I’m Like 99% Sure The Gotham Elite’s Social Customs Are Fucked Up Because Autism-in-Human-Form Bruce

Understanding Internal Conflict in Storytelling

Internal conflict is a vital tool in storytelling, enriching characters and deepening narrative impact. Understanding and effectively using internal conflict can transform a good story into a compelling, unforgettable one.

Introduction to Internal Conflict

Definition: Internal conflict refers to a psychological struggle within a character, often involving emotions, desires, or beliefs.

Purpose: It adds depth to characters, making them more relatable and complex.

Types of Internal Conflict

Moral Dilemmas: Situations where a character must choose between right and wrong, often with no clear answer.

Emotional Struggles: Conflicts arising from feelings like love, guilt, fear, or jealousy.

Identity Crises: Moments when characters question who they are or what they believe in.

Conflicting Desires: When a character's wants or needs are at odds with each other.

Examples of Internal Conflict

Classic Literature: Hamlet's indecision about avenging his father's death.

Modern Fiction: Katniss Everdeen's struggle between her survival instincts and her growing sense of rebellion in "The Hunger Games".

Film: Frodo Baggins grappling with the burden of the One Ring and its corrupting influence in "The Lord of the Rings".

Importance of Internal Conflict

Character Development: Drives growth and transformation, showing how characters evolve.

Engagement: Keeps readers invested in the character’s journey by creating empathy and tension.

Theme Exploration: Allows writers to explore complex themes like morality, identity, and human nature.

Crafting Internal Conflict

Believability: Ensure the conflict is realistic and relatable to the audience.

Depth: Give characters more than one internal conflict to make them richer and more interesting.

Resolution: Show how characters resolve or cope with their internal struggles, even if it’s not a happy ending.

Questions to Consider

What is the character’s main internal struggle?

How does this conflict affect their decisions and actions?

In what ways does the internal conflict drive the story forward?

how do you go on to drawing character interactions without them looking stiff or awkward?? whenever u draw characters like hugging and stuff they always feel so warm and natural n like they have weight!

FIRST THINGS FIRST: if you want characters to feel like they have weight, they gotta have balance.

The second thing is to use references!! Use a mirror or photos when you can, but I often use duckduckgo and just google stock images. I don't use pinterest, but I suppose that works. I find it way more helpful to look at lots of images of the same pose at all different angles than to try to reference one specific image.

How to show emotions

Part V

How to show grief

a vacant look

slack facial expressions

shaky hands

trembling lips

swallowing

struggling to breathe

tears rolling down their cheeks

How to show fondness

smiling with their mouth and their eyes

softening their features

cannot keep their eyes off of the object of their fondness

sometimes pouting the lips a bit

reaching out, wanting to touch them

How to show envy

narrowing their eyes

rolling their eyes

raising their eyebrows

grinding their teeth

tightening jaw

chin poking out

pouting their lips

forced smiling

crossing arms

shifting their gaze

clenching their fists

tensing their muscles

then becoming restless/fidgeting

swallowing hard

stiffening

holding their breath

blinking rapidly

exhaling sharply

How to show regret

scrubbing a hand over the face

sighing heavily

downturned mouth

slightly bending over

shoulders hanging low

hands falling to the sides

a pained expression

heavy eyes

staring down at their feet

Part I + Part II + Part III + Part IV + Part VI

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Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

It’s absolutely no problem at all!! I don’t think I’ve been asked this before, but hey, I also have zero object permanence, so it keeps things fresh and new. And it’s interesting to see how my answers change over time! Lemme see, I think I’m going to go in reverse order, because I feel like then I’ll be doing the worst agonizing up front.

TGCF

Fifth favorite: YIN. YU. I know that he’s a minor character and him even making it onto the list is pretty solid performance, but I do feel guilty that he isn’t higher than this. He came out of nowhere in my first reading and punched me in the stomach with emotions. I find his sections so hard to read, and I was DEVASTATED when he died and BEYOND stoked to find out he was still alive in the extras. His story hurts so much! I am weak against characters who have relatively modest goals and still see them snatched away (see also: my next entry) and have to struggle on. I wish wish wish I had a way to see more of how he made his peace with things after being thrown out of heaven, and the nature of the (distant) relationship with Hua Cheng and what happens with Quan Yizhen now that he died in his arms, and still came back anyways, my god!

