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flowers in my hair and demons in my head

@dam-those-words

he she sun
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Idea:

Medusa wasn’t Cursed with Snake Hair and Scales.

She Already had Snake Hair and Scales and was still the hottest lady the Gods have ever seen.

To be fair Medusa is supposedly one of the three Gorgon sisters, so it makes sense that there would be a family resemblance

Yeah that’s why I had to post this

I’ve read too many stories where it’s like “she’s a Gorgon” then near the end of the story they say “she was cursed with snake hair and features”

And I’m just like “…Wait.”

I think the only thing she was truly cursed with were the eyes that turn people to stone

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mall-fries

someone draw beautiful medusa with scales and snake hair before being cursed p le a s e

I already had a little idea in my head so…

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umbralillium

The men yell, “she’s a monster! She should be hunted down and killed”. They’ve said it before, they’ve tried it before. She steals women and devours them, the men yell. “She comes in the night and takes women away when they’re on a half-awake wander to the chamber pot or a drink of water. She steals them away to her lair and devours them whole. Why else do women not return?”

The women whisper, “she’s a savior. She should be sought for sanctuary and love.” They whisper it around the well whenever they see the shadows of a bruise on their friends’ bodies. Whenever someone who once was vivacious and bright is now dull and flinches from friendly touches. “Go in the night,” they say, “when he’s so drunk he sleeps heavily. Take only what he won’t notice is missing. Don’t worry about clothes or food, she will provide. You will be cared for. Why would you want to return?”

She says, “welcome home. You will be safe here,” with a soft smile and softer eyes. The snakes that curl around her head are more colors than you’ve ever seen in your life. She tilts her head as she takes in your bundle of precious items, the bruises on your arm, your face, around your neck. A cloud passes over her face and the sun, and you see the snakes are black. The look passes, the cloud moves away, the sun strikes the snakes again and they’re a shifting array of colors again. “Come, meet your sisters,” she says, gesturing as she turns and you look to see dozens of women coming out of the cave, smiling and happy. The group comes forward, splitting to either side of you, leaving a path to the cave and a path behind you leading back. “Welcome, you’re safe.” You step forward, peace settling into your heart. You will never return.

I love these stories about Medusa that go against the common myths

The men at the drinking party sat around laughing at the younger man. “You mean to tell us that a woman was beating her husband? Ha! What a jokester you are.”

“You are probably just too embarrassed to admit you got that black eye from doing something stupid.”

“Besides even if you were telling the truth, just be a man and fight back! Or have you no guts at all? We all know your wife is a spitfire but she is still a woman, and you are a man.”

The young man was used to these responses from the older men of the village, to the point that his heart was turned to stone from it. His wife, whom he had been arranged to marry, was not like most of the other women he had met in his life. She was cruel and truly wicked and often drunk. She took advantage of the young man’s youth and lack of experience. Even if the people thought that she was a weak woman, she knew that she was stronger than her young husband, who had less strength than a hungry dog. And of course, no one would believe that a woman could overpower a young man like that.

On this day however, the young man decided to take a chance. He approached the well where he had often seen one woman in particular talking to the women who had vanished only a day or two before then, and she was there today.

“Excuse me. I have a quick question for you.”

The woman, who was just pulling her bucket out of the well turned to him somewhat surprised. “Yes?”

“Is…is it true…what the women whisper about the Gorgon in the woods…that…she helps women whose husbands beat them?”

The woman seemed suspicious of him at first, “Where did you hear that?”

“I just…” the man looked around nervously before removing the bandages from his face to show her his purple-ringed eye and swollen lip.

The woman hesitated before repeating the words she often did to many others, “ Go in the night,” she said, “when he-…she is so drunk he sleeps heavily. Take only what she won’t notice is missing. Don’t worry about clothes or food, she will provide. You will be cared for. Why would you want to return?”

Before the young man could even thank her, his wife stormed up behind him, “What are you doing talking to another woman!?”

The young man hesitated before the woman at the well said, “He saw me struggling with my bucket and came to help me. Nothing more.”

“I see.” his wife grumbled, clearly still skeptical.

A few nights later, the young man fled. He was quiet and stealthy, until he got to the forest, where he quickly pushed forward into a sprint. He ran and ran, doing his best to remember the directions to the place that promised safety.

