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#top writing advice
albertcamuesli · 9 months
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no writing workshop can help you improve your writing as much as this screenshot can
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corvase · 2 years
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oblivious idiots in love prompts
feel free to use :)
one character trying to hold the others hand and failing miserably
so then they make a fool proof plan they think will work just to hold their love interests hand
the talk with their best friend like “should i just give up? at this point you’d have to be pretending not to know”
character b going in for a kiss and when they both accidentally bump heads character b can’t stop laughing at the insanity and character a is just confused because they genuinely didn’t know b was going in for a kiss
the stomach drop when your main character has to see their love interest w someone else or simply hear about them liking someone else
the spider-man meme where they’re all pointing at each other but it’s a conversation like “i said i didn’t like you like that because you said you didn’t like me” “but i said i didn’t like you because you were literally in love with someone else” then “i only said i was in love with them because you didn’t want me!”
one character being like “yeah im soooooo bored this weekend. when you are free. You know. i have NOTHING to do. oh what ever will i entertain myself with!!! WHOOeverrr should i entertain myself with.” and the other is just like “huh. yeah that’s pretty sad”
“i changed my schedule for you, you idiot.” “wait i don’t get it. why?”
one character going in to touch the other characters face and the other character freaking out like “WHAT????? IS THERE A BUG??? WAIT GET IT OFF”
^ but twist if they’re enemies and the other character thought they were gonna like throw a punch
your character being convinced they like everyone BUT them
“i can’t believe you didn’t know.” “YOU WANTED ME TO READ YOUR MIND??!!??!”
“marry me.” “what?” “what?”
OH OH BUT ALSO one character is asleep and the other whispers “i like you.” and they wake up like “what” and the response is, once again, “what”
“can i love you?”
“i told you i liked you!” “i thought you were joking!”
“but i don’t know how to love.” “me neither.” “okay. shall we figure it out together?”
“i like you.” “wait what? but i like you.” “HUH?????”
“i just don’t want you to hurt me. i don’t know how to do this, /name/.”
“be honest. do you know?” “know what?” “that i like you!” “you like me?” “OH MY GOD.”
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e-louise-bates · 4 months
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Instead of "20 books to $50k" or "how to increase readership by writing and publishing a book every month that is exactly like every other popular book out there," I need the kind of marketing advice that goes along the lines of, "hey, here's how to get a modest fanbase and sell enough books to justify this as a side gig without having to go crazy and spend more than you earn on marketing." Because honestly, all the advice I find these days either a) requires me to put way more time and money into marketing than I am able to do, or b) requires me to write fast and sloppy in very specific sub-genres, and that's really not why I write stories.
And like Emily Starr, I would--and will--continue to write stories regardless of how many people read them, but it would be nice to be able to reach more than a dozen readers, and to be able to reasonably look on my writing as a part-time job rather than an expensive hobby.
(It doesn't help that there are so many articles out there claiming that self-publishing is dead! It's gotten too bloated and now only a handful can make a living off it! But wait--traditional publishing is also dead! It's gotten too greedy and now only a handful can make a living off it! Mid-level authors? Whether traditionally published or self-published, they apparently no longer exist)
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cy-cyborg · 23 days
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Baldur’s Gate 3’s (accidental) examples of accessibility in a fantasy world
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[ID: a screenshot of Baldur's Gate 3's main menu screen, a scene showing the city of baldur's gate and a stone statue sitting under some trees. The title of this post is overlayed onto the image with a small picture of the wheelchair symbol sitting on top of the word "accessibility". /End ID]
When we think of the medieval-European inspired worlds typically associated with fantasy TTRPG’s like Dungeons and Dragons, “wheelchair accessible” is not usually the first thing you’d use to describe such a setting. In fact, it’s pretty widely agreed upon that real-life medieval Europe was a pretty unfriendly place for wheelchair users (and most other disabled folks), so it makes sense that most fantasy settings inspired by the time period would be too.
However, realism and historical accuracy is typically not why most people turn to D&D and other similar games. Last I checked, real life medieval Europe didn’t have flying lizards who could shoot magic from their faces and sentient robot men, so personally, I see no harm in adding a stone slab next to the stairs inside the dungeon hiding a lich who survived off a strict soul-only diet for 1,000 years.
However, if you’ve spent any time in TTRPG spaces online as a disabled person - or even someone who’s just playing a disabled character, you have very likely come across the argument that wheelchair using player characters shouldn’t be allowed, because making the setting accessible for them would be too distracting and immersion-breaking.
While this is not the only reason these people tend to argue against the use of wheelchairs by player characters in TTRPG’s, it is one I have found especially odd, especially since the release of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a video game based in D&D's Faerûn setting, to which it sticks to fairly loyally. It was a wildly successful game, and I personally have absolutely adored every moment of it.
But one thing I noticed is that the people who cried about the idea of settings in TTRPG’s being made wheelchair accessible because it would be too distracting, out of place and immersion-breaking have been suspiciously quiet about the examples of those same accessibility tools being present in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the whole game would be accessible to a wheelchair using player, far, far from it, but ramps and even elevators appear throughout the game in several locations, and despite the protests aimed at their inclusion in actual D&D, hardly anyone noticed. At least, no one that I’ve seen has mentioned it.
Ramps appear in several places around Baldur’s Gate - the city the game is named after and the final region of the game. Most notably around the docks.
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[ID: A picture within the city of Baldur's Gate. Characters are standing around a dead tree looking towards a set of stairs, half of which have been covered by a sturdy looking wooden ramp. /End ID]
Another few can be found in Waning Moon inn, a tavern overrun with undead, not far from Moonrise Towers. The ramps, while honestly hilariously steep, connects the 1st and second floors.
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[ID: Two screenshots displayed side-by-side showing steep ramps built within a run-down, abandoned inn. End ID]
There are also multiple elevators located throughout the game, most notably a wooden one that is being blocked by a sleeping bear in the druid’s grove, right at the start of the game.
