Hi, Dirty American Here Doing My Due For The Imaginary Europeans. Make Sure To Get Your Disgusting EU

Hi, Dirty American Here doing my due for the imaginary Europeans. Make sure to get your disgusting EU citizen friends on this shit!

Time to shout out my most active mutuals in order to gain more reblogs from my biggest fans list:

@loverboyxbutch (thank you, please be a EU citizen for this)

@melda0m3 (I can't wait to do some more requests from you :3)

@blargh-500 (You are a reoccuring entity, please interact more)

@expected-unexpected (The secret underdog)

Special Shout Outs Who Should Reblog If They Want TO Be Apart Of The Club:

@madmadhuman (welcome to the family, you get pats if you want)

@differentnighttale (you are very very very special to me :3)

@12-cluh (love you, why don't you have the underline?)

@lavenillrose , @creatrakers and @procrazedfan (for being my first true mutuals)

(Ps. Thank you to literally everyone else for all the support, I trust that you can give these people support as well)

Hey, if you have half a minute and care about the LGTBQIA+ community in the EU, I'd suggest you take a look at this initiative to ban conversion therapies in the EU.

1 million people are required to sign, but there's barely 100k. The form takes less than a minute, it only requires your ID, name and surname.

Please, help spread the initiative so that it can reach the goal ASAP!

I finished the post @stabbyapologist :)

I'm sorry I wasn't able to finish it yesterday :(

What Do YOU Need Writing Advice On?

I know I posted this a couple days ago but I am an unpopular tumblr account who barely gets interactions so constantly posting this question seems inevitable.

Again, ask me whatever you want. Anything. Heck, ask me to continue one of my previous series that you had an emotional attachment towards for some reason???

Signs You Have Written An Actual Mary Sue

*Insert SIREN NOISE As Writer Has Just Said "Mary Sue"* whoop

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to be using the term "Mary Sue" as a catchall term for characters that lack important flaws. I understand that the term is often disproportionally used against female characters but I want to use a recognizeable term for this issue.

Also, this advice is for "serious works of fiction". If this story isn't intended to be critically viewed by anyone else and is just meant for fun, write Mary Sue.

Okay? Ok!

What Is A Mary Sue?

A "Mary Sue" is a character who is defined by their inhumaness as they lack flaws and consequences. And that is the key term that defines the Mary Sue: "consequences".

The Mary Sue has the impressive ability to bend reality to serve it's own needs. Like a parasite!

But let's get to some specific signs

A: They Lack Substantial Flaws

"Substantial", in the world of writing, means "of plot significance"

Mary Sue often has flaws but they are either:

Fake Flaws that are never shown to the audience such as a character who is a horrible cook who never cooks

Cute Flaws that never impede on a character's likeability and success. Their anger issues never lead to bad impulsive decisions. Their naivety never loses it's "charm"

Substantial flaws are flaws that actively hurt a character's chances at getting their goal while simultaneously ruining the character's life.

Compelling Characters are tempted by vices, have their morals tested, fail spectacularly, and make bad decisions.

Mary Sues are enlightened characters whose bad decisions tend to be portrayed as a natural intuition. A character who never fails meaningfully.

p.s: flaws should be dark reflections of their good qualities. determined=stubborn. idealism=savior complex

B: They Lack Agency

Mary Sue, despite their wealth of charm and attractiveness, never makes active decisions.

They never make active decisions because Mary Sue is a character who is so perfect they have no desire, goal, or lack of something. Afterall, if someone has the ability to get anything they want, why would they want?

Mary Sue never has to change anything about themself to get a goal because they neither have imperfections or goals.

Instead, the plot comes racing at them as conspiracies, mysterious love interests, and practically God herself, desperately try to involve this mediocre individual in the drama for some reason!

As I have mentioned in my: Writing Advice: Give Your Characters Agency, characters need to have agency in order to have a compelling character and plot since narratives are based on the question "what is this character willing to do to get their goal"!

Mary Sue don't need to ponder this question since they don't have a goal. They either passively hope to survive while not doing anything active in order to try and survive or they just kinda walk around.

C: They Bend The Rules Of Reality

But not in a cool way. Like more of a bully kinda way.

I'll give you some quick examples of what types of "bending reality" exist since it kind of depends on the plot!

a: "Character A is not conventionally attractive, doesn't practice self-care, insults other, has a HUGE superiority complex, and is obnoxious. Yet for some reason, several characters crush on them when there’s no redeeming qualities."

b: "Character B fails to do something but it's okay because that failure allowed them to succeed and they actually end up winning overall"

For A: Basically, Mary Sue changes the character settings of other characters and often forces them outside of their typical behavior while not simultaneously providing a reasonable explanation for hy this happens.

For B: The plot caters exactly to their needs. Like even mistakes play out as victories because the plot develops in the direction making them being right in the end. Mary Sue doesn't get pushed by the plot here. They are the plot

I'm so so so sorry. I only saw this post when it was 10:00. In order to slightly preserve what's left of my sleeping schedule, I will leave to for tomorrow.

Rest assured, I will give you advice tomorrow!

Again, I am so sorry @melda0m3

What Do YOU Need Writing Advice On (Requests)

Hi, Unpopular Tumblr User Here! Again, I am asking for requests on what to do because I am very insecure about my own original ideas! Plus, I genuinely love helping people out and I really like talking about writing.

I've had some original ideas like "How To Write Sex Appeal" Or "Where Is Realism's Place In Writing" but I also want to hear from you!

Feel free to send multiple requests and I'll try to finish the advice in 1-2 days!

Creating The Mythology For Writing

This is the topic that @melda0m3 has request of me with the specific quote as: "How to write legends about gods? I have my whole god system and their basic lore, but can never figure out how to make legends and such"

So, following this advice post, I will only be talking about how to create legends for your established gods and I will not be talking about how to create gods.

Writing Legends

Legends, as defined by a quick google searchl, are a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.

Legends are also classified as myths since myths are traditional stories that were meant to explain a physical or social phenomena.

For example, the "marriage" between Hades And Persephone was meant to explain seasons as Demeter(the goddess of harvest) destroyes all the plants when Persephone is in the underworld for six months.

Using the real-life reason for legends and myth exist can help provide a clearer, more concise, guideline to make use of.

Of course, your characters won't discuss every single legend within the story so you need to write the legends which will be noteworthy to the plot.

For example, you can highlight the mythology that explains why your characters have inhuman characteristics and why {SOMETHING} is happening.

However, mythology doesn't only exist around the natural. Legends are also weaved around battles, important individuals, and other such things.

This is due to the fact that legends are often the most influencial piece of propaganda within the world. Legends often serve to disparate certain communities within a conflict as failing to win the cover of God.

However, this propaganda also serves to paint certain individuals in an almost heavenly light where their ability to present themselves as a seemingly supernatural creature provides untold benefits for them. A real-life example of this is the Legend of King Arthur.

HOW IS IT APPLICABLE FOR YOU(Story Ideas) ?

Characters have a vested interest in making themselves appear better than they actually are. They may attempt to utilize legends in order to appear like they are God's favorite child.

Countries have a desire to always appear victorious and idealized. This can create it's own sort of reflection chamber where exaggerate stories of grandeur can create a mutation of beliefs so profound that when your characters step outside of the country, reality is vastly different.

Gods are the most likely to manipulate legends to cast their enemies in an unlikeable light while portraying themselves as perfect. This can lead to a highly complicated hodge-podge of contradictory information.

I hope I did well by you @melda0m3 :)

Writting Historically Accurate Dialogue

From @melda0m3 we have another ask: "How to make the medieval fantasy dialogues seem, well, medieval fantasy. How can I avoid using language that's too "modern" for the settings I'm going for?"

(I cropped it a bit)

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask what the specific context was so i'm going to be giving advice for both original works and for fanfiction. Of course, there is going to be a large amount of overlap so reading both sections of the post should be only beneficial!

Let's not waste time as we need to speed on over to advice-giving territory!

Advice For A Fanfic

If you are writing fanfiction then my advice is going to be extremely simple.

Read the dialogue. Hear it if you can do that.

It's honestly disturbing when nobody realizes that if they're struggle with dialogue has already been fixed by the fact that their medieval fantasy world's creator struggled with dialogue that you didn't have to.

Grab a list and just write down some iconic lines from these characters. You'll get the general "vibe" of how these characters speak and the language used by the characters.

You can also write down, digitally or physically, "no-no words" like "kids" or "cool" so when you go back into your work to make edits, now you have an actual list to go through!

Advice For Original Non-Fanfic

Grab a notebook, Google Doc, whatever, and just write down some of the most common slang words you use. If you use it everyday, you will probably have at least a couple examples of you writing it down. Again, lists are the best!

Next, look up shows with a medieval fantasy setting. Then look up criticism and praise for the dialogue within the show. Now either watch that show for inspiration or to learn what not to do.

Read medieval text about a hobby you have or something interesting.

Find a medieval real life person and read their diary!

Conclusion

Ultimately, the probability that you are going to find a historian who simultaneously reads historical fiction and hasn't given up on the hope of historical accuracy is next to none.

The majority of people who read your story can't tell the Elizabethan Era from the Victorian Era.

If you manage to get found by a historian or someon interested in this time period, they're probably so emotionally scarred by far worse historical inaccuracies that your traumatic dialogue is only a slight bump on the road.

That isn't an excuse to avoid doing research but it's a sign that you probably shouldn't obsess over it too heavily.

When you edit, look up some iffy words, remove the non-fancy and slang words, and throw in some Game of Thrones since nobody knows history well enough to tell you that it's historically inaccurate!

Have I helped you @melda0m3 !?