The Bat Cave of Wonders

I dont know who needs to hear this but if your hobby starts to not be fun, put it down. It's a hobby, not a full time job or something, don't burn yourself out on something that should be entertaining. Physically can't bring yourself to draw? Put it down. Bored with a crochet project? Put it down. Dropped stitches while knitting and filled with rage? Put it down. It'll come back to you

All I'm saying is, if a fic refers to characters by their physical attributes instead of their names or pronouns ("he smiled at the older" "the blonde laughed") when we know who the character is, and ESPECIALLY if the descriptions include "ravenette" or "cyanette" or other ridiculous words--

I'm clicking out of that fic so fast my AO3 history won't even register I've been there.

I am glad you asked. :D

First, if a writer is using the characters' names every sentence -- they're already off to a bad start. Not every sentence needs to clarify which character it applies to, unless you're writing a "See Jane Run" book, lol.

Overall a good rule of thumb is a) don't repeat unnecessary information, and b) only write things that carry the scene.

So for starters, your readers should know who's in the scene, and you can trust them to have at least a little bit of intuition: not every bit of dialog needs to have a tag ("he said/she whispered" etc.) Now, that established: you do use names when doing otherwise would leave it unclear who's doing or saying things. Example:

It's clear who says what, and if we had just used "he" it wouldn't have been, but we also didn't have to dialog-tag every line. (ALSO. "Said" is not a bad word. Ignore all advice that tells you never to use "said." "Said" is an invisible word and unless you're putting a dialog tag on every line [which you Do Not Need To Do] people won't even notice it. Unlike "shrieked," "whispered," "hissed," "ranted," "whined," etc. Use those words when they'll have punch and impact. Not every dang line.)

But this isn't always how it needs to go.

For example. Let's say I'm writing about a strawberry-blonde elf named Diana and a human bard with black hair named Jerome. I could say:

Okay there are.... several issues here. First off, we don't need to clarify that Diana said the thing after we had her doing an action. Trust your readers! They'll know that a "she" here logically refers to Diane, as they know that "he replied" refers to Jerome.

Next, please strike "referring to characters by eye or hair color" from any lists. This is not good. It's not relevant 99% of the time (we'll get to exceptions in a moment) and also, pet peeve: "ravenette" does not mean black-haired. If you've gotta say it, just say black-haired. Ravenette means "a raven, diminuative" or maaaaaaybe "like a raven." Unless you're imitating an 1800s gothic poet, don't do this.

Physical descriptions used as character indicators/pseudo pronouns are clunky and take up space without telling us anything new. They distance the reader from the character by taking us out of the story and back into exposition land, and they generally repeat information we already know. We can tell our readers in chapter one that Diana has strawberry-blonde hair, and then we don't need to refer to her as "the strawberry-blonde" a hundred more times because our readers already know this. Just call her Diana. Or "she." (Unless it's relevant to the moment -- if she's not our POV character and we need to contrast her to, say, a black-haired beauty at the ball through someone else's eyes, that's one thing. But still, don't continually refer to her by something as shallow as her hair color.)

Exception: visual descriptions are valid to use as character-indicators when we or the characters do not know who that person is. For example, if Diana had been kidnapped by bandits.

Ooooh look! Now we know the boss-man's name. From here on out, we probably should refer to him as either "Gorm" or "the bandit leader" -- not "the tall man" (and never just "the taller." Or "the older," "the younger," etc. That's a side note, but a lot of fics do that too. If you're going to use a comparative adjective, you at least still have to tell us what noun it refers to.)

Also -- did you notice how we never said Diana's name there either? She's the viewpoint character, so unless another person comes along that we need to clarify with, we can usually get away with just saying "she." The reader knows who they're reading about.

When you DO have two or more characters with the same pronouns in a scene, you gotta get creative. Again, readers are intuitive -- they can follow pretty well who's doing what as long as you make it clear. Generally speaking, if you establish which character is doing the thing, you can then use just the pronoun until you switch to a new character. For example:

There's never a confusion that Peony offers Diana her own hand -- not somehow Diana's hand. We don't question that Diana is the one wrinkling her nose, or that they're her pants and not Peony's. Or that Peony sweeps her own hair out of her own eyes. Sometimes you'll have lines where it's a little more confusing, but if it feels awkward in the sentence, always consider if you can re-structure it another way. Like,

Okay, that last line there? That one gets confusing, with all those "her"s. We COULD change it to "Diana reached for her, grabbing the back of Peony's tunic and yanking her down onto the horse." That takes care of a lot of them. Or, we could improve things even further by breaking apart the action, elaborating on things, and just generally stretching out the words so that it's clearer which "she/her" is being referenced at any given time. It's your story! Take advantage of all the room you've got -- there will never be a time when you simply cannot rearrange things to make it clearer for your readers.

It does takes effort. And sometimes a bit of verbal slight of hand. You may have to restructure sentences to avoid repetitive phrases and give yourself a good pace. (That's a large part of rewriting and editing.)

However, like the word "said," pronouns are invisible words. Names are not -- they jump out and say HI THIS IS ME. Use them sparingly -- they have power.

