Valasania's Writing

A writer of various fanfiction and original work, I am a lover of fantasy, though I'm also happy to explore most forms of fiction. Currently working on whatever catches my fancy in fandom and original work work of my own. An adult, for those concerned, Queer-friendly space. (artwork credit to Ted Nasmith)

[bioluminescent-fungus]

affirmations when opening a stuck jar:

I am stronger than the jar

⁠⁠I know what left and right are

⁠⁠smashing the jar will make a mess

⁠⁠I have strong and dextrous hands

⁠⁠I have opened jars before and I will open jars again

[obiwancreampie]

...which could mean nothing.

Nick Gillard interviewed by IGN / Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Novelization written by Matthew Stover / Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

Bonus:

[bodies-made-of-art]

Nude at the Window by Paul Paede (1913)

[thecaffeinebookwarrior-deactiva]

Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

[thecaffeinebookwarrior-deactiva]

Updated with more resources, specifically for characters who are blind in one eye.

[outofangband]

The existence of Ancalagon is horrifying in every way. To anything and everything he encounters and for himself.

Ancalagon is an anomaly. Far too large to live in any meaningful way. He was born to die in the War of Wrath and to take as much of the world with him as he could.

He is created from thousands of parts. He is erratic, fragmented. He is constantly in agony.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds died in his development. Elven thralls who were forced to aid in and die for the creation of a weapon meant to destroy their homes and people. Those some of his parts came from. Those who simply got too close.

Bones fracture when his wings expand, acrid blood falls from the sky, staining the rocks of Thangorodrim, long before Eärendil lands a single wound to him

His flesh and bones poison the earth, the sky, the water.

His entire existence is cruel and sad and painful and destructive.

[classicalcanvas]

Spring (1896) by Alphonse Mucha

[pocketsizedpanther]

He can't keep getting away with this 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

[gothgleek]

I just love the way his brain works- if anyone ever says fashion isn’t that deep, introduce them to Wisdom Kaye.

[gothgleek]

Actually since I know tumblr hates videos, here’s his explanations (click to enlarge)

[gothgleek]

[gothgleek]

A note from Wisdom Kaye:

[chimaerakitten]

Not enough military-adjacent sci-fi takes advantage of the humble rearguard action tbh.

(Not talking about hard military sci-fi since I haven’t read enough of it to say one way or the other. I’m talking soft quasi-military sf like Trek)

Like if you think about it narratively they’re incredibly useful because it’s a type of battle where:

1. No matter how spectacularly well the people fighting one do, it’s inherently not gonna successfully take down the big bad. Because the battle that could have done that is already lost. So it’s a time when they can win (achieve their objective of a successful orderly retreat) without winning. Always useful in a story where you need your protagonists to not win until the end.

2. You have an excuse for your Very Clever Plucky Band of Protagonists to be taking on a much much bigger and better armed force without it being just plain stupid to do so. No idiot balls here, just an acknowledgment that we inherently have to be asking a small force to hold off a large one, so the rest of our large force can get clear.

3. Great potential for a heroic sacrifice that doesn’t feel contrived BUT a sacrifice is not required. As mentioned in point 1 your protagonists can also do really well without it screwing up the pacing of the story. This means that your audience will not know for sure which way it is going to go based on the rules of storytelling. So you can get genuine tension/suspense and genuine catharsis.

4. Battle tactics and objectives can be complex and difficult to get across on page or on screen at the best of times, but “cover everyone else’s retreat from a lost battle” is easy to understand, sufficiently high stakes, and emotionally impactful—much more so than any convoluted “get the macguffin” or “take this territory” could ever be.

5. The combo of high stakes, inability to retreat (the whole point is they’re already retreating) and desperation mean it’s a perfect excuse for your protagonists to pull out all the stops. That experimental weapon that has a one in three chance of blowing up? Might as well use it because if we don’t not only are we dead, all our friends retreating behind us are too.

