#misc tips

[inkbotkowalski]

And don't forget to turn your printed items inside-out to protect the print! This goes the most strongly for t-shirts, but also includes colourful bedclothes! Sometimes the tag on an item will tell you exactly how to wash it.

Also close any zippers and buttons and turn items with zippers inside out to prevent them damaging anything.

I also recommend net bags(?) to put in things like: washable sneakers, that new sweater you don't want to get fluff on, or those pyjama pants whose drawstrings have metals bits on the end that would otherwise get stuck in the drum's holes (if that sounds oddly specific: yes, been there), that slightly fancer shirt, that pair of hiking trousers that I take out before putting the rest on the highest spin cycle, etc.

idk what these are in anglo terms but most items are okay to be washed repeatedly at 30 degrees. Only body and kitchen towels (and presumably some baby or pet items; I don't know about those!) need to be washed at 60 degrees. I have to confess I also put bedding in at 60 degrees, although apparently that's not really necessary - though I guess it depends on how much you sweat or whether you get your bed dirty otherwise. Boiling is really only necessary for contaminated items, or occasionally on an empty machine to clean the drum.

Powder detergent is almost always better than liquid detergent, although some ingredients only activate at/over 60 degrees (whatever Vollwaschmittel is in other countries - bleaches a little).

In some regions, you might need a descaling agent/water softener for your machine to ensure longevity and soft clothes; but obviously read up on that before you damage your machine.

hey. listen. when you use too much detergent in your laundry you aren't making your clothes cleaner, you are making them degrade faster. the machine isn't able to rinse out the entire cup of soap you put in, so some of it is left in the fibers of your clothes. when they dry this makes the fabric stiffer and more brittle, so the fibers are more likely to erode and break. over time this makes your clothes wear out much faster than if they were properly rinsed with minimal soap. you are wasting money by overusing detergent, not just on the detergent itself but the clothes you are shortening the lifespan of.

[yoonia]

writing tips & tricks — a compilation of my writing steps and other tricks that you can follow

my overall writing process

my writing steps (a condense version)

how to build up your idea into a rough outline (first step writing)

how I build my storyboard (second step writing)

how to build a story and create a realistic character (third step writing)

my editing process (final step writing)

tips on writing smut scenes and making them interesting

deciding to add a smut scene

how to work on long-chaptered series

getting out of writer's block

developing a story and world-building

finding and deciding the right audience for your story

creating story/fic banners

how to decide the right posting schedule for your audience

starting up a writing blog

adding a writing progress page on your blog

how to improve your writing as a beginner

how to balance out writing multiple WIPs

opening a story and incorporating morals

how I pick titles for my fics

how I organize my WIPs

starting a story from an idea

how to create visual moodboards

choosing my characters (fanfic edition)

— more helpful tips that I've found to be my favourite:

becoming an interesting writer

how to find YOUR writing process

writing (captivating) first lines

getting over your writing slump

best writing tips

chapter breaks (in writing series)

punctuating dialogue

tips on writing smut scenes

how to write emotions

how to make your writing sound less stiff (1)

how to make your writing sound less stiff (2)

list of mannerisms

write smarter, not harder

note: I'll be adding more to this list if there's anything new in the future. I also compile posts with more tips and tricks in writing on my side blog which you can follow at : @dia-writes or track my tag: #misc: writing 101 with Dia

Join my writing class (with get downloadable practice sheets) on my Patreon or hit my Patreon shop to get your set of writing practice sheets for beginners

(updated: May 17th, 2025)

[yameoto]

how tf did you break the safe filters on c.ai??

please read my faq!

HOW DO YOU BYPASS THE NSFW FILTER ON CHARACTER AI? here and here are everything you need to know! it's essentially mix of using synonyms (for the love of god, do not come right out the gate saying "show me your tits") and immersive/detailed roleplaying, whilst tricking the bot into adjusting it's settings to let nsfw slide.

my personal note is you must put a little effort in your responses. just a little. even at least one paragraph! this is what i mean by immersive and detailed roleplaying; as if you're roleplaying with another person. the bot will see this!!! and get into it!!! the amount of times i see people reply with only three words and are dissatisfied with their experience is surprising. even the basics apply. if you reply with only dialogue, how will the bot know what you're doing? where your body is? where to put their body? it also makes it extremely easier for cai to find things to flag in your message, whereas if you put a tiny of effort in writing full sentences, it lowers the likelihood as potentially flaggable phrases will get lost in context. you need to put the bot in the mood. just act like you're roleplaying with a regular individual (equivalent exchange!) and it should just happen. if you need further help, google is a wonderful and time-tested invention.

this is just how cai is. i prefer it, because the llm is much better in terms of prose/memory compared to other ais and i enjoy plots supplemented by smut. especially bc i love writing tons in my responses! however, everyone is different, and if you dislike that, options like jai and spicychat seem like a good fit for you <3 hope this helped.

