Metaphors - Tumblr Posts
I've said it before and i'll say it again: THAT IS NOT A FUCKING METAPHOR, JOHN GREEN
Woman Spring Born
A second knock and the door sprung open, someone had finally let me in.
Countless doors knocked, countless questions asked Again and again, greeted with barren lands, the only relief were the the few manna pearls that had to be coaxed out. So I dragged my feet, on a lonely road my destination cloaked in mystery All the doors on either side seemed to close in, I could barely breathe Is this how I…
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Honestly you people need to start thinking about fanfiction like a restaurant.
You do not have to order the salmon if you don't like salmon.
If I order the salmon, I am not forcing you to eat the salmon. Nor are you obligated to order it just because I am.
If we are going with the intention of sharing food, that's okay! I happen to like steak too. I don't need to order the salmon. I'm capable of going to the restaurant and not ordering the salmon. We can order the steak.
There is a whole menu of things you can have. The salmon is just an option. We can even find a restaurant that doesn't serve salmon at all.
Yes, I know some people are allergic to salmon. But I'm not going up to them and force-feeding it to them. The only way my salmon can hurt them is if they come to our table and take the salmon.
The only way you'll expose yourself to my salmon and the unpleasantness of eating it is if I tell you my dish has salmon in it and you insist on having a bite anyway.
You're midway through your meal and realize it has salmon in it? Okay. Lets send it back and order something else. Maybe you didn't see it in the ingredients list. Or maybe the chef didn't put it down.
Its really that simple.
when you're reading a fic that's so filled with metaphors that you can't tell if someone ate a regular piece of meat or committed cannibalism
My dad and I once had a disagreement over him using the adage "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
I said, "That's just not true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized."
He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, "It's like wood glue."
He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, "Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?"
I did.
"But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn't hold up shit. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And that wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we'd never fixed them at all. You've got to give these things time to set."
It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that's not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.
So my dad and I agreed, what doesn't kill you doesn't actually make you stronger, but healing does. And if you feel like healing hasn't made you stronger than you were before, you're probably not done healing. You've got to give these things time to set.
My Ship pt 1
I traversed the stormy sea day and night,
I felt the wind in my hair, the salt on my tongue and had no plight,
I set course to wherever the wind blew me,
And after years of not knowing what home is,
I decided I’d try and find an island,
A safe haven, with golden sands and shallow, peaceful waters
So I found you.
lofi rain sounds
everything about rain seemed so interesting to her. the smell of the air that let her know it was coming. the sound of droplets hitting the concrete outside. the feeling of water running down her skin, no matter the intensity.
a soft shower or the heaviest downpour, either showed gravity finally taking over and clouds coming back down to the earth. finally, the pull of the world set in and caused water to come falling down as a result.
the more she thought about it, she wasn't so different from the clouds herself. spending all of her time collecting things and after so long, something brings her crashing back down to earth. the reaction could be a small display, a small crack in the mask she tried so hard to perfect. and other times... a flood breaks out. rushing and overwhelming, emotions pour through any defenses and can catch everyone off guard.
it's a bittersweet thought. to compare yourself to a natural occurrence that can bring such destruction. but beauty can also be built from it. for rain is such an essential portion for sustaining life. and even though they can be distressing, understand that your storms are just as important as your sunny days. they let you know you're alive. and no matter what the struggle, at the end of the day, that is what's important.
Ah yes my origin story #fallenangel #fallenangels #angel #angels #blackeye #cosplay #cosplaygirl #cosplayersofinstagram #cosplayer #rp #roleplay #roleplayaccount #roleplayer #roleplaying #oc #ocs #originalcharacter #originalcharacters #fanmade #fanmadecharacter #fanmadecharacters #fanmadecharacters #fanmadecharacterslmao #shadowhunters #shadowhunterslegacy #mortalinstruments #mortalinstrumentscityofbones #mortalinstrumentsseries #mortalinstrumentsbooks #metaphor #metaphors https://www.instagram.com/p/CB_YoswJvIc/?igshid=ap5rwmxb0t83
How to write a good metaphor
yall seemed to like my post on "how to write good horror" so i figured i should make another one of these.
1- do. not. explain. the. metaphor.
don't.
"oh but how will the audience know my deep and meaningful message- "
SOME PEOPLE WONT GET IT. if you explain what you mean then suddenly the metaphor won't be deep anymore. it becomes a generic forced message.
i know you are tempted to make a character infodump about everything, fucking don't.
followup on this:
2- a good metaphor should potentially have multiple interpretations.
"but i don't want people to get the wrong impression of the story!"
then you either need to make damn sure its an elegantly written metaphor, or none at all. the death of the author is the idea that everyone has their own vision of a story they read, rearguards of authors intent. you need to come to terms with this or else you won't improve your writing skills.
you need to trust that your audience is intelligent enough to understand the metaphor on their own without bashing them over the head with it. sometimes people misunderstand meaning, it is a fact of life.
The game little inferno was thought of as a metaphor about pollution, in which later the creators went out to say it was actually about capitalism and wasting your life with things like exploitative mobile games. you just need make it SUBTLE and hope for the best.
