Hurricane Helene Has Devastated Appalachia And The News Isn’t Covering It.

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

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I've gotten more fond of svsss after @fatalism-and-villainy read it and liveblogged it to me, and I've been thinking so much about what it says about villains, and people's environments affecting what they do, and also/especially fandom and fandom interpretations of villains. obviously societal factors on behavior and how social pressures form villains is a theme through all mxtx novels, but it's really obvious in the contrast between alt universe versions of people!

shen yuan and shen jiu are the most obvious example of this. It's so clear why Shen Qingqiu was the role chosen for Shen Yuan! He's grumpy, demands perfection from himself and others, has a very sharp tongue, is very Intellectual, and has the type of mind to want to write bestiaries and focus on scholarship. He has an enormous wealth of knowledge about xianxia tropes in general and PIDW worldbuilding in particular. ALL of those are Shen Qingqiu traits! He just doesn't envy children who have good childhoods, and therefore doesn't Do Child Abuse.

Originally, he dismisses Shen Qingqiu Original Version as a one dimensional, irredeemable "scum villain." Shen Jiu's backstory doesn't show up in the original work, and Shen Yuan dismisses it as irrelevant.

And this is a mistake. Not only does Shen Jiu's backstory explain why he's the way he is, it continues to affect his life and by extension the life of any Shen Qingqius. Understanding his past and feelings are ESSENTIAL for Shen Qingqiu v2 to keep himself alive! He struggles with interacting with the remnants of the Qiu family, SQQ's past as a slave, and is distressed by the memories he's shown of child SQQ being raped and abused. He needs to know these things, and he needs to have sympathy for the original occupant of his body!

It's not that Shen Yuan seemed to have a good life -- he was a hikikomori, "waiting around to die" -- but the circumstances of his life took his base characteristics that he shares with SQQ and molded him into a totally different person.

It's also visible with LBH1 and LBH2. Original Luo Binghe is not a good person! He responds to his traumatic early life by conquering the world, forming a harem of hundreds of women he doesn't care about, and eventually dies unfulfilled, unloved, and unhappy. SVSSS Luo Binghe has problems for sure -- definitely traumatized! so many mood swings! -- but his positive experiences with Shen Qingqiu v2 were just enough to make him a good person. "People improve when they receive external love and support!"

Tumblr is Tracking Shared Links

It looks like Tumblr @staff have finally implemented tracking garbage into shared links in the Tumblr mobile app. It took them years and years, but Tumblr is finally making an attempt to track shared links you click or links you share with friends.

When you share a post and choose to “copy” a link to your clipboard, you can see that they use their (new?) url shortener, at.tumblr.com.  The shortened URL appears to contain: your blog name; either the ID of the destination post, or the short string associated with the post; and an alphanumeric string.  Eg:

https://at.tumblr.com/pizza-and-ramen/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious/uqndb20nkyob

The shortened URL redirects you to the destination link, but with 2 URL parameters: _branch_referrer and _branch_match_id.  Both are associated with a third-party analytics tool, branch.io.  Eg:

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious?_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D&_branch_match_id=1104914739086906151

_branch_referrer appears to be another shortened at.tumblr.com URL, except it’s been gzipped, base64 encoded, then URL encoded.  Eg:

H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D

URL decode to:

H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86+eK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v/AuVQAAAA==

base64 decode to (in hex for legibility):

1F8B0800 00000000 000315C4 C10D8020 0C00C089 4A1FC68F DB545069 A4805082 32BD9A5C CEABE6BA 20921A6D B286626C 12CC3C06 01450785 648BC802 7BB327C7 03DCF3AF 9E2B7C3C 072A9C5A C53B8C79 EA974BBD F71774BF F02E5500 0000

and unzipped with gunzip:

https://at.tumblr.com/pizza-and-ramen/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious/xlz53wqdowww

which directs to the post with the same _branch_referrer but a new _branch_match_id:

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious?_branch_match_id=1104899685865808870&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D

_branch_match_id, according to this stackoverflow answer, is an identifier unique to you, used to track users.  It could be based on browser fingerprinting, as branch.io’s branch_match_id is.

Anyway, there’s not a terribly easy way to avoid this tracking from the Tumblr mobile app, but if you get a link that has the id, not the string, you can modify it to the format of blog.tumblr.com/ID, like so before sending it to a friend:

https://at.tumblr.com/pizza-and-ramen/118684413624/uqndb20nkyob

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/118684413624

Alternately, you could paste the link in your browser, allow it to redirect, then remove everything past the ? at the end, eg:

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious?_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAxXEwQ2AIAwAwIlKH8aP21RQaaSAUIIyvZpczqvmuiCSGm2yhmJsEsw8BgFFB4Vki8gCe7MnxwPc86%2BeK3w8ByqcWsU7jHnql0u99xd0v%2FAuVQAAAA%3D%3D&_branch_match_id=1104914739086906151

https://pizza-and-ramen.tumblr.com/post/118684413624/im-fucking-dying-this-is-hilarious

Anyway, this has been my privacy rant of the day.  Thanks for reading, and let me know if you know more about this than I do!

You guys I need your help to spread this and get this trending

Please watch this video and help spread awareness!!! I know for a fact that everything in this video is true

I know I don’t have a big platform but if you could reblog and share this it would make ALL the difference!!!

The internet has been able spread awareness like this before countless times so let’s do it again!

There currently is not a perfect solution to help the Iranian people but WE CAN STILL SPREAD AWARENESS!!! We can still bring change but the first step is to educate!

Please share and do whatever you can!

We need to get this out there!

GET

This

Trending

Use #saveiran

"Rolling Girl" Soos edition! Ft. Lee Soo Hyuk, Choi Jung Soo, Kim Rok Soo (and with a special appearance from Cale) TvT

(This is also uploaded to youtube! Special thanks to Soy for adding the music 🙏)

Loop/gif :

(And a few of my fav frames!) :

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$50,000 immediately dropped into my bank account wouldn't improve EVERYTHING but boy it sure would be a grand, sexy little start to a good, happy life path, don't you think

Happiness Will Come To You.

Resources for Writing Injuries

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress

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Head Injuries

General Information | More

Hematoma

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Diffuse Axonal Injury

Neck

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Neck sprain

Herniated Disk

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Broken Neck

Chest (Thoracic)

General Information

Aortic disruption

Blunt cardiac injury

Cardiac tamponade

Flail chest

Hemothorax

Pneumothorax (traumatic pneumothorax, open pneumothorax, and tension pneumothorax)

Pulmonary contusion

Broken Ribs

Broken Collarbone

Abdominal

General Information

Blunt trauma

Penetrating injuries (see also, gunshot wound & stab wound sections)

Broken Spine

Lung Trauma

Heart (Blunt Cardiac Injury)

Bladder Trauma

Spleen Trauma

Intestinal Trauma

Liver Trauma

Pancreas Trauma

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Arms/Hands/Legs/Feet

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Fractures

Dislocations

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Injuries to tendons

Crushed Hand

Crushed Foot

Broken Hand

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Shoulder Trauma

Broken elbow

Broken Knee

Broken Finger

Broken Toe

Face

General Information

Broken Nose

Corneal Abrasion

Chemical Eye Burns

Subconjunctival Hemorrhages (Eye Bleeding)

Facial Trauma

Broken/Dislocated jaw

Fractured Cheekbone

Skin & Bleeding

General Information (Skin Injuries) | More (Arteries)

femoral artery (inner thigh)

thoracic aorta (chest & heart)

abdominal aorta (abdomen)

brachial artery (upper arm)

radial artery (hand & forearm)

common carotid artery (neck)

aorta (heart & abdomen)

axillary artery (underarm)

popliteal artery (knee & outer thigh)

anterior tibial artery (shin & ankle)

posterior tibial artery (calf & heel)

arteria dorsalis pedis (foot)

Cuts/Lacerations

Scrapes

Abrasions (Floor burns)

Bruises

Gunshot Wounds

General Information

In the Head

In the Neck

In the Shoulders

In the Chest

In the Abdomen

In the Legs/Arms

In the Hands

In The Feet

Stab Wounds

General Information

In the Head

In the Neck

In the Chest

In the Abdomen

In the Legs/Arms

General Resources

Guide to Story Researching

A Writer’s Thesaurus

Words To Describe Body Types and How They Move

Words To Describe…

Writing Intense Scenes

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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Imagine if every major character in SV was a transmigrator - except no one knows what the others are bc system and ooc rules lol. and literally everyone is like wtf's going on most of the time.

OH

OHHHH

THIS WOULD BE SO FUN WOW HAHAHAHAHA

Yue QingYuan: Fukk I’m the tragic childhood friend why can’t I be someone else instead? Couldn’t I just be Mu QingFang, at least he doesn’t need to juggle the responsibilities of being the Sect Leader and trying to care for a troublesome childhood friend??

Liu QingGe: Check the reader!LQG tag lmao

Mu QingFang: Oh no. I’m not good with all these medical stuff, these people are so gonna die. Oh no. Is that blood? God please no I’m gonna faint —

Qi QingQi: Oooooh nice I’m a beautiful lady!! A badass queen too!!! But how am I supposed to act as a Peak Lord? Wow everyone’s so pretty. Heck Liu QingGe’s about as pretty as the ladies here why oh god. I am intimidated by their beauty. But all the eye candy’s pretty nice.

ZhuZhi Lang: … Nooo I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die to protect my lord! But… TianLang Jun… is so good… yeah I think I’d gladly die for him after all lmao. Oh I’d totally die for Shen QingQiu too. … Do I really have to die?

TianLang Jun: Lololol this is so fun. Eyyy ZhuZhi Lang wanna read porn with me? Oh wow, look, my arm just came off! Lololololol. Wait I’m supposed to merge the two worlds? Naw that sounds so troublesome… Wait system no what are you doing don’t take my — Fine, fine, I’ll do it!

MoBei Jun: Whoa sick I’m the ice demon. Look! Ice powers!! Ain’t I awesome!!! *clears throat* I mean… Ahem. You never saw anything. Now get me some ice cream.

Hmm I don’t know who else to add lmao. Feel free to add to this in the reblogs!