will byers stan first human second
izzy's playlists!
Monterey Bay Aquarium
sheepfilms
No title available
JVL
we're not kids anymore.
$LAYYYTER
hello vonnie
cherry valley forever
ellievsbear
Acquired Stardust
JBB: An Artblog!
Origami Around
blake kathryn
Misplaced Lens Cap
pixel skylines
styofa doing anything
Kiana Khansmith
RMH
seen from Oman
seen from Netherlands
seen from Australia
seen from Jordan
seen from Netherlands
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Netherlands
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Netherlands
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Netherlands
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from T1
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
@breakthroughatthelitlab
ZINE SUBMISSIONS ARE ON!
Bienvenidos, ballers!
Submissions for Concoctions Issue 5 are officially open! You have until March 31, 2025 to submit your work to Breakthrough at the Lit Lab's official zine Concoctions.
This month's theme: Resistance.
To submit to the zine, first join the official Breakthrough at the Lit Lab Discord, then follow the instructions for the submission page found here.
Hope to see you in the zine!
Much love,
The Breakthrough Crew
Writing Prompt Wednesday
Writing Prompt Wednesday #4
Writing Prompt Wednesday #4
Nobody remembers a character because they had “emerald green eyes and flowing golden hair.”
They remember them because their eyes narrowed like they were always suspicious or because their hair was a mess, like they ran fingers through it one too many times.
Describe the person, not just the parts.
Sometimes taking breaks from writing can be just as important as writing itself. Clear your mind. Sleep on it. Take a walk and get some fresh air. Hydrate (you know who you are). When you turn writing into a chore to get through, whether it's a daily wordcount quota or an amount of hours you allocate to writing each day, you set yourself up for burnout and corner-cutting. It's great to have a creative routine and to make art whenever you can, just be mindful that you aren't settling. Forcing yourself to hit quotas can make lazy and uninspired writing an acceptable standard if you aren't careful.
my creative writing prof also HATES fantasy. as in if she asks for an example of symbolism in a book, and you give something from a fantasy novel, she’ll ask for an example from a “non-commercial book” instead.
I dunno man, people can have preferences, but the second you discount the artistic merit of sci fi and fantasy I stop taking your opinion seriously. and there’s such a big culture in Canada of only valuing literary fiction, to the point where one of our biggest authors, Margaret Atwood, refused for a while to classify her books as sci fi or fantasy. she said they were “speculative fiction”, which is entirely separate and very highbrow (sarcasm).
and I could go on about how Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin wrote books every bit as intellectual (and honestly, even more so) than their literary counterparts, but I am also an enjoyer of schlock!! I think there’s artistic merit in animorphs, and in isekais where a japanese schoolgirl reincarnates into a magical spider who has to level up like it’s a video game! it’s like with everything, you can’t draw a clean line that separates ‘art’ from ‘non-art’ or even ‘lesser art’, and pretending you can do so just makes you look ignorant and goofy. in my opinion.
Terry Pratchett did a really good interview about this.
O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy?
Pratchett: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question.
O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre.
P: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book— I think I’ve done twenty in the series— since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre.
O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction.
P: (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy.
Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy.
Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy.
Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim.
Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor.
So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.
(Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.
The Psychology of Morally Grey Characters: What Makes Them Tick
What Makes a Character Morally Grey?
They’re not fully good or evil. Instead, they operate in the messy middle, where ethics clash with desires, survival, or flawed logic.
They’re justifiable but not excusable. Readers might understand their motives but can’t always condone their actions.
The Psychology Behind Morally Grey Characters
1. They Operate Based on Personal Morality
Grey characters don’t lack morals—they just don’t align with societal norms. They may follow their own code of ethics, which can feel justified to them but questionable to others.
Walter White (Breaking Bad): His descent into crime stems from wanting to provide for his family. His personal moral code excuses his actions, even as they spiral into destruction.
2. Their Actions Stem from Trauma or Desperation
Morally grey characters often carry scars—trauma, loss, or desperation drive them into morally ambiguous territory.
Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender): His quest to capture the Avatar is fueled by years of familial abuse and a desperate desire for his father’s approval. His actions are harmful, but his pain is undeniable.
3. They Prioritize Their Goals Above Morality
A morally grey character may believe the ends justify the means. They’re willing to cross lines for what they see as a greater good—or personal ambition.
Kaz Brekker (Six of Crows): He’ll lie, steal, and kill to protect his crew and achieve his goals.
4. They Live in Shades of Contradiction
Humans are contradictory, and morally grey characters embrace this truth. They can be kind one moment and ruthless the next, depending on their circumstances.
5. They Force Readers to Question Their Own Morality
The best morally grey characters don’t just act—they make readers uncomfortable. They challenge black-and-white thinking and force readers to empathize with the unthinkable.
