Do you ever read a piece of writing advice so awful you’re not entirely sure if it’s satire or not.
If your character is an evil assassin, you might want to refer to his fingernails as daggers or stabbers.
Stabbers. Stabbers. Yep.
A jealous ex-girlfriend might have witch hooks or tentacles. Sugar- or flour-coated hands could be clues that a protagonist is a baker. Or a serial killer with a fetish.
Well this has taken an odd turn.
Use ‘hands’ too often, and the word will annoy readers. English offers a multitude of options.
Oh no.
Analyze what the hands are doing and assign a noun that suits them. In addition to the following, check the Movement section for verbs you could convert into nouns. For example, ‘boo-boo soothers’.
i adore how much Dirty Millennial Writers focus on found family as a central theme. we love it so much! we all just wanna move in together in a big house with all of our friends and marry everyone, and i think that’s nice
about me
I push this in story meetings all the time ❤
Especially queer writers! We are allabout found family! I’m pretty sure every major thing I’ve written has an element of found family.
I’ve been thinking a lot about compassion in Judaism, and being kind. In that light, I would like everyone to know that my current favorite Jewish supernatural headcanon is that, instead of driving vampires away with crosses or stakes through the heart, we say the Mourner’s Kaddish for them. I mean, that’s just so adorable. You see this threatening undead creature, and instead of yelling murder, you feel bad for them, and you mourn for them. Imagine being a vampire at the receiving end of that, having been chased away for years and years and told you’re a monster when you come across someone who sees you and your existence and accepts that you’re in a pretty bad place and offers help in the best way they can. I’m actually tearing up about this a little. If someone adds to this post I’ll love them forever.
It doesn’t work for zombies.
This is one of the hardest things she learns, in the business. Saying the Mourner’s Kaddish will slow a vampire, to stare at you with wide shocked eyes (and once, memorably, to weep blood-tinged tears), unable or unwilling to lift a hand against you. It will calm a dybbuk, enough to make it stop whatever destruction it’s begun, and almost always enough to start a conversation about why it clings so desperately to the world of the living, what it’s left undone, how it can be freed to move on. You have died, the Kaddish says, and we mourn you as we would mourn our own dead, because someone must.
But there is no soul and no mind left in a zombie, no vestige of the self it once was, nothing left for the Kaddish to speak to.
She says it anyway, with every head-shot, with every flung grenade.
Not because she still hopes one might hear her, but because they are dead, and the dead should be mourned.
I know the idea about Obi-Wan being called Sith Killer (or Sith Slayer, perhaps?) has been done before but what about this:
After Naboo, Obi-Wan becomes known as the Sith Killer in the Order. It makes him uncomfortable but he can’t get people to stop calling him that; even before he had killed Maul, he had already defeated two Darksiders (Xanatos and Bruck) so after this, his status as that really cool, badass Jedi to emulate just skyrockets, especially among the newly Knighted and all the Padawans and Initiates. It’s also pretty clear from the fire in his eyes that he is deadset on finding the other Sith. Other young Knights are eager to help – it starts with his friends Bant, Garen, and Reeft: Whenever they’re on a mission, they also look for clues about Dark Side activity; sometimes they’ll follow up on those leads after their official Council-assigned mission ends and then hand that information to Obi-Wan, who’s compiling them. More and more Knights and even young Masters start doing that. Soon, Obi-Wan unofficially is the head of the Sith Hunting Task Force.
Anyway, so Anakin becomes known as the Padawan of the Sith Killer, not the Chosen One (how many Jedi even knew that Qui-Gon thought he was the Chosen One? He only told the Council about it, after all, not made a general Temple-wide announcement). The Jedi are a little flummoxed at first about Obi-Wan taking on a non-Temple raised Padawan but then they’re like, okay, well, this is the Sith Killer. If he wants to do things differently, who are we to tell him no? It’s not like any of us have encountered, fought, or defeated a Sith. And maybe that’s even the better way to do things??? Bringing on people who have life experience outside the Order so they can bring new ideas in?
Every time Anakin does things that they don’t expect, or show more emotion and passion than they’re taught to allow, they’re just like….well, he is the Sith Killer’s Padawan. Obviously the Sith Killer is teaching him differently. Maybe this is how Obi-Wan was able to kill a Sith himself???
(Some enterprising Padawan managed to get their hands on the footage of the fight from Naboo and they all watched it. Obi-Wan was obviously feeling a lot of anger and fear during his fight, and then he calmed himself at the end and managed to defeat his opponent. So Emotions, then peace becomes the new motto for this generation of apprentices.)
Everyone starts trying to befriend Anakin. All the other Padawans start trying to be more like him. He’s passionately speaking out about slavery? Well, they will too then. Obviously, slavery is an evil that will lead people to Fall. It should be stopped. He talks openly about his attachment to his mother? Well, attachment must be okay then. (And they remember from that video that Obi-Wan was obviously very attached to Qui-Gon so there’s another point in favor of attachments.)
