Writing fanfic as a non-US citizen like

In case anyone actually wants to know the answer: it’s the plot of Cars. The difference is literally the plot of Cars.

Highways are usually two-to-four (at the widest) lane roads that meander the US landscape. Think Route 66, dinosaur statues, mom-and-pop diners, southern gothic. There are state-level and national-level highways. Some run for a 100 miles, some, like US HWY-17, run most of the East Coast:

That red line is US HWY 17. If you follow it, you will go through tiny towns. You may hit stoplights. I kid you not, you will see spinning cows on poles. Businesses exist along highways that you are encouraged to pull over and visit. They were designed to let you see America.

Yeah.

Now, interstates were made in the 50s and were made to get people from Point A to Point B. These suckers range from four lanes to eight lanes around big cities. They cut through everything. If you want to get to a business, you have to take an exit ramp and detour. They are great for getting places fast. You can still have weird experiences on them, but usually at night, when your eyes start playing tricks on you. Or there are deer.

I-95 is a massive corridor that runs from the Florida Keys to the Canadian Border. You can see the difference just looking at the maps.

As far as writing goes:

If you want quirky character development inside the car, you’re looking for an interstate. The majority of Americans take interstates to go on road trips.

If you want mysterious and/or supernatural hijinks, you’re looking for a highway. They are weird, weird places, and they’re surprisingly easy to wind up on if you leave the interstate.

(Even in America, no one’s really sure what a freeway is. Just ignore it.)

Freeways exist in big cities where cars are more prominent than public transport, such as LA or Atlanta. You’ve year of liminal spaces? Freeways during rush hour are a physical manifestation of hell.

Awesome! Now what the hell is a turnpike?

If you find out, let me know. Maybe ask someone from New Jersey.

A turnpike is a highway with a toll. Turnpikes are special highways where you drive really fast and it’s usually linking big cities with each other and you keep going until you hit a toll booth.

They’re called “turnpikes” because in the olden days, there were pikes or barriers up and you had to pay the toll for them to be raised or turned to let you in.

Also, just for the record, Hawaii does have interstates.

For everyone who didn’t want to know, expressways are a form of highway that connect both suburban areas and major interstates to a city They often have both an alphanumerical name and a colloquial name In Philly we have the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76)

Would like to add that highways and mainly interstates were made specifically so THE MILITARY could get from Point A to Point B. This combined with a post-WWII boost in the economy and car industry gave Americans the ability to tour the country on their own for the first time ever. A whole chunk of American culture was created by just expanding the road system.

Think about road systems and other systems of travel when worldbuilding!

All this being said, most East Coast US people will refer to all of these things interchangeably as “highways”/”the highway.”

Another note for non-USians trying to write a road trip story – if your characters would definitely be taking the interstate, but you want them on a highway in order for the supernatural shenanigans to start (or whatever), the solution is very simple: they hit a traffic jam. Could be due to construction, could be due to an accident, but traffic slows to a crawl and they say “there’s gotta be a way around this” and take the next exit. Then it turns out their cell phone has no coverage in that spot so they can’t just pull up a map, and VOILA. Into the Twilight Zone! One of the things about an interstate is that USUALLY, there’s an exit and an entrance right by each other, so you can exit, find a gas station or a place to grab lunch near the exit, then get right back on, but this is not always the case. Sometimes there’s an exit, but nowhere nearby to get back on.

I just want to add that there’s a slightly different vibe if you’re in the midwest. Because cities on the coasts are closer together, the interstate is just a super efficient point A to point B, city to city, no interruptions.

In the midwest, and I expect the southwest, to the interstate can get some real wonky vibes because YOU ARE ALONE. You are on one black strip of neverending road across hours and hours and hours of alone. You can drive very fast for a very long time and not see signs of another human being. Sometimes the alone-ness is added to by the sheer flatness of the land around you. You can see for forever and there’s nobody here. You sometimes see dead gas stations or billboards with only scraps of paper left on them.

You are in tornado ally and there is NOWHERE to hide if a blizzard or thunderstorm or twister comes for you. If it’s winter the snow is BLINDING.

It’s beautiful. But it’s horror is less small-town-gothic and more existential threat.

For clarity: the term freeway literally means it’s an interstate with no tolls. It’s free for every driver to use.

The West Coast of the US doesn’t have tolls on our interstates, but some of our big important bridges have tolls.