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[ID: A screenshot showing an elivator consisting of an old, wooden mechanism acending a wooden structure. /End ID]
Another can be found at the centre of the Arcane Tower in the Underdark...
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ID: A character is standing on a circular, glowing platform located inside a tube-like structure with a door behind the character. /End ID]
and several more can be found in the Temple of Shar in The Shadow Cursed lands: one by the entrance to the temple itself, one that takes you from the end of The Gauntlet of Shar back to the start, and one that takes you down to the inner sanctum of the temple.
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[ID: Two more screenshots side-by-side show characters standing on another pair of circular elevator platforms, these two are intricately decorated, and ascend and descend by floating. /End ID]
Now, I know that Larian Studios didn’t include these features for the sake of making their world accessible to wheelchair users. Many of the ramps are located in places that indicate they were to aid carts and carriages moving supplies. The one in The Waning Moon Inn even has some kind of track built into it. The elevators are all also placed in locations where players would likely be backtracking a lot, and seem to mostly be present for our convenience.
But whether this was Larian’s intention or not is irrelevant to the point in my opinion.
While these locations are not fully wheelchair accessible, Baldur’s Gate 3 showed, quite publicly, that it can be done and be lore-friendly, that it won’t break people’s immersion and be “obvious pandering”. the key thing is though, the locations have to be designed with those features in mind from the start. If you make a normal medieval tavern and just replace the stairs with a ramp, it will look out of place. If you try to make elevators that look like the modern day version, it’s going to look out of place, but it doesn’t take much of a change to make either work.
A druid’s grove most likely won’t make an elevator that looks like the modern version we have today, but a big moving, wooden platform operated by a hand crank? That seems much more in-line with their aesthetic. The Waning Moon’s layout wouldn’t look the same if you just plopped a set of stairs down instead of the ramp, because it was likely designed with the extra space something like that would need in mind.
Unfortunately, even in the modern day, the inclusion of things like ramps and lifts are often not really considered in the design of buildings. not fully. This is why a lot of real-world examples, admittedly can sometimes look kind of weird and out of place, especially on older buildings. However, well crafted accessibility options don’t have to stand out. When done well, they are as much a part of the architecture and building or location's design as other features like stairs can be and I think Baldur’s Gate 3 is a great - if accidental - example of how it can look in a fantasy setting and be seamlessly integrated into the world when done right.
When designing a fantasy setting, whether for D&D and other TTRPG’s, for a book, for a comic or whatever else you’re making, remember that just because that’s how it was in real life, doesn’t mean that’s what it has to be like in your setting. The real-life dungeons were just prisons, but TTRPG’s have taken the concept and turned them into these labyrinths filled with puzzles, traps, monsters and treasure. Real-life medieval Europe, for the most part, didn’t allow women to do a lot of things we see modern-day fantasy characters doing, regardless of gender. There are so many commonly accepted differences between the real-life medieval period and fantasy, why can’t an accessible world be one of them too?
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art-leon · 4 months
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testing out new markers...
reference by @adorkastock
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all-lars-bars · 8 months
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In my delusion world, the MC in DDLC is aroace and transfem
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compacflt · 9 months
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for todays wip wednesday i thought it would be kind of fun to do a little wips vs final drafts post just to kind of illustrate how far back first drafts can really start. so following the famous 5+1 fanfic format (4+1 cause u can only post 10 pics on mobile)—four wips (left) & their related final drafts (right) + one that is still a wip (bottom two)
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vt-scribbles · 2 months
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Please RB for bigger sample size!
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longitudinalwaveme · 8 months
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So ummm… do you think you can do the other Rogue’s personality and fighting style?
You have done Golden Glider or the Original Trickster ( James Jesse). I’m having a bit of trouble with writing them. So I’d thought maybe I should do some practicing by doing a few short stories. Fixing anything I get wrong as I go along.😅
Sure!
Golden Glider (Lisa Snart): The Golden Glider, alias Lisa Snart, is somewhat difficult to explain insofar as her character has changed rather significantly over time. Lisa was originally very hard-edged and quite scary; more recent writers tend to make her a lot softer and nicer than she ever was under her creator, Cary Bates (who is, for my money, still the best Golden Glider writer to date, even though the last major story he wrote for her was published in the 1980s).
Lisa is, of course, the younger sister of Leonard Snart (alias Captain Cold). She appears to be about five to seven years younger than he is, and they shared the same rough upbringing under their violent alcoholic father. The two of them were extremely close as children and still have a fair amount of affection for one another as adults (one of the few modern additions to Lisa's character that I do like), but their relationship has become somewhat strained due to a variety of situational factors, including the fact that Leonard left Lisa behind with their father when he ran away from home (as he'd already started hanging out with a crowd he thought would be dangerous for her). Despite this, and her father's abuse, Lisa managed to become am Olympic-level figure skater. She toured the country with the Futura Ice Skating company and seemed to be very successful.
However, she was still connected to the underworld, and to the Rogues, through her devoted long-term boyfriend: Roscoe Dillon, better known as The Top. The comics don't go into great detail regarding how they met, but he somehow became her personal, private figure-skating coach (he taught her how to spin in ways not possible outside of comic books) and from that they became a very devoted couple. Roscoe actually followed her around the country in disguise and attended many of her skating performances. There's no indication that he ever involved Lisa in his life of crime before his death, which occurred as the result of the Flash's super speed clashing with his newly-acquired mental powers and giving him brain damage. Though Flash (specifically, Barry Allen) hadn't meant to kill Roscoe, he had inadvertently caused his death, and Lisa swore revenge, becoming the Golden Glider in order to punish the Flash for killing her lover. This fact is probably the single most important key to understanding the Golden Glider.
