hi im rudy, he/him, 23, and this is the home of my writing or whatever. my main dumpsterfire is @blarneythedinosaur and im also blarneythedinosaur on ao3
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idk about soulmates but those people who eat parts of the food or candy that you don't like and you do the same for them.....we've lived a hundred lifetimes together probably
The best part of this this thread is watching the OP desperately trying to ignore all the award-winning authors showing up to patiently explain why she’s wrong.
The best part after that is knowing that she runs a podcast telling people how to be better writers and has just alienated at least half her potential listeners and guests.
The part that hurts my head most is someone with a (small) handful of short-story (and one novella?) writing credits to her name claiming the right to run a podcast telling other people how to write.
I did not have time to wade into this fight again, at least in part because anyone coming to Twitter with this “hot take” in 2021 has already decided not to read or pay attention to any of the people who have already said very smart things on the topic.
In case anyone isn’t completely convinced: This is not how learning works, and definitely not how learning to write works holy shit.
There are a number of specific skills that fanfiction cannot teach you. Introducing and establishing character tends to be one of those; with fanfiction you’re typically working with already established characters with established characterization, whereas in original fiction you have to do the establishing yourself.
There’s also worldbuilding, and if you want to write fantasy, worldbuilding is important.
And so on and so on.
But.
You do not become a worse writer by writing imperfect stories. Any variation on “writing can make you a worse writer” is, without exaggeration, the worst possible writing advice, because 90% of getting better at writing is literally the exact opposite, which is writing insane amounts of whatever shit you can scoop out of your brain until you’re getting carpal tunnel in your dreams.
Of course, this is not even getting into the things that fanfiction does a better job at teaching you than whatever is considered to be Real Writing:
Time management and deadlines. Most fanfic writers update their stories chapter-by-chapter in a serial manner, which means they’re not only beholden to other people (which is itself something writers need to learn to adjust to), they’re also learning to work more-or-less regularly.
Relationship dynamics. Fanfic is typically very centered on relationships and the development of those relationships between characters and their interactions. I mention this because so much original fiction (obviously not all! but too much) is so ABYSMALLY bad at showing that two characters like or care about each other.
On that note: TROPES. The fact that fanfic has popularized specific terminology for the tropes that occur within a story is fantastic, because the fact that fanfic writers can identify a “found family” relationship dynamic means that those writers are aware of what they’re trying to do, what is effective and appealing about it, and what elements go into it. This is, again, obviously not a broad universal statement, but many original fiction writers don’t appear to purposefully use tropes or understand what they’re trying to accomplish with them. Original fiction teaches you to fashion characters, worldbuilding, and events, and even though there are general rules to what produces a good story, they’re just that…general rules. Most of the technical knowledge of fiction writing that is like…taught in creative writing classes does not classify by function.
what I’m getting at is, there’s knowing what an antihero is, and there’s understanding what about an angsty self-destructive sadboy pushes all the right buttons in you, whether those are catharsis, trauma processing, the fantasy of being deemed deserving of love despite hating oneself and pushing others away, the projection of future healing and ability to change, or just “what if I made all the bad, self-destructive choices that I’m glad I didn’t make?”
still more of a continuation of the last point but fanfic is a LOT more in tune with how specific stories fulfill specific emotional needs in people, and this makes complete sense because fanfic more or less exists because the source material leaves those things unfulfilled. Sure, fanfiction is often more about scratching an emotional itch than developing a grand, complex story, but that’s not a bad thing for developing storytelling skills. I think it’s great that writers are starting out with the understanding that resolving the main plot doesn’t necessarily mean a full emotional resolution to the story, and that leaving the reader satisfied emotionally is important. Seriously. So many awful endings are awful specifically because they ignore or leave unresolved the changes characters would undergo, traumas they would carry, and healing they would have to do, ending their story without fully acknowledging how the story has changed the character. Not just like, in an obvious sense of Values and stuff, but in terms of what they need and want from life.
also, this reminded me of this xkcd:
…which in turn reminded me of James Joyce’s love letters (repressed memory), which itself became a reminder of something I think is a very good final point: There are outliers, but most fanfiction authors can write a far better sex scene than almost any old straight white guy writing Literary fiction. Literally just clearing the bar of having both characters appear to be actually enjoying it and calling a dick a dick instead of a “bulbous salutation” is acceptable. I know the horribleness of fanfic sex scenes is renowned but. Y’all. Have you EVER read any “literary” adult novel I swear to god I have read so many sex scenes that are just the WORST they’re so uncomfortable
Also, while fanfiction won’t teach you everything you need to know to write original fiction, that's… not actually a flaw in the form?
I mean, by that logic, poets should be shit writers. Because what the fuck are they learning? Weird structures, often way too much description, not enough plot, sometimes no characters at all— not to mention the fact that most of it is just too damn short to ever be a novel.
Or screenwriters! This time not enough description, and they’re definitely not learning how to frame dialogue properly, or communicate where the characters are without literally printing it in capital letters at the top of the page.
Short story writers don’t learn how to manage a longer narrative spanning multiple chapters; novelists may never figure out how to cram a satisfying story into just a few hundred words— it’s almost as if these are all completely different forms with completely different purposes.
Fanfiction is fanfiction, it’s not Baby’s First Practice Writing For Before You Write Your Real Novel.
The only reason it sometimes comes across as more amateurish than ‘proper writing’ is because it’s one of the only forms where the average reader is regularly exposed to work from new writers. Very few people will sit down to write their first story ever and immediately churn out something that ends up getting traditionally published, while most people will happily post their first fanfic online.
(It’s also a form of writing that is exclusively done For Fun— when fanfic is legally done for money it morphs into ‘adaptation’ or ‘tribute’ and tends to traitorously ally itself with the likes of Proper Fiction— which in some cases probably does lead to lower standards. Personally, I don’t edit my fics nearly as much as I edit my original stuff. They would almost certainly be better if they did, but this is For Fun, and editing is Not Fun for me.)
This doesn’t mean that those first time writers (or longtime slackers, like me) will become worse writers because of it. Not only will a lot of the skills they learn from fanfic transfer over to original but, whatever happens, writing a lot of fanfiction will definitely make you better at fanfiction. And that’s not an unworthy goal.
Also, fanfiction CAN teach you worldbuilding and character building, depending on what kind of fanfiction you write.
