Our Next Contributor Spotlight Goes To @nasenaya!

I V O R  &  J E S S E  (ep.1 / ep.12) ↳ “You know, I kinda regret punching you right now.”    “Yes, well. You weren’t the first.“

EMERGENCY COMMISSIONS: SOLIDARITY WITH POLAND

 I have not seen many people from outside of Poland either spread the news or offer help so far, so I am offering. If you don’t know what’s going on, here’s the rundown: 

Oct. 22, a court ruling deemed abortion due to fetal defects unconstitutional, basically banning almost all abortions taking place in the country. Now, only abortions in the case of rape, incest, and endangering the mother’s (parent’s) life are allowed. This will force anyone who gets pregnant to carry the child even if they know the child will not survive. This is a huge violation of human rights and will cause countless people pain, and even death, as in some cases illegal abortions lead to the death of the mother (parent). 

Here are several posts you need to read if you want to understand more about how serious this is:

https://rembrandtae.tumblr.com/post/633036867171926016/i-just-want-to-remind-everyone-outside-of-poland

https://the-brave-and-the-dumb.tumblr.com/post/632695867674181632/so-people-tend-to-forget-how-situation-in-poland

https://rembrandtae.tumblr.com/post/633151309888045056/thats-it-the-chairman-of-the-law-and-justice

Futhermore, LGBTQ+ rights there are an absolute joke. The country is ranked worst in the EU to be gay or trans. Poland does not recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions, same-sex couples cannot adopt, and the current Polish President Andrzej Duda has called “LGBT ideology” worse than communism. He does not think we are people, just an ideology.

Here are posts about it:

https://starysubiekt.tumblr.com/post/620830984637661184/hi-it-would-be-nice-if-you-could-reblog-what-is

https://ashisurana.tumblr.com/post/625885890679635968/lgbt-situation-in-poland

Here is a carrd you definitely should take a look through:

https://polandlgbt.carrd.co/#section01

I am opening up writing and art commissions to help out; if you want a piece from me, you’ll have to donate to any of the following organizations:

https://zrzutka.pl/en/kasa-na-aborcyjny-dream-team-55g5gx

https://stopbzdurom.pl/help-us/ (PayPal)

https://amnesty.org.pl/wspieraj/przekaz-darowizne/#support-form

https://www.asn.org.uk/?form=donatetoday

If you cannot donate to any of these, we will figure it out. I am also hoping to be able to directly donate to Polish folk who need it once this gains traction. (Ex. People who are protesting, people in need of binders, etc) All will be figured out in due time.

Here is my commission prices post for both writing and art: https://itomecha.tumblr.com/post/634054343923007490/these-commissions-are-to-help-out-with-the

Summary: The situation in Poland is an absolute mess and we should be standing in solidarity with women and LGBTQ+ people who live there.

And no, I don’t want any fellow Americans in the reblogs or notes saying “but the USA is worse” “there’s stuff happening here too” WE KNOW. The media constantly covers it. I don’t care about your concern over the USA right now, you know why? Because police brutality is clearly evident in other countries such as India, 11 women are murdered PER DAY in México, the president completely ignoring the mass killings. Because Chile is having a massive uprising, people being shot with pellets and being tortured by the police.

THAT IS WHY. FUCK YOUR (WHITE) AMERICAN CENTERED ACTIVISM.

If you say you support LGBTQ+ rights, the rights of women and indigenous and black and poor people, you need to support them EVERYWHERE, in every country, or else your advocacy means nothing to the people who need it most.

(If any Polish people want to add on–as it is inevitable that I missed a few things, being American– feel free to do so! Places to donate, info, etc. I encourage you, please.)

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@bootthesnoot OOpsiE you made my day again u precious human being-

I love and adore you so very much and now I'm inspired to get my ass back on artzy stuff <3<3<3<3<328738374737

ONE DAY

You bored, or feeling artsy but don’t have any inspiration...? *updated!*

Do you need to distract yourself? Or are you simply bored? Here are some great websites to make the time pass.

create pixel art

Awesome photo editor and art program, all free…!

