The Vampire Spat Out Your Blood. "God, What Have You Been Eating?!"

Plumes of smoke clouded the dark horizon. The smokey scent of a campfire wafted through the cold air. The villain pulled the hero close and kissed their head.

"What are we?" The hero asked softly.

"Cupid's a chaos goblin," the villain stated, skewering a marshmallow onto a tree branch. "I love you, in case you haven't noticed. What are you feeling?"

The hero smiled fondly. "I... feel the same."

"But?" The villain gazed at them. "Your tone tells me there's something else."

The hero paused, then nodded and hugged themselves.

"You love me now," they whispered. "But... You haven't seen my unloveable side."

"You know I have an unlovable side," the villain retorted around a mouthful of marshmallow. "Why are you so afraid of me seeing yours?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full," the hero scolded. "That's a choking hazard."

The villain rolled their eyes.

"I... Everyone just... Eventually..." The hero struggled to articulate their thoughts. "There's something everyone really, really hates about me. I don't know what it is."

"Well, you are dating a villain." The villain threw a marshmallow at the hero's face. "Plus, you could stand to lighten up. We started out fighting, so it can only get better from here."

The hero glowered. "Can't you take ANYTHING seriously?!"

"But you're so good at that!" The villain said. "Why would I take your job?"

The hero grabbed the marshmallow bag and threw a handful at them. "What is WRONG WITH YOU?!"

The villain shook off the marshmallows. "I don't know, but I'm shocked every day you put up with me."

The hero's groaned and buried their face in their hands.

The villain reached out and gently touched their shoulder. "...and it makes me want to be a better person. You make me better."

The hero's expression softened, and they kissed the hand on their shoulder. "You make me better, too."

"I'll try to get better at... This." The villain gestured between them vaguely. "Maybe... Maybe you can try to have faith I won't just walk away from you. Not without a proper conversation."

"Deal," the hero said, and rested a head on the other's shoulder.

The villain pet their head gently, then reached stealthily for a fallen marshmallow.

"You're not eating those marshmallows off the ground," the hero said, eyes closed.

"Oh, come on--"

"He's been claimed by a Fae Lord, a Witch, a Demon Queen-- we made deals with one too many entities," the Queen explained with a heavy sigh. "Now, he's gone and got himself possessed by a couple ghosts, and apparently has some kind of arrangement with a Siren and a Dragon. I'm a little lost on his social life at the moment."

The Queen plucked out the sacrificial dagger protruding from her son's chest and tossed it aside with a hanky. The wound instantly healed.

"He's immune to just about anything," she continued. "Lightning, arrows, knives, cannonballs, being frozen or burned and... What was it? Oh yes, poison."

The Prince reached for the knife that lay discarded and began giggling and stabbing himself. The wounds gave off little sparks as they zipped the skin back together.

"Oh, my poor son," the Queen lamented. "In any case, is this God of yours powerful? They might need to be in order to claim him."

The Order exchanged glances. "We changed our mind," they said.

The Prince hopped up on the sacrificial altar and grabbed the leader by his robes. "No no NO you can't stop NOW!!" He giggled, "Beyooooond the time it took for set up, how RUDE it is to call a God only halfway, right when it's getting GOOD?!"

The Order grimaced. "The prince speaks the truth. Complete the spell in the honor of God. Only he can determine if this vessel is worthy."

The Prince flopped back with a smarmy grin.

The Order sunk the knife into the Prince once again and commenced with the summoning. The Prince began to float, and he hit the clergy with spitballs from where he was suspended.

The God appeared and looked over the clergy. "You must know this vessel is... Inadequate," he said, gesturing to the giggling prince. "I have never been summoned to a less suitable vessel."

"Suit yourself! You clearly don't know how to PARTY!" The Prince said, dancing around the floating apparition. "Like I want some boring old god taking up space in MYY flesh prison!"

"Dear, that dance is a bit unseemly," the Queen said. "Stop at once."

"YOU stop, MOM." The Prince pointed at the Queen. "Is she? Is she suitable? She's been offering me up this whole time!"

The Queen shook her head. "That's not necessary, Dear."

"Very well. It is done," the God said, and his spirit flowed into the Queen's mouth. The Queen shook briefly, then closed her jaw audibly.

"Goodness. I expected more," the Queen said, dabbing her lips with a hanky. "Truly a boring God. Let's go home, son."

"Wait, what happened?!" The Order cried.

