Slop Dolly Of Epic Proportions

Posts tagged reference

How to Fix Underwriting
1. Slow down at emotionally important moments.
Big emotions need space to land. If a scene feels rushed, pause the plot briefly to show how the moment affects the character.
2. Add reactions, not explanations.
Instead of explaining what a character feels, show it through physical responses, hesitation, or small actions that reveal emotion naturally.
3. Ground every scene in the senses.
If a scene feels thin, add one or two sensory details—sound, texture, smell, or temperature—to make the moment feel lived-in.
4. Let thoughts interrupt action.
A line of internal thought can deepen a scene without slowing it too much. Thoughts show stakes, fear, longing, or conflict beneath the action.
5. Expand consequences, not events.
You don’t need more things to happen—you need to show what matters. Focus on how events change relationships, decisions, or self-perception.
6. Strengthen setting where emotion peaks.
The environment should echo or contrast the emotion of the scene. Setting is not decoration—it’s emotional reinforcement.
7. Add specific details instead of general ones.
Underwriting often relies on vague language. Swap “they argued” for one sharp line of dialogue or a specific breaking point.
8. Let dialogue breathe.
Short dialogue exchanges without pauses can feel flat. Add beats—silence, gestures, interruptions—to give the conversation weight.
9. Show transitions between scenes.
If scenes jump too quickly, readers feel disoriented. A brief transition helps establish time, mood, and emotional continuity.
10. Clarify stakes early in the scene.
If readers don’t know what can be lost, scenes feel empty. Make sure the character wants something specific and fears losing it.
11. Use the “what are they feeling right now?” check.
After each major beat, ask what emotion is dominant in that moment. If it’s missing on the page, the scene is likely underwritten.
12. Expand scenes that feel “too clean.”
If a scene resolves too neatly or quickly, it probably needs more tension. Messy emotions and unresolved feelings add depth.

shamebats:

Tiktok post by @ wynunlimited.

the-ocean-is-trans:

clevermanka:
ALT
🍁 Xavier 🍁 (@xavierck.com)
Here are 543 images (1.5GB) of items at the Philadelphia Museum of Art arms and armor exhibit You're free to use them for anything, even c
Bluesky Social
casual reminder that this museum has their entire collection digitized and available free for public use: https://art.thewalters.org/ and they have armor/weapons there

whatchamacallitz:

bosstoaster:
plussizedandrogyny:
plussizedandrogyny:
Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16uhmMb8kE4P_vOSycr6XSa9zpmDijZSd?usp=sharing
Updated just now with new hand sewing resources (mainly buttonholes) and textbook pdfs on fashion history, fashion illustration, and thinking through designs!
OP I owe you my life
OP you are the greatest person currently in my life. You beautiful, thoughtful creature.

greater-than-the-sword:

onewakingworld:
My mom shared this article with me and I think I’m going to make my students read it aloud on the first day of the new semester
compression culture is making you stupid and uninteresting
why the death of nuance should scare you -your fav gen z philosopher xx
maalvika.substack.com
The part about removing the ums from podcasts really made me sit back and go hmm, do I remember hearing “um” in a podcast recently?

them-faetale:

the-original-sineater:
dduane:
monitor-offist-deactivated20250:
theculturedmarxist:
ALT
>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.
>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.
>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.
>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.
>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.
>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.
>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.
ALT
>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!
ALT
>Lemmings problem now solved.
>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.
>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.
>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.
>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.
ALT
ALT
>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.
>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.
ALT
fastest reblog in the west
Yeppers. :)
reblogging for study later AND to spread the info.
Seriously, get and run PiHole if you can. It changes your internet experience so much for the better. I get shocked when I visit a website when I’m someone else’s network, by just how many ads the internet is flooded with now. Take back control.

blumineck:

Let’s compare some different weights of bow!
As always, you can find more stuff here

bixbiboom:
“canadiankazz:
“flashhwing:
“foodffs:
“COMMON BAKING SUBSTITUTIONS Follow for recipes
Is this how you roll?
”
if you don’t have 1 large egg no worries, just use 2 large egg yolks!
”
Glad someone else was also confused by the “no egg? just...

bixbiboom:

canadiankazz:
flashhwing:
foodffs:
COMMON BAKING SUBSTITUTIONS
Follow for recipes
Is this how you roll?
if you don’t have 1 large egg no worries, just use 2 large egg yolks!
Glad someone else was also confused by the “no egg? just use eggs!” thing. Like… wtf?
I also have my doubts about the rest of these as well.
Say you want to make a pavlova that calls for 12 egg whites, and a batch of cookies that calls for two whole eggs, but you only have a dozen eggs. You can separate your dozen eggs, use the 12 egg whites for the pavlova, then substitute four of your unused egg yolks for two whole eggs. Substitutions aren’t always “I’m completely out of an ingredient,” sometimes they’re “I don’t have enough of an ingredient.”
The rest of the subs are legit too, they just require common sense. If you substitute oil for butter, your grandma’s famous buttery shortbread recipe won’t taste the same.

ubercharge:

petermorwood:
literallybyronic:
ubercharge:
look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry
@petermorwood
I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)
Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.
Here are Celtic bronze swords…
…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…
… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…
Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.
Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…
…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.
This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…
…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.
A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.
I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).
A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.
The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.
Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.
Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.
Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.
There’s no doubt about this one either.
The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.
However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.
Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…
…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…
There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.
These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.
NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.
The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.
So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.
Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…
Just a very flexible one…
If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…
i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much

malglories:

for all you writers out there:
donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.
this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.
this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.
and vulgar allows you to create a language, based on linguistic and grammatical structures!!! go international phonetic alphabet!!!

nhaneh:

e-bommel:
waynekiller:
recreationaldivorce:
After 40 years of being free Microsoft has added a paywall to Notepad
If you want full access to Notepad, Microsoft now requires users to pay, with the new changes to 40-year-old software adopting the 'freemium
TweakTown
here’s libreoffice, its similar enough to the microsoft suite to be useful to me.
its a free open source software. i downloaded this as soon as the AI shit rolled around and i stopped using MS suite & google docs because i was fucking tired of everything being online, but now if MS is gonna start charging for shit that should be free, only the more reason to use other programs. i know microsoft can be a little hard to escape but this is at least a start
notepad ++ it’s free, it’s slim, it has tabs, notepad but better in literally every way, you can customize it with tons of plugins, it’s pretty much the standard in any IT company I’ve ever been at
Notepad++
notepad-plus-plus.org
absolutely going to add a thumbs up for Notepad++ - it does everything the old regular notepad does and far more, including tabs, while still being significantly more lightweight than the “updated” notepad that Microsoft put into Windows 11.
seriously the W11 notepad uses like 40-something megabytes of memory while running idle for some reason???

mackthecheese:

theothin:
shadowerrata:
a-really-hot-caterpillar:
One of the best writing advice I have gotten in all the months I have been writing is “if you can’t go anywhere from a sentence, the problem isn’t in you, it’s in the last sentence.” and I’m mad because it works so well and barely anyone talks about it. If you’re stuck at a line, go back. Backspace those last two lines and write it from another angle or take it to some other route. You’re stuck because you thought up to that exact sentence and nothing after that. Well, delete that sentence, make your brain think because the dead end is gone. It has worked wonders for me for so long it’s unreal
I don’t remember where I heard this now, but I absorbed the advice, “if you’re stuck, count ten sentences back and start again from there”. It’s not always ten sentences back, for me, but it does force me to look at the last handful of lines I’ve actually written on a sentence instead of a story level, and that is eminently helpful in unsticking myself most of the time.
I recently resolved a point where I’d been stuck for months not by changing anything in the scene I was currently writing, but by realizing I needed to add another scene before that one to establish key information I couldn’t work into the current one
HEY WRITER MUTUALS COME GET YOUR WRITER JUICE

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