Hunger Games didn’t really eat holes in my brain the way that it did for some other people but god the opening lines. The opening lines. Katniss wakes up in bed and immediately, instinctively reaches beside her, only to find the bed empty and cold. Before we even know her name – before we know literally anything about her or this world or her place in that world – we know that she loves someone. We know that she is reaching for where Prim should be, sleeping safe and warm beside her, but Prim is not there. She is not there, and her half of the bed is cold and empty. People talk about characters being “doomed by the narrative” when most of the time the character was literally just a well-foreshadowed death, but Prim WAS doomed by the narrative. It’s the very first thing we learned. It’s the most key, integral, important piece of information we’re given about everything that is about to happen: Every single choice Katniss makes is to protect her little sister, and it isn’t enough. In the end, Prim still dies. Prim was dead before the story even started. Katniss, reaching. Prim’s side of the bed was cold and empty. There is no version of this story where Prim could have been saved. Katniss, reaching. The very first thing she does in the series. She wakes, and she reaches, but Prim is already gone. THAT is how you do Doomed By The Narrative. Edit: Also it is key that there was literally nothing Katniss could have done differently. If she had not acted to save Prim, Prim would not have survived the Hunger Games. But by acting to save Prim, Katniss accidentally kicked off an entire rebellion and ultimately massively increased the amount of danger Prim was actually in. The key is that this is irrelevant. If Katniss had done literally anything differently, Prim still would have died. If Katniss had faltered or changed course at any point, Prim still would have died. There was never a point where Katniss could have changed Prim’s fate. There’s no version of this story where Prim lives to see the end of it. She’s dead before the story begins. That’s doomed by the narrative.
For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.
summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.
Examples:
summary: Bruce
summary: "Bruce Banner"
summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk
You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.
The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.
expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.
You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.
otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false
Sims 4 page on Steam. Not to be controversial but I think the CEO of EA should be beheaded for this
requested by: anon request: How do I write a good kiss scene? As how do I describe it? What details or words would make it good?
What goes into the writing of a kiss scene?
details to incorporate:
the sensations in their stomach, their chest, and their knees
the way their breathing changes shortly before the kiss
the feeling of the other's hands
the texture of the other's clothing
the moment they realise they've reached the point of no return
the feeling they're left with after the kiss
words to use...
... to describe the kiss:
tentative
tender
hesitant
quick
soft
gentle
delicate
languid
feathery
familiar
exploring
hungry
heated
fiery
frantic
impatient
sloppy
messy
aggressive
... to describe how they feel about the kiss:
nervous
excited
giddy
anxious
apprehensive
ambiguous
surprised
reassured
certain
confident
relieved
eager
greedy
... to show what the lips do:
exploring each other
brushing over each other
locking
devouring
touching
sealing
pressing against each other
capturing
lapping
tasting
crushing together
travelling (the other's body)
trailing (down to the other's chin)
grinning into the kiss
caressing
lingering
... to show how their body reacts:
feeling warm all over
buzzing
humming
pumping/palpitating heart
clenching lungs
joy bubbling up
tingly stomach
warm chest
burning cheeks
sweaty palms
blood rushing through their veins
... to describe what their hands are doing:
tangling in their lover's hair
wrapping their arms around their lover's neck
intertwining their fingers with their lover
resting on their lover's hips
pressing into their lover's shoulder blades
cupping their lover's cheeks
touching their lover's chin
curling their arm around their lover's waist
resting on their lover's shoulders
grabbing their lover's collar
sneaking up under their lover's shirt
brushing over their lover's bare skin
lightly squeezing their lover's butt
focus on:
the sensations instead of what's physically happening. (the protagonists might very well not know themselves what is happening exactly, but they feel very precisely)
I hope this helps <3
1. "I've missed your touch." 2. "I think about you. Ceaselessly." 3. "You feel so good." 4. "Let me look at you." 5. "Don't stop." 6. "Say it again." 7. "Tell me again." 8. "Your wish is my command." 9. "I am yours to do as you please." 10. "You don't know what you do to me." 11. "You are all I can think about." 12. "The things I want to do to you..." 13. "I want you. All of you." 14. "Take it off." 15. "Close your eyes." 16. "Tell me what you want. In details." 17. "I could come just from looking at you." 18. "Just for me." 19. "You're not playing fair." 20. "Leave it on." 21. "Please." 22. "You'll be the end of me." 23. "I can't wait to take this off you." 24. "Slower. I want to make this last." 25. "Tighter." 26. "Show me." 27. "Just for you." 28. "You blush so beautifully." 29. "I can't get enough of you." 30. "Make me yours."
