with some of the planes further down.

36) New Phyrexia

– NOT GREAT

37) Phyrexia (Nine Spheres)

– Pictured above: the worst place in the multiverse, as a backdrop to the most wonderful person in the multiverse

[zalrb]

If you could rank tvd male characters (not by looks ofc) but by character wise & development from best to worst what would it look like? & if you’ve already answered this sorry

I mean, development is difficult because with the exception of Stefan, it’s mostly wasted potential. Tyler had pretty good development in season 2 and 2x05 encapsulated this because he did something that Damon never did --- he snaps at Jeremy and then apologizes and says he’s working on being better and not such a dick all the time and throughout season 2 we see that in effect, we see a different side to Tyler, a vulnerable side, someone who asks for help and admits he’s scared and leans on someone (Caroline) but at the same time, his development with the werewolves was done horribly because they don’t give him enough conflict --- to be fair, they don’t give Bonnie, Caroline and Elena enough conflict around it either --- but if he’s being divided between his friends and his new supposed family, if Damon kills his uncle and his friends cover it up or help them and then his new werewolf family is torturing his friends, like the crisis of loyalty and identity crisis Tyler should’ve gone through should’ve been massive and it wasn’t. Plus after season 2, it’s like the show doesn’t know what to do with him emotionally anymore. Plot-wise him being sired to Klaus and then trying to start a hybrid army against him and then wanting revenge for his mother’s death is fine but I don’t really see how Tyler emotionally develops throughout all of that so the potential is wasted.

Matt. Matt had so much potential, I talk about it all the time:

With each and every episode I’ve been like, how has Matt not set fire to Mystic Falls yet? How has Bonnie not snapped on her friends and just released all of her magic on them yet? Like the most they make Matt do is get grumpy at Stefan for a minute and then refuse to let Elena feed him her blood? And Bonnie shows Damon what she went through in the nineties with Kai and she’s done venting? Are you fucking serious? People keep saying that Matt is a useless character but I see the potential in him because he and Bonnie would make the perfect opposition to the ‘core’ group and imagine how deranged they’d be? Like a psychological break would happen between them and they’d give absolutely zero fucks. And then we could deal with the ‘core’ group being so surprised that the two people they step on the most are ‘fighting back’ in a sense and are refusing to be ignored.

Him taking out his anger on Tyler didn’t bother me, it’s that the scale wasn’t big enough. He said a few words and he didn’t let Elena heal him like that’s a big deal. It’s not. It’s inconsequential. I don’t buy that he’s resentful because he doesn’t act resentful, he acts sullen; he shouldn’t be friends with any of them. His rage should destroy the entire town. He’s been bitten how many times, he’s been hit by a car, he’s been stabbed, he’s been used as bait, he’s been buried alive, he’s been driven off a bridge, like no, a few words here and there about how vampires suck isn’t going to cut it. It shouldn’t be respectful or respectable or small or at the right times, he should hate everyone with a passion, it should be to the point of insanity, like he should be obsessed with either destroying them all or getting the hell out of town but to make it more interesting it should be destroying them all; the line between enemy/friends should be gone and Bonnie should join him with it.

My point is that Matt’s anger should be directed at everyone, including people who don’t necessarily deserve it at the time. He should have a prejudicial hatred against all things supernatural, like it should be a fury that has a rational base and spirals out into irrationality because he’s at his wit’s end and he has a psychological break, it shouldn’t be logical and strategic, it shouldn’t just be about Damon and Stefan, that’s what I mean by how in my opinion it shouldn’t be “respectful resentment” everyone should be a threat or a target in his eyes and same with Bonnie after everything they’ve been through. They should have serious PTSD.

A psychological break doesn’t necessarily mean that Matt wouldn’t be effective at what he’s doing, it just means that he wouldn’t follow certain guidelines and he wouldn’t be confined. I like the idea of psychological breaks, I like the idea of snapping because the only characters who have been allowed to do that are Damon and Elena and I guess Stefan. Caroline turning off her humanity wasn’t a “snap” in my opinion. A snap has a lot of potential to be messy and I like it when characters get messy, I like it when they go off the deep-end because there’s so much you can do with that. I like the idea of Matt and Bonnie just having a disconnect and going beyond logic and reason and playing dirty because neither of them have done that before, it’s an unexpected route for both of them to take but one that still keeps in line with their characters after everything they’ve been through. I’m not interested in the “by-the-book” approach because we had that with Bonnie’s dad and we had that with Connor and we had that with the Council, it’s more of the same thing and the point is that the show should go in a different direction and to see the psychological and emotional scars that being around the supernatural has done to both Matt and Bonnie would be AMAZING and heartbreaking and it’d be intense for the other characters to see just how far they’ve pushed them.

in my opinion, Bonnie and Matt should be the “big bads” that everyone has to face but instead of it being an external villain, it’s an enemy they/the town created. That, in my opinion, would make sense for both characters and would be such an interesting storyline for the show to take on. Not these one minute/two minute/one episode gripes that go absolutely nowhere or get shut down quickly.

I mean they had ample opportunity to really push that forward but it’s like they’re too scared to do anything that has actual consequences. For me, Matt’s descent should’ve happen in season 5. He was in a house full of vampires and none of them heard Nadia take him and none of them found him buried alive? Instead Caroline took Klaus’ word for it (Klaus above all people) and everyone else was preoccupied with other things and were all at the Salvatore mansion when he finally got back? Like THAT should’ve been the beginning of the end. I have so many problems with that episode.

How would you write the team up of the psychological break with Bonnie and Matt against the main group?

I always said that one day Matt would just snap, like some bullshit will happen to him again and he’ll just set Enzo on fire on something and Bonnie would walk in on him and he would just rant about how he’s sick of being the guy who gets run over and stabbed and buried alive and shot and be like dude, we were FINE until the Salvatores showed up and Damon killed Vicki and wanted to get into the tomb so Grams died and Bonnie being like Matt, c’mon, bad things would’ve happened anyway, Elena was the doppelganger Klaus would’ve  — and then he just scream and say this is what I’m talking about the constant defending, don’t you get sick of it Bonnie, think of everything that happened to you, like aren’t you just MAD? And then Bonnie leaves and gets taken advantage of again or lied to again or has to put her life in danger again with great emotional and/or physical cost but that’s a secondary thing to the core group (again) so she just goes to Matt like yeah you’re right.

So since it’s all-in for him, does Matt die or win? Knowing you, even if he dies, there’ll be far reaching consequences of this arc, right?                        

I think what I would do is Stefan and Damon argue about how to handle it with Stefan wanting to lock him up and Damon wanting to kill him. If he did die then I think the consequence of that would be the Salvatores leaving MF, like either Bonnie has been pulled back already and she’s like you guys drove him to this then murdered him, either they go or I do and Elena and Caroline choose Bonnie or after Matt dying they don’t trust the Salvatores to not kill Bonnie so Elena “banishes” them before it becomes a everyone tries to kill Damon and Stefan gets involved and puts his life in danger because of it

I meant to say if he didn’t die, then I’d Azula him where he just is so mentally deteriorated that they lock him up and Bonnie goes to the group and is like, yo this is what you do to people eh?

But we never go there.

Jeremy --- Jeremy doesn’t even have an emotional arc, really. I mean we’re meant to believe he gets to this state of acceptance of becoming a hunter, which was a storyline that came out of nowhere.

Enzo never should’ve been introduced.

Klaus I have issues with because homeboy does not act like a 1000 year old vampire and his goals are SO small-scale, it’s EMBARRASSING:

  I know you say that Klaus’ daddy problems were very unoriginal and that another storyline could have explored which I do agree with. But what storylines do you think they should have done instead?            

To be honest with you, I’m not sure I would’ve given Klaus anything, I’d just lean into him being a megalomaniac and give him greater ambitions, like him being like you know, I’ve been alive for 1000 years, I’ve lived under kings and prime ministers and presidents and I legit could just do a better job than anyone, so first he wants to rule vampires, then the supernatural world in general and then the world at large. I’m not saying it’s original but I would prefer that over my dad was mean to me and my family hates me even though I stake them all the time so let’s make hybrids so I can rule one town in one country. OK…

Damon is Damon.

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

All the Tropes!

Here is a list of every TROPED prompt we have put together so far! Maybe you missed an event or didn’t quite finish a fic before a deadline, if so, now’s your chance to write a fanfic using a set of tropes from any of our rounds!

This list of all the Themes/Tropes includes the definitions and guidelines that were used during the past Challenges! Feel free to follow it directly or use it loosely! The full Masterlist of all the tropes we pull from can be found in our carrd that is located at the bottom of the pinned post on our tumblr page!

Chopped 1.0

Round 1: Fluff

Tropes:

Mythical Creature: Pick one(1) character in your Main Ship, and they must be a mythical creature of your choosing! [Mermaid, dragon, werewolf, vampire, siren, faerie, etc!]

Coffee Shop AU

One character of your main ship must teach the other how to do something. Physical touch during the encounter is required. (think Bellamy teaching Clarke to shoot!)

Kiss in the rain!

Bonus: Most Creative

Round 2: Angst

Exes

“Give up all your weapons” and that one person that spends the entire evening taking their weights worth out of their pockets.

“Lets just (kiss/hook up/whatever) to get it out of our system”

Groundhog Day/Time Loop AU: You must go through at least three (3) time loops, the original day, and then two repetitions.

Bonus: Best In Character

Round 3: Canonverse

In canon, make at least one character of your main ship switch places with someone else. Examples: Luna as the Commander, Bellamy as Ark Royalty, Lincoln as Ice Nation’s Spy, etc. You can swap someone out and leave the other character out entirely. You can also have your main ship switch places with each other. (This is not an action based trope.)

“Everyone else thinks you’re an asshole but you’re nice to me”

Trapped in or hiding in an enclosed space (ex: supply closet, elevator, etc.)

One character cautiously says, “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

Bonus: Most Unique Pairing

Round 4: Final

Solve a Mystery!

The main ship must share something! (A bed, an item, etc.)

Almost kiss/Interrupted before kissing

Gender Swap! One or both of the characters in your main ship must be gender swapped. Girl!Bellamy, Boy!Raven, Girl!Murphy, Boy!Echo, etc. You should approach your fic as if the character was originally the other gender, not as if this was a ‘freaky friday’ situation.