Some overly enthusiastic Padawan also hacks into the Temple records and finds out about Obi-Wan’s fights with Bruck as an Initiate. And everyone’s like, even then, he must have somehow known that Bruck was going to Fall. So people all try to avoid getting into fights with Anakin cuz like, if they do, does that mean that they’re going to Fall? Anakin’s the Sith Killer’s Padawan, after all. There must be something special about him. What if he too can tell when someone’s gonna Fall and that’s why he’s fighting with them?
So that’s how Obi-Wan and Anakin inadvertently change the Order. The Council starts noticing that something’s changing but they can’t manage to stop it or reverse it. The younger Knights, Padawans, and Initiates have stopped thinking of them as the all-knowing wise senior members of the Order and started seeing them as the old guard clinging to outdated traditions – none of them have ever fought a Sith or seen one in person, after all. Few of them even go on missions anymore. They just sit in their tower handing out assignments and reprimanding Jedi for not following their Code.
I’ve been thinking about this some more and I feel like the logical next step for a group of Padawans intent on ending slavery and emulate the Sith Killer is to of course sneak off to Tatooine and free the slaves. After all, Obi-Wan didn’t talk about defeating the Sith; he just did it. He hadn’t just talked about helping out the Young on Melida/Daan, he did help them. The Sith Killer takes action to right wrongs and fight evil, he doesn’t just preach about the wrongs.
It takes awhile for the small group of them to all have leave at the same time so it’s not until Anakin’s around 13 that they’re able to sneak off of Coruscant and to Tatooine. They have something of a plan – Anakin’s been thinking of ways to free the slaves for as long as he can remember; having the unplanned but welcome addition of several Force users should make it even easier.
Anyway, they manage to start a slave revolution (how I haven’t yet figured out) and after, the Council is livid. They reprimand the Padawans severely but the Padawans find that it’s hard to regret what they had done when there’s thousands of freed slaves thanking them for helping them and tearfully reuniting with family and being so happy and relieved that they don’t have to live in fear of their lives.
When the Council finally asks them why they had done it, the Padawans are just like “It’s what Master Kenobi would have done.”
Mace’s eye twitches.
The Council reprimanding the Padawans for starting the slave revolution might do more harm than good, in the long run. The Padawans say that it’s what Obi-Wan would have done, but they also know that it was the right thing to do. The Jedi Order is famed for breaking the Zygerrian’s slave empire and once having no tolerance for slavery, but now the Jedi Council is bleating about politics and the problems caused by the breaking of the Hutts’ stranglehold over Tatooine?
“So…” one Padawan, a Twi’lek girl of about fifteen, says slowly with a steely sharp gaze, “you’re saying that it’s better to leave thousands of people in bondage to preserve political and economic stability than to free those people and end the barbaric practice enslaving sentient beings?”
There is dead silence in the Council chambers.
This is when Obi-Wan decides that if he’s going to be a role model to these Padawans, despite his personal feelings on the matter, he may as well try to make sure they learn a few things. (And possibly avert a mutiny among the Jedi, but that’s honestly a lesser consideration right now.) “The question is not whether slavery is conscionable,” he tells the Padawan regarding the Council with a mulish eye. “The question is whether freeing the slaves this way has destabilized the region so much that they are in further danger. Do they have sufficient resources, in the form of food, water, housing, and transportation? What about medical supplies, or access to medical training? Do they have the means to protect themselves from retaliation by their former captors? Is there a legal framework in place to prevent their further exploitation?
If they choose to emigrate, do they have the documentation to do so?”
He has their attention now. Some of this isn’t new, it’ll have been discussed in their courses, but some of it only time in the field can teach.
“There are other questions to consider,” he says, ignoring the eyes of the Council as everyone in the room stares at him. “For example, how likely is it that former slaves will strike against their captors, furthering the bloodshed? Is the conflict resolved, or is it waiting for the merest excuse to break out again?”
The Padawans consider this, glancing among each other. “Then,” one says, a humanoid boy going through his growth spurt, all legs and arms, “the problem is that we didn’t plan thoroughly enough.” He nods, then turns it into a little bow, one that’s quickly copied by the others. “Thank you, Master Kenobi, for the lesson. We will not make that mistake again.”
Anakin, tucked among the other Padawans, is smiling at his master.
Obi-Wan smiles back and then addresses the group again. “Again? Yes, that’s very well and good. But I don’t believe you’re quite done with this time.” At everyone’s questioning glances – the Padawans curious, the Council’s dismayed – he arches his brow. “Well, you’ve freed the people of Tatooine. That’s only half the battle. Now, you must help them build infrastructure. So. Who will go back to Tatooine to help with this task? Anakin and I will go, of course. Who else?”
Every Padawan in the group raises their hand eagerly.
And so for the next year, they get hands-on experience working with the freed slaves on Tatooine helping them set up their government. (Anakin spends his free time with his mother. Obi-Wan spends his hunting down leads on the Sith in the Outer Rim.)
Yoda starts hearing Qui-Gon’s force ghost just like in the Clone Wars, but this time it’s just hysterical laughter and “I can’t believe you thought my padawan would be traditional BHAHAAHAHA!!!”
