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[solanum--tuberosum]

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People always imagine the only two answers to the question "is there a hell?" are "yes" and "no", but frankly just about any other answer is way funnier.

Like say;

"not anymore". Somehow, hell used to exist and doesn't anymore. Did the doomguy blow it up? Did God change their mind?

"I hope so!" why would you hope that

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Sort of related to the post I just reblogged about the anti-abortion movement, but:

I think that some people have an impulse in recent times when writing antagonists and villains to shy away having them be acting based on truly held beliefs or even beliefs based on reality.

They have to be grifters or incorrect or misunderstand the world. If they truly believe in something right (correct and/or morally good by whatever standard), if they truly hold their beliefs, then they can be an anti-hero or a minor antagonist but eventually they are revealed to Have Been Right All Along and someone else is the Big Bad of the story.

And there's nothing wrong with doing that, with having the villain be someone who is taking advantage of average people or is lying about their beliefs or whose belief is based in something inaccurate. The villain can be mistaken or confused or just wrong.

But the thing is that, in real life, many people who we see as villains are acting under truly held beliefs that are based largely in reality. The things that make them villains in our view are what they want to do about it.

Part of what galvanized Stewart Rhodes to begin to take action against the U.S. government was his opposition to what he saw as unconstitutional overreaches of the surveillance and detention powers/efforts taken by the federal government in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. It galvanized a lot of people and faced a huge amount of opposition in the years following the attacks. In that sense, not only was this belief "real" but it also would considered "morally good" by many people, including probably most people here on this site.

The problem is that Stewart Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers and has since been convicted of seditious conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, and evidence tampering for his part in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The leaders of Islamic State/Daesh are acting based on truly held beliefs. Bin Laden's demands were based in reality. Many anti-abortion people operate based on an internally-consistent logic and belief system--it may just not be one that makes much sense to or fits the belief of people who disagree with them.

My point here is that you don't need to shy away from villains who have extremely strong beliefs, where "proving them wrong" isn't possible or isn't relevant because they are also acting based on facts, where the problem isn't the validity of the beliefs but the actions they are taking.

In many ways, those can be the hardest villain to stop in stories, because they can't be talked out of what they're doing any more than the protagonist can.

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a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town

academy

adventurer's guild

alchemist

apiary

apothecary

aquarium

armory

art gallery

bakery

bank

barber

barracks

bathhouse

blacksmith

boathouse

book store

bookbinder

botanical garden

brothel

butcher

carpenter

cartographer

casino

castle

cobbler

coffee shop

council chamber

court house

crypt for the noble family

dentist

distillery

docks

dovecot

dyer

embassy

farmer's market

fighting pit

fishmonger

fortune teller

gallows

gatehouse

general store

graveyard

greenhouses

guard post

guildhall

gymnasium

haberdashery

haunted house

hedge maze

herbalist

hospice

hospital

house for sale

inn

jail

jeweller

kindergarten

leatherworker

library

locksmith

mail courier

manor house

market

mayor's house

monastery

morgue

museum

music shop

observatory

orchard

orphanage

outhouse

paper maker

pawnshop

pet shop

potion shop

potter

printmaker

quest board

residence

restricted zone

sawmill

school

scribe

sewer entrance

sheriff's office

shrine

silversmith

spa

speakeasy

spice merchant

sports stadium

stables

street market

tailor

tannery

tavern

tax collector

tea house

temple

textile shop

theatre

thieves guild

thrift store

tinker's workshop

town crier post

town square

townhall

toy store

trinket shop

warehouse

watchtower

water mill

weaver

well

windmill

wishing well

wizard tower

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10 WRITING GOALS PICK A GOAL & PASS IT ON

Obligatory if you don't want a goal either because you don't think you'll do it or because you have one that works for you, then this post isn't for you just ignore or reblog for someone else ^_^

These range in difficulty because I wanted there to be something approachable for everyone

1: Write 200 words everyday

2: Write 400 words everyday

3: Write 500 words everyday

4: Write 50 words everyday

5: Write a sentence everyday

6: Write one paragraph everyday

7: Write a chapter every week

8: Write 1k words every week

9: Write a short story/one-shot every week

10: Write a short story/one-shot every month

I did my best w/ these, again you don't gotta do any if either these are still too big for you [I get that !!] Or if you have a bigger/smaller goal that you do that works for you [or if you simply write better when you don't have a daily/weekly/monthly goal in mind]

My personal daily goal is 200 words a day, which I've been doing the past few days successfully, but who knows if I'll be able to keep it up, but ya know - still good !!!!

