Babies can begin signing as early as a few months old. You don’t have to wait until they’re 9-12 months to start communicating verbally; the parts of the brain that process and use language develop before a baby is able to speak intelligibly with their mouth. Teaching your kid sign language early means that they can communicate effectively months ahead of schedule, when compared to peers that only speak a spoken language.
Additional fun fact: this jumpstart in language is thought to be a possible way to avoid the “Terrible Twos”; that phase of a toddler’s life is thought to be largely due to a toddler being unable to effectively communicate their needs. If a two year old has already been speaking for a year and a half, they’re far more able to communicate to you what’s wrong. Heck, they might also start reading earlier; languages with a fingerspelling component, like ASL, mean that any speaker needs to be able to spell unfamiliar words and ask about them. This can jumpstart a toddler’s ability to recognize letters as components of a word, and teach them to spell, read, and eventually write these letters to communicate.
Which, of course, lends absolutely zero credence to the theory that ASL will inherently stunt someone’s spoken language skills. If anything, sign language fluency makes acquiring any language, spoken or not, easier rather than harder.
It doesn’t add any energy, it just temporarily stops your brain from being able to process how tired you are. Which is why you crash later! Because your brain’s receptors wake up and are like “BITCH why didn’t my alarm go off look at all this goddamn paperwork??”
It’s such a weird thing. What we call “tired” is the brain creating a small dose of “tired chemical” every hour or so. Once there’s enough tired chemical, the brain goes into sleep mode to clean itself out (we… think) and it gets rid of all the tired chemical.
This is why you can oversleep and feel tired: the brain has started to make the tired chemical again while you were sleeping. But it’s also why caffeine is so bonkers. Caffeine works by blocking the tired receptor in your brain, so you keep making tired chemical but you don’t know you’re making it.
If you don’t have enough tired chemical, you can introduce diphenhydramine. Diphenhydramine - sold in the U.S. as Benadryl - acts by blocking histamine receptors in the same part of the brain as where the wake-sleep cycle is regulated, so this can make the brain think it’s got a bunch of tired chemical on those receptors. And once the sleep cycle is activated, the body dramatically reduces its histamine response, so the whole meme about “Benadryl: You Can’t Sneeze When You’re Dead” is actually pretty accurate as to how diphenhydramine works.
It also means that if you, say, take twice the recommended dose of diphenhydramine and wash it down with a 16 ounce Red Bull because you’ve got to help your parents who have a dog and a cat move out of their dusty house (and you’re allergic to dogs, cats, and dust), you’re going to be very productive for a couple hours and then you are going to pass out for fourteen hours and have some incredible dreams.
By all evidence, it must have been peaceful; she was lying comfortably with a hand resting on her husband’s arm over her waist and a faint smile on her face, though no amount of apparent contentment could lessen her husband’s distress upon waking up to find her body cold and still.
His cries woke the children, and quite possibly the neighbors.
Their son, Quincey, had rushed in first, and quickly turned back to spare his sister Cindy the sight, sending her instead to summon their uncles Art and Jack at once.
With their father too distressed to speak, and knowing that it would be worse to hear him crying without knowing why, it was Quincey who told Cindy the dreadful news.
It was their uncles who had to pry poor Jonathan away from his wife, with Arthur taking him to the children, where he was needed more, while John attempted in his usual way to put aside his personal investments to perform a medical examination as if he had not been a close friend of the deceased.
For his health, he should perhaps have called for a colleague. For his knowledge of Mina’s previous vampiric afflictions, however…
A tension seemed to go from the room the others had gathered in when he went to report finding no marks of unholy designs, and that she had gone happily and peacefully in her sleep, though Jonathan only wept the more for it.
A funeral was arranged, officially by Jonathan, but in practice it was Arthur sending the necessary letters, while John went through the Professor’s old journals to find some ways to ensure she could not be preyed upon by evils after her death, and Jonathan held his children like they were a lifeline.
The two days leading up to the funeral passed in an odd haze for most of those involved.
By all evidence, it must have been peaceful; she was lying comfortably with a hand resting on her husband’s arm over her waist and a faint smile on her face, though no amount of apparent contentment could lessen her husband’s distress upon waking up to find her body cold and still.
His cries woke the children, and quite possibly the neighbors.
Their son, Quincey, had rushed in first, and quickly turned back to spare his sister Cindy the sight, sending her instead to summon their uncles Art and Jack at once.
With their father too distressed to speak, and knowing that it would be worse to hear him crying without knowing why, it was Quincey who told Cindy the dreadful news.
It was their uncles who had to pry poor Jonathan away from his wife, with Arthur taking him to the children, where he was needed more, while John attempted in his usual way to put aside his personal investments to perform a medical examination as if he had not been a close friend of the deceased.
For his health, he should perhaps have called for a colleague. For his knowledge of Mina’s previous vampiric afflictions, however…
A tension seemed to go from the room the others had gathered in when he went to report finding no marks of unholy designs, and that she had gone happily and peacefully in her sleep, though Jonathan only wept the more for it.
A funeral was arranged, officially by Jonathan, but in practice it was Arthur sending the necessary letters, while John went through the Professor’s old journals to find some ways to ensure she could not be preyed upon by evils after her death, and Jonathan held his children like they were a lifeline.
The two days leading up to the funeral passed in an odd haze for most of those involved.