Anakin pushes and manages to get Shmi made the new senator for Tattoine. With her on Coruscant most of the time, they see each other frequently. She and Padme become best friends, and Palpatine never manages to win Anakin over because he already has friends and family to confide in.
The war does start, but Dooku refuses to take part. He’s still not willing to rejoin the Jedi Order, but he doesn’t feel the need to destroy them. They seem to be going in the right direction, and it’s a fitting memorial to his padawan that Obi-Wan is leading all the younglings down the path of Grey Jedi. Without Dooku and Ventress to keep people in line the Separatists fall apart fairly fast, especially since there are a lot of hardcore badasses from Tattooine MORE than happy to join up with the Republic forces.
Obi-Wan’s padawan followers all fall in love with the Clones, and make sure they’re all able to leave the military if they want to and they all have dual citizenship on Tattooine and Naboo. Several turn out to be highly force-sensitive, and they get adopted into the Order. The Council tries to object, but Obi-Wan points out that, due to the accelerated growth on Kamino, the Clones technically fall within the age limit.
Jango Fett, seeing that his clones are being treated well and carrying on a (highly modified) form of his people’s culture, finally forgives the Jedi and disappears into the Outer Rim rather than engaging in any more wars.
Between Dooku’s warming toward the Order and Jango Fett’s forgiveness, it suddently becomes A LOT easier for Obi-Wan and co. to track down the Sith Lord. Palpatine dies in a mysterious “accident” two weeks later.
At some point, Maul also has to get taken care of again. And hopefully permanently this time. And perhaps Dooku will still train Ventress, but not in the Dark. I can’t remember what issues Jango had with the Order, though, that he needed to forgive them?
Anyway, also adding these tags from @jahaliel, whose reblog I have been meaning to reblog for the longest time:
Yes, definitely some of the Council and older Masters help out. It starts with the ones whose Padawans want to follow Obi-Wan and Anakin to Tatooine after freeing the slaves because of course, their Masters would accompany them and they probably end up setting up a temporary remote Temple there since there’s so many of them there and they need a place to stay and gather and meditate and continue with classes and training.
And I don’t know that it’s necessarily the “doing good” piece that’s important for public opinion so much as it is being more visible, so that the public understands them more and doesn’t think of them as scary mysterious enforcers of the Republic law who have superpowers and can’t be killed and can make you do whatever they want you to do.
“Your tapestries are so
fine,” the merchant says in wonder, “that you must be blessed by the goddess
Athena.”
Arachne tosses her
head, braided hair falling over her shoulder like an obsidian waterfall,
“What’s Athena got to do with it? My hands wove these, not hers.”
The merchant blanches
and looks to the sky, as if expecting Zeus himself to smite them for blasphemy.
Personally, she thinks the king of the gods has better thing to do with his
time. “Ah,” he says weakly, “I suppose.”
He pays her for her
wares and she leaves, almost immediately bumping into a hunched old woman with
grey eyes. “Do you not owe Athena thanks for your talent?” she croaks, gnarled
hands curled over a cane.
Arachne is not stupid,
but she is foolish. They will tell tales of it. She looks into those grey eyes
and declares, “Athena should thank me,
since my talents earn her so much praise.”
She pushes past her and
keeps walking, ignoring the goddess in humans skin as she disappears into the
crowd.
They will tell tales of
her hubris. They will all be true.
~
The next day she bumps
into the same old woman at the market. Everything goes downhill from there.
“Know your place,
mortal,” Athena says, grey eyes narrowed. There is a crowd around them, and
Arachne could save herself, could walk away unscathed, and all she has to do is
say her weaving is inferior to that of a goddess.
She will not lie.
“I do,” she says
coolly, “and in this matter, it is above you.”
She is not honest as a
virtue, but as a vice.
Athena challengers her
to a weaving contest. She accepts.
~
Gods are not so hard to
find, if you know where to look.
“It’s a volcano,” the
baker repeats, looking down at her coins, as if he feels guilty for taking
money from someone who’s clearly not all there.
She grabs her bag of
sweet breads and adds it to her pack before swinging it over her shoulders,
“Yes, I know. Half a day’s walk, you said?”
“A volcano,” he insists, as if she did not hear him perfectly well the
first dozen times.
“Thank you for your
help,” she says. He’s shaking his head at her, but she knows what she’s doing.
She walks. She grows
hungry, but does not touch the bread she paid for, and walks some more. The
sun’s begun to set by the time she makes it to the base of the volcano. It’s
tall, impossibly large, and for a moment the promise of defeat threatens to
overwhelm her.
But Arachne does not
believe in defeat, in loss. They will tell tales of her hubris. Those tales
will be true.
She ties a scarf around
her braids then hikes her skirt up and ties the material so it falls only to
her thighs. She fits work roughened hands into the divots of cooled magma and
begins her slow ascent.
~
The muscles in her legs
and arms shake, and her hunger pains are almost as distracting. Her once white
dress is dirt smeared and torn and sweat makes her itch as it covers her body
and drips down her back.
“What are you doing?”
Arachne turns her head
and bites back a scream, looking into one giant eye. The cyclops holds easily
to the volcano’s edges, even though her hands are torn and bleeding. She
swallows and says, “I heard you like honeyed bread. Is it true?”
The creature tilts his
head to the side, baring his long fanged teeth at her. She thinks he might be
smiling. “You’ve been climbing for hours. What do you want?”
“Is it true?” she
repeats, refusing to flinch.
“Yes,” he says, looking
at her the same way the baker had, “it’s true.”
“There’s some sweet
bread in my pack, baked this morning,” she says, “it should still be soft.”
His hands are big
enough and strong enough that it could probably squeeze her head like a grape. Instead
he gently undoes her pack and reaches inside. The honey buns look comically
small in his large hands, and he swallows half of them in one bite. He licks
his fingers clean when he’s done, and his smile is just as terrifying the
second time around. “I am Brontes. Why are you climbing my master’s volcano?”
“I’m the weaver
Arachne,” she takes a deep breath, “I need your master’s help.”
~
They tell tales of
Hephaestus’s ugliness.
They are not true.
He’s got a broad,
angular face and short brown hair. His eyes are like amber set into his face,
and his arms are huge, and he’s rippling muscle from the waist up. He has legs
only to his knees. From there down his legs are bronze gears and golden wire,
replacements for the legs destroyed when Hera threw him from Mount Olympus.
“Had your look, girl?”
he asks, voice rough like he’s always a moment away from breaking into a
coughing fit.
“Yes,” she says, and
doesn’t turn away, keeps looking.
His lips quirk up at
the corners, so it was the right move. The heat is even more oppressive inside
the volcano, and all around him cyclopses work, forging oddly shaped metal that
she can’t hope to understand. “You’ve gone to awful lot of trouble to find me,
girl. What do you want?”
She slides her pack off
her shoulders and holds it out to the god, “I have a gift for your wife. I have
woven her a cloak.”
He raises an eyebrow
and doesn’t reach for the bag, “You believe something made with mortal hands
could be worthy of the goddess of beauty?”
They will tell tales of
her hubris.
“Yes.”
They will all be true.
With a gust of wind the
oppressive heat of the volcano is swept away, leaving her chilled. In its place
stands a woman – more than a woman. Aphrodite has skin like the copper of her
husband’s machines and hair dark and thick and long. Her eyes are deepest,
richest brown, piercing in their intelligence. People don’t tell tales of
Aphrodite’s cleverness. That is because people are stupid.
“Let’s see it then,”
she says, reaching inside the pack and pulling the cloak from its depths.
It unrolls beautifully.
It’s made from the finest silks, and it shimmers in the light from the forges.
The hem of the cloak is sea foam, speaking of Aphrodite’s beginning, and up
along the clock is intricate patterns it tells of her life, of her marriage and
her worshippers and escapades, all with the detail of the most experienced
artist and the reverence of her most devoted followers.
Her lips part in
surprise and she slides it on, twirling like a child. “Gorgeous,” Hephaestus
says, though Arachne knows he does not speak of the cloak. She doesn’t take
offense.
The goddess smiles and
Arachne’s heart pounds in her chest. She does her best to ignore it – Aphrodite
is the goddess of love, after all. It is only expected. “Very well,” the
goddess says, “you have my attention.”
Arachne swallows.
Aphrodite’s attention is a heavy thing. “I have offended Athena,” she says,
“She has challenged me to a weaving contest.”
Their faces somber.
Hephaestus rubs the edge of a sleeve between his fingers and says, “Athena will
lose such a contest, if judged fairly. She does not take loss well.”
“I know,” she says,
“you are friendly with Hades, are you not?”
There are no tales of
their friendship. But she’s staking her life on its existence, because why
wouldn’t it exist – both of them even tempered, both shunned by Olympus, both
happily married.
Gods hate being made to
feel lesser. It is why they say Persephone was kidnapped, why they say
Aphrodite cheats with Ares. It is why Athena will crush her when Arachne wins
the weaving contest.
“Clever girl,” Hephaestus
says, smiling.
Aphrodite stares at her
reflection in a convenient piece of polished silver. Arachne assumes Hephaestus
left if lying there for that express purpose. “Very well!” the goddess says,
not looking at her, “when Athena sends you to the underworld, we will entrench
upon our uncle for your release.” She turns on her heel and points a finger at
her. Arachne blushes for no reason she can think of. “In return, you will weave
me a gown, one equal to my own beauty.”
A gown as exquisite as
the goddess of beauty. An impossible task.
They will tell tales of
her hubris.
“I accept.”
They will all be true.
~
The contest goes as
expected. Athena’s tapestry is lovely, but Arachne’s is lovelier.
The goddess’s face goes
red in rage, and her grey eyes narrow. Arachne stands tall, ready to accept the
death blow coming for her.
The blow comes.
Death does not.
