#something to be said that with the three examples i used

[gin-juice-tonic]

Hi! I really love your comics and the 80s ford sim! The time you took to make it is amazing and I like reading the dialogue you post :D I love seeing transfalls comics and just, the dialogue and scenarios are a comforting and funny read!

I was wondering if you have any advice or tips on how to write Ford? Have a wonderful day!

Hello, thank you for the nice words. I'm happy you like my things.

Instead of telling you my own beliefs about how Ford acts/talks specifically, I thought maybe I could break this advice down into something more general. At least to start. Writing for a pre-existing character to me is generally broken up into two big things: Their Personality Traits and their Manner of Speech.

When you are trying to figure out how to write someone, I think it would be helpful to think about things that really stand out in your memory that they either did or said, and then try to find commonalities between those things. And what they have in common may indicate a character trait or the way they talk.

If we were to use Ford as an example, some things I think of when I think of him are (under the cut):

The grin on his face when describing his very illegal infinity-sided die in DDmD, His "My face is on fire!" stunt from vs the Future, and his re-arranging of Fiddlefords cube in J3.

If we were to look at what these moments have in common, I would say they indicate Ford is a bit mischievous.

Another set: his "Princess Unattainabelle beckons you" from DDmD, his "Say Hop! It helps!" and "Your turn!" after using his magnet gun in vs the Future, and his general love of puns in the Journal.

I think these are all good examples of Ford's goofier side. That he's a playful guy.

Those would fall under the Character Traits half of writing him.

For the Manner of Speech bit, it helps to look at how certain lines are structured, or the context under which he says them. These examples will be a little longer due to being a whole line written out...

Set #1:

"On the dark, weird road I travel, I'm afraid you cannot follow. ...Welp! call me for dinner!" From DDmD

"If I rolled it, anything could happen. Our faces could melt into jelly. The world could turn into an egg! ...Or you could just roll an 8. Who knows." Also from DDmD

"So this is how the world ends, not with a Bang, but with a Boop-Boop." From Weird Part 1

All three of these lines have Ford speak in a manner that gives the feeling he is talking about something of some importance/seriousness. Only for him to end his line with something silly and tone breaking. He does this pretty often I feel. Or at least I'm guilty of overusing it, because I always find it funny lol.

Set #2:

"I like this kid! She's weird!" From Tale of Two Stans

"Your math is no match for my gun, you idiot!" From DDmD

"I can assure you if there's an owl in this bag he's long dead." From Last Mabelcorn

There's three different moods going on in these lines, happy, mad, and just kinda neutral. But personally I find them all to be instances of Ford speaking in a very frank manner.

Now, further context in this case is I think important here. This is sort of in a way a variation of the first set I mentioned, because outside of these lines Ford spends a lot of his dialogue speaking in a more formal, intellectual/eloquent way. So this is sort of another way he breaks his own tone.

Another notable piece of context about these three lines is they're all reactions to something said/done by someone else. (The first and third are after talking to Mabel, the second being a reaction to a threat from Probabilitor.)

So to put that all together, you get "Breaking his standard manner of speech, Ford (sometimes) reacts in a frank manner to other characters." Generally this happens as a joke.

So those are some examples. Of both the character trait thing and the speech pattern stuff. I did them as sets, but if an individual line or action feels prominent enough, you could analyze it by itself too.

Obviously there's a lot about Ford that this doesn't encompass, but I hope the method helps you think about how to portray what YOU see in Ford. And you do not have to follow the way I view him. "What lines/things stand out to you" is going to be different for person to person. Maybe you have other lines/ideas you find more defining for him, or maybe even viewing the same lines/ideas, you have different feelings of what they indicate. That's okay too.

[orellazalonia]

May I request s fic of femteen reader x the avengers and she has ocd (not the cleaning kind, she likes threes and can't step on lines if does has to Pat head 3 times) ❤️❤️❤️

Hello there! Since I do not have OCD, I did my best to try and create scenarios to reflect your request. I remember I used to love reading the teen!reader x Avengers fics when I was younger, so this was also fun to complete! Thank you for the request and I hope you enjoy! Happy reading!!!

Watching Over You

Summary: You never expected to fit in with the Avengers, but they learned your ways without demanding explanations; adapting to your quiet, your patterns, and the way you moved through the world. (Avengers x teen!reader)

Word Count: 1.3k+

Main Masterlist

You weren’t exactly part of the team. Not officially. Not like the others with codenames and backstories.

You were… around.

Sometimes that meant helping Bruce recalibrate things in the lab with Peter while the latter talked too fast and handed you snacks without looking. Other times it meant dragging a beanbag into the corner of the common room and watching movies you didn’t pick, staying quiet even when you hated the noise.

They didn’t mind that you didn’t talk much. Or that you didn’t laugh when Sam made jokes about Cap’s age. Or that you always sat on the fourth stair going up even if you had to count and move again to get it right.

You liked corners. Rooms with even lighting. People who didn’t point out the small things you did to feel okay. You liked structure, even if you didn’t explain it out loud. You were used to people not getting it. But here, they didn’t press.

For example, most mornings, you found the kitchen before Sam did. You liked it best before the rest of the Compound woke up, before Tony came in humming to his own brilliance, or Steve started rearranging mugs by "functionality" instead of color. At six a.m., the world belonged to no one, and you liked that.

You sat at the table with a book you weren’t really reading, tracing the corner of the page but not folding it. You didn’t like the idea of a permanent bend.

