Superglasses, Bat Cola and Wonder Water

✮⋆˙ "I don't make threats. I make schedules."

✮⋆˙ "You should've stayed out of it. Now it's too late for that."

✮⋆˙ "The thing about secrets is they always find a way out. Always."

✮⋆˙ "I've been in this room before. The last person who sat in that chair didn't leave."

✮⋆˙ "You're looking for a monster. Stop looking so far away."

✮⋆˙ "I didn't plan for you to find out. But now that you have, we have a problem."

✮⋆˙ "Trust no one in this building. Including me. Especially me."

✮⋆˙ "Something is wrong. Everything looks normal and that's exactly why something is wrong."

✮⋆˙ "I've kept this secret for fifteen years. One more day won't kill me. Probably."

✮⋆˙ "You're not afraid of me yet. Give it a minute."

✮⋆˙ "I counted the exits before I sat down. Old habit."

✮⋆˙ "They found the letter. Everything we planned is falling apart."

✮⋆˙ "I'm not the villain here. I'm just the one willing to do what nobody else will."

✮⋆˙ "You should've run when you had the chance. Now we're past that."

things like

the desert as a lifeless wasteland where ‘life is crushed underneath the shifting sands and blazing sun’ blah blah blah. deserts are full of life and they are beautiful and people have lived and prospered in them for eons. please read a book

the desert as an ugly or barren terrain where everything is harsh and threatening

the desert as something scary

the inhabitants as backwards religious zealots

the men as overly violent and oppressive

the inhabitants in need of outside instruction/intervention, i.e. “civilizing the savage”

the “harem” and women as exotic, sensual, mysterious

writing tribalism with no knowledge of how tribes actually function

djinn (or for the westerners, genies)

Islam Lite (the aesthetics or spiritual practices appropriated and stripped of meaning)

sprinkling random arabic words for ✨flavor✨instead of expanding your worldbuilding to include language as well

clothing as oppressive or mysterious, instead of serving its actual purpose (protecting you from the elements, which should be obvious but i guess it isn’t. covering your skin keeps you cooler and safer in most deserts)

people who live in deserts as ignorant, superstitious, uneducated

☆ "I'm not the same person you left. You should probably remember that."

☆ "You don't get to miss me. You had me and you wasted it."

☆ "I've been keeping secrets for you since we were seventeen. I'm tired."

☆ "Don't call it love if you only show up when it's convenient."

☆ "I'm the most dangerous person in this room and nobody knows it yet."

☆ "You broke something in me that I'm still trying to name."

☆ "I'm not asking for much. Just stop lying to my face."

☆ "We could've been something incredible. You chose ordinary instead."

☆ "I saw the way you looked at her. Don't insult me by denying it."

☆ "Some people leave marks. You left scars. There's a difference."

☆ "I forgave you three times before I realized you were counting on it."

"☆ You're the only person I'd start a war for. That terrifies me."

☆ "I don't do second chances. You already know this."

☆ "They asked me if I loved you. I said something worse--I needed you."

☆ "Walk away if you want. But you'll think about this conversation for years."

☆ "I built walls and somehow you still ended up inside them."

☆ "You have a talent for making people feel invisible. Truly a gift."

☆ "I'm not broken. I'm just not what you expected."

☆ "It wasn't hate at first sight. It took at least a week."

☆ "I don't forgive people because they deserve it. I forgive them because I'm tired."

☆ "You have exactly ten seconds to explain yourself before I stop caring."

☆ "I've been loyal to people who didn't even know my middle name."

☆ "Don't mistake my silence for peace. I'm planning."

☆ "You called me difficult. I call it knowing exactly what I want."

☆ "I would've burned the whole world down for you. Funny how that works."

☆ "Stop looking at me like you still know me."

☆ "I didn't ask to care this much. Believe me, I tried not to."

☆ "We don't talk about what happened that summer. We just... don't."

☆ "You left like it was easy. I'm still mad about that."

☆ "Next time you disappear, stay gone."

☆ "I've met ghosts with more presence than you right now."

☆ "They smiled and I knew--we were not getting out of this alive."

☆ "You were my favorite bad idea."

☆ "Don't apologize. Just never do it again."

☆ "I trusted you with the quiet parts of me. That was my mistake."