Feel free to reblog, send and use! I'm also gladly accepting these!
I present to you a - probably quite incomplete, I’m sure I’m missing a lot of speech sounds - reference list and a bit of a guideline for the different ways one can describe the sounds your characters make whilst writing smut. I’ll definitely be referring to it, because I sometimes get stuck on exactly how to describe a particular noise. (aka, “he can’t groan again, he just groaned last paragraph”)
Sounds (noun, both independently and describing speech): breath/breathe, gasp, moan, groan, pant, whimper, whine, shout, yelp, hiss, grunt, cry, scream, shriek, sob, growl, curse, sound, sigh, hum, noise, squeak, snarl, howl, roar, mewl, wail, choke, keen, purr
Sounds (noun, describing speech): rasp, husk, drawl, plea, murmur, whisper, beg
Descriptors (adjective): loud, hushed, quiet, low, high, high-pitched, little, tiny, soft, deep, unrestrained, restrained, strained, breathy, rough, sudden, short, drawn-out, sharp, harsh, hard, thick, smooth, thin, heavy, impassioned, insistent, hungry, passionate, repeated, filthy, debauched, sweet, slow, deliberate, guttural, languid, surprised, husky, distracted, happy, pleased, satisfied, wordless, cut-off, bitten-off, contented, hoarse, extended, long, depraved, aching, choked, strangled, broken, helpless, shuddering, shaky, trembling, urgent, needy, desperate, wanton, shattered, pained, eager
Combine a descriptor and a sound for best effect - for example, “needy moan,” “pleased hum,” or “sudden scream.” You can even use two: “low, rough grunt,” “sweet little cry,” “desperate, filthy noise,” as long as you don’t repeat a word that means the same thing, unless you really want to emphasize it. Avoiding repetition is pretty key here. You don’t usually want to say “hushed, quiet gasp” except on rare occasions when it’s very important how soft the sound was.
Use your own common sense, as well; some sounds and descriptors don’t generally work well together. “Deliberate shriek” probably wouldn’t work well, and neither would “languid grunt,” but again, this is all very situational - play around! Have fun.
Feel free to add to my lists, use for your reference or pass them around. It would be fun to see a randomized generator made, too, I’m just too lazy to do it myself. ;)
an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks
the scarlet ibis
marigolds
the diamond necklace
the monkey’s paw
the open boat
the lady and the tiger
the minister’s black veil
an occurrence at owl creek bridge
a rose for emily
(I found that one by googling “short story corpse in the house,” first result)
the cask of amontillado
the yellow wallpaper
the most dangerous game
a good man is hard to find
some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15
add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed
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.
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
what addons do you use for firefox? i've just downloaded it to switch from chrome (derogatory)
firefox (affectionate)
UBlock Origin obviously. out-the-box works just fine but has a bunch of extra privacy/tracking/spam filters you can enable
Decentraleyes protects you against tracking through “free” curated content delivery and works alongside UBlock (or any of the other common adblocking addons)
I Don’t Care About Cookies good for EU users where GDPR made it so every site ever in the universe asks you to accept cookies and privacy terms seventeen times a day. will just auto-accept for you. never see an annoying popup again! but only use in conjunction with…
Cookie Auto Delete does what it says on the tin. will automatically flush cookies, cache, and data when you close a tab. those cookies you just auto accepted? they’re gone now. whitelist any sites you wanna stay logged in on and let the rest fucking perish
Don’t Track Me Google removes that annoying link conversion when you copy google results. you know when it changes from “site.com” to “encrypted.google.com/randomnonsensefor200charactersblahblahblah”? yeah. this stops that happening. fuck off, google.
