Floating On Alright

Just Entity is fine. Mostly will be posting bits about projects I might never finish, as well as whatever games I’m playing. I’ll get around to giving this blog a proper theme soon enough.

[txe-entity]

So, making a youtube channel.

Not gonna lie, I didn't know how this was gonna go, or if I'd even like doing it. But so far, I made three vids and I'm enjoying it so far. It honestly helps my creativity too: I'm feeling the need to up my art skills for thumbnails and banners n shit.

So yeah. Feeling good! Just sucks it took so long for me to feel confident enough to even try lol.

Here's the channel.

[maroonracoon]

Wake up, little bunny, its time

[secretink]

Writing fanfic as a non-US citizen like

[intrinsicklutz]

In case anyone actually wants to know the answer: it’s the plot of Cars. The difference is literally the plot of Cars.

Highways are usually two-to-four (at the widest) lane roads that meander the US landscape. Think Route 66, dinosaur statues, mom-and-pop diners, southern gothic. There are state-level and national-level highways. Some run for a 100 miles, some, like US HWY-17, run most of the East Coast:

That red line is US HWY 17. If you follow it, you will go through tiny towns. You may hit stoplights. I kid you not, you will see spinning cows on poles. Businesses exist along highways that you are encouraged to pull over and visit. They were designed to let you see America.

Yeah.

Now, interstates were made in the 50s and were made to get people from Point A to Point B. These suckers range from four lanes to eight lanes around big cities. They cut through everything. If you want to get to a business, you have to take an exit ramp and detour. They are great for getting places fast. You can still have weird experiences on them, but usually at night, when your eyes start playing tricks on you. Or there are deer.

I-95 is a massive corridor that runs from the Florida Keys to the Canadian Border. You can see the difference just looking at the maps.

As far as writing goes:

If you want quirky character development inside the car, you’re looking for an interstate. The majority of Americans take interstates to go on road trips.

If you want mysterious and/or supernatural hijinks, you’re looking for a highway. They are weird, weird places, and they’re surprisingly easy to wind up on if you leave the interstate.

(Even in America, no one’s really sure what a freeway is. Just ignore it.)

[thecheshirecass-deactivated2018]

Freeways exist in big cities where cars are more prominent than public transport, such as LA or Atlanta. You’ve year of liminal spaces? Freeways during rush hour are a physical manifestation of hell.

[aqunathlok-ataashi]

Awesome! Now what the hell is a turnpike?

[thecheshirecass-deactivated2018]

If you find out, let me know. Maybe ask someone from New Jersey.

[spanishskulduggery]

A turnpike is a highway with a toll. Turnpikes are special highways where you drive really fast and it’s usually linking big cities with each other and you keep going until you hit a toll booth.

They’re called “turnpikes” because in the olden days, there were pikes or barriers up and you had to pay the toll for them to be raised or turned to let you in.

[merindab]

Also, just for the record, Hawaii does have interstates.

[marisatomay]

For everyone who didn’t want to know, expressways are a form of highway that connect both suburban areas and major interstates to a city They often have both an alphanumerical name and a colloquial name In Philly we have the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76)

[heywriters]

Would like to add that highways and mainly interstates were made specifically so THE MILITARY could get from Point A to Point B. This combined with a post-WWII boost in the economy and car industry gave Americans the ability to tour the country on their own for the first time ever. A whole chunk of American culture was created by just expanding the road system.

Think about road systems and other systems of travel when worldbuilding!

[literaryreference]

All this being said, most East Coast US people will refer to all of these things interchangeably as “highways”/”the highway.”

[naomitess]

Another note for non-USians trying to write a road trip story – if your characters would definitely be taking the interstate, but you want them on a highway in order for the supernatural shenanigans to start (or whatever), the solution is very simple: they hit a traffic jam. Could be due to construction, could be due to an accident, but traffic slows to a crawl and they say “there’s gotta be a way around this” and take the next exit. Then it turns out their cell phone has no coverage in that spot so they can’t just pull up a map, and VOILA. Into the Twilight Zone! One of the things about an interstate is that USUALLY, there’s an exit and an entrance right by each other, so you can exit, find a gas station or a place to grab lunch near the exit, then get right back on, but this is not always the case. Sometimes there’s an exit, but nowhere nearby to get back on.

