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I think saying something can never be done is in the same snobbish vein as people who say “prologues and epilogues are dead!” like excuse the entire fuck out of you, but who died and made you king of the slushpile.

I’ve seen some truly awful flashback/prologue/epilogues in my time, but just because some authors fail to find a way to use them correctly, doesn’t mean the rest of us need to suffer from the restrictions of their ineptitude. A good editor will tell you if something isn’t working, or if there’s a better way to do it. A bad one will tell you you ought never to do something simply because it’s currently out of fashion.

As for how to do it well? I dare say if I sat down and tried it I could think of ways to do it, but the main questions to ask yourself are: does this add to my narrative in a way I could not otherwise achieve? Do flashbacks and visions work well within the world I have created? Is there another way I could relay this exposition in a way that is more effective? Does it feel convoluted and heavy when I do it? Does it slow the narrative down? Do I want to slow the narrative down? What effect am I trying to achieve by doing so?

If say, I were writing a fast paced contemporary piece, I would not use the above writing tools in my narrative. Now, an epic fantasy sci fi where the lines of reality are blurred and I can get away with heavier world building exposition? Sign Me The Fuck Up. 

Prologues and the like are very good for creating a sense of oration, like you are being sat down and read to from a text long since forgotten to the passages of time by an old man with a snowy white beard and the zeal of madness in his eyes. But, in the hands of a different author, it could also be used to give the narrative equivalent of an introductory handshake. This is my world, this is the narrative tone we’re going for, bathroom is down the hall on your left, bedrooms to the right, and yes, sorry about the mess on the carpet. The cat’s just been sick.

Flashbacks, dreams and other forms of internal and external analepsis (that’s injecting backstory to you and me, internal being central to the character experiencing it, external referring to the world they are in) can perform a similar role. It can either serve to break up or cement the narrative as the author desires. Breaking it up may create a sense of instability or fragility pertaining to the internal state of your main character.

Or, like the pensieve in Harry Potter, (which I didn’t see a lot of people bitching about the same way they do “flashbacks” even though it’s a literal vessel for retaining and reliving memories, making me believe that most people bitching about certain things don’t actually know what the fuck they’re complaining about. The time turner on the other hand was handled like a piece of shit, but that’s another argument for later.) it can be used creatively to give the author more narrative freedom to introduce their main character(s) to elements of exposition in their world, that otherwise they wouldn’t get to experience, and would perhaps, need to spend several pages of conversational dialogue imparting. So what would have been worse in that instance? Fourteen pages of dialogue telling you the story, or a quick hop skip and a jump down memory lane that lets the author show it to you?

It’s almost as though sometimes, not using valid narrative tools….could be worse…

At that’s what it is, at the end of the day. It’s a narrative tool and one worth having in your toolkit, even if you never foresee yourself using it. Like that miniature blowtorch you picked up at Home Depot that one time on an impulse buy cause it was on sale. You only went in for a hammer and nails but it was there and while the higher reasoning part of your monkey brain is telling you it was a waste of money and you’ll never use it, not with all the other tools you have, there’s another smaller, more ancient part of you, grinning in the darkness. Because it knows. It knows that what no matter others might say, fire is indeed sometimes the solution. How you use it however is up to you. 

You can either burn down the village by doing it poorly, or, you can figure out how it works and how best to contain it to better fuel your purposes. And if you decide you prefer to do it another way, great, fantastic, we are glad you found your way. But it’s just exactly that, your way. So I guess to answer your question a little more briefly than I have up until now: 

Aromanticism is defined as the lack of romantic attraction to other people. Similarly, asexuality is defined as the lack of sexual attraction to other people. These two identities are widely misunderstood and vastly under-respresented in popular media, and hopefully, that will be remedied. That said, here’s a short guide on what to do and what not to do when writing a-spec (a-spectrum) characters.

DO:

Show them having regular friendships with other people. 

Remember that a-specs can still have relationships. Just because someone is asexual does not mean that they cannot have sex.

Allow your non-a-spec characters to be single as well. Characters, regardless of orientation, don’t need to be in a relationship to give them agency. Unless your story is a romance, there is no reason to force characters into relationships that don’t make sense. 