Two characters giving extremely biased flashbacks to the same event

Free Space (Pick Your Trope!)

Chopped 2.0

Round 1: Canon Divergence (Canon did that, but I’m going to do this!)

Somebody lives...or somebody dies: A major character (a character who has been in three or more episodes) who died in canon lives in your fic, or a major character who lived in canon dies in your fic.

Sunsets

Protectiveness

A dichotomy: It can be an external or internal conflict for your character(s). You must show a clear contrast between two things. (Examples: A character struggling with Good vs Evil or the Soul vs the Body, a physical reaction to Hot vs Cold or Sharp vs Dull, or a group dealing with Order vs Chaos, etc.)

Bonus Poll: Best Platonic Relationship

Round 2: Canon Speculation (Pre-Canon, Missing Moments, Time Jumps, Post-Canon)

One character is a ghost: It can be a member of your main ship, or a side character, but the ghost must interact with the other character somehow, or be the POV character if they do not.

Joke kiss turns serious: the characters kiss for some reason other than wanting to kiss each other (prank, dare, spin the bottle, trying to hide something, etc.) and then they start to kiss for real.

A character is eavesdropping, and their presence is revealed: The person eavesdropping may reveal themselves, or the speaker may find them/reveal they know the eavesdropper is there, or some variation of this. The eavesdropper must be revealed in the same scene, not later on.

Characters struggling to talk because they’re crying or laughing

Bonus Poll: Most Unique Speculation Theory

Round 3: Modernized Canon (Storyline in Canon set in Modern Day)

Magic AU: Any form or world of magic you like!

Character being all, “You expect me to do X?” And then immediately hard cuts to character doing X.

Secret Places

Sex Pollen/Love Potion/Magical Obsession: One or both characters of your main pairing (or another character) are dosed with a sex pollen (if you’d like to write smut), a love potion (if you don’t want to write smut), or some other form of magic that makes them obsessive over, or extremely devoted to, the other. The obsession or devotion does not have to be a positive, you may also use these to create a negative obsession (a la Jaha and ALIE).

Bonus: Halloween (since this Round fell around the holiday), & Best Smut

Round 4: Final

Reincarnation: Your character(s) must go through at least three (3) reincarnations, the first life, and two subsequent lives.

Soulmates: Your pairing may be Romantic or Platonic, in any universe you would like to create. The distinct way in which the soulmate is found/shown can be different in each reincarnation, or stay the same! (some examples of Soulmate AUs: Soulmarks, Countdowns, Compasses, Black & White World Until You Meet Your Soulmate, etc.)

Forehead Touches

Free Space (Pick your Trope!)

Bonus: Most Creative Time Period, & Most Unique Soulmate Idea

Rare pairs and smaller ships are always encouraged! During these Challenges, the writers had about a week to write and the word count limit was 10k, but this is totally up to you now!

Chopped: Holiday Trope Exchange

A Secret Gift Exchange that was double-blind! Recipients picked the Tropes and the Ships. The Writers did their best to come up with something festive based on those things alone, plus a few extra tips!

Select any four tropes from the list we provide.

Follow the Holiday Theme: set sometime between November through January. Fic may be centered around certain holidays like, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, Boxing Day, Las Posadas, Diwali, New Year’s Eve/Day, etc. Or it may be centered around holiday type activities like, Christmas Tree Lightings, Ice Skating, Polar Plunges, Family/Friends’ Gatherings, Work Parties, Traveling, Religious Celebrations, etc.

Chopped: Choose Your Own Adventure

In our traditional Chopped Challenge, we choose the Theme and the Tropes for each Round, and you follow along, which is a blast, but doesn’t leave you with much wiggle room. So, this time… it’s ALL wiggle room! YOU choose the Theme, YOU choose the Tropes, YOU have total control to decide what your Chopped fic will be!

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes!

Write your fic!

Bonus: Most Unexpected Use of Trope

Chopped Madness

Think March Madness, but fanfic style. In true Chopped fashion, this challenge has writers going head-to-head with one another...and this time the losers are CHOPPED! Quicker rounds, different themes | tropes | characters each round, and sudden death in the Bunker Brackets. And, at the end...only one writer would be named the Chopped Champion! 

Qualifying Round

Character: Bellamy Blake - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Canonverse

Tropes:

Fairy Tale AU: following the bare bones of a fairy tale.

Write a good guy as a villain, or a villain as a good guy!

Round One

Character: Harper McIntyre - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Angst

Tropes:

Strangers to Lovers

Road Trip AU: your character or characters should spend a decent portion of the fic travelling from one place to another together.

Round Two

Character: John Murphy - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Dystopia

Tropes:

Partners In Crime - This trope requires some actual criminal activity of some kind to occur, and for your main pairing to team up (reluctantly or not!) to do it. The crime can be a general crime we would know about today, or a crime specific to the universe you are establishing.

Bed Sharing - This trope can be used in the traditional fanfic “Oh, no! There’s only one bed!” style, or simply by having your main pairing sleep in the same bed for any amount of time for any reason.

Round Three

Character: Raven Reyes - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Modern

Tropes:

Superpowers - one or both of your main ship characters must have a superpower/superpowers, and them having these powers and using them (as either a hero or a villain) must be a central focus of the plot, or at least more than consequential. Your fic can be your character's ‘origin story’, exploring how they got their powers, or a Hero Saves the Day plot, or anything in between! Please be aware, while characters like batman, iron man, and the green arrow are ‘superheroes’ in the comic book sense, your character must actually have powers, not just simply have lots of money/use their intelligence to fight crime.

Found Family - Members of a ‘chosen family’ mourn the lack of family in their own lives and decide to build one of their own out of the people they care for and who care for them in return. The characters in your story must show in some way, be that by saying it, by internal monologue, or by actions, that their friends are their family of choice, and that they view them as a family. This can be established pre-fic or you can use your fic to establish it!

Round Four

Character: Luna kom Floukru - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Thriller

Tropes:

Parallel Universe - Your characters must interact in some capacity with a parallel universe. Your fic can be set in any time period or setting, but you must utilize the concept of parallel universes. Your characters can travel between worlds, can be from different worlds, etc

Doppelgängers - Within your parallel universes, there should be doubles (doppelgängers) of your characters. To fit this trope, your character(s) should run into their parallel universe self, and there should be a swap, where one character’s double takes their place. This swap can be because the double is evil, and takes your original characters place, or the opposite, where your original character is ‘evil’ and takes their doubles place.

Rare pairs and smaller ships are always encouraged! During this Challenge, the writers had about a week to write and the word count limit was 5k, but this is totally up to you now!

Chopped: After the Kitchens Close (Chopped Choice: Smut)

In our traditional Chopped Challenge, we choose the Theme and the Tropes for each Round, and you follow along, which is a blast, but doesn’t leave you with much wiggle room. So, this time… it’s ALL wiggle room! YOU choose the Theme, YOU choose the Tropes, YOU have total control to decide what your Chopped fic will be...and this time we want you to make it SMUTTY!

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a smut trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Write your fic!

Bonus: Best Smut & Most Creative

Chopped 3.0

Round 1: Historical

Body Swap - a la ‘freaky friday,’ two or more characters swap bodies (or, equally, swap minds) by some form of magic. Typically, a deeper appreciation of the other's life is attained.

Competing “Businesses” - This is a pretty traditional fanfic trope, but for this challenge we have expanded the definition a little, to encourage you to think outside the box, and come up with something unexpected! That means any job or profession will satisfy this trope, as long as the two characters are in competition with each other in some way. Due to the historical theme for this round, we encourage you to consider the time period you are writing in when determining your characters jobs (1920’s competing speakeasies anyone?), and things like rival kingdoms or warring governments would satisfy the ‘business’ requirement for this trope. The basics of the trope still stand. Two characters work in some profession, and are in competition with one another. The characters can own businesses that compete, or simply be employed in a way that lends them to professional competition (rival actors vying for a role in Classic Hollywood for example, would work!) This often includes antagonistic behaviour between the two characters in the interest of their own success. You can maintain the competition through the end of your fic, or you can have them come together and lose that antagonism.

Meet Ugly - the opposite of a meet cute; a first meeting between a romantic pairing that starts off disastrously or, at the least, in a way that is less than desirable. It should spark immediate animosity between the character and set them on a path of antagonism.

First Kiss

Bonus: Best Dialogue

Round 2: Science Fiction

Based on a TV Show/Movie - this will need to be a bare bones take on a tv show/movie. It can be the overarching show/movie as a whole, or simple one episode, plot line, season, scene, etc

Reunion - the use of this trope should bring together characters who have been apart for a considerable length of time. It could be a Family Reunion - returning home for the holidays, or being reunited with a missing, presumed dead or previously dead family member. It could be a School Reunion - 10- or 20-year reunions,etc with friends coming back to their hometowns and reuniting. Reunion is different from a Reconciliation trope in that distance is usually the only factor keeping the characters apart. However some reunions lead to second chances, romantic or other, with people who've previously dated beginning a romantic relationship soon after they're reunited or families reconnecting at an event, like funerals or weddings,etc.

Kiss to keep cover/keep a secret

Forehead touches

Bonus: Most Unique Source Material

Round 3: Fantasy

Heist AU - A heist is defined in the dictionary as a “robbery”. For this trope, we expect a little more than just your basic robbery! Movies and shows with good examples of a heist include: La Casa De Papel (or Money Heist), The magicians (episode 2.07), 12 monkeys (3.05), Ocean’s 8, Baby Driver, Now You See Me, etc. Your character should plan an elaborate scheme to break in and steal something of great value, either monetarily or otherwise. A prison break would also meet this definition where your character(s) sneak into a location and steal/break out the target.

Truth Serum - Character gets given a potion that makes them unable to lie. This must affect the Main Character in your fic.

Gardener AU - One character works as a gardener. This can be a domestic home garden, or a more large scale type of garden. They should have a significant knowledge of plants and their uses. Don’t forget, this is a fantasy world, so they can be made up plants!! This can be any character in your fic.

