The Emotion Thesaurus: Adoration

i unironically believe electricity is the closest thing we have to magic in this universe. consider:

it's basically what human "souls" are made of (your consciousness is the result of miniscule amounts of electric charge jumping between neurons in your brain)

when handled incorrectly or encountered in the wild, it is a deadly force that can kill you in at least half a dozen different ways

when treated respectfully and channeled into the proper conduits, it is a power source that forms the backbone of modern society

if you engrave the right sigils into a rock and channel electricity into it, you can make the rock think

there is a dedicated caste of mages (electrical engineers) tasked with researching it in ivory towers

whatever the fuck Galvani was doing with those frog legs

look at this and just try to tell me it isn't a kind of summoning circle

Some Quick Character Tips

Here are a handful of quick tips to help you write believable characters! 

1. A character’s arc doesn’t need to grow linearly. Your protagonist doesn’t have to go from being weak to strong, shy to confident, or novice to professional in one straight line. It’s more realistic if they mess up their progress on the way and even decline a bit before reaching their goal.

2. Their past affects their present. Make their backstory matter by having their past events shape them into who they are. Growing up with strict parents might lead to a sneaky character, and a bad car accident might leave them fearful of driving.

3. Give reoccurring side characters something that makes them easily recognizable. This could be a scar, a unique hairstyle, an accent, or a location they’re always found at, etc.

4. Make sure their dialogue matches their personality. To make your characters more believable in conversation, give them speech patterns. Does the shy character mumble too low for anyone to ever hear, does the nervous one pace around and make everyone else on edge? 

5. Make your characters unpredictable. Real people do unexpected things all the time, and this can make life more exciting. The strict, straight-A student who decides to drink at a party. The pristine princess who likes to visit the muddy farm animals. When character’s decide to do things spontaneously or in the heat of the moment, it can create amazing twists and turns.

6. Give even your minor character’s a motive. This isn’t to say that all your characters need deep, intricate motives. However, every character should need or want something, and their actions should reflect that. What’s the motive behind a side character who follows your protagonist on their adventure? Perhaps they’ve always had dreams of leaving their small village or they want to protect your protagonist because of secret feelings.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting  

one of my worst writing sins is abusing my power to create compound words. i cannot write the sentence "The sun shone as bright as honey that afternoon." no. that's boring. "The sun was honey-bright that afternoon" however? yes. that sentence is dope as fuck. i do not care if "honey-bright" is a word in the english dictionary. i do not care if the sentence is grammatically correct. i will not change. i will not correct my erred ways. the laws of the english language are mine.

anyone remember what these things are called like little cartoony expressive doohickies i think they have a real name but i can’t remember

You cannot have a lasting relationship without conflict resolution skills, how can we build a society without it, if you

Body language cues for a few emotions

Happiness:

Smiling genuinely, with crinkles around the eyes.

Open body posture, with relaxed arms and shoulders.

Leaning forward slightly towards the person or object of interest.

Making eye contact with a warm and engaged expression.

Anger:

Tightened jaw and clenched fists.

Furrowed brows and narrowed eyes.

Standing or sitting with a rigid and tense posture.

Pointing fingers or aggressive gestures.

Raised voice or speaking through gritted teeth.

Sadness:

Downcast eyes and a drooping posture.

Slumped shoulders and shallow breathing.

Avoiding eye contact and withdrawing from social interaction.

Sighing or a subdued tone of voice.

Tearfulness, with watery or red eyes.

Fear:

Widened eyes with dilated pupils.

Raised eyebrows and a tense facial expression.

Frozen or rigid body posture.

Backing away or seeking physical distance from the perceived threat.

Trembling or shaking, especially in the hands or legs.

Surprise:

Raised eyebrows and widened eyes.

Mouth slightly agape or forming an "O" shape.

Leaning forward or recoiling backward in response to the surprise.

Quick inhalation or gasp of breath.

Rapid blinking or blinking more than usual.

Disgust:

Curling the upper lip or wrinkling the nose.

Narrowing the eyes and raising the upper eyelids.

Turning the head away or physically distancing oneself from the source of disgust.

Covering the mouth or nose with the hand or a tissue.

Expressing verbal disgust through phrases like "ew" or "yuck."

These are just some examples, and individuals may display variations in their body language based on their personality, cultural background, and the specific context of the situation.

One thing White Collar gets absolutely right and very few other shows do, is that people React to guns.

The reaction varies, depending on their level of training/comfort with firearms, but there's no cool guy bravado* when someone pulls a gun, especially not from Neal. When he sees a gun he always always always reacts like things just got very serious, this is no longer fun and games.

And you know what? Yes please. It also ups the stakes for us when a character reacts to someone pulling a gun on them, and it's also highly realistic. I just really appreciate it that guns aren't a prop to signify "antagonist" but a weapon that should and does elicit fear.

* except for when Kate pulled a gun on Peter, and even then his reaction was warranted.

Creepy things to add to settings

Just to make things a bit more interesting

—Water stains from flooding

—Withered down machinery resulting from weather

—Torn fabric caught on spikes

—Attempting to find a hiding spot, only to turn around and find the skeleton of the last person who tried to hide there

—Expecting to see spiders and other bugs, only for them all to scurry away as a new presence enters the room

—Fog slithering in through holes in the walls or open windows

—Stepping on the dead, crunchy leaves of plants that started growing inside

—The characters knowing the floorboards will creak, so they try really hard to keep quiet as they travel. Make them all freeze when they hear something else coming at them and decide if they should stand still to keep from attracting any more attention or if they run for their lives

—The wallpaper and paintings on the wall torn off and scattered against the floor, leaving the walls barren and lifeless

it’s all about how you describe it! Find things that get under people’s skin (bugs, snakes, certain sounds, etc) and connect them to whatever you’re trying to make creepy

Can You Scan The Backside Of A DA:I tarot card? I haven't seen what it looks like :3

Why certainly!

I’ve been seeing people wanting larger scans of all the individual cards… the only reason I didn’t do that before is there are a lot of them, haha, but I could do it if there are some people really want to see. I understand, because there’s a lot of detail in the cards and it’s hard to see in the big sets. I was thinking maybe putting up some bigger versions of some of the lesser seen character cards — and some of the ones people don’t immediately recognize as character cards, like Hawke’s. But if people have any particular requests, I can go with that!

(Also I gained 30 followers overnight, so uh… hello?? /nervous wave!!)

could you tell us of your religious journey? i've never had any real religious beliefs, but i've been trying to explore and it's hard to know where to start, so i was wondering if you had anything you could share that could help. maybe even some blogs you could point me to?

hey anon! i just got back from work so sorry if my thoughts are jumbled, but this is a great question!!

so like a lot of folks around here, i was raised catholic before i became pagan. i considered myself agnostic for a while after getting confirmed, but after about a year and a half, i had to reckon with that because of apollo reaching out to me! it was a crazy feeling, i jokingly say he was "tugging on my sleeve" for a while till i got the picture haha.

after that i just kinda ambled through religion for a while, cuz i was like 15 and didn't really know what i was doing, and just kept tacking gods onto the list of gods i wanted to worship, though i didn't really do anything for them. see, when i'm not in my dorm, i've got to practice in secret (still do), so i was sort of limited in what i (thought) i could do (until i started learning more about devotional activities and whatnot).

i'm not sure what made me stick specifically with the hellenic pantheon, but that's what i did for about 4 years. it took nearly 3 of those 4 years before i actually started researching the gods, the ancient cult they received, and ancient practices, so that's when my religious practice really started to finally take shape. i saw what others were doing and tried to work it into my practice in a way that worked for me, so i began doing morning prayers and weekly libations. it's important to make sure that you do these in a way that works for you instead of just parroting someone else! there are tons of academic books you can read about ancient greek life and religion, which a lot of blogs on here have links for. if you can't find any by just scrolling through the hellenic polytheism tag, i have a google drive of my own that i can hook you up with.

then, last july-ish, i became interested in learning more about the ancient gods of the place where most of my family came from, so i began researching the pre-roman gods of the iberian peninsula (specifically the area that later became portugal). from there, learning about them turned into wanting to connect to them, and after a year of on-and-off learning i'm finally beginning to do that! it's been a much more delicate process, because there's little surviving information on these gods, so it's been a big puzzle game of piecing together what information i have with practices from other areas and faiths to fill the gaps.

for as long as i've been a pagan, i've always been sort of an ominist, though i didn't know there was a word for it for a while. so it's really been a matter of putting out feelers about what i want to do, and what gods i want to include in my practice, and seeing what works (and being okay with something not working!). so my biggest advice is really just to stay open minded, and see what interests you instead of feeling a need to do things like everybody else.

this turned into quite the ramble lol but i hope this answered your question!! if you have any other questions, feel free to reach out again!