Yeah I just write and stuff so like, no, I don't know how to change a tire.
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![A Reddit post to r/relationships from user ThrowRAlanternissues
title reads: My [26F] Boyfriend [28M] is Obsessed with a Lantern He Found at a Flea Market and It getting weird. How do I approach this?
post reads: Hello,
So, my boyfriend (28M) and I (26F) recently went to a flea market, and he found this old-style lantern that he absolutely fell in love with. He bought it on the spot, and I thought it was a cute little vintage decoration for our apartment. But now, things have taken a strange turn.
Ever since he got the lantern, he's become super attached to it. He keeps it by his bedside and even gets up in the middle of the night to walk around the apartment with it, pretending to be an old-timey watchman. He'll say things like "All is well!" or "The night is dark and full of terrors," and he really gets into character.
At first, I thought it was kind of funny and endearing as he always had an eccentric style of humour, but now it's starting to annoy me. He does this almost every night, and it's disrupting our sleep. I've tried talking to him about it, but he just tells me that he takes his watchman duties very seriously and that it's important for our safety. This issue is, I genuinely cannot tell if he’s joking.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? How do I get him to tone it down without hurting his feelings or making him feel like he can't enjoy his quirky interests?
Thanks for any advice!
TL;DR: Boyfriend is obsessed with an old lantern he found at a flea market and now pretends to be a night watchman, which is disrupting our sleep. How do I address this?](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c5517d1b456785f23e3396e8c83b34df/fad0484f177e2757-7b/s640x960/efe8d34ddeaaedbd3b80fcd99ab495a75890cbb0.png)
“You don’t understand! I’m not brave like you!”
“Brave? I’m not brave, I’m terrified!”
“But, I…I thought-“
“Well you thought wrong! Sometimes life doesn’t give you a choice, you just have to do it scared….then you get labeled a hero, even though you know that’s not true.”
“I think that’s heroic.”
“What?”
“To do it scared. To be terrified but to still persevere. A real hero isn’t brave because they aren’t scared. They’re scared because they know that they have to be brave, and that is the most heroic thing you could do. To stand in the face of fear and tremble, and still walk out the other side.”
Car broke down and now my life is forfeit, my steed and I are weak. Let the wolves take me. I cannot weather this storm.
Teehee :(
“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
Holy hell, I wasn't expecting to find a rebuttal to Thornton Wilder's Our Town in a (supposedly) children's book with a 9-year-old protagonist.
No human could live like this. You could spend a day looking at a flower to see how wonderful it is, and that wouldn't get the milking done. No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is... no one could stand that for long.
-- Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men
You can't drink the Baja water...
Wonder.
(I want to drink the Baja blast water)
Libraries are cool as fuck like, yeah, I want to borrow Super Monkey Ball and put stickers on this cool pictogram!
For real though I found Going Postal by Terry Pratchett and I am so very excited to read it! Want to know about this Moist man everyone keeps yapping about.
Do you know how to change a tire?