Forehead kiss - must be between a NON-ROMANTIC relationship! This can be siblings, friends, child/parent, etc.

Bonus: Mandatory Platonic Round, & Best Descriptions

Round4: Final - Author’s Choice of Theme

El Dorado - A place (secret or not) where what we consider wealth — precious metals, jewels, ivory, cappuccinos, iPods, oil, etc. — are everywhere and in great abundance. When people say it's where the roads are paved with gold, they're talking literally. In some cases, even the inhabitants themselves are made of gold. Character(s) can stumble upon this City by accident or on an adventure and become rich after visiting this place, etc. Get creative!

Frikdreina - A Character is deaf, blind, mute, or diabled in some kind of way, or has some kind of mutation like Emori. They can be born that way like Emori and her hand, or circumstances can cause them to be impaired like Raven and her leg.

Telepathy - A psychic power that allows a character to read another person's thoughts and/or communicate with them mentally.

Author’s Choice - Pick a trope from the list.

Bonus: Best Plot Twist!

Rare pairs and smaller ships are always encouraged! During this Challenge, the writers had about a week to write and the word count limit was 15k, but this is totally up to you now!

Chopped: Choose Your Own Horror Adventure (Chopped Choice: Horror)

In our traditional Chopped Challenge, we choose the Theme and the Tropes for each Round, and you follow along, which is a blast, but doesn’t leave you with much wiggle room. So, this time… it’s ALL wiggle room! YOU choose the Theme, YOU choose the Tropes, YOU have total control to decide what your Chopped fic will be...and this time we want you to make it SPOOKY!

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a horror trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Write your fic!

Bonus: Most Unique Pairing, Best Scary Story, and Best Use of Halloween

Chopped: Holiday Trope Exchange 2.0

Our second holiday event! Each recipient chose four tropes and ships, and they were shared with an author in a double-blind fic exchange! All fics in this Challenge are Holiday Themed!

Select any four tropes from the list we provide. We also provided a Holiday list of tropes.

Follow the Holiday Theme: set sometime between November through January. Fic may be centered around certain holidays like, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, Boxing Day, Las Posadas, Diwali, New Year’s Eve/Day, etc. Or it may be centered around holiday type activities like, Christmas Tree Lightings, Ice Skating, Polar Plunges, Family/Friends’ Gatherings, Work Parties, Traveling, Religious Celebrations, etc.

TROPED Choice: Western

The Authors in this challenge choose four tropes and a Western theme from our list. At least one trope had to be from our Western section. All the fics in this challenge are different and as Wild as the West!

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of Western themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a Western trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Bonus: Most Unique Take on A Western, Most Creative, and Most Unique Pairing

TROPED Madness 2.0

Qualifying Round

Character Focus: Echo kom Azgeda - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Romance - pretty self explanatory, this should be a fic centering around a romance. Think of a romance novel or a rom-com, the focus of your fic should be on the romance between your main ship! Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (romance western, romance dystopia, etc!) and/or set your fic in any kind of AU so long as the romance is the focus of the fic.

Tropes:

Amnesia AU - A character loses their memory. Traditionally, a particularly shocking traumatic event, an accident, or even a simple tap on the head causes a character to forget all about who or what they are. In most cases, the character has simply lost their memories, no longer remembering their name, loved ones or where they came from, though sometimes amnesiacs develop entirely new personalities, new skills, etc. Once memories are restored, they can sometimes have no recollection of their amnesia-induced alter ego, and will probably be puzzled as to why time has moved forward by several hours/days (though this is not required to fulfill the trope!) However, feel free to try different things! The only true requirement is that your character loses their memory completely, and then it’s up to you if they get them back or not by the end of your fic. Your POV character or another member of your main pairing should be the one with amnesia!

Tattoos - a character gets a tattoo, has a tattoo that is discussed or focused on, or something similar. The tattoo itself doesn’t have to be plot relevant (like the design or image (but it can be, if you want!)) but there should be plot relevance to the fact that there is a tattoo.

Round One

Character Focus: Octavia Blake - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: New Adult - fics should focus on issues such as leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices. They can include first jobs, starting college, wedding engagements and marriage, starting new families, friendships post-high school, military enlistment, financial independence, living away from home for the first time, empowerment, loss of innocence, or fear of failure. Characters in this theme are usually College Age or 18-30. Some popular published New Adult titles include The Magicians by Lev Grossman, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire, and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (New Adult Sci-Fi, New Adult Fantasy, etc) and/or set your fic in any kind of AU as long as it fits with the tropes below!

Tropes:

Roommates

Based on a Children’s Book Series

option 1: similar to the ‘modernized canon’ theme from Troped 2.0 R3, and the ‘fairy tale’ trope in Madness 1.0 QR, this take on the trope can be the bare bones take on a children’s book series. It can be the overarching series as a whole, one book from the series, or a simple plot line, character arc, etc.

option 2: similar to “canonverse”, or tropes like “harry potter au”, this take on the trope requires that your characters are in the universe of whatever children’s book series you choose! It can be a crossover, fusion, or alternate universe. Your fic should include clear elements from the chosen series, such as the style/form of magic, or specific settings or concepts, or creatures from that universe. It does not have to strictly follow the plot of the series. You are not required to interact with characters from the source series.

Some examples of Children’s Book Series: harry potter, a series of unfortunate events, percy jackson, the magic tree house, the boxcar children, goosebumps, wayside schools, the chronicles of narnia, Margaret Peterson Haddix’s missing series or shadow children series, a wrinkle in time, babysitter’s club, animorphs, etc. Please select a book series for Middle School Grades and Below! A series only counts if it has two or more books in the series, and it is not a standalone novel. Please note: this does NOT include YA book series, like the hunger games, divergent, twilight, grishaverse, etc. this is strictly limited to children’s book series. If you are unsure about your book series please message us so we can let you know if it fits!

Round Two

Character Focus: Lexa kom Trikru - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Tragedy - a literary genre and a type of dramatic work that is based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. Sorrowful or terrible events are encountered or caused by a heroic individual. Raises the high seriousness of questions concerning the role of man in the universe. In your fic you can present an admirable or courageous character that confronts powerful forces inside and/or outside of themselves. The character does so with a dignity that reveals the nature of human spirit in the face of failure, defeat, and even death. In a tragedy, a protagonist is undone or brought to ruin by a critical character flaw or by the cruelty of fate. These types of stories recount a tragic hero’s downfall in that the protagonist typically begins in “high” position or esteem and ends “low,” in despair, ruin, or destruction. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (Tragedy Romance, Tragedy Canonverse, etc) and set your fic in any kind of AU as long as it fits with the tropes below!

Tropes:

Florist AU - One half of the Main Pairing owns or works at a flower shop. The preparation or requests of floral arrangements usually play an important part in the plot.

Mindlink - your characters have a connection that allows them to communicate/see each other through a mental connection. Think Sense8 or other similar concepts. This does not have to be between your Main Pairing but should include the Focus Character.

Round Three

Character Focus: Emori - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Historical - your fic should take place in a setting located in the past and pay attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the period depicted. [Historical Era ideas: Roaring 20’s, 30/40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, Ancient Egypt AU, Cold War AU, Medieval AU, Middle Ages, Renaissance, War periods (WWI, WW2, revolutionary war, civil war, etc.), Tudor Au, Victorian AU]. Feel free to blend this theme with other themes!

Tropes:

Mythical Sea Creature - One (1) or more characters in your Main Pairing must be a mythical sea creature of your choosing! Superheroes ≠ mythical creatures, gods/goddesses/demigods ≠ mythical creatures! They must be an actual creature! The creature can be inspired by an existing myth or a creature you totally make up! Get creative! Some traditional examples: mermaid, siren, or selkie! Feel free to draw from all bodies of water, not just the sea, for example; water nymphs (naiads), the Loch Ness Monster, water spirits, etc!

Caught/Trapped in a Storm

Round Four

Character Focus: Clarke Griffin - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Mythology - your fic should include the gods / goddesses / heroes of a certain mythology (please be sure to let us know in the notes at the TOP of your fic or in your summary which mythology you are using). Your characters can BE the mythological characters, or can interact with them. This theme can be used in any time period or setting, it is not specific to the time period the mythology comes from. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (Mythology Dystopia, Mythology Western, etc) and set your fic in any kind of AU as long as it fits with the tropes below!

You are free to use any mythology you would like! This can include a mythology you created on your own, any historical mythology (greek / egyptian / roman / etc.) any movie / tv / book universe mythology you would like to use, or even a take on canonverse mythology (the cult of the commanders / wanheda / osleya / etc)! Whatever you choose, be sure that you are writing these figures as if they are actual gods / goddesses / heroes / etc, or writing them in such a way that its clear they are treated like gods / heroes by the people in the story (like the myth of wanheda, but they actually believe her to be a deity).

Tropes:

Fake NOT Dating - two characters who are together pretend they are not. This can be for any reason! Must be Focus Character and Main Pairing.

Secret Places - there should be a physical place within the story, that is relevant to the plot in some way, it can be a secret from the characters / a secret between the characters / or a secret for only one character. This can be any type of place. Some good examples of secret places can be found in Chopped 1.0 Round 3 and Chopped 2.0 Round 3!!!!

Rare pairs and smaller ships are always encouraged! During this Challenge, the writers had about a week to write and the word count limit was 5k, but this is totally up to you now!

TROPED: Julie and the Phantoms

Round 1

Theme: Angst - Your fic should provoke the feelings of unrest and uncertainty. It generally signifies that the story will be primarily dramatic in nature, rather than comedic or light-hearted. There should be tension between characters, conflict or misunderstanding, usually some kind of separation (breakup [friend or romantic], someone has to leave, as long as the characters are forced apart within your story). Angst fics typically include some kind of difficult backstory, either between the characters or for individual characters, which plays a role in how your narrative progresses and develops. Reminder that angst is the type of theme that can be paired with any setting or time period!

Tropes:

Character discovers they’re not human - the main character or character in your main pairing finds out during your fic that they are a mythical creature! This trope MUST be coupled with a mythical creature storyline, though you do not have to select mythical creatures as one of your tropes if you would prefer different tropes.

