Because I’m only seeing other Jews posting about this, non-Jews I need you to be aware that for the past month or two there has been a wave of bomb threats and swattings at synagogues all across the US. They usually do it when services are being livestreamed. I haven’t seen a single non-Jew talking about this. High holidays are coming up in a few weeks, which is when most attacks happen against our communities. We’re worried, and we need people to know what’s happening to us.
From my experience what these people actually want is confirmation that their experiences were normal and correct and that it’s the world that has gone wrong. That’s why confronting them with the fact that actually how they were treated was literally abuse makes them so upset, they don’t want to acknowledge that they were (and often still are) victims of people and systems outside their control. They were raised with the mindset that to admit something hurt you was a weakness. They were raised to believe that suffering through hardship silently is a sign of good character and strength. They want to be praised for being so strong, not sympathised with for being so hurt, they just don’t know what to do with that massive shift in perspective
a little more information regarding the maui wildfires:
medical workers on the ground are describing finding hundreds of bodies. the current death toll in the media is, unfortunately, only a fraction of the reality
hospital workers are describing injuries and trauma as if survivors had come out of a warzone
thousands are still missing
an apartment complex for the elderly was lost. not everyone could get out. people were saying goodbye to loved ones over the phone
people who did get out of lahaina were leaving with ashes covering their faces and nothing but the clothes on their backs. people are losing everything.
hotels are still operating. hotels are still operating. they are not the ones offering shelters or housing or food. even bowling alleys are offering shelter, but hotels have the audacity to build on burial sites but not open their doors to local families who have lost everything.
Hey if you work for a major company that you fucking hate, but they also have a Diversity, Inclusion, Culture Department… check if they offer donation matching.
Your $10 donation can turn into $20
Your $50 donation can turn into $100
I completely forgot until an org put it at the bottom.
“rap is the worst music genre” “no actually it’s soul” “no actually it’s jazz” “no actually it’s ska” “no actually it’s r&b” hey guys do you notice a common denominator in the genres you hate or is it just me
You are not writing a movie (ignore this if you are). The reader doesn’t need to know every word the characters say for the duration of the story. Less is more.
Dialogue can happen within the prose. “And they awkwardky discussed the weather for five minutes” is way better than actually writing five pages of dialogue about the weather.
Balance your dialogues. Surprise yourself with a monosyllabic answe to a dialogue that’s ten sentences long. Don’t be afraid of letting your character use half a page for a reply or nothing at all!
Don’t write accents phonetically, use slang and colloquialisms if needed.
Comma before “said” and no caps after “!?” unless it’s an action tag. Study dialogue punctuation.
Learn the difference between action tags and dialogue tags. Then, use them interchangeably (or none at all).
Don’t be afraid to use said. Use said if characters are just saying things, use another word if not. Simple. There’s no need to use fancy synonyms unless absolutely necessary.
Not everyone talks the same way so it makes sense for your characters to use certain words more often than others. Think of someone who says “like” to start every sentence or someone who talks really slow. Be creative.
Use prose to slow down the pace during a conversation.
Skip prose to speed up the pace during a conversation.
despair demons when they somersault away from you and you’re playing a melee fighter
despair demons that somersault so far away that when your melee fighter runs after them the rift they came out of resets
the quickbar with its only eight spaces
“requires deft hands, fine tools”
the specialisation trainers that won’t train you until you fucking open up a new area and go and capture a keep and then go back to skyhold to do a scouting operation and then go back to the area to finally pick up a shit piece of loot from a random enemy and they don’t even tell you where you can find the enemies
friendly reminder that characters don’t need to be saints to be entertaining. and telling a story does not mean endorsement. art does not need to be all about morally good people.
IDK if this was meant as hyperbole but it’s literally true:
We are genuinely in a crisis of media literacy, with ever fewer genuinely factual resources available in the style and language used by contemporary audiences.
It may sound condescending, but we genuinely need to remind people, or worse, explain to them for the first time that art is not evidence of real world behaviour.
So, thank you, for this reminder. Genuinely.
You’re correct:
Art does not need to feature exclusively morally pure characters. Art is not proof of the creator’s secret, violent desires.