Quincey paced and wept and busied himself with things that did nothing to calm him, until Arthur offered that they go and practice with firearms at his estate, and Quincey found some measure of peace with the steel of his namesake’s well-kept revolver. Cindy was possessed with an urge to speak of anything and everything except for her mother’s passing, something which took up her father’s and her Uncle Jack’s time so thoroughly that they had to take her in shifts. (At least it kept Jonathan’s mind off of spiraling.)
Both of the Harkers had written up their own last wills and testaments long ago, updating them multiple times to be sure of every variable. Mina left everything to her beloved husband and children, and was sure to include a few measures against rising from the dead as though they were simply some last wishes to be buried with specific flowers and things she was fond of.
A second, secret will detailed what she wished them to do should she return, despite all their efforts against the dreadful Count, and prey upon the living.
John Seward raised the awkward question of the one sure way to keep someone from becoming a vampire. After some discussion, all present voted that it would be an unnecessary mutilation, as she hadn't shown any signs of vampirism and they were taking every other measure at their disposal.
A wreath of garlic flowers adorned Mina’s neck and more were scattered over her in the coffin, her hands were placed around a crucifix, and when she was finally closed up and laid in the mausoleum, Jonathan himself placed a branch of wild rose atop the lid.
None were there to see what developed beneath the lid, as the motion of being carried from the church to the cemetery jostled the crucifix from Mina’s hands, as an attendant whisked away the wild roses, as the garlic flowers wilted away, as a small scar faded into view on her forehead.
Jonathan may once have said that, without Mina, he would have no reason to go on. That he would follow her anywhere, even into death.
But, though he found himself in a stupor after his tears ran dry…
Their son Quincey found him at precise times each morning, noon, and evening, reminding him to wash and dress and eat properly. Though the dear boy was near running himself ragged with busying and fussing over everything else, his concern for his father and sister brought him back to them like clockwork.
Their daughter Cindy couldn’t detain her Uncle Jack forever and demanded her father through tears to tell her how to map equations on a grid, or to inform her of every detail of estate policy, or to show her how to look after her typewriter, or a dozen other things. (He and Mina still hadn’t wanted her going to her brother for his firearm knowledge until she was older, not after the last time, so he could hardly leave the two of them unattended).
John and Arthur came for dinner each night for three days after they buried her. Each time, Arthur brought a new record for Mina’s phonograph to play, and required Jonathan’s blessing to lead Cindy or Quincey in a dance. (Disregarding that he had danced with both of them without needing permission many a time, since they were hardly able to stand and entirely too uncoordinated to follow the steps properly.) John took the time while they were distracted to analyze Jonathan in his professional way and engage him in conversation until he was summoned back by the others.
Though he had to reconsider following his wife deliberately, Jonathan felt something was amiss, finding an ache in his head each time he stood and something feeling off with his heart. He swore that he would partake in no strenuous action going forward, and that he would try to remain spirited for Quincey and Cindy’s sakes, but…
What if, despite his efforts, the shock of losing his beloved Mina had been too much? What if he joined her regardless?
Garlic flowers, being soft-stemmed, tended to wilt in the span of a few days.
If anyone were to have pried open Mina’s coffin, they would have found her body shifted to one side, with the dislodged crucifix on the other.
Jonathan’s final gift, the rose branch, had been taken by an attendant to the mausoleum and placed in a small jar of water on the marble shelf where offerings and remembrances were meant to be kept.
Mina Harker was not in her bed.
This fact was puzzling.
The last thing she could recall was her Jonathan, and their bed…
Something was uncomfortable against her side, so she shifted away from it and tried to sit up.
Something kept her from sitting up. Her forehead bonked against it, leaving an odd… not quite pain, more of a tingling, directly in the center.
She removed it, whatever it was, and stood…
Ah, she had left the lid ajar. She had better set that right before she went on her way.
Where was Jonathan?
As she wandered in search of an exit, she found a branch of roses, their petals just barely turning down, but otherwise perfectly lovely.
Far from distracting her, the flowers only made her think of her darling husband more. She took them. Who could they be for, other than her beloved?
The air was cool and the sky was dark and clear. One hand lifted the hem of her skirt while the other held onto Jonathan’s rose branch.
She passed someone with a light. They spoke, making her pause, and she had half a thought towards… something… to do with them…?
No, she must return to her Jonathan. The roses may wilt if she dallied. She bid a goodnight and continued on.
(Behind her, the night watchman fainted after the apparent ghost of his old schoolteacher.)
There were things in her way when she arrived, things she couldn’t quite make sense of. (The door was closed… Was she invited to enter? …What a silly thought. This was her home.)
Jonathan was there. (The sound of him shifting under the covers with a soft sigh, the smell of… something sweet, something warm.)
Faint pinks and yellows colored the horizon; dawn would come soon. She must return to Jonathan.
The window of their bedroom was open.
Anyone who watched at that hour may have seen an odd sight: a bat, with a flower clutched in its little feet, darting through a window below the watery pre-dawn sky.
The very first rays of sunlight painted a faint rosy light over the walls as Mina shed her outermost layers, carefully placed Jonathan’s rose into the pitcher of water on their bedside table, and paused for a moment to look down at her husband.
