Writing General: '10 year anniversary' edition (continued)

Welcome to /wg/, the thread for all /tg/ related writing. Whether you're plotting your campaign, trying to come up with a character backstory, or just trying to write some setting fluff, this is the place to post it. You don't even have a campaign, just an idea you want to develop? You're welcome here. While the rest of /tg/ is arguing over monstergirl mating and which way rivers are supposed to flow, we're here to help you turn your thoughts into an actual finished product.

As the successor to the Storythreads, we're also open to /tg/ related fanfiction (D&D, Warhammer, Battletech, whatever). In fact, if you've written any vaguely /tg/-related short stories, you can try them out here. We also have flash-fiction challenges from time to time.

There's a discord for writers here
https://discord.gg/6AwKHGF

The previous thread can still be found in the archive here
>>95184242
>>95369805

And finally an archive of /tg/ fiction can be found here:
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Storythread (dead link, but may be resurrected one day)
https://2d4chan.org/wiki/Storythread (page missing, wiki still up)
https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Storythread

The 10th anniversary is on the 9th of April btw. Here's a link for anyone curious about the first ever Storythread:

https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/39224410/#q39224410

Pic related is apparently the first story I ever wrote for the Storythreads, which I did not remember.

What would be some good and obvious signs a father sees his sons as tools and not children?

>>95446889
Anytime the kid does something poor the father says "this reflects badly on me and the family"

>>95446889
He's only interested in them when they're doing something he likes to do, especially something he did when he was their age and had ambitions for that weren't fulfilled. The classic example would be the football-crazy dad forcing his sons to play even though they're not good at it, and ignoring their real passions entirely. I'm not quite sure how you'd translate that into a fantasy story; maybe the aging warrior father who insists his sons learn to fight (although in a society where status is determined by martial prowess that's not so much vanity as practical parenting).

>>95446889
I know this might be a little heavy-handed, but marking down "progress notes" in some kind of journal in a clinical fashion.
It really depends on what they're being used for.
One take on this I would find most interesting is that the father sees HIMSELF as merely a tool for his children's advancement. That might be confused for pure fatherly affection, but it could be taken to a detached, fanatical extreme.

He needed to stall for time. Adam Smasher was out of his league before the boogeyman got his most recent 'upgrade', and now the nightmare was practically immortal in more ways than one.
Fish had fought SoulKilled goons before, but none as fast or as practiced as Smasher. Allegedly, he couldn't learn due to his new state of being, but he didn't have to. Arasaka's most demonic dog of war was a brute with so much experience that there wasn't anything Fish could throw at him Adam couldn't just beat outright. A couple quick simulated fights quickly confirmed his panic- Dead, dead, dead. It was like trying to find a chess solution when you had a knight and king- being smarter didn't help.
"Another full borg?" Smasher almost seemed bored, stepping forward. Distance closed to fifty meters: Fish's time to live dropped by nearly thirty seconds. "You fuckers aren't very creative, are you? Oh well. I guess I could rip out your spine."
Maybe a draw would have to do.
Focusing, Fish carefully picked the software locks on his limiters. Within five minutes, his circuity would begin melting- if he made it that far. If he started running now, Adam would hit him in the back. He had to go down fighting- there was no opportunity to reposition.
A small noise, almost nothing at all, momentarily distracted Fish. Who else would be-
"Hey, metalhead!" In slow-motion, two gunshots rang out and bounced off of Smasher's skull. The slugs scattered and skittered across the floor, but it was enough. Fish detected high-speed combat algorithms. He had one, singular advantage: Smasher was conditioned for a Sandevistan, not for direct clock speed. Fish raised his assault rifle and tried not to look at his ally getting blasted to shreds.
(1/2)

(2/2)
Romeo kept falling even as Adam's chain gun shredded limbs and blew through his skull. Bone was spread over the ceiling. Some of it fell to Earth. Gore and brain matter spilled out as his torso struck Smasher's shoulders and bounced off. Fish could only keep firing, even as it was replayed to him at one-one-thousandth speed.
But it was because of this speed that he could see what Adam couldn't.
As Romeo's corpse fell to the ground, his pistol flew out. He finished his roll palms-up and eyes open. He had been a big target- even bigger because of the bombs strapped to his stomach. At first, Fish thought that his old friend had missed the detonator timing, but as the frames clicked by in his camera eyes, he saw the candle light off. That much material was enough to break buildings- even at this range, he might still be blown to shreds.
He couldn't outrun the blast, so he braced for it, and fixed his ICE on Smasher. Time to block all exits- a DDoS attack at the worst timing for the borg. He could almost hear Adam howl in anger as he felt attempts to reach out, screaming into the Net. But Fish's port flooding held his foe in place. No escape- maybe not for either of them.
Watching the wave approach was awful. Watching Adam's body fragment and fly into shards made it worth it- no time to record, sadly. One final show from Romeo.
The curtain fell with a deafening wave that blew out his audio and caused his OS to bluescreen. Fish hit the ground on his back and writhed. Diagonistics howled murder from every limb. But he was alive- as alive as a droid could get.

Poe wasn’t sure how one goes about about embracing a zombie version of their redheaded childhood crush. He’d never been given a script or a set of guidelines on how to deal with something like this, when one was faced with their unrequited love once again. In fact he wasn’t even sure if he could call it unrequited love, considering how Bella was unaware that Poe was in love with her before she’d died.

Back on campus, much of his free time had been spent reading the Harvard Crimson, where it had been something of a perennial tick of the student editor to print the official CDC zombie guidelines on the back of each new issue.

No, one couldn’t get a bug from a zombie. No, one does not simply turn into a zombie when bitten. We’ve tried that one out before guys, trust us. The zombies aren’t out get you, trust us. Yes, we’re living in a strange, new world now, but zombies will be apart of that world from now on, like midterms. Get used to it.

The smug, self righteous tone turned him scornful, but slowly, when he’d burnt out after reading one drab book or another on the lives of Locke or Wittgenstein, he began to memorise the routine and habits that the CDC expected of him when he had little else to do.

He’d wondered if there was any philosopher who’d written about such things - what would they do in a moment like this? The term philosophical zombies still hadn't been hijacked yet by those who spent their free time thinking themselves into a headache over consciousness. He could still salvage it, and create another branch of philosophy that dealt with the ethics and meta-ethics that came when one was still crushing hard on a zombified version of a young redheaded woman. And Bella was a young woman now, having grown in stature to nearly match his own lean 5’10” intellectual frame, despite spending the past decade trapped underneath in the ground.

>>95458929
Perhaps he could resurrect what was left of Locke and Wittgenstein in the future too, and ask them what would they do when in a situation like this, only to be dismissed and learn that they wanted to be left alone from pestering young intellectuals, a trait they shared with the same academics Poe ran into when he asked for an extension on a paper or two he’d forgotten about while juggling several different club responsibilities in life.

If only there was another choice, one that didn’t involve him rushing across and taking her in hands, or falling to his knees and thanking whatever god or demon that had allowed him to succeed in this terrible, dark ploy of his.

Then Bella reached out, with a gentle delicate hand that had been cursed with rotten veins, and he found himself guiding it along to his left cheek. He let her ragged fingertips dig deep into his skin a few drops of blood came out. and let her ragged fingertips dig deep into him a few drops of blood came out. He’d taught himself to do this when he’d become obsessed with the concept of lucid dreams and the endless possibilities it brought. Even then, long before tales of resurrections had become common place in the modern world, he was still reaching out for Bella.

The blood dripped down, slithering all the way the ends of his white collar. It was real. It was Bella.

>>95454944
>>95454949
Cool story, although I don't really know enough about cyberpunk to follow what was going on, but it's well-written.

>>95458929
>>95458941
I love little vignettes like this. Not trying to start a series or part of some great worldbuilding project, just something off-the-cuff because the picture was inspiring.

I really need to write stuff like that again; unfortunately whatever frazzled, chain-smoking muse got stuck with the job of prodding the creative centres of my brain is taking a leave of absence currently.

another one of mine that I really like even if no one else does

>>95462084
>Cool story, although I don't really know enough about cyberpunk to follow what was going on, but it's well-written.
It's basically a 'what if' where a proper android (Fish, for Arti(fic)ial intelligence) is pitted against Adam Smasher, one of the big dick boss monsters, and gets bailed out by a rockerboy named Romeo who never hit it big. It's not really intended to be set in any real fiction, I just made it because I thought the concept was cool and my writing needed reps.

>>95441002 (OP)
Do you think it's pretty reasonable for everyone to assume a member of a tribe or clan is like the first and only member that they've met for a while, and then they get a pretty big shock when they meet other members and find out their friend is actually an abnormality?

I had an idea where a tribe or clan is noted for being hot-blooded and superstitious, but the main character first meets one who is pretty calm and logical, and he gets really shocked when he has to go to their territory and discovers they're nothing like his friend at all.

>>95458941
There were, of course, pleasantries at first. Small talk Poe wished he could push aside, if only to let Bella be at the centre of his life again.

Hello, how are you? Yes, it’s me—Poe. Yes, it’s been ten years or so since you’ve been dead. Yes, I know, the world has changed. Yes, Armstrong did make it to the moon. No, there hasn’t been a nuclear war yet. And yes, it was the Soviets scavenging around Afghanistan that did the trick—not the divine second coming we were promised back in class.

It had all come so quickly that Poe didn’t have the time to press on any of the thornier, more complex questions he’d once imagined asking. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to leave this place—this graveyard—and go with Bella somewhere else. Somewhere she'd be safe. Somewhere far from nosy neighbours, curtain-twitchers, or the sort of people who might feel they were doing their civic duty by alerting the neighbourhood police about a zombie couple scampering out of the graveyard, possibly in the act of some forbidden black magic.

A practice, Poe noted grimly, that had already been banned in pink states—though technically still permitted in green ones. Massachusetts, thankfully, was one of the latter. Cameron was about an hour and some change away from the Virginia state lines. They needed to go now.

“Very sophisticated,” Bella whistled, eyeing his car. Poe didn't think it so. He thought it was incredibly beat down instead. His ride was a 1969 Dodge Charger, worn out from years of drag racing across the Bible Belt. It was all that he could afford with meagre savings after university had slashed through the rest.

“The guy who had it before must’ve really liked The Dukes of Hazzard,” he mumbled, cheeks reddening.

The Confederate flag on the roof had long since peeled away, but the car still clung on to that burnt orange, juvenile charm.

“The Dukes of what now?” Bella asked, visibly confused.

>>95476023
Right. Poe sighed. Ten years buried under gravel meant Bella wasn’t going to get every pop culture reference he talked of while trying to maintain conversation inside his shitbox of a car. Still, he would play the part of the gentle driver—a role he’d always wished he could’ve played when she was alive.

Bella nodded with visible strain as he opened the passenger-side door and helped her in. He pretended not to notice the gut-wrenching smell she emitted as she passed.

It was only the beginning of many things he would pretend not to notice, now that he was living with her again—anew.

The farther Poe drove out of the Bible Belt, the more he realized Bella’s music taste was still cemented back in those rowdy days of cow tipping and barn hopping they'd had together. His had been too at one point, until he’d grown tired and decided to join the trend of southern rock fans as the 1970s neared their end.

Music had underwent a long journey since Bella was gone. Frustrated, she fumbled with the radio dial, always turning it delicately, careful not to twist too hard in case her fingers broke apart like rotting, brittle glass.

It was such a sudden jump that Bella felt she'd missed a 1000 years of musical evolution. Disco was plentiful, even though, like zombies, it had apparently died and was now being resurrected by a handful of devoted fanatics. Gospel and soul still felt ethereal and floated through the tinny sound speakers, but there was nothing on air that would cause her to think back on those warm fuzzy days of partying with friends while tumbling over haystacks.

>>95476029
"There's a few cassette tapes in the glove box," Poe said. He was trying to do the math in his head, wondering if Bella had been around when they first appeared. This was quite difficult, considering one eye lingered on the dark roads while another kept cautious watch on his zombie crush, hoping that she herself suddenly didn't turn into mush.

Cassettes had first come out in the mid 60's, and then gradually found their way into cars by the early 70's. Poe could still remember that sudden rush of excitement when he realised he could play whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, without being shackled to the whims of a smug, small town radio host.

Bella rummaged through them, and despite missing the early adoption window, at least understood how they worked. Like a child groping for sweets in a candy cane bowl she left her hands go through the collection, until she'd settled on one by a band she'd never even heard of before.

"Hawkwind," She said hastily. Every new word seemed risky, and she was still frightened that her lips might suddenly fall apart if she mispronounced a single word wrong.

Hawkwind. Poe remembered now. Came into being a few months after the moon landings. He'd never heard of them until a decade later when a friend of a friend who was enrolled in the music department at Harvard convinced him to give them a listen when he pressed the cassette into his hands as they talked outside a general elective class near Christmas. He'd been a fan of them ever since.

Bella slid the cassette in, and pressed play on the worn out key buttons. Poe felt surprised the cassette itself wasn't worn out, considering how often he'd played it through and through when he made the journey to and from Harvard every holiday break like this. Hurry on Sundown would be the first song to be played, and he felt scared, scared, that she might turn around and say not like this hazy Space Rock sound at all.

>>95476040
But Bella didn't do that. Instead, she found herself nodding along by the time the harmonica had kicked in and the song became a swirling symphony of instruments.

Bella's mind was, for a moment, freed from the knowledge that she had died and was now undead.

She was buried in Sundown, but she no longer felt as though she was down.

She was rising.

>>95474558
Yeah, that's reasonable. There's a reason stereotypes have been so popular throughout history: because they were always a useful tool for understanding the world.

I think a lot of people today forget that the modern west is, historically speaking, extremely individualist and consequently much more intellectually diverse than most cultures throughout history. For most of history people grew up in very close knit communities, which tended to produce like-minded people. And there was no such thing as freedom of thought: if you disagreed with your the customs and morals of the majority, they ostracised you at best, killed you at worst. A person could go their whole life and literally never hear anyone suggest that there was any other way to live their life than the way their community did, and if they did have contact with foreigners it was probably fleeting and only reinforced their sense of group identity.

It's been ten years since I wrote this and I still haven't written a better piece of poetry.

Happy Anniversary! Ten years ago today, I posted the very first Storythread. And we've been on quite the journey since then. Over the course of the last decade we've had over two thousand stories posted here.

To celebrate, I've done the unthinkable: for the first time in ages I've actually written something myself, based on this pic. Hope you enjoy.

>>95489660

"Do you think we'll ever see it again?", Seela asked.

"I don't know.", Tanim replied. "Maybe. Do you think we'll want to come back, though?"

"I don't know.", Seela said, and she smiled. "It depends what's out there, doesn't it?"

Tanim hesitated for a moment, then: "Do you think we're making a mistake?"

Seela thought about this for a moment, then shrugged. "I think there's only one way we'll ever find out. If we stay, then we might have an okay life here. But we'll always wonder what might have been. If we leave... well, it might be worse, but it might be better too." She laughed. "If it doesn't work out, we can always do what Alens did: crawl back home and grovel for a job at the bakery."

"But what about your parents? Your brother, your friends. I only have Gremmel and Hober, and they won't even notice I'm gone until the stables need sweeping. But you've got people who care about you down there."

"I've got someone who cares about me up here, too.", Seela smiled at him. "Just so long as I'm with you, I'll always be exactly where I'm meant to be." She stood up on tiptoes and kissed Tanim on the cheek.

Tanim swept her up in his arms and kissed her on the lips. "I love you so much."

"I love you too.", Seela whispered.

They stood on the hill overlooking Himmelford, the quiet little town by the quiet little lake where they'd spent all of their quiet little lives. On the left were the buildings of Ardren Abbey, with its belltower, and stretching out across the plain the winding courses of the River Himmel. Above them, white clouds drifted through a forget-me-not blue sky.

>>95489675

It was beautiful. But more than that, it was home. And although they'd both talked about leaving for so long, now that they were actually standing here they could feel an indefinable part of themselves pulling them back. It wasn't fear, it was more like they'd spent so long in Himmelford that a piece of their soul had gotten lodged in it, like something left next to a tree for so long that the bark had grown around it. If they left, they would be tearing away that part of themselves.

Without even looking at each other, Tanim and Seela reached out and clasped each other's hand. It wasn't just Himmelford that held a piece of their soul. So long as they had each other, the most important piece would always be right there beside them.

Behind them rose the crest of Alselor Hill, and beyond that the villages of the downland valleys and then the city of Fairlevail. It'd take a day or two to get there, and from there... well, it would be starting point for the rest of their lives. Whatever that might turn out to be.

Seela looked over her shoulder, up at the green slopes rising up behind them, speckled with wildflowers. The grass waved softly in the wind, beckoning.

"How far do you really think we'll get?", she asked Tanim, a note of hesitation creeping into her voice.

"We should be able to make it to Boresfield by lunchtime, and if the weather holds we'll stop at Greensable for the night. Then tomorrow, on to Fairlevail."

"No, I meant..."

"I know.", Tanim smiled. "But like you said, there's only one way to find out."

