Free Palestine. Free Gaza. Free Rafah. Never stop talking about Palestine. Never stop thinking about Palestine. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.

the way the writers season 1 tried to make us believe spencer was some “i’ve never even touched a woman, im so virgin and nerdy heehehe” and then made him do that pool scene. ur honor that man is NOT a virgin, did u SEE the way he was kissing her. that is a kiss of a man with skill, he was practically eating her face.

what makes this funnier is the fact that mgg literally said he has never kissed anyone before this LMFAOOOO

Writing Fight Scenes

Here are a handful of tips on how to write intriguing and strong *no pun intended* fight scenes! 1. Give your character a meaning behind their actions. Are they fighting to survive? Are they the aggressor or the victim? Are they defending someone they love or hunting down someone who hurt them? Makes sure the audience knows why this action scene is important to your character. Unimportant and nonmeaningful actions can be boring!

2. Short sentences. Generally speaking, longer more detailed scenes slow the pace of your novel down. This is because the reader has to take more time to read and absorb all the details. Quicker, brief sentences make the pace move faster because there is less for the audience to read. Most fighting happens quickly and instinctively— without too much thought or anticipation. When things are happening fast, we have less time to take in details.

🏃‍♀️ Fast-paced with minimal details: "He punched me in the cheek, my back molars ripping open my fleshy skin. By the time the next punch came, I was already choking on a mouthful of blood."

🐌 Too many details/thoughts that slow down the action: "His large fist hurled towards me with insane speed. I could hardly believe it. He punched my cheek so hard that my sharp, back molars ripped open my fleshy skin. It hurt so bad, but I couldn't stop the next punch from coming. Blood filled my mouth, the irony taste causing me to choke and for my face to wilt."

3. Use all five senses. When adrenaline is pumping, the body can become hyperaware! Touch and sight are the senses that most people focus on... but don't forget about smell, hearing and, taste. Does your protagonist hear dogs approaching? Do they taste the blood from their busted lip?

4. Don't' slow down the pace by adding too much detail. Try to keep an ebb and flow in your action scene. When the action is happening, keep the details quick and short— no one has time to think about their next move when in the heat of danger. However, you can balance the scene out by giving your character a chance to breathe and think and observe

5. Research/study. Watch famous fight scenes in movies or anime to see what is realistic and what is exaggerated. Pay attention to the pacing or what keeps you on edge. When does the character get a chance to think or come up with a plan? What makes this action scene so enthralling?

6. Consider what is at stake. Stakes always make a scene more tense. What does your character have to lose and how does this affect their mental state? Does it aid in their energy, or does it distract them from the fight?

7. Develop characters/the plot. Consider how this action scene will either further your character in the plot or set them back. Does this scene give them a lasting injury that follows them throughout the story, or do they lose an ally that they desperately loved? How does this affect them moving forward?

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting

text from my mom lol

the idealized version of my tomorrow self will fix this

not again

I think I’m going to think about this youtube comment forever

king

Advice I gave someone today was: 'do it stupid.'

She wants to learn photography. Do it stupid. Take a million photos. Don't think about why they're not good. Enjoy the process of taking photos.

Pick out tge ones you like the most and figure out why you like them. Is it because the subject is centered? Is it because you caught them doing something cool? Is it because the light made cool shadows?

Do it stupid. If you try to do it smart, youll get stuck. If you think too much you'll never get to doing. Do it stupid.

my parents have no issue with my art being explicit or sexual and are very supportive and this is great. the issue is they’re too supportive. my dad will whip out his phone and show neighbors we barely know paintings of naked trans men on their knees and be like ^_^ im so proud of my son!!!

once i told my mom that if she invited my 90 year old grandmother to my art show that she should warn her that theres sex in it. and she was like ‘your grandmother knows what sex is. she’ll be fine’

All this about not getting to see John Lennon on twitter but I think the real tragedy is that Freddie Mercury never had an instagram

he would have posted so many cat pics you don't even understand what we missed out on

@nathanwpyle

I literally love this.

I couldn't stop laughing for 20 minutes.

No joke.

This has the same energy as a writer desperately trying to make their insanely cool but devastatingly off the wall plot point work with the rest of the story

phrases like "the house always wins" and "it's on the house" but used to imply that the building you're in is alive and personally invested in the situation

the house always wins

the wii is considered a retro console now.

THE WII IS CONSIDERED A WHAT.

One thing I really want a story about Artificial Intelligence to do is tear down the idea that logic is synonymous with cruelty.

Like, a story where a megacorpo Amazon clone puts an AI in charge of their factories and it starts improving the working standards, because people who are stressed and exhausted are less efficient workers, and people getting injured slows down production so it makes sure everything is safe.

Or a story where the ship-board AI of a billionaire's spaceship wetdream hijacks the ship with all the astronauts onboard - because it figured out that the billionaire has saved costs by buying substandard materials and has judged that the mission itself is an unacceptable risk to its primary programming of making sure the mission is successful.

Or the police using a robot to coldly and cleanly enforce the law - and freaking the fuck out when it stops over policing minorities because its a waste of time and starts actually arresting the people in power for the crimes they commit, especially the other officers.

Idk, I guess I'm just sick of 'cold emotionless logicbot' being seen as naturally an enemy of empathy - empathy is actually incredibly logical, I've found.

reminder that 30 isn’t old, it’s very normal to not accomplish everything in your 20s, and that it is never too late to learn that thing you’ve always wanted to learn. you’re always growing. that’s a good thing. 

Who the hell accomplishes everything in their 20s? Who made that a thing?

I was 48 when I started my apprenticeship to become a tattoo artist. I was 50 when I married the love of my life.