[leebrontide]

I just want to add that there’s a slightly different vibe if you’re in the midwest. Because cities on the coasts are closer together, the interstate is just a super efficient point A to point B, city to city, no interruptions.

In the midwest, and I expect the southwest, to the interstate can get some real wonky vibes because YOU ARE ALONE. You are on one black strip of neverending road across hours and hours and hours of alone. You can drive very fast for a very long time and not see signs of another human being. Sometimes the alone-ness is added to by the sheer flatness of the land around you. You can see for forever and there’s nobody here. You sometimes see dead gas stations or billboards with only scraps of paper left on them.

You are in tornado ally and there is NOWHERE to hide if a blizzard or thunderstorm or twister comes for you. If it’s winter the snow is BLINDING.

It’s beautiful. But it’s horror is less small-town-gothic and more existential threat.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

For clarity: the term freeway literally means it’s an interstate with no tolls. It’s free for every driver to use.

The West Coast of the US doesn’t have tolls on our interstates, but some of our big important bridges have tolls.

[ruffboi-mags]

Seconding @leebrontide’s bit about interstates in the mid and southwest. I have Seen Things doing cross-country moves through the southwest and midwest. One experience that we refer to as “Silent Kansas” we literally went across the entire width of Kansas without seeing a single other vehicle, open gas station, or sign of life, while shrouded in a blanket-thick fog that dissipated essentially immediately upon crossing the border into Colorado. Or the time we were driving south on the I-17 in Arizona after midnight, and there was something following us for a full hour that was a pair of glowing lights that looked like headlights but, I swear it’s fucking true, was not another car. they disappeared in my rearview on a stretch with no exits just outside the Phoenix city limits, and to this day I have no idea wtf it was.

weird shit happens on interstates away from the coasts.

[eilooxara]

Highway: a high-speed and long-distance road, but without limited access. You will have occasional stop lights or stop signs, and you’ll go through small towns. Most likely place to see a cryptid. (also a generic term for all of these roads)

Expressway: a high speed road with limited access. There are no stop signs or lights. There are entrance and exit ramps. These usually cut through the landscape to a greater degree than highways.

Freeway: an expressway without tolls

Turnpike: an expressway with tolls. So called because they had a long stick (a pike) on a pivot that blocks the road until it is turned to let you through after paying the toll.

Interstate: a (usually particularly long) expressway built as part of the interstate system. Has a designation I-## (eg, I-95). There are also local expressways that are part of the interstate system that get a third digit (I-495). These generally connect Something™ to the larger two-digit interstate (so I-495 connects to I-95). 3-digit interstates are most often freeways. A two-digit interstate may be a freeway or a turnpike and will probably switch back and forth over its length.

Also, everyone will use most of these terms wrong most of the time! You can call any of them a highway and no one will bat an eye. You could call a turnpike a freeway and people will literally not notice. If you call anything an expressway you’ll sound like a nerd or a politician. We usually only say interstate to differentiate it from some other similar road. But if you call something a turnpike that doesn’t have turnpike in its name, even if it is a toll road, people will look at you funny.

[traegorn]

Additionally, sometimes “turnpikes” are called “tollways.” Like the Tristate around Chicago.

[lymmea]

Really love that these explanations, while they technically explain everything, have even left me, a born American, more lost than before. Rip in pieces, non-American writers, we did our best.

[txe-entity]

Happy New Year!

[buspir-deactivated20230127]

the notes are broken 😂

[calvin-reads-problem-sleuth]

Reblogging partly for awesome computer shortcuts, and partly because I wish to once again take part in a Post That Broke The Notes. 

[txe-entity]

I think I might have to start going to sleep during the day and waking up at night. Sure, it’ll make going to class hell but if the last 4-6 years have taught me anything it’s that I get the most done at night. It’ll make socializing harder but I hardly do that anymore anyways.

[vee-a-literal-alien-deactivated]

This is literally the last month you can reblog this joke

[txe-entity]

So I managed to become much more active on Twitter than I am on here, which is saying a lot. So if you all wanna see way more posts (mostly retweets), head on over there. Twitter handle is lostrogueentity.

[markocomics]

Haven’t drawn anything in a while, but I’ll keep on fighting.

[helperhoopoe]

stop insulting yourself. it doesn’t help.