He kissed her on the cheek. Then they turned, and started walking. When they reached the summit they looked down on the panorama below them, but this time it wasn't back at Himmelford, where they'd come from. This time they looked out to where they were going.

It was a beautiful view.

* * *

"Do you remember the last time we stood here?"

"How could I forget? Ten years, and I still remember it like it was yesterday."

>>95489683

Tanim reached up and ran his fingers through his sandy blonde hair. His white shirt billowed as the wind snatched at it, and Seela's dark brown hair danced. She was dressed with a gauzy blue skirt over her leggings today, that shimmered as it fluttered in the sunlight.

She must be freezing, Tanim thought. He'd forgotten how windy it could get up here. He'd have offered her his jacket, but he wasn't wearing one, just the shoulder pads he'd picked up while working on the airships. A leather helmet and pads, for when the wind got up like it was now and you were thrown about the tiny cabins. He'd left the helmet, the knee and elbow pads; that part of their life was behind them now. But you could hook a pack to the shoulder pads, made it much easier to carry things.

He was so practical now. His old self wouldn't recognise him.

"I was so scared.", Seela murmured.

"That's not how I remember it."

"Well, I was."

"Then it's just as well you didn't show it, because I'd never have had the guts to leave if you hadn't been the brave one."

"The way I remember it, we both encouraged each other.", Seela smiled, a little wistfully, remembering sitting on the shore of the lake ten years earlier, talking about all the places they were going to see and the things they were going to do. Watching the water sparkle as they shared their dreams.

"You were the one who gave us the push to do it, though.", Tanim insisted. "I don't think I've ever been more scared than that day, standing here, wondering if I shouldn't just go back into town and forget the whole thing."

"What? You've *never* been more scared? What about the time lightning struck the Golden Sparrow and we had to bail out in the middle of a storm?"

>>95489694

"Firstly, you're thinking of the wrong airship. The Golden Sparrow was the one that was attacked by pirates, it was the Skysprite that was hit by lightning. And no, I wasn't as scared then, because I knew exactly what I had to do: get two parachutes, get you into one of them, and get us both to a hatch. There wasn't time to be *really* scared."

"Okay.", Seela conceded. "But what about the time customs found the hidden compartments on the Starscraper? Or when we got stuck in Lansavail while it was under siege? Or the whole business with Verak the Fist? Or the time we *didn't* get away from pirates and ended up in a slave auction in the Cloudreef Isles? Or... well, I could go on."

Tanim shrugged. "Same thing. I knew what I had to do. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't complicated either. I didn't have time to think about how things might turn out until afterwards, at which point I knew it had worked out okay."

"Alright, maybe.", Seela said grudgingly. "But... what about when I went into labour early with Keyra? Two days from the nearest port, not a doctor, nurse or wise woman for leagues. You were sweating more than I was."

"Okay... *that* one I'll grant you.", Tanim admitted.

Seela turned and looked over her shoulder. "Loran, Keyra, come on! Don't you want to meet your grandparents?"

The seven year old and five year old who'd been playing around in the grass sprang up and chased down the hill so fast that if they'd tripped they would have rolled all the way to the bottom. Tanim stuck his arms out and swept them up as they passed, and put them down again only when they promised to walk at a more sensible pace.

"Do you think they'll recognise us?", Tanim asked Seela.

"Who?"

"Your parents. Your brother. Gremmel and Hober. Everyone."

"You're only twenty-six, sweetie, your not exactly a white-haired old man. Or do you think *I'm* the one who's changed?", she said, with a dangerous smile.

>>95489706

"The way you look? No.", Tanim laughed. "But we *are* different now. It's been a long time."

"Maybe. But this is still our home. We didn't forget Himmelford, and I don't think it will have forgotten us."

"Do you think we'll stay this time?"

"I don't know. I'd like the children to spend some time here. It's a good place to grow up."

"If they're anything like us, they won't appreciate it though.", Tanim laughed. "But yeah, I'd like to give them the chance to get to know it, at least."

"Exactly.", Seela agreed. "But maybe one day, when the kids are older... well, there's still a lot of the world we haven't seen yet. Do you think you'd want to leave again? I know you missed this place more than I did."

"You said it yourself ten years ago: wherever you are is exactly where I'm meant to be."

They stood there for a moment, watching the white clouds drift across the forget-me-not blue sky, and the twinkling sunlight on the waters of the lake far below.

"Then maybe there's still some journeys I'd like to make.", Seela mused. "But I think however far we go, we'll always come back here eventually."

"I think so too.", Tanim smiled.

"Come on,", Seela said, and without even looking at each other she and Tanim reached out and clasped each other's hand. "Let's go home."


---- The End ----

>Again, I hoped you enjoyed this, Storythread anons. And I hope that however far away you go, for however long, you'll always come back here every now and then to tell us your stories.

So I was inspired by Rob Roy to make the MC of my story a member of a wealthy not!Scottish clan that used mercantile skills to gain wealth and power

I wanted them to look distinct from the other Scottish clans, but not looking English like the villain in Rob Roy. What would be a way to make them distinct? I had a few ideas:

>their tartan sashes are dyed an unusual colour that is rare and expensive (probably purple)
>most of the other clans can afford only lighter armour for the standard troops, whereas the warriors of the rich clan are bedecked out in plate and fancy brigandines

>>95500696
I think you have to figure out what trade it is they specialise in. Are they wool merchants? Then they might wear fine woollen cloaks. Do they buy and sell cattle from the highland clans? Then they might go in for more leather. On the other hand if they go in more for luxury goods - snuff, sugar, spices - they they might seek to emulate the wealthy townsfolk they deal with. You talk about the villain in Rob Roy looking "English"... he didn't look English, he looked like the nobility from across half of Europe. He wasn't even English, incidentally; he was the bastard son of the Duke of Montrose, so he was at least half Scottish. All the Scottish aristocrats in the film dress like that, because it's not "English" fashion, it's just fashion.

Being a merchant means being able to socialise with both your suppliers and your customers, so even if they kept the tartan sash they would probably go in for more current fashions. A fine cotton shirt instead of coarser fabrics, a bit of lace here and there, a tailored overcoat instead of a hard-wearing cloak.

>>95441002 (OP)
In your opinions. /wg/ what are the key things that a campaign writer should have about his setting being detailed and what should be left vague for roleplaying?
I'm homebrewing an abandoned high fantasy city and I want to strike a balance between keeping just enough detail to have the players interested and also have it remain mysterious.

>>95505699
Write as much detail as you want, but if you write a lot introduce it sparingly and be prepared to change it to fit the needs of the campaign.

I think the bare minimum is an overview of the races/factions/whatever (history, attributes, etc), which your players will need for character creation, and a precis about the background of the whole world - just a few paragraphs - and then some more specific information about the place where they'll actually spend the campaign (or at least where they'll start off), no more than a page or two.

If you then want to write a whole book on your setting, there's nothing wrong with that. The fact that *you* know the minutiae of the setting can give a feel of depth for the players even if they don't, and it can help inform your future story choices. Just don't expect your players to read it, and don't do anything that relies on them knowing more than the basics.

>>95476050
This is really good. Has atmosphere, but also a solid character piece.

>>95503171
I meant Montrose as the villain I was inspired by. I only watched a few scenes but he feels so awesome.

I noticed there was a distinct difference between Montrose and the Duke of Argyll- Argyll wears a bonnet and a tartan while Montrose seems to go full non-Scottish style of dress. But yeah, nobility in general seemed to have worn that given all the painting of famous composers like Bach and Beethoven.

I intended him to have originally been in luxury goods (silk, spices, ivory, etc) but like Montrose he loans his money out to aspiring members of other clans. Typically they cannot pay him back in full, so they give him a little bit of what they produce to top it off (wool, cattle, etc.) Thus he has a bit of nice everything- a fine leather buffcoat, wool clothes, etc. Do you think that makes sense?

>>95509133

>>95509192
I think that makes sense. Then maybe they dress more like Montrose when they go into the cities to deal with other merchants and nobility (perhaps not quite as effete), and more like Argyll when they're dealing with the clans.

What would be some common reactions for an academy in Renaissance/pre-modern times having a student come in and he sees that his tribe is the sort of mascot or insignia?

Basically like picrel but the school is fairly large, and imagine an actual Turkish student went there on exchange.

I wanted the Turk student to for some reason find it really cool.

>>95514449
>an academy in Renaissance/pre-modern times
To be honest, I don't think academic institutions in Renaissance/pre-modern times really did the whole mascot thing. Their insignia would maybe, at a stretch, be whatever nobleman was their patron, but mostly it would be a religious motto with a picture of whatever it was they specialised in. Just look at the coat of arms for the University of Oxford, for example: crowns and a book, with a Latin motto that means 'The Lord is my Light'. Edinburgh has a design of Edinburgh castle with the thistle, the royal Scottish symbol.

As someone who went to a school founded in the early 18th century, I can tell you that the school houses were named after famous (long-dead) military leaders, and their portraits in the old hall were as much of a 'mascot' as we had.

Sorry to be a buzzkill. That kind of mascot, school spirit, totem insignia thing is a very modern, very American invention. But if you want to include it in your fantasy work anyway, well, it's fantasy so go ahead.

>>95519777
Yeah you have a point. But I was thinking the founders of the academy were kind of like Hogwarts' founders and one of them had a rival from the enemy tribe, and so he used his rival as his house's sigil since he respected the rival so much.

I heard Brits and Aussies actually DO split their schools into houses, is that actually true?

>>95521099
I think one idea that would be cool for a magic school is that every character gets assigned to a different house for each of the four years of schooling.
It seems like that would enforce a variety of perspectives among the classmates and encourage out-of-the-box thinking while mitigating the worst aspects of tribalism.
In fact, I'm gonna fucking do that if I ever write such a school system. Thanks, anon!

>>95521099
>I heard Brits and Aussies actually DO split their schools into houses, is that actually true?
Yes. It always amuses British people when Americans start talking about how magical and charming Harry Potter is and then start listing things like 'school uniforms' and 'school houses' among the parts of Harry Potter they find exotic.

For British Millennials, especially the ones that went to private school, the thing that made Harry Potter so popular is that it's *relatable*. Partly in the way the characters interact with each other, but also just the setting itself. I had school lunches in a building old enough to be a tourist attraction in America. Take away the magic, and everything else is just the British school experience. Well, maybe an *enhanced* version of that. There certainly isn't the kind of inter-house rivalry there is in Harry Potter (there being no Sorting Hat to group like-minded people together, for one thing).

Most schools do houses in a rather perfunctory way. For example, my primary school's houses were yellow, red, green and blue, and the only time they were ever relevant was on sports day. Classes weren't separated by house at all. My secondary school did organise classes by house, but only for first year; after that classes were split according to ability. There were no house common rooms either. There were the occasional house assemblies but that was the only time all children in a particular house were together.

>>95526894

You do spent quite a lot of time with other people in your house who are also in the same year, though, because those groupings (tutor groups) are how the school handles all the administrative, out of class stuff. You'd show up at your form tutor's classroom at eight thirty, take the register, hear any announcements, be given any letters to take home, then go to your actual first class at nine. In your early years especially a lot of the between-class time was spent hanging out in your form tutor's classroom with other people from your house. Of course, as you got older you formed friendships outside your house, and people ended up gravitating to whichever tutor room had most of their friends rather than their own. I always found it strange that in Harry Potter you never saw any Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs in the Gryffindor common room; presumably at least some people had friends outside their own house, did they never have any of them stop by to hang out?

By the way, I say all this as someone who never gave the slightest shit about sports. Each house had its own rugby team, cricket team, etc. The competition was still fairly casual but it at least created some friendly rivalry between houses; although to be honest I think the teachers cared more about it than we did (the rivalry between Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape over the house quidditch cup is, again, familiar even if it is a bit enhanced).

>>95526920

Inter-school sports was taken a little more seriously, but nowhere near to the degree it is in America. If a kid was really into football, rugby, cricket, whatever, they'd be playing for the local club's junior section. As I understand it, in the US school games are used by college scouts to find talent, and college leagues are taken seriously in their own right but also feed into the professional leagues. In the UK, the local football/rugby/cricket/etc club will run their own youth section that might offer coaching as far down as pre-school age, so school sports aren't a path to a career.

I also say all this with the caveat that I can't speak for the entire Anglo-Australian school system, but broadly speaking everyone I know did things similarly at their schools. Also, you didn't really ask for all of that. But I promise you, I'm getting to my point.

The reason British and other Commonwealth countries have 'houses' is that the private schools that started the traditions of British schooling were originally all boarding schools. They literally needed to house their pupils. They would start off with a relatively small building that had both dormitories and classrooms for the students, then as they expanded they would just buy up the surrounding houses and pupils would live there under the care of a teacher who was assigned to be their head of house, who would have their own apartment in that house. Living alongside the same group of children, separated from the rest of your year group, naturally bred a certain tribalism.

>>95526931
Which was encouraged to instil competitiveness. The Duke of Wellington was once taking a tour of Eton (his former school, one of the super-elite boarding schools), and pointed to a group of boys playing cricket and said 'there grows the stuff that won Waterloo'. By which he meant that team sports prepared children for war, both by encouraging physical fitness and by teaching boys how to work together to overcome the opposing team. Modern British society finds that attitude rather distasteful, but the echoes still linger.

Another thing Regency-era British people liked to do apart from whipping the French was build fancy buildings based on foreign architectural styles. The Royal Pavilion in Brighton, for example, which was built to imitate Indian palaces.

So - and now we finally come to my point - what I would suggest is that your school has one central building with all the classrooms, main hall, etc, and then several houses in the grounds each built in the architectural style of one of the other nations in your setting, and decorated to match. As many as you want, by the way, four is not mandatory. Maybe some of the houses were based on the ethnic origin of the founder, or a friendship they had, or just on a whim. Then the children can incorporate elements of their house's aesthetic into their dress when there's an inter-house sports match or something.

>>95526945
Not sure why I felt I had to write an entire essay, but hopefully you find something useful in it.

>>95526945
>The Duke of Wellington was once taking a tour of Eton (his former school, one of the super-elite boarding schools), and pointed to a group of boys playing cricket and said 'there grows the stuff that won Waterloo'. By which he meant that team sports prepared children for war, both by encouraging physical fitness and by teaching boys how to work together to overcome the opposing team. Modern British society finds that attitude rather distasteful, but the echoes still linger.
Obligatory https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Vitai_lampada

I've got a ~4000-word story I'd like to share, but PDFs can't be uploaded anymore. Was considering making it its own thread and doing a production of it, but I thought I'd check in here for etiquette and stuff, get an opinion.

I put an even-more-cringe early version up riiight before the site went down. I've been polishing it since then.

https://archive.org/details/emotional-support-homunculus-final-form-2-compressed_202504

Consider this the trailer:

>Be me
>Be alchemist
>Be lonely. Bad idea time.
>Make homunculus
>Cuter than expected
>Keeps calling me "Master" (kinda weird, but whatever)
>Melts after three months because alchemy is hard
> :0
>Bring her back
>She remembers everything
>Starts redecorating my lab like she owns it
>Still calls me "Master"
>Pretty sure it's a joke
>Pretty sure she owns me now
>She melted again
>TFW No Emotional Support Homunculus :'(
>Anyone know how to make a liver that doesn’t suck?

>tfw want to share story but not /tg/ related

>>95526945
Insightful shit. Thanks. I never made the connection of houses being tied to the actual physical housing.

I guess for the reactions he'd think it'd be cool to have his tribe emblazoned on the house building and the other students would be like "oh damn X House's symbol is part of them! Sick!"

And I guess there'd be plenty of people asking him about regional dishes that are infamous that he may not like, or if certain unusual customs are actually true, and probably lot of stereotyping that gets dissolved over time.

>>95530593
Just post a link, we won't tell on you.

>>95531479
sounds cool

How do you come up with a narrative arc for a story?

I have multiple story setting ideas, just not a story that would explore it properly. I think my issue is less figuring out how to justify the characters going through a setting, more 'why on a thematic level do they do so'. A story should be ABOUT something, rather than just a linear set of events that happen.

The one I'm working on now would be a cheesy sort of 'bloodborne but with sex' sort of setting, and I can't figure out a good narrative arc for it. I'm thinking the main-character/party leader should have a personal motivation for going through the area, maybe searching for a family member, but I don't know. I need to figure out something that could have some narrative heft to it (I want to write porn with plot).

>>95540075
Sometimes you have to come up with individual scenes first. Just come up with some things that feel like they would happen to those characters in that setting. Write the scene without thinking of anything broader. Then when you have a couple of them, and you've got a feel for the characters, you can see if they fit an overall pattern.

I guess what I'm saying is that themes and plot arcs are often emergent things that evolve as you write rather than things you plan out ahead of time. It's not necessarily what I'd recommend, but it's not necessarily a bad thing either.

>>95541186
Yeah but I can't really write ahead, I tend to have to write in sequence where the prior scene informs the one ahead.

>>95542229
It's fine being a discovery writer, you will just likely have more work to do during your revisions to piece all of the written plots together and make them more cohesive.