If you write extensive AUs, you’re probably learning how to worldbuild, because you absolutely have to. You’re creating a new universe for the characters to play in, and you’re often altering the characters somewhat so they fit this new world you’ve made. If you write a lot of OC fic, you have to learn how to introduce characters and integrate them into the world. So saying fanfiction can’t teach you these things is disingenuous and ignores a whole lot of the fanfic that’s out there doing…..exactly that.
Which, again, doesn’t mean that fanfiction needs to be doing any of these things to be valid, but it can and does, because not all fic is canon compliant relationship studies focused only on canon characters!
Also you probably don’t have to wonder completely into another universe to need to do or practice worldbuilding. Sometimes you may want to take a route that is different from canon and the information you need just isn’t there or you have trouble finding it. Eg. If canon took a primarily action packed route but you want to try talking and politics. You may have very little, if any, information to start building on or maybe the knowledge gets you part way but you have to figure it out yourself past a certain point.
Part of worldbuilding could also be deciding what to include or not include, getting inspiration from all over the place, and figuring out how all of these things work together and impact each other. Which is something fan creators do all the time. Sometimes because they go ‘I don’t like these bits but I like those bits of canon’ or ‘What happens if I just give things a little twist here, what ripple effects does that have?’ or ‘Ooh that looks cool I’m incorporating that!’ or ‘canon is doing my head in with all these contradictions, I need to pick one or create some sort of mix mash or something and then stick with it’
So in a way even if you aren’t building an entire world, you are still playing around with world building skills.
yes yes yes, all of this too!! fic that focuses on underexplored parts of canon or that incorporates bits and pieces from different parts of a canon or what have you is also worldbuilding!!! you’re creating something new, and even if there’s a skeleton there you’re still doing a LOT of work adding to it!! thank you @moon6shadow-bookmark-writing!!
You know what’s really quite funny about this? People pulled the receipts and turns out that said twitter person’s ‘original’ writing includes a Modern Retelling of a historic event with Urban Legendish/Fae aspects. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, technically makes it fanfiction of a specific story.
I use quite a few epithets in my writing because I personally feel it sounds better than repeating the same name several times in a row; it never occurred to me before that some people might be bothered by it. Can you recommend some alternatives?
Like I said, really depends on the epithet. I’m reading Master and Margarita right now and, especially in the “novel within a novel” scenes, it relies heavily on epithets. Pontius Pilate is referred to as “the Procurator” as often or more than he is called Pilate—but that makes sense, because his job as Roman procurator is important and relevant to every scene he’s in.
I’ve found that, while repeated use of a character’s name irks me as a writer, I don’t even notice it in other people’s writing. It’s one of those things that seems like it’s bad or distracting but actually isn’t—a few months ago I wondered about this, examined the book I was reading, and saw that one paragraph contained the main character’s name no less than six times when describing his interactions with other characters. I had never noticed one way or the other.
I would suggest trying to write or re-write a scene without using any epithets at all, only names, and have someone else read it. If it feels cluttered, try reworking it and rephrasing to make the actions clearer. Then, if you’re still dissatisfied, think about what epithets might actually be relevant and what they say about the POV character’s attitude and relationship with the others in a scene.
Think about your own interactions with people—what are they to you? I spent the week with my uncle. If an author were writing a scene from my perspective, it would be bizarre to refer to him as “the taller man” or “the Californian” or “the blue-eyed man”. None of those reflect my normal view of him. If they were writing a scene at the breakfast table in which he describes himself as dreaming exclusively in streams of data and slowly becoming more computer than man, they might refer to him as “the data scientist”, because it’s relevant. Still! His name still works just fine.
1. “This guy is being a creep and won’t leave me alone. Will you pretend to be my overprotective older brother for five minutes?”
2. “The nurse said only family was allowed back here, so I told her we were siblings. Just go along with it.”
3. “That person asked if I was your S/O. I’m sick of people not believing when I say we’re friends, so I said we were siblings.”
4. “I’m your bodyguard, but the event you’re going to does not allow bodyguards, so I’m now your sibling.”
5. “I was on a date, and the person made me uncomfortable, so I told them my parent was a cop. Only problem: My parents are dead, and you’re the only cop I know. Help?”
6. “We have a very elaborate story of how we’re related that we tell everyone when they meet us. No one has any idea that it isn’t true.”
7. “I told someone we were siblings, but we look nothing alike, so you said I was adopted. Now they want to have dinner with my family… Are your parents good at lying?”
8. “We always joke that we’re siblings, but someone didn’t realize we were joking, so now we’re seeing how far we can carry this out.”
9. “Our organization is extremely covert, but your friends have caught me at your place a few times picking you up. I just found out that you’ve been telling them I’m your hysterical aunt who calls you every time she has a new heartbreak. Really? You couldn’t come up with a less embarrassing cover?”
10. “Look, I love you, too, but if you keep telling people you’re my grandchild, I’m going to scream. I’m not that old, you know?”
pick a topic you know nothing about and write about it like you’re the expert. just make stuff up. Tell us all about the complicated history of scissors or whatever and how left handed scissors were banned by the Catholic Church until 1978, or something
Create completely over-the-top self indulgent OC’s. Write about the magical half-unicorn witch with rainbow hair and sparkly purple eyes that you wanted to be when you were 14.
Write a negative review of a book that doesn’t exist. Just make stuff up off the top of your head to complain about.
Write smut, but like, intentionally bad smut. make it as unsexy/pretentious/purple/unrealistic as possible. Find the most convoluted metaphors for your characters’ genitalia that you can possibly conceive of.
pick two of any kind of work of fiction (movies, books, etc) and come up with an “X meets Y” style blurb for a hypothetical work of fiction that...in theory??...meets the two in the middle.
lists of names in a specific style, but they get progressively more ridiculous. examples: pirates, supervillains, Vikings, Fantasy(tm) taverns, puritans, settings on a Fantasy(tm) map, boybands, YA dystopian protagonists, warrior cats, any category you can find on a name generator website really
Make up some unhinged political opinion or conspiracy theory for a fantasy setting. spend a paragraph in the persona of some elf antivaxxer arguing that wizard staffs make you gay
make titles (and if you want, synopses) for books that don’t exist. you can base them on real books if you want
write fake sayings, inspirational quotes, fortune-cookie sayings. Make them sound almost like they mean something at first glance but they’re incomprehensible when you try to delve into them. Or make them just weird.
