Mission Polyglot

⋆˙⟡ Everyone knows everyone and they have for forty years. The history is load-bearing. In a small town, the guy who runs the hardware store and the woman who teaches third grade went to prom together in 1987 and had a falling out over something no one talks about directly. The person behind the diner counter is the cousin of the person who sold you your house. Nothing is without CONTEXT. Every interaction carries a decade of subtext. Writers often write small-town characters like they just met each other. BUT Real small-town social life happens almost entirely in implication, in what you don't say, in who you happen to be standing next to when you say it.

⋆˙⟡ The gossip network is fast, imprecise, and almost impossible to correct. Information in small communities travels faster than in cities because the network is dense, EVERYONE has direct ties to almost everyone else. But it also distorts rapidly. By the time something gets around, it may be only vaguely related to what actually happened. And correcting a rumor is exponentially harder than spreading one, because corrections aren't interesting. If your character does something embarrassing on a Monday, by Thursday half the town has a version of it, and no version is quite right. The original fact may be less damaging than what it became. This is just how information behaves in a closed system.

⋆˙⟡ People who grew up there and people who moved there live in parallel versions of the same town. Longtime residents navigate the town through memory, that means every building has a history and every corner has a former version. The old pharmacy that's now a coffee shop is still "the old pharmacy" to someone who grew up there. New arrivals navigate the town as it exists now, without the palimpsest. These two groups see each other and don't quite connect, and there's a specific low-grade tension in it that isn't unfriendliness exactly, it's more like speaking slightly different dialects. The newcomer who thinks they've been accepted into the community is usually still a newcomer in the eyes of people who've been there for three generations.

⋆˙⟡ There is no anonymity, and some people are destroyed by that. Others thrive. Being known everywhere you go is experienced radically differently depending on who you are and what your history is. For someone who is liked, trusted, in good social standing, it's warm and a safety net. For someone who made a mistake, has a stigmatized identity, or just doesn't fit, it's a trap you cannot escape without physically leaving. The family with the father who was arrested. The person who had a public breakdown. They are permanently known as that thing. The smallness is indifferent to whether it's kind or cruel to you specifically.

⋆˙⟡ People who live rurally organize their lives around weather, seasons, and land in ways that urban writers often don't account for. A bad winter IS A FINANCIAL THREAT. The soil condition matters. What the river is doing matters. Whether the deer are bad this year matters. There's a literacy to the natural environment that rural people have and that outsiders don't (reading the sky, reading the fields, knowing what certain sounds mean, knowing when something is wrong with the land before you can articulate why.) Writing a rural character who doesn't have this relationship to their physical environment makes them feel like a city person who happened to move somewhere with a longer driveway.

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”            ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

@bbcphile From a basking professional:

accomplish the task (or a milestone within)

say that out loud

text a friend (or three) about it

exhale deeply and consciously let go of the tension

move elsewhere (sat at your desk? go and sit on the couch. finished in the kitchen? go to any other room. not yet up for moving? change the background music/noise you had on.)

bathroom break?

grab a snack?

Look at your accomplished task from a distance and feel smug about it

no seriously, if you don't feel like you're embodying the smug cat meme try getting a little more physical or temporal distance, or a friend-shaped reality check, and then look at it again

do One (1) small task your brain kept pestering you about while you were Accomplishing The Thing

also feel smug about that because you totally beat your brain about letting you do The Thing first and now you've completed two (2!!) tasks

depending on how long Accomplishing The Thing took you may now move on to your next Thing OR continue basking to reach the 5% of time invested:

find a comfortable place to be and do a spoon-refilling activity: take a nap, scroll tumblr, read fanfic, write fanfic, gush about blorbos, stare out of the open window with the cool evening breeze brushing over your skin as gentle as a loving caress and drink the Tasty Beverage of your choice (specific example is specific, but iykyk), etc pp

remember you accomplished The Thing and are now Basking.

you are but a large predator enjoying the fruits of its labour and recharging after the successful hunt, no need to go charging off after the next prey just yet

all that Fun Stuff you thought you'd rather be doing while you were busy with The Thing? Do it now.

(well, maybe not all at once, we're still basking in our accomplishment after all and moving erratically would defeat the purpose)

perceive The Accomplished Thing in passing and think 'ha, I did it, I got you, I won!' I'll leave it up to you whether you'll use your villain or your hero voice

repeat until the next Thing is due

The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.

The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.

The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.

The “get stuff done while you wait” method.

The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.

The “break the task into smaller steps” method.

The “treat yourself like a pet” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.

The “put on a persona” method.

The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.

The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.

The “wait for a trigger” method.

The “do it for your future self” method.

The “might as well” method.

The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.

The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.

The “make it easy” method.

The “junebugging” method.

The “just show up” method.

The “accept when you need help” method.

The “make it into a game” method.

The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.

The “trick yourself” method.

The “break it into even smaller steps” method.

The “let go of should” method.

The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.

The “fork theory” method.

Disclaimer: I haven't used or tested all of them. All resources have different strengths, e.g. Drops being designed for vocabulary. They often aren't full alternatives for Duolingo or formal classes. I just wanted to compile resources for all languages on Duolingo to make the switch easier, especially for the less popular languages.

Feel free to also check out my collection of free textbooks

If you want a more detailed resource list for any of these languages (or perhaps one not listed here) you can send me an ask and I can see what I can do.

It's online. The book was carefully and wonderfully recreated online by hand. You can find it here. The entire book is this easy.

It’s so interesting what you can find!

Oh! Building on your notes I figured I should mention to everyone that most academic institutions with a library are going to have a page with the research guides the librarians have made for their patrons. This will include basic topic guides on things like how to use the library or how to create citations. There will also be subject guides for areas of study like philosophy or biology. As well as specific course guides to assist classes that are being taught like FM 114: Introduction to the Fashion Industry or BME6938: Nanoparticle Nanomedicines.

Music

Gnoosic is your place go for new music recommendations. It asks for three of your favourite bands, and based on them, spits out an artist that you might like. You can also “like”, “dislike”, or mark it as something you aren’t familiar with – which further refines the results.

NoCopyrightSounds is a copyright free / stream safe record label, providing free to use music to the content creator community. NCS Music is free to use for independent Creators and their UGC (User Generated Content) on YouTube & Twitch - always remember to credit the Artist, track and NCS and link back to our original NCS upload.

Radio Garden take a trip 'round the world's airwaves! Just pick a city — literally any city — and Radio Garden will play you whatever its local radio station is broadcasting.

Radiooooo Radio Garden walked so Radiooooo could run. This site adds a timeline function so you can listen to radio from not just anywhere, but anywhen. Get down to those 1910s Germany bops!

Art

Krita free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting and 2D animation.It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and Chrome OS

29a.ch interactive site that lets you color what looks to be a map of the cosmos, but I'm honestly not sure. Whatever it is, it's mesmerizing.

Games

Patatap is an interactive website that responds to the keys on your keyboard with a sound and a brief animation. Now imagine hammering in entire sentences – and you got an explosion of sounds, colors, and movement! Once you start typing in random paragraphs, it becomes almost hypnotic, in a way.

Drench a very simple browser game, Drench gives you a board with different colored tiles, and you use the buttons to flip the colors around. Do this until your board is full of tiles of a single color only.

River Styx an interactive point-and-click game that takes you through the river Styx and the Underworld. You will meet many Greek Gods and Goddesses here, and you will also be learning a lot about their myths and legends.

2048 this website lets you play a game called 2048, which is kinda like Tetris but with addition. Use your arrow keys to try to combine numbers until you reach 2048, or go ~beyond~ and try to reach 4096.

Little Alchemy 2 fun little time killer. As its name suggests, the website deals with the process of transformation you achieve when you start mixing different things. You start with Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. The goal is to create as many different materials or objects as possible. For example, earth and air will form dust. There are no rules just mix and match your creations to create new ones. You will not even know where your time went.

Akinator website is magic or rather feels like one. You can think of any character in this entire world and through a series of question, it will deduce the name. Don’t believe me, go try for yourself.

Find the Invisible Cow You’re going to want to make sure your sound is on in this fun finding game! Find the invisible cow in this laugh out loud version of hot and cold.

CookieClicker How fast can you click for cookies? Level up and become a cookie pro with this fun time-wasting website!

Knowledge

Zooniverse A really neat website that brings people together to create one of the largest platforms for people-powered research. Volunteers come together to assist professional researchers. There is no need for a specialised background or training; all you have to do is to answer simple questions.

Cool Hunting is a really cool publication platform that uncovers the latest in design, technology, style, travel, art and culture. If you are into art, architecture, and culture, then this website is perfect for you.