Explicitly use the words “asexual” and “aromantic”. Having canon a-spec characters is so important, especially since it’s too easy to dismiss a character as “just hasn’t found the right person yet”. Canon a-spec characters is much, much better than headcanoned a-spec characters.

DON’T:

Do not give them a traumatic backstory to explain why they don’t feel attraction. While some members of the a-spec community have experienced trauma, it is not necessarily the cause of their aromanticism or asexuality, and to assume that all a-specs are “the way they are” because of trauma is ignorant and aphobic.

Do not forget that they are normal humans with normal, human feelings. Just because a-spec people don’t experience a certain form of attraction doesn’t make them emotionless. 

Absolutely, absolutely do not imply that they are “broken” or “damaged” because of their lack of a certain form of attraction. Aromanticism and asexuality is completely normal and should not be stigmatised in any way, shape or form. Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t give them a traumatic past, it just means that you cannot declare that their aromanticism or asexuality makes them any less “whole” or “fulfilled”.

Here’s some things that people have said in the notes so far that I’m summarising so everything is together and more cohesive:

Don’t try to “fix” an aromantic or asexual character. It’s not an illness or a disease, and isn’t something that magically turns off when you meet “the right person”. An example of this being done badly is in the TV show House (this video explains very well why the episode is aphobic). Thanks to @serpentski for bringing this one up!

Don’t make aromantic allosexual characters sex-crazed, or obsessed with sex, and it’s helpful to ask someone with such an orientation on their experiences with sexual and romantic attraction. Thanks to @sof-ingtired for this one!

Tips for writing a character with a traumatic backstory and is aromantic or asexual without using the backstory to validate the character’s orientation can be found in @angels-and-dreamers reblog, who very succinctly explains a good way to move forward with this! 

Do note that aromanticism and asexuality are spectrums, and that everyone who is a-spec has had different experiences with their orientation and you don’t have to capture a “universal” experience in your writing.

Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 

Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 

Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 

Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 

Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 

ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 

Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.

Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 

A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 

If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 

ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)

If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 

People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 

Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 

If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

- Short sentences. Choppy. One action, then another. When there’s a lull in the fight, take a moment, using longer phrases to analyze the situation–then dive back in. Snap, snap, snap. - Same thing with words - short, simple, and strong in the thick of battle. Save the longer syllables for elsewhere. - Characters do not dwell on things when they are in the heat of the moment. They will get punched in the face. Focus on actions, not thoughts. - Go back and cut out as many adverbs as possible. - No seriously, if there’s ever a time to use the strongest verbs in your vocabulary - Bellow, thrash, heave, shriek, snarl, splinter, bolt, hurtle, crumble, shatter, charge, raze - it’s now. - Don’t forget your other senses. People might not even be sure what they saw during a fight, but they always know how they felt. - Taste: Dry mouth, salt from sweat, copper tang from blood, etc - Smell: OP nailed it - Touch: Headache, sore muscles, tense muscles, exhaustion, blood pounding. Bruised knuckles/bowstring fingers. Injuries that ache and pulse, sting and flare white hot with pain. - Pain will stay with a character. Even if it’s minor. - Sound and sight might blur or sharpen depending on the character and their experience/exhaustion. Colors and quick movements will catch the eye. Loud sounds or noises from behind may serve as a fighter’s only alert before an attack. - If something unexpected happens, shifting the character’s whole attention to that thing will shift the Audience’s attention, too. - Aftermath. This is where the details resurface, the characters pick up things they cast aside during the fight, both literally and metaphorically. Fights are chaotic, fast paced, and self-centered. Characters know only their self, their goals, what’s in their way, and the quickest way around those threats. The aftermath is when people can regain their emotions, their relationships, their rationality/introspection, and anything else they couldn’t afford to think or feel while their lives were on the line.

Do everything you can to keep the fight here and now. Maximize the physical, minimize the theoretical. Keep things immediate - no theories or what ifs.

If writing a strategist, who needs to think ahead, try this: keep strategy to before-and-after fights. Lay out plans in calm periods, try to guess what enemies are thinking or what they will do. During combat, however, the character should think about his options, enemies, and terrain in immediate terms; that is, in shapes and direction. (Large enemy rushing me; dive left, circle around / Scaffolding on fire, pool below me / two foes helping each other, separate them.)

