Sold My Soul For '67 Chevy

Collecting story ideas, AUs, prompts, and other assorted reference materials.

[saum0-0]

guys you don't understand i love big buff horses so much

draft horses you are gods most perfectest creations

[bert-jansch]

Percheron, Brabant, Vanner cob, Clydesdale, another Brabant, and Ardennais, in order.

Some more buff horses for your consideration:

Ban'Ei

Boulonnais

Drum horse

Muraközi

Shire

Rhenish German Coldblood

[bert-jansch]

Noriker

Dutch draft

Suffolk Punch

Sztumski Polish Draft

Clydesdale

And lastly.. More Brabants, my very favourite!

[elodieunderglass]

hat tip @knocking-on-peoples-non-doors the big beasties

[darkestblisss]

An Incomplete Yet Somewhat Sufficient Guide to Writing Fiction Based in the UK

As many of you know, I am an American who lives and studies in London. I thought I’d make a little general rules list about aspects of UK culture which I feel are misrepresented quite often when I read fiction written by someone who’s never experienced life here. So here it goes, every American fiction writers’ incomplete yet somewhat sufficient guide to writing fiction based in the UK.

KNOW YOUR SUPERMARKETS. Tesco isn’t the only one. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the two most popular, like Safeway, Albertson’s, or Kroger. M&S and Waitrose are where the posh white people shop. Everything is over-priced; the American equivalent would be Whole Foods (which the UK has but is not nearly as common). Then there’s Morrison’s and Co-Op which are both good but not as popular as Tesco or Sainsbury’s. And then you have the discount supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, where everything is off-branded so the prices are lower. And of course there’s ASDA which is Wal-Mart only smaller and not as terrifying.

In the UK, pants = underwear. I thought this would be quite known but I still see the mistake all the time? Jeans and trousers, folks!

Accents are hugely different from one another. First you have to learn the distinction between Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and English. Then from there you have all the regional accents. And accents are classed and racialised as well. A middle class white person raised in West London is going to have a completely different accent from a working class PoC raised in East London, even though they may live within 15 miles of each other. If you want to really impress readers, study different types of accents and incorporate them into your dialogue, it makes things much more interesting (think Hagrid from Harry Potter).

Pubs are also classed. There are old white working class pubs that don’t do food (besides maybe crisp packets), are always showing greyhound or horse racing, and still smell of cigarette smoke. Only locals go here, and they usually go pretty much every night. Like the Winchester from Shaun of the Dead. And then you have the hipster pubs, which are expensive and do fancy food. The people working at these pubs usually look pretty cool—dyed hair, piercings, that stuff—but there probably aren’t any ‘regulars’ who come there every day. 

Wetherspoon’s is the backbone of society. Wetherspoon’s (or Spoons) is a chain pub that’s pretty much in every damn post code. It’s cheap as shit and beloved by many. You can get a huge cocktail pitcher for under £10, and you can guarantee you’ll get wasted pretty quickly cause they’re full of sugar and have a high alcohol content.

Drinking culture in general is quite different from the US. People start drinking at about age 15/16, and it’s legal to drink at 18. Kids drink WKD (which is like Mike’s Hard Lemonade I think??? I’ve never actually had it but it seems like it’s on the same tier), Smirnoff Ice, Malibu, and cheap fruity wine (Echo Falls, Hardy’s, Blossom Hill, Kumala, and Gallo Family are the usual brands).

Drunk food consists of: fried chicken, chips (+cheese, salt and vinegar, gravy, or curry, depending on the region), kebabs, pizza from a shop with bad graphic design, microwaveable burgers. You can also get delivery from a lot of restaurants, and they bring it right to your house. Indian, pizza, and Chinese are the most common.

Speaking of food, it’s hard to find good Mexican food in the UK. There’s Wahaca but it’s spendy as it’s a sit-down restaurant and it kind of only exists in touristy and gentrified areas. You won’t have any luck finding cheap, authentic street tacos the way you would in Southern California. There also isn’t really any fast food Mexican (although there are a handful of Taco Bells splattered around the country). I’m sure there are some trendy areas which are bringing in Mexican street food in London, but let’s be real, it’s probably not authentic and is also probably stupidly over-priced. I’m getting off topic, sorry.

Nando’s is also the backbone of society. They do grilled chicken there, ranging from mild (but still seasoned) to burn your tonsils off spicy. There’s stuff for vegetarians too, like portobello mushroom and halloumi (a type of cheese you grill—it’s amazing and difficult to find in the US without spending an obscene amount of money) wraps which are incredible. Nando’s is usually packed and they play really fun Spanish/Portuguese/South African music which is really fun when you’re drunk and in the toilets. 10/10, perfect for a cheeky night out with the lads. The kind of place Gryffindors probably love (I’m sorry I keep using Harry Potter references)

You don’t ‘sign for the check’ in the UK. Almost every credit/debit card in the UK has a chip, and you put it in the chip and pin machine, type in your pin, and voila! You’ve paid! It’s actually much more secure than signing, honestly, the amount of times I’ve just scribbled my signature in a US shop and they’ve accepted it without even checking is appalling. 

Public transport is actually good in most cities. Buses are common everywhere, and bigger cities like Manchester, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, etc all have some sort of mass rail system, whether that’s a subway, tram, lightrail, whatever. Also nearly everywhere (even the tiny villages!) at least has a train station. It may be tiny as shit and trains may not go through very often, but they do exist.

All schools have uniforms.

Infant school = preschool, primary school = elementary school, secondary school = middle school/half of high school, further education (6th Form) = second half of high school, uni = college. The first two and last one are pretty self explanatory. At 16, you take your GCSEs, and after that, you’re not required to continue school, but many go to further education and take A Levels, which are like the pre-requisite for uni (although you can get into uni without A Levels, this is quite rare). Most take 2-3 subjects for A-Levels, but I think you can take more if you have a death wish (kind of like AP classes for us Americans). Here’s a good link for people who want to know more about the UK education system: https://www.internationalstudent.com/study_uk/education_system/

No one says “What’s up?” Instead, it’s “Alright?” which is confusing at first, but you get used to it. An example greeting between two friends: ‘Hey mate, alright?’ ‘Yeah, you alright?’ And that’s it. 

Religion is different. I actually know very little about religion so I can’t offer a whole lot of insight on this, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me it’s very different. If anyone wants to have their input here, that would be lovely!

Houses don’t have yards, they have gardens. This is mostly just a terminology thing to be honest. 

Speaking of terminology, use ‘pavement’ instead of ‘sidewalk’. Obviously people aren’t stupid, they’ll know what you mean if you say sidewalk, but still, gotta stay authentic for the plot.

House layouts in general are very different. Houses are either terraced (town houses in the US), semi-detached (duplex in the US), or detached (typical US house). Terraced are most common in big cities, and most houses are made of brick. Take some time to research different architecture styles (Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, 60s), the differences between them become quite apparent when you do a bit of looking. 

 There are also a variety of apartment/flat styles. Old period properties are often divided up into flats, and there are also purpose-built blocks of flats, which is like a US apartment complex. There are also luxury flats, which I think we call condominiums in the US. They’re all really modern and have lots of glass.

Since the entire country is so damn tiny, long roadtrips aren’t really a thing. It’s more like, you drive somewhere to go camping, like Cornwall or Devon (basically Florida for British people).

Holidays to warm places are quite common. South of France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain and some of the usual destinations. You usually fly to these places on budget flights like Easy Jet or Ryan Air, unless you’re rich, then you probably take British Airways.

Stop signs don’t exist. No, I’m serious. If the intersection (or crossroads) is big enough, there’ll be traffic lights or a roundabout. But other than that, you just have to be careful. Which is generally okay, because people in the UK can actually drive.

