Scribbled Fiction

Spare me your woodlands and your small villages. I got something better for you. Underwater Give me Little Mermaid aesthetic, give me people who have a city in a bubble on the bottom of the sea, give me trenches that are actually filled with the magic wielders that abandoned the world above, I'll take it all. In space Can we talk about how few and far between magic in space tropes are used? I get that people don't really want fantasy/sci-fi crossovers, but there is still so much potential aside from that! Ships(not spaceships, we're talking wood) that fly through the stars via fairy dust! Sirens in the center of black holes! Werewolves that have taken control of their situation by living on the moon and only going to the light side of it when they want to hunt! This can be done, people! The mountains There are ways to use the mountains that aren't your standard fantasy woodland settings. Give me a kingdom that only spans the mountain range and they have mortal enemies b...

 I've written very few girl protagonists. No, it's true. If you were to look at the list of all the protagonists I've written, the list of girls would be much shorter than the guys. Even when I think about my latest WIP, it's pretty guy-heavy. Let's take a look, shall we? Jack, Thief's Son : The protagonist is Jack, a guy, and the villain is a guy. Javi and the Boats in the Sky (2018), has a boy as the protagonist.  NaNoWriMo 2017, Spectacular:  Guy protagonist. Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas (2019): Not one, but 2  guys as the protagonists. In addition, the mentor is a guy, and most of the main characters are guys too, something that I'm trying to fix, because I want more girls in there. Why do I write so many boys, you ask? *scratches head* Honestly I'm not sure. That's what I'm here to explore. Honestly, I couldn't even figure out all these reasons by myself, so I had my sister discuss with me. Thanks, Rach, you're the best. <...

I haven't done a list post in a while, and this isn't exactly a list post, not like  A List of Quirks To Give Your Character  or  Subtle Details You Can Add To Your Character's Look , but I think all of these things need a little more attention and a little more representation in stories. So without further ado, let's go! Platonic relationships I can't stress this enough. People can be friends. Just friends. They don't have to get romantically involved. People can care about one another and be willing to die for one another and hug each other and not fall in love. Some friendships be strong like that. Parents and siblings that are involved in the conflict Pretty sure right now the only stories that let parents or siblings get involved in the main story are contemporary stories. Y'know, realistic fiction and stuff. Why can't the parents get involved in other genres? Horror, fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, all of those? Families should be involved mor...

I love love love the movie Black Panther, and I could probably watch it every week. I love the way they balance culture with innovation, and how T'challa himself is super cool but also very human, and I just love every character in the movie. It's just awesome. It deserved every award it received for its awesomeness. What I love especially(other than everything) are the girl characters . This is not about sexism or feminism or anything like that, but rather just about good writing . Girl characters have had a problem for a long time because normally there's only one girl in a whole book or because their personalities are flat and useless. But not in Black Panther! I talked about Cara Dune as being the perfect 'strong female character', now I'm going to bring up the most perfect female representation I've seen in film. *Mario voice* Lets-a go! Why are these characters awesome? They're all very different All people want to know that they're not being s...

[Hold up! You probably already guessed, but this has spoilers for the Disney Channel film Geek Charming] I'm a sucker for DCOMS(Disney Channel Original Movies). Are they high-quality cinematography? Normally, no. Are they super deep and life-altering stories? No. But are they fun and dumb and good for a laugh after a long day? Heck yeah. And that's why I like them. I'm not really in love with any of their promotional images for this movie, so I guess we're going with this one. Geek Charming  is basically just another Disney channel movie, but there are some unique things about the plot that make it stand out to me, so I'm going to rant about it because I have a blog and because I can. XD From IMDB, a not-super-stellar blurb: To win a school popularity contest, a high school diva permits a film club classmate to record her popular life, but the film starts documenting her decline instead. Yeah, it's not the best synopsis, but I can't come up with any better o...

So I'm really in love with magic systems. Not just the basic ones where hocus pocus you cast a spell and that's it. Those have no consequences, no rules, no structure.  No, no, no, my dear spellcasters, I am here for the really unique and complex magic systems, and when I find a good one I will literally seek out my sister and start ranting about it immediately. For a very long time. Hehe. Sorry Rachel. But really can we please talk about how gorgeous  some magic systems are??? I seriously love when someone puts in the time and the effort think  about their magic: what it is, how it works, and what can make it shine. *chef kiss* I love it. So today we talk about the greatest unique magic systems in books and film. Matthew Swift (Urban Sorcery) Oh mah word. I cannot stop talking about how awesome this series is. Because it is awesome!! One of the primary reasons I love it is the amazing magic system . The magic in these books has such intense urban fanta...

