she is a princess and you are a dragon. she will be married tonight. do not keep standing outside of her room like that, go inside. go get her. that is what proper dragons do.
not that you have ever been a good or proper dragon. when you hatched out of your egg, your eggtooth was too smooth. the other dragons were rough with you, put little holes in your wings.
you were not bold. you were odd. you liked rippling water and the shine of chitin when bugs scuttle and of course the movement of the stars. those were all acceptable interests albeit maybe not traditional. perhaps you had inherited these through some great-great-uncle or something. certainly a dragon may be wise, or clever, if they are not bold.
yes, you have been a great deal of a puzzle to the other dragons. your body is smaller and rather more soft than it ought to be. so speed should have been yours, perhaps - your mother said it would be like fighting a shadow. if a dragon is not aggressive, it may instead be cruel, sly; a backstab. but alas your scales - so iridescent that they almost shine like the moon at night, a glow from within - you are not a shadow, you are a beacon like the flash of a knight's blade. your father has said at least you would make a fine egglayer, a nice mate to a good male. a dragon like you may still be a good mother perhaps; and that is a fine thing to be; although of course it would have been better if you'd been a trove-hoarder instead.
what a dragon must not be is kind.
you have watched her now for six moons. what a good and proper dragon would do is to go inside and to snatch her. a very proper dragon would have kidnapped her many times over, but you will be the delight of your brood to princess-snatch even at all. when you catch her in your jaws and bring her home, they will love you, then. they don't think you're capable of it, but you are, because you're a proper dragon. you can show them that. if you go in, now, right now.
you are rather too glossy to hide in the shadows, so instead you have learned how to appear flat and round, a puddle of light. (how your siblings would mock you! a dragon should be matte, to blend with the night). you dapple your flank with mud. you perch in odd angles atop of trees, scuttle like the bugs you love - hither, tither, frantic.
what you must not do is fly with your wings full-out. alight, you will be limned by the moon's corona. you will be a beacon. you must remember this when (not if) you snatch her.
____
you found her because of the lake. this lake in particular was your favorite - nestled deep in the woods, between two mountains. it is very quiet; there is nothing to horde there so no other dragon bothers you. a gentle waterfall spills over into a deep cove, and there are many mossy caves you've spent your afternoons napping in. while it is not proper for a dragon to prefer such things, you like to lay in rolling tenure just under the water. you have become excellent at holding your breath, can do it for hours. it is the easiest way to appear as a patch of sunlight.
she was not sunlight. she was the night's joy. the dark press of water. her face at first concealed by many diaphanous layers. her breathing quick and quiet.
she had pulled them back to drink from her water flask. and there she had been: a princess. your first very-real princess. right there, only the reach of a single talon from you. if you had simply lunged then, you would have been able to take her easily, in one single movement.
but you did not take her.
she had startled you a bit; you'd been daydreaming about music, which you'd just discovered, and rather liked. you'd heard it from a little house while you snuck in and stole their sheep.
but you knew the sound of fear, of being followed. you'd been chased too many times, you knew what it looked like. the rapid jolt of fear.
you smelled her then; cinnamon and onyx, and perhaps that was what had blinded you. perhaps your mouth was just watering. whatever the case, you waited until she had fled back into the forest; and then you waited a bit longer. in her wake, a garrison of men, their hands rough.
oh. so they were not knights. they were just men chasing a young woman through the woods. perhaps they did not even know a real princess had been running from them. well, that was a relief. you are not good at fighting with knights, who have swords instead of cudgels. these were just men, so you rose from the water in the quiet way you'd learned from the fish. they did not hear you coming.
and besides. proper dragons do violence so well.
