Latest Posts by shadowymetalhead - Page 6

They would have made such good friends. Like discussing torture and killing methods, such friend goals.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be put on a watch list because of this post lol. Wouldn't be surprised to find out that I'm already on a watch list.

Finally watched the Addams Family Values recently! and honestly. my main takeaway is

Debbie slays. And Joan Cusack is a QUEEN

glad to know just like your Eurovision rep you can excuse violence against women <3

I'm sorry what

Where did you I ever say something like that? First of all I am a woman, and second it's official that Joost never physically attacked the camera woman.

So please do your research, and read my comment carefully before you say something like this. This is a pretty heavy accusation.

I don't know who she is, or what the curse would be, but I ain't gonna risk it.

“But if you forget to reblog Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.”

🧿 to keep you safe from people who want to do you harm.<3 🧿

I don't really see many old posts on here. So this is cool. Reblog this people and aliens.

Tumblr Code.

NEED HELP WRITING? (a masterlist)

I have likely not added many that I've reblogged to this list. Please feel free to roam my blog and/or ask/message me to add something you'd like to see on this list!

Synonym Lists

Look by @writers-potion

Descriptors

Voices by @saraswritingtipps

Show, Don't Tell by @lyralit

Tips & Tricks

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists by @writingwithfolklore

How To (Realistically) Make a Habit of Writing by @byoldervine

Let's Talk About Misdirection by @deception-united

Tips to Improve Character Voice by @tanaor

Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers posted by @toocoolformedschool

Fun Things to Add to a Fight Scene (Hand to Hand Edition) by @illarian-rambling

Questions I Ask My Beta Readers by @burntoutdaydreamer

Skip Google for Research by @s-n-arly

Breaking Writing Rules Right: Don't Write Direct Dialogue by @septemberercfawkes

Databases/Resources

International Clothing

Advice/Uplifting

Too Ashamed of Writing To Write by @writingquestionsanswered

"Said" is Beautiful by @blue-eyed-author

WORLD BUILDING CHECKLIST

If you are writing a book/story that takes place in another world, I have provided for you the complete world building checklist to ensure that you know your world inside out.

Economy A. Currency B. Poverty rate/line

Government A. Crime & Legal System B. Foreign Relations C. Politics D. War

The Land A. Physical & Historical Features B. Climate C. Geography D. Natural Resources E. Population

Society & Culture A. Arts, Entertainment, & Recreation B. Architecture C. Calendar D. Daily Life. E. Diet F. Ethics & Values G. fashion & Dress H. History I. Dining Customs J. Education K. Language L. Gestures M. Manners N. Meeting & Greeting O. Religion & Philosophy P. Social organization

Magic A. Magicians B. Magic and science C. Magic & Technology D. Rules of Magic

Technology C. Technology D. Medicine D. Transportation & Communication you're welcome <3

Fell free to reblog and fill it out if you want. I am curious to see the worlds in my fellow writers heads.

Follow me @leisureflame for more posts like this!

you know he would have been one of Those kids

inspired by this pic:

Reposting this so I can find it later

knitting tutorial made by a twenty-something knitting influencer: 18 min long, 12 of those minutes being the intro and a sponsor plug, they show the first few steps of the tutorial at the slowest speed known to man, they show the most important steps at a neck-break speed, they stop every five seconds to talk about what they just did, 40,000 comments filled with questions ranging from insightful to “how do i knit”, filmed with a camera that costs more than a car, the tutorial is incorrect.

knitting tutorial made by a seventy-something grandmother: two min long, filmed 17 years ago, shows you what you want with the skilled patient hands of a beloved deity, made with the world’s shittiest camera, the best video on the fucking internet, four comments and 30 views, you lose the video and never find it again.

Can we make this a thing

I am a little high but what if people proposed with beautiful, intricate knives. Ladies would gather around the table and be like “guess what finally happened!!” And pull this beautiful, intricate dagger out of her purse and all the other ladies would gasp and congratulate her

We are a small Canadian stim toy business run by two autistic women.

Many places that sell stim toys are focused on the needs and experiences of parents of young autistic children.  Here at FlappyHappy, autistic needs and voices are centred over caregivers.  Our goal is to focus on autistic adults since so many shops market towards children and it can feel infantalizing. Our stim toys are also great for people living with trauma, ADHD, chronic pain, anxiety, or other needs! We want you to know that it’s okay to stim. It’s more than okay actually! If you benefit from stim toys, then they are for you!