No one refers to a section of street as a block. Cities in the UK aren’t really set up in a grid the way US cities are. Streets are kind of weird and curvy and don’t make sense, so saying ‘it’s two blocks that way!’ doesn’t really work. Instead, write about distance in terms of vague relation: ‘It’s just up that road a bit, past the M&S, then left at the The King’s Head pub’.

London, in general, is a fucking huge city. You can’t walk across the whole thing in a day. Hell, you can barely drive across the whole thing in a day. Big Ben and Tower Bridge are 2.5 miles apart from each other. I know, it was a shocker for me too when I first got here! Take a look at a map of London and you’ll see what I mean. It is possible to do most of Westminster in a day, but that would be a very full day and you wouldn’t get to really see anything in-depth. And most people live very far away from these landmarks. So keep that in mind next time you have a character who lives in London saying they can hear Big Ben chime from their flat. That character must have a lot of money.

This is a really short list and I’ve probably barely even made a DENT so if anyone else has something to add, please do so! And please reblog this to boost it to your followers! Thank you my pals, have a good day, and KEEP WRITING! 

[magpiefngrl]

- The drinking in a fic is how I tend to know if the author is a Brit (or Irish/European) or not. 

- Cards nowadays are mostly contactless and don’t even need you to enter a pin if the amount is under 25 quid. Also, keep in mind that if you’re writing fic set in late 90s-early 00s, then signing the receipt was what we did back then when paying by card.

- The ‘alright’ confused me so much when I first moved to the UK. I kept worrying I looked ill. 

- Houses in the south tend to be painted in bright colours (well, at least Brighton and Portsmouth where I lived). Midlands and North it’s mostly brick. Living in a detached house means you earn good money. Semi-detached is usually affordable by a couple with two decent salaries.

- Accents are everything. They reveal where you were raised as well as your class. People will comment on or otherwise make note of your accent. In the first episode of Misfits, the very first thing the characters do when they meet each other is to talk/take the piss off the others’ accent.

- There’s a twitter account which tweets things overheard in Waitrose. 

[drarryismymuse]

This is incredibly helpful to this American girl that can only dream of an English immersion.

[lqtraintracks]

I’m guilty of just throwing a Tesco in there. LOL.

Okay, I have a funny story which, if you’ve been around a bit, you may already know. So, I’m not sure who first started the ‘denims’ craze a few years ago, and in all honesty it might have been me??? Anyway, for whatever reason I/other people thought that Brits called ‘jeans’ ‘denims’ and started calling jeans denims in everything we wrote. Well, some Brit writers (birdsofshore was one of them and could corroborate this if she were on tumblr) saw it and thought, “Oh, I guess Americans call ‘jeans’ ‘denims’. So that they understand, I’d better call them that too,” and then up and started writing denims as well, further feeding into the idea that denims was indeed correct! When in actuality WE ALL SAY JEANS. So in HP fandom in particular, around 2012-2014-ish, there will be a shitload of fics by several people, even some Brit writers, calling jeans denims for really no good reason. If you’re new to HP fandom and reading a lot in that era, just know: We were all wrong and have since stopped the denims madness. Sorry about that. ;P LOL!

[snowgall]

The last bit there is linguistic gold. Somehow British fanfic writers became confused enough by American fanfic writers (writing fic set in Britain) to start regularly using a word that Brits never actually use. I’m dying.

(But I thought it was your word! But I thought it was yours!)

[dontworryfolkswetookallherteeth]

The education system has changed since this was written - after GCSEs, you’re required to stay in fulltime education until you’re eighteen, but you can do an apprenticeship for this.

GCSEs are run on the 9-1 system, which no one really understands yet. I’ve had people tell me they hope I get a 1, which would be the worst possible marks. If you get a 3 or lower in maths and English, you have to resit the exam. There are rumours of a 10 being possible within 5 years and everyone hates that. I’m taking 11, but I have friends doing 9 and friends doing 13.

9=A**

8=A*

7=A

6=B

5=C

4=D

Also, my school expects 4 A levels (3 if you have a really good reason, usually only offered to people who did their GCSEs there; 5 if one of them’s PE or EPQ) so it’s getting more difficult.

[alinakerrin]

I live in Northern Ireland and want to point out the differences in schools. In N.I. we have Grammar schools and a test for 10/11 year-olds. My school needed a minimum 95 points out of a total (I think) 132 points to get in.

Schools in England use regions. So if you live just outside the good school’s territory, then you can’t go it to. Many people in England buy apartments that they don’t use, just to get their kids to go to the good schools. (it’s quite a big issue actually). And they don’t have grammar schools.

If your characters have different accents, they mightn’t understand each other. When I talk to people with a strong Belfast accent, I have no clue what they’re saying. And we’re from the same country.

You can say footpath instead of pavement. I don’t think anyone said this: One pound = a quid. 10 pound note is a tenner, 5 pound note is a fiver but a 20 pound note is not a twenty-er. Pretty much everyone says banter (i.e a good time) “It was great banter”. in N.I. we also say craic (said like crack) which means the pretty much the same thing, but you can also say “What’s the craic?” to mean, “What’s up?”

If you’re writing parents talking to their kids about exams, the kids will say “A-Levels” the parent will call them “O-Levels” because the system changed.

My school only let people with 20(ish) points at GCSE do four A-levels and you needs 12 points to get back in at A-Level. To get back for the second year we needed at least 3 Cs.

In reference to OP’s school names, I have never heard anyone say fucking “infant school”. We say “Nursery School” or “Nursery” for short.

I can be in a different country in 3 hours by driving and 45 minutes by flying. Because everything is closer together, unless your character is travelling from the country to London, their daily commute won’t take longer than half an hour. My commute to school takes 30 minutes depending on traffic and the bus driver. Driving to London can and will take at least an hour. Maybe even longer.

We make up words. In Northern Ireland, a normal conversation could include: “Oi, where’re youse’uns going?” which translates as: “Hey where are you lot going?” Youse is plural of you and “uns” is “ones”. Idk why we put “uns” on the end, but we do. Scotland does similar stuff, but I don’t know enough about their slang.

Finally, in Britain we are “ruder”. We call each other fuckers and wankers and pricks. The Scottish are more creative and brutal than England and Wales, Northern Ireland is on par with Scotland, and Ireland is in the middle.

[katabasiss]

Oh good shout! Also slightly less relevant but to add on to the points about regional accents, usually people will have different accents from their friends or peers. This is mainly because whilst regional accents are the most distinct from each other, towns (even if they’re only like 20 miles away) also have differences in accent.

For example my school is bang in the middle of a small village town. As such a fair amount of the people there speak in what we’d deem today as ‘standard english’. However that being said, around said village is a ton of poorer, larger towns which often sound more ‘chavy’ (a common slang term for working class).

Moreover, individual schools will have their own slang attached to it so don’t be afraid to make up some slang and dot that on on top of general british slang. For example, for 5 years at secondary I went to a school in a large town - accent wise it was common to drop the ‘t’s’ and ‘g’s’ so I find myself doing that a lot and slang wise we’d have little dumb things like ‘ladies drop your weapons’ to signify a slut drop (don’t ask me why I just went along with it). Whereas at the school I’m at now that I moved to for sixth form, obviously as said before it’s in a different place so not only are the accents different (e.g out of pretty much all my friends and classes I’m often deemed to speak the most ‘chavy’) but the slang is different so if I don’t like something I find myself saying it’s ‘wack’ whereas before I’d have said ‘its peak’ or something like that.