6. A rearguard action is easy to make unambiguously heroic or at least more morally defensible many other kinds of battle. Whatever lead up to this, right now our allies are just trying to not get killed/captured and we are standing between them and a force that wants to overwhelm and kill/capture them. This works even when the antagonist force isn’t evil or dishonorable, because “chase a retreat to try to turn it into a rout or full surrender” is considered pretty acceptable in many kinds of warfare, so your Honorable Enemy is likely to engage in it to an extent—it’s not reserved for the Evil Forces of Evilness.

[gffa]

Hot Take:  The “Jedi Code” isn’t about the Jedi themselves, it’s about the Force.

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force. When a Force-sensitive connects to the Force without the noise in their own heads coloring it, this is what they sense–peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony, the Force. It’s not a life motto to live by (it is used as a meditation mantra in the canon, though), but instead A DESCRIPTION OF THE FORCE.

[gffa]

TO EXPAND FURTHER, the reason I like this is because it fits with two really interesting things about how this mantra is used in the canon: - In canon, it’s pretty much always used when someone is trying to reach the Force, whether to feel it more clearly or to calm themselves down, a mantra that’s basically “here’s what the Force is” is a way of helping to pull the noise out of your own head. Further, that is how the Force works, that it’s based on mindset and motivation, the light side is about approaching it from a mentally stable place, through compassion, selflessness and joy, the dark side is about connecting to it through the downward sucking spiral of greed, selfishness, and suffering, through pain and anger and hate and rage. The Force itself isn’t inherently these things, the Force is peace, knowledge, serenity, and harmony.  Do your best to not confuse what the Force is trying to say with what you are bringing to it. - This is why it also fits with the other version:

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force. Because the Force, sometimes, is a paradox, in that the emotions that are soaked into it by every living being in the galaxy (as every living thing is part of the Force), it does have emotion, it does have ignorance, it does have passion, it does have chaos, it does have death. The two different versions of the mantra–and the riddle that they make when combined, because the Jedi Order taught both versions to their children–are about the riddle of the Force itself and what it means to reach out to this tremendous field of energy and psychic web, given that you’re reaching out with your feelings, you’re reaching out based on where your own mindset is coming from. It’s about how you affect the Force and the Force affects you, it’s a description of what you’ll find when you open your mind and heart to the Force.

[teddywesworl]

i do write for attention, actually, because that's a normal reason to create art

[teddywesworl]

did you hear about that actor performing a play in front of a crowd? clearly only doing it for attention

[teddywesworl]

im trying to say something and im not gonna say it in an empty room

[lena221bee]

tags by @yuanzhous

[b0nkcreat]

i think people get so used to their own creative work that they forget how amazing it is so i’m making this post as a reminder You are the only person capable of making art the exact way you make it. nobody else on earth can do that. there are always going to be those little habits and intricacies and details that simply cannot be replicated whether it’s in writing or painting or textiles and you make life all the better for it i love my friends’ art i love art from strangers im trying to love my own art I LOVE YOU!!! THE PERSON READING THIS!!!!!!! YOU ARE A PART OF THIS WORLD NEVER EVER STOP MAKING THINGS THAT CAN IMPACT IT

[birdstoconsider]

Let’s talk about Nightjars

they are these wonderful tiny predatory birds

With great camouflage for multiple environments

And lovely plumage dependent on their species

BUT BEST OF ALL IS THEIR MOUTHS, which look small then their beaks are closed (they’ve even got cute lil’ whiskers!)

BUT ARE ACTUALLY HUUUUGE

BEST BIRD

[ironfoxe]

i am here for this bird

[anubianpagan]

WHAT IS THIS ELDRITCH HORROR!!!

[iamgoingtobeatyouwithhammers]

Humans are weird: fibers.

We all fucking LOVE fibers. We wear them. Eat them. We use hypothetical fibers to explain the unexplainable. We make ART with them - not just the obvious crocheting or needle felting or sewing. Guitars, brushes, all these things. STRING THEORY. And all the media tropes, like the red string of fate. Humanity is obsessed with fiber.

