#that isn’t the consumer’s call
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The culture around creation right now is fascinating to me, because whether we’re talking a blogger with a couple hundred followers on a dying website or the biggest artist in a generation, huge groups of people seem to think that creators should mold their creations to suit the consumer and get angry when they do not. When in reality, the creator gets to decide the direction and it is on the consumer to let it go and find something else to consume if it isn’t what they want.
#this shows up time and again#with anons asking bloggers to change something about how they blog#or fans demanding their faves change who they work with or how they create#that isn’t the consumer’s call#the consumer can choose to consume the creation or not#but they don’t get to decide the direction#and it’s not to say no one should have an opinion#but it’s they way the opinions are expressed that feels different#it used to be ‘yeah I love This Band…their second album wasn’t my fave but man do I love their third and fourth’#and now it’s ‘This Band should completely change their sound because I personally am bored of it’
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please do yourself a favor and read the labru cannibalism comic. here’s the link. do it. even if you think it won’t be your thing cause of the cannibalism like… no its so good please read it. like is it smut? yes? no? maybe?? is it cannibalism? yeah but no????? are there dungeon meshi spoilers???? yes but also not very obvious ones?????? just…. read it.
#I love it so much like its so fucking good and what for#like I know calling it the cannibalism comic isn’t great but its honestly not that bad or gory or gross like#its consuming as a form of love#its attempting to understand each other#its hunger and love and attraction and lust and consumption and devotion#and its also beautiful! like just gorgeous!\#laios touden#kabru#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#labru#it does have some spoilers for later in the manga but nothing too obvious#and you should read the manga too#dungeon meshi manga spoilers#ALSO READ THE ARTISTS ORIGINAL COMIC LITTLE STARLING ITS BEAUTIFUL
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The Veilguard subreddit has not heard of critical thinking or expecting quality out of something you pay for. It is insane over there. "It's not bad at all! GoTY!" Holy shit.
Btw this post isn’t for anti Solavellan people. Stop blaming us for liking a ship and acting like that made DA4 what it is. BioWare has been on a downward spiral for a long time, the game was in development hell, and many people were fired. The fans mindlessly giving them money right now (who are NOT only Solavellans) are contributing to future issues by giving them a pass, but even they didn’t create these problems.
#dragon age#dragon age the veilguard#dragon age veilguard#veilguard#anti veilguard#bioware critical#anti bioware#anti dragon age#only veilguard#datv#dav#anti dav#veilguard critical#veilguard negativity#I'm sorry I don't genuinely think people are stupid#but we have GOT to stop turning our brain off for everything we consume#not everything is popcorn media and it shouldn't be! have standards!#btw this post isn’t for anti solavellans#especially if you’re going to blame us for the game being shit#if you think a group of fans managed to destroy the entire game#you’re delusional#EA did this#the firings did this#corpos did this#the only fans you can blame at all are people mindlessly praising the entire game#for giving BW their money#but they still didn’t make the game turn out this way#anti solavellans are almost always sexist btw#calling us dumb bitches#or implying we’re lesser if we find solas attractive (I don’t btw)
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I like to think that on some level Shanks is just a little upset (Beckman knows the truth; that he is deeply, simmeringly, furious) at the unfairness and hypocrisy that is Mihawk still wanting to fight Zoro.
That he still thinks Zoro’s going to be his greatest challenger- the one to usurp his throne, that even though he’s down an eye, even though they are both “lacking”. Zoro is somehow still worthy of Mihawk’s attention when Shanks has been judged and found wanting.
Shanks lost an arm, and they still can’t talk about it, and Mihawk still won’t fight him, but he’ll fight Zoro. Trained Zoro. And he knows it’s not the same, he doesn’t even want the title, doesn’t want to be Mihawk’s “destiny”. He knows that he’s being childish but Mihawk started it and it’s not fair.
#was just thinking about this#my favorite Headcanon is that arguments about shank’s arm are the only time Shanks is truly heated enough to be mad at Mihawk#like he calls him childish and obstinate and all the things Mihawk low key knows he is but doesn’t like to her#honestly it might just be the level of dedication#Zoro is a swordsman tm#while although skilled Shanks is more in the guy that just uses a sword camp#I think that the lost arm was just kind of Mihawk’s wake up call#like - oh this isn’t as serious to him as it is to me#this isn’t his world#this doesn’t threaten to consume him whole kike it does me#But obviously Mihawk and his was probably raised alone on a mountain herding sheep emotional skills still hasn’t figured that out yet#dracule mihawk#one piece#hawkeye mihawk#akagami no shanks#throwing thoughts to the void#mishanks#op#akataka#red hair shanks#benn beckman
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anyways top two tips for finding media with well written female characters! 1) consume media written by women and 2) stop consuming things written for adolescent boys!!!!
