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KIROKAZE
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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Sade Olutola
dirt enthusiast
Misplaced Lens Cap
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YOU ARE THE REASON
Janaina Medeiros
@theartofmadeline
Today's Document
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styofa doing anything
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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@ichbinnurzugast
AU Roulette Challenge 2025
My entry for the Challenge.
Fandom: Leverage AU: High Fantasy
Summary: Nathan Ford, known as Robin Hood, is about to be hanged by his former brother-in-arms, James, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68475481
do you think crowley is hot?
yes
no
yes but his character vibes have a lot to do with it
it's nuanced (explain in the tags)
The Monster Outside If Frightful
This Friday, @ichbinnurzugast and @midnightsilver have partnered up for a chilling creation!
Trapped inside an old-fashioned B&B after being the sole survivors of a fight against an electricity eating monster, Crowley and Castiel must avoid freezing to death in the winter cold. They soon find out that this isn’t their only struggle, when they realize they are not alone…
Posting this Friday at 12:00 PM (UTC)!
Tomorrow!
He added, after a pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”
Les Misérables, Volume I / Book V / Chapter III, trans. Hapgood
This guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s one of the lead writers for Leverage and if you ever watch the series on DVD, do yourself a favor and listen to him talk about how the scripts got written. Some of the advice he has is stuff I use all the time: 1. Don’t introduce an important plot person or thing after the first half of the story. 2. Always tie up loose ends. 3. Introduce important things in the middle of unimportant things. 4. If you have to infodump, find an emotion to tie it to and it will seem less like infodump and more like a motive rant. Seriously this guy knows how to write.
Unironically my new favorite way to describe the crew in Leverage.
i had to make a solution for this for myself, mostly because of depression, but it makes a nice How To for folks who are low on spoons or could use some help in the kitchen.
Fortunately i was a professional cook for over a decade. UNfortunately the first post i made explaining it was suuuuper long. Let's see if i can do better
So you select any protein that you can cook in a frying pan -- chicken breasts, ground beef, pork chops, sausages, steak, chicken thighs, whatever. You also select one or two types of veggie (mushrooms or tubers also work, i just did this with potatoes and carrots for dinner tonight).
[i like cooking for vegetarians, but this is how i cook for myself when i'm low on spoons - perhaps i'll do another post for meatless meals]
You'll also need some kind of oil, and a sauce or two of your choice in a bottle. All cooking gear is a large frying pan with lid (i prefer non-stick) a spatula, a cutting board, and a knife.
You cut the veggies into bite size pieces, cut up enough for two meals. One kind of veggie is fine, or you can do mix two or three
Put frying pan on medium heat with a little oil. Tubers or mushrooms or go in the pan a few minutes before the protein. 2 portions of the protein goes in the pan, about 5 minutes with lid (don't worry you can still get a good sear on both sides)
Now flip your protein if it's flip-able and add normal veggies, put the lid back on another five-ish minutes.
Take your protein out and put it with one portion of the veggies in a microwave safe container. That's going to be your lunch tomorrow. Put the other portion of protein on a plate to rest (you have to let a cooked protein sit a couple minutes before you serve it or when you cut into it all the juices run out and it goes dry - the liquids thicken as it cools, preventing this drying out if you let it rest, the goal is to serve it very warm but not hot hot)
While it's resting, pour some sauce from your bottle in the pan with the rest of the veggies and turn up the heat. A single sauce/bottle is fine, i like to get fancy and mix a couple. Two examples of personal favorite mixes are 1: bbq sauce and a hot sauce like sriracha 2: roughly equal parts low sodium soy sauce and worcestershire (makes something similar to a teriyaki sauce) A swallow of wine is almost always a great option if you want to add that to your sauce too, just add it to the pan before the other sauces so the alcohol has time to burn off.
...
