#developer communication tools

[neilsblog]

The Future of Communication: Everything You Need to Know About CPaaS

In today’s digitally driven business landscape, seamless communication is a non-negotiable requirement for success. As customer expectations evolve, businesses need advanced tools that allow them to engage across multiple touchpoints, in real-time, and through preferred channels. This is where CPaaS, or Communications Platform as a Service, emerges as a game-changing solution. What is…

[whump-in-the-closet]

characters who’s identity revolves around their purpose, defined by something or someone else. By the prophecies, by their service; the lapdog, the weapon, the chosen one. And then there’s a moment of softness, a complete breach and utterly human— they cradle their head in their hands, they bend to pick up a cat and hold it tight, they slump against someone’s shoulder, completely trusting for the first time

thank you that’s it. exits stage and screams.

[theaawalker]

Steps to NOT Write Through the Male Gaze

follow for more tips 💋 || request writing tips 💌

1. Establish the Foundation

Understand the Male Gaze: The male gaze frames women as objects of visual pleasure, ergo valued for their beauty, sexual availability, or how they serve a male character’s development. Avoid this lens from the start. Define Her Perspective, Not Her Appearance: Ask: How does she see the world? before how the world sees her. Build her worldview, voice, and motivations before describing how she looks. Be Conscious of Descriptive Priorities: Don’t default to describing her body, clothing, or attractiveness as her most important trait. Focus on how she moves, acts, and feels instead.

2. Shape Her Role in the Story

Let Her Exist Outside of Men: She should have goals, fears, and relationships that don’t revolve around male characters. Avoid “Sexy Equals Strong” Tropes: She doesn’t need tight leather, flirtatious sarcasm, or constant sensuality to be powerful. Let her be strong in her own way. Don’t Make Her a Reward or Symbol: She shouldn’t exist to motivate, validate, or redeem a man. Her arc must stand on its own.

3. Build Her Character Authentically

Write From the Inside Out: What does she care about? What keeps her up at night? What drives her, enrages her, makes her laugh? Let Her Be Messy: She can sweat, cry, bleed, scream, get sick, or look disheveled. Don’t erase humanity for aesthetics. Avoid “Flawed, But Hot” Writing: If she’s “awkward,” “clumsy,” or “gritty,” don’t cancel that out by constantly reaffirming how stunning or sexy she is. Let the flaws stand.

4. Portray Her Strength Without Objectification

Let Her Dress for Herself, Not the Audience: If she’s in battle, don’t put her in stilettos and midriff armor. If she’s undercover, let her choose strategy over seduction. Don’t Over-Sexualize Emotional Moments: Crying isn’t sexy. Anger isn’t foreplay. Don’t linger on her body in moments meant to be about her feelings. Keep the Camera in Check (Even in Prose): Don’t describe her like a slow pan from the waist up. Prioritize what she notices, she fears, she decides.

5. Develop Relationships With Nuance

Show Female Solidarity: Give her female mentors, friends, rivals, or family. Let her world include other women who matter. Avoid One-Sided Obsession: Male characters shouldn’t constantly sexualize, save, or possess her. Attraction is fine. Ownership is not. Challenge Gender Dynamics: Let her interrupt, outsmart, or lead without being “punished” by the narrative. Don’t reduce her competence to a joke or anomaly.

6. Develop a Satisfying, Self-Defined Arc

Let Her Endings Serve Her, Not the Guy: Whether she wins, dies, leaves, or thrives, her choices should reflect her own journey and not someone else’s fantasy. Avoid Tragedy Porn: Don’t use rape, abuse, or trauma as shallow backstory. If you explore it, treat it with gravity, research, and respect. Highlight Her Full Humanity: Show her strength, weakness, rage, love, ugliness, complexity. That’s what real, well-written characters deserve.

Examples of Female Characters Written Outside the Male Gaze

1. Film/TV Examples:

Arya Stark (Game of Thrones): Grows as a killer, survivor, and girl finding her own code, she was never reduced to sex appeal.

Marceline the Vampire Queen (Adventure Time): Complex, emotional, ancient, her strength isn’t sexualized, but deeply personal.

Nadine (The Edge of Seventeen): Her awkwardness, jealousy, grief, and rage are all raw and fully human.

2. Literature Examples:

Celie (The Color Purple by Alice Walker): An abused woman who finds her voice and liberation, not by being beautiful, but by reclaiming herself.

Offred (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood): Her narrative critiques the commodification of female bodies and internal rebellion in a male-controlled society.

Claire Warden (The Guardians of Camoria series): Gritty, spiritual, violent, and wounded, she's not sexualized but carved by her own scars, instincts, and strength.

