peachy and co, flufftopia mailbox

Half of it is for writing, the other half is the writing. Maybe also some other things, but coherency is overrated

[flowerbleedme]

Well as a "fan" I would be "serviced" by some THEMES AND MOTIFS #themesandmotifs #artwithmeaning

[flowerbleedme]

Well as a "fan" I would be "serviced" by some THEMES AND MOTIFS #themesandmotifs #artwithmeaning

[glorious-spoon]

While I sort of get the impulse, it does always get my back up when people talk about something like Animorphs with this attitude of 'omgggg remember these books, how on EARTH were we allowed to read these books, they're so grim and dark and violent and tragic, no adults could possibly have known what they actually contained or they'd have been banned.'

And like. Allowing for the fact that there absolutely are adults who think every distressing topic ever should be banned from children's literature - they're children's books. You were allowed to read them when you were a kid because they were written for kids. Bridge to Terabithia is also a children's book. So is Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and The Giver and loads of other books that deal with heavy, difficult topics. It is appropriate and good for children to have books about these things that are tailored to their reading levels and it genuinely really bugs me when people act like they're somehow not really for kids because bad things happen in them or they end tragically.

[redstonedust]

pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.

[bincliff]

hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)

[luna-azzurra]

Things to consider when Writing about Schools/Academies!!

⊹ What is this school actually for. training mages? knights? spies? just normal education? because "prestigious academy" means nothing if you don't know what they're prestigious at

⊹ Who gets in and how. is it merit based, do you have to be rich, legacy admissions, secret tests, random selection, born with the right abilities. what happens to kids who don't make the cut

⊹ What's the age range. are these literal children or young adults or mixed ages. because a school with 11 year olds has very different problems than one with 18 year olds

⊹ How strict is it. prison vibes with tons of rules? pretty chill? different rules for different student groups (which is unfair and causes drama)?

⊹ What are the social hierarchies. obviously there are cliques but what are they based on. wealth? power level? what year you're in? family name? talent?

⊹ What happens if you fail or get expelled. are you just sent home in shame or is it worse. do people sometimes not survive the training. how often do students drop out or disappear

⊹ Who are the teachers and why are they teaching. washed up former heroes? people who never left? actually passionate educators? suspicious people using it as a cover? mix of all of them probably

⊹ What's forbidden. certain magic, certain areas of campus, relationships between students, leaving grounds, specific books/knowledge. and obviously your protagonist will break these rules

⊹ How do students get sorted/grouped. houses? teams? specializations? randomly? and do these groups have rivalries because they should

⊹ What's the curriculum actually like. is it actually useful or are they learning weird outdated stuff. are there classes that are just covers for something else. what are the hardest classes

⊹ Where is this school located. isolated castle? middle of a city? pocket dimension? floating island? does it move? can students leave or are they stuck there

⊹ What traditions does the school have. tournaments, festivals, hazing rituals (the dark kind), graduation ceremonies, weird old customs nobody questions

⊹ Is there corruption in the faculty/administration. favoritism, taking bribes, secret agendas, covering up student deaths, embezzling, working for the villain

⊹ What's the diversity situation. is it segregated somehow (by class, species, magic type)? integrated but with tension? do some groups face discrimination from staff or other students?

⊹ What happens outside of classes. clubs? underground fight rings? secret societies? banned parties? students sneaking out? romantic drama?

⊹ Why is your protagonist specifically there. chosen one nonsense? hiding from something? forced to attend? actually wants to learn? found out they have powers and got dragged there confused?

[weltenwellen]

An Interview with Richard Siken

[luna-azzurra]

Writing advice from someone who's read way too much fanfiction!!

─ .✦ If your villain monologues for more than two paragraphs, your hero should've escaped by now or at least checked their phone. Real people don't wait politely for evil speeches to finish. They interrupt, get bored and say things like "okay but can you get to the point I have dinner plans."

─ .✦ Stop having your characters look in mirrors to describe themselves. Your protagonist doesn't wake up and think "I looked at my reflection and saw my shoulder-length auburn hair and piercing green eyes." They think "ugh I look like death" and move on. Find literally ANY other way.

─ .✦ If every sentence in your action scene is the same length it reads like a grocery list with violence. Short punchy sentences for fast moments. Longer flowing ones when they catch their breath and realize oh god that hurt. Variety is your friend and so is rhythm.

─ .✦ Your character can cry without it being beautiful. Let them be UGLY. Let their face get blotchy and their nose run and their eyes puff up. Let them hiccup and gasp and wipe snot on their sleeve. Crying IS GROSS!

[flufftopiamailpidgeons]

Thank you!

[ghostlyimmortalvessel]

being a writer basically means having invisible friends. It’s nonnegotiable. You will find yourself talking to your characters. Just you wait.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

me every time someone asks me what I write

[writingdose]

writers, you can and should be proud of your fic even if you personally are not satisfied with it. because even if you think it's "not good", you can be proud of the fact that you wrote it and it's something you created. you can be proud of the fact it's not ai.

repeat after me, it's something you put your soul and dedication in — and that's something ai could never achieve.

[alienpupy]

dandelions are magic. literally tiny suns in the grass that turn into the moon and then the stars when you blow on them. fucking insane.

[doodle-devil]

Fucking insane

[flufftopiamailpidgeons]

Kiss me like a wild dog, my blood on your teeth, my throat on the floor-

Oh.

That wasn't a kiss, was it?

But I asked, so...

What does that make it instead?

[flufftopiamailpidgeons]

Something poignant about my mother and I being so alike.

Fourteen years of invisibility, never touching, like boats passing in the night, and my music taste still mirrors hers.

I'm her child, no matter how hard they tried to wring her blood out of me like a washcloth.

It's in the way we laugh the same, the way we both need to lay the blankets a certain way, the way we headbang to the same songs- the way the same musicians stitched our wounds back together when we were missing each other.

[theinternetarchive]

I just want to let you guys know Cornell's entire library is open access (no permissions required) and there are (shocker) many books...

[flufftopiamailpidgeons]

THANK YOU HUMAN

[alnair-jpg]

Enjoy some Mom day inspired sketches I put on my IG stories (the last one is the best ;) )

[alnair-jpg]

Oh I so agree.

And it’s even better if Nico gets in on it too like ‘well if we’re talking about living maternal figures it’s either Sally Jackson or the literal goddess of springtime. Let’s start with Sally Jackson’

[writingwithcolor]

how to convey arabic language in a specific dialect is being spoken without lengthy descriptions of how words/specific letters are pronounced?

Anonymous asks:

I believe my question revolves around linguistics, but please correct me if there’s something I didn’t take into account. I’m an Egyptian girl who speaks Arabic (the Egyptian dialect specifically), and I am currently writing an urban fantasy set in modern day Egypt. Naturally, the characters would be speaking Egyptian arabic (i even have a scene where my character converses with a tourist and struggles to speak to them ‘in english’)  But as the story is written in english, I found this is really hard to convey, especially with the entirely different alphabet, and the words that simply cannot be transcribed (sometimes in definition, and sometimes in letters that don’t have an equivalent). What would be a good way to send the message that these characters are by no means speaking English (unless stated) without having to hold the reader's hand through lengthy descriptions of how a word is pronounced at every corner?

Hi Anon! This is a tough spot. I’m no expert, just a mod and fellow writer trying to support your fantastic ask. Any bilingual readers, especially other Arabic speakers, feel free to chime in.

1- Disclose they’re speaking Arabic, even though you’re writing in English:

Example A: “Hey, Noor! Wait up,” he said in Arabic. 

Example B: “Habibti, I haven’t seen you in a while,” she reminded me. It was true - I had missed the lilt of her Darija-Moroccan dialect-so different from the Mesri, the Egyptian twang, that rolled off my tongue.

2- Consider using Arabic semantic structure or phrases and idioms used mostly in Arabic.

Example A: She reddened with embarrassment. // They whitened at the sight of it. ((English would probably say she ‘turned red’ rather than reddened, or ‘paled’ rather than whitened. Since Arabic has this natural and fun ability to let color be a verb, which English can but doesn't have naturally - make use of it! It will read differently in English because it’s an Arabic construct. Use other examples like this that you’d know better than me.))

Example B: Consider using “May the Gods smite her house!,” instead of the classic English ‘Fuck You.’ Or use “On my eyes” rather than ‘min ayooni’ or its English translation of ‘of course.’ Since Arabic language is beautifully expressive, you could lean into that when you can rather than using common English alternatives.

 Example C: Consider interspersing Arabic transliterations of common words/phrases like; habibti/habibi; yani; mashallah casually through the story.  

3- When speaking with English speakers, consider using informal text/chat speak (Arabizi?) to communicate the Arabic, since it’s already transliterated to the Roman alphabet. [disclaimer - I am atrocious at this, and will be surprised if anyone can read it… but for science!]: 

Example A: Instead of (انت طالب بالجامعة) or “are you a student?” it becomes; 

“Ente 6albeh bel jam3a?” I asked, staring at the textbook in his arms. 

He looked at me confused. “I don't understand,” he said. “I can’t speak Arabic.” 

“Wain 3m tedrus? Where do you… y3ni… where do you study?” I tried again in slow, awkward English.

These examples may or may not work for you. It’s important to remember that there’s no single "right" way to do this, but it’s mostly about finding a balance that reads well, and feels good to you. Subtle cues like sentence structure, idioms, the occasional untranslated word, and natural context can help to show the language shift. Good luck and happy writing!

~ Melanie 🌻  

P.S. Mod Meir suggests checking out the book When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb, which handles this issue well. There's a lot of "He said in English" or "He repeated it in Yiddish for the old woman's benefit" or "It took him a moment to realize he had spoken in English" (( Thanks Sacha! @kuttithvangu ))

[flufftopiamailpidgeons]

A young man sits on a bench on a quiet afternoon, holding his head in his hands. "You're telling me I have to wake up and do all of this again tomorrow?"

"All of what?" An older gentleman asks, sitting beside him.

"Living."

"Oh yes. That's the fun part." The man tells him.

"What other part is there?" The youth sighs helplessly.

"Enjoying it." Says the old man. "That's the hard part."