Coffee Shop AU - The default in a Coffee Shop AU is to have one half of the pairing as a barista and the other half as a customer. Another popular form is for the coffee shop to be a Local Hangout where most of the characters either visit or work at. The third most common form is where both characters are baristas who work together.

poorly timed confession

Character A catches Character B crying

Bonus: Most Creative

Round 2

Theme: Fluff - A “Warm And Fuzzy Feeling" fic. A work whose sole purpose for existence is to make the reader go "Awwww! That's so sweet!" at regular intervals and/or at the end. It usually has a pleasant plot and/or a happy ending. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (Fluff Romance, Fluff Dystopia, etc) and set your fic in any kind of AU as long as it fits with the tropes below!

Tropes:

Exes - Married, Engaged, Dating, FWB that had feelings, Friends...as long as it is clear that your main pairing was together/cared about one another and now they are definitely NOT. They do not have to remain exes for the entire fic, but it should cover the majority of it. A reconciliation does not have to be romantic and your pairing can just become friends at the end of your fic.

Time Loop AU - you must go through three (3) time loops, the original day/time period and then two repetitions. You can do as many more as you would like, but to effectively use this trope, at least two repetitions of the original day is required.

Camp Counselors

Prank Wars

Bonus: Best Setting

Round 3

Theme: Canonverse - Your fic should be set in the Julie and the Phantoms Canon! This means a Modern AU or a 90’s AU, with the settings that show up in canon! This theme includes all versions of canonverse, including canon divergence, canon spec, and any others you can think of. You do not have to follow the canon storyline, or include any specific plot points from canon, it should simply be the canon characters, in the canon setting, with the general theme from canon involved.

Tropes:

Secret Places - Your character or characters should have a secret place that they go to to hide or get away. They can choose to share it with someone, but they don’t have to. This place should appear in your fic at least a couple of times and the significance of this place should either be clear or should be explained. Must be a physical place.

Neighbors - Two or more of your characters should be neighbors. This can be right next door, across the street, on the same street, etc.

First Kiss - Your main pairing should experience their first kiss together. It can be the character(s) very first kiss ever, but it doesn’t have to be.

Time Jump - there should be a time jump of AT LEAST six (6) months time in your fic. It can occur at any point in your story, but it should be plot relevant, and you should explore how the dynamics between the characters have changed during the time jump. What happened during the time jump is totally up to you!

Bonus: Best In Character

Round 4

Theme: Author’s Choice - Please choose a theme from the list we provided!

Tropes:

Royalty AU - one or both of the characters in your MAIN PAIRING must be some form of royalty. This can be modern, historical, fantasy, etc. They can be kings, queens, princes/princesses, or lower levels of royalty like dukes/duchesses, counts/countesses, etc. Lords and ladies would also work, but they must have a royal title, and, to ensure you are working with the trope correctly, they must interact with “royal society” in some way, like going to court or other similar things.

Soulmate AU - your MAIN PAIRING (may be romantic or platonic, can be just two characters, or a group (poly or platonic groups are both allowed) must be ‘soulmates’, shown through some distinct feature of the universe you create, such as a mark that appears when they meet/where they first touch, writing on themselves leaves markings on the other, a compass or clock, black and white world till you meet, etc. This can also be a mental connection, like hearing each other’s thoughts, hearing the song stuck in the other person's head, or similar effects. Be creative, the only real requirement is that all characters in the pairing/group (soulmates can be poly too!) have the markings, are part of the mental connection, and/or share the distinct feature of soulmates established in your fic.

‘… Long Story Short’ - a character in your fic is at the end of telling a long story when the scene starts, or a character interrupts the start of a long story and asks for the point, and the "long story short" is something bizarre, like "long story short, that's why I'm banned from Chipotle" or "long story short, we managed to get the goat out of the bathroom" etc. You do not have to actually tell the story, the point of the trope is to simply confuse the person who walked in at the end of the story. The story being told does not have to be plot relevant.

Author’s Choice - Please choose a trope from the lists we provide.

Bonus: Most Unique Soulmate Idea and Best Royalty Idea!

Rare pairs and smaller ships are always encouraged! During this Challenge, the writers had about 10 days to write and the word count limit was 10k, but this is totally up to you now!

TROPED Choice: Conclave

One round of a Choose Your Own Tropes Challenge, but this time with a Canonverse theme! To make this event extra special the writers will select a Clan/Location in the 100 World, a Character, a Theme, and set of Tropes that are different from everyone else. Only one writer can use each trope, clan, character, and theme!

Choose a Clan/Location - Pick one location to use as the central focus of your fic. You may use more locations that have been or will be chosen, but the Location you choose must be the main setting of your fic.

Choose a Character - Similar to Madness, you will have a focus character for this fic. Please choose which character to be your POINT OF VIEW character for your fic. You may use other characters that will be or have been chosen in your fic, of course, but the character you choose must be your POV character for your fic.

Choose a Theme - Canonverse is the overall theme of this event, but feel free to pick a second theme, if you like! These were not restricted to only one writer, so they’re all fair game!

Choose your Four (4!) Tropes - Your basket must include four (4) tropes that have not been chosen from the list we provide, and, as usual, you must include those tropes in your fic. However, think of this list like the Chopped pantry! If someone else has already chosen a trope you really want to write, you still can write it to add some extra spice to your fic, however, you cannot include it in your ‘mystery basket’ of chosen tropes and it will not be counted in voting.

Write your fic!

Bonus: Best Storyline We Wish We Had Seen On The Show, Best World Building, and The Conclave Osleya, and we always want to encourage all the ships with Most Unique Pairing!

TROPED: VISUAL

Similar to regular TROPED, with a four round event, but this time the prompts will be in the form of MOODBOARDS, made by yours truly, that will function as the inspiration for the fics! The first TROPED Multi-Fandom Event!

Round 1 Moodboard Prompt + Bonus Character: Wells Jaha

Round 2 Moodboard Prompt + Bonus Character: Lincoln kom Trikru

Round 3 Moodboard Prompt + Bonus Character: Gaia kom Trikru

Round 4 Moodboard + Bonus Character: Nathan Miller

Rare pairs and smaller ships are always encouraged! During this Challenge, the writers had about 10 days to write and the word count limit was 10k, but this is totally up to you now!

TROPED Choice: Horror 2.0

The 2nd Annual Choose Your Own Horror Tropes Adventure Event! For this event YOU choose the Theme, YOU choose the Tropes, YOU have total control to decide what your TROPED fic will be…and this time we want you to make it SPOOKY!

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of Horror themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a Horror trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Write your fic!

Bonus: Most Unique Pairing, Best Scary Story, and Best Use of Halloween

TROPED Choice: Throwback

Round 1

Pick a prompt from a previous round/event!

Add the Wild Card Trope — Non-Linear Storytelling - The story is told in two parts, featuring heavy use of flash-forwards and flashbacks. NOT time travel (though you may use this trope in a fic that also includes time travel), but the use of switching between times to tell the story. There is often a mystery for the viewer to try to play along and solve, but this is NOT required. Examples: (who is the kids mom in HIMYM? Who is the killer in Elite? What happened to Jack in This is Us? Who set up Alex Parrish in Quantico? Etc.) more examples: Cruel Summer, How to Get Away with Murder, 12 Monkeys, The Wilds, Lost, Heroes, Westworld, The Haunting of Hill House, The Witcher, La Casa De Papel, Arrow, The Umbrella Academy, Watchmen, etc.

Optional Bonus Trope — Dæmons AU - this is the concept of daemons from the His Dark Materials (Golden Compass) Universe. The daemon is an animal companion to the human character that is a personification of their soul. The animal changes shape when the characters are children, and then settles into a final form when the character goes through puberty. The animal takes a shape that represents the person in some way, the traits of the animal should be traits your character shares. The human and the daemon cannot be separated by more than a few feet without causing extreme pain, the human and daemon share dreams and often represent two sides of the person, such as the moral compass and the intelligence, or the fear and the rational mind, etc. you can determine how the person and their daemon relate to each other. It is an extreme taboo for a human to touch another person’s daemon without permission as well.

Round 2

Pick a prompt from a Choice event!

Add the Wild Card Trope — POV Switch - at some point in your fic, switch which POV you are writing from to a different character, and tell the rest of your fic from this POV. This should be beyond a “cold open” sequence in one POV and the rest of the fic in another, a good portion of your story should be told in each perspective, around a third of the story at least.

Bonus Trope — Pick an AU! - choose a universe from any television show, movie, or book series, and write your fic in that universe. You are not required to base your fic on any aspect of the original story, or use any characters from that story. For example, write a fic where your characters are going to Hogwarts, or they work on the U.S.S. Enterprise! Any AU, from any source material! Must be a different AU than the fandom you’re writing for, obviously. Be sure to tell us the source material in the notes!

Bonus: Best New Fandom, Best New Pairing

TROPED Madness 3.0

Qualifying Round

Character Focus: The 100 - Wells Jaha / JatP - Willie - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Mystery - Your characters should be following a plot to discover the truth about a mystery of some kind. It can be any kind of mystery, but it should be the central plot line of your fic. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (mystery western, mystery dystopia, canonverse mystery, etc!) and/or set your fic in any kind of AU (magic, mythical creatures, and mythology oh my!) so long as the mystery is the focus of the fic. This can be a murder mystery, an indiana jones style mystery, or any other variation!

Tropes:

Absent Minded Professor - must be either your focus character (POV Character) or the other character in your main pairing!

Characters who are not together are mistaken for a couple - the characters do not have to end up together in your fic, but they can if you prefer! This does not have to be your main pairing, but should involve your POV character!

Round One

Character Focus: The 100 - Gaia kom Trikru / JatP - Julie Malina - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Action/Adventure — your fic should feature fast-paced physical action and courageous heroes who save others from danger or impending doom. A journey or quest is essential. Heroes in adventure stories often face life-and-death scenarios that test their willingness to sacrifice their own lives -- if need be -- for the sake of the greater good. What the hero encounters often changes them, whether it corrects a flaw, matures them, or gives them a greater understanding. It can have a dark, foreboding mood with an expectant tone because readers don't usually find out if the protagonist survives until the end of the story. Whether it is a familiar place during another time or a contemporary tale in a faraway setting, location is more than a backdrop for the characters. It is often a character itself.

