Xuebing Du
@theartofmadeline
Cosimo Galluzzi
Sade Olutola
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Today's Document
todays bird
Monterey Bay Aquarium
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
almost home
JVL
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
trying on a metaphor
Discoholic 🪩
styofa doing anything
Not today Justin
#extradirty
Show & Tell
Peter Solarz
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Romania
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from United States
@savannahbrielle
girl what the fuck is even the theme of a midsummer night’s dream. is there even a lesson to be learned. is it just vibes or what
puck at the end of the play: god did you see that shit? insane, right? haha alright take it easy
-Benedict Smith, I wish I wrote the way I thought
Strolling aimlessly in a bookshop is self care
me and who?
I Have No Better Plan.
like ive been thinking about this line from that creme brulee brownie recipe for days like literally where is this woman now like how is she doing
my superpower is going into a bookstore and immediately forgetting the name of every book ive ever wanted to read
Source
back the fuck up
There’s another story that I like about a Chinese general who had to defend a city with only a handful of soldiers from a huge enemy horde that was in all likelihood going to steamroll the place flat within hours of showing up.
So when said horde did arrive, they saw the general sitting outside the city’s open gates, drinking tea. The horde sent a couple of emissaries over to see what was what, and the general greeted them cheerfully and invited them all to come and take tea with him.
The horde decided that this was a scenario that had “MASSIVE FUCKING TRAP” written all over it in beautiful calligraphy and promptly fucked off.
Whoever that general was, he was clearly the Ancient Chinese equivalent of Sam Vimes.
did he just invite us over for tea nah man i’m out
This just keeps getting better
I fucking love history.
ok but tbh that story misses a lot of the subtlety of the situation like ok
so this story is the Romance of Three Kingdoms, and essentially takes place between Zhuge Liang, resident tactician extraordinaire, and Sima Yi… OTHER resident tactician extraordinaire.
The two were both regarded as tactical geniuses and recognized the other as their rival. Zhuge Liang had a reputation for ambushing the SHIT out of his opponents and using the environment to his advantage, thus destroying large armies with a small number of men. Sima Yi (who kind of entered the picture later) was a cautious person whose speciality was unravelling his opponent’s plans before they began. So it was natural that the two would butt heads; however, since Sima Yi tended to have more men and resources, he started winning battles against the former. Which, y’know, kinda sucked.
On to the actual story: Zhuge Liang is all like “shit i gotta defend this city with like 10 men.” Literally if he fights ANY kind of battle here, he WILL lose; his only option for survival is not to fight. And that’s looking more and more impossible until he hears that his rival is leading the opposing army. And then he gets this brilliant idea. He basically opens all the gates, sends his men out in civilian clothes to sweep the streets, and sits on top of the gate drinking tea and chilling out and basically makes the whole thing out to be a trap
When Sima Yi comes he’s all like “yo come on in bro”
and Sima Yi is like “yeah he’s never been that obvious about his traps before. this is definitely a bluff” and he’s about to head in when he realizes
wait. he knows that i think he’s bluffing.
and so he gets it in his head that maybe, just MAYBE, Zhuge Liang has this cunning plan that will wipe out his army - recall that he has a pretty good handle on what his rival is capable of. And after a long period of deliberation (which is just like “he know that I know that he knows that etc.”), being the cautious man he is, SIma Yi eventually decides to turn his entire army around and leave.
Zhuge Liang later points out that the plan was based specifically on the fact that he was facing his rival; if it had been anyone else, there’s no way it would have worked. A dumber or less cautious person would have simply charged in and won without breaking a sweat.
and that’s the real genius here: it was a plan formed entirely just to deceive one man, and it worked.
Zhuge Liang is the most brilliant, sneaky-ass bastard in history. One time his side’s army was out of arrows, which pretty much meant they were screwed. So Zhuge Liang goes and does the logical thing, which is build a fuck ton of scarecrows and put them all on boats. Then he makes the men hide in the boats and sail them out on the river.
Well, that day was super foggy (which Zhuge Liang had predicted. Did I mention he was also a freakishly accurate meteorologist?). So the enemy across the river sees a fleet of boats armed to the teeth with what appears to be half an army of men. They panic! and start firing arrows like crazy.
Zhuge Liang lets this play out for a while, then he’s like, ”Ok guys that’s enough.” They calmly turn the boats around and go back to base, where they dismantle the scarecrows and pull out all the enemy’s arrows.
Zhuge Liang is legend.
I love this post. It just keeps getting better. Like seriously, I would have adored learning about this in World History.
If you want to see this in cinematic glory, watch Red Cliff.
Especially since it makes Zhuge Liang look like this:
Red Cliff is 50% bloody battles and 50% eye candy and about half of that eye-candy is due to Zhuge Liang
@admiraloblivious we’re finding this movie and watching it asap
Ffffff-
I KNEW ITWAS HIM! WATCH RED CLIFF. WATCH ITTTTTTTT
I love history, I mean, who in the fucking world would think of these ideas today??
STREET SMARTS
lets bring back romanticism im tired of trying to be rational. were all dumb and we all want love
hey do you have any tips on plot development? how to do come up with relevant but dramatic things to keep the plot going? i also don’t want to make it too intense?
I actually have quite a lot of resources that I’ve created over the years surrounding plot development. I’ve linked as many as I could find for you:
Resources For Plot Development
Useful Writing Resources
Useful Writing Resources II
31 Days of Plot Development
Novel Planning 101
How To Write A Good Plot Twist
How To Foreshadow
What To Cut Out Of Your Story
Tackling Subplots
Things A Reader Needs From A Story
A Guide To Tension & Suspense In Your Writing
How To Turn A Good Idea Into A Good Story
Planning A Scene In A Story
21 Plot Shapes and the Pros and Cons Of Each
How To Outline Effectively
Tips On Writing Intense Scenes
Writing The First Chapter
Tips On Starting A Scene
Plot Structures
Finding & Fixing Plot Holes
As a way of making quick lil writing prompts for myself, I make notes (either in a notebook or my notes app) of how I’m feeling in specific moments or anything that I constitute as a “writing trigger,” aka just small things that spark inspiration for writing. I try to make the notes as simple as possible as a challenge to accurately portray an emotion from the simplest of terms.
The other night I told Siri to make a note that said:
“feeling anxious on this road in darkness, found comfort in orange moon”
And here’s what I re-wrote that into:
My chest tightened as I drove along the fresh-paved road, unable to catch a glimpse of a vantage point. My body became restrained by a vacuum hose while an administrator in the seat behind mine began releasing helium into my lungs. I blinked and saw the glass shards from the windshield hang in the air around me as the wheel slipped from my sweaty palms, the car suspended in the air like a puppet as it tripped off the bridge side. I glanced up in search of reason and instead I found comfort in the way the moon resembled a summer’s orange. The gas valves in my lungs loosened as I felt them deflate back into my body and as I looked out through the windshield, my nose registered the fresh zest of citrus creeping in from the air vents. For the first time that night, I allowed the blood to return to my fingertips around the wheel before me.
Everyone that I’ve shared this with seems to think it’s a cool idea and works as a great writing exercise, so I wanted to share it here as well!
When you’re writing and your sentences begin to blur together:
When you look at the word count and it’s barely 100 words:
When you re-read and realize it’s utter nonsense:
Writing in public:completely composed. Writing appears to be going well. Nothing wrong seems to be happening. Author does not appear to be going insane
Writing in private: talks to myself, goes crazy, screams in frustration, squeals in happiness, looks like a nutcase.
I go to the coffee shop just to Feign Normalcy™️
You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense by Charles Bukowski