One final exception! Fantasy race and job titles. Again, you don't do this with your POV characters unless you're trying to remind the readers of something, but it IS acceptable to sometimes refer to, say, "the elf," or "the detective," or "the werewolf," or "the duke." Use them sparingly, but this is one exception -- mainly because it tells/reminds us of an important fact about the character. (You might also use, say, "her older sister," or "his father," etc, because that also communicates information about the characters and who they are to each other. But. Again. Use sparingly.)

...okay, I've rambled enough, but hopefully this is somewhat useful/helpful to someone out there.

Again! Read good books! Watch how professional writers do it! Imitate, imitate, imitate! The best writing teachers in the world are good writers.

Happy writing!

wait okay no hold up this says it so much faster and clearer than any of my rambling above: identifying characters by their visual attributes tells us WHAT they are, but not WHO they are.

There. Boom. Short answer. Much clearer, much better. Thank you, tumblr user djtangerine.

yea this is why your exceptions work too! if the narrator only knows a character as “that blond guy” then calling them “the blond guy” isn’t jarring to the reader.

One way to remember this/avoid the problem: A character who apparently thinks of their close friend as “the taller girl”? Their romantic partner as just “the blonde”? That tells us something about the character, and it’s that they’re a fucking asshole. 

That’s WHY it’s jarring! It’s not just an arbitrary This Is How Good Writing Works rule to memorize. It’s jarring because, like....Have you ever spoken to a business major someone who just...blatantly viewed you as an interchangeable NPC stock model in a story that was clearly about Them, The Protagonist? This inappropriate use of stilted descriptions accomplishes the same effect.  Since their actions and story presumably are meant to show that they’re not an asshole, it’s jarring and off-putting because it doesn’t match what we already know about them.

At best, it just highlights the awkward and tonally inappropriate writing and wrenches the reader out of immersion. At worst, especially if it’s overused, it makes the whole piece unreadable because the character comes across as such an insincere and shallow cardboard cutout that we don’t care about them anymore!

When you first meet someone, or your relationship is such that not remembering or caring about their names is appropriate, descriptive tags aren’t jarring because that’s what they’re for--they’re the kind of shallow, surface-level details that we use to differentiate people we don’t know yet or whose identities are realistically just not that relevant to us. Like in the excellent bandit example above--even if the protagonist knows Gorm’s name at that point, it would make complete sense for her not to be on mental “first name terms” with the creepy bandit captain who has her tied up in the woods!

But if a character is thinking about someone they personally know, and they are mentally referring to that person as “the blonde” or “the taller one”, that tells us a lot about the level of respect they have for that person. It’s probably not the message you wanted to send.

Also when you use comparatives, it always reads as there being something IMPORTANT being communicated

Like “he looked over at the younger man knowingly” insinuates that he knows something the other man does because he’s older. If he DOESNT know more because he’s older, than it doesn’t matter that he’s older, so don’t point it out!

That’s Louis Rossman, a repair technician and YouTuber, who went viral recently for railing against Apple. Apple purposely charges a lot for repairs and you either have to pay up or buy a new device. That’s because Apple withholds necessary tools and information from outside repair shops. And to think, we were just so close to change.

Follow @the-future-now

Reblog if you:

No one will know which is it

This guy inspired me to repair my own macbook. First of all, you should know that I am not… like, I have to look up HOW to look up what my computer specifications are. Tech, that ware either soft or hard, is not a subject in which I experience comfort or competence. But my puppy peed on my keyboard, and I asked the apple store, or the fucking mac cafe, or the godsdamn Computer House Chill Zone or whatever cute ass name they have for their bullshit store, and they said it would be TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO REPLACE MY KEYBOARD. I’m not even exaggerating.

So I asked the internet, well how hard IS it to repair? And I saw this guy’s video, and while I am no techie, I AM fueled by spite, so I was all “oh, they do that shit on purpose specifically so they can charge me $1200 bucks or make me buy a new computer hunh? FUCK THEM” and I bought all the tools I needed for about $25 and I bought all the parts I needed for about another $25 and I watched a few tutorial videos, and I replaced my own keyboard.

So, once you are doing the actual deed, it becomes pretty obvious that they are finding creative ways to make this much harder than it has to be on purpose. On thing that stood out to me is, instead of all the tiny screws being the same size, there are about two dozen very slightly different sizes. They could easily be all the same size, or like, two sizes at most, but no.

These mother fuckers will take a panel that screws into place and they’ll use a different size screw for each corner. They are so close that you almost cannot tell them apart visually, but they each will only screw into the matching corner. Like, it’s a pretty clear “fuck you” to anyone trying to do repairs.

anyway, this guy is also fueled by spite, and doing holy work, and I have mad respect

This is awesome. Man is doing good ass deeds 24/7 because he’s giving people control.

