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my favorite example of transferable skills in fiction regardless of how realistic it is are people who work with textiles (sewing, tailoring, etc.) being asked to help stitch a wound or perform surgery. oh you can mend a hole in a shirt? mend a hole in this guy then. it's basically the same thing just with more blood and screaming.

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an edit

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Happy Crowy Yule! It's a reall whose who of Yuletide.

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Writing Advice: How to Create Conflict when Your Characters are Competent.

Featuring Leverage, the ultimate in Competency Porn.

Make them so good it gets them in trouble. So you've got a hacker and he's the best, definitively. Okay, well, one of his fake IDs just got called for jury duty. You pretended to be a psychic so well, someone kidnapped you to talk to a dead crime lord.

Make them targets. You're so good, enemies you didn't even know about are trying to kill you just so they won't have to take you on in your element. You're being blackmailed into doing a thing because you're the only one that can.

Limit the scope of competency. Sure, you're competent as a fighter, but your hacker is in jail and now you have to do his job and you are not competent in that. Yeah, you can climb a building, but do you know what you need to do to not end up in a crevasse while climbing a mountain?

Raise the stakes. Can you handle extracting a orphan being used by a washed up actress to fund her extravagant lifestyle? Yes. But can you handle extracting 30 orphans being used by the Slovenian mob to fund gunrunning? Maybe all you wanted was to get enough money to buy back a house, but instead you have to ruin the company so that all houses they illegally obtained are returned to their rightful owners.

Make others competent, too. Your characters are the best, but are they the best of the best? If you take you enemy down, do you go, too? If you win, does it make them win? Does it get out of hand and make other people start noticing when you're trying to keep your head down? Do they know every trick in the book and know the next move before you make it?

Make others painfully incompetent. Your characters are the best, but are they woefully unprepared for people who are not even good? Can your hologram hacker roll with it when the vital information is on a casset tape? Is the old mentor up to date on the recent technology, or is he going to screw you because he assumes the cops are just as corrupt/incompetent as when he was young?

Have some standards. Specifically, morals that make it impossible for your characters to back out or gets them in trouble for doing things "off-script." You can't leave on the train someone just stole for you because you've got to go back and stop the bad guys from bombing the IRS (even if we don't like them). You wish you could just say no to that assassin contract and leave, but someone's getting assassinated and you have to stop it because you're a good guy.

Bring up the past. Do you think that bad guy you brutally scarred a decade ago is going to carry a grudge? Do you have to save your ex-wife from the bad guy, who may also be her boyfriend, and if you suggest that she'll shut you out and you won't be able to save her or get paid? It's Draaamaaaa, babee.

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Following the battle on the mountain, Geralt came to realize his mistake and decided to apologize to Jaskier. As they shared their feelings, they discovered their love for each other. However, their story took a tragic turn when Geralt invited Jaskier to accompany him to Kaer Morhen. On their journey, they were ambushed, and Jaskier suffered a mortal wound. Despite Geralt's desperate attempts to save him, nothing seemed to work.

In a last-ditch effort to save Jaskier, his small amount of Fae blood began to manifest, and his body transformed into a tree. Geralt was devastated by the loss of Jaskier, and the other witchers at Kaer Morhen understood his grief. They noticed that the tree created from Jaskier's transformation possessed remarkable healing properties.

Kaer Morhen's inhabitants became fiercely protective of Jaskier's tree, fearing that someone might try to exploit its powers. While Geralt did his best to be there for his newfound daughter, Ciri, he struggled to fully open up to her after what had happened to Jaskier.

Tensions reached a breaking point when Ciri learned about Jaskier. An argument between Ciri and Geralt led to her storming out of Kaer Morhen. She ended up at Jaskier's tree and, in a fit of anger, unleashed her magic, causing the tree to explode. Ciri panicked, fearing Geralt's reaction.

To her astonishment, the tree soon regenerated, and at its base lay Jaskier, now peacefully sleeping beside it.

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my favorite example of transferable skills in fiction regardless of how realistic it is are people who work with textiles (sewing, tailoring, etc.) being asked to help stitch a wound or perform surgery. oh you can mend a hole in a shirt? mend a hole in this guy then. it's basically the same thing just with more blood and screaming.

