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🙄
Living in Portland is like living in hell, says man who’s never lived here.
ALT#we all KNOW why he’s attacking Portland #it’s full of nasty POC and queer people that’s why #Portland OR #USA #USA under Fascism
Ok so … yes on the queer people, but I do have to pause here because Portland is very white. Like. It’s more diverse than the rest of Oregon, but since Oregon used to be a literal sundown state… yeah.
It has gotten more diverse in the last ten years - we’ve gone from 72% white to 66.4% white from the 2010 to the 2020 census - but like… I lived in Philly before this.
No, this is why:
Portland had the unmitigated gall to tell ICE, “We do in fact have laws in our city which are our laws, and you did in fact sign a fucking contract about how you were going to use this facility, and we know you’re fucking breaking your lease terms, so we’re going to fine you and we might yank your permit and kick you out.”
And the idea that a city — especially a city with blue hair and pronouns — might tell this administration, “You’re going to behave or you’re going to leave,” just cannot stand, and we therefore need to be Punished. They need to Cause A Scene to try to justify an armed takeover.
Because boy, they love the Second Amendment, but they don’t seem much to like the Tenth.
STAY OUT OF MY STATE!! P-town is incredibly diverse and one of the safest big cities around. It’s really not anymore dangerous than any other city. It’s not war torn, antifa isn’t an organization, the homeless aren’t attacking people, drugs aren’t taking over the streets, it’s not destroyed or being reduced to rubble. I’m so tired of MAGA pushing propaganda and refusing to believe THE TRUTH.
It’s a lot less dangerous than a lot of places, as one of our Representatives (the fucking delightful Rep. Janelle Bynum) recently pointed out:
Portland OR is 72nd in violent crime. This myth that we’re a violent hellhole is a just that.
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🙄
Living in Portland is like living in hell, says man who’s never lived here.
ALT#we all KNOW why he’s attacking Portland #it’s full of nasty POC and queer people that’s why #Portland OR #USA #USA under Fascism
Ok so … yes on the queer people, but I do have to pause here because Portland is very white. Like. It’s more diverse than the rest of Oregon, but since Oregon used to be a literal sundown state… yeah.
It has gotten more diverse in the last ten years - we’ve gone from 72% white to 66.4% white from the 2010 to the 2020 census - but like… I lived in Philly before this.
No, this is why:
Portland had the unmitigated gall to tell ICE, “We do in fact have laws in our city which are our laws, and you did in fact sign a fucking contract about how you were going to use this facility, and we know you’re fucking breaking your lease terms, so we’re going to fine you and we might yank your permit and kick you out.”
And the idea that a city — especially a city with blue hair and pronouns — might tell this administration, “You’re going to behave or you’re going to leave,” just cannot stand, and we therefore need to be Punished. They need to Cause A Scene to try to justify an armed takeover.
Because boy, they love the Second Amendment, but they don’t seem much to like the Tenth.
STAY OUT OF MY STATE!! P-town is incredibly diverse and one of the safest big cities around. It’s really not anymore dangerous than any other city. It’s not war torn, antifa isn’t an organization, the homeless aren’t attacking people, drugs aren’t taking over the streets, it’s not destroyed or being reduced to rubble. I’m so tired of MAGA pushing propaganda and refusing to believe THE TRUTH.
It’s a lot less dangerous than a lot of places, as one of our Representatives (the fucking delightful Rep. Janelle Bynum) recently pointed out:
Portland OR is 72nd in violent crime. This myth that we’re a violent hellhole is a just that.
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Writing existing character voices for fanfic
Hey, so, I started doing a writeup a week ago about how to get character voices in your fanfic to sound “in character,” in response to a comment from a new writer I was beta-ing for.
I’ve been told this is a thing I do well.
As someone who studied dialogue extensively for a theatre degree, I tend to do this reflexively now, and I don’t write out each individual step. But I put some thought into how I might break down the process if I was new at it and looking to get better.
I don’t think it’s actually that different than an actor studying character accents, except as a writer you’re breaking down meaning rather than sound.