Don’t Accept image/webp blocks sites from using the most useless file extension known to mankind so you can save as .jpg or .gif as god intended. fuck webp. seriously. what even is that.
Bypass Paywalls Clean exactly what you think it is
HTTPS Everywhere automatically adds ecrypted security to any site that supports https (you can do this manually by adding the s yourself to any url but… who can be fuckin bothere amirite? this does it for you)
New XKit …duh
Google Search Filter allows you to remove domains from your searches forever. pinterest? gone. weheartit? nuked. also works on duckduckgo. never type “-pinterest” into a search again.
Simple Tab Groups allows you to group tabs together and shove them out of sight, which is nice if you’re researching something and don’t want 50 bajillion jstor tabs clogging up your normal browsing session
If there was a way to run SUPER MEGA AD BLOCKER on this website I fucking would
@Fanfic writers:
My friend send me this link, is a series on a profile on Ao3 (tumblr) that has different tutorials to insert things to fanfics via html code, I thought I would share bc it’s really cool
Lists of tutorials:
How to make images fit in mobile browsers
This is a tutorial/live example on how to make large images fit on mobile browsers but remain normal size on desktop browsers.
How to mimic letters, fliers, and stationery without using images
This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic the look of letters, fliers, and stationery (as well as other forms of written media) without using images. For all your epistolary fic needs.
How to make a “choose your own adventure” Fic
This is a tutorial/live example on how to create a "Choose Your Own Adventure" fic. While this has been explained before (see here), this particular tutorial shows you how to use a work skin to hide the next parts from the reader until they click through to get to them.
How to make linked footnotes on Ao3
This is a live example of how an author can create linked footnotes in their work with only a little bit of HTML and no workskins required. This is best viewed by clicking "Entire Work". While I've included the actual coding in bold and italic once you click "Hide Creator's Style", there's a more detailed explanation here.
How to change text on Ao3 when the cursor is hovering over it (or clicked on mobile)
This a tutorial/live example on how to have text change or appear once a cursor is hovering over it. Helpful for pop-up spoilers, language translations, quick author's notes, etc.
How to mimic author’s notes and Kudos/Comment buttons
Anonymous on tumblr: do you have a skin that would mimic the author’s notes and review/kudos buttons section from the end of a fic? the desired effect being that the fic could go on after the “end” of the fic, so after the author’s notes and review/kudos buttons
Here's a tutorial/live example to do just that, with some of the buttons actually functioning. I'll explain more inside!
How to wrap text around images
This is a tutorial/live example on how to align images to the left or right of the screen and have text wrap around them.
How to mimic email windows
This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic email windows on AO3 without the need to use images.
How to make ios text messages on Ao3
This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic iOS text messages on AO3 without the need to use images. There's also a chapter on how to have emojis displayed on AO3 as well.
How to make Customized page deviders
Bored with the default page dividers? This is a tutorial/live example on how customize your page dividers with no images needed (though I do show you how you could use images if you wanted to do such a thing).
How to make invisible text (That can be highlighted)
This is a live example how to make invisible text that can only be seen by highlighting the text. Tutorial is included in text, and you can always leave comments about questions you may have.
MOBILE USERS: Sadly, this probably won't work for you, since highlighting in a mobile browser is different than web. I've tried correcting this, but have yet to find a solution.
How to make a rounded playlist
Original coding and design is from layouttest. I make no claims for it, just tweaked it so it will work on AO3.
How to create notebook lined paper on Ao3
This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of lined notebook paper in their work. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.
Sticky notes on Ao3 without using images
This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of sticky notes (aka Post-Its) in their fic. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.
How to make deadpool’s thinking thinking boxes on Ao3
This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of Deadpool's thinking boxes in their fic. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.
How to make newspaper articles on Ao3
This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of a newspaper article in their work. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.
A side blog dedicated to all those cool info posts i find
80 posts