The Golden Glider is, quite frankly, one of the most formidable villains Flash has ever faced. She's intelligent, driven, determined, and utterly ruthless in her pursuit of revenge on the man she blames for the death of her lover. In her attempts to gain her revenge on Barry, she targeted his wife, Iris, and his parents, Nora and Henry Allen (this was before the backstory retcon that had Nora murdered by Reverse-Flash when Barry was a kid), and she was also able to deduce Barry's true identity, making her the first of the Rogues to pull off this hat trick. In her first appearance, Barry actually went so far as to compare her to "Batman--the avenger!", and the description is quite apt. Golden Glider is absolutely brilliant, and she's completely single-minded in her quest to make Barry Allen pay for the wrongs she believes he has done her. She was more than willing to allow Barry to kill her in order to obtain her revenge, and she at no point shows any fear of anyone. In her mind, she has nothing left to lose, and that makes her extremely dangerous. Lisa is not nice, and she is not in any way soft. When angered, she is cruel, vindictive, and cold-blooded, and this is what many modern writers seem to get wrong about her.
That being said, she does have a softer side. As mentioned, she is absolutely devoted to Roscoe, her boyfriend, and the two of them have a shockingly healthy and happy relationship (given that both of them are rather unstable supervillains). The two of them dote on each other and have a completely equal partnership, and neither of them ever expresses any doubt as to the loyalty and faithfulness of the other. Further, Lisa is generally fairly polite and friendly to those who don't provoke her wrath---notably, she was very fond of Wally West in spite of his relationship to Barry Allen. When Barry died, so did her hatred of the Flash, and the two of them actually worked quite well together on more than one occasion. And, of course, later writers (especially Geoff Johns) have made her close to her older brother Leonard as well.
Leonard and Lisa's relationship is, however, complicated by a few factors. Aside from his abandonment of her as a girl (which he clearly harbors a ton of guilt over), Leonard has mixed feelings about Lisa being a part of the Rogues. He doesn't really seem to want her involved in a life of crime (notably, in her very first appearance he tried to dissuade her from becoming a criminal), and on some level he also was reluctant to let a woman, any woman, into his boys' club. However, the single biggest issue between the siblings is Roscoe. Captain Cold hates the Top with a burning passion (and vice versa), and, since the two of them seemed to get along fairly well in their earliest team-ups together, this mutual dislike seems to stem from the fact that Roscoe started dating Leonard's little sister. Add in the fact that Roscoe sees Leonard as an uncultured boor and Leonard sees Roscoe as a stuck-up snob, and you have a recipe for constant conflict. We usually don't get to see much fallout from this (usually because one or both of the lovers have been dead for large portions of their canonical history), but if you're going to have Lisa, Len, and Roscoe in a story together, the tension between the three of them is going to be a major factor.
In addition to all of the above, Lisa is a very beautiful woman, and she knows it. She loves jewelry, makeup, and fancy clothes, and she is also very fond of attention from men (she is, in fact, a bit of a flirt). She's had a number of boyfriends (although only when Roscoe is dead), and she is quite willing to comment on the attractiveness of other men even when Roscoe is alive. (Roscoe, for his part, is utterly unbothered by this.)
Finally, it is worth noting that Len's perspective on Lisa is perhaps a bit skewed (something that is relevant given the fact that we often hear about her from his perspective). He sees her as being a lot sweeter, more innocent, and more passive than she really is, and I find that a lot of writers fall into the trap of taking this view of her as well. It makes sense for Len, who's probably always going to see his little sister through rose-tinted glasses, but there's a lot more to Lisa than being his sweet little sister (especially since she's nastier and scarier than he is!)
The Golden Glider's main gadgets are her ice skates. These gimmicked skates constantly produce sheets of ice that let her effectively skate through the air, and, as a champion figure skater, she is able to use them to great effect. (Captain Cold was the one who built them, though why he did this is a bit unclear. Maybe they were a birthday present for her?) Golden Glider is a ruthless and aggressive combatant, and, since weaponizing figure skating is an unconventional tactic to say the least, most opponents don't really know quite how to handle her. Golden Glider also invented her own series of jewel gadgets, which can do all sorts of things, including hypnotizing people, inducing illnesses, causing pain, and firing like ballistic weaponry. Like her brother and boyfriend, she has quite the inventive streak. She also frequently uses Rosoce's weaponized tops, and she seems to handle them every bit as well as he does. Finally, she is apparently a skilled lip-reader.
In the New 52, Lisa gained the ability to astral project and lost all of her tech-based weaponry. This is an interesting powerset in its own right, and wouldn't be at all incompatible with classic Lisa, but it is a relatively new thing and seems to have been at least partially phased out in recent times. The New 52 was also what gave us her relationship with the Mirror Master (Sam Scudder), which I like to pretend never happened since it was basically just a worse version of her relationship with the Top. That being said, a bit of flirting between Sam and Lisa would be perfectly all right (it's well within character for them both).
When working as part of a team, Lisa is a bit of a wild card. While she and Roscoe complimented each other perfectly, and she works well with Len, she's frequently pursuing her own agenda, and if the goals of the group come into conflict with it, she will chase her goal and abandon the group. Her tendency towards rage can also make her short-sighted and potentially unreliable. Still, she is a powerful asset to the team, and she can certainly work well with the other Rogues when she chooses to do so.
As a last bit of writing advice, it's important to note that Lisa had no criminal record prior to becoming the Golden Glider. She did not commit crimes with Roscoe before his (first) death, and she likewise didn't commit crimes alongside Len. Traditionally, neither one of them influenced her choice to become a villain at all, and the subsequent additions to the lore that suggest that Captain Cold substantially influenced her decision to become a criminal weaken the character (at least in my opinion).
Trickster I (James Jesse): The first Trickster, James Jesse (real name Giovanni Giuseppi) was the son of Italian tight rope walkers who traveled the country as the part of the very creatively-named Big Circus. (Different versions of his origin differ regarding what his parents were like, though the most recent version, which makes them outright abusive, is not the backstory I prefer for him.) He wanted to be a part of their act, but he was afraid of heights (or perhaps more accurately, of falling). To this end, he built himself a pair of shoes that used compressed air jets to let him walk on air. Now assured that he would never fall, he became the highlight of his family's tightrope act. He also loved to read, and was especially fond of books about his "reverse namesake" Jesse James...something that would inspire him when he grew bored of the circus and decided to seek out bigger thrills. Jesse James had robbed trains. James Jesse would do him one better and rob planes...as the Trickster!
