aethersea

[aethersea]

they just came out with a new type of guy that freestyles about geological phenomena on reddit

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I don't usually post my non-fandom craft stuff but I worked for a long time on this tablecloth so I wanted to show it off😌

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Btw I have to speak my truth. Deanna Troi is not useless on the bridge. She is underutilized in the plot points yes and I don't think we ever got to see exercise her full powers. But she is NOT useless on the bridge. People hate her on saying things that are "obvious" (eg. she says she feels that the visibly agitated person is agitated) but that is literally no different than the person at a console that says "we have been hit!" or "the shields are holding". Like these are obvious too bc yes we have been hit that's probably why we're all over the floor. But the person is saying that bc the sensors they're looking at recorded a hit and their job is to verbally read these to the captain. It being "obvious" isn't the point it's not supposed to be a groundbreaking observation they're making a report of what their station received.

And Deanna is basically just another sensor and she's reporting what she got!! And yes her saying a visibly angry person is angry actually is Useful because if they weren't feeling the emotion they're projecting (lying) that would be worthwhile. So her making the report is useful information for Picardddd

[aethersea]

She placebo on my effect til I feel like something happened

[aethersea]

The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

(Even when life beats you down)

Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.

So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.

Focus on having fun, not on the outcome

This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.

I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.

But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”

So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.

Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it

I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.

I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.

Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.

I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.

I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.

Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.

I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.

Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.

Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.

It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.

I lowered my definition for success

When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.

A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism

Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.

I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.

Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.

The more I do it, the more I do it

The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.

Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.

Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.

The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.

Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.

No pressure

Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?

These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.

Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)

Don’t wait for inspiration to hit

There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.

Accountability and community

Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.

The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.

Your toolbox

The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.

After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.

Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!

I hope this was useful. Happy writing!

[aethersea]

Some predatory mosquito larvae are capable of shooting out their gross little heads like harpoons to grab prey.

Article

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of all Riccardo Estli's compositions, I think "Katya's Waltz" from the Goncharov score is one of his most beautiful

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Easily one of the most interesting Faustus interps I’ve seen recently was a local college production where the demons DIDNT just immediately, violently drag Faust to hell in the last scene.

Instead, as the clock was approaching midnight, soft music started playing ((Non Je Ne Regrette Rein by Edith Piaf)), and a spotlight fell on Mephistopheles, who had been standing downstage for most of the scene, hidden in darkness.

He walked across the stage, where the actor playing Faust was. He was kneeling, face in hands, openly weeping, and Mephistopheles helped him to his feet. And then they started to slow dance.

Mephistopheles was clearly leading, and Faust was just kinda slumped over on him, with his face buried in his neck, not really moving as much. And it’s all like, really genuinely tender? You get the impression that Mephistopheles is trying to make Faust’s last moments at least somewhat peaceful.

And then, as the song is getting to the last part, you see this circular red outline appear under them. It starts out really dim, but as the song draws to a close, it gets brighter and brighter. And then, during the last lines of the song, Mephistopheles let’s go of Faustus and steps out of the circle. And THAT is when Faust gets dragged to hell. The red circle starts to lower down into the stage, and you see all these hands begin to reach up and grab at Faust and at the edges of the circle. And Mephistopheles just watches. Calmly.

The stage closed back up. Faust is gone. Mephistopheles just kinda saunters over to Fausts bed and sits down on it. Then after a few seconds, the scholars come in and give their whole shpeal. However, when they go to leave, Mephistopheles gets up and follows them. Just as the Second Scholar is about to exit, Mephistopheles whispers something seductively in his ear. The scholar pauses for a moment, shakes his head, and leaves.

Chorus. End. That’s it.

The entire thing was an odd mix of tender and spooky, and it’s almost hard to get a read on what the director was going for. But I still thought it was incredibly cool.

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like a lamb to slaughter

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Historically, famous and powerful people were very removed from the public eye, which allowed them to cultivate a certain mystique that was essential their prestige. In a sense this was win-win, because even though the public wants to know about its stars and leaders, they want even more to believe in them, to believe in that cultivated ideal. These days, though, there's pressure to be "on" all the time, to be constantly engaging with fans and followers, and it creates unsustainable demands on public figures which ultimately leave everyone worse off.

Like, just a specific example that's been on my mind lately: it used to be that if you were a dark lord, you'd spend most of your time in your fortress, and people mostly encountered you indirectly through your forts, your minions, the blighted land, whatever. People really only saw you personally at ceremonies, war marches, and public executions, so they could fill in the blanks with the kind of dread sovereign they wanted to have, and everyone was happy. With social media and paparazzi, though, there's this expectation to actually be that guy all the time, on tap, and it's just not feasible. No matter how much work you put in, eventually you'll have a bad day, someone will destroy your amulet or something, and the next day everyone's going to be sharing a phonecam video of you recoiling and saying "This cannot be!" and it doesn't even matter how much terror you struck in the hearts of the people, now you're the guy from the shocked wizard meme.

And the problem is that the skills that get you to that position don't really train you to deal with it. The first instinct is always to think "this is all a big mistake", and just get out there and start impaling people to shore up confidence, but that just makes it worse -- you can't impale your way out of problems in a global media landscape. It feels bad, but all you can really do is lock your account and take some space away from your work until it blows over.

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had a vivid, creative, engaging, compelling, horrific nightmare i was taking the "Tumblr SATs"

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i cannot do another round of "is shaving feminist?" discourse again, i simply cannot do it. is shaving feminist? no! do feminists shave their bodies? yes! is this a deep betrayal of principles? not really! do some women actually shave for the mythical "sensory reasons"? well, considering that my number one reason for shaving my legs in the summer is because my ceiling fan blows on the hair and i'm constantly having mini freakouts that i've got a bug crawling on me, i'd imagine some do! is it okay for a woman to say to herself "i realize i'm mostly doing this because i don't want to be treated worse by people in the world who find my unshaven legs disgusting, but i'm still going to do it because i don't think suffering for no reason is virtuous" and shave? yes! will yelling at her to "think critically about her choices" until she agrees with you actually work? no! does any of this make it any easier to get an abortion in this country? nope! have we replaced the "is this pop star a feminist?" discourse of the 2010s with "are your personal choices antithetical to the tenets of feminism?" discourse in the 2020s, none of which is conveniently focused on the actual loci of power?? hahahahahahaaaaa

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neon tetras

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The Duel (Dashcon 2, 2025)

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this is what just happened on ao3 but it's ok, they patched it

sorry everyone it turns out gods mercy is finite & i just used up the last of it