liarielle
hissykisses
“Her face was like the night sky…you could almost trace out the constellations with her star-like freckles…”
Instagram | deviantArt | FaceBook | Youtube
Tools:
Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook | Amazon.ca
Winsor & Newton Designer Gouache | Amazon.ca
Holbein Acryla Gouache | Amazon.ca
Toothbrush to flick on white paint with.
I buy my brushes at local art stores.
Music: Joe Hisaishi - Fragile Dream
lindira
Fantasy does NOT have to follow real world rules. Fantasy does NOT have to relate to some real world event, country, concept, law, or history. Fantasy does NOT have to mirror any particular time period or country, even if you’re basing your world on a real world one. There is NO SUCH THING as “historical accuracy” in fantasy as it relates to the real world.
THE ONLY THING Fantasy has to do to be believable is follow the established rules OF ITS OWN WORLD. Fantasy can literally be anything you imagine it to be.
If your fantasy world excludes people of color or those belonging to the LGBT+ community, if it’s grossly misogynistic and white cis-male centric, that’s because YOU made it that way. Stop blaming “historical accuracy” or “believability”. It’s not the genre; it’s YOU.
lullabyknell
harryhollandtrash
Wait, so, after being chosen as the fourth TriWizard Champion, Harry was immediately asked if he had an older student put his name in for him. So, like, was it actually that easy? Because if it was, you can’t tell me that some broke-ass Slytherin seventh-year didn’t immediately realize this and start raking in the cash. Like damn, they don’t want to be a part of this Insane Danger Stunt Show themselves, but they’ll put basically any scrap of paper you want into that stupid cup for a sickle.
You’re a first-year who can’t cast Wingardium Leviosa yet? Whatever, sure, just pay up. There’s no way you’re going to be chosen against Angelina “Can Probably Crush You With Her Thighs” Johnson, but at least you can tell all your eleven-year-old buddies that you Did A Cool Thing.
You wanna forcibly enter your friend without their consent? Hell no, get that shit out of here. I’m a Slytherin, not a complete bastard. If I’ve hear about you trying this shit again, I’mma curse your butt into the Lake and report you to Flitwick. You might think that’s funny because he’s short, but you will learn, young padawan. You will fear the Flitwick.
You’re a third-year who thinks that becoming the Hogwarts Champion will impress your crush? Okay, into the fiery cup. But also lmfao, have you even seen Cedric “Hottie McDreamy the Hufflepuff” Diggory? Like, hot damn.
You wanna enter your owl? Your cat? Your toad? Go for it, man, that’d be effing hilarious. I would actually pay to see that Tournament.
You’re a fifth-year who genuinely wants to enter the Tournament? Well, okay, but man, I am roomies with Cassius “Wake Up Before Noon At Your Own Risk” Warrington and he’d be grinding you into the floor under the heel of his handmade, Italian, dragon-hide shoes before you even knew what hit you.
You wanna enter… McGonagall? No, no, nonononono. That’s how people effing die, man. Like, she would destroy the competition and it would be glorious to behold and I would cry tears of awe at the sheer beauty of her wrath… but also, I am too young and beautiful to die. She would find us and we would die. Best scenario is she keeps us as pet mice forever.
So after the Weasley twins get their Age Potion issues fixed, a tiny Slytherin first-year girl sidles up to them in the halls and whispers, “You wanna enter the Tournament? Phil can hook you up. But you didn’t hear it from me!” And so the Weasley twins go find Phil, and Phil tells them straight up, “One slip for a sickle, three for two, five for three, and ten for four.”
Fred’s like, “Does entering your name more than once actually do anything?”
Phil, “Don’t know, don’t care.” (It doesn’t, Phil’s checked. He’d charge more if it did.)
And how does Phil get away with entering all these names? He tells all the supervising professors that he’s entering his own name - again and again and again - for a better chance at being selected. Professor Sprout informs him gently that this won’t make a difference and Phil tells her with the wide-eyed innocence of someone running a major scam operation that “Might as well try, Professor! Maybe diligence with pay off in the long run!”
Sprout’s heart melts, and everyone in the know facepalms. Everyone not in the know looks at him with “cheating Slytherin!” expressions and Phil dgaf because he’s got a giant pile of money now, suckers. [Snape noticed something was up, but didn’t care enough to stop it. Moody also noticed, but didn’t do anything. (Barty approves.)]
Entering more names doesn’t help because it’s not a lottery, the Goblet actually chooses, so a person can only really be entered once. It’s probably actually a good thing that Cedric “Tried to have a won Quidditch match made invalid out of fairness” Diggory and Harry “I am confused and I don’t want to be here” Potter were chosen. Because if fourth-year Ravenclaw Travis Collins had been chosen, the Goblet would have spat out all one-hundred and eighty-three scraps of paper with his name on it.
“Kids these days have too much pocket-money,” Phil comments as he comforts his boyfriend, Cassius Warrington, for being passed over in favor of Cedric “Made of Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice” Diggory, and counts the massive pile of money he’s collected. “Kinda wish the fiery cup had picked that kid’s Kneazle, though. That would’ve been awesome.”
[-Inspired by this post by @accio-shitpost-]
I wanna read more about Phil and his boyfriend Cassius Warrington.
OK, but I read the part about entering your pets and all I can think about is the name ‘Trevor Longbottom’ coming out of the cup and the teachers are all confused because “did we somehow miss or forget that Neville has an older brother? Did Frank and Alice have a secret hidden love child during their Hogwarts years?” Meanwhile, half the Gryffindors are groaning and face palming because who doesn’t know about Trevor ‘constantly lost but probably actually trying to escape this insane asylum of a school’ Longbottom? and poor little nervous Neville, who certainly had nothing to do with Trevor’s name being entered, slowly makes his way too the front of the room and Dumbledore just looks at him curiously and Neville gulps and extends his hands, which Trevor is sitting in and as realisation dawns on the various professor’s faces, everyone collectively looses their shit.
I’m laughing so hard. Also also just imagine Errol’s name coming out. Oh man. Just… Oh man…
This is my favorite hc ever and I need a fic on this desperately
(OP here) Oh man, you are all my favorite people. But that animal thing is totally technically possible, because Barty Confunded the Goblet of Fire, right? It would take an exceptionally powerful and talented witch or wizard to enchant such an ancient magical artifact, right? But seriously, what if Barty had fucked up? That thing is ancient, there’s no way anyone in modern day really knows how the fuck it works.
Frankly, I am completely convinced that the Goblet of Fire is a horrible hodgepodge of experimental magic as some random witch tries to create some way to choose Champions. I have henceforth named her Gonilda and she is the magical computer programmer of 1294, and the creation process of the Goblet was a fucking disaster.
Like, “Shit, I’ve got this super ugly pot that my kid made me in his pottery class the other day, will that do?” “Okay, okay, how do I make the Goblet have only three schools?” “Fuck, Fredreich, made a note to make sure that it won’t explode if more than 13 students are entered because apparently this stubborn piece of ceramics can’t count for shit.” “HOW THE FUCK IS THIS JUDGING PROCESS SUPPOSED TO WORK? IF THIS SON OF A PITCH DOESN’T COOPERATE, I’M MAKING THIS SHIT RANDOM.” (’Gonilda, no.” “GONILDA, YES, DAMN IT!”) “Okay, okay, I think it works now. But also, I have no idea how to reset it. Can we only hold this shitty tournament once?” (”Gonilda, no.” “Fuck you, Fredreich.”) “OKAY, NOW IT WORKS! Just one more tiny detail an- Shit, it’s on fire now. …Can I just leave it on fire? I’m leaving it on fire.” (”Gonilda, no.” “I’m done, I’m out. It’s on fire and I’m not going to do shit about it.”)
Person in charge of running the Triwizard Tournament: “Ah, Fredreich, wonderful! And you met our deadline! Please give ours thanks to Mistress Gonilda for her exceptional wo- … Why is it on fire?”
Gonilda (in the distance): “BECAUSE FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY.”
So basically, the Goblet of Fire works because nobody fucking touch it. It’s on fire, we don’t need to make it explode, folks. Just nobody do anything weird to it and we all collectively pray it keeps working.