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Fourth favorite:  He Xuannnnnn. I have a hard time articulating particulars, but. I love him a lot. I love a character with a grudge, with a deep, painful grudge, where the grudge is hurting him almost as much as it’s hurting the people around him, and setting the grudge aside would also hurt, and then what has any of this been for-- I've used this metaphor for other characters, but I don’t care if I’m overusing it, because I love it. He feels like a character caught in a thorn bush, where simply being there... hurts, but trying to escape or move in any ways is going to hurt worse, and there’s no path forward that doesn’t involve pain. And like... I don’t love the way he hurt Shi Qingxuan (who didn’t quite make this list adfasgdafsd I’M SORRY) but I wouldn’t have liked to see him swallow back down all that pain and set aside everything that happened to his family and fiancee either! I’m always, always soft for characters who have no good path forward and who grit their teeth and set out anyways.

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Third favorite: MU QING!!!!!!!!!! I have done... extensive screaming about him. And I love him veryvery much. I can already tell that this list is going to have a lot of mean boys on it, and like... no regrets. Especially since this is one of my FAVORITE flavors, an unapologetic mean boy who is rarely (but sometimes!) soft for the people around him, and who regularly tries to do decently by people, but who consistently gets shat upon and misunderstood and accused of acting in bad faith. I screamed when he and Xie Lian finally got to talk their friendship out in the book. I also screamed when I realized how immediately after Xie Lian’s return he started looking out for him again, and how sincerely, despite his horrible attitude about it. I still want to write more fic for him so badly. I love him so much.

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Second favorite: Xie Lian! What a good boy! The best boy! He’s so sweet and gentle, but also the best fightboy this world has ever seen, and also so gently snarky with the people he loves! I just... really love me some traumatized characters who have trouble recognizing that they can be Loved, and I’m not going to write this whole essay right now, but I think in some ways, he’s the most... passive about his romance, out of all the leads? Shen Qingqiu is aggressively oblivious, but Xie Lian kind of gently shrugs off the idea that he might be Hua Cheng’s special someone, until he finally gets hit with the cluestick. I generally shy away from the idea of a character “earning” love, but he’s maybe the mxtx character who moves me most with ‘you deserve to be loved’

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Most favorite: Hua Cheng. HUA CHENG. Oh my god, gotta love this boy. Gotta love this devotion. I love a mean boy who is soft for one person, and he EMBODIES it. I mean, I love Shen Jiu, but he barely manages to do the soft thing at all, while Hua Cheng is over here like ‘if I could only be the stone beneath your feet--’ It’s hard to talk about him separately from Xie Lian, because they’re a unit in my head more than just about any other characters on this list are. I don’t want to get this list to get out of control, so I’m not going to scream for too long, but... I could just watch him go forever. I want to write him forever, and that’s a huge aspect of what draws me to some characters.

MDZS

Oh god, I think I lied, I think this book is going to be hardest. Making these choices is AGONIZING.

Fifth favorite: .....Lan Wangji. Oh god, I feel bad about how low he is. But this story is just packed SO full of wonderful characters, and I’m already consumed with guilt over all the characters who aren’t going to make it. I don’t love them less! But my love for characters in this particular story is very evenly distributed. And I think that Wang Yibo’s acting is possibly scoring points with me that the book might not have earned all by itself. Microexpressions and subtle body language add SO MUCH to a character with such flat affect, and I would be drawn to such a closed-off character anyways, but it really helps. And I love, like... the combined subtlety and intensity of his relationships. It’s not that subtle once you know what to look for, and the brother/sworn brother network makes for varying degrees of how much other characters understand of the things he chooses not to explicitly express, and it gives a really interesting character to the way he interacts with the people around him. Also, love me a man with intense separation anxiety.

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Fourth favorite: Jiang Yanli? I think it has to be Jiang Yanli, but these rankings are hard. So. I just talked about how much I enjoy the flat affect and closed off nature of Lan Wangji? Well, guess what, I also love it when m’girl is just very GENUINELY AND OPENLY an absolute sweetheart of a person, and I love the contrast between her genuinely kind nature and the uncomfortable pressure that her family’s dynamics put on her to start parenting at a very young age. It’s not necessarily a happy situation, but she adores her brothers so much and they adore her so much! And it’s... a very understated element of the story, but after her parents died, her baby brothers went off to war, and one wreaked havoc as a straightforward commander and one of them disappeared for months and returned as a creepy-ass zombie puppeteer. And she STILL dotes on them like before, despite knowing what they’re capable of. Like, yes, Wei Wuxian just raised an army of corpses and forced a man to eat himself, but I shall still boop him on the nose and feed him Soup. How can I not adore energy like that?