When Sam walked in, he didn’t comment on the early hour or your bare feet on the chair. He just muttered something about “blessed caffeine” and moved toward the machine like it owed him a favor. He didn’t ask you anything. Not even “how are you,” which you appreciated because those kinds of questions never had short answers.

He poured his coffee and sat across from you like it was just another Tuesday.

“Want some tea or hot chocolate or something?” He offered, already halfway out of his seat.

You shook your head. You liked the quiet too much.

He nodded and settled back down, sipping his drink and scrolling through his phone with the kind of energy that said I’m awake but barely. A few minutes passed in that soft silence.

“You always sit in this chair?” He asked eventually, not in a suspicious way, more like someone noticing the weather.

“Yeah,” You said, then paused. “It’s the best one.”

“Fair,” He said with a slight grin. “It doesn’t squeak like mine.”

That was it. That was the whole conversation. No probing. No judgment. Just a shared moment in the corner of a too-big kitchen.

And the next morning, he didn’t take your chair. He didn’t even glance at it. He just came in, nodded like he was greeting a coworker on shift, and sat across from you again.

You found you didn’t mind it. You didn’t mind him.

But he wasn’t the only one who learned more about your ways.

You weren’t sure when it started happening. You started noticing little shifts in the way the Compound breathed when you walked through it.

Like how Steve started greeting you with a simple nod instead of a cheerful “Good morning” that used to make your chest tighten. Or how Natasha stopped patting your shoulder in passing, because she noticed you’d flinch just slightly every time. She never asked why. She just… didn’t do it anymore.

You noticed their efforts. You noticed everything.

For example, Wanda was different. She didn’t stop certain things, but she started asking. “Can I sit with you?” “Is this too loud?” “Do you want to leave?”

She didn’t take offense if the answer was no or if you didn’t answer at all. She just nodded and adapted. You liked Wanda. She wore her grief gently and gave you space to carry yours however you needed.

Meanwhile, Clint was unpredictable, but oddly safe. He made dumb jokes and stood in doorways like he was half ready to leave, but when you talked, really talked which was rare, he listened with all his attention on you, like your words were codes to be cracked. One afternoon, he brought you three flavors of the same brand of granola bar and just left them on the counter.

No note or anything. You stared at them for ten minutes. Then chose the middle one. He never said a word, but the next time he went shopping, the middle flavor was stocked in the pantry for you.

And then there was Bucky.

He was hard to read at first. He was quiet in a way that felt different from your quiet. Not shy, not small. More like… weighed down. Like he was carrying a version of himself he didn’t always want to be near.

You didn’t try to talk to him. You figured he liked his silence uninterrupted.

But one evening, when you found yourself frozen in the hallway, foot hovering mid-step because there was a jagged crack that interrupted the tile pattern, it was Bucky who found you.

He didn’t say anything. Just glanced down, saw the line, and waited.

You didn’t move yet, couldn’t. So he stepped forward and stood beside you, not touching, just present. And after a moment, he casually lifted his foot and stepped over the crack.

You followed. Heart pounding, but safe.

That was it. He walked with you the rest of the way to the common room like nothing had happened. He even tossed you the remote when you sat down, like you were just another person choosing the movie.

After that, Bucky never rushed or walked ahead of you. Not in hallways, not when getting off the elevator. Instead, he matched your pace, even if it slowed or paused.

Sometimes you caught him watching you. Not in a suspicious way. More like… someone reading an unfamiliar book, not wanting to miss the meaning between the lines.

However, Tony was the last to figure you out.

To his credit, he tried. But at first it was with too much noise, too many “funny” nicknames and sudden gifts and offers to build you “a robot that tells people to leave you alone.”

You flinched. Not because of him, exactly, but just the way he stormed into rooms like he expected the universe to revolve or get out of his way.

You avoided his lab for a while. It was cluttered, confusing, and loud.

Until one day, you passed by and noticed something different. There was a space in the lab that looked like a lounge area, surprisingly tidy with three bean bag chairs and a few other items to decorate the cozy-looking space.

You paused, confused. Tony caught the hesitation.

“Thought you might like it,” He said casually, eyes on a tablet. “Three’s a good number, yeah?”

You nodded.

He didn’t grin or tease. Just flicked a switch and dimmed the lights slightly. “Stay or don’t. Your call.”

You stayed. You didn’t talk much. Just sat and listened to the soft hum of tech and watched him work. And when he offered you a headphones, not to listen to anything but just to block out the sound, you accepted.

Even though he never really asked what you needed, he kept an eye on your purchase history and started leaving some of your preferred comfort items out and available if you ever dropped by.

And overtime time, you stopped bracing yourself in doorways. You didn’t have to map escape routes every time you entered a room. You still had your habits. You still tapped things three times, sometimes more. Still couldn’t explain why your chest felt like it might collapse when your shoelaces weren’t even.

But you weren’t made to feel broken for it.

They never told you to stop. They never criticized you, thought you were weird, or teased you about any of it either. They simply watched, learned, and adjusted.