Let’s take a look at what makes dialogue unique to a character. I’m gonna list these as bullet points first, and then I’ll suggest some exercises to explore these aspects of speech.
Most important aspects - focus on these first
- Vocabulary - the words they use. As subset of this:
- Complexity of words, which can include:
- Syllable length
- Likelihood to be used in casual conversation - a character can be very smart and still use very informal language.
- Cultural touchpoints
- Culture can include pop culture references - think Tony Stark’s nicknames for everyone, i.e. “Point Break” and “Underoos”
- How in or out of sync the character is with the story’s setting with regard to both time and place - are they from a different country or era of time than their peers?
Important - Check these out if you have time
- How likely the character is to speak their mind vs. change the subject - this could be for any number of reasons, from fear to duplicity
- Amount they say / Introvertedness / how reticent they are - This is somewhat related to the above point, but not necessarily, and should be researched from different angles. Subverting a topic is not the same thing as being afraid to talk about it.
- Different ways of speaking with different characters - this could be a function of story (i.e. how a character who is captured speaks to their captors as opposed to friends) as well as pure Code Switching
Deep cuts - Advanced aspects of speech
- Fluency in the language they are speaking
- Accents - You do not have to write a character in an accent, i.e. spell the words differently to show the accent, if you don’t want to. It really depends on the piece (usually how light hearted or humorous you want it to be) whether you do or not.
Okay, this is all well and good, you say. But HOW do I incorporate this into my writing?
Dialogue analysis exercise
Find five (or more, but at least five) representative lines from your character’s canon dialogue.
If they don’t speak, don’t have five lines, do the best you can. (I imagine other forms of communications can probably also be analyzed in this way, but I’m gonna focus on dialogue for now.)
These are going to be your key phrases. They need to be from canon and they need to be words that really show off who your character is.
- Say the words out loud. Read them again and again. What do they sound / feel like?
- What is the average syllable length? How many long words do they use?
- Do any words jump out at you as archaic? What about modern pop culture references?
- What is a different way they could have said this? Write some alternate versions of this phrase and figure out WHY the character didn’t say it this way instead. What is the difference between the canon dialogue and the alternative? Try to be as specific as possible. It’s as important to know what they wouldn’t say as what they would.
- Look up any of the more complex words and find some similar ones, with a similar level of complexity. Use a thesaurus you trust and possibly also Wordnik. If your character doesn’t use ANY complex words, reflect on that. Why? What’s their reason? How does that fit with the rest of their personality?
- Think of some other characters from other pop culture pieces who speak in a similar way. It doesn’t have to be 100% the same, but if it can help your ear get used to some new-but-different phrases, it’s enough. You’re training your brain to speak like the character. Start to sort phrases they would say from ones they wouldn’t. How do these two characters differ?
- Now that you have worked thoroughly through your key phrases, start to imagine these lines said in something other than the original context. What if they were said to a different character? WOULD they even be said? What would change? What would happen if your character was scared / hurt / overjoyed / sick?
- Finally, after all that, write some NEW dialogue for your character, either as practice, or right into your fic draft. Keep using your key phrases as a guide and go back to canon as much as you need to! You can do this!
After all of this, you should feel significantly more confident in writing that existing character into your story. Huzzah!
If you found this at all helpful, reblog and / or leave me a note. I’m curious to hear what you think.
This is good advice, and here’s an added suggestion for practicing: write a story entirely with dialogue between two characters. It should be possible to tell who is speaking without needing dialogue tags or descriptions. If you find yourself thinking “but a reader will get confused here!” you go back and make it sound more like them.
Excellent excellent advice. If you’re doing a dialogue practice without tags, which tou should. There’s a slightly counterintuitive thing: you don’t have to have something in every line that tells you it’s Jack or Jill. As in, if they say, “Tomorrow morning” that might be either. But! You can tell that was Jack because Jill’s question before that was clearly Jill
And read your dialogue aloud. You’ll catch the stuff that sounds unnatural for them.
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This month I’ve decided to participate in an event called “October,” where for every day in October I’m going to experience a day in October.