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Writing Advice: How to Create Conflict when Your Characters are Competent.

Featuring Leverage, the ultimate in Competency Porn.

Make them so good it gets them in trouble. So you've got a hacker and he's the best, definitively. Okay, well, one of his fake IDs just got called for jury duty. You pretended to be a psychic so well, someone kidnapped you to talk to a dead crime lord.

Make them targets. You're so good, enemies you didn't even know about are trying to kill you just so they won't have to take you on in your element. You're being blackmailed into doing a thing because you're the only one that can.

Limit the scope of competency. Sure, you're competent as a fighter, but your hacker is in jail and now you have to do his job and you are not competent in that. Yeah, you can climb a building, but do you know what you need to do to not end up in a crevasse while climbing a mountain?

Raise the stakes. Can you handle extracting a orphan being used by a washed up actress to fund her extravagant lifestyle? Yes. But can you handle extracting 30 orphans being used by the Slovenian mob to fund gunrunning? Maybe all you wanted was to get enough money to buy back a house, but instead you have to ruin the company so that all houses they illegally obtained are returned to their rightful owners.

Make others competent, too. Your characters are the best, but are they the best of the best? If you take you enemy down, do you go, too? If you win, does it make them win? Does it get out of hand and make other people start noticing when you're trying to keep your head down? Do they know every trick in the book and know the next move before you make it?

Make others painfully incompetent. Your characters are the best, but are they woefully unprepared for people who are not even good? Can your hologram hacker roll with it when the vital information is on a casset tape? Is the old mentor up to date on the recent technology, or is he going to screw you because he assumes the cops are just as corrupt/incompetent as when he was young?

Have some standards. Specifically, morals that make it impossible for your characters to back out or gets them in trouble for doing things "off-script." You can't leave on the train someone just stole for you because you've got to go back and stop the bad guys from bombing the IRS (even if we don't like them). You wish you could just say no to that assassin contract and leave, but someone's getting assassinated and you have to stop it because you're a good guy.

Bring up the past. Do you think that bad guy you brutally scarred a decade ago is going to carry a grudge? Do you have to save your ex-wife from the bad guy, who may also be her boyfriend, and if you suggest that she'll shut you out and you won't be able to save her or get paid? It's Draaamaaaa, babee.

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Humans are adorable.

Supporting evidence:

1. Humans say ‘ow’, even if they haven’t actually been hurt. It’s just a thing they say when they think they might have been hurt, but aren’t sure yet.

2. Humans collect shiny things and decorate their bodies and nests with them. The shinier the better, although each individual has a unique taste for style and colouring

3. Humans are not an aquatic or even amphibious species, but they flock to bodies of water simply to play in it. They can’t even hold their breath all that long; they just love to splash!

4. When night falls and the sky goes dark, humans become drowsy and begin to cocoon themselves in soft, fluffy bedding.

5. Some humans spend time in each other’s nests! Just for fun! It’s not their nest; they’re just visiting each other.

6. Some humans use pigments and dyes to make their bodies flashy and colourful! They even attach shiny dangly bits to their cartalidgous membranes!

7. Humans are very clever, and sometimes adopt creatures from other species into their family units. They don’t seem to notice the obvious differences, and often raise them alongside their own young!

8. If a human sees another creature in distress, they can commonly be observed trying to help! Even at their own risk, most humans are deeply compassionate creatures!

9. If a human hears a particularity catchy sound or tune, it will often mimic it, even to the point of annoying themselves!

10. Sneezes are entirely involuntary, and completely adorable. Especially when the human in question becomes frustrated

11. Humans love treats!!! Some more than others. Many humans will save these treats specifically for a later date when they are in need of comfort or reassurance. IE, pickles, pop tarts, Popsicles, etc

12. They’re learning to travel in space!!! They can’t get very far, but they’re trying!!! So far, they’ve made it to the end of their yard, and have found rocks

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if you're a writer i wish u a very plot/story/character epiphany

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me, having deeply fallen out of the practice of writing poetry: I can’t write any more, I am now a Talentless Hack

the voice of my 11th grade journalism/12th grade creative writing teacher who rly did know everything: if you stop writing for a while the words will build up and stagnate. to clear the water, you will have to open the dam completely, and accept the fact that what initially comes out will not be palatable

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My favourite trope has to be:

I sacrificed myself to save you. I didn't plan to survive. I burnt all the bridges. I intended to break your heart with my death, but that would be all right, because I wouldn't be around to see you. I pretended that you'll mourn me for a while and move on. I convinced myself I was going down in the blaze of glory. That my deed was appreciated. That everything was going to be all right afterwards, and I didn't need to be there to see it.