[edward-cabrini]

My thoughts on defensive vs. aggressive writing as a Dark Fantasy author

The TL;DR is that you can't write defensively. It's dishonest to yourself and your intent, reader's will see that and immediately disengage with the content. That is, only if you write genre fiction or more comedic things. Dark Fantasy is different beast altogether. Dark Fantasy deals with some of the most terrible aspects of being human, if you write defensively about such material it's like saying you don't think a particular trauma is really all that bad. In your attempt to not push the reader and refrain from going too dark, you've made yourself and the trauma a joke. At least for me, my writing is a way to discuss the various traumas, internal conflicts, and societal problems others and myself either have or could experience. It can be damaging to try to mitigate the very real traumas people have experienced by attempting to skip over, the often times, brutal reality of various traumas. You have to write with 100% sincerity and not shy away from the horror. With that said, the inverse is also true. It's one thing to skip over the terrible nature of a thing, it's worse to worship it. By which I mean, reframing a terrible act by obsessing over it's details to the point it becomes aggressive/accusatory or even fetishistic. It can certainly become quite easy to get lost in the weeds of prose and metaphor but a good reread will help spot the problems and you can roll it back. I would certainly encourage all Dark Fantasy authors to have someone else read their work, ideally someone who will tell you, "What the fuck is this?!" When they comes across something that's not a good portrayal of a traumatic moment. Having read all that you might think I'd advise a middle of the road approach. Afterall, I told you that writing Dark Fantasy should be done with 100% sincerity. However, being sincere doesn't mean a taking the middle road between extremes. To be sincere in your Dark fantasy writing you need to carefully utilize three things.

Character

Narrator

Narrative

Your character is the victim(s) or perpetrator(s), what are they seeing? What are they feeling? What can they smell? What are they thinking? What are they doing? The answers to these questions will inform what you think is most important to get across. How you should portray those things comes next. Your narrator is you. The omniscient presence describing the scene. Now, not all books have a narrator as such, but they still have you. You need to put yourself in the position of your character(s), think hard about how it was to be them or how it would be to be in their shoes. Use those feelings to colour your language as you write the scene. Lastly there's the narrative. Everything has a preamble and an aftermath. Even surprise violence has a preamble, for example your protagonist might've seen a headline about a mugging near their workplace a few chapters before. Alternatively it can be as brief as seeing a blur of movement or a hearing quick footsteps. Preamble let's your reader prepare; it sets the tone. That isn't to say you essentially put a big warning label before things happen, rather, you create the set up for things to happen, even you don't fire the gun until much later. The other half of the narrative is the aftermath. In my humble opinion this is what makes Dark Fantasy a genre that is more than just monsters, violence, and gore. What are the immediate consequences for what your characters have gone through? How have their relationships to each other changed? How will your characters interact with your setting after the traumatic event? It can be hard to expose your inner most thoughts for all to see, especially with the fear of reprisals for writing content that can be critical or otherwise considered distasteful. I think you should still try anyway, even if people do pull your work apart and hate it, it's worth writing for yourself if nothing else.

[talentforlying]

interesting to think about how constantine isn't commonly read as being the most morally upright of characters, and that's generally a fair assessment. but at the same time he can still be a surprisingly ethical character, particularly in terms of the values he holds synonymous with being a good community member.

a couple examples of (what i think are) his most consistently held values throughout the hellblazer series:

constantine feels very strongly about things like defending people's bodily autonomy and showing kindness & compassion towards society's more vulnerable demographics, especially kids & unhoused people.

he frequently & sincerely upholds the basic principles of xenia (showing hospitality towards foreigners, guests, and anyone whose fate is in your hands), and possesses a deep, innate sense of justice that he is unafraid to uphold when he feels it necessary to do so.

he personally values survival above honor but still has a healthy appreciation for people that are committed to a code,

he respects integrity more than he'd respect a good liar (even if he fucking hates you, at least you're being true to yourself; can't help it if yourself is just a prick),

and he is CONSTANTLY PLAGUED by a deeply personal sense of social responsibility to try and nip potential threats to the world, to his city, or to his friends in the bud if he thinks it might be within his capabilities to do so.

of course, it's key to note that constantine's code of ethics was also founded primarily in accordance with the principles of '70s-'80s counterculture + still largely abides by the social beliefs of the same-era punk community, and thus also includes more subjectively-judged tenets such as challenging the establishment, defying the government, protecting individual liberties, taking direct action in support of your community, putting people above possessions at every turn, and actively addressing social issues wherever / whenever you encounter them. so he's not always viewed by other characters (particularly upper-class bootlicking ones) as being particularly ethical. doesn't change the fact that constantine still adamantly maintains certain major ethical principles in accordance with the social systems he inhabits and was raised in.

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

Okay, I have 'returned' from my minor Tumblr absence. I say 'returned' because I never truly properly left, as you might've noticed from the few things that I reblogged onto my main and whatnot. Part of it was just a break, but the other major part of it was... I went to a concert!!! Of one of my favorite bands that means so, so much to me.

Big tangent below that isn't very selfshippy related.