Here is the important bit. While your veggies are finishing, wash your cutting board and chef knife. Then when you dump your veggies and sauce over your protein on the plate, while it is still too hot to eat, you wash your frying pan and spatula before you eat. Now the only dishes you have left to do are your plate and fork. Maybe a steak knife.
...
The whole thing takes about 35 minutes even with washing the dishes, and that includes your lunch for the next day- just pour a different sauce on and stick it in the microwave for a couple minutes (or five minutes back in the frying pan) and you have a full healthy lunch with a different flavor
You can use this technique every single meal and it yields hundreds of combinations, from pork and potatoes bbq, to salmon and broccoli teriyaki, to chicken and zucchini in a soy glaze.
It will keep you down to less than an hour of kitchen time per day total for both lunch and dinner including all dish clean up, uses the least dishes, the least effort, requires the least technique, and is, depending on what you pick out, very affordable
here are a couple more examples from this month; i didn’t take pictures of the salmon i did recently, but you get the idea
it's not super fancy, but it is easy, affordable, quick, and any flavors you want. Hope this helps some folks
Happy Cooking!
How to Write Better Descriptions using Negative Space
The Power of Negative Space
A late spring breeze drifts through the open window of your studio, carrying the scent of freshly cut grass and faint cigarette smoke. You reposition your easel to better catch the light. Then, looking at the canvas, you dip your brush into black paint, and you paint the silhouette of a vase.
You step back to see your handiwork.
On the canvas is a vase and two faces. You only painted the vase, but the untouched white canvas presses in on the edges of the black paint, appearing to form the profiles of two faces.
You’ve painted Rubin’s Vase, an illusion that uses negative space (the unpainted canvas) to imply shapes and images. It shows how with just a few brush strokes, you’re able to imply just as much as you explicitly create.
That’s the power of a line — and to harness it is an advantage, whether you’re painting a picture, or writing a description in a story.
Writing Descriptions like Brush Strokes
As writers, we’ll never perfectly convey the images in our heads, because our descriptions rely on the imaginations of our readers to come to life. We can try to fix this by packing a description with excessive details, but that often just bloats the image, which bores, rather than stimulates, the imagination.
That’s why you should try writing like an artist — in brush strokes.
And with negative space.
Instead of describing every painstaking detail of a scene or a character’s appearance, highlight instead a few key, unique details — building clear images, which in turn imply an entire scene in the negative space of your reader’s imagination.
Take, for example, my introduction above. The late spring breeze, drifting in through an open window, smelling of freshly cut grass and cigarette smoke. You, readjusting the easel to catch the natural lighting, dipping your brush into black paint.
I’m not describing everything in that scene. I’m just providing a few specific details and actions that activate your imagination and bring the scene to life. (That being said, if I were writing a full scene and not just a short blog intro, I’d probably provide a few more details, such as your paint-splattered jeans and boots; yesterday’s coffee, cold in a mug on the windowsill; your sheared fingernails and cuticles, shortened from a habit of nail biting.)
Writing better descriptions can be as simple as that. Here are a few tips for writing descriptions in this fashion:
Ignore commonplace details. Readers are able to fill in common, assumed details (like hair/eye color) on their own, so prioritize details that make the setting or character unique.
Write clear, descriptive actions. Above, I didn’t just write “you move to a better position,” I wrote, “You reposition your easel to better catch the light.” I said very little about the easel, but now you’re picturing it all the same, likely with your hands on its wooden leg and brace, and you’re seeing the canvas brighten with natural lighting as you move it closer to the window. But I didn’t say all those things: I only offered a few specific nouns and verbs, and your imagination filled in and extrapolated the rest. That’s what happens when you write actions with specificity.
Write as much (or as little) as space and style dictate. Like I wrote above, I kept this post’s intro description short, because I wanted to usher you into the body of the content. A longer description would have hindered that goal. In a full scene, you may take more time to really breathe life into the setting or character. Or you might not; never forget to factor in your personal aesthetic and narrative goals.
