I really do hate pancakes.

because it’s a puzzle no one else will ever arrange the same way as you.

because there are ideas that simply won’t come to you until you write down the wrong words.

because all the bad scenes are the bones of the wonderful scenes.

because someone will love it: someone will read it once, and twice, and thrice; someone will ramble to you about the complexity of it; someone will doodle your characters out of love; someone will find it in exactly what they were looking for with or without knowing it.

because they have things to say, your characters. they’ve told you all those secrets and they have more to tell you, if you will listen.

because you love it even when you don’t; even when it drives you mad or when it accidentally turns into apathy; even when you think you’re doing it all wrong; you love it, and it loves you back.

it doesn’t have to be a “punch line” as in the end of a joke. It could be the part that punches you in the gut. The most exciting, juicy, shocking info goes at the end of the sentence. Two different examples that show the difference it makes:

doing it wrong:

She saw her brother’s dead body when she caught the smell of something rotting, thought it was coming from the fridge, and followed it into the kitchen.

doing it right:

Catching the smell of something rotten wafting from the kitchen—probably from the fridge, she thought—she followed the smell into the kitchen, and saw her brother’s dead body.

Periods are where you stop to process the sentence. Put the dead body at the start of the sentence and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, you’ve piled a whole kitchen and a weird fridge smell on top of it, and THEN you have to process the body, and it’s buried so much it barely has an impact. Put the dead body at the end, and it’s like an emotional exclamation point. Everything’s normal and then BAM, her brother’s dead.

This rule doesn’t just apply to sentences: structuring lists or paragraphs like this, by putting the important info at the end, increases their punch too. It’s why in tropes like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, the odd item out comes at the end of the list.

Subverting this rule can also be used to manipulate reader’s emotional reactions or tell them how shocking they SHOULD find a piece of information in the context of a story. For example, a more conventional sentence that follows this rule:

She opened the pantry door, looking for a jar of grape jelly, but the view of the shelves was blocked by a ghost.

Oh! There’s a ghost! That’s shocking! Probably the character in our sentence doesn’t even care about the jelly anymore because the spirit of a dead person has suddenly appeared inside her pantry, and that’s obviously a much higher priority. But, subvert the rule:

She opened the pantry door, found a ghost blocking her view of the shelves, and couldn’t see past it to where the grape jelly was supposed to be.

What you have here are images of power, and do you really believe these characters are designed with titillating heterosexual women and bisexual and homosexual men in mind? Because I don’t think you do.

This is why the Hawkeye Initiative exists. Take common female poses in comics, put a man in the role, and see how “empowering” and “strong” it actually looks: 

Also: 

Hugh Jackman on a men’s magazine. He’s shirtless and buff and angry. He’s imposing and aggressive. This is a male power fantasy, it’s what men want to be and aspire to - intense masculinity.

Hugh Jackman on a women’s magazine.  He looks like a dad. He looks like he’s going to bake me a quiche and sit and watch Game of Thrones with me. He looks like he gives really good hugs.

Men think women want big hulking naked men in loin cloths which is why they always quote He-Man as male objectification - without realizing that He Man is naked and buff in a loin cloth because MEN WANT HIM TO BE. More women would be happy to see him in a pink apron cutting vegetables and singing off-key to 70s rock.

Lust is not wanting to have sex with other people. Lust is using sex to hurt other people or hurting another person in a sexual way.

Gluttony is not eating lots of food (your own stomach will tell you when enough is enough). Gluttony is when you have enough resources to yourself that you could house and feed the rest of the population of your city but you keep it to yourself because you do not want to give up the power associated with it.

Greed is not wanting to improve the state of your material life because it would improve your quality of life. Greed is taking opportunities and resources away from already marginalized people. (And if someone tells you that a service you benefited from and it actively improved your life was not meant for you specifically, then there needs to be more of that resource).