[hwatermelons]

unconventional gender neutral terms of endearment ^^

(mostly made this cause my drafts always have "baby" a million times and then i replace them lol)

- pretty (as in pretty girl/boy, but without the gender word attached) - starlight/my star, sunshine - honestly if you put "my" before anything it could probably work as an endearment - animals: firefly (got the idea from sufjan stevens), bunny, dove, mouse, hamster, hummingbird, penguin, monkey 😭, kitten (this one's kinda popular) - flowers: tulip, rose, sunflower, a flower that's special between your characters - fruits/vegetables: pumpkin, bean, mango, lychee, kiwi, peach, nectarine, apricot, berry(!!), blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, cherry, etc - sweets! a special weakness of mine is sweets from the person saying the endearment's culture. like if someone who was also indian called me their kaju katli i'd melt (but probably not laddu unless it's clear they're teasing and i get back at them 💀). maybe runs the risk of being cringey tho? honestly as long as it's from the sayer's culture and suits their personality it's fine - examples of sweets that don't belong to a certain culture: cookie, brownie - nature: snowflake, raindrop?? (i guess it works if your character has something to do with water), sprout, sapling

and here's some classic gn terms of endearment if your character's more into that: - darling (i see this as a perfect alternative to princess/prince) - love/my love - lovely/beautiful - baby/babe (can be used in both cute and teasing/suggestive moods) - angel (personal favorite of mine!) - dear (it's so "grown old together" vibes, i'm in love with this one for this purpose) - honey, honey pie, sugar, sweet(ie). honestly if they're used for s/os, it feels kinda old-fashioned. but for parent figures saying it to someone much younger that they care about, children or otherwise? (i'm imagining a southern (from america) beekeeper with no children or spouse of her own who sells her famous honey to buy food for the small army of orphaned children that shows up on her front porch every morning for breakfast. and these are the kinds of things she'd call them. perfection.)

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

I just wanted to mess around with some paper backgrounds I downloaded but I’ve also been (re-)listening to this song lately. It’s one I’ve loved for a long time and then it sorta smacked me in the face once I realized how fitting it is for Charis

[sinkingcircus-jpeg]

Hi! I’m sorry, I’ve been trying so hard to think of a good fic prompt to give you, but I can’t think of any that I don’t want to do myself!! So maybe a moodboard with Cg!Sam and Little!Dean? I have a Supernatural agere blog too, it’s little—winchester!

I’ve never made a mood board before so this took a lot of trial and error until i was kinda happy with it !!

CG! Sam and Regressor! Dean Moodbord :3

[some-greatreward]

midnight++ urge to get an electric guitar again...

[siomae]

meet shoosiopao ☁️

💌 decided to make a new intro!

— i started this blog to talk about my college journey, increase my productivity, and share learning resources!

— she/her, 19 years old, college 2nd year, business major

— languages: english, tagalog, learning spanish and korean!

🍪 interests:

— academic: international business, spanish, korean

—other things: crochet, electric guitar, cats, webtoons, digital art/animation, minecraft, and stray kids

🍞 my posts

[essence-inked]

Based on recent events, apparently my stupid hyperactive gremlin exercise takes are helpful, so I figured I may as well cobble them together and make a post about it.

Disclaimer here that not every example I give is going to apply to everyone and all that jazz, but hopefully the broad ideas are useful.

You don’t actually need to do a certain number of reps or miles or whatever - it can be helpful if you want to measure your progress, but if it’s not fun, you can just… not do it. Instead, you can do the thing until it stops being fun, and if your goal is to do the thing better or faster or more, if you keep doing it until it stops being fun, you’ll improve a tiny bit every time, and eventually, you’ll tire out a lot less quickly.

"I should exercise” feels kinda like a non-sequitur to me; there’s a ton of ways you can do that, and a lot of different things it can accomplish. Instead, ask yourself what it is you actually WANT to do (i.e., “I want to have less back pain,” “I want to be outside,” “I want to get better stamina so I can climb this mountain”). And when that’s hard because there are a lot of things you want to do at once and you’re not sure where to start, pick the easiest first, and go from there.

Sometimes you don’t want to stop the thing you’re doing to go move around and junk, and I did not realize that people actually put all their other stuff on hold to go do that? And that's why a lot of people think exercise is boring? Anyways yeah you can watch videos or listen to podcasts or audiobooks or hang out with friends while moving around. I can’t listen to or watch anything without doing something else, so this just sorta Happens for me, but yeah if the idea of exercise sounds boring to you, you can totally spice it up a bit.