And then along comes Barty Crouch Junior and he’s like, “I’mma Confund this cup for this Evil Plot by the Dark Lord Voldemort so it chooses Harry Potter.” Except the Goblet of Fire is a disaster and Barty’s Confundus works for maybe five minutes before something in it breaks, and it’s magical programming is basically just flipping through magical error messages.
Error 400: Bad Request - What the Fuck Are You Doing, Dipshit?!?
Error 403: Forbidden - Dear Fredreich, Stop Doing Shit, You Don’t Know Crap. With Much Love, Mistress Gonilda.
Error 405: Method Not Allowed - Seriously, Dipshit, What the Fuck?
Error 409: Conflict - With Literally Everything. Great Going, Assface.
Barty, why? Why would you try and poke an ancient disaster like this? You were so preoccupied with whether you could do it that you didn’t stop to think if you should. You did it, you crazy son of a bitch, you did it. See, here I am now by myself, talking to myself. That’s Chaos Theory.
Anyway…
Cue small, adorable, innocent first-year voice rising out of the crowd at the Champion Selection Ceremony: “Headmaster Dumbledore? Why is there black smoke coming out of it?”
Cue second small, adorable, innocent first-year voice: “Is it supposed to be making that tea-kettle sound? Why is it screaming?”
Then the Goblet just starts spitting out Champions like it’s freakin’ Oprah or something. Set fire to the fucking rain. YOU GET TO BE A TRIWIZARD CHAMPION! YOU GET TO BE A TRIWIZARD CHAMPION! EVERYBODY GETS TO BE A TRIWIZARD CHAMPION!
(Errol Weasley, Trevor Longbottom, every female Durmstrang student, Professor Trelawny, the Weasley twins twice, a Hogwarts seventh-year from every house, Fleur Delacour and a group of Beauxbatons boys that looks like a boy-band in disguise, Harry Potter five times over, that one kid’s Kneazle, etc. The list goes on.)
Cassius Warrington looks beside him to his boyfriend, who is currently trying to slide underneath a table and maybe phase himself out of existence by sheer willpower, muttering about how he’s now going to die at the hands of Minerva McGonagall and running away to Barbados.
“Phil,” Cassius says seriously, “What the fuck did you do.”
promptsandpointers
If you’re struggling to write your story’s conflict, first write it plainly, truthfully, in an unbiased light. From there, examine how each of your sides, or characters, perceived these events.
its-a-writer-thing
writeroftheprompts
Anonymous asked:
writeroftheprompts answered:
writer-rachelina
You know that common trope where the underdog wins because he’s doing the right thing?
Historically, that is rarely how it goes. Write something where the underdog utterly loses.
slitheringink
psliterary-deactivated20190419
An interesting breakdown. Posted by one of the lit agency blogs I follow.
-Morgan
nownovel
Want to write a bestselling book series? http://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-book-series/
the-enchanted-storybook
spellboundtothestars
my parents aren’t teaching me life lessons.
I’m an adult.
Some shit about life, from a bonafide adult:
Do not buy generic brand spaghetti sauce either.
Always check the type of light bulb that goes in lamps. A 60w is not interchangeable with a 40w.
Dollar store batteries work just as well as store brand.
~~Medications~~
Over the counter medications (stuff you can buy right off the shelf no prescription needed) have a name brand and a generic name. ALWAYS buy generic if it’s available it is literally the same thing and way cheaper usually.
Some names to remember when you’re looking for meds!
Acetaminophen = Tylenol
Used to treat pain and reduce fever. Do not take with Ibuprofen.
Ibuprofen = Advil, Midol, Motrin
Used for pain and fever, is an anti-inflammtory. Is good for period cramps because it is an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug).
Naproxen = Aleve, Naprosyn
Treats fever, pain, arthritis pain, gout, period cramps, tendinitis, headache, backache, and toothache. Is also an NSAID.
Acetaminophen + Asprin + Caffeine = Excedrin
Usually marketed as “Migraine Relief” as a generic.
Asprin = Bayer
Use for pain, fever, arthritis, and inflammation. Makes you bleed easily so should not be used for periods. Might reduce risk of heart attacks.\
Triple Antibiotic Ointment = Neosporin
Used on cuts, sores, and scrapes to reduce risk of infection and promote healing.