Envy is not looking at someone who has a higher quality of life and wanting to improve it. Envy is when you are looking to take away from someone who is in the same situation as you. The example the Bible (or catholic school) uses is a man looking at another man’s wife when his own wife loves him very much and is equal to the other woman in every way that is important.

Sloth (aka laziness) isn’t when you’re exhausted or hurting and being too tired to do anything else. Sloth is when one contributed nothing to the work and yet reaps the rewards of the work.

obvious warning for homophobia, transphobia, etc. in the link above.

I was born there. I have countless of LGBT friends there, and the fact that this is happening in the year 2020 is inhumane and terrifying. 

If you’re Polish, vote in the upcoming election. If you’re not polish, please spread the carrd around.

Wiktor was almost 15 years old when he threw himself under the train. He was transgender.

Michał was 29 years old when he hanged himself on a tree. He was working as a model. He was gay.

Dominik was 14 years old when he hanged himself on his shoelaces. He was gay.

Milo was 23 years old when she jumped off a bridge. She was an activist. She was transgender.

Kacper was 14 years old when he hanged himself in his house. He wasn’t even sure if he was gay yet.

All of them were bullied in school. Some of them were assaulted, insulted, attacked on street. Some of them were denied psychological help they needed. Some of them were denied medical treatment.

All of them died because of institutional and personal homo- and transphobia here in Poland.

I will think about those five people - one of them I knew in person. I will think about them when I go vote today. And when I vote, I will think about countless children who might lose their lives in the future because of politicians who find themselves a new public enemy - “LGBT ideology”.

None of them was “an ideology”.

from begging:

(12.06.2020) in tv program one of the guest member of Sejm Jacek Żalek from „Agreement” party which allied with the ruling party of Poland said that „[LGBT+ people] are not people, this is an ideology” Katarzyna Kolenda- Zaleska, the journalist hosting the tv program decided to throw him out from her program.

(13.06.2020) Andrzej Duda the president of Poland gave a speech to his electorate in which he compare „LGBT ideology” to neobolshevism” and once again said „this is an ideology”

people went mad. rightly

(15.06.2020) this is Helena Biedroń. she is a mother to Robert Biedroń (the first openly gay member of the Sejm, leader of the „Spring” party, one of the three leaders of The Left, candidate to President, MEP) she read the letter from polish lgbt people parents to president. one of the quotes from her moving speech:

„I came here from afar, but i have something important to say to you Mr. [President]. I can’t stay quiet when my child is hurt.”

(bless this lady she deserved the world)

(17.06.2020) Andrzej Duda invited Helena and Robert Biedroń and Bart Staszewski (polish LGBT activist) to a meeting. only Bart Staszewski showing up in President Palace. after the meeting he wrote this on his twitter account:

Helena and Robert Biedroń didn’t show up because they claim that president did not want to debate with them but he invited them so he could had a photo with them to manipulate that he atleast tried.

this is the end of mine post but this shit is still on. and you know what? i feel threatened. as a Pole, as a activist, as a LGBT+ person, as a human.

one last word from me. VOTE

There’s an experiment called “The Ultimatum Game”. It goes something like this.

Subject A is given an amount of money (Say, $100).

Subject A must offer Subject B some percentage of that money.

If Subject B accepts Subject A’s offer, both get the agreed upon amount of money. If Subject B refuses, no one gets any money.

The most common result was believed to be that people favored 50/50 splits. Anything too low was rejected; people wanted fairness. This was believed to be universal.

And then a researcher went to Peru to do the experiment with members of the indigenous Machiguenga population, and was baffled to find that the results were totally different.

Because, to the Machiguenga, refusing any amount of free money (even an unfair amount) was considered crazy.

So the researcher took his work on the road (to 14 other ‘small scale’ societies and tribes) , and to his shock found the results varied wildly depending on where the test was done. 

In fact, the “universal” result? Was an outlier. 

And that’s the problem. 96% percent of test subjects for psychological research come from 12% of the population. Stuff that we consider to be universal facts of human nature… even things like optical illusions, just… aren’t.