#why is grammarly really trying to spell check this

[malakaiballwhipper99]

you are a lizard

yeah i am. mark zuckerberg is my daddy or whatever

[yokumirumerafan]

Hello I’m glad requests are open I didn’t want to send something in without double checking. I was wondering how the members of the bakusquad (+Shinso if possible) would react to the reader being completely oblivious to the guys flirting or crushing on them. They’re very much under the impression that they’re all just being nice, the reader is crushing on them but they’re under the impression that the guys are just good friends.

(I hope this makes sense I’ve been trying to word this as best I can. English isn’t my strong suit)

Lmao same tho I'm Ukrainian and sometimes even grammarly doesn't save me T^T

Anyway, I got you here's what you asked for <33

🧡 Bakusquad (+Shinsou) Reacting to an Oblivious Reader 💥

💥 Bakugo Katsuki

This man is dying inside.

He’s not the type to just say how he feels, but he thinks it’s so obvious—why else would he be tolerating someone this much?!

“Oi, dumbass, I don’t just hang out with anyone.”

He literally glares when someone tells him to confess directly, because he did—at least in his mind.

When you respond with, “Aww, you’re such a nice friend, Bakugo!” he nearly explodes on the spot.

He WILL corner you one day, slamming his hands on the wall: “I LIKE YOU, GOT IT? NOT AS A FRIEND—AS SOMEONE I WANNA DATE.”

If you’re still confused? God help him.

⚡ Kaminari Denki

At first, he thinks it’s kinda cute—until he realizes you actually don’t get it.

He flirts all the time, drops winks, compliments your outfits, even does the classic stretch-arm-over-the-shoulder move.

“You know, you look really cute today.” “Aw, you’re so nice, Kaminari!”

He MALFUNCTIONS. 💀

Will absolutely whine about it to the squad: “HOW DENSE CAN THEY BE?!”

Eventually just straight-up says: “Okay, but what if I wanna be more than friends?” while pouting.

🍡 Sero Hanta

He thinks it’s hilarious at first—your clueless reactions are kinda cute.

But when he casually asks, “Would you ever date a guy like me?” and you say, “Of course! You’re such a great friend!”

Bro.exe has stopped working.

He gives you SO MANY chances to realize it—lingering touches, compliments, lowkey flirting—and yet, nothing.

Will eventually just be like, “Okay, but real talk—I like you. Like, ‘hold hands and kiss’ like you.”

🍗 Kirishima Eijiro

He’s so patient but also SO SHY when it comes to actually saying the words.

Compliments you constantly: “You’re amazing, Y/N! Anyone would be lucky to date you!”

“Aww, thanks, Kiri! You’re such a good friend.”

Visible frustration but still smiling. 😃

Tries to do cute, romantic gestures—like gifting you things, taking you out for food—but you still think it’s platonic.

Eventually has to hype himself up and confess directly: “I really, really like you, Y/N—not just as a friend. Can we go out?”

💜 Shinsou Hitoshi

He thinks you’re doing this on purpose.

Like, there’s NO WAY someone can be this dense, right?

Flirts in his usual deadpan but smooth way: “You know, you’re kinda my favorite person.”

“Aww, that’s sweet, Shinsou! You’re my favorite, too.”

…bruh.

He doesn’t even get mad, just stares at you in disbelief.

One day, he straight-up asks, “What would I have to do to make you realize I like you?”

Once you finally understand, he just sighs: “Took you long enough.”

💖 CONCLUSION: The Bakusquad loves you, but LORD do you make it difficult. Someone (probably Mina) has to step in and spell it out for you. Once you finally get it, though? Worth it.

(Also my gay ass wants to add the girls too so...)

🌸 Mina Ashido

This girl is losing her mind.

Like, she is being SO OBVIOUS. Flirting? ✅ Randomly holding your hand? ✅ Cuddling up to you? ✅ Calling you her “cute little crush”? ✅

And yet, you still giggle and go, “Haha, you’re so affectionate, Mina! You’d make such a great girlfriend for someone.”

EXCUSE ME???

She screams into a pillow later.

Starts getting more and more dramatic about it. One day, she deadass twirls her hair and says: “Soooo, wanna be my girlfriend, cutie?”

“Wait… are you serious???”

She grabs you by the shoulders: “YES, I HAVE BEEN FOR MONTHS.”

Lowkey fake cries when you finally say yes because IT TOOK YOU THIS LONG. 😭

🎸 Jirou Kyoka

This woman is struggling.

She’s not as obvious as Mina, but her crush is painfully obvious to the squad.

Tries to play it cool but always blushes when you compliment her.

“You’re so talented, Jirou! I love listening to you play!”

“Pffft, whatever… thanks.” (internal gay panic)

Writes you a whole-ass song about liking someone oblivious and plays it for you.

“Wow, that’s such a relatable song! I hope your crush likes you back!”

Jirou.exe has crashed.

One day, she just gives up and straight-up says: “Dude. I like you. A lot. Please tell me you get it now.”

When you finally understand, she groans and facepalms but still hugs you super tight.

Final Thoughts:

Bakusquad (and now Mina & Jirou) are fighting for their lives.

You’re just out here thinking everyone’s super friendly while they all suffer. 😭

Someone (probably Mina or Kaminari) eventually LOCKS YOU IN A ROOM and forces you to think about it.

Once you finally get it, they all cheer and lowkey roast you for taking so long. 💀

[butdaddy-ilove-him]

Power and Prowess: A Beauty and the Beast Retelling

Chapter 2

I rewatched Beauty and the Beast and got inspired to write this. I have not seen this idea written anywhere but credit to those who also thought of it.

Content Warning: Typical Game warnings apply to this story regarding violence, language, etc. There will be no smut in this story because I don't specialize in writing those scenes, but there will be fade-to-black scenes. The other love interests of the game aren't really in the story except for Zayne who is purely platonic as her doctor. This is checked by Grammarly and that's about it as far as proofreading and spell/grammar check goes so be forgiving if it's not perfect, please.

Summary: Daniela Miller(The name of the protagonist from the game for simplicity) is a renowned Hunter for The Association. After the death of her grandmother and the capture of her closest friend, Caleb, by the rival gang Onychinus, she vows to get her friend back and kill their leader, Sylus.

Awoken by the abrupt sound of Tara, her coworker and friend, coming up next to her, Daniela jumped in her seat. “Tara, geez,” She mumbled while rubbing her hands over her face. 

“You were asleep at your desk again. Captain Jenna said you could take all the time off you needed, you should be at home.” 

“I can’t…” Daniela responded “...I can’t be in that apartment without thinking of everything.” 

Tara nodded. “I’m sorry about Caleb and your grandmother. They didn’t deserve it.” 

It had been two weeks since the accident. Daniela had received a sympathy note from everyone and their mother it seemed. Half of them seemed to be from Tara herself. It didn’t bother her that they kept expressing sympathy. It only bothered her that no one believed her that Caleb was still alive. “I told you, Tara, Caleb…”

“Daniela…I think you should talk to Dr. Zayne about…what you think you saw.” 

“You think my brain made it up?” 

“Our minds do weird things when we’re in fight or flight. It’s just…look you know I want to believe you and help you, but no one has seen or heard anything about Caleb.” 

Daniela shook her head. “I just need to know for sure. That’s all.” 

The dismissive response was enough for Tara to pat Daniela’s shoulder and smile before walking away. Daniela dropped the smile she put on for Tara and looked back at her laptop. The piles of research about the two men she saw dragging Caleb were all the tabs and windows open. Images of masks that were similar to those that they wore…their clothes…even down to their voices. Nothing of promise came up. 

But she spent every day at work doing it. Captain Jenna banned her from missions since she wasn’t in the right mind to be fighting so Daniela had all the time in the world to spend trying to find him. It wasn’t until another three days passed and the sun had already gone down, everyone in the building had gone home already, that she came across something of interest. 

Onychinus. The information the Association had on the group was limited access as Daniela discovered by clicking on the file and being met with blurred sections of information. All she could find was the basics. A faction in the N109 zone that was connected to everyone…and everything. She sent the file to Zayne before leaving the building to go see him. 

More than a few nurses tried to stop her from walking straight past them to his office and then just barging in but as soon as Zayne saw her he dismissed them. Daniela closed and locked the door before looking at her friend. 

“I saw what you sent me. I’m assuming that’s why you’re here?” 

“Do you know anything about them?” 

Zayne took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair slightly. “Very little. Why are you asking?” 

Daniela sighed and looked down at her hands before sinking onto the couch in Zayne’s office. She rubbed her hands over her face. “Tara thinks I’m going crazy. Captain Jenna probably shares the same sentiment.” 

“Tell me.” 

“Caleb is alive.” Zayne didn’t respond immediately. “I saw him. When…the house…I looked up and saw two men dragging him from the rubble. They said something about a boss telling them to retrieve Caleb. They saw me and left me there.” 

“They didn’t think you were a threat.” 

She snapped her head up. “You believe me?” 

“Have I a reason not to?” When Daniela didn’t say anything, Zayne hummed and nodded. “So you think Onychinus took Caleb?” 

“It’s the only lead I have. These two men didn’t exactly tell me who they were before leaving. Do you know anything about the organization?” 

