Rulingtheworldistoomuchwork

Kind of obsessed with the tumblr Twitter account

Post-canon sect gatherings are about to be wild. Listen. Jin guangyao is dead, lan xichen is in seclusion, jin ling is jin ling, and we haven’t met any other competent sect leader ever. Post-canon sect gatherings are p much all on jiang cheng and huaisang to manage. And sure huaisang could help but. He’s a little shit. If it ain’t a qinghe nie problem, he’s not here for it!!! The second sect leader yao opens his mouth, huaisang is halfway out the door! He has no reputation to save and hasn’t slept in over 10 years!!! He doesn’t care! And jiang cheng! Is Jiang Cheng!

—

jiang cheng: and where do you think you’re going?!

nie huaisang, leaving the meeting: stress is bad for the baby

jiang cheng: what baby?

nie huaisang: me. I’m baby

—

jiang cheng: are you taking shots?!

nie huaisang: yeah want some?

jiang cheng: ………..yes give it here

—

nie huaisang: this is the best way to go about this

other leaders: we don’t believe you

nie huaisang, really doesn’t care what they do anymore this meeting has been going on for 5 hours: that sounds like a you problem

—

nie huaisang seeing off those sect leaders who refused to listen to him: bye! I trust in your ability to handle this your way!!!

nie huaisang: there’s a 30% chance they’re all gonna die

—

jiang cheng: slices a table in half

jiang cheng, throwing some money at the broken table: I’ll pay for that

—

other sect leaders: is this… a liability waiver?

nie huaisang: yeah I had some written up after sect leader jiang broke that guy’s legs last meeting? anyways everyone sign one before going in please

other sect leader: maybe…. sect leader jiang could stop injuring people at meetings instead?

nie huaisang: hahaha No. don’t forget to date your signature.

—

jiang cheng: either we start agreeing or I’m gonna get the whip

nie huaisang: diplomacy at its finest

—

nie huaisang: everyone, welcome to the banquet! the unclean realms welcomes all its allies!

jiang cheng: wei wuxian is sucking face with lan wangji right behind you

nie huaisang: this ain’t about them

—

nie huaisang: sorry I’m late. I ran into a problem on the way

jiang cheng: what problem?

nie huaisang: not wanting to come

—

nie huaisang: we need to do something about your temper. how about you just do what I do?

jiang cheng: which is?

nie huaisang: every time sect leader yao talks I imagine shoving my fist down his throat and watching him choke on it slowly, clutching at his neck, as his face turns blue and he dies.

nie huaisang: really puts me in a much better mood :)

jiang cheng: …. noted

—

jiang cheng vividly imagining killing sect leader yao: oh hey

nie huaisang: what did I tell you?

Fiction Writing Advice Posts

Hey all, Some of you know that in addition to this Tumblr blog I also keep a blog on my website. A lot of the posts overlap, but not all of them, so I’ve made this list for your reading pleasure:

How to Control Your Pacing

How to Write During a Pandemic

How to Read Like a Writer

What if Your First Draft DOESN’T Suck?

How to Do World-Building Research

How to Properly Format a Manuscript for Submission

10 Questions to Ask an Editor Before Hiring Them

Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View

Show Don’t Tell? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary

8 Ways to Improve Your Fiction Writing

How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For

5 Reasons to Kill Your Critique Group

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Why Nobody Cares About Your Plot

How to Use Adverbs Like a Pro

How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time

3 Easy Ways to Transform Boring Descriptions

3 Ways to Increase Conflict in Your Dialogue

A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Killer Feedback from Beta Readers

How to Know What Kind of Editing You Need

10 Best Books About Fiction Writing

How to Spot an Info Dump

Dealing With Procrastination

Want to make sure you never miss a new blog post? Sign up for my writing advice emails and get a new blog post sent straight to your inbox about once a month.

xoxo

In a visual medium especially, a large part of a character is how they look. Like, looks can be deceiving and aren’t everything about a character, obviously, but ALSO: by making a character look a certain way (especially in the character’s daily life) the creator is (whether they know it or not) saying that that character is (usually) choosing to look a certain way. 

Clothes, accessories, make-up, and hair can suggest any number of things about a person’s character. It can be a very useful tool in any story. Personal presentation can suggest things about a character’s gender, profession, religion, sexuality, personal wealth, native culture, and personality (and more). 

Which is, I think, why a lot of female characters are sort of… I don’t want to say “broken”… but their execution has ruined their concept? (This isn’t exclusive to female characters, male characters can also suffer from unsupported unrealistic appearances, but female characters definitely suffer more.) 