Feel free to go overboard in draft 1. When painting, you can’t easily take back a brush stroke — but in writing you can. So feel free to write excessively in draft one, to get a lot of details to choose from, and then trim things back in revision.
Good luck and good writing, everybody! Feel free to comment or reblog if you have any questions.
— — —
Your stories are worth telling. For tips on how to craft meaning, build character-driven plots, and grow as a writer, follow my blog.
The “oh I could definitely write this fanfic in under 5000 words and it really wouldn’t take me that long” voice in your head is actually the devil speaking
Garrus Vakarian portrait done in procreate
Rehab for writing injuries
You’ve heard of “making writing a habit,” and you’ve tried, but the pressure to write fills you with horrible pain and dread. You spend all your time wishing you could write but somehow never writing. The “make it a habit” approach doesn’t work for you. But you still want to write, maybe even regularly. Is there nothing you can do?
Here is an alternative approach to try. A rehab program, as it were, for writers with a psychological “writing injury” that has destroyed their desire to write and replaced it with shame, anxiety and dread.
If you have a writing injury, you probably acquired it by being cruel to yourself, by internalizing some intensely critical voice or set of rules that crushes your will to write under the boot-heel of “you should.” “You should be writing better after all the years of experience you’ve had.” “You should be writing more hours a day, you’ll never get published at this rate.” “You should write more like [Hilton Als/Jeffrey Eugenides/Octavia Butler/Terry Pratchett/etc.].” “You should write faster/more/better/etc./etc.”
You know what, though? Fuck all that. Self-abuse may have featured heavily in the cool twentieth-century writer’s lifestyle, but we are going to treat ourselves differently. Because 1) it’s nicer, and 2) frankly, it gets better results. My plan here is to help you take the radical step of caring for yourself.
1) First of all: ask yourself why you aren’t writing.
Not with the goal of fixing the problem, but…just to understand. For a moment, dial down all of the “goddammit, why can’t I just write?” blaring in your head and be curious about yourself. Clearly, you have a reason for not writing. Humans don’t do anything for no reason. Try to discover what it is. And be compassionate; don’t reject anything you discover as “not a good enough excuse.” Your reasons are your reasons.
For me, writing was painful because I wanted it to solve all my problems. I wanted it to make me happy and whole. I hated myself and hoped writing would transform me into a totally different person. When it failed to do that, as it always did, I felt like shit.
Maybe writing hurts because you’ve loaded it with similarly unfair expectations. Or maybe you’re a victim of low expectations. Maybe people have told you you’re stupid or untalented or not fluent enough in the language you write in. Maybe writing has become associated with painful events in your life. Maybe you’ve just been forced to write so many times that you can no longer write without feeling like someone’s making you do it. Writing-related pain and anxiety can come from so many different places.
2) Once you have some idea of why you’re not writing…just sit with that.
Don’t go into problem-solving mode. Just nod to yourself and say, “yes, that’s a good reason. If I were me, I wouldn’t want to write either.” Have some sympathy for yourself and the pain you’re in.
3) Now…keep sitting with it. That’s it, for the moment. No clever solutions. Just sympathize. And, most importantly, grant yourself permission to not write, for a while.
It’s okay. You are good and valuable and worthy of love, even when you aren’t writing. There are still beautiful, true things inside of you.
Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for humans to do things if they don’t have permission not to do them. It’s especially hard if those things are also painful. We hate feeling trapped or compelled, and we hate having our feelings disregarded. It shuts us down in every possible way. You will feel more desire to write, therefore, if you believe you are free not to write, and if you believe it’s okay not to do what causes you pain.
(By the way: not having permission isn’t the same as knowing there will be negative consequences. “If I don’t write, I won’t make my deadline” is different from “I’m not allowed not to write, even if it hurts.” One is just awareness of cause and effect; the other is a kind of slavery.)
