#informal writing

[prolibytherium]

One of my all time biggest pet peeves with historical(ish) fantasy is when the writer constructs a religion with a clear bias that it's stupid and false and therefore only the Stupid People and/or commoners believe in it and all the smart/elite main characters are like, quasi-atheists or otherwise just routinely flout established religious conventions of orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy because they're Too Smart for it or etc.

It's usually an extension of assumptions that people in the past were just less intelligent than in the contemporary, just being like "I know that the sun is a star millions of miles away that the earth orbits, but this ancient religion describes it as a chariot flying through the sky" and not really bothering to learn the context and just (consciously or subconsciously) settling on 'that's a crazy thing to think and was probably believed in because they were Stupid'.

And that whole attitude pisses me off so much. People were as 'smart' 10,000 years ago as they are today. These beliefs aren't just desperate, random flailing to explain phenomena that could not directly be accounted for either, it's not like people just looked at the sun and went "Uhhh I don't know what the fuck that thing is, actually. I guess it might be a chariot or a boat or something?? Yeah let's go with that." and based entire religious practices on this. Every well-established belief system exists within broader contexts of cultural values/subjective perceptions of reality/knowledge systems/etc, and exist as part of a historical continuum of religious practices that came before. Even when not Materially Correct, they have context and internal logic, they're not always dead literal with zero levels of allegory, and they're never a result of stupidity.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

[zwoelffarben]

Edit: A writer's strike has not started. The Guild's membership has just authorized one in the cause that Guild reps and studio executives cannot come to an agreement on the contract.

Don't pull out the spirit holloween banners yet, is all I'm saying.

Edit 2, circa May 1, 2023: The studios have refused to negociate with the writers' guild in good faith, leaving the guild no choice but to strike.

A WGA STRIKE HAS BEGUN.

[0-memento-mori-0]

So how come I haven’t seen anybody talking about Wade fixing Logan’s ruined X-Man Uniform after the movie ??

Come on, he talks about how important that suit was to him as his only reminder of his friends, and the sleeves are ruined, the top is ripped off, and it’s covered in blood by the end of the movie. BUT, who had an entire montage of making his iconic suit and fine tuning it in the first movie ? Who knows how to sew, fix, and make a super suit actually DECENTLY and knows to remove blood stains with seltzer water and lemon??

What I’m saying is, Logan being scared Wade will ruin what tiny scraps he has left of that suit when Wade offers to fix it, and he actually fixes it perfectly, complete with the iconic sleeveless version because “those guns need to be free to breathe for the good of the world, we just saved it, I’m not covering those and risking it all again”

Play with that as you please

[strawbuddy-luv]

Thinking about Tim accidently adopting Maps the same way Bruce adopted him-

Like Maps showing up to save Tim's ass, because he's losing in a fight (that he should definitely be winning but "fOr sOmE rEaSoN" isn't). Afterwards Tim's like "Kid you cannot be out here", but Maps ends up following him around, as he tries to escape via rooftops, and after like 30 minutes of convincing, Tim is (partially forced) to bring her back to his house(/Nest) because "She has no where to sleep :(". And then two seconds after she lays down to nap Tim calls Jason in a panic

When Jason shows up Tim just opens the door to reveal a child sleeping on his couch.

Jason: ...You really are a Bruce mini, you're stealing children now Timbit?

Tim, slightly hysterical: No, no no, its worse than that. She showed up in the middle of a fight, that I was totally winning, saved my ass, revealed she knows who I am, demanded she become my protégé, claimed I was "a danger to myself and others" and I "Needed someone to ground me like Robin grounds Batman", and then she gaslit me into bringing her back to my house.

Jason:

Jason: Oh my God she's just like you

Tim: SHES JUST LIKE ME!

[caspercryptid]

Hello everyone I am so unbelievably pissed about the NaNoWriMo situation that i'm going to take my massive stack of writing and craft books and my English degree and channel all my rage into making an email newsletter to send craft-oriented writing prompts and tips during the month of November. Say No to NaNoWriMo, but yes to WriMo. You get it.

I'm not going to make this have the same goals as Nanowrimo-- I'm not reskinning it but less ableist, I just really think having a whole month where people focused on their work is pretty cool and I want to keep up that spirit. This is going to be informal and run by Just Me, though I'll make a discord server if it's clear there's interest. Direct questions to @nowrimomo , which I literally just made and so will look like a skeleton currently.