#talk tag#‘women just aren’t written well’ says mha pfp GET OUT OF HERE#honestly the second you stop watching shitty anime made for little boys the amount of well written women is overwhelming#sorry you have the media taste of a teenager but the adults are talking#not to be too mean it gets to me sometimes#but honestly even if you exclusively watch shounen anime (why?) it isn’t like there isn’t anything that writes women well#tpn and csm instantly come to mind#both manga that were/are massively popular during their runs in wsj#csm is up and down but the depth with which fujimoto writes female characters still astounds me#asa you are so special to me#but this is to say i still think that people need to make branch out more and maybe start having like#higher expectations for their japanese media#if they want to keep on consuming manga and anime#but seriously at some point i’m just going to assume you’re misogynistic no matter what if you refuse to look at female characters ever#people assume depth for male characters when there isn’t any and call every female character bland
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more and more it makes me kind of uncomfortable (for lack of a better/softer word) to call my own characters ‘ocs’. because like. they’re from a completely original universe and from completely original intertwined stories and all that. so why would i have to specify they’re original in the same way someone would when referring to a character they made for a pre-existing non-original universe/franchise/whatever? by that logic every fiction author ever would be referring to their characters as ocs rather than just. their characters. you know.
#i guess you could say it’s different or something because I haven’t published any one Solid Official Work yet or anything but.#I don’t think that particularly matters? cause then you just get into policing what does and doesn’t count as Real and Official and that#inevitably doesn’t do anything good#idk man I know the term Original Character isn’t technically incorrect in my case but. I just feel like that term was created to separate#fandom creations from their source’s canon. or maybe to describe characters that don’t come from any particular established universe#or story at all (fandom or otherwise).#cause otherwise. why shouldn’t I just be calling them my characters. the characters from my universe and my works. which are#established and incorporated. it’s definitely not properly organized or set up for true publication (at least not yet. definitely possible#I’ll publish something as a consumable structured thing someday)#you just don’t hear established authors calling their characters ocs. because why should they? the original part is sort of a given.#hopefully anyway#anywayyuyyyyyyeuyyyhh sorry this is not important just has been on my mind the last few weeks or few months or more#kibumblabs#I guess there’s also a difference maybe between making characters for the sake of making characters- and those being ocs- versus#characters that are developed as part of a larger work/story#I definitely feel like there’s a difference between the two and how they should be labelled (but im not saying one is more valid than the#other or anything like that.)#like when I see a poll that’s like ‘how many ocs do you have’ I just kinda sit there cause that question. doesn’t make sense in#my situation at all. because it’s the same as asking the author of a fiction novel that question. what do I count as my ‘oc’#would that mean my primary characters? or vaguely my primary and secondaryish ones? or do you mean every single character mentioned#regardless of importance or prevalence? every single named parent or grandparent or boss or childhood friend or one night stand or etc etc#I feel like it’s weird to call those characters ‘ocs’ in the way the question is implying. but then what DOES count? it just doesn’t make#sense for something like this. right? it irks me a little
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guys is it possible to like a media that is controversial in some aspects and like. have media literacy and not ignore the bad parts but consume media critically while also not directly supporting the creators bc you very legally watch it on very legal websites instead and also not like the parts that are bad so you make your own like interpretations of those parts that make them not bad or just not interact with those parts entirely or am I just crazy and stupid and selfish
worded very badly cuz I’m half asleep and anxious
#this isn’t about Harry Potter btw I don’t like that series anymore lmfao#you can probably guess what this is about tho#and yes I’m terrified of saying what it is bc I try my best to consume media critically and not support the obviously bad parts#but I’m still afraid I’m gonna get fucking like. sent death threats and shit#and called like a horrible person#I mean if interacting with fan content only still kinda makes me a shithead then that’s fair but like#I dunno man I’m trying my best and it’s really annoying because I really like some of the stuff in it but other aspects suck so bad
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I got an idea of doing a YouTube channel that is just “reviews” where I say a short sentence about a movie and then give a rating, like:
Glass Onion - “five old people play among us in it” 10/10
Pinocchio - “SpongeBob voices Mussolini” 9.5/10
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once - “there is buttplug-activated fighting skills” 10/10