4) For at least a week, take an enforced vacation from writing, and from any demands that you write. During this time, you are not permitted to write or give yourself grief for not writing.
This may or may not be reverse psychology. But it’s more than that.
Think of it as a period of convalescence. You’re keeping your weight off an injury so it can heal, and what’s broken is your desire to write. Pitilessly forcing yourself to write when it’s painful, plus the shame you feel when you don’t write, is what broke that desire. So, for a week (or a month, or a year, or however long you need) tell yourself you are taking a doctor-prescribed break from writing.
This will feel scary for some folks. You might feel like you’re giving up. You might worry that this break from writing feels too good, that your desire to write might never return. All I can say is, I’ve been there. I’ve had all those fears and feelings. And the desire to write did return. But you gotta treat it like a tiny crocus shoot and not stomp on it the second it pokes its little head up. Like so:
5) Once you feel an itch to write again—once you start to chafe against the doctor’s orders—you can write a tiny bit. Only five or ten minutes a day.
That’s it. I’m serious: set a timer, and stop writing when the time’s up. No cheating. (Well…maybe you can take an extra minute to finish your thought, if necessary.)
Remember: these rules are not like the old rules, the ones that said, “you must write or you suck.” These rules are a form of self-care. You are not imposing a cruel, arbitrary law, you are being gentle with yourself. Not “easy” or “soft”—any Olympic athlete will tell you that hard exercise when you’ve got an injury is stupid and pointless, not tough or virtuous. If you need an excuse to take care of yourself, that’s it: if you’re injured, you can’t perform well, and aggravating the injury could take you out of the competition permanently.
For the first few days, all of the writing you do should be freewriting. Later, you can do some tiny writing exercises. Don’t jump into an old project you stalled out on. Think small and exploratory, not big and goal-oriented. And whatever you do, don’t judge the output. If you have to, don’t even read what you write. This is exercise, not performance; this is you stretching your atrophied writing muscles, not you trying to write something good. At this stage, it literally doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you generate words. (Frankly, it would be kind of weird and unfair if your writing at this point was good.)
6) After a week, you can increase your time limit if you want. But only a little!
Spend a week limiting yourself to, say, twenty minutes a day instead of ten. When in doubt, set your limit for less than you think you’ll need. You want to end each writing session feeling like you could keep going, not like you’re crawling across the finish line.
Should you write every day? That’s up to you. Some people will find it helpful to put writing on their calendar at the same time each day. Others will be horribly stifled by that. You get to decide when and how often you write, but two things: 1) think about what you, personally, need when you make that decision, and 2) allow that decision to be flexible.
Remember, the only rule is, don’t go over your daily limit. You always have permission to write less.
And keep checking in with yourself. Remember how this program began? If something hurts, if your brain is sending you “I don’t wanna” signals, respect them. Investigate them, find out what their deal is. You might decide to (gently) encourage yourself to write in spite of them, but don’t ignore your pain. You are an athlete, and athletes listen to their bodies, especially when they’re recovering from an injury. If writing feels shitty one day, give yourself a reward for doing it. If working on a particular project ties your brain in knots, do a little freewriting to loosen up. And always be willing to take a break. You always have permission not to write.
7) Slowly increase your limit over time, but always have a limit.
And when you’re not writing, you’re not writing. You don’t get to berate yourself for not writing. If you find yourself regularly blazing past your limit, then increase your limit, but don’t set large aspirational limits in an effort to make yourself write more. In fact, be ready to adjust your limit lower.
When it comes to mental labor, after all, more is not always better. Apparently, the average human brain can only concentrate for about 45 minutes at a time, and it only has about four or so high-quality 45-minute sessions a day in it. That’s three hours. So if you set your daily limit for more than three hours, you may be working at reduced efficiency, when you’d be better off saving up your ideas and motivation for the next day. (Plus, health and other factors may in fact give you less than 3 good hours a day. That’s okay!)
