buckfastbjörk @buckfastbjork - Tumblr Blog

writing is so funny because i could write nonstop for 9hrs and then hit a block where im like "how do i transition between this moment and the next?" and then i just dont touch it for 6 months

galadrieljones

Serious advice tho if this happens, it's likely because you already wrote past the end of the scene and wandered too far from the more logical transition point, and you should go back to the last time the writing felt "unforced" and cut everything after.

You can also just skip the transition. Really good writing can span years in a single sentence, like you can just authoritatively state fact and your reader will go with it.

xalphafox

This is GOLD! You just saved me like thousands of therapy costs lmao

headspace-hotel

When I was writing my fic last few months the strategy I used was "just skip all the scenes I don't want to write" and it worked great in my opinion

trannydurden

happy juneteenth but dont forget that prisoners are legally allowed to be subject to slave labor and also black people are disproportionately arrested and subjected to that legality. happy juneteenth but slavery still lives in america. america is still dependant on slave labor.

meerschweinchen-archive

your twenties are Also about discovering that you’re not a bad person in all the ways you believed you were but you’re a bad person in completely new and exciting ways

lookcaitlin

70sscifiart

Don Ivan Punchatz, 1977

apricops

that post about “you get bandits when you cut soldiers loose without pay” reminds me of the Thirty Years War, because one could say that beneath all the religious schisms and diplomatic jockeying, the heart of the thirty years war was “what happens when you have a state with just enough capacity to raise massive armies but without enough financial capacity to actually pay those armies” and the answer is that the line between professional armies and roving gangs of bandits disappears and every time you try to raise an army it just becomes another independently acting wildfire devouring the countryside. No matter how bad things get, every day I wake up and thank my lucky stars that I do not live in 17th century Europe. Or 17th century China. Or the 17th century Americas. Or basically anywhere in the 17th century.

probabilitydirigible

One of my favorite little anecdotes about ancient mercenaries is that it was tradition for most of history to give your mercenaries two wages- "Bread" and "Gravy." Both were set at a daily value, but where "Bread" was intended to cover regular maintenance and life stuff and therefore paid out frequently (Here's your week's meal and gear repair budget!) the "Gravy" wage was paid out exclusively at the end of the contract as one lump sum. So like, your gravy wage and bread wage might be one silver coin per day each, so you're getting a handful of coins every week to cover food, and then at the end of an 800 day campaign, you get a wheelbarrow with 800 coins.

Employers liked offering this structure because then they didn't have to like, try to guess how long the invasion of spain will take and then carry 800 coins per soldier around the battlefield where it could be captured. It also gives them the chance to budget around the assumption that they take an enemy city and *find* vast sums of treasure even if they don't have the full value at the beginning of the war.

The main flaw of this system is that it's very easy to end up in a scenario where if you have, say, 50,000 guys that have been fighting for 800 days, you now owe 40 million silver to your army, and if the budget has not worked out to a 40 million surplus, you literally can't afford to end the war, but you can probably afford to pay them for a couple more weeks. So then you have to start thinking creatively.

Anyway across all time and history a lot of generals were ultimately beaten to death by men chanting gravy.

headspace-hotel

had to read a sourcebook of primary sources about the thirty years war called "experiencing the thirty years war" like 5 years ago in one of my history courses and it still haunts me.

Either the introduction to that reading or another reading we had argued that the widespread devastation and collective trauma of the thirty years' war was analogous to one of the World Wars. In many parts of (what would later become) Germany 60 to 80 percent of the civilian population died. Wars, famines and plagues have a way of working in synergy.

mollyjames

I do tend to be suspicious of art that really lauds and worships the idea of being an artist. Like yes, art is cool, I think it's valuable, there's a reason I make it. But let's not get overly self congratulatory here

mollyjames

I think it's okay to love what you do, and even celebrate that. But there's a line that gets crossed sometimes where the art goes... "unlike all of those stupid people, who just dont get it." And it's like... hey... who are you making this for, exactly?

tallspookylady

reminds me of that "artists fuck better because we turn sex into art, mattresses are our canvas" post or however that goes. always makes me laugh

trans-seraphim

also relevant

headspace-hotel

Where is that post that's like "art is a natural human behavior just like birds make nests and spiders spin webs, and focusing on being 'good at it' is missing the point"