Lastly (before this gets too long), if you’re writing about a secondary school then your characters more than likely realistically going to come from different areas and therefore have a fake rivalry with each other. Eg if we take the village my school is in for example, let’s call it W, then popular jest is that it’s posh and snobby. Whereas if we take the town I live in ® then it’s often said that it’s full of druggies and crime. That’s not to say it is of course, there’s this other town that everyone claims is inbreed and obvs isn’t but that rivalry is still there. So to add to realism I’d recommend either world building the towns around your characters or learning the views put on the towns. :)

[hollyand-writes]

All of this but with a few corrections: in England we DO have grammar schools, they’re just very rare and pretty much confined to a small region in Southeast England. 

Also, when a British person talks about “Asians” (or British Asians), they mean people of South Asian descent (i.e. Indians, Pakistanis, etc), rather than East Asian descent like in the US and Australia. South Asians are the largest ethnic minority in Britain (5% of the UK’s population), whereas East Asians are incredibly rare over here (and tend to refer to themselves as “British Chinese” – there are even fewer people of Japanese or Korean descent here than there are (Hong Kong) Chinese, who make up 0.5% of the population). 

The acronym “BAME” gets used for non-white people over here, and stands for “Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic”, where “Asian” means South Asian, and “Minority Ethnic” includes all other minority ethnicities – such as Chinese, Turkish, Middle Eastern, etc. Hispanic/Mexican/Latino people are so rare it’s unlikely you’ll meet any, even in the big cities. 

And yes, we are ruder. Like the Australians, it’s not unheard of to call someone a “cunt” in a joking way (although it’s usually used as an insult, and is not a gendered slur over here like it is in the US). 

London is very very racially diverse, but outside of the cities, the UK really isn’t. My husband grew up in a part of the English countryside that’s like 99% white (probably even 100% white). Whenever we visit, I am literally the only brown face there. 

Also, I feel like gay culture in London is quite different to what Tumblr often portrays LGBT culture as? Homophobia still exists, like it does everywhere, but in my experience, many gay and lesbian people in London are quite openly gay/lesbian – whether that’s out and about or at work or whatever. 

Foreign holidays are reasonably common. The vast majority of Brits will have been abroad (i.e. outside the UK) at least once in their lives, even if it’s just to Europe (and in Britain, we think of “Europe” as the mainland part of the continent where they don’t speak English as a first language. Americans tend to refer to Brits as “Europeans”, but we generally don’t tend to see ourselves as Europeans ourselves… although the Brexit vote in 2016 changed some of that in some people’s minds).

Also, social class is much, much, much more a thing over here than it is in many other (every other?) countries in the world. Social class in Britain is not just about wealth and aristocracy – although it used to be – but social class markers that people will pick up on (and immediately use to figure out which social class you belong to) will include your accent, what type of school you went to, what kind of food you eat, what kind of leisure hobbies you have, even down to how you dress. And yes, this even applies – to some extent – to those of us who are non-white or have immigrant parents.

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Three Things

the woman who runs with wolves, the trail into the woods, law abiding types

[specialagentartemis]

“Be curious about what you’re writing about” is not stock Common Writing Advice but it really, really should be. There are a lot of written works that fail due to the authors just being obviously incurious about what they are writing about.

[heywriters]

Rescued Writing Links!

When cleaning out the HEY, Writers! Pinterest I moved some links here. The internet has changed a LOT since I started collecting these, so some links may include outdated info. All were still active when I made this, but it's been in my drafts for a hot minute.

Protip! In Firefox, check to toggle reader view when reading these (mobile: the page icon in the url bar; desktop: same icon or hit F9). This removes popups, ads, screen clutter, and often has an audio option.

Survivors of Internet Decay Award!

These active sites featured most often in my collections so they get the top of the list.

Helping Writers Become Authors

Mythcreants

Bryn Donovan

Getting Started (Ideas & Intros)

How to Start Writing a Book: Learn One Writer’s Process | Marian Schembari

How to Start a Story: 30 Opening Scene Examples | Bryn Donovan

Don’t Panic! What to Do When You Have Too Many Story Ideas | Faye Kirwin

How to Write a Killer First Chapter | Rae Elliot

How To Write A Captivating Opening Sentence

Outlining

How to Create a Flexible Outline for Your Novel | Faye Kirwin

Protagonists

How to Write Believable Characters | Bridget McNulty

4 Ways to Write a Likable Protag at the Start of the Character Arc | KM Weiland

5 Tips for Writing a Likable "Righteous" Character | KM Weiland

I Hate Your Protagonist! Want to Know Why? | KM Weiland

The Secret to Writing Dynamic Characters: It's Always Their Fault | KM Weiland

A Protagonist’s Moment of Realisation

Antagonists

Blurring the Lines: What Are Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains?

Antagonists: Inner & Outer Demons | Kristen Lamb

How to Write Multiple Antagonists | KM Weiland

Character Building

The Epic Guide to Character Creation, Part 1 | Kylie Day

Pick Up A Bad Habit | Maggie Maxwell

How To Write Characters from the Opposite Gender | Rachel Poli

Top 4 Tips for Using Backstory in Your Novel | Diana Anderson-Tyler

Depicting Background Characters | Chris Winkle

Scene Building

The 5 Elements Of A Good Scene | Amanda Patterson

A New Way to Think About Scene Structure | KM Weiland

2 Ways to Make the Most of Your Story’s Climactic Setting | KM Weiland

8 Things Writers Forget When Writing Fight Scenes | Lisa Voisin

Descriptions

Master List of Facial Expressions | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Words to Describe Voices | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Physical Description for Writers | Bryn Donovan

Writer’s Guide to Serious Injuries and Calamities | Bryn Donovan

How to Ground Your Reader (in the setting) | Rachel Craft

The Forgotten Fifth Sense | Writer's Relief

Never Name an Emotion in Your Story | KM Weiland

Show, Don't Tell: How to Write the Stages of Grief | Ruthanne Reid

100 Words for Facial Expressions

Dialogue

How To Write Good Dialogue: Ten Tips | Irving Weinman

Seven Dialogue Don’ts | Jason Bougger

10 Keys to Writing Dialogue in Fiction | Katherine Cowley

Points-Of-View (POV)

What Every Writer Ought to Know About the Omniscient POV | KM Weiland

Motivation & Support

What New Writers Need To Know About Fear | Bryan Collins

How to Discover Your Writing Process with Gabriela Pereira | Kirsten Oliphant

Editing & Revising

18 Overused Words to Replace When Writing | Oxford Tutoring

An Easy Way to Immediately Improve Your Character’s Action Beats | KM Weiland

Want More Depth to Your Writing? | Sacha Black

How Much is Too Much Backstory? | Ellen Brock

Why Your Writing Sounds Weird (And What You Can Do About It) | Joe Brock

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers | Jenny Bravo

Favorite Revision and Editing Tricks

Short Stories & Flashfic

How to Write a Story a Week: A Day-by-Day Guide | Emily Wenstrom

How Flash Fiction / Microfiction Can Help With Your Writing | Rhianne Williams

Worksheets & Downloads

Writing Worksheet Archive

If anyone out there loves making lists and wants to transport this to another site, you have every right to do so! Just let me know in a reblog so I can share it here again :)

---

HEY! Writers' Links

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Visit my Pinterest & Unsplash for visual inspiration

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[todaysbird]

This isn’t cute, it’s AI

[mixedmiraculous]

Ok I saved this post to my drafts because I wanted to talk about this image. It's been a few months since this was going around but I now have time so I'm gonna do it. When this was going around earlier this year I saw a number of people thinking this was an AI generated image because it doesn't look like a real baby penguin. And you're right, it's not a real baby penguin! However, it is NOT AI, it's a real photo, of a plushie! This penguin is a well made plush toy by YOMEE Dolls.

Here is their Insta, they have other photos of the penguin going on adventures and its incredibly cute! They normally watermark their photos so I'm assuming this is a photo taken by a customer who bought one. YOMEE also have a baby seal plush too.

