The Cracks Begin to Show: Making Flawed Characters by WonHitWonder, literature
Literature
The Cracks Begin to Show: Making Flawed Characters
First of all, I freely admit that what I say isn't gospel. I am a total amateur at art and writing. I've learned everything that I know via the internet and a few books. It's just that I appreciate all of the tutorials here on dA that have helped me out, and I want to put a little bit of my own methods back in.
I've run across an odd myth about fictional characters here on good ol' deviantART: If my character isn't a Mary Sue then I've definitely written a good character. Sadly, this is not so. A Mary Sue (see here for more) is just a specific kind of bad character. Not all bad characters are Mary Sues. It would be like saying that sinc
Thirty Three Percent by UntamedUnwanted, literature
Literature
Thirty Three Percent
"What are you doing?"
"I think I finally figured out percentages."
"We learnt those in the third grade."
"Yeah, but we always complained that we'd never use them in real life."
"And you know how to use them in real life now?"
"Eighty four percent."
"What's that?"
"That's the percentage of how many basketball matches you lost to me when we were kids."
"That's not fair! You're taller than me!"
"Fifty two percent."
"Is that how much taller than me you are?"
"No. That's the percentage of times you speak out of turn and get into trouble for it."
"Very funny."
"Twenty three percent."
"Let me guess, that's how much I annoy you?"
Death isn't a fresh perspective by Tangled-Tales, literature
Literature
Death isn't a fresh perspective
I saw my mother
swallowing something small
when I was just a child
The anguish in her eyes
faded, as she told me
it was just a
tic-tac,
with a little extra kick
maybe years later,
that's how I convinced
myself
to swallow fifteen,
thinking it'd
give me a fresh perspective;
in the end,
my breath reeked
of death
instead of mint.
Our Captain (Robin Williams Remembrance Poem) by RobotToxic, literature
Literature
Our Captain (Robin Williams Remembrance Poem)
Oh, Captain
My Captain.
We’ve never had,
A Friend like You.
You came to us as an Alien,
from the Planet Ork.
But through the Years,
You made Home in Our Hearts
We Saluted You over the Airwaves
We Watched You get Sucked in a Game,
And Haul Your Family in the Big Rolling Turd.
You were a British Nanny,
Who was actually their Dad.
A Business Man,
Who was actually Peter Pan.
A Crazy Scientist,
Making a Being called Flubber.
A Genie,
Who Just Wanted to be Free.
You were a Robot,
Made of Rusty Old Parts.
Oh, Captain
My Captain.
We’ve never had,
A Friend like You.
You became the Man of the Year,
And the Wax Figurine Exhibit
Emerging flash of starlight pap
between sunset and ocean cap
colliding spang into my eyes
for once to have me realize
not everything becomes a song,
and I shall sleep before too long.
We met on an art website—you, me, and the Sprout.
Thing is, the Sprout and I didn't really care about art. Only you did. But when I looked online for a school art project and found you two bickering about something pointless in the comments of a picture that had nothing to do with any of us, I signed up for the site solely for the purpose of telling you two to shut up and take it to someone who cares.
So you sent me your Skype contact.
I expected you to start the conversation with arguments or even flirtation, but instead you just asked me how my day had been, as if we'd always been friends and you were just greeting me on a lone
Red Dirt
I eat only because my body demands it.
In the South pregnant mothers eat red dirt
because it gives them what they crave. Their bellies are full moons,
their eyes constellations of what their baby will be.
Forget tossed stones or chicken entrails,
the lines of a palm already scarred
by machinery bits, a barbed wire chicken fence.
I already know what my future will be.
I was given paradise but it did not want me.
They told me if you are not strong enough this paradise will scar you
and it has. I was meant to be pregnant at the age of 16
and believe this child will be different from me.
But I escaped, relentless, demanding. "Do not g