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Monterey Bay Aquarium
Three Goblin Art
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

JVL

PR's Tumblrdome
todays bird
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Kaledo Art

Kiana Khansmith

JBB: An Artblog!
we're not kids anymore.

ellievsbear
Cosimo Galluzzi
Sade Olutola

shark vs the universe
hello vonnie
NASA
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
will byers stan first human second

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@smelly-frogs
Alright!
writing cheats
i know i’ve probably written about these all individually but i’m putting them together in one post. these are writing tricks that are extremely cheap and dirty; when you use them it feels like cheating and honestly by posting them i’m probably exposing all the easy moves in my own work, but more than a writer i am a teacher, so here you go, some writing cheats that have never steered me wrong.
quick character creation
what’s really annoying is when you have two characters sitting at a restaurant or something and the server has to come by. to what degree do you describe the server so that it’s clear they’re just a background character but that they’re not just a faceless form, so that the world has texture without taking up too much space on the page? rule of three, babeyyy: two normal things and a weird one.
she had pale skin and blue eyes but her hair was dyed black like a 2010 emo kid.
he was tall and broad, and he wore a sweatshirt with an embroidered teddy bear on it.
the woman stood there comparing the prices of toilet paper. she had a short angled bob and carried a keychain the length of a trout.
why does it work? it gives the reader something to hang onto, a brief observation that shows the world exists around your narrator. it also works when introducing main characters, but there’s so much action going on that you can’t take time to write a rich long paragraph about them. all you need is a little hook.
quick setting creation
i used to TOIL over descriptive paragraphs. for years i was like, description is my weakness, i must become better at developing imagery. i believed this because a famous writer once projected a paragraph i had written onto a screen and asked my cohort, “count how many images are crafted in this paragraph.” there were none. none! my friends were sitting there like, “we are TRYING” but they couldn’t find any.
i would say that after years of studying imagery development at the sentence level, i am, perhaps, competent at it, but what was more helpful was for me to shrug and tell myself, “i’m just not a writer who does that.”
anyway. my cheat is thus:
there’s not much you can assume about your audience. the audience is not a homogenous whole. but your ideal audience is something you can guess at, and that means you can play around with their existing knowledge and expectations.
if you say your characters are in a tacky shit-on-the-walls restaurant, if your ideal reader is an american who went to restaurants during the maximalist era of franchise design, they will conjure their nearest memory of one of those places. and for those readers who aren’t familiar with it, they’ll use other context clues to conjure that space. the point is, you don’t have to list every single stupid license plate nailed to the wall. you can leave it as one detail of one sentence and let your reader extrapolate from there.
if i say the dentist’s office looked like a gutted 90s taco bell, maybe no ideal audience would have ever seen a place like that, but a lot of people can mentally conjure a dentist’s office and a 90s taco bell and overlay them together to create a weird and fun image.
you can go even simpler than that: a bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory. a tiny studio apartment with a hotplate instead of a stove. a mansion with a winding stairwell. the point is that you want to define the size of the space and its general vibes.
in some ways detailed description can be overrated, because your reader conjures images even in absence of them on the page. and for those readers who can’t mentally conjure images, it doesn’t matter anyway; they take you at your word. the trick is to figure out what details are unexpected, relevant to understanding the story and its characters, and those are the things that you add in.
one other note: after working with hundreds of writers on drafting, for *most* of us it’s difficult to develop images and establish setting in a first draft. it’s nearly always something to be saved for a second or later draft. i think it’s because while we’re writing we tend to put character and action first.
nail the landing
there’s a joke i heard once from a writer i really admire: “you know it’s literary fiction if the story ends with a character looking at a body of water.”
and god it’s so painfully sad and true how easy it is to nail the landing of a given story by ending on a totally irrelevant piece of imagery. the final beat of a story followed by your character looking up at the sky and seeing a flock of birds in the shape of a V flying past. or maybe they’re sitting in their car and they count the rings of a nearby church bell. or maybe they watch an elderly couple walk down the sidewalk hand-in-hand. i don’t know!! when in doubt shove an observation, an image, whatever, something neutral at the end and it’ll sound profound.