Here is a reddit post of someone asking where this plushie is from

AI generated images have made us more wary of the uncanny. However, I think we gotta resist that knee jerk reaction to to uncanny images, I know this image also gave me that knee jerk feeling! Immediately labelling any uncanny image as AI and moving on doesn't help us hone our ability to identify what is or is not an AI generated image, and potentially does disservice to actual artists (in this case a plush doll maker). What made me question if it was AI generated was the ice and the lighting. The ice in the picture has some dirt and debris in the background - it's a small detail that someone giving a prompt to a computer probably wouldn't add if their focus was on a baby penguin, and a computer likely wouldn't include that detail by itself if given the prompt "baby penguin on ice". Also the lighting is consistent and the details of the back light hitting the fur is consistent with the light bouncing off all the ice. I work with lighting design in my day to day so I'm often thinking about how light is hitting a subject. The plushy's face was too much in shadow for me to think a computer made this image - again if the penguin is the focus, there's likely to be more light on its face.

Anyway I just wanted to share this in the hopes that folks are encouraged to interrogate if an image is AI generated. Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes it's not.

[headspace-hotel]

also I ended up looking at stuff about soviet agricultural experiments and apparently dogbane (Apocyonum cannabinum) was introduced to the USSR as a fiber crop plant? ???

[headspace-hotel]

found this ebook from 1902 which is the first time I've encountered the thing I was searching for so long- an EXHAUSTIVE list of Everything that can be used as a textile fiber.

Starting to get alarmed at how much information is trapped forever in obscure books from 1902 because the sources that came after failed to repeat it! what!

[headspace-hotel]

We were really into investigating the potential of plants to be useful before plastic happened, huh.

[headspace-hotel]

I don't understand why dogbane hasn't got any attention in the textiles world. it was used by basically every native american group in USA for, what, 12,000 years minimum? It gives crazy yields, the fibers are RIDICULOUSLY strong and sooo soft, and requires zero chemical processing or retting. You could mechanize the harvesting and processing easily. In terms of the quality and usefulness of fiber and the amount you get out of it relative to the amount of work it just blows everything else out of the water

but NOBODY'S USING IT

I found all this stuff because i was looking up sources on dogbane. Most sources that even MENTION dogbane in the past 30 years are literally just discussing how to kill it with chemicals

[thaumbody]

If you'd rather not use Google, the book by William I. Hannan on the textile fibers is available from the Internet Archive.

The textile fibres of commerce. A handbook on the occurrence, distribution, preparation, and uses of the animal, vegetable, and mineral fibr

x, 236 p. 23 cm

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

The Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository is live!

You can find it at: https://www.animal-photo-references.com!

Here's how this repository works: all photos were taken by me, a human, at zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, and other facilities with animals in human care. There is no AI involved in the photo editing or creation and there never will be. Right now there's 56 species on the site; my catalog has over 300 and I will be uploading the rest of them as fast as I can.

Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use these references. Yes, even for work you're going to sell.

All other usage/reproduction requires permission, but assume I'm friendly and please do ask! That's educators, researchers, the media, people who need images for a school presentation, etc. This is just to retain copyright/control in case they're scraped/reused unethically - it doesn't meant I don't want folk to have access! So please do reach out via the contact form on the repository website, I don't bite and I'm most likely going to say yes.

Please don't repost the repository photos to your own blogs: I've created @animalphotorefs as a dedicated blog to share photos from the site, and of course I'll reblog a lot of it here! That again just helps with retaining copyright and sourcing of the images. If you really want to repost some for a specific purpose, please just ask me first!

Also, folks, this project has no funding. It's just me and my camera.

There will never be a paywall on the site - I believe resources like this absolutely must be free for everyone to access. So please, please, please support the repository if you use it. Want sneak peeks at photos, cute videos I take, or to help choose what I photograph and what gets posted first? You can do that through Patreon (and there's a free trial on the most interactive tier!) If you'd like to just drop a tip, I've also set up a Ko-Fi.

I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of the repository.

To whet your thirst for cute photos, here's an Indian rhinoceros contemplating a goose.

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

A tutorial on a (bit cheating) way of creating fictional maps.

Open your editing software (RECOMMENDING Krita, since it's free and it's very good).

Step 1: Google "X country silhouette" and copy it.

Paste it onto the canvas.

Step 2: Separate the silhouette from the background you copied with it! You can do that by using magic wand selection tool or by making a gradient map with black on 49,9% and transparent on 50% on the slider.

Step 3: Repeat several times with numerous countries and/or islands, cities, municipalities, communes, continents et cetera.

Step 4: Combine, mesh, stretch, rotate, mirror - go ham, make it work.

Step 5: Erase and add.

Step 6: Have your map outline ready, copy/paste it several times in the same doc on different layers and edit in different ways like biomes, kingdoms, mountains and other.

Step Mountains+: To figure out mountains, make another layer on the doc and do something like this:

-and then in every polygon you add an arrow.

Where arrows meet or transfer onto continents, add mountains.

Color the sea with a couple layers of depth and you're done :D

[cripplecharacters]

Hi,

I have a character who has a traumatic brain injury.

She's a supporting lead, so she's a huge a huge character in my book.

I'd like any advice you have to avoid anything problematic or anything you think would be good to include.

Hello,

So, the first thing you should do is figure out exactly where she was injured and check out the symptoms associated. A TBI to the cerebellum, for example, will impact speech and fine motor function, whereas a TBI to the frontal lobe will impact personality and things like language comprehension. The brain does a lot of things, so the symptoms of damage to it will manifest it a lot of different ways.

Personally, I would prefer if you avoided the pity trope, the grieving trope, or the "villain has a TBI and is evil because of TBI reasons" trope. Yes, all of those can be involved in someone getting a TBI. But we've also discussed similar things and why they should be avoided at length, and they're also the only TBI representation we get. Check out our brain damage representation tag, and maybe our tropes tag. Not all of the second one will be about traumatic brain injuries, but a lot of those tropes are also prevalent with characters who have a TBI.

Please don't create another Anakin Skywalker. We have enough of those.

Mod Aaron

[pizzaback-deactivated20201011]

sorry if i’m being a party pooper but because rabies is apparently the new joke on here ??? please remember that rabies has an almost 100% fatality rate after symptoms develop so if you’re bitten or scratched by an animal that you aren’t 100% sure is vaccinated then GO TO A DOCTOR. it’s not a joke. really. 

[wind-on-the-panes-deactivated20]

You’re being kind when you say “almost 100% fatality”. What people need to hear is: if you get to develop rabies symptoms, you’re dead. If you get heavy treatment after developping symptoms, you still need a miracle. Like, a real miracle, you should enter some religion if you escape that.

ALSO, I don’t want people feeling confident about petting stray/wild animals because there’s a vaccine available, either. I’ll explain why from my own experience (I’m not a doctor).

I got bitten by a wild tamarin once, on the pulp of my index finger. It drew blood, there are many wild animals in the area (tamarins, possums, bats, foxes) and it isn’t that uncommon to hear about 1 or 2 rabies cases every now and again (a puppy we gave to a friend got it, for instance), so I went to an ambulatory immediately.

Because I was bitten in an ultrasensitive area, I needed fast treatment. But it was also a small area, so the usual thing they do - inject the vaccine in the place - wasn’t a choice. They told me they’d divide the shot in 5 small ones, and inject me all over my body, so the antidote would get to my entire system fast.

Please stop for a moment and think that the disease is so worrysome that they’d rather needle me all over than to give me one shot and wait until it spread through my system.