#it’s sort of an appealing idea#I just don’t think I’ll do it#I don’t watch enough movies or consume enough media in general for it to be sustainable#but I’ve already sort of set up a sort of philosophy of the hypothetical channel in my head#it would sort of be a silly way to give awareness of like#maybe some movies that might get less attention#or wouldn’t be in the mainstream radar#and it wouldn’t go for things that are made by already huge-name studios or whatever#it’s only going to be movies that interest me though (which does mean the rating would likely all be high)#(because if the movie already interested me enough to watch it then obviously it’s more likely that I’ll love it)#more information would be in the video description (such as genre and director and studio)#but there’s never any in-depth opinion about it anywhere#the intention isn’t to try to distill the movie into one sentence#just to take some odd detail from it that stuck out to me and was funny#something that obviously isn’t ‘the thing the movie is about’ and hopefully wouldnt turn it into ‘that movie with among us’#anyways it’s a nice idea. I’d like to call that hypothetical channel ‘review’#but I bet that one’s taken or something#personal malkylife
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unrelated to my previous thoughts but again i am thinking about mary!lucifer and sam calling her mommy
#i uhm um i uh 😳#spn#lucifer spn#sam winchester#samifer#mary!lucifer#tw incest#it is and it isn’t. that’s Mary’s body. she might be there she might not.#gosh. gosh. what if she let the devil in to save Sam.#she’s bargained before for someone she loves#mary being brought back to life and finding out Sam is in danger and Lucifer going ‘we can save him. say yes to me and we can save him.’#and then she does. and Lucifer’s obsession mixes so perfectly with her own grief over missing so much of Sam’s life#until it turns into this consuming need to Have him. and that’s how Sam ends up calling the devil mommy
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My bingeing has gotten so bad that I’m not even worried on restricting rn, just maintaining. I feel like such a fuckin fraud lmao
#I mean I aim to restrict and lose weight#but I’ll settle with anything less than 2000#I’m definitely not happy with it but it’s better than eating 4000 cals like I have been#I’ll get my shit back together I swear#I’ll just optimistically call them metabolism days??#ed not ed sheeran#bulim14#tw 3d vent#bingepurge#ed bullshit#bul1m14#anorex14#ed rant#tw ana diary#shoutout bulimia i guess#I wish I could fast but I’m an alcoholic and need to drink or I’ll go through withdrawal#but drinking makes me nauseous and I have to eat#I also consume probably 1500 cals of vodka daily so that doesn’t help#I need to join an addict recovery group (aa isn’t a thing where I’m from)#I need to get better#I spent 12 hours in the hospital to find my liver is damaged
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i can tell you guys aren’t as fond of the entertainment industry which is a shame bc idol! childe, model! kaeya and club owner! diluc are very tasty :(
#┊glimpse into the crystal ball ೃ༄#engagement for the au has plummeted after i moved away from the piercing studio#which sucks ofc bc i still put in just as much effort#but i can’t tell people what to read#i can however tell people to not comment ‘part two?’ and nothing else under someone’s work#yes i know it implies that the person liked it but—#i’m not a content machine#i’m a human being who thrives off of validation and compliments#also i’ve said multiple times i’ll write second parts#the end heavily implies there will be a second part#it’s called a modern au *series*#so if you can avoid it don’t just drop a ‘part two?’ in my or somebody else’s comment section/ ask box#or at least show them some appreciation for the first part if you want to ask about it#‘this was good’ doesn’t really scratch that itch yk?#it’s free content your scrolling through but writers still put a lot of effort into that#just keep that in mind yeah? :)#this isn’t aimed at one person in particular but since it happened a lot especially with the series i just thought i had to say sth#i know people probably don’t mean any harm with that#everyone’s just used to consuming media at a rapid pace#so it’s just supposed to be a little reminder that there are actual people working in their own free time to provide content#even if we’re a blog without a face attached to others on here#cw rant
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tori spring unhinged character bingo
the x on they just like me is smaller bc i am not even 30% as brave as her
#almost checked daddy issues but i felt like the scene where julio tells her to try harder isn’t enough evidence#it felt a little unfair to call out jane but like. yeah#ask#answered#evenstarfalls#unhinged character bingo#my goal is to be as michael holden as possible#which is to say know your worth but be able to handle being lashed out at#and be peppy but only if it’s sincere#love people too hard#be reliable#have a passion that is powerful but not all-consuming#etc etc
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It might be because something something when a MLL moves they make noise, and MLL are super ultra sensitive to noise so they get closer to it and accidentally kiss eachother on the lips
did you know that while mommy long legs can't meet each other in the game, their ai is programmed to make them kiss & embrace?