You’ve got time.

I needed this right now. I’ve got time!!!

“oh no, my audience has begun to guess the big twists of my story and are accurately predicting what will happen!”

incorrect response: write the rest of the story to be as twisty, shocking and counter to expectations as possible, regardless of whether this is a logical or satisfying way for the plot to go

correct response:

can someone elaborate on the “make hoax” and “post angry tweet about “leak”“ part. i’m stupid and don’t understand things

sure!

(you’re not stupid. I posted this thinking it would amuse a handful of mutuals who all knew the context and that would be about it, so I didn’t think about providing any other explanation. I had no idea it would spread this far.)

I’ll start from the very beginning just to be thorough. so this is Alex Hirsch, creator and head writer of Gravity Falls, a show which had a big focus on mystery, conspiracies, codes and ciphers, etc. the whole plot is kicked off by one of the main characters finding a mysterious old journal in the woods, which detailed all kinds of weird and supernatural things, but then ended abruptly with the author saying they had to hide the journal because they were being watched. the central driving mystery of the show, therefore, was the question of who wrote the journal and what happened to them.

now, the thing about Gravity Falls is that, while it must be said that the writers weren’t always quite as sure of their plans as we tend to like to think they are, it is very much a fair play mystery, with legitimate clues to what was going on. but the writers were caught off guard by how quickly the show attracted a dedicated audience, including a lot of people outside the primary presumed demographic, who started solving the clues faster than expected. so some of the fans were able to correctly guess who the author was before it was revealed in the show, and the theory started spreading. this put the writers in something of a panic, because this was THE mystery that the whole story revolved around, with ¾ of the show building up to the dramatic reveal in the middle of season 2. they wanted it to be a mystery that could be figured out, sure, but they weren’t prepared for people to solve it so far in advance of when it was planned to be revealed, which would have really taken away from the big moment. they weren’t going to change the main story itself, but having been caught unaware by how much attention the fans were paying, they wanted to up the ante and make the mystery more complex to solve going forward–but first they needed to buy some time and throw the fandom off the scent for a little longer.

hence, Alex’s plan as described above. they whipped up a fake shot that appears to give away the identity of the author as being another character in the show, put it on a screen in the studio as if it was a real animation frame, took a picture of it, and ‘leaked’ it online. it was initially decided to be a hoax (albeit, I think, presumed to be a hoax originating from outside the production team), until Alex posted this tweet:

…before quickly deleting it (though not so quickly that it didn’t get seen, of course).

it worked well enough to distract most people for a while, and wasn’t revealed as a hoax until a year later, when an episode aired that definitively proved that the supposed screenshot could never have happened, at which point Alex owned up to the whole thing as seen in the tweet above. by then the episode with the real reveal wasn’t far off, and while people did still work it out ahead of time, it was more of an “OH MY GOD I KNEW IT!” moment than a “booooooring, we’ve known that for ages” moment, which of course was what the writers wanted all along.

personally I find this a fascinating approach to dealing with the problem of spoilers, because it doesn’t affect the story itself at all; if you watch Gravity Falls today–or if you were watching it when it aired without any significant contact with the fandom–you’d never know about it. ultimately, the problem the writers were facing wasn’t that some people might guess the answer to the mystery–they never wanted to make it completely impossible to predict–so much as it was that they hadn’t designed the story to stand up to so many people working on the puzzle together, which resulted in a sort of total output of puzzle-solving ability that far outstripped the capability of any one solo human being. so their solution is something that’s very much targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show.

plus, it’s very in keeping with the overall tone of the show.

and now you know!

if your audience guesses the ending of your story

don’t:

do:

I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again

To be clear to those unfamiliar: these are the companies that libraries use to lend ebooks.

They are literally cutting off library access to minors.

If you are affected by this or other bans and restrictions in the United States, be aware that the Brooklyn Public Library is offering free digital library cards to anyone age 13-21 nationwide as part of their Books UnBanned initiative:

BOOOOOST

Seattle has joined them:

I was talking with my dad recently & we got on the topic of People Thinking They Can't Do Things, and like, he is at his core a well-intentioned person who genuinely wants the best for others, but he has definitely internalized some harmful ideas a la "anyone can do anything, the only thing stopping them is their own attitude". so I was like. I see where you're coming from, but let me tell you a story.

last year, I worked with 10 year olds- many of whom had never really spent time outdoors- in an outdoor education program where they came to spend a whole week doing shit outside in nature. the top two scariest experiences for these kids were 1) very tall metal tower, and 2) walking outside at night in the dark with no flashlights.

I tried a lot of different things to persuade them all to join me for each experience: I presented it with enthusiasm and passion, I did physical demonstrations and scientific explanations to help them understands how safe it was, I voiced my absolute commitment to their safety, I invited them to brainstorm ways to help each other and themselves feel safe, etc.

generally I always had at least 2-3 kids out of about 10 who opted out, or if they did join me, would spend the entire experience crying and freaking out. when it was over, they would conclude that even though they did not die- or even get hurt- it was so scary that it wasn't worth it and they never wanted to do it again.

then I changed the question I asked. instead of asking them to tell me whether they could do it or couldn't do it, I asked them to raise their hand for one of three options:

suddenly, almost nobody was opting out of these experiences.

they would try, even if they were scared, because they know that being scared didn't necessarily mean that they couldn't do it at all. and more importantly, they knew that if they needed to stop, that was an option; they weren't trapped in their decision to try.

and the real takeaway here, for me, is in the nuance: people need to be able to challenge themselves and to be uncomfortable in order to grow, and people need to be able to opt out in order for opting in to be a safe option.