o/ Hey! I've made a sideblog, the-amber-scrawls! I'm putting all my writing and other creative stuff there, for ease of access both for myself and you all, though they will still be reblogged to my main here if you like it in all this clutter better, usually tagged with #my writing and/or, if they're not writing, #sideblogstuffs

(I'm also hoping it will be easier for me to ramble about my countless AUs and things, if I have a place specifically for them lol)

That is all, thank you for your attention!

hi i’m here to talk about characters with aches

aches from old injuries. finicky battle wounds, stiff joints from being restrained in captivity - things that their body never erased, pain that reminds them every day of what they went through. maybe it’s obvious, like a limp, or maybe it’s something that is only clear with early morning stretches and groans. maybe the aches grow worse in rainy weather, or when they think about the injury that caused the soreness.

a character who has to live with aches, and the painful memories behind them.

“it’s a good thing that the minecraft movie isn’t about the intense loneliness of minecraft’s world and finding growth and hope in a post-apocalyptic society because it’s for children” Have You Ever Spoken To A Child

Got another poster design that I made for my wall- I actually like this one so this one is definitely going up. Anyways, the poster is made to look like the ‘Heathers’ poster and as a fan of both Last Life and Heathers, I thought it fit. I added the glitches for fun as I thought it looked nice.

Anyway the thought about Christianity was a tangent, I was actually thinking about ranking Fall Out Boy songs by how far back in time you could go before the lyrics were completely unintelligible due to untranslatable cultural differences.

"Uma Thurman" is partially unintelligible even to me (I have next to no idea who Uma Thurman is) but I feel like it would be a good example to help explain what cultural Christianity is, because the amount of song lyrics that would make zero sense if you didn't know what Christianity was is always way higher than you think it is

This is also a good exercise in estimating just how much we, as modern readers, are missing in ancient texts

Imagine explaining this to an ancient Sumerian. They don't have July, let alone the Fourth of it, and the significance of that date and the connection to fireworks requires you to explain everything from gunpowder to the concept of a nation.

I like "This is a black, black ski mask song" from Novocaine because even a historian that knew what skiing was might not necessarily know what the significance of a ski mask is here.

"I Don't Care" is almost timeless though. I'm pretty sure an ancient Roman would "get" most of it.

Same with "Alone Together." "My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broke in?" Perfectly understandable for someone a couple thousand years ago.

"The Mighty Fall" is an interesting case because you could envision trying to explain "Your crooked love is just a pyramid scheme" to an ancient Egyptian

Trying to do this with Owl City makes you appreciate just how MUCH clever wordplay is in Owl City lyrics, because you're like "SO MUCH would definitely get completely lost in any attempt to translate, but I can't even break it all down"

owl city lyrics have a habit of punning on idioms, which probably is the worst for historical longevity. In "Plant Life" there's the lyric "new leaf turns over, unwilling to fall" which is referring to the speaker's reluctance to let go of the past and move on. this is both playing with the idiom "turn over a new leaf" meaning to start something new, and creating the image of a literal leaf reluctant to fall from the tree (as leaves do in fall, as part of the natural progression of seasons).

Also from the song Plant Life

so, there's "spirit" and "ghost," but neither actually mean in context the same thing that they mean when they do mean they same thing, and "pull off your sheet," which is a reference to sheets being used as a ghost costume. then there is the concept of a "teddy [bear]" and "grin and bear it" which is punning on "teddy" referencing a bear. this is kind of brilliant but incomprehensible

Would the wordplay in "Get me out of this cavern or I'll cave in" in "Cave In" necessarily be intelligible when translated for a future historian or person from the distant past

By the way, Cave In is at the top of my minecraft themed playlist because it mentions the largest number of things that are in Minecraft that I have found in a song

You'll have the most fun if you assume that what technology is and does can be explained to your listener, and focus purely on cultural and linguistic barriers

In the song "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga, knowing what a garage is and is for does not help you understand what it means to be "garage glamorous" at all.

Sometimes the barrier isn't not knowing what something is, it's knowing what something is like.

Speaking of Lady Gaga, Poker Face is great for this

Listen, *I* barely know how poker is played. But I still know that the first line references a variant (?) of poker called Texas hold 'em. There are so many double meanings here. "After he's been hooked" probably references gambling, and "I'll play the one that's on his heart" references the fact that "hearts" are one of the four suits in traditional playing cards.

