Someone hurry up and get directX working 100% on Linux.

Some good news. 1, it’s being slow rolled out at the moment. 2, it’s reportedly really easy to turn off.

I am going to kill Microsoft with a hammer.

DO NOT DO THIS!!!

If a website has a paywall, like New York Times, DO NOT use the ctrl+A shortcut then the ctrl+c shortcut as fast as you can because then you may accidentally copy the entire article before the paywall comes up. And definitely don't do ctrl+v into the next google doc or whatever you open because then you will accidentally paste the entire article into a google doc or something!!!! I repeat DO NOT do this because it is piracy which is absolutely totally wrong!!!

Also do NOT append "12ft.io/" before a URL ! Typing an URL like this https://12ft.io/<URL> will redirect to a site that would break the display of the page by removing the paywall !

Honestly it's kind of prohibited to mash CTRL+P before some paywall windows can load in to get a PDF of the article. Really shouldn't be done tbh very dangerous🤷🏿‍♂️ ❌️

You also definitely don’t want to go to https://archive.ph/ and put the URL in even after the paywall loads, because that would both bypass the paywall AND archive the article so it could be referenced if the article later gets stealth edited or memory-holed

Another save for when the research hind-brain takes over

how to find literally any post on a blog in seconds (on desktop)

there are so many posts about ~tumblr is so broken, you can’t find any post on your own blog, it’s impossible, bluhrblub~

I am here to tell you otherwise! it is in fact INCREDIBLY easy to find a post on a blog if you’re on desktop/browser and you know what you’re doing:

the tag system on desktop tumblr is GENUINELY amazing for searching within a specific blog! 

caveat: this assumes a person HAS a desktop theme (or “custom theme”) enabled. a “custom theme” is url.tumblr.com, as opposed to tumblr.com/url. I’ve heard you have to opt-into the former now, when it used to be the default, so not everyone HAS a custom theme where you can use all those neat url tricks. 

if the person doesn’t have a “custom theme” enabled, you’re beholden to the search bar. still, I’ve found the search bar on tumblr.com/url is WAY more reliable than search on mobile. for starters, it tends to bring posts up in a sensible order, instead of dredging up random posts from 2013 before anything else

if you’re on mobile, I’m sorry. godspeed and good luck finding anything. (my one tip is that if you’re able to click ON a tag rather than go through the search bar, you’ll have better luck. if your mutual has recently reblogged a post tagged #croissant, you can click #croissant and it’ll bring up everything tagged #croissant just like /tagged/croissant. but if there’s no readily available tag to click on, you have to rely on the mobile search bar and its weird bizarre whims) 

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant/chrono will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the exact phrase #croissant, but it will show them in reverse order with the oldest first 

I’ve been here since 2016 and I didn’t realize this.

Time to go deep diving into my tags!

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

Your daily reminder that traumatised brains are literally physically different to a normal brain. Repeated trauma and abuse has a severe, long-term effect.

If you have difficulty maintaining social bonds, concentrating, sleeping, focusing, or regulating your emotions, it’s because you’re traumatised. If you’re not happy with yourself, if you worry you’re a burden, you’re toxic, that you don’t matter, it’s because you’re traumatised. If you struggle to make it out of bed, think straight, get motivated or distracted, it’s because you’re traumatised.

Have you ever been told you’re too dramatic, or emotional? Has anyone wondered why you trust no one? Why you analyse every person’s smallest behaviour? Why you’re paranoid of the most minor signs of history repeating itself? It’s because you’re traumatised.

And it is NOT your fault.

I am a(n):

⚪ Male

⚪ Female

🔘 Writer

Looking for

⚪ Boyfriend

⚪ Girlfriend

🔘 An incredibly specific word that I can't remember

*wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat*

WAIT IT’S CALLED A THROW PILLOW

here is a super helpful website for this kinda thing!

the first result isn’t always the one you’re looking for but when you press enter it’ll give you a ton of words related to your query that’ll probably have what you’re wanting, or something better

here’s some examples:

this site definitely doesn't allow you to paste the link to any article blocked by a paywall (say, a NYT article) so that you can read it free of charge! that would be illegal and would benefit broke college students too much. it definitely does not do that. promise.

chai spiced carrot loaf cake with brown butter cream cheese

the notes are broken 😂

Reblogging partly for awesome computer shortcuts, and partly because I wish to once again take part in a Post That Broke The Notes. 

