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thestuffedalligator · 17 days

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I’ve talked about this before but I feel obligated every now and then to talk about the time Jimmy Stewart smuggled a yeti finger from a Nepalese Buddhist monastery to America.

The Pangboche Hand was the skeletal hand of a yeti who was a disciple of Lama Sangwa Dorje, and the finger of the hand was stolen in 1959 by a Bigfoot researcher named Peter C. Byrne after the monks refused to let him take the hand for research. Once Byrne got the finger into India, “It’s A Wonderful Life” star Jimmy Stewart, James “Anatomy of a Murder” Stewart, smuggled the finger out of India and to the States by — allegedly — hiding it in his wife’s lingerie case, because no gentleman would ever check a woman's lingerie case.

Byrne, by the way, was hired to steal the finger by eccentric millionaire oil tycoon Tom Slick, who spent the ‘50s obsessed with cryptozoology before dying in a plane crash in Montana. Not important for the story, important to me personally that you know this.

And I tell you this because “Jimmy Stewart smuggled a yeti finger in his wife’s lingerie case” is a fun collection of words and also to remind you that cryptozoology is awash with colonial assholes who will step over other cultures to find the “proof” they feel entitled to.

#i met peter c byrne before he passed. fascinatingly pompous man #anyways the story has kind of a happy ending #weta workshop made a replica scalp and hand for the monastery in 2011 after the originals were stolen #so. yay #cryptozoology #yeti

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writeouswriter · 1 year

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I love how ominous such basic names like "The Organization" or "The Institute" or "The Initiative" or "The Facility" or etc. are when placed in like a shady sci-fi context, like there's no reason for them to sound that suspicious, but without elaboration, it's like here is a place where they are doing things™ and I am like ooohh, because the blank state, the refusal to give you any more detail makes you think they're hiding something on purpose and leaves the darkest corner of the imagination left to fill in the rest.

#writing #writeblr #names #i want to give my shady research facilities in my stories actual names but some part of me is like #you'll never get the level of unease you get from just naming it the institute rather than the x institute or something #sci-fi #other genres i guess too but usually sci-fi #the barn in haven why is that the scariest sounding thing ever like?#you just know that thing ain't a barn #it is a barn physically outside but oh the creep factor that name gives i can't explain #the shop in firestarter? like f*ck it conjures up images of a workshop and saws building and tearing apart people for some reason #the initiative in buffy it's so nondescript and unassuming just like its soldiers living among the campus and the military power they hold #etc etc etc you know #mayhaps i am not creative enough to come up with better names also mayhaps

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orangecatty-shiningnikki · 1 month

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【 Shining Nikki CN+TW 】

Main Story “Savior Headquarters”

Volume 3 Chapter 2 “Visitors in Restricted Areas”

【 Shining Nikki CN+TW 】

Main Story “Savior Headquarters”

Volume 3 Chapter 2 “Visitors in Restricted Areas”

The red storm, the torrent of the rift...

The girl who looks the same as Tatari,

may be the real source of this out-of-control power.

"I wonder if you can take on one of my personal commissions ?"

"A...very, very important commission."

Go deep into the chessboard of memory with Nikki and find the key to break the deadlock.

Suit Display ::

Original :: King side kiss (王翼輕吻)

Recolor :: Queen side guard (后翼守護)

Collection :: Ninir Adventure

Designer :: Lilian & Tatali ( 栗栗安 & 塔塔莉 )

Rarity :: SR

Attribute :: Sexy

Date :: 05/01/2024….

Type ::

Main Story • Vol.3 • Ch.2

(Workshop Design) (Journey Suit) (Chapter Sets)

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shaunashipman · 17 days

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I don’t know why a random B*ddie post appeared on my fyp about how some people need to learn about symbolism to understand why Buck and Eddie were dressed up as a couple and Tommy didn’t bother dressing up. And I had to laugh. Buck and Eddie were matching but they weren’t a couples costume because both of them claimed to be Crockett. They were two Crocketts without their Tubbs- doesn’t really symbolize a ‘endgame couple’

i need these people to realize that sYmbOLisM is not the entire reason the show does things, that practical considerations of the story need to be taken into account

it reminds of a post about someone's story in a workshop. it went into great detail about the protagonists bedroom, which was full of things all of which were in some way thematic about the character, and the person delivering their criticism had a question: "how did they afford all these things?" because the character came from a poor family & the writer was so caught up in the symbolism of the objects they forgot to think of that

also, there's something to be said by someone a bit more eloquent then me right now, about tommy showing up to both the bachelor party and the hospital wedding "out of dress code" and buck being disappointed about the first but so fucking pleased about the second he had to jump him