Now, I don't know how much I mention NSP on here, perhap's I have once or twice when talking about songs that I've added to my F/Os playlists, but I don't think I ever really went on anything too lengthy. And I know I've mentioned Game Grumps a few times on here as well- definitely not as much as Jerma- but One of the co-hosts of Game Grumps is the lead singer in NSP, and both NSP and Game Grumps mean a lottt to me, even if I don't mention them often. They've gotten me through a lot for a very long amount of years, ever since I was around 11~ish. Made me laugh, helped me sleep, relax, entertained me, and have said a lot of motivational and heartwarming things that have helped kept me going. Getting tickets to go see the band was nearly entirely on impulse, which is something that I don't really ever do, but this was beyond worth it. It... it felt like it reset my brain, almost. If that makes any sense. Like my brain was a computer that had been running on sleep mode ever since it first booted up and finally got restarted for the first time ever. I'm upset that I can't have the entire thing burned into my memory second by second cause it was incredible. The lights and noises were overwhelming at first and I had moments questioning if I should regrettably step away but I managed to cool myself down. It was magical, there was some crying, there still IS some crying, and probably always will be, and they did some really cool "Hey, however you identify or who you love is completely okay with us." TWRP was also there, which is a slightly longer story, but they were also brilliant. I used up a lot of my energy and tears during their songs that I didn't have any left for the songs that I actually anticipated crying over! I could go on for ages about it, but I wouldn't have chosen anything else. I actually think I needed this. It feels like I can think like...better. More clearly. I feel more relaxed about my future and spending money and just...UGH. There are the watery eyes. Maybe because I anticipated crying during some of the NSP songs it didn't hit me, but the TWRP stuff really came at me from out of left field and the little intermission dialog and..man. maaann. It was really funny as well and. I wish I could remember it forever I really really do. I never thought I would ever get to see any artists that I enjoyed live, honestly. Most of them don't tour anymore or are all UK based, and I didn't know if or when NSP would tour again, nonetheless if they would be anywhere close to me. I HAD to. And I'm glad I did.

I know this perhaps sounds like every other description expereince of someone going to a concert but.It just felt so good. To be in a room where I practically felt like I could just.. be myself. I will say the worst thing to come from all of this is just potentially slowly forgetting details and that now I will get FOMO over any and all future concerts that they ever have. Concerts aren't really my thing but that.. was magic. And inspiration and awe and. I still can't get over TWRP's songs and the little intermissions about the lead singer hyping us up over our humanly hidden potentials.

It's almost hard to listen to any of their songs now after listening to them live! My phone camera desperately needs to be cleaned so the few pictures that I got during the moment we were allowed to have phones out are really fuzzy. I got a really good spot standing at the top of some small staircases so I could see over everyone(and it was also a good spot to sit/lean against the railings). It was worth it. it was worth it all. It was worth the sleepiness and hunger and thirst and frustrations. In fact it exceeded that.

I also got to stop by an IHOP and BurgerKing and ironically I love both of those places and yet neither of them are within like an hour drive of me.

[longagoitwastuesday]

While I loved that interaction, that is all we got about something that could be taken as two of the most important (alive) people in Gojo's life mentioning him, thinking of him with fondness, or coming anywhere close to mourning him.

Then we got two pages of resolution of whatever emotional turmoil these two have going on

[matt-murdockk]

Statistically Speaking

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

words: 600 words

summary: Spencer thought he was in a long-term relationship— turns out, he forgot to tell her.

warnings: none, babe. this is pure fluff <3

“Come on, man,” Derek said, arms folded as he stared Spencer down across the break room table. “You can’t just read a thousand relationship books and think that’s the same as the real thing.”

Spencer looked up from the folder in his lap, utterly unbothered. “Thirty-nine books. And they’re peer-reviewed studies. It’s not about anecdotes, it’s about data.”

Penelope leaned over her coffee, eyes sparkling. “Oh boy. He’s going full empirical. This should be good.”

“It’s not that I think I understand relationships,” Spencer continued, adjusting his glasses. “It’s just that I recognize functional dynamics when I see them. And I happen to know what one looks like.”

Derek snorted. “Yeah? Like what, The Notebook?”

“No,” Spencer said. “Like me and Y/N.”

There was a beat of silence.

Y/N, seated two chairs down with a half-drunk coffee in her hand, turned very slowly. “I’m sorry, what now?”

Spencer blinked at her like she’d asked if water was wet. “What?”

“What do you mean ‘you and me’?”

He frowned, confused. “I mean us. Our dynamic. It’s a prime example of a healthy relationship.”

Garcia dropped her muffin.

Derek leaned in like he was about to watch a car crash in slow motion. “Go on.”

Spencer tilted his head at Y/N. “You seriously didn’t know?”

She blinked. “Know what exactly?”

“That we’re in a relationship. Or— at least something adjacent to one. I assumed we were both aware of that.”

Y/N stared at him.

Spencer, sensing the disbelief, leaned back in his chair and began to list things off like he was briefing a case. “We text every night before bed. You bring me coffee the way I like it— three sugars, not stirred— almost every day, without asking. I’ve picked you up from the airport twice. You’ve stayed over at my apartment more than once, and you steal my hoodies.”

“That’s just…” She trailed off, looking helplessly at Garcia, who was frozen mid-bite.

Spencer wasn’t done.

“We hold hands when we walk across busy streets. You braid my hair when I’m stressed. I read you poetry once and you cried, which I took as a positive emotional response and not distress.”

Y/N slowly set her coffee down. “Okay.”

“I’ve memorized your Chipotle order,” Spencer added, like that sealed it.

“Okay.”

Spencer leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “We literally hold hands all the time.”

“…Okay, yeah, I see where I went wrong.”

Derek lost it.

Garcia was fanning herself with a napkin, whispering “my stars” under her breath.

Y/N looked like she was debating the moral and logistical weight of throwing herself into the nearest garbage can.

Spencer, meanwhile, just looked vaguely betrayed. “How did you not know?”

She gave him a look. “Because you never said it out loud?”

“I thought it was implied!”

Derek clapped once, loud. “Oh, I live for this.”

Garcia blinked. “Cool, so I’ve been third-wheeling a relationship that wasn’t even technically happening. Love that for me.”