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·.⌇ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. you’ve been one of sukuna’s many concubines for quite a while now. yet, you still cannot get rid of the jealousy in your system whenever he interacts with the other women in his harem.
wc. idk around 1 to 2k
tags. true form!sukuna x concubine!female reader. angst (hurt to comfort), fluff, suggestive at the end. heian era. you call sukuna ‘my lord’. reader gets called ‘brat, little girl’. size difference. no part2, don’t ask i beg. not beta read.
“get back here, brat,” sukuna raises his voice as he follows you. he isn’t one to care about others’ emotional outbursts, yet here he is, chasing you after you’ve poured out your heart to him.
you don’t know why you’re this upset. you do know, however, that it’s childish of you to walk away mid dinner. you should’ve just stayed seated and refuse to let the thoughts consume you.
now you’re speed walking down the hallways of the estate—your legs carrying you as fast as they can without actually making a run for it. your mind keeps replaying the ‘unsettling’ scene that caused you to flee.
you remember it vividly. the sound of sukuna’s low, amused chuckle. how intrigued it was because of something another concubine told him—how he stopped chewing to say something back to her. which he rarely does.
hell, you’ve never seen him laugh around his other concubines.
“i do not wish to talk to you right now, my lord,” you reply, voice raised so the distance wouldn’t make it a hassle for the king of curses to hear you. you know that feisty attitude of yours entertains sukuna to no end.
he raises an eyebrow once he’s heard your voice; how it’s dripping with envy and hurt. you’ve never reacted like that before—at least not in his presence. it made him want to figure out why and how.
though, he can easily guess the reasoning behind your sudden defiance.
“oh, that so?” sukuna hums. he’s lenient with you this time around. he could catch up to you in under a split second, but he decides to give you that sense of accomplishment first before completely destroying it. he walks after you slowly, your fast steps being the same tempo as his slow pace.
you don’t answer. you’re stubborn. you have no right to feel jealous. you are a fairly new concubine—only a couple months ago did you join sukuna’s harem. yet, the time spent with him was precious.
he treats you differently. everyone notices that. everyone tells you the same. you know he does by the way he lets you off the hook with most stuff you say and do.
you don’t know what you did to gain his favouritsm, but it’s addicting. his attention is addictive. real addictive.
you had sworn not to develop any unneccessary feelings for that ruthless sorcerer. but, with the way sukuna treated you so gently behind closed doors, it was impossible not to.
you eventually reach the doors to your chambers. you slide them open and wish to close them behind you, only for a big hand to halt those movements. you freeze in place and refuse to look up at the owner of that said hand.
“look up,” sukuna demands. his voice causes goosebumps to appear on your arms, but you still don't budge. he clicks his tongue. that’s your first warning. two more and your punishment will be carried out, “we can do this the hard way too if you want.”
you turn your head, your fingers curling around the material of your kimono. you really should not feel this way about a little interaction between sukuna and his other concubine. that is none of your concern. what he does with those other women is none of your concern.
and yet. . .
“i don't want to,” you retort. sukuna walks into your room with a sigh. each step he takes forwards, you take backwards. your back finally bumps against the wall next to your bed.
sukuna towers over you, his tall and big frame making you feel vulnerable. especially with the way those red eyes of his are staring down at you. he crosses all four of his arms before speaking.
“tell me what’s running through that head of yours,” sukuna inquires sternly. he isn’t playing around anymore, you can tell. you glance the other way—knowing that he will laugh at you the moment you tell him why you’re upset.
you have a feeling he knows the reason behind your tantrum anyway.
“it’s nothing of importance, my lord,” you shake your head and relax your tense shoulders to make you seem less upset. your words have some truth in them—you don’t think your feelings of envy hold any value to him.
sukuna sighs again. he’s trying his best not to be annoyed at you. you’re his favorite and he wishes not to sadden you any further. he steps forwards, one hand moving to cup the side of your face.
his rough fingers play with a string of your hair, “i’m not stupid, little girl. i don’t like it when my woman is in distress.”
your heart skips a beat. this is what confuses you—how he can go from stern to gentle and vice versa. it’s surprisingly unexpected, which makes you long for more. even if his behaviour is confusing.
you look up at sukuna. your eyes meet for the first time in a good couple minutes. the corner of sukuna’s lips curls up into a satisfied smirk. that’s one step closer to getting you to open up.