But I survived. And now I have to look you in the eye. I have to pick up the pieces of the life I shattered and figure out how to put it back together. If it can be done at all.

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Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

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actually not emotional over graduating university, just over losing my jstor access

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One of the best writing advice I have gotten in all the months I have been writing is "if you can't go anywhere from a sentence, the problem isn't in you, it's in the last sentence." and I'm mad because it works so well and barely anyone talks about it. If you're stuck at a line, go back. Backspace those last two lines and write it from another angle or take it to some other route. You're stuck because you thought up to that exact sentence and nothing after that. Well, delete that sentence, make your brain think because the dead end is gone. It has worked wonders for me for so long it's unreal

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Some advice for when you’re writing and find yourself stuck in the middle of a scene:

kill someone

ask this question: “What could go wrong?” and write exactly how it goes wrong

switch the POV from your current character to another - a minor character, the antagonist, anyone

stop writing whatever scene you’re struggling with and skip to the next one you want to write

write the ending

write a sex scene

use a scene prompt

use sentence starters

read someone else’s writing

Never delete. Never read what you’ve already written. Pass Go, collect your $200, and keep going.

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Let's say a character with some sort of crazy hearing/sensory enhancements has the ability to pick up on the sound of someone's heart beat. If they had this ability... theoretically, would they be able to hear a heart attack before the person felt it? What would it should like? How much notice would they be able to provide??

Ooh, really good question, anon.

The answer is... potentially.

In order to explain why, we have to talk a little about what hearts sound like to the people who are trained to listen to them.

A healthy heart has 2 sounds per beat- Lub and Dub, also called S1 and S2. You can hear this in your own heart or a friend's if you have a stethoscope (or just an ear you can press against a friend) and listen at one of these locations:

You'll hear a heart that probably sounds like Lub-Dub Lub-Dub Lub-Dub, etc... The Lubs are S1 and the Dubs are S2. One Lub-Dub (S1-S2) cycle is a single heart beat.

But there are other sounds that can be heard if someone has a problem with their heart. For example, if one of the heart's 4 valves has a leak in it, you might hear a "Shhh" sound somewhere between or around the Lub and Dub. Like Lub-Shhh-Dub or Lub-Dub-Shhh. Depending on which part of the chest the "Shhh" sound is audible, you can tell which valve is faulty.

You might also hear an S3 or S4 sound. S3 and S4 are "extra" sounds that occur during the heart cycle. An S3 sound is like a "Uhh" and happens at the end of the Dub (Lub-Dub-Uhh). An S4 sound sounds like a "Buh" and weirdly enough happens before the Lub (Buh-Lub-Dub).

For the purpose of your question what we really want to focus on is that S4 sound. This is a sound that almost universally occurs in the early stages (first 1-3 days) of a heart attack.

See, the S4 sound is the sound of the top of the heart (atrium) straining as it tries to push blood into a damaged, overgrown, or swollen lower part of the heart (ventricle). Since heart attacks cause damage to the ventricle(s), you get this sound pretty soon after the damage starts occurring. You can even tell where the damage is in the heart (left or right) by where on the chest you hear the S4 most clearly.

But since heart attacks are not the only reason for damage to the ventricle, hearing an S4 sound does necessarily mean that a heart attack is currently occurring. It could have been that the person has had a heart attack in the past and they have scarring on their ventricle(s). It could also mean that they have had high blood pressure for a long time and their left ventricle is bigger and stiffer than it is supposed to be. It could be that they have heart failure and there is more pressure in their ventricles than there should be. It could be that they had an infection in their heart that left scarring in the past. It could be a problem they were born with.

Since these are all chronic problems, what your character would have to notice is a sudden start of an S4, probably combined with other symptoms. When the S4 sound starts, these symptoms might not be the "classic" heart attack symptoms yet. They might be feeling "off" or more out of breath than usual, or more tired than usual, or they might have some mild nausea or indigestion.

Your character might be able to provide at least a few hours of notice before the more classic symptoms show up.