#Sensory Details

[storiesgoeveron]

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[allnovellas]

Descriptive Writing: Breathing Life into Your Words

Descriptive writing is a literary tool that breathes life into your narrative. It paints vivid pictures in the minds of your readers, immerses them in the world you’ve created, and heightens their emotional engagement with your story. Yet, mastering the art of descriptive writing can be a challenging endeavor. This guide aims to demystify the process, equipping you with valuable techniques to…

[thenalexica]

different ways different genres approach character inner monologue

Literary Fiction:

Tastes trigger old memories Notices class differences at parties Scattered thoughts when stressed Really aware of tiny details Childhood memories pop up randomly Fighting between what's right and what's wanted

Thriller/Mystery:

Watches how suspects act Remembers similar past cases Quick math during chases Always checking surroundings Mixes cop-talk with self-doubt Deciding if bad choices are worth it

Romance:

Notes every flutter and touch Compares new love to old hurts Overthinks social media stalking Worries about future problems Knows they're messing things up Sees dating patterns repeat

Fantasy:

Feels magic draining energy Thinks about breaking old rules Sees/hears differently than humans Plans spells under pressure Gets flashes of ancestor's lives Struggles with power's temptation

Horror:

Questions what's real Stops explaining weird things Fights between fear and logic Notices missing memories Feels something taking over Watching own morals change

Sci-Fi:

Reads robot parts' data Calculates multiple futures Thinks like an alien Mind warps from time travel Half-human, half-computer thoughts Brain adapts to quantum weird

[xokp]

Lostalgia

View this post on Instagram A post shared by AESTHETIC LOGOPHILE | ANNIE (@aesthetic_logophile) Sometimes I look back on my childhood Summers visiting my mother’s extended family in Blasdell, New York near Buffalo and realize that so much of what was there is gone. Primarily some of the people, but also some of the buildings, parks, homes that I used to visit. When I dwell on it, it can become…

[salamispots]

it got turned into a 17" x14" pillow instead haha

[ancientroyalblood]

The Art of Flashbacks: Using Past Events to Enrich Your Story

In the tapestry of storytelling, the past is not a forgotten thread but a vibrant color that infuses depth and meaning into the narrative. Flashbacks are the writer’s brushstrokes, allowing the past to be a living part of the present story. However, the art of using flashbacks goes beyond mere chronological shifts. It involves a thoughtful, deliberate process of weaving past events into the…

[dfmapa]

How to Bring Your Writing to Life: The Magic of Sensory Details

Writing is an art that allows you to create entire worlds and stories with just a pen and paper, or in our modern age, a keyboard and screen. But have you ever wondered how some writers manage to transport you to another place, making you feel like you’re a part of the narrative? The secret lies in the skillful use of sensory details. Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash Sensory details are the…

[ahb-writes]

Homeostasis || Unconventional Senses and Sensory Attributes

❯ ❯ Homeostasis

To wit, it's "any process that living things use to actively maintain fairly stable conditions necessary for survival," per Scientific American. Achieving homeostasis relies on a convergence of multiple senses.

More critically, achieving homeostasis also means maintaining stability despite an array of conflicting stressors or environmental characteristics (which themselves influence hormone secretion and sensitivity). Hunger? Thirst? Sweat? Blood pressure? In terms of what the body requires, homeostasis concerns regulatory mechanisms or processes that enable one to dynamically maintain steady-state conditions. Anticipatory feedforward mechanisms initiate advantageous and predictive responses to keep the body healthy (or, healthy enough).

Never underestimate the value of negative feedback mechanisms (i.e., change or error signaling; disturbances of the "normal range" of critical feedback), and never overlook the danger of having a time lag in repairing otherwise natural or effective systems once they're damaged (i.e., disturbance or departure from equilibrium).

❯ ❯ Adapted from a senses-writing masterpost: 15 Unconventional Senses and Sensory Attributes

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

As an autistic person, I wish I could convey how much energy it takes to exist…

Neurodivergent_lou

[haematoclan]

Considering Leo is the only one wearing makeup and a wig in Operation Normal despite complaining about Donnie's usual choice of disguises I wonder...

[tired-reader-writer]

To actually elaborate on the autistic Farangis headcanon thing now that I finally have a couple hours' sleep and a nice refreshing shower under my belt, while I definitely do not think she was supposed to be seen that way by either Tanaka or Arakawa— I'm sure she was only meant to be… *gestures* what she is in canon, I'm yeeting that far, far away from me. 

