readinsilence

[readinsilence]

i know this means absolutely nothing to most people but basically all of the little web game things I've made recently (angels in automata, hex plant growing game, d.a.n.m.a.k.u., life music, sudoku land, the metroidvania style map editor, etc etc etc) are all entirely self-contained individual client-side html files that can be downloaded and run offline and have literally no libraries or frameworks or dependencies, because i'm an insane woman who enjoys hand coding my input handling and display code from scratch in vanilla js and having it all live in one single html file with the game logic and the page structure and the page style all just living and loving together side by side in a universal format that can be run by any web browser on any devixe. i'll even include image files as base64 data-uri strings just to keep every single asset inside the one file.

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Sometimes it feels so tough growing up as a kid in the 90s because the older I get, the more it feels like everything's being slowly (quickly?) screwed over and there's nothing I can do

And then I remember 2000s+ kids are being born into a world that's ALREADY screwed over

and fuck me, at least I had SOME hope ;-;

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I wonder if work just.. got harder in the 2000s, comparatively.

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not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

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JOMP day 16

Bookish item

Little Cardan funko pop I got from fae crate

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Who are the Anti-Stratfordians?

People who think Shakespeare wasn’t actually Shakespeare, but that ‘Shakespeare’ was a secret pseudonym for someone more important and better educated, like the Earl of Oxford. 

See also: imbeciles.

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12.10.2019; i never eat breakfast, fasting in the morning makes me feel so much better during the day, but there was a looot of delicious fruit at home and i couldn’t resist.

it's a cloudy day today, which i don't know why motivates me a lot to work. i'm planning on studying arabic, applying for a thing and preparing my luggage to go back to paris next tuesday.

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already well into november but i thought i’d post (with pdfs included of course) some things i read (& loved) in october b/c it was a hard month & these writings held my hand the whole way through 

‘by grand central station i sat down and wept,’ elizabeth smart (!)

‘life and death,’ andrea dworkin 

‘seam,’ tarfia faizullah (!)

‘play it as it lays,’ joan didion 

‘war of the foxes,’ richard siken

‘midwinter day,’ bernadette mayer

‘in the pines,’ alice notley

‘death is not an option,’ suzanne rivecca (!)

‘the dead and the living,’ sharon olds

‘the melancholy of anatomy,’ shelley jackson

‘edinburgh,’ alexander chee

‘the woman destroyed,’ simone de beauvoir (!)

‘monster: poems,’ robin morgan

‘how we became human,’ joy harjo

‘ayiti,’ roxane gay (!) 

‘our andromeda,’ brenda shaughnessy

‘second childhood,’ fanny howe

‘the lady in the looking glass,’ virginia woolf

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It seems to me that people tend to portray Hufflepuff as the house of sweetness-and-light. Hufflepuffs are eternally kind and caring and bake cookies for everyone. They bend over backwards to make everyone happy. They abhor violence and strife and value hard work for the sake of working hard. They are precious cinnamon rolls, too pure for this world.

That’s all well and good, but I want more nuance. Hufflepuff is the house that has canonically turned out the fewest dark wizards, but I don’t think it’s accurate to depict Hufflepuff as nothing but the cinnamon roll house.

Give me Hufflepuffs who despise hard work but do it anyway because somebody has to get everything done.

Give me Hufflepuffs who don’t trust easily and make you earn their loyalty, but will bring the world to its knees to avenge their loved ones.

Give me Hufflepuffs who are polite to strangers but will destroy somebody when they are wronged. 

Give me Hufflepuffs who are the most caring people on the planet, but only to those who have proven themselves trustworthy beyond a doubt.

Give me Hufflepuffs who come off as coldhearted and mean because they show their soft side only to those who make them feel safe and loved in turn.

Give me stale cinnamon rolls whose loyalty is near impossible to earn, but who give absolutely everything to their chosen family.

And you know what? I want to see Hufflepuff villains, too.

Give me Hufflepuff villains who guard their loyalty so closely that they are horrifically cruel to everyone they don’t feel has earned it.

Give me Hufflepuff villains who are loyal to the bone and work themselves half to death, but for all the wrong causes. 

Give me Hufflepuff villains who treat their inner circle like royalty, but who don’t care who else lives or dies.

Give me Hufflepuff villains who are vindictive and awful to those they see as lazy underlings.

Give me Hufflepuff villains.

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If Life gave you lemons, what would you do with them, if you were barred from just making lemonade?

If I can't make lemonade, hmm.

Well, I mean, lemons smell good. They'd make my room smell deliciously fresh and citrusey.

Alternatively, I could make lemon chicken. <3

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Took a test about my levels of Imposter Syndrome and got 97/100

Oops

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Character Development Questions: Hard Mode

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?

Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares?

Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target?

Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been?

Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way?

Does your character remember names or faces easier?

Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not?

Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success?

What was your character’s favorite toy as a child?

Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?

What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?

What does your character like in other people?

What does your character dislike in other people?

How quick is your character to trust someone else?

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?

How does your character behave around children?

How does your character normally deal with confrontation?

How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation?

What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?