Seconding @leebrontide’s bit about interstates in the mid and southwest. I have Seen Things doing cross-country moves through the southwest and midwest. One experience that we refer to as “Silent Kansas” we literally went across the entire width of Kansas without seeing a single other vehicle, open gas station, or sign of life, while shrouded in a blanket-thick fog that dissipated essentially immediately upon crossing the border into Colorado. Or the time we were driving south on the I-17 in Arizona after midnight, and there was something following us for a full hour that was a pair of glowing lights that looked like headlights but, I swear it’s fucking true, was not another car. they disappeared in my rearview on a stretch with no exits just outside the Phoenix city limits, and to this day I have no idea wtf it was.

weird shit happens on interstates away from the coasts.

Highway: a high-speed and long-distance road, but without limited access. You will have occasional stop lights or stop signs, and you’ll go through small towns. Most likely place to see a cryptid. (also a generic term for all of these roads)

Expressway: a high speed road with limited access. There are no stop signs or lights. There are entrance and exit ramps. These usually cut through the landscape to a greater degree than highways.

Freeway: an expressway without tolls

Turnpike: an expressway with tolls. So called because they had a long stick (a pike) on a pivot that blocks the road until it is turned to let you through after paying the toll.

Interstate: a (usually particularly long) expressway built as part of the interstate system. Has a designation I-## (eg, I-95). There are also local expressways that are part of the interstate system that get a third digit (I-495). These generally connect Something™ to the larger two-digit interstate (so I-495 connects to I-95). 3-digit interstates are most often freeways. A two-digit interstate may be a freeway or a turnpike and will probably switch back and forth over its length.

Also, everyone will use most of these terms wrong most of the time! You can call any of them a highway and no one will bat an eye. You could call a turnpike a freeway and people will literally not notice. If you call anything an expressway you’ll sound like a nerd or a politician. We usually only say interstate to differentiate it from some other similar road. But if you call something a turnpike that doesn’t have turnpike in its name, even if it is a toll road, people will look at you funny.

Additionally, sometimes “turnpikes” are called “tollways.” Like the Tristate around Chicago.

Really love that these explanations, while they technically explain everything, have even left me, a born American, more lost than before. Rip in pieces, non-American writers, we did our best.

There can also be a very different vibe between national highways and federal highways. For a personal example:

Every time this book comes up there are comments on it who have only seen the illustrations and they’re assuming it’s supposed to symbolize toxic relationships or something but every monster in the book is nice. It is literally just about how this girl likes to go on wholesome dates with tentacle globs.

Okay, I saw this on TikTok, and I have to say I feel 💯% better about my chubby self after this. My dude... Bless You!

Hopefully it helps others like me feel better about their thick, life saving thighs, too!😆

@angryschnauzer @nuggsmum @loricameback God does not sleep on a pillow so soft yassssss

bless this man

I see no lies.

shouting “DERIVATIVE!” at an art school kid just walking down the street from a moving vehicle, they break down and sob

okay but if i, a guy driving a car, yell that at somebody walking on the sidewalk, that’s not really an insult, that’s just what they are

I read the first part of the post and thought OP was just scaring art students with calculus

okay i’m curious

if not put why in the tags if u wanna

observations

U.S. - The first verse, yes, but not the rest.

Korean - I can parrot the sounds of the first verse without semantic understanding, does that count?

So that Elias, huh? I felt like it was about time I settled on a design for him ;D. Seems only fitting at this point.

my dnd party has run into an npc who may or may not be evil and may or may not decide to betray us and the dm was in chat today like “just so everyone knows…not addressing this comment at anyone in particular…his favorite colors are red and black…wink” so now i’m desperately trying to get a real physical friendship bracelet done before session tomorrow in the vain hope that i can somehow stop this npc from trying to do a murder on my party

UPDATE: the npc was in fact a shapechanged adult black dragon with violence and conquest in his heart. however he did let merry put a friendship bracelet on him and then when she was like “hm okay how big is your wrist in dragon form” he was like “you wanna see?” and then turned into a dragon and let merry measure him for a second, dragon-sized friendship bracelet. the dm described him afterwards as being deeply confused as to why he did this or let any of this happen to him. call that the merry effect

this guy is now a recurring npc because merry was SO determined to make him her friend that it actually somehow worked. he cast dream to talk to one of my party members like “hey…how’s it going…how are the tieflings in the party…not that i care…also i’m not lonely. bye” and the player was like “is he still wearing merry’s friendship bracelet in this dream” and the dm was like “yeah…”

fsdfjhskdf the dm just sent us all this image

The best part of worldbuilding is making something that sucks. Magic schools with bullshit rules that don't work. Spaceships that are built stupid. My favourite thing to do is to make an inconvenient world that is full of stupid things for boring reasons, and then putting a character int here and making them live with that.