We carry a mixture of your usual stim toys but also more discreet stim items like jewellery! We also carry our own array of handmade items that you can’t get anywhere else!

It means so much to us if you share this post or otherwise spread the word about us.

We also offer free worldwide shipping on orders of $70 CAD or more.

Website | Facebook | TikTok | Cohost

Color in Fiction! (Once You See it, You Cannot Unsee it)

White versus black, red versus blue, Gatsby’s green light, Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, Belle’s blue dress.

Color is perhaps the most ubiquitous motif used across both fiction and reality to thread people or objects through a common theme, or to pit two ideologies against each other beyond their verbal spats. Color is also perhaps the simplest motif, but that doesn’t make it any lesser in its potency.

In fiction, color is an easy way for the audience to learn as fast as possible who’s on whose side, and who their opponents are, and today, we’re going to look at a few.

But first: Crash course into color theory:

Warmer colors evoke passion or uncertainty, movement and excitement, happiness and warmth, but also rage, aggression, love, and lust. The cooler colors evoke sadness and serenity, but also youth and spring and winter and death.

Most of the time when a creator wants to juxtapose color in a narrative or other work, they’re going to use inverses, just google one of the hundreds of teal and orange movie posters. Inverses are whatever colors lie at opposite sides of the wheel. Blue and Orange, Red and Green, Purple and Yellow. These pairs show up either in opposition, or as an ensemble of one character or a group or team.

Part 1: Black and White

Yes it has grounds in racism, but black and white are also accepted to mean chaos and order, good and evil, death and life.

In a show like Lost, themes of black and white are constant. The black and white backgammon pieces, the colors of the Dharma station logos, the show’s main title card, God stand-in Jacob (Lucifer from Supernatural), and his unnamed brother, the Man in Black.

Black and white show up *everywhere,* in some places subtler than others. In fiction with a male and female lead, if they are coded in black and white, the man is almost always the one in black. Black means strength and mystery and this deep, almost corrupted darkness. White is purity, femininity, youth, and nurturing, when a woman wears it, unless she's the villain.

Villains in white are very often surprise villains:

The White Witch (Chronicles of Narnia)

Saruman (Lord of the Rings)

President Coin (Hunger Games)

Hans (Frozen), Mayor Bellweather (Zootopia), Auto (Wall-E)

Elizabeth from Pirates of the Caribbean is an interesting case. She begins the first movie wearing light colors and being trapped in the pure and lawful life of the governor’s daughter. She ends her arc in the third movie in solid black (through several costumes) a badass Pirate King and wife of the new Captain of the Flying Dutchman.

Men in black are chivalrous, dark knights, or morally grey vigilantes, silent badasses, or edgy badboys. Black is also of course reserved for villains a la Darth Vader, or Severus Snape and Voldemort and a million others. The "Black Knight" is his own trope, whether he's in a fantasy setting or not.

Women in black are temptresses, or seductive badasses. Black is the color of corruption, sin, and angst in western media 9 times out of 10 unless a narrative wants to subvert it.

I could do an entire essay on black and white in Lord of the Rings alone but here's a few other contrasts: The white Tower of Ecthelion, Minas Tirith, the "White City", the White Tree, Gandalf the White. The Black Riders, Black Speech, Black Land of Mordor, Orthanc (Saruman's Tower).

But you don’t have to make your character’s entire costumes black and white, no, you can just make their hair light and dark.

Part 2: Hair

**Possibly also because racism but we don’t have time to unpack all that right now**

When you have your male protagonist and his male foil, love interest, competition, companion, lancer, or villain, most of the time (in western media where blonds are in abundance) the more noble or “good” character of the two will be blond, the other brunet, especially in a love triangle. If two male characters have opposing ideologies on any level, they will often have opposing hair. A male and female lead duo will also tend to have opposing hair, but it’s most obvious what they’re doing when it’s two dudes and not just coincidence.

