So I was thinking about epithets yesterday and how when they're used well they really add to the work and when they're used poorly it feels like the author has thrown a cinderblock in front of you while you're moving at a brisk walk, and then I got floostered (flu vaxx and covid booster) and managed to edit this ugly but hopefully helpful flowchart together through my flooster fever.

The question I always come back to is, "How would I, as the viewpoint character, think about this other character?" I think about my wife by her name or her relationship to me. I don't think of her as "the blue-haired woman," or "the taller woman."

This obviously doesn't cover every single permutation of epithet use out there in the would, but if I can help one person avoid writing, "Scarlett walked into the kitchen, hungry and annoyed about it. The redheaded woman found she had no snacks and grumbled," it'll be worth it.

(This is not a callout post for anyone in particular. It's just intended as general writing advice, because I had to figure out a lot of this shit for myself when I first started telling stories!)

“i don’t understand what’s happening in palestine so i won’t comment on it” of course you don’t understand. most of us will never understand what it’s like to go for months without electricity, without water, without literal food. most of us won’t understand what it’s like talking to loved ones at lunch and then having to witness their bodies in body bags by dinner. no, you will never understand what that feels like—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care. that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t educate yourself. that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t donate. there’s only one thing uglier than willful ignorance—and that’s willful ignorance borne from selfishness and a severe lack of compassion. if you care anything about humanity as a concept, palestine should be your problem regardless of who you are, where you live, or where you’re from.

Corsage (2022) dir. Marie Kreutzer

PSA: That thing you're writing that doesn't fit someone else's headcanons? Write it anyway.

That thing you wrote and, oh no, someone made a tumblr post that says that characterizations like yours are incorrect, and now you feel like you wrote something "wrong." You didn't. You had a different opinion, consciously or not. You're allowed.

That random word someone says no one should ever use in a story but you kind of want to use it? Use it. (Like sometimes "chuckle" really is the best word for the specific laugh you're describing. Specific words exist to do specific jobs. If the best word for the job is "moist," use fucking "moist.")

I spent a lot of time being concerned about random rules that aren't even real rules, and it's not worth it. You aren't writing something wrong because you have a different opinion on a character or because you like a trope someone else doesn't like.

And most writing rules (yep! even grammar!) can and should be broken if it's effective in the situation. Yes, stories should be reader-friendly, and rules broken for emphasis should be used sparingly, but you HAVE to experiment to get a feel for where the sweet spot is. And! That sweet spot is going to vary based on what you write and who you are writing it for.

Let yourself write the thing you want to write the way you want to write it. Let yourself get a little weird in a lot of ways. Most importantly, do what is FUN for you or what's the fucking point?

you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.

💥🙌👏

guys im sorry. i know i’ve talked about this. but im still so salty about how jkr treated draco’s character. i will never understand her logic. I just. I genuinely do not get it. How does she see Snape and Regulus as redeemable but not Draco. Both of them did worse things and became Death Eaters entirely by choice. And both of them idolized Voldemort when he was active and not in the abstract whereas Draco idolized Voldemort when he was a concept but as soon as he was confronted with the reality he was horrified. 

And yet Rowling somehow sees him as belonging in a separate category. To the point where she says that fans who want to see his redemption arc acknowledged are harboring “unhealthy fantasies.” 

Even tho Draco, like Snape and Regulus ultimately rejected the ideologies he was raised to believe in and turned against them at great risk to himself. I just ??? Was she that threatened by the concept of drarry? Is that why she couldn’t bear to admit that Draco might actually have grown and changed??? 

I’m so confused. 

snippet from a fic i'll never finish #4

******

Sahara Nights in the desert brought cold winds and infinite, bright stars. At night, in the flapping tent, Harry traced constellations on Draco’s skin, giving each one a name: my darling, my sweet. No one who knew Harry would’ve guessed he was prone to endearments. Harry carried a whip and wore a broad hat and was usually sweaty, his clothes shabby from his adventures, his nails filthy from his excavations. Brusque and uncompromising, he’d never be accepted in polite society, where Draco grew up in stilted silence, surrounded by governesses and Latin textbooks. Harry had stuck out like a sore thumb in Cambridge among the other toffs, with his brilliant intellect and his impetuous temper and his handsome face, and until he kissed Draco by the river Cam on a night filled with the scent of spring grass, Draco had never known what it means to feel afraid.

*******

drarry, sequel to Tangiers

characters who did not die and are now forced to live with the knowledge that they shouldve, characters that had made peace with said death but it never came and they have to live on, character who despite their wishes will still fight to live should death come for them again

Guys, stop being crap to creators. You aren’t hurting Amazon. You’re stealing from writers.

i’ll die on the hill that says “sapphic love isn’t inherently more wholesome and pure and saying it does will only hurt lesbian and bi women”

fuck "girl lunch" fuck "girl math" a woman is a hairy animal who sweats and grunts and excretes and hungers and gets wrinkly and dies eventually. you have to love that.

we were talking about animal crossing today and it made me remember that draco is 100% marshal

Every single kiss is like a gift to me,

And I love the way you decorate my heart

(Kacey Musgraves, Troye Sivan - Glittery)

Happy Holidays @lou-isfake! Your presence has added a lovely sparkle to my life this year. I hope this little gift adequately expresses how much I love and appreciate you.

hogwarts yearbook superlatives, 1996

taken by colin creevey

A Giant Illuminated ‘Castle in the Sky’ Ship Built for the Studio Ghibli Exhibition in Tokyo