dare-mightythings reblogged
The Atelier Couture | Paradise Collection
Source: theateliercouture.com
dare-mightythings reblogged
dare-mightythings reblogged
watching a movie at home circa like, 2001 was like
- put your TV on channel 2 so the VCR will work
- open up the clamp shell case that held the VHS that has that satisfying crrlikkkkkk
- put in the movie
- gdi it has to be rewound
- press STOP and then rewind because its so much faster that way
- start the movie and it takes a few seconds for the movie to actually start cause you rewound to the VERY beginning
- FBI will get you if you illegally distribute or exhibit this movie
- and then. because you forgot that movies are always so much louder than TV
COMING SOON TO OWN ON VIDEO AND DVD
- QUICK LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME OH FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Okay crisis averted.
- although. these ads are kind of quiet. a little hard to hear.....
- better turn up the volume...
THX
dare-mightythings reblogged
dare-mightythings reblogged
Annoying that dairy products are demonized as Unnatural and Disgusting when it's actually kinda neat that humans figured out a way to fulfill omnivorous nutritional requirements without killing any animals (and populations historically dependent on dairy even evolved lactase persistence!). This is biopunk to me
I've seen weird memes and stuff like "Milk is BODILY FLUID that came from a COW" and the fact that people exist that would find this distressing concerns me.
Y'all are not going to like learning what fruits are...
A fruit is an OVARY that because SWOLLEN AND ENLARGED after PLANT GENITALS were rubbed in PLANT SPERM by a BUG
@donionrings420 I'm sure farm sanctuary dot org is a reliable source with no huge "donate now" banner, inflammatory language, or lies about basic animal behavior and biology :|
dare-mightythings reblogged
Elementary | 1x06 Flight Risk
dare-mightythings reblogged
Anonymous asked:
Hello! I found this blog and I'm so glad I did because it's been very helpful so far! My struggle is I don't know how to start a chapter. I have the main idea, with the outline and what I want from the scene but I find it very confusing to start from a point that doesn't sound awkward to me. Any tips?
Finding a Way Into a Chapter
Chapter beginnings can be tricky, but there are some things you can do to help find a way in... or in other words, find a place to begin that makes sense and hooks the reader's attention.
Rewind the Clock
If you know what needs to happen in the scene, you should probably have some idea of where the scene takes place. If not, go ahead and figure that out. Now, imagine the point where the scene gets going--where you can envision exactly what's happening--and rewind from there. How do the characters get to that very moment? What are they doing in the moments before this point?
Let's say your character is meeting a friend at an ice rink to talk. How do they get to the ice rink? Do they walk? Take a bus? Drive? Take a subway? Is there anything notable that can happen during the last minutes before their arrival? Maybe bumping into someone on the subway platform that will be relevant later on? Or possibly having second thoughts about getting off the bus because of nerves about meeting the friend?
Look at the Setting
Alternatively, in the seconds or minutes before things get going, what's happening around them? Maybe the character is putting on their skates, watching people skate gracefully and thinking about how bad they are at ice skating. Or, if the character used to be a pairs skater and the person they're meeting is their former partner, you might open with them watching another pair skate as they reminisce about their glory days.
Find the Excitement
Is there anything exciting that can happen that can tie back into the story in some way? For example, maybe part of the conflict is that the character just split up with their fiance, and just after the character arrives at the ice rink, this big, ridiculous, flash mob proposal breaks out on the ice. This would certainly be an interesting way to open a chapter, plus it sets up the setting (the ice rink) and provides the opportunity to explore the conflict a little, making good use of the moments before the friend shows up and the scene takes off.
Follow-Up on the Previous Chapter
Sometimes chapters open by following up on how the last chapter ended. You might use the opening to illustrate that time has passed, resolve something left open in the previous chapter, or deliver the punch line of a narrative joke set up in the previous chapter. If there was a question posed at the end of the chapter, you might open the next chapter with the answer or a sneak peek of it.
Dive Right Into the Scene
Sometimes, it makes the most sense to just dive right into the scene. Maybe you open with the character trying to stay upright on their skates as the friend says, "You're probably wondering why I wanted to meet here of all places." That sentence or two as they're trying to stay upright on their skates is enough to establish the setting, plus it's unusual and fun... can they manage to stay upright? Are they going to embarrass themselves? Will they triumph and turn out to be really great on skates? It's a hook that lead right into the point of the scene.