Zayne folded his hands in his lap and shook his head. “I don’t unfortunately…But if you know the right people, with some luck you can get the right information.”

“And do you know? Know the right people?” 

The doctor stood from the chair behind his desk and came to sit next to her. His eyes were piercing as he looked down at her and demanded, “What exactly do you plan to do with the information you get?” 

“If Onychinus took Caleb…I’m going to get him back.” 

He made a “hm” sound before looking away. “As expected,” he mumbled, “Very well.” Zayne stood from the couch and walked back to his desk. He reached under it and Daniela stood to watch as he unlocked a safe there. Zayne handed her another locked box that had a small space for a fingerprint lock on the front. 

“What’s this?” Daniela inquired. 

“It was mailed to me the day after the…accident. From your grandmother. Which leads me to believe it wasn’t an accident.”

Daniela examined the lock. “How am I mean to undo it?” 

“Like this I’d assume-” Zayne grabbed her hand and placed her thumb flat against the scanner. It lit with white light before turn green and the sound of a latch undoing was heard from the inside of the box. 

Slowly Daniela opened the box and took note of the many files. They were labeled classified or to be destroyed. She closed the box and looked back at her friend. “And this is about Onychinus?” 

Zayne shook his head. “I don’t know. The only thing I received with it was a note signed by your grandmother saying to give it to you. But if Onychinus took Caleb and…killed your grandmother right before I received this, then I’d say it’s safe to assume that whatever is inside is regarding them.” 

“Thank you.” 

He tilted his head. “For what?” 

“Believing me.”

Zayne nodded and sat back in his chair. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose before resuming work as if they had never had the conversation. Everything they discussed was safe with him, Daniela knew, so she stuffed the box into her bag and headed hom. 

Prior to opening the box, Daniela locked all of her doors and windows and triple checked her apartment for any sign of being watched. She was on one of the top floors of the apartment building she lived in but still. Someone had just gone to great lengths to ensure her grandmother died and Caleb was taken. A top floor wouldn’t stop anyone as dedicated as that. 

After shutting the lights off and using only a dim lamp in the center of the room as her light source, Daniela opened the box up again. The latch sound was eerie in the quiet room. She laid out the files by the dates on the front of them then found at the bottom of the box was a brooch, a red stone with a black crow at the top, and a picture of herself. She was much younger in the photo, a wide-toothed smile on her face and pigtails that were unkempt and failing to keep the hair from her face. Her grandmother was next to her with an arm slung around her shoulders also smiling at the camera. Daniela smiled and laughed at the photo sadly before setting it and the brooch at the top of the table. 

Time passed slowly and too quickly as she read over the files. Each one she read twice to ensure she got the information from them. A highlighter in her hand to keep her actively reading and awake. A notepad and pen on the table for her to take notes. 

Grandma

Experiment

Aether Core? 

Wanderer

Aether Core, Aether core, Aether core, Aether-

It turned into scribble the further down she went as her eyes drooped and exhaustion kicked in. She woke up to the sound of…well she didn’t know but it was a sound. Her head snapped up from where she laid on the table, hair disheveled and drool she would’ve been embarrassed about if not for the panic. Quickly, Daniela reached under the table for her pair of pistols and walked around her apartment. The front door was still shut and locked and all of her windows were undisturbed. She checked every room, corner, and nook anyway but found nothing. 

After checking under her bed, Daniela stood back up and sighed. As she was dismissing it as exhaustion kicking in, Daniela saw…something. Her big window that looked into her bedroom was across from her and through it she saw a bird. Or what reassembled a bird. It sat atop the ledge of her window holding with it’s head crooked to look inside. She made eye contact with it and walked toward her window slowly to stare at it. It’s eyes were red. They reminded her of the brooch from the box. And it’s talons looked almost metallic as if the bird was metal itself. She was crouching to look at it closely, entranced by the creature, and when it croaked Daniela felt her heart jump and her balance leave her. She fell onto her back and watched as the bird flew away. 

Daniela shook her head at herself and went back to the table where the files that were once neatly set out were now strewn about the table. The picture and the brooch remained at the top and otherwise undisturbed.

She took the files to work the next day to continue to look over them and cross reference with anything the Association might know. Very little crossed over and nothing was seeming to align with the information she had on Onychinus. 

“New assignment?” 

Daniela slammed the files closed as she heard Captain Jenna’s voice from behind her. She turned and cleared her throat. “Oh…uh, something like that yeah. Just going over some older stuff.” 

Captain Jenna hummed and nodded toward her computer screen. “You best leave that untouched. Nothing good will come of it. They’re just protocore obsessed gang members.” Then she left. 

Daniela looked back toward her screen and where the file name of Onychinus was displayed clearly. That did nothing to dim the suspicion in her. What does her grandmother have to do with protocores? Why would Onychinus take Caleb if that’s what tey were after? By the end of her shift she had reached the last file. There were more questions than answers. Daniela resigned herself to having to go see Zayne again even before she reached the end of the last file which answered her questions but left her with more. 

This time no one stopped her from entering Zayne’s office unannounced and the doctor himself didn’t even look surprised that it was her when she did enter. Before he could get his overly formal greeting out, Daniela stormed toward his desk and put the file in front of him. 

“You need to read this.” 

“Your grandmother didn’t instruct me to.” 

“Well I am. Read it.” 

Zayne held eye contact with her for a moment before nodding and picking the file up. Without the other ones he was missing some context regarding the experiment detailed in the file but he was a doctor, he could put it together on his own. Daniela waited pacing around his office in front of his desk. She waited until he finally sighed and placed the file back down on the desk and looked at her expectantly. 

“Well?” Daniela asked him putting her arms out in question. 

“I don’t know what you’re asking me.” 

She scoffed and then gestured vaguely at the file. “Is that me? In the file. Do I-...Do I have an…” She lowered her voice “...Do I have an Aether Core in my heart? Is that why the treatment isn't’ working? Did my grandmother put it there?-”

“Slow down, Daniela,” Zayne told her and waited for her to sigh before continuing, “I think it’s safe to assume that you are the experiment in the file which yes would mean that the protocore in your heart would be an Aether Core.” 

“Which means…Onychinus wanted me not caleb or…Gram.” 

Zayne shook his head. “It was too intentional. You were left on purpose. Onychinus must not know about this.” 

“So I can get Caleb back then, they just want me.” Daniela was already turning to go out the door, as if she could just march into the N109 zone unscathed and somehow find Onychinus’ leader and convince him to give up Caleb all without a problem. 

“Daniela, wait-” She didn’t plan on waiting until the handle on the office door was suddenly frozen solid. When she tried to jiggle the handle anyway, Daniela wasn’t surprised to find the door unmoving. Zayne was standing and now in front of her. “If Onychinus discovers this information…you could be their next target. It’s best it remains hidden.” 

Daniela scoffed. “I can’t leave Caleb there to rot.” 

“Caleb would want you to be safe.” 

“I won’t leave him there.” 

The ice of Zayne’s evol faded away, as he made it do so, whenever she reached for the handle again and made her way out. 

Her friend was many things. Daniela thought of them as she stared at the strewn out files, pictures, and the brooch on her table. Zayne was cold, distant, caring, proper, and especially and most often he was right. Onychinus not knowing about her and the Aether Core in her heart was better for her. It kept her safe. But Daniela couldn’t shake the thought of anything horrible happening to Caleb because of Onychinus’ interest in her without them even knowing where to look. Which is why, next to the files from Grandma, there were files from the Association paired with them. Important people and locations were highlighted and laid on top of files they had a potential connection to. 

A sharp caw sound drew her attention from the table and toward her window. There was nothing there and Daniela figured she was so sleep deprived that she was starting to see things. Or moreso hear them. When she turned back toward the table however, there was the mechanical crow she had seen the other day staring back at her. In it’s mouth was the ruby red brooch. Daniela couldn’t help but note the similarities in the brooch to the crow before putting her hand out gently. 

“Easy birdie,” She whispered, “Good bird. Good bird. Just…give me the brooch,” She approached it quietly and slowly. The bird cocked it’s head at her as if it was understanding her and now no longer did. “Yep, Daniela you’re officially crazy. You’re talking to a mechanical bird in your living room.” 

The bird squawked again before taking off into flight. Daniela chased after it but it was through the open windows and far into the night before she even had the opportunity to catch him. She hit her fist against the doorframe groaned loudly. As much as she wanted to go find the bird, Daniela knew it was a lost cause and there was no way she’d be able to find the crow. 

She spent the rest of her night trying to make out the notes her grandma had in the margins of files. At least until she passed out from sheer exhaustion at the table. Her head was laying flat on the wood and she’d die before admitting there was a little bit of drool coming from her mouth. In her dreams she saw a red eye and heard a darker feminine voice saying “devour him…kill him”

Daniela shot up and breathed hard. Her phone alarm was going off to get ready for work and she was already late, leaving her no time to decipher what her dream meant. As soon as she stepped through the doors of the building, two fellow hunters were in front of her and explaining that Captain Jenna needed her in her office. Swallowing hard she followed them, as if she needed to be escorted, and walked through the doors by herself. 

“Daniela, it’s good to see you. How are you doing?” 

Her brow furrowed. “I-I’m sorry.” 