I'm going to include prompts from various professional sources with options for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Fanfic, so everybody can get in on this. It doesn't matter what you write, but we should all Write More.

[housedyke]

The thing about Buffy is that it's been thoroughly established that she doesn't do casual sex. She rejects guys in high school who move too fast too soon, is devastated when she find out there isn't anything emotional between her and Parker, and makes no non-magical attempt to sleep with people she isn't in a relationship with

So option 1 is that she's decided Spike, of all people, will be the first time she has casual, no-feelings sex. Or, option 2, she knows they have some weird fucked up relationship but doesn't want to say it out loud

[lovegasmic]

Making satoru squirt and him making fem reader squirt. I'm dying for some switch content

⭒ mdni. mutual overstimulation, whiney Satoru my beloved. ( i had to pause writing at least 5 times to scream in my pillow ) please read the first two tags lmao

“b-baby, p-plea-se, I can’t, not anymore, a-ah!” Satoru sobs quite loudly to be honest, his eyes are glossy and filled with tears, the rim of them slightly reddened and matching the color of his bitten lips from endless hours of overstimulation. you’ve probably sucked the strength out of him through his dick, since his hands weakly push against your forehead in a failed attempt to keep you away from his throbbing length, “j-just pull it out, ah-a!”

“how many so far?” you giggle, pulling his cock out between your lips with a loud pop and getting in return a grateful sigh out of your boyfriend, one that doesn’t last long as your palm comes to rub circular motions on his tip, smearing the remaining cum all over the swollen flesh.

“d-dunno... ngh! haa, it’s too much!” he chokes on his own sobs, arching against the couch backrest so his heaving chest glistens with sweat under the living room lightbulb, his thighs squeeze your sides tightly, kicking and fighting the intense mixture of pain and pleasure running through his flustered pale body from the tip of his cock. you’ve never seen your boyfriend so worked up and overstimulated, all whiney —more than usual if you had to admit— but he looked absolutely cute begging for mercy.

“just one more, c’mon, and i’ll let you go” you smirk pressing your lips to the underside of his messy cock, feeling the veins throb under your tongue and palm warm up from where it continues to rub on his tip.

“n-no! stop please, feels weird!” Satoru begs, his body curving so he hovers over your body, so close to your face you’re able to watch his eyes open wide in shock, panting loudly and holding onto your hair for support barely seconds away from half screaming and shooting a translucent and diluted cum-like liquid in hard jets that landed on your face and the floor.

“wha—” you mutter back, staring in surprise at how your boyfriend’s body flops back against the couch, breathing heavily as if he just ran a marathon, “Satoru... did you just squirt? ” it comes out as a giggle, still dumbfounded from what just happened.

he doesn’t reply, and you’re a bit worried that he might have fainted, deciding to sit on his lap and observe his unfocused eyes staring up at the ceiling.

“Toru?” you softly slap his cheek, biting back a grin “are you dead?”

your boyfriend is a box of surprises, that’s for sure, but something that never failed to amaze you, even though you’re well aware of, is his incredible strength and stamina, yes, he might look all brain fried right now, but you should have expected for him to flip you over in the blink of an eye, pushing you underneath his body and spread on the couch with one leg over the backrest and the other bent so far it almost touched your ear.

“i told you to stop” Satoru growls, hands hooking under your thighs, positively bending you in half with his fattening cock dangerously close to your dripping cunt.

you laugh breathlessly, pushing the damp hair out of his eyes and slicking it back to watch how his bright blue eyes are now slightly darkened and almost disappearing around his blown out pupils, “please..., that was so fucking hot”

“we’ll see if you say the same after I make you squirt and beg” his voice is erratic, deeper and a bit dangerous, barely giving you time to process his words before he’s plunging deep into your pussy with a broken moan, he might act all dominant now, but the way his thighs shook and cock twitch told another story.

“don’t exaggerate! it wasn’t t-that ba-ah!” you get to mutter, cut by Satoru’s hard and precise thrusts inside your sopping wet cunt, moving in frenzy while choked out sobs came out of his mouth, drunk in the feeling of your tight hole squeezing him.