Don't Be Afraid to Experiment and Use Placeholders
You may have to experiment with all of these methods to find an opening you like, but if you can't find anything that sticks, don't be afraid to just go with what you have for now and come back to it later. Sometimes that little missing thing you need isn't something that will occur to you until much later, after you've written more of the story. And sometimes, the needs of the story change so much while you're writing it, you may end up deciding to omit this scene or change when and where it takes place. So, don't sweat it too much if you can't find an opening you're happy with right away.
Have fun with your story and I'm so glad you found the blog! ♥
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dare-mightythings reblogged
some of you need to make your bed and have a shower with a soap that smells nice, and then sit in a chair near the window and have tea with milk and read a hardcover book and see how your creative block is after that tbh.
i'm not saying creative block isn't a real or difficult phenomenon. i'm saying creatives have a tendency to neglect themselves physically and emotionally in favor of manic bursts of productivity. a little softness and clean sheets and a bagel will go a long way. make a playlist and light the fancy candle you've been saving for a special occasion. life is a special occasion.
Always a good reminder.
dare-mightythings reblogged
dare-mightythings reblogged
Every writing advice thing ever: Don’t get bogged down in details on your first draft. Just write! ☺️
Me: How I begin this scene hinges on whether cheese sandwiches were served with mayo in the 50’s.
have not seen anything more relatable today >.<
let me link the world’s most useful twitter thread.
some excerpts:
there’s nothing to stop you from using the <get there> method for research details. in fact, i know many many writers who use it for just that.
I’m told that journalists use “TK” for this, which ostensibly stands for “To Kome” (sic), but is selected mostly because it doesn’t appear in any common words so it’s easy to search for. In code I tend to use “XXX:” or “TODO(myname):” for this.
Academic writer here, but whenever working on article drafts I often literally run out of attention in the middle of a sentence and insert my own TODO symbol (happens to be double underlines: __). Sometimes there will be ten of them per page, e.g. if they’re marking “add references for all these pieces of data” or if I’m outlining an article where I know I will have to cite a lot of references for claims, I know that the references exist, but I don’t have them on hand to actually insert into the article; or even if I do but I don’t want to break my writing flow (“as shown by Torhonen (193X__), point P, and from this follows argument A”)
This might make a lot of my early-pass drafts nigh unreadable to people who aren’t me and don’t know how thought X should continue (and alas sometimes even to Present Me who has forgotten what Past Me was trying to get at); and kind of means e.g. it’s not until about 10th version that they will be in shape to be seriously sent out for comments from anyone; but still better than not writing anything and risking forgetting the topic entirely.
I do this with character names when I realize I want to have some sort of etymology for them later. That “search” function on a word processor is soooooo powerful! XXXX is good; < > is good (this is how they tag lines for us to translate in scripts we’re sent!); curly brackets { } are good… In interviews, I’m often asked what my favorite word is in some language (I don’t have any), or what interesting etymologies I’ve come up with (how am I supposed to remember that off the top of my head)? I’ve started tagging interesting dictionary entries with a code {…}*, and now I search for }* any time I’m asked this while the interview is happening! It’s a godsend!
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Black cats are lucky. (via leahweissmuller)
MAN [IN THICK ACCENT]: Black cat bring good luck. Not bad luck. I have black cat - See, him face - And I am not dead today: Good luck!
official-mugi
“See him face”
I sure fucking do see him face
Him face
Reblog him face for good luck in 2021
Reblog him face for good luck in 2021 (2)
Reblog him face for good luck in 2022
Reblog him face for good luck in 2023
dare-mightythings reblogged
Every day some fucking newspaper publishes another fucking article like "Studies show, When it comes to your health, bread is as bad as ten million gummy bears." And it's just a fucking lie!
The study was bad! It has an n of 20! Even if it was a good study, you're misinterpreting the results! And if it was a good study, and you understood the results, it's just one study! None! Of! This! Means! Anything!
harpyhormones
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kendallroy-deactivated20210425
also with all due respect the main reason the left loses so much is that y’all refuse to compromise on the language and messaging you use to speak to voters. i swear if you rebranded “defund the police” as “invest in community safety from the ground up” most white suburban moderates would be like “that sounds great” and i know that because that’s how i’ve literally reframed it to white suburban moderates who think “defund the police” means we’re going to live in a scary lawless mad max world
kendallroy
like maybe it comes across as mealy-mouthed and corny to people steeped in online cynicism but just to be clear, this is the country that wouldn’t eat french fries after 9/11 so we renamed them “freedom fries” and everyone was suddenly cool again. americans are not, by and large, super sophisticated about this stuff
kendallroy
okay, so, as a followup…. basically, i joined this “christians against trump” fb group for a work research project in 2017 and just ended up never leaving, bc it turned out to be such a great experiment in just… observing and listening and talking to people and figuring out the language that works! so like, as a basic glossary for talking to the well-meaning anti-trump moderate dems in your life about progressive policies:
- instead of “defund the police,” say “invest in community safety” and emphasize things like participatory budgeting giving you power over where YOUR taxes go and reallocating funds to after-school programs, social services, and food pantries
- instead of “abolish ice,” say “immigration reform” and “create a new agency for immigration and citizenship services”
- instead of “medicare for all,” say “universal health care” or even just really harp on making healthcare affordable and accessible to everyone
- instead of “the green new deal” (which was a great piece of messaging in the first place before it became inextricably tied up with aoc’s theatrics), talk about what an effective piece of climate legislation will create, not what it will destroy. when you say “ban fracking” or “ban fossil fuels” or “reduce methane emissions in agriculture” people go “YOU WON’T TAKE MY JOB OR MY FARTING COWS.” climate is really an area where being able to reframe it through the language of capitalism helps. say “let’s give tax breaks to farmers, especially small family farms who are already being squeezed out by the big guys, so they can invest in the future of their business” and other noise-shaped air stuff like that. instead of “ban fracking” talk about the jobs that renewable energy will create in communities that have been left behind by our reliance on foreign oil. i mean, fuck, the phrase “climate change” can be a real problem when you’re talking to the whole country because of how effective the “climate and weather are the same things” and “climate change is a hoax” disinfo campaigns have been over the past 20 years or so - but when you talk about “conserving our natural resources” and all that teddy roosevelt, ranger rick shit, it just comes across different.
- instead of “abortion rights”…. listen, you know i hate equivocating about abortion but at the end of the day, when you’re talking to people who are probably anti-abortion for religious reasons but will still vote democrat because they’re not a single-issue anti-abortion voter, don’t say “abortion (on demand without apology etc),” say “the constitutional right to privacy” or “the right to make personal medical decisions without the government intervening.” fearmonger about attacks on abortion the way sarah palin fearmongered about how obamacare would lead to “death panels” deciding whether your grandma would live or die! and if you’re talking to someone who just doesn’t feel that strongly about abortion because yada yada roe is settled who cares, talk about how “empowering women to decide when they start a family fuels economic growth and leads to more wanted children growing up in stable, happy two-parent homes” and so on.
- inversely, instead of “abolish the death penalty,” talk about “saving the lives of the innocent” and “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” if you’re talking to a christian and honestly just look at the libertarian arguments against the death penalty and ape some of those - cost to the taxpayer, high wrongful conviction rates as a reflection of government incompetence. honestly, the libertarian right is frequently aligned with the left on criminal justice issues and i know we all love to dunk on libertarians but the language they use is pretty appealing to moderates who might be coming from a more conservative background or region where it’s just normal
- instead of “democratic socialism,” just talk about, like, values - ending poverty and hunger, living wages and better educational opportunities, creating jobs and protecting ordinary working people and families and putting money back in their pockets and creating a stable economy. people really do vote based on kitchen table issues and you can really make a moral appeal on the rest.
- instead of “tax the rich,” say “cut taxes.” period. never talk about raising taxes. not on the rich, not on the middle class, not for any reason whatsoever, even if you’re saying “if we raise taxes on billionaires we can give everyone a pony.” i don’t care how much you want to tax billionaires, don’t fucking bring it up. i hate bezos as much as everyone but we live in america, where everyone is simply a temporarily embarrassed billionaire and convinced that taxing the ultra-rich will somehow hurt them too. don’t expect middle-of-the-road normies to get on board with the “i’ll pay more taxes if it means other people have health care” thing you see from avowed liberals and lefties, because they will not, i’m sorry. frankly *****i***** have no interest in paying more taxes because nyc already taxes you out the nose regardless of where you are on the socioeconomic scale and if someone suggested i should pay more, even if it meant paying less on private services in the long run, i would simply be like, “nope!” so like, yeah, obviously the goal is to eliminate corporate tax loopholes and tax the ultra-rich at a higher rate while cutting tax burdens on everyone else, but what you want to say is stuff like “small business owners shouldn’t pay more in taxes than the companies like apple and amazon that are already squeezing them out” and “we’ll cut taxes and frivolous government spending,” period, no embellishment. “making american companies pay american taxes” is a succinct catchphrase i like to use.
- instead of “defund/spend less on the military,” say “why is the government spending so much on building outdated outdated tanks and submarines from 50 years ago and so little on services for veterans? we need to revitalize our military spending so that we can spend less on safer, more modern equipment, preserve those manufacturing jobs, and make sure that veterans get the health care and job opportunities they deserve.” get it? like, republicans have been selling the “cut waste, cut taxes, cut spending” line for decades because it sounds good and people really respond to it. unfortunately, one of the many cursed legacies of ronald reagan is that most people still think that balancing a government budget is like balancing a checkbook, and obviously that’s not true but it lends a lot of familiar comparisons and metaphors, so like… use them.
- don’t equivocate on “black lives matter” - it’s too important and too urgent - instead, give the non-activist liberals you already know the accessible language they can use to help normalize the phrase “black lives matter” in their own lives and encourage them to do so. they won’t convert the full-on blue lives matter cult members and other assorted balls-to-the-wall racists, but there are people in the middle who just need to hear a targeted explanation of why that isn’t a combative or controversial statement, and that totally depends on the individual… there’s the very basic 101-logicky “if saying ‘save the whales’ doesn’t mean you think dolphins can kick rocks, or if saying ‘spinach is a vegetable’ doesn’t mean that you think lettuce isn’t, why does ‘black lives matter’ imply that other lives don’t?” and i saw someone in the christians against trump group cite a brene brown quote they said (“In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery.”) that made it click for them and they like to use to make it click for others, and there’s also this example that i think is probably pretty resonant for christians:
the point is, as with all the rest of this, that there are a lot of people out there who are alienated by the language (because there has been a billion-dollar media propaganda machine working overtime to make the language as alienating as possible) but not by the content of the argument. the right is SO good at messaging to its base by speaking their language, dog whistles and all. but because the democratic party is a coalition of moderates and liberals and leftists, you really have to be strategic about your messaging in a way that the right doesn’t. frankly, that’s why joe biden won - he made those same broad appeals to morality and civility and unity and prosperity that people want to hear.
i realize that everyone feels that if you have the moral high ground, you shouldn’t have to put in work to persuade people because they should automatically grasp that you’re right, but like i said above, this is america, and it doesn’t work like that. we need to talk to people, not in buzzwords or in highly stigmatized language that risks turning them off immediately, but in language that already means something to them. if you want to persuade people you have to actually make things sound appealing to them, whether that means evoking warm and fuzzy mental images or appealing to their principles and moral convictions and religious beliefs or just doing your best to sound like the adults in the room. you gotta do this stuff to build a majority instead of just a plurality within this party, because that’s just what we need to win.
If you want to see this side of the argument in action: witness Dan Price on Fox News reframing Universal Basic Income as “taking money out of the government and putting it in the hands of everyday Americans,” which is just. *chef’s kiss* Speaking as someone raised by and around conservatives, they will eat that shit UP.
I think a big moral in all of this is that you can’t expect the VAST majority of Americans to be educated or knowledgeable about these kinds of issues. I don’t even mean that as a dig, just a reality. Most people, living their lives, working their jobs, do NOT use the internet for activism. They don’t read about these issues in detail. They don’t really understand WHAT those little phrases mean or WHY they should want them. Which means IF you want to be an activist and you if you want to get those people on board- you gotta get on their level and EXPLAIN it to them without the slogans. Which is work, and you are not obligated to spend your time doing it, or doing it all the time, or doing it with radicalized Trumpers who aren’t here in good faith; but it is THE work, ya know?
See also: Republicans have mastered this in the opposite direction. They take something Democrats or liberals want, reduce it to a Scary Soundbite, and done, now people hate it.
See: critical race theory
Critical race theory is actually a law school level class about how legal systems can disadvantage people of color in the United States. It’s been around for forty years.
Republicans have conflated it with “indoctrinating children to think being white is bad and hating America.” Moral panic ensues.
The Affordable Care Act becomes “Government takeover of Healthcare.” Etc etc etc
People need to be meet where they’re at with accessible language that understands the audience or else you’ll lose them
My mother is in favor of “universal healthcare” but against “socialized medicine.” The language used for these things really matters
dare-mightythings reblogged
CBS elementary is absolutely bonkers, okay?
- Sherlock crashes Joan’s car in the first episode. This is never addressed again.
