The Hack Shack

Trying out the name "Kieran". 34. He/Him. Bisexual. ADHD.

[animentality]

[remnantglow]

i love when characters don't get to die

[remnantglow]

this is about villains/antagonists/general horrible people who finally face up to what they've done. especially if they try to pull the good ole "Dramatically Does One Good Thing To Redeem Themselves And Dies," but despite their best efforts they DON'T die. like yes motherfucker there's no easy way out for you, there's only the slow, awkward and painful process of learning to live with yourself. of learning to live with the weight of your mistakes. you get a second chance regardless of if you think you deserve it. you get to try to make amends and do good. you get to live.

[remnantglow]

this is also about every self-sacrificial bastard of a protagonist who puts themselves in harm's way again and again and again to a wildly unhealthy and unnecessary degree. see, there's something so compelling to me in the unspoken suicidality of repeated heroic self-sacrifice, and the thing about implicitly suicidal characters is that i want them to live. and that can be used to make a death so much more tragic and impactful - noble sacrifices and last stands certainly can and have been done beautifully - but there's also something special to me in seeing such a character make it. because you'd die for the people you love, yes, but would you live for them?

[woobifiedvillain]

Big fan of characters realizing they don't get to die. They have to live. And grow. And be a person. And deal with shit they thought they'd never have to. And be fucked up about it. I would like more of this. Enough dying for honor or as redemption. It ain't. You're just a corpse. There is no moral value in dirt time.

[sjdsjkdlskdas-deactivated202012]

part of what makes tragedies tragic is the story being preventable from the outside but unpreventable from the inside

[mysteryteacup]

If they had done things differently they could have been happy, but to do things differently would require them to be someone else.

[whats-ursine]

remember, folks, if you're itching to do something ill-advised in d&d/similar TTRPGs,

low wisdom: poor impulse control

low intelligence: instructions unclear

high wisdom: a necessary risk

high intelligence: it looked better on paper

low wisdom, high intelligence: forgot to get the plan peer-reviewed

high wisdom, low intelligence: the risk i took was calculated, but man am i bad at math

high wisdom, high intelligence: if someone else in the party did it first, it would've gone so much worse (and you Know they were going to do it)

[snoozu]

sometimes instead of “why can’t they just be friends” i think it should be “why can’t they also be friends” because sometimes shipping feels much too much like forcing two pretty characters to kiss and be intimate without actually being interested in the dynamic the two people have. what about hanging out together. what about why they like being in each others company. what do they argue about. how do they patch things up. what do they laugh about.

[snoozu]

best tag on this post

[vogelvrind]

i love this boss design :^)

[wizardarchetypes]

“he would not fucking say that!” then put him in a situation that makes him say it, we wanna see him squirm

[gallusrostromegalus]

It's good old fashioned characterization practice when confronted with "he would not fucking say that" to go "under what circumstances WOULD he say that?" And then go "and how would he get into those circumstances?" And boom. You have a MUCH more solid character.

It's also a fun magic trick as a writer to write a guy so well you get people foaming at the mouth on the comments going "HE WOULD NOT SAY THAT BUT HE *DOES* AND IT *MAKES SENSE* FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!!!"

[bloggingboutburgers]

This one is arguably very personal because I have no idea if other aros feel the same – but I've seen too many stories about a character being rejected where the person doing the rejecting is (accidentally or not) implied to be some sort of "bad guy" or "the one who has it easier", so I guess I had an itch to show my side.

Aromantic people and alloromantic people have such different views on what "true love" is that it's not about one or the other being "in the wrong" – it's just one big compatibility issue. All I can say is – as an aromantic, being confessed to romantically IS what leaves me heartbroken, for such reasons. Hopefully there will be a broader understanding of this in the future.

[girlballs]

the worst part about having huge autistic fantasy worlds in your head is that it takes like 8 billion years to turn that into something substantial you can show people

[girlballs]

like oh yeah man i have these 60 OCs and a whole plot about the ethical and moral implications of meeting your alternate timeline self and if it's worth sacrificing a whole artificial timeline to get back to your own time. no you cannot see them

[ex-riddlecats]

how many times do we have to say "acting like an autistic character wouldnt know about sex is weird" until it actually sinks in and people stop saying autistic characters wouldnt know about sex

[anachronic-cobra]

I swear it always comes down to innuendo, too, which is like the exact thing most autistic folks have issues with. You miss one innuendo and from then on it's "oh you sweet innocent summer child" from everyone you know.

No, Barbara, I'm an enthusiastic enjoyer of cock, I just misunderstood when you said something completely unrelated to sex because you're afraid to say the word sex.

[weeei-haw]

I..will give him a tentacle blade at some point. 

and it will go wrong in the best way.

[fuckyeahcomicsbaby]

Different Stories Resonate with Different People

[nudityandnerdery]

Horny bard is cancelled. We’re bringing the dad bard to the table.

Bardic Inspiration? Because I believe in you, champ!

Vicious Mockery? It’s all dad jokes.

Seducing NPCs? Nope, we’re using Persuasion to get them to give you information you need, because “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”

Jack of All Trades? Yeah, yer old dad knows a little bit about everything.

Song of Rest? It’s called “tucking you in and giving you a bedtime story.”

Be the one to split up party treasure and tell them that this is their allowance.

Mix up your game. Put your bard in a polo shirt and cargo shorts. Hit that party with some Big Dad Energy.

[matchamabs]

[freesiadotcom]

inspired by the scariest words my dm has ever said to me and the subsequent coolest (AND SCARIEST) scene of my life

[homunculus-argument]

I think if we all had infinite amount of time and resources, theatres would do some sort of "wrong answers only" production challenges, where the director and everybody involved goes out of their way to perform the play in a way where all the dialogue and cues are technically correct, but performed as incorrectly as possible. If the script simply says "they fight" and you know that these characters are supposed to have an epic dramatic battle of some sort - if we're talking Shakespeare, probably originally swordfighting, though modern adaptations have gone with everything from guns to kung fu - but instead you've got them both intensely nipping at each other with these:

The character who's supposed to die in this battle does, naturally, still die. By being somehow nipped to death.

[42-42-564-quillman]

I would watch the hell out of a Hamlet with these as swords

[thatgirlonstage]

Absurdist time loop where a guy gets stuck in a time loop for absolutely no apparent reason and tries all this crazy shit and dies a bunch of times and completely reforms his life and then suddenly gets spat out the other side on a completely average loop with no idea what he did that finally fixed it and the answer is like. There was this one (1) ant that he kept stepping on every cycle without even noticing and he doesn’t notice on the last one either he just stopped for an extra three seconds bc he dropped something or whatever. And then didn’t step on the ant. Either the ant is a wizard or a wizard enchanted it to live forever just to see what would happen. The point is the man never knows about it. As far as this guy is aware time just stopped working for six months and then just as randomly started again. He can speak Portuguese and play the viola now.

[thatgirlonstage]

Alternatively world where time loops are not uncommon as just like, random natural magical phenomena where major ones are prone to coalesce around a Big Event—preventing someone’s death, a love confession, saving the world, etc—but occasionally you’ll get mini versions that just swirl up like a localized rain shower, especially as aftershocks of a Big One, so it’s not uncommon for you to wake up to your roommate looking addled and telling you it’s been Monday for two weeks. “Hey I just got stuck in the time loop and took up crafting, we need to buy crochet supplies now” is a common occurrence. College students frequently make deliberate efforts to snare themselves in time loops to get extra time to study. Athletes and writers hate it because you suddenly have all the time in the world but none of the fruits of your effort will stick around.

[official-time-loop-posts]

Official Time Loop Post