what up, I’m mae, I’m 19 and I never fucking learned how to read | SHE/HER | AO3 FANATIChttps://maeswriting.carrd.co
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Latest Posts by mae-mae-me - Page 3
Jazz is an Al Ghul.
She should have know something was up when the seventh ninja cosplayer tried to kill her. But with her life it honestly wasn't even a blip on her rader.
Sure, it was odd.
But not as odd as her parents being ghost hunters.
However ninja wannabes were one thing, guy in furry suit showing up on her doorstep saying "I am your father, Luke." Was another.
Jazz could practically smell the trauma wafting off her so called new family members (half of her believes it's fake, she's been tricked before.)
And is having her siblings not die too much to ask for?
how did jk manage to write ootp and not come to the conclusion that the only career w any true meaning for harry james potter was as a goddamn professor at hogwarts like how do u write the da scenes and say “nah he’d want to be a wizard cop”
how did jk manage to write ootp and not come to the conclusion that the only career w any true meaning for harry james potter was as a goddamn professor at hogwarts like how do u write the da scenes and say “nah he’d want to be a wizard cop”
WOAH WTF
Scary Potter 1. …and the Sorcerer’s Stone 2. …and the Chamber of Secrets 3. …and the Prisoner of Azkaban 4. …and the Goblet of Fire 5. …and the Order of the Phoenix (added 3/17/17) 6. …and the Half-Blood Prince (added 8/24/17) 7 …and the Deathly Hallows (added 2/15/18)
by DylanPierpont
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I can never understand how Snape apologetics can stand up for him when he CANONICALLY does this shit.
I can maybe, maybe, understand those who haven’t read the books standing up for him, because honestly the movies don’t cover all the horrible stuff he does. But those who have read the books and still stick up for him baffle me.
I mean, you don’t see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do the same stuff to Harry as Snape. How is Snape any different?
friendly reminder that Harry Potter
at eleven, was described by his teachers as ‘bright’
at the same age, according to the Sorting Hat: “Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes” and “You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head”
mastered the challenging Patronus Charm at thirteen and proceeded to teach it at fifteen
resisted the Imperius Curse at fourteen and soon learned to throw it off completely, even when cast by the incredibly powerful Voldemort
also at fourteen, learned to cast a powerful Accio Charm
at fifteen, was training other students
at the same age, under extreme stress, tested as ‘exceeds expectations’ or ‘outstanding’ in every subject that required actual magic (including the dreaded Potions)
same age, cast a briefly effective Cruciatus Curse
at sixteen, became a star Potions student simply by following superior instructions
at seventeen, successfully cast the Imperius Curse on his first try, and used it repeatedly
at the same age, cast a successful Cruciatus Curse
Read More
We might have misunderstood Hogwarts Houses for years
I have a theory that the valued quality of each of the four Houses isn’t really about the personality of its students.
The valued quality of each of the four Houses has to do with how they perceive magic.
Stick with me a second: Hogwarts is a school to study magic. Magic as Hogwarts teaches it can be seen as many things: a natural talent, a gift, a weapon, etc.
So how you believe magic should be used will both reflect your personality and change how you handle that power.
“Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart,” Gryffindors perceive magic as a weapon. Gryffindors tend to excel in aggressive forms of magic, like offensive and defensive spells, and they are good at dueling. But a true Gryffindor knows that the power is a responsibility, and so they must always use their powers to stand up for what’s right. They are the sword of the righteous, which makes them as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as they are at combat magic.
Hufflepuffs believe that magic is a gift and that the best gifts are to be given away. Hufflepuffs, “loyal and just,” would naturally abhor the idea of jealously guarding magic or using it to hurt someone else. So Hufflepuffs share their magic to benefit of Muggles, like the Fat Friar, to protect the overlooked, like Newt Scamander with his creatures, or to oppose those who would use magic to torment and bully, like the Hufflepuffs who stood with the DA and the battle of Hogwarts.
Slytherins are the opposite: they believe their magic is a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect. The Slytherin fascination with purity, with advantage, with cunning and secrecy–all of which were perverted by the Death Eaters–comes from the idea that people with magic in their veins have been given something special that it is their duty to protect at all costs. And perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong: power in the wrong hands can be dangerous. And power interfering at will with Muggle affairs is a gross presumption that could turn the course of history. Though the series shows some of the worst that Slytherin can be, “evil,” is not a natural Slytherin tendency. “Cautious,” is.