James (as he generally calls himself) is a charming con-man with a silver tongue and the humor of an eight-year-old. He's energetic, cheerful, and always eager to put on a show or face a challenge. He isn't interested in money, or power, or revenge. What James craves is the excitement of matching wits with the Flash; the delight of outsmarting others; and the joys of generally being a mischievous scamp. As he himself puts it, he's "not a mean man", and has no interest in seriously hurting anyone; in his mind, crime is simply a grand game, and his general high spirits are a reflection of this. He's also one of the most moral and least malevolent Flash villains, and is one of the few to have never killed anyone in any capacity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, he is close friends with the now-reformed Rogue Pied Piper, and has himself reformed several times (partly out of fear for his immortal soul---he outsmarted the demon Neron twice)!
In spite of his apparent childishness, James is extremely intelligent. He's the best con artist in the DC Universe (he's outplayed Catwoman, no small feat), and he's very good at reading people. Further, he's an skilled inventor, having created a huge number of trick gadgets, including, but not limited to, boxing gloves, sneezing powder, itching powder, yo-yos, dart guns, hand puppets, rocking horses, surfboards, and rocket-powered tricycles. He uses these gadgets to do...well...pretty much whatever he feels like. Sometimes, he robs banks. Other times, he outwits mobsters, sends them to prison, and then donates their ill-gotten loot to charity. As his nome de guerre perhaps implies, you never quite know what you're going to get from the Trickster. Even his closest allies always have to be on their toes around him.
James also has a son, an eleven-year-old boy named Billy Hong, who has only made one appearance (in the Rogues: New Year's Evil). Billy is the conduit for a huge amount of godly power and is also an important religious figure in the fictional DC country of Zhutan. How James and Billy's mother, Mindy Hong, met each other and produced Billy isn't entirely clear, but I suspect that it may have happened while James was still with the circus. James and Mindy have a surprisingly good relationship with one another, and James would likely be quite fond of Billy, who inherited more than a little of his father's cleverness.
James is not, however, particularly fond of his successor, Axel Walker, who stole his gear and declared himself the new Trickster without James' permission. James does not like this more violent, less clever pretender to his title and has made that fact abundantly clear. James is also substantially more experienced than Axel and defeated him quite handily in their only proper fight. That being said, if you wanted to have them both as Rogues at the same time, there would be ways to work around their mutual hostility to one another (especially since Axel, on some level, does seem to have some respect for James' work and legacy).
James is a very sly, clever combatant. He's very good at getting his opponents to turn their own strength against themselves, and his wide variety of trick gadgets are quite formidable. His airwalker shoes also usually give him the advantage of the metaphorical high ground and enable him to launch attacks from directions that the Rogues' opponents might not be expecting. Further, they make him very difficult for most enemies to close in on, allowing him to stay at a distance from stronger opponents. That being said, if someone does manage to close that distance, James is usually put at a disadvantage, due to a noticeable glass jaw (he really can't take a punch)---but he may also use this apparent weakness as a ploy to disorient his opponents.
James works well with the other Rogues on heists, and his cleverness is a huge asset to the group. However, his ever-changing loyalties and his mischievous sense of humor mean that he can't always be relied upon to follow through on what his allies want him to do. Trickster by name and trickster by nature, James is always working his own angle---and woe betide anyone who forgets that.
It's also worth noting that comic James is neither a homicidal mass murderer (as seen in the two live-action Flash TV shows) nor suffering from psychosis (as seen in the Justice League cartoon). He's weird and flamboyant, but he's not particularly malevolent, and he doesn't suffer from any obvious mental illnesses.
The Top (Roscoe Dillon): The Top, alias Roscoe Dillon, is one of the most powerful and dangerous of the Rogues. His backstory is a bit hard to piece together thanks to limited information, but from what we can tell, he was a rather odd little boy who absolutely loved tops and played with them frequently. His parents were evidently cold and demanding, insisting that he honor the family name and demanding that he be perfect---or as near to it as he could get. Roscoe, of course, could not meet these demands, and seems to have been, to some extent, rejected by his parents because of this. Also not helping matters was a rather serious mental illness that was brewing in the wings. Comic books are notoriously bad at properly representing mental illness of any kind, and Roscoe is no exception, but if properly written he would probably suffer from a particularly severe case of Bipolar 1 disorder (as this is the closest match to the symptoms we see him canonically display).
What happened next is hard for me to work out. Roscoe is very intelligent, wants to be seen as educated and well-bred, and seems likely to have come from a much wealthier background than most of the other Rogues, but we do know that he was arrested at least twice prior to becoming the Top, and in one story he claimed that the streets of Brooklyn hadn't educated him well enough for him to run as president. (That particular story wrote the Top quite badly, so I'm inclined to discount that line, but the two arrests before he becomes the Top are harder to reconcile with the general sense I have of him being from an upper-class background---though admittedly, we don't know exactly what those arrests were for.) Regardless, at some point in his early adulthood, he suffered from what seems to have been an especially intense manic episode and properly began his costumed criminal career as the Top. He created a whole slew of weaponized tops, taught himself to spin in circles at super speed, and then went out to commit crimes. After some early success, he built an atomic grenade (which also spun like a top), and told the entire world that he would blow up half the globe with his grenade if he wasn't made king of the world. Roscoe himself, of course, would be safe on the other side of the planet when the bomb went off. (You can see why I question his sanity in this story....) Luckily, the Flash stopped this insane scheme of his, and after this he generally stuck to robberies (like the other Rogues).