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Third favorite: Wei Wuxian, I think. I do adore him a lot. He gives me some of the same vibes that make me ache most with Xie Lian, where he is trying his best, and is struggling to hold on in the face of lots of suffering, and I find it really interesting that when the suffering peaked, Xie Lian was forced go on because he couldn’t die, while Wei Wuxian... expired. That line about ‘he thought that no matter how large the world was, there was still no place for him’ always sticks with me, and hurts me deeply. Xie Lian had most of his personal attachments stripped away, and was left to wander on his own, while Wei Wuxian still had a number of strong connections left, but abruptly exited life. And that informs their respective trauma so interestingly! The way Wei Wuxian bounces between high energy chaos and drained exhaustion is really fascinating to me, and was the thread that held me attached to the book through a very confusing beginning. And I’m still very drawn to how intensely he loves, whether it’s Xiao Zhan’s fantastic acting, or it’s him busting out with how much he wants Lan Wangji in the middle of the Guanyin Temple scene. He’s a fantastic character, honestly, I don’t think such a convoluted book would have held together very well without a protagonist this strong.

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Second favorite: Xue Yang :X Look, he’s a good boy and I love him. Who among us hasn’t done a few mass murders that we are completely unrepentant about, but that we would really like to keep hidden from our current boyfriend, actually? Anyways, as always, love me an angry boy who makes terrible decisions for understandable reasons. And I do love a character who is consumed by agonized ragrets (see my next entry), but I DO also love me a character who has no regrets at all and doesn’t even have much interest in trying to justify himself to anyone else around him. Just look at that confidence! Look at him go!!

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Most favorite: Jiang... Cheng....... I knew he and Xue Yang were going to be at the top, but those were the only parts of this list that were easy. I mean. Love a self-sabotaging angryboy who is also super super sad and keeps hurting himself in his own confusion. And while I love the romantic thread in all of the mxtx books, the agonized family thread in mdzs is one of my favorite parts, and something that I don’t really see echoed in any of the other stories. I need ten million jc+wwx reconciliations, at LEAST. He’s so sad! And so angry! And I want to see him becoming less of that thing, and for Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian to demonstrate very firmly how much they love him, because they do. I am invested in his happiness in a way that goes far and beyond any of the other non-main characters, haha

SVSSS

Fifth favorite: Tianlang-jun. I think? Oh god, but moshang. THIS IS REALLY HARD, I HATE THIS ;-; But especially since writing my fic, Tianlang-jun has really won me over. And like, he already hurt me good in the novel, just thinking about how he was an innocent young guy, just! Trying to have a girlfriend! And instead got trapped in sensory deprivation, body-rotting-hell for twenty years, when he didn’t do anything wrong!!! He suffered, so much! And I live for his intensely strained relationship with Luo Binghe, because it’s! Perfectly understandable and painful, from both of their perspectives! And he wants to hate humans so badly, but in the end, when he’s told that Su Xiyan never betrayed him, he starts helplessly asking the people around him, ‘really? is it really true?’ and then in the end he loses the only family member he has left who cares about him, and it’s just! Everything is terrible! I have a su xiyan au brewing in my head because I can’t stand it! Someone just give this man a loving partner!!!

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Fourth favorite: Shen Qingqiu. But... moshang??? Goddammit. Anyways, this dumbass. I find him so endearing, in his dumbassery. I sometimes get a bit frustrated with Wei Wuxian for being oblivious, and Shen Qingqiu is just asking for me to react the same way, but I... don’t, for the most part? Because he thinks he has good information, and he’s slow to react to a changing playing field, and I still haven’t read another transmigration novel that strikes the same balance of hypercompetence and intense incompetence :ppp It’s a funny book, and he’s a funny character! And I really vibe with him, in most parts of the story, which covers a pretty darn wide emotional spectrum. Plus, the running internal commentary is choice.

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Third favorite: Liu Qingge. Look, I’m a woman of simple needs, and sometimes I just need a high-quality fightboy who clearly cares deeply and is absolute garbage at expressing his emotions. I can’t articulate it much better than that. I absolutely howl at the succubus extra, when Shen Qingqiu is talking to Madam Meiyin about his future partner, and Liu Qingge is like ‘oh my god, sHE IS CLEARLY DESCRIBING ME’ and Shen Qingqiu is like ‘haha, liu-shidi, i thought you thought this was stuupidddddddd’. They’re both so dumb. I love them so much. But stupidity plus war god fighting energy has a narrow lead over stupidity and internal commentary track.