This is a question from anon and i am legally obligated to include this image when i answer it!!

𐙚 they do something mildly terrifying and something incredibly sweet in the same scene and walk away before anyone can process either

𐙚 the first time they do something kind the POV character just stands there blinking like their brain buffered

𐙚 they remembered something tiny and specific that someone mentioned once in passing six months ago. nobody asked them to remember this. they just did. and then acted on it. silently.

𐙚 they show up when someone is having a bad time without being called, or without asking if they’re okay, or without saying anything really. they just. appear. and stay.

𐙚 the way they show affection is so subtle and so weird that at least two characters don’t even realize they’re being loved on

𐙚 someone tries to thank them and they look genuinely uncomfortable. like the concept of being appreciated has never occurred to them as a possibility and they want it to stop.

𐙚 they said something with complete sincerity in such a flat voice that it took everyone in the room three full seconds to realize it wasn’t a threat

𐙚 one character clocked them as a cinnamon roll in chapter two and has been watching everyone else slowly figure it out with the energy of someone rewatching a movie they’ve already seen

𐙚 another character is STILL scared of them even after witnessing multiple acts of genuine tenderness and honestly? valid. both things are true.

𐙚 they would genuinely rather walk into traffic than say “i care about you” out loud but they have shown up at 2am with no explanation multiple times

Villain Dialogue Prompts #2

♱ "You call that a plan? I've seen better improvisation from amateurs."

♱ "I didn't climb this far to be stopped by you."

♱ "You're not brave. You're just too naive to know fear."

♱ "Every hero I've faced said the same things. None of them are here anymore."

♱ "I don't break people. I simply reveal what was already broken."

♱ "You think righteousness is armor. It's a blindfold."

♱ "I gave you a chance to walk away. That was my one act of mercy."

♱ "You're fighting for people who would turn on you in a heartbeat."

♱ "Hope is just disappointment that hasn't arrived yet."

♱ "I didn't become a monster. I became honest."

♱ "You remind me of who I used to be. That's not a compliment."

♱ "The world doesn't want saving. It wants someone strong enough to rule it."

♱ "You're a candle calling itself a wildfire."

♱ "I've already taken everything from you. You just don't know it yet."

♱ "Loyalty is a leash. I cut mine the moment I saw clearly."

♱ "You bleed for people who sleep soundly while you suffer."

♱ "I don't need followers. I need the world on its knees."

♱ "Your courage is wasted on a losing side."

♱ "I was like you once... full of fire and empty of wisdom."

♱ "You want to save everyone? You can't even save yourself."

♱ "The difference between a villain and a visionary is who writes the history."

♱ "I don't destroy for pleasure. I destroy for purpose."

♱ "You're the last echo of a dying ideal."

♱ "When I'm done, they'll build statues of me and forget you ever existed."

continuing--

⊹ How do they treat people who can't do anything for them? Waitstaff? strangers? people they'll never see again? this is the oldest trick in the book for a reason. It works. How someone behaves toward people with no social utility tells you everything about their actual values versus the values they perform for an audience.

⊹ What's their relationship with their own body? Are they comfortable in it or is it something they carry around like a problem? do they take up space or make themselves small? are they aware of how they look or completely indifferent? Physicality is psychology and most writers forget the body entirely until someone needs to throw a punch.

⊹ What do they lie about and why. Not dramatic plot lies necessarily. the small everyday ones. the things they exaggerate or omit or reframe. Because people don't lie randomly, they lie to protect something. Find what your character is protecting and you'll find what they're afraid of. That fear is the ENGINE!!

⊹ Who did they used to be? not their whole backstory. just: who were they before the thing that changed them. because that person is still in there somewhere, showing up in small ways, wanting things the current version of them would never admit to. The ghost of a former self is one of the most interesting things you can write into a character without ever stating it directly.

⊹ What would make them walk away?? from the goal. from the relationship. from the person they're trying to be. everyone has a breaking point and it should be specific to them, and please not a generic "too much" but the exact thing, the particular betrayal or loss or realisation that would finally be enough. know this even if the story never reaches it.

⊹ What do they want vs what do they need. these should not be the same thing. what they want is the surface goal ( the job, the person, the revenge, the answer.) What they need is the thing underneath that they can't name yet. The story is what happens in the gap between those two things. if they're identical your character has nowhere to go.