His face, normally soft in sleep, held a hint of melancholy, echoed in the way his body curled in on itself and his arms clung onto a pillow. She had seen this many a time, when she was the later one to bed and had left her poor husband to fall asleep without anyone to hold.
(She could kiss that worry away…)
Her right hand lifted the covers and moved the pillow, her left hand brushed at Jonathan’s stray hair, soothing the wrinkles in his features.
Jonathan shifted in his sleep as if to welcome his beloved back into bed as Mina found her place under the blankets easily, as she had done hundreds of times.
He was wonderfully warm and he smelled like… like her Jonathan.
She could kiss him, she could… take some of that warmth… he wouldn’t mind sharing, surely… but…
The sun was rising. She was tired.
She would not let her Jonathan awaken without his arms around his Mina.
So, lying comfortably, with one hand holding her husband’s arm over her waist and a faint smile lingering on her face, she let that sleepy haze overtake her.
me emailing my professor like "hey bestie can I get an extension on this thing, promise I was trying to do it on time but my mental breakdown happened during scheduled homework hours instead of scheduled mental breakdown hours so you know how it is lol"
Waking up was the worst experience in his life so far. He was cold and alone, lying on a floor that was unnaturally hard and flat. Dade pushed himself up on his elbows and rubbed his eyes, but the world around him was still obscured in pitch darkness.
The general licked his chapped lips, then lunged for a headbutt. The thug caught him with a hand in his hair, but the mage, breathing quick, had already scrambled away.
Dreth cackled and got a fist across his cheek for it.
Using the lovely @solipsism-lemonade’s last line tag, thank you!
The silence stretched too long. I shifted from foot to foot, unable to see the Great Abyss’s – or Abby’s, if that’s what it wants to call itself - expression. I mean, it probably didn’t matter what it thought of my silly excuse of a name, or of me. The best I could hope for is that it’d find the taste of my soul satisfying enough to not destroy my world for a few more decades.
Can you tell I have a thing for eldritch creatures being weird about gender?
Tagging, no pressure: @euphoniouspandemonium @pandawriterstuff @loopyhoopywrites @atlasllm-verse and anyone who wants to! Open tag!
It’s a little cheating only ‘cause I suck at paragraph breaks, but:
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. …I swear, that bitch is going to stay out for good. I promise you that. And trust me, I’m always glad to know you’re safe and sound.“
Cobalt snuggled deeper into her arms.
”…I… thank you.“ He said.
The two sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company and mindlessly staring at the kitchen ceiling. Ruby snapped back into reality first, Shiro having started to nudge at her face with his moist nose.
”…Can I get a melatonin too?“
“Sure, Ruby.”
“Sleepover time?”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
It was a little relationship excersize (///) I love them
Cobalt definitely believes kissing the homies is okay because Ruby told him it’s okay if they have socks on
“Oh be serious, Christopher. We all know our dearest Val wouldn’t be caught dead in some musty old comic shop.” Maybe they could be caught dead somewhere else then. The conversation shifts as Marisa laughs, “He’s such a tease, Val.”
“Isn’t he just? Wicky, Darling, I’m thirsty. Should we get something to drink?”
I don’t drink, he almost says but they know that already so he holds his tongue and nods dutifully with a parting smile for Marisa. It’s almost a relief to get away from the incessant chatter. He could zone out right now, listen to the string quartet, and let himself drift.
I taaaag @winedark-whump @wildfaewhump aaaand @whumper-in-training
The flavors were stronger than anything he’d had in weeks. Everything about it was perfect. Too perfect. He took a second bite and that’s when he heard them crunch a sharp pain in his mouth. He fished out a small piece of glass from his mouth. Covered in food and a little of his own blood. He slowly looked down at the plate. It looked completely normal, just like Villain;sitting across from him eating without a second glance.
@just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whumpzone and anyone else who wants in!!
A fist closed around his waist and he let it, barely breathing. He wouldn’t be able to get out of the box alone, couldn’t climb up the walls with no help. However, once he was up and out of it, he released a spell to heat the air around him quickly.
The man cursed as the small sprite in his hand suddenly burned him like a fiery coal - and dropped it.
The table top was farther than Nik had expected, and while he knew the impact would hurt, he didn’t expect it to knock the breath out of him.
Unfortunately I haven’t written since the last last line tag 🤣 I’m gonna pick another WIP file which I have neglected for even longer.
“You’re… you’re rather young, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Caldyn said.
Leon made a low noise, conveying agreement. “Our people learned much and quickly in the early days. Not only the language. Reading and writing, crafting and cooking. So much knowledge, not only from the humans. But imagine one of the explorers coming back, bringing you a recipe that requires something called butter, and you have no idea what that is.” Leon laughed. “Then you wait for a few months for the answer. More often than not, we didn’t wait. We tried our best, we failed and succeeded and tried again. Ask Lily, she’s older than me. When she was a sapling, our people barely knew what an oven was.”
“I’m not that much older than you,” Lily insisted.
My tag didn’t work, so @whump-cravings @whumpshaped in case those didn’t work, too (they look non-working to me). Hellsite. Also @dont-touch-my-soup and @whump-in-the-moonlight :D
Here’s an unedited but last thing I wrote snippet from upcoming thing:
“Is he doing alright now? He didn’t seriously hurt himself?”