Of course, if you’re a professional writer or a student, external pressures may force you to write when your brain is tired, but my point is more about attitude: constant work is not necessarily better work. So don’t make it into a moral ideal. We tend to think that working less is morally weak or wrong, and that’s bullshit. Taking care of yourself is practical. Pushing yourself too hard will just hurt you and your writing. Also, your feelings are real and they matter. If you ignore or abuse them, you’ll be like a runner trying to run on a broken ankle.
I know I’m going to get someone who says, “if you’re a pro, sometimes you gotta ignore your feelings and just get the work done!”
NO.
You can, of course, choose to work in spite of any pain you’re feeling. But ignore that pain at your peril. Instead, acknowledge the pain and be compassionate. Forgive yourself if pain slows you down. You are human, so don’t hold your feet to the fire for having human limitations. Maybe a deadline is forcing you to work anyway. But make yourself a cup of hot chocolate to get you through it, literally or metaphorically. Help yourself, don’t force yourself. If you’ve had a serious writing injury, that shift in attitude will make all the difference.
In short: treat yourself as someone whose feelings matter.
Try it out! And let me know how it goes!
Ask a question or send me feedback!
OK, because I’ve seen the wretched concrit discourse on my dash again, I’m going to share a little secret with all of you. come a bit closer. no, closer than that.
ready?
you can give positive feedback
seriously, you can avoid 99% of this awkwardness by just picking one aspect of the fic you liked and letting the author know about it.
stuff like:
“wow, you’re really good with the characters’ voices, I could hear them speak all of that dialogue!”
or “I never saw that twist coming, that was great!”
or “your action scenes are incredible!”
and here’s the best part: this is much more likely to help someone improve their craft than unsolicited negative feedback ever could. (also, positive feedback is much more likely to make a writer keep going and that is the best way to get better)
This is not an exhaustive list of ways to get jump started but these are a few of my favorites! Enjoy c:
*insert gif that says ‘bet you thought you’d seen the last of me*
welp…I’m back at it again. The og post got some notes recently and I was inspired to make a part two so here’s that. I’m tempted to make a part three so keep an eye out.
Part 3! Five more ways to combat writers block. Hope these are helpful. Part 4 is coming soon:)
Fourth and (probably, maybe, possibly) final installment to the Writers Block Hacks! I hope y’all are seeing these and enjoying them. I’d love to hear if you are.
Let's play spin the bottle (actually it's spin the wheel, but that's not important) with spn characters. Follow this link and spin the wheel, you will have to kiss (in your imagination ofc) the character you get.
Who did you get?
Dean
Sam
Cas
Mary
Rowena
Crowley
Garth
Jo
John
Charlie
Donna
Gabriel
did the mass effect games make you cry
yes
no
have not played them
i am legit crying here
Gomez and Morticia Addams got divorced. I woke up mortified and with a sense of inexplicable dread.
you literally don’t need any other plot and i would watch the movie
Every 'normal' adult is fussing around Pugsley and Wednesday because "poor children that must be so hard for you to see mom and dad break up like this"
But the kid are absolutely unfazed, arguing that "it's alright they will be together again soon". The normie are so sad for the "children clinging to vain hopes" until Morticia and Gomez get married again two weeks after the divorce.
In the meantime Mama and Uncle Fester fight about which one of them will go to whose custody.
They pretend to argue in court and at meeting with lawyers over the splitting of the properties but that's mostly Gomez insisting to leave more and more thing to his wife in an angry voice.
At home they decided not to talk to each other so Lurch has to (begrudgingly) transmit messages from one to the other, even when they are sat on either side of the table.
That works (more or less) then Morticia says one word in french and Gomez run to cover her with kisses until Morticia remind him that they are spliting (that's the only moment he seems to regret the whole thing)
This. All of this.
"I know it's close to the end of the school year because you've gone from drinking matcha to coffee."
-- My coworker to me