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Your roommate is so bad at pretending to be a human, you’ve started to just automatically back him up in public. Tonight he tells you how nice it is to know the only other alien in the city, and you have to break the bad news

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I remember someone saying "mad scientists in fiction aren't scientists because there's never a control group"

I think if you've created an elixir that turns people into goat men you have sort have gone past the need for a control group. The control group is not going to placebo themselves into goat men. You can probably not run the control group, and safely assume that none of them would have turned into goat men. That said, having a control group for that would make the mad scientist seem extra crazy and be really really funny, especially if he was carefully testing them for goat like features from the dyed water they drank instead of the elixir

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Hey I really need this as a FanFiction now. Oh my god it would be so good.

Ellie Williams: You expect me to trust my life with these two mercenaries? I would rather take my chances on my own than go with these hooligans. Just give me a sword, a shield, and a horse, I give you my word as a Williams that I’ll deliver the cure for humanity.

Joel Miller: Such a sharp tongue for a girl your age. Be careful that I don’t cut it out. By the way, Marlene, when you get patched up, I’d like to hear more about your Firefly stories. But obviously in a more…private setting.

Marlene: Uh…Joel, Ellie, are you two okay? It feels like you’re two different people right now. Like you’re channeling a past life or something.

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Crews Quick Guide to Humans

Quiet humans are not defective. Loud humans are not defective. Unless there is a significant change, assume your human is operating at normal levels.

Human words do not mean the same thing all the time. Look up the study of human tone if you want to always know what your human means.

Human females will smell of blood each month. If this changes, ask your human in private if something happened.

Human males often do not know how loud they are. Asking them to lower their voice is not offensive.

Human cultures vary greatly and various cultures have conflicting beliefs. Most humans will not be offended if you cannot keep up with this.

Humans do not share a hive mind but do have several musical triggers that activate a human chorus. These triggers transcend most cultural and language barriers.

All Stabby units come with a human locator setting. Use liberally.

Ask for a detailed explanation before agreeing to join a human on any non work activity.

Be aware of human hobbies and skills. Humans enjoy company and will likely teach you whatever they know. It is also beneficial to know what your human may do should they get bored.

Do not be too concerned over what humans ingest, so long as they do so willingly and with the full knowledge of what they are ingesting.

Unless you hear a human say something along the lines of ‘I hope this works’ or ‘here goes nothing’, assume they have a working knowledge at the attempted task.

If you hear a human say one of the above phrases, take cover as it is likely too late to stop or report them.

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SHADOW AND BONE First Look at Season 2

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Let’s go out in flames so everyone knows who we are ‘Cause these city walls never knew that we’d make it this far We’ve become echoes, but echoes are fading away So let’s dance like two shadows, burning out a glory day

requested by @yelena-belxva

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Never stop being a good person because of bad people.

Unknown

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Book Review #1

New Soul Series 

Summary of Incarnate (New Soul #1):

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

Review: 

Overall Rating 6/10

So first off, I tend to rate books on whether or not I would want them turned into a TV series, or a movie, or leave them as a book franchise. For context, if I prefer a book series, become a TV series I really love it. If I want it in a movie format, that mean that I liked it a lot, but not enough to see it for years on end. And as for leaving it it as a book franchised I either gave up halfway through the series or just didn't like some of the characters enough that it made it totally unreadable.

This particular series I would want to see this turned into a TV show. Personally, I really enjoy the series as a whole, the world building, the characters were great. 

Some characters I will admit are one dimensional but they are a smaller side character who never returns. However, most of the characters are complex characters with the ability of becoming more. The main character is a teenager girl who more or less was forgotten and abandoned by her parent because she was not what they were expecting. There is a part of the book where the Ana is more or less make funny of by her “mother” because she does not what a period is. Miscommunication and misunderstands are seen throughout YA novels but in this case is most more sense and less lioness I’m going to pull my hair out. I actually appreciate that the author point out how awful and award a topic like periods can be very alarming to someone who has no frame of reference.  Imagine other topic like sex or experience pregnancy for the first time with no one informing you of what is normal. The world is a scary place. On the other hand since in the world everyone has live many lives they know and understand the basics so there is no need for schools or different class for parent to deal with new and different children. I’m not condoning anything her parents do in this book and concerns of abusing her, however, you also need to understand that this is the first time that anyone has had to deal with a brand new person. A brand new person with brand new ideas, and brand new ways of seeing the world. That being said they should've really took it upon themselves to at least understand that aspect. That she is new, and therefore knows nothing.

