About Me

Zéphyr / Zeph • 21+ • Queer • French • They / Them - It / Its - Xer / Xem (when we’re talking in English)

I block easily, I won’t debate with you about anything.

My AO3 / My ff.net

My PP: sonia.david.clo.chan55@gmail.com

Icon by @yourfaveisabop / Banner by @oh-theatre / Background by Hoshizora-no-Shita on Deviantart.

[Icon description: A round icon of Allen Walker from the manga D.Gray-Man, a white-haired teen with blue eyes and a star-shaped purple scar above his right eye going on his cheek. He had his left hand saluting and is winking. Timcampy, a round golden golem with wings is pressed against his cheek. The background is a flag with purple, blue, white, pink and lavender strips.

Banner description: A white piece of paper with the rainbow pride flag in the middle. At each sides are 3 kind of golden flower petals. At the top of the flag is written “be”, in its center “gay” and at the bottom “do crime”.

Background description: A blue-green background with faces of different characters from the Professor Layton games as well as the logo of the games. /end description]

haberlea-rhodopensis:

i’ve seen a few people wondering about this now, so i thought it would be worth putting this here!

Things that People Forget About When Writing Sword Fights

dduane:

english-history-trip:

the-haiku-bot:

elumish:

• You don’t have to dodge by a foot. You only have to dodge by an inch.
• Not all swords are made the same way. You wouldn’t fight with a katana the same way you would fight with a broadsword.
• You don’t need to aim for the heart or the head. Get the vein in wrist, and you could incapacitate that hand.
• Small cuts matter. If you’re cut up enough, you’re going to start suffering from blood loss, and that’ll put you at a disadvantage.
• The blade isn’t the only thing that matters. There isn’t some set of rules in sword fighting where you can only stick the stabby end into the other person. Hit them in the head with the hilt, and they’ll feel it.
• If there are multiple attackers, you want to incapacitate or kill each one as quickly as possible. Endurance matters, especially when you’re not only swinging/stabbing/aiming something that is 2-5 lbs (ceremonial ones were a lot heavier, but wouldn’t be generally fought with) but also taking/blocking heavy blows from at least one opponent.

You don’t have to dodge

by a foot. You only have

to dodge by an inch.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

That final haiku actually makes for a pretty good maxim!

All the above.

Also, regarding the not-just-the-stabby-end advice: significant sections of the numerous medieval-and-newer swordfighting manuals now available in translation are devoted to the art of clobbering or otherwise messing up people with the hilt of your sword in numerous inventive ways. Many of these are potentially quite lethal, and mean you won’t have to waste time cleaning your blade.

…Also feeling the need to mention a favorite move of my iaido master, back in the day: the one where you spear your [seated across from you] opponent in the gut with the hilt of your katana as you’re drawing it… then finish the draw and chop your opponent’s head off. The move is called “Mutiny” (don’t ask me what it would’ve been in Japanese; if he ever told us, I can’t remember). But I can’t tell you how many times Shihan made us practice that damn move. There was just something about it that appealed to him.

Anyway, generally speaking: if you’re going to write swordfights, you may not have the time, inclination or money to study the sword yourself, but you can at least read the fecking manuals. They’re easily found. Here’s a link to one of the best-known ones, circa 1459.* These will break you quickly of the idea that medieval-period swordfighting was some kind of boring bash-clash-bash-clash operation.

…Oh, and re the recommendation about not going for the heart or the head: This is definitely on the money. If I was in a swordfight and was in a rush to get it over with, the femoral artery would be my choice. Wait for your opponent to expose it (or get them to, usually by you stepping back out of range so they have to step forward, exposing any opportunities offered by their leg armor while it’s flexing). When they do, chop deep on the inside of the leg above the knee. Then get out of range again so your opponent doesn’t fall over on top of you. Two minutes or so for them to go profoundly shocky: then five to seven minutes for them to bleed out. But regardless of the timings, since you’ll likely have bisected one or more of their adductor muscles on that side, they definitely won’t be getting up to run after you…

*Particularly directing your attention to the plates illustrating judicial divorce combat.

avelera:

Archetypes are fine and originality isn’t as important as you think

I think one of the most shocking things I learned in my writing class when we brought in a professional agent to lecture was that they really, really don’t want your original story idea.

