happy independence day let’s impeach the president
The only 4th of july post i care about
I can top it: yesterday, NPR made a series of tweets that Trump supporters called “propaganda” and “trash words” to insult Trump and push NPR’s agenda.
NPR was tweeting the Declaration of Independence.
And that, folks, describes about 75% of Trump’s voter base.
Some exammples of the Trump followers vs NPR thing
So they are admitting Trump is a dictator?
Some Trump supporters thought NPR tweeted ‘propaganda.’ It was the Declaration of Independence.
The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people.
Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:
1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.
1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it.
2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4.
3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.
4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?
5.
How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?
6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for. What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of.
7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot.
That’s it.
But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?
If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?
How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?
Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.
spread this around. if any of my european followers work at amazon, please participate, and stay safe in case amazon retaliates.
American amazon employees should strike too
employees should strike
go for it boyos
Strike to win!
And – for the love of all that’s good – don’t buy from Amazon during the strike action!
Yo for real, as an indie author who makes 90% of their money through Amazon:
Don’t buy my books during the strike. I want Amazon employees to have a better life more than I want money. If you still want to support me, buy PRINT BOOKS through my website: https://Underrealm.net/books
I get all the money and Amazon gets nada.
Amazon has done great things for authors, particularly indie authors. It shouldn’t come at the cost of their workers health and safety.
no offense but robots was incredibly underrated for a kids movie about late capitalism and genocide
can some nerd make a really long tumblr post about why this movie is so good like deadass
the metaphors were so on the goddamn nose but im too stupit to talk about it
ok so basically i havent seen this movie in forever but i really loved this movie so im gonna talk about it anyway
basically, the movie IS about capitalism and genocide.
but it does something really incredible for a movie about capitalism and genocide that not a lot of media is capable of.
instead of framing the problem as life vs death, justice vs evil (which are all things the fight against capitalism is, i know), it frames the problem as fun and creativity vs death. unlike other allegories that use robots to discuss social problems, it gives us a solution to capitalism feasting on advancement to make people ‘obselete’ and leave the poor and disabled behind. and that solution is innovation—science that helps make the world a better place for EVERYONE, not just the rich and famous.
there’s a lot to be said about how the villain is literally a shiny new robot who only wants all the rich robots to buy all the upgrades he’s putting out—and completely stop making the old parts that poor robots need to survive. how this corporation literally tries to stop the main character from ‘fixing’ broken robots so that they’ll be FORCED to either buy the upgrades or end up literally incinerated. a metaphor for health care if i’ve ever seen one.
but there’s even more to be said about how this movie makes you root for the characters who are misfits (poor and disabled, most likely mentally ill in the case of robin williams’ character), and how them having parts that don’t work right or fit right doesn’t make them bad people. it makes them fun and engaging, and the creativity they have because they grew up needing more (and needing more as adults), is their greatest strength to defeat the corporation, along with the fact that they all cooperate with each other as one big happy family to defeat the big bad.
after the nonsense of detroit: become human, i have a special appreciation in my heart for how instead of robots being a simple receptacle for terrible things happening to them with no real point but ‘wow bad things happen to marginalized people, huh?’, in this movie they are people to root for not just because ur playing as them, but bc theyre lovable. as a child, u root for them, and as an adult, u realize how truly horrifying the movie really is instead of just a baby scream of ‘that’s terrible!’ as a child, u know?
anyway i really like this movie mostly because it really is so… charismatic in the way it can convince you as a child that there is hope against capitalism through science and innovation, and that that science and innovation is worthwhile and INCREDIBLE. because like. i remember watching the scene with the dominos, and the scene with robin williams and ewan mcgregor flipping through this whole amazing city and thinking ‘wow! science is cool!’ and it makes u want a world full of creativity and innovation like that.
sorry this post is not very good op but i looked through the notifications and saw u were probably having a tough time of it bc everybody and their mom thinks theyre A COMEDIAN but anyway,
funeral-biscuit 