What does your character find repulsive or disgusting?

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable.

In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?

How does your character behave around people they like?

How does your character behave around people they dislike?

Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?

Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)?

How does your character treat people in service jobs?

Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them?

Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them?

How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?

What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

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Even if it started like one, “days like any other” do not usually involve strangers ripping away all your carefully-constructed barriers.

I am very late for my first meeting of the day. I slither into my clothes, grab my bag and gulp something for breakfast before I step out of the house. 

There is a well-dressed man standing outside my door. 

I smile politely at him in greeting, but he stops me as I pass. 

“I’m on my way to X Hall,” he says. I cannot see his face - is it the glare of the sun? is it a hat? is it that I don’t want to? - but his voice and manner are warm and friendly. “But I’m afraid I’m slightly lost.” 

“Well,” I say, “I’m on my way there now.”

“Oh! Can we walk together?”

I gesture for him to lead the way out onto the street. “It is not that far away.”

He smiles. I cannot see his face at all, but I can feel his smile. It is... unsettling.

We begin walking together. He starts the conversation with small talk about the weather, what the hall is like. It is his first visit, but he has heard how pretty it is, with its white exterior and warm interior. He asks a few questions: are there many people? Oh, quite a few, that’s very nice. Do you know many of them? Oh, wonderful. Are there any close friends? Real friends? The kind you can call at 3am to come help you if someone’s outside your house staring through your window? 

I give him a look. He laughs.

The questions progress, the answers devolving into monosyllables. He is prodding and poking at parts of my life. I want to tell him to back away. This is none of his business. I do not know you, I do not want to anymore, and I want to keep these things a part of me and the people whom I choose to share them with. Out of discomfort, a twisted sense of decorum, and fear - if someone’s outside your house staring at you - I walk a bit faster, and say nothing about how I feel. 

He reaches forward and curls his fingers around my wrist, and I lurch to a stop abruptly as I look down at his hand around mine. 

Warmth and strength and an order I don’t quite understand are all things I register right before I do the pain. I look up at his eyes, but I still cannot see them, and my own switch back to staring at my wrist. 

He’s peeling the skin of them off. Good lord does it hurt. He digs a fingernail underneath a vein, and he pulls up. The skin gives with a rip and a tear, and he picks at it with two fingers, peeling and peeling. I yank yank yank my hand to me, but he’s got my arm firmly, and he keeps peeling away. 

“I want to see what’s inside,” he says conversationally. 

“NO!” My voice pitches up high in the panic I feel, helpless as I am. 

He tilts my wrist, frowning. A long twirl of skin peels off and around the curve of my arm, like an apple would. I shriek in terror and pain, but he ignores more, frowning hard. There is another layer of skin beneath. 

He keeps going, peeling and peeling and peeling. I am struggling hard, twisting my arm and yanking and trying to scream. There are people, I know there are, they pass me by on the street. I scream for them to come here, to help me, as he peels another layer, but they cannot see me, they do not see me, they will not see me. They walk past me and they think She deserves it and I can see it on their faces- 

I still cannot see his. 

He peels more layers away from me. There is always another layer beneath. 

I am horrified, struggling, desperate, crying: flaky, paper-thin skin, rubbery stretchy skin, soft and supple skin, iron hard and cracking skin, skin that starts to curl up and burn to ash when he detaches it from my body, skin that melts onto his hand that he has to rub away, and still he peels and peels and peels...

The blood drips onto the road. Drip, drip, drip, just like my tears drip to the time of my sobbing. 

“This,” he says, dusting away the ash, and poking the metallic underneath. I flinch and he digs in and I howl. “This is all your fault. I just want to see inside!”

I cannot see his face. 

I cannot get his hands off. 

I turn to the people walking past me, people I know, people I love, people I thought loved me. People who have raised me, and taught me, and shared things with me, hugged me, kissed me, loved me, been loved by me. I call to them. 

They each look me in the eye by reflex. They each turn away. Some cross the road. 

I cannot see his face, but I can feel him grin. 

He still peels, all my layers. I am sweaty and teary and bloody, and he is spotlessly clean. 

He keeps peeling my layers, so I grow more. 

A dream I had in March 2019.

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Last week I dreamed I was a wooden statue.

Every time someone walked past me, they grabbed a small knife that lay on my pedestal and shaved off another little piece of me from the inside. Hollowing me out, shaving by shaving, until I was nearly all hollowed through.

The last person grabbed the knife, and stabbed through what remained of the middle of me. I folded in on myself. 

The next person who came along had another knife in their hand, and they began hollowing out the inside of my head- The end of January, 2019

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...Saracen (the goose) had finished his barley and was happily chewing at the corner of a sheet that had been spread across a hedge to dry. He had once discovered a tablecloth, and ever since had been optimistic about the effects of dragging cloths off the top of things.

Saracen, dearly beloved friend of the MC, single-handedly capable of wrecking shops, accidental stowaway on ships, and goose.

why is it always crows or ravens in ya literature??? is it because they’re scary and foreboding?? you know what else is scary and foreboding?? geese. show some originality, give me a book with philosophical quotes about geese

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