use the escape character to stop
~{{{
nowiki blocks from being
nowiki blocks
}}}
~* escape lists
* you can also
~* escape the second list item
~= escape a heading
~: escape an indented paragraph
escape a horizontal line
~-----
~| escape a | table
~| r2c1 | rc2c |
~{{{
escape nowiki ** with bold in it **
}}}
~; escape definition lists
~: like so
you can also escape inline markup
like ~** bold ~**, ~// italics~//, ~\\ newlines,
~[[ links ]], ~{{images}}, etc