We Won

Love him... love mr. cool...

Pro-writing tip: if your story doesn't need a number, don't put a fucking number in it.

Nothing, I mean nothing, activates reader pedantry like a number.

I have seen it a thousand times in writing workshops. People just can't resist nitpicking a number. For example, "This scifi story takes place 200 years in the future and they have faster than light travel because it's plot convenient," will immediately drag every armchair scientist out of the woodwork to say why there's no way that technology would exist in only 200 years.

Dates, ages, math, spans of time, I don't know what it is but the second a specific number shows up, your reader is thinking, and they're thinking critically but it's about whether that information is correct. They are now doing the math and have gone off drawing conclusions and getting distracted from your story or worse, putting it down entirely because umm, that sword could not have existed in that Medieval year, or this character couldn't be this old because it means they were an infant when this other story event happened that they're supposed to know about, or these two events now overlap in the timeline, or... etc etc etc.

Unless you are 1000% certain that a specific number is adding to your narrative, and you know rock-solid, backwards and forwards that the information attached to that number is correct and consistent throughout the entire story, do yourself a favor, and don't bring that evil down upon your head.

having a freeze response to stress is so funny in the context of normal adult stressors. millions of years of evolution are trying to tell me that the email will not find me if i stay very still and do nothing

Happy winter solstice! The light begins to return tomorrow!!

People who think sheep are killed for their wool are so hilarious to me. Does your barber slit your throat whenever you get a haircut?? Are you a returning customer to Sweeney Todd? Lmao it grows back, fools.

Middle-aged magical girl.

She's been defending the Earth since the early 90s and she's very tired.

Asexual headcanons are not the same as infantalizing characters and I really wish people would stop conflating the two. There's a difference between "this character knows what sex is and is asexual because they're just not interested" and "this character is an innocent uwu bean who doesn't even know what sex is" and I'm so tired of people assuming that the latter is what you're saying when you headcanon a character as an abstinent or sex-repulsed asexual.

Over the years I have seen so many posts saying it's bad to headcanon a certain character as ace because they're neurodivergent and it's infantalizing, and as a neurodivergent ace person, I'm sick of it! Nuance exists! A character being ace does not mean they're a precious, innocent baby. Literally all it means is that they're not interested in sex. And yeah, obviously ace and aspec people come in all different flavors and plenty of them do have sex, but we should not have to justify our ace headcanons with "oh but they're the kind of ace that has sex" for them to be a valid adult character.

Do you know how hurtful it is, as an adult ace person with no interest in ever having sex, to be told that headcanoning a character I identify with as being similar to me is infantalizing them? Even now, when most of the big exclusionist talk is behind us, I see these kinds of takes - often from fellow queer people - and it just really hurts. Just like ace people are not stealing resources from other queer people, ace headcanons are not doing anything to hurt your own personal headcanons for a character. Maybe leave the marginalized group enjoying projecting onto characters they relate to alone and just enjoy your own headcanons!!

The person I reblogged this from deserves to be happy

I tried to scroll past this. I really did