How dare you not leave a link to his channel, this guy is the savior of the modern world.

btw… important PSA: cutting off the mold on the surface of food does nothing. you can only see the spores on the surface, but mold itself has spread and grown roots into the food. by the time you can actually *see* the spores, that piece of food is completely full of it. youre still eating mold. 

many of which are poisonous and have been shown to cause cancer. youre not even supposed to sniff it, because that can get spores into your lungs. like if you look up the health and safety guidelines for mold they barely stop short of telling you to put on a hazmat suit. 

like produce is okay as long as you cut around it at least an inch, but cooked foods? you gonna die. stop eating mold people 

does that include bread

yes

Here’s the USDA mold chart

VERY IMPORTANT INFO FRIENDOS!!!!!!!!!!!!

“What’s anyone going to need Home Ec for anyway?”

life tip whatever dumb ass name you get siri to call you is what your iphone automatically signs your emails as. i have been applying to jobs for 2 months as queef.

#OH MY GOD OH GMY GOD OH MY GOD NO N ONO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOO #HOLY SHIT #I HAVE BEEN APPLYING TO JOBS AS ANAL DESTROYER

FUCK

This post actually deserves a “reblog to save a life”

This actually happened to an unfortunate lab tech i knew a few years ago. “Sir Fuck-O-Saurus” had a hard time with employment.

As if i needed one more reason to say fuck no to any and all apple producta and software

Okay unironically SIGNAL BOOST

Oh wow I was gonna say this is bs because the default is just “sent from my iPhone” but look

This is amazing

Something I’ve wanted to make for a long while now…

(reuploaded due to missing pictures and tumblr being glitchy today.  This took 5 separate attempts, jeeeeez)

Every day you’ve dealt with your terrible stepmother and your equally terrible and ugly stepsisters as you’ve done your chores. One day, an invitation to the prince’s ball comes to your late father’s estate. After your late mother’s dress is destroyed, you find an elderly woman in front of you. She waves her wand through the air and suddenly a blue ball gown with glass slippers appear on the bench next to you. She claims you can go to the ball for only a small price. You have to kill the prince.

“No.” I fold my arms, meeting her eyes. 

She blinks at me. “No?”

“Not for a silk dress and a night at a party. Only a fool would commit regicide for so low a price.” 

The old woman hesitates, and her eyes narrow. “Well. True. Though it would only be regicide if I asked you to kill the king.”

“His heir is close enough, to my mind.” 

The old woman rubs her chin thoughtfully. “Aye, that’s fair. But… if the price were better?” 

I shrug. “I’ve contemplated murdering my stepmother and her daughters often enough. The only reason I don’t do it is that I’d surely be the first and only suspect. If a murder would truly free me from this misery… I’d certainly be willing to consider it. After careful planning, of course.” 

“Indeed. Indeed.” She smiles grimly. “All right, my dear. Shall we plan a murder, then?” 

Keep reading

Rescue professional here:

If you need rescuing or help, DON’T FUCKING MOVE. You are so much easier to find when you stay put.

Credits: @foxes-in-love

Your most important survival skill is asking for help

Goddamn preach this

"Your most important survival skill is asking for help." THIS, it makes me so damn pissed off when parents try and normalize that asking for help is a taboo thing!

This is like one of those art house horror movies with symbolism I don’t understand except I understand what this is trying to convey perfectly holy crap

Same energy 

nominee for best tiktok of 2020 holy shit i got chills

This gives me such strong Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared Vibes holy shit

😟😳😳😳

#idk what this means or if i do this but ig i'll just hold my phone with my pinky stuck out from now on?? 

Good question, also no that won’t help.

shitty MS Paint 3 minutes doodle, nto entirely accurate: When you have your pinky hooked on the “bottom” edge of the phone for the extra security so it doesn’t slide out of your hand that easily, you’re wreaking damage on your hand, since the pinky is extremely askew from it’s resting position. You might have noticed that when you hold your phone like that for long time it begins to hurt, like when you are gripping a pen too tightly for example.

Green lines - the fingers are going their natural way. Red line - the pinky is way off, that’s bad.

Me: Oh, good thing I never-

Me, looking down at hand: By talos this can't be happening

... this is why it's bad that our phones keep getting bigger. I didn't realize I was doing this and now that I notice I still can't seem to stop doing it.

The director of cybersecurity from the Electronic Freedom Foundation is offering to help women who have been threatened with compromise of their devices.

I better see EVERYBODY reblogging this

So a good friend of mine had me create those piece for his 2nd Company Champion Boreas of the Shadow Fists Space Marine Chapter.

... I hope I remembered all that right, I am SUPER new to Warhammer40k, but I tried my best! Regardless of my newb status, I am SO proud with how this turned out~!

Now that I think about it there really should be more story options to steal the pets of those who have wronged us in GW2.

We have Lady Wisteria Whiskington (Divinity’s Reach Fanciest Cat Contest Winner and bloodstone abomination) who can be liberated from a certain former minister; there’s the drakehound from the same mission who rangers can recruit to turn on its masters; and now implicitly there is the Hound of Balthazar warclaw, which is messy lorewise but idc.

Anyway I think they should let us do more crime. We should be able to free thorn hounds from the Nightmare court. I want to straight up abscond with Malynn’s spiders. Mordrem guards think they can keep their weird riding dinosaurs all to themselves? Think again, motherfucker.

Let all of Tyria know Ranger Justice: if you suck, I’m gonna kick your ass and steal your dog.