Important broken post

Yay another broken one!

this is wild

BROKEN NOTES FOR FORBIDDEN INTERNET KNOWLEDGE

Forbidden knowledge

Hypothetical Pirating Guide

Books:

General sites, no adblock required:

You can also look in the torrent sites listed below

For more niche stuff, especially programming:

Audiobooks:

Movies and tv series:

Use an adblock from now on (I recommend Ublock origin)

Subtitles:

Anime:

The key shortcut of "windows key" and "." held together has changed my life

like

emoji access? supremely powerful 🙂💖

But

Kaomoji ?

The year is 2013 and I am unstoppable ヾ(•ω•`)o o(*￣▽￣*)ブo(*°▽°*)o

how have i never heard of archive.org until today.. it’s an internet library that functions just like a real one, as in you borrow the books for 2 weeks and then they are returned to the archive. you can dl pdfs as well, but you’ll lose access after the 2 week period. it’s all free tho, literally just like a real library. i was searching for a cheap copy of this serial murder book from the 90s for my thesis and i found it for free on here. there’s like.. no gimmick at all? i’m so amazed. i literally just signed up and now i’m reading a super hq scan of this book for free. i love libraries.

idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, it’s not because you won’t be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsby’s green light or whatever, it’s because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if you’re wondering what happens when you DON’T develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com

this post went from 600 to 2400 notes in the time it took me to write 3 emails. i’m already terrified for what’s going to happen in there

k but also, as an addendum, the reason we study literary analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning, whether it was intentional or not, and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of language and literary devices and so forth! and that ties directly into being able to identify, for example, the racist and antisemitic dogwhistles often employed by the right wing, or the subconscious word choices that can unintentionally illustrate someone’s bias or blind spot. LANGUAGE HAS WEIGHT AND MEANING! the way we communicate is a reflection of our inner selves, and that’s true regardless of whether it’s a short story or a novel or a blog post or a tweet. instead of taking a piece of writing at face value and stopping there, assuming that there is no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the page, ask yourself these two questions instead:

1. what is the author trying to say? 2. what does the author maybe not realize they’re saying?

because the most interesting reading of any piece of literature, imho, usually occupies the space in between those questions.

Other ways to start analysis, if those aren’t clicking for you:

1. Who does the author expect to read this? 2. What opinions does the author have about those intended readers? 

Going through school assignments with those in mind can change how you view literature forever. …Especially notice things like, “Author wrote this for 19th-century-landowners who read highbrow magazines. We are a pack of 15-year-old Americans from working-class families.” How does that change the message?

And following that: When you write, be aware of your audience. If you’re writing for school, you’re not writing for your friends - even if the work is shared, even if it gets read out loud to the class. You’re writing for the teacher. Give them what they’re asking for.

This is not “caving to pressure.” If you want to be a pro writer someday, you’ll be writing what your audience wants - whether that’s entertaining fiction or careful nonfic exposition. If you’re not writing drawer-fic for yourself alone, you’re writing for someone else. Who are they, and what do they want to read? 

I teach 7th grade Reading Language Arts, and SO SO SO much of the curriculum is focused on “Ok, what is the argument / main idea / controlling idea / thesis that this author is trying to get across” and “how are they making that argument? What evidence are they using? Is that GOOD evidence?” which is a REALLY IMPORTANT SKILL for just about any time a person interacts with text. 

Whether you’re reading a newspaper article or an email from your boss, it is important to be able to correctly identify the actual point being made and evaluate how they point is being made.