Here’s a nonexhaustive list, with the brunet first (ignoring if the adaptation was faithful):

Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamnee (LoTR)

Aragorn and Boromir (LoTR)

Aragorn and Theoden (LoTR)

Denethor and Faramir (LoTR)

Thorin and Bilbo (Hobbit)

Jack Shephard and James “Sawyer” Ford (Lost)

Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar (Brokeback Mountain) *Also have opposing hats*

Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent (The Dark Knight)

Tony Stark and Steve Rogers (Marvel)

Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers (Marvel)

Loki and Thor (Marvel)

Nico di Angelo and Will Solace (Percy Jackson)

Percy Jackson and Jason Grace (Percy Jackson)

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (the Cumberbatch one)

Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester (Supernatural)

Edmund Pevensie and Peter Pevensie (Chronicles of Narnia)

Gale Hawthorne and Peeta Mellark (Hunger Games)

Damon Salvatore and Stefan Salvatore (Vampire Diaries)

Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby (2013 Gatsby)

Caledon Hockley and Jack Dawson (Titanic)

Notable nonexhaustive exceptions:

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter)

Percy Jackson and Luke Castellan (Percy Jackson)

Jacob Black and Edward Cullen (Twilight)

Batman and Superman (DC Comics)

Luke Skywalker and Han Solo (Star Wars)

Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars) *wardrobe makes up for it*

*Feel free to tag the ones I missed

Not every brunet on the list is a “bad” guy, nor is every blond the “good” guy, but compared to each other, the brunet tends to be the more morally grey, the more corrupted, the one who’s ideologies end up getting them hurt or killed or proving them wrong. Or, the brunet faces more demons, has a darker personality, or tends to have a “shoot first ask questions later” philosophy.

This of course goes out the window if the media is set in a region or with a cast of characters who are meant to share similar features, like how there’s no blondes at all in Last Airbender (otherwise Aang would absolutely fit the pattern).

Whether that’s Frodo getting corrupted by the Ring and Sam being his rock, Jack Twist getting murdered while Ennis lives on, or the beloved Dark Knight and his bat-black demons while Harvey’s White legacy saves Gotham, next time you write a brunet and his blond competition, ask yourself just why you’re doing it.

*Side note, I’m pretty sure Harvey Dent, when he’s animated, is usually a brunet, but he’s also usually Two-Face by then and no longer a hero*

I don’t even have time for black and white in anime or the trope of the white-haired anime boy and since natural hair colors are kind of moot, I don’t think the same rules apply. But outside of the westernized “black knight vs white knight” I do want to dig deeper into color motifs in anime at some point.

Here's some notable dark and light dichotomies nonetheless in wardrobe and/or hair:

Kirito and Asuna (Sword Art Online)

Lelouch and Suzaku (Code Geass)

Midoriya and Bakugo (My Hero Academia)

L and Light (Death Note)

Medusa and Stein (Soul Eater)

Sasuke and Naruto (Naruto)

Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Eiji and Ash (Banana Fish)

Kyoya and Tamaki (OHSHC)

Yuri and Viktor (Yuri!!! On Ice)

Dracula and Alucard (Castlevania)

Part 3: Red v. Blue and everything in between

The megalith that is the color motif extends past the white/black dichotomy.

It’s also red and blue.

If red is pitted against blue in any story, red is always the team the audience is supposed to root against, unless this is sports. Red is the color of the Sith, the Fire Nation, red eyes are seen as evil, red is blood and rage and wrath and fire. Red is the color of evil empires. Blue is the color of heroes. It’s water and healing and camaraderie, serenity. Blue is the color of rebels and underdogs.

Red versus blue is in everything from the color of lightsabers in Star Wars to the color of cybertronian eyes in Transformers, to the color of the Water Tribes and Fire Nations (with some exceptions a la Azula’s blue fire) to the colors of the pills in the Matrix. Red is the ‘dangerous’ choice, blue is the ‘safe’ choice. Unless your character is patriotically sporting the red, white and blue of the UK, USA, or France.

Villains usually only wear blue if they're ice-coded, or belong to a faction wearing navy blue uniforms.

Red versus blue also shows up between leaders and their lancers. The first one I can think up off the top of my head is Robin and Raven from Teen Titans.

Purple is also usually lumped in with the bad guys and green with the good guys, but purple and green also show up a ton as contrasting colors of the same character like the Hulk or the Joker. But both can swing either way. The Decepticons in the early cartoons for Transformers had purple everywhere and reclaimed it in Transformers: Prime. Megatron, Soundwave, Shockwave, the Vehicons, Airachnid, and the Dark Star Saber, and some G1s]. Prime also has three sets of red-blue dichotomies within their factions: [Arcee/Cliffjumper, Optimus/Ratchet, and Knockout/Breakdown].

Green is the color of more Jedi, and the Green Lanterns, but green also represents sickness or disease or generic evil energy a la Loki, Dr. Facilier (Princess and the Frog) or the Hyenas and Scar in the Lion King.

Pink is really up in the air, as is orange and yellow, especially when it comes to female characters, especially female anime characters.

