A place for all my little stories @my-forgotten-notepad - Tumblr Blog

Writblr tip and trick link Masterpost

the followring a bunch of links to a variety of tumblr blogs discussing things from fight scenes, types of romance, antagonists and how to flavour dialogue descriptors and how to build the voice and logic of your characters.

emotion chart

subplots

emotional writing tips

words other than said

character profile

body language

types of villains

elements of a fight scene

romance

action scenes

writers block

character flaws/buffs

rules for writers

Character's voice

sci-fi/dystopia/utopia genre post

virtue to vice spectrum

eldritch madness definition

dialogue options

expression descriptors

eldritch madness 2

trope, theme, archetype, motif and cliche

example of predestined outcome

a unique perspective on female representation in fiction

disguising a character's powerlevel with dialogue and physicality

notebook.ai (character construction/worldbuilding app)

narrative archetypes

how to create an impactful action heroine

eldritch madness 3

villain value system

writing advice

use of lifespan in a work

character profile 2

dialogue options 2

I want to have all these links here and easily available for reading and re-reading if an when I need them rather than needing to relentlessly dig through all of my likes to find any of the relevant material I want to look over. I hope other's find them as accessible and as usable as I do.

my-forgotten-notepad

Hello again, I have found some more resources on here that I thought were worth adding to the masterpost.

body pain

Forget Clarity of Description

Tips for naming characters!

Editing tips

Ways to conclude your story

Non-linear scene writing

What is love to your characters?

Worldbuilding

Different story structures

Writing your protagonist

Showing Romantic Feelings Without Kissing

Starting a scene strong

Worldbuilding 2

self-editing tips

Show, don't tell

7 fool-proof ways to connect with your characters

Troubleshooting Your Plot

Iconic 'goes too hard dialogue' from memes

A difference of Gothic and Eldritch horror

Soured core traits

When and how to break established rules

Pros can become cons

the fallout of redemption

I hope these additions assist anyone in their projects.

tomoleary

Frank Frazetta, Nina (1951). Nina was never published.

"I did that whole project on spec. I was looking for work. The comic strip artists got paid a lot better than the comic book people. I wanted to get my foot in some door. I did that TIGA strip for the same reason. I thought this Nina strip would catch someone's attention. A sexy girl lost in some strange land by herself...why not? Sounds great. I loved drawing the girl. It turned out very sultry. I had her falling into some water. Nice design, good action, I was pleased with it. I really couldn't have inked it any better. Everything just flowed. It was really the best inking I was capable of at that time. That final panel where she comes into the strange world had me thinking. I remember all those stories and fairytales where the arches and doorways and windows are all important. Remember that scene in The Searchers with John Wayne? The door opens at the beginning and closes to end the movie. It's unforgettable, isn't it? I wanted that panel to have that impact, something special. I decided to frame her in a rock arch that was different. I didn't know what look I wanted. I remember, vividly now, that I walked outside my studio to have a cigarette. I wanted to find a rock, just a rock, any rock, and look at it. I couldn't find anything but some smooth stones in the street. I took a walk and finally found a small rock in the gutter. It was only two, three inches and covered with dirt. I spit on it three or four times and wiped it on my pants. I just stood there and looked at it. I turned it all over and let the sun shine on it. I kept looking at the color, the tones, the striations, the little veins. I threw it away. I stood there and kept thinking about it. My mind starting adding things to it, adding veins, adding lines. It was growing in my imagination. Strange as it sounds but I was growing this rock in my mind. Weird, eh? That's the way my mind works. All the time. It grabs something and starts adding things to it. I've done that with flowers and vegetation and muscles under the skin. I see something and my brain just completes it, changes it, moves it around. Everything is so clear and detailed. Once I had this idea of the rock I just sat down and drew it. I had fun with all the swirls and lines. It was like a tree, except it was rock. I had my great entranceway. Now, what to do about the girl. I penciled her in quickly, then stopped. I didn't know what to do with her. I didn't want her to draw attention away from the rock. I gave up. I just couldn't figure out what to do. I never did. That's why I stopped. The strip was never picked up so there was no reason to finish it. It's been in the closet for years."

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/-frazetta-nina-bottom-strip/a/997030-1029.s

mykeworthy

The WIP tag game - DARK

The lovely and talented @relentlesslyoptimisticsblog tagged me in the WIP game with the word...