“I’m finally going to write! I have a great idea!”

hey i’m super late to the party but ur friendly internet poet here to Stop This Madness before you Become The Madness. 

i kind of think of the blank page of ms word as like. when you walk through a doorway into a room and are like “wtf was i even doing.” for some reason our brain sees blank and then draws a blank. and ur like. i was actually really excited about that 45 seconds ago?? come back idea we can still be friends!!

so how do you. not do that? here are some tips that i just PERSONALLY LEARNED and aren’t like. purdue university. 

Thanks for sharing @inkskinned

I love you

This is so brilliant. “F*** editing, you’ll get around to it.” Thank you for that!!!

An interesting thing I started doing (especially with fanfic) is keeping everything on one document. The crappy midnight one-shots that inspired everything, my defense of those one-shots in case anyone saw them, pages of copy-paste research of relevance, rubbish plot timelines, playlist lists, just everything. And it’s actually really interesting to have it all there, like you can see exactly where you came from, thus (theoretically) where you’re going.

Also if you get stuck, just point-form the next couple things that will happen pretty much in text speech, and fill it in once the ideas are there. Because everything is about the ideas. No ideas = no story. So if you have to point-form-think on paper, that’s all good.

5 Better Ways to End Your Story

1. The Dialogue Gut-Punch

I usually imagine this ending happening after some great, destructive plot twist or long-kept secret has been revealed to the narrator and/or reader. There is shock and awe and maybe some betrayal. This is where you fully feel the effects of what has changed, the beginning versus the end. And in this case, the end is not ideal.

Maybe the resolution’s scene has been set, but that’s not offering enough closure. How to tie up the loose end? A short (and I mean short) piece of dialogue. It usually involves a sense of resolve and acceptance, even if the resolution at hand is otherwise displeasing or harrowing. The gut-punch comes from that acceptance, that acknowledgment of what has been lost in the quest to fulfill their goals. Doesn’t always mean defeat or a pyrrhic victory, but all protagonists must lose things while trying to gain others. This is where that character and the reader feels the loss in the wake of a resolution. 

2. A Question and an Answer

This is a lot like #1, only there’s a different setup. Instead of a scene being laid out and then one line of dialogue, there are three components. The scene is set, a question is asked, then an answer is provided. The end. The question and answer usually revolve around the reflection of what has changed. A “what now?” for all intents and purposes. Can be used for a mysterious ending to a standalone or a setup for the next installment in a series.

It is worth noting that the answer does not always have to be dialogue. For example, a character could ask: “So this is what we have left?” and then a (brief) description is given of a ragtag crew that’s survived the whole story. Play around with it. 

3. The Full Circle

There are a couple ways to go about this ending. Two, in particular, are my favorite.

A) The story begins with a scene that has a very specific tone and attitude of the main character(s). The end of the story is a very similar scene (through setting, circumstance, characters, etc. as long as it’s obvious the last and first scene parallel each other). However, the last scene has the opposite tone and the opposite attitude. If the first scene is hopeful and the MC is full of naivete and energy, then the last scene is melancholy and the MC has been washed away into tired hopelessness. Or vice versa. Offers sufficient closure to standalone works. For a series, it would be quite satisfying to take the first scene from the first installment and mirror/flip it for the last scene in the last installment. 

Or

B) The story comes full circle through setting (or circumstance) only. In this case, the first (or inciting incident) and last scene share a setting. But the scenes do not mirror each other overtly or consistently. The significance relies upon the setting and the changes that have been made to the setting because of what has happened. It’s a good way to symbolize similar changes in the character(s). Maybe the story begins in the MC’s childhood home, where it is bright and full of life, but when the story ends in the home, it has become desolate and empty. Something has happened to the home over time, just as something has happened to the character over time. 

Note: there is also the divergence from these two examples where the character in the beginning is not the character in the end. Most everything else remains the same. It’s been used to show succession, defeat, loss, and the passage of time. 

The Full Circle allows a nice platform to approach the reflection, the resolution, and the changes all through subverted scene similarities and symbolism. 

4. The Joke

Pretty simple. The last line is a comedic remark. It should still involve a level of reflection and/or resolution for closure and cohesiveness. And please make sure it matches the overall tone of the story (not just the scene). 

And now #5, the long one…

5. The Cliff-Hanger (But it’s actually used to its full potential)

So many times, especially with TV shows, I see a story end with a dull, exploitative cliff-hanger. Sure, it works. But it doesn’t work as well as it could. These endings usually rely upon a plot twist that has no previous setup or mild, unbelievable danger. So let’s fix that and use the crap out of a cliff-hanger’s potential. 

The plot twist with no previous setup is boring and unfair. The reader (or watcher since I brought up TV) should be thinking “oh my God” not “what the hell?”. The difference is “what the hell?” equates to confusion and sometimes the fracture of their suspension of disbelief necessary for all fictional stories. “Oh my God” equates to excitement, shock, and enthrallment. ENTHRALLMENT is the key word here, as a cliff-hanger should reel you in further just as the story ends and you become impatient for the next installment. So how do we get “Oh my God” with a plot twist (there are other ways to get “Oh my God” but since (bad) plot twists are common, we’ll use that as an example)? The answer is: we build it up, we add foreshadowing and clues for the reader to find. Let them feel like detectives as they fill in informational holes and fall down rabbit holes of speculation, even if they don’t know what they’re looking for exactly. Let them get close, but not close enough. Add red herrings. If the plot twist is a shock to the narrator, make sure they miss things the reader doesn’t miss and make sure they aren’t super reliable. It all adds to that cloud of mystery around the reveal. It keeps the reader inside the narrative, not thrust out by a plot twist that comes from thin air. Trust the reader and trust your ability to manipulate the illusion of reality. 

The mild, unbelievable danger that the cliff-hanger so often relies upon is an idea that easily triggers examples. Again, mostly TV episode endings are guilty of this. What this involves is a life-or-death situation involving a main character that the reader knows (or at least believes wholeheartedly) cannot die. Therefore the cliff-hanger’s life-or-death danger becomes the opposite because the reader believes the character will leave the situation alive. How to combat this? Easy. Don’t put them in a life-or-death situation (this also goes for scenes that aren’t cliff-hangers). It’s boring if you think or know the character will live no matter what. However, hopefully by this point, the reader is invested in the character fully and cares about their wellbeing (because their life is safe). So, exploit that. Offer up a situation where the character’s fears, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses are played against them. Because even though they may escape this situation alive, the reader will (probably) begin to wonder what other things are at risk. The character’s happiness, significant other, assets, stability, et al.  Those things become muted points when the danger is heavily reliant upon an unbelievable life-or-death situation. 

However, there is an addendum to this. If your story features a rather large MC cast and you have proven your willingness to kill off some of them in the past, then a life-or-death cliff-hanger could still maintain its intended effect. Just… don’t overuse it. 

tl;dr TORTURE YOUR CHARACTERS AND DON’T PLAY YOUR READERS FOR CHUMPS. 

//

If you take away only one thing from these 5 examples, let it be this:

The key to a satisfying ending is reflection.

It doesn’t have to be overt reflection (trust me when I say subtle reflection is usually better), but the ending should show in one way or another the changes that have taken place over the story and the resolution that has befallen the characters. The ending wraps it all up into a bite-size piece of text and is the last thing you leave your readers with. Proceed with thoughtful consideration and caution. 

Also a quick Q&A: 

Q: “I don’t know how to choose the right ending.”

A: Do a couple different things while brainstorming:

This was a long post. Whew. You’re a peach if you read it all the way through. Hopefully this helps you on your writing journey. 

hey if you’re in the U.S. and use food stamps or know somebody who does i found this online cookbook that has recipes for eating well on approximately $4/day :o) 

I don’t have food stamps but I need to know how to eat well for $4/day. Thank you for this.

HOLY SHIT 

This cookbook is really amazing. I’ve used a couple of the recipes and they are so easy to follow. And in the beginning there are a bunch of really great tips for saving on food stuff.

Here is a working link for the cookbook.

Lgbt+ books!

trans representation:

wlw:

mlm: