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HARRY POTTER! 8 PNG PACK
Hello! Welcome again to this blog. This time I bring some png of one of my favorite book series: Harry Potter p1. If you like one of the png here you can use it with total freedom. It is not necessary to give credits, but if you tag me I can gladly go to reblog or leave a like.
speculative fiction writers i am going to give you a really urgent piece of advice: don't say numbers. don't give your readers any numbers. how heavy is the sword? lots. how old is that city? plenty. how big is the fort? massive. how fast is the spaceship? not very, it's secondhand.
the minute you say a number your readers can check your math and you cannot do math better than your most autistic critic. i guarantee. don't let your readers do any math. when did something happen? awhile ago. how many bullets can that gun fire? trick question, it shoots lasers, and it shoots em HARD.
you are lying to people for fun. if you let them do math at you the lie collapses and it's no fun anymore.
YOU GET IT
And what if you straight up forget that a number you put in this chapter actually has a relationship to or impact upon a number you used twelve chapters ago on something that (on the surface) looks like a different issue?
You hear about it for the rest of your life, unless you have a very good editor.
[image: tags by thepioden: #you may think you - the writer - are your own most autistic critic #but somewhere out there is a motherfucker with the world's nichest PhD who has been waiting their whole life to prove you wrong]
Corollary from a pedantic reader: Don't put numbers in the story where others might see it, but do please write them down in your notes somewhere, lest you start your novel with the village elders recounting the half-forgotten legends of an ancient past that later turns out to have taken place when the twenty-year-old protagonist was a toddler.
witches + art
HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT!!!!!
Reginald D. Hunter
The last part of that joke is now he's his manager
Pisses me off how good Shakespeare actually is. Like yeah he's actually that good. People hype him up like he's the best English writer ever, and yeah he's actually an S+ tier writer.
Insane that he did all that while naming his characters shit like Count Evilcount and Peter Penissex.
it remains insane that he wrote a love sonnet hinges on the idea "you will live forever because this sonnet, specifically, will be remembered for all time" and that sonnet, specifically, became so famous that it serves as a synecdoche for the very concept of poetry. world historic called shot.
so important to not only write it bad but write it problematic. kill the twitter user that lives in your mind. you are not beholden to the potential criticisms of an imaginary audience.
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 ))
Skip Google for Research
As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms
As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.
Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.
⁂
Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
Another thing: if you’re a college/university student, stop by your institution’s library. When you get there, ask if your school is subscribed to any research paper databases. Many schools include access to certain databases in their tuition fees. You’re paying for them anyway - may as well use them! And even if your school isn’t subscribed to any, the library can still be helpful in finding literature relevant to what you’re researching! Not a college student? Head to a public library! It’ll most likely be a worthwhile experience either way.
How to Write a Character
For creative writing to have as deep an impact as possible, you need to give the reader strong characters they can relate to on a personal level.
By borrowing from tried-and-true character archetypes and giving them your personal spin, you can create heroes, villains, and sidekicks that will affect your readers as if they were real people they knew.
Come up with a backstory
Crafting a backstory can help you flesh out an interesting character profile.
“When I’m dealing with characters,” says legal thriller author David Baldacci, “and I’m trying to explain somebody's situation and motivations, you have to look into their past, because [the] past always drives motivations.”
Ask what experiences your character had in elementary school or high school that shaped who they are today. Your character’s backstory can greatly inform your plot.
Develop a character arc
A character must evolve throughout a story.
“The character has to change,” insists crime fiction writer Walter Mosley. “The character doesn’t have to become better. The character doesn’t have to become good. It could be the opposite. He could start good and become bad. He could start off hopeful and end up a pessimist. But he has to be impacted by this world that we’re reading about.”
Plan out your storyline based on your character's goals and how achieving or not achieving them will change them as people. This sort of template can help anchor your narrative.
Do research
If you plan to set your story in a specific locale or period, do enough research to make your characters seem true to life and believable.
“What does it mean, for instance, in the Tudor era to be a male person?” asks Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. “What does it mean to be a female person? What do those things mean when they’re at different social levels?”
Empathize with your characters
No matter what the type of character you’re developing, try to find some reason you and your reader can relate to their internal conflict.
“You’re living with these people every single day for months at a time—in some cases, years at a time,” says acclaimed children’s author Judy Blume. “You had better feel for them. So, for me, yes, I have great empathy for them.”
When people can empathize with characters, they’re more likely to find them compelling.
Experiment with different approaches
If you usually write characters from a particular point of view (or POV), change things up to challenge yourself.
“Write about someone entirely through the eyes of their friends and family,” suggests journalist Malcolm Gladwell. “So do a profile of someone where you deliberately never talk to the person that you’re profiling.”
There are plenty of ways to craft compelling character descriptions—free yourself up to try new alternatives.
Give your characters flaws
To craft believable characters, you need to give them flaws.
“One, it makes the characters human, just by default, because everybody recognizes that we all have flaws and mistakes,” David says. “But two, it gives you plot elements and plot opportunities because somebody makes a mistake. Why? Because they’re flawed.”