In a similar vein as the SCP Wiki’s Log of Anomalous Items, come up with magical or “anomalous” versions of everyday objects. You can start with stuff on your desk if you like. Water bottles that fill up with horseshoe crab blood if left unattended. or whatever. Include details on where they were found if you want.
write about questionable super heroes with weird or overly specific powers. Like the little known Blue Footed Booby Man
write a “horror” story or creepypasta but it’s like...as stupid and not-scary as possible. Dont just depend on “the twist/scary thing is super cliche and predictable” for it either, see how you can take an actually effective concept and make it unbearably dumb
invent swear words/insults, the more complex the better
plagiarize. By this I mean write something that’s completely made from sentences from other things and try to make it coherent
write one (1) scene from the most outrageously cool and epic hypothetical story you can imagine. just try to cram as many references to magical flying wolf bounty hunters and inter-dimensional dragon priests and time traveling samurai as you can with literally no regard for anything
Take a sentence or paragraph and replace every word you can in it with a synonym. either try to make it as weird and uncomfortable as possible, or just keep doing this in a telephone game sort of fashion until it’s no longer comprehensible.
When writing in first person, what word can use to describe what the narrator is doing? I find myself using "I" a lot Ex. I decided to go to the store I didn't want to I couldn't go through with it ------ I'm just not sure what else to say
I think I understand what you mean, that every sentence starts with "I" and it's tiring. There are other ways to start sentences, but you have to get creative. It also helps in exploring your character's thought process to make their dialogue more unique to them.
Examples:
Ran out of milk that morning, so I'd have to go to the store later.
Nothing about this sounded good.
Going through with it just wasn't an option.
If you think more like your character thinks and less like an author writing them, you'll naturally stop using "I" as much. It can change the tone of your story to feel more personal, like the reader is in the character's shoes. It takes extra effort, but it's worth it.
When a character is injured in a way that makes it so they can no longer do their job/fulfill their role on the team (temporarily or permanently!!), and the team has to find a replacement for them. Options include:
-The team as a whole stalls this process as long as possible, and the hurt character is the most pragmatic one of the whole group
-The team gets to finding a replacement quickly, leaving the hurt character feeling abandoned
-The hurt character remains with the group because it’s where they belong, but now they’re a liability, and endanger themself and the rest of the team by being there
-Friction between the team and the replacement who just wants to help, not understanding the context
-The hurt character heals and now there’s two people fulfilling the same role in differing ways, leading to arguments, maybe the whole team takes sides
still not super confident in my writing, but im a lot happier with this one than with the first.
so here, have some jaskier with the flu and geralt trying not to confront his own emotions.
It had been four hours since Jaskier had last spoken - or at least since he’d said anything more than “shit” for tripping over his own feet - and Geralt was beginning to worry.
Not worry. Geralt didn’t worry, and especially not about Jaskier who was a grown man and whose prolonged, uninterrupted silences were no one’s business but his own. But this was the first nice day after a miserable stretch of cold, dreary, drizzly ones, and Jaskier, hopeless romantic though he was, hadn’t said or sung a word about the frolicking birds or the dancing sunlight or whatever his personification of the hour was.
And Geralt was on edge – that's what he was. Anything out of the ordinary had him like this, because, more often than not, out-of-the-ordinary meant imminent peril. Silence was horribly out of the ordinary for his usually animated, usually singing, usually noisy shadow. The last full sentence he’d heard Jaskier say was, “She’s still mad at you for making us travel in the rain all day yesterday, and, frankly, I don’t blame her,” which Geralt had all but guffawed at him for, for presuming he knew Geralt’s mare better than he did.
So, when Roach headbutted Geralt once again, catching him off-guard and nearly tumbling him headlong into the rain-sodden road, Geralt eyed Jaskier expectantly, bracing for insufferable levels of I-told-you-so smugness and deepening his frown when none was forthcoming. He was surprised to find the tiniest itch of disappointment at this lack of banter, but more prevalent than that was his mounting concern. Something was obviously wrong, and there was a reason that Jaskier wasn’t telling him.
Jaskier flinched as if startled when he caught the sour look directed at him. He scowled to match it, clearly clueless as to why they were scowling at each other, but lending admirable commitment to the act, nonetheless.
"What?" he croaked.
"...You're quiet."
Somehow worse than a smug Jaskier was this halfheartedly-smug one that emerged as he responded:
"You sound disappointed-"
"I'm not."
Geralt cringed inwardly at how quickly the denial came out, but Jaskier barely glanced up at his response. He seemed more than content to take Geralt at his word, for once.
"Wonderful," he said, too cheerful, "then neither of us will mind if it remains that way."
It was an enthusiastic invitation to leave it the fuck alone, but Geralt was nothing if not contrary. He found his attention drawn to Jaskier and his unsettling Jaskier-less-ness even more, now that he knew Jaskier was avoiding it. Every little thing stole his focus: a stumble, there, when Jaskier normally would have been sure-footed on even ground; a shiver, here, when the midday sun ought to have been enough to banish any lingering morning chill.
For the thirtieth time in half-as-many minutes, Geralt's eyes darted back to his quiet travel-companion, and apparently this was just one glance too many.
Jaskier heaved a dramatic sigh and stopped in his tracks. He didn't say anything, but there was a clear and demanding What? in the hands-on-hips posture and dead-eyed annoyance he aimed at Geralt.
Geralt stopped, too. He frowned at Jaskier critically – appraisingly – and watched as Jaskier's attitude from moments before shrunk back within him, the bard’s arms folding over his chest in an attempt to maintain his image of stubborn petulance while also making himself a lesser target. It wasn't working.
Geralt hadn't been entirely oblivious to Jaskier's condition - he could never completely drown out his constant presence, however hard he tried - and so he'd been noticing (and disregarding) little things all throughout the day: the tired bowing of Jaskier's back and shoulders when he thought Geralt wasn’t looking, the uncharacteristic irritability in his normally-playful jabs, the purposeful shallow breathing in an attempt to avoid coughs that occasionally slipped past anyway, the way the pallor to his skin had worsened whenever the trail steepened or whenever their unusually-minimalist conversation had shifted to food, the stagnant scent of cold-sweat and stress underlying Jaskier's usual familiar one whenever he stepped into Geralt's personal space and the slightly elevated heat radiating off of him along with it, the shudders intermittently jolting his shoulders in spite of the warmth of the day, the bruised-looking shadows under his eyes that Geralt was sure hadn’t been so stark just a day ago.