Captain Jenna smiled suspiciously sweet. Almost off putting. “Regarding your grandmother and caleb?” 

“Oh…” Daniela wanted to slap herself for being so on edge with her “...Right. I’m…doing fine. You didn’t seriously have me escorted up here to ask me that did you?” 

The older woman laughed and leaned forward in her chair. “I can’t get anything past you can I? You’re right, it’s not. Your colleagues have come to me expressing concern about you. Saying you’re looking into some…dangerous things. Now I’ve taken you off missions to give you a break from stress while you mourn but you seem to be finding stress anyway.” 

Tara. “I’ve just been wondering about…” Something inside her kept her from telling the truth. An instinct. Zayne’s voice resounding in her mind detailing te dangers of people finding out about the Aether Core. “...what caused the explosion. That’s all. My grandmother and Caleb didn’t exactly have enemies.” 

Captain Jenna had an almost smirk on her face as Daniela said it. “I want you to know that the Association is doing everything in their power to find who is behind this. We don’t know much right now but we are trying. Xavier is leading the investigation actaully.” 

Xavier wasn’t exactly a close friend but he was a friendly face on the job. They had resonated more than once while on missions together in order to win. It made her smile slightly that he cared. “That’s…reassuring. Thank you.” 

Daniela went to leave but Captain Jenna stopped her before she was even able to take two steps backward. “I want you to stop.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I want you to stop investigating Onychinus.” 

And there it is. 

“I’ll assign you to missions again if you’d like. Give you some cases to file. Whatever you’d like as a distraction other than digging into the blackhole that is that gang.” 

“Of course.”

Captain Jenna nodded and Daniela left the office as soon as she could. She had never been off put by an interaction with the Captain before, but now she was suspicious. There was something about Onychinus that if she kept digging she knew she’d be able to find. But she wouldn’t be able to do it at work anymore. Daniela walked through the halls back toward her desk. Never before had she felt the need to look over her shoulder at her job or feel like everyone was staring at her. 

“Daniela!”

She jumped in her seat as Xavier approached her desk. “Xavier, hey, you scared me.” 

“Sorry, sorry, I just wanted to come check on you.” 

Daniela nodded her head. “Yeah everyone seems to want to do that these days,” She mumbled and then louder said, “Thanks. I’m doing okay. Captain Jenna told me you were leading the investigation on my grandma’s house. Thank you.” 

He leaned against the side of her desk and Daniela raised a brow at him curiously. “Did she tell you any of the details?” Daniela shook her head. “Well if you’d like, we could discuss them together. Maybe over lunch sometime.” 

Realization clicked as he finished the suggested. Daniela tried to smile sweetly at him as she stood, shutting off her laptop in the process and grabbing her bag. “Uh…sorry, Xavier. I…I’m not really looking for that kind of thing right now. I’m still processing everything.” He reached out to grab her wrist and she pulled away immediately before he could say or do anything else. “But, the details would still be greatly appreciated. You could just…send them to me. I’ll reach out if I have any questions.” 

His eyes narrowed. “Right. Yeah.” 

Daniela left the office quickly in favor of going to Zayne’s office. He sighed when she walked through his door but let her stay anyway. Daniela recounted the events with the mechanical crow and the brooch being gone now, probably glimmering in a nest somewhere, before he had to see a patient. Then he came back and she told him about Captain Jenna. 

“So she agrees that investigating Onychinus is dangerous?” Zayne inquired. 

“Yeah but for a different reason than you do obviously. She didn’t tell me why. It felt more like a threat. Stop investigating Onychinus or else,” She told him, mimicking Captain Jenna in the last bit. 

It pulled a half smile from Zayne before he went back to his cold demenour. “Maybe it’s a sign. All roads to Onychinus are bad.” 

“Or all roads lead to Onychinus.” Zayne raised a brow at that. Daniela explained her interaction with Zayne with a simple “not my type” as a response to why she turned down Xavier and then activated her hunter’s watch to show him what Xavier sent her regarding the explosion. “Captain Jenna said that he was actively investigating it. The information here seems pretty conclusive and I don’t think they’re still investigating. Everything about this has Onychinus written all over it don’t you think?” 

Zayne hummed. “I still think it’s a bad idea to go there.” He paused for a long moment and looked at Daniela’s pleading eyes. “I read about this place. The Nest. A center of gang activity in Linkon. A way to the N109 zone. Perhaps you may find some more information there.” 

“If I find information there you know I’m going to have to pursue it. I may be gone for…a while.” 

He nodded. “I know. I know you’re capable though.” 

Daniela walked to the door after nodding once. She had one hand on the doorknob before turning back to Zayne and saying, “Thank you, Zayne.” 

Zayne said nothing but made a small “hmm” sound before looking down at a patient’s file. Daniela left quietly and went back to her apartment for the night. She thought about pouring over her files once more but decided against it. Nothing new was going to stand out that she didn’t already see or know. Instead she put her hunter’s gear on and got ready to go to The Nest.

Her black utility pants and boots covered her legs completely. She had a leather harness for her pistols and one tool pouch to adorn it. Daniela pulled on her looser fit white long sleeve shirt then put on her matching black and brown leather corset top for protections. She secured her fingerless gloves around her hands then put as much ammunition she could carry into her tool pouch with an extra magazine for each pistol just in case. 

There wasn’t much to do with her hair, the short length and bangs prevented it from getting in the way or caught on anything and also saved her time of having to put it up all the time. She examined the deep red that she had dyed it a few days prior to the accient with some admiration. The last time it would look good for a while she guessed if things went how she needed them to in the next couple of hours. 

With a sigh she turned away from her mirror to go to her table. She put all the files back into the little box and locked it before putting it in her tool pouch with her ammunition. Daniela’s eye caught the photo of her grandmother and her on the table and she reached for it. Huffing at her own sentimentality, Daniela folded the photo up a few times and grabbed a locket that her grandmother had given to her what seemed like so long ago but was actually earlier the same year. The locket and chain were black and the locket itself had red rubies deocrated it in a few swirls. Daniela shoved the photo inside and secured it around her neck. 

Finding The Nest was harder than it looked. She bribed a few shady people and gave up a few too many secrets about The Hunter’s Association than she should’ve but none that were entirely true or fundamentally going to break everything down. She didn’t even have high enough clearance for those kind of secrets. But the whole time she felt like she was being watched. More than once she looked over her shoulder to see if someone was there. Every time there was nothing. 

That feeling didn’t stop when she finally entered The Nest. A hole in the wall place that could be mistaken for a night club by anyone in passing. But everyone inside knew what they were looking for when they entered. And she was new so all eyes were on her. Daniela swallowed hard and looked down then went to the bar. 

“What do you need, little lady?” The man asked in front of her.

She wasn’t expecting him to put a piece of paper and a pen down in front of her when he asked. Daniela didn’t understand what to do with it. 

The bartender laughed and he lowered his voice to whisper. “Whatever you’re looking for or trying to do…put it right there.” He tapped the paper and gestured for her to go ahead. 

Daniela swallowed hard and picked up the pen. The first part was easy to write but when she got to the words “Aether Core” her hand began to shake. A moment of hesitation and then she finished the sentence. Daniela folded the paper in half and passed it back. The bartender smirked and took it from her then pushed her a black shot glass. Inside was a black liquid. She looked at it with a raised brow as he looked at her expectantly.

“It’s a trade,” One voice said from her left. 

“You have to take the shot to get what you’re looking for,” Another said from her right. 

Daniela looked to both sides and saw familiar faces. Or masks more like. The two men who had carried Caleb away were there. Daniela knew it wasn’t the time to question them or give her intentions away so she grabbed the glass and took the shot without another moment’s hesitation.

[gildedcageif]

Here's what I think so far;

the concept ★★★★★ It hooked me and that's why I'm here.

The Ros ★★★★★The M!Ros Had me on my knees.

The writing ★★★ Here's where it in my humble opinion could use some improving; The grammar seems to be Off.and that's affecting the gameplay,I understand what's it trying to say but the descriptions feels off because of it.Here's a solution I myself go with while writing my If games(Ideas just to be clear)since English is not my first language. Write the story with no concern for the grammar on the medium you usually write on( lap-paper-phone..) then write it again on phone using a writing app,I use foretelling for example ,and download Grammarly. It will spot your mistakes and will help,Not indefinitely, of course but for the most part. I'm sure there are other ones maybe even better that you can use but that's what I personally use and hasn't failed me.Also that's only my opinion and suggestion,take both as a grain of salt.

The descriptions ★★★★ They are not bad, maybe because of the grammar I feel that it too needs some improving. You have got a good vocabulary range tho and that's good!

For this one maybe make more deceptions to make us feel immersed in the story and the pain the character is going through,as for example when The MC sees the c*rpses of her mother and friend ( forgive me for I have forgot her name) ,while the friend being horribly taken care of and witnessed by the MC at such a young age,The mc is likely to be traumatized and I honestly feel like they're sad sure but not enough and certainly are not tramatized, so yeah. Or another suggestion would be to just be straight to point with not so much descriptions (you already have that but)like stating that the event had you tramatized for life ,for example; “Their Dead bodies are forever engraved in your mind, leaving you traumatized for life.”( it's bad I know but that what I immediately thought of and it matched what I'm trying to say)

again, that's just in my opinion and you're free to throw it out the window.