___
once you had smelled her you could find her, although such things have always been easier for you than for the others. you spend a great deal of time studying things - it allows you to analyze them. you have tried to explain to the other dragons that sometimes it is best to slow down, but of course no dragon should be slow.
at first you did not understand the confusion of the people's umwelt. they relied so much on their communication (only words and actions!) and what they could see with their eyes. you and the other dragons did not use these as much; but you liked prying out the little sonic differences between hello that means "i like you" and hello that means "i don't like you."
so it took you a while to learn that you were responsible for what had happened to her. men had gone missing, and even bad men going missing makes a big fuss. (you know that if it had been girls missing, it would be okay. many proper dragons steal girls because it will not bring a knight to their door). for a while she had been trapped on the palace grounds. it was determined that it was no longer safe for her to be just a princess, she must undergo some human transformation and become a wife.
even so. you had gone looking for her (only to study, of course, so you may know how to snatch her best). but that night you saw her descending from the window of a castle, quick and agile, moving like a whisper, clad almost entirely in black. you could see her quite well of course, although you were not seeing her; but instead her heat and her smell and her sound and all the other sensory noise all humans give off.
you followed her, keeping yourself in a cloud so you appeared as if mist. she stole off into the woods. you were interested in that, and watched her scuttle - although of course you could have taken her then, you wanted to study your prey as best as you could. she did not seem to do much in the woods, only run around cry into her little hands.
she appeared to be looking for something. she did not get far that first night; scurried back to her bed. over and over this happened - she would run as far as she could, only to go back again. it seemed rather boring to you, but of course you had been free your whole life.
and then one night - finally, she arrived at the lake. she sank to her knees then, her hands pressing into the water. her head tilted to the sky. her dark hair spilling in a caught breath behind her.
this is how you heard her voice for the first time. when she came again the next night, she did so more quickly, more assured. straight to the lake, as if it had called her.
she had skipped a pebble over the surface of the water. this action was dangerous, because it almost hit the sail of your wing. you had structured yourself very finely to look like a rockslide.
"three months." her voice was like her: it was deep and smooth and dark, a low violin string. "they want me to marry that bastard in three months."
and then she cried into her hands again, and the sound of it almost broke you.
you followed her maybe more than a proper dragon should, after this. more than just back to the castle and her bed. you hid along her daily walks and watched her in the throne room and saw her out riding horses. she was good with dogs and nice to her people and very much a proper princess, although you had heard it said a proper princess ought not to slip out at night and run around barefoot through the woods.
you discovered she is terrible with directions. you have often had to make a path more clear so she could get home again. she cannot hunt better than an egg; you have had to kill fish and push them subtly up to the shore.
but she appears to love the lake as much as you do. you have seen her read by candlelight (how foolish. the entire woods saw her each time). you have seen her build little paper boats to float along the surface. you have seen her strip her many layers and dive in, have seen her lay with her belly to the sky, floating like she is suspended by the hands of darkness itself.
oh. so she loves the stars, as well, then.
__
you must go in. she will be married tonight. that is a human thing, but you have since learned what it has meant. she will go to somewhere else, and you will not see her again, maybe ever. and then how will you be a proper dragon? go!
you have made yourself in the form of a gargoyle, hiding in the white stone. you can see into her room; and the tapestries that seem unlike her. everything in her room is very bright, which is bad for a proper dragon. there are many knights in the hallways and in their rooms, and their smell is itchy and repugnant to you.
her dress is white, which does not seem like her. you have only seen her wear black. she is sitting at some kind of desk, and she is crying again. she smells of cinnamon still, but moreso of grief. you can feel the heartbreak in her as if it was inside of you.
you cannot watch her cry anymore. you have watched too often without moving. that is shameful.
you nose the door open. you can move quiet, because you are not very big. she is within a cave of you, then a wingtip, and then she is standing up, looking into your eyes.