"Oh, we are also a family of God eaters," the Queen said. "I must have forgotten to mention that. Did I? It's how we keep getting all these contracts."

The prince pointed to the sacrificial dagger in his chest. "Hey, can I keep this?"

When the eldest of the royal children was kidnapped and brought to the ritual table to be the new vessel for the cult's god, they seem oddly fine with it. It was in the middle of the ritual that the eldest royal revealed…

Their hand was warm in yours. The night was still, the moonlight sprinkled through the canopy of trees. You lay there and wish the rest of the world could disappear.

"I love you," they whispered softly.

You brought their hand to your lips. "I love you too."

Wind rustled through the trees. Something wet hit your cheek. The soft rumble of thunder tore you from the moment.

You both stood. They opened an umbrella and pulled you close.

"My place isn't far," they said.

You gently placed a kiss on their cheek. They smiled.

"Lead the way," you said.

Respectfully, I've seen this advice hit the opposite extreme, and I agree with the intent, but not the message. Power fantasies, Mary Sues, and Self Inserts wouldn't be popular if a "perfect" character was always uninteresting to read. (That said, "perfect" characters tend to show a writer's ideologies and imperfections) Conversely, when a character is always beat down on, always losing, always choosing the worst possible option, that can reach a certain banality too. Characters need contrast in some way. If a character keeps suffering extreme loss, give them something to help cope. Let them have a tiny moment of levity. If a character is flawless, give them a problem with no clear or "correct" solution. Contrast them against flawed characters. Again, I feel like you said this in a way, but I felt it needs clarification. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

Listen, you can’t write perfect characters. No one cares about reading about someone who never screws up. Your characters need to make bad decisions, they need to hurt people, and they need to be hurt. They should doubt themselves and do things they regret. That’s where the magic happens, when they’re flawed, messy, and human. People don’t fall in love with characters because they’re flawless; they fall in love because those characters remind them of the chaos inside themselves. So don’t be afraid to put your characters through hell. Only then will their journey mean something.

The pact was signed between the King and the Fairy Queen, 1,000 years of prosperity for his kingdom, in exchange for his yet-to-be-conceived first born. The Fairy Queen however did not expect the king to slit his own throat and die on the spot seconds later.

lovely spin

guess whos gettin back into animatingggg

doin a comm for a friend. havent done this shit in forever but im getting there lmao. forgot how fun it is when you get in the zone

A Very Special Lighting

The hero awoke with a groan. Their head was pounding, their body was freezing, and something was very, very wrong.

The first thing they noticed was an offensively loud countdown from what sounded like a cacophony of voices.

They(?) yelled excitedly, “THREE!…TWO!…”

The second thing that they noticed was that they were not horizontal—how one would typically wake up in the morning. Instead, they were vertical, and something was now insultingly bright for what they presumed to be dawn.

“ONE!!!”

Roaring cheers followed closely with the end of the suspicious countdown. Hero had barely had time to consider covering their ears before another one of their senses was assaulted, this time by the onslaught of light. They automatically blinked the blurs out of their eyes and were met with starbursts of twinkling yellow.

Were those…Christmas lights?

All their limbs were lost in the glow. They tried to move but found that they couldn’t. With what little sensation they held, they surmised there were some kind of restraints keeping their legs and arms spread like a starfish.

No, not a starfish.

A star.

Below them laid hundreds of green branches that stretched out to the edges of the square in the city’s center. Hundreds more dots (people?) lined around the ginormous skirt.

They were stuck on top of a giant Christmas tree.

And, if they weren’t mistaken,…they were the topper.

As if their day(…night?) couldn’t get any better, one aforementioned dot started to enlarge, making the flight up several stories to their level. They groaned in realization as the figure approached.

Hero only knew one dastardly mastermind who could fly.

Villain stopped to float only a few feet in front of them, greeting gleefully, “Hero! I’m so glad you could make it to the lighting ceremony! This is a very special day for lots of children, you know.”

Hero gaped, though they doubted their face could be seen with the intensity of the light source behind and around them.

Since when did Villain care about children?

And more importantly, since when did Villain have a beard?!

Fluffy white hair flowed down from their chin, and it took Hero a moment to connect the cherry red suit and matching floppy hat, not to mention the extra padding surrounding their midsection that looked far too impractical to be used as protection in a fight.

Villain was dressed as Santa.

Villain was dressed as Santa.

Their head pulsed again with pain. Feelings of confliction flooded their thoughts as they watched the joy swim below them.

