fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5154 ]

[ SECRET POST #5154 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5154 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 38 secrets from Secret Submission Post #738.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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One more collapse, just to be sure

I am writing a sequel to a fic I wrote about 2 years back. I want it to be about a rape/sexual slavery victim getting revenge. I want the rapist dead by the end, but he is a magic user and pretty overpowered. How can my character kill him? I was considering it being an ironic end, but I'm out of ideas.

He needs an achilles heel. Either something that will make him drop his guard and give your protagonist a moment to kill him, or a physical or metaphysical weakness.

I had to write an incredibly overpowered magic-user being taken captive in a recent fic, and what I wound up doing was making use of a magical item (which technically exists in their canon! Hooray!) that drains magic energy, leaving him unable to cast.

I don't know if there's something akin to that, or an ability someone might have, in whatever canon you may be writing in. Something that inhibits the flow of energies necessary to cast magic. ...I almost was going to give a content warning here but since we're already talking about a rapist and all that might entail, and obviously this is not a discussion of real things that are okay to do to real people: possibly a drug/potion they could slip them? Because once the overpowered magic-user is depowered, I mean, you can get creative with what you can do to them.

Or possibly the opposite - cut them off from the ability to stop casting, either depleting their stamina or just frying them with too much power flowing through them for their body to withstand.

(...I spend a lot of time thinking about overpowered mages, haha.)

Can the victim convince him that he's fallen in love with the rapist? And that he's forgiven him etc, and then poison him to death during a shared meal.

Re: Revenge - Trigger Warning

(Anonymous) - 2021-02-14 21:58 (UTC) - Expand

I always like the "Magic not prepared for mundane" fights, Like Equal Rites when Eskarina wins by being able to do magic but choosing not to, or when Harry Dresden pulled a gun on the wizard at the end of Storm Front who was expecting a magical duel, Or pretty much any time Batman comes out ahead of a magic user.

I just like the idea that the mystical becomes so run-of-the-mill to magic users that they don't even fathom there being a non-magic solution. Sort of the magical version the Indianna Jones Gun vs Sword fight, or the old myth about how the US spent billions working on a pen that would write in space, but the soviets just took pencils.

Re: Revenge - Trigger Warning

(Anonymous) - 2021-02-15 02:43 (UTC) - Expand

Honestly, it depends on the magic system you're using and what it allows for. Some options:

- anti-magic drugs/poisons, like Dragon Age's magebane, that'll take out his magic long enough to kill him, if you want to do things the old fashioned way

- if the vengeful can get access to magic of their own, curses. I'm a big fan of ironic curses. If lust is a thing for the villain, curse him to fall in genuine love and starve himself by it. If magic and power are, invert his magic, cause it to kill him slowly if he casts it, and make him choose between his power and his life. Or your choice of slow, inventive curses, really

- in the Thief of Bagdad (1940s) movie, Jaffar killed the king by creating a 'Silver Maiden', a machine dancer, that lured the lustful king in and stabbed him during the embrace. If lust very much is a thing for the villain, and the crusader doesn't want to put a feeling person in that position, and if artificial constructs are a thing your world allows, you could have a look at that avenue

- if the villain's power comes from an outside source, such as demons or djinn or the like, is your character potentially able to turn them against him? Trick him into breaking contract, or simply making the powerful being a better offer?

- does the magic-using villain often seek more power by artificial means? Can your character trick him into going after things man was not meant to know and dying of them? To go back to the Jafar's of the fictional world, trick him into 'phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space'? Hand him a soul-sucking magic rock, trick him into looking into the lake of regret, what have you?

It really does depend on your world and what options are built into it, but generally speaking if you're looking for ironic, you're looking for something that takes advantage of either his lust or his power. There's a lot of fictional precedent for very nasty fates making good use of either. Have a look at what options your setting has!

There are very few wizard problems that can't be fixed with a big stick.

The trick is getting close enough to use the stick.

Re: Revenge - Trigger Warning

(Anonymous) - 2021-02-15 03:39 (UTC) - Expand

For long stories, how much 'mapping' do you do for the world building beforehand? I plowed straight into writing and find my lack of plotting keeps tripping me up. But if I plot out too much in advance I lose the story.

I try to at least figure out a rough outline of what will happen, with the understanding that things change. If you know your cast of characters and their personalities inside and out, that ought to help keep things on track. For everything else...well, that's why writers revise.

I usually have a 1-2 sentence plot synopsis in my head and a rough idea of the main 2 or 3 characters' arcs through the story and how those arcs map onto the rough plot. Then as I write I tend to get further ideas and jot those down as I go.

Mostly ranting

I seem to lose motivation to write once I get to a nice spot in my fics. I like writing conflicts and drama but lately when I reach a point where I need to introduce drama I decide to ignore that fic. I'm hitting that spot with almost all my fics and I know I should just get to writing so I don't lose motivation to keep writing.

