a digital archive

the vault of punkrockespadrilles (main acct) camilla. 20. multifandom. happy to be here.

[starfullsea]

in the same vein that the book ‘the starless sea’ has that incredibly rich library, this is a digital archive of my likes tab so i can organize it a bit!

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Damn, missed it again

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Happy Bog Day!

[gui1ttripping]

wake up new uquiz dropped:

💙 Do some household chores and I’ll psychoanalyze you💙

[olivieblake]

I was just wondering how you became so brilliant? Like do you ever have to research for some of your books or do you just know things? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love how smart you make your characters and then it baffles me because I realize you are basically all of them and like how can someone be this talented and brilliant and I’ll stop now... 🧡

hahaha okay I laughed aloud because this is just ADORABLE and you’re wonderful but rather than being facetious I’m going to give you a real answer, because I want you/everyone to believe that writing is not a mysterious gift reserved for the select few but rather a craft developed over time okay here we go

I personally believe the quality of my writing comes from 3 things

age and experience! I have failed at like, a shitload of things. I’ve had about a million lives in terms of career pursuits, which means I possess a small amount of expertise in a lot of random things. I have a masters in urban planning, I dropped out of law school halfway through, I worked for a year at a contemporary art gallery, I sold specialty eyewear, I did some interior design, I lobbied for prison reform, I designed maps for real estate developers, I worked for two city governments, I dated MANY idiots and had many excruciating friend break-ups… so anyway my life is the accumulation of a lot of random stuff, all of which I use in writing

a LOT of narrative sleight of hand! I hinted at this in a previous ask but seriously, a lot of writing is just a magic trick. I give you the information I want you to have and then I INTENTIONALLY withhold much more of it. lots of times I want to provide a bunch of detail and then realize that the more detail I give, the more people are going to question me, so instead I just don’t. knowing how much to tell and how much to show is a writing trick more than it is brilliance, and also, I try to intentionally direct the plot (especially the dialogue) towards things I already know or can observe

and then yes, targeted research, and I also make a point to keep my education alive in a general sense. I read a lot from different genres, and I question many things about the book while I read as well: the author’s themes, the time period it was written, that sort of thing. when I listen to music, I try to understand specifics about why I like it (I am currently listening to different eras of classical music and teaching myself to identify what separates them/how one era evolved into the next). one of my favorite things I’ve ever learned is how to look at a piece of art for at least 30 seconds in order to absorb everything the artist did. and then of course when I need to write something specific, research. sensory research is very important to me; I’ve said before that to write Ride or Die, I listened to gun maintenance videos on youtube with my eyes closed in order to understand what it sounds like when one is being loaded in the room. the important details for a reader are usually the sensory ones—how things smell, sound, and feel, vs the details of how they work. I also started boxing so that I could write fight scenes better, and my instructor will tell you that I ask a LOT of questions about when and why I would use one tactic over another

anyway I know this is a lot and you were probably just being nice but still, I hope it’s encouraging?? in some sense?? because seriously, this is not some magical power I have, it’s just a lot of work and attention to detail and buckets of hope that I’m managing to say something worth saying. but thank you SO MUCH because obviously this is just about the nicest thing anyone could ever say to me and I am forever indebted to you and now have to immediately lie down

[hazelbeewitched]

adhd is like "i love my classes so much! they're incredible and fascinating and fun. also i will die before i do any work outside of class"

[muslimahs-deactivated20200831]

ya book recs (majority ownvoices)

spin the dawn by elizabeth lim

the candle and the flame by nafiza azad 

descendant of the crane by joan he 

on the come up by angie thomas

shadow of the fox by julie kagawa 

punching the air by ibi zoboi

a song below water by bethany c. morrow

opposite of always by justin a. reynolds 

red winter by annette marie

a song of wraiths and ruin by roseanne a. brown 

an ember in the ashes by sabaa tahir

the gilded ones by namina forna 

gods of jade and shadow by silvia moreno-garcia

wicked fox by kat cho 

slay by brittney morris

who put this song on? by morgan parker 

cemetery boys by aiden thomas

children of blood and bone by tomi adeyemi

amal unbound by aisha saeed

this is my america by kim johnson 

cinderella is dead by kalynn bayron

we are not free by traci chee

ayesha at last by uzma jalaluddin

warcross by marie lu

if you come softly by jaqueline woodson

a very large expanse of sea by tahereh mafi 

with the fire on high by elizabeth acevedo

love from a to z by s.k ali 

full disclosure by camryn garrett

these violent delights by chloe gong

counting down with you by tashie bhuiyan

dear martin by nic stone 

the surprising power of a good dumpling by wai chim

our wayward fate by gloria chao

monday’s not coming by tiffany d. jackson

wicked as you wish by rin chupeco

dread nation by justina ireland 

the city we became by n.k jemisin

where dreams descend by janella angeles 

you should see me in a crown leah johnson 

how it went down by kekla magoon 

forest of souls by lori m. lee

mirage by somaiya daud

loveboat, taipei by abigail hing wen 

by any means necessary by candice montgomery 

skyhunter by marie lu 

the city of brass by s.a chakraborty

legendborn by tracy deonn

we set the dark on fire by tehlor kay mejia

war girls by tochi onyebuchi

[schuylering]

i think reading this quote is the first time i’ve really registered the fact that the characters in hamilton aren’t based on their historical counterpoints as people, they’re based on the words they left behind

jefferson is obviously the best example of this because his musical character so clearly doesn’t match up to contemporary descriptions of him as shy, awkward, etc, but equally as clearly DOES match up to the character you would create of him if you only had his words–smooth, cocky, showy.

this is also super important for understanding musical burr, i think: i’ve seen people talk about how hard it is to match historical burr (lights himself on fire, constantly broke, clearly a fucking mess) with musical burr, who’s smooth-talking and put-together and in every way a counterpoint to hamilton’s messy brashness. but lmm literally explains their characters in terms of their writing: “hamilton left behind 27 volumes of written work, burr left behind less that two. and i think that sort of tells you everything you need to know.” (x) that’s fundamentally what their characters are based on.

for this show that’s so fundamentally about the ways we tell stories and the way we all are remembered–and just as fundamentally about words and the power of language–i just think it’s a really fascinating choice to create characters out of words, not just on the craft level but on a greater meta level wrt what we leave behind

[silver-tongues-blog]

you have no control who tells your story

[ladyeowyn]

✦ @booksociety​​’s Villains and Antiheroes event: The Folk of the Air by Holly Black “Cardan,” I try again. “You must not do this. I order you to pull yourself together. I command you to drink no more liquor and to attempt sobriety.” “Yes, my sweet villain, my darling god. I will be as sober as a stone carving, just as soon as I can.” And with that, he kisses me on the mouth. I feel a cacophony of things at once. I am furious with him, furious and resigned that he is a failure as High King, corrupt and fanciful and as weak as Orlagh could have hoped. Then there is the public nature of the kiss, parading this before the Court is shocking, too. He’s never been willing to seem to want me in public. Perhaps he can take it back, but in this moment, it is known.

[robotpals]

Every year I look forward to the Lyttle Lytton contest, where people submit the worst opening lines to a fake novel that, god willing, will never actually be written. My favorites from this year:

AND my personal favorite:

[robotpals]

There’s also the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest, which doesn’t limit the words/characters of the opening lines… these ones from last year almost killed me

[brawltogethernow]

I kind of unironically love cripes! and the thirteen inches from the destruction of time.

[inkskinned]

you want, but the want has no direction. like this, the want is endless. the universe has no shape; is this not the same? the yearning will expand out of you and out of your bones and out of your control. your life is beautiful and there is so much to be grateful for and still - that ache. is it loneliness? is it boredom? is it restlessness? is it cruel?

in your journal, on every other page, you find yourself writing the same thing. i just want to be loved. the universe is loving, you tell yourself. you are loved. but the hole still yawns and the desire still ekes out and the hollow still rings, over and over. your ex told you once - all the love in the world won’t fill you up because there’s no bottom to your cup.

it is a beautiful day. it is a beautiful life. there are so many beautiful things and beautiful people, and knowing this - knowing that this is true, and you should be happy - does not stop it. the want continues, and it has no shape, and you drown in it. a thirst that no liquid ever learns to slake. just this, just ache.

[not404error1]

Zukka Fic rec Masterlist

Soulmate AU

Modern AU

Other AU

Tim Travel/ See the Future

Youtube / Social Media AU

Modern Tea/Coffee Shop AU

Arranged Marriage AU

Trans/ gender fluid zukka

Identity Porn (This means secret identity’s are involved)

Enemies/ Friends to lovers

Parent Zukka

“Sugar Daddy” Zuko

Post War / canon

Humor

Hanahaki Disease 

Sickfic /hurt/comfort

Canon Tea shop AU

coming out 

[mathewmurdocks]

Lancelot and Percival in Cursed (2020)

[20th-centuryghost]

HEY ARTISTS!

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

There’s a lot of really specific stuff in here, I design a lot of 1930s characters for my ask blog and with more chapters on the way for the game it belongs to I’m gonna be designing more, and this website is going to be an invaluable reference. I hope this can be useful to my other fellow artists as well! :)

[inkwell-attitude]

all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

[fatal-blow]

okay so i know i said most of this in the replies but it might be easier to actually reblog and say stuff instead lmao

Cities - go near water!  freshwater lakes and rivers (rivers especially) are the best places for cities because A) source of water and B) travel and trade is much easier cus you can put your boats like right there.  Basically ever relevant city ever was built on a lake or a river.

for rivers in general - because gravity, rivers run from mountains (forming from melting snow and ice (this is why they get fat in spring–more stuff melting)) to lakes/ocean where they can empty out (and even lakes will have rivers leading out that eventually get to the ocean), which can help when mapping out where those start and end.  rivers are also much thinner and faster in steeper elevations and very slow and wide when the land is flat

mountains - i like to think of what the tectonic plates look like because that’s what makes mountains!  mountains are also never standalone they’re always in mountain ranges (archipelagos are really just underwater mountain ranges babey).  a cool trick I like to do is occasionally separate mountain ranges across continents, because over time the tectonic plates shifted and literally split the range in half.  These mountains are really old tho so they’ve eroded and therefore it makes them smaller and rounder (like the appalachians) as opposed to relatively young mountain ranges like the rocky mountains which have taller and sharper peaks

Another mountain trick: if your mountains run along the ocean, the ocean side of the mountains will get a LOT of rain while the other side will be very dry–almost desert-like, in fact.  think of temperate rainforests in British Columbia vs the drier conditions in the canadian prairies

forests - depends on how warm the area might be.  coniferous forests are found further north (before you hit the tree line, and then it’s only tundra onwards) but as you head south you get leafier trees, and the leaves tend to get larger too

If you think about general elevation too, you’ll have places that might be swampy (wet + lower).  if your world has an ice age like we did, then glaciers may have carved the land, leaving piles of soil in the south that was left when the ice receded and places where the bedrock has been bared north of that (like the Canadian Shield in Canada–the reason we see that is because of the glaciers)

You might also have a land that’s dotted in a shitton of freshwater lakes as well because the meltwater filled the holes that the glaciers scraped out (this is why canada has so many goddamn lakes)

and if the ice age was more recent than it was in our world, then you might not even have the forest re-growth and it could be a lot of open plains

tl;dr i like to think of major climate events that might have also shaped the land on top of some basic rules

[possiblypedanticrpgideas]

The Artifexian has an entire series on building your world from literally the stars down and then the ground up.

Worldbuilding Videos - YouTube

All my worldbuilding videos

Though, for fantasy, you can make the world operate on entirely different principles:

With that done, the actual topic of city placement can be covered by videos like this:

Or

Once you have your places, if you want help naming them in realistic ways, this video can help:

This one is on architecture, which is definitely a subset of cities:

But for a more relevant practical guide on making settlements realistic:

Here’s a quick guide for making demographics:

[inkwell-attitude]

holy shit?

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

in which i recommend books like the netflix algorithm

you wanted it, you got it, babes! caveat: this list is long (seriously, sorry about the length) and i can’t write blurbs for everything, but i highly recommend going and looking at anything that sounds interesting. some books will fall under multiple headings, so i’m listing them twice. i am linking to their purchase pages on bookshop.org, because amazon sucks and bookshop helps support indie booksellers, but if your local indie bookstore offers delivery or curbside pickup, buy it there. and i’m trying to keep this list confined to pretty recent titles, so even though a few older ones might slip in there, it’s definitely centered on releases from the past few years. okay let’s do this.

if you want a book that feels like a primal scream:

godshot by chelsea bieker

the book of joan by lidia yuknavitch

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (short stories)

trust exercise by susan choi

my dark vanessa by kate elizabeth russell

the rehearsal by eleanor catton

indelicacy by amina cain

the answers by catherine lacey

the mars room by rachel kushner

the love affairs of nathaniel p. by adelle waldman

if you want clever social commentary and/or hilarious female protagonists:

you too can have a body like mine by alexandra kleeman

the new me by halle butler

queenie by candice carty-williams

prep by curtis sittenfeld

the idiot by elif batumen

my year of rest and relaxation by ottessa moshfegh

oksana, behave! by maria kuznetsova

where’d you go, bernadette by maria semple

convenience store woman by sayaka murata

nothing to see here by kevin wilson

made for love by alissa nutting

the pisces by melissa broder

the herd by andrea bartz

if you want to start reading the unhinged women canon (not all recent):

mrs. dalloway by virginia woolf

the awakening by kate chopin

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson

gone girl by gillian flynn

rebecca by daphne du maurier

white oleander by janet fitch

cousin bette by honore de balzac

wide sargasso sea by jean rhys

play it as it lays by joan didion

the piano teacher by elfriede jelinek

valley of the dolls by jacqueline susann

postcards from the edge by carrie fisher

if you liked the secret history:

if we were villains by m.l. rio

social creature by tara isabelle burton

the basic eight by daniel handler

the incendiaries by r.o. kwon

bunny by mona awad

hex by rebecca dinerstein knight

if you like speculative/dystopian fiction:

the dreamers by karen thompson walker

the book of joan by lidia yuknavitch

severance by lin ma

gold fame citrus by claire vaye watkins

the farm by joanne ramos

followers by megan angelo

the power by naomi alderman

the glass hotel by emily st. john mandel

if you want a book that reads like a good fanfic:

normal people by sally rooney

fame adjacent by sarah skilton

stay up with hugo best by erin somers

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid

circe by madeline miller

the nobodies by liza palmer

evvie drake starts over by linda holmes

if you like dark stories about complex relationships between women:

my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite

baby teeth by zoje stage

dare me by megan abbott

eileen by ottessa moshfegh

social creature by tara isabelle burton

the worst kind of want by liska jacobs

the girls by emma cline

oligarchy by scarlett thomas

devotion by madeline stevens

baby by annaleese jochems

marlena by julie buntin

bunny by mona awad

necessary people by anna pitoniak

if you like stories about complicated families:

red at the bone by jacqueline woodson

the care and feeding of ravenously hungry girls by anissa grey

mostly dead things by kristen arnett

bee season by myla goldberg

bowlaway by elizabeth mccracken

everything i never told you by celeste ng

the nest by cynthia d’aprix sweeney

the grammarians by cathleen schine

ask again, yes by mary beth keane

if you like smart and thoughtful books about relationships between women:

my brilliant friend and the neapolitan novels by elena ferrante

such a fun age by kiley reid

gingerbread by helen oyeyimi

the female persuasion by meg wolitzer

the burning girl by claire messud

expectation by anna hope

the animators by kayla rae whitaker

if you want something queer that isn’t YA:

my education by susan choi

permission by saskia vogel

mostly dead things by kristen arnett

real life by brandon taylor

after dolores by sarah schulman

patsy by nicole dennis-benn

wilder girls by rory power

enter the aardvark by jessica anthony

less by andrew sean greer

exciting times by naiose dolan

you just want something good and are willing to take a chance on one of these books i love (these are not all recent, i just like them a lot):

dept. of speculation by jenny offill

the interestings by meg wolitzer

godshot by chelsea bieker

play it as it lays by joan didion

the bonfire of the vanities by tom wolfe

wolf in white van by john darnielle

things you would know if you grew up around here by nancy wayson dinan

sex and rage by eve babitz

wise blood by flannery o’connor

leading men by christopher castellani

saint x by alexis schaitkin

the cosmopolitans by sarah schulman

lake success by gary shteyngart

odds against tomorrow by nathaniel rich

the great believers by rebecca makkai

good citizens need not fear by maria reva (short stories)

[thelatestkate]

July 2020 Illustrations ヽ(• ‿ •)ノ

[omgthatdress]

A list of my favorite POC/international cooking channels, if you no longer want to support Bon Appetit:

De Mi Rancho A Tu Cocina: an abuela from Michuacán shows you how to make DELICIOUS rancho food and occasionally shows you scenes from around the rancho.

Doña Lupita: Another abuela, this time from Guerrero, making incredible-looking food over a comal

Simply Mamá Cooks: Tejano woman with a Korean-American husband makes recipes from both cultures, great for classic easy-to-make weeknight comfort food recipes, too

Li Ziqi: a real-life Disney princess from Sichuan who shows you how to make sauce with duck egg yolks, starting with hatching the ducks that lay the eggs

Dianxi Ziaoge:  another Chinese farm girl, she shows you her idyllic life in rural Yunnan as she makes food with her HUGE RIDICULOUS FUFFYBOI, Dawang, often joining her on adventures

Wild Girl: Yet another Chinese farm girl, this time from Guizhou, who has a little bit more of an emphasis on cooking with food foraged from her gorgeous surroundings

Catch The Sea Official: A young woman living in the fishing city of Rizhao, foraging her own seafood and then cooking it up. I could watch her squeeze the water out of cat’s eye turban snails all day.

Cooking with Sros, Sros Yummy Cooking Vlog: Sros makes delicious Cambodian food with a warm, sunny personality and a great accent!

Am Thuc Me Lam: A son who videos his mother farming and cooking in rural Vietnam

Traditional Me: Young woman in rural Sri Lanka lives with her grandmother and brother, makes incredible looking food set to jaunty music with lush scenery

Village Cooking Channel: Five VERY ENTHUSIASTIC Tamil men make large batches of food for their local old age home.

Veg Village Food: Punjabi Sikh granny makes huge batches of vegetarian food for local needy children. 

Desi Food Recipes: Soothing Indian granny shows you how to make classic Desi dishes in non-giant size proportions

Maangchi: The Julia Child of Korean food, everyone fucking loves Maangchi

Jun’s Kitchen: Japanese guy makes food with his cats, what’s not to love?

Stove Top Kisses: Southern soul food served up with a fun, bubbly personality