Y/N turned back to Spencer, who was still trying to solve the mystery of how she missed this.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

“No,” he said, after a beat. “Just… surprised. I really thought we were on the same page.”

“Well.” She exhaled, slow and a little amused. “We are now.”

Spencer tilted his head. “Does this mean we’re officially dating?”

Y/N shrugged. “Statistically speaking?”

That got the smallest smile out of him.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

a/n: first spencer fic can i get a whoop whoop (i hope this is good, oh god)

[prokopetz]

I apologise if you've already answered this, but I tried searching your blog and I'm unsure if you haven't or if it's another example of Tumblr's amazing search system.

I was talking with a friend recently about how much of a culture clash the Monk Class is compared to the rest of Dungeons & Dragons and was wondering if there is a coherent reason for their original inclusion. I'm aware that they're largely influenced by Shaolin monks as depicted in Hong Kong cinema in the 70's/80's as compared to the Sword and Sorcery stuff most of the rest of D&D takes influence from.

Basically, my question ultimately boils down to, "Is the Monk Class there purely because of an original player wanting to rule of cool their way into playing something wildly out of genre, or is there a stronger link between Sword and Sorcery and Hong Kong cinema that could have organically resulted in the Monk Class joining the rest of the classes?"

A lot of the link between the two was simply a matter of time and place. The kung fu craze hit North America at just about exactly the same time as the sword and sorcery revival that gave us films like Clash of the Titans and Beastmaster and The Sword and the Sorcerer and Dragonslayer and Krull – not to mention the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan adaptation, which revived popular interest in first-wave sword and sorcery literature – so there was a lot of it going around. Analysis of early Dungeons & Dragons as a product of its media influences often overlooks that it was largely drawing on what was trendy in American popular media in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Even the tonally incongruous Lord of the Rings references weren't a deep cut; while the books were originally published in the 1950s, they'd experienced a strong resurgence in the 1970s, putting them firmly in the popular consciousness at the time that D&D was being developed. All this being the case, it's not surprising that early D&D was also substantially influenced by Hong Kong action cinema.

That said, the reason the monk character class in particular (i.e., as opposed to kung fu media influences more generally) is there is allegedly because one specific guy in one of the game's early playtest groups really, really wanted to play as Remo Williams from Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir's The Destroyer; several of the class's signature abilities are direct references to powers Williams exhibits in the course of the novels. Remarks from folks who worked at TSR at the time have pointed the finger at Brian Blume as the Remo Williams fan in question, though accounts are conflicted whether Blume was actually an uncredited contributor to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor (1975), in which the class makes its first proper appearance, or whether Blume's interest merely prompted its inclusion.

This is the case for the character archetypes in a lot tabletop RPGs of that era; instead of trying to work out what classes "ought" be be present, authors would simply start with the types of characters their playtesters actually wanted to play, often based on specific popular media characters, then work backwards to derive an IC rationale for why those were the setting's standard adventuring professions. Other examples from D&D in particular most obviously include the Ranger (based on Tolkien's Aragon, naturally), but also the Paladin (principally inspired by Holger Carlsen from Poul Anderson's 1961 isekai novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, also the source of D&D's goofy regenerating trolls), the Assassin, back when it was still a separate character class (probably mainly based on the Assassin Caste from John Norman's Gor), and even the Wizard to a large extent (less Gandalf than you'd think: a large portion of D&D's iconic wizard spell list is lifted directly from the 1963 Vincent Price film The Raven).

(I often think that modern indie RPGs could benefit from reviving this approach. Like, fuck textual consistency – just pick half a dozen of your favourite popular media characters without regard for the compatibility of the source material and work backwards to explain why these six random assholes are your game's playable archetypes!)

[3liza]

i said this YEARS ago when the 'vibes based literacy" discussion started because i had been reading about dyslexia to try to help my partner at the time, who was undiagnosed: the book about dyslexia that i was reading described precisely the techniques used in the "contextual guessing" reading education system, but as dysfunctional adaptations by dyslexic children. the contect guessing and memorization thing is a way of teaching entire generations of children to be functionally dyslexic, a profound and devastating disability, when they do not have dyslexia and do not need to have it. it's horrifying. it was how my partner read things, and watching him try to read something out loud was extremely demonstrative of the struggle he was having.

ken goodman probably had dyslexia and didn't know it, it's the most common learning disability in the world, an estimated 20% of all humans on earth have some degree of it.

In the paper, Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues: 1. graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?) 2. syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?) 3. semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?) Goodman concluded that: Skill in reading involves not greater precision, but more accurate first guesses based on better sampling techniques, greater control over language structure, broadened experiences and increased conceptual development. As the child develops reading skill and speed, he uses increasingly fewer graphic cues.

he's completely wrong, this not how fully literate people read. this is how dyslexic people read. fully literate people are using phonics and the alphabet all the time, that's how we read so fast and so easily, even texts that we're unfamiliar with or that aren't in our native language. i can scan a page of italian, french or norwegian and get the gist of it even though i don't speak the languages. i can sound out those words and pronounce them, even if im pronouncing them incorrectly, just by reading the actual letters and phonemes.

relying on context to predict which word comes next is what leads to the kind of aphasia dyslexics often exhibit not only while reading, but when speaking aloud. my partner would swap words that were contextually correct but not what he actually meant all the time. for example if he wanted me to hand him a blue comb lying nearby on a table, he would say "could you please hand me the green brush?" or if he was describing a cat he saw, he would often swap in another contextually-related word, one that sounded the same, like "bat", or one that was conceptually related but incorrect, like "dog". as a result i had to ask him to clarify or repeat himself many times to figure out what he was trying to say. it created profound problems for him and separated him from me and everyone else. the worst part is that he was barely aware of this. when he was driving it was extremely difficult for him to follow or give directions because he would swap out "left" and 'right" randomly.

you cant actually read like this.