“He’s sleeping.” Luke peeks around the doorway into the living room, glimpsing only the top of Leo’s head, his body balled tightly on the sofa. “And no. It could’ve been worse. He could have fucking strangled himself. Hit his head when he fell. I don’t know, I don’t know how intense these things get when in the wrong hands. I’m sure he could’ve done some real damage.”
“Well,” Rob says, “then he’s lucky you came home when you did.”
Luke isn’t sure Leo would agree.
(no pressure) tagging: @thecyrulik @peachy-panic @redwingedwhump @pumpkin-spice-whump @quietly-by-myself @whump-cravings
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE BOY, HOLDY??? (thanks for the tag @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi and for fixing it @i-can-even-burn-salad and the tag again, Holdy lmao)
as for meee here’s my little miscreant tiefling who insists on poetry elements (such as alliteration and some almost-rhyming), and this paragraph might be the most boring of all 4 that I’ve written lmao
Shami shoved themself upright, the spirit misting out. Movement set the world a-spinning so they slouched to drop their head into their hands and spat a curse when something jabbed into their side: a baton stuck out from their sash. They seized the stick and cast it off, supposing somewhere some chair now lacked support. Niqala’s ghost stooped to scrutinize the thing up close.
what do you mean I’m late to this a wizard is never late haha uh frick what am I writing–
It would be easier to deal with all these things (or just not think about them in the first place) if people would talk to him. Sure, there was a guard, so he wasn’t completely abandoned, but they were kinda ignoring him. Which he could understand in a place like this, but still, come on.
Convenient lack of identifying names or traits in this paragraph xD
Aaaaaand I uh never use this account so I have forgotten who, if anyone, I could tag, so. uh. one of them “if you see this and want to do it then consider yourself tagged” situations I suppose
The Technoblade millionaires are coming through. In less than 48 hours we already managed to donate $500. We can’t thank you guys enough, but there’s still more time left. Check the pinned post to help kick Sarcoma’s ass and win art/fic!!!
(The wonderful art here is provided by @/lia_wildfire on twitter.
She’s one of the contributors to the project too so if you want a chance to win art from her, be sure to donate :D)
Presenting the official timeline for our project. With your help, we want to honor Technoblade’s memory and donate as much money as possible towards the continuing battle against Sarcoma. And hey, you can get some cool art or fic in the process!
Please reblog to spread <3
Art credit belongs to the lovely @local-cawcaw, who is also a contributor
You can find us on twitter too: https://twitter.com/TheBladesLegacy
Using the lovely @solipsism-lemonade’s last line tag, thank you!
The silence stretched too long. I shifted from foot to foot, unable to see the Great Abyss’s – or Abby’s, if that’s what it wants to call itself - expression. I mean, it probably didn’t matter what it thought of my silly excuse of a name, or of me. The best I could hope for is that it’d find the taste of my soul satisfying enough to not destroy my world for a few more decades.
Can you tell I have a thing for eldritch creatures being weird about gender?
Tagging, no pressure: @euphoniouspandemonium @pandawriterstuff @loopyhoopywrites @atlasllm-verse and anyone who wants to! Open tag!
It’s a little cheating only ‘cause I suck at paragraph breaks, but:
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. …I swear, that bitch is going to stay out for good. I promise you that. And trust me, I’m always glad to know you’re safe and sound.“
Cobalt snuggled deeper into her arms.
”…I… thank you.“ He said.
The two sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company and mindlessly staring at the kitchen ceiling. Ruby snapped back into reality first, Shiro having started to nudge at her face with his moist nose.
”…Can I get a melatonin too?“
“Sure, Ruby.”
“Sleepover time?”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
It was a little relationship excersize (///) I love them
Cobalt definitely believes kissing the homies is okay because Ruby told him it’s okay if they have socks on
“Oh be serious, Christopher. We all know our dearest Val wouldn’t be caught dead in some musty old comic shop.” Maybe they could be caught dead somewhere else then. The conversation shifts as Marisa laughs, “He’s such a tease, Val.”
“Isn’t he just? Wicky, Darling, I’m thirsty. Should we get something to drink?”
I don’t drink, he almost says but they know that already so he holds his tongue and nods dutifully with a parting smile for Marisa. It’s almost a relief to get away from the incessant chatter. He could zone out right now, listen to the string quartet, and let himself drift.
I taaaag @winedark-whump @wildfaewhump aaaand @whumper-in-training
The flavors were stronger than anything he’d had in weeks. Everything about it was perfect. Too perfect. He took a second bite and that’s when he heard them crunch a sharp pain in his mouth. He fished out a small piece of glass from his mouth. Covered in food and a little of his own blood. He slowly looked down at the plate. It looked completely normal, just like Villain;sitting across from him eating without a second glance.
@just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whumpzone and anyone else who wants in!!
A fist closed around his waist and he let it, barely breathing. He wouldn’t be able to get out of the box alone, couldn’t climb up the walls with no help. However, once he was up and out of it, he released a spell to heat the air around him quickly.
The man cursed as the small sprite in his hand suddenly burned him like a fiery coal - and dropped it.
The table top was farther than Nik had expected, and while he knew the impact would hurt, he didn’t expect it to knock the breath out of him.
Unfortunately I haven’t written since the last last line tag 🤣 I’m gonna pick another WIP file which I have neglected for even longer.
“You’re… you’re rather young, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Caldyn said.