Imagine not knowing any of this. Now imagine knowing all of this—does that actually let you understand what a "poker face" is?

I go back in time, I try to show an ancient Sumerian some bangers from the future, I end up stuck explaining the complex legal and cultural status of gambling in the United States, fuck time travel honestly

Songs that make roughly the same amount of sense to nearly everyone regardless of their position in history

  • almost everything by Cosmo Sheldrake
  • the devil went down to georgia (look, this story conceptually has nothing to do with the Christian Devil specifically and everything to do with a type of folklore character who is just Like That)
  • Hurt by Johnny Cash (i know it's a cover, I don't care)
  • American Pie by Don McLean (come on, does ANYONE actually understand this song?)
  • Bohemian Rhapsody
  • About Damn Time by Lizzo
  • Boom Clap by Charli XCX

It helps that most songs throughout history are about roughly the same things:

  • the level of partying and getting lit that will happen tonight will be greater than it ever has been before
  • a hot girl was dancing and it blew all of our minds
  • There was a guy that did so much crazy stuff and boy was he a guy
  • I met a fucked up guy who was dead or a demon or something
  • I went to a fucked up place that was haunted or something
  • my lover's butt is just the best
  • we're drinking SO much alcohol
  • I miss my lover, who is not with me right now, so much and I'm sitting here thinking of holding them but I can't and it's making me SO sad
  • You broke my heart and I hate you now 
  • I can't wait to get back to the land that is my home
  • There was a hot girl one time and trust me, she was really something
  • this job sucks
  • What if [completely nonsensical scenario]

See this is fascinating because we're already leaving the time in history where people understand things like "meaner than a junkyard dog" but the Archetype still works

"You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC has some specific cultural references, but people throughout history would Get It okay

what's being highlighted here I think is "technical meaning is understandable, but emotional/thematic meaning is completely obscure" untranslatable things vs. "technical meaning is obscure but the song still Hits" untranslatable

I think "fast car" by tracy chapman could make sense to someone who doesn't actually know what a car is. Like, it's clear from context regardless that the car is a symbol for the opportunity to escape the circumstances you were born into and feel trapped in

Oh yeah i could write an essay about how Adam Young has a specifically autistic way of writing lyrics

Quick aside: American Pie is very very understandable if you have an intimate and meticulous knowledge of USA 20th century history or if you were cognizant between about 1959 and 1985. But again, a lot of it is metaphor and allusion that is very specific to a time and place (with the exception of the last verse imho)

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

other things I'm bitching about but which could still be useful as writing advice for 1 eyed characters:

2. they're going to favor their sighted side, obviously, but it doesn't always manifest in the way you think. when I walk down a hall I walk much closer to the wall on my sighted side than on my blind side. which is the opposite of how it might seem logical to do that bc it means the world at large is on your bad side, but the reason is I can't fucking See the wall if it's right next to me in the blind side and I end up knocking into it.

3. door frames and poles are my enemy. If your character is smart this will not be a problem but for me it is. I am King of walking into shit I could absolutely see but couldn't tell how far away from me it was. on this note, their blind side hand is getting bashed into every jutting out thing in a 5 mile radius.

4. having 0 depth perception is less of a big deal than you'd think it is. Especially with driving. I've become a Much safer and more wary driver because I can't tell how far the other cars are from me. however I fucking suck at parking now. because I can't tell how far the lines are from me either.

5. you know how people who lose limbs get phantom pains? that happens with eyes too but like. phantom sights. for me it's like. a lot of bugs. like every so often my brain will just put something suddenly skittering beside me there. hate that.

6. it is completely possible to "get stuck" somewhere because your ability to tell how wide a space is is just Gone. shopping isles especially where bumping something or Someone is matter of embarrassment or potentially breaking something. it can be legitimately paralyzing and also irritate everyone around you because they can tell there is Plenty of space for you to get your cart through even if you can't.

7. if the eye is still in their skull it can still be the normal kind of painful. Glares off of shiny surfaces causing weird sharp pains you can't figure out the cause of are genuinely one of gods greatest tests of my patience.

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