(this cheat is the only one that can really bite you in the ass because if the image is too irrelevant you risk tonal incongruity. for use only in the most desperate of times.)
sentence fragments
when writers ask me how to punch up their writing or start developing their own style, my go-to advice is to give up the idea of a complete sentence. fuck noun-verb-object. if you have a series of character actions, knock off the sentence subjects like in script action. if the clause at the end of your sentence is particularly meaningful, don’t separate it with a comma but a period and make it its own thing. if your character is going through something particularly stressful or heinous, that bitch is not thinking in complete thoughts so you don’t have to convey them that way. make punctuation bend to your will!!
rhetorical moves
this one opened a lot of doors for me stylistically. remember that famous writer who called me out on my lack of imagery? i always thought his prose was beautiful, that he’s one of the best living prose writers, etc. once i learned more about rhetoric though, i realized he just employed it a lot.
usually when we talk about beautiful sentences it means a sentence that uses rhetorical devices. the greeks were like, you know what, when we give speeches there are certain ways to phrase things that make the audience go nuts. let’s identify what those things are and give them names so we can use them intentionally and convince people of our opinions.
i love shakespeare, i really do, but one of the big reasons he’s still a household name today and his plays are still performed is because every sentence of every goddamn play utilizes a rhetorical device. the audience is hard-wired to vibrate at the sound and cadence of his writing, like finding the spot on a dog that makes their foot thump. for five hundred years, william shakespeare has been scritching that spot for us.
i have no idea why, cognitively, rhetorical devices are so effective. i’m no rhetorician. all i know is that well-deployed anaphora makes a reader want to throw their panties on stage. my intro to rhetorical devices was the wonderful book the elements of eloquence by mark forsyth, a surprisingly fun read! hopefully that will open some doors for you the way it did for me.
the downside to this is that once you know rhetorical devices, it’s like learning how the sausage is made. on one hand, as a writer, you’ll have a lot stronger grasp of style, but as a reader good prose loses some of its magic.
pacing it out
many writers, myself included, rely on the tried and true “he bit the inside of his cheek” or other some such random action to help pace out dialogue. one time my thesis advisor sat me down and said “you’ve got to take all of those out.”
“all of them?” i said.
“all of them,” she said.
i thought, but that will weaken the text! it didn’t. once i cut what i came to call cheek-biter sentences i never went back. and now when i edit for other people i’m like, look i know where you’re coming from but just cut all these out and see how the scene stands. if it doesn’t feel right you can put some back in. a lot of times when you’re drafting you put those in the way some people say “um.” they’re just sentences you jot while you’re thinking of what the other character says, so from a writing perspective it seems like you’re pacing, but readers don’t read it that way. they just want to get to the next line of dialogue.
but sometimes you really do need to pace out a scene and i think there are other ways to do that that don’t rely on banal physical movements, such as:
interiority: a sentence or paragraph of relevant cognition, bonus points if you weave in background context. good interiority defines the voice of your writing.
observations: i know i just said description is overrated but idk sometimes you just need a character to note the back and forth clacking of one of those desk ball toy things.
character texture: maybe your character notes something about the person they’re talking to. a wilted pocket square. a mole that looks like it needs looked at by a dermatologist. a scar on their forehead. some detail that deepens or complicates our understanding of a character.
narratorial consciousness and access
this one is less a cheat and more a problematic opinion i have that doesn’t win me any popularity in writing circles.
i believe that if you’re writing in first person or close third or any narration which is dedicated to the mind of one character, you are only ever obligated to convey the experience of that character’s consciousness. and nothing else.
by that i mean, if your point of view character is unobservant? then they’re not going to even notice the flight attendant is missing one of their canine teeth. if your pov character is focused and obsessive, they’re going to think lavish, detailed paragraphs about that which they’re obsessed with and have no acknowledgement of the rest of the world. if your pov character has no understanding of time, does your story even need to be linear?
defining the scope of a narrator’s cognition early on can give you parameters in which to work. even if you don’t consciously do this, you still do it. if you write in third person limited present tense without really thinking about it, that’s your scope. i’m just pointing out you can choose to do it differently. you get to define your narrator.
whenever we talk about narration we also talk about information access and the order of information being revealed/conveyed. writing must always be in order; even if you’re writing multiple concurring things, it still has to be rendered on the page in order one after the next, because the human mind can’t read two sentences over top of one another.
if we’re restricted to the mind of a character, that means we’re also restricted by their knowledge and experiences, and this can be used to your benefit. i don’t want to take too much space for this but i do talk more about the relationship between narration and reality here.
in short, you the writer get to choose
what the reader knows,
in what order they know it, and
its relationship to the presumed real events of the story, which develops the (un)reliability of your narrator
okay going to cut this off now before i go on more rants about narrative scope. i hope you found this helpful and go on to put some of these nasty lifehacks in your own writing!!
Inniters are so fucking stupid
You do realize, y'all are hypocrites? There's no sides. Everyone in this situation seems to have been a horrible person, but at least Dream is sorry about it other than the people BULLYING HIM ???? DUMBASSES FOR REAL
Tell me quickly what horrible things Tommy has done that equals Dream's grooming allegations, being a trump supporter, queerbaiting his audience, being the slur slinging slasher, showing porn to minors, covering up an SA allegation cuz he's friend with a sexual assaulter, finding Tommy's mom's phone number just to tell her that her son is a shitty friend, manipulating said friend and so much more
Have you considered touching grass? This is fun because most of these are allegations lol
Why do you care so much? They do not care about your opinion they only care about whose video you're watching. You are just a subscriber. A viewer. A number to them.
Unless Dream is literally arrested for any of this, shut the fuck up? They're both bullies dumbass
It's better for your mental health if you take a step back from idolizing minecraft youtubers of any sort.
I don't even watch Dream
I have touched grass it's great I recommend u do it too
And they don't care about ur opinion either dipshit but at least I'm not parasocial unlike someone here. And I do hope dream does get arrested cuz he has committed crimes while tommy and Jack are just *checks notes* bullying a rightfully shitty person
"I don't even watch dream" GIRL THEN WHAT ARE U DOING WAKE UP UR DEFENDING A PEDO WHO SHOWED PORN TO MINORS
You're really annoying, idk how you have this much energy. They're both bad people.
Do you have a job or bills? I'm calling out the hypocrisy of the situation since you cannot read apparently.
Why do I need to disclose my information to u? U gonna dox me like ur cc does?
"they're both bad people" then tell me what has tommy done other than bullying a dickhead of a person. I don't mind I've already laid out facts about dream now lay out facts about tommy
"calls out the hypocrisy of the situation" girl you didn't call out shit other than "inniters are so annoying" mf YOU learn how to actually read instead of using pointless arguments like the slur slinging slasher when he streams for 3 hours and blames everyone except for actually saying sorry for what he did
Why are you so pressed over this
This is really stupid, like do you not have anything better to do? Because I do, man
Also my pronouns are he/him
Why do I have to make a callout post to point out Tommy is kinda a dick now, it's in his videos
I'm too tired for this
Once again, I restate:
He is literally some british guy who should not have a platform and the other is some american guy who should not have a platform as well
Stop fucking idolizing them. They are literally just some guys
Lmfao then why are u responding if you've got better shit to do. I'm just here having a ball.
And let's go back to ur argument "he's just some British guy who doesn't deserve a platform" and why is that? Cuz he bullied some rightfully dick headed people who held his trust at a young age and then betrayed him? Like u gotta hear urself at some point and be self aware like man this is sad.
Brother which one of us has their entire blog dedicated to a cc? Cuz it ain't me lmao
Are you okay?
I'm just chilling
mind of if i join? the reason why tommy is as little of a man as dream is because he is controlled by his fans and his image. he puts on a stance that makes him popular, i.e hating trump, without really meaning it. but how would i know tommy actually isnt against trump? because he’s a british dude and is little to not affected in the slightest by what happens in america and most likely knows next to nothing about what trump’s actual policies are. he supports shit meaninglessly and blindly just for the views, just says shit with no real reason without knowing if his political endorsement has actual educated nuance. it’s fucking annoying how he goes through any lengths to stay popular. tommy’s not built for a platform if he ignores what’s really right in favor of what his fans want. he doesn’t actually care about how american politics actually affects people and clearly doesn’t take it seriously—he only said it so his fans think he’s a golden boy
second, tommy definitely sees autistic people as lesser people. he’s been making incredibly ableist jokes ever since he joined the SMP like making fun of dream’s stutter just cause it gives the audience a laugh. i truly don’t understand how you can support someone who treated dream as a lesser human being that didn’t deserve to have his boundaries respected when it came to all those degrading jokes. because even if said autistic person was horrible, what about that makes it suddenly acceptable to be ableist to him. literally all he has in defense of all of that is “but my MOM cares for disabled children AND he was 16!” yes, dream should have respected tommy’s boundaries as well with all the creepy shit he said but that does not make tommy any less of a terrible person.
just stop babying any white man, you’re just as excusing and infantilizing to a grown ass man as the dream stans
site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word
site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition
site that gives you words that rhyme with a word
site that gives you synonyms and antonyms
THAT FIRST SITE IS EVERY WRITER’S DREAM DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE TRIED WRITING SOMETHING AND THOUGHT GOD DAMN IS THERE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WHAT I’M USING TWO SENTENCES TO DESCRIBE AND JUST GETTING A BUNCH OF SHIT GOOGLE RESULTS
some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs
body language masterlist
a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does
a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes
550 words to say instead of fuckin said
638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again
some more body language help
i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping
this also goes for aesthetic or -core titles. 'y2k tank top' is going to get you resellers and fast fashion brands advertising to people looking to meet a current trend. 'thin strap crop tank top' is going to get you a diverse group of results and not upcharge you to hell and back
additionally, shop second hand when you can, second hand and thrift sites typically organize clothes by the cut and color. theyll be more affordable than a depop seller curating you a style to sell you
useful terminology for different kinds of clothing shapes :)
Ahem. I present to you all, the best mock up of Steven’s apartment I was able to glean from obsessive screenshots and combs of episodes 1 and 2. It is not exactly to scale bc I was just trying to get stuff down, and if there is a “?” next to something that’s because I couldn’t find a point to see it clearly enough to know it’s placement/what exactly it was, but I think this is pretty good all things considered.
This obvs doesn’t include all the scattered books and shelf knick knacks, or a few things that aren’t 2D, such as Marc’s stashing nook to the right and above Gus’s tank in the kitchen, or the storage loft above Steven’s bed which the wooden supports hold up and the ladder to the left of his bed reaches.
A few fun scene placement moments below cut! (Sorry for weird video format!)
I write my fics out in Google Docs and then paste the text into Ao3 when I'm ready to post it. Does anyone else have the problem of pasting with italics? If there's a word in italics next to punctuation, Ao3 will add in a space for some reason and it's kind of infuriating.
One of the AO3 translation volunteers (Min) created a Google Docs script to handle issues when copying from a doc into AO3. It’s really easy to use
create a copy of this google doc. It contains the script that will do all of the HTML formatting for you.
Delete all of the text from the document.
Write or paste your fic/chapter into the document.
Go up to the top menu and click the new menu option Post to AO3, then choose Prepare for posting into the HTML editor
Note: because this is an apps script, you’ll need to give it permission to run the first time.
The script will automatically mark up your document with the required HTML that you can then paste into the AO3 composition window. \o/
To revert your text back to normal, just go back up to that menu and choose Remove HTML. It will look like regular text again.
Once you have the doc, you can make a new copy of it for each new fic you write and that way you’ll always have that script available when you need it :)
For other cool stuff, read this post from @ao3org - which is where I found this script in the first place ❤
I write my fics out in Google Docs and then paste the text into Ao3 when I'm ready to post it. Does anyone else have the problem of pasting with italics? If there's a word in italics next to punctuation, Ao3 will add in a space for some reason and it's kind of infuriating.
One of the AO3 translation volunteers (Min) created a Google Docs script to handle issues when copying from a doc into AO3. It’s really easy to use
create a copy of this google doc. It contains the script that will do all of the HTML formatting for you.
Delete all of the text from the document.
Write or paste your fic/chapter into the document.
Go up to the top menu and click the new menu option Post to AO3, then choose Prepare for posting into the HTML editor
Note: because this is an apps script, you’ll need to give it permission to run the first time.
The script will automatically mark up your document with the required HTML that you can then paste into the AO3 composition window. \o/
To revert your text back to normal, just go back up to that menu and choose Remove HTML. It will look like regular text again.
Once you have the doc, you can make a new copy of it for each new fic you write and that way you’ll always have that script available when you need it :)
For other cool stuff, read this post from @ao3org - which is where I found this script in the first place ❤
Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:
Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.
You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.
When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.
A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)
Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)
The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.
Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.
Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.
As someone who spent over a decade catering luxury events, let me add some back of house info:
These events are almost always open bar. They're not trying to make their money back on alcohol. They want you to drink and eat and donate generously.
If there are cocktails, there will be at most two on offer, pre-made in large tubs. You cannot order a different version, it is what it is.
There are two types of events: cocktail style or seated. The first includes roaming hors d'oeuvres or a fancy buffet with tiny plates called a grazing station. For a long night, the roaming food will get a little bigger throughout the evening and have a 'main' at some point based around a protein.
A seated event will usually be more structured and may include multiple courses. Silver service is not in vogue anymore. You are likely to get either alternating meals brought to you like at a wedding, or served banquet style. A good caterer can get a plate to everyone in a 300 person event in about three minutes.
Drunk people are the same no matter how expensive their suits. They still laugh too loud, spill their drinks and slip on the dance floor. They are usually less embarrassed about doing coke in the bathrooms.
A full scale event that starts at 6pm will have staff arriving at noon to begin setup. Earlier if there's a light show or pyrotechnics. Typically venues don't just have 30 tables and three hundred chairs lying around, let alone table cloths, chair covers, etc. It's all rented and brought in on the day. Bands and DJs will be running audio tests in the background throughout.
Most heritage buildings that host these things, like museums and manor houses, aren't really designed for them. They might put down mats so you're not walking in stilettos over two hundred year old wooden floors, the kitchens are weirdly far away, and there are not enough taps. There is never anywhere for staff to sit, so if you open the wrong door you might find half a dozen waiters sitting on upturned milk crates in a room full of million dollar paintings, eating the left over bread.
Really old buildings don't have enough bathrooms, which means the staff will be sharing with the guests.
Clean up starts the second the event ends, if not sooner. Unattended glasses will start to disappear first, then table decorations. When the timer ticks over, the lights come back on and exhausted staff strip the tables, pack up dirty glasses and unopened wine bottles and have to Tetris it all into the back of a van. The venue is booked for that day only, so everything has to be gone before anyone can go home. A large event that finishes at midnight might take until 3am to be cleared away.
These are very long and physically demanding nights for anyone working them. The staff all get to know each other, and will absolutely notice someone trying to sneak in wearing a borrowed uniform. They are not being paid enough to care.
site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word
site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition
site that gives you words that rhyme with a word
site that gives you synonyms and antonyms
THAT FIRST SITE IS EVERY WRITER’S DREAM DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE TRIED WRITING SOMETHING AND THOUGHT GOD DAMN IS THERE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WHAT I’M USING TWO SENTENCES TO DESCRIBE AND JUST GETTING A BUNCH OF SHIT GOOGLE RESULTS
no one’s gonna make content i want except me, so:
roy, killer croc, and the trucker hat
I want to start this off by saying that when it comes to media analysis, I personally don’t tend to give authorial intent a significant amou
idk how to send this to my tumblr app from safari to read other than this😭😭 i wont regret tho, i will probably come back to it alot!
robin war (2016)
a collection of Very Shaped wayne boys
bonus: with duke!
Two sides of a coin
New emotes c: Blorbos brain rot edition + 2 sleepy mojis!
Edit: Reblog if using! You may use this as reference or make a meme, etc with credit! I’d love to see what these will be used for
For Discord use, credit isn’t necessary but always appreciated.
Insult names to use instead of "idiot,"
None of these are actually meant to be hateful, if any of these have truely offensive meanings (such as the r word) that I was unaware of, please tell me so I can remove it! Tried to avoid cursing, but it contains some!
Jerk
Ass-hat
Dumb-dumb
Dummy
Doofus
Dork
Stupid
Moron
Fool
Nincompoop
Oaf
Ninny
Blockhead
Dunce
Imbecile
Jack-ass
Dope
Nit-wit
Numbskull
Simpleton
Twit
Birdbrain
Bonehead
Buffoon
Dullard
Half-wit
Knucklehead
Ignoramus
Dingbat
Dumbbell
Loser
Addlepate
Muttonhead
Goon
Pea Brain
Dull Pencil
Mole Rat
Turd