>found my old folder of all my /tg/ writings
It's frustrating that I was a better writer in 2018 than I am now. I think I'm going to get back into more short stories/flash fiction. It's more fun and getting more "final products" out of writing is more pleasing to me than another stalled month on the novel.

>>95542229
Think of it as a series of short stories rather than a single novel. Some of them might get integrated into the final narrative, others might get left on the cutting room floor.

>>95543141
>It's frustrating that I was a better writer in 2018 than I am now.
Oh god, I know that feeling. I look back at my work from ten years ago and it's so much snappier and more concise.

>>95543998
Well someone did suggest I write a sort of 'prequel' chapter first, and I kind of like that idea. Like showing off the 'patient zero' of the bimbofication, I was thinking something like a maid in the local castle trying to escape once everyone's been turned into bimbo vampires. And then like chapter 1 takes place a few weeks after the outbreak where the party comes in to try to deal with everything.

Still what I want to figure out is some themes to attach a narrative arc to. I want there to be something the story is about. Maybe not something big like the nature of geostrategic alliances or anything, but you know something.

In another story I write the major theme is two nerds rekindling a friendship after one of them ditched the other for the popular group, and it's trite teen drama but it's something that I can keep mining and advancing as a plot point as I keep going. Looking for something like that which helps provide a narrative skeleton for me.

>>95544574
>and it's trite teen drama
Isn't all teen drama? Honestly, if teen drama isn't trite than it lacks realism. Hurt feelings between nerds because one of them started hanging out with the popular group is a lot more relatable for the vast majority of teens than drug overdoses, teen pregnancies, suicide, and other favourites of teen shows.

When the hunter, Janus Avinvale, fell in love with the beautiful elven maiden, Arlayna Faladiir, all he had to offer her was food on the table, a cabin on the edge of the woods and his undying love. While some might have thought this would not be enough for such an ethereal beauty as Arlayna Faladiir, she was of a different mind. Soon Arlayna Faladiir and Janus Avinvale were married.

Arlayna moved into Janus’ hunting cabin on the edge of the woods. The Avinvale’s cabin lay on the borders of the Barony of Weswich, which was situated within the County of Cavelle. The woods around the cabin extended into the forested hills of the Glenvale Foothills. The Glenvale Foothills stood at the base of the Glenvale Mountains, where the borders of the county ended. It was here, in this little nestled corner of the world that Janus Avinvale and his wife Arlayna Avinvale would start their lives together.

At the end of the day, Janus would often return home with a fresh kill. Arlayna would look up from her weaving and welcome her strong husband with a loving look and smile. They had found contentment in their own private bliss.

Janus was overtaken with joy, when one day Arlayna told him that she was with child. Janus seemed sure it would be a son, and soon picked out a name for his son, “Jeremy” after his father. To Janus’ surprise, Arlayna gave birth to a daughter. They promptly named her “Remy'' in honor of Janus’ father.

>>95556842
Growing up, Remy lived at the crossway between two worlds, human and elf. From a very young age, Janus would take her hunting with him. The lessons from her father started with teaching her how to properly navigate around their wooded home. Soon, these lessons would evolve into learning how to pick up on the tell tale signs needed to track prey through the brush and how to be aware of your surroundings when closing in on your quarry. With her keen half-elf sense Remy was a natural at this. She could hear a whisper from afar and immediately know what it was. It wasn’t long until Janus was teaching her how to use a bow, though he preferred a crossbow himself. Remy picked up on the bow like a natural due to her elven heritage. She was soon a superb marksman.

All the while Remy had lessons in hunting and tracking, she would have deep conversations with her mother about her elven heritage and what that meant. Remy’s mother Arlayna told her that as a half-elf her life would always be like weaving a tapestry from two different worlds. She told Remy to embrace her dual identity and to be proud of who she was.

As an adolescent, Remy would often go on hunting trips with her father. Sometimes she would even hunt by herself. Remy felt at peace in the forest and nature. She often explored the lands around her home.

Without much social interaction beyond her parents, Remy developed a quirky and peculiar personality. When her father would take her on trips into more civilized human parts, Remy would stay awkwardly at his side. She would be too overwhelmed to speak or make eye contact with the humans she encountered. It didn’t help that they seemed to quickly take note of her slightly pointed ears and other elvish features.

>>95556844
Remy would, however, find a minor social outlet in the rock gnome village of Fiddlemire located in the forested hills of the Glenvale Foothills, basically in her backyard. At first the gnomes were slow to trust her, but Remy’s fascination with their trinkets and gadgets and her charmingly peculiar personality soon won them over.

The gnome village of Fiddlemire had strong trade ties with the Dwarven stronghold of Voghdorahl located deeper in the mountain range. Voghdorahl was founded when an expedition of Mountain Dwarves from the Dwarven Kingdom of Dholladur were granted permission to settle in the Glenvale Mountains by one of the late kings of Eredan. Voghdorahl now existed within the Kingdom of Eredan as a dwarf fortress colony mining precious ores and metals in the Glenvale Mountains.

The dwarves of Voghdorahl, like most dwarves, were slow to trust humans and only traded with the gnomes of Fiddlemire on this side of the Glenvale Mountains. This made the village of Fiddlemire one of the few places in a very large area with access to dwarven goods. The rock gnomes of Fiddlemire were also skilled in crafting gadgets, trinkets and gizmos. Because of these factors, trade goods from the village of Fiddlemire were highly sought after by the human occupants of the County of Cavelle.

>>95556846
The village of Fiddlemire lay deep within the heavily forested labyrinth of the Glenvale Foothills. Only an experienced woodsman, with knowledge of the terrain, could successfully navigate their way to the village without getting lost. Despite their distrust of the humans that lived around them, the gnomes of Fiddlemire still had an inclination to trade their goods with the outside world. When Remy was on the cusp of adolescence for a half-elf, at the age of 18, the gnome leader of the village of Fiddlemire asked something of Remy. He asked if Remy would take a few human merchants from the outside world and guide them to the village in order to trade their wares, and then guide them back. The gnome leader was very specific about what kind of people he wanted Remy to bring. He even provided a detailed list of attributes he required in them, which he said would “Make sure Fiddlemire stays safe!”

The gnome leader added, “They’ll have to pay you for your efforts, so I’d make sure to get as much coin as I could if I was you!”

And so off Remy went finding acceptable merchants and travelers to guide through the Glenvale Foothills to trade with the village of Fiddlemire.

Now at the age of twenty, Remy has worked as a guide for two years. She leads human travelers and merchants, deep with anticipation and excitement, through the densely forested Glenvale Foothills to the gnome village Fiddlemire. She has made more coin than she could ever imagine, all of which she brings back home to her mother and father who couldn’t be more proud of their daughter.

>>95556842
>>95556844
>>95556846
>>95556848
According to Chat GPT this character (Remy Avinvale) exhibits features that likely put her on the autistic spectrum (Although since this is a fantasy world their wouldn't be a term for this), what are your guy's thoughts on whether Remy the Half-Elf Ranger is likely on the autistic spectrum given her story and personality traits?

>>95530535
I'm sorry, I keep meaning to get to this and I still haven't read it all the way through. The first couple of pages look really good though.

>>95556857
A prime example of why you shouldn't listen to Chat GPT. Socially awkward /= autistic. In fact I think you lay out pretty clearly that there are other explanation for her quirky personality.

The problem with AI is that it's trained on a vast gestalt of everyone's writing, conversations, etc. Which means it can mimic human beings to an impressive degree, but also... the average person is a moron. I'm sure there are a lot of people who equate being socially awkward with being autistic but that doesn't mean it's accurate.

>>95556857
Fucking everyone these days gets identified as autistics apart from the actual autists.

ChatGPT often just agrees with whatever you hint at, because it's designed to keep engagement going, like how a clicker-game wants you to keep clicking.

>>95547276
Thats pretty classy, classic, and sweet.

>>95540075
Write the story as it comes and as the characters' natures dictate. You can identify any themes or whatever after the fact; if you've been writing something from the heart, you'll be able to spot one.

Sigh. Is the porn at least pseudo-victorian or to do with any of the themes of the not-bloodborne setting? Like social fear of sex and covering it in euphemisms, but going wild in private?

Go back to the stories of the setting/time period/genre. Familial obligation is a good one, either to living family or to the estate/legacy, it's worth running with.

>>95563499
>He liked one of the screencaps!
>... it wasn't one I wrote
Eh, I'll take what I can get.

>>95565913

>>95561893
Thanks for still thinking of it. I'd appreciate any of your thoughts. I worry it got too bloated and I lost the early pop it had.

>>95530535
>>95568123
I think if it ended around page 11 or 12 it would be perfect. It wasn't that the extra post-credit scenes were bad, as such, but it dragged out what would otherwise have been a very satisfying ending.

>>95571921
I can see that. I think I was getting a bit too in love with the Forrest Gump over-share joke and the lich banter.

Stop at "Grandma was a Puppet, but she got better" or at "Got you, sweet thing"?

>>95573519
>Stop at "Grandma was a Puppet, but she got better" or at "Got you, sweet thing"?
I think there's a reasonable case for either so it's up to you, but personally I prefer "Grandma was a Puppet, but she got better"

>>95441002 (OP)
Even after all these years, the OP pic is still the same.

How does one write a captivating action scene? One describing the savagery of a particular moment. I am basically asking what is the best way to convey power through words viscerally without leaning into "tell don't show" or abstracting it throigh techniques that aren't particularly realistic.

>>95526945
>Modern British society finds that attitude rather distasteful
What a country.

>>95579346
There's no single correct way to write an action scene, but generally speaking less is more. I know, trite. But think of it a bit like filming an action scene: the length of cuts decreases and the director will usually focus on close-ups instead of trying to show the whole fight, keeping the shots as close and tight as possible.

>>95579788
Two world wars will do that to a people.

>>95579283
Of all things, why a kobold? If I had to make a list of all fantasy races and rank them according to waifu-ableness, kobolds would be somewhere near the bottom.

>>95441002 (OP)
Hey anons, I'm trying to write a fantasy character, but his personality, motivations, and everything about him feel a bit nebulous.

I have a vague notion of how I want him to be, but I am struggling with -how- to portray this accurately in the first place. I almost feel like his personality and convictions flip flop a little from time to time, without me realising until after I have roleplayed it out.

Do you have any recommendations, be it advice or recommendations to check something out?

>>95441002 (OP)
Been away for a couple of months. How is it going, anons?

I am not a smoker. Is this an apt description of it, or would a smoker read this and go, "this guy clearly doesn't smoke"?

He stifled a yawn and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply to let the bitterness fill his mouth for a long moment. It wasn’t enough anymore. To think, he used to be satisfied with whatever he could find at Stuffer Shack, and now even Rocky Mountains doubles tasted stale. He was halfway through neurally ordering a case of triple blacks when he held the cigarette up to the light and found three thin black bands around the filter. This *was* a triple black. He had upgraded last week and forgotten.

>>95587149
Characterisation is a process that evolves as you write the story. I can't think of any way you can get around that short of writing a lot of notes beforehand. If you have to go back and edit earlier chapters to bring your characters into line with how you end up imagining them, it's not the end of the world.

>>95587565
4chan went down for two weeks and we all had to go outside and talk to real people. It was horrible.

Thinking of taking a creative writing course.

>>95590558
>4chan went down for two weeks and we all had to go outside and talk to real people. It was horrible.
top kek
I seen that, since I just wanted to return when that happened. I want to say that 4chan is a bit slower now, not that that's bad.

>>95591113
>I want to say that 4chan is a bit slower now, not that that's bad.
It's certainly more convenient but it's a bit sad to know that 4chan is much less popular than it used to be. I noticed that even before the shutdown, that the speed of all boards was down drastically compared to what it was a few years ago. I get the feeling that the userbase here is aging and isn't being replaced by Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The really sad thing is that they don't have their own comparable sites, they just spend all their time on TikTok and places like that where there's limited or no interaction, they're just consumers of product.

>>95587149
You can take stock plot lines and write short stories with him inserted into it to start to flesh him out.
Or just dive right into your actual main writing and go for it. Gonna discover him one way or another.

>>95590966
They can be helpful but it's not like, say, doing a coding bootcamp. Writing, obviously, is more an art than a science. While there are some things you can learn, there are lots of writing skills that can't be taught, and the rules that are taught in creative writing courses aren't necessarily applicable to every situation.

The best way to learn is really just to write and have people critique it. That's the most valuable part of a creative writing course, but you can get that places where you don't have to pay expensive fees. If it's cheap, sure, it might help you hone up a bit, but don't waste a large sum of money on it.

>>95587138
Kobolds have a similar mindset to a dog, plus they have egg bearing hips.

Another one of my early ones that I quite like.

Damian Voss was born to an alchemist father and his wife. Damian’s earliest childhood memories were of fond moments with her mother. Her father was often busy working for most of Damian’s early childhood.

When she was four, Damian’s mother fell ill and died. Damian at the time didn’t entirely understand what was going on but her father, Flavian, took it particularly hard. He became cold and morose. As she grew older, Damian’s father would often push her extremely hard. He wanted her to attend the University of Magical Arts when she was older. Flavian became emotionally abusive towards his daughter. Damian grew to be a dark and brooding young girl. She dreamed of a world where her mother could come back to life.

Eventually Damian was accepted into the University of Magical Arts. She couldn’t wait to leave for school and get away from her depressing home life. Damian thought the University would be a brand new world. Damian could feel her excitement welling up as she was heading towards the institution.

Once settled at the university, Damian found that it was not quite what she expected. She had to share classes with some very privileged people including a “little miss perfect” named Alex Dempsey. Alex succeeded at everything, was always cheery and clearly had never struggled with anything in her life. However, Damian created her own circle of friends composed of people who were dour like herself. She detested the fraternities and sororities at the university. Her group of friends were a broody bunch who gawked at the university social life.
1/3

>>95627895
It was in her second year at the college that Damian heard mentions of “necromancy”. Some of the professors at the college talked privately about the subject. She had always been secretly curious about necromancy despite it being an extremely taboo subject. Damian and her friends learned of a secret section of the library that contained books on necromancy. The entrance to the section was warded by magic, but one of her friend Hythan was very skilled at dealing with those kind of protections. They snuck into the section and took all the books on necromancy they could find. All of them were reluctant to try the magic in the book, but Damian mustered up the courage to do so first and cast a spell reanimating a dead mouse they had found. As Damian and the others examined the reanimated mouse, part of Damian subconsciously felt like she had brought the mouse back to life. Although her logical mind knew she had simply reanimated the mouse, she had a feeling inside her she had never ever felt before. Like she was bringing something dead back to life.

Damian and her group kept practicing on animals until one day they mustered the courage to take a trip into a town near the college. This would be it, the first time they reanimated an actual human being. They waited until nightfall and prepared their shovels. Then they headed to the local cemetery. They looked for the most recently deceased person, a woman named Jolene Carphen. They dug Jolene’s corpse out of the ground. Damian cast a reanimation spell on the corpse. It rose and Damian felt her heart skip. Some of the others looked on in horror. Damian shed a tear as she destroyed the corpse and the group reburied her.
2/3

>>95627901
Hythan spoke, “We shouldn’t have done this, this was wrong.”

“Don’t be such a baby Hythan,” said Priscilla, another member of the group.

Damian thought a lot about what had happened and the lady she had brought back to life as they were returning to the university. It was agreed that the group would meet up to discuss this new development. Damian and a few others noticed that some members of the group, including Hythan, were missing for the meeting. Damian asked Priscilla to scry on Hythan. Priscilla reported that Hythan was speaking to some professors, ratting them out for their practice of necromancy. Damian and the others fled the university as fast as they could.

Out in the wilderness, the group decided to take an oath and form an organization, dedicated to the practice of the dark arts and necromancy. They called it “The Black Circle”. Each member of the group swore undying loyalty to the organization with Damian as their leader.

One of the members of the Black Circle, Joyner, knew of an old abandoned fort hidden for many centuries from the the older days of the kingdom. The fort would serve as a great base of operations and was likely filled with corpses they could raise to use as guards. The fort was hidden well and took forever to find. When they entered the fort was filled with corpses of the ancient soldiers. It even had its own cemetery. Damian decided that this would be the perfect place to set up the headquarters of the Black Circle.

Soon the Black Circle had an army of undead to protect them in their new secret hideout. Now the Circle is set to move towards its ultimate goal, the spread of necromancy in the Kingdom of Eredan.
3/3

I have a lot of creative ideas at the table and I'm good at improvising but when I come to writing I'm a procrastinating idiot. How can I get past this and keep writing beyond a few lines?

>>95627995
Let it flow, edit later.

>>95441060
>>95441848
No offense, but it reminds me of some of the deficiencies in my own writing them I'm trying to fix. It makes me wonder if I picked up a some habits from the people on 4chan as a a kind of style?
I have a real bad problem with having somewhat boring, even amateurish prose because my mind obsesses around the perspective of the subject too much. I'll illustrate what I mean with an example of what I normally write, and what I want to normally write.
>John entered his apartment, tired after a long day's work. He approached his kitchen sink, pouring himself a lukewarm glass of water and draining it unceremoniously. He thought about how his day went.
Vs.
>A haggard frame darkened the door of Unit 217, Oxtail Road Apartments. It entered through the portal, stepping into the light of the sparse domicile. A man we've met before: John Smith. The lock made a firm clunk as he secured it behind him, and he heaved out a sigh. Another day.
I'm not saying the second is perfect, but you see what I mean. I'm wasting a LOT of chances at writing like its an artform instead of just flatly describing events chronologically.

>>95627995
Sometimes there isn't an easy solution. There's no trick to it, you just have to have self-discipline.

However, what >>95628015 says is the closest you'll get to a trick. When you do finally get going, don't agonise over what the right word is or whether metaphor A or metaphor B is more appropriate, just write the kernel of the story and maintain your train of thought, then come back and pretty it up later.

>>95629368
While the second line is obviously superior to the first in isolation, I think it's worth remembering that sometimes more minimalist prose is better. At the start of a chapter, at a significant point, etc, you want to use more stylised prose to draw attention to the event, but you don't want the reader to get bogged down. No matter how well-crafted a passage is, if it slows down the pacing for no reason then it's a liability.

I generally write far more descriptively than >>95441060 these days, but it still remains one of my favourites precisely because its short, to the point, and doesn't waste time. It has an atmosphere that I think would bleed away if it was spread across several pages. I didn't write >>95441848 so I can't say much about it, but as a reader I like it as much as any of the other stories posted here.

You're not wrong, just be careful you don't get carried away is all I'm saying.

>>95627904
>>95627901
>>95627895
Y'all vibing with this?

>>95627895
>>95627901
>>95627904
Like the ideas, but following on from the discussion of >>95629368 and >>95632835 it's definitely an example of prose that could use a little more embellishment.

>>95643593
Yeah. I think its major downfall of writers on the internet, and this goes for us, as well as stuff I've seen with quests, fanfiction, royalroad, and even greentexts. I miss when greentexts were actually a *thing* instead of a remnant from a different age.
What was I saying? I think writing "communities" do have styles, and I think those styles rub off on people. The internet writing style seems to be workmanlike, chronological prose. Slightly immature, and we use verbs and adjectives to kind of spice up text that's not really arrayed with any kind of craftsmanship.
I think of how anyone can cook a dish, but a true chef is going to sit down and bitch for 10 minutes about the arrangement of the green beans.
I'm trying to transition my own writing to the point where I can consider it an art process rather than just trying to get my daydreams down onto paper as efficiently and correctly as possible.
Anyway, I'm not trying to pick on you. It's just that I noticed clear, obvious improvement from your early stuff to your later stuff. I want to improve like that too, but it's alarming to think it might take me 10 years.

>>95645765
I'm still not sure I got better so much as changed.

I tried expanding on a backstory I wrote by writing a night in the life in first person. Here is the first backstory. I wrote a while ago.

Sierra Everton was the only child of wealthy gentleman John Everton and his wife, Sidonia. From the moment she was born, Sierra’s parents placed high expectations of her to be a prim and proper gentleman’s daughter. She had to act and behave a certain way. Doing anything else was greatly frowned upon. Sierra came to greatly resent her parents for the expectations they placed upon her. They had hopes that she would grow up and marry a squire or another man of note.

Nevertheless, Sierra was a tomboy who would not allow herself to be tamed by her parents' expectations. At age nine, she insisted on being trained in archery. She persisted until her father finally gave in. Sierra dedicated herself to frequent practices with her instructor. Archery was the one joy in her life where she could finally be herself. In her spare time, when she was not being forced into other duties, Sierra would carefully sneak up on hares and birds on the family estate and shoot them with her bow.

At age twelve, Sierra finally decided that she had had enough of her parents' overbearing grasp on her. She ran away. Sierra grabbed her bow, some traveling clothes and set off.

She eventually made her way to Myrefall, the capital of the County of Cavelle. There Sierra took up residence in one of the city’s parks. Many times the town guard tried to remove her but she was always able to slip away.

>>95652009
One fateful day, Sierra had just shot a magpie and was preparing to cook it over a fire in her makeshift camp. A group of the city’s young hoodlums approached her. The ringleader stepped forward. He was a boy of about fourteen years of age.

“You hungry little magpie?”
The other boys chuckled and laughed at this, their energy bouncing off one another. Sierra looked back at the boy unfazed. The boy gave her a look over and saw that she was remaining cool in his presence.

“What you think, Tem?” one of the boys in the group shouted out.

The ringleader let out a wide grin and spoke. “Temson Abersley, I’m kind of a big deal around here.” He combed back his hair and reached out his arm to shake hands.

Sierra smirked, extended her hand and said sarcastically with a smile, “Magpie.”

The boys laughed. “I like you, you're funny. My friends call me Temmy or Tem. You got a place to stay tonight?” Temmy said, smirking to himself.

Sierra replied calmly. “Here,” as she gestured at the park.

Temmy looked up at the sky and said, “It might rain tonight, you need a place to stay, you can crash at my place, my pa is blind so he won’t know.”

Sierra paused for a second and then shrugged. “Sounds cool.”

Temmy lived in the lower district of the city. As Sierra walked with him to his father’s house, she saw the shady and disreputable looking figures at street corners, as well as just poor folk going about their daily lives.

Temmy’s gang of hoodlums were engaged in burglaries, thefts and pickpocketing. Temmy and his associates soon taught Sierra, or as she was now known, “Magpie”, the tricks of the trade. His gang would even do occasional reconnaissance work for the Myrefall Thieves Guild.

>>95652013
Years passed. As Temmy, Magpie and the other members of the gang grew older they were being groomed into joining the Myrefall Thieves Guild. Magpie knew that she had to put in the work to become a full-fledged member. She had become an excellent marksman and she even had some skill with a dagger. Magpie was also practiced in infiltration, stealth and other finer arts of thievery. Eventually the day came and Magpie and Temmy, who she came to regard as a brother, were inducted into the Myrefall Thieves Guild.

Magpie, now eighteen, is adept at the craft of thievery. Through her membership in the guild she has her eyes set on a life of deft and daring heists and escapades as a professional thief. She has never told anyone her real name, Magpie fears that she would lose face and credibility if people in her circle knew of her privileged beginnings. Many of them had no other choice than a life of crime in the streets, but this is the life Sierra chose. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

>>95652015
Here is the first person POV of a night in the life of Magpie I wrote to expand writing technique:

“Myrefall, what a joyful little city,” I think to myself, as I make my way through the lower district. It’s raining and on the street corners the usual downtrodden residents of what I now call my home are huddled under cloaks trying to avoid the wet. I’ve been called to a job meeting at The Black Hog, Temmy is going too. I just know Tem’s gonna want to try his luck at the tables in the back room after the meeting knowing he has coins coming from this job, what a dolt!

As I enter the tavern, the regulars look up for a second, then go back to their drinks and chat. I head up the stairs to the second floor, the esteemed location of the Guild headquarters in the lower district. I slip into the room with my usual nonchalant look on my face and there waiting for me is Temmy and, of course, the Captain. The Captain lays down the details of the job, something very exciting, a typical by-the-numbers burglary heist. Temmy stares off into the distance for half of it. I know in his mind he is already in the backroom playing cards. I shoot a dirty glance at him. He doesn’t notice.

“You understand your assignment?” the Captain asks.

“Yeah,” I say, brimming with enthusiasm as always.

Temmy takes a second to space back in then nods. “I’ll join you in a sec,” Temmy says as he makes his way down the stairs heading to the backroom. I roll my eyes.

I wait out in the main area of the tavern and have a shot of whiskey at the bar. A few hours later, Temmy comes out, a traumatised look on his face.

“We have to finish this job,” he says, staring straight through me at the wall. I smirk, then let out a chuckle. I can’t help it.

>>95652021
I haven’t really explained the details of the job yet, so here they are, the details of the job. A wealthy merchant named Donovan Camleigh was at the Whitemoor Club with other members of the Merchant’s Guild. Donovan was bragging about this exotic blue diamond necklace he’d just bought as a gift for his wife. Luckily one of the porters at the club is on our payroll and passed the information along, for his fee of course. The job is simple: slip over to their manor, wait for the lovely couple to leave their home, then break-in and take the necklace. Of course there is a chance that Donovan’s wife will be wearing the damn thing on their next trip out. Then Temmy and I will have to improvise.


Walking over to the lower upper district Temmy has this big smirk on face. I give him a side-eyed look, “What?”

Temmy with a smile wider than the Sapphire Sea, says, “Heh, I would like to see the look on the faces of those pompous fools when they realize it’s gone!”

The way some of the guys in the Guild hate these merchants for their privileged upbringing brings a pang to my heart. I know I put it all behind me now, but part of me worries about what the other guild members would think if they knew of my past. But mostly I worry about Temmy. Temmy is the closest thing to a real family I’ve ever had. I just don’t want to imagine....

>>95652028
We arrive at the house and use a grappling hook to take a position on the rooftop of a neighboring manor, inconspicuous from ground level.

A carriage arrives and the couple leave the front door of the manor. On Mrs. Camleigh’s neck I see something that makes me frown. She’s wearing the necklace.

Temmy and I wait up all evening for them to return, just shooting the breeze. Eventually, the carriage comes back and the couple re-enters their manor.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a house like that?” Temmy asks.

I bite my lip and then give an awkward shrug. Temmy and I look at each other.

“At dark?” I ask with a good dash of mischief in my grin.

Temmy smiles back and nods. “At dark.”

Darkness creeps into the sky as the sun slips under the horizon. We sneak into the back garden of the house, there is a window into the second story, I have my bow strapped to my back. Temmy touches the hilt of his dagger with his finger for a second. I throw the grappling hook up, it catches. Temmy and I climb up to the second story. Their master bedroom is likely on the third story. The necklace is probably in a lockbox by the bed. Luckily Temmy and I are masters in the art of stealth. We creep up into what we assume is the master bedroom. There they are, the glorious couple, lying under the covers in their nightwear, sleep masks over their eyes. Donovan snores loudly, his wife snores even louder. I gesture towards Temmy to stay put by the entrance to the bedroom as I pull out my lockpicks and creep towards what appears to be a lockbox beside the bed. Click. I glance over at them, both are still sound asleep. Inside the lockbox is the blue diamond necklace and a couple of jeweled rings. All mine. I creep back to Temmy. We descend to the second floor, slip out the window and vanish down the rope of the grappling hook.

>>95652030
The next morning the usual crowd is at The Black Hog. We head upstairs as we pass the doors to the backroom. Temmy looks at it for a second and winces. We head upstairs. The Captain is waiting for us. I pull out the necklace and hand it to him. He nods then opens his desk and pulls out two pouches of gold. He hands them to me and Temmy. Temmy half-smiles with a sad look in his eyes as he takes the gold and heads downstairs to square up his debt. I stop and look at the bag. This is what everyone who works in the profession does it for, the gold. Not me, I could have had as much gold and privilege as I wanted back in another life. Not me, I do this for the thrill, and for Temmy. And to show the world that it won’t define me.

For a second, I smile. Then I head downstairs, order a whiskey at the bar and toss the bartender an entire gold coin as my tip. He smiles at me.

“Don’t get used to it!” I say as I eye him back.

As I take the first sip of my whiskey I look off into the distance and quietly think to myself, “Life is good.”

Okay I want to write a story, but I'm having trouble coming up with some basic themes, I think I have some ideas but they need refinement. Broad premise is-

>Ancient Fertility Goddess is woken up, causes a (lewd) curse to fall upon a large mountain valley, party is sent in to figure out what happened.

I was thinking there should be elements of mystery and conspiracy to be uncovered than can help setup a gothic fantasy feel. So I have roughly two ideas-

>One- Low-Fantasy politics where it's revealed that the main empire/church (the two are heavily intertwined) were planning on invasion of one of their allies that is helping form the response to the Fertility Goddess problem- the two have related by different religions (think 4th Crusade type of backstabbing), this needs more fleshing out so that it can have extra layers
>Two- A cult made up of Homunculi kuudere girls, whose bosses are excavating artifacts of the Old Gods with the intent to make an Artificial God, the question is however, why would you do with an Artificial God once you have one? Alternatively they want to turn themselves into Artificial Gods, but power is only a means to an end, and I don't know what they'd want to do in the setting once they have that power. I'm thinking it should be something self-interested, rather than a 'greater good' type of thing.

bumperino

bumpo

I want to have a secret plot/conspiracy sort of deal that slowly is revealed to the characters but no matter what I think up nothing has a real punch to it. Nothing is so shocking or a truly terrifying revelation. And I do actually want there to be something not just an unnamed horror. But I don't know what to do.

>>95659320
Watch the Usual Suspects

bump

What are some ways a villain like Tighten from Megamind can be more sympathetic and understanding?

>>95652028
>The way some of the guys in the Guild hate these merchants for their privileged upbringing brings a pang to my heart. I know I put it all behind me now, but part of me worries about what the other guild members would think if they knew of my past.

Okay, so I'm not actually angry, but when else am I going to get to use this pic?

I think your main flaws are exactly as you identified them: a tendency to simply list events one after another. But it's more than that, the way you present information is very direct; it could use a little more creativity. For example, if I rewrite one of the paragraphs:

>Darkness creeps into the sky as the sun slips under the horizon. We sneak into the back garden of the house, looking for a useful window. There, second story - the grappling hook catches first try. Temmy's fingers brush against the hilt of his dagger.

>That gets us in, but the bedroom is likely another floor up, and the necklace in a strongbox by the sleeping couple. Luckily, Temmy and I are quieter than cat in silk pyjamas; the squeakiest of floorboards don't so much as whisper as we pass. They're in there alright; we hear Donovan's snores from all the way down the hall, or at least we think so. When we get there, it's his wife who's hacking away like a sawmill. Temmy takes a step forward but I put my hand on his arm; no sense risking both of us, and I'm the one with the lockpicks. Every aspiring Guild member thinks they can pick a lock, but just try doing in the dark without the little bits of metal clicking and clacking and giving you away. Fortunately the lady of the house provides me some cover; with those lungs she missed her calling as a singer, although I can't think anyone but a moose would find her tuneful.

>I lift the lid like its my firstborn, and try not to gasp. There they are: the blue diamond necklace, and a couple of jewelled rings. Mine now... well, ours. I creep back to Temmy, and we slip out back the way we came.

>>95664537
I'm not saying that's the best way to do it. There are dozens of different ways you could rewrite it. But you can see the difference, and hopefully it gives you some ideas.

>>95664537
Thanks for the advice. I need to work on detailing

my life is never going to get better until I finish my novel but every time I try I either end up feeling like I'm getting further away from my goal instead of closer, or my brain starts overheating trying to figure out what to say

>>95652313
I feel like the first option is more sensible but the second option is more fun.

bump

This is one of those stories that I love and absolutely no one else is remotely interested in.

Over the years, I've started to think that the biggest obstacle to me being a writer is not the quality of my prose, my characters, or even my work ethic, it's that my tastes are just very different from every other human being on the planet.

Im too nice.

Im having trouble writing a character that's meant to be bitchy, mean and arrogant without just resorting to constant insults or mean commentary. How do I fix this?

>>95685809
Have other characters around them make genuine mistakes that they criticise too harshly.

>>95689006
Thing is, they're a villain and Im only just introducing them. Im having trouble with the entry dialogue.

>>95690805
Maybe don't have them say much at all. They just act like the protagonists are completely beneath their notice and won't be around long enough to be worth insulting.

>>95692463
Doesnt really fit the scene as Ive crafted it, since the protagonist basically walked into demon town, and this particular villain basically sung a song to them as they walked in (Not a diss track per se, but a very ominous and grim song about the protagonist)
And now the two are coming face to face. I want them to converse a bit as I establish this scene and the overall arc that is to come.

>>95685809
Try focusing on body language. A slight, involuntary sneer can go a long way, even if the villain is maintaining an air of politeness.

>>95693390
To be honest I don't think I'd be much help with this, a villain who introduces themselves with a song just isn't my style. >>95698141 makes a good point though.

>>95652034
Nash Renner was born to a poor single mother in the lower district of Myrefall. Nash grew up in a troubled home. His mother was often grieved with severe melancholy and would break into tears for seemingly no reason at all. Nash cared deeply for his mother. Although a very intelligent young boy, he didn’t know what to do about the deep sadness that possessed her.


One day after a particularly hard few days for his mother, an idea came to Nash. He snuck out during the day to a wealthy district where he knew he would find just the thing to cheer his mother up.

Nash nonchalantly entered the fine jewellery store with determination. The fine sapphire necklace on display was deftly snatched as Nash quickly exited the store.

Nash hurried back home to the lower district. When he arrived, his mother was lying in her bed, fresh tear streaks down her face. Nash gave her a caring look and presented her with the necklace.

“It’s beautiful, where did you find it?” Nash’s mother said, wiping her eyes.

Nash pressed the necklace into his mother’s hands, tears running down his face.

“Don’t worry about that mom, it’s for you…”

For a brief moment, the deep sadness lifted from his mother’s face. Nash knew what he had to do. For her.