Tropes:

Character gets shot/stabbed/BADLY injured, and they: (A) Slowly raises their hand to the wound/pull out the weapon impaling them and stares in horror before collapsing. Their friend/partner/love interest/other main character should either catch them or be the first by their side, (B) Hides the wound somehow, only to accidentally (someone else touches them and their bleeding, they collapse, etc.) reveal later that they are mortally wounded, or (C) Turn up to a friend/partner/love interest’s house in the middle of the night, who then wakes to see the injured person standing in their doorway, to greet them somehow (think a weak ‘hey’) before collapsing to the ground/into their arms.

Cliffhanger - at the end of your fic leave a cliffhanger!

Round Two

Character Focus: The 100 - Josephine Lightborne/ JatP - Carrie - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Horror - your fic should elicit fear in the reader. Plots should involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or person into the world. Some elements of Horror you can include: ghosts, aliens, vampires, werewolves, demons, evil clowns, gore, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibalism, psychopaths, serial killers, etc. Think Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, or Mary Shelley!

Tropes:

Turned Evil AU - Think Villain Origin Story! Write a fic that culminates in one of your characters turning evil! The fic should explore what caused them to take this route, they can be “good” or even morally grey beforehand but they should take a turn to become “evil” by the end of the fic. There can be other forces (read: magic) at play, or it can just be a character driven turn to the darkside! Different from ‘write a good guy as a villain.

Written as a diary or letters, etc.

TROPED Smut: Bridgerton

Our very first Bridgerton soiree! The Authors in this challenge choose four tropes and a theme from our list. At least one trope had to be a smut-related. All fics in this challenge are different.

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a smut trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Write your fic!

TROPED CHAPTERS

Overall Story Arc: Arranged Marriage - At least two characters must have an arrangement for a martial union that is selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, which can include family members such as the parents, governments for political reasons, a matchmaker, etc. Get creative! The story can be set in any universe and have any theme. It must include the POV Character, but it does not have to be your main pairing. This trope will span the length of this event! This is a multi-chapter event, so the fics you submit from Round 1 to Round 3 must follow the same story. The use of this trope should start in Round 1 and come to a conclusion at the end of round 3.

Pre-Selected Trope:

Round 1: Meet Cute -A situation in which a potential or future romantic couple meet for the first time in a way that is considered adorable, entertaining, or amusing. This meeting can happen by way of any of an innumerable array of circumstances, so long as there's something cutesy about it. Possibly they have an instant dislike for one another. Maybe they crash into each other in a hallway and papers fly about. Maybe one of them has been shopping for and trips over the other walking down the street. Perhaps mistaken identity or other wacky misunderstanding is involved. OR Meet Ugly - the opposite of a meet cute; a first meeting between your pairing that starts off disastrously or, at the least, in a way that is less than desirable. It should spark immediate animosity between the character and set them on a path of antagonism.

Round Two: Second-Act Breakup - This trope is as it seems! Your main pairing should find themselves at the mid-story conflict! The romance has begun, they are finding their grove, and that dreaded movement finally comes… they fight. They break up. And we spend the rest of the story just waiting for the big, grand love story moment where they realise they were meant to be. (PSA, happily ever after not required) TL;DR: your main pairing, or a dynamic with your POV character, faces a mid story conflict that causes them to break up. They should have already established a romantic relationship (FWB, courting, dating, etc are all permissible), and in this chapter they break up. You can have them get back together, but that is not a requirement for this trope. Must include POV character or main pairing.

Round 3: The Wedding - For this trope, we want you to pull out all the stops! It’s the BIG day for your main pairing or pov character(s). We want to be wowed by the attire, impressed by the guest list, and witness all the ups and downs of the day, whether your characters elope or invite everyone they know! Traditional or verse-specific wedding traditions are encouraged! Get creative!

The Chapters Trope Bouquet: Authors selected two (2) tropes per round from the list provided.

Bonus Polls: Best New to Troped Fandom, Best New to the Author Fandom, Wedding We'd Most Like to Attend IRL

TROPED Minis: Bishlova

Round One

Theme: Mystery - Your characters should be following a plot to discover the truth about a mystery of some kind. It can be any kind of mystery, but it should be the central plot line of your fic. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (mystery western, mystery dystopia, canonverse mystery, etc!) and/or set your fic in any kind of AU (magic, mythical creatures, and mythology oh my!) so long as the mystery is the focus of the fic. This can be a murder mystery, an indiana jones style mystery, or any other variation!

Tropes:

80’s AU - Like John Hughes Movies, Stranger Things, etc.

Bodyguard AU

Self-Sacrifice

Based on a Song - based on either your own interpretation of the lyrics of a song, or the authors expressed interpretation, your fic should then focus on that type of scenario. You do not need to use the language from the lyrics, but you definitely can if you would like. Please be sure to let us know the song, and tell us what you interpret the song to be about if it is not explicitly clear.

Round Two

Theme: Canon Speculation — Speculate away! Look into a time period that canon did not explore, whether that’s pre-canon speculation for any characters in a time before we meet them, a post-canon speculation for what will happen to the characters, or just a chance to fill in the blanks for things we didn’t already see!

Tropes:

After-action patch up - characters recovering after an injury during some kind of action sequence

Trapped in or hiding in an enclosed space - (ex: supply closet, elevator, etc.)

Characters are not together but are mistaken for a couple

Person A calls Person B a nickname in a language person B doesn’t understand, and person A thinks its super cute until one day it’s revealed and its actually something kind of insulting and/or stupid.

TROPED Minis: Bungou Stray Dogs

Round One

Theme: Canonverse — The setting of your fic must take place in the Canon Universe as it is presented in your chosen media, i.e. books, tv shows, movies, etc. You can explore areas of canon not explored in the canon setting or speculate/diverge if you so choose, or you can create your own story as you’d like it but remember to keep in mind the elements of canon.

Tropes:

Hurt/Comfort

Out of Place Intro — start your fic a good ways into your story, without any explanation as to why the characters are in the situation they are in. Then, cut back and start from the beginning to explain (think a show that does a weird intro to an episode, and then says “12 hours earlier” and shows you how they got there)

Good Guy/Bad Guy Team Up

Two characters give extremely biased accounts of the same event

Round Two

Theme: Comedy — a literary genre and a type of dramatic work that is amusing and satirical in its tone, mostly having a cheerful ending. The motif of this dramatic work is triumph over unpleasant circumstance by creating comic effects, resulting in a happy or successful conclusion.

Tropes:

Battle Couple — two characters must find themselves in a battle scenario and work together as a team to win, showing clearly that they are partners and that they can use the others skills to win

Theater AU

Cliffhanger — at the end of your fic leave us hanging!

Forehead Touches

TROPED Minis: AtLA

Round One

Theme: Modernized Canon — For this theme, please choose a storyline from the chosen source material and recreate the plot in a modern setting. Swap out the canon characters for someone else, change the mood or feeling of a storyline, add things in or take things away, it doesn’t need to be identical, but it should follow a similar base plot line as the canon storyline. We are looking for the skeleton of the storyline, not an exact replica, so be creative with how different characters and a different setting would change the way a storyline played itself out. Two queens of warring countries? Make them the captains of rival highschool volleyball teams! Two characters trapped on a spaceship together with no escape? Make it two friends who get left behind after a weekend trip to a cabin! Or maybe it's just a single scene, a fight between two characters or a moment where a particularly crafty character fools everyone! The options are endless! Please let us know in the notes at the top of your fic what storyline you are using, so we can make sure it’s clear, and so we can ensure you followed the theme. Please note, ‘modern’ means present day. If you utilize flashbacks you can call back to an earlier time, but your main plot should be centered in the current time period.

Tropes:

Found Family — Members of a ‘chosen family’ mourn the lack of family in their own lives and decide to build one of their own out of the people they care for and who care for them in return. The characters in your story must show in some way, be that by saying it, by internal monologue, or by actions, that their friends are their family of choice, and that they view them as a family. This can be established pre-fic or you can use your fic to establish it!

Fugitive AU

Handcuffed together (by accident, for a challenge, etc)

Countdown/Deadline — could be a bomb, could be a rocket ship takeoff, could be a school assignment, could be Cinderella changing back into a pumpkin

Round Two

Theme: Dystopia — The dictionary definition of ‘dystopian’ is “relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.” Your fic should take place in some kind of universe where society is oppressed and suffering. Typical dystopian stories follow some kind of uprising or revolution within the oppressive society, but that is not required for this theme, so long as it is clear that your characters are facing significant oppression and injustice by some government structure. Think The Hunger Games universe or The Uglies!

Tropes:

Reincarnation — your character(s) (can be only one, if you can find a way to do that!) must go through at least three (3) reincarnations, a first life, and then 2 subsequent lives.

Road Trip AU — your character or characters should spend a decent portion of the fic travelling from one place to another. Though it is called ‘road trip’ au, your character(s) do not have to be driving a car for it to qualify, any mode of transportation that takes long stretches of time is allowed. The trip should be a central part of the fic, and be used to develop the plot or the relationships in some significant way.

Hurt/Comfort

Big Damn Kiss — characters FINALLY kiss after a slow burn, in a most epic and extraordinary moment.

TROPED Choice: Horror 3.0

The Third Annual Halloween Challenge! The Authors in this challenge choose four tropes and a theme from our list. At least one trope had to be horror-related. All fics in this challenge are different and quite spooky.

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of Horror themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a Horror trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Write your fic!

TROPED Minis: Shadow and Bone

Round One

Theme: Canon Divergence — You can take any scene in Canon and change its course. Kind of like ‘Canon did this, but I’m going to do this instead’. Change something, and then take the story in a different direction than canon took it as a result. What if this happened instead of this? Present us with a question, a what if about how canon might change, and then answer it for us!

Tropes:

The Price of Victory — Winning comes at a cost, and sometimes we can’t see it till we’ve already won. Your characters should win something, and lose something precious to them in the process. This can be something big or metaphorical (losing the love of your life after saving the world) or something smaller, or even a literal object or price. The primary focus of this trope is your characters striving to achieve an end goal, and the price they pay for achieving it.