But enough about color dichotomy.

Part 4: Color Singularity

Color singularly is either meant to evoke a specific emotion, like using blue everywhere to represent sadness, or it’s meant to be a bold statement in an otherwise grayscale world.

I mentioned a few at the top of the post and I’ll elaborate on them here:

In Great Gatsby, green and yellow are very important colors. The “green light” is this real object at the end of the titular character’s love interest’s dock. This light and this color are motifs that represent Gatsby’s longing for Daisy and to return to a glorious past he can never have again (it’s also the color of American money). Yellow is also everywhere in this book. It’s the color of his chekov’s car and several dresses at his extravagant party. Yellow is the color of his current life of glitz and glam and riches (and is also the color of gold). If you listen to one of the accompanying songs to the 2013 film, Florence and the Machine’s “Over the Love” recognizes the importance of yellow in the narrative.

Dorothy’s red slippers in the Wizard of Oz are hyperbolically bold, especially since the movie starts out in black and white. Color is a huge piece of this film- the Emerald City, the Yellow Brick Road, the horse of many colors. Red scientifically is the color humans tend to notice first, those shoes were made to be remembered. Color in Wizard of Oz is the symbol of the fantastical, which was really helped by the time the film was made and simply seeing so much color on screen dazzled audiences.

Red catches your eye faster than any other color, and red in a world of black and white sticks in your mind, just look at Schindler’s List.

Belle from Beauty and the Beast, along with a lot of fictional women wear blue. Blue is biblically Mary’s color, and at one time was the color marketed to women before the shift to “blue for boys”. In the original Beauty and the Beast, Belle was the only character who wore blue, because she was an outsider, and outlier, a free-thinker. Or at least, Belle is the only one who wears blue until she dances with the Beast. The live-action remake didn’t maintain this extra level of the narrative and that’s a shame.

I didn't mention eye color much above (also maybe because racism) but blue eyes, especially animated blue and green eyes, go to characters who are more hopeful, heroic, nurturing, morally just, honest, or brave than their brown-eyed counterparts, unless he's a blue-eyed Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Blue-eyed people tend to be blond, so the traits go hand in hand for the "good" character.

Weirdly enough, this also applies to blue-eyed animal characters -- your animated anthropomorphised villain is rarely going to be drawn with eyes that aren't brown, black, green, red, orange, or yellow.

Because color is also a subliminal or overt way of foreshadowing in both written and visual media as much as any other motif and recurring symbol. You can foreshadow death, or impending doom, or an eventual identity reveal, whatever you want.

You can also subvert the usual associations with specific colors. Black doesn’t have to mean evil in your world. Black can be life, too. White doesn’t have to be pure, white can be clinical and sterile and lifeless (but please no more lady villains in white pantsuits, that's its own cliche at this point). Shake it up a bit every once in a while.

So whether it’s dueling ideologies or the very forces of good and evil, a harbinger of doom or a secret tell, or community and camaraderie, or an enduring hope, you can represent it all with a careful dose of color.

Plot Holes and How to Fill Them (Or, The Hidden Potential in Your Mistakes)

“But why didn’t they just do that earlier!”

“You can time travel – so time travel!”

“Doesn’t X have Y spell? Why aren’t they using it to escape?”

“You. Have. Telekinesis! How are you this stupid?”

Plot holes! The bane of every writer’s existence. You think you’ve polished your beautiful manuscript, you have it all sent out for the masses to consume and praise and shower with compliments and adoration… and then they start tugging at a thread that may or may not begin to unravel your entire story. You’ve read this thing top to bottom, forwards and backwards and upside down, so many times the letters are burned into your brain. You mumble your monologues in your sleep — how did you not see this? How do you fix this?

See this post about beginning the writing process that might help you avoid opening a plot hole entirely with a solid enough script and outline.

Types of Plot Holes

Your magic system’s established rules have just been broken for TeNSioN

Your Deus Ex Machina really did come out of nowhere and is quite out of character

Why doesn't Character just run away from a fight they can't win?

Characters forgetting they have superpowers, extreme intelligence, handy tools or weapons, survival skills, common sense, or crucial information to escape and/or solve a situation

Characters dying for the above mistakes when said death could have been avoided

The entire story could have been avoided had Character A just told Character B the truth

Character X should have known ___ all along given their profession/backstory/friend circle/education/personality

And variations of the above, I’m sure I’m missing a couple. Fixing plot holes generally come in two camps: Those you can fix by rewriting the existing manuscript that contains the hole, or those you have to work around from a previous manuscript that’s already been published.