~
She is an insect. Even if she can make it back to Hephaestus’s
volcano, even if they can help her, they will not know it is her. She has no
hope left, no course of action, she should just give up. But –
She doesn’t believe in
defeat, in loss.
It was a terribly long
journey on foot, that first time. It is even longer this time, although now she
has eight legs instead of two. She makes it to the volcano, and creeps in
between crevices, until she finds out a hollowed room, one with a sliver of
sunlight and plenty of bugs to keep her fed.
Athena’s cruel joke of
allowing her to weave will be her downfall. Her silk comes out a golden yellow
color – it will look exquisite against Aphrodite’s copper skin.
~
It takes seven years
for her to complete it. She hasn’t left this room in the volcano in all that
time, and as soon as it’s done she scurries out back toward the village. She’s
a large insect, but not that large.
She arrives just as the
sun begins to rise, and leaves before the first rays have even touched the
earth, her prize tied to her back with her own silk.
Arachne doesn’t return
to her room. Instead she goes to the more popular parts of the volcano, hurries
and runs around terrifying stomping feet until she finds who she’s looking for
and scurries up his leg and onto his shoulder.
“Huh,” Brontes looks
onto his shoulder and blinks. “What on earth are you?”
She cautiously skitters
down his arm, waiting. He bends closer and lightly touches her back. “Is – is that
a piece of a honey bun?”
She looks up at him,
waiting. It’s her only chance, if he doesn’t remember, if he doesn’t understand
–
His face slowly fills with
a cautious kind of wonder. “Arachne?” She
jumps in place, being unable to nod, and Brontes cautiously cradles her in his
massive hands, “We must find the Mater immediately!”
She jumps down, landing
in front of him and running forward. “Wait!” he calls, and she makes sure he’s running
after her before skittering back to her corner of the cave. It’s almost too
small for him to enter but he squeezes inside and breathes, “Oh.” He stares for
several moments, and Arachne climbs her web and waits. Brontes shakes himself
out of his reverie and uses his powerful wings to bellow, “MISTRESS APHRODITE!”
There’s that same
breeze and she’s in the crevice with them, “What was so important, Brontes,
that you had to yell?”
Arachne sees the exact
moment that the goddess sees the gown, golden yellow and glimmering, made
entirely of spider silk. “Beautiful,” she says, reaching out a hand to brush
down the bodice. Her head then snaps up, “Brontes, where’s Arachne?”
She warms at that, that
Aphrodite knew it was her weaving even though she hasn’t been seen in seven
years.
They’ve told tales of
her hubris.
They are all true.
Brontes points at the
web, and Aphrodite steps over and holds out her hands. Arachne crawls onto the
goddess’s palms. “Athena is more powerful than I am, I cannot undo her work,”
she says, “but I know someone who can.”
Then they are in front
of a river. A handsome young man stands there waiting with a boat. “Goddess
Aphrodite,” he says, “we weren’t expecting you.”
“Thanatos,” she
returns, “I need to see Persephone.”
The man’s face stays
cool, and for a moment Arachne fears they will be refused and she will be stuck
in this form forever. Then he smiles and says, “My lady is of course available
for her favored niece.” He holds out a hand to help her onto the boat, “Please
come with me.”
~
Arachne weaves a dress
for Hades’s wife as a thank you, and returns to her volcano.
“I can take you
somewhere else,” Aphrodite says, “you don’t have to hide here.”
Arachne pauses at her
loom. She has lived in this volcano for seven years. It’s her home. “Would you
like me to leave?” she asks instead.
Aphrodite scoffs, “Of
course not! How could I dress myself without you here?” She’s wearing the
spider silk dress Arachne spun for her, and she’s working on another for the
goddess now. Aphrodite runs a gentle finger down Arachne’s cheek and for a
moment she forgets to breathe. “You are the finest weaver to ever exist.”
She looks up at the
goddess, “Then as the god of crafts and goddess of beautiful things, where else
would I belong besides with you and Hephaestus?”
To declare your company
equal to that of gods is the height of arrogance and blasphemy.
They tell tales of her
hubris.
“An excellent point,”
Aphrodite murmurs, and tucks a stray braid behind Arachne’s ear.
Talented people doing art: lol just trying out some new techniques with this advanced program I downloaded, I think it’ll really help with my use of colors and composition! 🙂
Me doing art:
since I just heard Mrs Hess’s voice echo thunderingly around me like the greybeards, she would like to amend this with ’practiced’ in place of ‘talented’.
her Talent Rant was a thing of beauty and I wish i had a recording of it. i get the feeling expressed here, i do! and i do agree that people are differently good at different things, if that’s how we’re defining talent.
but i was surrounded by some incredibly talented artists growing up, and i looked at their art, looked at mine, and went ‘welp i have no talent for drawing.’ but what my friends hadn’t had was an abusive first grade teacher who flat-out told me that i had no talent for art, i had no business wasting my time writing and drawing, and i was a terrible child for wasting my parents’ hardwon money on such fantasy. and i stopped. the only time i drew was when it was demanded of me in an art class, i wrote stories only in my head.
my sixth grade art teacher tried really hard to pull me out of that, but it wasn’t until i had her again in eighth grade that i started to listen to her.
even then, i would say ‘i’m not good at drawing, but that’s ok, nobody’s gonna see it anyway’ and i would never accept any compliment on it. ‘oh man you should see (insert friend here) they’re so much better than mine’ etc. their art came from talent, in my eyes; i couldn’t make art like theirs, so i didn’t have any talent.
enter Mrs Hess.