Leon made a low noise, conveying agreement. “Our people learned much and quickly in the early days. Not only the language. Reading and writing, crafting and cooking. So much knowledge, not only from the humans. But imagine one of the explorers coming back, bringing you a recipe that requires something called butter, and you have no idea what that is.” Leon laughed. “Then you wait for a few months for the answer. More often than not, we didn’t wait. We tried our best, we failed and succeeded and tried again. Ask Lily, she’s older than me. When she was a sapling, our people barely knew what an oven was.”
“I’m not that much older than you,” Lily insisted.
My tag didn’t work, so @whump-cravings @whumpshaped in case those didn’t work, too (they look non-working to me). Hellsite. Also @dont-touch-my-soup and @whump-in-the-moonlight :D
Here’s an unedited but last thing I wrote snippet from upcoming thing:
“Is he doing alright now? He didn’t seriously hurt himself?”
“He’s sleeping.” Luke peeks around the doorway into the living room, glimpsing only the top of Leo’s head, his body balled tightly on the sofa. “And no. It could’ve been worse. He could have fucking strangled himself. Hit his head when he fell. I don’t know, I don’t know how intense these things get when in the wrong hands. I’m sure he could’ve done some real damage.”
“Well,” Rob says, “then he’s lucky you came home when you did.”
Luke isn’t sure Leo would agree.
(no pressure) tagging: @thecyrulik @peachy-panic @redwingedwhump @pumpkin-spice-whump @quietly-by-myself @whump-cravings
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE BOY, HOLDY??? (thanks for the tag @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi and for fixing it @i-can-even-burn-salad and the tag again, Holdy lmao)
as for meee here’s my little miscreant tiefling who insists on poetry elements (such as alliteration and some almost-rhyming), and this paragraph might be the most boring of all 4 that I’ve written lmao
Shami shoved themself upright, the spirit misting out. Movement set the world a-spinning so they slouched to drop their head into their hands and spat a curse when something jabbed into their side: a baton stuck out from their sash. They seized the stick and cast it off, supposing somewhere some chair now lacked support. Niqala’s ghost stooped to scrutinize the thing up close.
Context for this one is Nico, the deaf overqualified bodyguard and best friend to the Space Empress Yesenia’s adopted son Ven, recently helped Ven run away after finding out the empress killed his birth mother (via deliberate medical malpractice), and then Nico got recaptured. They just had a layered subtext double-conversation for a minute leading up to this and Yesenia’s been keeping her expression in a ‘mask’ the whole time.
"Where is Ven?” Finally, the actual question.
“Sorry, Your Imperial Majesty, but I wasn’t trained to be a traitor." The sign he used here was slightly customized; normally it was meant to resemble a backstab, but he quirked his fingers to make it reminiscent of an injection instead.
The mask cracked.
I am too nervous to tag people as well as too tired to remember anyone’s names I am sorry (pensive emoji)
(contains: lady whump, restraints, muzzle, branding, captivity, light dehumanization flavors(?), character with mutated limbs and dysmorphia about them, hurt with a little comfort at the end)
Eugenia woke to a harsh tug on her arm– the left one, the horrible, unnatural one that was too sensitive and too numb, too thin and too lumpy and too thick where it had no reason to be, in swollen sinew and fleshy bulbs. Someone’s heavily gloved hand dug into the space between two bones that hardly had any feeling and their thumb pressed into the edge of a lump that now felt like it was searing in the heart of a forge.
There was a funny thing that the cursed arm did. Instead of feeling pain in one part of it, keeping it to just the one bulbous lump of flesh, every sensitive point on the whole arm reacted at once. The bits around where her wrist and elbow used to be erupted in a similar burning pain, and the five tendrils at the end of it writhed as what remained of the joints jerked in the crushing grip.
“Wh’s–” stumbled out of her mouth, followed immediately by a wordless cry as the grip shifted, pushing in harder against the sensitive spot on the upper arm.
Getting her leg and the cursed leg underneath her was an ordeal lately, even when she was alone; if she had thought that being held up by someone else would help, she was being proven wrong presently. While it felt like strength and coordination were lagging behind the movement of her right leg, the thing on the left was moving a bit too much and a bit too harshly, throwing her off balance enough that the only thing holding her up was the too-tight grip.
“–seems to be convulsing again,” a vaguely familiar voice was saying.
Eugenia’s left eye could see them, but the right wasn’t open yet, which explained why she was only seeing in shapes of temperature. The light pierced into it like a fine, narrow sword aimed right through her skull.
“Wh’t’re you d–” she started to ask, knowing it would be fruitless. Especially fruitless this time, because whoever this was jerked her harshly by the shoulder before she could finish, sending scalding shivers up the length of the arm and down her spine.
Another voice reached her faintly through the grogginess, much farther away than she had grown used to. The distance picked up her heart rate as she craned her head to look, squinting her right eye open to see, though watery through tears.
“...Genie, Eugenia! Genie can you hear– Get your hands off my patient!” Diana was far away, at the other end of a room, behind a door? Eugenia couldn’t make sense of it through how everything was spinning and blurring. Before she could blink anything away and try again, another pair of thickly-gloved hands took hold of her right arm.
“Knew they shouldn’t’ve let the doc stay in specimen containment,” a low, slightly familiar voice muttered above Eugenia’s head. “The curse’s getting into her.”