Why Plot Holes Happen

Plot holes happen in reality. Expecting your first, second, or 15th draft to be completely foolproof is utter nonsense. Real people forget stuff they’re supposed to know all the time, tools that would be useful are left behind, GroupThink makes very bad decisions.

The difference is: You are writing fiction. Your goal is to be entertaining, not necessarily realistic. A character simply *forgetting* Macguffin X at the climax of the story does not make for an entertaining read, no matter how likely it might be to happen in the real world.

You’re making this entire world up as you go and that alone is an impressive feat millions of others can only dream about – cut yourself some slack, okay? Everything is fixable.

Plot holes also happen because we’re so engrossed in our own story that we forget it’s all made up. You’re 22 chapters into a 24 chapter novel and you’ve just realized your psychic hero would never have been caught unawares like this. “But that’s just how he is!”

No. Stop. That’s not just how he is. That’s just how you wrote him – and you can go back and un-write him. Any excuse you can dream up you can un-write, and unfortunately, you’ll likely have to do a fair bit of it if you still have the opportunity.

Plot holes generally open long after the inciting incident that causes them. If you’re going to fix it, duct-taping together a solution in that very same scene isn’t the way to do it. You have to figure out why it’s a hole at all, then go back and fix its foundations.

Finding Your Own Plot Holes

Sometimes you’re lucky enough to stumble upon them before it’s too late. A fair bit of the time, though, your audience has to tell you. Finding your own plot holes requires stepping back from your work and looking at it like you’re just a reader, not the author.

Read your plot out loud to yourself and keep asking questions like:

Does this make sense for the scene?

Does this only exist to look cool at the cost of logic?

Are these rules I wrote too easy to break or contradictory in any way?

Is there any other way for this character to escape this situation?

Is the only solution here too contrived?

That, and having an army of beta readers who should show you flaws you’ve overlooked. Even then, some things just aren’t obvious at all until someone too smart for their own good points out something no one else considered before.

It’s okay. It’s not the end of the world.

Filling Plot Holes

Fix your broken magic system

A “magic system” broadly describes any type of powers/abilities/supernatural entities that function in your world. They can be in high fantasy, urban fantasy, sci-fi, or any genre really. The Force is a magic system, as much as is bending in Last Airbender even if no one calls it “magic”.

For example: Force users are telekinetic… and yet don’t simply repeatedly spam the “chuck my enemies into a wall/off a cliff/anywhere that is away from me” button. It’s what you’d call a “soft” magic system, it doesn’t have explicit rules on how and when it can and should be used. It just *is*.

Fixing holes in your magic system first demands examining why you wrote it the way you did, why you gave it these specific rules, or why you didn’t, and all the ways characters should otherwise be able to use it when your story demands they get creative.

For soft magic systems — never let the magic system win the day. It invites far too much scrutiny. Gandalf from Lord of the Rings is a Wizard. He can do an undefined number of spells and has an unclear number of abilities and limit to his reach. Gandalf’s magic is never the saving grace of the Fellowship. So asking “why didn’t Gandalf just do X” isn’t ever a question people have because success never depends on Gandalf doing X.

Everyone hates on the time turner in Harry Potter, as they should. Time travel is essential to the plot of Prisoner of Azkaban, without it the heroes fail. And yet, because it is time travel, why it never existed earlier and why they never use it again to solve more massive plot problems is a valid question. As goes with many spells and abilities in the series.

For hard magic systems — remember that you wrote the rules, you can go back and change them at any time before it’s published. Bending in Last Airbender is rarely the focus of any conflict. Yes, two benders will fight each other, but it’s not “who’s the stronger bender,” it’s “who’s smarter with their element”. Who better uses their environment? Which one is racing against a clock before reinforcements arrive and overwhelm them? Which one runs the risk of exposing themselves if they start bending? Whose mental state is crippling their bending today?

These are all character-driven explanations for why certain abilities do or don’t manifest in a given scene… until the finale when it really is just a clash of red and blue aura lasers.

There is never a scene where a character is trapped when they shouldn’t be. Never a “why didn’t you just X” moment, because it’s never about the bending, it’s about the bender.

Turn plot-reasons into character-reasons

This means taking a “why don’t they just do X” and making the reason because one of the protagonists is morally against doing it, not because the hand of the author demands it.