Then they said that, okay, but there was a catch first. I needed to take an antiallergic shot. “Why?” “Because the virus is devastating, and as the vaccine is made from it, but weakened (like almost every vaccine) it will still create a reaction, and it’s a strong one, and it’s veru common for people to have strong allergic reactions to it.” YOU HAVE TO TAKE AN ANTIALLERGIC SHOT IN ORDER TO TAKE THE VACCINE COZ THE VACCINE COULD POTENTIALLY MAKE YOU REALLY SICK

ALSO IT WASN’T JUST “A LITTLE ANTIALLERGIC SHOT”

IT WAS ONE OF THESE FUCKERS HERE.

It was OBVIOUSLY dripped in my body and not injected because HAHAHAHA. Truth be told I was an adult already and I’m tall so I have a lot of mass but STILL.

So after I had taken the antiallegic and was starting to feel drowsy (as a side effect of it) the doctor came with the 5 shots.

- One in each buttock

- One in each thigh

- One in my left arm

They all stung like a bitch and I usually don’t care about shots.

“Okay so can I go home now?”

“No, we have to keep you under observation for 2h so we’re SURE the vaccine won’t give you any reaction.”

BINCH I WAS GIVEN A BUTTLOAD OF MEDICINE BUT THERE WAS STILL A RISK.

I slept through the two hours and then was liberated to go home. My legs, butt, and left arm hurt all over, like I had been punched there, for a few days. I also had a fever (not feverish, a fever)

BUT DID YOU THINK IT WAS OVER?

WRONG!!!

I had to take four reinforcement shots in the next month, one a week, so I could be positively be considered immunized. Every time I took a shot, my arm would swell and hurt like it’d been hit, and when night came I’d have a fever. Because that’s how fucking strong the vaccine is, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW VICIOUS THE VIRUS IS.

So yeah. DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN RISK, GODDAMNIT. Rabies is a rare condition all over, THANK GOD, and 1 confirmed case can be already considered a surge and a reason for mass campaigning, AND FOR A REASON.

If you like messing with stray/wild animals, don’t go picking them up and be extra careful. Or just, like, DON’T - call a vet or an authority that can handle them safely.

I must add that I live in a country with universal healthcare, so I didn’t pay a single penny for my treatment. Is this your reality? If not, ONE MORE REASON TO NOT FUCKING PLAY WITH THIS SHIT.

Rabies is 100% lethal. Period. If you are scratched or bitten by an animal you’re not positive is vaccinated, you need to find treatment NOW. And probably go through all that shit I’ve been through (also if you are immunosupressed? I DON’T KNOW WHAT’D HAPPEN)

Stay safe and don’t be stupid ffs

[brancadoodles]

Guys, I know this isn’t art nor anything like that, but I’ve been hearing about this rabies thing and ???? Look I trust none of you would risk yourselves like this, but maybe you can educate someone through my experience and stuff.

[euryale-dreams-deactivated20201]

Also rabies does not necessarily cause frothing-at-the-mouth aggression in animals. Docility is also a very common symptom so any wild animal that is ‘friendly’ or ‘likes to be pet’ is suspect. Literally any wild animal is a vector.

Finally, you don’t need to be bitten. All you need is to come into contact with an infected animal’s bodily fluids through a cut that maybe you didn’t notice when you were handling it when it drooled on you.

Never touch a wild animal.

[blackbearmagic]

Infection with the rabies virus progresses through three distinct stages.

Prodromal: Stage One. Marked by altered behavioral patterns. “Docility” and “likes to be pet” are very common in the prodromal stage. Usually lasts 1-3 days. An animal in this stage carries virus bodies in its saliva and is infectious.

Excitative: Stage Two. Also called “furious” rabies. This is what everyone thinks rabies is–hyperreacting to stimuli and biting everything. Excessive salivation occurs. Animals in this stage also exhibit hydrophobia or the fear of water; they cannot drink (swallowing causes painful spasms of the throat muscles), and will panic if shown water. Usually lasts 3-4 days before rapidly progressing into the next stage.

Paralytic: Stage Three. Also called “dumb” rabies. As the infection runs its course, the virus starts degrading the nervous system. Limbs begin to fail; animals in this stage will often limp or drag their haunches behind them. If the animal has survived all this way, death will usually come through respiratory arrest: Their diaphragm becomes paralyzed and they stop breathing.

And to add onto the above, saliva isn’t the only infectious fluid. Brain matter is, too. If, somehow, you find yourself in possession of a firearm and faced with a rabid animal, do not go for a head shot. If you do, you will aerosolize the brain matter and effectively create a cloud of infectious material. Breathe it in, and you’ll give yourself an infection.

When I worked in wildlife rehabilitation, I actually did see a rabid animal in person, and it remains one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, because I was literally looking death in the eyes.

A pair of well-intentioned women brought us a raccoon that they thought had been hit by a car. They had found it on the side of the road, dragging its hind legs. They managed–somehow–to get it into a cat carrier and brought it to us. 

As they brought it in, I remember how eerily silent it was. Normal raccoons chatter almost constantly. They fidget. They bump around. They purr and mumble and make little grabby-hands at everything. Even when they’re in pain, and especially when they’re stressed. But this one wasn’t moving around inside the carrier, and it wasn’t making a sound.

The clinic director also noticed this, and he asked in a calm but urgent voice for the women to hand the carrier to him. He took it to the exam room and set it on the table while they filled out some forms in the next room. I took a step towards the carrier, to look at our new patient, and without turning around, he told me, “Go to the other side of the room, and stay there.”

He took a small penlight out of the drawer and shone it briefly into the carrier, then sighed. “Bear, if you want to come look at this, you can put on a mask,” he said. “It’s really pretty neat, but I know you’re not vaccinated and I don’t want to take any chances.” 

And at that point, I knew exactly what we were dealing with, and I knew that this would be the closest I had ever been to certain death. So I grabbed a respirator from the table and put it on, and held my breath for good measure as I approached the table. The clinic director pointed where I should stand, well back from the carrier door. He shone the light inside again, and I saw two brilliant flashes of emerald green–the most vivid, unnatural eyeshine I had ever seen. 

“I don’t know why it does it,” the director murmured, “but it turns their eyes green.”

“What does?” one of the women asked, with uncanny, unintentionally dramatic timing, as she poked her head around the corner.

“Rabies,” the director said. “The raccoon is rabid. Did it bite either of you, or even lick you?” They told us no, said they had even used leather garden gloves when they herded it into the carrier. He told them to throw away the gloves as soon as possible, and steam-clean the upholstery in their car. They asked how they should clean the cat carrier; they wanted it back and couldn’t be convinced otherwise, so he told them to soak it in just barely diluted bleach.

But before we could give them the carrier back, we had to remove the raccoon. The rabid raccoon.

The clinic director readied a syringe with tranquilizers and attached it to the end of a short pole. I don’t remember how it was rigged exactly–whether he had a way to push down the plunger or if the needle would inject with pressure–but all he would have to do was stick the animal to inject it. And so, after sending me and the women back to the other side of the room, he made his fist jab.

He missed the raccoon.

The sound that that animal made on being brushed by the pole can only be described as a roar. It was throaty and ragged and ungodly loud. It was not a sound that a raccoon should ever make. I’m convinced it was a sound that a raccoon physically could not make. 

It thrashed inside the carrier, sending it tipping from side to side. Its claws clattered against the walls. It bellowed that throaty, rasping sound again. It was absolutely frenzied, and I was genuinely scared that it would break loose from inside those plastic walls. 

Somehow, the clinic director kept his calm, and as the raccoon jolted around inside the cat carrier, he moved in with the syringe again, and this time, he hit it. He emptied the syringe into its body and withdrew the pole.

And then we waited.

We waited for those awful screams, that horrible thrashing, to die down. As we did, the director loaded up another syringe with even more tranquilizer, and as the raccoon dropped off into unconsciousness, he stuck it a second time with the heavier dose. Even then, it growled at him and flailed a paw against the wall.

More waiting, this time to make sure the animal was truly down for the count.

Then, while wearing welder’s gloves, the director opened the door of the carrier and removed the raccoon. She was limp, bedraggled, and utterly emaciated, but she was still alive. We bagged up the cat carrier and gave it to the women again, advising them that now was a good time to leave. They heeded our warning.

I asked if I could come closer to see, and the clinic director pointed where I could stand. I pushed the mask up against my face and tried to breathe as little as possible.

He and his co-director–who I think he was grooming to be his successor, but the clinic actually went under later that year–examined the raccoon together. Donning a pair of nitrile gloves, he reached down and pulled up a handful, a literal fistful, of the raccoon’s skin and released it. It stayed pulled up.

Severe dehydration causes a phenomenon called “skin tenting”. The skin loses its elasticity somewhat, and will be slow to return to its “normal” shape when manipulated. The clinic director estimated that it had been at least four or five days since the raccoon had had anything to eat or drink. 

She was already on death’s doorstep, but her rabies infection had driven her exhausted body to scream and lunge and bite. 

Because, the scariest thing about rabies (if you ask me) is the way that it alters the behavior of those it infects to increase chances of spreading. 

The prodromal stage? Nocturnal animals become diurnal–allowing them to potentially infect most hosts than if they remained nocturnal. 

The excitative stage? The infected animal bites at the slightest provocation. Swallowing causes painful spasms, so they drool, coating their bodies in infectious matter. A drink could wash away the virus-charged saliva from their mouth and bodies, so the virus drives them to panic at the sight of water.

(The paralytic stage? By that point, the animal has probably spread its infection to new hosts, so the virus has no need for it any longer.)

Rabies is deadly. Rabies is dangerous. In all of recorded history, one person survived an infection after she became symptomatic, and so far we haven’t been able to replicate that success. The Milwaukee Protocol hasn’t saved anyone else. Just one person. And even then, she still had to struggle to gain back control of her body after all that nerve damage.

Please, please, take rabies seriously.

This has been a warning from your old pal Bear.

[naamahdarling]

I knew how bad it was, but I had never read anything like the raccoon story.

I am not exaggerating when I say that is literally terrifying.

Y'all please read this. That is absolutely hideous. That’s literally like something from a horror movie.

Do not fuck around with wildlife. Or weird strays.

[idontevenhaveone]

TFW Rabies education comes across your dash because some fuck up calls themselves Rabiosexual.

[nachttour-deactivated20181204]

Rebloggin’ for that raccoon. o.o The original post I can pretty much guarantee is a troll, but it’s useful to know just why rabies is such serious shit. 

[labelleizzy]

Education right here

[bisexualbaker]

Extra reminder: If you see any animal other than a dog who’s been attacked by a porcupine? It’s rabid.

Dogs are dumb, friendly fucks who will investigate anything; everything else in the animal kingdom knows better than to mess with a porcupine, unless their brain is being ravaged by something beyond their control.

If you see a non-dog animal that has porcupine quills sticking out of it? Don’t try to help it yourself. Call animal control.

[grrlcookery]

@talesfromtreatment @is-the-cat-video-cute tagging you to spread the word? Apparently people have forgotten that rabies is a brain disease, terrifying, is fatal if not treated immediately, the treatment is horrid, and the treatment is very expensive

Also I heard that in the USA, human rabies pre-exposure vaccines are not widely available and cost something like $900

Get your pets rabies vaccine every year, folks. Aside from everything else - and that’s a lot of everything - the test for rabies involves the brain, so the animal will be killed first.

And that is a kind end. The videos of rabies seizures are nightmarish

[inklingofadream]

This is also why you’re not supposed to sleep outside without cover (ie a CLOSED tent) if there are swooping bats in your area. Apparently it can be very hard to realize you’ve been bitten by a bat (vs a bug, I guess it’s very small). Some students from my university were on a trip where they came into contact with bats, taking lots of selfies holding them etc, in the area they were supposed to be sleeping and the professor lost it when they saw some of the pictures. The students were housed elsewhere and the university had everyone vaccinated at the school’s expense- the pre-exposure vax may be expensive, but the number of shots you get post-exposure can vary (as demonstrated above) and it was ASTRONOMICAL.

[afigmentofyour-imagination]

When I looking for places to move to when I can finally leave the states, I looking to laws and procedures to bring my cat with. Any place that had eradicated rabies, intense policies and quarantines for any animal entering the country, unless you were coming from a different place that had also eradicated it. Some of would put your animal down if they were symptomatic at all. I remember thinking “what can’t rabies just treated?” No it can’t be, putting your pet down is the humane option if there symptomatic.

[alexseanchai]

[image: a sixty-milliliter syringe, with human hand for scale. the syringe barrel is likely around five inches long and likely has an inside diameter of an inch or more.]

[curlicuecal]

When I talk to my students about Louis Pasteur and the development of vaccines, I *have* to talk about rabies.

Do you know why “dog catcher” was such a serious occupation? Because in the late 1800s rabies ran rampant in urban street dogs. Because people who got bitten by street dogs… had probably just gotten a death sentence.

As a child, Louis Pasteur watched a man from his hometown die slowly, painfully, and unstoppably from rabies from a rabid wolf bite and it stuck with him so hard that when he grew up he put his own life on the line studying and working with rabid animals to develop a treatment. (Louis Pasteur’s wife, Marie Pasteur, was also a talented, passionate scientist who worked uncredited by his side. Many of their daughters also took up research.)

When Louis Pasteur did his first human test of his rabies vaccine, it was because a mother came to him desperate. Her 8 year old son had been bitten 14 times by a street dog. Doctors were certain he was going to die. She’d heard what Pasteur was working on and begged him to try to save her son.

He tried.

It worked.

This made national news. This made GLOBAL news.

And in the small Russian town of Beloi, locals read about this miracle cure. Their town had been attacked by a rabid wolf and twenty two people had been bitten. They knew these people were going to die. So the bitten people set off walking, carrying the most injured. They walked for weeks to get to France, where Pasteur was based.

When they arrived, the only French word they knew was “Pasteur.” Their cases were dangerously far along, possibly too far. Pasteur began treatment anyway, pushing with the most aggressive dosages he dared.

This also caught global attention. The world waited on tenterhooks.

Pasteur’s vaccine saved 19 out of 22.

The world was awed.

And when those Russian villagers returned home, to their families, it would have been like seeing the dead return.

Vaccinations changed our world.

[defilerwyrm]

Rabies is such a terrifying and serious threat that it has shaped our cultures for centuries. The rabies vaccine is quite possibly the most important human invention since agriculture.

Vaccinate your pets.

Don’t touch wildlife.

Of lesser importance, read Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus by Murphy & Wasik.

[petermorwood]

Reblogging because rabies is bloody terrifying. 

Also reblogging to remember Louis Pasteur, the nineteen lives he saved then, and the many others since.

[calliopechild]

Reblogging this because apparently the antivax brainrot has started to extend to pet owners wondering if their pets really need rabies vaccines, because they’re now concerned their pets are going to get autism as well. (I wish I was joking, but according to an Ars Technica article, 37% of polled pet owners are genuinely this stupid.)

Get your pets vaccinated, and if you know any pet owners who are antivaxxers, maybe keep your pets away from theirs.

[the-real-seebs]

oh for fuck’s sake. DO NOT FUCK AROUND WITH RABIES.

[charliespringcoded-deactivated2]

nobody tweets like hozier...I love him so much

[mimble-sparklepudding]

OC Questions on the Seven Forms of Love.

A little list of OC questions based on the seven types of love identified in Ancient Greek thought. Obviously this is a highly simplified presentation of some quite complex philosophical concepts from Classical History, intended more for the purposes of entertainment than education. I also left out Mania, which is arguably an eighth type of love (Obsessive), because I'm keeping it mostly positive in these tricky times!

