with rose-tinted goggles and gritted teeth optimism

the name's spec! | she/her | 24 | welcome to my collection of eclectic reblogs, rambles, and stockpiled positivity. also sometimes art!

[mayasaura]

Still thinking about the Stratt survival cannibalism au because it's just so mean. Grace would hate her for it so so so bad.

Not only would she have died to give him the chance to live before he even remembered her condemning him to death in the first place, which would be fucked up and confusing enough. (Grief and rage sit similarly in the thoracic cavity.) She would have also murdered his only human companion. (Herself.)

And that's not even touching on the practicalities of, uh, respecting her final wishes. Would he even be capable of it?

[godaweful]

catherine might be the first game changer player who understood the assignment, immediately failed the assignment, figured out the assignment better, told everyone else the assignment, and then failed multiple times cause she truly cannot describe pictures (or name songs). player of all time. i love seeing someone who clearly gets and loves game changer and is just plain bad at games. representation for all of us.

[etighost]

Welcome to the show!

[thelightcomingthroughthewindow]

Podfic is the ultimate portmanteau btw

[freenos]

modern au?

[escuerzoresucitado]

Pedestrian traffic lights

[a-book-of-creatures]

Is it socially acceptable to use opaque watercolors, or is that considered gouache?

[a-book-of-creatures]

The author must have been eating woodland salad, candied acorns, turnip pie, plum-cakes, bilberry tarts, arrowroot shortbread, and glazed maple shoots, and drinking flagons of October ale and raspberry cordial when they wrote this

[bodhrancomedy]

Look, it’s a weird hill to die on, especially when I don’t really explain, but children deserve to experience fear, disgust, and discomfort in safe scenarios where they can process those sensations.

Media for children used to be scary and that’s important.

[the-davest-of-uncles]

“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” ― C.S. Lewis

[grace-in-the-wilderness]

"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."

-- G. K. Chesterton

[too-many-hyperfixations]

It's not a fun part of the movie when a character the kid likes dies, but they can experience loss without losing someone they actually know that way, and learn how to deal with grief in the future from how the protagonist is taught to deal with it. The real deal will still be way worse, but a 7 year old who's allowed to know what death IS is likely to grow into a 15 year old who can deal with their feelings when it happens.

[treefey]

"I want my media to be historically accurate"

Cool, so you want natural fiber costumes with no/nuanced corset slander, people wearing colors, historical hairstyles, people wearing hats or headcoverings and long sleeves outside during the day, no potatoes or pumpkins in pre-columbian Europe, actors with textured skin and wrinkles, minimal makeup, consulting HEMA groups and weapons scholars for all the weapons and fight scenes, a good soundtrack that includes traditional instruments?

Oh, you mean you want 100% white people. Even in crowd scenes in port cities. There's a different word for that.

[piksiew]

bacteriography portrait of Five Pebbles I made from yeast , mold , acrylic paints and other stuff i found

[stephexmachina]

proposing a new genre of fiction called an anti-romance where u r presented w a couple at the start & the story is about their emotional journey towards a catastrophic break up

[stephexmachina]

will they won't they (end this farce). there's only one bed (but for some reason they don't really want to share it). out of context eavesdropping (that paints the relationship in a better light than it deserves). chasing after them to stop them getting on that plane (and stopping them from finally being free)

[stephexmachina]

nobody understands my vision i don't mean any old story where a relationship fails and it's tragic or w/e i mean a story where the intention is for the audience to root for it failing the same way u root for it succeeding in a romance. & when the relationship finally implodes at the climax of the story it's all very cathartic & everybody cheers.

[stephexmachina]

like have u never wanted a fictional couple to break up so badly it hurt?

[brainless-moe-white-lotus]

Bitches will be like "prev tags omg" on my post and I check the preg tags and it's like "blorbo from my shows"

[world-heritage-posts]

world heritage post

[astronomical-bagel]

Happy late anniversary to the post that changed tumblr’s (and the entire internet’s) vernacular forever

[enchantedbook]

"At the troll court" by Ink Yami

[teathattast]

[digitalkiddo]

If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.

[thewritings]

I don't know how easy it is to get hold of these days, my library happened to have them, but the Howdunit series is excellent. there are books on poinsons, carnivals, PIs, and scams. A bit dated in terms of technology but they were lots of fun.

[h0lyshift]

The older i get the more i understand why some people become obsessed with privacy, not because they’re hiding something, but because being constantly perceived starts to feel spiritually exhausting.

[melyzard]

Did you know that soda machines at restaurants and movie theaters spy on you? That most common new cars now record your sexual preferences and send it to the manufacturer (and also data about anyone who also gets in your car, walks by your car, and maybe happens to be within visual range of your car)? That grocery stores are trying to force customers to download an app to scan barcodes on shelves instead of putting up prices, so the app can scan the phone, decide how much that customer should be squeezed for, and adjust the price? That more and more innocent people are being sent to jail for crimes committed hundreds of miles away because an AI facial recognition algorithm spit their faces out and the cops didn't bother to do the most basic of checks?

I am not uptight about privacy because I'm hiding something. I'm uptight about it because the people who dismiss my right to privacy are dangerous to you and me and our families, personally, all the time.

And often, they are assholes, too.