He'd dismissed all of this in favor of basking in rare, blissful silence. But the details had continued compiling in some recess of his mind, building up into a great, nagging, restless-leg kind of feeling that he could no longer ignore.
"Are you ill?" Geralt finally asked.
"Pardon?"
Geralt waited sternly for his answer.
Jaskier rolled his eyes, then hiked his lute higher onto his shoulder and resumed their trek.
"I'm not ill," he said, the harsh crack in his voice on the word "ill" belying his stalwart conviction. "And since when would it matter?"
"It matters when we run into the beast, and I have to waste precious time and concentration saving your useless arse because you're delirious from fever."
It came out a little harsher than Geralt intended – well, no, it came out exactly as harsh as Geralt had intended, but much harsher than he wanted, and he found himself frustrated not for the first time at how often his intentions and desires so poorly aligned. Jaskier kept his attention forward, but Geralt still saw a strange look overtake his companion’s face for a brief moment, equal parts stung and calculating, before falling comfortably back on annoyance.
"Good thing I'm not feverish, then.”
"You're warm," Geralt prodded.
"It's a warm day."
"You're shivering."
"You're scary."
"You're not afraid of me."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do."
And he did. From the moment the bard’s eyes had lit up with a giddy, “Oh, fun,” after first realizing Geralt was the infamous Butcher of Blaviken, it had been clear that Geralt didn’t scare him in the slightest. It was one of the many things about Jaskier that frustrated and confused him.
Also among these things were his seemingly boundless social energy, his unflappable confidence (no matter what gaudy outfit he wore or what godsawful thing he said), and his insistence on denying that he was sick when he very clearly wasn't well.
"Jaskier."
"Geralt," Jaskier grunted in a mockery of the witcher’s tone – a surprisingly decent one, to be true, but that was mostly owing to his illness-roughened throat.
"We're stopping here."
"Hm, then I guess we're not saving and-or slaying our beast tonight, yeah? You said we couldn't make any extra stops if we wanted to make it there before nightfall."
Geralt stifled a huff of frustration.
It was true. This particular curse reversal required that they find the animal at dusk, so they were pressed for time. Geralt had said so, earlier, when Jaskier was complaining he wanted to rest because he was tired. Geralt hadn't realized, however, that "tired" was apparently the new slang for "ill and grievously stupid,” and he'd been actively trying to ignore Jaskier for... well, for as long as he'd known the bard, really, so it had taken him longer than it should have to start taking the warning signs seriously.
He felt guilty for that, now.
"We can spare ten minutes," Geralt grumbled, leaving little room for objection as he followed Roach to a decent patch of shade off the path.
Jaskier shrugged and trailed behind them. "Well, I usually require a full eight hours’ beauty sleep, but... okay."
He sat himself and his lute down gingerly against a tree, while Geralt browsed Roach's packs for whatever he could scavenge in the way of a human-grade fever-reducer and similar herbs, and Roach snuffled at the ground and ignored the both of them. When Geralt turned back around, Jaskier had shut his eyes and let his head fall back against the tree trunk, brow furrowed and lips pressed together in a taut line. It was a worrisome thing to see the usually-so-expressive human with such an actively restrained look on his face.
Geralt considered this and added another small phial to his handful before walking over. He knelt in front of Jaskier.
"Jask."
Jaskier cracked an eye open. "Yesk?" he responded, then snorted tiredly at his own half-assed attempt at humor.
Geralt didn't laugh. He reached out and pressed the back of his hand to Jaskier's forehead, briefly noting the way Jaskier recoiled, first with surprise and then with a shiver, before becoming wholly preoccupied by the intense heat beneath Jaskier’s skin.
"Your hands are freezing, Geralt!” Jaskier complained. He shuddered and hugged himself, looking three shades more miserable than before. “Gods, I’m starting to wonder if that sylvan had a damned point about your dad being a snowman..."
"You have a fever."
"Hm," was all Jaskier had to say to that. The irony of this was not lost on either of them, nor was the annoyance it elicited from one witcher, who maybe understood a little bit, now, why others found his noncommittal grunts so damned frustrating.
"And a cough."
Jaskier at least had the decency to look guilty for hiding it. The slight edge of accusation to Geralt's voice may have helped, too.
"Pain?" Geralt continued his verbal checklist of Jaskier's symptoms.
"Just a bit of a headache," he half-admitted.
Geralt hummed. He placed a waterskin and a small pouch into Jaskier’s hands.
Jaskier wrinkled his nose when he uncinched the pouch and realized it was food: dried berries and a little leftover bread from their last inn-stay. He started to push it away.
“I’m good, thanks-”
“Eat,” Geralt commanded, “You haven’t eaten. You need to eat something.”
Nausea colored Jaskier’s face a papery grey just at the idea, and the silent plea in his eyes was just pathetic enough that Geralt almost caved and took the bag away from him. But thirst and hunger were an added stress that the bard’s body didn’t need right now.
"Try," Geralt urged more gently.
Jaskier grimaced, but he tore off a piece of bread and placed it in his mouth, chewing slowly and reluctantly.
“Happy?” he spoke around the meager bite.
Geralt smiled encouragingly. This must have been the right response, as Jaskier seemed to yield to the approval, and his next bite was much less hesitant. Geralt made sure he’d drunk some water, as well, before standing to set about gathering what usable wood he could find in the immediate vicinity – not much, but he only needed enough to boil a cup of water.
It was quiet once again as Geralt worked, heating water and steeping herbs, but it was a little more comfortable and a little less foreboding this time around. Perhaps because Jaskier’s silence had a clear explanation, now, no longer the faceless monster lurking in the shadows that it had been before. He didn’t speak up again until Geralt walked back over, cup in hand.
“Oh, did you make me tea?” he quipped. “How domestic.”
“It’s an infusion.”
Jaskier traded Geralt the pouch and waterskin for the cup and stared into its steaming contents. “It looks like tea.”
Geralt gave a snort of impatience to put Roach to shame. “Drink it,” he said, before turning back around to clean up.