Learn from real people
Pay attention to real people’s mannerisms, personality traits, body language, and physical appearances.
Do research, and be respectful, when you want to write characters with backgrounds that you are not familiar with. Become familiar with different people's cultures, sexual orientations etc.
Talking to people about their experiences will help form your character’s personality.
Let your characters surprise you
Character development can proceed down a host of different avenues.
“Spend a lot of time with your characters and getting to know them,” Judy suggests. “And the way that you get to know them can be different from the way I get to know them. But my way is: They don’t come alive until I write about them, until I put them down on paper.”
As you write, your character’s motivation or perspective might change from what you originally planned.
Play characters off each other
Ask yourself how a secondary character’s personality might thwart the main character’s motivation.
“One of the best ways, as I said, to develop a character is to put that character in relationship to another person,” Walter says. “So as they talk, as they fight, as they work together, we find out more about who they are and what they are.”
The character’s close friends, adversaries, and acquaintances might all have different effects on their behavior.
Take an organic approach
Over the course of the story, be ready for your characters to surprise you as much as the people you know in real life might, too.
Your characters may take on a life of their own.
Avoid static characters by letting yours have their own lives and personalities. Let their stories take you where they lead.
I love when characters lie. you can learn so much about them even when they're not telling you. dissecting the lie is more fun than taking anything they might say at face value. figuring out their motivations... what they're trying to achieve... are they guilty? do they regret it? did they lie gleefully?
writhing in agony but i'm getting a little hot with it like arching my back and moaning and baring the smooth curve of my throat and white knuckle gripping the sheets beneath me
making everyone want to fuck the wrong holes you know how it is
Good morning! I’m salty.
I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.
This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.
You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.
“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.
If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.
This needs to be reblogged today.
Consenting to see adult content doesn’t mean you should have to see a bunch of shit romanticizing incest and pedophilia you walnut
Except this is the last line of consent before the actual work. So if you’re at this button you have already done the following:
1) chosen to go onto AO3 in the first place
2) chosen the fandom you wish to read about
3) had the chance to filter for the things you do want to see like a specific pairing or a specific AU
4) had the chance to specifically filter out any tags you don’t want to see like, oh I don’t know, incest and non-con and dub-con and paedophilia
5) had the chance to set the rating level if you wish to remove any explicit content at all
6) have read the summary of the story, which aren’t always great but are the only indicator of what the story will be like writing wise so something about it was good enough for you to click on it.
7) have read the tags of the story which will tell you what is actually in the story. If you have used filters to remove stories with things you don’t want then there shouldn’t be anything in here that’s a shock to you but maybe there is. That’s why the tags are there for you to check for yourself.
8) Then you have to actually click on the story. You cannot see anything other than the summary or the tags without personally deciding that you are going to open and read this story.
9) Only here, at step number nine, do you get to the adult content warning pictured above. You have been through eight different steps, the last six of which have also been opportunities for you to see that this has adult content. And AO3 has *STILL* stopped you to ask one last time “are you sure you want to read this because it has things that only adults should see in it”.
If after this point you are reading incest and paedophilia then it’s probably because you specifically went looking for it.
You walnut.
This is the most beautiful thing that I have seen about ao3
I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:
Fictional characters are objects.
They are not people. You cannot "objectify" them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot "disrespect" them, because they are not real.
I know this has good intentions, so I will just add the "how you treat them, even as objects of fiction, can speak about your own character, be careful out there"
Your addition is actually completely antithetical to my message. It is literally the opposite of what I am conveying.
Stop telling people to encourage the cop inside their head.
How you treat fictional characters, given they are entirely objects of fiction, does NOT necessarily speak to your own character, and you do not need to be "careful".
It is not dangerous to imagine dark things happening to fictional characters. It does not mean you are secretly a bad person. It does not mean you unconsciously want to hurt people in real life. It is not a "slippery slope" to doing bad things to people in real life. You cannot damage your brain or turn yourself into a bad person by consuming "dark" fanfic.
I can write tentacle noncon of my favorite character all day long and be a fierce anti-sexual assault advocate in real life because what I do in my head is not the same thing as what I do in real life.
These tags were too perfect to not include
One thing that might help clarify it: in any fiction, no matter how dark, every real person involved is consenting.
The author and the audience are both choosing to be there and can revoke their consent at any point by putting the book down. The characters are not real, they are not being asked to make a choice because they have no ability to choose, but you do and you can leave at any time, for any reason. In most cases you as the author or audience also have context that tells you things will turn out alright in the end, or a reason to think they shouldn’t for this character. All the real people involved can expect a satisfying ending, and are not at any point being kept captive in a situation that will harm them.
Your ability to choose what fiction you take part in is a powerful thing, and you’re not doing yourself any favours by believing that doesn’t matter. If you don’t like it, sincerely, you don’t have to be there. Others who do like it are making their own choices, and those choices are separate from what they want to do in real life.
