Please feel free to add on! What parts of a book/movie/anime/comic/play make you swoon or drool or smile uncontrollably? (And sorry that these are not in any particular order!)

YES. ALL OF THESE!

The "came back wrong" -trope, but there's nothing wrong with them. It's still just the exact same person, save for one major detail: They can no longer lie. The dead don't lie, there's no reason to say anything that is not truth in the lands of the dead. They don't remember anything about being dead, and they can still remember and recognise that the living do lie and say things that are not true. And they just cannot do that anymore. They can omit things, but not fabricate flat-out lies.

Also as a minor detail, they now see perfectly well in the dark and have that animal eye gleam. It's dark in the lands of the dead, that's just how people are there. It's not a huge change in who they are, as a person, but god if it isn't unsettling to walk into a completely dark room and before you turn on the light, you see this mf just sitting there, reading the newspaper like this:

Worldbuilding: A culture whose funeral practices involve ritualistically beating the shit out of the corpse while yelling at the deceased, scolding the dead for dying. "If only you had not [___], if only you would have [___], then you would still be with me, then I would not beat you now."

It's culturally understood that blaming the dead isn't blaming them, as much as the anguished structure of the poem is accusatory and clearly in rage. Even if the loved ones of the dead could not see it at the time - as grief wins over reason every time - it's understood that the more absurd the demands of what the dead should have done to avoid dying are, the more obviously it was nobody's fault. Such as accusing the elderly for failing to stop the passage of time, or an infant for not being strong enough to swallow.

"Fine, but I wll beat your corpse if you do", is a common go-to line of guilt-tripping mothers who do not want their children to do something that they've decided is dangerous. The mental image of one's own grieving mother beating the shit out of your corpse after you die of something stupid has a varying success rate in deterring teenagers from doing inadvisable things, but the most important thing is that it's not a threat, it's a promise.

Brilliant

Omfg if this isn't the truth.

Fractured Songs started as a D&D module based on a farcical Tumblr post, that evolved into a novel, where I ended up having to move the entirety of the initial setup to BOOK FREAKING TWO, and re-write the entire setup and first several chapters of the story, but it now actually flows better and feels more like the high-fantasy MC-forced-to-become-the-hero-by-dint-of-uncontrollable-circumstance adventure vibe I was going for.

Le sigh.

Only 700,000 words to go!

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask)

This is one of those things I was like "I know this, but haven't actually really thought about it as it relates to my world" and boy am I going to be adding some stuff to my maps!

Quick addition about the horses going 50 miles in a day. That's only possible for ONE day, then the horse will have to rest for several, preferably in a stable where it can be carefully rubbed down, groomed, and fed and watered a very specific amount to ensure it doesn't gulp everything down and get colic after that much work.

Even the famed Pony Express had several way-stations set every 10-15 miles between major cities where the kids - chosen for their light weight in order to get the most out of the horses - could grab something to eat and drink, then hop on a fresh horse to run the next 10-15 miles of the route.

The reason this sort of thing is important for writing any pre-tech-era setting, is that livingbin the times we do, we tend to forget about what a MAJOR bottleneck travel time and information delivery times were for most of human history.

Having something that slows aspects of the story down realistically, or creates a problem for either the pro/antagonists is a great way to introduce a conflict created simply by the realities of living in the world you've created.

A single day's delay in getting a message due to a change in weather along the courier route, bandits/enemy forces taking out a crucial waystation, thus interrupting the flow of supplies/armed forces/information, could very easily turn the tide of a war. One horse pushed to exhaustion without support structure at the end to help it recover could mean the difference between the hero arriving in time to save the day, and arriving in time to witness the aftermath of the carnage wrought by the enemy.

And what One Rule do we remember more than any other in telling stories?

CONFLICT DRIVES PLOT.

And the more conflicts you introduce, the higher the stakes for both sides, thus, the payoff at the end is bigger. Without conflict, you have an average Tuesday. So include all the inconveniences of Life Before the Internet and Instant Delivery, so your heroes (and villains) have more problems to overcome!