I was about to reblog this like "wow I so agree" and then I checked the username and apparently I posted it.

#There's a giant water monster in my homebrew world who occasionally investigates boats

#he doesn't attack anyone he's just curious about boats so the nearby town made him their mascot#his name is Big Sneak because despite being 120ft long he sneaks up on boats all the time and spooks the fuck outta people

#He's 230 years old and has a title equivilant to a knighthood

#He is not an uplifted animal. It's the equivalent of giving a knighthood to a scaled whale. They just love him.

#He was given that title so it would be illegal for anyone to hunt him

#What purpose does this lore serve? None at all. It's a giant monster you aren't allowed to kill and who might sneak up on you and go Bloop

#If you try to attack Big Sneak the entire town will be mad at you.

@ashedink​ You cannot just hide this absolute work of art in the tags

(I immediately love Big Sneak)

HERE HE IS

THE BIG SNEAK

THE GUY

This is Big Sneak's post now.

watching the 2018 milwaukee ballet production of dracula and y'all the dracula/jonathan pas de deux is amazing

it's beautiful and creepy and sensual and horrifying all at the same time

crap, i don't know enough dance terminology to make this coherent, but the way they've been utilizing going en pointe in act 2 is fascinating. like, aside from when they're doing turns and stuff like that, all the women are walking around on the flat part like regular people. but then dracula bursts in and everyone is down in the dark except lucy, who is now on her tippy toes and basically floating across the floor to him in a trance and the contrast is so eerie

also i just realized it was mean of me to talk about this without telling anyone where to watch it. here's a link to the official video from the milwaukee ballet account's @ Home series https://vimeo.com/469873929/5ee47dee00

continuing the trend of being both sensual and beautiful and horrifying, the drac+lucy pas de deux is also fantastic.

also, repeated theme the way dracula just kind of flings them around at times, like they're not dance partners but just toys to be played with and literally tossed aside. in the jonathan one he just like yote him 15 feet or something crazy across the stage, and in this one he's just positioning her like a ragdoll, the choreo is so good

agh no no no i hate this! D: lucy! :(((

looking forward to and dreading the drac+mina one if they're all gonna be this good but also upsetting lol

oh good, an ensemble mourning scene, that's cool that's fine i'm handling this gracefully

oh damn, though, she does feral really well too. cool thanks this is a great place for an intermission because i'm feeling totally emotionally stable (:

WHAT I MUST PUT THIS IN MY EYEBALLS

Scientist bakes sourdough bread with yeast derived from 4500 year old Egyptian pottery

i'm losing my mind @ this thread......historie......

also please note that this scientist is in fact the retired man who invented the xbox.

oh fuck i listened to a podcast that was interviewing him and the process he went through to make this bread, ologies with allie ward like he went through full on clean room levels of prep to ensure that this was 100% yeast from old egypt and had to bend over backwards to ensure everything involved was uncontaminated he then revealed that the original xbox logo...

is a sourdough boule

Prompt: After a lackluster 1st year as a Hero, you’re ready to go rogue. The problem is that the new guy in the team is definitely onto you.

That nerdy guy knows your secret.

You scan the briefing documents as your team leader, Mr. Subterranean, drones on. As usual, the pack of graphs and statistics look impressive. As usual, you seem to be the only one at the table who knows they’re wrong. Or, maybe, cares that they’re wrong.

“Crime is down in the 52nd ward by 30% as compared to 2016…”

You take the chance to glance at the nerd. He’s listening to Mr. Subterranean as attentively as you did when you first joined this team of the Hero Force. His hands are folded very nicely on the table and he’s watching Mr. Subterranean lie through his teeth with a very polite look on his face. His thick, coke bottle glasses sitting neatly on top of his black mask hide his eyes, but you bet he’s the only one at the table not daydreaming while the leader talks. He strikes you as a teacher’s pet.

Teacher’s pet glances at you through his peripherals. His mouth twitches, revealing a deep dimple, and then he refocuses on Mr. Subterranean. A chill races down your spine.

