That Writing Thing I Do

32|INFJ|Pisces|Queer Transplant Seattle-ite in NOVA/DMV. A HZD, Korrasami, Parks and Rec, Bechloe, Seattle, dog blog.

[prokopetz]

Apple propaganda notwithstanding, the reason tower PCs are big isn’t because they’re outdated. The reason tower PCs are so bulky is because they’re designed to be user serviceable. The case has lots of open space so your big, meaty hands can easily access all of the components, and everything is secured with friction-fit tabs and standard machine screws to minimise the need for specialised tools. A properly laid out tower PC is fully serviceable with a single Phillips-head screwdriver and no greater manual skill than your average Lego playset – heck, for some of the more modern case layouts you don’t even need the screwdriver, unless you’re performing major surgery like a full motherboard replacement.

Like, think about who benefits from convincing you that a fully modular computing device that can be serviced and repaired with your bare hands and minimal technical skill is unfashionable.

[shanesthighs]

when the shared brain cell is stuck buffering

[lornasallydane]

Computer. Iris by the goo goo dolls. Loud enough to kill.

[dais-yyyy-deactivated20250224]

Dame Maggie Smith

1934-2024

[narwhalsarefalling]

oh yeah have i ever told yall of the academic war i have been an unwilling soilder in for the past two years

[narwhalsarefalling]

okay SO. i have two professors that both teach this one subject, but different classes. they have different last names, so i didnt know this at first and espically since they are academic RIVELS at my school, but they are MARRIED. but for the past 8 years they have been in an academic WAR of geospatical sciences data. more accurately, the raster vs vector data debate. i am personally on the side of "both have their pros and cons and can be utalizied to the utmost efficency" but both professors are like, DEADLOCKED in insistanting one is better then the other

so, professor A is my mentor. i like him a lot, and he was the main person that taught me the most abotu Eris and ArcGIS. professor B is a professor i had one for class, and shes nice and knows a lot of little tricks about Eris programming but mostly relies on arcMAP because shes the raster data professor.

and THESE MOTHERFUCKERS. have written no less then 30 papers that is basically like a "re: re: re: re: re: re: vector data is better then raster fuck you" but like, Professionally. and they leave stupid notes in the footnotes that read "Reguardless of Professor A's opinions reguarding the efficency of Vector data, Raster data has a more efficant polygon computing rate and is the most commonly used program on interplantaring mapping" and its HILARIOUS

[narwhalsarefalling]

ive read all of their papers, and its basically like reading an email chain between a married couple arguing over the colors of the kitchen backsplash for their new home. its HILARIOUS. but obviously, because of their differnet last names and because they act like they HATE each other, NOT VERY MANY PEOPLE REALIZES THEYRE MARRIED

until like LAST WEEK

[narwhalsarefalling]

professor B publishes a paper that casually drops the word "husband"

and obviously all the students are like "oh i didnt know u were married!" because we read that shit like how white suburban mothers read People Magazine

[narwhalsarefalling]

and shes like "yeah, its Professor A"

[narwhalsarefalling]

and we all FLIPPED. THE FUCK. OUT

[narwhalsarefalling]

we thought the framed picture of the two of them on professor A's desk was ironic because hes that type of guy

[narwhalsarefalling]

like, you gotta undestand. these two have gotten into YELLING matches in hallways. these two refuse to go onto trips with each other. but apparently they have a system where they quite LITERALLY leave all of their work at work and drive home in seperate cars and literally NEVER mention work at home. it is SO funny

[beez-n-crackers]

[loadingartist]

moved 😭

bonus panels on my patreon 💌

[speaknowbuckley]

I've never been an A's fan but I'm fully sobbing over all the pictures of A's fans mourning today, I can't imagine the heartache.

[snowstories]

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.

[millenari]

do you ever re-read your own wips like 'damn the bitch that wrote this oughta finish it'

[miketownsends]

one more strikeout to 200 for Logan 👀

[miketownsends]

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO

[damienthepious]

watching @nanowrimo within a single hour:

make an awful, ill-conceived, sponsored post about "responsible"/"ethical" uses of ai in writing

immediately get ratio'd in a way i've never seen on tumblr with a small swarm of chastising-to-negative replies and no reblogs

start deleting replies

reply to their own post being like 'agree to disagree!!!' while saying that ai can TOTALLY be ethical because spellcheck exists!! (???) while in NO WAY responding to the criticisms of ai for its environmental impact OR the building of databases on material without author consent, ie, stolen material, OR the money laundering rampant in the industry

when called out on deleting replies, literally messaged me people who called them out to say "We don't have a problem with folks disagreeing with AI. It's the tone of the discourse." So. overtly stated tone policing.

get even MORE replies saying this is a Bad Look, and some reblogs now that people's replies are being deleted

DISABLE REBLOGS when people aren't saying what nano would prefer they say

im juust in literal awe of this fucking mess.

[airplanned]

☕️

[tgraywrites]

Woooow

[magess]

NaNo When It Started: Join our challenge to bootstrap your own creativity. Write! Let it be bad! Trying is the point and will feel good when you are done!

NaNo Now: Skip the effort. Cheating is for everyone. Get that badge. Pay us.