Ravenclaws believe that magic is an art form, one that is beautiful and should be appreciated and studied for its own sake. If “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” then asking what magic is for is useless. It’s more important to immerse oneself in magic for its own sake. Ravenclaws push the boundaries of magic to see if they can, hence Hermione’s spell experiment on the DA coins being dubbed a Ravenclaw quality, but like Luna Lovegood in the pursuit of extraordinary creatures: they can also be content to plumb the depths of what already exists.
So while you can see where personalities will overlap over Houses, perhaps in Sorting we should be asking ourselves less what we think we are and more what we think we believe.
LMAOOOOOO
Do you ever think about how when Ron’s wand broke 2nd year, just using spell-o-tape wasn’t enough to fix it. It kept backfiring in ways that were really bad, like making himself eat slugs, or kinda just. being defective in general.
Hagrid’s wand was snapped his 3rd year. But he still uses it, disguised as an umbrella. And it works.
Like we know Ollivander didn’t fix it, since he was surprised to hear Hagrid had the pieces. Not to mention since Hagrid was expelled, it would be extremely illegal to fix it. Hogwarts works as a groundskeeper, and lives in a one room wooden hut that he made himself. He’s not going to have the money to ribe someone to fix it, and then there’s also the fact that because of his heritage, even if he could bribe someone to fix it, they probably wouldn’t. And sure, Dumbledore probably knows that Hagrid fixed his wand, there’s a certain level of deniability there. He wouldn’t have actually gotten involved with the wand mending process. Especially when Hagrid was just accused of killing a student.
So that means Hagrid would have put his wand back together himself.
The 3rd year transfiguration examination was to turn a teapot into a tortoise. Only inanimate objects into animals. Part of the reason animagi are so rare is because they’re human to animal transformations. The first time we meet Hagrid, he gives Dudley a tail, and correctly animates the boat he and Harry are on. Silently.
Harry and co. didn’t even attempt to learn silent casting until 6th year. Anything Hagrid learned after 3rd year would have been self taught.
Hagrid is one powerful wizard and holy shit combined with his resistance to magic with his giant heritage forget McGonagall holy shit Hagrid is terrifying
The thing is—The thing is kin-slaying is a big thing.
Not a small big thing either—stealing from someone, marrying a rival, falling from social grace, even straight-up killing someone; all of that falls leagues beneath kin slaying.
It is the sort of thing that is abhorrent, never spoken about and yet understood. It is—well, there’s really no describing such visceral horror at the action.
It curdles the blood. Settles in the bones. It is something that is seen, known. There is no atonement for it. No repentance, no asking forgiveness. The doors of heaven—yours, mine, his, hers—are closed to you forevermore.
But the question is this. If kin-slaying—a crime that shifts the air, warps the world like it has been proven to do, forces you to bear the weight of Atlas (and then some); if this act is so monstrous, then why do I not feel an ounce of shame?
Why—do I look at the blood on my hands, the corpse at my feet, and feel nothing at all?
I HATE GEN AI I HATE GEN AI I HATE IT I HATE ITTTTTTT
ITS SO PAINFULLY OBVIOUS WHEN YOU USE IT. ITS HORRIBLE. ITS DESTRUCTIVE TOWARDS THE EARTH. ITS LITERALLY DESTROYING YOUNGER KID’S MIND I HATE IT IGHHHHHH!!
this rant came by because I use em-dashes and PROPER PUNCTUATION and apparently i’m using AI. I AM NOT.
YES YES YES. THIS. I LOVE WHEN THEY HAVE TO GROVEL. WHEB THEY HAVE TO PLEAD. I LOVE TIME-TRAVEL MANHWAS FOR THIS EXACT REASON
As someone who is convinced that everyone is always mad at me for the smallest slights and secretly hate me, there is nothing more satisfying than the "misassigned blame"/ "misunderstanding" trope when it's done right
I don't want misunderstandings based on romance drama. I want to see everyone assuming Character has done (terrible thing) and acting according, only to realise Character is ACTUALLY the real victim in this situation and has never done anything wrong ever and actually deserves all the love and kindness in the world and now they need to go and apologise/ grovel for treating Character coldly. Everyone collectively deciding Character is free of blame and actually so strong for withstanding so much and needs to be showered with love/ care?? That's the real wish fulfilment, babey !!
