all your ribs are still your own

ribs by the crane wives, writing sideblog, queer fantasy stories, header by billelis, icon by john william waterhouse

[marrowwrites]

We all know and love the final girl, but I want to know more about the first girl. The forgotten girl. The unlucky catalyst. The girl who's buried twice, first to be killed and last to be avenged. The girl that everyone else thinks about, when that phone call comes, when the backdoor is mysteriously unlocked, when the blade slides home. But she had no one before her to provide context. She was all alone with her fear and she died without knowing that her brutal sacrifice would birth the creation of a final girl who lives. The girl who watches as the girls after struggle and fail again and again until finally, finally, she wins but it's bittersweet because she had a whole lineage of dead girls to guide her way and the first girl had nothing. She was always supposed to fail and she did it so beautifully they've changed the meaning of her name about it, she is no longer a person she's that first brutal death.

[iloveyoudeanwinchester]

Was trying to sleep, had the thought "what if unicorns were some fucked up thing." Then this happened :)

[feral-ballad]

Claude de Burine, tr. Gloria Still, from Serving Blood: New Poems by French Women; “The Prophet”

[thisauthorisscreaming]

Does it count as 'sword in the stone' if it looks more like 'sword in the cairn'...?

[pam3pr]

English yew. Wakehurst, Sussex, 2008

[colorlessjay-destielblog]

I like to think that if Cas were a demon, he'd be something a little bit like endverse Cas but still so badass you know

I disagree actually

Demon Cas to me would be a stoic fucking asshole who fulfills deals way too literally and ghosts people he deals with after the fact, only showing face when it's time to collect

Picture this:

Someone summons him at the crossroads and makes a deal to be "Loved by those around him"

Cas fulfills it and disappears

10 years later, Castiel finds the soul he's contracted to, huddled alone in a bunker, isolated and afraid because everyone he's ever met loved him so much they went to extremes to receive love back. They stalked him,, attempted to kidnap him, obsessed over him, cheated on their partners for him, and some even took their own lives when he refused to return their affection. Even authority figures he went to ask help and protection for have fallen under his spell and have either turned on him or tried to isolate him in some twisted version of possessive romance

When he tells Castiel, "This isn't what I wanted."

Castiel merely replies with "but it's what you asked for" before taking his soul

He does it with no emotion, nor empathy, nor joy

it is a job. He is merely efficient

[serpentarii]

M O R D L U S T ; salicaire inspirations

what i could never confess without some bravado, emily palermo // wild beast, naruysae // sinnerman, kwame boateng // a body more tolerable, jaye simpson // isabella and lorenzo, john everett millais // a faithful hound, colin dickey // st. guinefort, jenna barton // @/hardwrench // little red riding hood, henri de montaut // the archetypes of literature, northrop frye // leash, wikipedia // binding of fenrir, koukouvayia // so what's wrong, ruth stone // love as a language, roland barthes // the old shepherd's chief mourner, edwin landseer // @/dostoyevsky-official // self-portrait, cynthia cruz // rough, naomi butterfield // torso of air, ocean vuong // wolf-alice, angela carter // gleipnir, walton ford // lancelot, edwin arlington robinson // james stuart (1612–1655), duke of richmond and lennox, anthony van dyck // problem area, melissa broder

[maramahan]

I feel like a very important part of worldbuilding for any universe with a magic system is asking yourself ‘how would people use this to do crime?’

[writeformyself]

This is also so important when developing real world technology.

[shithowdy]

it's 1pm at the marsh! come on down, we've got

𝓃𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝒷𝓁𝒶𝒸𝓀𝒷𝒾𝓇𝒹𝓈!!!

[04k96]

[promptcalender]

Piece of advice to all writers who need a cover but don’t have the money to hire an artist: use the public domain.

Online, you can find quite a lot databases for photography in the public domain that you could use (always check their specific rules regarding commercial use), like Pixabay, Unsplash, or Pexels.

But, even a tad more charming, there are also hundreds of thousands of paintings in the public domain. If the artist has been dead for over 70 years, the image is (typically) in the public domain and can be used however you want it. This is not a new concept, big publishers like Penguin and the Oxford’s World Classics do the same!

When you use such images, always make sure that 1. the painting really is in the public domain (sometimes the art itself may be in the public domain, but the photograph you are using to see it is not!), and 2. that it is an appropriate image. Sometimes, an image may look innocent and fitting, but would actually cause irritation, like accidentally using a painting of siblings for a romance or using a controversial image for different reasons.

Some places you can find art in the public domain (always double check!): National Gallery of Art, Artvee, Public Domain Image Archive, and most websites of bigger museums.

[Prompt Calender: April 23rd, World Book and Copyright Day]

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Your cover will look so much more professional and interesting if you use public domain imagery rather than AI.

Your hard work deserves thoughtful presentation.

[luna-azzurra]

Reasons your Plot armor is showing

⟢ Protagonist never gets seriously injured despite constant danger

⟢ Convenient skills appear exactly when needed

⟢ "Somehow" doing heavy lifting in your explanations

⟢ Bullets miss protagonist but hit everyone around them

⟢ Protagonist immune to their own bad decisions

⟢ Only character who doesn't catch the deadly plague

⟢ Falling from deadly height with minor bruises

⟢ Allies die dramatically, protagonist gets rescued last-second

⟢ Learning complex skills overnight

⟢ "Lucky" so many times it's a superpower

⟢ Stab wound? Walking it off!

⟢ Resources appear when needed, vanish when inconvenient

⟢ Guards always look the other way at the right moment

⟢ Protagonist's impulsive plans always work

⟢ Enemies become incompetent around protagonist

⟢ Saved by coincidence (seventeenth time this book)

⟢ Technology works/fails based on plot needs

⟢ "Unconscious" for exactly the right amount of time

⟢ No food/water/sleep needed during crisis Injuries that would cause shock? Totally fine!