You have these female characters who are supposed to be relatable, realistic women, right? But you look at their perfectly curled-and-styled, super long hair and you see hours of hair-care. And you look at their perfectly made-up faces and you see at least a dozen different make-up products and at least a half-hour in the bathroom every morning. And you look at their figures and you see a strict diet and hours in the gym every week, and you see shaving or waxing, and you see well-maintained mani-pedis. And you look at their outfits and you see designer names and special tailoring, and an enormous closet somewhere in their apartment to store all this, and someone who has the time and energy for perfectly done, sorted, and ironed laundry (and is obviously not doing anything remotely physical or dangerous in those heels). 

Which would be fine if that was an intentional visual statement about the character! There are women who put that sort of time/energy/money into their appearance! There are magical and non-human characters (male and female and neither) who can just snap their fingers to look perfect, and I buy it no problem! I get that! 

But this gets done even with female characters who are supposed to be absent-minded workaholics, poor working single mothers, nerdy shut-ins, take-no-shit tomboys, post-apocalyptic survivors, and even faux-medieval warriors who shouldn’t have the time or resources for that level of personal grooming! And even with aliens and non-humans who shouldn’t know to decide to care! 

So you have these “everyday” women with busy lives, but who somehow manage to keep an unrealistic level of personal grooming in absurd situations, and they… become visually unreal. Especially when (even if they are canonically said to care about maintaining a certain appearance) they’re often never shown putting in ANY of the time or effort it would take to manage their appearance (show me their skincare routine, show me them at the gym, show me them doing laundry)! They look like they stepped out of a magazine (often so “perfect” that they’re frankly bland, actually), but it’s not factored into their personality or background or their lives? 

“I don’t wear make-up,” says the female character who is played by an actress very obviously done-up with eyeliner. “I don’t wear make-up,” says the female character who is drawn as though she is permanently wearing lipstick. There are no bad hair days and no laundry days and no moments of imperfection. What the character might be saying is immediately invalidated by the visuals. 

These female characters don’t feel like women so much as they feel like impossible creatures the creator has pretending to be pretty women. They feel fake. They feel like their purpose by the creator is to pander to pervs and unrealistic beauty standards. Especially when they’re sent into combat situations with skintight/revealing outfits with no support and loose hair that’s a blatant liability (and the creators even make them bleed prettily sometimes which is related but different conversation). It’s a stark announcement (intentional or not, knowingly done or not) of the creator’s ignorance and apathy towards women and the choices involved in female self-presentation.

And it makes it… difficult… for me personally to relate to certain female characters sometimes, even when I care about these female characters and WANT to care about these female characters. Their character design is, by their visual appearance and lack of narrative support for that appearance, broken. They’re not grounded in any reality. The suspension of disbelief required can be… a lot. 

“Shidi.”

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honestly it would only be beneficial for everyone if jiang yanli and wen qing swapped younger brothers for the day

jiang yanli + wen ning: peacefully gardening and cooking, having a lovely and wholesome time 

wen qing, jiang cheng and wei wuxian: several things are on fire, one of them is jiang cheng, wen qing is going to put him out in a minute she just needs to stop laughing first

Impress your friends and train your core! (impressed friends not guaranteed)

This is the latest update to the Elbow Lever short!

While many progressions are given, feel free to experiment with what works for you! Some won't need all of these. Others will want more (shown on the website in the video).

Have a beautiful day!

too tired to make a post with real words so here's a meme

After reading a whole lot of danmeis by several different authors, I find the difference mindsets on morality by three of the most popular ones sort of funny :

MXTX: actions have consequences and when ppl have power those consequences might be terrible even if the intentions are good. Still staying true in one’s heart is important. Also, fuck mob mentality, social media and peer pressure, and celeb internet culture. Anonymous masses are vultures and they can both be terrible on their own or easily manipulated and weaponized. (this last part is really the metaphoric message of the novels, not a reference to any lead actor’s scandals…which makes the whole irl thing even more ironic…and yes I know I’m using it wrong but if Alanis Morisette can, so can I).

Meatbun: Okay, the protagonist is scum. Not just regular scum. Psychotic Genocidal Totalitarian scum (also very into BDSM). Do you think he’s bad in the first chapters? Oh he gets worse. Do you feel like stabbing him yet? Good! Only he is the biggest victim of them all and he is now horrified with his actions and bc actions matter regardless of personal excuses, he’s gonna suffer with that knowledge forever. Suffer along as the lead pines, despairs and crawls on his path of redemption and neither you nor the characters will ever truly emotionally recover. Conclusion: If you honestly repent then there is a chance at redemption no matter the crime (how very catholic).

Priest: Be Gay, Do Crimes, Have Fun Storming the Castle!, Murder Parties for all! No need to feel bad, or sorry. Just find a kindred ruthless bf, stir shit up and then retire together into a little cottage somewhere. The world is chaos, do what yo gotta do to survive, don’t sweat it. The ends justify the means. Morality is optional, a strong sense of patriotism is advised (“ For the Greater Good/ The greater good”), being utterly devoted to your loved one is mandatory tho!