TIL that a recent study out of the University of Kansas found that it takes about 50 hours of socializing to go from acquaintance to casual friend, an additional 40 hours to become a “real” friend, and a total of 200 hours to become a close friend.
via reddit.com
What do you think a genderswapped Harry Potter (Harriet Potter?) would've been like?
So to start... I actually don't think life at the Dursleys would be all that different for Fem!Harry. Maybe there would be less *violent* bullying from Vernon and Dudley... but they honestly don't manage all that much as it is, and Harry's "normal" abuse mostly consists of being shouted at, locked up, treated as a scullery maid, and just generally made into a scapegoat + inferior/problem child that the rest of the family can unite around. If anything, Fem!Harry would have just reminded Petunia even MORE of Lily, and stirred up even MORE complicated emotions. And we'd get even more of live-in chef/maid Cinderella!Harry. It would all feel very Matilda.
The first big change I see happening... is I don't think Ron would have bonded with Harry on the train nearly as easily, if she were a girl. Young Ron is honestly pretty uncomfortable/awkward around girls... unless he's able to put them into a category like "little sister" (which doesn't count.) Or "know-it-all" (which doesn't count.) It's kind of a plot point in Book 4 that it takes him a while to realize Hermione and Ginny are girls he and Harry could potentially ask to the dance. Ron grew up around a bunch of guys, and you can tell. I think he'd try to *impress* Fem!Harry on the train, and probably put his foot in his mouth.
Harry would be at kind of loose ends on the Hogwarts Express, and get sucked into the search for Trevor the toad as something to do. So in this version, she actually ends up bonding with Neville. Hermione would be there too but well - Hermione rubbed Harry the wrong way at first in canon, and it would be even more the case here. They're both (functionally) muggleborn girls - but Hermione is SO much better prepared, and has SUCH loving parents, and won't shut up about any of this. In a way that Canon!Harry kind of fixates on Draco for ending up with his Ideal Life, it's possible that Fem!Harry might fixate more on Hermione.
11-year-old Draco would have treated Fem!Harry exactly the same, meeting her at Madame Malkin's and later on the train. He'd still have his obsession with her, and yeah, it probably does read as more of a crush to his Slytherin buddies... but I really do not see that stopping him. If his father can't get him to be normal to Harry, then that's just how it's going to be.
Harry will still get Sorted into Gryffindor, but I don't see her being close with any of the the other Gryffindor girls. Lavender and Parvati just have very different personalities, and Harry and Hermione... are very intense people who work best when they're able to take breaks from each other. In Book 4 when Harry is exclusively hanging out with Hermione, he comments that she's not as *fun* as Ron. And we see that dynamic again in Book 7 when it's just the two of them in the tent. Like they're incredibly effective, but seem to be wearing each other down a little. I think that forcing young (less emotionally mature) Harry and Hermione to be roommates would just end up with them getting on each other's nerves.
Hermione might get pulled into the friend group when Harry and Neville need help researching Nicholas Flamel, but she could easily stay more of a supporting character or even a frenemy in this version. Fem!Harry would still be the youngest seeker in a century. (Draco would be even more motivated to steal Neville's Remembrall if Neville is Harry's best friend... so that face-off would have gone down exactly the same.) Once she's actually on the team, I could see her falling in more with the upperclassmen, and hanging out with Fred, George, Lee, and Angelina (especially if they put together that she's a bit lonely.) It could be Harry, Neville, maybe Hermione, maybe the twins solving the puzzles at the end of Book 1. They'd still suspect Snape, who... would honestly be just a slightly different flavor of antagonistic and weird towards Harry, if she were a girl.
But in second year, Ginny would be Sorted into Gryffindor and I do think that Fem!Harry and Ginny would get along great, absolutely be bros. They could bond over quidditch, and Harry would get more of a sense of Ginny's actual personality (funny, cool). I have to think 11-year-old Ginny would be much less awkward around Harry if she were a girl.