The world can fell short or times however, it is understand because of the way the world functions. I wished we come have seen more of the world and the way it function. We are told that the world/people only exist on one particular continent of the planet. Therefore there's really no one who's interested in exploration. No one who wants to go see the other edges of the planet because everyone is probably already done that at this point or simply just is not interested in whisking their lives to see something that essentially they've seen 100 for before. However, if this was in a TV format, I would feel that we could explore the world more how it functions in essentially how it develops overtime.

Book 1 

Rating 9/10

Book one was the best book out of the entire series as it normally is. Unfortunately, in book series, or when you start reading book series, the first book is usually what is considered the best book most of the time because you're being introduced to the world the characters in the dynamics. Depending on how the world is constructed in the first book, along with its characters, the second book can live or die, based on the consistency of the writing. Unfortunately, with the first book if the if the writer sets up a phenomenal stage it to be very hard to follow that up with a second book. Overall, like I said, in the first part of this review, the author does make a point to point out that some things in our world that seem extremely uncommon and there's an makes it blatantly obvious that this character, despite living in a world that is relatively safe, can be harmed by being ignorant in surrounded by people who keep her that way.

Book 2

Rating 7/10

This series unfortunately follows second book syndrome. Also called 'middle book syndrome' or 'second book slump', second book syndrome generally refers to an author's second book not quite living up to their first, particularly if it's part of a series. There's a lot less world building in the second book although, as I put it on before there could be a point in the second book where there is more world building. I think second books sort of take away a lot of the world building because they've already established the world in the first and feel like they don't need to do it again however, I find that book series who get out of the second book slump is by not necessarily expanding the world by providing layers of context to their world. For example, in Harry Potter, Snape is initially a professor in one particular book, however, over the series you begin to realize that he's much more complex character. He also add to the context  of the world building in the book series by essentially allowing another few point into the world, and allowing access into another point in the world, which we don't necessarily have access with Harry. This book didn't do that. However, the plot was good. The pacing was great and the evolving of the history of the world was really interesting. Hence the higher score rating. Usually with checking books I tend to write them five or six out of 10 because I still do really love the series, but the book it self was not the best. 

Book 3

Rating 8/10

The conclusion in the trilogy was action packed, fast paced, and I was able to finished it in less than a day.  I will say the twist in this book was really good not unexpected for this kind of level of reading, but definitely worth finishing out the series on. Again, as I explained in my main part of my review, I would really love to see this as a TV show.  Again a TV show would be better to explore the world, part of the reason why I think books are great is that they can be a great, jumping point into the world and give you so much more context than in movies or TV shows. However, this is kind of book and book series would actually benefit from being a TV show rather than just a book series. The romance in this trilogy was pretty decent, but could've been a side story rather than center stage, or simply not be involved. Overall, the last book in the series was pretty good, but again, not as good as the first book.

Please let me know what everyone wants me to review next. Until next time, Bye. 

#booktok #incarnate #new souls series #book reviews #book recommendations #reincarnation #ya novels #ya fantasy

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A trope I don't see used despite it's sheer potential: time-travel as a horror story.

I don't mean for the person traveling, but for the people in the changed timeline. Like - something is different but you don't know what. Something has changed but you can never quite put your finger on it. It's like the whole universe has shifted slightly to the left, like everything familiar is strange, too, and everyone around you feels it but no one knows why. There are choices you should have made that you didn't, and each one aches like the gap where a tooth should be, sore and impossible to forget.

Someone slipped into your life in the night and upended things, and your free will is drowned under the force of someone else, someone you can't identify, who knows better and takes your choices and leaves you in a neat, perfect box that suits their preferred outcome. And you'll never know who, or why, or what you were meant to be, because the world has settled into perfect lines and everyone is happy and all the lessons and scrapes and rough edges have been sanded away or undone.

Just - give me time travel from an outsider perspective, but make it horrifying. Give me a time traveler as an errant god correcting everything but make it terrifying. Give me a time traveler who remakes the world in their image of perfection but from the view of all the people who never had a choice in aligning with whatever someone with all the knowledge and all the power thinks is the right thing to do.