⟢ Emotional trauma with no PTSD

⟢ Protagonist never makes a truly fatal mistake

⟢ Backup arrives at the exact dramatic moment "Just in time" is your most common phrase

⟢ Escaping impossible situations off-page "I don't know how I did it" (yes you do: plot armor)

⟢ "Trust your instincts" = always right

⟢ Redemption arc speedrun with no actual work

⟢ "Chosen One" immunity to normal consequences

⟢ Physics optional for protagonist only

[valtsv]

*goes limp and passive but in a way that feels more dangerous somehow*

[valtsv]

*doesn't protest or react but you can't help but feel like i'm doing it on purpose*

[seasnz]

a gentle “you don’t look well ..” trailing off into a “woah, hey, hey-“ as they lurch forward to steady, or perhaps catch, a most definitely sick character.

[ijustwannawritepls]

How to Write When You Don't Feel Like Yourself

There are going to be days (or weeks, or months) where you sit down to write and feel... disconnected. From your voice, from your characters, from your ideas. Like the person who used to write your stories just packed up and left.

They didn't. They're just tired. Here's how to keep writing anyway:

Lower the bar (Until it's on the floor) You are not here to write something brilliant. You are here to write something. A paragraph. A sentence. A single line of dialogue. Movement matters way more than quality.

Write around the story Don't force it. If you can't write the scene, try: ⋆ A character ramble / journal entry ⋆ A conversation that won't be included in the final draft ⋆ A list of things the character would never admit out loud ⋆ A messy summary of what should happen Engage with the story from a different angle.

Borrow a voice until yours comes back No, not with AI. Read something that feels close to what you want to write, or watch a scene that captures the tone, then write immediately after. Not to copy, to reignite your instincts.

Write the emotion, not the plot. What is your character feeling in this moment? What are they afraid of? What do they want but won't say? What's being kept from them? The emotion leads, the plot catches up later.

Stop trying to "feel like a writer" first. You don't write when you feel like a writer. You feel like a writer because you write.

You are still a writer, even on the days it feels distant. Especially then.

[vendetta06]

the sluttiest thing a man could do is be covered in blood and grip his wounded side in agony

[rederiswrites]

There used to be a lot of activities that took place around a populated area like a village or town, which you would encounter before you reached the town itself. Most of those crafts have either been eliminated in the developed world or now take place out of view on private land, and so modern authors don't think of them when creating fantasy worlds or writing historical fiction. I think that sprinkling those in could both enrich the worlds you're writing in and, potentially, add useful plot devices.

For example, your travelers might know that they're near civilization when they start finding trees in the woods that have been tapped, for pitch or for sap. They might find a forester's trap line and trace it back to his hut to get medical care. Maybe they retrace the passage of a peasant and his pig out hunting for truffles. If they're coming along a coast, maybe your travelers come across the pools where sea water is dried down to salt, or the furnaces where bog iron ore is smelted.

Maybe they see a column of smoke and follow it to the house-sized kilns of a potter's yard where men work making bricks or roof tiles. From miles away they could smell the unmistakeable odor of pine sap being rendered down into pitch, and follow that to a village. Or they hear the flute playing of a shepherd boy whiling away the hours in the high pasture.

They could find the clearing where the charcoal burners recently broke down an earth kiln, and follow the hoof prints and drag marks of their horse and sledge as they hauled the charcoal back to civilization. Or follow the sound of metal on stone to a quarry or gravel pit. Maybe they know they're nearly to town when they come across a clay bank with signs of recent clay gathering.

Of course around every town and city there will be farms, more densely packed the closer you are. But don't just think of fields of grains or vegetables. Think of managed woodlands, like maybe trees coppiced-- cut and then regrown--to customize the shape or size of the branches. Cows being grazed in a communal green. Waiting as a huge flock of ducks is driven across the road. Orchards in bloom.

If they're approaching by road, there will be things best done out of town. The threshing floor where grain is beaten with flails or run through crushing wheels to separate the grain from its casing, and then winnowed, using the wind to carry away the chaff. Laundresses working in the river, their linens bleaching on the grass at the drying yard. The stench of the tanners, barred from town for stinking so badly. The rushing wheel-race and great creaking wheel of the flour mill.

If it's a larger town, there might be a livestock market outside the gates, with goats milling in woven willow pens or chickens in wooden cages. Or a line of horses for the wealthier buyer or your desperate travelers. There might be a red light district, escaping the regulations of the city proper, or plain old slums. More industrial yards, like the yards where fabric is dyed (these might also smell quite bad, like rotting plant material, or urine).

There are so many things that preindustrial people did and would find familiar that we just don't know about now. So much of life was lived out in the open for anyone to see. Make your world busy and loud and colorful!

[alexanderwales]

You mentioned coppicing:

The coppice and pollard systems are one of my favorite pre-modern things, it's just so visually unique and sensible, but most people haven't heard about it.

When you coppice, you cut the tree close to the ground, so only the trunk is left, then the tree puts out fairly straight shoots that are great for firewood. They would typically have these trees harvested on rotation so new trees would be ready every year.

This is a coppiced tree:

When you pollard, you cut the tree to the trunk, but higher, and let the branches grow for longer. They'll be be nice and straight (depending on species) with fewer knots, and suitable to various crafts without much need to work the wood. Sadly seems to be etymologically unrelated to "pole", though the branches from these trees were used to make poles. Part of why you do this instead of coppicing is that the shoots are out of reach of animals.

This is a pollarded tree:

It's very likely that you'd see something like this as a sign of civilization as you came toward a town or village, depending on the species of tree that they have available, though note that this is something you do when you have a timeline of many years, rather than something you set up for the year after.