Which would be really intense actually, because Ginny would have shown up to school with the the Diary, and it's... sort of important to the plot that she's isolated and has no friends. If she shares it with Harry as a cool thing - then Harry is ABSOLUTELY going to get obsessed with it. And since Harry's a much better *get* for Tom (Tom talks about being *so* pleased when powerful, important, future nemesis Harry starts writing to him instead of Ginny...) I think you just get Possessed!Harry opening up the Chamber of Secrets.
Also, would Harry have a crush on Tom? We know that Tom Riddle tries to impress Canon!Harry, which doesn't work... but Fem!Harry he might try to charm. Tom can be very charming if he wants to be. Harry also thinks he's very handsome. Either way, Tom is going to work VERY hard to to get Harry to distrust her friends. Really, you'd just get Harry's plot about being isolated and possessed by Voldemort in Book 5 moved to Book 2. Tom would get Harry to write "her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever" on the wall, and lure her down to the Chamber of Secrets.
However. I do think that Lily's magic, which makes it impossible for Voldemort to physically touch Harry, would also make it impossible for him to properly drain her life and take over her body. I'm thinking of the moment at the end of Book 5 where Voldemort tries to possess Harry, but Harry fights him off. So... I think Harry just wakes up in the Chamber of Secrets with an intact Diary and a basilisk she can control, since of course she's still a parselmouth.
The question is... what happens to the Diary, now that Harry knows it's dangerous? I'm thinking that when Harry disappears, Ginny freaks out and tells one of her older brothers what's going on, who tells Arthur, who tells Dumbledore. Which leaves Dumbledore with a Horcrux that still works... and it seems like if you've got school-age Tom Riddle right there, that would be a much easier way to get an answer to the question 'how many horcuxes do you plan on making?' So Dumbledore gets a head start on that project.
Harry now effectively just is the Heir of Slytherin. She can go to the Chamber whenever she wants, and the basilisk is her familiar I guess (Hagrid would LOVE helping her take care of it.) I could also see a Harry who gets more *interested* in Salazar Slytherin after this. She definitely wouldn't talk to Draco - he spent Book 2 being an asshat and calling people slurs. But Harry might try to pick Theo's brain or something.
Now Hermione. At first I was thinking - does Hermione just die, in Book 2? Would she have known to look around corners with a mirror, and so survive her basilisk attack?
I do think she'd still figure it out... and it's because of Lockhart. Hermione is a Gilderoy Lockhart *fangirl,* and without Ron and Harry poo-pooing her crush (and without first hand experience of Lockhart causing issues for Harry...) I think she's able to geek about about this with her roomies. I mean, Lavender and Parvati read Witch Weekly. They know he's won the Most Charming Smile award. Hermione likes a project, and without Harry and Ron providing one, I think her new thing is impress Lockhart. And what would impress Lockhart? Well, he's a monster hunter who is trying to find the Chamber of Secrets and identify what's inside. How cool would it be, if they were the ones who helped him? He'd write about them in his next book.
So I think the Polyjuice Potion plan (Hermione's idea) is still a go. She might even talk Lavender and/or Parvati into helping out. (I mean, they joined the DA. They're up for some rulebreaking.) Hermione would still turn herself into a cat, which would actually massively humanize her in the eyes of her roommates, and I think they all end up much better friends in this AU. Eventually, one of them does manage to Polyjuice into Pansy, which is a much more effective way of interrogating Draco. And by this point, Hermione has met Myrtle, and has enough info to solve the mystery, and even bring her findings to Lockhart. Who ah. Finds an excuse to just run. There's a very fun portion of the year where Dumbledore teaches DADA.
I don't see all that much about Book 3 changing until the climax - because the crew Harry takes down to Hagrid's after dark *would* be different. Neville, Ginny (not the Twins - I think they give Harry the Map and peace out, they've got their own stuff going on and don't want to hang out with their much younger sister.) Maybe Theo? I could see him taking on a very Hermione-ish support role by this point.