🌙D A R K🌙

Rules: You are given a word, and you post a paragraph/snippet from your WIP(s) starting with each letter of the word.

Despite her rage and abilities though, whatever fight she would have given was over almost as sudden as her attack, ending face down in the dirt as Dr Fate struck her back. She felt a powerful hand on her shoulder as she lifted herself, seeing Superman already at her side. He had a knowing look as he helped her to her feet.

Suddenly the portal that stood behind Dr Fate blinked out of existence, the Champion turning in an instant to look at the crater that was once the park’s fountain. Beast Boy had made it, and her brothers had their sacrifice. (From my story “She Called Him Edgar”)

A pair of arms reached over his head as he stretched his whole body, walking on the balls of his feet, stifling a yawn, trying not to wake anyone else. Bringing the arms down, he gently rolled his left one, trying to relieve the tension in his shoulder. Years of heroics and shifting his very body were not kind.

Heading down the stairs, he crossed into the living room, grabbing a book from one of the many bookshelves his wife had asked him to put in. Most had been taken up by her personal collection of spell books, historical accounts of magic and magic users, among others. A small space in one was his own books. Mostly omnibuses of comic books and graphic novels, but one single book, old and faded, had a special home it rested in, until Garfield needed it for his daily ritual. (Follow up to Scars, called “Sacrament”)

Raven slowly opened her eyes, as the memory of where she was hit her. The hospital bed was not comfy, and she checked to see if she was hooked up to anything. An IV, a heart monitor. Raven had not had a normal reaction to birth, and despite wanting a natural birth, she needed to be sedated. Her eyes scanned the room, the last thing she remembered was a bunch of nurses and doctors around her, and seeing her son for a few moments before passing out.

Right now, the room was empty, save for a lone figure by the window.

“See that Eddie?” Beast Boy spoke, cradling Raven’s son in his arms. “That’s Jump City. Your mom doesn’t follow along with a lot of celebrity news, but some many people out there are so eager to meet you. You are the first Titan baby, and soon Star and Robin will give you a little cousin to play with. But until then, everyone is going to want to see you, yes they are.” (Also from “She Called Him Edgar”)

Knighthood didn’t leave much time to pursue hobbies, but Gar had read romance novels when he was alone and had read this scene happening too many times. A man and woman, or two men, in a moment where one kisses the other. The other goes wide eyed, the world freezing as they slowly respond. But this was not some tawdry story.

Gar immediately returned the kiss, years of silently pining for his friend guiding his lips and his freed hand to wrap around Jason. His other hand slipped away, and he moved fast, rolling the two over, so he was now on top, his legs on either side of Jason’s waist. Jason smiled against Gar’s lips and gripped his hips, Gar responding with gentle grinds against him.

“Have you been with a man before?” Jason asked once the kiss broke. Gar blushed before answering yes. “Did you tell Raven?” That got him a no, and for a moment he felt like they should stop. This was cheating… wasn’t it? They were both dating the same girl… but the truth was Jason wanted this. Ever since the two joined the academy. It had pained him to treat Gar the way he had, but he had to be sure he could make it as a dragon rider. (A Jay/Gar/Rae with BB being the one shared by the others? You may one day read it)

I am tagging @my-forgotten-notepad

Your Word is CLAW

my-forgotten-notepad

This is old and very neglected and I am very sorry But I just don't have any WIPs at the moment. Nor have I had any for a very, very long time.

But I'm reblogging this so at least, when I do have something I will be able to come back to this and give you something worth reading

thelaurenshippen

it's always "did you really need to burn down your workplace to prove a point" and never "how was the revenge arson? did you have fun doing revenge arson? were the flames pretty?"

thelaurenshippen

um.

partasah

🔥🔥🔥

Context for other users:

On the morning of April 7, 2026, a fire was started at the Kimberly-Clark Distribution Center in Ontario, California. It escalated to a six-alarm fire and took nearly twelve hours to extinguish. The facility was completely destroyed and declared a "total loss". There were no injuries or deaths. An employee who was working in the warehouse is accused of arson.

Authorities stated that the employee had shared videos of himself starting the fire on Facebook, saying "all you had to do was pay us enough to live" and "there goes your inventory" while lighting pallets of toilet paper ablaze.

ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS PAY US ENOUGH TO LIVE

No injuries. No deaths. This was a protest fire. This is why unions are important, to prevent frustrations like these, to ensure people are paid enough to live.

