My very first tiger drawing and my latest
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@pentapuslikes
My very first tiger drawing and my latest
Ottoman cape and vest, 1890s. Whitaker Auctions.
V.E. Schwab's advice for creating memorable characters - works for both protagonists and villains
source post: X
This is really good advice.
It also ties neatly into the simplest version of the formula for getting people emotionally engaged with your characters: or how to build the moment in which your character starts moving from their initial state to the state in which they'll start changing their own lives.
First, you figure out the one important thing the character believes that they're wrong about. There's usually a core misperception that they haven't examined. Once they're forced to engage with it, it'll start to change everything about their perception of the world they're inhabiting and/or the people in it.
Then, as V.E. says, you identify the character's great desire and their great fear: the thing that character wants more than anything, and the thing or situation that terrifies them, and that they'll go to any lengths to avoid.
And having identified these two objects or situations, you build a situation in which the two forces will be in close, direct opposition to one another... then drop the character down in between them, and squeeze. Those two opposing forces become the jaws of a vise... and you crank the vise more and more tightly closed until the character has no choice but to acknowledge those opposing forces, and start (even in a small way) to deal with the pressure being exerted and push their way through.
This does not have to be, initially, a great climactic moment. In fact, it works better if it's not. It's more effective if your character has a brief low-intensity brush with these conditions-in-conflict early on. That way, when your big resolution scene comes along about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way along through the story arc, you'll have set up a resonance between that earlier hint or intimation of what's to come, and the really big blowoff. Your readers will recognize the resonanceâthe throb of tension between the two occurrences, like the vibration of a plucked stringâand will find satisfaction both in the true resolution having been partially telegraphed earlier, and in how it's now being experienced and resolved in full.
This approach also allows you to set up more minor resonances between the realization of the conflict and its final resolution. These can serve to bind the structure of the work more closely together: to make it look (and be) less like a series of loosely strung-together plot events, and more like a unified whole, in which ripples of story business flow backwards and forwards, interpenetrating and influencing one another, and hinting at the big one to come.
But none of this can happen until the paired and opposing what-do-they-most-desire, what-do-they-most-fear axes have been defined. So that's a subject it's smart to spend some while thinking about (and for all your characters, not just the major ones), to be sure you're getting it right.
It's not unusual to get the wrong answers, or merely superficial ones, while you're still working out what's actually going on with the characters. So take your time. Eventually you'll find a set of answers that feel unquestionably right... and you can then nail those down in your notes and get on with making the kind of "good trouble" for your characters that will see them made complete.
I live by the motto, âif you canât buy what you want, make it.â And this motto came to life recently in the form of a floral mosaic dining table for my back deck.
Our deck table had been showing its age already when the wind caught the umbrella and cracked it. I wanted to replace it with a mosaic table because Iâd been enjoying that art form recently. But I couldnât get one the size I wanted so I got creative.
I spent a few weeks looking for tile and figuring out a very loose design concept. I started by picking a limited set of tile shapes and a color palette.
Once the tiles arrived I had a piece of particle board cut to size for the base and I experimented with different motifs until I settled on a selection of floral shapes that gave me plenty of variety to fill space without locking me into one repeating pattern.
And then I was off! I basically doodled my way around the table, attaching tiles with Weld Bond (I went through 4 full bottles!) and rocking out to the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack.
Once the florals were done it was time for the backgroundâŠ
Over 3,800 1cm glass tiles make up the not-design part of the design. It went pretty quickly though because I just had to fill the space, leaving room for grout.
Once I had the tile done, my husband assisted with disassembly and reassembly. We used the legs off the original table for this one (waste not).
One huge bucket of black grout laterâŠ
She is finished.
I enjoyed making it and just looking at it makes me so happy - I canât wait for all the dinners weâll have around this table đŒâ€ïž
There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?
I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!
Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.
A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.
Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...
I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.
Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar
The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come
Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.
DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.
I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. Itâs about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.
Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm
I made some weird little watercolor and gouache paintings for a sci-fi-themed exhibition. I was miles out of my comfort zone and some of my paintings were Quite Bad but I had fun
look. look at this beautiful sword meme. iâm going to cry
@petermorwood
I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but itâs always worth repeating, and this time Iâm adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)
Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.
Here are Celtic bronze swordsâŠ
âŠAncient Greek XiphoiâŠ
⊠and a Roman âMainz-patternâ gladiusâŠ
Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.
Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. Theyâre weapons if necessaryâŠ
âŠbut since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.
This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside itâŠ
âŠbut may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.
A couple of internet captions say itâs for âcutting ropesâ which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Heroâs rapier (!!) wouldnât be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didnât work as well as intended for any purpose.
I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).
A lot of âflambergeâ (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.
The giveaway is the centreline: if itâs straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.
Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.
Again, the clue is the centre-line.
Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.
Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.
Thereâs no doubt about this one either.
The reason - though that was a part of it - wasnât just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.
However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasnât that much of an advantage after all.