Mrs Hess, slightly terrifying, very intimidating, kind of the McGonagall of the art department at my high school, somehow got that whole sob story out of me on like week one of the art fundamentals class. i remember sitting at my desk crying because i’d cried on my paper and wrecked a piece of nice paper and upset my teacher. She took me to the nurse’s office, told me she’d sign me off if i wanted to go home, or i could rest for the remainder of the block.
She took attendance a few days later like normal and then sat on her desk (which she Did Not Do) and gave us the Talent Rant.
it started with holding up Will’s self-portrait. Will was well on his way to photorealism. his looked like a black and white photo. She asked us how we thought he’d drawn it. talent, we decided. Will was just better than us. she then said “Will is becoming a very skilled artist, but his talent is not what is making that possible.” and asked him when he first started drawing. Will shrugged and said he didn’t remember, but he’d gotten in trouble for drawing in class since ever. she nodded. “and you’re sixteen?”
he agreed. “so you’ve been practicing drawing with pencils for more than ten years, then.”
we were all kind of taken aback. she looked at us and said “you’re five or six when you start school, right? and he’s sixteen now. sixteen minus six- i know I’m your art teacher, but i still know that’s ten.”
then she asked Stephen if she could show his. it was obviously a beginner’s effort. she then asked for one of his caricatures (he drew comics, caricatures of teachers and events for the school paper & stuff.)
she held them up side-by-side and asked us if we would say this was a talented artist, if we didn’t know they were both from the same person. before we responded, she asked Stephen how long he’d been making comics- his answer, similar to Will’s. “and how long have you been making drawings like this (showing self-portrait)?” Stephen: “uh, when did you assign it? like a day after that.”
she held forward the caricature. “ten years of practice.”
then she held forward the self-portrait. “three days of practice.”
she gave his stuff back and sat back on her desk, just kind of watched us in silence for a moment.
“Talent is bullshit. What you think of as Talent is practice. Don’t ever write yourself off as being bad at something because you can’t do it well the second you pick it up. If you don’t want to put in the time to train yourself in something, don’t. that is entirely okay and entirely your choice. but giving up solely because you don’t think you’re talented enough to pursue something is a great disservice to yourself. if you take one thing from this class, i want it to be that.”
she had a longer, more nuanced version of it, of course. the only part i remember verbatim is the start of ‘talent is bullshit’ because it’s always shocking when your teachers swear for the first time.
but i had never considered the idea that i was so many years of practice behind those friends whose art i admire so much.
We don’t teach kids how to read and then expect them to read War and Peace- that doesn’t mean that there aren’t seven year olds who can read War and Peace, but we don’t tell the rest of them that they have no talent for reading because they can’t yet do so. when a kid says ‘i’m no good at reading’ we say ‘you just need practice’ but when a kid says ‘i’m no good at drawing’ we say things like ‘everybody’s good at different things, and that’s ok.’ which, yes; that’s a good sentiment to teach. but we have this view of art and music like it’s a binary- either you’re good at them or you’re not, and we don’t challenge it the way we do with other things.
I feel like I need to tag @euclase in case she somehow hasn’t seen this yet.
Talent is indeed bullshit.
I mean listen. All of that reply above is right on the money.
But not even portraits—if you can sign your name, you can draw. Because what is signing your name? It’s a practiced movement, done hundreds of times. It’s putting pen to paper confidently and with personal style in order to communicate and express yourself. When you sign your name, you don’t worry, you don’t hesitate, and you don’t compare it to what other people are doing.
“But signing my name isn’t drawing,” you argue. “It’s just my signature.”
It’s literally the same thing.
And you can do it because you practiced.
what actual lgbt writers mean by an lgbt character’s plot not revolving around their sexuality or gender: their sexuality or gender is still actively there and an unquestionable part of their life that can’t be pulled away for writing convenience, but they have other shit going on in their lives unrelated or only marginally related to their gender or sexuality
what straight writers mean by an lgbt character’s plot not revolving around their sexuality or gender: i said this male character kissed a boy once and then never talked about it again and i’m a revolutionary
Your super power is that you are average, at everything you do.
no, no- imagine how amazing this would be! you’re average- but the key here is at EVERYTHING you try and do
try and get the cure to cancer? well, aint a fingers snap and done cure but its a cure. doctors worldwide are astounded
try and learn how to communicate with an alien race? well, youre not fluent but its passing and humanity hasnt even invented deep space flight- you just managed to get their signal and have a chat
want to fly? well- youre a bit wobbly but goddamn its working
being average at everything is amazing bc if we assume anything you try works then eveything is at least working a bit
Jack of all trades, master of none, better than a master of one
You’re assuming ‘average’ means ‘mediocre’ though. But average means the most statistically normal. So because a very few people in the world’s population have the aptitude and education to make a breakthrough in cancer research, the average ability to cure cancer across the human race is basically zero. Therefore Average Jo as this person must surely be named would have no greater aptitude than the next person.
