First, All Of This, But Second, It's Okay If You Only Had The Spoons To Do The Basics And Nothing Else

I like the mermatron, myself.

“When they were little girls, they decided that they would be best friends forever. A whale never forgets a promise.” -Anneliese Juergensen

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Vil is one of the most well-written characters in Twisted Wonderland and I’m still baffled that people still manage to misinterpret him when nothing about him is that difficult to understand.

People always bash him for his obsession with beauty and reduce it to vanity when it was explained time and time again that Vil cares as much about internal beauty as external beauty. His search for growth was never centred around aesthetics only.

It’s also further explained that his pursuit of beauty is the path he believes would help him reach his goal of staying the longest on stage/being the hero. Vil’s book is about an actor who has been told ever since he was a child that he was meant to be the villain. Which was a role he didn’t wish to entertain so he worked his hardest to be worthy of the role he wanted, the role that would allow him to stay the longest on stage.

He learned all sorts of skills, pursued his studies, took care of his appearance, he did anything and everything in the name of improving himself, to be worthy of a role that keeps being denied to him and given to someone else, Neige. Then when he finally reached his limit after years of trying his hardest just to keep failing he lost it.

Even then why did he overblot? Because he couldn’t forgive himself. Because he couldn’t accept that he had become the villain, the exact thing that he had spent all his time and effort rejecting. Vil is terrified of being ugly inside and outside. He is terrified of being corrupted. He’s terrified of being bad.

People also love to bash him for being strict but he is one of the most caring housewarden. He does rule with an iron fist but even at his worst his motivation is always in his students’ best interest. Even Epel has to concede once he understands Vil’s true goal. On top of that Vil actually shows that he takes accountability for his actions, he knows how to apologise and he feels remorse for his wrongdoings.

Let’s not even talk about how he sacrificed himself for Idia and the world’s sake later on. As if this wouldn’t fully compromise his future.

As an ace myself, yes.

Reblog if you think asexuality is a legitimate sexuality.

I'm trying to prove something.

“add muscle to the skin and bones” This is also helpful for those essays for class that need to be just that little bit longer. Also, the wording you give is super helpful. Thank you for sharing this!

Underwriting: ways to boost your word count

I wrote a fic recently and the word count for the first draft came to about 40,000 words – roughly the length of a novella or ficlet. And that’s fine because I wasn’t striving for a novel or a 100K slow-burn coffee shop AU.

But coming to edit my first draft I realised something about myself. I am an underwriter. My fic could actually be at least 10k (maybe 20k) longer. Of course it’s not all about word count, it’s about the story, but in this case a smaller word count isn’t because I’m a fantastically efficient storyteller it’s because I’ve missed out a lot of stuff. Like, Important Stuff.

So as I set out to add muscle to the skin and bones I’ve already created in draft one I thought I’d share five tips for my fellow underwriters to help you flesh out your writing too.

1)     Make sure to describe the place and space in which the action happens.

There are quite a few places in my first draft where there’s no indication as to where things are taking place– or there is, but it’s the bare minimum and not really enough to build up a clear picture. This probably because as the writer I know exactly what the place looks like so I make the assumption that a bare minimum description will mean the reader knows too.

Now I’m not saying go into masses of detail about what your settings look like. In some cases it’s not useful to describe setting in a lot of detail (e.g. during really fast paced action sequences) but doing a verbal sketch of the space is essential for putting your characters in context and reader understanding.

I really is a fine balance (which is why beta readers are your friend!) But definitely go back to your setting descriptions if you’re an underwriter, they might need some work.

2)    Make sure to describe your character’s appearance.

Similar to the above point – you know what your characters look like, but unless you describe them, the reader won’t.

It’s fair to say that descriptions are open to reader interpretations, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t describe them in a healthy amount of detail. So you might try to nail down some of the interesting quirks about your characters to help the reader build a picture – not only will it help the readers understanding, it’ll boost your word count too!

Note: This one functions a little differently in a fic because the readers are probably familiar with how the character looks, but there is nothing wrong with adding your interpretation (or even reminding them, especially if the characters are from a book.)

3)   Include character reactions outside of what they say out loud.

Real life conversations aren’t just about the stuff that comes out of our mouths. So much of human interaction is about body language – so include it in your writing! Saying that the character covers their mouth with their hand when they talk suggests shyness. While another character crossing their arms shows they’re defensive -perhaps because they’re feeling threatened. In real life we don’t always say what we mean – but a lot of the time our actions give away what we’re really thinking. By including these actions around dialogue writers can influence how we as readers view characters and how we interpret interactions between characters. And it can boost your word count too.

The big stuff:

4)     Check your pacing.

When you write it feels like your scene is taking place over hours, days, weeks because when you’re writing it takes time. Reading, on the other hand, is much quicker. A seasoned reader can fly through a 100 page novel in a few hours – a seasoned writer can spend hours writing a 100 words.