Almost Kiss

A Bet — Character makes a bet that they can get someone to fall in love with them, can get them elected prom queen, can get them out of the way so someone else can date their sister, etc. Movies like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Cruel Intentions are all good examples! This will result in the bet being revealed at some point, causing a rift between the main pairing. This rift can be mended, and usually is in rom-coms, but, if you’re interested in a twist, you do not have to mend the rift!

Write a good guy as a villain, or a villain as a good guy!

Round Two

Theme: Romance — pretty self explanatory, this should be a fic centering around a romance. Think of a romance novel or a rom-com, the focus of your fic should be on the romance between your main ship. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (romantic tragedy, romance western, romance dystopia, etc!) and/or set your fic in any kind of AU so long as the romance is the focus of the fic. As with themes like “romance tragedy” it doesn’t necessarily have to have a happy ending!

Tropes:

The Day That Wasn’t — characters live through a whole day, and then, due to time travel or other hijinxes, the day reverses, and it’s like it never happened. When the day starts over, it happens differently. NOT the same as Groundhog Day, they are not caught in a loop, they merely get a chance to redo the day with more information/different circumstances/etc. Who knows about the redo is up to you. It can be everyone, some characters, or just one! For an example of this trope, The Umbrella Academy, s1 ep 6, ‘The Day That Wasn’t’ and then s1 ep 7, ‘The Day That Was’.

Big Damn Kiss — characters FINALLY kiss after a slow burn, in a most epic and extraordinary moment.

Misunderstanding — Just like it sounds. Your characters experience a misunderstanding. Can be between your main couple, or an individual character, or the couple together misunderstanding something.

Shared Dream — This can be a literal shared dream, where the two characters are asleep and experiencing the same dream, or it can be metaphorical, where they have a ‘dream’ of achieving something together that bonds them and that they share. Take this trope and do what feels right to you!

TROPED Madness 4.0

Qualifying Round/Round One

Focus Character: John Murphy - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Disaster — your fic should revolve around something huge, horrible, and natural heading towards the protagonists, and their reactions to it. Are they trying to stop it? Are they riding out the storm? Are they caught in the crossfire? Does everybody live… or does everybody die? You decide!

Tropes:

Dancing — have your character(s) dance! Can be regency style waltzing, step up style hip hop or ballet, you decide!

Bakery AU — Typically, one half of the pairing owns or works at an artisanal bakery or other shop that specializes in baked goods. The preparation of hand-made baked goods plays an important part in the plot. Sometimes, several of the main characters work at the bakery or visit it.

Round Two

Focus Character: Lincoln kom Trikru - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Fantasy — Your fic should take place in a fantasy world. Your world should have mythical creatures of some kind, like elves or dwarves or fairies or what have you, and those creatures should be integral to your story. You can choose to include magic or not, but the world should be a different universe than our own, and should have ‘fantastical’ elements that are central to the fic. The Fantasy World can be inspired by an existing body of work or a world you totally make up! Get creative! *If you get inspiration from an existing fantasy world that mixes with the world we know, like Harry Potter or Narnia, make sure the majority of the tropes are set in the “fantastical” part of that world. The Fantasy World can be inspired by an existing body of work or a world you totally make up! Get creative!

Tropes:

First Pet Story — a story which focuses on the main characters or ship getting a pet and dealing with all the problems and joys that come along with it.

Revenge

Round Three

Focus Character: Jasper Jordan - should be either your POV character, or the other person in your main pairing!

Theme: Cozy — Have you heard of cozy mysteries, or maybe even cozy fantasies? It’s got a familiar setting, but lower stakes, where you are transported to an immersive world that feels just right. There is no assault, torture, or violence. These are feel-good stories with low dread, or a glossing over of high dread, in a fantasy setting. There's a focus on that slice-of-life, and finding that precious moment. The good guys win, or there is a heavy emphasis on doing the right thing. There is usually a focus on characters and their growth. You will end the story feeling positive and comforted. Cozy can be paired with a variety of other Themes. Cozy Canon? Cozy Sci-Fi? The world you Cozy up in is up to you!

Tropes:

Demon AU — write a character as a demon. You can write from a range of authentic horror-movie agents of terror to sympathetic and sweet demons who just want to be loved. Demons may be paired with angels, such as in Good Omens, but is not required.

library/bookstore au — Typically, one character works at or owns a small bookstore or library. They often are very well read, recommend books to other characters, talk about books or use stories as life metaphors. A good amount of the plot takes place in the store/library, and generally it is relevant that they are well read in some way.

Round Four

Focus Character: N/A (Multi Fandom Round)

Theme: Romantic Tragedy — A story that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. It tells the story of two people who fall in love, but are ultimately doomed to fail. The beauty of a romantic tragedy is that it allows the reader to experience the full range of human emotion. You can feel joy when the characters are together, and heartache when they are torn apart.

Tropes:

The 100 AU — a crossover, fusion, or AU where your fandom specific characters are in The 100! Any season, any storyline! This can include an Ark AU, Grounders, Skaikru, Sanctum, Bardo, the Anomaly, or any setting or time period from The 100!

Secret Lovers

TROPED TIMELOOP

Round One

Theme: Canonverse — The setting of your fic must take place in the Canon Universe as it is presented in your chosen media, i.e. books, tv shows, movies, etc. You can explore areas of canon not explored in the canon setting or speculate/diverge if you so choose, or you can create your own story as you’d like it but remember to keep in mind the elements of canon.

Tropes:

Time Travel

Unreliable Narrator

Tea Party — your character(s) should attend a fancy afternoon tea reminiscent of 18th Century England or get dragged into a child’s playtime with a princess dress-up tea party OR maybe, it’s just a good Gossip Session? You know like, ‘spill the tea’! Get creative! We’ll put the kettle on.

Zeugma — a figure of speech in which a word applies to two things in different senses (e.g.,John and his license expired last week) or to two things of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts). Where one of the words is literal and one is metaphorical.

Event Trope: Time Loop AU — Your character(s) must go through three (3) time loops, the original day/time period and then two repetitions. You can do as many more as you would like, but to effectively use this trope, at least two repetitions of the original day is required.

Round Two

Theme: Holiday — Your Fic must be centered around a Religious, Secular, or National Holiday. Examples include: Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Veteran’s Day, National Pancake Day, etc. Commonly the characters observe the holiday in some way in Holiday Fics -- the characters celebrate Christmas or Passover, go on Valentine's Day dates, etc. You may also use holidays that are specific to your chosen media. Examples: Blue Moon Festival in The Smurfs, Unity Day in The 100, Summerween in Gravity Falls, Founders’ Day in The Vampire Diaries, etc.

Tropes:

Fake Dating

Murder Mystery AU — think Knives Out or Clue! You can either have your narrator know who did it and try to hide it, be the murderer themselves, or be part of the team trying to discover who dunnit! The mystery should twist and turn, a fake out is always appreciated, maybe a secret room or a hidden weapon too!

Multiple Perspectives

One Character is an Author

Event Trope: Time Loop AU — Your character(s) must go through three (3) time loops, the original day/time period and then two repetitions. You can do as many more as you would like, but to effectively use this trope, at least two repetitions of the original day is required.

Round Three

Theme: Angst — Your fic should provoke feelings of unrest and uncertainty. It generally signifies that the story will be primarily dramatic in nature, rather than comedic or light-hearted. There should be tension between characters, conflict or misunderstanding, usually some kind of separation (breakup [friend or romantic], someone has to leave, as long as the characters are forced apart within your story). Angst fics typically include some kind of difficult backstory, either between the characters or for individual characters, which plays a role in how your narrative progresses and develops. Remember that angst is the type of theme that can be paired with any setting or time period!

Tropes:

Enemies to Lovers

Character overextends themselves in a bout of god-like power and immediately passes out afterwards — This does require the use of some kind of magic! Your character can have a power already or can get their power in the moment (think a mom lifting a car off her child, but magic!), but it does have to be an otherworldly, magical type of power!

Heat Wave — Just a literal heat wave! You can make it magic, make it sexy ;), or just make it sweaty! Whatever your heart desires!

SMUT! — Please include at least one explicitly detailed sex scene in your fic. Remember to follow the TROPED Rules!

Event Trope: Time Loop AU — Your character(s) must go through three (3) time loops, the original day/time period and then two repetitions. You can do as many more as you would like, but to effectively use this trope, at least two repetitions of the original day is required.

Round Four

Theme: Romance — pretty self explanatory, this should be a fic centering around a romance. Think of a romance novel or a rom-com, the focus of your fic should be on the romance between your main ship. Feel free to blend this theme with any other theme (romantic tragedy, romance western, romance dystopia, etc!) and/or set your fic in any kind of AU so long as the romance is the focus of the fic. As with themes like “romance tragedy” it doesn’t necessarily have to have a happy ending!

Tropes:

Amnesia AU — A character loses their memory. Traditionally, a particularly shocking traumatic event, an accident, or even a simple tap on the head causes a character to forget all about who or what they are. In most cases, the character has simply lost their memories, no longer remembering their name, loved ones or where they came from, though sometimes amnesiacs develop entirely new personalities, new skills, etc. Once memories are restored, they can sometimes have no recollection of their amnesia-induced alter ego, and will probably be puzzled as to why time has moved forward by several hours/days (though this is not required to fulfill the trope!) However, feel free to try different things! The only true requirement is that your character loses their memory completely, and then it’s up to you if they get them back or not by the end of your fic. Your POV character or another member of your main pairing should be the one with amnesia!

Soulmates —your pairing (may be romantic or platonic) must be ‘soulmates’, shown through some distinct feature of that universe, such as a mark that appears when they meet/where they first touch, writing on themselves leaves markings on the other, a compass or clock, black and white world till you meet, etc.

Circus/Carnival AU — Characters are visiting the circus/carnival, part of the circus/carnival, run away to join a circus, etc. A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, unicyclists, as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. A carnival is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides (Ferris Wheel, tilt-a-whirl, etc), food vendors (funnel cakes, cotton candy, deep fried concoctions, etc), merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, and animal acts. Carnivals are small, often traveling, and focus on entertainment. Fairs are larger, often community-sponsored, and feature competitions as well as elements of carnivals. A circus/carnival setting should be a major plot point for the story, and should be the main setting which the plot then centers around.

if these walls could talk… — write from the POV of an inanimate object.