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask)

This is one of those things I was like "I know this, but haven't actually really thought about it as it relates to my world" and boy am I going to be adding some stuff to my maps!

tweet

Something like this would be so colossally helpful. I'm sick and tired of trying to research specific clothing from any given culture and being met with either racist stereotypical costumes worn by yt people or ai generated garbage nonsense, and trying to be hyper specific with searches yields fuck all. Like I generally just cannot trust the legitimacy of most search results at this point. It's extremely frustrating. If there are good resources for this then they're buried deep under all the other bullshit, and idk where to start looking.

>:)c

May I present to you, nationalclothing.org?

It doesn't have everything, but it's still my first source when researching traditional clothing from other cultures.

There's also this resource on historical fashion: Claire’s Historical Fashion Reference & Resources

another addition as far as physical media goes there is the encyclopedia of national dress (that i still need to buy myself bc this kind of thing is super important to my sort of fantasy designing) but yes i do agree i wish there was EVEN MORE documentation on this

For when it's time to describe clothing

Strange roadside buildings where you shouldn’t ever go.

These are PERFECT tavern names

How to write a book

Writing a good story is like building a house from scratch

So structure is the core of the house, the way your story is organized, it’s rise and fall in plot beats and stuff. To build a sturdy house you need good bones, something strong to stick in the foundation (initial idea). It’s not enough to have a good idea, but you need to chart a way to implement it. Even if it’s just in your own head, you need to know the rough arc of your story (if you’re an architect writer that is, gardener writers work differently) to be able to lift the frame into something resembling a house that can stand on its own. Up next is insulation. That would be word usage, description, the fluffy stuff that you should never actually touch inside your wall that does not taste like cotton candy, don’t let it lie to you. This is where you go from the bare essentials, like bullet points, to slightly more descriptive scenes linking the scenario together. The story isn’t complete by any means, don’t let it fool you. Hell, the first draft isn’t even done, this is just the beginning.

The next thing to install is the drywall. That would be the filler scenes you hate writing that make the book more palatable. Without it, it’s just a few random scenes stapled together with nothing connecting them. Random time jumps? Where did that sword come from? Wait, I thought Eric was dating Audrey not Antony—stuff like that.

Next up is the fun stuff. Plumbing.

Now, plumbing isn’t as messy as it appears. This is where you go from your first draft that’s maybe a little too long to too short, and either adding or subtracting as much bullshit as possible. (Said lovingly, of course)

Plumbing you need to get your hands dirty, if only for a brief time, by killing your darlings. It’s not enough to simply erase, but to rewrite so that their corpse is invisible to the naked eye. That or you’re stuff as many darlings into the house as you can. They’re spilling out of the closets, the oven, the shoe rack. Send help—

After plumbing, your first draft is done and your house is complete. Sure, you don’t have electricity or a nice paint job or even a place to sleep, but you’re kept nice and dry when it rains.

Part two of building a house/story involves decorating! The fun shit!

And by that I mean editing.

(Brb while I scream into the void)

Part two coming up

GOD THE SHEER EUPHORIA THAT COMES WITH FINDING THE PERFECT SYNONYM

Truth

Going insane about kicked dog with rabies type characters

On a more serious note though perhaps I'm obsessed with this because I want more sympathy for characters who externalize their problems. Fuck being a perfect victim fuck being a decent one, something horrible was done to you and it was never recognized and you will never ever get back the person you were before, you had everything taken from you and now all you're left with is anger and sharp things and you know what. You should be able to bite people about it

New character aesthetic

What is it about laying on the floor when you're overwhelmed that makes everything feel so much better?

When God has ceased to answer your prayers, it feels good to distance yourself from Heaven.

This is one of the more profoundly true things I've ever read.

that some people respond to any well-foreshadowed reveal with “ugh that plot twist was so predictable” proves bad faith criticism has rotted their brains to the point they think it’s bad writing if they can correctly identify information the writers were intentionally giving them

like you do realise that the entire point of set up and pay off is that you’re supposed to pick up on the clues the writers give you right? you do understand that plot twists only work when they retroactively make sense bc there were hints building up to the reveal right??

There are only 2 appropriate reactions to well-written twists:

1. I fuckin' KNEW IT!

2. Holy shit that makes everything make more sense!

Mimic | 3

Part One Part Two

Part Three:

"How dare you enter my lair, human filth."