Agents and publishers want to know where to put your book on the shelf. They want to know which recent books it resembles, not super-hits like Game of Thrones. When they ask “What two books is this book like?” they want recent, practical examples of which non-Bestselling authors’ work your work most resembles. Nothing turns them off faster than “This is totally original” / “This is like nothing you’ve ever seen.”

Similarly, most audiences don’t want totally original. I don’t mean that pejoratively. We joke in the fanfic world that everyone just wants to read their favorite ship falling in love over and over but… that is actually true. That is an engaged audience. That said, fatigue does set in when all the fics or books begin to sound exactly the same, so what’s the deal there, huh?

The deal is: agents, publishers, and audiences want the familiar thing they know they love with your unique spin on it that only you as a writer can create.

Keep reading

avelera:

lcn71:

avelera:

avelera:

My latest writing class gave me a great tip recently that I’ve been trying to put into practice. I had a bad habit of describing a character’s facial reactions vaguely with terms like “they made a face” or “they showed X emotion” but without many specifics. This leads to a blurry image in the reader’s mind and misses an opportunity to make the body language of a character distinct and memorable. 

In an exercise, the instructor pointed out how everyone in the classroom had a different facial expression they associated with an emotion. “Disgust” might be a stuck out tongue, or a pinched mouth, or a frown, or recoiling from the source of disgust. “Amusement” might be a big grin, or an open laugh, or it might be a shy person covering their mouth to hide their reaction. 

The point is, think about how your character expresses a particular emotion. Pick a real person like a tv show character or a real-life person like a friend as a model for them in your mind if you don’t have a specific image yet. Describe how they react to emotions facially and use unique specifics for every character. In general in writing it’s best to be specific whenever possible to sharpen the image in the reader’s mind, and this will help to create a distinct and memorable character instead of a visual blur.

I posted this 5 years ago and now I can’t help but chuckle as I remember neurodivergent readers commenting on how I was basically explaining character emotions in a neurodivergent-friendly way. Maybe it’s the ADHD, maybe it’s the novelistic tendency to reexamine things we take for granted in daily life (facial expressions) and break them down and explain them clearly with prose (which requires reconstructing our entire understanding of which facial expressions = what emotions) because the novelistic style is predicated on describing everyday things visually for the audience (indeed, that’s what Swift was making fun of with the Lilliputians examining Gulliver’s snuff box, not knowing what it was in Gulliver’s Travels because he thought novelists were stupid for doing that, thus creating one of the first bestselling novels because he did it so well, good job Swift).

Anyway, long story short, I think I’ve done an ok job since posting this at implementing this bit of advice, so maybe it deserves to see the light of day again!

I am curious about how you apply this, as it’s something I struggle with in my own writing. If someone were to be in the same room with me while I was trying to do this, they’d see me making all sorts of funny facial expressions as I struggle to figure out how to translate them on paper (as it were).

Smiles, frowns, smirks, etc are easy, because there is a word and it’s common enough to be used as shorthand–most readers know what it means. But how do you describe a skeptical look, for example?

I can say “X gave him a skeptical look” and that does get the point across, but if I want to add detail I struggle. “X cocked her head slightly, raising an eyebrow and pursing her lips in a twist” might convey skepticism or might be misinterpreted as something else entirely. And characters/people have different micro expressions, too, so how do you add those in without getting too…anatomical? 

I’d love to see how you handle this if you’re willing to share.

So one way I tackle this is by not having it be an “either/or” for describing emotions if there is also a term.

So, “X cocked her head slightly, raising an eyebrow and pursing her lips in a twist in a skeptical look”. That way you cover your bases: the audience knows the tone of the “look” the character is trying to convey and, if they don’t associate those exact motions with that exact tone, you’ve clarified what the tone should be. Bonus: the audience now also has a clearer visual sense of what exact motions the character is doing, as opposed to a more visually “blurry” sense of whatever a “skeptical look” looks like.

It is possible to go overboard in this, in what’s called “stage direction” and is a particular sin of people who visualize more like a TV show and don’t utilize the particular features available to prose (senses like touch, taste, smell rather than just sight and sound, how your insides feel, the energy of a room, rather than just visualizing how actors would move around a room to convey your story, but I struggle with this as well so I’m not always the best at explaining this. I take it more as a reminder to engage more senses than one gets from TV).