OCEARCH Shark Tracker This one looks right on the money for the folks who can’t get enough of sharks! With OCEARCH Shark Tracker, you can keep a track of tagged sharks as they are busy swimming around the deep ocean. Moreover, the website also lets you zoom in on a particular location to check where sharks have been swimming for the past year.

Ad Astra-app An essential tool for every astronomer. The star atlas and skyguide that makes it really easy to pick the best objects, make your own observation list and use it when you are outside

100,000 Stars is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen on the web. It shows a representation of galaxy with stars inside it. You can take a tour which starts from the Sun and takes you to the outer edges of the galaxy while teaching you valuable insights in between.

wikiHow is an online wiki-style publication featuring how-to articles on a variety of topics. For example: How to make ginger ale, How change a lock or How to survive an encounter with an ostrich.

Cooking

Cooking for Engineers is a godsend for those who love to cook. This website has it all, from recipes, to kitchen gear, to cooking tests, down to a handy dictionary. The best part about this website is its classic 90’s layout, which makes accessing the recipes and files intuitive and easier.

My Fridge Food at this point, your fridge probs has, like, three random items in it, and you're starting to panic about meal options. Enter My Fridge Food, which inputs everything you have in your kitchen and outputs a recipe. Bless.

Work, or relax

Da Font Tired of your basic Times New Roman? You can spend hours downloading new fonts from typography artists to spice up your new document!

A Soft Murmur If you’re looking to create your own ambient background music to listen to while you work or read, A Soft Murmur is the fun website for you! Create your own mix of white noise and other natural sounds to relax and waste some time.

Rainy Mood Get all the benefits of rain without getting caught in it with Rainy Mood! This is perfect for setting a relaxed and chilled out mood.

I Waste So Much Time The website is designed to literally allow you to waste your time. There are no long articles, just funny pictures with embedded texts. A very good time waster for short breaks.

This Is My Website Now The website truly kills your time. It is just a collection of small games which you can play on your browser. Effective for less than 10 minutes of usage, it’s good for a short break.

Instructables If you’ve always wanted to learn how to DIY but didn’t know where to start, try Instructables. They have community posts with step-by-step instructions to help you become a DIY master in no time.

OBS Open Broadcaster Software is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers. only downside to it is that you have a power director watermark in the corner of your video, but its not very large.

Sleepytime is your sleeping schedule out of whack? This fun website calculates exactly when you need to go to sleep and wake up in order to get a good night’s sleep.

Boredom

MapCrunch Go on an adventure without leaving your home — because you can't! This site plops you down in a random location on the globe, and all that's left to do is explore.

List of Conspiracy Theories Get sucked down the dark rabbit hole of the internet that will have you denying history and wearing tinfoil hats. Wikipedia’s list of conspiracy theories will have you scrolling for ages!

This Person Does Not Exist If AI and deep-fakes fascinate you, this is a website that will either make you very excited, or give you nightmares about whether ‘The Matrix’ is real, and if you, at some point in your life, took the blue pill instead of the red one. Either way, the website generates fake people using GAN (or generative adversarial networks), and displays them to you. You can refresh the page to see a different face. Also, if this interests you, you might also like:

This Cat Does Not Exist. You know, because why stare at human faces when you can look at cats instead.

The Useless Web Want to see what the Internet truly has to offer? Take a peek at The Useless Web to see what truly is out there.

Not Always Right Had a bad day at work? Did that one annoying, pesky customer or client who just wouldn’t shut up tried to give you a hard time, and succeeded? Then this website is just perfect for you! It’s a collection of stories about customers who just don’t know when to shut up.

Zoom Quilt If you're looking to be hypnotized, then check out this site, which is basically a picture that infinitely zooms in to reveal new pictures.

Just for fun

Tickld is your go-to spot for anything humorous and funny, for anything that’s really cool and interesting, or stuff that’s just plain WTF.

Paper Toilet Just because stores are sold out of toilet paper doesn't mean you have to live without. This site features some interactive TP that you can roll up or down.

The Passive-Aggressive Password Machine Type a password (real or fake) into this site and it'll shade you for how much it sucks.

CoolThings is a collection of cool things. From entertainment, to gadgets, to even toys and inventions, there is bound to be something here that will interest you.

This Is Why I Am Broke This is a great website for discovering new gift ideas which are distinct. The products range from a few dollars to a few thousand. There’s something for everyone here.