The warrior, however, grovelled. Their face betrayed their fear, hands trembling even as they braced against the floor. Under the harsh white lights, they looked less like a weapon, and more like a child; less like a warrior and more like an eleven-year-old who was dragged into a war ten times their age.

At that moment, the room was silent. Silent, except for the sobs that the child let out, echoing in the large stone hall. Silent, in the wake of the child’s begging, as they waited for what was surely their death.

“You failed,” said the queen, her voice quiet and yet booming through the ears of the child. “I required you to do a simple task, and you returned with four dead soldiers and news of one more battle. One more fight we cannot afford.”

The child opened their mouth, wishing to say something, anything, but they found that all they could manage was a pathetic, wracked sob. The queen was right, of course. She always was. And they - they deserved to pay for their mistake.

The queen continued to speak, her face still impassive. “Because of your failure, we will lose countless more lives. Because of your mistake, because of your carelessness, you have caused this nation more death and destruction. Your actions will force this war to drag on for even longer, just as it was about to near its end.”

The child closed their eyes. “I know,” they whispered. “I know, I know, and I’m sorry, I’ll do better in the future, I’ll do anything you ask! Please, just let me live!”

For some inexplicable reason, the queen laughed. It was a cold laugh - there was no feeling in it, no joy: it was a laugh of pity.

“Oh, darling -” and she smiled “- you will not face your death at my hands. Why would I waste another life? That serves me no purpose, and brings me no joy. No, child, I will not be ending your life today.” Her smile never wavers.

Her eyes are still empty.

“Here’s what you will do, weapon. You will go down to the southern lands. Give my sister my regards. If you can do that for me, I will spare you from the battle that you caused.”

The child looked up to her, their skin grey and sickly as neon lights illuminated their face. “Yes, my queen,” they choked out. “I will... give your sister my regards.”

They stood up, shaking, and bowed, digging into the palm of their hand with fingers shaped like knives. Their eyes, a flashing red, held back tears - their tongue ran along sharpened teeth.

“You may take your leave.”

The child nodded, and unfurled a pair of bat-like wings.

Soon, the stone hall was silent again, and the Statue Queen did not move.

(Two weeks later, the child was locked inside a Southern prison for the murder of their queen. They received a letter, smuggled in by a wide-eyed servant boy who scuttled away before the child could say a word.

Well done, was all it said, in carefully printed letters. There was nothing else there - no hidden message, no new orders. No hint as to who would come to save them.

The child sank down and cried, inside their cold, iron cell. Alone. Unwanted. Rejected by everyone. They were a weapon, and they were used, just like the thousands of other ‘weapons’ that the Statue Queen controlled. They cried, because they realised that in the eyes of their ruler, they were not worth saving.

1) they had to FIGHT the network to make the next avatar a girl in this series

2) they could not overtly develop the Korrasami romance. They had to get permission just for that last scene with them holding hands and going into the spirit world and the strong implications the moment had. It really makes me upset when people credit Nickelodeon for “giving is Korrasami”. They didn’t want it.

What people always remind ME about:

This is why season 1 seems like its own thing, has a different tone, and speeds through the plot. It’s also why season 2′s beginning is particularly rough and it takes a while for the show to get back on its feet.

4) Partway through production of season 4, Nickelodeon slashed their budget by no small amount out of the blue. The reason why the recap episode exists and reuses previous footage while AtLA got the Ember Island Players episode was because that was the only way they could deal with the sudden lack of money without sacrificing their vision for the finale.

5) The finale was pulled from it’s air block/location with less than a week’s notice and put on Nickelodeon’s website’s streaming option which sucked at the best of times and could not handle that many people trying to watch at the same time. If they were able to watch at all.

One of the creators also had to take to his block shortly after the finale aired to clarify that Korra and Asami were dating and were bi because they could only get away with the handholding scene and there were a ton of fans at the time saying that it was unclear and they were just very good friends. Yes, in 2014 people were still saying that anything short of tongues down throats or sex scenes meant that they were just gals being good pals.

Also it wasn’t just that Korra was a woman Nickelodeon had an issue with, it was that she was a woman of colour. A white female avatar they would have grumbled about but eventually came around to, but they fought the creators to make Korra anything other than a woman of colour and they hated that one of their most popular shows with the older demographic starred someone who was neither male nor white.