“I can hear you,” Diana’s voice would be comforting, she sounded furious and protective, but she was too far away.
“Quiet,” snapped the low voice. There was some new, unfamiliar apparatus, something like the examination table but different.
“Oh, let her get it out while she can,” said the other. Eugenia was pressed against a cold surface, angled up, one of the hands that gripped her right arm letting go to push against her back and keep her there.
“Let her go,” Diana snarled, “before we find out how bendable these bars are. We know exactly how breakable your–”
An involuntary cry from Eugenia drowned out the rest of that. Straps were tightening around the thing on her left where her arm used to be, keeping it in place even as it writhed out of her control. Its convulsions pressed the soft, sensitive bits into the cold metal surface and chafed at the skin under the restraints, and she hated it with such force that she was able to wrench her right arm back to herself.
If she could just loosen one of the straps–
This brief struggle only lasted a second before the hand on her back pushed hard enough to crush the air out of her lungs in a high, sharp gasp, pinning her right arm under her chest.
“Please–” she wheezed out as she felt three points of contact on her shoulder, elbow, and one worming under to get to her wrist.
“This will go quicker if you cooperate,” said the more neutral voice just before the pressure eased up from her back slightly.
Eugenia’s still-free hand darted across for where the restraint on her left shoulder ought to be, but wasn’t quite fast enough.
“–filthy rat bastards can’t you see she’s not in any state for this–”
“Admin really knows how to pick ‘em,” the low voice grunted as two sets of hands wrestled Eugenia’s right arm into restraints. (She put up more of a fight than she could have a few days before, but was still at a thorough disadvantage.)
The final strap was tightened around her right wrist, and the process was repeated with her legs. The thing on the left kept jerking reflexively, throwing off her coordination for any attempts she could have made to kick with her right, not that it could do much good barefoot and with poor leverage.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing,” Diana didn’t sound calmer, but like she was pulling back to assess before another attack. “If Isido thinks–”
“We’re not here for Admin Isido. There’s more than one of them, you know, and this–” there was a lighter thump on Eugenia’s back, but even the slight jostling from it made the left arm pinch and burn, made her tear up and bite down on her lip, “–project is shared, if you remember.”
Diana didn’t answer verbally, just with a low growl. (It was possible that she had been emitting a low growl the whole time…)
“But– but what are, what are you, what’s,” Eugenia caught herself mumbling, pulling against the straps on her right arm to no avail. When one of her tugs caused an echoing movement in the left one, she tried to bite back a whimper and stopped moving.
There was the sound of something being picked up, with a metallic clink, and Eugenia’s head was being turned so that the right side pressed against the table. A hand lingered on her neck as another one clumsily pushed her hair to the side. (It was still in the long braid Diana had helped her put it into the night before, after another sterilizing potion bath left her skin stinging.)
A loud crash and the sound of claws scraping against metal came with a loud snarl from Diana.
“Get that away from her! Don’t muzzle my patient!”
Muzzle?
“You had to tell her, now she’s struggling again,” grumbled the low voice. The grip on her neck tightened as Eugenia tried to turn her head and dislodge it. She could hear her breaths, high and fast and shallow, tinged with pathetic whines.
For a few seconds, the only sounds Eugenia could hear was that of her own hitching breath, of blood rushing and pounding in her head over the pressure on her neck, and of Diana’s claws scratching and scrambling against metal, against bars if she had heard right.
Something leather closed around her throat, a strap trailed up the back of her head, and there was a pause as they tried to lift her face off of the metal.
“No no no nono please don’t please you don’t have to I can, I won’t, I swear you don’t have to please– nnh–!” Something pinched what remained of her left ear and she flinched reflexively, gasping, whole body shuddering and trying to curl inwards.
Before she could process it, more thick straps had been brought around the sides of her face, a leather mouthpiece was between her teeth, her jaw was locked shut, and her head had been immobilized against the table. Keening, gasping sounds were muffled by the gag, loud enough in the deformed ear that she could barely hear Diana now.
“Quiet, now,” the neutral voice came with one hand resting on top of Eugenia’s head for a moment. “If you could move for this, it would be worse.”
The thick, curse-resistant gloves these people wore did not leave them much dexterity, so Eugenia had plenty of time to figure out what they were trying to do when she felt tugs on her chemise-thing and light, accidental touches against the skin high up on her back. Where the loose gown tied shut, where they were now trying to untie it. More mumbled pleas were muffled and garbled by the gag as she felt cool air touch her exposed back. They stopped at the top set of ties, not moving to the middle or lower ones, and secured belts over her midsection and lower ribs, leaving her utterly immobilized.
Eugenia had hoped that these examinations would stop now that she had Diana, who still needed to do examinations but was so kind about it. Diana hadn’t once tried to tie her down to something, and talked her through what she was doing, and while she had to touch the mutated things for it, she at least listened when Eugenia told her how horrible they felt.
Something wet and unnaturally cold swiped over an area between her right shoulder blade and the base of her neck, shivers setting off the pinching searing spots of pain under the restraints on her left side. (That had probably been to clean it; cleaning came before injections and extractions, but those were always done in the arms or legs or occasionally neck, so why was this one on her back?)
“You’re better at this part,” she heard before something metal and oddly shaped was pressed against the cleaned spot. As the moisture dried, her skin started to sting. The metal thing felt ring-shaped, maybe, but there was more on the inside. A pattern? Some kind of device?
