Things People Do After Having A Nightmare That Isn’t Crying

Fantasy Guide to Wards and Fostering

I get a lot of asks about wards and recently it's been a FAQ. So here's a quick guide to warding.

What is Warding?

Warding was a tradition in which a noble it royal family would take in a child from another family to their home for the purpose of educating them and preparing them for adulthood or to protect their interests. Warding was seen as a big compliment to the family of the foster child, especially if the family that fosters their child is much higher ranking. However, warding could also be in response to the family's misbehavior and insubordination or in some cases their death. Warding isn't adoption. Warding does not entitle the child to inherit anything. They cannot inherit a place in the succession, they cannot inherit lands or money or titles.

The Ward

The ward was usually a child of a lower ranking family, between the ages of seven to maturity at 16 or so. Wards usually had parents in which case the foster family was charged with the child's physical and educational welfare. The ward could return to their parents at any time either at their insistence or with the blessing of their foster family. Wards were raised alongside the host family's children as well as other wards. They were fed, clothed and educated by their foster family as essentially treated as part of the family. However, wards that come from unfriendly or rebellious families were essentially used as chips for good behaviour. If their parents or kin act up, they could be killed. Wards could also be orphaned. In this case, their foster father would have control their lands and money which is why an overlord would seek to claim warship over a vassal heir to ensure peace. Wards could also be adopted by family.

The Foster Family

The family were nearly always higher ranking and usually had another motive other than charity for taking in the ward. Sometimes the child could be used as collateral against an untrustworthy family or sometimes they were prospective spouses for the family's heirs. It was the responsibility of the foster family to discipline, educate and protect the ward. They would be charged with teaching the ward all the trappings of their position from warfare to statecraft to etiquette.

Wards to Royal families

In some cases, a ward might strike gold and be warded at court by the monarch. Wards would live at court but would be unlikely to be taught the skills by the monarch or Consort personally but would be provided with the best tutors. Wards could be brought in to be companions to the Royal children or in order to ensure their inheritances were not subjected to disputes if they were orphans or again, if their family were likely to commit trouble. Royal wards were always nobility but in some rare and extreme cases they could also be total themselves, usually of displaced and exiled families or as prospective matches to royal children.

Wardship & Women

In some cases, an unmarried woman or a widow could be placed in the protection of an overlord or male relative in order to protective her interests. If a woman was the heir to a grand title or vast fortune and had no father or brother, the monarch or overlord would insist that a male relative or her overlord would take her in lest her claim put her in danger. Usually, it would be up to their host to arrange a match or aid her in brokering one herself.

Writing tips # 6 - The Body

Hey, hi everyone! I'm back again with yet another segment of Writing tips. Today I'm going to chat about something many struggle to describe. The body. Below will be several categories containing words synonymous with descriptors used when explaining someone's body. Hopefully, now y'all won't end up struggling for an hour like I have trying to figure out a socially correct way to explain that this particular character is obese :D

Thin

Angular, bony, emaciated, dainty, ethereal, frail, gangly, lanky, lean, malnourished, narrow, petite, puny, rawboned, scrawny, skeletal, skin-and-bone, skinny, slender, slight, slim, stick, twiggy, underweight.

Heavy

Beefy, big-boned, bloated, brawny, broad, bulging, bulky, burly, chubby, chunky, dense, elephantine, full-bodied, gargantuan, heavy-set, husky, lumpy, massive, obese, oversized, paunchy, plump, plumpish, portly, potbellied, pudgy, robust, rotund, round, shapeless, solid, stocky, stout, thick, wide.

Short

Compact, dwarfed, dwarfish, little, low, miniature, pint-sized, runty, squat, stunted, stubby, stumpy, tiny, undersized, wee.

Tall

Alpine, beanstalk, gangly, giant, lanky, lofty, skyscraping, stick, stretched, towering.

Weak

Decrepit, delicate, effeminate, emaciated, feeble, flaccid, fragile, frail, puny, sickly.

Strong

Beefy, brawny, burly, firm, herculean, huge, hulky, husky, muscular, powerful, ripped, robust, rugged, shredded, solid, stalwart, stout, strapping, tough, well-built.

Fit

Athletic, hardy, healthy, hearty, shapely, robust, toned, trim.

As always I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day and let your days be blessed as the best! <3

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

Researching as a Writer

Start Broad

begin with a list of more general topics and get specific as you go.

for example, research for a historical fantasy novel might follow a chain that looks like this:

life in the 1700s -> life in 1700s france -> 1700s french etiquette and lifestyle depending on class -> 1720s french fashion for middle and upper-middle class women.

starting with a general understanding of the topic you want to cover and narrowing down to specifics will make it easier to build on your knowledge as you go.

Think Critically

consider the source. if it doesn’t cite primary sources (for example, letters and photographs from a specific era and location), what sources does it cite? follow those sources if possible.

is the information reliable? is it provided by an educational institution or an expert on the subject?

who is the author? do they present any bias? what do they have to gain by promoting a specific mindset or conclusion? has any of their research been debunked?

Anecdotes

in general, anecdotal evidence is not sufficient for academic writing. luckily for you, this is a fiction writing page, and anecdotal evidence is usually fine!

work with a combination of scholarly sources and personal experience. if you’re trying to depict a specific health condition, you might consult medical sources about the technical details of the condition, as well as seeking firsthand accounts from people who have that condition.

remember that people are not monolithic! there are often forums online where people are more than happy to discuss their experiences; cross-consult these for common elements.

Lists

keep track of your sources!! if you ever need to consult something later on, it will be way easier to open a list of resources than go digging through your search history.

additionally, if you come across lists of sources compiled by other people, save those!! you are probably not the first person to research the specific topic you’re looking into, and there are entire websites dedicated to gathering research!

wordsnstuffblog.com/research has compilations of sources for everything from writing injuries to global period pieces by century.

Resources

if you can, check out your school or public library’s websites! they will often compile scholarly resources to access for free.

look for open access or open source sites like project gutenberg that archive and digitize historical documents and other works. scienceopen and the directory of open access journals are more of these. search using keywords!

keep an eye out for websites made specifically for educational purposes (those with .edu at the end of their addresses).

Ref Recs for Whump Writers

Violence: A Writer’s Guide:  This is not about writing technique. It is an introduction to the world of violence. To the parts that people don’t understand. The parts that books and movies get wrong. Not just the mechanics, but how people who live in a violent world think and feel about what they do and what they see done.

Hurting Your Characters: HURTING YOUR CHARACTERS discusses the immediate effect of trauma on the body, its physiologic response, including the types of nerve fibers and the sensations they convey, and how injuries feel to the character. This book also presents a simplified overview of the expected recovery times for the injuries discussed in young, otherwise healthy individuals.

Body Trauma: A writer’s guide to wounds and injuries. Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.

10 B.S. Medical Tropes that Need to Die TODAY…and What to Do Instead: Written by a paramedic and writer with a decade of experience, 10 BS Medical Tropes covers exactly that: clichéd and inaccurate tropes that not only ruin books, they have the potential to hurt real people in the real world. 

Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction: Increase Realism. Raise the Stakes. Tell Better Stories. Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury you’re inflicting matters. 

Blood on the Page: This handy resource is a must-have guide for writers whose characters live on the edge of danger. If you like easy-to-follow tools, expert opinions from someone with firsthand knowledge, and you don’t mind a bit of fictional bodily harm, then you’ll love Samantha Keel’s invaluable handbook

Writing Notes: Stages of Decomposition

The decomposition process occurs in several stages following death:

Pallor mortis

Algor mortis

Rigor mortis

Cadaveric spasm

Lividity

Putrefaction

Decomposition

Skeletonization

PALLOR MORTIS

The first stage of death.

Occurs once blood stops circulating in the body.

The cessation of an oxygenated blood flow to the capillaries beneath the skin causes the deceased to pale in appearance.

In non-Caucasians, the pallor may appear to develop an unusual hue; the skin will lose any natural lustre and appears more waxen.

Occurs quite quickly, within about 10 minutes after death.

ALGOR MORTIS

The cooling of the body after death.

The cooling process will be influenced by many factors, including the deceased’s clothing, or whether they are covered with bed linen such as blankets or duvets.

The body will typically cool to the ambient room temperature, but this alters if there is heating in the room or if there is a constant draught cooling the body.

RIGOR MORTIS

Can occur between 2 and 6 hours after death.

Factors including temperature can greatly affect this.

Caused by the muscles partially contracting, and the lack of aerobic respiration means that the muscles cannot relax from the contraction, leaving them tense, subsequently resulting in the stiffening we associate with rigor mortis.

This stage typically begins in the head, starting with the eyes, mouth, jaw and neck, and progresses right through the body.

The process is concluded approximately 12 hours after death (although, again, certain variables may occur) and lasts between 24 and 72 hours depending on circumstances.

Contrary to popular belief, rigor mortis is not a permanent state and is in fact reversed, with the muscles relaxing in the same order in which they initially stiffened.

The reversing process also takes approximately 12 hours, when the body returns to its un-contracted state.

It is possible to ‘break’ rigor mortis by manipulating and flexing the limbs. This is usually done by undertakers, pathologists or crime scene investigators who are attempting to examine or move a body – or by a murderer trying to hide their victim in the closet or the boot of a car.

CADAVERIC SPASM

A phenomenon that can be misinterpreted as rigor mortis.

The instantaneous stiffening of the body (most commonly the hands) following a traumatic death.

Unlike rigor mortis, the stiffening of the affected limb is permanent and is not reversed, causing the deceased to maintain the rigidity until such time as putrefaction causes breakdown of the particular muscle group.

Examples:

The deceased following an air crash were later discovered still clutching their seatbelts or arm rests in a final, desperate act of survival.

In a drowning case, the victim was discovered with grass from the riverbank still grasped in their hand.

Perhaps the most famous case of cadaveric spasm involves the rock band Nirvana’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain. Cobain reportedly committed suicide in April 1994. His body was discovered a few days after his death with a shotgun wound to the head, and tests revealed he had large traces of heroin in his system. He was reportedly discovered still clutching the gun in his left hand, due to cadaveric spasm. However, a great deal of controversy surrounds the veracity of this latter assumption, and indeed the cause of his death, with many people insisting and attempting to prove that he died as the result of foul play rather than suicide.

LIVIDITY

Also known as livor mortis, hypostasis, or suggillation.

Once blood can no longer circulate, it will gravitate towards the lowest point of the body.

Example: A supine body will display pinkish/purple patches of discoloration where the blood has settled in the back and along the thighs.

Occurs about 30 minutes after death, but will not necessarily be noticeable until at least 2 hours afterwards as the pooling process intensifies and becomes visible, finally peaking up to between 8 and 12 hours later.

Once it is complete, the lividity process cannot be reversed.

Therefore a body discovered lying on its side, but with staining evident in the back and shoulders, must have been moved at some point from what would have been a supine position at the time of death.

It is worth noting that if the body has had contact with the floor, a wall or other solid surface, lividity would not occur at the points of contact as the pressure would not allow the blood to seep through the capillaries and pool. The specific area of pressure will be the same colour as the rest of the body and a pattern of contact may well be evident.

PUTREFACTION

Derives from the Latin putrefacere, meaning ‘to make rotten’.

The body becomes rotten through the process known as autolysis, which is the liquefaction of bodily tissue and organs and the breakdown of proteins within the body due to the increased presence of bacteria.

The first visible sign is the discoloration of the skin in the area of the abdomen.

Bacteria released from the intestine cause the body to become bloated with a mixture of gases; over time these will leak out, and the smell will intensify to unbearable proportions.

Typically, this will attract flies that will lay eggs, which develop into maggots.

Bloating is most evident in the stomach area, genitals and face, which can become unrecognizable as the tongue and eyes are forced to protrude due to the pressure of the build-up of gases in the body.

At this stage, the body will also begin to lose hair.

The organs typically decompose in a particular order: starting with the stomach, followed by the intestines, heart, liver, brain, lungs, kidney, bladder and uterus/prostate.

Once all the gases have escaped the skin begins to turn black: this stage is called ‘black putrefaction’.

As with all the other stages of death so far, the rate of putrefaction depends on temperature and location. A body exposed to the air above ground will decompose more quickly than a body left in water or buried below ground.

During putrefaction, blistering of the skin and fermentation can also occur:

Fermentation - a type of mould that will grow on the surface of the body. This mould appears white, and is slimy or furry in texture. It also releases a very strong, unpleasant, cheesy smell.

As the putrefaction process comes to an end, fly and maggot activity will become less, which leads to the next stage.

DECOMPOSITION

The body is an organic substance comprising organisms that can be broken down by chemical decomposition.

If the body is outside, any remains that have not been scavenged or consumed by maggots will liquefy and seep into the surrounding soil.

Thus when the body decomposes it is effectively recycled and returned to nature.

SKELETONIZATION

The final stage of death is known as ‘dry decay’, when the cadaver has all but dried out: the soft tissue has all gone and only the skeleton remains.

If the cadaver is outside, not only is it exposed to the elements but it also becomes food for scavengers such as rats, crows or foxes.

As the remains are scavenged, the body parts become dispersed so it is not unusual to find skeletal remains some distance from where the body lay at the point of death.

The way in which skeletal remains are scattered in such cases is of interest to archaeologists, and is referred to as taphonomy.

Where a body has lain undiscovered at home for a period of time it has also been known for family pets, typically dogs, to feed on the body. The natural instinct of a pet is to attempt to arouse the deceased by licking them, but once it gets hungry, its survival instinct will take over and it will consider the body as little more than carrion: it will act with the same natural instinct as a scavenger in the wild, which will feed on any corpse, be it animal or human, if it is starving.

Obviously the number of pets, the body mass of the deceased and the time lapse before the body is discovered will influence to what extent it has been devoured.

For further research on the stages of decomposition and the factors that affect it, look up body farms. These are medical facilities where bodies are donated for research purposes so scientists can specifically observe the decomposition process. However, be aware that some of the images are quite graphic.

Source ⚜ More: References ⚜ Autopsy ⚜ Pain & Violence ⚜ Injuries Bereavement ⚜ Death & Sacrifice ⚜ Cheating Death ⚜ Death Conceptions

Selective Mutism (SM) is a situational anxiety disorder. Those with SM speak fluently in some situations but remain consistently unable to speak in others. Outside of speech, all forms of communication may be inhibited, such as writing, body language, gestures, and facial expressions in some people.

Good Links: DSM, NHS, iSpeak, SMIRA

SM is not very well known, therefore there are many misconceptions about it.

1 - Selective Mutism is NOT a choice.

People with SM are unable to speak in certain situations, or with certain people. They do not refuse to speak. 

2 - People of ANY AGE can have selective mutism. 

SM usually begins during early childhood, most commonly before the age of 5. Many people believe that it only affects children and that they will ‘grow out’ of it. This is not always true. It can still persist into adulthood, especially without treatment. 

3 - Selective Mutism is NOT always due to trauma.

There is no evidence that people with SM are more or less likely to have experienced trauma or mistreatment than people without SM. As stated, SM is an anxiety disorder, not a trauma disorder. Although some people with SM may attribute it to trauma, this is not the case for the vast majority of people with SM.

4 - Selective Mutism is NOT a symptom of, or the same as, autism.

Selective Mutism is classed as an anxiety disorder and can be ‘recovered from’. Whilst autism is classed as a neurodevelopmental disorder, or neurodivergence, which someone will always have.

The two conditions are commonly comorbid. However an important distinction is that SM is mutism that is specifically caused by anxiety, not by autism (or by delayed speech or language impairment). In each case the mutism will have fundamentally different causes, and require different ways to treat and respond to each person. This is an important distinction, as misdiagnosing one as the other can be potentially harmful.

5 - People with Selective Mutism always have ‘lesser’ language abilities.

There is no correlation between SM and an individuals language development.

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Something like this would be so colossally helpful. I'm sick and tired of trying to research specific clothing from any given culture and being met with either racist stereotypical costumes worn by yt people or ai generated garbage nonsense, and trying to be hyper specific with searches yields fuck all. Like I generally just cannot trust the legitimacy of most search results at this point. It's extremely frustrating. If there are good resources for this then they're buried deep under all the other bullshit, and idk where to start looking.

Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:

In general, I think "Is X out-of-character?" is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.

A better question, I believe, is "What would it take for Character to do X?" What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT'S where a potentially interesting story lies.

In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from "What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?" As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you've got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.

“Only One Bed” Prompts

A: Character A notices that sharing a bed with B feels a little too normal. 

B: Characters are watching tv together on the bed when one of them casually rests their head on the others shoulder. 

C: Character A is shocked when B whispers their name in their sleep.

D: Character A is awake all night basking in the fact that they’re near their crush. Their face is a vibrant red and they can feel the anxiety bubble in their chest at the idea of saying something stupid in their sleep. B is sleeping like a baby because they have very few thoughts in the grand scheme of things. 

E: Character A wakes up from a nightmare and debates if they should wake up Character B.

F: The only one bed trope between characters who just realized they had feelings for each other. OR the only one bed trope is what causes characters to realize they have feelings for each other. 

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