3- The story/gameplay/etc should inform the metaphor(and sometimes reference real life examples)
To mention little inferno again, the "you must wait x amount of time for in-game item to be given to you" is a mirror of mobile games in the real world that use timers to leach money from you.
another example: analogue horror.
broken old technology is scary on its own, but many good analogue horror artists tend to use this to the advantage.
analogue horror can be used as a metaphor for dying trends and technology, like how in the 30's through 70's we used asbestos in the walls. Analogue horror makes a great parralel to this idea (see Blue_channel by gooseworx for a good example.) . the audience questions WHY this is on an old CRT tv and not just a smartphone, perhaps to imply this was an event that happened years ago.
undertale is another example, where most RPG's encourage you to fight and to level up, undertale uses this as a simple metaphor about obsessive control and being cruel to get an arbitrary achievement (i recommend the escapist's video on "why i didn't review undertale" on youtube for way better examples)
tldr: a metaphor is stronger if you lightly reference real life occurances and implement your metaphor in the medium presented.
4- the curtains are blue because they are blue.
not everyone is going to understand your metaphor
and not everyone is going to notice every single little metaphor you add to your story.
remember those teachers that would constantly stretch to imply something in a story is a metaphor and that the curtains are blue because of some deep metaphor for death and sadness and shit?
those teachers are full of it. ignore them.
metaphors are allowed to be simple. not every metaphor needs to be a hyper deep depth defying world changing thing. I could even argue a bunch of small metaphors connected to each other can be better than one big metaphor depending on your story.
relax. don't think too much about it because your average audience member won't.
5- study movies, tv, books, games, etc and understand why their metaphors work.
don't fall into that "the curtains are blue because of a deep message" English teacher mindset mind you.
"but how do i tell what is and isn't a metaphor?" you may ask
simple. trust your gut. you won't understand everything you come across but the human brain has a way of telling what is and isn't a metaphor in stories.
(spoiler about bugsnax)
I could argue Bugsnax is a metaphor about drug abuse and addiction. The characters have personality traits commonly associated with people vulnerable to drug addiction. An athlete, a hippy, a married couple going through a rough spot in their marriage with the threat of divorce, a mentally ill person with trauma and paranoia, etc.
It isn't obvious, many people may disagree with me, but you can't deny that there are signs i may be right.
(end of spoiler) the point i am trying to make: don't stretch to find a metaphor when you don't see one. if you are curious google other people's theories and make your own opinion. metaphors are hard and you will learn over time. and finally 6- do not ever do "it was all just a dream" or "the character is secretly in a coma" etc this applies to writing in general but it is still related to metaphors. the only time i have seen this done well is driver san francisco, but what it did right was A- make it so the players can guess ahead of time the mystery, such as the radio saying voices of your character in the hospital, or if you zoomed out you could hear a heart monitor. and B- it didn't completely un-do the entire story. that is my core issue with this trope. it either wastes your time un-doing the entire story readers worked hard to finish, or it is just nonsensical and terrible. "dora the explorer is actually in purgatory!" "spongebob is a metaphor for the 7 deadly sins!" "ash is in a coma and that is why he never ages! " ooooor it is a cartoon and you are forcing meaning that doesn't exist in something that doesn't even imply it. the world being a bit weird is not enough to be a metaphor for anything. If you want to make a good metaphor: do more effort than just slapping a lazy "it was all a coma" thing at the end. Like horror, stuff like this needs to be built up properly. also consider authors intent. I understand death of the author and all of that, but do you really think a retired marine biologist made spongebob to be a complex metaphor about sinners in hell ? (rip Stephen Hillenburg btw. we didn't deserve him.) thank you for reading, hope this helps. and please, learn to understand the tropes of metaphors before you attempt to make the story of a generation. edit- adding a couple more things i forgot 7- "the darkness is going to destroy the land or whatever!" i see this used all the time. spooky wookey dark shadowy bits going to destroy a land and is the hero's generic bad thing to fight. stop it. it is not a deep and complex metaphor about depression or whatever the hell you are on about. its lazy and stupid. 8- a story should stand up on its own regardless if audience members understand the metaphor or not I don't like Gris. it is a very pretty game with lovely visuals But also the entire story is just the main character moping about artistically and shit and go on about how artistically sad and dramatic this all is. if i don't understand the story without understanding the metaphor, then your story and your metaphor sucks. an example of a metaphor done well: spiritfairer without the metaphor, it is a simple game about running a traveling boat. even if you didn't care too much about the deeper meaning it is a cute story and the gameplay is fun (spoiler) if you look deeper, it can also be taken as a metaphor about greif and learning to accept your loved ones will one day die. things like the boat being filled with empty houses you can't remove is a good example of this. (end of spoiler) your story needs to stand up on its own to be good. don't use a metaphor as a crutch.
I’m using these from now on
the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” is actually not the full phrase it actually is “curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back” so don’t let anyone tell you not to be a curious little baby okay go and be interested in the world uwu
sometimes i feel like a flower searching for sunlight in the soil.
My first animation I know it’s really short only 22 seconds actually. But I hope you guys like it anyway（´∀`）.
miguel: what’s a metaphor?
hawk: ‘my life’s a train wreck’
miguel: yeah, no shit, but what’s a metaphor?