“so good, oh my fucking god!” your boyfriend moans, caging your body underneath his by pressing almost his whole weight on top of you, allowing only his hips to fuck into you with a loud wet sound from where his balls slam against your slick coated ass, barely rising before he’s back deep inside your walls, continuously slamming directly against your g-spot.

“S-satoru, i’m sorry alright, b-but please! slow down!” you cry out, begs falling on deaf ears as the man thrusts never falter, continuously driving you insane, and himself into the border of crying from fucking his overstimulated sensitive cock inside your pretty pussy.

“ah, ah! i’m gonna cum again” he sobs, ignoring your screams and nails digging on his back, and instead wrapping his arms around your thighs, bending you in half as he mounted you with whines and whimpers coming out of his lips, “uh, feels amazing, i’m going insane” is the last thing Satoru says before digging his teeth in your neck and cumming drily inside your pussy, the position causing his cock to bump and twitch directly against your g-spot and forcing your own orgasm out.

a loud beep rang in your ears at the same time your eyes clouded, unaware of the force of your own squirt gushing out and dropping from Satoru’s toned chest and flushed cock, you couldn’t hear a sound, but were certain you screamed quite loudly, only a couple of minutes after, once he knew you were a bit more lucid Satoru dared exhale a soft “payback” directly against your ear.

[ahb-writes]

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (News and Media)

News and Media Worldbuilding Questions:

What spreads information – newspapers, websites, pamphlets, word-of-mouth, a technologically advanced communications system?

What is considered newsworthy in this world?

Who owns each news platform (are they public or private, impartial or propagandistic/biased)?

Who are the public figures most often scrutinized in news networks (and why)?

Where do the most significant or newsworthy events happen in this world (and to where does their news reach)?

Where does the typical person go to find out what’s happening in their immediate community, or the wider world? Can they find this out?

When have investigative reports or rumor mills changed history, public sentiments or policies?

When do major news announcements or public addresses typically take place?

Why is the media either free, silenced or captured/biased?

Why might people in this world trust or distrust news media?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

[awildwriter]

thinking about an au fic where the hot air balloon worked and Glinda and Elphaba left Oz and ended up getting blown to somewhere in middle America

just vividly thinking about Elphaba trying to get directions from a cow and Glinda is just watching her gf work enamored af

then idk they just live the life they never would have been able to have in oz

[violsva]

If you take one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: Your suffering is not a virtue. It is not a cosmic force of good in the world. Looking at bad news until you get a stomachache helps no one, and it will keep you from writing.

-- How to Write Fiction When the Planet Is Falling Apart, Anonymous

[bloobydabloob]

How did you go about developing your style and how long did it take you? I love everything about your art style and the composition and colors, it’s all very visually appealing and flows rly nicely :)

Thank you. Random unrelated Dirk doodle I never posted for picture. Heed the cut for info.

I may repeat myself here because I don’t reread my own posts and immediately forget everything I’ve said before on here but I’m not really sure “how long it took me” to be honest because I am not sure how to quantify that. I think I could go on for a lot longer than I did but I’m absolutely exhausted so please excuse any stupid writing.

Thank you for reading sorry if it is not helpful, ask me for clarification if something makes no sense. Here is drawing of myself I did today. Good day and “TLDR” : I developed my style by getting older and drawing and thinking a lot. Tanks

[hyakunana]

Heart hands...?

[rainbow-nerdss]

Buck goes over to Tommy's place late one morning, coffees in hand. They agreed to go out today, maybe go for a walk in a nearby park or something, no solid plans for the day other than spending it together.

When Buck gets there, though, he feels something is wrong. The curtains are closed, for one thing. And when Buck knocks, he doesn't hear any immediate movement towards the door. Usually, Tommy opens the door before Buck even makes it up the drive.

But today, Buck knocks, and he waits.

Had Tommy gotten held late at work? Buck knows he had a shift that was supposed to end a few hours before, but maybe he got stuck with overtime and didn't have a chance to call or text. But his car is there, in the same place it always is, and there hasn't been anything on the news about any major disasters.

Buck knocks again and considers calling or texting when he finally hears shuffling on the other side of the door, then the jingle of keys before the door opens.

Tommy is... A mess, honestly.

His hair is sticking up in every direction, old sweatpants with a hole at the knee, and a worn out old hoodie which Tommy shoves his hands back into the pockets of when he sees Buck.

"Hey, Evan." He swallows, voice think with some heavy emotion. "I'm so sorry, I... I forgot we had plans today, I—" he's hunched into himself, and he looks smaller than Buck's ever seen him.

"Tommy," Buck reaches for him with the hand that isn't holding the coffee cups. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Tommy shrugs, hesitating before stepping aside to let Buck in. "Rough shift," he says after an extended silence. "Everyone... The team all made it out, but... We lost someone. I lost someone."

Buck sets the coffee cups down on the entrance table and pulls Tommy into a hug, tucking his head into his shoulder and holding him tight. Slowly, Tommy's hands raise enough to wrap around Buck's waist.

"I don't think I'm gonna be much company today," Tommy sniffs after a while. Buck can feel a wet patch on his shoulder, but doesn't mention it.

The fact that Tommy trusts him enough to be this vulnerable with feels like something sacred, something he's been searching desperately for. Up to now, Tommy has been the one adjusting to make space for what Buck needs, but it's time for Buck to step up, to be there for Tommy.

"I get it, but I'm here." Buck kisses Tommy's cheekbone, just below his eye and he tastes the salty tang of tears there. "If you'd rather be alone, I-I get it. I can go home, and we can reschedule this. But, Tommy, I don't care if all we do is sit on your couch in the dark, okay? Whatever you need, I'm here."

Tommy holds Buck tighter for a moment.

"Evan," he says, in the same way he always says it. Like it's a something precious and delicate and wonderful. Buck's not sure where it came from, but he adores it.

"What do you usually do after a bad shift?' Buck asks.

Tommy sniffs, and it takes a while to answer. "Usually..." He clears his throat. "Usually I curl up in bed or on the couch and watch a rom-com. I know, it's a little—"

"Don't you dare say it's embarrassing," Buck warns, cupping Tommy's jaw and running his thumb over the stubble there. "Go make yourself comfortable, drink your coffee, pick a movie. I'll make us some snacks and join you in a minute, okay?"

Half an hour later, Buck settles on the couch—the coffee table full of popcorn, chopped vegetables and dips to snack on.

Buck reclines against the arm, and pulls Tommy on top of him, head on his chest. It's a tight fit, but from the way Tommy settles into him, Buck knows it's what he needs.

Tommy hits play, and Buck smiles at the opening monologue. "Love Actually?" He asks.

Tommy makes a sound, a soft sort of hum. "It's... kind of my favourite," he admits.

Buck smiles and kisses the top of Tommy's head, then replaces his lips with his fingers, running them over Tommy's scalp.

"That's really cute."

Tommy nestles in closer to Buck's chest, and neither of them say anything else for a while.

"Thanks," Tommy says, when they're about halfway through the movie. "For staying."

Buck kisses his head again, and Tommy lifts himself up a little so he can turn and kiss Buck on the lips, instead before settling back against his chest.

"Thank you, for letting me stay. For letting me look after you."

The words are on the tip of his tongue as he looks down and watches Tommy turn his attention back to the movie, watches him mouth along to a handful of lines.

I love him, he thinks. He doesn't say it out loud, not yet, but the realisation is soft, and warming, and perfect. And he will say it, soon. When the time is right. And he hopes Tommy will say it back.

For now though, Tommy is like a weighted blanket on his chest, comforting and warm, and Buck's content to just stay here for as long as he can.

They'll put on another movie, finish the snacks, maybe order takeout for dinner later, and Tommy will smile again, will laugh again, will kiss Buck the same way he says his name.

[spacedace]

Okay but the Justice League finds out their new baby hero teammate Phantom is the Ghost King by virtue of the Fright Night showing up while they're in the middle of a meeting, looking terrifying and such and scaring the shit out of everyone- even more so when Constantine starts freaking out over the fact that the sworn night of the King of the Infinite Realms is in the Watchtower what the fuck that's apocalyptically bad Pariah Dark is supposed to be locked the fuck up forever - but instead of trying to smite them all or yeet them into the nightmare dimension he just pulls out a space themed packed lunch??? And gives it to Phantom??

And the mildly eldritch giant murder ghost is talking about how "The Queen Mother commanded me to ensure you ate my Lord, she says you missed your morning meal."

And Phantom is just grumbling about over protective sisters and "there's a cafeteria i would have been fine" what the fuck is happening right now?

What do you mean "oops you forgot" Phantom I thought the ghost thing was just a theme!