At some point, he met and fell in love with Lisa (teaching her his spinning techniques in the process), and the two began a long romance that would extend beyond his first death. Ironically, this death occurred as the result of Roscoe's burgeoning mental powers. His newfound telekinesis (activated by all that spinning he taught himself to do, which allegedly increased his brainpower) did not react well to the Flash's super speed, and the backlash killed him, though not before he set up a bunch of bombs with which he intended to blow up Central City, a plot that was foiled by the joint effort of the Flash and the other Rogues, who didn't particularly want their home city to be blown to smithereens. Roscoe is far too fond of explosives.
But he wouldn't be gone for long. Roscoe, as it turned out, had also developed the power to return from the dead by possessing the bodies of the recently deceased, a trick he would pull several times (the most notable case of which occurred when he possessed the body of Barry's father, Henry Allen, whose heart had briefly stopped in a car crash). He would also have several more manic and depressive episodes, one of which was severe enough to induce long-lasting psychosis that took years to recover from. But recover he did, and he then attempted to wrest control of the Rogues from Captain Cold. This failed, and Cold executed him, but he's since spun his way out of the grave yet again.
With that very long and complicated backstory out of the way, we can now turn to Roscoe's actual personality. Roscoe is, not to put too fine a point on it, very difficult to get along with. He's arrogant, standoffish, ambitious, power-hungry, dismissive of others, and a bit of a snob. He looks down on the other Rogues as being unsophisticated and uneducated, and this naturally serves to make him rather unpopular with them. That being said, these traits do seem to wax and wane over time; he was actually very polite and friendly towards the other Rogues when he first joined the group, and it seems that his coldness towards them didn't come to the fore until after he started dating Lisa. This, in turn, caused friction with Len, and, combined with their vastly different personalities and life experiences, led to the mutual disdain the two men have for one another.
However, Roscoe displays none of these qualities with Lisa, his beloved girlfriend. With her he is polite, supportive, affectionate, loyal, and seemingly dazzled by her charms. He doesn't seem threatened by her potentially wandering eye or her many other boyfriends, and he is perfectly happy to have her working alongside him as an apparently equal partner-in-crime. In fact, she seems to be the only person in the world with whom he has successfully maintained a healthy relationship. Just how he managed this feat is beyond me, but Roscoe is actually an ideal boyfriend as far a supervillains go. It's also noteworthy that he seems to have very little interest in women other than Lisa (especially given the skirt-chasing habits of the other male Rogues); he has a one-track mind when it comes to romance and it's entirely focused on her.
The only thing that comes close to matching Lisa in Roscoe's affections are his beloved tops. His interest in tops is so intense, and so all-pervasive, that both @gorogues and I interpret it as an autistic special interest. He has been fascinated with them since childhood, reads and researches about them as an adult, builds hundreds of weaponized tops to aid him in his crimes, plays with them in prison, and literally dresses himself like a giant top. The word "top" also pervades his language; the number of stupid top puns he's made over the years is frankly astounding. The man loves tops.
This leads me into a not-strictly-canon but nevertheless important aspect of Roscoe's behavior. @gorogues and I are both on the autism spectrum, and, as the mention of his top fascination as a special interest suggests, we believe that Roscoe makes a lot of sense if you read him as being autistic. Indeed, in my fanfics I explicitly write him that way. It would explain his deep love of tops, his general awkwardness and utter inability to read social cues, his somewhat depressing habit of driving away the people he wants to be friends with because of his inability to understand how he's frustrating them, his rather odd speech patterns, and even his ability to spin himself as effectively as he does (some autistic people have a very high tolerance to dizziness, which would explain why he's so good at it). He isn't usually depicted as being sensitive to sensory stimulus such as lights or sound, but I often write him as being sensitive to noise and being rather touch-shy around most people. Similarly, he hasn't canonically been shown to engage in much stimming, but I do sometimes write him as rocking when stressed, and @gorogues usually portrays his spinning as a calming mechanism as well.
We also try to write his "comic book crazy" mental illness as bipolar 1 disorder (again, as noted above); researching the symptoms of that disorder might well be helpful in writing Roscoe in the midst of one of his episodes, which are so severe as to sometimes cause psychosis. (Both manic and depressive episodes can become psychotic.) It's also a good idea to write Roscoe at his most sympathetic when he's actively in the middle of one of his episodes, as this helps avoid the unfortunate implication that his mental illness is responsible for his criminality. Roscoe is not a good person....but he would be just as mentally ill if he had never become a criminal.
Roscoe is extremely intelligent, and, like many of the Rogues, is a talented inventor. He has created an enormous number of weaponized tops (blacklight tops, machine-gun tops, black-out tops, paralyzing tops, explosive tops, bolo tops, streamer-shooting tops, image-producing tops, sonic tops, and many more), and he was also somehow able to build a top-shaped satellite, stuff it full of money, and get it into orbit. He also appears to be well-read and is at least highly self-educated (which he will brag about to anyone who will listen, and anyone who won't).
Roscoe is apparently something of a wine connoisseur (a fact of which he is immensely proud), and I think we can assume that he, unlike the other Rogues, generally doesn't drink too much beer, as it doesn't fit with his upper-class attitude and ambitions. He also likes to discuss literature, and, in doing so, was able to form something of a bond with the equally bookish Weather Wizard (Marco "Mark" Mardon). He desperately wants to be seen as sophisticated, and it's probably no coincidence that his diction has become increasingly formal as he has become more ambitious and distanced from his fellow Rogues. He is one of the few Rogues who is probably unlikely to use slang or much improper grammar, and his florid speech patterns rub Captain Cold the wrong way.
