you need to get it out of your mind that psychosomatic illness is just “making up symptoms” when it’s actually much more like your body is being actively poisoned by chemicals released from your brain

if you’re so stressed that you’re puking your guts up every morning, are unable to eat or keep anything down, you can’t look at light without feeling infinitely worse and feel exhausted and in pain all the time (or whatever your particular stress induced symptom set is) you’re not just feeling like that because you’ve willed it into being. your body is begging for relief from the constant barrage of stress hormones and it requires the fundamental source of stress to go away, not just distracting yourself from the symptoms

just because the root is psychological doesn’t mean the result isn’t an entirely physical process.

i don't like to yuck people's yum but i have to say that my least favorite thing to come from the current state of Artists on the Internet is the idea of a sketchbook as something nice and pretty and shareable. like i love me a notebook full of gorgeous art don't get me wrong but that is NOT what a sketchbook is. a sketchbook is my friend who i carry around everywhere like a purse chihuahua. it is the physical manifestation of my notes app. it is the container into which i wring my brain out. it is my therapist. and most of all it is filled with absolutely terrible sketches that should never see the light of day.

this post is making the rounds again and the amount of people saying that the pretty sketchbooks phenomenon ruined sketchbooks for them is HEARTBREAKING and i stand by my opinion that sketchbooks should be like a jar you put your OCs in. and then you shake them around in there. that's what they're for

first thing id do as a skeleton is drink red wine from a goblet and have it spill out everywhere . second thing id do is play my ribs like a xylophone

saw a poll about whether you prefer corruption or redemption arcs and i realized that for me it's not really either, it's a distillation arc: when a character becomes the most intense version of what they could be, everything inessential falling away or being discarded so that only the core remains.

great tags by @neuxue
#'while you were busy being doomed by the narrative I used it as a whetstone and became the blade'

I have a lot of feelings about the rise of he would not fucking say that attitudes in fandom spaces and the paralysing effect it can have on creators. As a writer i think it’s important to just write what feels true to you and not what you think others will “approve” of. Like even as a reader i have enjoyed a variety of different characterisations that all work because the writer makes them work for a particular story. And a fic that’s written out of character to some will be in character to others. Writing fic is not your job you’re not being paid it’s your hobby please. Make them as close to canon as possible. Make them completely different. Who cares! Have fun! Have so much fun! There is an audience for every kind of fic and every kind of character interpretation i promise

True because as a joke or general gripe it's funny, but in practice it's not always the case. More times than none (and on AO3 far more than Wattpad because different writer demographics spur different writing styles) I have read fics that made me think, "Huh, I guess he would say that in that scenario." Quite often, the original media shows us few facets of a character in a limited number of scenarios. Especially with film and media made for mass consumption, "he" often only "says" things that some executive signed off on as profitable/acceptable content. The whole point of much fanfic is to see what a character could be under different circumstances or to expand on what we already know of them.

Lastly, every fanfic writer is granted the right to respond "He says whatever I want him to because this is my fic." Don't like, don't read!

Ok now do NYT columnists

already this has tags in the notes like “#anti ai” but... this is just real life with almost everything. this is like grifter 101 please don’t exceptionalize needing to be critical of chatgpt.

This is literally how job interviews work, by the way, and then everyone is surprised the super-duper confident guy is also an incompetent moron.

This worked on Trump voters, with the added selling point that he's a piece of shit that gave them permission to be pieces of shit.

Talking to experts when I was young used to drive me nuts because I would say something self-evidently straightforward, and they would say, "Well, it's not actually as simple as that..."

And then I got older and learned things on the way, and found people asking me questions that were straightforward, but the equivalent of "Why isn't it obvious to everyone that there is only one right way of doing the thing...?" and I would reply, "Well, it's not as simple as that..." and watch them decide that I probably didn't know what I was talking about.

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

This is a good thing to keep in mind! It is often and unfortunate that a really good fic doesn’t get love because its formatting makes it too difficult to read!

i’ve seen people say that books look like that though, which might be true, but reading a block of text on a piece of paper is different and a different kind of eye strain that reading the same text on a screen. Especially since AO3 formats based on the screen you read on.

legibility is incredibly important in work, both written and in art or comics. Did you ever notice that comics with extremely text rich speech bubbles are harder to read too?

ALT

REBEL GIRL

by @annanevermore (nevertheless_5 on ao3)

“I cut my hair and it’s…not good. I know you can fix it. I should have gone to you first. I was just feeling annoyed and frustrated and suddenly tired of my hair, of all the expectations of looking like this…”

He could almost see her waving her hands at herself, even over the phone. She would make it look cute. He smiled at the mental image.

“Eddie, I need you.”

on to the second @strangerthingsreversebigbang! this one was an absolute blast and i’m thrilled to have put more platonic hellcheer content out in the world. make sure to check out the fic!<3

hard to believe there are actually people out there who think that big noses are ugly and unattractive … like what the fuck is wrong with you ?

I need you specifically to kill yourself. choose a slow and painful method also

BIG NOSE WOMEN SUPREMACY 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

literally how can anyone not find these women the hottest people ALIVE

“Nobody’s going to want to sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours to get from New York City to LA.”

Me. I will sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours. I’ll sit on it for days. I’ll write and read and nap and eat and then do it all over again. I’ll stare out the windows and see America from ground level and not have to drive. I’ll see the Rockies and the deserts and cornfields and the Mississippi River and your house and yours and yours too. I’ll make up stories in my head about the small towns I see as we go along. I’ll see the states I’ve yet to see because driving or flying there is a fucking slog and expensive to boot. I’ll enjoy the ride as much as the destination. And then I’ll do it all over again to come the fuck home.

Me getting slammed with notifications on this post in particular:

:)

Spedran this for the anniversary! Can't believe Danny Phantom is 20 years old.

It's been very cathartic to me to be honest to see a show about a character who can't keep up with everything in his life, but he keeps trying anyway. It helps with that neat autistic burnout.

Happy anniversary Danny. You did good. I hope you got to visit the moon.

PAUTA SAILA, R.C.A. (1916-2009) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)

DANCING BEAR, C. MID 1970S

stone

First Arts

dune has the best women characters because there's no fake girl power hand-holding trying to over-justify their unethical decisions or make them badass. instead they're all mask-off cringe fail bioengineers and deranged cult leaders, in some cases before they're even born

[95/547] — until we meet again, jungkook ♡

I’ve been obsessed with this for like 20 straight hours now

So if anyone is curious this is more or less true. (Except he didn’t say ‘effeminate boys’ he said the six-letter f word, because of course.)   https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/16/what-orson-welles-really-thought-about-ernest-hemingway

But the funny thing is, this happened when Orson Welles was 22 (before he made any of his films) so this dumb-ass piece of shit:

decided to get into it with this 38 year old established American writer and war veteran:

Like, dude. He really was just like that.

Orson Wells was fully convinced he could fight god and nothing that ever happened in his life could’ve convinced him otherwise