Here’s the prompt list I’m using in case anyone wants to join me in this challenge:
Next month I’m thinking of trying out the “No November November” challenge, where I’ll refrain from experiencing November for the whole month of November.
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not now kitten mommy is having imaginary beef with a person she hasn’t spoken to in six years
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coming up with aus for your own ocs is so funny like yeah these are my guys i made up but in a different circumstance. yeah no i also made that circumstance up
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if she’s your girl then who am i? what year is it? why cant i remember anything…
ugh… my head…
well… no sense in waiting around. ive got to get out of this place. [stands up and you gain control of me] looks dangerous… i should try to find a weapon, just in case.
USE THE WASD KEYS TO MOVE AROUND
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I’m so ready chat
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who’s we
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Make sure to boycott all local shows and bands btw
You can’t be punk if you listen to music
You can’t be punk
It’s just not possible
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i would crash him into tea ships in boston harbor
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When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.
The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.
Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.
So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.
This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.
(Source 1)
(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)
(Source 3)
Unfortunately, I don’t have citations, but I have heard about the same phenomenon through Nat Geo Live presentations in the Amazon and Serengeti. Most individuals who are poachers or use slash-and-burn farming are doing this out of survival, not ignorance or greed. They have families to feed and children who will starve if they don’t find food or money. As OP said, fixing the human suffering fixes the conservation issue and is a win-win, while preaching conservation to starving people does nothing.
But on top of that, you know who the most ardent conservationists are once security has been achieved? The people who had once been forced to poach or slash-and-burn to survive. You know who’s great at tracking down gorilla poachers? Ex-poachers. Who’s good at understanding and advocating for people forced to do these things to survive? Ex-poachers. Who can convince others to take a chance on finding a better way to survive? Same answer.
It is win-win-win. As ecologists, conservationists, and environmentalists we must get out of our ivory towers of knowledge, stop carrying them into the field, and remember humans are part of the ecosystem too. And that sustainable change will never happen if human needs aren’t addressed.
I also love this story about the arapaima in Brazil. They increased the population of this endangered giant fish literally a hundred times over- from 3,000 to 300,000- by ending the total ban on arapaima fishing and instead creating legal fishing organizations. The fishing organization members get trained on how do population counts and determine how many fish they can take while still leaving enough for the population to grow.
The former illegal fishers are now sought-after experts, because they know how to spot the arapaima and tell juveniles apart from adults. They get to keep practicing the fishing skills that were passed down to them. The actual process of fishing is easier because they can work together and don’t have to sneak around. The profits are higher because they can sell the fish openly to restaurants and to the public. The fishing organization members make sure that other people in their communities don’t fish illegally. And the numbers of arapaima keep going up and up, so there’s plenty to go around even as more people join the fishing organizations.
If you click all the way through to the report from the conservation org that started the fishing organizations project, there are quotes from fishing organization members:
- “We built a second house and I’m putting my oldest two kids through college on the money we get from fishing.”
- “Nowadays you have young people walking around with pockets full of cash saying "I got 6,000 from fishing this year!” It used to be you wouldn’t even get 50 reais of pocket money.“
- "At the first harvest after we started the fishing organization, I saw full-grown arapaima for the first time, really big ones like they’re supposed to be. Before, I had only heard about how big they could get. That’s when I knew that our work was paying off and we could keep moving forward.”
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today’s bird is this green heron inspecting a bug
Hes inspecting that bug real well
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Y'all for real please do these. Even if you’re certain your posture doesn’t suck. One day you will wake up with impinged shoulder pain like I did and let me tell you it fucking HURTS. Do these exercises even just once a week and it will make such a difference. Especially my fellow creatives out there, stop shrimping over your work and go do these right now. RIGHT NOW.
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me: thanks for havinng me over this weekend y'all i’ll call soon
my bosmer stepdad: Fare well; and by the Nine Divines, stay on the roads! It’s the Daedra, you see…
my argonian mom: Hhaarrgh!! (punching my stepdad in the head killing him instantly before turning to me and resetting her animation) Any news from the other provinces?
the text box that has haunted me since my birth: You cannot fast travel when there are enemies nearby