Yeah
Mood
Discworld is an interesting beast in the age of ACAB. Like, the city watch books are a story about police and the way in which a good police force can help and protect people. Which would make it copoganda. And I'm not going to say that the City Watch books are completely free of copoganda, but they also do something interesting that fairly few stories about heroic police officers do, and I think it has a lot to do with Samuel Vimes. A lot of copoganda stories like, say, Brooklyn 99, are perfectly capable of portraying cops as cruel, bigoted, and greedy, but our central cast of characters are portrayed as good people who want to help their communities. The result is that the bad cops are portrayed as an aberration, while most cops can be assumed to be good people doing a tough job because they want to help protect people from the nebulous evil forces of "Crime". The police are considered to be naturally heroic. Pratchett does something very interesting, which is provide us with Vimes' perspective, and present us with an Unnaturally heroic police force. In Ahnk-Morpork, the natural state of the watch is a gang with extra paperwork. It's the place for people who, at best, just want a steady paycheck and at worst want an excuse to hit people with a truncheon. Rather than be an army defending people from the forces of Crime, the Watch is described as a sort of sleight-of-hand, big burly watchmen in shiny uniforms don't stand around in-case a Crime happens in their vicinity, they stand around to remind people that The Law exists and has teeth. The Watchmen are people, when danger rears it's head, their instinct is to hide and get out of the way. When faced with authority, their instinct is to bow to it out of fear of what it might do to them if they don't. Carrot is a genuine Hero, but his natural heroism is presented as an aberration. Normal Cops don't act like Carrot does. The fact that the Watch ends up acting like a Heroic Police Force is largely due to the leadership of Sam Vimes, but Vimes himself is a microcosm of the Watch. The base state of Sam Vimes would be an alchoholic bully of an officer, one who beats people until they confess to anything because that makes his job easier. Vimes The Hero is a homunculous, an artificial being created by Sam Vimes fighting back all those instincts and FORCING himself to behave as his conscience dictates. Vimes doesn't take bribes or let his officers do the same because, damnit, that sort of thing shouldn't happen, even if doing so would make things a lot easier. Vimes doesn't run towards sounds of screaming because he WANTS to, he forces himself to do so because somebody needs to. It's best summed up in Thud “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace.” “I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.” “Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?” said the inspector with a brief little smile. “I do that, too. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.”
In the hands of another writer, or another series, this exchange would be weirdly dismissive. To whom should the police be accountable to? Themselves, shut up and trust us. But from Vimes, it's a different story. Vimes DOES constantly watch himself, and he doesn't trust that bastard, he's known him his entire life. The Heroic Police are not a natural state, they're an ideal, and ahnk-morpork only gets anywhere close. Vimes is constantly struggling against his own instincts to take shortcuts, to let things slide, but he forces himself to live up to that ideal and the Watch follows his example. Discworld doesn't propose any solutions to the problems with policing in the real world. We don't have a Sam Vimes to run the NYPD and force them to behave. We don't have a Carrot Ironfounderson. But it's at least a story about detectives and police that I can read without feeling like I'm being sold propaganda about the Thin Blue Line.
abstract and modern art haters are sooo snobby like klein literally Created an entirely new pigment and then painted a canvas in a way where the brush strokes wouldn't be visible. the insinuation that people with no skill could reproduce that is so annoying because unless you are skilled at color mixing and painting you definitely couldn’t lmao
Are there proper ways to write characters spiraling into violent madness without going full Hollywood stereotype?
Thanks for asking! Here are some tips:
Research Mental Health: Before writing about madness, research various mental health conditions and how they manifest. Understanding the nuances of conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or psychosis can help you portray the descent into madness more realistically.
Show the Descent: Instead of suddenly plunging your character into madness, show a gradual decline. Start with subtle changes in behavior or thoughts that become increasingly erratic over time. This gradual progression will make the transformation feel more believable.
Internal Conflict: Explore the internal struggles of your character as they grapple with their deteriorating mental state. Show the conflict between their rational mind and the irrational thoughts or impulses taking over. This can create empathy for the character and make their descent more compelling.
Symbolism: Use symbolism and metaphor to convey the character's mental state without being too literal. Show their inner turmoil through imagery, dreams, or hallucinations that reflect their psychological struggles.
Character Complexity: Avoid portraying the character solely as a "madman" or "madwoman." Instead, develop them as complex individuals with hopes, fears, and motivations beyond their descent into madness—or that consume them and drive their descent. This will make them more relatable and humanise their struggle.
External Triggers: Explore the external factors contributing to the character's descent into madness, such as trauma, stress, or societal pressures. These triggers can help contextualise their behavior and add depth to their storyline.
Point of View: Consider using multiple points of view to provide insight into how other characters perceive the protagonist's descent into madness. This can add layers to the narrative and highlight the impact of their actions on those around them.
