The Concept Of The Admirers Of Knights Giving Them Tokens Or "favors" To Show Their Love Before A Tournament

mundane scenes are important.

This might be some unconventional writing advice, but it's important and I don't see it being talked about enough. It boils down to this:

Not every scene you write has to be essential to drive your plot forward. Your story doesn't have to be at high stakes at all times to be considered interesting either.

Don't take this the wrong way — every scene has to be crucial to your story. Not important. Crucial. Your audience should leave each scene with a new piece of information.

But even though it is important that your story isn't filled to the brim with filler scenes that don't contribute to anything, it is more than okay, and advised, to include scenes in which your characters simply... exist. Scenes in which they breathe, or bond with each other. Scenes that give your audience a chance to emotionally connect with your characters. To fall in love with a relationship. To build that emotional connection between human and character that will make the emotional impact hit that much harder.

Perhaps it isn't necessary to show your characters at work, signing papers at a desk (unless they get fired, or a dragon sets the place on fire), but it might very well be necessary for your characters to invite a couple friends over, make some pancakes, and crack a couple jokes! The scene itself might not contribute too much to the overall plot in your story, but it helps bring life into it.

Giving your audience a glimpse into your characters lives is important. Not only does it help them connect, but it's a way for your audience to start caring more deeply about your characters, as well as the relationships between them.

Your story cannot simply be ACTION ACTION ACTION.

Yes, it is super important that the things you write contribute to the plot and that filler is kept at bay, but your plot is only half of it. If a scene is rendered useless in terms of plot development, but contributes to characterization, worldbuilding or exposition, it is not useless and you don't necessarily have to cut it.

It’s about balance. Each scene has to serve a purpose, but there are multiple purposes to be served. So let your characters breathe, even for just a second.

There needs to be down time. Otherwise the emotional impact you're trying to bring upon your audience might not come into play, because your audience haven't spent enough time with your characters to care deeply about them.

the thing that kills me about how liam plays orym is the way you can see the fear on liam’s face every time they enter a battle. and how it’s not orym’s fear—it’s liam’s. because he knows that every battle could be orym’s last. every time it comes around to his turn, he gets this awful pained resignation on his face. this is a stupid idea, but it’s all orym knows how to do. his poor battle-master, so willing to die, so eager to bait death. you can see liam’s sense of self-preservation warring with orym’s lack thereof and it’s just. aughhhgggh. the stakes are so much higher with orym than the others, because he doesn’t get out of the way, he never gets out of the way. and it gets to liam! every time! he sits there in his chair and takes a deep breath and lets orym do exactly what he want, which is to run straight into death’s waiting jaws. orym would just die! he wouldn’t duck or retreat. he would die, and liam has to let it happen! because orym doesn’t fear his own death, but liam does! liam loves him! he doesn’t want him to die! but he has no choice!

what’s in a kiss?

Scar loses his first life to Grian with a kiss to the knuckles.

He gets played at his own game – he’d be the first to admit it. Grian asks for a life, to test out the transfer system he says, with a smile and a wrinkle of his nose and the edge of a flirt to his voice, and holds out a hand. And, well, Scar’s a showman at heart. Always has been. Always will be.

And Grian’s always been able to play him like a fiddle, when he puts the effort in.

Scar takes the proffered hand like a gentleman, bows low over it with a smirk and a bit of theatre. He kisses a life into Grian’s scarred knuckles with panache, with a flourish, like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. Like a promise.

When Grian runs off with it, laughing and teasing and gleeful with fledgeling chaos, Scar mourns half for the loss of the life and half for a kiss unreturned. He ignores the kernel of ice that sets itself to seed at the centre of his heart.

–

He gives his second to Bdubs, from half a server away – a kiss blown into the open air, imbued with a mission as it leaves his palm. He feels it, as it catches the currents of the wind and is dragged away, a homing missile with a purpose. Etho watches him, eyes narrow, and Scar smiles and promises him it’s been done.

He feels it, too, when it reaches its mark. A phantom of stubble brushes against his lips, the ghost of a warm cheek pressed to his mouth. His chest feels a little colder than it did before.

–

The third goes to Cleo, a thumb brushing her hair back from her temple, his lips touched to the papery skin there. She tenses beneath the touch, lips peeled back, teeth bared– and then shudders, relaxes, as the kiss presses a life back into her. When she blinks, her eyes open the pale yellow of buttercups and dandelions, and the lines of tension are gone from the corners of her mouth.

Her skin is cold beneath his lips as he pulls away, the transfer complete. The space between his third and fourth ribs is only a few degrees warmer.

–

Joel gets the fourth, both of Scar’s hands curled over the solidity of his shoulders and lips pressed firmly to his forehead. Scar gets a mouthful of hair, half of it hastily dyed over red with bleach and box dye. He can smell the ammonia of it, and leans back before it can make his eyes water. The warmth trickles out of him in slow degrees.

–

And then it’s Grian again. 

Grian, stood in front of him with eyes like rubies, and a mouth twisted into something hard, something half-cruel. There’s a crossbow in one of his hands, a bloody-edged axe in the other. His gaze keeps sliding sideways, to that monstrosity of an obsidian cage, like he can’t quite bring himself to meet Scar’s stare.

Scar reaches out with both hands, and then hesitates. Lets one fall back to his side. He catches Grian’s chin with one knuckle, and tilts it upwards, careful, so careful. Until Grian’s eyes – tired, defiant, calculating – are forced back to his face once more.

“Last one I’ve got to give,” Scar says, with a lopsided smile, and leans in.

Grian’s lips are warm beneath his, dry and bitten-chapped, and there’s people watching, and Scar doesn’t care. The rubies turn to liquid gold between one slow flutter of lashes and the next, and red blooms across Grian’s cheeks instead. It’s chaste enough as kisses go, but Scar holds it just a second too long to play it off as a joke, and he can’t find it in his cold and aching heart to regret that. 

He pulls away and Grian blinks, dazed, flushed pink beneath his freckles. “Take better care of it this time, you hear me?” murmurs Scar, into the space between them, like a secret.

Like a plea.

He doesn’t wait to see if Grian nods before he steps back, turns on his heel, and turns his back on the last life he has to spare. His ribs ache, cold metal against teeth. His heart stutters beneath the ice, as best it can.

–

The sixth life burns out of him, too hot and too fast for him to scream. When he wakes up in his own bed, he doesn’t feel cold any more.

He doesn’t feel much of anything at all.

(realized I never posted this here, sorry tumblr fans, you have been starved)

"You want to run that by me again?" Headcanon that while Ghostbur was around, he tried to fix Alivebur's jacket with blue thread he made from Friend's wool- which glows! So now, after Revivebur regained his possessions, his jacket still has Ghostbur's threads holding it together.

it’s fine

You ever think about how unified humanity is by just everyday experiences? Tudor peasants had hangnails, nobles in the Qin dynasty had favorite foods, workers in the 1700s liked seeing flowers growing in pavement cracks, a cook in medieval Iran teared up cutting onions, a mom in 1300 told her son not to get grass stains on his clothes, some girl in the past loved staying up late to see the sun rise.

I’m paying to force seven thousand strangers to see a photo of my late husband having fun with his dog. Tumblr Blaze is totally worth it. XD