>>95700510
Nash started out simply shoplifting in fine stores for treasures that would cheer his mother up. He soon escalated to performing nighttime break-ins, taking in quite a haul which he would pawn to help out his mother with various expenses.

When Nash was just fourteen, he chanced upon Temmy Abersley, the leader of a gang of young local miscreants. Temmy was charismatic and outgoing. He respected Nash’s skill as a thief. Temmy became a familiar face to the aloof and enigmatic Nash. Some time later, Temmy introduced Nash to a new member of his gang. Magpie was a couple of years younger than Nash and Temmy. At first, Magpie presented as a boy but she would later reveal herself to be an edgy young girl. Magpie would later play a bigger role in Nash’s life.

Broody and quietly intense, Nash preferred to work alone. His natural stealth and cunning helped him excel in the art of thievery. He quickly made a name for himself amongst the young petty thieves in the neighborhood. Even the Myrefall Thieves Guild took note.
Unbeknownst to Nash, the Guild started to scout him as a prospective recruit.

Despite usually working alone, Nash accepted the Myrefall’s Thieves Guild’s invitation to join so he could have access to the contacts that would serve him well. Nash quickly rose to be one the Guild’s top street level earners.

Nash is well regarded by the Guild brass. He has proven his worth. Nash still secretly uses his proceeds from thievery to support his mother. Now twenty years of age, Nash is an enigma for his young peers in the Guild. Always working alone, deftly proficient, and as mysterious as they come. A true master of the shadows.

>>95700518
FINAL STORY
Slouching casually with my foot resting up against the wall, I glance over at Temmy. He is trying to haggle a better deal out of Athon, the fence we’ve been working with lately. Temmy always gets the best deals outta fences. We just finished a quick burglary job and the take we pulled was pretty good.

“Here, Mags,” Temmy says with a grin as he walks by and tosses me my half of the gold.

As we walk down the alley to the main street a delicate little flower draped in a hairbow catches Tem’s eyes. It’s Marissa, one of the various neighborhood girls Temmy keeps circling back to, now and then.

“Hey, Marissa!” Temmy calls out, faking an air of cool confidence.

“Hi, Temmy!” Marissa says with a smile.

Raising both his eyebrows and tilting his forehead forward, Temmy blurts out, “How you doing beautiful?”

Marissa laughs and smiles back.

“Wanna catch some drinks back at my place?” Temmy asks with a slick wink.

“I’ve got some errands to do but maybe later.,” Marissa says with a smile as she walks off.

“She wants it,” Temmy says as he flashes me a roguish grin.

I roll my eyes.

“Think I’m gonna go take the edge off at the Black Hog. You coming?” Temmy chimes in.

“No, I feel like staying around here and taking a walk,” I reply.

“Ok, catch ya later Mags!” Tem calls out as he hurries off toward The Black Hog, clearly eager for what awaits him there.

I need some time alone to clear my head. Evening fades into night. As I dredge down the streets of the lower district the moon casts shadows over the buildings. In the soft glow of moonlight, I see a figure, tall, dark and mysterious. I lean in to look closer. It’s Nash. I’ve known Nash ever since I first came to Myrefall as a little girl, and right from the start I was struck by how handsome he is.

>>95700523
Nash is around Temmy’s age. As I got older, Nash and I would occasionally get intimate, although he always drew away after. I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn't find him still extremely attractive.

“Just hopelessly standing out here all alone in the dark, huh, Nash?“ I say with venom in my voice.

He glances at me for a second with that quiet intensity. My lip quivers.

“I like what you did with your hair,” he whispers. Nash reaches in and brushes my hair then pulls back.

I feel a pull like charged air between lightning and ground, drawing me into him.

“D-do you wanna come over?” I ask, immediately regretting it.

“Sure,” Nash looks at me as he calmly nods.

Nash and I walk back to the loft. I feel my heart race the whole time. As I enter the flat I see an empty bottle of stolen vintage and a Marissa’s hair bow lying on the table. The door to Temmy’s room is closed. Nash and I enter my room. I unbuckle the belts on my gear and undress.

I awake in the middle of the night and turn to look beside me, Nash is already gone.....

I get dressed and pull out the bottle of whiskey I tuck away for hard nights. Sitting down beside my night table, I pour myself a glass. As I sip the whiskey I trail my fingers along the corner of the glass and look towards the wall, lost in my thoughts. That walk didn’t help me at all.....

It's shockingly difficult coming up with plots for S&S stories

>>95700715
Sword & Sorcery? I feel that.

I think the key, like with all writing, is not to get too hung up on being "original."

... if that's not what you're talking about, I apologize for being a tard lol

>>95700523
>>95700525
This is much better, in that your characters feel like actual human beings rather than walking plot points. A couple of lines don't sit quite right, but overall its pretty good.

What I mean by a line that doesn't sit quite right:
>“Just hopelessly standing out here all alone in the dark, huh, Nash?“ I say with venom in my voice.
The 'hopelessly' throws the rhythm of the sentence off. Try saying it out loud. When I try out all the different permutations, I end up with:
>"Just out here all alone in the dark, huh Nash?", I say with venom.

>>95710106
Yes, I'm talking about sword & sorcery.
It's not so much that I'm hung up on originality, it's that I don't want to blatantly copy something.

>>95685526
For what it's worth, I'm into it. Didn't like the twist as much as the first part, but it the emotion of the second half really comes across.
I also appreciate the impact of the dragon. The shaking of the ground, the buffeting of the wing beats, and the ambient heat from its breath give it a really imposing presence. Though if I may posit a criticism, it bothers me that the dragon would struggle with such an obvious riddle.

Anyone have the screencap for a story posted here that was a summarization of a campaign based on Peter Watts Blindsight?

>>95716030
Thanks. I'm not even going to pretend it's the best story ever, I just like it.

>Though if I may posit a criticism, it bothers me that the dragon would struggle with such an obvious riddle.
You make a good point. It's another case of the character can only be as smart as the author, unfortunately; I'm not great with riddles so I just modified an old one a little.

Although I am quite proud of the mayfly one, which I did come up with myself. Not particularly difficult, or even particularly elegant, but very easy to trip up people who've heard the sphinx's riddle before.

>>95716618
No, but I'd like to see it. I think Blindsight is one of the greatest modern sci-fi books.

Although I still don't know why he thought it needed vampires.

>>95713853
I actually reedited the final story to be more in her voice:
Slouching casually with my foot resting up against the wall, I glance over at Temmy. He is trying to haggle a better deal out of Athon, the fence we’ve been working with lately. Temmy always gets the best deals outta fences. We just finished a quick burglary job and the take we pulled was pretty good.

“Here, Mags,” Temmy says with a grin as he walks by and tosses me my half of the gold.

As we walk down the alley to the main street a delicate little flower draped in a hairbow catches Tem’s eyes. It’s Marissa, one of the various neighborhood girls Temmy keeps circling back to, now and then.

“Hey, Marissa!” Temmy calls out, faking an air of cool confidence.

“Hi, Temmy!” Marissa replies with a smile.

Raising both his eyebrows and tilting his forehead forward, Temmy spits off, “How you doing beautiful?”

Marissa laughs and smiles back.

“Wanna catch some drinks back at my place?” Temmy says with a confident wink.

“I’ve got some errands to do but maybe later,” Marissa says with a smile as she walks off.

“She wants it,” Temmy says as he turns to me, grinning the whole time he says it.

I roll my eyes.

“Think I’m gonna go take the edge off at the Black Hog. You coming?” Temmy chimes in.

“No, I feel like staying around here and taking a walk,” I reply.

“Ok, catch ya later Mags!” Tem calls out as he hurries off toward The Black Hog, clearly eager for what awaits him there.

I need some time alone to clear my head. Evening fades into night. As I dredge down the streets of the lower district the moon casts shadows over the buildings. In the soft glow of moonlight, I see a figure, tall, dark and mysterious. I lean in to look closer. It’s Nash. I’ve known Nash ever since I first came to Myrefall as a little girl, and right from the start I always thought he was handsome.

>>95721823

Nash is around Temmy’s age. As I got older, Nash and I would occasionally get “involved”, although he always drew away after. I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn't find him still extremely attractive.

“Just hopelessly standing out here all alone in the dark, huh, Nash?“ I say with venom in my voice.

He glances at me for a second with that quiet intensity. My lip quivers.

“I like what you did with your hair,” he whispers. Nash reaches in and brushes my hair then pulls back.

I feel a pull like charged air between lightning and ground, drawing me into him.

“D-do you wanna come over?” I ask, immediately regretting it.

“Sure,” Nash looks at me as he calmly nods.

Nash and I walk back to the loft. I feel my heart race the whole time. As I enter the flat I see an empty bottle of stolen vintage and a Marissa’s hair bow lying on the table. The door to Temmy’s room is closed. Nash and I enter my room. I unbuckle the belts on my gear and undress.

I awake in the middle of the night and turn to look beside me, Nash is already gone.....

I get dressed and pull out the bottle of whiskey I tuck away for hard nights. Sitting down beside my night table, I pour myself a glass. As I sip the whiskey I trail my fingers along the corner of the glass and look towards the wall, lost in my thoughts. That walk didn’t help me at all.....

>>95713853
>What I mean by a line that doesn't sit quite right:
>>“Just hopelessly standing out here all alone in the dark, huh, Nash?“ I say with venom in my voice.
>The 'hopelessly' throws the rhythm of the sentence off. Try saying it out loud. When I try out all the different permutations, I end up with:
>>"Just out here all alone in the dark, huh Nash?", I say with venom.

I get your point but imagine the line is being said with sass and snark by a woman then it makes more sense imo.

>>95721823
>>95721827
Yeah, it's looking pretty good. There's not much more I can say at this point; the only thing that stands out to me is that you've got some unnecessarily dialogue tags in there.

>“Think I’m gonna go take the edge off at the Black Hog. You coming?” Temmy chimes in.
>“No, I feel like staying around here and taking a walk,” I reply.
Firstly, it's not really chiming in unless he's coming in after other people have been speaking. But more to the point, those two sentences work just as well without the dialogue tags.

>I roll my eyes.
>Temmy shrugs. “Think I’m gonna go take the edge off at the Black Hog. You coming?”
>“No, I feel like staying around here and taking a walk.”
In the second sentence it's clear who's speaking without specifying, and in the first you can use Temmy's response to the eye roll to indicate he's speaking.

>>95738509
>almost seven years since I wrote this
Where has the time gone. Thank you for keeping the storythread/writing general going all this time, Chronicler.

>>95744469
And thank you to you and everyone else who's contributed over the years.

Medusa had never been allowed into the mews, or what others had referred to as the “Owl House”, until she asked Athena to show it to her.

She wasn’t banned from it out of pettiness by the Rector Zeus or the administrators, but because snakes and birds of prey did not usually mix all that well. This was especially true when one’s hair would shed the scales of a rattlesnake or two in their day-to-day life, and Zeus had forbidden her from entering it for her own safety.

All that changed when she simply asked Athena, the owl house matriarch, if she could be allowed in. She had wanted to test how far the golden girl would go for her, and soon enough after their afternoon of pond bathing together, Athena and she began walking up the great staircases to get to the sanctuary.

Medusa felt she might be embarrassing Athena as they moved further up the large stone staircase, which had, according to university legend, been crafted from the ruins of Troy in an actual case of pettiness a long time ago. The embers of student gossip had already been quietly set alight by the time they came across Artemis on the cobbled steps.

Most mortals might think Artemis was above petty vindictive gossip—captain of the archery team, avoiding frat parties like the plague, second-most academically gifted student on campus—but Athena and Medusa both knew from scarred experiences that simply wasn’t true.

“Fetching some luncheon for your fur babies?” Artemis teased her half-sister. Athena could only roll her eyes at such an awful attempt at a snide remark. True, Artemis and she were related by blood, but so were a great many of the students on campus to Athena. It had stopped being as relevant to her as sharing skin colour with another person would be for any mortal man.

“Don’t tell me you’re still not over me trashing you at paintball, Arty,” Medusa sniped from behind Athena.

>>95760663
Ooh, nice to see someone else still likes my old work
>>95775161
It was enough to enrage Artemis, and quickly she reached out to pull on Medusa’s long snake hair in the most catty of ways, until Medusa’s saviour stepped forward and collapsed Artemis with a simple Osoto Gari that sent the goddess of the hunt flying down the steps in bits.
Athena cringed when she heard the long and dreadful sound that emanated from Artemis at the bottom of the staircase. She disliked using violence whenever possible, and she disliked even more the amount of attention she was drawing from her peers for herself and Medusa. This was all getting far too much for her, until Medusa grabbed hold of her hand and hauled the Goddess of Wisdom up alongside her.
“Come on,” Medusa said. “I still want to see your fur babies.”
Athena sighed. “You know, I’ve always hated that term.”
“So you threw archery nerd down the steps for that? Not for me?”
Athena gave a half-smile. “Yes. We’re not quite there yet, friendship-wise, but eventually you might do something dumb enough for me to want to protect you.”
Medusa grinned. “Glad to hear it.”
“I’ve never been here before,” Medusa murmured, as she moved gently through the Owl House.
“I know,” Athena replied. “You told me that like ten thousand times when I was outside the doors fiddling with the keys.”
It had seemed much smaller than it did outside, and a lot more noisy, with birds of all different shapes and sizes cackling like mad to get out and inflict their terrible screeching woes on calm, innocent people.
At first, they’d kicked up a terrible hunger when Medusa was the first to walk in, eager to sink their talons deep into her large and knotty serpent braids for appetisers. But then, when Athena had stumbled in behind her, they all suddenly grew timid and quiet. Athena, like she had for most of her fellow peers, resembled something like a leader to them, and they all respected her.

>>95775171

And the treats. The treats she often brought in abundance to feed and nourish them when she’d been too long away in one fencing tournament or another.
Medusa wondered if the birds considered her a treat, and then she wondered if Athena, in the more subdued and meaner aspects of her mind, had planned to use Medusa as one.
She’d been betrayed and thrown out of all-girl groups so many times that it almost felt like the expectation for it to happen to her.
She hated that. Hated that her first thoughts that came with spending time with someone, an equal, revolved around betrayal.
She had wondered if the whole incident with Artemis on the staircase had simply been planned by Athena and her beforehand. Then, when she’d been lulled into a sense of safety that she could trust her newfound acquaintance, Athena would simply shove Medusa into the Owl House by herself and lock the door, with Artemis appearing beside her to laugh at snake girl’s misfortune.
Medusa might even get a new name afterwards that wasn’t snake girl. How about Pecked-Eyes or Beak Food? Maybe even Artemis’s earlier suggestion of Luncheon would be the one to stick, and Athena and the others might hurl large slices of it while she was alone and defenceless in a university hospital bed.
But it hadn’t happened. The endless pain of betrayal hadn’t come, and Athena had simply stood alongside her as they moved into the centre of the place, quietly staring down any hawk or eagle who might seize up their chance for a nibble out of Medusa’s green, serpent braids.
And that, for some reason, made Medusa feel even more nauseous than any terrible act that could be inflicted upon her.
“Do you come here often?” Medusa asked, trying to change the subject.
"I do,” Athena replied shakily. “It’s like my own pond.”
“Your own pond?”

>>95775182
She hated that term, so very much.
“Yes, only the one.”
“May I see it?” Medusa asked innocently. “May I see Ms. Athena’s fur baby?”
“Only to stop hearing you whisper fur baby like a schoolgirl with scabby knees,” Athena answered flatly. “MINERVA!”
Medusa did not expect Athena would name her own owl after the name the Romans had given to her once they’d assimilated her into the mad hodgepodge of Etruscan and Greek myths, but it was so. Nor had she expected a large brown owl to come raining down from the ceiling instead, with feathers the same colour as Athena’s own long chestnut brown hair.
Maybe the invention of a white snowy owl doing Athena’s intelligence work had only come once the paint had run off all of her statues, and the humans only had a palette of white marble to draw from when it came time to give her an added accomplice on Mount Olympus. Still, as Medusa watched the thing settle itself on Athena’s shoulder, she realised how silly a snowy owl would look craning itself against her goddess’s neck. The ruffled brown feathers worked with her chestnut roots, not against them.
“He really likes you,” Medusa whispered.
“Perhaps we should test if he likes you or not,” Athena whispered back.
“How?”

Athena gave a subtle nod to Minerva, and soon she was off to fetch a peculiar thing or two that Athena needed when she gave someone a tour of the Owl House. Minerva came back only a few seconds later with a pair of large falconry gauntlets in her beak.
“Put it on,” Athena commanded, and Medusa did. They made her feel her hands were tight and restricted, as though they were locked into the confines of a pair of boxing mitts, but she gradually accustomed herself to the sensation.

With another nod, Athena instructed Minerva to perch herself on Medusa’s outstretched left arm. She was terribly nervous, as though a large shark had just landed in her lap, but Athena guided her to remain calm.