"it's you." her hand on your jaw is warm. "i thought i was imagining you, you know. i turned around that day. i saw what you did to those men. i have been looking for you since. i told everyone that i had an angel to protect me. they locked me in here anyway."
you are not an angel, you are a dragon. you have to keep your wings locked tight or you would explode the walls of this place. it makes you feel big, suddenly. you are not used to that sensation. you do not like to be locked in a tower. you believe maybe the princess does not like to be locked in a tower either.
you take her in your jaws. she is very small, and does not resist you. although you are not a strong flyer, you must take off in a single push. any other movement would be too slow. you must also hold your breath so you do not smell her, the clove and cinnamon and little bird of hope. your mouth would water and you would drop her.
against the full moon, you do the thing that is impossible. you stretch yourself out all the way, a bold and beaming arrow, and you fly. you can hear them cry about you now, loudly. a banner that would strike pride even into your father: dragon. dragon. dragon.
on the eve of her wedding, you snatch the princess from her tower.
an arrow whisks for you, and then dozens, and then hundreds. you are not afraid of pain. you have learned long ago how to fly with holes in your wings. you hold her very gently still, and you push past the smell of your blood.
in the night you are a star. someone somewhere could look up and see you and make a wish.
there will be another lake, you decide. you can find another lake. somewhere very, very far from here. however long you must fly, however long you must hold your breath: you will take her home, because you are a proper dragon.
___
sometimes they come for her, your treasure. you have built her a little castle here, deep in the forests off the map. and of course for you: a silver round lake like the shift of her iris. you bring her books and she brings you bugs to study. you let her saddle you, and together you ride through the clouds and fog banks. she is a shadow on your back; a warm and velvet thing. she makes you music and lives the way she should; free in the night like a promise.
but they do come. you have stolen a real princess, and they do not want her to be a princess. they want to make her into a brood mother, or into bait, or into prey. they always look into the caves first; into the places proper dragons stay. they are real knights, not just men with sticks. they are loud and their smell still makes you itch.
but she has made you brave now, and cunning. if a dragon is not big, it should be cunning. and since you are a proper dragon, and since your treasure is your most precious thing, you lay in wait.
let them come. you will let the light drip off of you, and then you will pour through them.
afterwards, your princess will tell you a story around the fire. she will patch your wounds as she did that first time. she will sing to you.
and in that moment, neither of you will be a title nor a story. she will just be herself, and you will just be you.
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When I was in college, my Creative Nonfiction professor would regularly have us do something she called "hotspotting" (she didn't know that this was already a term tbc) with our rough drafts. Basically, hotspotting is when you look at your draft and pick out your favorite sentence, or one of your favorite sentences--one that you're really proud of--and write it down in a blank sheet in a notebook. Not a new document, a physical notebook. (You are not allowed to use technology for hotspotting.) And then you set a timer for however long--like maybe ten to twenty minutes--and you elaborate. You treat that one sentence as if it's the opening sentence to a new draft, and you write from there, until the timer is up.
It sounds like a gimmick, but honestly, some of my best writing in that class came from hotspotting. Usually, the sentence you consider the "best" is the one that really gets to the heart of something you're trying to convey. In a rough draft, it tends to be that you're fumbling around a bit before you really hit on the heart of things. So with hotspotting, you're starting from a less fumbly place, which means you're able to dig into your subject in a much deeper and more precise way. It makes you feel like a surgeon, a little bit.
So I do recommend trying it, even just for fun, even if you think the rough draft you have is already good. You might surprise yourself with what you come up with! :)
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My List of Personally Favorite and Great Fairy Tales Fanfics
Yep, you hear right. There are still fanfics being written for fairy tales. While most of them tend to be smut or crossovers with Disney movies, I have found great gems lurking beneath. (Reminder: this list can be updated if I find more)
If you are interested in stories that reminiscent of those dark tales before going to bed while also craving something delightfully nuanced or fresh take with that edge of darkness but not too long to bore you out, here are the fics below:
A Dance in Iron Shoes by Gehayi (Snow White)
All Kinds of Skill by GracefullySeven (Allerleirauh/All-Kinds-Of-Fur)
Three Sisters, Bound by Blythe (Vasilissa the Beautiful, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, The Frog Princess)
Swanwing by Gehayi (The Wild Swans)
Slow Poison by Gehayi (Diamonds and Toads)
runnin' for a soft place to fall by lady_ragnell (Allerleirauh/All-Kinds-Of-Fur)
Promise of the Sea by Gehayi (The Little Mermaid)
mist behind and light before by cathalin (Cinderella)
Of Oceans and Ondines by Gehayi (The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid)
A Skin Made of Sorrow by Carenejeanes (Catskin)
The Path of Thorns by Jetamors (Little Red Riding Hood)
tongue-tied i took her in by quadrille (The Six Swans/The Wild Swans)
The Six Swans by Gileonnen (The Six Swans)
faux by perennial (the ballet Swan Lake)
Gehayi wrote beautiful fics that suck you in and make you feel like you were a kid who first began to immerse into stories again. All of the authors here are amazing and if you can, check out their works and give them some love đ
Not exactly under fairy tales fandom but give it a shot if you would, they are immaculately written.