But this also causes a problem, because if Ron isn't there, Scabbers isn't with him. And if Scabbers isn't with Ron - I don't think Remus notices Peter on the map, and so just stays inside and drinks his Wolfsbane, which means Snape doesn't go down. And since Sirius' target was never *actually* Harry... I think this is just a universe where Sirius first-degree-murders Peter, and doesn't have a confrontation with Harry at all.
I do think Voldemort still comes back though. Trelawney would still have made her prophecy ("His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight... the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master.") In this universe, that prophecy would refer to Barty jr, finally throwing off the Imperius curse for the first time.
Bertha Jorkins still goes on her trip to Albania, and... Voldemort probably just possesses her the same way he did Quirrell. I bet that's easier to do after someone's been sort of fried by a memory wipe. Also, being in her head, I have to assume he's eventually gets some inkling of the fact that Barty is still alive, and so goes looking for him. Harry still goes to the Quidditch World Cup since she's friends with Ginny, her scar is still hurting (she probably writes to Lupin about this, instead of Sirius, but Lupin gives her pretty similar advice. He will have still left Hogwarts, because Snape would still have outed him as a werewolf at the end of the year.)
Harry still ends up as Champion. I think Big Sister Fleur would be a little more protective of Fem!Harry than Canon!Harry. And also... Harry just straight-up has a crush on handsome, nice, good at Quidditch Cedric. Rita could write about the Harry/Cedric/Cho love triangle, instead of Harry/Hermione/Krum.
The Yule Ball would actually be kind of a big deal for Fem!Harry. Up until now, she's been kind of a tomboy who wears Dudley's hand-me-downs... and is occasionally forced into some terrible 'party dress' when Aunt Marge visits. Harry's best friends are a boy and a tomboy, her quidditch teammates are feminine role-models but very much athletes: 'girly' hyper-femininity is something she associates with Aunt Petunia.
But, fourth year roles around. Mrs. Weasley buys her a set of emerald-green dress robes that actually look really nice, and she needs to find a date for the ball. I think she thinks about asking Cedric... but chickens out at the last minute, and asks Neville to go with her as a friend. Between her much more girly roommates, and Fleur taking pity on her and giving her some tips... I think Hermione's big Yule Ball glow-up is also Harry's first experience with wanting to look pretty, and succeeding.
I think it would be fun, and make sense, if this lead into a little secret admirer subplot. Someone is leaving her little gifts and messages, and she's thinking - is it Neville? Theo? Cedric?
(it was Draco. Instead of the blast-ended skrewts, Hagrid has them all taking care of Harry's basilisk, and like... she has a basilisk... she's the Heir of Slytherin... she asked Longbottom to the ball when she could do so much better... she was wearing green and looking perfect. Draco's Harry obsession has sorted itself out into a very serious crush.)
Back to the main plot. With Peter dead, I'm not sure Barty would be able to take care of Voldemort AND prep the ritual to bring him back to life AND impersonate Moody. He's going to need a man on the inside. I think at first he tries to use his father - but as we know that is going to get very risky very fast, because Barty Sr is remarkably good at fighting the Imperius curse, and also just knows way too much. He's a huge risk, because if he goes rouge, he'll tell Dumbledore everything (which is very nearly what happens.)
So I think Barty Jr. targets Barty Sr.'s assistant Percy Weasley, after he can no longer control his father. Uses him as a way to affect things in Hogwarts. He might imperius him, but he also might just like... Polyjuice himself into his father for short periods, and manipulate Percy in a non-magical way to make sure he helps Harry, and gets her through the maze to the cup first. Once Percy realizes what he's done... I think he re-commits to his family in penance, and stops being a such a Ministry man.
Voldemort rising works as kind of a reset button, so things would start looking a lot more canon again, only with Ron and Hermione swapped out for Ginny and Neville. Main difference being, Voldemort has Barty now. I absolutely think he would have survived Book 4.
So I'm going to leave this what-if here for now. Thanks for the ask, this was a lot of fun to think about.
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
Commission for @giveemhales
Thank you for your donation! I had sm fun with these
some drawings of jason i did from twt<3333
I think Duke should be immortal in the "cannot die" sense and Jason should be immortal in the "cannot stay dead" sense and that they should keep this a secret from everyone including each other. And then they should both get caught in a situation that Absolutely Should Kill Them Instantly, miraculously not die, and then be like:
Like Jason shields Duke from some massive explosion or something, and Duke is horrified because he thinks Jason just pointlessly sacrificed himself for someone who would've been fine anyway - only for Jason to very casually come back from the dead, look at a completely unscathed Duke Thomas, and go, "Hey, what the fuck."
