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WAKE 👏 THE 👏 F 👏 UP 👏

The Knight of the Flowers (1894)

— by Georges Rochegrosse

Yes yes yes yes yes, honey is great and bees are great and the only downside I could ever see is that the honey bees we cultivate, especially in the US are *technically* invasive species because they can put compete and kill native pollinating bees and insects, but otherwise yes, eat honey, they help us grow food!

vegans make peace with honey

no shut up do it

basic things you should know about your main characters

how is their relationship with their family

what are their beliefs, if they have any

what is their motivation (preferably something unrelated to their love interest/romantic feelings)

who were they raised to be vs. who they became/are becoming

what are their plans for the future, if they have any

how they feel about themselves and how it affects their behaviour

how do they feel about things they cannot control

and last but not least: Why is This Character the Protagonist??

august 16th is gonna be a big day for annoying people (me)

PSA: Don't use Open Office

I keep seeing people recommending Open Office as an alternative to Word, and uh... look, it is, technically, an open source alternative to Word. And it can do a lot of what Word can, genuinely! But it is also an abandoned project that hasn't been updated in nine years, and there's an active fork of it which is still receiving updates, and that fork is called LibreOffice, and it's fantastic.

Seriously, if you think that your choices are either "grit your teeth and pay Microsoft for a subscription" or "support free software but have a kind of subpar office suite experience", I guarantee that it's because you're working with outdated information, or outdated software. Most people I know who have used the latest version of LibreOffice prefer it to Word. I even know a handful of people who prefer it to Scrivener.

Open Office was the original project, and so it has the most name recognition, and as far as I can tell, that's really the only reason people are still recommending it. It's kind of like if people were saying "hey, the iPhone 14 isn't your only smart phone option!" but then were only ever recommending the Samsung Galaxy S5 as an alternative. LibreOffice is literally a version of the same exact program as Open Office that's just newer and better – please don't get locked into using a worse tool just because the updated version of the program has a different name!

Questions to ask beta readers

General:

Were you confused at any point of the story?

What genre would you say this book is?

When did you put the story down?

Is the ending satisfying?

If you had to cut 3 scenes what would they be?

When did you feel like the story really began?

What was the last book you read before this story?

Characters:

Do you get any of the characters names confused?

Which character is your favorite?

If you had to remove a character who would you and why? (you don't have to remove the character, just make sure their role is meaningful)

Which character do you relate to the most?

Which character do you relate to the least?

Do the characters feel real?

Are character relationships believable?

Are the goals clear and influence the plot?

Are the characters distinct (voice, motivations, etc)

Setting:

Which setting was clearest to you?

Which setting was the most memorable?

Am including enough/too much detail?

Plot and conflict:

Are the internal and external conflicts well defined for the main characters?

Are the internal conflicts and the external conflicts organic and believable?

Are there enough stakes?

Are the plot twists believable but still unexpected?

is it really true that the average person's pain level is a 0?

Same, HoHo. Same. ❤️

drdevonprice.substack.com

How Do I Become Less Obedient?

Autistic Advice#12: Noncompliance is a liberating social skill - but it must be developed.

If you’ve never been all that disobedient before, you can and should start really, really small. For example, you can wear the slightly revealing or gloriously trashy-looking garment that makes your mom roll her eyes and sigh despondently every time she sees you put it on. You will feel judged and disapproved of when you put it on, but that is fine. Your goal is to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and continue with your desired behavior anyway.  Saunter down the steps in that highlighter-yellow Garfield crop top with your chest hair flowing over the neckline, and harness as much courage as you can muster. It’s okay if you feel like a beacon of sin. Just keep it moving. Your emotions are not the target here. Your behavior is. You can feel however you are feeling in the moment so long as you keep acting like you’re free.  Do you have a favorite TV show that a partner or roommate vocally hates? Try watching that show around them without apologizing or defensively joining them in mocking the program. At first, you probably won’t be able to enjoy the show while in their presence. You’ll feel self-conscious about everything they find annoying or cringe-inducing about the show, and so focused on their reactions that you can’t relax. That’s okay. Allow those feelings of embarrassment and guilt to exist and pass through you without giving up. In time, you will be able to ignore these reactions more, and enjoy the activity.  You want to see the needle of discomfort moving down just a little, like Link’s body temperature meter in Tears of the Kingdom when he puts on a breathable outfit in a hot climate. You’re not gonna go from roiling hot to frosty cold in an instant. But after a certain point, you won’t be actively in pain anymore. Things are just gonna slowly suck less, bit by bit, until they are finally okay. That’s true of most major life adjustments, I find.  Probably the best way to develop self-advocacy skills while growing in your distress tolerance is simply by telling other people no. Do this without explanation or hedging. Nitpicky aunt wants to hear all about your dating life? “No, I don’t want to talk about that.” Unreliable ex-friend wants you to do them the tiny favor of moving their entire home gymnasium into a new third story walk-up? “No, I’m not available.” Manipulative shift supervisor wants to cajole you into sticking around for another three hours to close? “No.”  As many advice columnists smarter than me have already intoned, “no” is a complete sentence. “No” requires no explanation. “No” is not subject to debate. “No” can be repeated over and over like a broken record if a disrespectful person acts like they can’t hear it. And you can walk away at any time to make your “no” physical and impossible to argue with, when someone has proven they don’t respect your boundaries. 

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