The Top is a formidable opponent. In addition to his many weaponized tops, he is also a metahuman (the only consistent one amongst the Rogues). He has the ability to spin at speeds so high that he can outpace the Flash and deflect bullets, and, more dangerously still, he has impressive mental powers. His telekinesis is powerful enough to ripe spires off of buildings and levitate huge chunks of Earth, and, as if that wasn't enough, he also has the ability to induce vertigo in his opponents. With enough effort, he even has a limited ability to control and manipulate the minds of others (though since this power has only ever been used to justify a really stupid retcon, I generally downplay this particular ability substantially when I write him). Roscoe is, in short, overwhelmingly powerful, and, while his arrogance is a notable weakness, he is a very tough nut to crack---especially since he can also return from the dead.
The Top's ability to work in groups is variable. If he's mentally stable and not in a snit about anything, he is an incredibly powerful and useful member of the Rogues. He can work well with the group---the problem is that he often doesn't. He's notorious for offending his teammates, and equally notorious for deciding that he should take over the Rogues himself (in spite of the fact that he isn't particularly well-suited for leadership). This, naturally, can severely hamper the Rogues' ability to get things done. About the only person he can consistently be counted upon to work well with is his beloved Lisa, who is totally exempt from his usual arrogance and general inability to get along with people.
It's also worth noting that Roscoe, to some extent, prefers to work alone. In his mind, it's because he's better than everyone around him and is better off without them dragging him down, but in actuality, it's because he's frustrated by his inability to get along with the other Rogues and largely completely confused as to why they don't like him. It's rather lonely at the top.
Thanks for the ask! I hope this helps!
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thetwelfthcrow · 4 months
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u can literally make ur characters do anything ever by just writing the word 'uncharacteristically' anywhere. now it makes sense. problems solved.
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blonde-and-cat-suc · 3 months
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I picked up that infamous "save the cat" scriptwriting book that so many writers keep recommending.
It's the biggest pile of horseshite I've ever read. The author keeps contradicting his own rules, has a strange hatred of the Christopher Nolan film "Memento", keeps trying to redefine specific writing terms to mean something else, admits he only wrote the book to make money and be the one to set "the rules" for script writing, spends most of the book bragging about how many scripts he sold and how many famous friends he has, and classified Schindler's List as a genre he calls "dude who has a problem".
But most importantly, he said that every script needs to have an establishing moment that's supposed to make us like the protagonist and want them to succeed. A moment where the character does something good, like saving a cat, to get us invested in their journey.
So imagine my surprise when we were given an episode called "Save the Cat" in season 5, where all built up themes and story are thrown out the window.
Holy. Shit.
So, I had to go read this for myself after receiving this ask, so I thank you so much for giving this to me. My experience with it was, ah, interesting to say the least. I’ve heard of and used Save the Cat (beat sheet) as a story structure concept in the past (I think most writers are going to be forced to come into contact with STC, right?) But the book it self was for screenwriting and not novel writing, so it never struck me as something particularly noteworthy... Until now.
BOY HOWDY is this a book. It didn’t, um, impact me in a direct way but rather it brought me into this wormhole of other concepts typically used in screenwriting that I’ve heard of but apparently only scratched the surface of. As I’m in this wormhole, they’re voices in the screenwriting community that criticize STC as well—not that I was interested at the time of finding those discussions, having already received this ask and having these points already in my mind. Some other voice were giving completely different advice, and I started to absorb everything with this newfound…. Curiosity…
The only thing that I think is appropriate to leave this post with now is this cool, summarized quote I found somewhere in the middle of the week I spent reading STC + devouring screenwriting research, and you can take it as you will:
“There is a difference between an artist and a creator”.
. . .
. . .
But back to SPOP…
So? Yes? “Save the Cat” (our SPOP episode)? Is a joke? It’s a funny little prod at the audience that expects you to know the real world context of the title, what the title is popular for, and what particular niche it’s popular in. Very clever, very cute.
But honestly. Anon. Dude. This is actually the funniest, highest quality shit I’ve ever had the pleasure of having in my inbox. It got me to read a book I never had the slightest intention of picking up, and learn so many little facts about screenwriting. Kudos to you, please come back whenever you want. You will always have my respect and gratitude.
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abel-draws · 1 year
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If you want to start your dream project just start now!! Draw 10 pages, a chapter, whatever. Have fun and, if you see that it's not working, you will have learnt, you will have had fun, you will be able to go back to it later with even more knowledge. No effort is wasted.
But I've also realized that sometimes we are convinced that if we don't work on something with marketable quality, it's no good, that we should aspire to do industry-quality stuff. Nothing is as freeing as realizing that that's not true and that you can just draw whatever the hell you want and work on your stories and characters however it brings you the most fun.
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skylerchasesbooks · 2 years
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Writing Romantic Descriptions
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➪Atmosphere/Place
This is the starting point of ANY scene you write, duh but when it comes to romantic scenes, you have to pick the place and set the mood.
What's the atmosphere like? What do I even mean by this?
It means whether you can convey that things are tense between the characters or simply fun and the likes of it.
You can start by simply having them sit in a cozy Cafe, high-end restaurant or under a tree, in a room, etc.
Have you ever read something and then been able to practically feel the tension and your heart pounds and everything? That's what you need to reenact.
How? That's actually a complicated question and one of the best methods to learn this is practice and to err. The best lessons are always learned that way.
➪ Eye Contact
Honestly, this is one of my fav parts of writing a romantic scene in particular. I focus on it a lot because we all know that eyes are the windows to the soul. You can express many, many things simply by the manner of the eye contact or using words like, "Her eyes softened" or "hardened" or "darkened".
You can also choose to use eye colors to express things. Symbolism is a great tool here. Eg:
> His ocean eyes drowned me within their waves of blue.
> Forest green eyes speckled with brown, her eyes reminded me of summer.
➪ Physical Touch
Okay, so this point is interconnected to your character's personality. The degree of physical touch will have to be in correspondence to the sort of character you have. Eg:
- A playboy doesn't go in for a kiss but holds hands, something uncharacteristic for him.
- A shy girl takes the first step and kisses wherein she normally avoids even touching.
These things automatically enhance the value of the scene and the touch. Basically, making small gestures seem like big ones or vice versa can convey a whole lot!