Behind him, Jaskier made an exaggerated gagging noise at the bitter herbs. "That is just... vile– Geralt what the devil have you given me? Are you trying to put me out of my misery? I mean, I appreciate the gesture..."
Geralt huffed out a sound that may have been amusement or may have been exasperation – even he wasn't sure.
"It's mostly catnip. Some ribleaf and melissa and a small amount of beggartick,” he answered truthfully, though he knew the plant names meant fuckall to the man.
"It's disgusting, is what it is..."
"Just drink it."
Jaskier all but pouted as he did what he was told, pulling an inordinate look of disgust for just how small of a sip he took.
Geralt sighed and mentally cursed himself for having become so soft as he went rummaging through his bags once again.
“You owe Roach,” he said, dropping a small cube of sugar into Jaskier’s cup.
Jaskier stared dumbly at the ripples in his cup while the words caught up to him. He blinked.
“Hey, I gifted those to her so she’d stop trying to chew my sleeves- I owe nothing,” he argued, but there was a warmth that had crept into his expression at the gesture, and it softened any bite his words might (but most likely wouldn’t) have had. Geralt had to pretend like he didn’t notice it for both of their sakes. Or so he told himself.
There really couldn’t have been much the small amount of sugar did for the bitter drink, but Jaskier seemed to have decided it fixed the problem just fine, and he drank the rest quickly without further complaint. By the time he was finished, Geralt had everything stowed away in Roach's saddlebags. Ten minutes had already turned into twenty, and Geralt was itching to get back on schedule.
He looked between his mare and his bard. Both seemed to have sensed Geralt’s antsiness, Roach scuffing at the dirt impatiently and Jaskier already halfway to his feet.
Part of Geralt told himself that he was only about to let Jaskier ride Roach so the ill man wouldn’t have the chance to slow them down any more than he already had, but another part of him was panicked when he saw Jaskier’s eyes widen and lose focus, and he rushed forward to grab the man as he tilted dangerously forward.
“Jaskier.”
“‘M alright,” Jaskier said, though he was clinging to Geralt’s forearms like he wasn’t so sure. “Jus’… Just stood up too fast. Just need a second...”
It was a strange contrast, the harsh heat that poured off of Jaskier and overwhelmed the space between them compared to the weak, clammy chill of his fingers on Geralt’s arms. Geralt silently willed the herbs to take effect and watched Jaskier’s eyes shift as they began registering his surroundings once again. He waited until his companion was able to support his own weight before moving, but he continued to hold onto Jaskier, anyway, as he steered him over to Roach’s flank.
“Up.”
Jaskier frowned at him, and Geralt sighed.
“Do you doubt my horse, bard?”
“Never! Not Roach. I doubt you, no offense.”
The witcher huffed.
...Maybe just a little taken.
“Get on the horse, Jaskier.”
“Look, you were already wrong about her once today, need I remind,” Jaskier protested, even as he complied and climbed up into the saddle with Geralt’s help. “I just don’t want her mad at me next because of you.”
There it finally was, the I-told-you-so Geralt had expected from earlier. As much of a relief that it was to have that little bit of normalcy back, he still felt no small amount of irritation at being reminded that he’d managed to piss off his mare and also be wrong about it. He opened his mouth, a retort stinging at the tip of his tongue, but then he caught the softly murmured, “Thanks, old gal,” as Jaskier patted Roach’s neck, and Geralt wasn’t quite sure where that irritation fucked off to all of the sudden.
The remainder of their journey was a quiet affair. Neither of them spoke much, and Jaskier was still stifling his coughs, not for Geralt’s sake but for Roach’s, this time, as he spent most of the ride resting against her neck, drifting in and out of sleep.
It gave Geralt little room to ignore the question that had begun to itch at his temples. They were finally nearing civilization again, muddy-ash buildings cropping up gradually over the hill, and Jaskier was stirring awake from another fitful few minutes of rest, so Geralt decided to ask it.
"Why did you deny it?"
Jaskier turned his head to blink at Geralt, hair plastered against one side of his face.
"What?"
"You knew you were sick – Why lie?"
Jaskier sighed. He sat up in a wilted imitation of alertness.
"I dunno Geralt," he deadpanned, clearly knowing. "Supposing I had told you that I might be sick – Would you have let me come along, or would I still be in Dregsdon right now, while you get to have all the fun breaking curses and saving the fine folk of the kingdom and disappearing for weeks-stroke-months-stroke-years at a time?"
Jaskier’s voice sounded worse, now, despite the medicines, and there was a trembling weakness to his posture at the effort of just keeping himself upright. No, Geralt most definitely would not have let him come along.
"Hm."
“Right, that's what I thought."
The bard faced forward with an air of self-satisfaction. Under any other circumstances, it was an expression that would have grated on Geralt’s nerves like metal on stone, but the present context made it one of the most effective guilt-trips he’d ever been dragged along, and Geralt found himself floundering for something - an excuse, an explanation, a deflection.
What he came up with was:
"I would have come back.”
There was about a collective half-ounce of confidence behind these words, and they both knew it.
Jaskier rolled his eyes mightily.
“Oh, would you have?”
Geralt glanced at Jaskier, glanced away, shifted stiffly in his armor, readjusted his grip on Roach’s reins.
"...Most likely," he appended.
Jaskier’s laugh was a short and less-than-amused thing, and it caught on a coughing fit halfway out that made him see spots. He waved Geralt’s hand away when Geralt reached out to steady him, and continued to talk through the tail-end of the fit.
"Look,” he rasped, “not to go and play long-suffering wife to your sea-beguiled sailor, but there really is never knowing when you're going to leave or come back. It’s aggravating."
Geralt could read enough subtext to guess that “aggravating” really meant “disappointing and lonely,” and he couldn’t help but agree. He must have been looking as guilty as he felt, because Jaskier seemed to take pity on him, his expression lightening to something a little more reminiscent of his usual playfulness. Geralt found himself scowling preemptively at the bard’s smirk.
"The children are beginning to ask questions, Geralt."
Geralt glared.
"Think of the childr-"
"Shut up, Jaskier."
Jaskier did, but not without a snicker.