Once at last he came across the cave, he stood panting at its mouth before taking his first steps in. He soon found himself in a big lit chamber, women whom he had recognized as from his same village sat around. Some drinking and eating, others playing games, others braiding each other’s hair. But when he entered, they all looked up at him, some in surprise, others in shock, or fear.

“What is a man doing here?” they whispered, “Has the village sent a mercenary after Medusa?” “Are we no longer safe here?” the whispers grew into an almost deafening cacophony of the same hopelessness he felt back in the village. Surely, he thought, these women who are fearful of their husbands would not want to welcome a man among them. Perhaps I should have stayed at home, and let them be.

However, when he turned to leave, he found himself face to face with the gorgon woman. Her eyes seemed to pierce deep into his very soul, as if to weed through the annals of his true self.

His mind raced, trying to think of what to say to defend himself against this protector of women, to justify his entrance into this blessed sanctuary for the broken and beaten. But before he could part his lips, she spoke.

“Fear not my sisters. Look upon the wounds on his face. He too has come hear for safety from violence. Look into his eyes. He is afraid and hurt, as many of you were when you first came to me. Young man, you are welcome here, for this is a place of safety from cruelty. I know all too well that the hardships of life do not discriminate those of whom they strike against. Come, to your new home, and meet your sisters. Come and be safe.”

She gently took his bundles and began to carry them away, and when she looked back at him to see if he was following, he felt her eyes peer deep inside him, and begin to shed away the stone that had encased his heart.

(I hope you like this addition because male abuse victims also need happy endings.)

Oh my gosh…

This is such a beautiful and tearjerking addition

Thank you

Forever reblog lol

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some writer snob somewhere: Do not start sentences with But or And because doing so is grammatically incorrect.

me, writing my fic: But I don’t care. And you can’t stop me.

Sometimes…..the flow of your creative prose…..is more important….than grammatical guidelines,,,,,,

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ziraseal
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One of my favorite things ever is when one person’s creativity inspires and motivates someone else’s. And you get this beautiful feedback loop of imagination and creation and people motivating and inspiring and supporting one another and goddamn that’s just fucking delightful. 

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nanowrimo

It’s October, which means that National Novel Writing Month is just one month away!

Are you writing a novel with us in November? Let the world know by updating your social media profiles with this participant flair! (We have a square icon image, as well as banners sized for Facebook and Twitter). 

You can also announce your project on the brand new NaNoWriMo website! If you haven’t seen it yet, log into nanowrimo.org with your existing username and password (or create a new one if you don’t have an account). You can go to “My NaNoWriMo” > “Projects”, and click the “Announce new project” button at the top.

Not sure what you want to write about yet? Don’t freak out! We’ve got a lot of resources to help you prep for writing a novel this month with our NaNo Prep 101 workbook and exercises. 

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fatimagic

give me two characters who are each other’s home. two characters who feel completely safe, warm and protected in each other’s presence, and who are completely respected by the other. two people who, on some level or another, were missing that little extra spark they needed to feel fully confident and accepted as their whole selves until the other came along. they don’t “fix each other” or “make each other better”–they give the other the support they need to build on what was already inside them. sure they might kiss, or make goo-goo eyes, but they can also just…talk, and make each other laugh and smile, because for once they feel comfortable enough in themselves and with each other to be vulnerable in that way. two complete people who finally find someone to share all of themselves with. and no matter what they do or how far they go, they’ll always have each other to come back home to. 

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brynwrites

Cheep and easy ways to find a basis for your plot.

When you have characters:

  • What does your character aspire to do or become? Making that aspiration really hard for them to reach.
  • What does your character love? Take it away from them and make them earn it back.
  • What does your character hate? Bind them too it and make them work to get rid of it.

When you have a world:

  • What is the most chaotic thing that can happen to this world’s politics? Find the character this chaos would effect the most and see what they do about it.
  • What is the most dangerous thing that can happen within this magic system? Figure out who would come to stop or reverse it and see what they do.
  • Who is the most damaging person in this world and what are they doing? Figure out who of those they hurt might rise up and defeat them.