Eros – Romantic, Passionate Love.

Is your OC romantic in the traditional sense? Do they enjoy giving or receiving gifts of flowers or confectionary? Or are there other courtship traditions from their culture of origin that are important to them?

How important is sex to them in a relationship? Do they see it as something essential to their happiness? Would they be able to remain in a monogamous relationship with someone they loved without sex?

How do they feel about public displays of romantic affection? Does it make them uncomfortable? How do they feel if a romantic partner kisses them in public?

Do they believe in love at first sight? Have they ever developed a crush or romantic (or erotic) fixation upon a stranger based on their appearance alone?

How closely is their opinion of their own beauty (or lack thereof) linked to their confidence? Do they see themselves as more or less worthy of love or sex based on how attractive they feel?

Philia – Affectionate, Platonic Love.

Does your OC have a Best Friend? If they do then how long have they known each other and how did they meet? If they don't then do they have a close group of friends they love equally? Or are they more of a loner?

Does your OC find it easy to make friends? Or are there barriers to them doing so? If so then are these due to issues of inclination, communication, or something else entirely?

What qualities does your OC most value in a friend? Loyalty? Shared sense of humour? Or something else?

Is your OC able to build close friendships with people very different from themselves? Perhaps in terms of culture, age or personality?

What is their most fervent wish for their best friend(s)? How far would they go to make it happen?

Storge – Unconditional, Familial Love.

Did your OC's parents love them unconditionally? If so then has this helped them feel confident as an adult? If not then how has this affected them? What were the conditions their family attached to their relationship?

Does your OC have children? If so then how fiercely do they love them? If they have more than one then do they love them all equally? If they do not have children then is this part of their future plans?

How far does parental approval (imagined or expressed) impact upon their current sense of self-worth? What might they sacrifice or attempt to achieve in order to ensure the approval of their parents?

Does your OC have any siblings? If so then did their parents have a favourite growing up? Has their relationship with their sibling changed in adulthood? If they don't have any siblings then do they perhaps feel they have missed out on an important relationship? Do they have any especially close friends who go some way towards filling that role?

Is your OC able to love without necessarily needing or expecting reciprocation or reward? Or are all their relationships to some extent transactional? Have they ever loved another person unconditionally, whether a child or another adult?

Agape – Selfless, Universal Love.

Does your OC wish to make the world a better place? How far do they see that as being their responsibility? What lengths would they go to in order to help achieve this?

Does your OC feel a spiritual connection to the world around them? Do they have a particular love for nature or living things?

To what extent does your OC believe in the value (or even existence) of true altruism? Do they see an unselfish concern for the welfare of others as being naïve or foolish? Or as a moral quality to which people should aspire?

Does your OC have a religious faith which emphasises the importance of a love for all people? If so then do they try to follow these teachings authentically? Or do they just pay lip-service to them? If not then do they follow a more martial or mercantile faith? Or none at all?

Does your OC find it easy to empathise with their enemies? Or do they see it as important to dehumanise them in order to combat them with sufficient determination?

Ludus – Playful, Flirtatious Love.

Does your OC have any particular favourite chat up lines? If not for themselves then perhaps ones they have suggested to a friend? How effective do these tend to be?

Is your OC particularly skilled at flirting? Have they had to practice this or does it just happen naturally?

How does your OC feel about one night stands? Have they ever enjoyed a night of passionate romance with a stranger? Is this something they are quite keen on recreationally? Or only something they might engage in under specific circumstances (such as the eve of a battle or after a difficult breakup)?

Who was your OC's first crush? How do they feel about it now?

What seduction techniques are most likely to be effective when it comes to your OC? Are there some things guaranteed to get them going? Or are they immune to such things?

Pragma – Committed, Long-Lasting Love.

Is your OC in a committed long-term relationship (or relationships)? If so then what has contributed to this relationship lasting so well? If they are not in such a relationship, then is this something that saddens them or which they regret?

What is the biggest challenge that your OC has had to overcome in a long-term relationship or friendship? What helped them get through this?

Are your OC's parents still together? To what degree do they look to their own parents as a model for their own ideal relationship?

After the initial fires of passion cool to some degree, what would keep your OC engaged in a relationship? Shared goals? Similar values? Or contented companionship?

What importance or value does your OC attach to marriage? Do they believe that it is important to make a public statement of commitment to another person (or persons)? Or are they more concerned about inheritance rights and security for their family? Or do they not see marriage as a necessary signifier of commitment and loyalty?

Philautia – Self Love.

Does your OC have a healthy sense of their own worth and value? Or do they see themselves as failing to live up to their original potential? Perhaps they are convinced of their own sinful or inadequate nature?

Does your OC believe that it is important to love themselves in the first instance? Perhaps in order to be able to give and receive love authentically? Or because they believe first and foremost in "looking after number one"?

Does your OC judge themselves by the same standards as they apply to others? Or are they sometimes hypocritical in condemning others for faults they also possess? Or perhaps they find it easier to forgive others for things that they cannot abide in themselves?

Which of your OC's qualities makes them the most proud? Do they think more people should be like them in this regard? Or do they quite like being rare in possessing it?

Has your OC always had the same opinion of themselves or has this changed over time? Have they learned to love themselves - perhaps with the help of others - as their journey progressed? Or have the consequences of their actions only served to erode their sense of self-worth?

[needlekind]

filterable picrew database!

original post updated march 7 2024

hey pals!! i'm working on a filterable, tagged collection of picrew i like. right now there's over 100 picrew (and other such makers such as those from neka or meiker) in there with tags for things like fashion, hair options, skin colors, specific features like horns or headscarves, and body types. you can search for multiple tags at a time and filter out tags you don't want. the whole thing is organized in a big grid of sample results from the picrew in question, so you can see the style at a glance and click it for more images and the url, but you can change the view and organization system however you like.

the link is here!!! feel free to share this wherever. i'm still going through my folders and adding more makers, so expect lots of updates real soon.

i'm hoping this makes it easier for people to find picrew that suit them and their characters, especially in cases where it's unfortunately harder to find certain features like dark skin options and fat bodies.

really important notes:

i do not take requests for additional tags. sorry!! please understand that every time i want to use a new tag, i have to manually go into every maker in the entire backlog and check to see if they have it. it's a pain! it takes a while! there's only one of me! the only circumstance under which i'm willing to add a new tag is if you're willing to go through the backlog and link me every picrew that needs the tag, and i can use it going forward.

if something is tagged wrong, i need to know which maker it is so i can fix it. you need to tell me! the most useful way to send me a specific picrew is a direct link, or the artist name (which will be the title when you click into the item in the database). sometimes i get vague comments like "there are makers in x tag that don't fit" and no one EVER follows up with which ones they are so i can't FIX IT.

one big thing that you can do to help me with this database is take one of the links on my tba page and tell me what tags apply to it. literally just one! enough folks see and use this resource that just a few people taking one takes a load off my plate.

💖🍵 if this resource has been useful for you, consider sending me a tip on ko-fi!!

have fun!!!! i hope this is helpful for people!!!

[luanna801]

This is going to sound like a random Question but what sort of Jewish represention do you think there should be more off? Like types of Jewish characters? Artists? Scientists? Healers? Mechanics? (Asking cause I'm writing a story and I want to add Jewish characters and I want to write Jewish characters that Jewish people can be happy about )

Oh man, that is an awesome question!

I mean, when it comes to types of characters, I think the more roles you let Jewish characters play, the better. So absolutely, all of the above to the ones you mentioned! Artists, scientists, healers, mechanics! All of those sound awesome! I’d love more Jewish warriors too! Jewish magic-wielders! Wise Jewish mentors and young Jewish coming-of-age stories! 