#cleo gets mail #anonymous #911 #911 critical #bucktommy #anti buddie #to be safe #i may be misremembering the story workshop post #but my point remains #also please someone make a post about tommy showing up out of dress code #or send me it if someone already has #cause i'm thinking thoughts but none of them are coherent post migraine

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books · 9 months

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Writing Workshop Week 3: Stories of a Place

Hello again, my very talented writers of tumblr! I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed reading your work. I’ve seen such stellar craft happening, and I’m eager to see where you’ll take this next prompt.

In week 1, we focused on a single object. In week 2, we attended to the objects in our environment. This week, we’re considering the environment as a whole—setting.

One of the reasons I’ve chosen this order specifically, small to large, is because setting can become overwhelming. But last week we already practiced it in our real environments by observing our surroundings, and putting those details into our work. Setting is not as huge and amorphous as it may seem—when it comes down to it, setting is the interaction between character and place. Notice I didn’t say that setting is the place itself, and that’s because a place is meaningless without grounding it in the personal stakes of a character. It’s like walking around a grocery store and not putting anything in your cart. A setting only exists to hold its contents.

Setting can refer to the largest and smallest of places: universe, galaxy, planet, continent, country, city, home, bedroom, pillow fort. Setting can also refer to time: millennium, century, decade, year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second.

In writing, not all of these things have to be defined, nor should they. The difficulty in setting is the negotiation between our lived reality—in which we have all of this information at all times—and the restrictive nature of writing, in which we not only control all these variables, but we also have to organize and convey them. In reality, events can occur simultaneously. You can drop a plate at the same time you get a text message. But in writing, even if those things happen at the same time in the lived reality of your character, you have to convey the plate dropping and then the phone vibrating in consecutive sentences, linked usually by the word “simultaneously.” Your reader then retroactively crafts those moments happening at once in their memory, but there is a brief moment between those two details where the reader knows the plate has dropped but not that the phone will vibrate. Just as a film is restricted to the width of a camera’s lens, writing is restricted to the sentence. As immersive as writing can be, it is still always a constructed thing.

When it comes to setting, you not only have control over all these details, you also have to figure out the order of information those details are conveyed. Which brings me to…

Decision Fatigue

One of the reasons people think fanfiction is “easier” than original fiction is because there are fewer decisions to make. You have an established universe to play in and so you don’t have to pull up a name generator to figure out the name of your protagonist, or however you make those choices. But that’s not true—fanfiction requires a different type of decision-making and therefore a different (but equally difficult) skill set of creative thinking. The analogy I like to use is a playground versus a beach. On a playground, the equipment is already there, but you can use it however you want. On a beach, you have to decide what to bring with you. One is not inherently better than the other. It’s all play.

I say this because I’ve coached a lot of writers who are transitioning from fanfiction to original fiction. It can be jarring to go from the playground to a beach. And so I see a lot of writers succumb to decision fatigue—the exhaustion of creativity. You have to decide what kind of car your character drives, how old they are, where they live, what they do for a living, their relationships, the conflicts of those relationships, their educational background, and so on. Creativity is making decisions. And that’s why it’s hard.

Relevance

I would argue that setting is the most difficult series of decisions to make. Our entry into a new piece is generally a character, a premise, or an image. Or, as we say on Tumblr, we put a guy in situations. That guy’s environment will affect him and his situations, because that environment will either help or hinder him in some way. A meet-cute, for example, is nearly always related to setting.

I remember doing my first generative workshop on setting. It sent me into a spiral I couldn’t climb out of for four years. The spiral was this:

All narratives, even narrative poems (as opposed to lyrical), exist in a time and place, and the author has control of those factors. The more specific those details are, the stronger the story becomes. The specificity of those details is rendered in imagery. Ergo, I have to develop my imagery.