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Second favorite: SHEN JIU. GOD. I’m still arguing with myself over whether he should go first, but Luo Binghe hurts me consistently through the whole entire story, so I think he wins. Shen Jiu just stabs me in the heart at strategic moments. This is it. My ideal mean boy who is soft for one (1) person, and who BOTH does unconscionable things for terrible reasons (someone just. give him a pile of girls to teach, it will be much more pleasant for everyone involved), and who ALSO gets blamed for things he didn’t do even when he tries to act in good faith. It is the best of all painful worlds. And even at the end, when he has a powerful person who wants desperately to protect him, he still tries his hardest to shove that person away, to keep him safe. I’ve got like four aus where he gets to live. I’m so invested in this character, I love him so much.

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Most favorite: Luo Binghe. He was.... made for me............ Like, the overwhelming amounts of childhood angst were baked in by Shang Qinghua, but the in-story pain and suffering is PRECISELY my jam. I love a character with separation anxiety! I love a character with massive anxieties over being unwanted! Over nobody ever, EVER just choosing him! I love a character struggling with the idea that the person he loves most in the world thinks that he’s intrinsically Disgusting! I love the kind of stubborn determination that leads him to preserve a corpse for five years, desperately hoping for a way to revive it, constantly cooking fresh food, in case, in case he someday wakes up. The way Hua Cheng loves is overpowering, but he’s had time to like... learn to be mellow when he needs to be. Luo Binghe doesn’t have a chill bone in his body, and if he’s acting chill, it’s probably because he’s done some mental math and decided that being more clingy right now will probably get him pushed away harder. I love the combination of manipulative tendencies and a very, very genuine fear of rejection and being unwanted. There is nothing I don’t love about Luo Binghe, including his worst decisions. I love him so so much.

Danny: Ugh, they're back again

Jazz: Don't make that face at paying customers. Do you want to make a portal back home?

Danny rolling his eyes: Yes

Jazz: Then we need to get enough money to buy the parts. If that means waiting tables at a barely legal dinner, where idiots hit on us, then we wait those stupid tables. Now go over there and get the Waynes to leave us a 200 tip.

Danny: Fine, but only if you do too!

Jazz: *Tighten her apron straps into an hourglass figure* Way ahead of you.

Danny: *Rolling eyes but does the same*

Meanwhile with the Waynes

Bruce: It's so nice to go out to eat with you all

Alfred: Indeed. It's a nice change, don't you agree, children?

Wayne kids: *hyperventilating*

Bruce Not looking up from his phone: The Fenton siblings?

Alfred: Indeed, sir. It seems like Master Dick, Master Jason, and Miss Cass are going to attempt to speak to Ms. Fenton today. Master Tim, Master Damian, Master Duke, and Miss Steph don't seem mentally ready to look Mister Fenton in the eye. Bets?

Bruce: Dick chokes on his fork again. Tim face plants on the table, and Steph once again speaks in gibberish after forgetting the entire English language.

Alfred: Very good, sir.

How to introduce your character in 3 steps

A friend of mine was the source of this very pertinent question. So I decided to write a blog entry about it. Because how do you introduce your character without sounding fake ?

Remember that, in real life situation, no one calls you by your name. Have you noticed that none of your friends is adressing you by your name, unless they're trying to get your attention or that something serious is happening ? That should be the same in your story : find a situation where it is relevant to use names. Or stick to nicknames, which is a more common way to address your friends.

Use another character. If you can’t come up with a situation, you can always rely on a side character to introduce your MC. It’s also the perfect way to describe your character rather than simply using mirror, which is convenient yet very cliché. But the fun thing to do is to make several characters talk about your MC : their opinion might go in different directions due to their relationships, their own sensibility and attention to details. It’s also a good way to breath life into your side characters so please consider that option seriously.

The reader doesn’t need to know everything, especially on the very first page. Unless the info is relevant to the plot, there is no need for the reader to know MC’s favourite food or eye’s color. If you’re on character-sheet-side (which I’m not btw), you should be careful about wether the reader the story will progress or not. Try to be balanced !

What I really want to stress in this article is the importance of action when introducing your character. You want the reader to know your character is courageous ? Put them directly into a situation where they can show courage. You want to describe their hair color ? What about that moment when the light is flickering in a way that gives their hair a peculiar effect that catches the eye of another character ?

Don’t worry, your creativity will always find a way ~

Drawing bases & pose references pt 60 ✨

3 extra drawings for patrons!

Let's talk about fight scenes.

Writing fight scenes requires a delicate balance of action, emotion, and detail to keep readers engaged and immersed in the moment.

Here are some tips to craft compelling fight scenes:

Know your characters: Understand their fighting styles, strengths, and weaknesses—are they offensive, or defensive? Spontaneous, or strategic? Trigger-happy, or reluctant? Their personalities and motivations will influence their actions and decisions during the fight.