The Red Country by jibrailis (Alice in Wonderland)
Frame Story by jibrailis (Princess Tutu fic but it is intertwined with the Twelve Dancing Princess fairy tale)
âAre you the witch who turned eleven princes into swans?â
The old woman stared at the figure on the front step of her cottage and considered her options. It was the kind of question usually backed up by a mob with meaningful torches, and the kind of question she tried to avoid.
Coming from a single dusty, tired housewife, it shouldâve held no terrors.
âYou a cop?â
The housewife twisted the hem of her apron. âNo,â she muttered. âIâm a swan.â
A raven croaked somewhere in the woods. Wind whispered in the autumn leaves.
Then: âI think I can guess,â the old woman said slowly. âHusband stole your swan skin and forced you to marry him?â
A nod.
âAnd you canât turn back into a swan until you find your skin again.â
A nod.
âBut I reckon heâs hidden it, or burned it, or keeps it locked up so you canât touch it.â
A tiny, miserable nod.
âAnd then you hear that old Granny Rothbart who lives out in the woods is really a batty old witch whose father taught her how to turn princes into swans,â the old woman sighed. âAnd you think, âHey, stuff the old skin, I can just turn into a swan again this way.â
âBut even if that was true â which I havenât said if it is or if it isnât â Iâd say that I can only do it to make people miserable. Iâm an awful person. I canât do it out of the goodness of my heart. I have no goodness. I canât use magic to make you feel better. I only wish I could.â
Another pause. âIf I was a witch,â she added.
The housewife chewed the inside of her cheek. Then she drew herself up and, for the first time, looked the old woman in the eyes.
âCan you do it to make my husband miserable?â
The old woman considered her options. Then she pulled the wand out from the umbrella stand by the door. It was long, and silver, and a tiny glass swan with open wings stood perched on the tip.
A small list of random ass sites Iâve found useful when writing:
Fragrantica: perfume enthusiast site that has a long list of scents. v helpful when youâre writing your guilty pleasure abo fics
Just One Cookbook: recipe site that centers on Japanese cuisine. Lots of different recipes to browse, plenty of inspiration so youâre not just âramen and sushiâÂ
This comparing heights page: gives you a visual on height differences between characters
A page on the colors of bruises+healing stages: well just that. there you go. describe your bruises properly
McCormick Science Institute: yes this is a real thing. the site shows off research on spices and gives the history on them. be historically accurate or just indulge in mindless fascination. boost your restaurant au with it
A Glossary of Astronomy Terms: to pepper in that sweet terminology for your astrophysics major college au needs
Cocktail Flow: a site with a variety of cocktails thatâs pretty easy to navigate and offers photos of the drinks. You can sort by themes, strengths, type and base. My only real annoyance with this site is that the drinks are sometimes sorted into ~masculine~ and ~feminine~ but ehhhh. Itâs great otherwise.
Tie-A-Tie: a site centered around ties, obviously. I stumbled upon it while researching tie fabrics but thereâs a lot more to look at. It offers insight into dress code for events, tells you how to tie your ties, and has a section on the often forgotten about tie accessories
Types of High Heels: A page describing twenty five different types of high heels. It gives a description and pictures. Shake it up from just âstilettos and kitten heelsâ
Random Job Generator: Exactly as it says. The site offer more generators like characters, plots, or town names.
Glossary of Hosiery Terms: Figure out what is what on a pair of stockings.
Menâs Dress Shoe Guide: A quick guide describing the eight most common types of menâs dress shoes. Pics included.