Been writing a long fic with a friend, a fic we specifically are writing to entertain each other. I don't think I intend to share it with anyone aside from her. I don't think she's sharing it with anyone either (and I don't care if she does share it with others, pretty proud of the fic we wrote). I feel relatively comfortable reading and writing smut. My friend says she reads a lot of smut but is still working on her technique when it comes to writing smut. I've given her positive feedback. I can see she is trying and some aspects of it she is good. I've given her advice on my approach. Observe what makes smut work in fics I've enjoyed, read romance novels that tend to be more erotica, pay attention to what makes a sex scene work in movies or tv shows.
I didn't tell her I've watched a lot of porn through the years. I've also listened to audio porn which helps a lot with dirty talk. I also spend so much time working out my sex scenes. I edit my fics very heavily and when editing my smut I get really technical. I read and imagine my characters in the positions they are in, focus on what they are feeling, read and reread to make sure their movements make sense, look over words and phrases to make sure it doesn't sound weird or stupid. IDK It's easy to air out my dirty laundry when I talk about reading smutty fanfics or romance erotica but telling others that I watch porn videos and listen to NSFW audio porn it feels too personal. 🤷‍♀️
Also, I don't want my friend to think she has to do what I do to become good at writing smut. Everyone finds their own technique and methods.

I really appreciate the attention to detail you give to your smut! Truly!

Personally, a lot of the dirty talk in some smutty audio I've listened to just makes me laugh so i can't but please feel free to include recs???

But I get that it's hard to explain certain things like this to others.

AYRT
Didn't expect anyone to respond to my ranting. LOL Ah, thanks. It does mean my mind is in the gutter a lot of times when I'm writing smut, but I want to be a better smut writer so I gotta push myself to think harder about sex.

NGL A LOT of audio porn sucks. IDK if I have any to really recc? I go on Youtube and search on there and try to find something that works for me (I use a burner account so my main doesn't get tainted). I've gone to Pornhub too, but both places YMMV. I've been into writing praise kinks. M praising F, mostly, but I also love F praising M so I listen to both audio porn M4F and F4M. There are queer audio porn too, so if you're looking for MFM, F4F, M/F4A there are audios for them too (though I've never listened to them, so I don't know the quality/believe-ability). What I like in my audio porn is a good script and a voice actor who appeals to me (which for women is a feminine voice but I like slightly lower tone, for men I like lower tones but not too low and his tone has to be affectionate, I don't like the more authoritative "Daddy Dom" voice, yuck), so it's hard to find what I'm looking for.

I'm trying to write a fic where the first arc takes place in Pennsylvania in 1989-1990. The main character is 14-15. This is a bit of a long shot, but does anyone have any suggestions of where I could find depictions of high school (or life in general) in that general area in that general time period? I don't need to be absolutely exacting about details, I just want to avoid any really screamingly obvious mistakes.

Where in Pennsylvania? Like Philly? Or Pittsburgh? Or more in the boonies?

Are they from Pennsylvania? What's their background?

I only ask because despite there possibly being a "general" experience, there's a lot of factors that inform what normal will mean. Sorry :( like Pittsburgh was a steel town (now a pretty big biotech/STEM city), and in other parts of Pennsylvania you have different industry.

I was thinking the same thing - I'm not from PA and haven't spent much time in PA, mostly just driven through, but I mean... normally I take the turnpike, and that takes you past a good chunk of different areas of PA, and I thought that gave me a pretty good overview of PA.

Then last year there was a huge accident with like 60 cars involved on the day I was supposed to go that way, and I took back roads through the mountains to get around it... and realized that PA is WAY more different depending on your precise location within the state than I'd already thought it was. No doubt growing up in the areas I drove through would've been completely different than growing up in Philly.

For the moment I've got it pencilled in as starting in Jefferson Hills, in Allegheny County, so... Not terribly far from Pittsburgh, but not exactly the middle of nowhere.
Main character is a foster kid who's lived in a few places previously, but he's been in the same place for a few years by the start of the story.
I picked Jefferson because it's middle class but has low population density, so he can practice magic in the back yard and it's at least plausible that no-one will see. Plus I looked on Google streetview and it looks kinda pretty.

AYRT

Full disclosure, like the anon who replied below me, I'm not from PA, but I've driven through/visited friends and family over there (both city and country/suburbs?).
1. It is too large a state lol

2. While not Jeffersonville,

https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Apmonr-acy

This might be helpful, it's the archives for the yearbooks at a highschool in a town in Allegheny County, and you might find some more information through newspaper clippings, or student bulletins. It's a digital archive. I hope it's helpful.

And maybe in your googling you're being too specific? Maybe just look up Allegheny county 1989 high school or something similar, and hopefully you can find other library or digital archive sites that include promotions for things going on during those years for the youth? If not the exact town, then an approximation?

Good luck!

Re: Writing thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-02-15 05:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Writing thread

(Anonymous) - 2021-02-15 06:48 (UTC) - Expand

Why can I never finish anything? I get ideas and I enjoy figuring out the plot and writing the scenes I've been picturing and then my motivation to finish properly so I can post just evaporates. Poof. Gone.

Oh no. Are you me? I get ALL THE GREAT IDEAS. I write AMAZING FIRST CHUNKS. And then it's like, "Oh but what if I started this other new idea instead?"

A part of my problem that I have identified is having a conflict arc. I am not good at the creating of conflict because honestly I just want to let my characters exist lol.

Because I can't always create (or solve) a conflict, there's only so much build up and exposition I can do before it's like, "Okay time to play with something else now."

Sadly I haven't really found a solution to it, because I am definitely a pantser writer and not a planner writer.

Are there ghost writers for fanfiction? Because we have work for them. Lol

RA

I mean...is it possible to set up a partnership of sorts? For example, i enjoy writing (whether is good or not is up for debate lol) and sometimes I'm just looking for someone's plot bunny. Is there not a place where you can leave a plot bunny for adoption, write or describe specific scenes you want to see and then some ambling writer comes along and says VOILÀ ! PLOT! And works with you to make the fic happen? I really would like something like that lol

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