You’re not sure why you think he knows, but you’ve got animal instincts. If your brain is screeching at you that your plan is in jeopardy, it is.

What are you going to do about it?

“We can see marked improvement in commerce in Old Downtown thanks to the consideration and dedication shown by our new patrol routes…”

Because you’re watching the new guy, you’re the first one to notice when he raises his hand.

I do not want to be in writing training

I am thinking about making a passionate defense of the passive voice just to cause trouble on purpose

Look once you learn how to use the passive voice it will become clear to you why I spend half my time deliberately writing in it

Fuck it, let's talk about it

Warning: Passive voice can be used for evil! Do not do it! Do not write sentences like "The man was shot by police." No! Do not hide state violence in sentence structure!

You should use active voice when:

1. You introduce new information

2. You take or assign responsibility

Active voice is key for clarity when the sentence doesn't have anything to refer back to. If you have to put "by (person, organization)" at the end of the sentence, it should have been active voice. Ex:

NOT

But here's why passive voice is great: because it collapses who did a thing and centers the fact that it happened. When you are referring back to something the parties already agree upon, it puts the result up front.

NOT

No! Bad! The completion of the action matters, not the parties involved. And no, "The parties will complete their reviews" is absolutely not clearer, because it requires the same knowledge.

In fiction, passive vs active refocuses a sentence towards what you want the reader to pay attention to. Active:

Passive:

Nothing wrong with either of them. It's just what you want the reader to think about. Bonus round: the sentence feels more natural if you put the bulk of the description in the second half, so you can add more without making it impossible to follow. Active:

Passive:

These are different sentences, but nothing's wrong with either of them.

Passive voice gets a bad rap largely because even the dumbest professional development expert can ID it fairly regularly. It's bad when it makes a sentence less clear; it's good when it makes a sentence clearer. That's it.

AND it can have immense humoristic potential, for the exact same reason you outlined, because passive voice reads as an attempt to dodge responsibility and misplace blame.

"The man was shot (by police)" and "The project was fucked up by us" are bad in serious contexts and actual writing.

But you can have a lot of fun with things like:

"My boss has been described in impolite terms."

"Alice's boss has been described in impolite terms by someone who wishes to remain anonymous."

"I have been vilified, demonised, slandered, calumnied, scapegoated, lied about, written horrid pamphlets about, unlistened to, and reputationally walked all over."

"The priceless crown jewels known as The Fanciest Rock Ever, insured for 100,000,000 billions and entrusted in our care by HRM the Queen of Fancyland, were found to have been misplaced this morning and have not been located at this time."

"He was separated from his head."

"He found himself divorced from."

Useful friends in such cases: euphemisms, unexpected verbs, grammatically questionable sentence constructions, and obfuscation of the responsible party when it is glaringly obvious to the audience that there should be one or even who it is, etc., etc.

Big fan of the comedy potential. How else could you have a sentence like “The dog was let out, the cat was traumatized, and every one of our prize-winning Siamese Fighting Fish were purloined by the usual suspect: our neighbor’s goose.”

im having feelings about the uffington white horse again

so essentially there’s this cool horse drawn into the hills in england made out of chalk and it’s like 3,000 years old.

people carved trenches 3,000 years ago and filled them with chalk in the shape of a horse but what’s interesting is that if you fail to maintain the horse by adding new chalk regularly, it will disappear. for 3,000 years, we’ve been filling in chalk in this horse so it doesn’t disappear.

we’ll never know what the purpose of the horse was originally. we’ll never know if it had ritual or spiritual significance or if it was just art. but we do know that people maintained it then, and, even though the meaning of the horse has long been lost to time, we continue to maintain it now.

the people who made this horse are long dead, but they live through us still, don’t you think?

couldn’t agree more we’re best friends now

one way or another, together

[ID: Art of Martin stabbing Jon as Jon is absorbed into the Eye. Jon is a brown-skinned man with long black hair streaked with grey. Martin is a pale-skinned man with brown hair. Jon is wearing a light blue button-up and Marin is wearing round glasses and a blue sweater. As Martin stabs Jon, his other hand rests on Jon’s hip, pulling him in tightly. Jon has his hand wrapped around Martin’s upper arm. Martin has his eyes squeezed shut in sorrow as Jon stares up, eyes open and vacant. All around them is a swirling, glowing green light.]