The game mechanics- okay this one I won't judge since you mentioned that's your first time using it and I must confess twine sounds so complicated that's why I'm sticking to choice script. But I just wanted to say that I find that when we are having a conversation with a character, the friend for example and choose a choice, it will present you with the flavour of the choice and then take you again to the choices with the same choice being not removed even though we chose it. So- yup.

and overall these problems are not something to be overly concerned about,like for the most part it's really good and I understand What's the story is telling.

Obviously, I'm not an expert in writing or anything and I'm not being humble,I just started writing this year lol. So it just what I felt and maybe the others felt another way than I did and it's just me,I just thought I will give you some feedback with solutions I could think of rather than throwing you the problem and not offering how to right it.and my opinions can be totally ignored too as like I said maybe it's Just me so yeah you're the author do what you feel it's good .

Regardless, it's not really a problem as I said and it really is just the beginning and things can improve with time so yeah that's just what I thought of the current demo !and am awaiting further updates for sure .

Good game overall ★★★★!

First of all, I want to thank you for all your helpful commentary and critique. It is clear you have put thought into this and it brings me so much joy you can't imagine.

Writing

I am also not a native English speaker so perhaps some stuff slipped through my attention. I will be sure to do a thorough spell check before the next update since I will have more time to work on it. I thank you for mentioning so I can check for it.

I will also work on improving descriptions. The writing suffered partly because I wanted to get the demo out quick enough so that people would not be disappointed. I want to generally improve many scenes and descriptions (particularly the ones close to the end).

Coding

Part of the code is placeholder until I can learn more complex tricks on twine. It is funny that you mention choicscript because at first I meant to code there, but it was really hard for me because I am a visual learner.

Regardless, I am working on rebuilding part of that code and making improvements where I can. Some will also include improving the general layout appearance and UI of the game.

Conclusion

Once again, I thank you for your thoughtful review and for all your suggestions. I am genuinely very grateful that anyone spend that much time typing and thinking about my silly little game.

So again thank you very much (I am repeating myself I know, sorry for that) and I hope you will enjoy the next update even more!

[stellardeer]

I feel like a lot of people in various reblog chains of this post have kinda lost the plot, so I'm reblogging this version to bring the emphasis back on the AI "detectors".

Whether something like Grammarly is considered AI or not is a little irrelevant, but most people consider using a spelling/grammar checker to not "count" as AI (despite the fact that you may be able to write out a bunch of nonsense and have Grammarly correct it over and over until it passes as a sentence)

And what a teacher will generally use an AI detector for is to check if the student wrote the paper or prompted an AI to give them a paper. As far as I know, Grammarly can't finish your entire document for you based on prompts (but I haven't used it so feel free to correct me) so I feel like a lot of the notes trying to argue whether it counts as AI or whether auto correct is useless now are just getting away from the point this point was supposed to be making:

You can't trust an AI detection software to accurately predict whether something was AI generated.

And part of the reason for that is that AI-detection software could ALSO be considered a form of AI. It is limited both by the dataset being fed to it to determine whether something is or isn't AI, and by any biases of the human who programmed it. If the programmer writes a program that says "look for anything that isn't perfect English and flag it as AI", they are showing that they don't trust anything written in broken English. I'm not sure why it might flag a word like "devoid", but if the AI detector is looking for patterns amongst known AI samples and the word "devoid" comes up a lot, it might just assume that any text using the word "devoid" has a higher chance of being AI generated.

Let's go back to the Both Of These Are Bad part.

It shouldn't need explaining why AI detectors falsely flagging ESL writers' works as AI is just bad and just contributing to systemic racism, so let's talk about the ways in which it can be harmful to native English speakers.

As stated above, it's interesting that an AI detector might flag words that seem "complex", while much of mainstream writing is trending towards simplification, for better or for worse. It could mean that since a lot of non-AI writing is so simplistic, anything that deviates from that is considered abnormal. Or it could, again, just be a programmed bias of the author of the program. I think this is more the point that thebibliosphere might have been trying to make, not that Grammarly specifically is evil AI that's making everyone write bad, but that a larger cultural shift to more simplistic language is happening and when things like Grammarly tell you to simplify your phrases or an AI detector tells you that your essay was AI generated because you used a big word, it's encouraging this simplification at a much faster rate than if human editors and teachers were directing their writers/students to do so.

Grammar software is perfectly optional for professionals, of course, but if a student is going to fail a class because their essay can't pass an AI detector, well, they can't really opt out of that. They have to change their wording to something that might not be as vibrant as what they originally wrote, or risk failing and potentially worse action depending on a school's plagiarism policies. It's essentially going to train kids to write in specific ways to get around it, and they might not understand why their paper was flagged or what AI even is yet, they're just going to assume that their writing was wrong and needs to be fixed. And let's not assume that only the kids writing their own essays are doing this, either. If kids can write a whole paper using AI and then change a couple of words so that it passes the detector, they're going to do that too!

Again, the point here is that the AI detectors are not infallible, often make racist assumptions, and cannot be the only method used to check whether something was AI generated.

I don't really have a good conclusion because I don't have the answer to this problem, because it goes beyond students in a classroom and you won't always get a document history to check. I just felt like this post was losing it's direction and I needed to clarify it for my own sanity.

[horriblengrossstories]

I don’t know if this is personal since I don’t really do this alot but..

Is Dysgraphia like you make your own written language (based off google) and are you feeling okay? Like your mental health. Sorry if this is personal to you ignore if it makes you uncomfortable

-Lucifer16ducks (soon to change name)

hey <3 not too personal at all, i don’t mind!

for your first question: that’s a really cool way to describe it, honestly. sometimes dysgraphia does feel like my brain wants to write in its own language one only i can read (and even then, not always). it’s not intentional, it’s just how my hands and brain don’t always sync up.

and for the second part thank you for checking in. that means a lot. i’ve been managing, taking things one day at a time. i hope you’re doing okay too. and hey, i like the name lucifer16ducks it’s got a weird little poetry to it OvO

✎ Professor Birdie’s Crash Course on Dysgraphia (aka: Why Writing Is Hard and It’s Not Just in Your Head)

Alright class, sit your butts downtoday we’re talking about dysgraphia. That weird, and very real learning disability that messes with writing in ways most people don’t even notice... until you’re crying over a pencil.

✦ So What Is Dysgraphia?

Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder that affects writing. Sounds vague, right? But here’s what it really means: your brain’s got a lot of ideas, but your hands are like “sorry, we forgot how letters work.” It’s not laziness. It’s not “bad handwriting.” It’s your brain and body trying to do something complicated and not quite syncing up.

And no, there’s no magic cure. But there are ways to manage it, and we’ll get to that.

✦ Symptoms, aka: The Greatest Hits of “Why Writing Sucks”

Handwriting that looks like spaghetti Letters too big, too small, smashed together, or floating in space.

Spelling? Never heard of her. Spelling rules are hard to remember or apply consistently. You might spell the same word five different ways. In one paragraph.

Grammar, punctuation, sentence structure—chaotic vibes only Even if you know the rules in your head, they might fall apart when you’re writing fast.

Writing is SLOW And exhausting. It can take three times longer to write a page, and by the end you’re wiped.

Fine motor messiness Holding a pencil might hurt. Drawing a straight line? LOL.

Spatial weirdness Trouble figuring out where things go on the page. Lines? Margins? They’re just suggestions apparently.

✦ Coping Like a Champ

There’s no fix—but there’s power in knowing. Here’s what helps:

Typing instead of handwriting

Speech-to-text tools (shout out to assistive tech!)

Extra time on writing

Patience. Lots of it...so much of it

Self-advocacy means knowing what you need and asking for it

And above all don’t be ashamed. You’re not broken. You’re built different. That’s all.

my main issue with typing? it’s 100% the spelling and grammar. like, the words are in there i know what i mean but the second my fingers touch a keyboard it’s like the english language just packs its bags and leaves.

that’s why i have spellcheck running on, like, 20 different tabs. google docs, grammarly, autocorrect, vibes-based editing... we’re all working overtime. it’s teamwork. it’s survival.

And yeah, sometimes the red squiggles give up too. They’re like “Birdie I don’t even know what you were going for

Signed, Professor Birdie 🖋️ Still spelling ‘definitely’ wrong since 2006

[crowsknight]

i'm having a rough day, well a rough moment. You're not here and I miss you so f'in hard. It's like... there's nothing like it.

C had to put her cat down on Saturday. Poor Tia. It was hard. It brings back all the memories of loss. Mike last year. Mom, Dad, you, Deanna, Mike, my sister in law. Otis, Cynder, Stof/Dufas (all my gone kitties really). YOU Was at the ER yesterday with the youngest. She's fine. Well, she's not, but she will be. All tests came back negative for anything serious. Might be gall bladder stuff. Livable. Terrifying. My sister texted and made me laugh which was amazing. I have to tell her that. Was talking to C the whole time, too. When she found out where I was, she was really supportive. I have great people around me. I just MISS YOU.

I miss you so much and I'm trying really hard to do all the writing that would make you proud of me. You used to know all the stuff. Like where to keep it (here, there, everywhere!) how to crosspost sh*t. So much.