In Last Airbender, Aang is vocally against simply killing the Fire Lord. It would be easier, it would risk far less casualties and carnage, it’s fastest. And yet. Aang doesn’t do it simply because he’s not strong enough or he doesn’t have some magical super weapon, or the stars have aligned and now he’s lost a very convenient ability – Aang doesn’t want to take the easy road because that’s who he is as a person.

He’s been raised as a monk to value the preservation of life above all else (ignoring any accidental casualties over the course of the series). Him being desperate to not simply kill Ozai is central to his character and even when he has the chance in the climax of the fight, he still doesn’t take it.

Now “why didn’t you do that earlier” does, still, concern the “energy bending” established out of nowhere just for the finale so Aang doesn’t have to compromise his morals to win… but the show is so damn good and Ozai’s just desserts so damn sweet it doesn’t really matter.

Making these plot decisions character decisions, so long as they are in-character, gives some juicy potential for schisms within Team Protagonist as fan favorites clash over ideals and morals and whether or not the greater good is worth them sacrificing something so central to their being.

This also applies to characters not sharing crucial information with each other. Make them distrustful of the others, or let them attempt it anyway and have some other consequence for the effort. Anything is better than a character sitting on valuable info simply to maintain the mystery.

Avoid Deus Ex Machinas

The “surprise reinforcement cavalry charge” is one of my favorite deus ex machinas in fantasy. Everybody cheers, it looks amazing, the music is swelling, our heroes on the battlefield realize they haven’t been forsaken by their friends, etc. In Lord of the Rings, yes, Theoden could have arrived 30 minutes earlier and saved even more lives, but we already knew he was on his way moving as fast as he could without exhausting his horses. Theoden’s army also took care of the bulk of the battle so when Aragorn arrives with the second surprise reinforcements, it’s less a decisive blow that comes out of nowhere and more the victory lap.

In “Battle of the Bastards,” Game of Thrones has its third surprise cavalry charge of the series, only this one much more explicitly comes to save the day. The difference between this scene and Theoden’s charge is: Audiences had no idea Littlefinger was on his way, and neither did Jon Snow. Had Sansa told him she had a plan, Jon could have waited. He wasn’t backed against a wall and forced to fight right then and there, he could have stalled an extra hour by just not showing up to the battlefield to wait for his cavalry. With Sansa inexplicably not telling him, she risked his life and the lives of his entire army because the hand of the writers wanted to keep it a surprise. Worst of all, when the battle is over, he compliments her decision, despite all the blood on her hands.

Surprise reinforcements, saviors, powers, and abilities always run the risk of “why didn’t they do that earlier” and you should be asking yourself the same question. If you can’t come up with an explanation other than “because it’ll look cool” go back to the drawing board.

Or, have your very own characters pissed that the savior didn’t just do that earlier. Have your characters ask where this special power was, have it mean something to them and the story at large. Had Jon been angry with Sansa, given their incredibly pyrrhic victory and the potentially avoidable death of their youngest brother, it might’ve made for some interesting character drama.

Give your saving graces deadly costs

“Why didn’t they just do X earlier?”

“Because doing X would have killed Character D, dummy.”

Giving your super special magic, mutant, super, or supernatural powers costs, drawbacks, and limitations forces the characters who use them to not resort to them every single chance they get. Their magic drains their physical stamina, or the demon they made a deal with camping in their brain threatens to overtake their psyche, or the sword is cursed and every time the hero raises it in battle, they lose a little piece of themselves. Or, using this creepy power strains their relationship with their friends or community.

Without risk and consequences, you cannot avoid “why didn’t they do that earlier,” because the only answer you have to give is “because I, the author, said so.” The only time a character is allowed to have selective amnesia about their superpowers is if it’s been established beforehand as a potential problem. Then it’s not “this came out of nowhere.” Then your audience is dreading the entire time waiting for that chekhov’s gun to fire.

Don’t compromise your story for sensationalism

I can complain about ~subverting expectations~ in another post, but what I mean here is this: Are you writing this scene purely for shock value, for the sake of a twist, because a story this grim demands at least one character death, or because it’s going to look epic?

In this post about pacing and this post about how to write tone, I talked about making your scenes pull double duty. You can write a scene for shock and awe, but if it’s at the expense of a character’s integrity or intelligence, come up with another way to make it spectacular.

You want the villain to monologue to give the heroes time to save the world? Then write a villain with an ego and personality that would monologue. You want the hero to be a one-man-army? Then write their personality as the lone wolf type and have it be a flaw of theirs that they keep striking out alone, consequences be damned.

