Photo: “Future DD Redesign (Original concept and additional touches by Emma_Clare)”

Attention Citizens of The Duck:
Important Announcement

Years ago the Duck community showed interest in a new design from its current soft yellow-bright yellow-turquoise-lime green-dark green-cyan color scheme and site layout. Mobile device technology has grown exponentially since the ...

LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Our very own Tantz made a newspost last week about the idea of “Heroes” who are really villains… or at least they're actually villains who think ...

So! Back to mythology. And we are going back to my place again, good ol’ Scandinavia. In the summertime no less when the color green is everywhere, the fields are high and trolls come sneaking down from their magically hidden caves and mountain kingdoms. To me the Scandinavian depiction of ...

LISTEN on our player
Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

How do you keep on with your creative output when something happens to you? When you lose function or are impaired in some way, how do you adapt ...

Anyone that has written or read fanfiction knows that the AU is the Alternate Universe: the placement of a given set of characters that come from a specific IP or franchise or book or movie into a completely different setting, timeline, or even genre.

The LOTR cast might be thrown ...

Kim is not a sociopath - but her many nuances make her most intriguing…and she has a scary side


The secret sociopath.

A story trope in fiction that can make for a shocking ending when done well, or probably an eye-rolling one
when not, is the secret sociopath.

A character ...

LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Spoiler- we don't actually talk much about Yu-Gi-Oh! But I feel it's a good example of a pretty bad story- a so-bad-it's-good story, but ...

Character Motivation

One thing I appreciate in well written stories is the hidden motivations of characters. Well written characters, just like real people, have contradictions to them. Desires and needs that are sometimes in conflict with each other.

Story structure tells us that a character has to WANT something. The ...

On a recent episode of Better Call Saul there was a plot element that caused some discussion/criticism.

Mild spoilers for Better Call Saul ahead.

There's a character on this show, Lalo, who was set up to be almost - almost - more than human. This is not a superhero show ...

Holy Unholy Alliance, Batman!

Last week we talked about what I called the “villain combo platter” with different types of villains that could make for multifaceted kinds of conflicts for the hero to face.

At the time, PaulEberhart mentioned the alliance between villains that happened at one point during Deep ...