Grammarly keeps trying to get me to spell check this. I don't care. You would understand it. I'm still here. I wish you were. Crossposted this in your journal. I'm not sure why. It's like talking to you. I talk to you on Discord, too. It's like spamming the afterlife. Heh. I like that. More spam to come, Jaxie. Save me a seat at the banquet.

[dragoninatardis]

I understand that Grammarly can be really useful, just as the spell and grammar checkers in Word can. I use it myself, and it's definitely a help online, where I have difficulty proofreading my comments.

BUT

When I see ads about people *learning* from Grammarly, it disturbs me a bit. Because the thing is, Grammarly is helpful for me, but only because I can look at what it highlighted and respond with "oh, yeah, that's a mistake," "no, that's correct; Grammarly is wrong," or "hm, I'm not sure; let me look that up."

Because Grammarly is wrong a LOT. Sometimes in ways that just don't make sense, and sometimes in ones that change the meaning. It's really into word conservation, trying to get rid of any words that aren't necessary, and while I think that *is* a good rule or guideline to put early in the learning process (one of those "learn it and break it," rules, or at least one where you can shift what you deem a necessity,) Grammerly goes so hard at this that it suggests deleting words that change meaning, as in this case from the other day:

My text: "(...) usually the ones who go to (...]"

Grammarly's suggestion: change to "usually go to (...)"

These do NOT mean the same thing.

They'll often miss on things like where to add commas, too, or how to conjugate something. Another example from yesterday, I wrote:

"I'm trying to write world-building notes and the red lines from the spell-check and Grammarly are annoying the heck out of me."

And there *is* a mistake there--there should be a comma after "notes." But that's not what Grammarly had a problem with. Grammarly wanted a comma between "spell-check" and "and," and the "are" changed to an "is."

And you know what? That's an understandable conclusion to reach if you're a computer program that doesn't have the ability to understand the actual meaning in the words being strung together. Which is why Grammarly is not something people should be relying upon to teach them writing or grammar. I could totally see a teacher suggest their students use it when drafting papers (just as I can a teacher saying, "run a spell-check," particularly before that became something you have to kind of go out of your way to *avoid.) But that's a supplementary tool, and if you have a student who's having real problems with grammar and the option of sending them to the writing center or some other resource with actual people helping, that's where you send them.

I know this is an issue where I have a lot of privilege, both in terms of formal education and (possibly even more so) family background. But my point, I think, or at least my conclusion, is that we can't rely on AI programs like this to close that gap for people. The technology just isn't there right now. Maybe someday it will be, but this is not that day. We need to keep working to give everyone the opportunity to learn these things early on and in a way that works for them, and we need to work on making resources that *actually* do what grammarly says it can be used for available to people who need them.

[jbucb]

Hey sweetie, I don’t know if you take writing advice but I just came from reading Cygnus, your dbf!Bucky fic, and I feel like I should tell you that you need to switch paragraphs whenever a new character speaks.

Taking an excerpt from your story, this paragraph in particular:

"We shouldn't probably head back before they notice we're gone." I start to say, it's almost like me didn't hear what I'd said but as I start to stand..."I could fix that." That stopped me dead in my tracks. "Y/n.. shit. " he breathes in "I didn't Mean to say that" he starts to ramble as he stands "God Y/n I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-" "you really mean that" didn't even hear him start to ramble I all I could hear is I could fix that repeating in my head, my thoughts. "Yes, Y/n yes, I really apologize for saying that." he touched my arm briefly, and that snaps me out of my thoughts. I look up at him, confused as to why he is apologizing.

Would look somewhat like this if it were grammatically correct:

"We shouldn't probably head back before they notice we're gone." I start to say, it's almost like me didn't hear what I'd said but as I start to stand...

"I could fix that." That stopped me dead in my tracks. "Y/n.. shit, " he breathes in "I didn't Mean to say that," he starts to ramble as he stands "God Y/n I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-"

"You really mean that?" didn't even hear him start to ramble I all I could hear is I could fix that repeating in my head, my thoughts.

"Yes, Y/n yes, I really apologize for saying that." He touched my arm briefly, and that snaps me out of my thoughts. I look up at him, confused as to why he is apologizing.

See? That makes it a lot easier to identify who is saying what, and it’s also a lot easier to read and appreciate.

You could also play a little with your tenses and styling of words. If I were to write this same paragraph, I’d look something like this:

"We shouldn't probably head back before they notice we're gone," I said, it was almost as if he didn't hear it.

But as I started to stand he spoke, voice low, almost a whisper, as if he were just letting his thoughts out in the wind, "I could fix that." That stopped me dead in my tracks. "Y/n.. shit, " he breathed in "I didn't Mean to say that," he started to ramble as he stood "God Y/n I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-"

"-You really mean that? " I didn't even hear him start to ramble, all I could hear was “I could fix that” repeating over and over in my head, his words sinking deep within my thoughts.

"Yes, Y/n yes, I really apologize for saying that," he touched my arm briefly, and that snapped me out of my own head. I look up at him, confused as to why he was apologizing.

You can definitely switch between past and present, as you see I did up there, just be a bit more careful when it is in the same sentence (Like you did in the very last one) because then it’s just not grammatically correct. You could try using Grammarly or Hemingway to check your spelling before posting too (I'm dyslexic, I do it all the time).

Also be very careful with your dialogue tags, basic rules are:

“Add a coma after you finish a sentence,” she said.

“Unless your sentence is followed by an action, or someone else’s actions, then you add a dot.” He turned to look at me.

“And if it’s the last line, or you’re not staying who said something, you also add a dot.”

“All of that gets cancelled out if you use a question or exclamation mark!” She added in the end.

Either way, I’m sorry if my comments bother you, you can definitely just ignore me, but I certainly would’ve appreciate someone telling me all this rules when I was starting out, especially since English is not my first language and writing style and rules vary a lot within languages.

PS: it’s not opitomy it’s epitome.

Also if you want more writing tips and these don’t bother you, I’d be happy to help whenever, just tell me and I’ll stop being an annon 🫶🏼

Thank you! This actually helps a lot, I swear I'm not being defensive when I send this, but I know how this will sound. I promise I kept running into this issue whilst writing this. Grammarly was the one that added comas. This was my first time using grammly, and I am very disappointed in how it worked. I'm thinking about swapping to Hemingway since I deleted grammarly.

Grammarly was constantly trying to find a way to force everything into a paragraph and correct words like epitome constantly to the point I just gave up trying to correct it, saying I would get to eventually and forgot.

I eventually got fed up enough that I deleted it after I wrote the second chapter!

I promise in everything sense of the word that the grammatical errors will be fixed.

PS: I don't mind the help, you can approach me in my DMs I won't mind. Truly sorry if I came off a bit harsh or defensive in anything that I wrote.

( I there's some typos that definitely slipped by me like, "We shouldn't probably head back before they notice we're gone" was quite literally "We should probably head back before they notice we're gone" that'd had to slip in on the finally grammarly run through 😖 again like I said I was genuinely disappointed in Grammarly.)

Little fun fact : A mix of German and English is what I was raised on, and somehow, French, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Italian and Nederlands(In that order) got thrown into the mix as I got older so I definitely could see where a lot of grammatical errors could appear.

[greycappedjester]

Hi! I am so sorry if this comes off as rude or nitpiky- I really don't want it to, but I felt you should know! In your last chapter of The Weirdness with Witches (which, wow, what an INCREDIBLE ending), I noticed a couple of spelling errors. Like, in this line, waste has two 't's in them: "'Why wastte the money?'”, and how it's 'a crime scene' instead of 'an crime scene' Huge fan of you and the series, and I just wanted to let you know! I would recommend Grammarly- it's what I use for my fics!

Thank you for the recommendation. I might try that as my current software is not great at spell check.

I'll also try to get those typos changed (currently on mobile so can't really rn). Also, no worries--as long as the comment is clearly well intentioned like this one, I dont mind at all when people point out my typos and grammar stuff. In fact, I really appreciate you telling me when there things I missed. Thanks again:)

[r0-boat]

[chat]

Oi. I'm wheezing. I couldn't breathe from laughing so hard at these comments on your spelling.

I'm gonna assume you are on mobile. Slowing down is a good idea. Autocorrect, infuriating as it is, actually does a lot of my spell checking for me. Mine gives me suggestions above my keyboard of what I'm typing. It does have a very limited vocabulary so I do have to Google some words. I'm not sure if that's a feature unique to this tablet model or not.

I use Blaze Wordpad for my mobile typing. It has little to no editing capabilities or spell check, but I have to edit the sentence wrapping of what I type when I upload to Tumblr and that forces me to take a good look and catch any mistakes.

I also have anxious habits that cause me to read things like fives times before I upload them. (That's why I'm so damn slow)

Hope that helps a little. I had trouble with word on my tablet so I hope you have better luck with it than I did.

-- Warden Anon

I do reread the stuff I write, and somehow that still slips through the cracks I think I just need another pair of eyes....

As much as I hate Grammarly, because the autocorrect is fast and very adamant.

I have to admit Grammarly has been extremely helpful towards me as a free editor, and an autocorrect addition to my phone.

As much as I love both Microsoft Word and Google Docs:

Google Docs is broken on mobile and Microsoft Word currently shows my entire name and last name so I can't use those, at least if I want someone to Beta read.