[sugar-petals]

saw someone say they feel bad and awkward ‘contributing nothing’ to fandom (“no fics, no drawings, no theories, just gluttony”) and to anyone who feels inferiority about this i gotta say us creators, doing things for free, love nothing more than your unbridled spiralling greed in our notifications aka genuinely be more unapologetically gluttonous 24/7 there is nothing wrong with enjoying something insatiably because us writers and artists feel empty and despairing without a passionate audience and feral surroundings so please and thank you and we love you

[draculastarion]

yes!!!! you CAN contribute something!!!!! if you feel guilty, you can:

reblog art instead of just liking it! not only will you increase the amount of people who see it (more cool people seeing cool art!!!!) but then you can also leave some nice comments in the tags about how cool the art is!!!

no theories??? you can reblog the ones you really like, or even question the ones you don’t! fandom thrives on engagement! i’m not saying yell at someone for having a different opinion, but there’s no harm saying “oh, i didn’t see it that way. can you tell me more?” if you know of someone who has cool/interesting theories, please encourage them to talk more about it!! they probably held back the first time!

COMMENT ON FIC!!!!!! please, we are begging. literally just a heart emoji as a second kudos feels like the bare minimum but damn… sometimes we out here getting NO comments. one single emoji in the inbox might MAKE SOMEONE’S DAY.

if you feel guilty, if you feel greedy, ENGAGE WITH THE CONTENT

[holybagelsstuff]

Damn I wish we could perceive Luke and Leia as their own people and not as Padmé and Anakin's children only. "Luke got it from his mother/Leia got it from her father" they didn't even raise them???

[ardavision]

Ah, Lúthien… 🦋 Rumor has it she was up at 3 AM getting ready, and now it’s clear why — who would’ve guessed her hairstyle would become the talk of the season? Maybe we should forget the concert for a moment and figure out what kind of magic keeps her hair in that shape?

As for the performance — all the hype is totally justified. Her act will absolutely leave the audience spellbound, just like her dress… 😏 Speaking of which, has anyone seen Fëanor today? I think it’s time for me to distract him before he gets any ideas.

💎SONG LYRICS💎

Secret Seed Verse 1 Rest now, O heart of shadowed might, O weary soul, once blazed so bright, Lost in the depth of black despair, With grievous weight of crown to bear. Your scars are many, wounds are deep, But even deeper promise sleep Of long-lost sweetness of un-pain. Of fire that unmakes the chain. Chorus Let go of hate, let go of fear, You're not alone, I am staying here. Surrender into gentle dream Where love at last will set you free. Verse 2 You've known the cold of endless fight, Where every hope slips out of sight. But even in the deepest dark, There’s always stays a tiny spark. And though your soul has lost its way, Like secret seed the light will stay. It will endure and it will wait - The love you're longing for and hate Chorus: Now come and rest, let go of fear Stay in my arms, I will be here. Though darkness linger, love will find The parts of you you’ve left behind. Outro When silence fell and grew as deep As were the heart of earth asleep Against my will, I firmly knew: I spent last time when you were you.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Study finds nearly every pre-2010 video game is unavailable

Games from older consoles are being made less and less available to the point so much of the industry's history could easily vanish without

[gay-jesus-probably]

Vimm's Lair: Preserving the Classics

Preserving classic videogames from consoles past.

I'm just gonna slide this on in here for anyone that is interested in preserving old games. They take it very seriously too, they want an archive of every single game. Like, they have lists of every game ever released for a system, and once that system gets old enough, they add it to their archive and start collecting. Their latest addition was the Xbox 360, they opened that vault up in September 2022, and proudly announced they'd finished their collection of games for it back in April.

Also, while their game archives are almost entirely complete, they've got another project of archiving the manuals that came with those games, and that is... considerably less well filled out. Their collection of Xbox 360 manuals is especially rough, they've only gotten manuals for three games. So if you've got some Xbox 360 games kicking around, and the manual's still with them, please consider scanning them and submitting them to the site!

Game preservation is important, but people rarely consider preserving the manuals as well; I really respect Vimm's Lair for being so thorough in their archival work.

[anachronic-cobra]

I've been using Vimm's Lair for years, I have yet to see a single bad link or virus on the entire site. It's arguably the safest and most comprehensive archive of video games in existence. Preserved history