- Sherlock goads Joan into an illegal autopsy after he kept doing it wrong
- One time Sherlock comes home with a human head and has no idea where he got it
- Moriarty has a daughter who is kidnapped. Sherlock and Joan have to rescue her. With Moriarty.
- Moriarty kills someone who tries to assassinate Joan and then sends her a letter basically equaling out to “only me kill you <3″
- Joan beats up a cop in a boxing ring. Then she annoys Joan again so Joan prepares for round #2.
- Joan shaves Sherlock’s head on purpose. At his request. He is bald or almost bald for several episodes.
- Someone mocks Sherlock and Joan asks the man “what’s the hardest you’ve ever been hit?”
- Joan threatens to stab Sherlock in the thigh with a push-pin if he doesn’t pay attention to a meeting (she has the push pin the whole scene in her hand)
- Sherlock and Joan take down an entire drug gang in like a weekend.
- Sherlock goads Gregson into marrying his girlfriend for insurance.
- They keep roosters for like four episodes because Sherlock is trying to teach them to get along
- Lestrade takes a helicopter to go down the block
- “I’m Gay” “I am not” “No that’s my name. But I am actually gay, so it saves time.” “How efficient.”
- Sherlock becomes friends with a serial killer
- Sherlock and Joan need help with a case so they go visit a detective in stolen antiquities who demands their help with a SEPERATE case that Sherlock solves in ten seconds
- “Tell me you didn’t start that fire” “I didn’t start that fire”
- Sherlock’s solution to dealing with annoying neighbors is to start sculpting bushes with a chainsaw
- In order to stop Marcus from assaulting someone, Sherlock assaults them first
- Joan gets attacked by a serial killer and when Sherlock looks at her with big puppy eyes of apology she tells him that she’ll break his rib if he apologizes
- One of Marcus’ professors refuses to teach Marcus because of a grudge they hold against Sherlock
- “I’ve been robbed. How offensive.”
- A LOT of people Joan knew get murdered (this is weird now that I’m thinking about it, I can think of at least three people)
- Mycroft and Joan dated
- “Her first hidden body, you must be so proud.” “You’re jesting, but I am.”
- “You don’t know I play the violin?” “Until last week I didn’t know you ate food.”
- Sherlock gets into a disagreement with his father and his solution to dealing with his frustration is to squeeze an entire honey jar down the drain
- Joan publishes a book detailing Sherlock’s life SOLEY for revenge after Reichenbach
- No one can understand Sherlock’s texting except for Joan, who used the fact he WASN’T talking like a teenager to realize he’d been kidnapped
- “It’s the orange high lighter, it always brings bad luck.”
- Joan dyes her hair blonde to deal with a personal crises
- Joan and Sherlock lie under oath about breaking into people’s houses because they “heard puppies and babies under distress”
- “Holmes and Watson are tracking down some sort of Holmes and Watson thing.”
- Joan’s adoption lawyer lies about failing to notify her of meetings and Sherlock gets a king involved
- Joan meets her sister because her sister runs an illegal poker game
- Clyde. Just. Clyde
- Joan’s mother tells her that she thinks Joan’s brother is having an affair and when Joan vents her frustration about this, Sherlock tells her she can (and should) cut off her family
- The first half of season three is basically Joan and Sherlock mentoring/parenting Kitty
- Sherlock was SO CONFIDENT that his father wouldn’t show up to the meeting that he hired an actor to stand-in for his father (and he was right)
- A consistent running gag of the series is Sherlock waking up Joan in new and strange ways
- “Uncle Detective” “My child is not calling you detective.”
- “What does the moon landing have to do with someone trying to kill your father?” “Nothing. Or everything.”
dare-mightythings reblogged
rereading my own writing is just a constant fluctuation between "damn, girl, you wrote this? (affectionate)" and "damn, girl, you wrote this? (derogatory)"
aurevoirblog-deactivated2023082
I am also “damn, girl, you wrote this? (forgetful)”
dare-mightythings reblogged
Meet Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the Artemis 1 launch director. Charlie is the first female launch director at NASA and is overseeing the launches that will bring women to the moon.
As a child she already looked up to the Saturn V launches, but she never considered an engineering career until her high school teacher encouraged her. After studying computer engineering, she visited the control room for the first time at a job interview, and she knew she wanted to work there.
She didn't start at NASA immediately, but started working at Boeing in 1988. In 2004 she made the move to NASA to work on the Space Shuttle program. In 2016 she became launch director, the first woman in that position.
Photo Source: NASA/Joel Kowsky
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