Create tension: Build tension leading up to the fight to increase the stakes and make the action more gripping. Foreshadowing, verbal sparring, or physical intimidation can all contribute to a sense of anticipation.

Use sensory details: Engage the reader's senses by describing the sights, sounds, smells, and physical sensations of the fight. This helps to create a vivid and immersive experience—but make sure not to overdo it. Too much detail can distract from the adrenaline of the fight.

Maintain clarity: Ensure that the action is easy to follow by using clear and concise language. Avoid overly complicated sentences or excessive description that could confuse readers.

Focus on emotions: Show the emotional impact of the fight on your characters. Describe their fear, anger, determination, or adrenaline rush to make the scene more compelling and relatable.

Include strategic elements: Incorporate tactics, strategy, and improvisation into the fight to make it more dynamic and realistic. Think about how your characters use their surroundings, weapons, or special abilities to gain an advantage.

Balance dialogue and action: Intersperse dialogue with action to break up the fight scene and provide insight into the characters' thoughts and intentions. Dialogue can also reveal or support the characters' personalities and motivations.

Keep it concise: While it's important to provide enough detail to immerse readers in the action, avoid unnecessary padding or overly long fight scenes. Keep the pacing brisk to maintain momentum and keep readers hooked.

Show the consequences: Illustrate the aftermath of the fight, including injuries, emotional trauma, or changes in relationships between characters. This adds depth to the scene and helps to drive the story forward.

Hope this helped ❤

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I love these pictures as Snape. First one give me unhinged vibe, which fits his persona so well. Second would be a stretch because many think Snape is ugly. All he needed was good food. I suppose the 3rd one is snape 💀

The floating empire of Pharoah Duul Aman

It's not every Tuesday the Justice League encounters something like this, but this was new to Wonder Woman.

A giant island floating in mid air suddenly appeared in a flash of glowing green.

It was Egyptian yet futuristic, like Kemet, where a massive silver and green pyramid in the center with a large pulsing green ball constantly swirling in a barrier.

The building themselves were oddly a combination of modern with Egyptian hieroglyphics carved into them and plants coating and moving around buildings, puffing out icy breaths. It look to be a modern yet futuristic town.

There were people, yet.. odd looking with a pale blue color as some were floating around, the other chasing after their children, parents, floating babies sleeping above them attached to a purple leash wrapped around a Egyptian Mau cats as they talking about the next Hide and Fight game.

Before Wonder Woman could fly closer, she faceplanted right into a golden barrier.

...

...

...

Tucker Foley was desperate to save Danny. After the GIW last attack, they severely injured Danny who pushed tucker out of harm way with a new untested ecto blaster that was stolen from the Fentons before. They gave up on hunting and helped Danny after his revealing.

The Portal was malfunctioned and breaking apart as it slowing eats out the Fenton's basement into it, even as he incase the town in a barrier of his own making to push out the GIW all out and hidden around town.

Danny, who is lays on the makeshift bed outside the Fenton house, Fangs grinding in pain with trails of greens and red pulsing through his skin with frantic Jazz trying to find another ecto-dejecto in the Fenton mobile knowing there is no more.

His hands trembled as he was performing a ritual, writing another hieroglyphics in Egyptian symbol. Sam was out the circle holding the Scarab Scepter using fenton gloves to keep her mind from being enchanted by it dark power.

Tucker knew he was the reincarnated Duul Aman. He can still remember everything of his past life even though he lied to his friends about that time when he went mad with power.

He remembered how blood thirsty and enraged with guilt weighed down Duul Aman to madness upon remembered his friend Danyal, who sacrificed his life for him.

Danyal, who was a foreign slave yet closest best friend in the world, looks too like Danny. He never lied when he said he and Danny had been friends since forever.

He knew who danny was danyal reborn the moment he saw that birth marks on his heel, the very same cresent moon shaped mark right against his heel.

He will not fall into the same madness that consumed his past life. He will save his best friend even..

Tucker quietly inhaled finishing the last piece of the ritual as he held mumbled a prayer to Bastet for protection, holding out his hand to Sam for the Specter

"You know what to do if I can't handle it, Sam." Tucker said to her softly.

"Are you sure this will work, Tuck?"

"I'd study this for a long.. long time, I did all the calculations 7 times to save Danny and fixed the portal leaking into our town. I need enough power, or else the ghost zone is going to implode on all of us, taking the planet and this dimension with it."

"And if it doesn't work.. well, it's was great being best friend with you, Grass eater." Tucker wobbly crack a smile. Sam rubbed her teary eyes a bit.

"If we survived this, I'm so shoving you into grass even with reality morphing powers, Tucker."