Also a general mutli-vitamin isn’t a bad idea and if you don’t get a lot of fruits or milk/sunshine in your diet you might want to get vitamins C and D specifically for daily use.
if you do accidentally lapse and put dawn in your dishwasher, run it empty and put hair conditioner where the detergent goes. that’ll clean it out (tip given to me by dorm custodian when roommate did the thing).
if you live off ramen, add stuff to it! add veggies you like, don’t use the whole flavor packet to cut down on sodium and msg or don’t use it at all and add your own spices.
if you’re making something with potatoes in it (beans, stew) potatoes are done when you can easily stab a fork through them.
you can microwave a hotdog as long as you put it in a microwave safe container of water. microwaves work by making water molecules vibrate. also, when reheating rice leftovers, add a small amount of water, like maybe a spoonfull, so it doesn’t get hard and crunchy.
the rice cooking advice above is for long grain rice. if you’re making short or medium grain rice, a 1:1 ratio (one cup water for one cup rice) is better, so the rice doesn’t come out too mushy.
buy a few cans of chicken. wholesale club stores like sam’s, costco, or bj’s tend to carry multipacks for a good price. they’re incredibly useful for when you forget to defrost meat.
buy meat on sale and put it in the freezer. buy vegetables on sale, and put them in the freezer. frozen veggies are often as flavorful and good as fresh ones, keep longer, and often come in microwaveable bags or with microwave directions.
soak ink stains in milk to help get them out or at least lighten them.
soak blood stains in water as soon as possible, with a bit of detergent or stain remover. scrub at them. use cold water, heat binds proteins to fabric. tbh, there’s no real need to change the washer from cold-cold setting unless the thing you’re washing says to wash in warm water.
acetone, found in most nail polish removers, dissolves super glue.
YOU’RE ALL DOING GOD’S WORK BLESS YOU
Takes pictures, have prints made and put them in photo albums. Be IN the pictures, have someone take pictures of you and your friends. Get over not looking perfect in thw picture. Someday that friend might be gone and those pictures might be all you’ll have, you will want to be in them. I made that mistake with my best friend, i always felt weird asking for a picture together… he died of cancer January of 2014 and now i have no pictures of us together. Its my only regret in life.
This is really helpful, thank you all!
I’m the newest of new adults but I’m gonna throw these little tips in there. IF YOU HAVE AN OLD CAR:
-coolant or water if your car overheats (coolant is preferable cause it won’t hurt the engine in the long run but hey i know money is tight)
-flashlight in case you break down at night and need to check under the hood and your phone is dead
-SPARE TIRE.
-jumper cables.you will at some point leave your lights on. you just will.
AAA or any other road side service is never a bad investment i swear. (try to mooch it off your parents as long as you can though)
Know how to change a tire. You’re going to need to do it at some point in time and you can’t always rely on someone else to do it for you.
Don’t be afraid to go to your local food bank. They are there for a reason.
Don’t be ashamed to ask for help period. Life is hard, everyone needs help occasionally.
You can put a LOWER wattage bulb in a lamp that says it’s for a higher one, but don’t put a HIGHER wattage bulb in. Also, watts refer to the amount of electricity used. LUMENS refers to the amount of light put out, and can vary quite a bit between brands, even though the wattage is the same. Look for the one with the highest lumens unless you actually want a slightly dimmer bulb in a certain location.
Those dollar store batteries? Fine if they’re alkaline. “Heavy-duty” batteries, however, won’t last nearly as long.
You can microwave a hot dog and bun simply by wrapping them in a toweling for a minute, less if you don’t want them scalding hot.
Reblogging to save lives.
Two adulting (kitchen-related) tips from me!
1. Buy a roll of parchment paper from the cooking shit aisle. A big roll will last you for-fucking-ever. Pretty much any time you’re using a baking pan you can line it with that stuff and save yourself A: food sticking to the pan and B: it’s a quick rinse and it’s clean.
2. Bread can get fucking expensive, so make your own. A bigass bag of flour and a bag of active dry yeast (store it in the friiiiidge!!!) works out a FUCK of a lot cheaper than buying bread at the store, and you can do so much more with it. Bread, pizza, rolls, cinnibuns, homemade pizza pockets. It seems intimidating but it’s stupid easy.