“now,” the king of curses lowers his head to your eye level, the proximity all the more nerve wracking. he holds your jaw super tightly out of the blue. it makes you whimper.
“spit it out.”
there it is. the duality of the man strikes once more. you swallow the spit that’s been building up in your mouth. you bite your bottom lip lightly, trying to gather and form the right words to explain yourself.
sukuna wouldn’t understand. he’s a cold-hearted man who doesn’t care about such ‘trivial’ matters. he’ll just call you stupid, pathetic or whatever other derogatory term.
you stop your thoughts for a moment.
“it’s really just a stupid thing,” you mutter. your fingers curl around sukuna’s wrist—the one hand he’s using to firmly hold your jaw. you take a deep breath in, “i did not like it when you, errr. . . when that woman talked to you at the dinner table.”
your voice is clearly dripping with jealousy. pure, pure jealousy. and for what? because he talked to his other concubine. you feel stupid. you thought you discarded your personal feelings for the sorcerer before you the moment you turned into one of his many women.
“that woman?” sukuna tilts his head, feigning ignorance. that little grin on his face tells you enough. he’s playing with you like some form of entertainment. well, technically you are.
he wants you to be specific. he’s forcing you to be by acting like he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
in all honesty, sukuna’s already forgotten what that woman had said to him. it wasn’t and still isn’t worth remembering. all he can recall is your adorable facial expression when you saw him interact like that with his other concubine.
that little frown on your face was priceless. it makes him want to keep teasing you.
“you know who i am talking about, my lord,” you huff, trying to look away, but get stopped by sukuna readjusting his grip on your jaw. he firmly yet gently taps your cheek once and you know what it means.
“attitude,” sukuna warns with a quick hiss. he can let you say whatever you want to him, but you also have some limits regarding which tone you use with him. you apologise quietly under your breath.
the king of curses nods in satisfaction before releasing the grip on your jaw. his large hand trails down to your neck, thumb rubbing up and down your throat, “so, my little girl is mad at me because i talked to another concubine of mine, huh?”
you nod mindlessly. sukuna can easily get you to comply with him—to obey his every word, simply with his actions. the terms of endearment he uses are the cherry on top. they slip off his tongue so easily with you.
“tsk tsk,” sukuna shakes his head. his hand is now on the back of your head, fingers tangled into your hair. he’s staring down at you with a smug expression. he knows he’s got you wrapped around his finger, “how childish of you.”
you knew that would be one of the things he’d say to you. what you didn’t expect is for him to go for a kiss right after. his lips land on yours firmly, and to no surprise, you instantly return the gesture.
your arms wrap around his neck—your chest pressing against his. sukuna wastes no time in picking you up and letting your legs encircle his waist. he’s not pulling away for air to breathe and you don’t either.
“you’re going to listen to me, yeah?” sukuna murmurs between passionate kisses. he’s holding onto you tightly with two arms, his free hands roaming over your body whilst he pins you against the wall.
when you whimper out a weak, high-pitched ‘yes, my lord’, he smirks against your mouth before turning to kiss your neck. he slightly bites the skin to make sure you’re paying attention to him.
“i don’t remember what that woman said,” sukuna continues, nearly out of breath because of the kisses he’s leaving all over you. he easily grabs both your wrists and pins them above your head on the wall, “i was too busy lookin’ at a much prettier concubine of mine.”
he pulls back a little so he can look you in the eyes. you’re panting and embarrassed by what he just said. one of his hands finds your face again, tracing the shape of your mouth.
“my favourite,” sukuna whispers whilst licking his lips. you can see it in his eyes: he’s silently planning out how he’s going to remind you of your place. your place as his favorite concubine.
he dips his head back down, aiming for the valley between your breasts. he closes his eyes before sucking on the surrounding flesh;
“guess i’ll be nice for once ‘nd show you just what it means to be my favorite so that you’ll never dare forget it again.”