You absolutely need the hero to not take the easy road and fight the bad guy without using their most effective weapon? Give them a reason to stall this fight. Maybe they really do need to simply run out a clock, or they don’t actually want to kill/subdue their opponent, or in doing so, the villain’s death is what causes the Bad Thing to happen.

If I write a character that can kill with just a look, every time I put them in a dangerous situation I need to then justify why they don’t do that over and over again, unless it’s by their own stubborn integrity that they choose not to.

If I write a villainous plan so devious and well thought out, the only thing standing in the way is living protagonists? I need a reason the villain doesn’t just murder the heroes every chance they get. Maybe they’re internally struggling over actually going through with it, or their ego demands the hero doesn’t get a quick or honorless death, or they do actually need a living hero for the plan to work.

Fixing Plot Holes in Sequels

All of the above is advice for issues within the same manuscript. What happens if you’ve already published and have the chance to address a known plot hole in the sequel?

About the worst thing you can do is slap in a throwaway line or hasty explanation to cover your ass. Everyone reading and watching will notice. Saying nothing is better than saying that.

See the duct-tape in Rise of Skywalker when the heroes explained that they couldn't just hypersspace-jump another ship into the enemy fleet because it worked so horribly effectively last time. Doesn't matter that they could have put it on autopilot or sacrificed a droid, or that, at any point in the history of Star Wars, someone else could have and should have done this desperate maneuver. For the sake of "looking cool" it opened an entire sinkhole.

Less a “hole” and more an inconsistency — the pegasus Blackjack in Percy Jackson is explicitly a mare, a female horse, in one book, and then inexplicably male in later books. Why? Well the author made a mistake, simple as that. He did *not* attempt to explain this error away or dig the hole deeper. It just is. Though I’m not sure why Blackjack couldn’t just stay a mare and how he didn’t reference the previous book when writing the sequel is a bit baffling.

If your heroes can no longer use the Deus Ex Machina they used before – have them attempt to use it, and then come up with a solid reason why it’s not possible. Maybe it was one-time use, or the savior simply doesn’t want to, or the cost/risk is too high to attempt it again, or it simply can’t be found and it’s very frustrating.

Have the heroes be morally opposed to doing what they did before, or overconfident, or skeptical that it will even work again only for that choice to bite them in the ass later. Have the magic item all used up, the recipe to recreate it lost to history. There’s a hundred better excuses than the hand of the author simply saying so.

—

If you aren’t going to write a sequel and you accept living with the plot hole unfilled… chances are people are going to love the story despite its flaws. Harry Potter is the poster child of “why didn’t they use X spell to solve the problem” or “they have a spell for X, yet they don’t have a spell for Y?” and how many people love that story?

In the end, a plot hole can be tiny or massive and chances are the story you told is entertaining enough to make up for it. It’s just a story, it’s just fiction. Learn from your mistakes so the next piece you create is even better.

This is so true, it's only a matter of perspective.

“I don’t think there is any truth. There are only points of view.”

— Allen Ginsberg

The person who re-blogged this wants you to know that they are open to questions regarding their spiritual path, witchcraft and faith, and in fact, would love to talk about their spiritual path with you and have a casual talk!!

(this applies to me pspspsps HMU , don't hesitate, i am always open to respectful discussion of our spiritual paths and just being friends!!)

Help guys I'm so fat. Look at those thighs, they take up a lot of space. Meanspo is very welcome, as you see I need it.

I've realized that counting calories doesn't really do much for me. I just simply cannot stop eating. Does any one have any other methods, or tips for me. They're all welcome no matter how extreme.

Don't report, just block, you're not helping trust me.

Pro for me not for thee

Norse Magic: A Simplified Introduction

The terms “seiðr”, “spá”, and “galdr” are a few of the terms that get thrown around when discussing Norse magic. What do all of these words mean?

For starters, “seiðr”, “spá”, and “galdr” are not different words for the same type of practice. While these can all fit together, and usually those that do one often do the other, they each hold individual roles in Norse magic.

Seiðr

Seiðr, at its basic form, is trance induced magic that can be done while soul traveling the nine worlds. You can alter your destiny or even affect the destiny of others. If you are familiar with chaos magic, seiðr is like a school of shamanistic chaos magic (for example you can control your reality through actions done in trance work instead of through sigils). You can make use of energy work and heal yourself or others, alter someone’s opinion, thoughts, or actions concerning a certain situation, and even commune with the gods themselves and act as a channel for them to speak through. There is so much more concerning seiðr that can’t be covered in this paragraph, but will be expanded upon in future entries.