They knew they should be focusing on taking down Villain but…would that…(and they couldn’t believe they were thinking this) ruin it?

They asked the only question they could think of, muttering the words through ridiculously chapped lips and chattering teeth, “What- what time is it?”

“Midnight, silly!”

Right. They were supposed to be watching this on TV right now, from the warmth of their heated blanket with a homemade mug of hot chocolate. As much as they would have loved to participate in the ceremony, this was…definitely not what they would have had in mind. A plan of their own would have involved a lot more marshmallows, and a lot less Villain.

“Are you…gonna let me down?”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember seeing that particular request on your Christmas list. Send me another letter, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Villain bellowed a rolling laugh that sounded suspiciously close to a classic ‘ho-ho-ho’. Before Hero could even begin to think of a retort to what they had suggested, Villain was already moving far enough away for them to deem the effort futile.

A bewildered Hero could only watch as they took off, having mounted a sled-looking contraption that they carried with them into the sky, led by several floating deer-looking animals, the nose of one of which was adorned with a small glowing red dot. The unmistakable sound of jingling bells followed.

Villain exclaimed merrily as they flew away into the night, “Merry Christmas, City!”

Apparently, even villains could enjoy the holidays.

Though, if you asked Hero, Villain was enjoying this one a little too much.

utterly beautiful

I don’t care if this world breaks me, cause I was already a wreck in the making, so I will love you gently, hold your hand to help you up, come in to volunteer for a friend, show up to artistic events to celebrate other’s achievements, take the pictures for that evening, then fade into the background as silent as an echo on a blank canvass. I will unbury your skeletons, take note of the world’s diseases, pull those weeds, and plant the seeds so you can live to see hope blooming, and feel a soft breeze as you finally walk free from every tragedy that was haunting your psyche. I will write a world of compassion and beauty and disappear before you can even remember seeing me.

-2024

CW: Death

but this advice lives in my mind rent-free

some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received: always put the punch line at the end of the sentence.

it doesn’t have to be a “punch line” as in the end of a joke. It could be the part that punches you in the gut. The most exciting, juicy, shocking info goes at the end of the sentence. Two different examples that show the difference it makes:

doing it wrong:

She saw her brother’s dead body when she caught the smell of something rotting, thought it was coming from the fridge, and followed it into the kitchen.

doing it right:

Catching the smell of something rotten wafting from the kitchen—probably from the fridge, she thought—she followed the smell into the kitchen, and saw her brother’s dead body.

Periods are where you stop to process the sentence. Put the dead body at the start of the sentence and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, you’ve piled a whole kitchen and a weird fridge smell on top of it, and THEN you have to process the body, and it’s buried so much it barely has an impact. Put the dead body at the end, and it’s like an emotional exclamation point. Everything’s normal and then BAM, her brother’s dead.

This rule doesn’t just apply to sentences: structuring lists or paragraphs like this, by putting the important info at the end, increases their punch too. It’s why in tropes like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, the odd item out comes at the end of the list.

Subverting this rule can also be used to manipulate reader’s emotional reactions or tell them how shocking they SHOULD find a piece of information in the context of a story. For example, a more conventional sentence that follows this rule:

She opened the pantry door, looking for a jar of grape jelly, but the view of the shelves was blocked by a ghost.

Oh! There’s a ghost! That’s shocking! Probably the character in our sentence doesn’t even care about the jelly anymore because the spirit of a dead person has suddenly appeared inside her pantry, and that’s obviously a much higher priority. But, subvert the rule:

She opened the pantry door, found a ghost blocking her view of the shelves, and couldn’t see past it to where the grape jelly was supposed to be.

Because the ghost is in the middle of the sentence, it’s presented like it’s a mere shelf-blocking pest, and thus less important than the REAL goal of this sentence: the grape jelly. The ghost is diminished, and now you get the impression that the character is probably not too surprised by ghosts in her pantry. Maybe it lives there. Maybe she sees a dozen ghosts a day. In any case, it’s not a big deal. Even though both sentences convey the exact same information, they set up the reader to regard the presence of ghosts very differently in this story.

Lively chatter and the swell of festive music warmed the cold air. The protagonist had settled into a rhythm passing out food in the soup kitchen, greeting their guests with a smile, when they locked eyes with a certain unexpected visitor.

"T-this isn't what it looks like," their rival stammered.

The protagonist stared back, because how could they not. "I thought your parents were rich," they blurted.

"T-they... They are," they said, face burning red.

"Then why are you here?"