Laylabsposts - Let Me Write In Peace

"Oh, Geralt, I think it's broken!" Jaskier wailed from where he was sat in the mud.

Scowling, Geralt bent to inspect the ankle in question, the one Jaskier had turned when he slipped on the wet ground. He poked at it and Jaskier moaned.

He rolled his eyes. "It's not broken," he said gruffly. "Just twisted. You'll have to keep your weight off it."

Jaskier's face scrunched up in distress. "Then whatever am I to do?" He waved his arms in the air with great dramatic intent. "For I am all alone in the wilderness, miles from civilization, and now incapable of walking." He wound himself up into a full performance. "The wolves will come for me and I shall surely die here!"

Geralt suppressed a smile. "I'm sure we can figure something out."

He pondered Jaskier with mock contemplation while Jaskier gave him soft, pleading eyes. He threw in a little lip tremble for full effect.

"Fine," he grunted eventually. "If we must." He scooped Jaskier up into his arms in a bridal carry and lifted him into the air.

Jaskier squealed with delight and threw his arms around Geralt's neck. "My hero," he declared, dropping a kiss onto his cheek.

The bard really was an idiot. He tucked him into his chest and fought back a blush.

So, I’m writing

do i need to say more

POC Transman in danger

Please help us move out of our abusive situation.

It did not start this bad, but our land lady is making threats against us, but most namely my partner, Indigo.

I'm white. She treats me with kindness and embraces me.

He's brown. She shuns him and attacks him any chance she gets. For any menial thing.

He is not safe in this house and we cannot stay here. We need to move as soon as possible.

I aim for us to move by the end of the month, but it may get ugly before that happens.

Please help us safely move.

Paypal: https://paypal.me/Saturnxora?locale.x=en_US

Venmo: @ Saturn-Xora-Velour

Edit:

Current date 2/1/2021

@anarcblr @mutual-first-aid @mutualaidreblogs @mutualaidnetworking

@donationposts

Hauntober Day 9: Stars

Your character is driven by 3 emotional motives. See? I even made a graphic.

(I’m proud of the graphic, too.)

Mood: The immediate (and temporary) emotions of your character. A feeling of joy after kissing the girl they like; frustration after a busy day working a summer job at the fair; despair after somebody eats the last Oreo.

Situation: The plot and relationship contexts of your character. The apprehension they feel with a friend in the weeks following a nasty fight; the nerves felt in the week leading up to their big championship game; the frustration and boredom of being grounded after crashing the family car into the county creek.

Struggle: The core, deepfelt pain of your character, which often emerges from their background. The fear of failure from overly demanding parents; a deep longing for a family they never knew; a desperate need to be accepted after spending years as an outcast.

How these 3 motives influence your character

The above emotional motives all play an important role in driving your character’s actions, muddying or even overriding their more logical intentions — just as it happens to the rest of us. (We’re all human, after all.)

That being said, while your character’s mood and situation will shift throughout the story, their struggle will remain constant: their true north, emotionally speaking. This struggle will always be at the root of their actions, even as you swap in new situations and moods.

Take Bethany as an example

Let’s say your character’s name is Bethany, and her struggle is this: a deep fear of failure, stemming from her parents’ impossible academic expectations, which conflicts with her own desire to finally experience the life she sees passing her by.

Her actions, while primarily driven by that struggle, are going to vary quite a bit depending on her situation and mood. For example, if it’s the night before a big test, she might blow off a friend’s invitation to a party so she can study.

But if the party is a week before the big test, and she finds a handwritten invitation in her notebook from Emma (the girl on the lacrosse team she has a crush on), Bethany might act differently. Maybe she feels a lightness and warmth in her cheeks as she reads Emma’s note. Maybe she puts those textbooks away, and maybe, just maybe, she sneaks out the window and goes to the party.

But if Bethany finds the note after her parents just chewed her out for being ungrateful and not studying hard enough? Maybe Bethany doesn’t go to the party. Instead, maybe she reads Emma’s note, trembles, then rips it in two, knowing she can’t disappoint her parents like that. Then she spends the rest of the evening studying. Alone.

Mood. Situation. Struggle.

All three kinds of emotional motives are important. Your character’s struggle is the anchor, but their mood and situation are the ever-shifting masks you use to express their struggle in fresh ways. 

And by the end of the story, hopefully your character will overcome their struggle — putting away the textbooks, sneaking out the window, and meeting their crush at a party. Maybe even having their first kiss.

Whatever the character, and whatever their struggle, I’m sure you’ll do great. 

So good luck! And good writing.

— — —

Your stories are worth telling. For tips on how to craft meaning, build character-driven plots, and grow as a writer, follow my blog.

Aizawa tells Eri fantastical stories about how he lost his leg.

“A dragon bit it off,” He tells her with a nod at the cane that’s already decorated with Eri’s stickers. “I barely felt it.”

He isn’t sure if she believes him but at least she doesn’t know the truth.

He can’t bring himself to ever tell her- that the real reason it’s gone is because he had to cut it off himself to stop the spread of the quirk erasing bullet, a bullet made from Eri’s own body.

He’d much rather her think that a dragon bit it off, as illogical as it sounds.

No one else is allowed to tell her.

“What kind of dragon was it?” Eri presses him one morning when Aizawa’s still in the rehab hospital. “What color?”

“Red,” Aizawa immediately answers. “It was a big one. It didn’t breathe fire but it had the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen.”

“It didn’t breathe fire?“ Eri is incredulous. For a six year old, she’s smart. She’s probably never heard of a dragon that doesn’t breathe fire.

So Aizawa tells Mic to get her a book on dragons and he brings back a huge, thick hardcover book that Eri immediately delves into.

The girl can barely read and she’s got her nose in this huge 500-page book filled with pictures and stories about dragons. Aizawa has to help her with words every few seconds and eventually she curls up with him on the hospital bed so they can read together.

At one point, Aizawa sees a picture of a giant red dragon with huge teeth.

"That one,” He says, pointing at it. Next to him, Eri startles, turns her wide red eyes to the drawing. “That’s the one that bit my leg off. But I won.”

“Woah,” Eri cooes, staring at the picture as she holds the giant book in her tiny little hands. “Those teeth are big. Did you kill it?”

“No,” Aizawa says, thinking of Shigaraki. “But he won’t be coming back anytime soon.”

At least, that’s what he hopes.

Aizawa can hope, can’t he? He can as long as Eri’s here, curled up at his side, her mind full of ideas and images of dragons. She’s probably picturing the battle right now, of Aizawa fighting a giant red dragon.

It doesn’t hurt her to let her believe this.

But it would hurt her if she knew the truth.

So Aizawa lets her believe that some fantasy creature bit his leg off- because he doesn’t want her to know that it was a bullet made from her own body that made him cut it off.

As long as Aizawa has a say in it, she’ll never find out.

Whenever she becomes skeptical…

…He’ll just make up another story for her.