It depends how the power gauges averages. Does it always take the entire world’s population as it’s pool? Or does it go by population of immediate surroundings?
Cos the latter could be a cool power. You sneak in to an army camp and suddenly are a decent enough soldier to pass muster and fight. You go to Avengers hq and the presence of superpowered people in the local pool means average is suddenly ‘mildly but superhumanly strong and able to at least hover’. You’re only a kid but you find that if you go and study at the local University campus you’re suddenly a lot more knowledgeable. Also mildly tipsy and high unfortunately.
Also, I think Average Jo would fight Spiders Georg.
Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll.
Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast.
Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention.
Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them.
Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently.
ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy – meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face.
Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.
Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone.
A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way.
If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword.
ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters. (CLICK ME)
If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability.
People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot.
Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME)
If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)
Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here.
How to apply Writing techniques for action scenes:
– Short sentences. Choppy. One action, then another. When there’s a lull in the fight, take a moment, using longer phrases to analyze the situation–then dive back in. Snap, snap, snap. – Same thing with words – short, simple, and strong in the thick of battle. Save the longer syllables for elsewhere. – Characters do not dwell on things when they are in the heat of the moment. They will get punched in the face. Focus on actions, not thoughts. – Go back and cut out as many adverbs as possible. – No seriously, if there’s ever a time to use the strongest verbs in your vocabulary – Bellow, thrash, heave, shriek, snarl, splinter, bolt, hurtle, crumble, shatter, charge, raze – it’s now. – Don’t forget your other senses. People might not even be sure what they saw during a fight, but they always know how they felt. – Taste: Dry mouth, salt from sweat, copper tang from blood, etc – Smell: OP nailed it – Touch: Headache, sore muscles, tense muscles, exhaustion, blood pounding. Bruised knuckles/bowstring fingers. Injuries that ache and pulse, sting and flare white hot with pain. – Pain will stay with a character. Even if it’s minor. – Sound and sight might blur or sharpen depending on the character and their experience/exhaustion. Colors and quick movements will catch the eye. Loud sounds or noises from behind may serve as a fighter’s only alert before an attack. – If something unexpected happens, shifting the character’s whole attention to that thing will shift the Audience’s attention, too. – Aftermath. This is where the details resurface, the characters pick up things they cast aside during the fight, both literally and metaphorically. Fights are chaotic, fast paced, and self-centered. Characters know only their self, their goals, what’s in their way, and the quickest way around those threats. The aftermath is when people can regain their emotions, their relationships, their rationality/introspection, and anything else they couldn’t afford to think or feel while their lives were on the line.
Do everything you can to keep the fight here and now. Maximize the physical, minimize the theoretical. Keep things immediate – no theories or what ifs.
If writing a strategist, who needs to think ahead, try this: keep strategy to before-and-after fights. Lay out plans in calm periods, try to guess what enemies are thinking or what they will do. During combat, however, the character should think about his options, enemies, and terrain in immediate terms; that is, in shapes and direction. (Large enemy rushing me; dive left, circle around / Scaffolding on fire, pool below me / two foes helping each other, separate them.)
Lastly, after writing, read it aloud. Anyplace your tongue catches up on a fast moving scene, edit. Smooth action scenes rarely come on the first try.
More for martial arts or hand-to-hand in general
What a character’s wearing will affect how they fight. The more restricting the clothes, the harder it will be. If they’re wearing a skirt that is loose enough to fight in, modesty will be lost in a life or death situation.
Jewelry can also be very bad. Necklaces can be grabbed onto. Bracelets also can be grabbed onto or inhibit movement. Rings it can depend on the person.
Shoes also matter. Tennis shoes are good and solid, but if you’re unused to them there’s a chance of accidentally hurting your ankle. High heels can definitely be a problem. However, they can also make very good weapons, especially for someone used to balancing on the balls of their feet. Side kicks and thrusting kicks in soft areas (like the solar plexus) or the feet are good ideas. They can also (hopefully) be taken off quickly and used as a hand weapon. Combat boots are great but if someone relies more on speed or aren’t used to them, they can weigh a person down. Cowboy boots can be surprisingly good. Spin kicks (if a character is quick enough to use them) are especially nasty in these shoes.
If a character is going to fight barefoot, please keep location in mind. Concrete can mess up your feet quick. Lawns, yards, etc often have hidden holes and other obstacles that can mess up a fighter. Tile floors or waxed wood can be very slippery if you’re not careful or used to them.
Likewise, if it’s outside be aware of how weather will affect the fight. The sun’s glare can really impede a fighter’s sight. A wet location, inside or outside, can cause a fighter to slip and fall. Sweat on the body can cause a fighter to lose a grip on an opponent too.