Spá

Spá or spá-craft is the art of seeing one’s fate. Just like the work of a seer, a spákona or spámaðr is able to tap into the threads of one’s fate, seeing what is to come or what they and their ancestors have experienced in the past.

Galdr

Galdr, meaning “incantation”, is the practice that uses the chants or songs of runes when practicing runic magic. Since you are working with focused vibrational energy, the practice of galdr can be extremely powerful when used properly.

While these are tremendously simplified descriptions of tremendously complex practices, it’s a good jumping off point for the different articles I’m going to write that will further explain them in detail. In future entries, I’ll start with discussing the foundations of seiðr and sharing ways in which you can start learning how to utilize it in your practice. Eventually, I will have articles concerning spá-craft and galdr. I look forward to sharing what I’ve experienced with everyone!

Guys I over ate as shit today. I ate over 500 kcal more than my max, which is 1000 kcal. I need to stop treating myself with food. I need to earn food, yes, but it's not a reward. It's a necessity which you need to earn. Enough to survive, no more.

I do need to say those chocolate eggs are so good though, I'm addicted. And why the fuck er the fuck is bread, meat and my dam coffee so high kcal why? And fruit too like why? My life is a lie.

Send me meanspo or questions please, I'm bored, need inspiration and it's fun. Requests are open too.

And pro for me not for thee

And don't report me, just block

You're not doing anything you're just irritating as fuck

That rhymes, and was the only reason why I said fuck in that sentence.

Me equals fat

Thanks for listening to this presentation

And remember pro for me not for thee

guys i need advice

ive been clean off sh for a while but i need a way to punish myself for eating/binging

PSA

Apparently tumblr is gonna start using blogs to train AI, and of course I only found out on a whole other site and personally I don’t like my stuff being used for AI.

You can opt out for this by going to your blog settings, scrolling down to visibility and selecting to opt out.

But you will have to do this for all of your blogs, both main and side accounts.

(My examples are from the app)

(Link here for the original post I saw/info)

1298 kcal today. I really don't know what to say. I'm tired all the time, I don't know what to do with my life. I've got a lot to do, but I can't even do some of those. I enjoy life as well, if only I was different. If only my life would be different. But it isn't I have to life with that. I sometimes have sudden motivations for things, and other times I'm depleted of energy. My bike rides to and from school have been getting harder and harder. As is getting up and down the stairs.

I don't get why though, as I haven't been losing weight I think. So I don't know. Maybe some shit has finally caught up with me. I've been looking up against some things, like almost scared even. I've been sort of betrayed by now exfriends. Which I should have seen coming, we were to different. I can't really hate them though, I'm surprised I even have friends lol.

And sorry for the rant, but also kinda not sorry. I hope yall didn't read this shit if you weren't interested.

My birthday is almost though, so that's fun. Does anyone have an idea about what I should ask for my birthday?

Or does anyone have any other questions, or have any meanspo to share? Please send them.

I've eaten around 1267 calories today. Which is much less than yesterday, but still to much. Really I'm not really learning that going over my limit is a bad thing. Does anyone know how to fix that? Most help is welcome, especially meanspo.

Why You Should Search The Public Domain | Keeping Art History Alive

Whether you’re a crafter looking for decorative designs for journals and paper projects, or a college student searching for inexpensive materials for DIY decor, the public domain is the way to go.

Here are some of the best uses I’ve found as a paper crafter using Artvee.com

Faux ephemera for junk journals.

Notebook Covers

Bookmarks

Wrapping Paper

Mini Zines

Art Study

Stickers

Collages

Home Decor/ Framing

Art Inspiration

Mellow Story

Posts — Mellow Story

Posts — Mellow Story

Guys 1434 kcal today. I feel like a massive blob of fat. Like 1000 kcal is my limit, which still is a lot. So how hard can it be? I did take some fotos. Feel free to send meanspo to this fatass.

And remember: I'm pro for me, not for thee

Don't report, just block. You're not helping if you do, I'll just find another way.

Guys I'm far over my limit today. My limit is 1000 calories, which still is a lot. I ate around 1500 calories today. I just couldn't stop eating, I have no self discipline. Please send meanspo, I need it.

Guys it's almost my birthday, and I need inspiration as to what to ask for. Please comment down any ideas. I'm turning 16 by the way.

I have tagged a few hobbies/obsessions, so if this turns up in your tags that's why.