🔥🔥🔥🔥

isaacsapphire

Dumb question, but (taking the motive at face value) how would a union specifically have prevented this as opposed to warehouse just paying workers more?

brazenautomaton

"Anything destructive is good if you sound like a communist."

Do you think the heroic impoverished proletariat is doing better or worse now that their workplace has burned down and they can no longer perform labor in exchange for wages? Was this an effective action to empower the heroic impoverished proletariat, or was it destructive and helped nobody except as it provided masturbation material to communists?

Do you actually and literally know what they were actually paid in the actual real life world or are you just assuming that because the concept of money makes you upset, any violence and destruction was justified?

shiftingravenbehemoth-deactivat

Guy who'll never be a millionaire let alone own a business in his life when someone torches a warehouse

"Dats wong! Noone ever got what they wanted using violence! You're supposed to dance on the side of the road at a government appropriate and approved protest! Thats how real change is made!"

brazenautomaton

shiftingravenbehemoth-deactivat

I swear to god if the Boston tea party happened today tumblr centrists would find a way to fence sit about it.

brazenautomaton

shiftingravenbehemoth-deactivat

Obviously this will achieve much more

brazenautomaton

cookingwithroxy

What really makes the comedy here is that there is nothing at all that presents this fire as a unified protest by the workers. Indeed, it was SPECIFICALLY just one person, lashing out angrily at a job he disliked and felt unrewarded for. He may have used the term 'us' but there's absolutely nothing showing that it served anyone but himself.

It wasn't a protest against ICE. It wasn't some grand statement about Fascism. It did absolutely nothing about international exploitation (not that there even seems to be any notable examples of that attached to Kimberly-Clark as a company.)

It was quite simply some asshole working at a distribution warehouse burning everything down because he felt underpaid...

At a job where he was paid about 17-23 dollars an hour. Which is just above minimum wage in California, but California is a hellhole of bad policy decisions and extravagant costs.

So yeah. Basic form is that it's a shitty guy high on his own politics who destroyed his workplace because he wanted to be a folk hero. And unlike his heroes, he openly stated he did it so his plea of not guilty is kinda gonna go nowhere.

But idiotic communists have to act like this is a grand protest because if they did recognize this act for what it is, they'd have to realize that they have absolutely no sympathy or understanding for the common worker, and that's not something they're ready to recognize.

wetheurban

How strange it is to wake up, check the news, see the world burning down… and still have to go to work, answer texts, be a person. Do what you can. That’s enough. It really is.

hst3000

The world is always burning somewhere. You just happen to be in an era when you have dozens of media companies making big money on broadcasting it to the world at large. Almost none of it matters to you and is just mental dead weight, something that neither affects, nor can be affected by you.

arcenciel-par-une-larme

[D]o not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented…It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

-- C. S. Lewis

szecretary

i need more information about szeto as well, the implications behind this administrative law connoisseur and public worker being also the most powerful bender of his time. it's all just too funny.

was he already studying for his future before he was announced as the avatar? was he like "okay but I'll be allowed to keep up with my studies right" to the fire sages? because i can't imagine someone who was not already academy oriented suddenly decide to get a desk job after mastering all elements.

just imagine a sixteen year old szeto who is super into history and art suddenly being told lmao you're gonna have to leave your scrolls at home, shave your head and go spend a couple of years with the air nomads.

please the possibilities are endless.

faithful-grigori

“Nope, not leaving my office again! Flooding in the Earth Kingdom? Water Tribe political disputes? Never heard of ‘em, call back when you have a Fire Nation problem, and specifically one I can solve from my study with a cup of jasmine tea by my side!”

thesevenstarfoxes

Yes, but it's more that: There's flooding in the Earth Kingdom, but the leader of one of the largest clans in the Fire Nation was just murdered, and it's unknown who murdered him, and everyone's blaming each other, and the civil war JUST ENDED and now it's about to start again and I need to focus on that.

szecretary

i know my main guy avatar szeto had tension headaches every day of his life since the age of sixteen. it's why he looks so stern in his official portraits.

my-forgotten-notepad

I think people freeze up at Szeto when discussing the whole Avatar -1 generates the lifetime of conflict for Avatar 0, and Avatar 0 creates the lifetime of conflict for Avatar +1.