My City Now. 

So we know Farangis was very likely ostracized by fellow priestesses before the start of the story. After all, she says:

“...At any rate, it was likely just a way to get rid of a nuisance. My fellow priestesses are jealous of me for being so beautiful, talented, and skilled in both academics and in battle. I'm certain that they have used the last wish of the deceased as a pretense for throwing me out of the temple.” —manga, chapter 12

×

“A woman of talent, who like me is graced with beauty and proficient in arts both scholarly and martial, shall be begrudged by her peers. Using the fulfillment of the deceased’s will as an excuse, they chased me away from the temple. I wonder if you understand, Sir Minstrel.” —novel, chapter 4 part 5

(Interestingly, novel!Farangis also says, “Those who leave such wills never consider what trouble they may cause for the people they leave behind.” and is that a hint of resentment/exasperation she expresses here? It's completely absent from the manga version but ANYWAYS—)

So there's very definite evidence of her not fitting in with her peers, but it's the reasoning I take a little issue with. Nothing wrong with a confident woman who knows she's Hot Shit, but the framing does bother me juuuust a teeny little bit. Her temple peers feel less like shitty but ultimately realistic people, and more like caricatures? It felt like an “all the other jealous bitches HATED her for being too awesome and pretty” thing, which… I mean, Farangis being shunned for her autistic behavior wouldn't make those peers better people or god forbid justify their treatment of her, but I thought it would be interesting to reframe the situation a bit and also project my own experiences on her. (After all, what are blorbos for if not projecting your trauma and issues upon them?)

We've seen how blunt she is, and how little of a shit she gives towards societal and formal conventions. She certainly doesn't seem like it at first glance, especially not next to Gieve, because in comparison to him she just feels like the epitome of rule-following formality. Buuuut. There's nuance to that. 

We see her bluntness in the way she gives Bahman a dressing down before the expedition to Sindhura— judging from Bahman's reaction (“why should I, a marzbān, be scolded by a kahina from the countryside?!”), it suggests a status discrepancy that societal norms should dictate that she not have the right to speak to a marzbān that way. But she does. Because she doesn't give a shit. 

It is a common perception of autistic people that they're either extremely rule-following or that they “don't understand” rules and instructions, and… okay, this is gonna be a lot of spitballing since for a number of reasons (mainly how I was constantly compared to my officially diagnosed and very detectably autistic brother as the “normal” one by my family, mainly where it concerns me being disallowed from autistic behavior where my brother was allowed since I was the “normal” sibling and it's been stuck with me my whole life and I'm… still in the process of unpacking everything and I still feel very disconnected from autistic communities and I feel like an imposter anyways that was one heck of a ramble) I am still dealing with much uncertainty in wading through my very own autism, it's very anecdotal, so. Yeah. Anyways— from what I've experienced and what I've seen of other people's anecdotes, while it is true that rules and routine can help us interact with and make sense of the world around us, autistic people will straight up reject some rules they feel are hypocritical or inconsistent. I've seen autistic people say that they do see the rules, they just go “well that's stupid I'm not doing that” and refuse to follow. Of course, I don't mean to say that there's no difficulty in understanding because gods know I'm terrible at catching social cues. And end up being extremely rude on accident. It's a complicated thing.

So how I see a younger Farangis is that, as a child, she finds it difficult to care about some things, her bluntness pisses people off even if she well and truly didn't mean anything bad by it, just pointing out something she thought was obvious, or calling out unfair things. Her difficulty in parsing social cues and such creates a rift between her and her peers in the temple. (I swear, growing up a neurodivergent child, it's like everyone could somehow tell I was some sort of Different Freak™, and I constantly felt like I was playing a game whose rules everybody except me knew. It was as though I was constantly emitting a Neurodivergent Miasma��� or I had a neon sign blaring from me that I was “Not Normal™” that alerted people and allowed them to exclude me at every turn, it was such an experience.)

I want to emphasize that this would not put Farangis in the wrong, and under no circumstances would she have been deserving of such bullying, in case anyone takes this the wrong way. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just trying to project and relate to a character I like because I thought this made sense.

There is also the factor of grief. She was at the very least eight years old when she was sent to the Temple of Mithra after her parents' death, so it's very likely that she was a tiny little child who was actively grieving her parents and the life she used to have. And children don't have the experience and emotional maturity to process their feelings, so they can lash out or act in “undesirable” ways since they have Very Big Feelings and very little way to express them maturely. I don't think her time in the Temple was a particularly good experience, even setting aside the whole Aghriras debacle (which isn't making it into the manga, I'm pretty sure, and never has the chance to happen in my AU, so I'm not gonna be discussing that). 

So imagine a young child who has just lost her parents being put into this unfamiliar place, where perhaps rules that are not explicitly stated but which everyone is nevertheless expected to follow. Hierarchies that are entirely unfair. I recall novel part 2 spoilers that detail how Alfarīd and Farangis infiltrated a temple for some investigative work? And I recall how it detailed that priestesses get harassed and apprentice priests/priestesses get heaped with chores and stuff just because of their junior status. I might be remembering wrong though, so do tell me if that's the case! But anyways, for a young child, an apprentice priestess, to be exposed to that kind of nonsense, I believe Farangis would've pushed back against it one way or another, and generally being not a fan of what she sees as nonsensical, arbitrary, and unfair rules. Neurodivergent people tend to have a stronger sense of justice and fairness, after all. And her “rebellious misbehavior” as a child could've given people an excuse to pick on her or shun her. I think she dedicated herself to her training and studies as a sense of routine, to cope with… everything, basically.

Here is another quote from Farangis that stood out to me:

“Let us say that Mithra's will and my own thoughts are in agreement.” — from that same conversation with Bahman

I think they showcase her relationship to rigid norms quite well. She is devoted to Mithra, genuinely and wholeheartedly (I do have to wonder if Mithra being a yazata of covenants, light, oaths, justice, contracts, and friendship played a role in her connection to the deity aside from the fact that she was raised in a temple of Mithra, maybe she felt more of a connection because she had a higher justice sensitivity and wanted something she could actually make sense out of), but she isn't devoted to her patron deity for the sake of it, the way she framed and phrased that is so interesting to me. I've seen someone say, “Rules are good if they are fair, reasonable, sensible, and easy to follow, and enforced uniformly by someone who is capable of being a fair and discerning judge.” and I think that's at least in part what's happening here, at least how I interpret it in a way that I can connect with. Your interpretation might differ! 

Anyways, this post is such an incoherent mess, maybe I didn't get enough sleep as I thought I did, but let me know what you guys think! Farangis is a character I've kinda seen myself in (and admire, because she's awesome) but I hadn't put my headcanons and interpretation of her character into words before, especially not in a lengthy post like this. This is a headcanon that is very dear to my heart! I wish we got more insight on what her life was like before the start of the story, I felt like it just got mentioned and then dropped— never to be seen or mentioned again— but I guess it means it's Free Real Estate for me to draw whatever kind of picture that I want. 

[dotsunflowers]

thinking more about disability in severance, and Bassam Sidiki's article about s1 now that we are at the midpoint of s2

Sidiki writes about the severance procedure as a process of capacitation — "If memory or nostalgia is a form of disability that capitalism both produces and shuns, then Mark’s traumatic memory of his dying wife is a problem that must be rectified [...] The home itself is a liability—nay, a disability—of capitalism"

in s2 we see how this analysis also applies to dylan, who's outie has various obligations and pressures beyond work (a relationship with his wife, caretaker of his children, needing to be able to secure health insurance for his family) and has had trouble maintaing employment. one aspect of the severance procedure for him is a capacitation — these pressure are removed, and he excels at his job in MDR

historical legal definitions of disability were defined by level of capacity for work — Sidiki notes that in US "Social Security law, “disabled” refers to someone who cannot engage inwork activity due to medical reasons" and that historically, "Because disabled bodies are not as exploitable to capitalism as nondisabled ones, they are shunned, segregated, and isolated from the workforce."

by attempting to remove disability, then, Lumon is attempting to make non-disabled workers that are exploitable in practically every way. they don't entirely succeed in this, though, as we see in season 1.

disability still finds a way in. the environment itself is disabling (see helly s1, esp. eps 4 & 5). outie!irving's disruptive tactic is to disable his innie by making it so he experiences overwhelming fatigue, so innie!irving can't help but sleep on the job. as soon as Lumon makes one slip and lets the outie/home world in (dylan ep 6), dylan can't think of anything else. he has been discapacitated.

and this is how the seeds of a rebellion (the OTC) are sown.

and so all of them have now gotten glimpses of their outside worlds.