Follow || Like || Comment || Repost || My Novel ⇚⇚⇚

thank you, i am farkle :)

[dasketcherz]

headcanon of hugo going from calling yong "sparkles" (when he didnt take him as seriously at first) to "little man" (his sweet way to convey that he's changed how he sees him and thinks the lil guy is capable in his own way too)....

And yong loves the new cool nickname a lot <3

[blissfullyunawares]

5 Days of Helping You Outline Your Next Novel

Day 5: Obsidian for Outlining

Find all 5 installments of the mini series: helping you outline your next novel

*I have added a layer of “static” over my screenshots so they are distinctive enough to stand apart from the surrounding text

did you miss this series? here you can find all posts here: [day 1] [day 2] [day 3] [day 4]

Do you use Obsidian?

What is Obsidian?

A note-taking and knowledge management tool that allows you to create and connect notes seamlessly.

Uses a local-first approach, meaning your data is stored on your computer, not the cloud (unless you choose to sync).

Features bidirectional linking, which helps create a non-linear, networked way of organizing ideas—great for brainstorming and outlining.

Why should you use Obsidian?

Flexible & Customizable – Unlike rigid writing apps, you can design your own workflow.

Distraction-Free Writing – Markdown keeps the focus on text without extra formatting distractions.

Ideal for Outlining & Organization – Connect story ideas, characters, and settings effortlessly.

Obsidian for Writing

Outlining

Creating a One Pager

Create a single markdown note for a high-level novel summary.

Use headings and bullet points for clarity.

Link to related notes (e.g., character pages, theme exploration).

Here’s an example of an outline I’m currently using. This is what my website will have on it (and what goals I hope to achieve w my website)

Using the Native Canvas Tool

Use Obsidian’s native Canvas tool to visually outline your novel. (Best on PC)

Create a board with columns for Acts, Chapters, or Story Beats.

Drag and drop cards as the story evolves.

Writing

Why Write Directly in Obsidian?

Minimalist interface reduces distractions.

Markdown-based formatting keeps the focus on words.

No auto-formatting issues (compared to Word or Google Docs).

Why is Obsidian Great for Writing?

Customizable workspace (plugins for word count, timers, and focus mode).

Easy to link notes (e.g., instantly reference past chapters or research).

Dark mode & themes for an optimal writing environment.

Organization in Obsidian

Outlining, Tags, Links

Each chapter, character, important item, and setting can have its own linked note.

Below, for example, you can see the purple text is a linked page directly in my outline.

Use bidirectional linking to create relationships between (story) elements. Clicking these links will automatically open the next page.

Tags can be used for important characters, items, places, or events that happen in your writing. Especially useful for tracking.

Folders for Efficient Storage

Organize notes into folders for Acts, Characters, Worldbuilding, and Drafts.

Use tags and backlinks for quick navigation.

Creating a separate folder for the actual writing and linking next (chapter) and previous (chapter) at the bottom for smooth navigation.

You can also create and reuse your own internal templates!

Spiderweb Map Feature (Graph View)

Visualize connections between characters, plot points, and themes. Below you’ll see the basic mapping of my website development project.

This view can help you spot disconnected (floating) ideas and create bridges to them.

Exporting

Why Export?

Ready to format in another program (Scrivener, Word, Docs, Vellum, etc).

Need a clean version (removing tags, notes, etc) for beta readers or editors.

Creating a backup copy of your work.

When should you export?

Personally, I like to export every 5 chapters or so and update my live version on Google Docs. This allows my family, friends, and beta readers to access my edited work.

After finishing a draft or major revision.

Before sending to an editor or formatting for publication.

Where should you export?

Personally I copy and paste my content from each chapter into a google doc for editing. You may also want to make note of the following export options:

Markdown to Word (.docx) – For editing or submitting.

Markdown to PDF – For quick sharing

Markdown to Scrivener – For those who format in Scrivener.

To Conclude

Obsidian is an invaluable tool for novelists who want a flexible, organized, and distraction-free writing process.

Try setting up your own Obsidian vault for your next novel! Comment below and let me know if this was helpful for you 🫶🏻

your reblogs help me help more ppl 💕

follow along for writing prompts, vocabulary lists, and helpful content like this! <333

✨ #blissfullyunawaresoriginals ✨

[erinthewriter-blog]

Character Development Tips!

To learn how to avoid the above and create 3-dimensional characters with interesting backstories that inform their interactions with other characters, click here to get The Character Backstory Workbook!

[deoidesign]

Can you make a tutorial on how you world build and make ocs? I can't seem to make any people in my brain, but then when I try to come up with environments jobs, beliefs and little details to slowly come up with someone, I think: well I don't really know how people have influenced the world- it's a weird loop

To be honest, I don't think I can! Writing is an extremely personal process. The way I write is directly related to how I process things, what I find important in stories, years of my own analysis of my and other's writing, etc... The way you write will be unique to you, as well. But I can explain how I personally think of it.

The short answer:

Write. Write anything and everything, it's a tool to explore your ideas. Analyze your own writing, and write more. Then, as you discover which ideas you want to develop, write more to explore them more. You won't know what you want otherwise!

The long answer:

I think this kind of loop is common. It's easy to feel like everything needs to be done "at once," because our job as writers is to make elements logically fit with each other for our readers. But as you've discovered, developing multiple elements simultaneously isn't really possible, or at least is extremely difficult.

Personally, when I think of writing, I break it into three major elements; characters, world, and plot. As much as possible every scene explores one or more of these, and as much as possible these three things tie back into what I personally consider most important: theme.

Everything I do is in service of the themes I want to present. Without them my events feel aimless. It can take a while to discover them, but they're the core of my work. You will have to discover what you feel is the core of yours. Analyzing other media helps with this too.

Concepts in your brain exist in a state of infinite potential. But when you start writing you have to start making choices, which removes potential as you move forward... But you have to move forward anyways. If there's ideas you want to explore later, you can always explore them later.

What this ends up meaning, to answer your question, is that I don't think of my characters as "people in my brain" or my worlds as something people have influenced... Not at their core, at least. They are tools that I use to represent specific ideas. Obviously they're also my blorbos, but mostly they're serving a specific narrative purpose.

So above all else... Write. Write, and discover what you're writing about, and then start over and write with that in mind. Keep doing this. But you have to write!

[topazadine]

Quality Assurance Checks for Character Development

Congratulations, you created a little guy! Now, we want to ensure that he (or she or they or it) will withstand the horrors of being thrust in front of an unloving audience.

I've invented some exercises that may help you refine your characterization and ensure that you have created a well-rounded, interesting character who has deep motivations and a consistent personality.

These are the not the end-all-be-all of characterization; they're not meant to be. Nor are they the only exercises you can do to ensure that your characters feel real. (Remember: characters aren't people, but they should feel like people.)

However, I hope these will give you a jumping-off point to tinker with your characters a bit more. Who knows? Maybe you'll even end up writing what you thought about here.

Also, they are in no particular order of importance, so pick the ones that feel relevant to you and leave the rest. Or do them all, I'm not your mom.

Alternate Universe (AU)

Purpose: To determine whether your character would feel "real" outside of the specific plot.

Good for: Characters who are bound by the narrative or seem to be pushed around by the plot too much.

Used on: Any character, but especially the MC.

How to do the exercise: Imagine a setting that is completely opposite to what you have in your story. This means you can't just transfer a Fantasy character into a SciFi story; they're too similar. Instead, think of putting a thriller character into a romance, or a fantasy character into a slice-of-life modern novel, or a literary character in a silly generic story.

How would they react? Would they still function as a character? Could you imagine them doing this?

Plot Eradication

Purpose: To determine whether the character is completely driven by the plot or would have interest on their own. Works similar to the above, but more radically.

Good for: Characters who are too bound by the narrative.

Used on: MC.

How to do the exercise: Remove the plot. Just get rid of it. The inciding incident never happened, the dragon didn't destroy the village, whatever.

Would you be able to come up with something else for the character to do? Could you imagine a different story for them within this same universe? If not, then your character is too wrapped up in this specific plot and could not stand on their own. They only exist for this one purpose. You need to give them some more agency.

Domino Plot Disaster

Purpose: To see if your character is making decisions that directly shape the plot, or if the plot seems to thrum on without them doing anything.

Good for: Characters that are too bound by the narrative.

Used on: MC, but could also be used on side characters.

How to do the exercise: At a pivotal plot point, make the character do something else. They may fail during a fight, or they may refuse to do something, or they may run away when the confrontation comes. It can even be smaller things, like refusing to talk to someone who could have given them good information.

Does the plot still get to where it needs to go without them doing what they did originally? Then you have built a good plot, to be sure, but the character is just being dragged along on strings, not making their own choices. Consider how you can give them more agency.

The No-Good Very-Bad Day

Purpose: To understand a character's motivations beyond another character, vocation, or activity.

Good for: Characters who do not have a clear drive or purpose in their lives, especially MCs whose lives revolve around a Love Interest.

Used on: Usually MCs with a Love Interest.

How to do the exercise: Have the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a character ... happen. Could be their partner dying, their home being destroyed, losing their job, whatever.

Now explain how they come back from this. Do not let them just kill themselves! Consider how they would build their life back up and what would encourage them to go on. This helps us understand what, beyond circumstance, really drives them.

Line Swapping

Purpose: To ensure that characters are differentiated enough.

Good for: Characters that are too similar to each other.

Used on: Two characters who you worry are too alike. Often the MC and Love Interest.

How to do the exercise: Take "quintessential" lines from the two characters and swap them for one another. Don't pick ones that are just "okay" or whatever; choose ones that you feel really distil their personality.

Now you take Character A's line and attribute it to Character B, and vice versa. Do this for as many lines as you feel is necessary. Preferably, you'll create a new "trick" draft just for this exercise. Keep everything else the same so you're forced to reread everything to find what you changed.

Now wait a week or two and revisit the text. Did you even notice that the character lines were switched without remembering where you put it? That means you need to work on differentiating them more.

Character Swapping

Purpose: To ensure that every character is differentiated enough; similar to above, but more global.

Good for: Side characters.

Used on: Mostly side characters (we will assume your MC can't be swapped out).

How to do the exercise: Take an action point and change who does it. For example, "Aya swung the sword high" becomes "Pima swung the sword high." Preferably, you will do this for more than a few character actions.

As with line swapping, let it sit for a while and see if you even noticed that you changed which side character did the action. If you didn't, then you can merge the two characters (Pimaya?), remove one, or work on differentiating them more, depending on how important they are.

Dramatis Personnae

Purpose: To ensure you do not have too many background characters.

Good for: Stories that have more than 5 named characters.

Used on: All named characters.

How to do the exercise: First, write out a list of all named characters with a brief bio for each of them. For example, "Uileac Korviridi is a cavalryman. He is Orrinir Relickim's husband and Cerie Korviridi's older brother."

Now, pick a metric based on the length of your story. This could be how many times they are named (use Google or Word's "search" function to figure that out), how many lines they speak, or how many pages/scenes they appear on. Write this down for every single character.

If you find that multiple characters only speak once, or are only named once, or appear in only a single scene, you need to look at them more carefully and decide if they really belong there. If they serve some purpose beyond idle back chatter, you could just not name them.

Perspective Flip

Purpose: To ensure all characters have coherent reactions to plot points - and that the MC you have chosen is interesting enough.

Good for: Wooden MCs or undifferentiated side characters.

Used on: Side characters.

How to do the exercise: Rewrite a scene from the perspective of a side character. Does the scene feel different? More interesting? What are they thinking about that is different than the MC? Do this for as many side characters as you want.

You might find that this allows you to differentiate them more and provide more interesting actions when you return to your main perspective. You may even find that your actual MC isn't as interesting as your side characters and that you have more work to do on them.

Hello, Human Resources?!

Purpose: In genres other than straight smut, to determine whether a love interest's actions are actually sweet, or whether the Love Interest is just physically attractive. (Inspired by the "Hello, Human Resources?!" meme.)

Good for: Love Interests who the author has firmly established is incredibly hot, with reams of pages about their glistening abs, but who is kind of an asshole.

Used on: Love Interests.

How to do the exercise: Swap out the incredibly handsome sexy fabulous good-looking rich Love Interest with some schlub, whatever that means to you.

Do their lines now feel icky? Creepy? Has all the chemistry gone bye-bye? Then that means you need to work on developing chemistry other than "Love Interest is hot."

Now, it's fine if MC now just likes them as a friend because they're not physically attracted to them. But if MC would be utterly repulsed by everything they do now that they don't have a ripped six-pack, you've got to fix stuff.

POV Mergers

Purpose: To ensure that you are using just enough POVs to tell the story. The more POVs you have, the more confusing it gets for the reader, and the more likely they are to give up.

Good for: Stories that have more than two POVs. Two POVs are common when telling a love story from both sides and is typically not a problem.

Used on: All POV characters.

How to do the exercise: Pick a POV and try telling it from one of the other POVs. Does it still work, or would it be impossible to explain things that way?

For example, it would be incredibly difficult to tell the same story without three POVs if all the characters are separated for a significant period of time, or if they all have different information that they are refusing to share until a significant reveal (such as in a murder mystery).

It would not be incredibly difficult to tell the same story if all the characters are together throughout the entire story and you're just splitting POVs because you think it makes it sound more intellectual.

Using this might also show you which POV is the most interesting and which is weaker, so you can Kirby-style absorb one POV into another.

Did you like this? Maybe you will like my book, too.