[roboticchibitan]

This is the only post I'll be reblogging about this cuz I've participated in NaNoWriMo once (technically) in private but my goal was to write every day. Because I wanted to try to work on something consistently.

As a disabled writer? Specifically one with brain fog? FUCK the "saying you shouldn't use AI is ableist" thing. What's fucking ableist is implying disabled people can't write their own stories. What's ableist is implying the mediocre plagiarism machine would write better than I do. Fuck that and fuck them and their (gen)AI shilling bullshit.

Everyone I know who used prowritingaid before they went full in on AI has stopped using it because it's basically unusable with how WRONG it is constantly. Some of the "corrections" I've seen are appalling. Egregiously wrong. Like. Suggesting entire paragraphs become a single sentence that's got nothing to do with the paragraph at all. No one should rely on that shit. So for NaNoWriMo to be sponsored by them? Bad in every way.

[calebwittebane]

no idea where i was going with this but i abandoned it at the most disconcerting moment possible

[maryellencarter]

look actually calling things that aren't the brand name by the brand name is something corporations really hate. because if it becomes common enough they stop having the trademark to the brand name.

did you know trampoline used to be a brand name? true facts. the inventor wanted all the imitators to call theirs, like, "elastic platforms" or some shit (i don't remember the specific shit) so he could keep advertising The One and Only Genuine Trampoline (tm). and then we didn't. and now nobody remembers him or his trademark.

[paulgadzikowski]

aspirin used to be a trademark of Bayer

[bastionofbibliophiles]

Per Wikipedia: "Trademark erosion, or genericization, is a special case of antonomasia related to trademarks. It happens when a trademark becomes so common that it starts being used as a common name and the original company has failed to prevent such use. Once it has become an appellative, the word cannot be registered any more; this is why companies try hard not to let their trademark become too common, a phenomenon that could otherwise be considered a successful move since it would mean that the company gained an exceptional recognition."

Examples of genericized trademarks include:

Air fryer

Aspirin

Dry ice

Escalator

Flip phone

Heroin

Kerosene

Teleprompter

Examples of trademarks that are at risk of genericization (so you definitely shouldn't use these terms; you don't want to take them away from the poor corporations, do you?):

Adrenaline (owned by Pfizer)

Allen wrench (owned by Apex Tool Group)

Band-Aid (owned by Johnson & Johnson)

Bubble Wrap (owned by Sealed Air)

ChapStick (owned by Suave Brands Company)

Frisbee (owned by Wham-O)

Google (owned by Google)

Hula hoop (owned by Wham-O)

Jacuzzi (owned by Jacuzzi)

Jell-O (owned by Kraft Heinz)

Jet Ski (owned by Kawasaki)

Kleenex (owned by Kimberly-Clark)

Lava lamp (owned by Mathmos)

Ping Pong (owned by Parker Brothers)

Play-Doh [and "Play Dough" in the UK] (owned by Hasbro)

Plexiglas (owned by Altuglas International)

Popsicle (owned by Good Humor-Breyers)

Post-it note (owned by 3M)

Putt-Putt golf (owned by Putt-Putt Fun Center)

Q-tips (owned by Unilever)

Realtor (owned by National Association of Realtors)

Rollerblade (owned by Nordica)

Scotch tape (owned by 3M)

Sharpie (owned by Sanford L.P)

Styrofoam (owned by Dow Chemical Company)

Super Glue/Superglue (owned by Super Glue Corporation)

Tupperware (owned by Earl Tupper)

Velcro (owned by Velcro Companies)

[raychleadele]

Many of this list I was aware are trademarked names but some are wild. Allen wrench? Really? Fucking POPSICLE?? REALTOR????

[bunjywunjy]

can we. go back to the heroin thing

[ao3commentoftheday]

Hi! Sometimes it can be hard to read a fic where the author puts two spaces in between paragraphs, as opposed to a single space/line break (not sure what to call it!) Is it possible to add any code to my site skin that would make paragraphs have the standard single-line space? Thanks so much!

Another anon asked, "In the site skins poll there was an option that included forcing spaces between paragraphs, how would I go about doing that?"

Most of the items in that poll are explained in this work I posted on AO3 called Useful CSS for Readers.

You can specify the spacing between paragraphs to your liking with this CSS

workskin p { margin: 10px; padding: 10px }

Just adjust those numbers to the size that works for you.

Note: this might not work on additional blank lines, depending on the HTML being used by the author.

As always, people who know more CSS than I do, please feel free to offer up better code 😆

[jadefyre]

just in case people don’t check the replies, here’s a good stopgap solution from @laurelnose

[aramblingjay]

I should've been up there with you. ↳ ft. what bucky does when he's up there with buck

[ampervadasz]

Unmute !

[rumplefuckingstiltzkin]

POV: You are Simba

[drtanner]

Love it when you can see the impending disaster before it hits, lol.

[ceekari]

you know the camera is going down, so you’re just guessing which dog it’s gonna be

until suddenly you know

[seabeck]

La bête

[etherealspacejelly]

this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it

buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell

leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist

put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.

when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!

plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.

if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge

if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.

its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.

[should-be-sleeping]

You are allowed to accommodate yourself.