Totally free transparent textures

make a cute chibi

draw some cool generative art

be a graffiti creator

create a picassohead (you don’t need to be a picasso to do so)

paint online

another awsome site to create pixel art on

and another one

create your own mandala

or color one

create an avatar

or you can try creating your own superhero

here you can interact with organisms in different environments to see how to music changes

here’s a website that translates the time into hexidecimal colours,

Here is a website where you can travel along a 3D line into the infinite unkown

here is a website where you can listen to rain with or without music

Need a model in a certain pose for drawing? here

Want to build your own planet

here is a website where you can create your own galaxies

make your own pattern (very useful if you need a new background)

create next hit comic

make a city which looks like something from 90′s games

draw a mandala like design

jig saw puzzles

more jig saw puzzles to solve

create a stunning HTML5 animation - no coding!

make a movie

create and dress up dolls

play a piano

you can also play a guitar

create sounds

another sound creator

create a logo

design your dream home

sketch rooms

explore fashion trends and create your own sets

build a website

try this app for building a website

Or maybe start learning how to code!

design your own t-shirt or a beanie or sweatpants and order them

design your own phone case

pretend to be a graphic designer with this cool online tool

Make your own Glitch art

Here’s another glitch art maker

And another!

Holy hell, here’s a third!

make an image look like it was created by a commodore 64

freaking cool text generator!

Easy to use word processor

Make up really cool patterns or run your photos through it :)

Write an essay on anything with no hassle

Wanna see how something you write would look like if it was on JacksFilms YGS((Your Grammar Sucks videos on YouTube))?

Make pictures out of text

ASCII word generator

Need an idea for some fanart-here :D

Still haven’t found something that would float your boat? Try these:

watch a documentary

learn to code

do something yourself

workout with the help of this great youtube channels

learn things

play pokemon or zelda or other awesome old school games

waste your time on miniclip

play games at additing games

or try games at agame

calm your thoughts

the quiet place

it will be okay

vent or listen to someone

pour out your soul

explore the sky

look at art from around the world

virtually visit museum of iraq

explore world with arounder

create a music playlist

list through rare books

scroll useful science website

create sand art

brain games

try out tastekid and discover new favorite band or movie or book

interactive 3D anatomy

random street view

post a secret

create a family tree

find our what’s the difference between x and y

help scientists and become volunteer researcher

create your own font

read a classic short story

In the mood to read, but not sure exactly what book to go for?

scribble on maps

listen to letters

play with acrobots

listen to podcasts

make a bucket list

Ever want to see the most truly useless websites in creation?

Prank a friend with this blue screen of death!

Zone out watching the colors drip down

Maybe none of these peeked your interest-maybe you’ve been wanting to create an o.c, but never really knew how to start-or you just enjoy making O.C’s….

This masterlist is to help you in making your own OCs….it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! (´ヮ`)!

How to Write Better OCs:

basic tips on how to make your oc even better

tragic backstory? learn how to write one/make yours great

writing specific characters

a wordier, great guide on how to develop your character

kick out those vague descriptions and make them AWESOME

Character Development:

how to actually make an OC

Q&A (to develop characters)

more Q&As

giving your character a backstory

how to write an attractive character

Need an Appearance idea?

Humanoid generator? check

Here’s another one

and maybe if you didn’t like those this’ll work

Need Monsterpeople?

Well, then here ya’ go

Maybe you need Cats?

Diversity

adding more racial diversity

avoiding tokenism, AKA, how to add diversity to your cast not just because you “need” it

writing sexuality and gender expression (doesnt include non binary, if you have a good ref to that, please add on!)

masterpost on writing more diversity into your story

cultures of the world

guides to drawing different ethnicities (not just a great art reference, but also really helpful in appearance descriptions!)

Mary Sue/Gary Stu

Test to see if your character is a Sue

Explains subdivisions of Sues/Stus

Powerful Characters Don’t Have to Be Sues

Villains

villain generator

need an evil sounding name for your evil character? bam

villain archetypes

what’s your villain’s motive for being a villain?

Relationships

character perceptions (What your character thinks of themselves and what others think of them)

how to write strong relationships between two characters

8 ways to write better characters and develop their relationships with others

OCxLove Interest Handbook

develop your couple with good ol’ Q&A!

how to write realistic relationships

how to write relatives for your characters (this is more OC related to a canon character, but will help in writing family members in general)

ARCHETYPES

12 common archetypes

8 archetypes for male/female characters

female archetypes (goes pretty indepth from two main categories)

a list of archetypes

NAMES

how to name your character

random name generator

most common surnames

surnames by ethnicity

APPEARANCE

tips for better design

basic appearance generator

pinterest board for character design (includes NSFW and images of skeletons/exposed muscle (?) so tread carefully!)

clothing ref masterpost

Clothing generator

Another clothing generator

More clothing generator

Aaaand even more

Steam punk clothing

Char Style preference

Dress Generator

DETAILS

give your character better powers

a list of professions

proactive vs reactive characters

positive and negative traits

interest generator

skills generator

motivation generator

123 ideas for character flaws

list of phobias

Oh shit someone died

Backgrounds and stuff? yep

Quirks

Personality. you need that shit

Need something fandom related?

City generator hell yeah

location? got ya

World-building?

make your own god damn laws

Landscape.

Need Item names?

Fantasy/sci-fi/etc. medicine names

Stuff to make things more interesting.Weapons, clothes, treasures… whatever your characters need.

Item & Artifact Generators

Other stuffs!

Genre, Plot, & Story Prompt Generators

How did your characters meet?

Fanfic plots. you bet your ass.

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IM GOING TO STAB MYSELF IN THE FOOT I JUST SENT MY ENGLISH TEACHER MY ESSAY ON HAMLET AND IT WAS STILL NAMED “the fresh prince of denmark yo holla”

HEY ARTISTS!

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

There’s a lot of really specific stuff in here, I design a lot of 1930s characters for my ask blog and with more chapters on the way for the game it belongs to I’m gonna be designing more, and this website is going to be an invaluable reference. I hope this can be useful to my other fellow artists as well! :)

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All About Writing Fight Scenes

@galaxies-are-my-ink asked,

“Do you have any advice on writing fight scenes? The type of scene I’m writing is mostly hand to hand combat between two experts. I’m definitely not an expert so when I try to write it, the scene ends up sounding repetitive and dull.”

Fore note: This post is coauthored by myself and one of my amazing critique partners, Barik S. Smith, who both writes fantastic fight scenes and teaches mixed martial arts, various artistic martial arts, and weapons classes.

I (Bryn) will tell you a secret: I trained MMA for seven years, and when I write authentic hand to hand fight scenes, they sound dull too. 

The problem with fight scenes in books is that trying to describe each punch and kick and movement (especially if it’s the only thing you’re describing) creates a fight that feels like it’s in slow motion. 

I write…

Lowering her center of gravity, she held her right hand tight to her face and threw a jab towards his chin. He shifted his weight, ducking under her punch. His hair brushed against her fist, and he stepped forward, launching a shovel hook into her exposed side.

But your brain can only read so fast. In real life that series of events would take an instant, but I needed a full eight seconds to read and comprehend it, which gave it an inherent lethargic feel. 

So, we have two primary problems:

How do we describe this fight in a way the reader can understand and keep track of? 

How do we maintain a fast paced, interesting fight once we’ve broken down the fight far enough for readers to understand it? 

(We will get back to these, I promise.) But for now, let’s look at…

Different types of “fight scenes:”

Keep reading

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People talk a lot about how reading is necessary for writing, but when you really want to improve your writing, it’s important to go beyond just simple reading. Here are some things to do when reading:

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters? 

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?  

Pay attention to what you don’t like. If you don’t like what’s going on in a book or even just a scene, note what it is. Does the dialogue feel awkward? Are the characters inconsistent? Does the plot feel too convenient or cobbled together? Does the wording just feel off? See if you can spot those issues in your own writing, especially when reading a completed draft or beginning a later draft.

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