inkblottedsoul

[inkblottedsoul]

affirmations for writers: i know how to write. i have seen sentences before, and i know how to make one. i can identify up to several words and their meanings. i am not afraid of semicolons.

[inkblottedsoul]

Honestly part of the problem with this obsession with only consuming unproblematic fiction is that people are less likely to acknowledge when something is harmful. If you so much as say hey this one joke in this one episode was offensive fans will write you an essay on why it wasn’t. Because they’ve created a world view where this is basically accusing them of being a bad person who has committed an unforgivable sin.

[inkblottedsoul]

It's kind of incredible just how much the Country House Murder Mystery genre is, at its roots, a reaction to WWI and the social change that sprang from it.

[inkblottedsoul]

characters going “we were lovers once”: eh, it’s okay i guess. it’s nice enough

characters going “we were friends once”: absolutely devastating. one hit knockout i’m gone

[inkblottedsoul]

[inkblottedsoul]

The thing with statistics - via

[inkblottedsoul]

Tender Actions for Characters Who Are Yearning (But Not Together… Yet)

(I crave you in silence, and if you notice, I’ll die and also be thrilled)

・❥・ Letting their hand hover near yours but never quite touching. Every atom screaming: please reach back.

・❥・ Saving the last bite of something, “just in case you wanted it.” (They always do. You always remember.)

・❥・ Fixing their backpack strap, even when it’s not falling.

・❥・ Offering your umbrella wordlessly. Standing a little closer than needed.

・❥・ Sitting beside them at a group thing before your brain catches up. Like it’s instinct.

・❥・ Casually mentioning something they said weeks ago. Something small. Something they didn’t think you’d remember.

・❥・ Carrying an extra pen, just in case they forget.

・❥・Letting them rant. Letting them ramble. Letting them be.

・❥・ Your eyes finding theirs in a crowd before your brain says, look away.

・❥・ Brushing against them “by accident” and apologizing even though it lit your whole nervous system on fire.

[inkblottedsoul]

[inkblottedsoul]

Gosh I hate grind culture. My little sister just started medical school and all of her orientation leaders are like “you absolutely cannot have a life WHATsoever you WILL have to give up EVERYTHING besides this program say GOODBYE to your hobbies and relationships” and now she’s calling me feeling guilty for running and going to the grocery store and that’s just WRONG! And that is exactly what I was told starting law school as well, and rejecting that mentality was the best thing I ever did but it was so hard not to buy into. Anyway if any of you are in an intense academic program PLEASE take time to sleep and eat and exercise and maintain your relationships and keep up your hobbies! you are not a robot who exists solely to study and I promise that living a life and staying physically and mentally healthy is not going to make you fail

[inkblottedsoul]

On Friendship.

[inkblottedsoul]

2025 Book Bingo Board!

We loved reading with y'all last year and wanted a way to include you a bit more in the coming year! So we will still have the polls, but I was looking at book club ideas to see if any of them would fit into the project and wasn't in love with any of what I saw. In the end, I was struck by inspiration because of my love for Booktube and queer Scotts!

Watching Literary Diversions book bingo board, I realized we could do something similar in the MQH community! So here are the rules:

Fill in squares through the year with your reads

When the filled-in squares make up a full line, you win! And we will be releasing a little digital reward for the people who do win

One book can count for multiple prompts

If you choose to join me, my overall goal is to blackout the whole sheet! I will update you on this journey most months and look forward to hearing how you are doing!

We have a Discord channel specifically for discussing the bingo board. This channel is for patrons, and we will keep each other updated there.

If you're not a patron, please keep me updated anyways by tagging MQH on social media with your journey! (Feel free to repost the board, but please do so while tagging Making Queer History)

If y'all have any questions, feel free to ask. Otherwise, please screenshot/download this sheet and join me in 2025 in reading very queer books!

[inkblottedsoul]

This is the worst timeline. (x)

[inkblottedsoul]

every time a woman in Wheel of Time has to do some ceremonial thing naked, I think of Terry Pratchett's "most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. this is because most books on witchcraft are written by men"

[inkblottedsoul]

So turns out…..you guys are not gonna believe this…….but it turns out. Reading real books. Is good for you actually.

[inkblottedsoul]

Adding to this it means a hell of a lot more how your words are interpreted than how you meant them, even out loud. You can have unintended impacts on people and you need to be mature enough to acknowledge you've made someone hurt or uncomfortable, apologize and move on. That's basic decency. It isn't hard.

all I’m sayin is that it’s like you said: text isn’t indicative of tone. thus it’s actually a choice to decide someone is being demanding instead of eager & passionate without digging further. I personally choose to assume the best as often as humanly possible, bc it’s just as easy to respond with “that’s all I got for this one, glad you liked it” instead of calling someone out for a tone that likely wasn’t even what they meant  🤷‍♀️ but you do what you need to do, man.

ironically parsing actual real meaningful feedback on creative works (which no one in fandom actually wants fwiw, made that mistake once & never again) is literally more than half of my job, and tbh even in real life the biggest compliments (and the North Star we’re usually chasing) actually come from strangers whose reactions usually read along the lines of “MORE OF THAT, HOLY SHIT” or “I NEED 12 OF THEM” or “OH MY GOD AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN” or even just an emphatic “FUCK”. the real difference IRL is hearing the gasp, seeing the enthusiasm, the grin, and watching as someone absolutely sparkles upon seeing/reading/playtesting/experiencing your work for the very first time. & personally I haven’t met anyone yet who hasn’t outright laughed at some of the more out of pocket reactions, everyone’s always taken it as it was meant: a very raw & enthusiastic compliment. same kind of shit that makes us all gasp and kick our feet and blurt nonsense in the dark to an empty room at 3AM when a fic hits just right.

anyway my only real point is that the knee jerk reaction of putting up boundaries (or ffs doin shit like posting a screenshot dragging folks on reddit or twitter & then wondering why “no one comments anymore” 💀🪦) against what was PROBABLY just keyboard-mashing excitement gets just as disheartening it feels to have someone leave a genuinely rude comment (or no comments at all), so maybe consider that there might be another perspective. 

I wish you the best, good luck with your work in the future

Man. I am aware that these comments are meant to be enthusiastic and positive. But they do not make me feel good. But it’s nice of you to let me know that I get to choose how I feel! And how I interpret text from a stranger! That’s very helpful.

I think it’s also INSANE that you construe me having boundaries concerning how strangers interact with me on my personal writing as being a negative reaction. I cannot hear your voice. I cannot see your face. Sorry that I don’t have such an immersive imagination. Reading something and hearing it being said has a delta between it that my minuscule brain is apparently unable to ford. It’s incredible that me saying “I don’t like it when people say that because it doesn’t make me feel good, so please don’t say things like that to me” makes you react in this way. I’m my own person. I’m not you. No one is you. You cannot control how other people react to what you say.

I’m not talking about your job or the general public or “how fandom doesn’t want real feedback”. I’m saying that there’s a type of response that kills my motivation. I am not an idiot. I am aware that it is not meant to be demanding. But it’s crazy that your response to me saying “I don’t like it when you talk to me that way” is “well you should be interpreting what I say positively instead!”. That’s not how human relationships work. I feel an enormous amount of pity for anyone who has ever tried to tell you that you hurt their feelings when you didn’t intend to.

I am beyond this blog. I have spent many many years trying to make readers happy by sharing what I make and I would have quit a long long time ago if I didn’t occasionally get nice and meaningful interactions with others. But the people who just type that they want more or they want 60k words or they want part two? I never hear from those people beyond that. Those are one time interactions. I don’t see those people as repeat presences in my notes. Which tends to illustrate that myself and my body of work are more or less irrelevant to them. And that’s fine. But don’t expect me to see you as a potential friend if that’s the case. Idk.

Also I don’t recall posting any screenshots from Reddit or Twitter dragging anyone. I get the feeling this is no longer about me, but about some greater beef.

[inkblottedsoul]

Hey you all know about that fungus that possesses ants to make them climb on the tip of grass blades in hopes of getting eaten by a cow, so that the fungus can continue its life cycle in the cow's guts? Because I think that's the kind of thing that's wrong with cave divers.

We don't know what's down there. We don't know what's gotten into their heads that makes them so determined to physically, personally go down there to find out. But I wouldn't entirely dismiss the possibility that whatever has gotten into them is very invested in getting eaten by whatever is down there.

[inkblottedsoul]