#writing ref

It hurts before and during every storm, rain, and snow

Stiff knees have a hard time balancing your weight, meaning going down stairs is not only more painful but far more difficult than going up. I don't know the math, but thems the rules

Many conditions don't solely come with pain and fatigue, but also sudden muscle weakness. Something that wasn't heavy yesterday now is!

Pain can range from dull and persistent, to sharp and spotty. From personal experience, muscle pain hurts the least, then joint/bones, then neuropathy. Of course they can all hurt a ton

Migraines also cause dizziness, nausea, light sensitivity, snowy vision, blurry vision, and seeing halos/aura

Your pain tolerance becomes stronger since you're always in pain

This also means describing pain is much more difficult

Inflammation turns pressure into pain, even down to one's salivary glands stinging from the pressure of salivating

Standing is exhausting

Sitting is less exhausting

Horizontal time is the least exhausting

Sleep disorders become more common

Spending time on the same task for too long equals pain and stiffness

Note: This is for when there's a distinct main character, not a self-insert

This is a really interesting question to me, because in prose I prefer 3rd Person/Past tense but the majority of visual novels I play have it as 1st Person/Present, and then CYOA novels are mostly 2nd Person/Past

say you're an expert archer originally from Vietnam sometime in the late bronze age. say you're a super duper expert archer because it turns out you're immortal, and so you do your archery across Eurasia through the first millennium BCE and the first millennium CE and into the age where gunpowder weapons are evolving into cannons. that's a long time to be alive and you do lots of hunting and fighting with all kinds of bows and shooting styles, especially war archery on horseback. then you're out of the picture for a while, let's say you're peacefully sleeping for a handful of centuries. (this is about Quynh from The Old Guard who alas was not peacefully sleeping)

all of a sudden you blink and you've gone from the era where firearms were just starting to develop and maybe with this new flintlock thing guns could eventually get good enough to rival a bow and arrows— bam, now you're in the 21st century. what kinds of modern archery tech would you be most excited to try out? what would you think of a compound bow? Olympic style archery? plastic fletching?? how about the modern reproductions of what are now considered historical bows and shooting styles? is there anything about 21st century archery that you'd want to rant about at length? other opinions about these newfangled takes on your trusty old bow and arrows you care to share?

This is a phenomenal question, and thank you for asking it! Here’s my 2 cents:

The thing about modern archery is that for the most part, modern bows are designed to make it easier to be accurate, to the stage that modern target accuracy is probably better than it’s ever been historically.

BUT, if we assume Quynh is capable of feats of archery that match the level of melee combat skill that e.g. Andy has, then she doesn’t NEED it to be easier to be accurate.

My guess is that someone like her would actually find most modern archery developments needlessly slow and awkward. Compound bows and Olympic recurves are NOT designed for instinctive, fast shooting, and would probably feel quite restrictive once she got over how easy they made accuracy.

BUT, I imagine she would be blown away by the range and arrow speed that modern bows can generate, and there are some recurves (and at least one compound bow), that have been designed to make use of the efficiency of modern materials and bow design, while still allowing traditional shooting styles, and those, THOSE are something an ancient immortal archer might fall in love with! (FWIW, my own go-to is a horsebow made with carbon-fibre limbs and a modern limb profile, and for impact energy it can match some traditional bows with a draw weight that’s 50% greater. The Oneida eagle compound could trump that).

hello lovely! <3

not an odd ask at all! here are a few of my favorite articles / posts that i read when i was getting started (in no particular order):

how to write a smut (probably my favorite on this list)

lewd vocabulary in erotic fiction (this was something i saw after i started writing smut but i found it an interesting read)

10 tips for writing (good) smut

a virgin's guide to writing smut

how to write smut (specifically for the word list)

how to write a smut scene (some more words / phrases)

overcoming smut shame

6 tips for writing better sex scenes

6 more tips for writing better sex scenes

a few other miscellaneous tips from me: