What Am I Doing With My Life?

Things that I knew about: that the mass incarceration of people in the USA , particularly black men, has direct ties to/is an extension of slavery. Things I did not know: this specific shit about Louisiana HOLY FUCK this is evil.

Grew up next to Angola. It’s much worse than you think

I wonder how many people are imprisoned for weed

I’m from Mississippi and it’s like this in my home town. Enslaved prisoners clean roadways, pick cotton, everything they’ve done since before slavery was supposedly ended. What they teach in schools is nothing but propaganda.

Nervously, I pull from the tarot deck. It's the Nine of Clocks. My fate is revealed to me: It's my bedtime, and I gotta go to sleeps

I don’t understand when people complain about “likespamming.” If I see the same person 20 times in a row in my notifs, even if they don’t reblog anything or follow me, I’m excited that they came to my gay little museum and had a good time! That’s literally what it’s for!!

the utter ecstasy of “is that lavENDER?” is what sells it for me

a level of appreciation for charcuterie the likes of which has never been seen before

Remember: toe beans are the sign of a killer.

Funnily enough, I’m not 100% joking. While many animals have paw pads, the particular kind of soft, squishy beans found on housecats are an adaptation for stealth. Squishy beans mean you’re looking at an ambush predator.

These are the beans of a killer, Bella.

ID: screenshots of three sets of tags: 1. i read this at a time where i am struggling to get a characters voice and perhaps that was a bad time to read it but youre right 2. its why dialogue being my achilles heel hits so much harder - because it becomes so quickly inescapable 3. ah my arch nemesis - dialogue. but this is an interesting read tho

There is a post I saw ages ago, and cannot find which is maddening, but it had some very useful advice about finding character voices by using various scales. I have tried to recreate some of the scales since they've helped me. All of these are going to change depending on the situation, who the character is speaking to etc. but it can help to get a baseline. Formal ----- Casual Does the character speak as though they're meeting the head of state, or like they're talking to their best friend? When they meet someone new, do they say 'Hi!' or 'Pleased to meet you.'? Verbose ----- Taciturn Do they ramble or are they a person or few words? Rude ----- Polite Do they demand to see a manager, or ask an assistant if it would be possible to get some help? Blunt/To the point ----- Meandering Do they say exactly what they mean, or do they hedge/soften their words? 'This will not work' vs 'I think we could also look at other options' Complex ----- Simple Think of this as a scale from scientists discussing black holes at an academic conference to explaining black holes to a five year old. Clean ----- Vulgar Do they swear a lot? Do they make dirty jokes? This one tends to be a bit hazy i fanfic because there are characters who definitely feel like they should swear a lot, but are restricted by being in a PG-13 rated show/game. So for my current Character, Osiris from Destiny... He tends to be fairly formal, especially with people he doesn't know well. He is verbose - the man goes off on rambling tangents frequently and loves talking about things he's interested in. He can be rude - he often ignores the niceties of social interactions, but it's not (usually) because he intends to be rude. He is very blunt and speaks his mind and appreciates others doing the same with him. He tends to fall on the complex side of the scale - he will casually throw high level scientific and philosophical terms into a conversation and just assume everyone understands him. His language also tends to be clean - he doesn't swear much in casual conversation (though he has been shown to in moments of frustration). If he does dirty talk with Saint in the bedroom is up to the writers' interpretation. One thing I also tend to take notice of is if a character uses a lot of contractions or not. Do they say 'It is' or 'it's'? 'We are' or 'we're'?

Happy Leland Melvin Day!

Happy Leland Melvin Day!

Happy Leland Melvin Day!!!