fun funeral facts

  • embalming, the process of chemically preserving a corpse, is typically not required by law. unless you need to transport the body long-distance or postpone the burial, it’s 100% a vanity thing.
  • a body still rots in air-tight conditions. so "protective" or "sealed" caskets are basically a scam, and anything fancy like metal is a waste of money.
  • want a beautiful casket for a viewing, but think burning or burying an expensive piece of hardwood is a waste of money and trees? rentals exist.
  • you don't need a coffin for cremation. the minimum requirement is that the body be in a "cremation container," which is a simple cardboard box.
  • home funerals are an option. you don't need to hand the body over to a funeral home, and you can keep their involvement to a minimum.
  • natural burial sites exist. you can have your unembalmed body straight up thrown in the dirt to be tree food, if you want.
  • there are a lot of funeral homes that will prey on your ignorance and vulnerability in order to get as much money out of you as possible. they may imply optional certain services are legally mandatory, steer you away from cheaper options, charge additional costs for what's supposed to be all-inclusive services, etc.
  • one person's death is another person's profit. know your rights, do your research, and apply the same scrutiny you would to any other business.
Me: oh no, is TAZ gonna become a dark and gritty show now that they're playing Monster of the Week?
Justin: [gives his character a talking sword voiced by himself]
Clint: [establishes his character stole one of George Clooney's Oscars]
Justin: [makes his character the world's worst liar]
Clint: [requests his weapon be a magical nerf gun]
Justin: [asks an giant magical cat for a jetpack]
Clint: [tries to convince the sherrif he wants to film a promotional video of his son swimming with one of Michael Phelps' Olympic gold medals]
Justin: [decides the human form of a goatman who can only bleat out the word "pizza" looks exactly like Ryan Gosling]
Me: oh my sweet, sweet boys, please never change.
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Reblogged

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017. 

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too. 

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it. 

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

This is such a fabulous flip side of what I’ve always known about villians. That their biggest weakness is that they always assume their own motivations are the motives of others.

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