And now I’m going to tell you the result of that line of thinking so you don’t fall into the same trap: I wrote a totally unpublishable novel. It was too long and not very interesting, and both of those things happened because I was more dedicated to developing my setting than my story.

Although that was great practice, it kind of sucked to spend an entire year working on something only to put it in a drawer and never look at it again. What pulled me out of the spiral was dedicating myself to narration—I decided I was only obligated to describe that which my narrator observed. And because I didn’t want to bother with setting anymore, I made a character who was totally oblivious.

(We’ll be looking at narration next week.)

I began to view the setting through a character rather than around a character. My narrator was narrow-focused and obsessive, so I was only obligated to write that which came into the one-lane bridge of her attention. In other words, I only wrote what was relevant to her. And the only thing that was relevant to her was the object of her fixation.

The big caveat here is that a story isn’t always obligated to its narrator. That’s a choice I’ve made for my own work, because I’m interested in narrators and the development of voice. My prose will never be beautiful or floral. I’ll never have the patience to lovingly describe what it’s like to live in Ohio. I’ll probably only ever write a character who has driven past the HELL IS REAL sign a dozen times and who maybe has strong opinions on corn. It’s the best way I can find to help me avoid the decision fatigue of building an entire world.

Prompt time!

For this week’s activity, I’d like you to think of a place you really love. This can be your home town or the house where you grew up or wherever has brought you joy. (Remember: love inspires.)

Next, I’d like you to write 3 facts of public information and 3 facts of private information about that place.

Public information is anything that can be found, either by researching the place or visiting it. This could be factual—population, square footage, location. It could also involve community knowledge, like legends, cultures, or customs. It can also include major historical events. If you were to show this place to a total stranger, what would you tell them about it? This part may require some research.

Private information is what can’t be known by anyone but you (and maybe the people who were there with you). This includes memories you have of the place, secrets, unknown histories; anything that can’t be understood unless you have intimate knowledge of the place or lived there during a particular moment.

For example, when I taught in the South, I had a lot of students who had lived through Hurricane Katrina. They were all young children at the time. When I had them do this activity, many of them chose to list facts that anyone could find about New Orleans in August of 2005—that there were over 1300 casualties, that Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane. They also shared things that no one else could know, about their families housing total strangers whose homes were destroyed, about living for days or even weeks without electricity. About why their parents chose to stay rather than leave, or leave rather than stay. About loved ones who had died.

Once you have your 6 things, I’d like you to write a piece based on them. Here are some ways you can approach it:

If you want to write nonfiction, tell the story of one of your private pieces of information.

If you want to write fiction, write a story using at least one of the public pieces of information. For example, you can tell the story of a legend, or make a legend up. Or you could do something similar to what we did last week, where you take those three pieces of information and weave them in.

If you want to write a poem, try to capture the sense of place by using one or more pieces of information, either private or public.

If you want to write something experimental, write a story about a piece of private information from the perspective of the place itself.

You don’t have to share your 6 things (unless you want to). While you’re writing, note the details that emerge naturally while drafting, what becomes relevant to the story versus what doesn’t. Like our previous prompts, allow yourself to lean into associative thinking and make connections with your memories.

Questions? Ask ‘em here before EOD Tuesday so @bettsfic can answer them on Wednesday. And remember to tag your work #tumblr writing workshop with betts if you want her to read your work and possibly feature it on Friday!

And, for those just joining us: @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. Want to know more? Start here.

#tumblr writing workshop with betts #week 3: stories of a place #writers' room #writeblr #writing setting #writers on tumblr #writing advice #long post #long text post

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connorscreek · 5 months

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I fully can’t comprehend that people know Mike Faist from West Side Story and not Newsies or Dear Evan Hansen, or any of the other projects he’s been a part of?

And soon enough there’ll be people who know him only from Challengers????

