Things That Will Make Your Computer Meaningfully Faster:

after eddie introduces a demogorgon to one of his hellfire campaigns, the kids get a little squirmy. they're nervously looking at each other and aren't engaging as excitedly as they usually do. when he calls time, he watches dustin rummage through his backpack and produce a walkie talkie.

he watches, a bit dumbfounded, as the kid demands a 'check-in'. all at once, multiple different voices come over the channel. stating a name and then saying 'safe.' ("nancy, safe." "robin, safe." "max, safe.")

"steve?" dustin demands. there's only static. "steve!" a little more frantic this time.

"he left to pick you up." a female voice replies, "he's probably fine. you'll see him soon."

none of the kids look particularly pleased, and pack up hastily. eddie and the other hellfire members all share confused glances. he, more morbidly curious than anything else, follows the little sheep as they hurry out of the school.

dustin is fucking restless as they all stand in the empty parking lot. he won't stay still and none of them are answering any of eddie's questions. and he only gets more confused when a brown beemer pulls in, windows down and playing depeche mode through the speakers. dustin goes to sprint towards it, and he has to hold him by the collar to stop him getting run over.

the beemer pulls up and steve harrington, in all his glory, steps out, frowning. dustin wrenches out of eddie's grip and all but bodies the guy, wrapping arms tightly around his midsection. steve, still looking puzzled, hugs back. lucas and mike trail after dustin.

"we called a check-in." dustin says, a bit muffled from where his face is smushed into steve's shirt. steve goes sort of pale, and- and presses a goddamn kiss to the top of henderson's head before tightening the hug.

"shit, i'm sorry." and eddie believes him. he sounds so guilty. "i meant to replace the batteries before i left. sorry, i'm okay." dustin pulls back and scrubs at his eyes. lucas takes his place, though the hug he gives is more like one of those bro-hugs jocks seem to love. steve smiles regardless. he just ruffles mike's hair, who pouts in response but looks relieved nonetheless.

"asshole." he mutters. "rule four, walkies on at all times." steve nods as the kid half-heartedly waves goodbye to eddie and hops in the backseat of the beemer. lucas follows. dustin seems reluctant to walk around the car, to take his eyes off steve for even a second.

"you wanna stay over tonight?" steve asks, warm and gentle. he folds his arms and in that moment eddie thinks they look sort of like brothers. "robin and me were gonna watch some films. we can call your mom from mine."

the kid nods, looking a bit happier. steve slaps him on the back and motions him to get in the car. dustin swivels to hug and say goodbye to eddie (who sort of forgot he was physically present in this moment) before doing as he was told.

steve turns to eddie. which- whew! hi pretty eyes.

"sorry." he smiles and eddie can't for the life of him figure out what he's apologising for. "they, uh- yeah. them." he gestures vaguely at the car and eddie just chuckles.

"hey, man, no worries." he says, a little breathless that he's having a conversation with the steve harrington. "they okay? never seen henderson look so rattled." steve nods, then seems to think better of it and just shrugs. cocks his hip to the side (stop fucking staring at his hips, munson, lord!)

"they will be." he glances back at the beemer, which is now full of childish bickering. pauses to think and then asks, "you using demogorgons in your campaign right now?"

eddie blinks at him. "yes? yeah. what the fuck- how do you know what that is? what-" steve just laughs.

"long story." there's a haunted look in his eyes before he continues, "just, uh- that's probably what upset them. demogorgons and us- them, i mean-" he waves his hand. "bad memories. hard to explain, but... if you could..." he doesn't need to ask, seems like he doesn't know how or even if he's allowed.

"got it, ill tweak the campaign." harrington smiles at him, something small and genuine, and murmurs a thanks. offers him a fucking lift, which eddie declines, motioning to his van. harrington just nods, tells him to get home safe and then clambers back into the car, yells at the kids to put seatbelts on with all the exasperation of a single dad, and pulls away.

eddie watches them go, having seen a side of harrington he'd thought dustin had been lying about. steve harrington, the caring babysitter, everyone's older brother, a changed man.

he starts escorting the kids to the parking lot more often.

I’ve seen your kiss scene and fight scene vocab posts and was wondering if you could do one about some things characters may do when they are nervous, or there is awkward tension — not necessarily romantic but just awkward.

Nervous Tension Vocab

Physical Reactions

have sweat beading/breaking out on one's forehead

have one's heart in one's mouth (or throat)

have one's heart pounding (or pulse racing)

butterflies in one's stomach

hand feeling clammy

knees bouncing

pacing back and forth

tearing up due to embarassment (wanting to cry)

Shift their weight from one foot to the other

Sway slightly where they are standing

Fidget with their hair, clothes, nails, or something they’re holding

Glance around the room or refuse to make eye contact with someone

Chew on their lips or nails

Hum quietly to themself

Tap their fingers on their arm, the wall, or a table

Wrap their arms around themself

Cross their arms or legs while seated

Pick at their lips or cover their mouth

Rub their own neck or shoulder

Sigh often

Sit with their knees up near their chest, or lay in the fetal position

Look stiff and uncomfortable

Check over their shoulder often, or glance around the room

Cough or clear their throat often

A pounding heartbeat, or the feeling that their heartbeat is in their head

Accelerated or heavy breathing

A tingling sensation in their fingers, hands, or legs

A rush of energy (which would suddenly leave them afterward, making them even more tired than usual)

