believemeitsbutter

[believemeitsbutter]

[believemeitsbutter]

please practice being excited about stuff.

yeah, I said "practice". remember how much joy there was in getting a new toy/book/game as a kid, and practice feeling that excitement again. a lot of us had that instinct squashed out of us, and you may not even know that you've internalized the idea that being excited and joyful isn't "mature" or "cool".

fuck that! let yourself experience joy and excitement! part of being an adult is learning that not only should you be able to feel anger/sadness/hard emotions without suppressing them, you have to do that for joy/excitement/wonder too.

let yourself feel unhindered, unbridled excitement!

[believemeitsbutter]

my brain produced the phrase “can’t get a moment of homoerotic peace” the other day and now i can’t stop saying it

[believemeitsbutter]

Mommy needs to be honest kitten. You're not a kitten, you're a puppy, I know. Actually, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. You've let this whole puppygirl thing completely take over our sex life and to be honest it's not really clear to me that you really enjoy it anymore. You really seem stuck in a short-term hedonic spiral from posting about it on tumblr and getting likes. And I know it's hard to get out of that kind of thing but it's really been getting out of control. You said "we're trying for puppies" to my best friend of 15 years. Seriously? How the fuck am I supposed to live that down? No one was laughing. The room was dead silent and I wanted to sink into the floor. And this was days after I was crying my eyes out over the infertility stuff. So you came across as kind of an asshole on top of it. Yeah, I know you didn't mean it like that but you can only point to "bourgeois morality" so many times before it starts to feel like you're just saying "I'm sorry you got offended" you know? Like every time I try to express that some basic social decorum is necessary to preserve relationships I care about you start misquoting Bakunin. And like look you have a lot of positive qualities but I don't think this is working anymore. We both know it hasn't been good for a long time.

[believemeitsbutter]

So my problem with most ‘get to know your character’ questioneers is that they’re full of questions that just aren’t that important (what color eyes do they have) too hard to answer right away (what is their greatest fear) or are just impossible to answer (what is their favorite movie.)  Like no one has one single favorite movie. And even if they do the answer changes.

If I’m doing this exercise, I want 7-10 questions to get the character feeling real in my head. So I thought I’d share the ones that get me (and my students) good results: 

What is the character’s go-to drink order? (this one gets into how do they like to be publicly perceived, because there is always some level of theatricality to ordering drinks at a bar/resturant)

What is their grooming routine? (how do they treat themselves in private)

What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)

Do they have any scars or tattoos? (good way to get into literal backstory) 

What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances? (Good way to get some *emotional* backstory in.) 

Are they an oldest, middle, youngest or only child? (This one might be a me thing, because I LOVE writing/reading about family dynamics, but knowing what kinds of things were ‘normal’ for them growing up is important.)

Describe the shoes they’re wearing. (This is a big catch all, gets into money, taste, practicality, level of wear, level of repair, literally what kind of shoes they require to live their life.)

Describe the place where they sleep. (ie what does their safe space look like. How much (or how little) care / decoration / personal touch goes into it.)

What is their favorite holiday? (How do they relate to their culture/outside world. Also fun is least favorite holiday.) 

What objects do they always carry around with them? (What do they need for their normal, day-to-day routine? What does ‘normal’ even look like for them.) 

[believemeitsbutter]

[believemeitsbutter]

[believemeitsbutter]

Writing is not about 'telling an epic story' or 'making something that will outlive you'. Writing is about going "You know what would be fucking awesome?" and then committing word crimes

[believemeitsbutter]

knitting tutorial made by a twenty-something knitting influencer: 18 min long, 12 of those minutes being the intro and a sponsor plug, they show the first few steps of the tutorial at the slowest speed known to man, they show the most important steps at a neck-break speed, they stop every five seconds to talk about what they just did, 40,000 comments filled with questions ranging from insightful to “how do i knit”, filmed with a camera that costs more than a car, the tutorial is incorrect.

knitting tutorial made by a seventy-something grandmother: two min long, filmed 17 years ago, shows you what you want with the skilled patient hands of a beloved deity, made with the world’s shittiest camera, the best video on the fucking internet, four comments and 30 views, you lose the video and never find it again.

[believemeitsbutter]

[believemeitsbutter]

[believemeitsbutter]

[believemeitsbutter]

#Literally stop tweeting things like "what do you said to them after filming this". It's just a movie, it's pretend. You're an adult you should know that.

[believemeitsbutter]

i hope that the discussion about student protests does not get reduced to "privileged rich kids faffing around at an ivy league school." setting aside that tenuous claim, over the last week, protests have erupted over the entire country. a few days ago, riot police beat, pepper-sprayed, and arrested NYU faculty shielding students; protests started at the university of southern california when the admin cancelled the valedictorian's speech; encampments appeared at the university of southern carolina, UT dallas, the university of maryland, the university of new mexico, IUPUI, virginia tech, the university of virginia, the university of illinois, the university of north carolina — chapel hill, the university of pittsburgh, uc berkeley, the university of michigan — ann arbor, MIT, emerson, tufts, the university of rochester, rice, swarthmore, the new school, vanderbilt university, with students arrested; students protested or walked out at miami university, northwestern, temple, the 5 claremont colleges: pomona, pitzer, scripps, harvey mudd, and claremont mckenna, stanford, washington university in st louis, students were arrested at ohio state, students were confronted by riot police at cal poly humboldt, after which they occupied campus, students were arrested at the university of minnesota — twin cities, after which faculty walked out; and yes, there are protests at the other ivies, most notably yale, with students facing mass arests after encampments, but there is also an encampment at brown, protests appeared at cornell, princeton faculty issued a statement of solidarity while students are preparing an encampment, and harvard banned the undergraduate palestine solidarity committee. there are thousands of students who are protesting for palestine across the entire country, facing harassment, arrest, and suspension in return

[believemeitsbutter]

Miss Congeniality (2000) dir. Donald Petrie

[believemeitsbutter]

"I could fix her" "I could make her worse" Well I could take her to build a bear

[believemeitsbutter]

love the word “dogmatic.” you’re so single-mindedly obedient that you’re like a little puppy dog about it