Yeah, all the geeking out about the Mandalorian might be getting a little old, but hear me out. I am not really a Star Wars person(yeah, sacrifice me at the temple of Darth Vader), I LOVE the Mandalorian. Does it have its problems? Yeah. But so do most other stories. I'm not claiming it's perfect. I'm not even claiming that Cara Dune, despite the title of this post, is really perfect . But through her, the writers of this show have accomplished something that has been managed very few times before it. They wrote a really good strong female character. Now, the Strong Female Character™ thing is a piece of work that should really be saved for another post, but I do think that the whole thing is a little overblown. I think that everyone's putting undue pressure on writers to create female characters as tropes, and really poor tropes at that, rather than just people . And because of this pressure, the writers are giving the audience really weak girl characters beca...

Hi, I'm Bethany, I'm an asthmatic, and I'm here to    e d u c a t e  y o u So the inaccurate way asthmatic people are portrayed in stories really bugs me. They shouldn't be taking their inhalers for nothing, and certainly not every thirty seconds. I would dearly love to see a realistic asthmatic character, one that I can identify with and laugh with. I would love that. So. Your education on asthma begins now. What is asthma? Good question, I'm glad you asked. From Mayo Clinic: Asthma is a condition in which your airways narrow and swell and produce extra mucus. This can make breathing difficult and trigger coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. So basically, my airways have less room to breathe in than yours, so I'm constantly at risk of having them suddenly close up or fill with mucus, therefore causing: an asthma attack. An asthma attack happens when either my tubes produce too much mucus(filling the airways) or when my tubes cons...

Females are people, just the same as everybody else. And so are female villains. So there's a thing people are talking about right now concerning female villains and their motivations. They're pointing out how the motivations of most lady villains are centered around one of two things: 1) Men who broke their hearts, or 2) Jealousy over a female who's more beautiful than them. Both sound kind of shallow and have been overused to the point where they're almost eyeroll-worthy. I mean, let's genderbend this for a minute. If a man was destroying lives and chasing people down because he was angry over a girl who broke his heart or because(even better) he was mad that another, more handsome man existed, he would look crazy! Or stupid. Or both. It would be absurd. So why is it acceptable the other way around? Let's fix this. I've got a few ideas for you to consider. Motivations for Female Villains 1. Protecting home and hearth. Call me weir...

Nothing can capture beauty and wonder quite like Studio Ghibli movies. If you've never seen one, get thee hence and watch one. I would highly recommend My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away(from which I stole the image for this particular post). Their director, Miyazaki, is a master of creating incredible,  beautiful worlds for his movies, whether the movie is set in the real world or one he created, and I never get over how lovely and unique they are. I would very much like to live in one of them, so if someone could get me a train ticket, that would be lovely. How to Create Beautiful Worlds (As Told by Studio Ghibli) 1. Not everything has to be explained. Miyazaki movies do the exact opposite of an infodump. They leave a lot of things unexplained. Why can't we eat the food of the ghosts? You don't know! Why is this promise bound by magic but not that one? He won't tell you! How does th...

Here's assuming you read part of  A List of Quirks to Give Your Character , but if you haven't, click the link to read it! Today is a continuation of the same list, so more options! You get a character quirk! You  get a character quirk! Everybody  gets a character quirk! Okay, enough worn-out memes. Let's start the list. 1. Can't stand still. 2. Stares unintentionally then kicks him/herself when it weirds someone out. 3. Is too rough with things. 4. Constantly experimenting with new styles of clothing/shoes/hairstyle/hair color/makeup. 5. Hoards insignificant things that hold sentimental importance to them. 6. Mentally makes comparisons between people they meet and animals/colors/seasons. 7. Grumpy when hungry or tired. 8. Is genuinely confused about a common fact (the sun goes around the earth, red and green make purple), and it's too funny for anyone to correct them. 9. Talks too much/not enough to cover the subject. 10. Has an alle...