>>95775195
“Relax, she’s not going to bite,” Athena mused, “yet.”
“Yet?”
“She only tried to nip out my eyes the first time we did this,” Athena explained.
“That isn’t helping me, you know.”
She let herself breathe in, and then, once it became clear that Minerva wasn’t going to pucker out her eyeballs, she found herself relaxing too. She let herself stare dreamily into Minerva’s eyes—a hazel colour, the same as her goddess’s. She wondered if the stories were true, that Athena used her owl to spy on others and to gather knowledge.
If that were true, then it would mean she was staring deep into Athena’s eyes at the moment as well. Something which, as her skin prickled with goosebumps, she realised she did not mind in the slightest.

>>95662795
Assuming you're not dead, one angle is to emphasize how much the power is fucking with them. People that they used to interact with are changing their behaviors suddenly in response to this new power. They're being either ignored or fawned over.
Maybe their power comes from an addictive drug, or once they have their new lease on life, they can't stand being anything less than the strongest alive.
I've got a supers setting where one of the local powerhouses harbors resentment that being strong and tough are her only powers, but she isn't as strong as the local Superman or as tough as him either. She doesn't even have the advantage of being smarter. Purely from a performance standpoint, she's a direct downgrade to him. As such, she harbors a secret fantasy of killing him with her bare hands.

>>95775171
And it's nice to see you're still writing.

Shoutout to MWEguy, who has been one of our most prolific, consistent, and positive contributors over the years.

>>95721823
>>95721827
Someone told me this story (And the others about Magpie) is too anachronistic for the time and has tonal issues. Do you guys agree or think it makes sense

>>95778706
That might be a good idea. The guy who gets powers would hope things can still be good with his love interest but she's only interested in him doing shit for her.

So I wanted a character that parallels Brienne from ASOIAF in some ways

A bunch of noble pretty ladies to humiliate him in a prank by pretending to court him and goad him into a public confession for one of them, only to laugh at him

He gets vengeance when he is older at a ball by causing unfortunate "accidents"

>accidentally stabs one of them with a fork when they're both reaching for something
>mistakenly bumps into one of them and makes them fall into a fountain or a table of food
>doesn't notice one of their feet and steps on it very hard
>accidentally spills wine on one of them

I think the 4 is good, but I feel like the spilling wine accident is somewhat mild compared to the other three and wanted something a bit more equal. Any ideas?

>>95801517
I don't think that quite works for a male character. Brienne got made fun of by boys, but she beat them at their own game by becoming a better knight than any of them. I don't think stabbing someone with a fork is quite on the same level. In order for the revenge to be satisfying it has to hit the target on an emotional level.

Turning up with a girl on his arm who's prettier than all of them put together would be a good start. That's the equivalent of Brienne turning up in a better suit of armour than any of her former tormentors.

>>95799227
It's fantasy, not historical, so I'm not sure you can call anything an anachronism. What were they thinking of specifically?

>>95806235
That's a good point, thanks.

Do you think insulting them would be good? I still wanted a bit of a personal touch to the payback.

Also I couldn't think of many ways women try to court a man. Is inviting for tea or dinner necessarily romantic?

>>95806235
>It's fantasy, not historical, so I'm not sure you can call anything an anachronism. What were they thinking of specifically?

They said that they couldn't relate to the characters as they "felt like modern college students" and not people in a medieval world. Particularly the sexual liberation/lack of traditional conservative sexual values.

>>95808768
>Particularly the sexual liberation/lack of traditional conservative sexual values.
Tell them to read Chaucer some time. Hell, have they never read any Shakespeare? Their concept of what constitutes "traditional" sexual values has its roots in Puritanism from the 17th century, but really only became mainstream in the 19th century. We only think of sexual repression as "traditional" because that's what our grandparents grew up with, and to be honest most tradition tends to just be whatever was current in a society when the oldest living generation were children.

Which is not to say that Medieval sexual values were modern, exactly. It was more complicated than that. On the one hand, you had the church theoretically preaching that sex was sinful. On the other hand you had extensive prostitution in virtually every urban area, drunken debauchery was a regular part of village life, and even half the monasteries were filled with nuns and monks doing each other. The priests said sex was bad, the doctors said abstinence was bad. Louis VIII of France was brought a virgin on his deathbed because his doctors thought he was dying from a severe case of sexual abstinence.

It's more anachronous to have social mores match the ultra-prudish phase Western culture went through from the early 19th to the mid 20th century. *Especially* in a setting without Christianity.

How do you convincingly, or at least entertainingly, write insanity/mania in a sort of Alice in Wonderland/TES shivering isles way? I'd like to do a faewild themed campaign inspired by both of those, but I really don't know how I can properly capture that "What the fuck is going on" feeling in a way that isn't frustrating or unengaging for my players.

>>95812680
Thank you that makes me feel better actually

>>95815055
Insanity has an internal logic, it's not just random actions.

For example, ripping out the fiftieth page of every book in a library and mailing them to a Pizza Hut in Ohio would not seem like a logical thing to do as far as you or I could see, but to a person who believed they were a secret agent for the Catholic church tasked with searching for heretical materials, then it becomes obvious: for every book you read and clear of heresy you take the fiftieth page - fifty being L in Roman numerals, and L being the first letter of Libertus, that is, 'free', meaning free of heresy - and send it to a business known for its Italian cuisine which, as all agents know, is a front for Papal secret service.

This agent of the holy father would not, therefore, have a tea party in the middle of a four lane motorway, or make a hat out of cake. Because those would not be consistent with his specific delusion.

You don't have to come up with an elaborate backstory for every lunatic, just make sure that there's a certain amount of consistency to their actions. The Mad Hatter's tea party is actually a great example of this because although the rules are obscure and immensely frustrating to an outsider like Alice, it's clear that there are rules of a sort and the participants follow them believing them to be completely normal.

>>95721827
“I got a bad feeling about this,” I think to myself as I wait for Temmy at the bar of the Black Hog. I’m nursing my glass of whiskey and staring at the wall. Temmy and I have been called in to do an important job by the Captain. Extremely important. The brass got word that a squire who owns a manor in the upper district is in possession of some letters containing sensitive information that could be used to the Guild’s advantage. They decided that Temmy and I were the appropriate ones for the job. Normally I would be flattered, but this is a very dangerous assignment. Apparently this place is crawling with armed guards.

A hand on my shoulder, I turn to look. It’s Temmy, he shoots me a worried look. I give him one back. We go upstairs to the second floor to see the Captain.

“This needs to be handled with the utmost care,” the Captain says firmly, as he glares straight at me.

Temmy and I just nod our heads, and I hear Temmy gulp a little. Both of us are quiet as we head down the stairs and prepare for the job.

>>95820438
We wait till dark to head off to the upper district, the shadows of the night covering our movements through the city. We arrive at the manor. All around the edge of the property is a stone wall about seven and a half feet tall. Behind the wall, I catch subtle glimpses of light coming off flickering lanterns as the guards make their patrols. Temmy and I hug the edge of the wall and wait for the light to fade farther away. A few minutes pass and the light over the wall dims. I look at Temmy, he looks back. I grab my grappling hook and sling it over the wall. We both climb then descend. The outside of the property includes a large garden including many manicured hedges and even a fountain. We quickly and quietly slip into the interior of the property, keeping an eye out for any light sources moving our way. I feel the rush of my adrenaline pumping in my veins. I am extra alert. We make it to the wall of the manor itself. I instinctively slide into position alongside Temmy. I look around. On the far end of the property a lantern light is coming closer. I throw up my grappling hook to a window on the first floor. I glance at Temmy and he starts climbing. The lantern is getting closer. Temmy makes his way into the window, I glance back at the light. It’s starting to shine on where we are. I grab the rope and scramble up with everything I’ve got. I make it over. The light is shining through the window. I frantically pull up the rope as fast as I can with Temmy helping me. We hug the side of the window sill and wait for a second. My heart is racing. Temmy holds his breath. The light slowly starts to move away from the window. Temmy exhales.

>>95820445
Temmy and I start to creep through the manor with the silence of a pair of mice. We peek around corners before entering any new room. Eventually we come across a room that is obviously a study. I look around. I see a crooked painting on the wall and I walk over to it. As I get close to the painting I hear a gasp behind me. I swing around. Temmy is on the floor, his head coated in blood. Standing over him is a guard snarling with a determined and vicious look on his face. In his hand is a wooden club. For a heartbeat, I freeze. Then instinct takes over. In an instant I pull out my bow, knock an arrow and fire. It lands in the guard’s neck. He collapses to the ground, grabbing his neck and gurgling while wiggling around. I run over to Temmy. I lay his head on my lap and start crying.

“Temmy, Temmy please tell me you’re okay.” Tears run down my face.

He looks up at me and smiles. “I’m okay.” Blood is dripping down his head.

He gets up, but falls for a second. My heart stops. He gets up again, this time standing up fully.

“The job,” he says. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

I stop crying for a second and look at the crooked picture and remove it. Just as I thought. Underneath is a safe. My hands are trembling as I pull out my lockpick. I’m shaken up. Temmy holds his head.

“We got to hurry, Mags.”

>>95820452
As I take a deep breath, my heart is still racing, I try to pick the lock. I fumble. I look back at Temmy. He goes to keep watch by the entrance to the room. I whimper a little then exhale. I try my best to focus. It takes time but somehow I manage to pick the safe, I open it up. Inside is a collection of letters and a gold bar. I hastily swipe the gold bar. I look through the letters, This is what we're looking for. I glance at Temmy and nod. This better be worth it. I tuck the letters into my pack like they’re made of glass. As we leave the study, Temmy is still holding his head. We tear through the manor, caution gone, until footsteps make us freeze. We duck behind a wall and wait for them to pass. We make it to the window. I hook the grappling rope to the window sill. Temmy goes down first, I follow suit. Off in the distance we see a light heading away. We grapple up over the wall and make our escape. When we get far enough from the manor I stop and start to cry for a split second.

Then I look over at Temmy and say, “Let me see.”

He stops holding his head. There is a big gash over his forehead, but nothing too bad. I take a deep breath and pull out the letters, looking them over.

“I hope these are worth it.”

Temmy looks at me and lets out a sad smile. I pull out the gold bar.

“I know this is.”

Temmy lets out a grin as wide as the horizon at dawn. We vanish into the lower district like smoke. No witnesses, no names, just the quiet promise of another payout. And maybe, just for tonight, that’s enough.

>>95807960
I think there should be an element of beating them at their own game. Maybe not directly insulting them, but spreading a rumour about them or causing them to embarrass themselves in some way.

>>95820463
Who do you think the main audience is for Magpie as a character?

>>95775202
“So, tell me, how does the round piece work again?”
Athena, though tired, etched out a smile. She had known from reading past papers that Medusa’s strategy skills were not at all great, but she refused to believe that they were so dire that she couldn’t even grasp the game of checkers.
They were stuck deep in the confines of the game room, which was only a chariot ride or two from the mess hall where most of the other students would congregate on a quiet Saturday afternoon like this.
They’d come here together after the evening spent in the Owl House, where Athena had quietly been impressed with the extent of Medusa’s knowledge around different breeds of owls. All those years spent away from the mews had not killed her passion, but rather turned up the dial on her obsession with it. Despite a few close calls with the elderly and grumpier owls, Medusa had seemingly been accepted by the mews’ residents as their newest caretaker.
Athena, in an unusually teasing mood, had joked that Medusa might have been better named as Mewdusa at birth. One thing had led to another, and soon enough the two women were now engaged in a battle of wits over a checkers board.
The goddess of wisdom tapped the wooden table in frustration. “Look,” Athena said, zigzagging a red checker down another path, “each piece does the same thing. You move one step and try and jump over the others to capture them. That’s the game in a nutshell.”

>>95831964
Medusa had wished there were green checkers she could play with. Instead, she was saddled with the black ones. Not that Athena was fussed playing with red either; blue was her colour of choice.
“It does sound quite easy when you put it like that,” Medusa replied. “OK! Let me try!”
Athena didn’t pay much attention to the board, since she was a dozen or so moves ahead from where Medusa was struggling at. Instead, she found herself studying the strands of snake hair, all of whom seemed to be eyeing up different options on where they should go next.
Athena did not quite understand how serpentine hair worked, and how that translated over to its owner's body. Did each one have a strange, stifling mind of its own, pulling Medusa in so many different directions in life? Was that the cause of her being unable to sit still in class for long periods of time, and starting electives she took only to forget all about them by the day afterwards?
Athena realised these were all questions she did not know the answers to, which would be enough for her to head down to the great library and take out a large studious tome or two in order to fix her fragmented knowledge up. She never truly felt sated in life until she had more and more knowledge at her disposal to use and to wield.
She'd always been like that, even as a child. Sometimes an interest would suddenly be sparked, and quickly she found herself enmeshed in the library, away from all her friends and family. Zeus had tried to steer her away from becoming a bookworm at first, believing her intellect was better suited to the battlefield, but Athena quickly grew tired and fed up trying to master one fighting discipline at a time.
A compromise was reached, and quite quickly she found herself rummaging through different sports and martial arts on a week-by-week basis. It was the only way she could become the Warrior-Scholar daughter her father had dreamed of without being bored out of her eye sockets along the way.

>>95831974
The concentration of the snakes suddenly withered away, and Athena realised Medusa had made her move. It was a textbook example of what not to do when playing against the Goddess of Wisdom, and left Medusa open to a terrifying counter that scrambled all of her pieces off the board.
Athena 1, Medusa 0.
She was still scowling down at the board when Athena decided that enough was enough and it was time to pack things away. Athena, far too sensitive for her own good, could feel what little confidence that Medusa had was nearly ransacked after her destruction at checkers by Athena’s hands.
She should try and reach out to her, in another way.
“If you had to sit through a game of chess, your head might explode,” Athena remarked, then added, “mine nearly did.”
Medusa looked up in confusion. “I thought you were the campus champion in strategy games.”
“I am,” Athena replied as she shuffled all the checkers back into the box, “champion in all of them, besides chess. That’s Hephaestus’ domain.”
“The oddball who can’t get enough of banging things is campus chess champion?”
“Language, Medusa,” Athena reprimanded her. She still did not like it when others mocked others behind their back. The few times she had partaken in such a thing made her want to vomit, and kept her up at night for betraying a friend’s trust. Though, in fairness, Hephaestus did spend far too much at Home Depot whenever he was sent to the mortal world.
“But that’s so bizarre to know,” Medusa said, “that even Pallas Athena, the golden girl on campus, has her off days.”
“I don’t have off days,” Athena explained away. “It’s just that Hephaestus has a head start with the game from centuries of making chessboards. I’ll catch up soon enough.”

>>95831981
“I wonder if he sleeps with them like he does with his chisels,” Medusa hissed out. Athena could only roll her eyes at such a juvenile attempt of a low blow. Instead, she reached out for the last remaining red checker that hadn’t been pressed back into it’s box.
She wanted to make a breakthrough. She hoped she could make a breakthrough, using a strange checkers analogy with Medusa.
“There is no substitute for persistence in life,” Athena said, “just as I will defeat Hephaestus at checkers, so too will you finally get your degree.”
The gorgon blinked at her in amazement. For a moment, Athena felt she might’ve got the point across in that booming goddess voice of hers, but then once Medusa’s shrill yap emerged she realised she hadn’t.
“I feel like fundamentally what you’re saying there is practice makes perfect,” Medusa said. “I’ve heard that like a billion times before from Zeus.”
Athena nodded. “Yes, it was too obvious, that, wasn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Same time tomorrow then?” Athena asked calmly. “You still have whole catalogues of game rules to know. Snakes and Ladders. Scrabble. Your Ancient Greek is in a better state, actually.”
Medusa mumbled a gruff yes. She might never be a genius at games like Athena, but it was progress. She wanted to continue on. She wanted to keep trying.
And Athena was glad for that - at least for the time being.

>>95831991
Athena had offered to escort Medusa back to her room, but the young gorgon had declined on the account that the two of them had been tethered to each other for too long anyway, and that Medusa didn’t want Athena to wear out her welcome just yet.
Walking back to her dorm, she found it strange that she had worded it like that. I don’t want you to wear out your welcome yet. It was strangely harsh, but at the same time not so harsh. It came from a part of Medusa that normally didn’t get the air time in life that it needed—care and compassion for someone else.
Of course, Athena had simply smiled when she’d muttered yet. In due time, Medusa realised she might instead get her to open even further, but it did not feel natural yet.
She might even say that she missed her. Or, if she were more sickly sweet, it would be that she did not want her to go just yet, and could she please teach her a few more things around biotechnology, or even the fundamentals of first aid, and how that could be transferred to giving herself a haircut when her roots grew too long and a serpent or two needed to be cut down to size.
Medusa shook her head. Not likely. Once Athena had her credits and Medusa finished her degree, the two of them would gradually go their separate ways in life. They might not even encounter each other again in the stories the mortals dreamt up involving the Pantheon of Olympus.
To know that relationships between myths were just as transient and temporary as they were among humans was—well, she didn’t like that. She wanted permanence, to know that someone she was close to was always on hand, that she could reach out and find herself pressing her head against someone’s chest, content in the knowledge that they wouldn’t leave her again in the morning.
Maybe that was just a myth for most people as well. Another fantasy that was as distant and as fleeting as Mount Olympus was from them.