Avoid Clichés: Steer clear of clichéd tropes commonly associated with madness, such as talking to imaginary voices or engaging in random acts of violence for no apparent reason. Though these are symptoms for some, it can be helpful to focus on depicting the unique experiences and challenges faced by your character.
Humanise the Consequences: Show the real-life consequences of the character's actions, both for themselves and those around them. This can include the emotional toll on loved ones, legal repercussions, or the character's own feelings of guilt and remorse.
Subjective Narrative: If you're writing from the first person perspective, immerse the reader in the character's deteriorating mental state by crafting a subjective narrative that reflects their inner turmoil and warped perspective. Use vivid, sensory language to describe their experiences, conveying a sense of dazed confusion, spiraling thoughts, and disorientation. Make use of fragmented thoughts, disjointed imagery, and stream-of-consciousness techniques to create a narrative that feels almost like a fever dream, drawing readers into the character's unraveling psyche. By making the reader feel as if they are experiencing the madness firsthand, you can create a more immersive and impactful portrayal of the character's descent.
Hope this helped! Happy writing 🎔
The older I get, and the more on fire the world seems to be the more I feel comforted and SEEN by Sir Terry Pratchett and Discworld.
Not because all the books are inherently comfortable so much as because they feel like someone taking you by the hand and saying; “I know. I’m just as angry about this bullshit. But we can hold hands. But the sun still rises. But hope is still important. Hope wears steel toed boots and smiles with pink and bloody teeth and will make you laugh and will make you cry. It’s not okay. But we’re in the shit together, and some day it’s gonna be less shit.”
This got away from me.
What I’m saying is, I’ve got a shovel.
“Use your gifts and your talents to greatest possible effect while you can. Spread joy wherever possible. Laugh at jokes. Tell jokes. Make puns and bugger the embuggerances. Read books. Read my books. You might like them. You might find something else you like even more than them. Look for these things in life.
Question authority. Champion good causes. Speak out against injustice. Do not tolerate bullies or bigots or racists or anti-intellectuals or the narrow-minded. Use your education to challenge them. Broaden their perspectives. Make the world you interface with a happier place.
These are your choices. Choices you have been fortunate to have been given, so don’t waste them while you have them. Don’t look back in years to come and wish you had grasped a fleeting opportunity. Grasp it now with both hands, Live. Strive. Love.”
from A Little Advice for Life taken from ‘Terry Pratchett: from birth to death, a writer.’
—Sir Terry Pratchett; April 28, 1948 – March 12, 2015
One of the greatest compliments I've ever received is that I resemble Sam Vimes.
Mind how you go.
editing your own writing is like woah you really like commas........ maybe ease up on those commas there, pal........ maybe Fewer commas would be nice
calm as a worm
I'm not sure I can express this sentiment strongly enough, but I'm going to try via the medium of large bolded text.
Write what the fuck you want.
Write what makes you happy. Write what makes your soul sing. Write what fucks you up and makes you cry. Write what comforts you. Write what distracts you. Write what you want to read. Write what you want to watch.
Write what you want to dream about tonight.
Write what you can't get enough of. Write what you're completely obsessed with. Write what wakes you up at 4am and drags you out of bed because you can't stop thinking about what your characters are going to do next.
Write what turns you on, if that's your vibe. Write characters you're in love with and characters who inspire you and characters you want to be friends with and characters you fucking hate but oh my god they're so much fun.
Write about things you would sell your soul to do in real life and things you would never do in real life. Write about things that are happening right now and things that happened a thousand years ago and things that might happen in the future and things you wish could happen.
Write to get a publishing deal or to sell your books yourself or not to sell your books at all. Write for your friends or for strangers or for the people who reblog your posts on Tumblr and send you songs that remind them of your characters.
Write for yourself.
Fuck any system that tells you there's only one right way to create or one valid way to share your writing. Your story, the way you tell it, has so much value. Make people smile or piss people off or do both of those things because art is divisive and fascinating and beautiful.
Start writing. Keep writing. And write what the fuck you want.
Andrea Gibson