Thanos (Marvel Cinematic Universe): His belief in sacrificing half the universe for survival sparks fierce debates about utilitarianism versus morality.
Tips for Writing Morally Grey Characters
1. Give Them a Relatable Core
Readers don’t need to agree with your character, but they need to understand them. Ground their actions in something universal—love, survival, revenge, or a desire for belonging.
2. Show Their Justifications
Grey characters don’t see themselves as villains. They often have strong internal logic that explains their choices, even if the world disagrees.
3. Make Them Likable in Unexpected Ways
Even the darkest characters should have moments of levity, charm, or vulnerability. These moments make readers root for them despite their flaws.
4. Give Them Moments of Humanity
Highlight their internal conflict or flashes of goodness to remind readers they’re human, not caricatures.
5. Show the Consequences of Their Actions
Grey characters rarely walk away unscathed. Their decisions should create fallout—relationships broken, guilt weighing on their conscience, or irreversible damage.
Examples of Morally Grey Characters in Fiction
1. Severus Snape (Harry Potter):
His cruelty toward Harry is undeniable, but his love for Lily adds layers of tragic complexity.
2. Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein):
A brilliant scientist driven by ambition, Victor creates life but abandons his creature, sparking tragedy.
3. Thomas Shelby (Peaky Blinders):
A crime lord who manipulates, kills, and betrays, yet he fiercely protects his family and battles his inner demons.
4. Eleanor Shellstrop (The Good Place):
Selfish and manipulative, Eleanor starts as morally grey but evolves as she confronts her flaws and learns to do good.
Morally grey characters live in the space between right and wrong, where humanity is at its rawest and most interesting. By exploring their contradictions, vulnerabilities, and justifications, you can create characters that feel as real and complex as life itself.
You’ll rewrite it later anyway, so stop staring at the blank page like it owes you money. Just start.
hey gamers I’ve started watching star trek does anyone else see the romantic tension between captain kirk and mr. spock
watching the realization publicly dawn in real time in the comments is fucking amazing
op's tags:
comments:
I DIDN’T KNOWWWW
Fairy Tale Retellings with POC
@anjareedd asked:
Hello, Writing with Color! First of all, thank you for all you do. Second, do you have any advice for a white person retelling fairy tales, both European fairy tale and non-European fairy tales? Is it okay to retell non-European fairy tales? I would feel bad if all fairy tales I retold were European as those are over represented, but given how much white people have erased and whitewashed other culture’s fairy tales I understand if that were off-limits for a white person. Thank you!
Fairy tale retellings are my favorite thing. I love reading, rewriting and creating new fairy tale-style stories with People of Color!
As you write, keep in mind:
European does not mean white.
The possibility of PoC in European or Western historical settings tends to throw off so many. There are plenty of European People of Color, then and today. You can have an Indian British little red riding hood and it isn’t “unrealistic.” And we wanna read about them!
Still, research the history of your settings and time period. Use multiple credible sources, as even the most well-known ones may exclude the history of People of Color or skim over it. The stories might be shoved into a corner, but we live and have lived everywhere. The specific groups (and numbers of) in a certain region may vary, though.
How and when did they or their family get there, and why?
Has it been centuries, decades, longer than one can remember?
Who are the indigenous people of the region? (Because hey, places like America and Australia would love to have you believe its earliest people were white…)
Is there a connection with the Moors, trade, political marriage; was it simply immigration?
No need to elaborate all too much. A sentence or more woven into the story in passing may do the trick to establish context, depending on your story and circumstance.
Or if you want to ignore all of that, because this is fantasy-London or whatever, by all means do. POC really don’t need a explanation to exist, but I simply like to briefly establish context for those who may struggle to “get it”, personally. This is a side effect of POC being seen as the Other and white as the default.
Although, if PoC existing in a fairy tale is the reader’s biggest stumbling block in a world of magic, speculation, or fantasy, that’s none of your concern.
Can you picture any of the people below, or someone with these backgrounds, the protagonist of their own fairytale? I hope so!
Above: Painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1760s - 1800s), British Heiress with her cousin. Check out her history as well as the movie, Belle (2013).
Source: English Heritage: Women in History - Dido Belle
Above: Abraham Janssens - The Agrippine Sibyl - Netherlands (c. 1575)
“Since ancient times Sybils were considered seers sent by god, priestesses foretelling the coming of great events. This model serves to depict the Sybil of Agrippina, one of the 12 that foretold the coming of Christ. Notice the flagellum and crown of thrones which are symbolic objects reminding the viewer of Christs suffering.” X
Above: “Major Musa Bhai, 3 November 1890. Musa Bhai travelled to England in 1888 as part of the Booth family, who founded the Salvation Army.” X
Above: Eleanor Xiniwe and Johanna Jonkers, respectively and other members of the African Choir, who all had portraits taken at the London Stereoscopic Company in 1891.