Event Trope: Time Loop AU — Your character(s) must go through three (3) time loops, the original day/time period and then two repetitions. You can do as many more as you would like, but to effectively use this trope, at least two repetitions of the original day is required.

TROPED: Horror

TROPED Choice: Horror 4.0

The Fourth Annual Halloween Challenge! The Authors in this challenge choose four tropes and a theme from our list. At least one trope had to be horror-related. All fics in this challenge are different and quite spooky.

Choose a Theme for your fic from our list of Horror themes!

Choose four (4) Tropes for your fic from our list of tropes! For this challenge, at least one of your four tropes must be a Horror trope, which are in a separate list from the other tropes.

Write your fic!

TROPED: Horror Trope Exchange

Our First Horror Fic Exchange for The 100 Fandom! Each recipient chose four tropes, and they were shared with an author in a double-blind fic exchange! All fics in this Challenge are Horror Themed!

Four tropes will be selected from the list we provide by your gift recipient. We also provided a Horror list of tropes.

Write your fic that includes your given tropes and follows the theme! Because this challenge is the “Horror” challenge, all fics must in some way be Horror/Halloween themed! This can include the subcategories of horror or other horror-adjacent themes from our main list!!

———

You can upload your fics to the TROPED Challenges on AO3 and tag us in your posts on tumblr! We will be keeping these open when we are not running any challenges. Please reach out if you have any questions about the tropes or themes or which AO3 collection your fic belongs in! Happy Writing!

[illiteracy-is-for-woozles]

Novel Prep

Tagged by @silas-fenderson

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

Of course I’m doing this for Soldiers of Misfortune Bk. 1 - The Culmination of Yesterday

FIRST LOOK

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

Teenaged werewolf is dragged kicking and screaming into a war she had no idea was even a possibility and is forced to rely on strangers to help her stop it.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

Three book series

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Millenial road trip/runaway streetkid with a little mythology/cryptid aesthetic thrown in is a perfect example, but I have no idea where to find a picture that would properly encapsulate that

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

I grew up reading about the oldest mythologies and folklore; my brother and I would sneak into the “adult” part of the library from the time we could walk just to find the stories that adults thought were “too scary” for us. I was particularly taken with the stories about more common creatures like vampires and werewolves because the common beliefs currently are nearly unidentifiable to the originals. (Did you know that vampires didn’t originally drink blood, but they sucked the life out of people? It was a common belief that that was happening when people died of consumption. And garlic was more of a blood-in-the-water-with-a-shark situation)

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

I honestly can’t. I haven’t found anything that properly shows it, but I’d love some help if anyone has any ideas? (My submissions box is open)

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

Zuri Attah. I love her and she is the best.

7. Who is their closest ally?

Depends on the situation. Tsujio is a good ally when it comes to emotional things, Ashraf is the perfect ally when she has a decision to make or is scared, and Nicolas is a good partner when it comes to leading the others and making sure they’re all safe.

8. Who is their enemy?

Trolls. Monsters. The main bad guy and the main minion (who’s the main villain in the first book) are evil and I can’t even go there because there are way too many spoilers attached to that

9. What do they want more than anything?

To feel safe. To be happy and no be afraid.

10. Why can’t they have it?

She was safe and happy, but the antagonists took away her home and her family and any sense of normalcy and she will never have that again as long as the antagonists are still around.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

She thinks she’s broken and has no use.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

She’s 16 and has small, bright green eyes, wild, frizzy, brown hair, and dark brown skin. She’s short and muscular.

(I can’t draw; I’m sorry)

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

Fear is a big conflict with her. She’s almost too scared to act, but her fight-or-flight instincts kick in and cause more problems there, and then there’s the need to feel safe which means getting rid of the bad guys. (Which is the external conflict)

14. What is the external conflict?

Monsters trying to steal something from her (but she doesn’t know that at first) and take over the world; probably trying to eat humans.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

Losing and being forced to live through the deaths of all of her friends.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

Spoilers~

17. Do you know how it ends?

All of the books? Pretty much. I actually wrote an ending to help me figure out where I needed to be here.

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?

Little bit of this and that. Mostly it’s an aesthetic story with a moral about getting stuff done even when you’re too scared to move. (Also, don’t judge by appearances)

19. What is a reoccurring symbol?

Red, hunger, stormclouds. Things like that

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description)

21st century, rural midwest. Mostly on the road or in the middle of nowhere, but they spend a bit of time in some nameless metropolitan city in the first books

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

I’ve already written the first few chapters and I have some random scenes in my head that I will kill to keep, but I haven’t set them in stone yet.

22. What excited you about this story?

My brother and I were discussing mythology and what would happen if these creatures from the story were just people and what if they existed in the 21st century, which turned into a discussion about trolls. So I guess what excites me is the passion and joy he and I had when coming up with it. He works nearly non-stop now so I don’t get to see him much, but I feel like this is a good way to spend some time with him like we used to and to show the world his brilliance.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

I just sit down, write whatever nonsense comes into my head, and edit later.

Tagging @benallen-author @inferno-of-fantasy-writing @aidenjaxwrites @fightyspidey

[mfred]

^^^^This is the kind of thing that happens when you google “werewolf romance” and it’s totally awesome.

Books read in 2017 (so far):

Falling for the Werewolf by Abbie Zanders

Jace and Dani just so happen to meet and they just so happen to be mates and then they just so happen to fall in love and get their HEA. It’s a simple story, without too much external conflict, and lots of swoony romance-y falling in love-y kind of stuff. 3 stars.

Bodyguard Bear (Protection, Inc., #1) by Zoe Chant

It’s a bodyguard romance! With werebears! Ellie has witnessed a murder and now the mob is after her. Hal is the world’s greatest, most handsomest bodyguard slash werebear and recognizes Ellie as his mate. Lots of action in this one– bullets flying and car chases and explosions, oh my. 3 stars.

A Mate for York (The Program #1) by Charlote Hartnady

York is a vampire with his heart on his sleeve, sorta. He just wants to fall in love and make a family with a willing human. Takes him awhile to figure out that Cassidy is the woman for him, though. In fact, it took him so long, I started to think he was kind of dumb. 3 stars.

[assume-a-virtue]

Pre-NaNoWriMo

So this is the pre-NaNoWriMo post. NaNoWriMo is something I haven't attempted in, oh hell, years? Over a decade at this point. This practice run is occurring eight hours or so before NaNoWriMo actually begins for me. I plan to write in the mornings, though I know that plans change and muses can be elusive.

The plan is to write each morning, about two thousand words per day. This will give me sixty thousand words instead of the fifty thousand. Editing will chop out what needs to go.

So what am I writing? This is a good question, and not one I myself know the answer to. I have a lot of characters, but they're old, familiar, and beloved. I know their stories backward and forward, like a book I revisit for comfort and not necessarily for new.

I don't want that.

I want to meet someone new, someone outside the staid parameters of the people I know. I saw a recent prompt that I can't get out of my head, though I don't know if I have the talent for it, or how to execute it.

It follows the 'new phone, who dis?' trope, someone sends a dick pic out to a number they think is an ex's, and it's not. It's some random stranger who maybe flirts with them. They continue to text (why?) and begin to fall in love through this medium.

I like it. There are ways and ways to do it, and being real, how many people have not texted a wrong number by accident? Especially if (as I imagine the protagonist to be) drunk and lonely? I can even throw twists in; urban fantasy is big as hell right now, so why not make the phone owner something else? Vampire fiction is still raging, werewolves too, fairies will never die... the possibilities are endless.

Of course, this goal bases itself on these two characters (and all other side characters) being people we, the readers, relate to. This is possible, even with the urban fantasy twist.

Consider:

The old immortal with a face caught too many times in artwork, trying to figure out how not to be so visible in our social media drenched world.

The vampire HR director with impostor syndrome: the only reason she knows how to handle people so well is because she's dealt with many, and there are only so many variations on unprofessional behavior, even now.

The werewolf dog-trainer, bossing the dogs brought to him so they behave, cancelling classes around the full moon and worried people will notice.

Trees that speak, fish that grant wishes, cats that tease ogres into small shapes and then eat them; these are the things that make fairy tales.

What about modern fairy tales? Do we have any? I can suggest that we still have Cinderella; the recent Kingsman duology is a Cinderella story with two twists. The Cinderella is male, and being a secret agent has given him what he needs to blend in during "the ball" so he can marry the Princess without shame.

I'll go further and say that we have Snow White yet, still. Loved ones and relatives in comas, spoken to as if they can hear us and come back to beloved voices? Yes. What better glass coffin than a hospital? What better dwarves than doctors?

In my heart of hearts I always preferred fairytales like the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Aarne-Thompson 306. I like the complicity of the princesses in the tale. They drug their suitors, even knowing that the penalty for failure is death. Some versions of the story end with failed suitors disappearing to become the enchanted princes they dance with, but I like the "do or die" version best.

How often do you find complicit princesses in fairytales?

I think I will alternate points of view, after a point. At first all we'll know is the guy who texts the mistaken picture. Does he text a man or a woman? Well, good question. Probably a man. Does he get a dick pic in return? Good question. There are several ways to react to an unexpected dick pic, after all; they are the male version of 'notice me, I am alive!' and any attention is good.

Protagonist A, in an agony of loneliness and drink, sends a dick pic. Does he add any message to it? A drunken, lonely ramble, a confession of how alone he feels? Who did he break up with? How long was the relationship? When did they break up? What did they break up over, or was it over? Was he blindsided or did he see it falling apart?

Protagonist B receives it. Does he critique? Send his own? Does he ask who it's from? Does he respond to the ramble? Does he have time to respond to the ramble? Does the pic catch him on a rare day of downtime?

What keeps them talking? I suspect B may have to respond to that loneliness, if only to continue the connection between them. I do want them to end up together.

I like this idea. There's an online list of questions that I guess I'll try to answer for this, to flesh it out:

1. The Jump Start The first scene in the story where a protagonist with limited knowledge of a problem is drop-kicked into action on page one as conflict begins.