#yknow those alice by heart workshops too #mike faist #newsies #dear evan hansen #challengers #i can i will i did #the atlantic city story #the grief of others #pinball the man who saved the game #panic on prime

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moonshine-nightlight · 6 months

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Potential Long Stories

hey, while looking to next year, i have a number of long story ideas i'm considering and i'd like to gauge y'alls interest in them and see if there are any top contenders since i'd likely only be able to work on one for the next year or two (similar to how Nothing's Wrong with Dale was posted)

these are all just the top ideas i'm considering at the moment and are subject to change when i get back to writing in Spring 2024, but i really want to know if any of these grabs ppls attention as often more interest in a story motivates me to write more!

see under the read more for summaries of each story in the poll

if ur interested in more than one, vote for your favorite and mention the others in the comments/tags!

See this post for a poll on short vs long stories!

See this post for a similar poll on short stories!

see below for summaries and minor details (titles subject to change - but i'm also lazy and hate titling things so maybe not)

A Perfectly Ordinary Research Position: You'd nearly given up hope finding a research assistant position at your new university, but there is one. The professor has apparently gone through four research assistants in the past year and he’s in demonology, but you're desperate. One hasty proposal for a linguistics demonology minor and an application letter later, you find yourself accepting the post. Now you only have to get up to speed on demonology and juggle your own studies with your duties as his assistant. If only the professor wasn’t quite so old and eccentric, constantly changing his mind and personality by the hour. Why, it’s almost as if he’s more than one person. No matter, you'll figure out a way to handle it all. You have to.

Not a direct sequel to Dale, but takes place in the same universe around the same time; ReaderxMaleDemon

Shadow Diplomacy: You’ve been Shaodd’s assistant since he came to your town to Arbitrate a land dispute that was threatening to escalate to violence years ago. Still, you’re used to everyone paying him attention and disregarding you to some extent, no matter that Shaodd always treats you with respect. This kingdom has finally crossed the line, by barring you from the senate entirely. You’re not sure what you thought Shaodd would do in response—but to say you’re his spouse was not at all on the list. Now you’re stuck acting as a married couple while untangling the mess of a situation these people have found themselves in. You can’t help but think how much easier the charade would be if you weren’t in love with him.

Fantasy; ReaderxEldritchEntity

Patronage: You can’t believe it’s come to this. Your country had finally won the war only to fall on desperate times while trying to recover. Your king, a foreigner in all but on paper, is the one who decides a sacrifice to the country’s patron deity is called for and what more worthy sacrifice could there be than his queen? Unfortunately for him, while the sacrifice works, your patron appears before you can die and he says that since you were the sacrifice, you are the one he will defer to. From figure head to divinely backed, can you lead your country back to prosperity?

Fantasy; ReaderxMaleDeity

Tailor Made: You volunteered to accompany the five students who won the contest for free prom outfits, offered by a local high-end tailor shop. You’re braced for someone fussy and quite frankly a snob, but Calvin is not what you expected. He’s sophisticated, but kind—effortlessly setting your students at ease and making everything go smoothly. After everything, you find yourself striking up an odd friendship with the man. You don’t understand why you feel so comfortable around him, but you don’t want to question it. If only you couldn’t tell he was keeping secrets. Will they drive you apart or bring you closer together?

Modern w/secret demons&angels; ReaderxMaleDemon

Imposter Syndrome: It seemed like a tedious but straightforward job at first. Twelve technicians, with a crew of the long-haul vessel brought out in cyro to restore a large mining rig that had malfunctioned. Yeah, the fact that everyone who’d been manning it had died was spooky, but the medical team had already cleared most of that out. The most annoying part was that you were going to have to be in a full suit since the long-hauler didn’t have enough oxygen to restore it to the rig. Then Crewmember Redman found Crewman Chroma’s dead body and worse yet, there were still 12 technicians accounted for. The logs were no help, everyone was on the roster in the system except you all remember the right number. But you hadn’t met anyone before you were put to sleep for the trip. Problems only mount when not only do you fail to identify the impostor, but crewmembers keep dying. Will you be able to figure out who’s killing off crewmember’s before you’re the one in their crosshairs?

Science Fiction; ReaderxAlien

#polls #stories #my stories #love hearing your thoughts #i was gonna hold off on presenting the options #but i hav no self control #i'm still workshoping all of these ideas and building them out #and a new story might grab me before i get back to writing #but i'd lov to know what you think!

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