She thinks the students who learned three cueing were actually harmed by the approach. "I did lasting damage to these kids. It was so hard to ever get them to stop looking at a picture to guess what a word would be. It was so hard to ever get them to slow down and sound a word out because they had had this experience of knowing that you predict what you read before you read it."

[lili-home-to-embraces-and-hugs]

There is a swear jar in the manor. But it is not for the kids. It is for Bruce. And he is LOSING.

It started as a joke.

Steph put a jar on the kitchen counter. Labeled it:

"Daddy Issues Compensation Fund (sponsored by Wayne Industries)"

Underneath, in smaller handwriting:

“Bruce, every time you say something emotionally repressed or vaguely threatening, that’s $1. Swears are $2. Saying 'I’m fine' when you’ve clearly been stabbed is $5.”

They have made over $6,000.

Examples of Donations:

“Justice is a burden I must bear alone.” — $1

“There is no room for rest in war.” — $1

“It’s just a graze.” (stab wound) — $5

“Damn it, Jason.” — $2

“I’m not angry. I’m disappointed.” — $10 (bonus charge. that one hurts.)

Steph: “We’re buying a hot tub with his emotional avoidance.”

Tim: “I’m funding my college tuition off his trauma.”

Cass: Simply drops in a twenty every time Bruce walks into a room because she knows it’s inevitable.

Damian: “I will not contribute to this… unless he says something cringe.”

Jason: “He said ‘I don’t need help.’ That’s a full twenty.”

Dick: “He grunted and walked away when I said ‘I love you.’ I’m emptying his wallet.

Alfred contributes.

Not money but quotes.

He writes them on a little notepad titled:

“Bruce Wayne Said This Out Loud”

includes:

“Happiness is a distraction.”

“He’s not dead. He’s just in a coma. That’s a win.”

“I’ve trained myself to need only two hours of sleep and raw guilt.”

“That’s not blood, it’s narrative consequence."

The jar had to be replaced three times because it overflowed.

Now it’s a safe.

A literal miniature vault.

They installed a card reader.

Bruce is legally not allowed to use the Batcomputer until he pays his daily total.

[physalian]

How to make your writing sound less stiff

Just a few suggestions. You shouldn’t have to compromise your writing style and voice with any of these, and some situations and scenes might demand some stiff or jerky writing to better convey emotion and immersion. I am not the first to come up with these, just circulating them again.

1. Vary sentence structure.

This is an example paragraph. You might see this generated from AI. I can’t help but read this in a robotic voice. It’s very flat and undynamic. No matter what the words are, it will be boring. It’s boring because you don’t think in stiff sentences. Comedians don’t tell jokes in stiff sentences. We don’t tell campfire stories in stiff sentences. These often lack flow between points, too.

So funnily enough, I had to sit through 87k words of a “romance” written just like this. It was stiff, janky, and very unpoetic. Which is fine, the author didn’t tell me it was erotica. It just felt like an old lady narrator, like Old Rose from Titanic telling the audience decades after the fact instead of living it right in the moment. It was in first person pov, too, which just made it worse. To be able to write something so explicit and yet so un-titillating was a talent. Like, beginner fanfic smut writers at least do it with enthusiasm.

2. Vary dialogue tag placement

You got three options, pre-, mid-, and post-tags.

Leader said, “this is a pre-dialogue tag.”

“This,” Lancer said, “is a mid-dialogue tag.”

“This is a post-dialogue tag,” Heart said.

Pre and Post have about the same effect but mid-tags do a lot of heavy lifting.

They help break up long paragraphs of dialogue that are jank to look at

They give you pauses for ~dramatic effect~

They prompt you to provide some other action, introspection, or scene descriptor with the tag. *don't forget that if you're continuing the sentence as if the tag wasn't there, not to capitalize the first word after the tag. Capitalize if the tag breaks up two complete sentences, not if it interrupts a single sentence.

It also looks better along the lefthand margin when you don’t start every paragraph with either the same character name, the same pronouns, or the same “ as it reads more natural and organic.

3. When the scene demands, get dynamic

General rule of thumb is that action scenes demand quick exchanges, short paragraphs, and very lean descriptors. Action scenes are where you put your juicy verbs to use and cut as many adverbs as you can. But regardless of if you’re in first person, second person, or third person limited, you can let the mood of the narrator bleed out into their narration.

Like, in horror, you can use a lot of onomatopoeia.

Drip Drip Drip

Or let the narration become jerky and unfocused and less strict in punctuation and maybe even a couple run-on sentences as your character struggles to think or catch their breath and is getting very overwhelmed.

You can toss out some grammar rules, too and get more poetic.

Warm breath tickles the back of her neck. It rattles, a quiet, soggy, rasp. She shivers. If she doesn’t look, it’s not there. If she doesn’t look, it’s not there. Sweat beads at her temple. Her heart thunders in her chest. Ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump-ba- It moves on, leaving a void of cold behind. She uncurls her fists, fingers achy and palms stinging from her nails. It’s gone.