Considering Szeto was born before his homeland had been consolidated into the Fire Nation, and more importantly, he had been born during what can best be described as The Fire Nation's Warring States period. Which begs the question, what did the Avatar before him do that led to the Fire Islands to be plagued by disease, famine, war, civil war, plots, banditry, raids, piracy, and utter discontent and disorder?

Szeto, as mentioned above, probably wished he could focus on something other than the Fire Islands, but they were so unstable at this period that he couldn't.

But he could've just used the power of the Avatar to fix things

He very well could have. But I do believe the pretext for why he didn't was merely that the peace sustained from him throwing his power about and threatening others into compliance would've only ever been temporary at best and obscenely fragile at worst. It would force his relationship with his homeland to become akin to Konrad Curze and Nostrommo.

Sure, Nostrommo listens to Kurze, but only when he's on the planet. The moment he leaves, the obeisance of his will slackens until it evaporates immediately.

If Szeto had Avatar'd the hell out of the Fire Islands, then the moment he left to thwart crises round the world, all hell would break loose and it would definitely go to hell the moment Szeto died. It's unfortunate, but Szeto's approach may very well have been one he came to after consulting the Fire Sages, his bending teachers, and even prior incarnations. This approach could have simply been the only true option to keep the Fire Islands alive and to ensure the continuation of his people, Fire benders, and the Avatar Cycle.

shortfictionary

Superman as a Christian

(Just an idea)

Considering Clark Kent's upbringing and home state (Smallville, Kansas) and raised by a set of aging parents, it really isn't beyond the pale to imagine Clark as a practising Christian. In a vein sort of similar to Marvel's Daredevil (Yet at the same time starkly different), I can imagine Clark's relationship with his faith, his being and heritage, as well as how the world views him would deeply and powerfully affect him.

Like, there are, of course, the INCREDIBLY on your nose jesus/messiah/saviour allusions and affections, as well as the damnations/projections/curses constantly levied and heaped upon his shoulders. Since Superman appeared, both groups of people have come to different conclusions about the same stimuli, and more and more dangerous supervillains and crazy events have occurred. Splitting the population into two groups, one that praises Superman as a modern-day messiah and the other that views him as either the engineer of these terrible events or as one whose mere existence attracts these terrors to him.

Leaving Superman (and Clark Kent) to grapple and wrestle with the dilemma of passively allowing a cult of personality and Modernistic idol worship of himself to occur, or to retreat from being a hero and staying his hand and allowing terrible things to happen that he could stop.

I can just see him either in his apartment or in a weathered church in Smallville, talking to a pastor or a bishop in full costume, just trying to navigate avoiding indulging and/or accidentally continuing to form a cult that worships him while dealing with the accountability and responsibility of being a protector of millions to billions of people every day. Walking the fine line of selfless action and tender charity without becoming biased, prejudiced, or clouded by ego, desire, or yearning that could corrupt his faith or the faith of others.

It would be an interesting run/AU I think. Especially if you have Superman clash with an extremely nihilistic, atheistic Luthor who believes that all that exists is what you build/leave behind, and he seeks to build an eternal legacy, and he doesn't care who he has to hurt to get there. Or maybe even Savage (a man who was canonically Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Pontius Pilate, and a supporter of Hitler throughout the ages of DC's world history), the dark and cruel immortal kingdom builder/breaker, clashing with Clark's values and ideals with each encounter, eager to beat and break him down into accepting Savage's dark, cold, and bitterly extreme ideological school of Social Darwinism.

bulbasaur-propaganda

Growing up with your starters

Artist: esasi8794 / Twitter

chabbit

The captions are also really cute, although they mostly describe what’s in each photo:

Bulbasaur: Somehow, nomming on my clothes… has become a weird habit of theirs.

Venusaur: That hasn’t changed now that they’ve grown, but they’re very gentle.

Charmander: It’s my first attempt, but I made a plushie so that he wouldn’t get lonely.

Charizard: That plushie seems to be his favorite even now.

Squirtle: Squirtle’s a bit timid and hides behind me at the smallest things.

Blastoise: Looks like they’re scared of the first Pichu they’ve seen. You’re not really hiding!

notsomerryerry

@noelle217

gale-gentlepenguin

This is adorable

arrghigiveup

They just posted some more!