Seriously. It’s stupid simple to make, and most of the “3 hours” to make it is sitting around surfing the internet or doing whatever the fuck you want while the dough rises. If you have an afternoon free once a week to sit and play video games or surf the net, you have the time to make your own bread on the cheap. Here’s my simple-as-fuck recipe:
2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (You can buy a bag of this stuff CHEAP in bulk stores, the little packets are hella stupid priced)
1 cup warm water (think a hot bath)
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons oil (any kind works for the most part)
2 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt1. Stir the yeast, water, sugar, and oil up in a bowl. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. It will foam up VERY high, this is the yeast getting happy! If it doesn’t get all foamy, the water may have been too hot or not hot enough. Remember, Yeast is alive! Treat it like a nice girlfriend!
2. Mix your flour, salt, and the yeast concoction up in a bowl.
3. Knead that shit for about 5 minutes. It will start sticky as heck, but will come together into a nice dough. If it’s still super sticky, toss in a bit more flour. Here’s how to knead it:
4. Put your dough in a covered, lightly oiled bowl and leave it someplace warmish for an hour. At that point it will have roughly doubled in size, give it a gentle punch to release the gasses that have built up inside. Cover it again and let it sit for a bit longer.
Optional egg-wash: Just crack an egg into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and mix the bejeebus out of it with a fork. Brush (or if you’re like me, goop it on with said fork) that shit thinly on bread before baking for a nice crust.
Pizza: Stretch it on a pan, stab the fucker all over with a fork, add toppings, bake 425*F 15-20 minutes.
Bread Sticks: Make snake-shapes, let rest on pan 10-ish minutes, bake 400*F 10-20 minutes.
Dinner rolls: Make ball-sized (yes those balls) balls. Place on greased pan, let rest 10-20 minutes to rise. Egg-wash and bake 375*F 25 minutes.
Bread: Lightly score (cut) the top, let sit for 20-ish minutes on/in whatever you’re using to bake it, egg-wash, bake at 375*F for 20-ish minutes. It’s done when it sounds hollow if you knock on the bottom.
You bet your ass you can deep-fry this shit for cheapie yeast doughnuts. Roll that shit in sugar or dip it in whatever, it’s fucking tasty.
Bagels: YES. YOU. CAN. Form bagel-shapes out of the dough and boil them in salty water for about 2 minutes. Egg-wash them and bake them at 400*F for 10 minutes.
Cinnamon Rolls: Roll that shit out into a rectangle. Brush it with a mix of butter, cinnamon, sugar, and a pinch of salt (no exact amounts here, do it to your taste). Roll it up into a log, and cut it into discs. Let them sit 20 minutes in a pan and then bake at 375*F 15-17 minutes.
You can add whatever you want to the dough for some variety, just if it’s dried spices remember you really only need 1-ish tablespoons. I personally like making bread with about 1 tablespoon of dill in the dough. Roll it out flat, sprinkle it with cheddar, roll it into a log, squeeze the ends shut, and bake it like a regular loaf of bread. Cheesy dill bread OMNOMNOM.
*ahem* That got a bit long. But yeah. Bread’s expensive, yo. Save your wallet.
(Also it’s ridiculous amounts of therapeutic to bake, for me anyway)
Being able to bake your own bread is pretty awesome, if you got the time for it.
Instead of Febreeze, use a vodka-water mix.
Buy dirt cheap vodka, mix ½ cup vodka with ½ cup water in a spray bottle, congrats, you now have a de-oderizing spray like Febreeze, but without the risk of aggravating allergies (as some perfumed versions of Febreeze can)
I dunno why hot dogs are like such a thing, but it’s fascinating how many different ways people make them in the microwave.
I just stab it a couple times with a fork or knife, stick it in the microwave for like 30 seconds, and we’re in business.
If I’m feeling fancy, I’ll put it in the toaster oven- on a tray. If left to drip, it’ll totally catch your toaster oven on fire not that I’m speaking from experience or anything….