I stood in the stone archway at the end of the dungeon's corridor, staring into the chamber. It was a large space with high arched cornice ceilings. The stonework was better quality here, more intricate, patterns laid out in flame formations using the natural color variations in the stone.

A chimera paced in the center of a wide circle carved into the floor, the groove denoting the space sizzling from the heat of the lava that ran through it. The whole place was swelteringly hot. My back was cool from the dungeon air behind me while my face and the front of my body dripped sweat. My clothes were soaked almost immediately.

"You dare..." the being growled. lion's body rippling with muscle. "You dare desecrate this sacred place with your presence?" Oops.

"Leave this place, undeserving scum. Drop your wand and turn and run as the unworthy coward you are. I will grant you this one mercy, for you have not yet defiled my sanctuary fully with your presence."

So. This thing was nice. Chatty, too.

Behind the chimera's circle was a stone altar, piled high with gold and gems and weapons. This was a tactic the chimera used a lot, I guess. Or maybe it just ate its victims and that was where it piled the spoils. I shrugged internally. Tomato, Potato.

I turned my head a little, glancing behind me. The mimic waited patiently about eight feet back, bouncing silently from side to side as it idled. I wasn't totally happy about having my back to it, but I really didn't want to take my eyes off the chimera, either.

Movement snapped my head forward again. The chimera reared, roaring.

"Insolent WRETCH!!" It-- she screamed, goat's face contorted in fury. Her nostrils smoked. "YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS DISRESPECT!" I dove forward and to the side as she charged out of her circle, narrowly avoiding another orange channel of lava that ran along the floor. My shoulder smoked, the suede charring where it had come close to the hot stone. Ow. Ow, owOwOW. I hoped I had some burn paste left in my bag, I was gonna need it later when the adrenaline and terror wore off. I flung an acid glob from my wand, but it went wide and sizzled uselessly against the stone. The pain from the burn was already affecting me enough that my aim was off. Dammit.

I tuned my head as I scrambled up and away from the lava, trying to put weight mostly on my right side. The chimera skidded as she turned near the archway, snake-tail hissing and thrashing, waving for balance.

Thumps echoed from the corridor as the chimera stalked towards me.

She crouched down, back legs tensing to leap, when the mimic came flying out of the archway and sunk its teeth around her snake-tail and hindquarters. She screamed, turning and raking it with her front paws. Deep gashes appeared in the bronze of its sides. The pale shining straps were unaffected. I scooted backwards and crabwalked on hands and feet as she thrashed and threw the mimic off of her. It flipped and landed on its heavily muscled feet, tottering a little as it found its balance. Thick talons grew out of each of its toes as I watched, gleaming pale metal that looked sharp enough to slice steel.

Two arms burst out of its bronze front. They weren't the cutsey hands it had used several times earlier -- these were heavily muscled appendages that ended in sharpened metal, nightmarish knives a foot long each. It opened its lid and roared a challenge, carnivorous teeth gleaming, red tongue lolling and licking thick, ropy spittle. Holy fuck. I'd been letting that thing walk behind me! Like a fucking pet!

The chimera leapt, blood streaking its fur. It cleared what had to be at least twenty-five feet and landed back in its circle. The wounds on its flank began to close immediately. "WHAT IS THIS!!?" She roared. Her goat-head turned towards me while her snake-tail's eyes tracked the mimic as it began to stalk towards her circle in a slow arc away from my position near the wall. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, FOOLISH HUMAN WRETCH!?"

The mimic leapt, slamming down just inside her circle and lifting its lid to bare its teeth. She opened her mouth and spewed fire. The already-intense heat in the chamber increased to levels that were dangerous. I felt the skin on my face and hands starting to burn from the intensity.