When you have only spite:

  • What story do you absolutely hate the execution of? Take the very basic concept of its plot and build it into the story you wish it produced.
  • What plot structure do you enjoy but wish writers would be more original with? Take it and then throw a dozen spins on it.

** Remember to mix and match for more elaborate plot structures. Carry on this format with your own tricks to digging up basic plot structures!

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To all of my mutuals and frankly anyone out there reading this. I really hope that you find the person you’re looking for. I hope love finds you when you don’t expect it to. I hope it knocks the wind out of you.

It’ll find you. It’ll sneak up on you and hit you upside the head but it’ll find you. I promise.

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reblogged

Hello! I'm an aspiring author, pretty much self-taught (which explains my grammar lol). I've been reading and liking your blog for a while, and I hope you can help. See, while writing a summary for my main project (fantasy genre) I noticed something; there's no conflict. I think the protagonist sees one in the distance, like someone on the sidelines, but isn't actually part of it. Am I missing something? PS this took a couple tries to word this right, hope I nail it. have a nice week!

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Conflict is the driving force of a plot — it’s what adds tension to a story, it’s what makes a story interesting and engaging, it’s what makes the story have any sort of stakes.

Does every single story need to have conflict? There’s some debate about that, I think. Slice-of-life stories are often used as examples as stories without conflict, but I disagree. Slice-of-life often has conflict in it too, but people might have trouble identifying it because it’s not something we stereotypically think of as conflict.

(Of course, going back to the earlier question… I’m sure there are stories out there without conflict. And it’s possible to write a story without conflict, and it might be possible to do it well. But for the most part, conflict is a really important tool to make a story interesting.)

Remember the 6 types of story conflict that we all learn about in middle school English class?

When we think of conflict, I think the first thing that comes to mind is Person vs Person conflict, like Good vs Evil, Side A vs Side B, Harry Potter vs Voldemort, Mario vs Bowser… But that’s not all that conflict is.

A conflict is a problem. It’s something that prevents your character from reaching their goal. 

If your character can reach their goal without obstacles right this moment… Then what story is there to write?

And it might be Person vs Person, Group vs Group where an antagonist is trying to prevent the protagonist from doing something… But it could also be Person vs Self, where the protagonist is too scared to achieve their goal, despite there being no other obstacles, and the story could be about them learning to move beyond that fear. Or it could be Person vs Society, where certain societal norms and pressures don’t allow a person to live the life that they want to. Person vs Technology can be as complex as the example in the image, but it can also be as simple as “This essay is due in 5 minutes and the printer decided to just stop working for no discernible reason and oh my god it’s so important i’m going to fail my class.”

So it might be possible that you already have a conflict, and you just don’t realize it. It also might be possible that you don’t have a conflict yet, and you might want one to help guide your story and make it more engaging.

Ask yourself this:

  • What is the goal for each of my characters?
  • What is stopping them from achieving it right this moment?

There’s your conflict.

And it can get really interesting when your characters have conflicting goals, because that in turn, can generate new conflicts.

I now have an updated FAQ and Ask Guidelines for Writing Advice, please check those out first if you have a question about writing or Writeblr!

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inkskinned

so easy; to make fun of the internet poets and the webcomic artists and the fanfiction authors

i hear a man snorting into his beer about it on a tuesday night. i am waiting to pick up my boss’s dinner. i am waiting to go home to my own empty fridge. “that’s not real,” he says. “anybody can do that shit.”

once, i saw a description of modern art as “i could do that + yeah but you didn’t.”

so easy to sneer at self-published. at etsy store. at youtube singer. so often i see posts: “it’s not poetry because you hit enter”. “graffiti is vandalism, though.” “i don’t think that’s real music.”

i understand, you know. the desire to make it seem small. how easy to package art and never open it. to blame ribs or galaxies or whatever other internet trend. it is safer to live under the rock than to burn in the sun above it. i picture a life of poems they never copied out of their journals.

i understand. i laugh at my own work, but i will not cringe. it is worth it to love something so much - to love writing. it is worth it, you know. to be crushed, time and time again. it is worth it for exactly one moment:

i get a note from a young kid. “thank you for this. it helped me keep going.”

okay, then. this is why. this is purpose. 

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