⊹ What are they wrong about. Not morally wrong necessarily. just. what belief do they hold that the story is going to test. What assumption do they make about themselves or the world that turns out to be incomplete? A character without a wrong belief is already finished. They have no arc, give them something to learn even if learning it hurts them.

⊹ How do they talk when they're nervous. Do they go quiet or do they talk too much? do they deflect with jokes? do they get weirdly formal? do they ask questions instead of answering them? the way a person behaves under pressure is who they actually are. And it should be different from how they behave when they're comfortable.

⊹ What do they find funny. this one sounds small and it is not small at all. Humour is worldview. What makes someone laugh tells you what they value, what they're afraid of, how they handle pain. A character with no sense of humour is just flat. even the gravest person finds something absurd. find the thing.

⊹ What are they ashamed of? not their tragic backstory. their actual shame. The small ugly thing they would never say out loud. The time they were a coward. The feeling they pretend not to have. The desire they think disqualifies them from being a good person. Shame is where the most interesting character work lives and most writers skip straight over it :(

♡ they meet and immediately like each other (goodbye conflict, we barely knew you)

♡ the only thing keeping them apart is a misunderstanding that one conversation would fix

♡ both characters describe the other as "beautiful" within three pages of meeting

♡ their chemistry is told not shown (the narrator insists they have spark. they don't.)

♡ the love interest has no personality outside of loving the protagonist

♡ they argue once, make up immediately, never argue again

♡ obstacles are external. they always agree with each other about everything.

♡ the rival love interest exists for two chapters then vanishes without explanation

♡ they almost kiss. something interrupts. this happens four times. on the fifth time they kiss. the end.

♡ the love interest is described as funny, clever, and kind. we see none of this.

♡ their big emotional moment is in the rain. it is always in the rain.

♡ the breakup lasts exactly one chapter before they reconcile

♡ "i've never felt this way before" said by someone with no prior emotional history

♡ both confess feelings at the same time. no awkwardness. no stakes. just synchronized emotion.

♡ their first kiss is perfect. no bumped noses. no wrong angle. cinematic and frictionless.

♡ jealousy subplot introduced and dropped without consequence

♡ they have one shared interest and it is the plot

♡ trauma bonding mistaken for romantic chemistry (these are different things)

♡ the side characters ship them loudly. this is not a substitute for actual tension.

♡ one of them dies temporarily. other is devastated. they come back. no lasting emotional damage.

♡ they end up together because the plot ends, not because they chose each other

☆ You know exactly what they want and why they can't have it. The protagonist has no idea what they want.

☆ They make one offhand comment in chapter three and you're still thinking about it

☆ Their backstory is mentioned in two sentences and somehow richer than the main plot

☆ Every scene they're in is more interesting than every scene they're not in

☆ They have opinions. actual opinions. about things unrelated to the protagonist.

☆ You wrote them to be comic relief and they became the emotional core of the book. Congrats.

☆ Their relationship with the protagonist is more interesting than the main romance

☆ They die in act two and the book never recovers.

☆ Their one scene with the villain is better written than any scene with the hero

☆ Readers ask about them specifically. always them. you know the one.

☆ they have a life happening offscreen that you didn't plan but clearly exists

☆ Their flaw is specific and earned and costs them something real

☆ They disagree with the protagonist and they're right

☆ they want something from the story that the story never gives them (devastating)

☆ their friendship with the protagonist is more convincing than anything romantic in the book

☆ disappears for fifty pages and when they come back you notice immediately

☆ you know what their apartment looks like. you've never described it. you just know.

☆ they carry the theme of the book more clearly than the protagonist does

☆ the readers forgive them for things they would never forgive the main character for

☆ they make the right choice for the wrong reasons and it costs them everything and nobody notices but the reader

⟡ Has never had a normal trip to the grocery store in their entire life

⟡ Sits down in a public place and something unusual happens within five minutes

⟡ Gets approached by strangers with problems in every city they have ever visited

⟡ Is present for more bizarre coincidences than statistics can comfortably explain

⟡ Attracts animals that are supposedly afraid of people

⟡ Has a story about every object in their possession because every object has a story

⟡ Goes somewhere simple and comes back with an anecdote that takes fifteen minutes to tell