Types of Womenâs Coats: Descriptions and pics of various different types of coats.
I asked my ancestors
to whom I should give my offering.
My great-grandmother replied
âGive it to God, the one and almighty,
the God of your ancestors.
That is where it belongs.â
And all around her, many nodded,
But behind her, further than I could see, others pouted.
âWe are your ancestors too,
and it wasnât to that god
that we gave our offerings.â
âYour gods are irrelevant today,â she told them.
âShe must honor the God of her country.â
âOur gods,â replied one of the elders,
âleft their marks on her land
way before yours did.â
âThe fields of Massilia,
where she grew up,
were first tended in honor of Demeter,
and the sailorsâ wives in the harbor
prayed for Poseidon to bring back their husbands alive,
their cargoes filled with Dionysusâs wine.
The city where your daughter drew her first breath
still remembers the time
when it bore the name of Lugh
which now lies in its museum.
The village where the church
honored our family
with a plaque for our faith
was built by a forest
where druids used to speak
of Belisama and Belenos,
of deer-antlered Cernunnos,
and of the Great Son of the Great Mother.
The parents of the first king
who ruled your country
and whose christening date
is taught in schools
told him the stories
of Odin and Frigg,
of Thor, of Baldr,
and mischievous Loki.â
âI understand,â grandmother admitted,
âBut tell me then
to which one of all our gods
should she give her offering?â
And her wise elder replied:
âTo the one too few of us
were allowed to honor.
The god of her own choosing.â
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Tagged by @cao-the-dreamer . Thanks for that! ^^ No sure if I'm doing this right, but I like doing tag games!
Tagging @allebooklover, @darkmasterofcupcakes, @lyragates, uuuuuh.... and whoever wants to.
1. Mary Malone - His Dark Material
Her chapters in the Amber Spyglass are my favorite. Lyra and Will have the spotlight of course, but she's the snake showing them a new way. I just love all the contradictions in her character. She's a scientist but she used to be a nun. She walks into a new world guided by angels through divination. She's methodical yet impulsive, logical yet emotional, and I just love the wonder you can feel as she discovers dust and the mulefas and even the opening on the world of the dead.
2. Marguerite de Rosbourg - Trouble with Sophie
The Countess of Segur was the first author I read, and I always loved the character of Marguerite from the second and third book. She's kind of a brat x) But I love how honest she is, due to being the youngest of the kids. When she doesn't like someone, she's not afraid to say it to their face, and being less 'perfect' than Camille and Madeleine, she's exactly what Sophie needed as a friend. Plus I love her design in the cartoon adaptation, the bluish black hair and little curls, freaking adorable.
3. LĂŠna/Eejil - Le Chant du Troll (Song of the Troll)
Last book, I promise, I just really wanted to add a Pierre Bottero character. First I wanted to put in Salim or Ellana but I had to put in LĂŠna, the little girl who refused to see that she was dead, and became the immortal companion of Doudou, the troll. I cried so many times reading her story, she's a heartbreaking character and I love that she just gets to chill forever with her troll.
4. Aster - Nu Carnival
My greedy little vampire who bleeds all the nobles dry <3 I pray for another SSR of him. I have a weakness for femboys, I'm not afraid to admit it, and that's the twinkiest twink that ever twinkled. I'm lucky I don't live in Klein because he'd get me to work for him for peanuts.
5. Poland - Hetalia
Did I mention I like femboys? Hetalia's my all time favorite anime and Poland's my favorite of the nations. I'm always sad he doesn't get more episode. He's silly and cute, but as resilient as a cockroach, his best friend hates him yet can't help but protect him. He's that type of silly character who grows on you when you scratch the surface, though you could say the same about pretty much all the nations x)
6. Patton - Sanders Sides
I don't know how I managed to pick just one but yeah, Patton, the sweetest little puffball who doesn't mean to be as controlling as he is sometimes. He's trying his best, it's not always enough, but he's learning and always trying to do better. I kinda identify with how emotional he is. Yeah, who hasn't turned into a giant frog out of stress, you know?