Hope it was helpful! Like, Share and follow for more!
Reblog if you think it'll help others! Have a nice day!
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lettersandinkstains · 8 months
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congrats on finishing a wip!! Whats ur secret!!!! lmao
This isn't my first WIP I've finished, so that helped me a bit. (There's a reason I don't talk about my Vampire WIP anymore, it's done, just sitting archived for me to go in and edit it, and do a new draft of it)
Knowing my limits, taking breaks, and shelving when I start to get frustrated. If I find myself dreading the writing process, it's time to take a break and focus on something else.
I also shelved other WIPs to focus on one, otherwise I wouldn't finish anything. Too many projects meant my mind is split onto too many things, and HEMLOCKS was already established with a few interested beta's that weren't on Tumblr or any writing server - just a couple of friends I could trust with the document and liking the synopsis.
I also had Lyric's voice stuck in my head until I wrote her story and re-wrote it until I was mostly satisfied with it. I also did writ a lot of it when I was feeling low or in a bad state of mind, so some of it was just mostly vent works, drawing from my own past or a late partner's past (minus the "parent killed the other parent" part of it all), especially something that Lyric talks about that I and my late partner personally went through at different times.
It was also just reminding myself that there's no rush to finish it, perfection is never going to be achieved so I may as well just do it and write what I want to write and see in a story. It helped me that it is actually an entirely different genre than what I normally write, so I actually had to test myself and see where my limits actually lied.
Also, I didn't talk about it too much on social media so I didn't feel like I had to write a WHAM line every time or feel like I had to create, create, create and make every sentence and line meaningful and deep. It felt pretentious more than normal.
I also stopped complaining. I stopped complaining about the writing process, how I didn't know what to say or what to call it or what to do or how much I hated it, hate that, and jokes of "why can't it write itself" jokes. I stopped insulting it. It didn't feel good, I didn't feel good, it just made me hate what I was doing more, so I just decided to stop complaining about it, and started sharing what I was proud of with a select few friends.
If you speak negatively about your stuff, why should anyone else like it? Why should anyone else read it? "This story sucks and I hate writing it" vs "Some scenes are giving me trouble and I'm getting a little annoyed" are two incredibly different statements, one puts most readers off and the other is relatable. Like on A03, "I suck at summaries" won't net you shit. "This story probably sucks" won't do anything. And you'll also eventually start to believe that - what then? If you hate what you're writing it, why are you writing it?
Was it frustrating sometimes? Did I run into writers block? Yes, so I shelved it and came back to it later when I had some more inspiration. I wrote it in Google Docs entirely and would link my friends to get live responses, I wrote at home and not at work because if I wrote at work, I'd associate it with work.
If I wanted to stop writing it, I did. HEMLOCKS got put aside for awhile for fanfiction because I found not working with my own OCs for awhile genuinely helped me.
I stopped editing as I went. The best advice I ever received was, edit later, write now. Worry about mistakes and perfection later and then accept that perfection isn't possible, and that's okay!
I start writing it when I was awake and stopped when I was tired, I took breaks, I ate when I needed to, drank water when I needed to, etc. None of that, "I won't eat or drink or do anything until I write 5K words today!" Absolutely the fuck not, and I still see shit like that in writing spaces. TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY, your brain needs that shit to WORK. A healthy body DOES equal a healthy mind, drinking some water does wonders, so does going for a short walk or focusing on something else. You need to listen to your bodies signals :/
...And I honestly stopped participating in NANO. Camp or Novembers. I honestly didn't like it, didn't like the pressure - it stopped feeling fun after awhile and started to feel like work. And I stopped talking about it altogether, except with a few friends who are close to my heart and may be the only ones to ever read it. Likely if I am asked if someone can read it, I will say no.
Lastly, I stopped posting on here. Like, I absolutely love writeblr, I've met some great people on here but - I found not posting in writing communities helped me a lot. Notes had become a big thing and I was too fixated on it, and then I realized that if it was wrecking my mental health, it's time to leave. I hate sanitizing things or writing for the masses, I like to write what I like and often times, that's WLW and not MLM. And sometimes even not romance and more something like HEMLOCKS. And I found that I was posting more about my WIPs than actually writing them or feeling motivated to write them.
I have plenty more, especially when it comes to HEMLOCKS but that's between me and the two people that know why I was working on it and what was happening like two nights ago that made me finish it.
SO this is Novel Number Two that is finished for me and I feel like I've only been able to talk about it with like three people. I am incredibly proud of myself.
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epitheterasedgen · 2 years
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Do you have any tips for writing Percy? I have such a hard time writing her.
oh man I could write a whole ESSAY but I'll try to condense this into bulletpoints
keep in mind a lot of this is based on my subjective views/headcanons for her (but also I'm objectively correct all of the time <3 //j)
SOCIAL CUES:
Percy doesn't pick up on a lot of social cues. If someone is sarcastic to her ("well THANKS A LOT"), there's a high chance of her simply replying in a genuine manner ("you're welcome! :)") This being said, you don't need to POINT OUT in the narration that she isn't picking up on the social cues. Show, don't tell.
That being said, the social cues Percy DOES know are learned and rehearsed. They don't come instinctively to her. She realizes past the fact, "ah! whoops! I forgot to introduce myself to Ramsey. I shall give a formal introduction despite the fact we've already been chatting." When Zora spits on her palm expecting Percy to also spit on her own palm and give a handshake, Percy has not yet LEARNED that social cue, so she mistakenly spits on Zora's palm as well.
She also trusts those around her to know more about social cues than she does. When she offers a handshake to Ramsey and he does a weird slappy-secret-handshake thing, she doesn't bat an eye. When Molly pours her steaming hot tea from a toy teapot, she comments briefly that she'd expected the tea to be make-believe (implied, from what she's been told in the past), but then quickly readjusts her expectations and moves on. Her behavior towards the situation isn't, "this little girl must be strange and an outlier," it's "MY expectations must have been incorrect. this is normal for a child."