Exercise doesn’t need to be rigorous daily routines. It can be (and occasionally, that's helpful if you’re trying to do a specific thing), but it can also just be doing things that involve moving around on a day-by-day basis. Like, it can be “today I want to go find cool rocks in the woods” or “today I feel sore, so I’m going to do some stretches,” or “today I’m going to go swimming because it’s hot as hell.”

Also! Walking around museums is exercise! Helping a friend move is exercise! Splashing around in the ocean is exercise! Moving your body can be the secondary goal of the activity rather than the main one!

If you’re sitting there thinking “man, I need to get out and move around, but I have no clue where to go,” may I suggest a quest? Pull up google maps or apple maps or whatever, and go looking for weird new stuff to explore. And like. You are allowed to walk three miles to an antique shop. You are allowed to bike way out on some backroads and walk into a general store all sweaty and bedraggled. You are allowed to schlep ten blocks through the snow to get to a coffee shop and spend two hours there with a hot drink and a good book.

It’s neat when exercise is the sort of good uncomfortable where it’s challenging and fun, but be aware of when it gets to the bad-uncomfortable point before it actually hurts you (I am prone to not doing this, so reminding myself to not get too wrapped up in stuff is a whole thing). Anyways yeah, make sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard, and remember that limit is different depending on the person.

But yeah basically the crux of this is that making your body feel good should go in tandem with taking care of your mental health, and that exercise is a lot more fun when you’re doing things that you actually want to do, not things that feel like obligations.

[yameoto]

i have like the perfect solution to get around the filter for people who cant be bothered to go all out with creative paragraphs.

im gonna try to explain this best that i can

simply: Editing! & Copying!

so like send an ‘innocent’ message, something that is not at all very likely to trigger a blocked response.

maybe like the first half of something that might not be appropriate.

then when the ai responds with a message that wasn’t blocked EDIT your message. add whatever filthy thing u wanted to put.

and scroll!

so many of the responses get like half way through before they get blocked. So what i do is copy them and paste them into the first message that wasn’t blocked. sometimes i put together a couple of blocked ‘half’ responses to make it longer.

It’s takes some effort still cause it takes a bit of scrolling but it does make it easier for the people that cant be bothered to be all creative with it.

this has so far worked the best for me, and let so much nsfw stuff slip past the block

bless your heart anon. super helpful alternative option!! <3

[r3dblccd]

I love watching tutorial videos about things I would never even try doing for my muses

[insistonyourcupofstars]

you know shit's about to hit the fan when one friend texts you outside of the group chat conversation going on at the same time...

[braincrabart]

Need color inspiration for your art?

- Slim mold/Mold Samples

- insects (butterflies AND moths, mantis, grasshoppers, beetles)

- birds of paradise (dont forget about female birds, they also have good coloring)

- coral reefs, sea anemone, reef fish, crabs

- flowers, but also foreign fruits/poisonous fruits and plants.

And a tip for how to handle your colors-

Do not consider every color flat, instead consider what it is being applied to- consider the texture, pattern and sheen. Sometimes a color is more than one hue, think of metallic or marbled fur- although we can see separation in the colors, they are still acting as a unit. Extend this to patterns and textures as well, what something is will change the appearance of the color entirely- a fluffy rug wont be exactly the same as tile even if they share the same shade of grey.

And learn color theory so you can rip it to shreds. Color theory is not a rule, it is a tool that can be used to refine your colors and find patterns. Simply look up a color theory chart and trust your personal understanding of emotion colors and you’ll be set. Perhaps later ill add on my personal method.

[yoonia]

Hi yoonia I was wondering how you come up with titles for your fanfics I struggle with that

Hello, lovely! I'm so sorry for replying so late!

I have to be honest that I've struggled with titles too. Sometimes I won't know what to call my story until the very last end when I'm about to post lol. I do have a few different ways to find my titles when I need them which might be helpful to try:

Pick from a song title/lyrics

I usually listen to music while I'm writing, so more often than not, I'll get inspired to write a story or get the perfect vibe for my fic from a certain song. When it happens, I would 'borrow' from the song that becomes the fic's music companion or take a part of its lyrics (that's fitting for the theme of the fic) as its title.

You can do this by choosing from a song that may have the same theme as your fic, even if you're not using it as the story's music companion/soundtrack.