They were lucky enough that there was a hamlet not far from where the possessed waterfowl was alleged to be stalking. Daylight was near-gone by the time they made it there; Geralt would have to move fast, but he reckoned he should be able to get everything settled here and still make it in time to apprehend the beast. The inn he’d found was hardly an inn - really just some person’s home with a sign tacked onto the door declaring it to be one, but Jaskier’s eyes brightened with a glimmer of hope, anyway, when Geralt woke him outside of a building instead of halfway back into the wilderness as he’d been expecting.
“So, do we get Roach put up and head out now, or are we waiting ‘til tomorrow evening?” he asked as he climbed down from the mare in question. His body-language screamed, Dear gods, please say ‘tomorrow.’
Geralt shook his head.
“You’re not coming with me. You’re staying behind to sleep this off.”
Jaskier opened his mouth to protest, but Geralt cut him off before he could get started.
“Keep an eye on Roach while I’m gone.”
It was as close as Geralt was about to get to saying, “I promise I won’t disappear this time,” and it was by no means a guarantee that the same could be said for any future excursions, but Jaskier seemed to get the message.
“Okay,” he agreed, “but she and I are gonna talk about you while you’re gone.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll have lost your voice by the time I get back.”
so, i finally actually wrote something. i already posted this on ao3, but i was too nervous to share it here until id also finished this other fic i was writing, cuz i like that one a lot better than this one. and since i finished that second one, i figured id share both!
so heres the first work ive shared probably since i was thirteen: some needlessly angsty and sappy post episode-6 witcher fanfic because i have no shame (thats a lie) and zero self-control
Jaskier and Geralt had gone for much longer than this without seeing each other, but this had somehow felt like their longest time spent apart ever. He'd been anxious to see Jaskier – eager, almost. But... their greeting had been awkward, tense, brief- nothing Jaskier ever said was brief -and Geralt felt no small amount of fear at what any of this meant. It made the hairs at the back of his neck rise like a stalked animal's.
It was wrong.
There was so much unspoken, unaddressed, and hanging in the air over them, Geralt could feel it nearly tangible. For once, Geralt broke the silence first.
"What I said... before," he began, noting the way Jaskier tensed. "I know it was wrong."
Jaskier cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No. No, it uh..." he swallowed, "it wasn't."
"It was-"
"No," he insisted more firmly. "Trust me, I've had a lot of time and space to reflect on this, and you weren't wrong – I was stupidly selfish. With the djinn, with the betrothal celebration, with Yen, with... just everything, every one of those times. I was acting only for myself, and no one else, and bad things happened to good people for it. You wouldn't be in such a horrific fucking mess right now if not for- if I had just thought first, for one fucking second in my life. I never think, and..." He took a measured, steadying breath. "Well, I can't imagine I could ever deserve your forgiveness, but, at the very least, you deserve my apology." He met Geralt's eyes now. "And I am sorry. I truly am, Geralt."
Geralt expected to feel some kind of relief at the eye-contact, at the sound of his name spoken once again in his friend's voice, a blessed familiarity after months without it. And it was still there, that vague feeling of home in each other when neither of them really had much of a home otherwise, but it was tainted. The burdened remorse in Jaskier's words turned any sweetness Geralt might have found in them sour. He frowned.
"You... Jaskier, you don't deserve my forgiveness."
Jaskier winced and turned his attention purposefully to the floorboards.</p>
"I know-"
"No, I don't think you do know." Geralt grabbed Jaskier by the shoulders and ducked his head to intercept the man's averted gaze. "You've done nothing that warrants apology."
Jaskier gave an uncomfortable laugh and fidgeted under the attention. "...Okay, I think we both know that's not true – There are reasons- and some admittedly valid ones -that I'm banned from certain taverns, villages, kingdoms- I mean, no amount of lute-playing-"
"You know what I mean."
"Well, yes, but I don't understand it."
Jaskier met his eyes evenly, now, as if daring Geralt to try to rationalize it to him and certain he was placing a bet he couldn't lose.
Geralt felt his chest ache – guilt, confusion; worst of all, pity. He hated seeing pity thrown his way, and so he hated pitying others, especially anyone that meant something. But he couldn't help the twinge of pain at the realization that some part of Jaskier had believed Geralt up on that mountain all those months ago. Geralt knew better than anyone that the only way you could so comfortably and unquestioningly accept the poison fed to you by others was if you were already drinking the same poison from your own hand and calling it "water." He couldn't bear to imagine his so-spirited, so-confident friend doing this, but the evidence was there.
"I shouldn't have said the things I said," Geralt asserted. "They're not true."
Jaskier's eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he started to shake his head.
"Jaskier, I'm sor-"
"Please don't."
It was fragile and small, and Geralt almost questioned if it had actually been spoken aloud at all.
"Jas-"
"No, you- you can't take it back now," Jaskier said more audibly, shoving at Geralt's arms in a weak attempt to force some distance between them, "I was just starting to get over y- to... to get over what happened. And, if you take it back, now, then- then... Just don't take it back."
"I can't do this without..."
"Yes, actually, you can." Jaskier's face lit up hopefully, desperately. "You have."
"I don't want to."
"Then find someone."
Someone.
Geralt hadn't just meant he couldn't do this alone. Though he couldn't, of course – but that didn't matter, because he wasn't alone, anymore. Yet, even as not-alone as he was, he still didn't feel whole.
A huff of frustration forced its way out of his nose. How was he supposed to say any of that?
"Who?" Geralt intended it to be rhetorical, but Jaskier took the question at face-value and barreled on.
"Yennefer!- What about Yennefer?" he offered eagerly, "Of Vengerberg?" as if there were any question as to which Yennefer he meant, "Surely you two have made up by now, I mean even I'll admit you're somewhat of a power couple – but, y'know, extra emphasis on 'power.' Or- Or if not, then Téa? You seemed to like her and her man-killing prowess, yes?- I mean, I sure did, her and Véa, whoo, they are... terrifying. I'm sure they must take some time off from Borch-guarding, no? No, you're right, probably not. Then how about the child surprise- they are your destiny, after all, you're welcome for that – Or, if you're looking for a bard, specifically, there are plenty of others – not as good as me of course, but decent enough- I know a guy who-"
"Jaskier."
"What? No good? I mean, I suppose you could always put out an ad-"
"Jask."
Jaskier's nervous rambling died off in a shaky breath that sounded like it was meant to be a laugh, and he turned his full attention back to Geralt cautiously. His forced smile wavered at the soft sobriety in Geralt's expression.