MORALITY:
Although Percy seems to treat much of the world as though it's black and white, she IS aware that shades of gray exist. She teams up with Ramsey (a criminal) to catch more criminals. She thanks him for his help and offers him a comfortable cell if he cooperates with the police.
She's trusting to a fault. She believes Zora will follow the instructions of her no-epithet challenge because she takes her at her word. She believes Ramsey's lie of being a Mundie instantly. HOWEVER:
She will acknowledge when she's made a mistake in trusting someone. After Zora breaks the rules, she doesn't say "I won't unlock the cuffs because it's against the rules," she says "I don't have enough TIME." When she recognizes Ramsey's name, she looks him up and realizes he was lying about his lack of an epithet.
She's aware that society has flaws. She can't pinpoint them, maybe— she does trust the police. But she outright states that the number of criminals in the bar is "a sobering reminder of how many have been failed by our society." Therefore, she DOES think criminals are born out of the failings of society— not that people are born evil.
She firmly believes all people can change. The evidence for this is mostly in snippets of upcoming Epithet stuff, but she very much believes in second chances and helping criminals reform rather than just getting rid of them. That being said,
She will kill to protect. She flat-out tries to STRANGLE Zora during their fight in Redwood Run. We know her sword is one of the only existing weapons capable of lethal damage. Obviously she doesn't resort to this— she asks criminals to "line up in a straight line and march right off to jail," she captures Arnold for info and then leaves him in the Bartender's care, etc. But she is, under the most drastic circumstances, WILLING to. I think a lot of people think of her kind nature and second chances, and so they shove this part of her under the rug, but Percy would kill if absolutely necessary.
She will die to protect. When Zora asks Percy if she's going to stand in her way knowing she doesn't stand a chance, Percy replies, "a true officer of the law stands by her principles, no matter the circumstances." Percy knows her own limits and weaknesses, but will disregard them to do what's right anyway.
VOCABULARY
Percy doesn't swear. I think I've seen ONE person write her swearing and that is one person too many. There is swearing in Epithet: Erased and she never once uses it. She is openly shocked and dismayed when Molly swears. The ONLY time Percy says a "swear" is when she describes (in the narration) her "Real-Ass Goddamn" sword, which we learn from the TTRPG book is LITERALLY the enchantment title of her weapon. It's the same as a veterinarian saying he needs to give treatment to a bitch (a female dog). That's not the same thing as swearing.
Her vocabulary in general is very colorful. Not in a swearing way, but in a "this isn't the normal words someone would use" way. It's very difficult to explain how to use this properly, but she wouldn't say, "ugh, I'm so mad that criminal ruined my sword," she'd say, "Argh. That pink-haired scally-wag left a dent in my sword."
I could do a whole section on EXACTLY how to write Percy's voice but I don't want to <3
EMOTIONS
Percy isn't stoic! Look at her portraits— she has some of the most expressive sets of the entire cast. While it's common for smart autistic characters to have trouble showing emotion, Percy has almost the OPPOSITE problem: she wears her heart on her sleeve. She doesn't know how to control her expression; she doesn't even think about it. She cries over the loss of a plastic gun.
That being said: look at her portraits again. The least-used expressions are her "happy" ones, and her teeth-showing smile is PARTICULARLY rare. And the ONLY time her "smug" portrait is used is when she's bantering with Ramsey at the well (aw). Conclusion? Percy doesn't think much about happiness, or at least doesn't express it very much. She's not SAD all the time; her sprite is just neutral. She's thinking. She's in Work Mode.
(Her happy sprites are mostly when she's taking Molly home at the end of E4, or thanking Ramsey for his pinecone juice gift.)
Although she's openly emotional, Percy doesn't much think about emotions as they pertain to HER. The pinecone gift is about the only time she seems happy about something for her own benefit, specifically. Otherwise, she is entirely preoccupied with the wellbeing of others: Molly's safety, Howie's safety, the safety of the general public (which is in danger by Zora's presence). In other words, she's selfless. She doesn't HATE herself or even DISLIKE herself— she simply doesn't even THINK about herself, because she's busy thinking about others.
ORIENTATION
Percy's ace. This is canon and confirmed by the creator.
Furthermore, she isn't a sex-positive or sex-negative ace— she's an oblivious ace. Yeah, she knows sex exists, but it's so foreign to her she doesn't even pick up on innuendos. When Ramsey says "better caught with your shirt up than your pants down, eh?" she replies, "yes, it's much harder to run that way" and doesn't bat an eye at his gross rat body. She doesn't THINK about sex. Why would she. She's got criminals to catch.
Percy is uncomfortable being perceived as a male. Ignoring Rhea's art style, Jello confirmed Percy was supposed to look as androgynous as possible. He also wanted to make her gender and orientation up to debate, but got annoyed when fans ignored her in favor of Giovanni debates. So that being said, I won't force my Percy gender headcanons on anyone else— you can HC her as a trans woman, nonbinary, agender, or something else— BUT SHE CANONICALLY DOESN'T LIKE BEING PERCEIVED AS A MALE. She corrects a Banzai Blaster's use of "mister" and specifically corrects him to "miss." If you make Percy male, that's an AU. Not a headcanon.
Percy is aro.
"wait where's the evidence for this one"
because I said so <3
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j-esbian · 2 months
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genuinely at the point where. i know it’s unfair. but i am angry to the point of distraction whenever i read anything, watch anything, play anything, look at anything, listen to anything. i have so many desires and not the faintest idea how to act on it. any skills i once had have degraded because i don’t have any time to do anything and i get jealous and resentful that there are people who can. or else what is wrong with me that i can’t create great art in my 1-2 hours of free time a day. why am i spending most of my life at work, i still can’t support myself, and there’s people who do less than me for more money, so they have time and energy to do things. the creative drought has gone on so long that the well has been filled in. i can’t even get off from work to refill my meds.
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