those posts criticizing common writing patterns in fanfiction are so fucking harmful and they ruined me
so like yknow what??? People tell you to avoid “smirk” and “chuckle” as descriptors because no one does those things (???) but then when I need to use those words I have a ten minute crisis about how I’m a shitty writer. So heres my unwarranted writing advice: If you want your characters to smirk and chuckle fucking let them and don’t let anyone tell you that no one smirks or chuckles because I do both on a daily basis whenever I tell a shitty pun, bye
i’m both dumber and smarter than you think so don’t underestimate me because i’m actually smart about a lot of stuff but also don’t be surprised if i’m dumb about some other stuff hope that helps
In your youth you helped a group of horsemen in trouble. When the apocalypse came many years later, four vaguely familiar faces knocked on your door. They are the horsemen of the apocalypse and they offer you a place among them as the fifth horseman in thanks for your help all these years ago.
The story goes that there were to be four horsemen who would ride
across the Earth, bringing with them the End of Days, the apocalypse.
The great Seals would be undone, and one by one four great calamities
would ravage the world, coming in the wake of the Horsemen as they
crossed the planet.
First would come
Conquest, riding on a white horse and decorated like a king of old,
firing a great bow as he crossed the land. Wherever this bow’s
arrows struck, the generals and presidents and kings and ministers
were struck with lust for glory earned on blood soaked mud, or bitter
rage that swelled to bursting over grievances old and new, or zealous
fury born of ideologues that bayed for enemies within and without to
be crushed by the weight of crumbling empires. And so the great
nations and empires and powers of the Earth sought to subdue one
another and their own people. Each sought to one-up the others, to
make as many bow to their sovereignty as possible and conquer the
hearts and minds of their fellows by whatever means, be they bullet
or ballot or bill, through means stained red or glittering gold.
Second would come
War, great horn baying and sword held high as his blood red horse
crossed the nations and lands of the Earth. Wherever it was heard,
the fragile peace enforced by threats and bribes and the competing
interests of the mighty broke. In the wake of the second horseman,
War bloomed in fields of mud watered by blood of the poor and
desperate, the blind and deluded, led by the true believers and the
greedy. A million different banners waved in the burning winds, those
of empires and those of the conquered, those of rebels and the
oppressors, and those of every nation and people of every land. The
whole Earth knew the warm embrace of War, and there was not a day
where the guns fell silent, until the last round had been fired and
the last generals no longer gave orders that were followed.
Third to ride would
be Famine, riding a black horse and wearing a dark suit. He carried
with him scales and ledgers and tablets of glass and lithium and
steel, with which to tally the crops and medicines and fuel and water
and shelters and to set the prices accordingly. Wherever the jealous
and greedy and hoarders kept the necessities of life locked away from
those who needed them, the third Horseman’s tread could be heard.
In the wake of the dark horse came the hoarding of the world, the
people left to freeze and starve and die so the great treasures of
the kings in all but name would appreciate in value and could be
speculated upon, great gambling games with the assurance of golden
parachutes while the rest lacked even the barest of safety nets.
Fourth to ride would
be Death, upon his pale horse, bringing the end with him. Most of the
last horseman’s work was to be done by his fellow riders. Disease,
violence and bloodshed and starvation wracking the Earth in the wake
of the other riders. Last would be the Reaper, come to take his
harvest and close the curtains, or so many believed. For was it not
the end of days, the end of the world? How could any go on after all
the misery inflicted on the world these many long years? But Death
did not ride out to claim the lives of humanity in one final cleaning
of the slate. There were deaths, but the great ringing of bells that
tolled across the Earth were not for the people of the world, nor
were they for the Earth itself. Death came for an era, for a system,
for a way of thinking, for the world-that-was.
For the fifth
horseman to ride, one not planned for in the endless anticipation of
one final cataclysmic end to all things, was Kinship. As Death
brought about a final sunset upon a world of kings and presidents and
generals and ministers, Kinship would bring a new dawn, the start of
a new day, a new era. The world-that-will-be brought about as the
final rider ushered in solidarity and kinship in the hearts of all,
that they may work together as equals to build the better world they
had been waiting for. The many peoples of the world, unique and
equitable and free to do as they wished. No longer would they wait
for the better world to be built around them, as Kinship rings out in
their hearts they will bring that world into being themselves.
