Reflecting on Neurodiversity & Personality

If you follow me on literally any of my social media, you probably know I have strong feelings against society's obsession with “curing” anyone who deviates even slightly from “the normal brain type.” What you might not know is that people often don't believe me when I say that my personality wouldn't even exist without …

Mune: Guardian of the Moon (2014) – Reviews of Unknown/Underrated Movies

Okay, I'm on a French movie hyperfocus since I discovered that this movie which we found on Netflix the other day and a couple of older movies I always loved were all made in France. I have two other reviews planned after this one (no, I'm not gonna redo my review of A Monster in …

Writing Tips – Letting Characters Create Themselves

I know, I know, characters don't ACTUALLY create themselves, but that's really the best way to describe when the best characters happen. Rule number one: STOP TRYING. As I said in my post about accidentally neurodiverse characters, if you TRY to make characters act a certain way, a lot of times you'll end up making …

Baby/Character Naming – Names With Bright Meanings

I'm using "bright" in both the literal (having to do with light itself) and figurative (positive/good/pleasant/etc.) senses, here. I won't provide meanings for names that are commonly used English words (if your first language is English and you don't know what they mean, you should seriously buy a dictionary). Yes, I count "warrior" as a …

Writing Tips – Accidentally Neurodiverse Characters

They say "write what you know," because you're more likely to write something convincing if you're familiar with the subject and/or you're interested in it. I, for example, would never want or be able to write a story about sports. I'm that person sitting off to the side on Super Bowl Sunday, stealing snacks from …

The Dark Crystal (1982) – Reviews of Unknown/Underrated Movies

Jim Henson's other gorgeous fantasy passion project; unfortunately, it seems to be pretty much guaranteed that even most of the few people who know about Labyrinth won't know about The Dark Crystal. I really, sincerely can't figure out why... I mean, obviously the special effects are a little less modern than the four-years-newer Labyrinth, but …

Baby/Character Naming – Lesser Known Variations of Common Names

Some names are so flipping popular there are different versions all over the world, but their being so popular can make a particular version sound painfully bland to the natives; or, sometimes, you might want to name a baby/character after someone, but they're the wrong sex. Either problem can be fixed by simply using a …

Baby/Character Naming – Word-Names Vs. “Real Names”

Modern English-speakers are pretty unique when it comes to names. Despite the fact that many OBSESS over the meanings of names when they're trying to name a baby or character, most don't realize that the names we think of as "real names," "only names" or "just a name" have meanings because they used to be …