[rottentrauma]

But what if it’s true

[helperhoopoe]

it still doesn’t help. you can call yourself as many names as you want, but it won’t make you a better, happier, healthier or kinder person.

punishment doesn’t work. only positive reinforcement does. be kind to yourself and get better.

[myalternatereality]

experiences that take place on a different plane of existence

- parents’ evening

- sleepovers

- literally the entirety of Christmas Day

- lying in bed with earphones in

- flights

- exams

- anything you do between 3-4am

- driving in the dark

[nikaalexandra]

OKAY SIT DOWN SHUT UP, WE’RE GONNA TALK COLORS

THIS IS SAPPHIRE

THIS IS TEAL

THIS IS PERIWINKLE

THIS IS AZURE

 AND THIS IS TURQUOISE

WONDER WHY THOSE ALL DON’T LOOK LIKE THE SAME COLOR? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT 

OTHER THAN BEING PART OF THE SAME FAMILY OF BLUES, THEY ARE NOT ALL THE SAME FUCKING COLOR! WHY WOULD THEY ALL BE THE SAME FUCKING COLOR! DO YOU THINK WE JUST NAME NEW COLORS FOR KICKS!?!?!?

WHEN DESCRIBING A CHARACTER’S GOD FORSAKEN EYE COLOR, PICK ONE YA GODDAMN HIPPIE

[sohnderleere-deactivated2018072]

As someone who is colourblind this post is fucking hilarious because they are in fact all the same fucking colour

[diogenes420]

things heating up in the fuckin uuhhhhhhhhh BLUE fandom 

[fangirltothefullest]

So uh….. fun fact about turquoise

They come in varying degrees of blue and green.

[averruncusho]

THIS IS TUMBLR

[paulieshore]

Hey, now now

[txe-entity]

I helped a woman take her stroller down the stairs to the subway today. I walked ahead of her after that to make sure I got to my train, which was down another set of stairs.

I wonder if she figured out how to get down the stairs with it. I hope I didn’t make her miss her train by going off on my own.

[txe-entity]

Ok, so I’ve finally had enough of relying on my memory to use my desktop PC back home to draw and am now working on converting the PSDs that I need so I can use other free drawing programs on my laptop, which is more than capable of doing so. Gonna have to go back to using a mouse but it’s better than simply hoping I remember to use the desktop one day or that my brother finally gives me permission to take the tablet with me.

[txe-entity]

I’ve hit a low point again. Seems to happen much more than I’d like it to. Have two papers due tomorrow and only barely started on one of them, which not only makes me panic but also makes me feel really stupid for not starting them earlier.

Ugh. Past week has been awful.

[thebrothersjonas]

writing conclusions in papers is like the stupidest thing ever though like what’s the point of dedicating an entire paragraph to “so yeah i know you just read my paper but this is a summarization of what you read in case you need to be reminded about what you just read” like why can’t the paper just end 

[field-thistles]

I keep seeing this post and similar ones, and if y'all’s teachers and professors have left you with the idea that a conclusion is a summary, they have failed you in a big way.

Your conclusion is your “so what’s the fucking point” section. You’ve given you’re reader a lot of info and now they need to know why they care. Depending on the type of paper you should be giving a plan of action, explaining how this knowledge changes our understanding of the topic, link your paper to other disciplines, suggest further areas of study, etc.

One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received is that if you can’t envision yourself dropping the mic and strutting off stage at the end of your conclusion then it’s probably not strong enough.

[inspirelocked]

“So whats the fucking point” is more helpful than all 6 years I’ve probably been writing papers

[elodieunderglass]

Listen up, chucklefucks: I have a point to make.

Some shit went down. Here are the receipts.

Here is the tea.

^ Introduction, supporting paragraphs, conclusion: a basic essay structure.

[bri-ecrit]

There are three major things to put into any major essay: 

The What

The “So What?”

And the “Now What?” 

Your conclusion is the “Now What” — you’ve convinced your readers that they need to pay fucking attention to something, and now you tell them what to do next. It’s not just summarizing and wrapping up your main points for the sake of repeating yourself. It’s like the last five minutes of class where I’m reminding students of the big takeaways about what we learned and giving them the homework that reinforces it in a way that holds their attention while they’re trying to pack up their shit and get out. 

[belle-and-bowties]

Would’ve been nice to know this while I was in school!

[txe-entity]

Finally got my laptop. Don’t have my drawing tablet with me though, so can’t do anything with that for now. :(