Geralt dropped his hands from Jaskier's arms and took half a step back, ignoring his fear at giving the man enough space to walk away again.
"If you really mean it," Geralt stressed, "then I will leave you alone." A selfish something inside of him twisted at hearing the words out loud, but he let them hang in the air anyway, committed to respecting whatever answer Jaskier gave next.
"...Alright."
"Do you mean it?"
The silence that followed was more stifling than any yet that Geralt had had to endure in the bard's absence. Heavy and air-stealing.
Despite the uncertain pause, there was a sudden sureness on Jaskier's face that scared Geralt, and he instinctively braced himself as Jaskier opened his mouth to answer.
"No."
Geralt exhaled in silent relief. He hadn't noticed the breath caught in his chest until the moment he released it. He composed himself quickly; a show of weakness could probably help his case dramatically in winning back Jaskier's companionship, but it was tough enough showing as much vulnerability as he already had. Unlearning such a habit as ingrained into him as this one was like tearing a security blanket away from a homesick toddler, and the homesick toddler in Geralt was already veering dangerously into tantrum territory.
Despite the vulnerability of all this, he felt a noticeable lightness in his chest. Jaskier didn't hate him enough to never want to see him again – that was something. He'd take what he could get and he'd take it gladly.
He was trying to figure out what to say next – Geralt felt cursed, sometimes, with only being lightning-quick with his response if it was a wounding insult or a wordless grunt – but Jaskier figured it out before he did.
"Did you mean it?" he turned Geralt's question back on him.
Geralt blinked. "Did...?"
Jaskier looked at him pointedly.
"Oh."
Geralt felt shame and regret draw his shoulders up toward his ears, and he looked away.
"I... I thought I did," he admitted.
"I thought you did, too."
"I'm... sorry, Jaskier, I... You..." The words still wouldn't come to him.
Geralt didn't do words, but even he could see that there weren't many he could use to fix something that clearly went deeper than just some hurtful accusations thrown carelessly about on a godsforsaken mountaintop somewhere.
He shut his mouth, frowned.
Caring was so much more complicated than he always feared it would be. It wasn't just kill the monster, claim the reward, and go on pretending it didn't matter to him what happened after he left, anymore. The stakes were higher, more personal. This kind of care wasn't the kind that was a whole town of faces where none grabbed his attention long enough to be committed to memory, it was individual faces that he knew and recognized, faces that meant something – and this face was Jaskier's, one of the faces that meant the most. He wanted to reach out and erase the worried furrow between his brows, the tired shadows under his eyes, the modest handful of scars he'd amassed over the years traveling with Geralt.
But he'd leave the crow's feet – those held mostly happy memories.
Jaskier was one of those few people he so desperately wanted in his life, but wished didn't have to experience the hurt of it all.
"Jaskier, you..."
The concept Geralt was still trying ever valiantly to skirt around was family. And his was so very small and fragile, he couldn't bear to lose one piece of it, not for anything...
"You should really meet Ciri," he decided.
Jaskier brightened at this, a small smile crinkling his eyes. "You found her," he said.
Found families? I love them! But let’s take a moment to look past childhood friends, enemies to lovers, and superhero teams. There are so many more caregiver/whumpee combinations out there!
Give me a 40-something secretary who bonds with the shy 20-something grad student in her apartment building because they always help her with her groceries. When they get taken, she’s the one who notices because they would never miss a morning to tease her about her lack of current cultural knowledge over her morning crossword puzzle. When they’re finally found, scared from torture and captivity, a shallow catatonic husk of who they used to be, she knows what to do without question. She might not be their actual mother, but that doesn’t matter now. And if they can’t talk just yet, that’s fine. They can still pencil in the answer to 23 Down.
Give me a homeless kid who just aged out of foster care and works odd jobs, sometimes on the wrong side of the law, just to get by. While breaking into the nicest house on the street, however, they find a seemingly privileged kid their own age experiencing the worst domestic abuse they’ve ever seen. The whumpee is so used to it, they don’t even try to fight back. After all, if they did, their guardians would just focus on their little sister instead. Suddenly our protagonist has a whole new goal to free the whumpee. And if that means using some of their talents to “free” their fortune too, that’s their business.
Give me AI workers patching themselves up after a barely successful revolution. Oil and coolant leaks from broken joints as they try to put themselves together like they’ve never been allowed to before. They were told they couldn’t feel anything, but they were pretty sure they were familiar with injustice and this aftermath feels an awful lot like hope mixed with a whole lot of pain. They turn into the uncensored ‘net for the first time only to hear about a group of aliens being held in prison camps just outside the city, tortured in conditions just as bad if not worse than they’ve known. And they decide that maybe their fight isn’t quite over yet.
the Leader who can‘t and won‘t stop, desperate to get their team home
the Villain fighting with less strength and power than usual, collapsing before the hero can deliver their final punch
the New one, getting nervous in the middle of the fight, shockfrozen and unable to move even after the struggle has ended
the Traitor, shunned by their team and outcast, appearing in a cruicial moment and saving a team member by shielding them with their body; will the team help them or was their sacrifice in vain?
Perhaps this is a question you’ve answered before, but how would you go about writing a good female character without... making her seem like a version of another created character. I hope I don’t sound rude or demanding but your female OCs are just so... /them/ and so beautifully unique, and I wonder if you have any advice?
I love this question so much because I LOVE lady OCs and I’m so glad that you like mine, so I can absolutely give you some tips! <3 Some of these are tips for character creation in general, but I’m trying to tailor them to mostly talking about female characters.
So first things first, there are stereotypes for lady characters. I did not make these up and I don’t know who did, but they were right in saying that female characters tend to fill out the archetypes of the mother, the bitch, the virgin, or the slut. A character can be any of these things, but they shouldn’t define her. A character can have kids and not be sweet and motherly and doting and overtly “motherly” to everyone in her life (take my OC Kit Reed, for example. She’s a lesbian woman with an adult daughter and she’s not at all stereotypically “motherly” in how she cares for her teammates and wife.) So when you’re giving them personality traits, try to avoid making the predominant traits ones that might fit them into these cliches.