9 Years Yearning is a coming-of-age gay romance set in a fantasy world with poetry magic. We see the world through the eyes of Uileac Korviridi, orphaned at age 11 after a raid on the family farm and sent to the Bremish War Academy as a military trainee.

Uileac expects to spend his adolescence getting hit in the head with wooden swords, saving up to buy his own horse, and protect his little sister, Cerie, as she goes through her own training to become a High Poet.

What he does NOT expect is to become fascinated by Orrinir Relickim, a fellow soldier who is hopelessly in love with him (but refuses to admit it).

There are fistfights, horse purchases, tearful confessions - and, of course, some poetry.

If you do decide to purchase my book, please don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are crucial for visibility on Amazon! I've been told that authors who don't get any reviews are actually sent to the real Amazon to be eaten by piranhas for their Bad Book Crimes.

Pls ... pls I don't want to be eaten, how will I make content for you that way?

[thepedanticbohemian]

For your character development and description needs.

[poison-doll]

hm. i've seen a couple different radical/transfeminists on here in the last week or so talking about wanting safe, private places to discuss transfeminism. maybe it's time for my old sinister queer backroom to return but transfeministly?

[vampirebeverage]

That thing that people do when they hate that you use "big words"¹ because it makes them feel small, fragile, and insignificant, so they decide that you're doing it on purpose to make them feel that way rather than accept their own feelings of insecurity?

Bane of my autistic existence.

People have been doing that to me since I was a child. Adults did that to me when I was a child.

The sad part is that I don't consider myself to be of exceptional intelligence. I might be very slightly above the mean, I suppose? I know what actual intelligence looks like, and the people I consider to be exceptionally intelligent are like... particle physicists and rocket scientists.

If someone is made to feel insecure by ME of all people? Bit sad. I don't even work at CERN, bro. I'm not that clever. If I'm your idea of a smart person, that tells me how many actual smart people you have encountered (few).

¹ - These are just normal words like "incongruous" or "antithetical" that you can usually glean the meaning of from context clues, unless you have an immediate emotional reaction to seeing a word you don't know which causes you to become enraged for some fuckin' reason... idk man.

[bekandrew]

Free Resource Downloadable

The Further Reading Section of "Operation Lavender," a trans-focused adventure for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant set in the Southern US and written by a Southern trans guy, is up on my Patreon for all members. https://www.patreon.com/posts/operation-108488268

[moomoomooing]

someone needs to create and or find me a class abt media literacy and picking apart a media of our choice as the final project, and or religious themeing in videogames, any religion or even philosophy really (for some reason, despite having an aversion to discussing or getting near religion growing up, im now utterly facsinated with it in video games and some other media forms)

i just desprately wanna talk abt my fav games with academic pressure being my motivation for writing these papers yk?

even more specifically: the xianzhou loufu and their culture, society, the game quests written for that ship, the different races, mara, their history

i could not pinpoint an exact reason why, but the xianzhou ships are by far the most interesting of all the locations so far (i do love penacony tho for the whole dreamscape themes)

[aiupdates]

🌐 Welcome to the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation AdeptAI

Progressive ML research and product lab, committed to shaping the future of general intelligence.

[jcmarchi]

Combining forces, GSAP & Webflow!

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/combining-forces-gsap-webflow/

Combining forces, GSAP & Webflow!

Change can certainly be scary whenever a beloved, independent software library becomes a part of a larger organization. I’m feeling a bit more excitement than concern this time around, though.

If you haven’t heard, GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform) is teaming up with the visual website builder, Webflow. This mutually beneficial advancement not only brings GSAP’s powerful animation capabilities to Webflow’s graphical user interface but also provides the GSAP team the resources necessary to take development to the next level.

GSAP has been independent software for nearly 15 years (since the Flash and ActionScript days!) primarily supported by Club GSAP memberships, their paid tiers which offer even more tools and plugins to enhance GSAP further. GSAP is currently used on more than 12 million websites.

I chatted with Cassie Evans — GSAP’s Lead Bestower of Animation Superpowers and CSS-Tricks contributor — who confidently expressed that GSAP will remain available for the wider web.

It’s a big change, but we think it’s going to be a good one – more resources for the core library, more people maintaining the GSAP codebase, money for events and merch and community support, a VISUAL GUI in the pipeline.

The Webflow community has cause for celebration as well, as direct integration with GSAP has been a wishlist item for a while.

The webflow community is so lovely and creative and supportive and friendly too. It’s a good fit.

I’m so happy for Jack, Cassie, and Rodrigo, as well as super excited to see what happens next. If you don’t want to take my word for it, check out what Brody has to say about it.

Direct Link →