And Duke should look at a freshly revived Jason Todd and be like, "Me what the fuck? No you what the fuck."
And they end up both agreeing to not say a word about this to the rest of the Bats. Which poses issues. Because here you have a pair of unhinged vigilante siblings that do not fear death, that additionally now know they don't have to fear each other's deaths either, both unwilling to give anything less than everything they have to do what they think is right (and/or what they really, really want to).
So. Some things that happen in consequence:
Duke throws Jason off a fifty-story building in pursuit of some shoplifting rich asshole that was caught on camera insulting Duke's favorite metal band and being a classist fuck about it. This does, incidentally, re-traumatize Nightwing, who was ten feet away and not prepared to see his little brother yeeted off the side of a building, no grapple in sight - but it also traumatizes the shoplifter when Jason lands right in front of him, grotesquely knits himself back together, and rises from the ground in a distinctly horrifying fashion just to beat the shit out of him. So Duke takes the win.
Jason shoots Duke in the head to get him to stop shining light in his eyes in the middle of a gunfight. He does stop, but only because Batman shows up out of nowhere, and now Duke gets to pretend to be grievously injured while Batman yells at Jason about "self-control" and "maturity" and "putting teammates at risk." Meanwhile Duke is playing up this horrible concussion that he doesn't even have. Jason is seething. (Duke gets checked out at Leslie's. They convince her to lie for them by appealing to her inner petty bitch.)
Jason gets his payback a few months later by poisoning himself at an undercover op and subsequently forcing Duke to drag his dead body around a mob-owned nightclub for like half an hour trying to convince seasoned criminals that this brick shithouse of a man sprawled awkwardly across his back is just... really wasted. Totally not a corpse.
Both Jason and Duke get caught in many, many, many explosions after that initial reveal, and it's always terrifying for the rest of the Bats. It gets to a point where Batman refuses to partner Duke and Jason together for literally anything, because they always act fucking insane. Big metal vehicle moving hundreds of miles an hour towards an unsuspecting civilian? That's okay! Jason will just throw Duke in front if it. Unknown, volatile substance potentially being used by a notorious serial killer to murder his victims? No lab testing required! Duke will just pour a whole pint of the stuff on Jason's bare arm to see how it reacts. Bomb that can't be disarmed? Why wait for backup when these two psychopaths can just grab the thing and jump into the harbor? Like, genuinely. The stress. Bruce is one particularly traumatic incident away from actually considering therapy.
Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:
A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin
A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans
A clock that isn’t 24-hours
More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know
Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain
Multiple moons/no moon
Planetary rings
A northern lights effect, but near the equator
Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks
Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals
Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands
The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage
No concept of virginity or bastardry
More than 2 genders/no concept of gender
Monotheism, but not creationism
Gods that don’t look like people
Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats
Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot
Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom
“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls
A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language
A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)
I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
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KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
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Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
MATH AND SCIENCE
FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
PLAYS
ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE
Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
HISTORY AND CULTURE
LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.
RARE BOOKS
Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.
MYSTERY
MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.
POETRY
The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
MISC
Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
I understand the appeal of wanting every adult hero to instinctively adopt teenage Peter Parker, but can it really beat the hilarity of acknowledging that at 15 Peter was 5'10", unusually buff, went by a moniker with Man in it, wore a creepy full face mask, and had a tightly guarded secret identity and probably a Queens accent thick enough to have come out of a jello mold, and adult heroes reasonably responded to him by going, “Wow, this grown man is an immature asshole for no reason.”
Updated version of Boy Who Cried Wolf but there are actual wolves every single time and no one ever believes the boy - they get closer and closer every time he tries to warn them, until it's too late and the whole town screams at the boy for not warning them "enough", and blame him for the wolves at their door.
How fucking annoying is it when you feel so restless with creative energy but you can’t decide what to do with it and when you finally try to create something it comes out shit so you just give up and sit there being all creatively annoyed and jittery.