Another example I used recently was something like, “"Really?” he said and wrinkled his nose to show he was kidding.“ Again, that plays to my advice above, which is visually describe the action but also don’t be afraid to say clearly what the character is trying to convey with it while also describing it, or how the POV character interprets the facial expression.

Originally posted by mcotome

banancrumbs:

desperately needed but not expected

academicbrainrot:

Extremely relatable of Neil to write Dream saying that.

(also: if anyone ever doubted that Dream has autism, this occurs when all of Dream’s different facets collect in one place and what they decide to focus on are the semantics of monologue Vs dialogue (since they are all technically Dream) and whether they should be using “we/us” or “I/me” pronouns.

Truly a neurodivergent icon

avelera:

My two favorite character-related cheat codes for writing that I’ve spent a lot of time practicing lately are:

1 ) When in close character point-of-view (POV, 1st or 3rd) ie, “we’re in this character’s head and no other, and we’re set immediately in their thoughts”, try filtering the description and narration through their POV.

Ex. “The coffee machine was broken.” -> “The coffee machine was broken, because of course it was, just when Bob needed it most.”

Note: Like all tools, this can be overused and it’s not suited to every story, but narration flavored by the character’s POV can really make a story pop.

Caveat: There can be limits as far as what this character would notice and describe when this deep in their head. For example, neutral narration might say, “Bob’s cheeks darkened with anger.” However, Bob cannot see his own cheeks (unless he’s got a mirror or is going through an out of body experience, I suppose) and so even if one is not in 1st person, it can be jarring for the character to note things they can’t see. Also applies to some descriptions like, “Bob’s dulcet voice that called to mind a nightingale.” Bob would probably not think that about himself, unless maybe he does, but that’s a very specific type of self-confident character who thinks something like that about themself. Whereas another character can think that about Bob, or a neutral word-of-god narration style can.

2 ) If you, the author, don’t know how something works in your story or what the character would do next, the POV character doesn’t have to know it either! And in fact, exploring this can add richness and texture to your story!

Keep reading

toastydumpster:

I’m so soft for them

sunsetquotes:

“Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.”

— Jon Sinclair

Hob’s Dream

thenightling:

I’ve posted longer versions of this before but here’s the very abridged version.

Here it goes…

Spoilers for The Sandman: The Wake below. 

I think Morpheus is spending his afterlife in Hob’s dream as we see it in The Wake.   Here are the clues.

1.   The Dream is set on the shore.  Remember how Morpheus compared himself to Prospero in The Tempest?  Prospero was a sorcerer who gave up his power and tools to be free of the island he was trapped on.  Morpheus gave up his role of being Dream of The Endless and his tools passed to Daniel.  The dream is set on the shore, indicating he has left his island.

2.   The side of Morpheus’s face that was scarred by The Kindly Ones (a scar Hob would not have known about) is never shown.  This indicates that the scar is actually still there.

3.  Destruction was in the dream and we know Destruction was actually in The Dreaming at that time.  Hob had no reason to know of his friend’s connection to Destruction.  He only knew him as a “lousy street artist.”   Also remember Destruction isn’t just Destruction.  He’s also change and creation.  The moral is “Change or die.”  Suppose Morpheus did both.  

4.  In The Sandman: The Kindly Ones Hob said how he keeps people alive by remembering them, by dreaming of them.  If Morpheus is now deceased as Dream of The Endless that means he is free of that burden now as a dream entity.

Hob does not plan to die any time soon, this gives Morpheus a place to haunt as a dream entity for a very long time that and other immortal beings will think of, remember, and dream of him. So it makes sense that he’d be re-created as a dream entity.  It’s still him, just now free of being Dream of The Endless.   

5.  It accounts for why Daniel will not use the name Morpheus, not just because that was the previous aspect (Piece) of Dream of The Endless that we knew but because Morpheus is still using that name. In fact it may well be the only name he has left now.

Morpheus as an aspect of Dream of The Endless is dead but as a dream entity he is now free. 

6.   We know Morpheus has a soul, he said he put a piece of it into the dreamstones he created.   And according to Death “Oblivion is not an option.” said in Façade.     

7.  “It’s never just a dream.”