“What are you doing, tell me what you’re doing, step aside and let me see what you have–” Diana’s orders were not followed, Eugenia shouldn’t have hoped.
The metal was lifted, something was uncorked, something gave a chemical hiss, and when she felt it again, it came with a wet sound and a tacky feeling. Something bright and hot flared to life in the corner of the left eye’s vision, making Eugenia squirm as much as she was able, for about half a second, before the chafing and pinching became too much. There was warmth at her back, comforting if not for the question of what it was and what they were doing with it.
“Breathe in and bite down,” ordered the neutral one, leaving barely any time to question or follow their directions before
burning
burning searing blinding white red hot deafening writhing burning burning burning
Metal crunched, bent, and snapped.
The source of the burning left her skin, but its imprint remained, but she couldn’t stop straining, but her limbs were thrashing, but she couldn’t scream loud enough to drown it out, but–
Eugenia’s muffled cries weren’t the only things she could hear– there was Diana’s roar, an answering shout, blows exchanged and things clattering, thick fabric tearing, something pained (something hot and thick and red sprayed onto her side), the heavy door of the containment area slammed shut.
Then nothing but the two of them panting heavily, one with rage and exertion, the other with pain and burning and more pain and more burning and more–
Then, as if everything had caught up all at once, piling on and becoming too much to bear any longer, there was just… nothing.
.
.
.
“…Genie?”
Her head was being tilted, buckles gently undone. Once the muzzle was off, she couldn’t do more than whimper and lean it against the metal again.
“Eugenia, can you hear me?”
Her braid was pulled to the other side, and her head turned so that the misshapen side was against the metal. The right half of her face was stuck in a grimace, lips trembling, tears flowing down her cheek one after the other. She could see Diana behind her now.
“Okay, okay,” Diana sucked in a breath, her hand resting at the spot between Eugenia’s jaw and neck for a moment. “We’re going to start with your legs, yeah? Nod if you understand.”
Nodding was easy enough, even while every movement seemed to set off something else, to keep her breaths unsteady and her tears falling.
“Right, now your left arm. The right one needs to be still until we can get you down.”
Another nod. She worked from the wrist in, meaning that the tendrils at the end of it tried to latch onto her continuously, but by now she was an expert at dealing with them. Diana’s careful touch sent uncomfortable buzzing sensations through the arm, but nothing as painful as the manhandling before, and she let go after guiding it to stay curled against Eugenia’s chest.
“Can you support yourself? The skin is damaged here, I need you to keep yourself upright until we have this one stable, too.”
She could stand, so she nodded, and the process for this one went about the same as for the left one. Right up until Diana started to guide her into moving it, the skin stretching and burning enough that she might have thought her whole arm had been set on fire.
“Genie, breathe, remember to–”
“…if they get any credit it’s for the treatment supplies, not that those clunky gloves would let them do any of this well–”
She was on the examination table, the top half of her chemise peeled away, her torso propped up by one of Diana’s hands. There was a cool, gooey feeling over the burn, and gauze being wrapped around it.
“Genie?”
The wrapping paused just for a moment. Diana’s face came into view, her free hand patting Eugenia’s cheek. Once she had a moment of sustained eye contact (which had Eugenia tearing up again), she got back to it.
“Hold still, you fainted– I’m just finishing up treating the burn. We can put your gown back after I look at that chafing.”
There was a form on the ground, completely still, in one of the curse-resistant protective suits. It was torn open, blood leaking from it into a puddle on the floor. Some flecks of it still stained both of their clothes. Diana’s hands were perfectly clean.
My advice when folks are struggling with writing in the third-person omniscient is to Lemony Snicket it up. Give your omniscient narrator strong opinions about what’s going on. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that the third-person omniscient perspective must also use the objective voice; those are two separate things, and many of the most popular and successful writers who’ve written in the third-person omniscient do not, in fact, use the objective voice.
“Willingness to admit the narrative has a voice” is, I think, a big part of what makes young adult literature so much more engaging than a lot of books marketed at adults, particularly adult men.
suzanne collins killing prim after everything katniss did to save her.......... THATS how you write a story about the brutality and futility of war ma'am thats what we call a compelling and fucked up narrative yessums thats storytelling babes!!!!
“That was one of the first questions I asked her when we sat down: 'Did you always know that [Prim] was going to die?' And she said, 'Oh yeah, of course, that's the whole point.'” (x)
If u want to write a story about a character that's just you but hotter with a dark twisted backstory and magical powers and a pet falcon or something, I think u should just go ahead and do that. Who's gonna stop you? The government?? Fuck the police.
im about to be kind of petty but i just saw a book (one i read, enjoyed, and would recommend) recced as follows:
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. Super cool worldbuilding with indigenous influence, queer characters and a character with neopronouns, pirates and sirens and crows, what more do you need?
(the reclist was “non-YA dark/gritty queer + minimal romance)
and its like. well one thing i might need is any kind of actual indication of the kind of plot. lol.
like. please tell me that: 1. it’s the first book in a series. (i had only ever seen it recced as stand-alone) 2. any information about the plot or setting AT ALL other than “it has indigenous-inspired worldbuilding and a character with neopronouns” that’s like telling me a dish has cinnamon in it without telling me whether it is a snickerdoodle or, like, lamb tagine.
for instance: “it’s an ensemble cast story about the various factors and factions contributing to - and attempting to prevent - the inevitable implosion of an empire already on the verge of collapse.” that’s not much of a rec but it’s enough that you can then tell me about. the cinnamon. and have it mean something.