7. Tamaki Suoh - Ouran High School Host Club
I'M SORRY! My boy is underrated! Yeah, he's dumb as a brick and quite extreme; but he's kind, altruistic, compassionate, he's the literal heart of the host club! None of the other characters would be who they are now without him. And yes, I do think he and Haruhi are a perfect match.
8. Sebastian Michaelis - Black Butler
My first fictional crush. Yes, he's a demon. Yes, he's terrifying. That doesn't mean I didn't swoon in front of my screen when I was thirteen.
9. Dilili - Dilili in Paris
Say what you will about the movie, I adore Dilili. Her extremely refined maneurism, her curiosity, her courage, her wit when she calls out prejudice. And I love the fact that the movie also takes the time to show that, even if she's literally taking down a sexist cult, she's still a child who doesn't always understand grown up discussions. I want to write a fanfiction where she meets Kirikou and Chamsous-Sabah and they all get to play together as kids.
10. Bill Cipher - Gravity Falls
Fuck it. I know I don't have to talk about him, he's literally a tumblr sexyman. But he's the entire reason I watched Gravity Falls. He's crazy, he's smart, he's manipulative, he's charming, he's way more graphic than a kid's show calls for, and I love him.
Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.
âWell,â said Alice, âthese are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!â
âThey all symbolize different aspects of Our Lordâs martyrdom,â said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.
âIndeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?â
Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of âThe Grail! She has achieved the Grail!â
The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.
âIf you cut my head off,â said the Green Knight, âthen in a year and a day, I shall cut off yours.â
âCertainly not!â said Alice.  âFor if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!â
âSilly games are the most important thing in the world,â said the Green Knight, âfor it is after them that we judge honor.â
Alice thought to herself that if this was honor, adults could keep it.
In honor of a thing that keeps popping up in Arthurian novels I readâŚ
âYou have nothing to fear,â said the robber knight, âfor you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!â
âThat canât possibly be a law,â said Alice. âCamelot is absurd, but not that absurd.â
âIt is not a law, but a custom.â The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. âCustoms are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.â
Alice didnât think that was true, but she would not argue the point.
âWhat about attacking a knight?â she asked. âCan someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?â
âOne may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word âknightâ- he can be attacked by day or by knight!â
With the understanding that, as a maiden traveling alone, she might attack the knight and he could not return the attack, Alice picked up a handful of rocks from the ground and began to throw them at him. She was not generally an unruly child, but everyone has their limits.
I got pretty fed up with looking for words to replace said because they werenât sorted in a way I could easily use/find them for the right time. So I did some myself.
I DONâT REALLY CARE BUT WHATEVER
Guessed
Ventured
IâM DRUNK OR JUST BEING WEIRDLY EXPRESSIVE FOR A POINT/SARCASM
Hooted
Howled
Yowled
I WONDER
Pondered
Voiced
Wondered
OH, YEAH, WHOOPS
Recalled
Recited
Remembered
SURPRISE BITCH
Revealed
IT SEEMS FAKE BUT OKAY/HA ACTUALLY FUNNY BUT I DONâT WANT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD
Scoffed
Snickered
Snorted
BITCHY
Tattled
Taunted
Teased
Edit: People, Iâm an English and creative writing double major in college; I understand that thereâs nothing wrong with simply using âsaid.â This was just for fun, and it comes in handy when I need to add pizzazz.Â
In addition to a little pizzazz in the dialogue tags, these are also super useful as part of the narration, or summing up/paraphrasing something that has been said, or even in a characterâs dialogue as they describe how someone was talking!
Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because theyâre used to writing essays rather than prose. I donât wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesnât offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (âdialogue tagâ just refers to phrases like âhe said,â âshe whispered,â âthey askedâ):
âFor most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and donât capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,â she said.
âBut what if youâre using a question mark rather than a period?â they asked.
âWhen using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless itâs a proper noun!â she snapped.
