The Reynolds Pamphlet: How?

u ever get no sleep and the next day ur body functions like the tumblr app

something that i will always remember of technoblade is how he was kind just for the sake of it.

i will remember him claiming the monopoly sound was too loud for him to hear wilbur when he spoke of techno staying up all night to comfort him when he was sick. i will remember him taking the time to add watermarks for his artists when they themselves forgot. i will remember niki and sophie saying how he always somehow made sure they never felt excluded or neglected and how he would hate it, it would embarrass him when they spoke of his kindness publicly. i will remember him personally dming ponk to thank them for sending a 45-minute video of someone feeding hotdogs to raccoons in chat and timestamping his favorite part. i will remember his love for the people who created for him, how he would keep his mentions on for everyone before his fanart tag was formed and would just scroll and scroll to make sure not to miss any art someone made for him. i will remember half his friends and peers having some kind of a story of him reaching out to them during tough days, reassuring them, believing in them, making them feel loved.

i will remember him in every act of kindness i receive and i will remember him during times in my life when i will need to remind myself to be kind despite it all.

I've been unconscious so many times its ridiculous

first aid class was lit

I just. my heart is so sad for Ukraine. If I have any Ukrainian followers reading this, I really hope you and your loved ones are safe and well and that everything is resolved with minimal bloodshed.

Writing Tip: Don’t Be Afraid of Mixing Dialogue and Action

So I’ve been reading a lot of amateur writing lately, and I’ve noticed what seems to be a common problem: dialogue. 

Tell me if this looks familiar. You start writing a conversation, only to look down and realize it reads like: 

“I’m talking now,” he said. 

“Yes, I noticed,” she said. 

“I have nothing much to add to this conversation,” the third person said. 

And it grates on your ears. So much ‘said.’ It looks awful! It sounds repetitive. So, naturally, you try to shake it up a bit: 

“Is this any better?” He inquired. 

“I’m not sure,” she mused. 

“I definitely think so!” that other guy roared. 

This is not an improvement. This is worse. 

Now your dialogue is just as disjointed as it was before, but you have the added problem of a bunch of distracting dialogue verbs that can have an unintentionally comedic effect. 

So here’s how you avoid it: You mix up the dialogue with description. 

“Isn’t this better?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat. “Don’t you feel like we’re more grounded in reality?” 

She nodded, looking down at her freshly manicured nails. “I don’t feel like a talking head anymore.” 

“Right!” that annoying third guy added. “And now you can get some characterization crammed into the dialogue!” 

The rules of dialogue punctuation are as follows: 

Each speaker gets his/her own paragraph - when the speaker changes, you start a new paragraph. 

Within the speaker’s own paragraph, you can include action, interior thoughts, description, etc. 

You can interrupt dialogue in the middle to put in a “said” tag, and then write more dialogue from that same speaker. 

You can put the “said” tag at the beginning or end of the sentence. 

Once you’ve established which characters are talking, you don’t need a “said” tag every time they speak. 

ETA: use a comma instead of a period at the end of a sentence of dialogue, and keep the ‘said’ tag in lower caps. If you end on a ? or !, the ‘said’ tag is still in lower case. (thanks, commenters who pointed this out!) 

Some more examples: 

“If you’re writing an incomplete thought,” he said, “you put a comma, then the quote mark, then the dialogue tag.” 

“If the sentence ends, you put in a period.” She pointed at the previous sentence. “See? Complete sentences.” 

“You can also replace the dialogue tag with action.” Extra guy yawned. “When you do, you use a period instead of a comma.”

So what do you do with this newfound power? I’m glad you asked. 

You can provide description of the character and their surroundings in order to orient them in time and space while talking. 

You can reveal characterization through body language and other nonverbal cues that will add more dimension to your dialogue. 

You can add interior thoughts for your POV character between lines of dialogue - especially helpful when they’re not saying quite what they mean. 

You can control pacing. Lines of dialogue interrupted by descriptions convey a slower-paced conversation. Lines delivered with just a “said” tag, or with no dialogue tag at all, convey a more rapid-fire conversation. 

For example: 

“We’ve been talking about dialogue for a while,” he said, shifting in his seat as though uncomfortable with sitting still. 

“We sure have,” she agreed. She rose from her chair, stretching. “Shall we go, then?” 

“I think we should.” 

“Great. Let’s get out of here.” 

By controlling the pacing, you can establish mood and help guide your reader along to understanding what it is that you’re doing. 

I hope this helps you write better dialogue! If you have questions, don’t hesitate to drop me an ask :)

I GOT A FRICKEN CONCUSSION

Happiness Will Come To You.

Tony: hey, kiddo, how’ve you been? How’s school?

Peter, a struggling™️ teen: I am a festive piñata and God is a thirteen year old boy whose parents just announced their divorce.

Tony:

Loki walks in the room: same

I'd commit arson for a good female lead

a sad feminist

“Those poor boys”

“She deserves to be punished too.”

“I’m not saying I support rape, but-”

“Sorry to say - she deserved it.”

“She put herself in harm’s way”

“But if she was fingered, then that’s not rape.”

“She ruined their lives.”

Reblog if you’d care if someone killed themselves.

A close friend of mine reminded me of how important an issue depression and suicide is. If a freind or someone you know might self-harm (physically or not) or try to kill themselves (actively or passively), talk to them!

 Don’t try to talk them out of it or threaten to tell anyone. I know what it is like to be in the worst state of mind and there oftentimes it is not trying to be a councelor or psychiatrist that saves a person, it is trying to be a friend.

When I was in 7th grade we visited USC as part of the CJSF program. There was a normal tour and then we had some free time. Of course my friends and I decided to explore. My friend, Krishn was crazy about photography at the time and wanted to find the tallest spot in the college so he could take a particular type of photo. We split up to go up and find what was the tallest one we could access. 

There was a girl who was going to jump off one of the (I think it was engineering?) buildings at USC. She had bombed her third final and she was already on academic probation at this rate she wasn’t going to be able to keep the scholarship she was using. Heading towards the edge, a psychiatrist with their “let’s talk through your feelings” wasn’t going to stop that girl from jumping. 

What stopped her was my friends who saw her jacket tossed on the floor gushing about how it was a teen wolf jacket that she absolutely had to have. She wanted to know where to get it and the girl turned and told her. Explaining how she found it at some site when she had been drunk and she expected it to be a scam and drunken money wasting but it wasn’t. We talked to her and asked her about college and fangirled about our favorites ships. Sterek for the win, guys!!! We talked about shows we watch and our hobbies. Then we dragged her over to tell what was the best thing to eat and had her order so we could use her student discount.  

That day, we didn’t give her counseling, we gave her friends.