4. Remember to balance dialogue, monologue, introspection, action, and descriptors.

The amount of times I have been faced with giant blocks of dialogue with zero tags, zero emotions, just speech on a page like they’re notecards to be read on a stage is higher than I expected. Don’t forget that though you may know exactly how your dialogue sounds in your head, your readers don’t. They need dialogue tags to pick up on things like tone, specifically for sarcasm and sincerity, whether a character is joking or hurt or happy.

If you’ve written a block of text (usually exposition or backstory stuff) that’s longer than 50 words, figure out a way to trim it. No matter what, break it up into multiple sections and fill in those breaks with important narrative that reflects the narrator’s feelings on what they’re saying and whoever they’re speaking to’s reaction to the words being said. Otherwise it’s meaningless.

—

Hope this helps anyone struggling! Now get writing.

[regret-breathing]

i think. that if you have ever loved a ghibli film, or ever created something and had it come out wrong, or been so lost in your head that you miss the opportunity in front of you, that you should do yourself the kindness of seeing The Boy and The Heron in theaters before it goes.

it’s one that will stick with me for quite some time.

[444lotus]

how i manifested (+revised) my dream body ౨ৎ

This is my first post on my new account, though I am NOT new to the law and NOT new to loablr either. This post is specifically about how I manifested my dream body instantly with no technique besides knowing :)

PART ONE - the old story

In the old story, I was so fixated on my body and my weight all of the time, I was tracking my calories and weighing myself and my food obsessively and constantly gaining and losing weight. Back then, my beliefs were that 1) Excess food causes weight gain, 2) If I don't track my food and weigh myself, I will become too fat/skinny, and 3) There is something wrong with my body, and I need to diet/exercise to fix it.

Noticing these beliefs were key to changing the way I viewed food and my body, and therefore changing how I knew food to effect me and how I knew my body to be.

When I was overweight, I knew my body was too big, I knew I was eating too much, I knew excess calories made me gain weight. When I was underweight, I knew I had no appetite, I knew I was too bony, I knew that exercise makes you gain muscle which is why I had none, etc. I had to identify the limiting beliefs that made me know my body was a certain way.

PART TWO - writing the new story

Once I identified the beliefs that were holding me back and kept me from my goals ("I know I eat too much, even if I affirm I'm skinny, I'm still going to gain weight."), I could then change them. I wrote down a list of these beliefs, like I did above, and came up with reversals. For example;

"I overeat, so I will gain weight" -> "Calories aren't even real, so I can eat whatever I want and stay the same weight."

"I eat junk food, so I'll never be skinny" -> "I love how fast my metabolism is, I can eat junk all day and still stay so skinny." or "Junk food is just like other foods. Raspberries can't make me fat so neither can hamburgers."

"I don't exercise enough to be toned" -> "It's crazy how I'm naturally so toned and fit without trying."

The key for me was changing key beliefs that kept me dieting and exercising to lose weight, to sever the tie between calories consumed and weight, and hours exercising and muscles. These are limiting beliefs. We literally create our reality. Not ice cream, not soda and chips, none of that can overcome YOU as a divine creator. It sounds silly when you spell it out like that, doesn't it?

PART THREE - how i did it

Okay, now we understand that the secret is to change the rules of our own reality to allow us to know a higher truth (my higher truth? I am a skinny legend). So how do we put this into practice?

All you have to do is know. You set these rules, so you know they are true, reality is bound to them. You must know you are successful, know that reality is in the 4d, and feel truly satisfied in that realm. You can do this using whatever method you need to, but personally, I just knew deep within me that I was my ideal weight, and that nothing could change that, that is simply the reality, that is simply the way things are. I thought about old pictures I took of myself, and remembered how skinny I looked in them, I thought about the last time I saw my friends and how much littler they said I'd gotten, I thought about the last time I stood on the scale and how it read the exact weight I knew myself to be. And I just knew, deep within me, that was simply how things were.

And the last step, for me, was to feel truly joyful at this realization. To feel satisfied it came into fruition. Without seeking confirmation, because I already KNEW.

And what do you know? Pictures of myself in my phone from weeks ago, they were my ideal body. The girl I saw in the mirror when I stood up from my meditation? She had my ideal body. My clothes? XS and S, all of them. I had revised my ideal body all the way back to the day I bought them. And confirmed this by checking pictures I took in the dressing room.

I'm telling you right now it is possible if you know in your heart you've always had your desire. It's always been fulfilled within you. You make the rules because you are a divine creator. Nothing outside of you can change what you know to be true.

That's all for now ౨ৎ

[great-and-small]

Speaking of breed standards, would you be able to give me some context on what the heck is up with the German Shepherd "stack"? I see a lot of GSD owners saying it's breed standard and therefore fine, but the slant looks so extreme in some dogs that I have some skepticism about it (and also because, of course, breed standards have nothing to do with animal health).

This is a pretty hot button issue and you’re right that there is a ton of bickering back and forth about it online. I’m happy to share my thoughts, but keep in mind that as a veterinarian I am biased towards function over form. I care way more about if a dog can do the things it wants/needs to do than how it looks. I won’t get into it here but I actually have real qualms with the distinction between “working line” and “show line” in some breeds.

My quick takeaway opinion- There are several orthopedic issues in the German Shepherd dog (specifically show lines) that have likely been exacerbated if not entirely caused by breeders striving for the classic “sloped back” look that is considered breed standard.

Now that being said, it is a fact that the three point stack (how a dog is positioned when standing) greatly exaggerates the angulation of the back and hind legs. You will often see comparison images like this one that show a dog in stack versus standing square and you can clearly see the top line looks more sloped when the dog is stacked. This image is from a GSD subreddit, a pretty dog here nicely demonstrating how the stance can change the appearance of the top line.

This phenomenon is what certain hardline GSD breed standard loyalists will point to when discussing this issue. They posit that the sloped back is essentially an optical illusion caused by aesthetic posing, and therefore a German Shepherd is no more prone to orthopedic problems than any other large breed dog. This is where I disagree.

You can easily find stark examples of a poorly put together dog in any breed or mixed breed out there, so when discussing my concerns with the GSD I will only use photos of titled dogs that are accomplished within the show ring. These are not random backyard bred shepherds, but champion dogs from acclaimed lines that will almost certainly be bred to pass on their genes. When breed clubs like the AKC award these dogs as exemplars of the breed, they tacitly endorse the conformation issues I’m about to discuss. So my beef is not with German shepherds or dog breeds in general, but specifically with breed clubs that refuse to examine whether their standard harms animals. An important disclaimer, not every breed club is like this and many take health concerns extremely seriously.

Dogs have a very different limb anatomy and gait to humans and a healthy dog is meant to walk on their paw pads. The “ankle” or hock should be upright and angled as you can see here in this nice-looking champion shepherd from 1902.

German shepherds can sometimes have a problem that is colloquially called “dropped hocks” where that joint is abnormally loose and in more serious cases can even be touching the ground, which is completely abnormal and something I would consider a serious physical flaw. A dog having dropped hocks/tarsal hyperflexion like this is proven to cause medical issues for these dog, but unfortunately the sinking joints also help to give the dog that “classic” sloping look that breed clubs love.

This dog “Ch Kysarah's Pot of Gold” won best of breed at the National dog show in 2015. You can see his hock is literally flat on the ground even when not stacked

And it’s not just one dog. Here is another champion dog (Cruaghaire Catoria), who got some controversy for winning best of breed at Crufts in 2016 despite an extremely abnormal gait.

Perhaps we could excuse the low hocks when the dog is standing as being the result of the stack, but it is glaringly obvious when she moves that this is no trick of her positioning. Her entire tarsus rests on the floor as she runs and in close ups you can even see bald patches there to suggest this is a “normal” gait for her. In this video, the announcers agree that this is the ideal gait for a shepherd. If I saw this gait in a friend’s dog I’d politely express my concerns for long term mobility issues and recommend an orthopedic consultation. To see it win best of breed is galling to say the least.

And lest you think the problem has been solved, here’s another from the National Dog Show in 2023

None of these dogs could charge athletically into a field and effectively herd sheep. If we are prioritizing aesthetic over function to the degree that a dog cannot do what it was bred to do, or more importantly that it cannot do the simple things that dogs love to do, then we have veered unforgivably off course. Not to put too fine a point on it but what the fuck is the point of a breed standard if it impedes the dog’s function in any way? We have no right. German shepherds are an incredible breed of dog that have stood by us humans in some of our darkest moments; I think the breeders and kennel clubs who claim to love them the most should work harder to ensure the “champion” dogs they are producing can live long pain-free lives. If we have to adjust our notion of what the breed is “supposed” to look like then so fucking be it.

This is too long already so I’m not getting into hip dysplasia, DM, carpal laxity, elbow dysplasia or other conditions that exist in the breed. If German shepherd clubs want to distance themselves from the notion that their breed standard is causing problems with canine health then they will need to stop publicly lavishing awards on dogs with medically concerning gait issues and start focusing on breeding dogs that can run around a ring without causing even the most casual of onlookers to realize “something’s not right there”

[infiniteglitterfall]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

[transgendz]

This is an update, but to summarize what's already been said-- my roommate/fiancé and I need to leave Mississippi. We are intersex and trans, respectively. We have significantly more affordable housing and more consistent work waiting for us in NY (not NYC, upstate), already set up and agreed upon. We can't afford to move. I've set up a GFM to cover the moving costs, and we're trying to get there before it gets too cold to do so, which is a lot earlier in the year than you'd think! We need to get about 3k a month towards this for about three or four months to have any hope of making this possible, hence the goal below. More details below the cut and in the previous post linked above, I'm just trying to keep this short.

🚨Dm me for details or proof of the situation, also vetted by @kyra45-helping-others who does scam busting on here. Anything given through GFM has a portion taken out for their company profits, so I am leaving my links below if you'd prefer to give directly. EVERYTHING will be logged on GFM🚨 (I was slow to do that for a couple of days bc a loved one passed, but I'm back on it I promise)

If you'd prefer to support and get something for it beyond just knowing you've helped two people escape fascism, my art blog is @theartistrans, examples below, and I am trying to get more things on my kofi, although there are tiers as it stands.

PP V $C Kofi GFM

$1,886/$3,000

He is having an increasingly difficult time accessing the medical care he needs, and has already experienced intense medical discrimination here. I have sort of written off transitioning at all, having prioritized our safety and my ability to advocate for him in the eyes of cis medical professionals.

We do not qualify for aid here, and were denied even when we were homeless. What this means in effect is that we are unable to get insurance, unable to afford what medical treatment we can access, etc. We have both lost frightening amounts of weight from poverty, leading to some of his doctors seeming to write him off as a lost cause.