When you read back your writing, make sure to check your pacing. You might just find that the Impossible Task you set for your characters at the start of the story is suddenly resolved within the next fifty pages. To boost your word count you might want to start by adding more obstacles between the character and their goal.

For example; your character has to find an object such as a precious jewel. Sounds relatively easy, right? But what if the jewel is lost in the mines of an ancient people, amongst thousands of other treasures that look very similar? What if no one has found this jewel because it’s guarded by a fire breathing dragon? What if the ancient mines and dragon are located in a mountain which is miles and miles away across dangerous lands? What if your characters need to enlist the help of someone with a very specific skill set?

You take one simple objective (finding the jewel) and you put into play a series of obstacles that must be overcome in order to complete the objective. Your underwriting tendencies, like mine, might just mean that there aren’t enough metaphorical (or real) dragons in your story!

5)    Sub-plots.

A sub-plot is a smaller scale plot - often involving the supporting characters - which runs secondary to the main plot. It can be directly linked to the main plot, i.e. the info provided in the subplot directly influences events in the main plot. Or it can simply be linked through place, time or themes of the overall story (e.g. Hermione’s elf rights campaign ‘S.P.E.W’ in Harry Potter and the OoTP is linked to the overall theme of oppression.)

Sub-plots are great because they can serve as some respite from a traumatic main plot; your character is fighting a war (main plot) but also fighting and failing (in hilarious ways) to win the affection of their love interest (sub-plot).

Plus, sub-plots can also help with characterisation, can cause your main character to have the moment of realisation which allows them to overcome the obstacles they face in the main plot and is generally a better reflection of real life! Sub-plots often centre on side-kicks and other characters – people who might not be as devoted to the end goal as the protagonist is. In fact, well written side characters seemingly live their own lives with their own goals. You might choose to showcase this in your sub-plot by letting the conflict of interest cause more problems for the protagonist to overcome.

Either way you could find your word count sky rockets as soon as you add in a few clever sub-plots.

I hope this helped!

Got any questions? Send me an ask

Honestly, I doubt that is all of them but they are the sort for too stupid to live or up for a Darwin award.

I just love it when video games let you do really stupid shit that kills you immediately. I love being like "oh this is a terrible idea" and being able to do it and then die. It's good game design.

I remember growing up and being so excited to get to see this, and now I realize it was only a year older than me...

Small of foot, big of heart 🦕💖

I have done this before 🤣🤣

People with shit eyesight whenever they're around other people with shit eyesight start passing around their glasses like it's a blunt rotation just to see how blind everyone else is.

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You can spam boop me!

reblog if you let people spam boop you

A lot of this stuff are things I already do, but I'd forgotten about the 401k, so thank you for the reminder.💜

In case no one told you growing up

Bras last longer if you let them air dry. Don’t put them in the dryer.

If you have a problem with frizzy hair, don’t dry your hair with a towel. It makes the frizzies worse. (I recently read an article that said to use a t-shirt? I brush mine out and let it air dry.)

Whites wash best in hot water. Everything else can be in cold - save on your electricity bill.

You can kill 99.9% of germs in a sponge by putting it in the dishwasher for a cycle or by microwaving it for 2 min (be sure to make the sponge damp before microwaving and to put a cup half full of water in with it and please DO NOT squeeze the sponge until it has cooled off)

Airing out your room/house and letting sunlight in every so often can decrease the number of household pests like silverfish and ants.

Black underwear is best during your period as stains are less likely to be visible.

To save money, put aside 10% of each paycheck into a savings account. It’ll add up.

Unless your hair has something on/in it (like grease or mud or something), using conditioner first can actually be the better choice. The conditioner holds in the good oils that help you hair look sleek and beautiful, which shampoo would otherwise wash away.

Speaking of shampoo - if you have long hair, washing just the bits that touch your scalp is generally enough. The rest of your hair gets cleaned with just the run off from your scalp.

If you put a tampon in and it’s uncomfortable/you can feel it, you didn’t do it quite right. A properly placed tampon is virtually unnoticeable by the wearer.

Apply deodorant/antiperspirant a couple hours in advance of when you need it. This gives the product the chance to block your sweat glands. Using deodorant just before going somewhere where you’ll sweat (this means walking outside for people in high humidity places) results in your sweat washing the deodorant off and starkly limiting its usefulness.

After running the dryer, use the dryer sheet from that load to brush out the lint catch - it gets everything off in a fraction of the time it’ll take you to get it clean with your bare hands. Paper towels also work well.

Wash your face everyday, or as often as possible. Forget which brand of cleanser is best. Just washing your face everyday will guarantee you clearer skin. And do you best not to pop pimples, as tempting as the urge may be.

Fold laundry asap after taking it from the dryer to avoid wrinkles. This may seem obvious for dress shirts and silly for things like t-shirts, but you’ll notice the difference even then once your shirts stop looking like unfolded paper balls.

Here's me being mid-30s.

Reblog if you’re 30 or older

This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!