⟡ Gets involved in other people's situations without trying simply by being in the vicinity

⟡ Has been in the right place at the wrong time and the wrong place at the right time an equal number of times

⟡ Encounters the one person they were thinking about in any given city at any given moment

⟡ Has had things happen to them that other people experience only as urban legends

⟡ Gets the one broken seat, the one late order, and the one unusual neighbor every time

For everything we do here, please be sure to be careful with what you edit, and restart your computer to lock things in. If you don't have access to the Group editor, (likely to happen if you're on base windows) you can do this as well by opening your Registry Editor app, then inputting this after your 'computer' or whatever the initial segment is. (Mine is computer. If I just try and paste the below string it gets SO mad at me)

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot

Navigating to your "turnoffwindowscopilot", hit modify, and set the value data to 1.

If done correctly, it'll look like this.

While we're at it, you can also get rid of the integrated search, (or that thing where it searches the web when you search anything, whether or not you want it to) and such through regedit as well.

Integrated search will have you going to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Navigate to your "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions" bit, if you don't see it, you can make it by right clicking and creating a new registry D-Word key of that exact name. Edit the key, set it to 1. It'll look like this if you do it right!

To get rid of Windows Spotlight, (The thing where it pulls up ten billion pages on windows start page, shoving ads in your face and cluttering everything) we go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DesktopSpotlight\Settings

And set "Enabled State" To 0. If you do it right, it'll look like this!

Disabling edge on startup will also help a fair deal with processing speed and the like. This you can do in all sorts of ways, the easiest being turning it off entirely on startup through settings in the like.

If you want to kill it *entirely*, though? :)

In regedit, run along to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft

Navigate to your MicrosoftEdge key subcategory. If you don't see it, you can make one! Note, this is a KEY, not a d-word. *inside* that subcategory, we want to either make or find the D-Word key of PreventLaunchEdge and set that to 1 in the same way as all the others. It'll look like this.

Aaaand while we're here, I'd HIGHLY recommend shanking Killer Networking Services. It's just bloatware. (Ostensibly it's supposed to monitor your network bandwidth and even things out, but that really means it's constantly monitoring and pinging things, which eats up the bandwidth you DO get, and also chunks your computer's processing power.) Getting rid of it entirely is borderline impossible, since it's set to redownload on regular updates and intel is very pushy with its updates.

This you can do by opening your Services.msc, which basically shows you all the background stuff that Windows does. Find Anything with Killer in the name, right click it, go to properties, and disable startup. It should look like this, if done successfully. It will probably reenable itself in time/in later updates for windows, but it's a quick fix. I'd also check your TaskScheduler app to make sure that nothing's scheduled to open up there, either.

If you CAN completely kill Killer services through uninstalling and the like, I would warn that at very least for my computer, the only ethernet/lan support applications that are available ARE Killer's. When you download updates, you really do have to do it manually and ONLY download the ethernet services, or just be cool with not having Lan functionality.

One last thing, not a shit application but is a shit service. If your computer's constantly overheating or just warm, you likely have Turboboost enabled. (Default setting that you can't change) If you want to be able to turn it off and drop your temps by like 40 degrees, in Regedit go to

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\be337238-0d82-4146-a960-4f3749d470c7

(Note- This isn't the string copy paste from the reddit thread, this is mine that does the same thing. If my string doesn't work for you, check the reddit thread string. If that doesn't work either, you can follow the path and find it pretty easily. Probably has like, one letter of difference somewhere. The bits all start the same, though, so it's easy to find.)

and go to "attributes". Set the value from 1 to 2, and now in your advanced Power Plan settings in control panel, you'll be able to *see* turbo boost and turn it off.

It'll look like this, and in power options, a successful disabling of boost should look like this.

Turning off quick startup's also a good call, since that basically stops your restarts from actually shutting things down properly.

There's well over a hundred settings, here's just a few of them:

(sorry the classic taskbar option no longer works with current windows 11 version)

Fair warning: This is a powerful tool which means it can also do some damage if you don't know what you're doing, but every setting comes with an extensive explanation, as you can see in the Ads and unwanted apps screenshot.

Your character has been in a coma for three weeks and just woke up, said something profound, recognised everyone in the room, and will be walking by next chapter. i love you. i respect your commitment to the plot. but i need you to sit down because we have to talk about what the human body actually does when it's been unconscious for three weeks.

⊹ Waking from a coma is not waking up. it is a gradual, nonlinear process that can take days or weeks. there's no moment where the eyes open and the person is back. there are stages: responses to pain, then to voice, then to commands, then inconsistent awareness, then windows of consciousness that come and go. Your character might recognise someone they love and then have no memory of it an hour later. the people waiting at the bedside have to live in that uncertainty for a very long time.

⊹ Muscle atrophy is immediate and significant. after one week of immobility, you lose a measurable percentage of muscle mass. after three weeks? your character cannot sit up unaided. they cannot stand. their legs do not work the way they used to and getting them to work again involves weeks of painful physiotherapy. They will not be walking to the window to look meaningfully at the sky. They will be trying to hold a cup without dropping it.

⊹ Cognitive effects are real and unpredictable. memory gaps. difficulty concentrating. words disappearing mid-sentence. personality changes that might be temporary or might not be. your character waking up is the beginning of finding out who they are now, which parts came back intact and which parts are different in ways that can't be fixed by time or willpower. The person who walked in is not quite the same person who wakes up.

⊹ The psychological experience of the people who were waiting is also almost never written properly. you visited someone unconscious every day for three weeks and talked to them and held their hand and made decisions about their care and lived in a sustained state of grief and hope at the same time. and then they wake up. and you're supposed to be relieved. and you are relieved. but you're also exhausted in a way nobody is acknowledging, and slightly angry in a way you can't justify, and you've changed too while they were gone. the reunion is complicated. Write the complicated.

the five stages of grief were never meant to be a checklist your character moves through in chronological order across three chapters. Let me save you from writing a grieving character who is simply having scheduled emotions:

⊹ Grief is not primarily crying. i know that sounds wrong but hear me out. a lot of grief looks like doing laundry. cooking something the person liked and then not being able to eat it. watching a show they recommended and never told anyone you finished it. grief goes very quiet and very domestic for long stretches and then ambushes you at completely unreasonable moments like a petrol station or a Friday at 4pm for no reason at all.

⊹ people who are grieving often seem fine. not because they're suppressing or being brave or in denial, but because humans are genuinely capable of functioning and being devastated at the same time. your grieving character can make jokes. can go to work. can have a good day. can feel guilty about the good day. can feel guilty about not feeling guilty. grief has a very active internal bureaucracy that has nothing to do with what's visible on the outside.

⊹ Grief also changes shape over time in ways that aren't necessarily about getting better. the first year is often adrenaline, there are things to do, people around, ritual and structure. year two is frequently harder because the adrenaline is gone and the world has moved on and expects you to have moved on with it. your character being more visibly undone eighteen months later than at the funeral is not a pacing problem. it's accurate.

⟡ Staring out a window for twenty minutes before a single word

⟡ Rereading the same paragraph six times before moving forward

⟡ Lying on the floor thinking about a scene that isn't written yet

⟡ Taking a walk with no phone just to let something untangle

⟡ Reading a book that has nothing to do with your current project

⟡ Sitting in a café doing nothing but absorbing the atmosphere

⟡ Daydreaming about characters like they're real people you know

⟡ Rewriting the first chapter for the fourth time instead of continuing

⟡ Listening to your playlist on repeat until the mood arrives

⟡ Journaling about why you can't write instead of writing

⟡ Reorganizing your notes, your files, your whole system

⟡ Reading your own old work looking for who you used to be

⟡ Researching something minor for three hours because accuracy matters to you

⟡ Sleeping on a problem and waking up with the answer

⟡ Having a full conversation in your head between two characters

⟡ Watching people in public and cataloguing everything

⟡ Cooking or cleaning while your brain quietly solves the plot problem

⟡ Writing the same scene in three different tones just to feel it out

⟡ Abandoning the document and writing by hand for a while

⟡ Reading poetry when prose feels impossible

⟡ Watching a film just to study how a scene transition works

⟡ Making a new playlist because the old one stopped working

⟡ Sitting with discomfort until the scene becomes clear

⟡ Rereading your favorite book and taking it apart sentence by sentence

⟡ Writing a scene you know won't make the final draft just to understand the character

⟡ Doing nothing and trusting that it's filling something up