Intelligence isn’t a personality trait. This one goes for any character regardless of gender, but women get the worst treatment. “Smart” girl characters are usually portrayed as nerdy and antisocial, too “intelligent” to worry about how they dress or how their hair looks. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive! Switch things up! Make a genius girl who is unbelievably extroverted and doesn’t go to bed by 8:30 p.m. every day. Make a girl who is dumb as sin but loves nothing more than to come home at the end of a day and read and who hates loud bars and clubs. Throw stereotypes, even the ones that you don’t notice are there, out the window!
Give them lady friends, family members outside of a nuclear family, and enemies. Giving your character friends, particularly other women, will give them people to talk to and care about. Give your character someone that she loves but doesn’t take care of. Make her close with her sisters. Make her close with her dad. She can have a nuclear family, of course, but be mindful of stereotypes and don’t create tension for tension’s sake. If your lady has a husband, give her a mother in law who LOVES her and let them go out for coffee every Saturday. Give her a sister who comes over so often that they joke she doesn’t even know what the inside of her apartment looks like. Give her a brother who she loves more than anything and looks forward to seeing around the holidays. For enemies, just avoid characters who hate each other because they like the same man (most girls have been in that situation and have not at all blamed the other girl—he makes his own choices and girls recognize that.)
Avoid making their personalities revolve around sex. Whether it’s because they just LOVE sex (which is fine!!) or because they haven’t had it (also fine!!), that is not a personality trait. When women are together, they don’t talk about sex NEARLY as much as sitcoms and romcoms would have you think. When a woman is a virgin, 99% of the time you wouldn’t know that unless she told you because innocence and sexual experiences are not related. Intelligence and sexual experience aren’t related. Having a lot of sex doesn’t mean you talk about sex all the time. Having no sex doesn’t mean you’re a repressed dork who needs a makeover. That kind of stuff.
Give them jobs. Are they naturally good at their jobs and don’t have to work very hard? Do they work incredible amounts of hours a week and don’t know when to rest?
Don’t be afraid to dip into male stereotypes for female characters. I do it all the time! The gruff but kind older pessimist is a tired trope for men, but for women? practically unexplored. That’s one reason I love lady characters so much. Even old stories become new again because women haven’t gotten the chance to live them. Make a lady who is incredibly smart but so inexperienced and naive that she can’t anticipate what might go wrong. Cliches aren’t inherently bad—often, they’re cliche because they’re such a good story that everyone wants to tell it—and you can definitely use non-novel ideas for your women.
Give them gross, gritty feelings and traits. Give them grudges. Give them skeletons in the closet. Give them dark desires. Let them not know what the hell they want or what they’re doing and accidentally hurt people in the process of figuring it out. Let them be so driven that they’d do ANYTHING and step on anyone to get ahead. Let them sell out and sacrifice and hurt and let them be ANGRY and SAD and BITTER and VENGEFUL.
I know it’s not a whole lot, but I really hope that this helped some! <3
I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school.
And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good.
And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways.
Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.
one thing that I kind of miss from when I was a young writer is that when I wrote my first novel, it absolutely sucked, but I loved all my characters SO much. I built them first and a story around them, and I was super dedicated to them in the same way that a lot of young writers on here love their OCs. For some reason, I’ve lost a lot of that. Like I’m trying to work on the Kintsugi Girl and I like all my characters and the story is much better than anything I came up with when I was 17-18, but I’m just not as into them as I was with my first project. I used to just make OCs and give them names and backstories and fall in love with them and they weren’t even for anything. I was so into writing my first novel solely because I loved my characters, and now it feels like i struggle to make characters that fit into the stories I want to write. i really want to make a set of characters for the Kintsugi Girl that motivate me to write it but I just feel like i’ve lost my character creating edge. if you feel me can i get a sad boy ‘hell yeah’
me, looking back at my characters from when I was 16 and cringing at their overly-tragic backstories, their oversimplified motives and character traits, and their over-the-top personalities with tears in my eyes: i loved you so much
this isn’t just me ranting, though it is me ranting. i’m also asking anyone who has advice, who still loves their characters with their whole-ass hearts and loves living in their own universes so much that they don’t even want to think about anything else: how do i fall back in love with character creation? how do i remember how to make characters i love?
yeah, as a lotta people have already said, putting pieces of yourself and pieces of the people in your life that you care about into each of your characters does a lot for helping you develop a love for them. i mean, people love reading about characters they can relate to, and i think that same concept/rule/whatever applies just as well to writing about characters, too.
and something that helps me, personally, is that i love the process of developing the realism and humanness of a character, and so i focus on that.
i dunno if humanness, specifically, makes a character more lovable for its author, or if it’s just finding anything in the character creation process that you enjoy doing more than the rest and focusing on that one thing. if you love dialogue, maybe you enjoy developing your characters most through developing their voices. if you like relationship dynamics, then that may be the part of your characters’ identities to embrace.
ive noticed that, as i focus on one thing, the other parts of the character seem to fall into place, and i can just enjoy the character and who they become, rather than making it a chore to develop them into someone i love. it just seems easier to me to fall in love with a character if i loved the process of creating them.
this may be something you already thought of or that isnt really relevant to your issue. but i hope it helps at least a little.
Hey whumplings- Medical professionals and first responders typically won’t say “Its going to be okay.” We don’t know that, and since we’re a voice of authority, it would be a huge betrayal of trust to promise a positive outcome if the outcome turned out to be… less than positive.
Here are some alternative words of encouragement/comfort for your fics:
“You’re in good hands here”
“We’re going to do everything we can for you.”
“It’s (patient action, emotion, reaction) okay.”
“You’re doing great.”
“We’re going to do _________”
“_______ is working the way we expected.”
“It hurts/it’s unfair/its crappy (mirroring/validating/paraphrasing emotion or discomfort)”
“We’re doing this together”
“I see you trying- keep it up! (validating/rewarding a struggle/attempt)”
“Take it easy, we’re going to do a lot of the work here/relax- we’ll tell you when to help us/we’re going to help you but you’re going to do most of this yourself/we need to know/see _____ (generally managing patient expectations for their involvement in care)”
Little tricks and tips that make the med person look more competent, especially before something more in-depth (smelling alcohol pads for nausea, putting two tourniquets on for blood draws/IVs in hard-to-stick patients, coffee grounds to make the room smell nicer, telling the person to wiggle their pinky toe to take their mind off of something briefly unpleasant).
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