When I Wanted To Be Heard Most I Was Told Not To Speak.

You were the healer—the last light of your party. But now your final ally dies in your arms, and there’s no one left to save. The enemy jeers, calling you useless. You look up, eyes hollow and black. The light is gone. The Void answers. You're no longer a cleric. You're something far worse.

I just think people write out of obligation too often.

"How do I motivate myself to write through the boring part of my story?"

"How do I make this boring scene not boring?"

Don't write it.

Don't write boring things just because you think the structure of the story demands it. I promise it doesn't need to be there.

If your characters need to have gone shopping for a later part of the story to make sense you can just have a sentence about how they went shopping and move on.

You are not obligated to write the boring parts. No matter what those parts are.

You are not obligated to make the parts of your story that you're not excited to write interesting somehow.

You can just write the fun and interesting parts and gloss over and summarize boring things.

Your audience will thank you and you will thank yourself.

Tw: mention of past abuse

something at will always hit me like a bat is when the super happy sunshine character has a horrible whumpy past! Whumpee began smiling when they saw their friend. "Hey dude! What's on the agenda for today?"

"We only have one guy to interrogate," A explained as they glanced at their clipboard. "Everyone is already inside."

A led whumpee through the rows of cells. They tried not to look at the people inside. They tended to ignore anything that could dampen their smile. Whumpee's eyes were drawn to the cell their friends surrounded.

"Who's..." whumpee froze as they saw the figure in the cell. It was all too familiar.

Leader didn't notice whumpee stiffen. "Our guy today is Whumper LastName. Accused of multiple accounts of kidnapping, torture, abuse... all kinds of stuff like that. Boss wants us to get locations. They think there could still be more captives." They turned to whumpee, unsettled by their silence. "Whumpee, what's up?"

whumpee realized they had been staring at whumper. "Nothing!" They smiled at leader.

"wait,"

Whumpee jumped at the sound of whumpee's voice.

"Whumpee? As in Whumpee LastName?" They chuckled.

"whumpee? Do you know this guy?" B asked.

"no?" Whumpee laughed, clearly over compensating. "I've never seen this dude before,"

"Are you sure? That would actually be really helpful for this case," Leader offered.

"nope! I've never met someone named whumper,"

"Come on now whumpee," whumper rose from the bed they were sitting on. "You can't forget this face. I certainly can remember your screams well,"

"Whumpee? What are they talking about?"

"nothing! Just them trying to mess with us. Don't listen to them." Whumpee looked around for something to distract everyone with.

"whumpee, you're shaking," B reached out to touch whumpee's should but they flinched and jumped away.

Oh god. Everything they've worked for. They've perfectly crafted this personality, and now whumper is going to destroy their life a second time.

"I used to know whumpee really well. I always wondered what happened to them after they escaped." Whumper smiled, as if thinking of a fond memory. (which wasn't too far from the truth) "I remember how well whumpee took whumper 2's beatings. I particularly liked their screams when I whipped them."

"Shut up!" Whumpee yelled. They hadn't noticed the tears falling down their face.

"Oh! How's whumpee 2?"

"You disgusting bastard! You killed them and you know it. How!? How is someone so sick and twisted as you?!" Whumpee stopped and looked at their friends and regretted it. They stood with shocked and worried faces. Fuck, whumpee really fucked everything up again.

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

Another List of "Beautiful" Words

to include in your next poem

Avidulous - somewhat greedy.

Breviloquent - marked by brevity of speech.

Compotation - a drinking or tippling together.

Crimpy - of weather; unpleasant; raw and cold.

Desiderium - an ardent desire or longing; especially, a feeling of loss or grief for something lost.

Dyspathy - lack of sympathy.

Ebriosity - habitual intoxication.

Epitasis - the part of a play developing the main action and leading to the catastrophe.

Fantod - a state of irritability and tension.

Graumangere - a great meal.

Grimoire - a magician's manual for invoking demons and the spirits of the dead.