It’s less to me about specific roles, like “I want more Jewish scientist characters!”, and more about certain things you should keep in mind no matter what the specifics of your Jewish character are.

1) Avoid stereotypes. If your Jewish character exists to be greedy, untrustworthy, and money-hungry in some combination, you’re probably writing an anti-Semitic stereotype. Likewise, while I love the idea of a well-executed Jewish nerd character (I’m a Jewish nerd myself!), you need to watch out for two-dimensional, “nebbish” Jewish nerd types. If you’re not Jewish yourself, best to also avoid overbearing Jewish mother stereotypes and similar cliched roles.

2) Basically - if your Jewish character seems exactly like twenty stereotypical Jewish characters who already exist, you’re probably doing something wrong. It’s okay to take something that can be stereotypical, like a Jewish character who’s nerdy, or a Jewish girl who’s a spoiled popular kid (aka a “JAP”) and make it part of a larger, more complex character. But you can’t leave it at that. (NOTE: This does NOT apply to the “greedy, untrustworthy gold-digger” stereotype. It doesn’t matter how nuanced you try to make it, we don’t need more of those characters. Don’t do it.)

3) Occasional references to matza, gefilte fish, and Chanukah do not constitute thoughtful Jewish representation. Vary it up a bit. Do a little research. There are so many interesting ways you can incorporate Judaism into your character! We have so much history, so many interesting traditions and holidays! Try asking Jewish friends when you need help on the specifics. Most of us are happy to ramble.

4) LET MORE JEWISH CHARACTERS BE RELIGIOUS IN WAYS THAT AREN’T STEREOTYPICAL. This is probably the biggest thing I want to see as an Orthodox Jewish girl. Basically all the Jewish characters you see are either completely secular and culturally/religiously divorced from Judaism (see above point), or else a very exaggerated, cliched portrayal of ultra-religious “Hasidic” Judaism (note: this is usually not even an accurate depiction Chassidic Judaism, let alone anything that will resonate with the rest of us.) There’s such a broad spectrum in between that’s left completely untouched. Show me more Modern Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews, Reconstructionist Jews. Jews who are genuinely devout (or not! or who are religious but struggling with it!) but also portrayed as regular human beings. Whose entire story doesn’t revolve around the fact that they’re religious. I can’t tell you how rare it is to see that.

5) Building up off the last point, NOT ALL JEWS ARE WHITE* AND ASHKENAZI (i.e. from the European diaspora.) As rare as it is for white Ashkenazi Jews to get good representation, it’s even rarer to see Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi (Middle-Eastern) Jews, Ethiopian Jews. And this isn’t just an issue of race! (Although it’s definitely important to show Jews of all different ethnicities.) Different Jewish communities can have very different customs and traditions, and it’s great to show the very different kinds of Judaism that exist out there.

6) Let more Jews be the heroes of their own stories? I can think of lots of stories with That One Jewish Side Character (maybe The Jewish Best Friend), but not that many where the main character, or one of the main characters, is Jewish and gets to have an amazing story told about them in which their Judaism isn’t an incidental thing that’s mentioned one time, but also isn’t the sole defining factor of their character and their story.

7) This is a personal thing, I’ll fully admit that, but: I really want to see more stories where the main romance is between two Jewish characters. A while back, I remember asking a group of Jewish fangirls I’m part of how many examples of that they could come up with, and you’d be shocked at how hard it is to come up with them. It’s not that you can’t have your Jewish main character end up with a non-Jew (though if they’re meant to be more traditional or religious, you need to think about how that would work) - you totally can - but I’d really love to see more epic romances between two Jewish people. 

8) More genre fiction with Jewish protagonists. Again, on a personal level, I’d love to see more Jewish superheroes, since we did freakin’ create the genre, after all. ;-) (And ESPECIALLY more religious Jewish superheroes, since we have practically none.) But in general more Jewish characters in fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, period dramas, romance. Again, it’s about letting us exist as fully-realized characters who aren’t solely defined by being Jewish.

9) If your character sounds like a bad parody of Fiddler on the Roof, you’ve done something wrong.

10) If your character sounds like a bad parody of The Chosen, you’ve done something wrong.

11) Don’t touch on the whole political controversy about Israel/Palestine unless you’ve really, really done your research and know what you’re talking about. Even then, it’s best to be cautious. 

12) Understand that Jews aren’t some kind of monolith hive-mind and not everyone will agree on what’s good or bad representation. The guidelines I’ve layed out here are based on the kind of representation I’d want to see, and overall I think most Jews will agree with the bulk of what I’ve said. But you’re not gonna please everybody, and that’s okay. As long as you’re thoughtful and respectful and do your best, that’s enough.

*Some people will argue that no Jews are white, only white-passing. That is a whole ‘nother debate that I won’t be getting into in this post. Suffice to say it’s a complicated issue, but I’m referring to white-appearing Ashkenazi Jews as “white” here for convenience’s sake, even though it’s not really that simple.

[notanemo-deactivated20220408]

I’d love to see Jewish superheroes, or characters in general. We have a lot of Jewish writers and actors but sadly they never write or play Jewish characters. :(

[shiraglassman]

This is a beautiful post! Signal boosting for anyone who needs this for writing reasons, and also to mention, in case anyone is interested, that the books I’ve written have a lot of the things both of you mentioned wanting, including an observant Jewish superhero (Captain Werewolf in Cinnamon Blade, who even has a bracha for his transformation), romances between two Jewish characters (I can recommend other people’s books for this too like Promised Land by Rose Lerner and Eight Kinky Nights by Xan West), and Jewish warriors, like the m/f couple in my fantasy series.

There’s a lot of useful info above, y’all. Thank you for writing such a thorough response to the anon :-)

[captainlordauditor]

I want more characters loving their Jewishness. Which is sort of related to op’s no. 4, but, like…just in general.  

This is also gonna sound weird, but, like…..Jews who fit gender stereotypes? Gentle, nontough or overbearing women, masculine, physically inclined men - or even men that aren’t just. Total awkward nerd stereotypes.

[namu-the-orca]

Here it finally is, the full cetacean eye colour info sheet! A long time coming, and an even longer time in the making. I hope that all you cetacean eye curious people will find this one as fascinating as the killer whale eye colour post. It’s a wild world out there! 

[prokopetz]

I love animals that are, like, the opposite of cryptids: we know for a fact they exist and have a clear idea of what they look like because we have photographs and individual specimens, but we haven’t the faintest idea where they’re coming from - they just keep showing up out of nowhere, and the locations of their actual population centres are a complete mystery.

[virovac]

I so want examples. anyone who knows of any should post them in notes

[prokopetz]

You know, like giant squid and such. We know the bastards exist, we have credible first-hand accounts stretching back thousands of years and dead specimens washed up on shore and such, but in centuries of searching we’ve managed exactly one well-documented encounter with a giant squid in its natural habitat. We have no idea what their native range is or what their life-cycle looks like, let alone how many of them are out there.

[imedude]

Are there any reverse-cryptids that /aren’t/ at the bottom of the ocean?

[prokopetz]

The red-crested tree rat, for one. There have been only three well-documented encounters since 1898, and they just plain disappeared from the zoological record for over a century. The only reason we know they’re not extinct is that one walked right up to a couple of wildlife research interns at a Columbian nature reserve back in 2011, apparently out of pure curiosity, and allowed itself to be photographed and observed for several minutes before disappearing again.

[imedude]

That’s genuinely pretty cool and all, but I absolutely need to talk about how the picture in that Wikipedia article looks like a tiny eldritch horror disguising itself as a peach.

[prokopetz]

To be fair, based on the actual photos from the 2011 encounter, they really do look like that: