Starwalker

stuff, I finks

[tinyreviews]

Writing Tips: Dystopias

Dystopian stories serve as a mirror to our own society, highlighting its flaws and warning of potential futures. 

Hopeless: The world is bleak, with little optimism for improvement.

Militarized: Authorities use force and control to maintain order.

Restricted: Freedom of expression is suppressed, and information is tightly controlled.

Shows of Force: The regime demonstrates its power through public displays.

Utopia Status: Ironically, the oppressive regime often presents itself as a utopia.

Classic Dystopias: Serve as a warning to readers. The protagonist in these stories faces one of two outcomes:

Crushed: The protagonist is overwhelmed and defeated by the dystopian society, illustrating the dire consequences of such a world.

Rejection/Escape: In some cases, the protagonist manages to reject or escape the dystopia, providing a glimmer of hope.

A potential pitfall of classic dystopias is an overemphasis on the society itself, which can result in a passive protagonist.

Modern Dystopias: Modern dystopias draw parallels to real-world structures.

Rebellion: The modern protagonist is often a hero who rebels against the dystopia.

Realistic: These stories delve deep into the intrinsic problems of society and how they contribute to the downfall of society.

Character Arc: The protagonist's journey is intertwined with the dystopia's problems, creating a compelling character arc.

Dystopian storytelling is not just about painting a bleak picture of the future but also about exploring the resilience of the human spirit.

This is part of my Writing Tips series. Everyday I publish a writing tip to this blog.

[moramew]

A small list of random ass sites I’ve found useful when writing:

Fragrantica: perfume enthusiast site that has a long list of scents. v helpful when you’re writing your guilty pleasure abo fics

Just One Cookbook: recipe site that centers on Japanese cuisine. Lots of different recipes to browse, plenty of inspiration so you’re not just “ramen and sushi” 

This comparing heights page: gives you a visual on height differences between characters

A page on the colors of bruises+healing stages: well just that. there you go. describe your bruises properly

McCormick Science Institute: yes this is a real thing. the site shows off research on spices and gives the history on them. be historically accurate or just indulge in mindless fascination. boost your restaurant au with it

A Glossary of Astronomy Terms: to pepper in that sweet terminology for your astrophysics major college au needs

[moramew]

Adding to this since I’m working on a shifter au one-shot:

Canine Body Language

Feline Body Language

[moramew]

More:

Cocktail Flow: a site with a variety of cocktails that’s pretty easy to navigate and offers photos of the drinks. You can sort by themes, strengths, type and base. My only real annoyance with this site is that the drinks are sometimes sorted into ~masculine~ and ~feminine~ but ehhhh. It’s great otherwise.

Tie-A-Tie: a site centered around ties, obviously. I stumbled upon it while researching tie fabrics but there’s a lot more to look at. It offers insight into dress code for events, tells you how to tie your ties, and has a section on the often forgotten about tie accessories

[starwalkerskygazer]

Nicky membranes: a sequel featuring bird people

Once upon a time (10 minutes ago) I wrote about nictitating membranes on birds. Now I’m putting on my writer’s cap (one of those multicoloured hats with the propeller on the top) and bringing out my world building tools (an inflated toy hammer and ibuprofen).

Avians. Angels. Archangels. I don’t care what you call them, I’m talking about Bird Boys. Flapper Folk. Feathered Fuckers. Them Man with Bird Wings. Squawkers in the form of Homo sapiens (alternatively, Homo erectus).

I’m SAYING that more-human-than-bird birdfolk may also have a need for nictitating membranes (every time I write that damn word, someone somewhere dies from the absurdity) because, well, they’re flying. And, thus, unless they be blinking a lot (every bird ever: 😧) then they’d be needing nicky membranes.

Eyelids: poo, make you blind for 0.2 seconds, not transparent, cannot see through, thick, ugly, poo poo, terrible 👎🤬😰😫🙄🥱🤮

Nicky membranes: transparent, can see through, visibility 100% throughout blinking process, thin, lovely, sleek, elegant ✨🥰😍❤️❤️‍🔥😚😩🤯

But for real though, human eyes are definitely not equipped to deal with the brutal, destructive force of wind. Eyes v Wind, I wonder who will come out victorious with a devastating 100-0.

Humans used to have nicky membranes themselves, but we lost them because we weren’t smart enough to realise their amazing worth (nicky please come back I miss you we can talk about it nicky ple-)

OKAY SERIOUSLY THOUGH (watch me not be serious like the clown I am) nictitating membranes do the exact same job as normal eyelids, which is blink. Blinking clears away whatever is in the eyes that isn’t supposed to be there (e.g, prophetic visions of me with your mom) and ~moisturises~ the eye. While maintaining vision (quoth the Wikipedia).

Because birds-but-actually-humans (back to my initial point (fucking finally)) do be flying, having human eyes is a no go because those eyeballs would shrivel up and die.

Anyways I rest my case. I’m smart take my advice (nicky membranes + feathers-glued-onto-human creature).

Also it’s almost 1am and I’m a grandpa these days so my head dead and my brain shrivelled like raisin and that’s it goodnight folks I’ll be here whenever I decide to show up.

Peace.

2 years later update: this post does not represent me. However, it’s funny, so I’m keeping it. Nicky came back ❤️

[starwalkerskygazer]

I did research bc I was thinking about bird eyes drying up in the wind and it turns out that they have eyelids under their other eyelids called ✨ nictitating membranes✨ and they’re ✨mostly transparent✨

Which is actually pretty cool. It makes sense because biology usually does (emphasis on usually)

Here is a picture of said nictitating membrane (warning: horrendous)

:D

And basically nicky membranes do the job of eyelids but while being transparent because birds can’t afford to be blind for 0.2 seconds that’s just too damn long. They also have proper eyelids but nicky membranes for the win I do suppose.

Also nictitating straight up just means ‘blinking’. It’s called a blinking membrane. But you know scientists, they want to feel smart with their fancy words that keyboards say aren’t real.

>:(((

But basically yeah birds have secondary (Google says tertiary but I don’t care) eyelids.

Afterthought: Every time I see nictitating membrane I’m reading it as nicotine membrane.