Dizziness

Tightened muscles

Descriptors

fumbled

blushed

winced

fidgeted

cringed

stuttered

giggled

afluttered

agitated

robotic

hesitant

bothered

distracted

edgy

clumsily

awkwardly

distractedly

flustered

frantically

frayed

hypertense

nervy

jittery

jumpy

intimidated

paranoid

perturbed

rattled

queasiness

restive

restless

skittery

shudder

skittish

strung up

tenterhooks

tight

stressy

uneasy

unquiet

twitchy

unsettled

uptight

unrelaxed

Idioms

be at your wit's ends

be bricking it

be ill at ease

be on pins and needles

be under the gun

get in a sweat

have all the cares of the world on your shoulders

have kittens

like a cat on a hot tin roof

sweat bullets

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are you frequently overstimulated?

Seems like the silliest question ever but every idea I have seems so unoriginal. Do you tips or exercises to get the creativity going?

Getting the creative juices flowing…

I do! I have plenty of pep-talks and resources for this sort of thing, so I’ve organized them here by method (prompts/playlists/advice/inspiration/etc)

Articles

Coming Up With Scene Ideas

Coming Up With “Original” Ideas

How To Turn A Good Idea Into A Good Story

How To Motivate Yourself To Write

Reasons To Improve Your Lifestyle

Tips & Advice for Aspiring Authors, Writers, and Poets

Healthy Forms of Motivation

How To Have A Productive Mindset

How To Fall In Love With Writing

Writing Through Mental Health Struggles

Why “Burnout” Is Oay - The Creative Cycle

How To Actually Get Writing Done

Playlists

Things To Listen To When You’re Working

Classical & Instrumental

Ambient

Sad Scenes

Chase Scenes

Epic Scenes

Fight Scenes

Angst Scenes

Fun Montage Scenes

Climax Scenes

Calm Scenes

Resolution Scenes

Romantic Scenes

Action Scenes

Science Fiction

Our Day Will Come

Contemporary Poetry

MORE

Prompts, Prompt Lists, & Writing Challenges

Dark Quotes & Prompts

Challenges For Different Types of Writers | Part II

Angst Prompts

31 Days of Prompts : January 2018 Writing Challenge

20 Sentence Story Prompt

Dramatic Prompts

Suspenseful Prompts

Sad Prompts

Romantic Prompts

31 Days of Horror : October 2019 Writing Challenge

31 Days of Fantasy - December 2020 Writing Challenge

Fake Relationship Alternate Universe Prompts

Assassin Alternate Universe Prompts

Soulmates Alternate Universe Prompts

Advice & Pep-Talks

Restarting Your Writing Passion

On Hating Your Old Stuff

Depression As An Inhibitor

Dear Writers Who Are Hesitant To Start Writing

“All First Drafts Are Crap” – My Thoughts

Getting Back To Writing After A Long Hiatus

Wanting To Finish A Story You’ve Fallen Out of Love With

Getting Motivated To Write

Getting Burnt Out Near The Finish Line

–

Masterlist | WIP Blog

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i think that, if youre usamerican and any time someone calls out your lack of knowledge on global geography you start talking about how bad the usa education is and how its actually not your fault that you dont know what continent nigeria is on because you cant look at the google maps bc donald trump will personally shoot you, youre very annoying

Ideas of fatal character flaws? :3

Hi :)

Fatal character flaws

Aristotle calls this ‘Hamartia’ - a tragic flaw or error. It can be anything happening to good or bad characters, even otherwise good character traits and with good intentions that ultimately lead to the character’s demise. They are often traits that don’t neccessarily lead to someone’s downfall, but can if they’re done to an extreme. So think of these otherwise normal ‘flaws’ as extremes.

ignorance - not seeking helpful knowledge

selfishness - not thinking about others

curiosity - getting involved in things they shouldn’t get involved in

impetuousness - being too passionate/ not thinking before acting

pride - not giving in/ not taking help from others 

hubris - exaggerated opinion of oneself/ thinking nothing can get to them

lack of self-control - can’t help/stop themself

indecisiveness* - not being able to make decisions

confirmation bias - only taking in information that supports one’s own belief 

arrogance -  thinking they are superior

Have fun!

- Jana

*Interesting example: Chidi from The Good Place. A morally great character who is so extreme in always trying to make the right choice and therefore not being able to make a decision until it is proven to be right, it basically lands him in hell.

Good alternatives to generative AI that allow you to represent yourself without supporting corporate art theft

Picrew and other dress up games.

F2u bases.

Heroforge tabletop minifigure maker

Ponytowns avatar customization feature

Certain roblox games.

Emuferal, an emulator of the shutdown game fer.al

Or draw, your art doesn't have to be good to represent you!

Commission someone (if you have the money)

Please feel free to add to this list.

some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help

(hope this helps some ppl)

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

Chai tea bag + lil but of brown sugar + apple cider packet + 16 oz. mug of hot but not quite boiling water

it will not Fix You but like. maybe. maybe.