~Mon Petit Coin du Cerveau~

Just me and my multifandom scrapbook & yappings :) That's totally not just 90% Apothecary Diaries

[meowmeowsabortionclinic]

If I could snap my fingers and make it so no one is ever "sold" The Apothecary Diaries as a pure romance or a pure mystery series ever again, I might be bothered to learn how to snap

It's a historical fiction drama with elements of mystery and romance! They're catalysts for the plot to explore the setting. It's not that difficult to categorize.

I feel like a lot of people get "introduced" to it as something it's not, and then are upset when their expectations aren't met. Which is a huge shame for such an ambitious and complex story.

[bluelfsuma]

Howl's Moving Castle:

"You don't know everything I do, Mrs Moraliser," Howl said. "Want me to write out a list before I go out another time? I have looked for Prince Justin. Courting isn't the only thing I do when I go out."

House of Many Ways:

Sophie goes to another kingdom to solve a conundrum and Howl can't bare to be apart for 30 minutes, bringing their entire household with him.

[artandbeauty71]

she deserves ALL the appreciation 🌟

[floating--goblin]

so since we can assume howl's bringing stuff from wales into ingary ("inkless quill" could be understood as a ballpoint pen lol) what's the likelihood that at least some of his many tubes and jars and crap in the bathroom are just. normal earth cosmetics. like that was just his sephora haul, next to the GROWING POWER and the decay bag

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

💀 Making Your Villain Make Sense (Without Making Them Right™)

("because if I see one more war criminal with a sad diary entry get a redemption arc, I’m gonna throw my laptop.")

Here’s the thing: your villain doesn’t need to be redeemable. But they do need to make sense.

And I mean sense beyond "they’re evil and they monologue about it." Or “they have a tragic past, so now they do murder <3.” Or “they were right all along, the hero just couldn’t see it 🥺.”

Let’s fix that.

─────── ✦ ───────

🧠 STEP ONE: BUILD A LOGIC SYSTEM THAT ISN’T OURS Your villain shouldn’t just be wrong, they should have their own internal system that works for them. Morally flawed? Absolutely. But coherent.

Ask yourself:

What do they value more than anything? (Power? Order? Loyalty? Vengeance?)

What do they believe about the world, and how did they get there?

What fear drives them? What future do they think they’re trying to prevent?

The villain doesn’t need to know they’re wrong. But you should.

Make their logic airtight. even if it’s awful. Give them cause and effect.

─────── ✦ ───────

👿 STEP TWO: STOP GIVING THEM THE BETTER IDEOLOGY Listen. I love a “morally gray” moment as much as anyone. But if your villain is making all the good points and the hero’s just like “no because that’s mean,” your arc is upside down.

If your villain is critiquing injustice, oppression, or inequality, make sure their methods are the problem, not their entire worldview.

✖︎ WRONG: Villain: “The ruling class is corrupt.” Hero: “That’s not nice.”

✔︎ RIGHT: Villain: “The ruling class is corrupt, so I’m burning the city and everyone in it.” Hero: “So you’re just… committing genocide now?”

Your villain can touch a real issue. Just don’t let them be the only one talking about it, or solving it with horror movie logic.

─────── ✦ ───────

🔪 STEP THREE: GIVE THEM POWER THAT COSTS THEM The best villains lose things too. They’re not just untouchable horror dolls in sexy coats. They make bad choices and pay for them. That’s where the drama lives.

Examples:

They isolate themselves.

They sacrifice people they love.

They get what they want, and it destroys them.

They know they’re the monster, and choose it anyway.

If your villain can kill a dozen people and feel nothing, that’s not scary. That’s boring. Let them bleed. Let them regret it. Let them double down anyway.

─────── ✦ ───────

🧱 STEP FOUR: MAKE THEM PART OF THE WORLD, NOT OUTSIDE IT Villains shouldn’t feel like they were patched in from another genre. They should be part of the world’s logic, culture, class system, history. They should reflect something about the setting.

Villains that slap:

The advisor who upheld the regime until they decided they deserved to rule.

The noble who’s using war to reclaim stolen legacy.

The ex-hero who thinks the system can’t be saved, only reset.

The priest who truly believes the gods demand blood.

They’re not just evil, they’re a product of the same world the hero is trying to save.

─────── ✦ ───────

👁 STEP FIVE: SHOW US THEIR SELF-JUSTIFICATION You don’t need a tragic backstory™. But you do need to show us why they think they’re right. Not just with exposition, through action.

Let us watch them:

Protect someone.

Choose their goal over safety.

Justify the unjustifiable to a character who loves them.

Refuse to change, even when given a chance.

A villain who looks into the mirror and goes “Yes. I’m correct.” is 1000x scarier than one who sobs into a journal and says “I’m so broken 🥺.”

─────── ✦ ───────

🧨 BONUS ROUND: DON’T MAKE THEM A HATRED MEGAPHONE Especially if you’re writing marginalized characters: don’t let your villain become a mouthpiece for slurs, abuse, or extremism just to make them “evil enough.” That’s lazy. And harmful.

You don’t need real-world hate speech to build a dark character. You need power, consequence, and intent.

─────── ✦ ───────

TL;DR: Good villains don’t need to be right. They need to be real. Not a vibe. Not a sad boy in a trench coat. Not a trauma monologue and then a sword fight. They need logic. They need cost. They need to scare you because you get them, and still want them to lose.

Make them dangerous. Not relatable. Make them whole. Not wholesome. Make them make sense.

—rin t. // thewriteadviceforwriters // villain critic. final boss consultant. licensed chaos goblin

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making — A Mini eBook for Fiction Writers

✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re

[vsettacrescellie]

Remember kids, this is what show don’t tell looks like 👍

[radioactive-earthshine]

Not sure why it's a new trend among fic readers to assume if the fic has not been posted within the week it's inappropriate to comment on it, like the fic has to be hot out of the oven to give feedback for.

I got a comment on a fic that is less than a year old and it was mostly an apology for being a comment on an "old fic" and how late they were in commenting.

Just comment on the fic. Doesn't matter how old it is.

[mysteryteacup]

Fandom is not social media.

Fandom is not trends.

Fandom is a cross between a library and having a slumber party with your friends.

"Old" means nothing to fic.

[vsettacrescellie]

IS THAT THE BITE OF ‘87?!?!

[mangomasquerade]

In historical series where a major theme of the story is that structural systems enable cruelty, limit different people’s autonomies in various ways, and forge a culture where major decisions of authority figures will almost always have a victim, who could then go on to pass down generational trauma that’s difficult to break from, accuracy is a must for good writing. I’m not excusing Jinshi’s actions, as some people on TikTok or Twitter would say, when I analyze it from the lens of his environment, I’m actually examining the context. It actually does matter to the story that Jinshi behaves in a way that’s realistic, which is inevitably not model behavior, because not only does it reflect the theme I described above, it is the groundwork for his character arc that would not be what it is if it weren’t for the world he grew up in. The same goes for every single character in knh. Yes, since the beginning of time there were always people who defied the system, but Jinshi’s character arc and the plot in general heavily relates to the complexity of that, so that still does not negate the importance of how he is written despite how it is uncomfortable. Ofc no one is obligated to like Jinshi or think that the author handled him tastefully, but the only way to get a good grasp on knh is to consume it considering the standards of the world that they lived in. When people remind others to be mindful of the setting before watching/reading, most of us aren’t using that to blindly protect Jinshi, we’re saying that because it’s almost impossible to understand the messages and character arcs in knh if you don’t understand what they are built off of.

[wrigglewormz]

I'm perfectly fine with people criticizing my favorite stories and frequently do it myself but can you stop being so boring about it

[wrigglewormz]

"This scene made me so uncomfortable" given the subject matter, it would be really, really badly written if it wasn't.

[hadalplumes]

The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 2 - Natsu Hyuuga

[vsettacrescellie]

Maomao is for all the girlies and guys who are capable and deserving of so much more love than they know, who are coming to terms with the fact that experiencing love at a different intensity or pace doesn’t make it any less valid, and that just because something damaged you doesn’t mean you’re broken.

[the-bar-sinister]

"I need to stop starting fandom projects so I stop disappointing people."

it's okay to disappoint people

it's okay to work slowly

it's okay to let yourself rest

it's okay to drop projects

Stop treating yourself like you are the workers at a fast food franchise.

Your writing is a hobby, don't let it turn into a source of guilt, shame and frustration instead of a source of joy.

[mangomasquerade]

I honestly feel like a lot of Jinshi/Jinmao hate wouldn’t be as aggressive as it is if the haters realized/remembered that the anime is an adaptation of less than 30% percent of the LNs and that this is the set up for Jinshi’s arc. Ofc, ppl have the right to feel uncomfortable and dislike him no matter what, and there’s nothing wrong with preferring Shimao (I ship Shimao myself) but the sheer force of aggression towards fans simply enjoying themselves is unwarranted 😭 obviously this goes both ways, I’ve just noticed a lot more toxicity from Jinshi/Jinmao haters. Jinshi’s character is complex underneath the surface, he is a study on the cycle of abuse, what it means to inherit an abusive system and live in a suffocating identity that has exploited you since childhood while it simultaneously represents the stolen childhoods of so many others, etc. So, I really don’t think it’s accurate to say that ppl only love him bc he’s pretty and that we would all hate him if he weren’t conventionally beautiful 😭

[khashanakalashtar]

Masterpost of AO3 Skins

Multipurpose

How To Change Text When the Cursor is Hovering Over by La_Temperanza

Another Changing Text On Hover by mackerel_cheese

Linked Footnotes by La_Temperanza

Making Complex Shapes / Hover-Over Effects / Choose Your Own Adventure / Changing Ao3’s Preset Headers: Author Notes, Chapter Titles, Fic Titles etc / Invisible Links+Link Aesthetic / Interactive Elements / Animation/ Retroactively Appearing Text by InfinitysWraith

Page Dividers by Linwelin

Email

Nonspecific email window by La_Temperanza

Basic Gmail by sunsetcurbed

More Gmail by DemigodOfAgni

Texting

You don’t need to code iOS, because 221b_ee made a generator for it

inspired by iOS by CodenameCarrot and La_Temperanza

Another version of iOS iMessage by Azdaema Codes

Retro iOS by Azdaema Codes

iOS, Android by gadaursan

iOS, Signal, and WhatsApp by lordvoldemortsskins

WhatsApp by ran_a_dom

WhatsApp by etc e tal

kakaotalk by beherrscht

LINE by noliteobdurare

LINE chat by ran_a_dom

Social Media

Facebook Messenger by ran_a_dom

Facebook post by BluebeardsWife

Tumblr by phyripo

Tweaks to that by Aposeopesis

Instagram by gadaursan

Instagram DMs by xslytherclawx

More Instagram DMs, including light and dark modes, by monarch_v

Incredibly comprehensive Twitter by gadaursan

Display case of gadaursan’s work by Fluffycorn_njst

More Twitter by starskin

Update by starskin

Yet More Twitter by etc e tal

Twitter, Reddit, and LiveJournal by aerynevenstar

Examples

Twitter mockup inspired by aerynevenstar by TheBrookesNook

Reddit by spookedcroon

Update by jinsake

More Reddit by knave_of_swords

Yet more Reddit (2020 version) by timstokerlovebot

SnapChat by Azdaema Codes

More SnapChat by starskin

Twitch Chat by Ultraviollett

4Chan by anonymous (cw: slurs and discussion of pedophilia in the live example)

Amazing Discord by unpredictableArtist

Slack derivation by me

Another Discord by Heterochromia_Mars

Tweaks by junietuesday25

Unspecified forum by fencesit

BlueSky post by anon

YouTube comments by LupaMoe

Blog post by intherainex

LiveJournal by sesuntaMew

bubble by me

Writing

Notebook Lined Paper by La_Temperanza

Post-It Notes by La_Temperanza

Letters and Stationery by La_Temperanza

With parchment backgrounds by allollipoppins (you can leave off the MDZS symbols)

Online newspaper article by ElectricAlice

Example

Simplified newspaper by Anubis_2701

Newspaper Article by lordvoldemortsskin

More documents by hangingfire

Online journal by enigmalea

Screenplay by astronought

Script or screenplay by Ninjabunny99

Screenplay on an actual piece of paper by junietuesday25

Shooting Script by Walzer

Calendar by Linwelin

AO3

AO3, including comment section by lordvoldemortsskin

AO3 header by ElectricAlice

Comment and Kudos buttons by La_Temperanza

Complete fic-within-a-fic by cheju

Gift fic email by rileys_words

Fandom Specific

Disco Elysium by SarunoHadaki

Blaseball by facingthenorthwind

Fire Emblem by gadaursan

  Tweaks by Clover_Zero

Deadpool’s Thinking Boxes by La_Temperanza

Homestuck extended by unpredictableArtist

Star Trek PADD by duskyspirit

Example

Incredibly expansive Among Us by Umbry2000

Another Among Us by mystyrust

S-Class by unpredictableArtist

IDOLiSH7 Rabbit Chat by associate

A3! LIME by associate

Runescape by fennfics

Nameless: the one thing you must recall by sqbr

Minecraft by Ultraviollett

Final Fantasy XIV Linkshell by Pent

Honkai Star Rail by Pent

Rain Code by faish

Ace Attorney by QuailFence

Other

Wikipedia by styletests

Scoreboard by revanchist

Google search by gadaursan

Yelp reviews by kiwiana

Amazon reviews by kiwiana

Silent film intertitles by Kitsune_Scribe

Zoom chat by mystyrust

Replika AI chatbot by FaeriMagic

Cards Against Humanity by L56895

Most can be found in the collections (also check the bookmarks) A Guide to Coding and Fanworks, AO3 Useful Workskins, and/or AO3 Social Media Workskins. If you’ve written a skin, add it to these collections!

[questions-about-blorbos]

Reblog if it’s okay for people to inbox you questions, headcanon, theories, anything about your Blorbo

[st-just]

A character trait/dynamic that I'm endlessly compelled by is someone dealing with (or, like, failing to) being the child of people who were too busy being good people to have the time and attention to be good parents. This can be anywhere from 'was a public defender who gave a shit working 60 hour weeks with basically no vacations' to 'left their family behind to join the revolution/war effort and is now a universally beloved martyr-hero who saved/remade the world with their final breath' on the groundedness spectrum. The important thing is a viscerally felt but confused and ugly mess of longing, resentment, and guilt about feeling the resentment.

[friedwizardwhispers]

The anime only part of the fandom who thinks because the writer said Jinshi was annoying that means she hates him truly couldn't handle the way Diana Wynne Jones talked about Howl.

[vsettacrescellie]

They need to get hit by a semi truck

repeatedly 💕