[source]

kradeiz

And some more!

eeveelution-appreciation

You forgot these!!!

cubonepropoganda

I’m disappointed that these were left out

a-redharlequin

SO MANY GOOD ONES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

godofhyperrainbows

If I ever don’t reblog this, kill me

my-forgotten-notepad

I wish these could all be translated. I would be down for that so much

incomingalbatross

Thesis statement: The popularity of “found family” is a great thing, especially as it celebrates the importance of non-biological, non-romantic relationships. However, an overemphasis on this relationship model can lead us to undervaluing philia in favor of storge, in much the same way that an overemphasis on shipping can lead to undervaluing philia in favor of eros. It can also lead to an erasure of the differences between philia and storge, treating these two types of love as interchangeable instead of celebrating the distinctive aspects of each.

incomingalbatross

…Yeah, this could definitely be an Entire Literal Essay, actually. This is…not the short version, but it is the shortest I can manage.

So my main thought is that Friendship is the hardest form of love for our culture to see as distinct and important in its own right, and “found family” often (though not always) ends up as a sort of…middle ground between that point and the “Only Romance Is Important” idea. In a ship-dominated culture, Friendship is often reduced to Level 1 Romance, and—at least in some ways—a found-family-dominated fandom culture can end up reducing Friendship to Level 1 Family.

In practice, I think that….even when we know that we don’t see or want to see an important relationship as Romantic, a lot of us still struggle with the idea of Friendship by itself being equally valuable or important. So we equate “familial” with “important” (because family is undeniably as important as romance, right? Or at least it’s a lot easier to make that case—and also, there is the not-at-all-insignificant benefit that it marks your view of a relationship as CLEARLY platonic!), and then we try to fit every relationship we love into a clearly-labeled Family-Shaped Box, in order to affirm its importance and give it legitimacy that “just friendship” might not.

…which is, ironically, what shippers are sometimes doing when they seem to be putting every relationship they love into a Romance-Shaped Box for the same reason. That’s the highest-status box there is! Don’t you think this relationship deserves the highest Relationship Rank??

But Friendship—philia, using the Greek word (or at least using it as C. S. Lewis uses it—isn’t a weaker form or “first stage” of other loves. It’s its own form of love. Not lesser, but different. And if we keep following our instinct to “legitimize” it by conflating it with family/storge, we end up doing both kinds of love a disservice.

(And I am definitely including myself in the group of people with this instinct! There’s a fandom I’ve gotten into recently that—as not infrequently happens—has a central relationship you could easily consider “father-son,” “best friends,” or a mixture of the two, and there’s variance within the fandom. I personally view this relationship pretty much purely as “best friends” in my own interpretation, but…a few years ago, I would have been much closer to the “father-son” camp. And even though I’ve consciously changed my approach to character relationships over those last few years—mainly due to a variety of other fandom exposures over the past few years, and the pro-friendship opinions I‘ve formulated while thinking about them—I still have some of those pro-familial instincts I entered fandom with! They’re very much what I came here with, and even though I now like other approaches better, they’re still in my brain.)

The disservice to philia comes in the fact that we are still not celebrating it as a non-romantic, non-familial form of love in its own right—which stinks, because it’s great!! and important to humans!! and we should all appreciate how wonderful Friendship is without feeling like we have to turn it onto another kind of relationship once it passes some Importance Threshold. It’s also a less-important disservice to specific fictional relationships that we try to fit into a Family Box and maybe end up misrepresenting or oversimplifying in the process.

The disservice to storge comes in the fact that, with the label of “Family” so highly valued in itself, it tends to get overused and slapped on everything until it’s started to lose all distinctively familial meaning. It becomes harder for us to explore the depths and beauties of distinctively familial love when we’ve lost the verbal distinction between “relationships founded upon specifically familial roles, a strong shared background, and/or an unchosen yet unbreakable connection” (which is how I would identify storge relationships just off the top of my head) and the “found family” definition of “any group of people who love each other not-exclusively-romantically and aren’t related.”

Personally, I kinda miss alternative labels like TVTropes’ “True Companions” or “Platonic Life Partners.” Characters don’t need to be spouses or siblings to be important to each other. They can be solely and purely—though not “just!”—friends.

beaked-whales-in-exile

That and there’s that villainizing of blood family in favor of lionizing chosen bonds. I think they can both exist and be equally important to someone. Both can be bad in either extreme: too much energy to non related friends, you’re a cultist. Too much to blood relations, you’re in a mafia family.