>>95838362
She let the memory of Athena’s glistening smile fade as the hallway grew colder. She kicked a stray tennis ball that had wandered its way in from the sports room, and noticed it stopped rolling at a large, heavily built figure in front of her. He was much older, with a great long beard and blessed with facial features that were similar to his younger and more successful brother, Rector Zeus.
Professor Poseidon was an especially evil son of a bitch, it was true, but most on campus felt his skills as both a wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach were more than enough to cover his bad spots.
Medusa was not among them. She could never shake the feeling of darkness that seemingly radiated from the man whenever they crossed paths—or how, when she’d first come to Olympus University, he had been so persistent in trying to get her to try on wrestling singlets for him. She felt it was more like an invitation to become his dojo plaything than it was to be an amateur athlete.
Subtly, he’d never stopped pestering her. They’d “accidentally” run into each other during the few social evenings they’d both attended, where Medusa would soon find that Poseidon was often sitting alongside her at the small dinner table that had been earmarked for her alone. Or how his timetables for swim lessons were always changed so he could match up with the few times in the week Medusa decided to head to the swimming pool in order to get some exercise in.
He reached down for the tennis ball and grabbed it, before casting his gaze upon her like a shark sizing up whether another morsel of fish was worth the extra stomachache. Medusa looked away from him instinctively.
She hated that. Hated feeling so weak that another person might have such power over her mind. All she could do was try and sidestep him and pick up the pace back to her quarters.

>>95820438
>>95820445
>>95820452
>>95820463
A little better but you're still doing that thing you do where you just list one event after another. Especially in this bit >>95820445. Yes, shortening sentences can give a sense of action and build tension, but you still shouldn't be having sentences that are just 'I look around', or 'I am extra alert'.

Instead of trying to correct it for you, I think it'd be better if you tried this time.

>>95446889
I can't answer your question, but if I could refer you to anything it's to read the story of Essau.
What requirement does a father have in helping a son who lacks cunning or foresight?
A son that won't serve his father is worthless, he will only take life for granted selfishly if he has the choice.
A good father requires his sons to become valuable, or to value only him, so that the entire family can benefit from their lives.
If a father loves his sons they are a tool for their will
Serving as a tool gives life meaning and purpose blessed by God like Jacob whom he loved.
If a father loves his sons, he will use them, and some he will love more because they are already blessed.
Those that are worthless must be ruthless or have a strong back

Humans are bound to see through their eyes themselves as a perfect image of what they want themselves to be before acknowledging the reality, because they are shielded by love and justice.

>>95820463
Magpie sits at the Black Hog nursing a glass of whiskey thinking about her past.

In an opulent, ornate bedroom stands a young eight year old girl. She is wearing lace gloves and a fine silk dress that almost looks too formal to be worn by someone her age. She has an anxious look on her face. Beside her is a woman dressed in an elegant blue dress and gold and sapphire earrings.

This woman exudes an air of refinement and sophistication. The woman turns to the young girl and says with a glare, “Sierra, your father is having guests over tonight, so you’d best behave in a manner befitting of an Everton.”

The young girl nods nervously.

“You better not disappoint him,” the woman continues.

The young girl freezes for a second then nods and says, “I won’t disappoint father, mother.”

The mother glowers at her daughter, looking her up and down and then adjusts her dress and chastises her with, “Look at you, a mess already. Today is very important for John. I won't let you ruin it for him, with your little... indiscretions.”

The young girl turns her head to the floor.

Mother and daughter pass through a decorative, lavish hallway through an entryway, into a luxurious dining room. Waiting for them is an older man in his early forties. He is dressed in an elegant tailored outfit, befitting a man of status. The two walk closer to him and the young girl courtesies.

>>95861357
“Father.”

The man waves his arm back in acknowledgment, “Sierra,” he says, and then locks eyes with his wife. “The guests will be arriving any minute now, the help is already tending to the door, please sit down.”

Mother and daughter take their place at the table beside the man of the house. Time goes on and the young girl begins to fidget with her hand on the table. The father seems subtly bothered by this behavior and the mother turns to the young girl and frowns. The young girl stops, pulls her hand back and looks ashamed.

The guests arrive at the table, an assortment of fine ladies and gentlemen who all look to be from the upper strata of society. The mother shoots her daughter a pointed glance. The young girl defeatedly sinks into her seat for a second then corrects her posture. The tea party goes on as planned. The individuals at the table have high and cultured discussions about the affairs of their world.

The bored young girl eyes a sugared pastry on the table. Her mother casts her a stern gaze warning her not to reach. The young girl reaches out, but does so too quickly. The plate rattles. A cup topples. Hot tea spills on a guest’s gown. A sharp gasp.

After an awkward silence, the father turns to the guest’s husband. “I must apologize for Sierra.”

“It’s fine, John,” the man says, dabbing his wife’s dress. The mother scowls at her daughter. The girl sinks further into her chair.

>>95861359
Later that night the young girl is in her room. She sneaks to the door of her parent’s bedroom where she overhears a conversation.

“What are we gonna do about that child?” the mother says with concern.

“I know, Sidonia,” the father says, comforting his wife and shaking his head. The young girl hurries back to her room and cries.

Back at the Black Hog, Magpie looks at the wall and takes another sip of her whiskey lost in thought.

>>95861361
Here's another flashback a year later

>>95861362
Magpie is lying in bed in the loft. Temmy is out. As she turns her head toward the dresser, she catches sight of her bow. Childhood memories come flooding back....

A carriage attended by a servant sits in front of a lavish manor house in the rolling country hills of Everton Estate. The Evertons prepare to depart. The servant steps forward to open the door and John Everton enters the carriage followed by his wife Sidonia.

“Thank you, Burton,” Sidonia says as she smiles at the servant.

Sidonia turns to her nine year old daughter who is standing by the door of the carriage, staring off into the distance. Sidonia scowls and snaps, “Hurry up Sierra.”

Young Sierra quickly regains focus and hurries into the carriage with the help of the servant. The servant then closes the door and mounts the front of the carriage preparing to set out. Sidonia turns to her husband and asks, “How long will your business in Myrefall be? It’s not right of them to expect us to travel for this long.”

“Hush dear, this is a very important affair. It is worth the travel time,” John replies.

Young Sierra looks out the window of the carriage, a smile plastered across her face.

John turns to his daughter. “I understand the circus will be in town during our visit to Myrefall,” he says sternly. “Under no circumstances are you to leave our side during this visit, do you understand Sierra?” John says, raising his eyebrow.

Sierra nods and looks away, there is still a small grin on her face that she is trying to hide from her parents. John and Sidonia try to pretend they can’t sense their daughter’s excitement, adopting their usual reserved composure.

>>95861364
As they pass close to Myrefall, they come across the circus set up outside the city gates. John and Sidonia scowl in disgust at what they see, but young Sierra’s eyes light up brighter than they ever have before. Amongst the tents she catches glimpses of sword jugglers, acrobats, dancers and all sorts of things that she has never seen before.

They pass through the city gates and arrive at the Royal Crown Hotel, Myrefall’s most luxurious inn, located in the upper district. They are soon in their luxurious hotel room. John leaves to attend to his affairs at the Whitemoor Club. Sierra settles into her own room. Sierra looks over to the window then sneaks a peak into the main room where her mother is preoccupied with her embroidery. Sierra gently closes the door to the main room and scurries back toward her bedroom window. She nimbly climbs through the window and makes her escape.

Sierra meanders through the city streets, taking in sights and sounds so much different than her country estate, alive and teeming with life. Eventually she makes her way to the city gates where the circus is set up. It’s something she could have never imagined. The vivacious atmosphere sweeps her up. People are laughing and applauding, performers play music and engage in dazzling feats.

>>95861366
Then Sierra sees her. An athletic, muscular woman, with bare shoulders and sinewy arms. She is wearing loose pants and carries a quiver on her back. Far in the distance is a target marked with a bullseye. The archer takes a deep breath, focuses her eyes and pulls the bowstring back. She is in control, she lets loose. *Thwing* The arrow flies through the air and hits the bullseye head on. A small group of onlookers give a hearty applause. Sierra is slack jawed and her eyes gleam with intense fascination.

Sierra runs up to the archer and blurts, “How did you do that? That was amazing!” Sierra catches herself and looks down embarrassed.

The archer turns to look at the young girl who so enthusiastically approached her and flashes a warm smile. “Hello there little one, what is your name?” she asks.

“Sierra.”

“I’m Dara, nice to meet you Sierra.”

Sierra gives an embarrassed smile. “Where did you learn to do that?” Sierra asks.

“My da’ served in the army,” Dara responded, “He taught me.”

“It’s amazing!” Sierra says excitedly then coils away embarrassed by her own lack of decorum.

Dara gives her a curious look like she is still trying to analyze who this nervous little girl in the fine dress talking to her really is.

“Do you wanna give it a try?” Dara says with a warm smile on her face.

Sierra nods enthusiastically. Dara places the bow in Sierra's hand and shows her how to position her hands. She then grabs an arrow and knocks it to the bow.

“Hands steady like this,” Dara says.

Sierra takes the bow and positions it in her hand and then lets loose. The arrow flies straight and hits the grass some distance away on the target field.

“Good job, Sierra,” Dara says encouragingly. “You’re a natural.”

A smile draws across Sierra’s face. Then she stops, thinks about what she’s doing and the smile vanishes. Dara looks over at Sierra concerned.

>>95861371
She crouches down and looks the young girl in the face and says, “Sierra, I want you to promise me something... promise me you’ll never let other people define who you are, that you’ll always be true to yourself, got it?”

Sierra nods and grins wide again. “It was nice to meet you Dara, but I have to return before my mother finds out where I’ve gone.”

Dara lets out a chuckle and says, “Okay, it was nice to meet you Sierra”

“Likewise,” Sierra says back with a smile as she runs off to return to the hotel.

Sierra slips back through the window and returns to her room. She looks through the door to the main room where her mother is still busy with her embroidery. Eventually, Sierra’s father returns from tending his affairs. The Evertons mount the carriage again and return to the long ride home. As they pass through the entrance to the city gates, Sierra looks out the window one last time at the circus, searching for Dara.

>>95861374
Days later, John and Sidonia are sitting on their chairs by the fireplace when young Sierra approaches them nervously.

Then with conviction, Sierra walks in front of them and speaks up. “Mother, father, I have something to ask of you.”’

“What is it Sierra?” Sidonia says with annoyance in her voice.

John looks up with mild interest.

“I have decided that I want to learn the art of archery.”

Sidonia immediately shoots Sierra a venomous stare and John’s eyes widen.

“Enough Sierra,” Sidonia hisses. “Can’t you see that your foolish behavior is upsetting your father?”

With a defiant and determined look on her face, Sierra stares down her mother and father and then storms off. For the next few days Sierra does everything in her power to make her parents give in. She embarrasses them at social events, misbehaves and causes a fuss at every opportunity. This continues until one day Sierra’s parents summon her Sierra to the drawing room.

“Sierra...ahhem...Your mother and I have decided that archery, though unconventional for a young lady, is a fine and well-bred art, suitable to the standards of someone of our family’s station. Your mother and I have decided that we will take on an archery trainer to tutor you in this so that you may gain skill and prestige that may endear you to a future potential suitor”. John nervously adjusts his collar.

Sierra beams uncontrollably until a sharp and hateful look is shot at her by Sidonia.

“You better not make us regret this decision, Sierra,” Sidonia says, her voice dripping with contempt.

Sierra nods profusely trying to hold in her smile. Two days later Sierra meets her archery instructor and starts practicing the art of the bow on targets set up in the fields of the estate.

Magpie smiles as she stares at her trusty old bow laying on the dresser. The only good thing to come from her childhood.

>>95824118
It's tough to find things to humiliate them with.

There was that one Malcolm in the Middle episode and I liked the one where Lois snuck gum into a helmet to force a girl to cut her hair. Can't think of many more.

bump

>>95838370
This is a nice little story. I feel it would probably have more resonance with me if I had ever read the Percy Jackson series but I liked it all the same.

>>95868014
Emetic or laxative in drink is a classic. Crude, but effective.

You could also go the Les Liaisons Dangereuses route and release a bunch of their private correspondence, with all their plots and bitching about their friends. Bonus points if they were conducting multiple affairs.

Hair and cosmetics are a good avenue of attack. Add an irritant to their face powder so their skin becomes puffy and blotchy. Add bleach to their hair pomade, or a chemical that causes their hair to come out in clumps. Add fish oil to their perfume, so they walk around smelling like they aren't quite so fresh down there. There are lots of creative ways to fuck with their appearance in some way.

Or as I said, you can just spread a rumour about them. Maybe that their family is a lot poorer than they seem, maybe that they're still secretly in love with an old paramour, maybe that they consult a wise woman to perform divinations. Obviously, it depends on the characters.

bump

bump

>>95861376
Magpie is passing through the streets of Myrefall. Off to the side of the street is a peddler selling fresh game. On a line hangs a few animals including a hare, a wild grouse and a pheasant. Memories come rushing back......

Ten year old Sierra is out in the fields of her family estate, dressed in traveller’s clothes. It is a bright summer day. The sunlight beams down on the fields and trees of the estate. Sierra is carrying her bow in her hand, quiver securely strapped to her back. It looks large on her, but serves its purpose nonetheless. Sierra’s eyes are scanning the horizon for a sign of game. Then she sees it, a pheasant walking along on the edge of the brush. Sierra crouches low, and pulls an arrow from her quiver. Carefully Sierra steps forward making sure not to startle the bird. As she gets close, she draws back her bowstring and eyes her quarry carefully. Thwoot. The arrow pierces the bird's side.

Sierra proudly heads home with her kill dangling in her hand. A wide, joyful smile radiates on her face as she returns to the manor covered in twigs, feathers and blood. Sierra shows her prize to the servants in the manor, who look away awkwardly.

“Shot it all by myself, on my own grit!” Sierra says brimming with pride.

Just then Sierra’s mother Sidonia walks into the room. She takes one look down up and down at Sierra. Her mouth gapes wide open and a horrified look crosses her face. She turns to one of the servants and nods her head at the bird. The servant, a look of disgust on his face takes, the bird from Sierra’s hand and carries it out of the room.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Sierra protests.

Sidonia walks up to Sierra and looks down at her with a disappointing glare. Sierra’s pride dissolves into shame.

“Have the servants clean yourself up, and do not mention this to your father.”

Sierra looks back at her mother and nods with a sigh of defeat.

>>95886576
“You are to be dressed in your finest attire tonight for your father’s event. I should not need to say how disappointed we will be in you if anything goes wrong, Sierra.”

Sierra slouches and follows the servant to the bath.

Later that evening, Sierra, dressed in a fine silk dress and lace leather gloves, is in the dining room attending a party with the evening guests. She looks over to the wall a second then focuses back on the party, forcing a smile at a guest.

Magpie continues to walk through the street, reaching back to touch the edges of her bow as she walks by the meat peddler, her eyes lost in thought.

bump

>>95872976
I like those, thanks

I think the laxatives would be an excellent prank at a ball or party of some sort.

Some suffer fates in a war since it's meant to be a magical academy and mages have to fight. This is meant to parallel the men who participated in the wager for Brienne's virginity dying in battle.

Do you think it's good character development for
>guy originally tells himself "they got what they deserved" when he hears of them dying or being maimed
>he actually sees one of the women suffering and dying
>realizes that while he hates them, he does not wish for them to suffer a fate like that
>forgives one of them on her deathbed after hearing her out, lets her die in peace

>>95889285
I think that's great character development.

>>95877096
>>95493383
My prompts, liked the stories, thanks.

I eventually want to write a book about Magpie. Gonna read a few stories about novel structure and take a creative writing course.

>>95898908
What, as in the bird?

>>95898917
I shared some stories about her:
>>95652009
>>95652013
>>95652015
>>95652021
>>95652028
>>95652030
>>95652034

>>95898940
There is more further on

>>95652013
>>95652009
>>95652015
Seems interesting enough. Maybe add some conflicted feelings of her missing her family? If not her parents, perhaps her siblings or a cousin or favourite uncle. Like maybe she can send a gift to them each year or something.

What's a good way to write an older woman telling her younger beloved to deflower her?

I wanted an element of him "making her a woman" but it's his first time too so she "makes him a man".

Is something like "bloodying your sword" too cliche?

>>95441002 (OP)
>10 years
wew

>>95900369
Thank you. I'm just working out the details of the character now

>>95908177
I suggest the uncle because I like Uncle Iroh

Any advice on the question I had in my post? I thought of perhaps, "claiming your bride" or "take what's yours" but I wanted her to mention the imagery of him defiling her purity.

>>95908347
How old we talking for the woman and boy?

>>95909151
17 years old for the boy and 24 for the woman.

The boy is a prince of a bestial race

The woman is kind of like a Grail Damsel, it's a sisterhood of human magic users that are faithful to the "Old Way", or basically paganism in a not!Christian land. They keep their order strong by marrying important and influential men.