âWhen breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,â she said, âuse commas.â
âThis is a single sentence,â she said. âNow, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so thereâs no comma after âshe said.ââ
âThereâs no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.â She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
âIf you want to break up dialogue to insert an action"âshe gesticulated wildly to emphasize her pointâ"then you use em dashes around the action.â
âYou can also break up dialogue by placing the em dash inside the quotation mark, butââ She took a moment to catch her breath. ââyou must treat the action like a sentence. It must be capitalized with an end punctation.â
âWhen humans speak, we often get sidetracked (and share information that may not be all that pertinent, a secret, or something we probably shouldnât be talking about). Use parenthesis in your dialogue when you want to demonstrate this.â
***
âIf youâre writing a long monologue, then it likely needs to be broken into multiple paragraphs. Because one long paragraph of dialogue that takes up an entire page or multiple pages is very hard on the eyes.
âSo conclude the previous dialogue paragraph without a quotation mark, and start the next dialogue paragraph with a quotation mark. This shows the reader that the same person is still speaking, without the need for additional action or dialogue tags.â
You can enjoy things in fiction that would be awful in the real world. Like playing a murderhobo in a game! In the real world, being or supporting a murderer-thief would be pretty damn awful, while in the game it's just good fun. Same with anything else you choose to do with the pixels on the screen, like kinks that don't affect anyone real, so they're okay in fiction, but would be pretty damn bad in real life.
No one else is responsible for your online experience. They are required not to harass you, but they are not and never will be obligated to not post about ships, kinks, or tropes you dislike just to avoid you seeing them. It's up to you to blacklist words or phrases, block tags, or even block users as needed to avoid seeing content that upsets you.
No one can force you to read anything against your consent. Any content you don't like seeing can be instantly avoided by closing out of the offending post/fic.
You are not owed an online experience free of discomfort.
Nothing that happens in your imagination can ever make you a bad person. Words you write or read about fictional characters will never make you a bad person.
The claim that media consumption influences real-life behavior is intellectually dishonest and serves only to excuse the behavior of real offenders.
Fiction is a safe way to explore horrifying or confusing concepts. Therapists agree that fiction, even (or especially) about taboo topics is a good coping mechanism, especially, but not exclusively, for trauma survivors. Fiction is to adults what play therapy is to children. This doesn't stop being true if the work in question is of a sexual nature.
Sex isn't an inherently worse or better motivation than anything else. A work written to create feelings of arousal isn't dirty, shameful, or in any way less pure than works written to entertain, provoke moral questions, or for other reasons. And worth noting is that multiple purposes can exist in the same story, especially fanfiction.
You aren't entitled to an explanation for why someone reads, writes, or otherwise enjoys certain works, kinks, tropes, ships, etc.
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One quiet day on the farm, the Little Red Hen found some wheat seeds and decided to make bread.
"Who will help me plant these seeds?" the Little Red Hen asked.
"I would." said the Horse "But I'm a workhorse, and I'm too busy moving carts around."
And so the Little Red Hen planted the seeds by herself. And they grew into bountiful golden crops.
"Who will help me harvest the wheat?" the Little Red Hen asked.
"I would." said the Dog "But I'm a guarddog, and I'm too busy keeping away burglars and predators."
And so the Little Red Hen harvested the wheat herself and made it into flour.
"Who will help me bake the flour?" the Little Red Hen asked.
"I would." said the Pig "But I'm a mother of 5 newborn piglets, and I'm too busy taking care of my young."
And so the Little Red Hen baked the bread herself into twenty beautiful loaves.
"Who will help me eat the bread?" the Little Red Hen asked.
"We would." said the Farm Animals. "But we're ashamed, for we didn't do anything to make the bread."
"Nonsense!" said the Little Red Hen. "You, Horse, helped move around the stones that built my oven. You, Dog, kept me safe while I worked. And you, Pig, are raising a new generation of Farm Animals, who will too contribute to our Farm one day. You've all helped me so much by simply being you."
"Besides," the Little Red Hen added. "I couldn't possibly eat all the loaves on my own, most of them would go to waste. Come, eat with me."
And so the Little Red Hen and the Farm Animals ate the bread together. And all saw their own, and each other's, worth.
