trash city, bitch

“The Ability Exam is now over,” says Master Abelardo, and only then do I realize that he has been standing for twenty-four hours without sleep. “Out of the nineteen candidates that started the exam exactly twenty-four hours ago, only you seven completed it successfully.”

The Job

A Spy’s Motivation

Economic Espionage (2)

Espionage (2)

Espionage Rant

How do spies operate?

How Spies Work

Modern Espionage

On Spies

Recruiting Spies

Spies

True Psychology of the Insider Spy

What is espionage?

Tradecraft

Basic Spy Tradecraft

Codewords (2)

Top 10 Spy Tactics

12 Corporate Espionage Tactics

15 Spy Concealments

37 Industrial Espionage Techniques

5 Techniques of the Soviet Union

6 New Spy Technologies

Other

The Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security

Ethics, Espionage, and Covert Action

International Spy Museum

Opinions and Essays on Modern Espionage

Real Spies (documentary)

Secrets of the CIA (documentary)

https://teamtrees.org/

I’m a very lazy person. I know my characters well, but every time I try to fill out a proper character sheet, I either get distracted or simply never finish them.

SO!

I made this! A silly, simple character sheet in which you only have to check boxes to get to know your dear puppet character. Use to your heart’s content, and if you’re going to repost, please credit! Enjoy~

From the makers of the no-effort character checklist, I bring to you… The no-effort complete character sheet for lazy writers like you and me™! 

Because the extra effort I put in staying up until 3 am to do put this together can save us all a lot of effort filling out longer character sheets ^^

You’re supposed to print it out and fold it in half to make a little booklet but you can save ink and do it on your computer :P

Just as you’re about to be taken away, the doors to the courtroom open wide and in storms a person frantically yelling that they are in possession of evidence that will prove your innocence. The person looks at you and discreetly winks. 

 This sudden twist is very strange for 2 specific reasons:

1) You have definitely committed all those crimes;

Theme is the universal idea or topic your story explores. And you know what? There are a lot of them. So many, in fact, your story probably already has a few, whether you realize it or not. The trick is to recognize your story’s themes as you revise, so you can better highlight and explore those ideas in your final draft.

This list of 125+ themes should help. It’s long, but far from exhaustive. Use it to help identify themes in your work, but also to get a better understanding of the wide variety of themes that are at your disposal.

(To learn more about what a theme is, see this post here.)

Experiences

Aging

Childhood

Coming of Age

Disillusionment

Friendship

Growth

Healing

Isolation

Loss

Loss of Innocence

Overcoming Adversity

Parenthood

Rebirth

Redemption

Revenge

Self-discovery

Survival

Tragedy

Emotions

Apathy

Compassion

Despair

Fear

Grief

Hate

Jealousy

Joy

Loneliness

Love

Obsession

Regret

Gender & Sexuality

Femininity, Masculinity, & Androgyny

Gender Identity

Sexuality

Human Perception

Dreams

Identity

Memory

Perception vs. Reality

Subjectivity

Mental Health & Neurodiversity

Autism

Bipolarity

Depression

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Suicide

Tourette Syndrome

Natural Forces

Death

Fate

Nature

Passage of Time

Political & Economic

Capitalism

Communism

Conservation

Democracy

Fascism

Freedom

Justice

Law

Nationalism

Patriotism

Peace

Propaganda

Radicalism

Revolution

Socialism

Totalitarianism

War

Religious & Philosophical

Atheism

Determinism

Epistemology

Ethics

Faith

Free Will

Fundamentalism

Good vs. Evil

Skepticism

Metaphysics

Morality

Nature vs. Nurture

Pacifism

Religion

Soul / Consciousness

Spirituality

Truth

Social Issues

Ableism

Abuse of Power

Homophobia

Immigration

Inequality

Oppression

Poverty

Prejudice

Progress & Regress

Privilege

Racism

Rights of the Oppressed

Sexism

Transphobia

Working Class Struggles

Societal & Cultural

Collectivism

Conformity

Familial Obligations

Heritage

Honor

Individualism

Patriarchal Society

Responsibility

Tradition

Technology & Science

Artificial Intelligence

Augmented / Virtual Reality

Genetics

Human Integration with Technology

Information Privacy

Psychology

Sociology

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Virtues & Vices

Ambition

Corruption

Courage

Forgiveness

Loyalty

Mercy

Power

Pride

Sacrifice

Are there any themes you think should be included or need to be explored more often? Reblog with your own additions!

SEE  MORE  POSTS  ABOUT WRITING WITH MEANING

Sources

Writersedit.com

Literarydevices.net

Simple.wikiquote.org

My own literary dives over the years

This is a guide of what I personally consider to be considerate and polite. While I would encourage people to follow this, it is just my personal opinion — it’s not a rule by any means, and it’s certainly not exhaustive.

Don’t add people to your tag lists without explicit permission.

Tag list  — A tag list is a list of users who will be tagged in every post that a Writeblr makes about a certain WIP. It is often included at the bottom of a post, and people are free to ask to be included, or removed from it.

I get it, we all want people to see and enjoy our writing. However, please do not add anyone to your tag lists if they have not given you permission to.

I believe that all tag lists should be an ‘opt-in’, where people request to get put on it. While you might be willing to take someone off of a tag list with no hard feelings whatsoever, it can be really awkward for people to request to be taken off. 