What is the opening image that will stick in the reader’s mind?

The dick pic, followed by the feelings!dump text, something most of us can sympathize with wanting to do, even if the idea of it is humiliating.

What is the opening mood?

Our mood is sympathy; who hasn't been lonely enough to want to send a feelings!dump to a recently departed ex? Protag A's mood is profound loneliness and sadness, maybe a bit of drunken rage. This was a serious relationship for him, maybe only his first or second but probably the longest lasting one so far.

What is the opening tone?

What is the opening conflict?

Protag A trying to convince the wrong person that they should be together and how good they are with/for each other.

What is the protagonist’s outer desire?

Wanting to reunite with his Ex, to return his life to the way it was.

What is the protagonist’s hidden need that she will fill at the end of the book or series?

Being loved for who they are.

How does the protagonist demonstrate that she doesn’t really understand the problem?

Protag A focuses on winning back that previous relationship, instead of forging new ones.

What is the central theme of the book and how does it relate to the opening scene?

Being loved for who you are, knowing when a relationship is gone, knowing when a new relationship has happened to you. Learning how to live in the present and accept the lessons of the past without assuming that the future will always become what the past was. Learning how not to love like one's parents.

Who is the antagonist?

I'm not sure there is one. A's ex isn't malicious, only oblivious. It hurts A but Ex doesn't mean to be cruel. A's mother is emotionally abusive, A's father enables her. What does that make A's home life like? Something he would want to flee as soon as he could. How old is A? A least 18-- Maybe he's 22? Did he go to college? If A's mother (hereafter called Mommy Dearest) let him, it would have been commuting. A can drive, or there's public transportation. Maybe A can't drive; this is something to overcome, a way to become more independent.

How is the antag introduced or foreshadowed?

A's family. Emotionally abusive mother and enabling father, A moved cross country to be with Ex (and secondarily to escape family reach). Not sure if they cared about his coming out. She (mother is the controlling factor) may have been accepting until it was her precious baby that comes out of the closet? I've seen this reaction before, would be easy to write it and I suspect it's more common than people realize.

If the antag is only foreshadowed, is there a main minion who appears? Is this main minion a recurring character central to the overall plot?

Maybe minions. If A moved to be with Ex, then all his friends would be Ex's friends. Having to navigate a new city and new job without any kind of support is a lot to deal with. Moving is one of the biggest kinds of life stress; to move and then be abandoned would be even worse. Does A go out with Ex's friends a little, trying to pry information out of them about Ex? I think he does, and it makes him feel even more lonely.

Prior to the opening, what internal and external forces have been at work to make the protag suffer?

Ex's obliviousness to A's needs, A's friends being mostly Ex's friends so that the breakup leaves him alone. A moved cross-country to be with Ex, and has no support now that they've broken up. Even the friends A thought he had are gone now, and everything about the city makes him think of Ex.

How are these tied to the protag’s hidden need?

A longs for a love that doesn't tell him he needs to change. A love that he doesn't need to be better for, or thinner for, or less smart for. Something felt wrong in his relationship with Ex, but there was so much physical chemistry first that it overwhelmed the concerns he might have had. Maybe A is young, too, hasn't had too many serious relationships. What is his home life like, the examples he's had? Emotionally abusive mother, enabling father? What kind of love is he used to/thinks he deserves?

So I've ended up with way more questions than answers, but these are good questions to have. These questions are what will build the story. I definitely can relate to some of it, and I figure it'll get hot and steamy somewhere along the line. Phone sex, dick pic exchange, maybe some short videos? There's a lot of draw in that.

Word Count: 1700

Time: 2 hours

[authorcecelia]

typing 10 CLEAN PARANORMAL ROMANCES

Shapeshifters, mermaids, angels, centaurs, and more come together in a ten-book collection that is equal parts romance and action. Featuring books from some of the best paranormal romance and urban fantasy writers working in the genre today, Fated Souls has something for nearly every reader and will serve as a gateway to books that have collectively received thousands of 4- and 5-star reviews. Available for a limited time, so grab your copy now! FREE ON AMAZON!

Strong, independent heroines join together with mysterious, dangerous heroes in explosive conflicts that are as much external as they are internal.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE BUNDLE

Hidden Realms has all of this along with mermaids, shape shifters, demigods, fae, demons and half-breeds with even darker inheritances. There’s love, both forbidden and true, and there’s all the sacrifice it takes to keep it. Regardless of what your preferred flavor of paranormal romance or urban fantasy actually is, there is something in this collection of 10 novels that will knock your socks off. Hidden Realms contains multiple books that are otherwise only available for $2.99 or more, and it’s available for FREE—but only for a limited time!

DEATH WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING

No one’s afterlife is as dispiriting as Audrey’s-at least that’s what she believes after waking up dead without her memories and being promptly assigned to hunt demons for the rest of eternity.

She’s convinced God’s made a cosmic mistake; after all, she’d rather discuss the color of her nails than break them on angelic weapons. It doesn’t help that her trainer, Logan, is as infuriating as he is attractive. And just when Audrey and Logan appear close to developing an amicable relationship, a decision made under duress will push their hearts in a direction neither of them saw coming.

Despite her sub-par fighting abilities, an ancient weapon of unparalleled power chooses Audrey as its wielder, attracting the cautious gazes of her fellow hunters and the attention of Satan himself. With Satan’s eyes now fixed on Audrey, a battle for the safety of the living looms in the shadows.

VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES SHOULDN’T FALL IN LOVE

Lysandra was born for one reason; to kill shifters. Princess of vampires, the heir to Vlad Dracula’s throne and the last descendant of Princess Anastasia, Lysandra lives in a castle of witches and human slaves,engaged to a dark vampire prince and prophesied as the one who will end the war between vampires and werewolves forever.

Everything changes when Lysandra finds a dying werewolf. She takes him into her care and quickly falls in love, unable to explain the magical connection between them. If she’s discovered, she will be put to death. But how can she stop the war when her worst enemy is her true love?

A heart-stopping love story filled with shocking twists, Court of Vampires is a thrilling young adult fantasy that readers will devour over and over again. The legend of what really happened to the Romanov family is retold in Megan Linski’s newest haunting paranormal romance.

IS SHE HEAVEN’S DEVIL OR HELL’S ANGEL?

Callie is a middle-class, Midwest American girl. And a wizard in training. She works for Roland, a member of the Vatican Shepherds – an elite group of twelve warrior priests who travel the world smiting whatever offends them or their Good Lord.

Callie must learn where she stands as a wizard. Will she hide behind a man, or light Kansas City afire with a name of her own?

Callie soon learns she isn’t just a wizard. Monsters have evidently been hunting Callie her entire life, and now, they’ve finally found her…

THEY SAY DEMONS AND ANGELS DON’T MIX.

I say people should mind their own damn business.

My brother, Damian, has been my rock ever since mom left. Didn’t matter that I’m demon-blooded. I was his and he was mine.

But nothing lasts forever.

He wants me to go to college. I’d rather fight a hundred sentinels than lead a boring, safe life hiding who I am. So when a nephilim goes missing, I go behind Damian’s back to find the teen. Maybe if I can solve the case, he will upgrade me to his partner in crime solving.

As bodies begin dropping, I realize I’m in way over my head. But there’s no way I’m going to admit that, not when my future hangs in the balance. It’s do or die time, and I’m not going down without a fight.

ATLAS MORGAN JUST FOUND THE VILLAIN OF HER DREAMS

A ruthless, demonic army stands ready to attack; to bathe in the blood of all mankind. The only thing that has protected us from them is a mystical river which will run dry by midnight of the winter solace.

The paranormal community— referred to as Shadows—has been given seven chances to complete a quest that will replenish the river. They have failed six times. So, for the seventh and final time, the Shadows look to an unlikely source–seventeen-year-old human girl–Atlas Morgan.

Atlas has just lost the only person in the world that ever truly loved her—her mother. Though she is drowning in grief and sorrow, when she learns she is the chosen one, she gathers up the courage to agree to the quest. However, Atlas encounters something far more frightening than Werewolves, Vampires and Witches—love. His name is Kane and she’s shocked to learn that, like her, Kane has been chosen too–not to save the world but to end it…

FOR CENTURIES, AZRAEL’S SOLE PURPOSE WAS TO FIND HER–AND KILL HER.

And now he has her, just down the hall to be exact! So beautiful and fragile, she is so close he can almost hear her precious blood pumping through her veins. Blood he has been hunting for since the day he fell.

His mind is screaming, “Kill her. Stick to the plan, drain her blood, and ascend to Heaven.” But every fibre of his soul refuses to harm her.

If he won’t kill her, what will he do with the beautiful Lilliah Daniels?

He smirks. He might be an Angel, but he’s never claimed to be a saint.

AN INTRIGUING, MYSTERIOUS, FORGOTTEN PAST

“Whatever it was that caused my strange reaction to him, it couldn’t create energy between us. Or could it?”

I thought I was alone. Nobody else had a forgotten past, mysterious tattooed symbol and extrasensory ability. Then I found others like me in a small Colorado town – others with broken memories and strange gifts.

Among them the dark eyed man I’m inexplicably drawn to. When I’m with him, my body remembers what my mind cannot, but as much as I crave his touch and presence, there’s a restlessness inside me I can’t ignore. I need to know what happened to me.

A NECKLACE CONTAINING THE SONGS OF THE ANGELS IS ALL SHE HAS LEFT AFTER A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

Julia spent her childhood putting her life in order after abandonment, but now, it’s all coming unraveled again. Facing an explosion, a kidnapping, and battles in a realm other than Earth, with a Guardian angel who’s as infuriating as he is attractive, Julia has to come to terms with the fact that she’s not quite human, and fending off demons is nothing, once the devil comes for her.

But it may be too late to save the ones she loves by the time she accepts the challenge he’s putting before her.

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10+ PARANORMAL ROMANCES FOR TEENS WHO LOVE FALLEN AND TWILIGHT typing 10 CLEAN PARANORMAL ROMANCES Shapeshifters, mermaids, angels, centaurs, and more come together in a ten-book collection that is equal parts romance and action.