Pressure points for a trained fighter are great places to aim for in a fight. The solar plexus is another great place to aim for. It will knock the wind out of anyone and immediately weaken your opponent.
It your character is hit in the solar plexus and isn’t trained, they’re going down. The first time you get hit there you are out of breath and most people double over in confusion and pain. If a fighter is more used to it, they will stand tall and expand themselves in order to get some breath. They will likely keep fighting, but until their breath returns to normal, they will be considerably weaker.
Do not be afraid to have your character use obstacles in their environment. Pillars, boxes, bookshelves, doors, etc. They put distance between you and an opponent which can allow you to catch your breath.
Do not be afraid to have your character use objects in their environment. Someone’s coming at you with a spear, trident, etc, then pick up a chair and get it caught in the legs or use it as a shield. Bedsheets can make a good distraction and tangle someone up. Someone’s invading your home and you need to defend yourself? Throw a lamp. Anything can be turned into a weapon.
Guns often miss their targets at longer distances, even by those who have trained heavily with them. They can also be easier to disarm as they only shoot in one direction. However, depending on the type, grabbing onto the top is a very very bad idea. There is a good likelihood you WILL get hurt.
Knives are nasty weapons by someone who knows what they’re doing. Good fighters never hold a knife the way you would when cutting food. It is best used when held against the forearm. In defense, this makes a block more effective and in offense, slashing movement from any direction are going to be bad. If a character is in a fight with a knife or trying to disarm one, they will get hurt.
Soft areas hit with hard body parts. Hard areas hit with soft body parts. The neck, stomach, and other soft areas are best hit with punches, side kicks, elbows, and other hard body parts. Head and other hard parts are best hit using a knife hand, palm strike, etc. Spin kicks will be nasty regardless of what you’re aiming for it they land.
Common misconception with round house kicks is that you’re hitting with the top of the foot. You’re hitting with the ball. You’re likely to break your foot when hitting with the top.
When punching, the thumb is outside of the fist. You’ll break something if you’re hitting with the thumb inside, which a lot of inexperienced fighters do.
Also, punching the face or jaw can hurt.
It can be hard to grab a punch if you’re not experienced with it despite how easy movies make it seem. It’s best to dodge or redirect it.
Hitting to the head is not always the best idea. It can take a bit of training to be able to reach for the head with a kick because of the height. Flexibility is very much needed. If there are problems with their hips or they just aren’t very flexible, kicks to the head aren’t happening.
Jump kicks are a good way to hit the head, but an opponent will see it coming if it’s too slow or they are fast/experienced.
A good kick can throw an opponent back or knock them to the ground. If the person you’ve hit has experience though, they’ll immediately be getting up again.
Even if they’ve trained for years in a martial art, if they haven’t actually hit anything before or gotten hit, it will be slightly stunning for the person. It does not feel the way you expect it too.
Those yells in martial arts are not just for show. If done right, they tighten your core making it easier to take a hit in that area. Also, they can be used to intimidate an opponent. Yelling or screaming right by their ear can startle someone. (Generally, KHR fans look at Squalo for yelling)
Biting can also be used if someone’s grabbing you. Spitting in someone’s eyes can’t hurt. Also, in a chokehold or if someone is trying to grab your neck in general, PUT YOU CHIN DOWN. This cuts off access and if they’re grabbing in the front can dig into their hand and hurt.
Wrist grabs and other grabs can be good. Especially if it’s the first move an opponent makes and the character is trained, there are simple ways to counter that will have a person on their knees in seconds..
Use what your character has to their advantage. If they’re smaller or have less mass, then they’ll be relying on speed, intelligence, evasion, and other similar tactics. Larger opponents will be able to take hits better, they’re hits may be slower depending on who it is but will hurt like hell if they land, and size can be intimidating. Taller people with longer legs will want to rely on kicking and keeping their distance since they have the advantage there. Shorter people will want to keep the distance closer where it’s easier for them but harder for a taller opponent. Punching is a good idea.
Using a person’s momentum against them is great. There’s martial arts that revolve around this whole concept. They throw a punch? Grab it and pull them forward and around. Their momentum will keep them going and knock them off balance.
Leverage can used in the same way. If used right, you can flip a person, dislocate a shoulder, throw out a knee, etc.
One note on adrenaline: All that was said above is true about it. But, in a fight, it can also make you more aware of what’s going on. A fight that lasts twenty seconds can feel like a minute because time seems to almost slow down while moving extremely rapidly. You only have so much time to think about what you’re doing. You’re taking in information constantly and trying to adjust. Even in the slow down adrenaline gives you, everything is moving very rapidly.
Feelings will be your downfall even more so than adrenaline. Adrenaline can make those feelings more intense, but a good fighter has learned not to listen to those feelings. A good fighter may feel anger at being knocked down or in some way humiliated – their pride taken down. Yet they will not act on the anger. Acting on it makes a fighter more instinctive and many will charge without thinking. Losing control of anything (adrenaline rush, emotions, technique, etc) can be a terrible thing in a fight.
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