Hereâs a Circassian kindjal, forged wigglyâŠ
âŠand an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wigglyâŠ
There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.
These more practical historical versions are usually called âsword-breakersâ but I prefer âsword-catcherâ, since a steel blade isnât that easy to break. Taking the opponentâs blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.
NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.
The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next oneâs blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.
So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.
Hereâs a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesnât even have an odd-shaped bladeâŠ
Just a very flexible oneâŠ
If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to startâŠ
i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much
Itâs not fantasy anatomy, but knowing stuff about the objects you put in your fantasy world is also very important
I've been looking for a fun/quick little animation sideproject to flex my frame-by-frame muscles, so introducing Margie! A cat-goose dragon based on this little fella from this medieval manuscript
Some additional thoughts
Margie!!!đ
Ploop ploop ploop
i know this is a predator. like a hardened killing machine. tempered by hundreds of years of evolutionary prowess to fine tune him into a living weapon. but ohhhh the little BABYYY look at the Little Bouncing Baby he is going Boing Boing Boing oh my gooddddd
this is so rogue but does anyone have the poetry template that went semi-viral on twitter a while back? it was designed for kids but someone gave it to their mother who has dementia and she wrote a really moving poem about her experience.
the minute I posted this I remembered enough of the prompt itself to find it and now Iâm trying not to cry at work
on a totally different note is this response from a kid, which is also beautiful and imo no less profound. and shows how the prompt can be interpreted so differently.
TEMPLATE:
My name is ...
Today I feel like ...*
Sometimes I am ...
And sometimes I am ...
But always I am ...
I ask the world, "...
And the answer is ... (repeat * words)
baby capybara named Tupi via san antonio zoo
sparkling grapefruit, elderflower & rosé vodka cocktail
Really nice recipes. Every hour.
Show me what you cooked!
Art by Chloeâs arts
Nice!
Do any of u have decent recipes that are like 5 ingredients (not including spices) and take 45 mins or less to prepare i gotta stop eating sandwiches for dinner
yeah hang on
ignore the title of this google doc because it's a long story but it's a really solid recipe for southwest chicken alfredo
this is a vegetarian potato curry recipe that's about 75% spices; once you get the potatoes in there you can really do whatever you want with it
this is literally just pasta, broccoli, and cheese babey and you can live off that shit for DAYS it makes such a big portion
bro this spinach/pesto/3 cheese flatbread is so fucking tasty bro
also you can make the flatbread yourself it's super quick!!
oh hey I'm eating this white chickpea chili right now, much like the curry it's mostly spices and you can do p much do whatever you want with it
don't let the name fool you these potatoes are delicious any time. not just breakfast.
this is slightly more than five ingredient when you add them together but if you have time and really wanna fuckin treat yourself I recommend these chicken strips + this cornbread + either these potatoes or these buttered veggies on the side.
These are my two favorite comfort foods. They're very easy to make and dont take long to cook.
Garlic butter rice
Orzo mac and cheese (comes out a little bit soupy)
this recipe for gogumabap (sweet potato and rice) saved my life when i couldn't eat hardly anything for a long time. the recipe itself calls for a heavy bottomed pot but you can absolutely use a rice cooker and put the rice and diced sweet potato in together and just let the machine do its thing
Time for me to beat my little clown drum again for Indian-ish by Priya Krishna, aka The Easiest Recipes I Have Ever Fucking Made. Dal that takes 15 minutes. Easy aloo gobhi. Easy saag feta. Buy. Cook. Eat.
hey man you should take a good long look in the mirror every time you post . Do you ever regret your actions and what you write? Do you stay awake at night knowing you support content for pedophiles and people who fetishize dangerous content? Sure, TECHNICALLY, You have a ârightâ to do it, god bless the internet and all that, but donât you feel fucking awful and ashamed that you support content being written and distributed by people who fantasize and maybe really actually do abuse real life children? this behavior should be condemned. You are encouraging people to behave in such a way that is harmful to society and specifically the development of children . What if a child was sexually abused read something proshippers smothered all over the internet? Yes, a childs internet usage should be monitored, but there also shouldnât be softcore childporn on the internet. Idk though! I hope you enjoy getting your rocks off to rape and children and i hope youâre happy with your life and yourself . idk though. idk
Hi there! You've sent this to me anonymously, but based on your writing style, the specific post I suspect this is in response to and your apparent desire to make me feel bad, I'm 99% certain you're a teenager, which means I'm going to treat you as one. I don't say that to be insulting or dismissive: I say it because this is, or ought to be, an adult topic of conversation, and having judged that you're not an adult, it would be irresponsible to pretend otherwise. Which is also why I'm responding at all: as you're at the point of attempting to harass strangers over this issue, I feel a responsibility to say something. Several somethings, even!
And the first and most important point is this: you do not know enough about this topic to have an informed opinion.
I'm not saying this to insult you. I'm saying this as a neutral statement of fact. You don't know enough, and not only is that okay, it's normal. This particular facet of human sexuality and psychology is an extremely adult topic, one you've likely only encountered because of the internet. It's clear from your message that the very concept of dark or taboo sexual fantasies angers, disgusts and upsets you, and that's understandable! These are not easy things to talk about, even for adults; even, at times, for adult professionals. But revulsion is neither same as nor a substitute for knowledge, and particularly not when it leads you to reflexively reject the claim that there's something deeper to understand in the first place.
The second point is this: you are not mature enough to learn about this topic in depth.
I'm not just saying this because you're a teenager, although that's certainly a factor; I'm saying this because your present level of immaturity is such that you're sending anonymous, angry messages to internet strangers about a topic you don't understand. In order to learn, you first have to acknowledge your own ignorance, and that's not what you're doing here. But even if that weren't the case, depending on how young you are, it might not be appropriate for you to investigate this at all without the supervision and guidance of a trusted, knowledgeable adult - someone you know in your actual life, not a random internet stranger.
Which brings me to the third point: teens who engage online about adult topics without sufficient knowledge are vulnerable to exploitation.
This is a general rule of thumb for the internet, but it also applies in specific to fandom antis. I'm personally aware of multiple instances in which teen antis were preyed upon by adult antis who falsely presented themselves as "safe." The teens would commonly have something like "minor, proshippers DNI" in their bios, which served to identify them; the adult would then engage with their posts, building up a sense of familiarity, before messaging them in private, pitching themself as a fellow anti and thus as someone they could trust, not like those disgusting proshippers. The teen would then be invited to a private server or groupchat, often filled with other teens, in whom the controlling adult or adults would then stoke fear and paranoia, leading them to view anyone outside the group, but particularly other adults, as potential predators - and predators, of course, deserved to be targeted for harassment.
This harassment was cast as being both necessary for the group's safety and as a show of virtue - if you weren't willing to do it, then how could the others trust that you were safe? Which then led to the teens being sent explicit material by the adults under the guise of knowing who to target, which then turned into the teens being encouraged to seek out extreme content themselves, both to show to the adults to prove their commitment, and so that the group would have new targets. If the teens became uncomfortable with what was happening, it was hard for them to leave, because not only had they been trained to see disagreement with the group as a sign of sexual deviance, but they were afraid of being targeted themselves.
In other words: predatory adults exploited the fears these teens had about adult content to groom them into viewing and exchanging that content under the guise of objecting to it, by painting themselves as lone safe adults in a world of predators. That this happened was not the fault of the teens thus exploited, but it might have been prevented, at least in some instances, if those teens had had a better understanding of human sexuality and psychology. Abuse of all kinds, but particularly sexual abuse and exploitation, thrive in cultures of silence and shame. If you are taught that certain fantasies are inherently bad and disgusting, and that enjoying something in fiction is the same as wanting to do it in real life, then you are made vulnerable to manipulation.
To give a different but related example: in early childhood education - which is to say, when dealing with very small children, toddlers through kindergarten age - it's now considered vital that kids are taught the proper words for their genitalia and are encouraged to use them without embarrassment. On learning this, many parents react negatively: they think it's rude or gross or even wrong, because they themselves weren't raised with that sort of openness. But extensive research has shown that this is one of the best ways to keep children safe from sexual predators, as it means ignorance of their own bodies can't be used against them. If they know what the word for a body part is and have no shame in using it, then they're better able to communicate if someone tries to touch them, because they're not afraid they'll get in trouble for mentioning something "dirty" or "inappropriate," and because they can accurately describe what was done or attempted.
This is also why, when kids get older, it's important for them to learn basic sex education and sexual health: because ignorance poses a far greater danger to them than knowledge. There's a reason why, for instance, teen pregnancy and STD rates are far higher in places that focus on abstinence only sex education. Simply telling teens that pre-marital sex is bad and gross doesn't stop them wanting to have it; it just means that, when they do, it's much more likely to be unsafe. But even where those kids do end up waiting for marriage, the years of thinking of sex as gross and sinful still impacts them, because their sexual development has been characterised by a sense of shame. Frequently, they struggle to sleep with their partners or to enjoy it if they do, because they feel like they're doing something bad - and that leads nowhere good.
Which is why I believe it's so important to openly acknowledge that dark fantasies are a normal aspect of human sexuality: that liking something in a fantasy doesn't mean wanting or condoning it in real life. Just as with these other examples, if we treat even the concept of such fantasies as disgusting, wrong or taboo, then we're setting people up to fail; to feel shame over something that carries no moral weight at all. And sexual shame is psychologically damaging: people can spend their entire lives trying to overcome it.
Child sexual abuse is one of the most horrific things on Earth. I condemn it utterly, and for that reason, there are absolutely fictional works whose content I find viscerally disgusting. But the fact that I find something disgusting does not make it harmful. Fantasy is not reality, fiction is not a statement of intent, and harassing real people over fictional content is more immediately harmful than the content of that fiction will ever be.