>>95909259
She would be more confident than him in general, but also try to make up for her lack of experience by being insecure.

>>95909266
That's a good point. Although I intended women to take pride in their virginity, but I think she would be a little insecure since she's in the same boat as him.

I suppose the specific metaphor isn't as important as the overarching plot and characters.

And even if it's a really gross metaphor, it worked for GRRM

>>95909623
>women to take pride in their virginity
She'll need him to feel grateful before she lets him. Or at least really like him.

>>95909623
I'd personally have her say something like
>Let me teach you the ways of the world
Which is especially ironic given her own lack of experience

>>95905320
Tell me about it.

It both seems like ages and no time at all. I find myself thinking about stories that I feel like I read two or three years ago, and it turns out to be seven or eight years ago.

>>95924328
You wanted your own Canticle for Leibowitz?

>>95928078
I didn't write that one, but yes, I see the parallels.

To be honest I've always thought that whole post-apocalyptic society could be done better than Canticle for Liebowitz. We kind of get taught that civilization in Europe went backwards when Rome collapsed, and we project that understanding onto how we think about future societies after a civilizational collapse, meaning we tend to imagine modern civilization collapsing into some sort of neo-feudal state.

But actually, when Rome fell Europe didn't just get reset to 500BC. Social structures in 500AD Europe were totally different to what they had been in the pre-Roman period. Technology didn't get reset either. Yes, many things became less sophisticated - especially luxury items like jewellery and art, and a lot of big infrastructure that required a centralised government - but other things either remained the same or got more sophisticated during the medieval period. A High Medieval cathedral, for example, was far more technically sophisticated than anything the Romans ever built. Or to use a less flashy but much more significant example, Medieval Europe used a three field crop rotation system that included legumes, meaning less fallow time.

The idea that social and technological development is a linear path that sometimes jumps backwards to a previous point when civilizations collapse is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened during Europe's "Dark Ages", as is the idea that things remain in a primitive state until a Renaissance unlocks preserved knowledge.

I'm working on a cyberpunk story and I have a story thread I'm not sure how to resolve.
One of the characters in their past was involved in a gang shooting where people got caught in the crossfire and went to prison. When they got out though most of the records and files on them were deleted by a hacker friend. But recently they got recognized by a higher up in the police that was close to one of the people caught in the shooting who has started hunting them.
How can this be dealt with without killing the guy, because doing that isn't exactly going to lower the heat on you?

>>95931027
Yeah, that is true.

Bump

>>95931174
If he did his time and was released, why not just hire a lawyer and issue a formal cease and desist letter to this police officer, and notify the police department that he'll sue if the harassment doesn't stop. Most cops aren't going to risk their career to carry out a vendetta, and even if he is, the PD will force him to stop rather than get sued.

Sometimes the most practical solutions are the most mundane.

>>95931174
Why does this conflict need to exist? How does it serve the themes of your story? What outcome would best advance the themes? Sounds like a contrived way to come up with a conclusion, but life has enough shit going on that writers are expected to skip to the cool and meaningful shit.

Where did old, sometimes slightly senile or forgetful, out of touch wizard trope come from?
From the same trope about scholars?

>>95963585
I think the association between wisdom and old men is as ancient as humanity itself, and old men are sometimes slightly senile, forgetful, and out-of-touch.

Possible covers. Which one do you think I should go with? I’m putting the story on RR and eventually hope to self pub on Amazon or something

>>95971985
1 is definitely the most striking, but it might turn off some readers as it carries more of a horror vibe.

2 is a bit bland as art, I wouldn't chose that

3 is a good picture but I think it doesn't really give any sense of what genre the novel falls into. With the others you can tell: the characters are wearing clothes consistent with Medieval fantasy, they're using magic so it's sword and sorcery, there's a male protagonist and a female character with blades. You get a primer on the content just at a glance. Whereas 3 could be literally anything from sci-fi to sword and sorcery to some kind of modern horror (mutated government experiment, perhaps?). From a marketing standpoint it's not ideal.

4 has a slightly more dynamic composition than 2, but is still not as striking as 1. However, if your novel is more traditional sword and sorcery than fantasy horror, it might represent your work better and appeal to a broader range of readers.

I'm tempted to say you should go for 1 anyway because it's the most eye-catching, but without knowing exactly what's going to be in your book I can't really make a judgment.

btw, are they AI art, commissions, or your own work?

Which do you think would be a more fearful looking deformity, eyes that look like the Eye of Sauron or one eye being a gaping void?

>>95975374
I vote for gaping void.

“Do you recommend anything?” he asked. He was still wearing those red-tinted glasses of his even after leaving his manor. Such went the last vestiges of Samantha’s scepticism that the red glasses were just an act of his to mess with her on purpose.

“Not the crumpets, that’s for sure.”

“Why? Do you think it’ll fall far short of my British standards?”

Samantha smiled, then found herself hiding behind the menu so Desmond wouldn’t see how smiley she could get around a man. He was beginning to make her feel more and more like a petite little girl on the verge of a simpleminded crush.

“Welcome to Sam’s! This is Molly, may I take your order?”

Samantha’s spinning thoughts came to a crashing halt as Molly Malone, Sam’s daughter, perennial diner waitress, and ill-advisedly named child, approached their table. She was a big girl, around the same age as Samantha, and now an All-American champion in the sport of shot put. They’d never really been friends, but rather friendly acquaintances who’d bumped into one another from time to time here and back in high school. It had been so long since they’d last met that Molly had to double-take to know it actually was Samantha hiding behind the menu.

“Samantha!”

“Hello, Molly!”

“Found someone new to sink your lips into?”

She reddened. Desmond himself looked away, pretending to be busy examining the wild array of pancake syrups that were always on offer in American diners like these.

Molly wasn’t someone to mince words or hide behind a veil of agreeableness. You couldn’t really, having been named after an Irish fish seller who doubled as a prostitute late at night on the docks in Dublin. Sam Malone didn’t have the greatest self-awareness when it came to names.

“No, nothing like that,” Samantha replied after she composed herself. “This is Desmond. My new leather mas—”

>>95985096
“A friend,” Desmond cut in quickly. “I’m from England. Just passing through the States for a few days.”

“A friend, huh?” Molly mused. “How did the two of you meet?”

“Over internet forums,” he answered. “We’re both just fond of all things French.”

“Ah, an Englishman swooning an American girl in French over the interwebs,” Molly remarked as she cradled her notepad against her heart like a love letter from an admirer. “There’s a story to be written from that, non?”

The idea of the swerve had actually come from the many years Desmond had spent reading internet forum posts about leather craftsmen sharing their highs and lows when taking an apprentice onboard. He’d picked up on how many social faux pas these apprentices made when introducing their masters to friends, families, or even strangers like a waitress in a diner like this.

He didn’t want Samantha to be among them. He didn’t want her to get into the habit of referring to him as her master in public, a phrase that had come to hold many different connotations ever since Dominant-Submissive dynamics penetrated (ouch) the mainstream in the past decade or so.

“Don’t you think he’s just a little old for you, Samantha?” Molly teased.

The glare Samantha had crafted for her new friend was instead directed back at Molly. “I think we’re just about ready to order now. I’m going to have the scrambled eggs with a side of French toast. Desmond?”

“Just a bacon sandwich and black coffee, please.”

“Such manners,” Molly said. “Don’t hesitate to bring him around again, would you, Samantha?”

“I won’t.” Then, once Molly had gone back into the kitchen and was out of earshot, Samantha spoke up. “A friend? What’s that?”

“You were about to say something silly in front of everyone here.”

“You mean my new leather master? It’s true!”

>>95985107
“Well, it may be true but...” He reached for some milk sachets to distract himself as he spoke. “The word master carries a lot of baggage these days. Surely you know that?”

Of course she knew that. If she started blurting out that she was the apprentice to some leather fetish artisan, people would think it also stretched into being Desmond’s personal plaything — someone for him to gawk at and model his new toys with.

“So, you mean I can’t call you my master when we’re in public?” Samantha asked, with a slight girlish whine at the end.

“Not unless we’re both in Jedi cosplay at a convention or something,” he answered.

“Jedi? I think you’re a Sith Lord deep down.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, you make all that black leather fetish gear for one. And you have a master’s from Hermès for two.”

“It wasn’t really a master’s, more like a French diploma,” he countered, “which is really like a bachelor’s over here and in England.”

“And you clearly geek out over all things Star Wars for three. And there must be a lightsaber or two hiding in the attic of your estate.”

He waved his hands at her, distraught that all his secrets had been uncovered. “Alright, you caught me. I’m Sith Lord Desmond Hawke. Master of all things BDSM craft-related and Star Wars trivia-related. Happy?”

She was able to get a snort of laughter in before Molly came back with their quasi lunch-breakfast. Sam’s was officially a breakfast restaurant, but its hours stretched on a Monday afternoon for so long that one could still get breakfast at lunchtime, where other places would’ve shuttered down their breakfast menus long ago.

>>95985112
Samantha took in the aroma before she started to dig in. She’d always done this, ever since she’d first come here as a young girl with her mother. The eponymous Sam of the place was somewhere nestled in the kitchen, flipping through pancakes. Business had been hard these past few years, which meant he’d had to let most of his longtime cooks go.

He often spent a great deal of time in there, alone. The jokes he and Samantha had shared had largely come to a dead end, and it was something she couldn’t have replicated with Molly.

In fact, Samantha felt all the time now that sociability among people was at its all-time low. This quasi-meal with Desmond was the first time she’d had one with another person in months.

“You don’t look like a Sith Lord, you know,” Samantha said. She set the French toast aside for later on, steadily focusing on scraping through the scrambled eggs first. Bread, no matter how delicious, always left her bloated after she’d eaten it.

“Well, no, I can’t go around in robes and black leather armour, can I?”

“Well, what I meant was that you seem far too soft and pleasant to be someone who makes bondage gear.”

He tugged away at the bacon with a fork. It was far too crispy for his English sensibilities to enjoy in the confines of a sandwich. Better to scrape out the softer part and leave the rest on the side for Molly to dump.

“Did you have a certain look in mind for a man who works with leather?” he pressed. “Shaved head. Leather jacket. Large stomping combat boots to give off the impression he’s taller than he actually is?”

“I mean, you look more like a librarian or an academic than a craftsman,” Samantha answered. “You don’t look like someone who gets his hands dirty. Who has to pick out leather shavings underneath his fingernails.”

>>95985118
The last few words were enough for Desmond to check underneath his fingernails to see how they currently looked. They’d spent several hours together in his workshop, but all of his nails remained largely unblemished.

“You know, you don’t look like a leather craftsman’s apprentice either.” It was true; aside from the leather choker they made, there was not a speck of black leathery goods in Samantha’s outfit today. She’d settled on a blue short-sleeve linen shirt paired with white denim jeans. Massachusetts was still very warm as of now; she could not risk dying from heatstroke at such a young age.

“What do I look like to you? I mean, if I wasn’t secretly your fetish apprentice?”

“A bookworm, maybe. Someone who imagines herself as very intellectual and dresses the part, but also has a great deal of interests that most of her fellow intellectuals would scoff at — and disown her if they knew.”

“Working with leather isn’t something intellectuals do?”

“Well, it is, but I want to know what your other interests in life are.”

“You already answered that one on my behalf, you know.”

“Tell me.”

She felt strange that he was putting her on the spot now. She was not used to others asking about her interests. Not even friends from high school had, in truth. Samantha had largely tagged along with them when it was time to see the concert from a terrible cover band who wouldn’t leave behind state lines, let alone New England.

“Well, I’ve always loved history. Especially antiquity. You know, Romans and Greeks. And I love music. And I love to exercise. I wish I could do more sports, though, but every sports club is too expensive for what it is. And, as you already know, I love to pretend to learn languages.”

“Those are all intellectual pursuits. You must have at least one thing you’re embarrassed to admit to.”

“Even the fake language learning?”

“Especially the fake language learning.”

>>95985125
She couldn’t unravel anything behind those red-tinted glasses of his. This was becoming a strange trend in their conversations. He would ask and pry, and she would grow nervous and begin to shy away from him after she put a roadblock in his way with a short, brisk answer.

But not this time. For the pleasant lunchtime together, and for helping her save face earlier, she would try and humour him.

“Okay, well…” Samantha folded her arms, half expecting him to burst into laughter as many friends had when they learned her secret perversion. “I really like lingerie. Not just wearing it, I mean — though that’s a big part of it as well — but everything that goes into it. The stitching. The seams. The design. I love it so much.”

There was a beat. Then she saw his face crook into a half-smile. “See? That wasn’t so bad. Perfectly intellectual pursuit as well, by the way. But your peers might keel over if they heard you gush about lingerie so deeply.”

She bit her lip. A warmth had started to make its way to her cheeks, both from embarrassment and reminiscing of more painful memories. “Yeah… probably.”

“Deep down, though, most of them would probably agree with you, if they were honest.”

“Maybe. They wouldn’t admit to it anyhow.”

She straightened herself up a bit, with more spring in her step. He hadn’t laughed at her. He hadn’t mocked her for having such an enthusiastic interest in something that most people considered the domain of bimbos, airheads, and fashionistas with more dollars than brain cells put together.

He hadn’t. Not once. And now she wanted to open up to him a little bit more about something she’d never shared with anyone.

“And… I always wanted to be a Victoria’s Secret model as well.”

There was no sudden exhale of coffee onto her that she quietly expected. Instead, Desmond sipped some more and then continued on with their conversation.

>>95985133
“Is that supposed to be a bad thing to aspire to be?” He nudged. “Being a Victoria’s Secret model sounds fun. And exciting. And a whole host of other positive things as well.”

“And lots of drawbacks as well,” she countered. She was not so naive and starry-eyed about the cutthroat realities of fashion. “Endless dieting. Endless workouts. Crashing out by the time you’re in your mid-twenties.”

“Yes, but millions of dollars in your bank account if you can make it. And global fame. And being fawned over by hairstylists and fashion designers everywhere.” He sprinkled some sugar into his cup. “Not bad for a career that lasts a handful of years. Do you have a favourite piece of lingerie that you like?”

She bit her lip once again. How bizarre it was that talking about lingerie with a man nearly twice her age felt completely normal and comfortable to her. “Corsets. I mean, I’ve never worn one yet, but a corset. Preferably a black one. Preferably made from soft, see-through silk.”

“I think green would suit your eyes better,” Desmond said with little shame.

She had to suppress a giggle. A few of the regulars were beginning to take notice of their conversation between breezy reads of The Boston Herald and other gossip rags. “And you? Do you have a preference?”

Desmond crushed a crumb between his fingertips before he answered. “I really like stockings. Especially with garter belts.”

“You must really like leggy women then, do you?”

“A lot, yes.”

She smiled, and Samantha Craven found herself pinching her own long legs to simmer down her excitement to a more, well, socially acceptable level.

>>95973648
Commissions, the lot of them. Thanks for the feedback!

>>95963585
The epic of gilgamesh had a magical old hermit, so the trope itself is probably literally older than civilization.

Most modern examples are riffing off Merlin though (or Odin, but I don't recall him being particularly senile or forgetful in any stories).
>Have the gift of prophecy literally allowing you to foresee all eventualities
>Think with your dick anyway and end up magically sealed away
Might not have been senile, but boy howdy was he forgetful.

>>95985096
>>95985143
Well this is... different. I mean it's so different I don't really know what to say about it, other than it's well-written but only works as a scene rather than a short story in its own right. I don't hate it but it doesn't really go anywhere.

>>95987692
No problem. I advise you to get some opinions other than mine, though.

You guys have recommendations of what to read or watch to get a good feel for noir?

>>96018306
The classics are things like the Maltese Falcon, Strangers on a Train, The Third Man, and Sunset Boulevard. As a genre it really had its heyday in the 40s and 50s. However, I confess to never having actually watched them so I'm not sure I can make a recommendation. Raymond Chandler's work is the gold standard for literary noir; I've read The Long Goodbye and it was okay, although I wouldn't describe it as particularly memorable.

Chinatown is a little past the golden age of film noir, but it still more or less captures the feel.

There is some decent neo-noir that you might find slightly easier to get through if vintage isn't your thing. L.A. Confidential is both a great movie and a perfect example of noir. Sin City is a little too cartoony to be noir in the traditional sense (noir generally being quite realistic), but it captures the feel of taking a walk through society's dirty underbelly. And although Seven is primarily horror, it's also a great noir detective thriller.

Likewise, although Bladerunner is primarily science-fiction, it also has a noir-esque feel to it. Also, Ghost In The Shell (anime, not live action).

If you're pressed for time, I would start with L.A. Confidential to get a good overview of straight-up noir, then Bladerunner for the vibe, then if you've got time one of the classics like Sunset Boulevard or the Maltese Falcon.

bump

>>96031715
We've finally hit the bump limit, it seems.

Three months for a thread to stay up has to be some kind of record for this board. I'm glad we were able to mark our tenth anniversary, and here's to another ten years.

>>96032777
Digits do not lie. Cheers for many more stories.