“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.
“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement.
“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”
“True.” She glanced at the others. “You can also end with a period if you include an action between two separate statements.”
Things I didn’t know
“And–” she waved a pen as though to underline her statement–“if you’re interrupting a sentence with an action, you need to type two hyphens to make an en-dash.”
You guys have no idea how many students in my advanced fiction workshop didn’t know any of this when writing their stories.
When someone shot up a school full of kids, and we wanted to take steps to take guns out of circulation, you wouldn’t let us. You said your sacred right to bear arms was more important than the lives of schoolchildren, and you said it right to the faces of those kids’ parents.
When someone shot up a theater full of moviegoers, and we wanted to take steps to take guns out of circulation. you wouldn’t let us. You said that the only thing that could have stopped the shooter was a Good Guy With a Gun. You said it excitedly, as though you wished you were there. The theater was full of panic and terror and smoke, but you’re sure that you would have taken out the threat with steady hands and no stray bullets.
And when it happened again at a church, you told the same story. You suggested that church was a reasonable place to start openly carrying guns, just in case.
When someone shot up a mall full of shoppers, and the police responded, innocent bystanders got caught in the crossfire and were accidentally shot by police. When we pointed out that more guns meant more stray bullets, and we tried to take those guns out of circulation, you wouldn’t let us. The police never would have fired if the shooter wasn’t there in the first place, you said, so all of the people shot by police were added to the shooter’s murder charges. The books are kept clean that way, but the lives of the victims’ families won’t be.
Now someone shot up a gay club, during Pride. We were unable to keep an assault rifle out of his hands (even though he was on the terror watch list!) because to you that sounded too close to keeping one out of your hands, so you stopped us. You stopped us because only a Good Guy with a Gun could stop a shooter. But here we are, and after all your macho posturing about stopping shooters, you did nothing. Instead, you said horrible things. When you learned Pulse was a gay club, you said he was doing God’s work. And when you learned he was Muslim, you blamed all Muslims.
And so I blame you, Good Guy with a Gun. I blame you for all of it. America is a war zone, and it is your fault. We can’t keep guns away from terror suspects. We can’t keep them away from the dangerously mentally ill. We can’t keep them away from violent felons. We can’t keep them away from kids. We can’t keep them out of schools or churches. You shriek yourself hoarse about making sure law-abiding citizens can protect themselves, and you do it so loudly that no one can hear us say that every shooter starts off as a law-abiding citizen.
Your talking points and your macho posturing no longer carry any weight. I blame you.
Looks like this one is going around again. I wrote it a year and a half ago, right after the Pulse nightclub shooting, but it doesn’t seem any less relevant.
The Riddler hijacks the local TV airwaves and appears onscreen holding a comically long roll of paper. After dramatically clearing his throat, he proceeds to read from it.
“The following is a list of people who can suck it. Number One: The Joker. I don’t think I need to explain that one. Number Two: Cluemaster. Fuck you, you stole my bit, and I will be like a plague unto your house. Number Three: King Tut. You also stole my bit, but did it while killing people and got me arrested for murder. Also, I’m, like, 93% sure you’re a white guy and your costume is racist.
“Number Four: The Scarecrow. I know you ate my leftover Chinese, Jon, even though I wrote my name on it. I was saving that for lunch. I had to eat a goddamn peanut butter and jelly sandwich like a five-year-old. It was all you had in the hideout. For fuck’s sake, go shopping, not all of us can live like a bridge troll.
“Number Five: The Penguin. You- No, no, wait, wait… That one should be crossed out. He replaced that and apologized. Never mind, Oswald, you’re fine. Drinks at 7:00 tomorrow, right?
“Anyway, where was…? Ah, yes. Number Six: The Mad Hatter. You carded me and left me like that for six hours because I, and I quote, ‘would not stop talking about Mythbusters.’ Well, excuse me for trying to make intellectually stimulating conversation on a level you could understand. I suppose every time you prattle on about mome raths and borogoves it’s goddamn Shakespeare? Well… Well, it’s Carroll, but… Oh, you know what I mean!
“Number Seven: Catwoman. You left me hanging by one hand from a ledge five stories up and holding a twenty-pound bag of jewels and very pointy
objets d’art while you ‘distracted’ the Dark Knight. I know you were making out with him, Selina. You were gone for fifteen minutes. My shoulder almost dislocated. Very unprofessional.
“Number Eight: Kite Man.”
Here the Riddler pauses, lifting his narrowed gaze to glare at the camera, voice dropping to an ominous tone.
“You know what you did…”
His demeanor shifts quickly, and he’s back to reading from his list almost cheerfully.
“Number Nine! Th-”
He’s interrupted by a crashing noise in the background and looks over his shoulder just an instant before a deep voice angrily growls, “Riddler!”
“Oh, for the love of-” He turns to glare at the camera, speaking quickly. “Number Nine: Batman! Interrupting me while I’m on television making very important- Hm-mmph!”
He’s reduced to muffled curses as a black gloved hand covers his mouth and pulls him out of frame. The camera tilts, a cracking noise is heard, and the broadcast turns to static.
KITE MAN’S CRIMES WERE NUMEROUS AND TERRIBLE
If I were batman I’d give him like a five minute warning, because this actually sounds theraputic.
Batman: Riddler, you’ve hijacked the TV airwaves and you know that’s wrong but I think this is actually theraputic. So I’m giving you five minutes, and then I’m taking you to Arkham
Robin: Geez get a facebook account for this crap, hell if you wanna vent to millions of strangers just get youtube.
“RIDDLER YOU CAN’T JUST GO ON TV AND SCREAM AT PEOPLE
THAT’S WHAT YOUTUBE IS FOR”
Riddler takes this advice. He gets his own youtube channel called RiddleMe_Th15. It starts out as being purely therapeutic, a platform for publically calling out those who have annoyed him. Then someone leaves him a pathetically easy riddle to solve in the comments, and he spends his next segment ranting about it, and then posing a better one.
This starts a dialogue with a number of other youtube users who both attempt to answer his riddles and pose their own riddles in return.
Riddler has found his people, and his hit count is climbing.
Seriously, Riddler would KILL IT (metaphorically speaking) on YouTube. He just does those weird animated puzzle videos where he poses lengthy, overly complicated puzzles, game theories, and riddles, then gives away…fuck I don’t know…Amazon or iTunes cards to whoever gets them right.
“Riddle me this: How can I ensure there are more videos like this one? The answer, my little quest solvers, is simple: Like and subscribe, and consider donating to my Patreon! Which isn’t much of a Riddle, but seriously I’m down to eating crackers and ramen right now and YouTube keeps demonetizing my videos because I used to be a supervillain.”
Bringing this back because “YouTube keeps demonetizing my videos because I used to be a supervillain” has to be shared and because I have some followers who have not experienced The Riddler Post.
Seriously, if you ever need a good time, just read all the responses in the notes. This post still ranks as one of the best things I’ve ever done.
I NEED THIS
“ Thanks for coming Quest Solvers and once again I want to thank Wayne Tec for sponsering yet another one of my videos.”
Damian: I thought father was off his rocker when he started this but it’s proved to be a sound business decision.
Dick: I like when Riddler namedrops Wayne charity events in an effort to get them more attention instead of robbing them now. It’s nice.
Before Steven was born Amethyst used to say ‘fuck’ all the time & so when he was a baby Greg had to sit her down and explain that she has to stop swearing around Steven because he’s young & impressionable
So Amethyst is like “but that’s my favourite word, when will be stop being young & impressionable so I can say it again??”
And Greg is like “uhh I don’t know, 15 I guess? 15 is probably old enough”
“Got it”
flash forward to Steven’s fifteenth birthday and he is woken at dawn by Amethyst yelling “wake the FUCK up Steven it’s FUCKING TIME”
& he spends the entire day losing his mind
Steven: w-what’s happening
Garnet: *deadpan* Amethyst just got her favourite word back
Amethyst: *running around the house* FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
Greg: what’s going on
Amethyst: you said once Steven was 15 I could say fuck again
Greg, who only hazily recalls the conversation in question: ……i DID?
Amethyst: *runs outside* FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK *distant sounds of spooked birds*
Pearl: Steven the *whispering* F-word is a bad word that Amethyst USED to say before-
Steven: I know what fuck means Pearl
Amethyst: *stopping dead in her tracks* WHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATT??
Pearl: who taught you that word mister!!
Steven: um… Lars and Sadie… *mumbling* five years ago…
Amethyst: I’ve been denying myself my favourite word for FIVE YEARS for NOTHING??
Greg: uh even if he knows what it means it’s still not really appropriate for you t-
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