Actually, can we talk about how Garbage a lot of ubiquitous writing advice in the late 2000's was?
Like "you have to begin in the middle of the action! your first line has to be a 'hook' that draws the reader further into the story!"
This is the bullshit responsible for the amount of books that begin in the middle of some sort of pointless fucking action scene that I care nothing about because I just got here.
Like I guess this makes books easier to "sell" or whatever on some level of the process, but it's garbage storytelling advice because setup and establishment of the Way Things Are is almost always necessary.
On some level I don't think it's actually possible to begin a story right on top of the "inciting incident" because...you don't have the raw materials to "incite" anything with. If you have to set up basic things about the characters and world after the "inciting incident," it's not really the inciting incident anymore, is it?
The event that "launches" a character into their plot line is something that follows from the character's established situation, desires, traits etc. It's a follow-up to a situation that makes a Story of some kind inevitable.
It is, by definition, an event that makes no sense and does not matter to the reader at all unless the "setup" already exists.
If you try to begin right in the middle of the event that "sparks" the plot, you're going to end up including a second, "real" event that actually does the job, because you can't do the job if the character, the stakes, the rules, etc. are not there yet.
Now the action scene you stuck to the beginning of your story is probably dead weight that is getting in the way of the setup.
I just realized that a lot of writing advice assumes the reader has no pre-existing knowledge of what a story is, and everything suddenly makes so much sense.
Good stories assume you know what a story is.You don't need something to explode or someone to get killed on page one to Make The Reader Pay Attention. That's stupid. Stop talking.
I used to read SO MANY articles, books etc. talking about beginning a story and how a good "hook" works, and all of them talked about, like, introducing something so weird or exciting sounding or inexplicable that the reader is curious about the rest, and it's so stupid thinking back on it that I want to cry, because literally none of them seemed to take into account that readers know that they're reading a story.
When you start reading a book you're automatically paying attention to specific things—interesting characters to connect with, hints of the kinds of things that might happen. You are not an idiot and you know that there is more book after the first page. You will be looking for stuff that looks like it will grow into something exciting, things that set up an interesting plot.
Your reader is already capable of projecting in their head the kinds of things that might happen in your story. It's actually kind of fundamental to being a reader. Start with the bomb, not the explosion!
No one is opening a book like "Hmm, there is no extraordinary, dramatic event happening in the first sentence...I think I can safely conclude that nothing exciting happens in the entire book!" Like. Readers know how plots work. Dumbass.
I've said before that good first lines are the ones that have that "sit down, I'm telling you a story" effect, and I haven't been able to explain it until now. A good beginning to a story is something that provides the "ingredients" for something cool.
Start with the bomb, not the explosion! READERS KNOW THAT BOMBS EXPLODE!
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
This is a very good beginning. Readers instinctively recognize that "they were perfectly normal" isn't, like, telling us the whole book is going to be boring. It's the bomb.
We get a feeling that something very not normal is about to happen to the Dursleys, and we're right.
Finding where the story begins is one of those things you fine tune as you write more and more and hone your editing skills. What I’ve learned over time where the story begins is either the part of the story where the character is thrust into personal emotional stakes (or at least acknowledges them,) or where the character actually starts taking action instead of letting events happen to them.
(While Murphy’s Law is a thing and a good writing tool if you get stuck or think your protags or antagonists are too competent, it is not a tool you should use through the entire book. Let the characters take charge and accomplish something, please! Because that’s the only way things will be resolved, In your HP example, a lot of things just happen to Harry, but eventually he takes matters into his own hands and with the help of his friends, solves things. It’s called movement.)
In Media Res is bad advice in the way it’s been interpreted to mean “start with an action scene” rather than “start where the action either internal or external for your book type begins.”
If your book has a lot of action, then it’s probably going to start with an action scene. But if you don’t have an action style set of characters, don’t twist your book into a pretzel trying to start it with a fight! If your book has more modern day rather than paranormal romance, it probably starts with the couple meeting or being opposed to each other in some way and asking the question of “Why can’t they be together now?” Or if your book is a mystery, it starts when the investigator starts taking action on trying to solve the crime. (Whether or not the reader sees the crime is up to you, the author.) A Suspense or Thriller novel starts when the main character realizes something is wrong and they need to stop it TM. Adventure books get to have as much set up as you want most the time because “we are on an adventure!” (Eyes Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.)
Where in the story does things get personal, and the character meets opposition and what can they lose if they fail? Where do they start doing things versus letting themselves be acted upon. And if you MUST use your first chapter like HP to set up the whole normal versus not normal of your book, set the stage/scene if you will, you get ONE chapter. One. And HP only worked because it showed us these things after telling us the Dursleys were normal. Instead of telling us. (Which is another piece of advice that gets maligned. Sigh.)
And finding the right openings for 2nd and 3rd and 4th books in a series is a completely different matter. Because if they aren’t supposed to be strung along stand alones in the same universe (most romance) then it is expected for the reader to have read previous books.
I hope that makes sense. bless, and happy writing!