There are a lot of reasons why people don’t want to be on tag lists, and it doesn’t mean that they don’t like your writing. Even if someone is consistently interested and is commenting a lot, don’t add them without permission! Try asking them first!

If you reblog an ask game from someone, send them an ask.

Isn’t it really frustrating when you’re doing an ask game and about 20 people reblog it, but you only get 1 ask? We’ve all been there.

Send them an ask if you reblog! It takes like 2 seconds, and you don’t have to be particularly interested in the answer — it gives the person an opportunity to talk about their WIPs and OCs either way, and you’ll make their day.

If you want people to send you asks, try starting by sending other people some!

Use a “Read More” when you have long posts.

We writeblrs tend to make long posts, especially if we post our writing online. While that’s perfectly fine, there’s often a lot of scrolling to be done when the ‘read more’ isn’t used, especially if it gets reblogged a lot. 

If you have several pictures, or your post requires quite a bit of scrolling to get through, please use the ‘read more’.

Use trigger warnings for sensitive topics.

If you are posting about sensitive topics including but not limited to things like rape, suicide, assault, etc., please use trigger warnings. Not everyone might want to see writing involving sensitive topics, and it might catch some people really off-guard, even if they’re fine with it. It’s just considerate to give your followers a heads-up, so they can decide if they want to continue or not.

Trigger warnings should be at the top of your post, or at the very least, before your sensitive content so people can see. I also tag it as “tw: [sensitive topic]” so that people who have blacklisted it can avoid it.

Please hide your sensitive content behind a ‘read more’! I have seen too many posts with trigger warnings, and no ‘read more’s, making people who want to avoid it, scroll through and potentially see the sensitive content.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Someone’s writing not up your alley? Really don’t like someone’s OC? That’s fine and valid, we won’t always love everyone’s writing. Just move on; unfollow them if you have to. Don’t give people unsolicited criticism if they don’t ask for it.

It can be scary putting ourselves out there. If you’re about to say something that would bother you if you received that comment, don’t say it. Just move on.

If you like it, consider reblogging it.

But if all their transport is done on foot and they have no pack animals, yet are hauling a lot of gear on their back, slow it down to 20mi (32km).  If they’re pulling a travois (pole drag) or maneuvering a push-cart, slow it down further.

If they’re traveling at night, it will depend on their night vision and their light source; a mostly foot-based society probably won’t have high-powered thousand-lumens flashlights or headlamps to see by, so slow it waaay down.

If they’re traveling unfamiliar territory, slow it down a little…but on the converse side, if it’s familiat terrain, give them a familiarity bonus and speed up how far they can travel in a given timeframe. (Unless they’re being called home to be yelled at by their parental figures, lol, then slow it waaay down, lol.)

If the road is rough or the terrain steep, slow it down.  If the weather is harsh, slow it down.  If there is no road where they are going, cut the speed according to the terrain.  LIght forest or grasslands, 75%. Modest forests 50%.  Thick hack-your-way underbrush/jungle, slow it to 25% speed…and these calculations are after discerning elevation changes and weather conditions and burden management.  However, slow it to 10% if you have a frikkin’ cart you’re trying to get somewhere, or any other Wide Load.  A travois might be acceptable if it’s narrow.

If you’re traveling with another person and using shoulder carry poles with gear dangling, slow it to about 75% to 50%, depending on their strength and burden weight. (And terrain, weather, etc.)

Also footwear can make a difference.  If it’s rough or thorny terrain and the characters are walking barefoot, they’re definitely going to go slower, or if they’re walking with open sandals.  Boots don’t always guarantee great traction, however.

If it’s pre-rubber-availability, boots and other leather but non-moccassin shoes are usually either hobnailed or not.  If hobnailed, they’re used on muddy terrain, and they can be painful to walk upon over long distances (metal lumps, only a few layers of leather to cut down on construction cost, in most cases).  But walking on cobblestones, flagstones, brick roads, etc, means that the metal studs on the bottoms of your shoes run the risk of slipping. (You’ll gain back some traction on icy paved streets, but not on rain-wet paved streets.)

If they’re meant for walking on paved roads, shoes & boots tend not to be hobnailed, but they lack traction and you’ll slip on wet surfaces, and definitely slip on any muddy or icy slopes.  If your character can afford it, they could have two kinds of footwear…but even so, they’d still have to carry the weight of that second pair of shoes.  People who travel on foot tend to either have lots of servants (often slaves, in historical accounts) to carry extra gear, or they pare down their own gear when traveling.

One way around the different types of terrain traction issue is to make rope sandals, by stitching coils of braided rope in place (think braided rug construction style, not woven like cloth).  The coils can provide “grip” or traction–more than smooth leather in mud, more than hobnail studs on paving–and if you make them thick, they can be remarkably comfortable.  But it’s not always feasible in wet climates because water will soak into the rope, saturate it, and give it mold or mildew problems over time.

Either way, if you’re wearing the wrong soles for the type of surfaces you’re traveling, that will cause problems, too.

Also, people who travel almost entirely by foot do not wear high heels.

I gotta repeat this one:

People who travel almost entirely by foot DO NOT WEAR HIGH HEELS.