“The African Choir were a group of young South African singers that toured Britain between 1891 and 1893. They were formed to raise funds for a Christian school in their home country and performed for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, a royal residence on the Isle of Wight.” X
The examples above just scratch the surface. Luckily, more and more historians and researchers are publishing lesser known (and at times purposefully masked) PoC history.
More Sources
PoC in History (WWC Search Link)
POC in Europe (WWC Search Link)
The Black Victorians: astonishing portraits unseen for 120 years
Hidden histories: the first Black people photographed in Britain – in pictures
Let’s talk about oppression and slavery
There is a hyper-focus on chattel slavery as if the times when and where it occurred is the only narrative that exists. And even when it is part of a Person of Color’s history, that is seldom all there is to say of the person or their lives. For example, Dido Elizabeth Belle.
People of Color were not all slaves, actively enslaved, or oppressed for racial reasons at all times in history! Dig deep into the research of your time period and region. Across the long, wide history of the world, People of Color are and were a norm and also NOT simply exceptions. Explore all the possibilities to discover the little known and seldom told history. Use this as inspiration for your writing.
PoC (especially Black people) were not always in chains, especially in a world of your making.
Don’t get me wrong. These stories do have a place and not even painful histories should be erased. I personally read these stories as well, if and when written by someone who is from the background. Some might even combine fairy tale, fantasy, and oppression in history. However…
There are plenty of stories on oppressed PoC. How many fairy tales?
Many European tales have versions outside of Europe.
Just because a tale was popularized under a western setting doesn’t mean that it originates there. Overtime, many were rewritten and altered to fit European settings, values and themes.
Read original tales.
You might be inspired to include a story in its original setting. Even if you kept it in a western setting, why not consider a protagonist from the ethnicity of the story’s origin?
For example: the Cinderella most are familiar with was popularized by the French in 1697. However, Cinderella has Chinese and Greek versions that date back from the 9th Century CE and 6th Century BCE, respectively.
Choosing a Setting: European or Non-European?
I do not see anything wrong with either (I write tales set in western and non-western settings, all with Heroines of Color). There is great potential in both.
Non-Western Settings (pros and cons)
Normalizes non-Western settings. Not just the “exotic” realm of the Other.
Potential for rich, cultural elements and representation
Requires more research and thoughtfulness (the case for any setting one is unfamiliar with, though)
European or Western Setting (pros and cons)
Normalizes PoC as heroes, not the Other, or only fit to be side characters.
Representation for People of Color who live in Western countries/regions
Loss of some cultural elements (that character can still bring in that culture, though! Living in the West often means balancing 2+ cultures)
Outdated Color and Ethnic Symbolism
Many fairy tales paint blackness (and darkness, and the Other) as bad, ominous and ugly, and white as good and pure.
Language that worships whiteness as the symbol of beauty. For example: “Fair” being synonymous with beauty. Characters like Snow White being the “fairest” of them all.
Wicked witches with large hooked noses, often meant to be coded as ethnically Jewish people.
Don’t follow an old tale back into that same pit of dark and Other phobia. There’s many ways to change up and subvert the trope, even while still using it, if you wish. Heroines and heroes can have dark skin and large noses and still stand for good, innocence and beauty.
Read: Black and White Symbolism: Discussion and Alternatives
Non-European Fairy tales - Tips to keep in Mind:
Some stories and creatures belong to a belief system and is not just myth to alter. Before writing or changing details, read and seek the opinions of the group. You might change the whole meaning of something by tweaking details you didn’t realize were sacred and relevant.
Combine Tales Wisely:
Picking stories and beings from different cultural groups and placing them in one setting can come across as them belonging to the same group or place (Ex: A Japanese fairy tale with Chinese elements). This misrepresents and erases true origins. If you mix creatures or elements from tales, show how they all play together and try to include their origin, so it isn’t as if the elements were combined at random or without careful selection.
Balance is key:
When including creatures of myths, take care to balance your Human of Color vs. creatures ratio, as well as the nature of them both (good, evil, gray moral). EX: Creatures from Native American groups but no human Native characters from that same group (or all evil, gray, or too underdeveloped to know) is poor representation.
Moral Alignment:
Changing a good or neutral cultural creature into something evil may be considered disrespectful and misappropriation.
Have Fun!
No, seriously. Fairy tales, even those with the most somber of meanings, are meant to be intriguing little adventures. Don’t forget that as you write or get hung up on getting the “right message” out and so on. That’s what editing is for.
–Colette
Write it shitty, write it scared, write it without a clue but don't you be so spineless and have an AI write fanfic for you.
Writing Prompt Wednesday #3
Some idiot: "Why are you reading your own fic, that's shallow and stupid"
All fanfic writers and writers everywhere: "Who the fuck do you think I wrote it for?!"