I'm desperately trying to find other apps that aren't those two. So I will definitely check out Blaze wordpad

For any writers I'm going to recommend Grammarly they do have a premium version but the free version works just as well because it not only acts as an autocorrect, it will also find synonyms of the same word if you have a small brain vocabulary like me.

Personally, I find it easier to read when I break up big paragraphs into smaller chunks so I've been doing that a lot more along with actually slowing the fuck down and taking my time.

Yeah sadly grammar is not my strong suit and I have to work on that.

A little more shit below if you care

I always struggled reading a lot of my favorite writers on Tumblr because they're writing is just so complicated to me that I can't completely understand what they're trying to convey to me so I just started writing my own stuff in the way I can understand.

So I really do care when someone can't read what I'm trying to write.

[fitzs-trained-monkey]

Hi!!! I absolutely love your Kol Mikaelson x reader first! They are amazingly written!!! 💕💕

Do you have any tips on writing reader insert fics?

AWW THANK YOU!!! You are so sweet and I am HONORED! Okay, first thing you should know is I've only really been writing reader inserts for like... a year. So FYI I'm probably not the BEST person to give advice but I will try my best. I am by no means a professional writer but I do have a lot of things that drive me crazy and ranting is fun so here we go!

1. Pay attention to spelling. If you're on a computer with any form of spell check, there's really no excuse for a crap ton of errors. Use grammarly. The free version is free and pretty good. Also, re-read your work 15,000,000,000 times.

2. Paragraph breaks. They're important. I once heard a great tip and I'll share it here. Imagine your fic is a movie or TV show. Every time the camera "moves" there should be a paragraph break. EVEN IF IT FEELS A LITTLE ANNOYING TO YOU. Seriously. Do it. Also, every time a new character speaks there should be a paragraph break.

3. DIALOGUE. I cannot stress how important dialogue is. The only way characters will actually come to life is through dialogue. Period. Yes, it will make your word count enormous. Don't be afraid. It's a good thing.

4. Since dialogue is so important, it needs to be formatted correctly. If you don't know how to format dialogue, then go learn please. Improper dialogue KILLS a story. It's really not hard so just go look it up on Pinterest. PLEASE.

5. Yet more on dialogue. People don't talk like books. They say weird crap like wanna, sorta, kinda, and my personal favorite... Gonna! When the reader character is talking, they should sound like the narration. If every other character sounds like the narration, that's a no no. Pay attention to where a character is from and make sure to write them that way. If a character is British they're gonna say British words! All this dialogue stuff may sound daunting but it's honestly fun - at least for me.

6. Oh, POINT OF VIEW! Holy crap, point of view is important. I get so annoyed when a reader insert switches from second person (the "you" format) to first person. I hate it. Readers shouldn't have to go from being themselves to getting shoved into someone else's brain space. It's mentally exhausting. Instead, it's better to always use a limited third person point of view if you want to do a point of view switch. You can look at Limited Third Person as a ghost who's watching over a character's shoulder and describing what they see. They don't directly state the character's thoughts, but they do paraphrase them. It also helps readers take the story more seriously. So yeah. Don't use first person in a reader insert or I will hunt you down. (Jk Ily)

7. Avoid alliteration always. (See what I mean, it's annoying.)

8. Use a gosh darn thesaurus. Honestly, it's the best thing you can do for yourself. Vivid verbs are EVERYTHING. Adjectives are beautiful so please use them to their fullest potential.

9. Be honest with yourself. If you absolutely cannot see yourself doing a certain thing, don't make the reader character do it. Nobody wants to feel stupid.

10. HAVE FUN!!!! As cliche as it may be, this is your party so if you want to dance on top of the table, then go right on ahead. Don't talk yourself into hating what you write. It's awesome and you're awesome and you don't have to be a professional right away. Heck, I know I'm not. Do whatever makes YOU happy and if someone complains BLOCK EM'! That's the glory of the internet. Have a freaking blast, that's why reader inserts exist.

Now, you better tag me when you finish writing whatever it is you're thinking about. I can't wait to read it.

[hood-ex]

Can you give any pointers for fanfiction writing? It's something I've considered trying, but I've never done creative writing and it's a bit intimidating. I'm mostly interested in writing Nightwing, and maybe having other characters (Batfam and Titans) but still always having Dick as the center.

Welcome to Fanfiction 101! I’m here to keep you from making the same mistakes I’ve made in the past. 

Pre-Writing Process

There are some people who enjoy outlining the shit out of their story, and then there are people like me who just kinda make the story up as they go. Whatever you decide to do, try to at least have an ending planned out. That way while you’re writing, you can start to craft the pieces you need to get to the ending you have imagined. You can even work backward and plan your story out from end to beginning. 

For example, let’s say I want my ending to be Dick and Damian hugging in a hospital. Okay, what pieces do I need to get to that point? Well, if they’re in a hospital then one of them needs to be hurt. Who do I want to hurt? Let’s go with Dick because I want this story to show how much Damian cares about Dick.

Great. Now how does Damian find out that Dick is hurt/how does he save Dick? Let’s say Damian is in the cave when the batcomputer gets an alert from Nightwing’s suit. The alert shows that Dick’s vitals have gone haywire. Damian panics, tracks down Dick’s location, and then both him and Alfie take the flying batmobile to save Dick. They find Dick and take him to the hospital. 

Cool but how does Dick get hurt in the first place? Hmm, well, Dick usually always rides a motorcycle, right? So let’s say Dick gets into a motorcycle accident. How does he crash his bike? Maybe it’s because of the weather or because a baddie crashes into him. I don’t want to write a huge action scene so let’s say Dick accidentally drives over black ice, spins out, and crashes in a ditch. 

And there you have it. A whole story right there from end to beginning. You can plan things out in a more detailed way before you jump in and write if you want. A basic outline like that ^ is usually enough for me to go off of. The details just come to me while I’m in the process of writing. Try and see what works best for you. 

One-Shots vs. Multi-Chapter Stories 

If you haven’t done a lot of creative writing, I would suggest you start off by practicing with one-shots. Now, one-shots can be shorter content, but on the flip side, there’s also one-shots that are like 50k words. Totally depends on what the author is willing to put into it in terms of plot, description, character development, etc. 

I personally have a hard time finding the motivation to finish multi-chapter stories, which is why I usually stick to one-shots. Short one-shots can be easier because they don’t have to be super fleshed out. The action is quick, the dialogue is impactful, and the scene is memorable. 

You can also just jump into the action when it comes to one-shots. You don’t have to do as much build-up. For example, I could jump right into a scene of Dick having trouble breathing like this: 

Dick’s having a hard time making sense of things. Vaguely, he can hear Bruce shouting for Alfred. He can feel hands on him. His vision is going in and out. Then, suddenly, there’s silence. Dick wakes up, confused. Tim is sitting at his bedside, holding his hand. Bruce is close by, and when he realizes Dick is awake, he immediately goes over to him. Bruce explains that Dick had a bad reaction to a drug he was injected with. Bruce cards his hand through Dick’s hair to comfort him, and Dick reflects on when Bruce used to do the same thing when Dick was a kid. 

End scene. 

Okay, so, obviously a real story would have way more description than that, but you get what I’m saying, yeah? That whole scene could be the entire story and it would be enough. But if you have the motivation to do way more than that with a ton of character development and what not, you totally could prolong that one-shot into 50k words. Or just break everything up into a multi-chapter fic. 

The problem with writing one chapter at a time for a multi-chapter fic is that it’s hard to keep the motivation to keep writing each chapter. You write one chapter and then put the story to the side for a few days, and suddenly, you keep making excuses about why you don’t want to write the next chapter. To be fair, this can also happen with a basic one-shot, but yeah, tis the life of a writer. Don’t be discouraged if it happens to you. Trust me, it will at some point. 

Character POV

Listen, I love writing in first person. In other fandoms, I used to write a lot of my stories in first person POV. I’ve got some bad news for you, though. Generally, people don’t like to read fanfics that are in first person POV. They just don’t. Nowadays, even I tend to skip over stories that are written in first person POV. 

Third person POV is going to be your best friend. Get comfortable writing it. 

Admittedly, sometimes it’s easier for me to grasp a character’s voice if I first write the story in first person POV. I then go back and change all the “I’s” and “me’s” to he, his, her, hers, etc. That’s just a little trick I do sometimes if I’m having a hard time getting a story started. 

Characterization

If you’re not 100% sure how to write a specific character, try and figure out a few facts about them. Like if you want to write Dick then think about some key qualities of his. Sprinkle those traits throughout the story to make the character sound more authentic. 

For example, I know Dick doesn’t like cucumber sandwiches. Sometimes I’ll have him or other characters mention this in the story. I also know Dick can struggle with perfectionism. I can make that something he has to struggle with in the story. It doesn’t have to be what the whole story revolves around, but if I just throw in some things here and there about how Dick is mad at himself for failing about something then that makes him feel more in character. 

Character Interactions

At first, writing multiple characters interacting at once can be really difficult. It can fuck up the pacing of your story, it can be hard to insert each character enough to make sure they aren’t ignored, and it can be hard to make sure each character is getting a chance to speak. 