"I WILL NOT STAND THIS ABOMINATION!" She screamed when the fire cleared. The mimic stood where it was. It looked completely unfazed, and a little pissed. Her head turned towards me again. This time, I noted fear in her voice. "HUMAN!!" She spat. "You know NOT what stalks you! This atrocity should NEVER EXI--" The mimic had moved so fast I hadn't seen it. Both arm-blades ran through the chimera now, one through her chest and another through her stomach. She choked weakly, spitting blood that hissed and extolled unbearable heat. The mimic's arms sizzled, the muscled appendages popping and burning. It drew back and ran her through again. And again. And again. She collapsed, heaving weakly. She turned her eyes towards me, her gaze holding terrible knowledge and an ocean of fear. "...abomination..." she spat as she shuddered and went still. The light left her eyes. The mimic pulled its arms back into its body, then turned to look at me. We stared at one another, face to bronze titanium-strapped chest, for a long moment. It turned away, shuffled towards her corpse, and started towards her snake-tail. The serpent hissed weakly as the lid unhinged and its jaws came down on the snake's head. I stared as it took great gulping bites. The snake was gone in just two, then the mimic started in on the chimera's haunches. I heaved a sigh and let my head fall back against the wall as I watched. My wand clattered to the ground beside me. I needed to get my burn paste out -- my shoulder was screaming and I was pretty sure the suede had melted to my skin in a few places.

But all I could do is watch in dull fascination as the mimic ate, the chimera's last word rolling around my mind: 'Abomination.'

Brilliant! This is such a great hook! I want more!

Stage 1: using your native language's idioms in English out of habit/lack of knowledge

Stage 2: using English idioms as much as you can to prove that you're good at English

Stage 3: using your native language's idioms in English because they fuck actually

“either take off your cross or put on your underwear” (ukrainian) to say that you can’t have both things at once is my favorite expression to ever exist in any language. i needed to put this out into the world so bad, im finally free.

I'm gonna write some:

"you can't put doors to the countryside" referring to something you cannot control

"to honour which saint?🤨" A response to someone doing such a bizarre thing that you can only assume it's for a very specific god ritual (what my mom says when I'm caught cooking a full meal at 3am)

"my mouth is dryer than Christ's sandals" or nsfw version "dryer than a doll's underwear"

"never say from this water I shan't drink" like never say never.

"to write the dots on the i's" to make a negotiation very clear, point out flaws.

"you have to feed him separately" as in 'this person is a handful'

"it's like throwing daisies to the pigs" wasteful, or useless, unappreciated act

"no one gave you a candle in this burial" you don't have permission to talk/give your opinion

"it's like going to pee and not letting even a drop" pointless, absurd, waste of time

"when the devil is bored he kills flies with his tail" when someone you hate is suspiciously idle and seems innocent (and you KNOW!!! they'll do something)

"my saint went back to the sky" meaning you were so distracted/zoned out that you didn't even notice a saint had descended to help you until it left lmao

"I'm more tied up than a Roman's leg" (refering to Roman knee high sandals) it means you're very busy

Welsh has a couple that absolutely slap, but the best one is:

"There's no use lifting your petticoats after you've pissed" - essentially 'don't cry over spilt milk', what's done is done so you just have to deal with it

How to deliver in-universe idioms

📌 Writeblr Introduction

Hello! My name is Amadeus, but you can call me Ami, and I'm brand new to tumblr! I'm a Latine vsinger and booktuber in my 20s, so not your usual writeblr, but I hope we can get along! My mind's been dreaming up stories for as long as I can remember, and since I'm only just making my way into the booktubing scene, I wanted to challenge myself to actually bring one of those daydreams to life. I decided to make a blog here in hopes of being part of a fun, supportive, and likeminded group!

I can't wait to meet you all and get to know your works!

some facts about me . . .

goals . . .

things i love to write . . .

looking for writers who write. . .

If this sounds like you, interact with this post so I can check your blog out! 🔥🌺

What I write:

Current WIP: Book 1 of a 6 book fantasy series spanning 3 continents, 6 civilizations, a 3500 year history, myths and religion going back to the dawn of time, sci-fi, cyberpunk, solarpunk, steampunk, unique magic system and more!

english's pronunciation rules are absolute bullshit poopoo made up crap but one of my favorite side effects of this in written english specifically is like. altering the spelling of a word in such a way that it's technically pronounced the same. but reads very differently when your eyes go over it in written form. and that sort of dissonance between the proper spelling and the altered spelling producing the same basic sounds in your brain creates an unprecedented level of comedy.

ingredience. creacher. both of these are pronounced essentially exactly the same but the altered spellings are just hilarious for some stupid reason. the english language is a disaster but at least whatever is wrong with it is REALLY funny.

English just goes around mugging other languages and rifling through their pockets for loose grammar.