PostSecret is a very interesting website. Visitors are encouraged to send in anonymous postcards on which they write their secrets. There are all sorts of secrets on all kinds of postcards, and the variations make this a really interesting project. However, be warned – these secrets are very real… and very heavy.

NOIYS – Post, read, forget is a place to post an anonymous note to be viewed by many people, only to be deleted within 24 hours. It’s the perfect website for venting anonymously and not worry about the consequences, as it will be deleted within a day. The best part (or maybe worst) is that strangers can reply to your note, too. That way, you can have a running conversation with a complete stranger.

Scream Into the Void Take your outrage about our current situation (or any problem in your life) and throw it into the void. Just type out your feels and then click the "Scream" button, which does exactly what you think it does.

And lastly...

Dildo Generator Welcome, good citizens of the web, to my favorite site of all time. It's right in the name: You can generate a custom dildo by length, width, base, contours, and so many more variables. Things get wild pretty fast.

Eyebleach Did you see something on the internet that was just too scary? Or just need to get it out of your head? Click on Eyebleach to be fed adorable pictures of puppies, kitties, or babies!

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

• if… (1968)

• another country (1984)

• school ties (1992)

• maurice (1987)

• the chocolate war (1988)

• the emperor’s club (2002)

How to write it

How to write romance

Love Language - Showing, not telling love

Love Language - Showing you care

Honeymoon

Slow burn

Forbidden Romance (+ prompts)

Reasons for a break-up while still loving each other

How to write a wedding

How to create quick chemistry

How to write a love-hate relationship

How to write enemies to lovers (+ prompts)

How to write lovers to enemies to lovers

Arranged matrimony for royalty (+ prompts)

Date gone wrong

Academic rivals to lovers

Romantic Fall Date Ideas

How to write a polyamorous relationship

Milestones in a relationship

How to write age difference

Fluffy Kiss Scene

Reasons a couple would divorce on good terms

Reasons for having a crush on someone

Ways a wedding could go wrong

Prompt Lists

Romance Prompt Lists (Masterpost)

Bad romances/unrequited/break-up (Masterpost)

Flirting + Teasing Prompts (Masterpost)

Kisses Masterpost (Prompts, First Kiss, Accidental Kiss, …)

Two smart and also stupid people in love

Push and pull romantic prompts

Lovers to enemies

Love to hate relationship

Smut Prompts (Masterpost)

One-Liners Dialogue - Romantic, Smutty + Physical

Things said during sex prompts

Jealousy Prompts

OTP Christmas Prompts

Fluffy Winter Holiday Prompts

Romance Sentence Starters

Romantic Question Prompts

Domestic Fluff Prompts

Fluff Prompts

Fluff Bingo

Fluffy Sentence Starters

Sleepy Starters

Fluffy Dialogue Prompts

Super soft intimacy

make ‘em swoon

Cute Interactions

Romantic, non-sexual intimacy prompts

Fake Dating Prompts (Masterpost)

OT3 Prompts (Masterpost)

Meet Cutes/Meet Uglies

Royal Love (Masterpost)

Hurt/Comfort Dialogue Prompts

Hurt/Comfort Prompts

Caring for their partner prompts

Roommates to Lovers (Masterpost)

Professor/TA Romance

Friends with benefits to lovers Prompts

Romance Dialogue Prompts – Uncomfortable with affection

Matchmaking Prompts

Valentine’s Day Prompts

Hand-holding

Kisses

Hugs

Touching

Physical Reactions

Casual Affections

Intimate Moments

Bed Sharing Scenarios

Seeking out physical affection

Love Confessions (Masterpost)

Lovers being caught Prompts

Love Triangle Ideas

Soulmates AU (Masterpost)

WLW Plot Ideas

Second chance trope

Cooking/Baking Dialogue Prompts

Quiet movie night Prompts

Grumpy + Sunshine Dialogue

Grumpy Affectionate Dialogue

Exes to lovers Prompts (Masterpost)

Reluctant allies to friends to lovers dynamic

Best friends to lovers Prompts

Childhood friends to lovers Prompts

Workplace Romance (Masterpost)

Secret relationship dialogue

Date Prompts (Masterpost)

Parallel Universe Romance Prompts

Lover being hurt Prompts

Relationship Milestones (Masterpost: moving in, getting married, honeymoon)

Relationship Problems

Relationship Changes

Ship Dynamics

OTP Prompt Challenge

Enemies to Lovers Masterpost

‘Imagine your OTP’ Prompts