If you find yourself struggling with this, try and just stick to two characters at first. Once you’re comfortable writing a conversation between them, try adding in another character. And another. And another. 

The more you practice, the more you’ll be able to write multiple characters interacting in a scene in a way that feels more natural and realistic. 

Genres and Tropes

When it comes to figuring out what you want to write about, you need to know what kind of content your audience wants. For example, fantasy niches (fairies, vampires, etc.) can be harder to “sell” in this particular fandom. There are people like myself who enjoy those niches, but just know that they may not be the most popular niches within this specific fandom. 

What are some niches that the majority of fandoms do like? Hurt/comfort, sick fics, whump, fluff. Those kinds of fics are always in demand. People love it when their favs get hurt. People love it when other characters worry about their favs. People love it when their favs get hurt while protecting others. People love it when their favs are getting along and being affectionate with one another. 

Go on AO3 and sort the fics in this fandom by “most comments” or “most kudos.” Now look at the most popular fics that come up and look at the tags they use. See what kinds of things those authors are writing about. Read their summaries and try to get an idea of what the stories are about. 

Once you get an idea of which kind of genres and tropes are most popular, try and write a story that includes those genres/tropes. People will be more likely to read stories that have tropes they usually like to read about. 

Now, of course, you can also just write whatever the hell you want without trying to appeal to your audience. This is what I do a lot of the time. Turns out that the things I like to write about tend to fall more in line with the tropes that are already popular in this fandom. 

Spelling and Grammar

People really hate to read stories that have tons and tons of spelling and grammar mistakes. Make sure before you post anything, you put your story in Word or Grammarly (I use the free version) to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. Trust me, your readers will thank you for it.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I’ve been writing creative stories since I was 11 years old. The stories I wrote back then are absolutely shit compared to the stories I write now. So please don’t get discouraged if you write a story and you don’t feel like it’s very good. 

Keep trying! Just like with anything else, the more you do it, the better you’ll be at it. There are so many things you’ll learn as you continue to write. Seriously, just recently, I realized I wasn’t always putting a comma in my compound sentences to break up the independent clauses. But hey, hey, now I know. 

Pacing, characterization, and plot are also things that will improve the more you write. Writing drabbles (stories with maybe just a few hundred words) will help with this. It will help you learn to choose the most important scene or dialogue and write it in an impactful, emotional, and compelling way. 

Okay, class is dismissed! If you have any other questions then feel free to send me another ask! 

[thatwritergirlsblog]

Why your book isn’t working

So, you’re working on a book, or maybe you’ve finished it. But you know something just isn’t right, or the first readers didn’t like it. What could be the problem?

1. Story not plot

The issue could be that you have written a story and not a plot.

A story is a string of events occurring one after the other. It’s basically: this and then that and then that etc.

Plot is a series of events/occurrences that are interlinked in a cause-and-effect manner. A happened because of X, which resulted in Y.

Oftentimes, the idea for a new WIP comes to us as snippets of happenings that are random. However, that does not a book make.

A book needs plot. Your events need to follow some pattern or logical consequence of cause and effect. One plot point must give rise to another in a structure that makes sense and ensures maximum interest.

There’s a reason there are so many pre-determined plot structures out there.

If your book is just story and not plot, try to outline the events in a more organised way. Maybe you can consult guides like the 3-Act arc or Save the Cat if you need help.

2. Pacing

Maybe you have a structured plot, where each occurrence is logically and entertainingly linked to the rest, but you don’t pace out those events correctly.

Apart from good structure, the most important aspect of plot is pacing. 

There is an art to writing good stories, and a lot of that involves good timing. You should not litter big event after big event with no space to breathe. You also shouldn’t write 500 pages of nothing.

It’s a difficult balance, but plotting aids could once again help.

I also have a post on conquering pacing, if you want to check that out.

3. Weak characters

This is a fatal mistake.

If you have flat, one-dimensional characters that do not interest your readers, no amount of plotting will save the book.

I know this comes across as harsh, but it really is true. Character is key.

So, if you have no problems with your plot per se, but something still isn’t working, you might want to review your characters.

Are they three-dimensional enough? Do they have strong, identifiable motivations? Do they have interesting combinations of traits and interests? Are they diverse?

You can check out my post on designing a simple character arc if you feel really stuck.

I would also recommend creating character sheets in which you flesh out each character. Personality tests such as MBTI and Enneagram are also great ways to create complicated characters.

4. Too many overused tropes

Everything has been done before. I’m sorry to break it to you. However, not all variations/combinations of things have been done.

It’s okay for your book to feature a cliche or a popular trope. What might be damaging is using a bunch of overused ideas in one book.

There are some elements, like the “wise old wizard” or “the chosen one” or “the answer was inside you all along” that have become distinctly predictable. This is because most people have seen them a thousand times.

This means that your readers won’t be interested in reading further, since they’ll feel like they already know how things will play out. It’s old and boring. The market for these types of stories is also saturated.

So, make sure that you combine elements of storytelling in a somewhat unique and surprising way. No, you don’t have to set out to write something absolutely revolutionary. There should just be some originality - even if it’s just in your writing style.

5. Messy prose

Sometimes the premise, plot and characters of a book are amazing. But you just can’t enjoy reading it. Why? Because the writing is terrible.

Writing inundated with spelling errors, run-on sentences, boring word-choice etc. is very difficult to find entertaining.

Do not allow your good story to be discarded because of messy prose and grammatical errors.

Grammar, spelling and syntax exist for a reason. They facilitate ease of reading.

So, before you put writing out there, use ProWriting Aid or Grammarly, at the very least. If you’re putting it out in a professional capacity, hire a qualified editor.

You don’t want to be labelled a bad writer because of something that is easy to fix.

There are probably many more reasons something could feel off, but these are some of the main ones. Keep in mind that these problems can be fixed. 

Reblog if you found this post useful. Comment with the problems you’ve noticed in writing. Follow me for similar content.

[marshmallowprotection]

I feel like by now it’s quite obvious I have a lot of daydreams that I could possibly turn into cute Drabbles.. but I’m not very good at writing.. which is very disappointing.. BUT I REALLY WANT TO GET BETTER! Do you have any tips or just general things you do to make your writing as good as it is?

Another issue I have is I get too anxious and embarrassed.. so posting my own writing seems nearly impossible. I feel like posting your work is very vulnerable if that makes sense?

~ ♡

Your work is made of your heart and soul. No matter what skill level you are, you're putting your emotions, thoughts, and feelings into the thing that you're writing. Now, it can be scary if you're afraid of bad reviews or people who go out of their way to be mean, but I think that the good outweighs the bad once you're able to challenge what you feel about your fears.

Even better than this, don't force yourself to post something if you're not ready. If you only write for yourself, that's fine. There's a lot of the people you may know in your life that do the same, but you'd never know it because it's self-indulgent writing or they're too shy to share it with others. If you want to be more confident with this, truly, then rip off the Band-Aid and just get started!

Now, just in general, get Grammarly for your phone or computer. It is completely helpful and the free version will get you a long way. It's a good thing for checking work, it even helps you with tone and sends weekly reports to help you work on grammar, spelling, and pacing. It is a Godsend. I know it's a meme now because of the Ads, but really, use it, I have since 2017. This might help some of your fears. Most people fear errors.

Now, for beginners, I suggest writing small. Start with Prompt Lists and Generators to help you get started. Aim for 100-300 words as a good starting point. These things help you learn how to write small and constructively. If you can start and finish something within that many words, you'll learn how to adapt! The process of writing the idea to completion takes time, which is why I say to start smaller so you're not overworking yourself.

Read what you're writing. Over and over. I mean, in your head, but I also mean aloud. I write and act out what I'm writing to help me with tone and understanding if what I'm saying is possible. Writing feels a lot like acting to me, so I put myself in the character's position and spend a lot of time focused on that. This helps more than you think, just give it a try.

I have more but I think this is good for a start.

[faterpresources]

Anonymous:

Do you have any advice on how to start an rp blog? I feel like there's so much to do and so many specific things, it looks intimidating, but I really want to get into it (and your blog seems like a safe space to ask as a baby in the matter)

Hi! Thanks you for asking and for trusting. I do admit that rping on tumblr can look daunting and there is a series of things that are considered “etiquette” that might not be obvious for newcomers. And the only way to learn is to ask, right? As I’m not sure if you would like something more specific or a step-by-step, I’m going to go through the whole process.

note: this is a repost from an ask in a more reblog-friendly format

1.       Setting up the blog

You might want to make a new e-mail account for each blog you want. I recommend making a gmail/google account, so you may be able to use other services and associate them with your blog. I’ll go into more details in a minute.

Some people would rather have a personal blog and then making the RP blog as a side-blog. Or a “hub” blog and many side-blogs so they have everything centralized. The downside is that you can’t follow people with side-blogs, only the main – and some rpers are a little suspicious of personal blogs, so if you intend to go this route it might be a good idea to state somewhere in your blog that you have a RP blog.

Tip : It isn’t said too often, but I recommend saving your blog’s e-mail and password somewhere, maybe a flashdrive or even google drive. This way, if something happens you will be able to retrieve your account.