and so (tl;dr) that's what i'm thinking about, in season 2. now that innie!irving has been killed. now that all of them have experienced the outside world, puncturing holes in lumon's capacitation experiments. now that all of them are dealing with various new traumas.

now that outie!mark has fully decided to mess with the system — and in order to do so, now finds himself with a live-in brain surgeon and pillbox full of daily meds.

yes there is plenty to say about a season touted as the adolescent season, touted as featuring not just romance but love triangles and quadrangles and shapes we've never seen on tv before.

but is this also the season of letting disability/disabling factors in? of our bodies are not meant for this system? if individualism won't save us? if we need to try and understand interdependence and precarity and entropy rather than lean away from it?

[jaggedteeth]

hey google how do i google 'how to stop feeling violently ashamed of my body post-weight gain' without being fed a bunch of fatphobic ableist bullshit

[possessable]

now my greatest challenge, Can I Write A Thousand Words Consisting Entirely of C-Angus repeatedly dipping his head in and out of the fluid in his tank because he likes hearing how it gets less muffled when not submerged and still make it interesting

yes

[not-so-local-lesbian]

Absolutely fucking disgusting that I need a permanent flesh wrap external organ, which also doubles as a lint roller for bacteria, to live!!!

I am now starting a riot against skin. @blashdafish , you are my second in command.

[lanternfields]

alright that's it I got sick of writing this since I just lost interest in writing this scene that's going to be in my beneath the mind au and I'm probably going to change it final product anyway! I have been writing and rewriting this shit of an attempt at angst back in early december and I just NEED to post this now so I can move on get to writing my main thing and have this first attempt to stop looming over my shoulders

so yeah this is unfinished but if you still want to read it enjoy

――――

John Dory sat in the corner of Gilded Hall, his knees curled up against his chest while he arms just rested atop his knees. A glass of gin in his hand, its contents nearly gone. The slight burning sensation still at the back of his throat. Tears sat at the edges of his eyes, his vision blurry as he swept over the room. The crowd before him was just an amalgamation of colors pressed against with each other. In some corners of his vision, he could make out some of the blurred colors as members of his root, the vanguard.

The closest thing he could get as faces of the color blurred crowd. John barely had any colors left. His colors had long ago faded from its brightness, now it just a muted speck of what it once was. Nearly grey. Now left to linger on the edges. He had known rationally he wasn't the only troll whose colors had faded away who was there in the hall, yet as he tried to look once again despite his vision betraying him, he couldn't find even one other muted spec among the crowd.

Not that it really mattered tonight

Tonight's gathering was supposed to happy for everyone, they had finally started making progress in their cause of stopping Thrash in his campaign of uniting all of the sub-genres and musical tribes under one genre: rock. And it seemed to work, from the beginning of the night, everyone celebrated over their victory. Keeping morale high. Something that John should've have been happy about.

And at the beginning he thought he was happy but after a while all John Dory could think about, since they took back those musical colonies from Thrash, were just all of the things that could have been done better. What he could've―no what he should've done better to help. The lives that were lost in that siege, the injuries other vanguard members sustained that he should've have prevented, and so many small things, he shouldn't be worked up on. Wani getting shot in the leg while they were running, a stray screech's bomb heading towards a bunch of cadets he was near to, and every casualty he counted in the aftermath. And in every one of those moments he failed in stopping something bad from happening.

He couldn't stop Wani from getting shot in her leg, he didn't hear that bomb coming in until it was only seconds away from those cadets, and finally he couldn't lessen the amount of casualties that they had suffered. John brought his knees a bit closer to his chest as he recounted those moments. A deep weary sigh coming out of the troll. His grip on the glass in his hand tensed― as John drank the last bit of alcohol remaining. The burning sensation returned to the back of his throat. Along with a heaviness settling deeper in his chest and his back slouching a bit towards his propped knees. John Dory closed his eyes, giving in to the building weight of his eyelids. A small break from the color blurred room and figures.

He just was exhausted in every way possible.

And he was sitting here, all the while those who didn't make it out the siege could never smile or breath in relief for the respite they have now in the hall―there were so many trolls missing from the celebration in front of him. And for a fleeting moment, a small voice, one he that vaguely resembled his mother's, stirred up― 'Go join them' it said, to be there in the place of the dead.

But that didn't sit right with John.

'Why should I?' he thought, when he didn't do as much as he needed to do and the things he did manage to get done... they weren't good enough.