no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.

you know those patch notes that are like “fixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, they’d become the size of a skyscraper” 

LIVE WALLPAPER: wallpaper engine. only thing on here that costs any money (its like 5 bucks on steam). im sure theres free alternatives but this one has a lot of presets and stuff so its less hassle and its what i use. might be a bad idea for lower end pcs tho

CUSTOM TASKBAR: retrobar on github (lots of different options)

CUSTOM CURSOR: theres a lot of places to find these, but rw-designer open cursor library is a good place to start

DISCORD: betterdiscord, im using the clearvision v7 theme with a custom background

EXTENSIONS (these are for firefox, might or might not exist on other browsers):

tabliss for the new tab theme

stylus for tumblr -> specifically the 'tumblr - custom dashboard pallette' theme for colors + bg, and this for the pre-twitterifcation layout

enhancer for youtube for custom youtube colors

I'm going to try it.

First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.

What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.

This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*

If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.

*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.

This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.

you want to pay attention

to verbs of being.

That means that when you read a line like

John saw that the curtains were open.

It immediately takes you OUT of the character's perspective and instead tells you what they experience as a secondhand observation.

You don't have to get fancy or purple with how you rephrase things like this. Not everything needs a ton of breathing room.

You wanna know what's perfectly impactful while keeping a tight POV?

The curtains were open.

Why are you saying 'they're a narcissist' when you mean 'they're being mean to me'?

Why are you saying 'hyperfixation' when you mean 'interest'?

Why are you saying 'gaslighting' when you mean 'lying'?

Why are you saying 'plagiarism' when you mean 'rip-off'?

Why are you saying 'war crime' when you mean 'immoral act'?