When picking the URL, for a very long time tumblr had problems tagging URLs with a hyphen ( - ). I’m not sure if it has been fixed or if there are still some issues, so I recommend only using letters and maybe numbers. Other than that, pick anything that sounds nice to you!

Themes are nice, but not entirely necessary. Not everybody has photoshop skills and all that. Some people do have commissioned themes, but if you want to try your hand at it my first stop is usually @theme-hunter  or @sheathemes . They reblog many themes from many creators, so there are always many options that might suit your needs.  Some creators offer very newcomer-friendly themes that you can configure a lot of things without much hassle but some might require basic HTML knowledge – a few creators have guides on how to properly set up their themes and are willing to and answer questions, so don’t be afraid to contact them! You can also send me an ask, I’m not a specialist but I can certainly help walk you through the basics.

Tip: @glenthemes have very good themes and a basic installation guide here.

When fiddling with the options, try to pick colors that have nice contrast and are easy to read. If you are bad at picking colors or have problems in finding the code for them, I recommend trying this link. There is also this one that auto-generate palettes.

Tip : If you mess with your theme, remember there is the Theme Recovery.

Tip: If you use Chrome or Firefox you can set up different profiles and associate each with a different blog, so you don’t need to log out from any of your accounts.

There are two pages that I recommend having: one is an about your muse. If they are an OC, it is always a good idea to have at least some information out there to make things easier. If they are from a canon source, not everybody is familiar with the material so it might be a good idea to state. For example, if you are going to roleplay as Altria/Arturia, it is a good idea to have a “RP blog for Saber (Altria Pendragon) from FGO/FSN “ somewhere visible. The other page that is a good idea having is a rules/guidelines page. This one can be a little intimidating, but it is usually a way to communicate important things. For example: are you comfortable writing violence? Do you have any personal triggers? There is something you absolutely won’t write? There are things you may figure out along the way and it is absolutely ok to fine-tune this session every now and then. Some people also credit source for their icons and graphics in general in their rule/guideline page.

If you are using the tumblr default themes, when you create a new page you can turn on the option to show a link to the page. If you are using a custom theme, most of the time you will have to link it manually.

Oh, and if you are planning to do a multimuse, it might be a good idea to list which muses you have. The same goes for a hub blog; list the muses and link to the pages.

Icons aren’t necessary but are considered commonplace. You can find some icons I’ve done here but there are plenty of other sources. If you want to do your own icons, keep in mind to don’t make them too big, as a courtesy to your mutuals.

Tip: Anything larger than 300 pixels will be stretched to fit the post. As of today ( 4/29/2021 ) the posts are currently 540 pixels wide. This can be useful as making banners for your blog.

Tumblr allow users to “pin” posts. This mean that they will always visible if you access your blog, even on dash/mobile. You can use this to set up a post with basic links for mobile users or something else. For example, if you are out on vacations and won’t be able to do replies, you can pin a hiatus notice and then remove the pin once you are back.

2.       Introducing yourself

Time to officially join the fun! (insert a “Hi, Zuko here” joke) Don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy promo graphic or anything, most people make their initial introduction with a simple post.

(as you can see, I’m not very good at saying ‘hi’)

Try to introduce yourself in a few lines, but make sure to state which muse you RP as. Some people also like adding their pen name/alias and establishing a brand. Follow as many people as you want that reblogged or liked your post, and tumblr is going to start recommending other blogs that are related to the tags you use normally or have any relation to the people you follow. You can put as many tags as you want, but tumblr will disregard more than 6 tags in their system. Try tags like “<fandom> rp” and “<fandom> roleplay” along with the media, such as “movie” “video game”, “anime” and so on.

It might also be a good idea to follow a few RP memes blogs. They often have options to break the ice, like one-liners that your mutual can send you.

Tip: Don’t forget to turn on the asks and the anon

3.       Practical advice

Alright, now that you have a few mutuals, it is time to get to some general tips:

Tumblr can be a little “iffy”, and a great quality of life extension for RPers and navigation in general is installing the New Xkit extension. They offer a number of options to enhance your tumblr experience, but the ones I consider essential are the “editable reblogs”, “quick tags” and “blacklist”. Get it for Chrome or Firefox.

As a rule of thumb I recommend writing your RPs using Google Docs before posting or replying. By doing this you can do some spell check and if your browser crashes for any reason you can easily recover your work. You can also use Word, Open Office, or any text editor you feel like.

Because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I also have Grammarly ( Chrome / Firefox ) installed for an extra layer of spell/grammar check. There is a subscription option, but the free one works perfectly fine.

To make things easier to locate, always tag the URL of your RP partner when doing a reply. There are other useful things you can tag, such as open starters, memes, and such.

Risking being obvious here, but when you are not interacting as your character it might be a good idea to tag as “ooc” or “out of character”.

Some people like making google docs with basic info and other useful stuff for easier access on mobile. It is a recent trend, it might be easier to edit as opposed to going through tumblr page editor and dealing with the HTML.  You can find some templates here and here.

Tumblr’s activity can be unreliable, so don’t be afraid of contacting your partner to see if they have gotten your reply after a few weeks. However, some people also enjoy using the RP Thread Tracker in order to be on top of things. It might be a good idea to check it out.

Because of Tumblr shadowbanning and shenanigans, it isn’t unusual for people to have NSFW sideblogs (sometimes referred as ‘sin blogs’). If you want to write smut, it might be a good idea to consider making one.

Some people don’t like replying to asks, as Tumblr won’t let you remove the initial ask. It has become common to see people making new posts to reply to asks.  This is a simple example:

As you can see, I used the mention to have the RP partner notified then I copied and pasted their question on my post and used the quote to indicate it. You can also have fancy graphics, like a line to separate the contents, just do whatever you feel like with the formatting or keep it simple.

To make sure your partner got the answer, I recommend copying the link to the post and pasting on the ask and then replying it privately.  An example sent to my rp blog:

4.       Basic Etiquette

Ok, this is a little subjective most of the time but here are a few things that are considered universal courtesy.

Never reblog someone else’s headcanons. If you enjoy it, maybe it should politely contact the author and ask if it is ok to write something based on their original idea but you should never downright copy or lift something from another creator. It is considered rude, or even theft in some cases.

Don’t reblog threads you are not involved with. It is ok to leave a like, but never reblog. This is because Tumblr can mess up the notifications and disrupt the flow of the RP.

Don’t copy other people’s graphics. It is very rude and sometimes they commission (aka: paid) for it.

Trim your posts. What does that mean? Every time you reblog with a reply, the post tends to get longer and longer, and it can cluster your and your mutuals’ dashes. This is why the New X-Kit’s “editable reblogs” is an almost must-have tool. If for some reason you can’t install X-Kit (if you are on mobile for example), then remove the previous post or ask your partner to trim for you.

Never take control of your RP partner’s muse. This is called “godmodding” and it is heavily frowned upon. It is ok to control your muse and the possible NPCs that you inserted, but never seize someone else’s character. Likewise, it can also be very upsetting if you use what people call “meta-gaming”, applying knowledge that your muse shouldn’t know about the other. For example, let’s say your RP partner’s muse is a vampire, but they have never disclosed that information to your muse, who also doesn’t have an excuse to know that (for example, being a vampire hunter) so it can be quite jarring sometimes. When in doubt, contact your partner.

This should go without saying, but RPing sexual themes with users under the age of 18 are illegal. It doesn’t matter if the age of consent in your location is lower, once you join Tumblr you are abiding by their user guidelines and the law of the state they are located in. If you are an adult, don’t engage minors with these topics, maybe a fade to black would be a better option. If you are a minor, don’t insist or you might cause a lot of legal problems for others.

Try to tag anything triggering. Violence, gore, NSFW. Both Tumblr and the New Xkit have options to block keywords.

When picking PSDs or graphics for your blog, you should avoid templates that change the color of the skin of POCs muses and try to pick the right race/ethnicity of the muse you are going to RP as. I won’t go through a lot of details, as it is a rather lengthy subject in an already lengthy conversation but keep this in the back of your mind.

Some RPers don’t like when you reblog memes from them without sending anything. Try to always reblog from a source or to interact with the person you are reblogging from, it can be rather disheartening to be seen as a meme source rather than a RP blog. This isn’t a rule and some people don’t mind, but it is always a good idea to try to do this.

This might be more of a pet peeve of mine than proper etiquette, but it is ok to use small font. What is not ok is use small font + underscript. Some people have disabilities that might make it harder for them to read it, so it might be a good idea to refrain from using it. Maybe if you feel like doing something fancier every now and then, but I wouldn’t recommend making this a habit.

Mun and Muse are different entities. Remember that it isn’t because a muse does something (especially a villain one) that the mun condones something. Never assume anything about the mun, when in doubt talk to them.

Be mindful of your partners and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

As a rule of thumb, always talk to your RP partner. It is only fun as long both of you are enjoying it.

5.       Closing Words

This got longer than I expected.

Despite all of that, don’t be too worried about not being very good at first. I assure you that you will get better with time, so don’t be afraid of experimenting as long you feel comfortable. And don’t be afraid of saying “no” if something bothers you.

My inbox is always open to questions and ideas, so feel free to contact me anytime!

I would also ask my followers: there is advice I missed/overlooked? Anything you would like someone have told you when you first started? Add your thoughts so I can update this.

Happy RPing!