Also, if you have difficulties storing the bag of yeast in the refrigerator, put it in the freezer! It lasts literally forever, and i mean forever. This also helps if you don’t like to bake a lot because it preserves your yeast for whenever you do and saves you money because it won’t become inactive!
garden-of-bees
mogar-smash
so i started a new book
*drags hands down face*
reblogging this again because this is from Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and I’m reading it right now and it’s incredibly awkward to read about my entire life’s problems neatly described by a complete stranger
Oh god
writingwithcolor
treacherousgodswrites asked:
(If you’re wondering why the Native and the Indian mods are answering this, we’re doing so only for the historical and linguistic aspects, with Yasmin’s okay).
In 300 BCE there wasn’t any such thing as a single “Arabic,” but rather a collection of central Semitic dialects with various levels of mutual intelligibility. These are usually grouped under “Old Arabic” but since that designation stretches from 900 BCE until Classical Arabic was codified with the Quran in the early 7th century CE there was a whole lot of room for geographical and historical variation.
There is some fragmentary evidence of these dialects written in Greek scripts, showing the interaction between Greek and Arabic culture of the day but this is really sparse and may in fact consist of just one inscription. So while we can see that clear overlap between Greek and Arabic speaking areas, it’s also pretty clear that the Arabic of the time was very different from Classical or Modern Arabic varieties.
If it’s accuracy you’re after, you may want to look into Demotic Egyptian. That was the Greek-influenced descendant of the ancient Egyptian language that would have been spoken in Alexandria in 300 BCE and there is actually a fairly good amount of information on it out there if you just want to get a feel for the sound and look of the language.
For instance, this dictionary: [http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/demotic-dictionary-oriental-institute-university-chicago]
The one peril I see with this may be infringing on the sensibilities of Coptic Christians, as Demotic is an ancestor of Coptic, the liturgical language of Coptic Christianity. As Coptic Christians are a small and marginalized group, I don’t know how they’d feel about this. I also don’t know what precisely you plan to do with the language in your story, or if it’s just words thrown in occasionally for a bit of flavor. Be warned, learning a foreign language enough to do accurate translations is every bit as much work as inventing a language wholesale, just of a different kind.
~Mod Nikhil
Islam was only a religion starting in 610 AD, so you’re about a millennia early for having Islam (or 300-400 years shy for Christianity, which Islam needs to exist) even be a consideration for Hellenistic Egypt. Take a closer look at what religions existed at the time to get an idea what the religious tapestry would look like, but you’ll be looking at primarily ancient Greek and Egyptian paganism, with a mix of whatever other religions were around at the time (if you include abrahamic religions as a whole, Judaism will likely be a consideration, as well).
Arab peoples predate Islam, and it would actually be odd not to have them in Egypt. The Hellenistic empire stretched out across the Arab world, around the Mediterranean and even to the Himalayas. Cleopatra very likely spoke at least one dialect of Arabic, because she made it a point to be able to discuss trading agreements in the traders’ language.
The City of Alexandria was a trade port. This means everybody from all over the empire and some people who weren’t part of the empire would go there to trade. Any books they brought would be taken, copied to the Library, and (sometimes) returned to their owners. The primary reason the Library of Alexandria was so good is because it contained a copy of nearly all knowledge in the Ancient World, which would have included Arab peoples for certain. It would’ve also included knowledge from deeper in the African continent, Greece, and many parts of Asia (India and China aren’t out of the question, especially since there is evidence Han Purple— painted on the Terracotta Warriors— came from Egyptian Blue, and was used from 1045 BC to 300 AD, meaning there was trade between the two countries somewhere before that time, and it was unlikely to have discontinued).
So in fact, your worry is reversed: if you don’t have a wide variety of peoples from all over Africa, Asia, and Europe, then Alexandria will ring untrue. It was the NYC of the ancient world, a trade hub and a knowledge hub. Everyone who wanted to learn and sell would go there to do so, which means you’re looking at a very diverse city. Since you’re going with geography, you have to have it play the same route— a city on an ocean and a river would not be anything but a mosaic (or melting pot, but from my limited research into Alexandria, it seems to have been more of a mosaic; individual peoples’ traditions were more likely to be preserved then assimilated).
~Mod Lesya
yourfavouritedoll