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Fifty per cent of web users are running ad blockers. Zero per cent of app users are running ad blockers, because adding a blocker to an app requires that you first remove its encryption, and that’s a felony. (Jay Freeman, the American businessman and engineer, calls this “felony contempt of business-model”.) So when someone in a boardroom says, “Let’s make our ads 20 per cent more obnoxious and get a 2 per cent revenue increase,” no one objects that this might prompt users to google, “How do I block ads?” After all, the answer is, you can’t. Indeed, it’s more likely that someone in that boardroom will say, “Let’s make our ads 100 per cent more obnoxious and get a 10 per cent revenue increase.” (This is why every company wants you to install an app instead of using its website.) There’s no reason that gig workers who are facing algorithmic wage discrimination couldn’t install a counter-app that co-ordinated among all the Uber drivers to reject all jobs unless they reach a certain pay threshold. No reason except felony contempt of business model, the threat that the toolsmiths who built that counter-app would go broke or land in prison, for violating DMCA 1201, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, patent, contract, trade secrecy, nondisclosure and noncompete or, in other words, “IP law”. IP isn’t just short for intellectual property. It’s a euphemism for “a law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company and control the conduct of my critics, competitors and customers”. And “app” is just a euphemism for “a web page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to mod it, to protect the labour, consumer and privacy rights of its user”.
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actual writing advice
1. Use the passive voice.
What? What are you talking about, “don’t use the passive voice”? Are you feeling okay? Who told you that? Come on, let’s you and me go to their house and beat them with golf clubs. It’s just grammar. English is full of grammar: you should go ahead and use all of it whenever you want, on account of English is the language you’re writing in.
2. Use adverbs.
Now hang on. What are you even saying to me? Don’t use adverbs? My guy, that is an entire part of speech. That’s, like—that’s gotta be at least 20% of the dictionary. I don’t know who told you not to use adverbs, but you should definitely throw them into the Columbia river.
3. There’s no such thing as “filler”.
Buddy, “filler” is what we called the episodes of Dragon Ball Z where Goku wasn’t blasting Frieza because the anime was in production before Akira Toriyama had written the part where Goku blasts Frieza. Outside of this extremely specific context, “filler” does not exist. Just because a scene wouldn’t make it into the Wikipedia synopsis of your story’s plot doesn’t mean it isn’t important to your story. This is why “plot” and “story” are different words!
4. okay, now that I’ve snared you in my trap—and I know you don’t want to hear this—but orthography actually does kind of matter
First of all, a lot of what you think of as “grammar” is actually orthography. Should I put a comma here? How do I spell this word in this context? These are questions of orthography (which is a fancy Greek word meaning “correct-writing”). In fact, most of the “grammar questions” you’ll see posted online pertain to orthography; this number probably doubles in spaces for writers specifically.
If you’re a native speaker of English, your grammar is probably flawless and unremarkable for the purposes of writing prose. Instead, orthography refers to the set rules governing spelling, punctuation, and whitespace. There are a few things you should know about orthography:
English has no single orthography. You already know spelling and punctuation differ from country to country, but did you know it can even differ from publisher to publisher? Some newspapers will set parenthetical statements apart with em dashes—like this, with no spaces—while others will use slightly shorter dashes – like this, with spaces – to name just one example.
Orthography is boring, and nobody cares about it or knows what it is. For most readers, orthography is “invisible”. Readers pay attention to the words on a page, not the paper itself; in much the same way, readers pay attention to the meaning of a text and not the orthography, which exists only to convey that meaning.
That doesn’t mean it’s not important. Actually, that means it’s of the utmost importance. Because orthography can only be invisible if it meets the reader’s expectations.
You need to learn how to format dialogue into paragraphs. You need to learn when to end a quote with a comma versus a period. You need to learn how to use apostrophes, colons and semicolons. You need to learn these things not so you can win meaningless brownie points from your English teacher for having “Good Grammar”, but so that your prose looks like other prose the reader has consumed.
If you printed a novel on purple paper, you’d have the reader wondering: why purple? Then they’d be focusing on the paper and not the words on it. And you probably don’t want that! So it goes with orthography: whenever you deviate from standard practices, you force the reader to work out in their head whether that deviation was intentional or a mistake. Too much of that can destroy the flow of reading and prevent the reader from getting immersed.
You may chafe at this idea. You may think these “rules” are confusing and arbitrary. You’re correct to think that. They’re made the fuck up! What matters is that they were made the fuck up collaboratively, by thousands of writers over hundreds of years. Whether you like it or not, you are part of that collaboration: you’re not the first person to write prose, and you can’t expect yours to be the first prose your readers have ever read.
That doesn’t mean “never break the rules”, mind you. Once you’ve gotten comfortable with English orthography, then you are free to break it as you please. Knowing what’s expected gives you the power to do unexpected things on purpose. And that’s the really cool shit.
5. You’re allowed to say the boobs were big if the story is about how big the boobs were
Nobody is saying this. Only I am brave enough to say it.
Well, bye!
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