kestrel

gel pens on parchment ~ they/she ~ 23 ~ brain go brrrr

[segamascott]

[whunt]

bro LMFAOOOO

[emmaubler]

[luna-azzurra]

The most interesting question you can ask about any character is not what do they want. it's what do they believe they deserve. because those two things are almost never the same and the gap between them is where your entire story lives. a person can want love completely and believe they don't deserve it and that belief will destroy every good thing that comes toward them in ways they won't even notice they're doing. write the gap. the gap is the character.

[luna-azzurra]

Real thing that changed how i write: I started asking "what does this character think is wrong with them" and separately "what is actually wrong with them." Those two things are almost never the same. She thinks she's too much. She's actually terrified of being too little. He thinks he's bad at commitment. He's actually just never met someone he trusted enough. The gap between their diagnosis of themselves and the real thing, that's your character arc right there. you don't have to explain it. just write both.

[luna-azzurra]

Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.

[vividciggy]

That was definitely Pyrrha's last cigarette

Bonus:

[vividciggy]

I'd like to issue a formal apology to Palamedes Sextus, I was unaware of his swag. I always loved him dearly but it took me 3 rereads of GtN to realize this nerd has catastrophic levels of aura. Difficult to notice when Camilla Hect is next to him at all times

[gatorzaeder]

Take my gay cats, Tumblr!

This is part 1, the next part will be gender identity centered :)

[participationpens]

Sometimes I am unsure about my identity, and then I get an ad for the new movie One Night Only (2026) where unmarried people are only allowed to have sex on one night a year

This just seems like the most contrived and uninteresting premise ever.

I would simply not care. This would not affect my life in any way aside from giving me a night to not go into public spaces.

The plot appears to be that the two main characters meet on this day and want to have a real connection not just physical relationship with a relative stranger but (obviously) need to find that connection in time to have sex while it’s legal. Once again, I would simply not do that.

So, long and the short of it, was definitely right about being ace.

[power-chords]

This Dan Piraro comic always makes me cry.

[keatxu]

abandonware should be public domain. force companies to actively support and provide products if they don't wanna lose the rights to them

[omikronsoul]

Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.

[justletmeremember]

op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.

for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.

so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.

[jollysunflora]

#there is so much abandonware just...out there being used and carefully maintained#because nothing quite replicates the functionality

[participationpens]

we have the same thing with a computer running Windows XP that we use to record all our electrophysiology data and have to get everything off manually by USB because it can’t be connected to anything otherwise it might stop running the old reliable software

[klamv-art]

Fitz(Chivalry)

You probably can't tell but I tried using a different brush for the rendering and I think I like it!! It gives a very nice painterly texture :D

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i am some sort of fey creature and my cat is the human who i have arbitrarily decided is my favorite human.

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i live, to him, an unfathomably long life

i have access to powers and locations that he cannot access independently; he needs my help to navigate the world i've brought him to

i simply found him outside and abducted him one day

there are many cats in the world, but this one is the best and my most favorite. why? because he was available to abduct that morning and for very little other reason.

i have a much greater understanding of this world than him, but he has unshakable confidence in his ability to figure it out and i find that really cute

the power dynamic is fundamentally unbalanced, but i let him have a little audacity. a little combativeness and sass. as a treat.

some humans are needlessly cruel to cats or take them in for a short time before neglecting or abandoning them. but i have chosen to love and guard this one with my life. because i think he's neat.

he is very well-treated and has pretty much everything he could possibly want or need, but he is my prisoner.

[counttwinkula]

hey did you know that uhh

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming

[counttwinkula]

oh shit i didn't expect this to actually get notes lmao

these are all direct quotes from jeffrey jerome cohen's "monster culture (seven theses)" (full pdf linked) i highly encourage you to read it yourself!

that said, while i think cohen's writing is evocative, it can be a little dense, so while i'm here, here's my capsule summary (you can also hear me talk about this in the first episode of my podcast) (listen to @ghostswerepeopletoo)

i. the monster's body is a cultural body - The monster is a work of fiction to be analyzed through tools of literary and sociological theory.

ii. the monster always escapes - As long as the cultural fear from which the monster stems persists, the monster will reappear in retellings, reimaginings, and sequels.

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis - Monsters defy binaries and challenge easy comprehension or categorization.

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference - The monster represents the Other.

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible - Tales of the monster exist to discourage unacceptable or taboo behaviors.

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire - Subjects can vicariously participate in the disruption of the social order through the monster.

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming - Within the monster we find information about the self.

[themetalhiro]

Book 6 prediction tbh

[participationpens]

I'm sure this has been thought of many times before, but I am a huge fan of the idea of Rocky acting as a weighted blanket for Grace.

Best friend with built-in grounding and stress relief feature. Which Grace most definitely needs.

(stupid art under the cut)

Obviously I am aware he would practically be far too heavy, but I choose to ignore this.

[invinciblerodent]