Quick tip for fiction writers: If you find your female character's dialogue is weak or somehow less distinctive in comparison to male characters, it's probably because you are not allowing her to lead conversations enough to establish a clear and unique voice, tics, and speech patterns.

This is especially true for characters who are not protagonists or characters who are romantic protagonists, and double-especially for fanfiction. Female characters are often relegated to being primarily reactive in conversation (in TV & film as well as fiction) and this tends to get worse when male characters are prominently featured.

Being snappy or clever or mean or loud or, God forbid, sassy is critically NOT what we're measuring here. Check to see how much of the time she leads, directs, drives a conversation. This can be overt or covert. Just make sure she isn't exclusively reacting to the things male characters say (unless, of course, you are making some kind of point about it).

[Takes a long drink of the cheap pisswater beer they serve here]

Yeah, sure, I like to live dangerously. On new moons, go out into the woods and offer bones to the blood god and blood to the bone god. They ain't caught me yet on account of them fightin' each other over sacrifices. You should try it sometime. Funniest shit you can imagine.

[Rolls into the bar covered in bites and bruises, face muddy and sticks and leaves on my clothes]

[Orders a double shot of rotgut and a pint of of pisswater]

I got a problem, gang. The bone god and the blood god put aside their enmity long enough to collaborate on creatin' a revenant to send after me. Unholy amalgam of flesh and shadow like, you know?

Huh? Nah. That ain't the problem, I've killed plenty of revenants in my time.

Problem is, I think it's taken a likin' to me (not platonically, mind you) and I can't decide if I should try 'n let it down easy or see where this goes.

[Walks into the bar with a noticable limp and a grin on my face, my neck is very clearly covered in smeared lipstick]

[I am trailed by an 8 foot tall figure swathed in tattered and stained sackcloth. Its head is a wolf's skull bound in barbed wire. Its eyes are two glowing embers embedded in bottomless inky black pits. When it breathes, a stench of rot and sulfur fill the room]

Everyone! This is Cindy. Say hi, Cindy!

[The wolf-skulled revenant with embers for eyes opens its jaws and emits a piercing shriek that threatens to rend the very fabric of reality itself]

Now, I want everyone to be nice to Cindy... mostly on account of I have no idea what she'll do if ya piss her off.

I’m a patron of the arts (I leave nice comments on aO3).

I'm a patron of the arts (I reblog on Tumblr dot com)

For more of my art @alwaystiredshark

Pilgrimage to the red wastes

"rape is mostly an expression of power and abuse" being warped into "rape isn't sexual" or "rape isn't ever sexually motivated" is the most evil, distorted shit modern rape culture has produced. Just boldly turned it into a defense for the culture itself.

this picture my student drew of our class looks so funny 😭😭 we play a game called "stop/go" but it looks like i'm just fed tf UP w their smiling asses

by the way guys, this deployment of ice to minnesota is largest ever. more agents than chicago. we are a much less dense state. we are being inundated.

It is the largest Department of Homeland Security operation in history. And yet Minnesota’s Somali population (this operation’s primary target) is upwards of 90% naturalized American citizens. It’s even more of a manufactured crisis than most DHS operations. Genuinely living in Minnesota now feels like we’re a small country on the brink of invasion.

I saw two ICE trucks yesterday on my way to give my friends back their house keys from when I was looking after their cats. I got home today and I heard whistles and honking from people chasing ICE, but by the time I got Matilda in the house they were gone so I couldn't join in the chase. I know there was a major attempt to steal my neighbors from just a few blocks away this morning while I was at work.

It doesn't feel like we're on the brink of invasion. It feels like we're being newly occupied by an invading force. Except that the invading force doesn't just want our total submission; they also want to rip half our neighbors out of our arms. They came for Hmong Minnesotans next, and they are also more than 90% citizens. We have a lot of minority populations who settled here because Minnesota prides itself on welcoming refugees; both populations have been here for more than thirty years.

Fuck this shit. It is terrorism.

Not just feels like, is. Feels like because is.

And for all the rest of us US occupants not in Minnesota, it's coming to us, too. Ohio is getting door-to-door ICE today, for instance, and I've seen multiple friends in other states posting photos of big ol' trucks, beds packed with ICE vehicles, rolling in to town.

We're still not quite two weeks into 2026. Get ready to plant your feet.

You know when they finish with brown people, they’re coming for the queers, then the democrats, then the Jews. You know it. We stop them today or there won’t be a tomorrow.

Magical girl who had wanted to be one so badly but never had that magical mascot/mentor encounter so she summoned a demon to contract with instead.

It's not a dark story or anything, the magical girl is just as cute and cheery and friendly as factory standard and never loses that faith and optimism, she's just Pact-bound to a frightening demon from the underworld instead of a cute teddy bear mouse.

“What if he’s manipulating her to evil-“ No.

“What if she needs to eat souls to survive-“ No.

“What if she becomes horrified with what she’s becoming-“ No.

Demon being viewed as weird for making a pact with a cute, cheery schoolgirl.

At every demon party where they show off their pacted there's evil, terrible, and frighteningly beautiful and then there's this teenager in a cute magical girl dress.

"I don't get you Goragog." "Listen, it's nice. Just nice! Can't things be nice? Is it a sin for things to be nice?" "No and that's part of the problem..." "You're just jealous Samantha created a "bffs forever" blingee with me. When was the last time one of your warlocks did something like that for you?" "*on the verge of tears* it's been DECADES!"

Meanwhile on the other side of the room...

"So what do you get in exchange? I get eternal youth and beauty."

"Yeah, and I get all my enemies smited."

"And my guy gave me immeasurable wealth. What'chu got, kid?"

"This super cute compact! Isn't it pretty? The heart-shaped jewels are so sparkly, and the mirror is always spotless!"

"...."

"And since we're pactbound, we're basically roomies now, so I also get a cool best friend and sleepovers on weekends!"

"...."

"Oh, and I also got my magical powers, of course."

Er'trian, Harbinger of Eternal Night, Defender of the Shrieking Chasm, and Lord of Eight Furies stared at eir favorite rival in confusion.

"But it's a pact," ey said. "A deal. An exchange is built in! You can't just Bestow Magical Powers for nothing in return. So what are you getting out of this, Goragog???"

Goragog's dark eyes wept their endless ichor. A halo of eldritch nightmares flickered around his head. With deliberate slowness he turned to meet Er'trian's accursed gaze.

"The power of friendship."

X-Files Season 6 behind the scenes

they make the best aliens because little girls are fucking bizarre, nobody else can match that energy

In an interview he said that the boys always ended up breaking their costumes bc they would fight each other, but the girls Got. Into. Character. and were amazing creepy little aliens. 

Rocket scientists who leave the rocket industry keep thinking everything is a rocket and it's kind of adorable

"We can honeycomb this to reduce the weight" sweetie no that's going to be twice as expensive to manufacture and we are not launching it anywhere.

"If we use titanium instead of steel we'll save a bunch of weight" baby you need to stop worrying so much about your weight! And maybe worry more about what happens to titanium when you expose it to deuterium plasma.

One of the things I love about watching people make art on the internet is clocking the way they use the tools they know. The way a nail artist makes miniatures is completely different than the way a polymer clay artist does the same thing. How a whittler and a painter approach printmaking.

Consider the ways in which you are a rocket engineer.

sorry for inflicting this upon tumblr but i need someone else to know what this is because i can’t stop quoting it to myself