Hiemal - of or relating to winter.

Illaudable - deserving no praise.

Impluvious - wet with rain.

Innominate - having no name; unnamed; also, “anonymous”.

Juberous - doubtful and hesitating.

Noctilucous - shining at night.

Poetaster - an inferior poet.

Psychrophilic - thriving at a relatively low temperature.

Quiddity - the essential nature or ultimate form of something: what makes something to be the type of thing that it is.

Repullulate - to bud or sprout again.

Retrogradation - a backward movement.

Semiustulate - half burnt or consumed by fire.

Tenebrific - causing gloom or darkness.

Unparadiz’d - brought from joy to miserie.

If any of these words make it into your next poem/story, please tag me. Or leave a link in the replies. I'd love to read them!

Writing extreme emotions

How to convey specific feelings in an in-character way

—Body language

How do they behave? Are they jumping around and cheering, or do they quietly shake their fist in rage as they stare through the other people? Depending on the character, one can mean a lot more than another. For example, a quiet, shy character getting worked up means a lot more to the audience because we get to see a new side to them

—Breathing

Obviously everyone breathes. But irregular breathing patterns (especially when they’re noticed by someone who’s not the MC) can tell a lot about what their reaction is. Are they losing their breath from laughing to the point where they begin to laugh and cry? Or is the world spinning around them as they begin to hyperventilate, going lightheaded and feeling overwhelmed?

—How they interact with their location

Are they throwing things, staring straight through all of the beautiful scenery, or are the bright colors blinding them? The more public and busy the location is, the less they may feel inclined to really act out, or maybe part of it is that they’re so emotional that they don’t care. Just try to keep the setting in mind for any dramatic, emotional scenes.

—Other people’s reactions

Consider how much the outburst is out-of-character when thinking about reactions. Do people run to console the anti-hero when they break down into tears, or do they stand there awkwardly not knowing what to do? Or, does this happen so often that others know exactly what to say and do, or are they so tired that they stand in the corner, defeated?

—Remember to stay in character

If you want this scene to stand out, you need to remember the characters themselves. Everybody gets emotional and breaks down, and when you can make it true to the character, you will make it real to the audience

The rumble roused you from sleep and for the first time since the torches died out you saw light. It was dim and blurry at first. You stretched your legs before standing up. By then, there was more light coming in.

You have been imprisoned for so long that you have completely lost track of time. You are not even sure whether those who imprisoned you are still alive. When finally someone came to check on you they were surprised to find you, claiming that the dungeon has been unused for centuries.

What is... Whump?

Whump is a genre in fanfiction that involves placing your character into a traumatic, physically or psychologically tormenting scenario.

It is a darker form of hurt/comfort that focuses heavily on the hurt and puts the character in jeopardy, tortures the character and tries to break them. Sometimes even without any comfort at the end.

The characters in these stories can be called:

whumpee - the character being hurt

whumper - the character causing the harm

caretaker - the character comforting

Day X

Damaged Goods

Quincy was in the market for a droid, so he went to the nearby shop, Empori-Droid. It was blindingly white inside, "new and improved" models on the display floor and in the window next to older models. While the new models were awesome and generated revenue, it was the older models that generated the most.

He looked through the sleek models. They were beautiful, but not quite what he was looking for. Eventually he saw a retired military droid off in the corner. It... called to him.

"What about that one?" He pointed.

"Oh," the saleswoman said, obviously uncomfortable, "We were supposed to put that one it the back. It got messed up and we needed to get rid of it." She moved toward it, but Quincy countered with, "I'll buy it." She froze and looked at him.

"R-Really?"

"$100,000"

"Uh, that's... that's a lot for a damaged, broken model."

"Give me the basic, no, advanced package for 150."

"Uhm.... Let me... talk with my supervisor, but, ummm, I'll see what we can do."

𝐀𝐝𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭

written after, as distinguished from subscript