Quote from your story

This happens when the title comes AFTER the fic is done or, at the very least, once the storyboarding process is finished. There could be something in the latter part of your story that you can use, whether it's a phrase, a word, maybe from a dialogue between the two characters or something mentioned in a scene, anything that gets the reader to feel like a "roll the credits" moment when they finally get to that part later on.

An altered version of a famous phrase

You might have seen this done before with other stories, even with published books. Find a famous phrase that you like which might sound perfect for your fic, then make your own twist with it by changing a keyword or two that may perfectly describe your fic.

For example: famous phrase: Once upon a time altered version (1): Once Upon An Us (for a story focusing on the characters' relationship) altered version (2): Once Upon A Fantasy (for a series/collab with a fantasy theme)

Use thesaurus as your cheat sheet

I'm sure it's an open secret that I use thesaurus a lot on the side as I write. Feeling stuck with an alternate word to replace something you've repeatedly wrote? Find the options in the thesaurus/dictionary. It's really helpful, I promise. And it's also helpful when you're looking for a one word title that would be impactful enough for your fic to grab your readers' attention.

The key is to choose the right word to describe your story. You can associate that word either with the theme, the general story idea, or even the vibe of your fic. Or you can even use it to describe your character.

Another helpful cheat sheet: book title generator by Reedsy

As explained on the subtitle, this is the ultimate cheat sheet that I use to find ideas for my titles. Reedsy is a helpful website for writers which provides guides and tips in writing. This generator is something that I've used previously, although I'd usually still alter the result by changing a keyword or two so I won't be using the title they generated from their program point blank (I'm assuming it's AI, which is why I'd hate to copy word for word or straight from the result).

If you don't want to use the automatic generator to get you a title for your fic, you can scroll down to read and follow the guide they added in the page to choose the right title for your story.

I hope this is helpful!

[yameoto]

Hey so you're just about the only person I feel decent asking this question, Would you happen to have any tips to make messages more...interesting? I find myself using the same adjectives, ending up in the same spot with different characters, etc, etc. And was just wondering if you had anything i could use to spice things up again.

don’t just “react” to the bot. be proactive! lead the scenario where you think is interesting, get out of the first location, and don’t be afraid to make it wild. roleplay as if you were actually roleplaying with an individual—thread context n backstory in there. the longer and more detailed Your message, the same for the bot.

your own imagination is important! if you’re struggling, it helps to build off the contextual world of the specific bot, and what makes sense.

i.e letting stepsister!quinn drag her poor innocent stepsister out after curfew to see a sleazy rock concert is a vastly different scenario than singlemom!quinn letting you meet her daughter for the first time. OR, these above two would be very different to any theboys!au bots, in which the world means inherent danger, such as using the soldier boy bot (brainwashing him, forcing him to nuke vought etc). BUT, frankly, you can do ALL those scenarios with ALL the bots. how willing you are to suspend your disbelief is the only limit here. quinn can be a merc in training if you wish, just as ben can be your pervy step!brother. woah. might make both bots.

nor do you have to take the bot greeting as holy grail. you can start off the same bot with an entirely new scenario. bots are adaptable! and they’ll follow the new input. i’m guilty of this when i’m too lazy to make a new bot for a character but i still want to rp a different scenario.

basically, bots are NOT fixed. everything can be soft-rewritten by YOUR messages. i tend to get bots out of their starting location as fast as possible.

same goes for YOU! {{user}}. you can be anyone you want to be. you could be a pop star. an olympic gymnast. a member of the mafia. you can bring in so much of your own angst or backstory and thread it into your responses, and lead it in ways that play off your backstory.

i can’t help you with vocabulary unfortunately! this is something that comes with a lot of reading/writing. unless you want a list of synonyms you rote-learn with flashcards. if it’s any comfort to you, nobody is judging you on how many times you use the same words! just be wary the bot may copy your prose and end up very repetitive.

+ for smut, if you’re searching for new scenarios. whatever you find hot.

examples (with explanation) below

doctor!quinn.

one; is almost purely reactionary, however it has a bit of context that alludes to the greater history of the role-play.

two; reactionary, with context threaded through. bot reads subtext just as people do, and can pick it up on the idea 1. quinn/user have been working together for a long time, and that there is familiarity/routine/casual intimacy in their relationship.

three; split. mainly background, though the second paragraph is the actual reaction/response (and what most people would ONLY write!) the first paragraph gives a heapload of info to the bot that it can use to inform their interactions.

fair warning! you don’t need to write as much as me, i tend to get carried away when i actually do roleplay because else i get terribly bored repeating scenarios or not exercising a little bit of effort. i will say, however, it makes for much more rewarding roleplays.

hope this helped <3

[tartagliove]

downloaded love and deepspace... will try playing it tonight I think c: