#(but sometimes I’m not which is why I scheduled this post in April)

[gothamghostwhispers]

Artem leaves several coins at the entrance of the cemetery before they walk in. It’s quiet. Usually is.

They settle in front of a particular grave.

Amara Slayer.

Loving wife and mother.

With slow shaking hands Artem pulls out a lilac candle, and a bottle of wine.

The candle is lit, the flame is steady even in the wind

Artem pours some of the bottle over the grave before taking a sip themselves. They grimace a little. It was their mother’s favorite wine but it’s always been too dry for Artem’s taste. Their mother will be getting most of the bottle.

“Hi mom.. I have so much to tell you this year…”

They begin to tell their mother everything, the good and the bad, how their job is, that they adopted some kids… Describing their children causes Artem to descend into their first fit of sobs for the day as they realize that the kids will never know her.

They sob for a few minutes, before they settle themselves. They’re glad nobody else is around as the amount of grief they are feeling is physically painful.

They tell their mom that they have a boyfriend and describing him brings a fresh wave of emotions because their mother would have loved to meet Beau.

When they’re able to breath again they tell their mother the other recent events the abduction and finding out Micheal has been stalking them almost 10 years and all the feelings surrounding that event, before finally drifting back into stories of the day to day. They let their grief pass over them in waves.

When they can’t cry anymore they pour out the rest of the wine bottle, saying farewell.

The candles flame extinguishes itself when they say goodbye so they can bring the candle back home to put on their alter.

[candieduranium]

my intro post

i guess it’s about time i made one of these

(why does this have so many notes???😭/genuine)

long ass intro oml

last updated september 23, 2024 (mild update)

•my name is micah but i also respond to furcata and rover

•i use any pronouns except it/its. other than those, i genuinely do not care what you use for me

•im a minor

•i am a christian. i do not force it onto other people. please respect my religion.

•i make mistakes on my blog (accidentally deleting things, unbalanced polls, etc.) from time to time so please excuse if i make some errors. trying my best.

•my tag for my original posts and reblogs that add to is “micah’s owlposting” even for stuff that isn’t owlkin-related. i have to retroactively tag my old posts with this tag so keep in mind that not all of them are tagged! i will update this post when i finish tagging.

•i am an american barn owl therian, vernid othermidst, machinehearted, and pigeonhearted.

• i am a quadrobist. i started in april of 2024.

•usually the things i post are about my alterhumanity but i also post golden texts my friends and i send each other along with some other stuff. sometimes in my posts there are mentions of sex and (mild?) sexual themes

•im also a furry. furry ≠ zoophile

•my favorite music is by greta van fleet and umbrabyte. i also just enjoy vocaloid in general, too. in fact, the original purpose i had for my blog was just to keep up with umbrabyte and her content better. here’s umbrabyte’s spotify:

•my favorite aesthetics are cybercore, mizuiro/ tenshi kaiwai, vaporwave, and rococo

•my only definite dni is if your blog is focused on nsfw, has sexually explicit images, or unsafe for minors in general. we can interact if you are in a basic dni (zoophile, radqueers, etc) but i probably won’t interact with you as much as those who arent in the dni.

•haters will be blocked unless i find them especially funny.

•im up for chatting about whatever whenever so just shoot me a dm if you feel like it (sfw, obviously)

•my hobbies and special interests are drums, classical latin, fursuit making, cosplay, and illustrating

•i’m very interested in learning how to make vtuber models and customizing ball-jointed dolls

•my main fandoms are umbrabyte, tloz, pjsk, and tadc (i know some these fandoms are known for having CRAZY and problematic fans. im not one of them)

•i have a 4 year old black cat named dumpling (i post pics of him sometimes) and a 16 year old dog named stella. i hope to get a couple of oranda goldfish someday

•i dont have a set posting schedule. i post when i post. but i generally like to stay pretty active and try to post at least once per day.

•i follow anyone who interacts with my posts positively when im not in their dni and theyre not in mine and their blog isn’t completely default/blank this is now false. i have just learned that the maximum follow count is 5k and i am already above 4k. there are too many of you for me to follow you all😭

•some random and useless stuff about me: i have mild-moderate trypophobia and a deviated septum, i’m 5’7”, my favorite color is orange, i LOVE creme brulee, and my mbti is antp-t (a for ambivert)

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

mild eyestrain warning ⚠️

how the fuck does this have so many notes??😭

vent-ish/vent-adjacent warning ⚠️

here’s a copypaste from another of my posts regarding my posting schedule and status:

hey folks, i may not be posting as much going forward because my father put my email on a lifelock account, which means that he may be alerted each time i log into my tumblr account. i use tumblr on the website on safari and i frequently log in and out because im anxious that my parents will check my search history, but they very rarely ever do. im testing if they get alerted right now by logging in to ao3 and c.ai, two websites that my parents likely wont be opposed to but would tell me and ask me about it if i got an alert. deleting my account is a last resort, but it is still on the table. this change is indefinite. i have backup plans in case my parents do get alerts from lifelock, but nothing is definite. i may continue on just fine, i might not. just giving y’all a heads up in case something does happen.

tl;dr my account may be discovered by my parents and i may be punished, maybe it wont. we’ll see

and does anyone know for sure if lifelock does send alerts about logging in tumblr accounts? please dont lie to me.

my mental health is hinging largely on my tumblr account and im praying sososo hard that i wont lose all of you wonderful, amazing people. this goes for the folks i have dmed and the ones i havent. but anyway. i love you all. thank you for the time youve given me, even if it wont be for much longer.

and heres another post copypaste:

hey folks i dont know if im gonna be posting for a hot minute because im at band practice rn but im gonna have the biggest fucking argument with my mom when i get home😍 i might get my phone taken away

so basically what happened is i told her im depressed and she blew me off and didnt believe me. she also did some other stuff. i may go into greater detail at a later date.

im sorry if this discomforts or tr_gg_rs anyone but i wanted to give an explanation and warning just in case i stop posting and interacting on tumblr

thank you all for being so wonderful, truly. i hope i can get my situation sorted out quickly and remain active.

i’ll probably update this post later on since im sure there’s something i forgot. check back with me every once in a while and i might have some new content on this post

thanks for reading 👍👍

[substituted-shinigami]

Writing Update: Creative Corner April 2023

Welcome back to “Writing Updates”, which I’m thinking of renaming to Creative Corner, but uh we’ll see! (I tend to go back and forth on these things😅) My thought process is that instead of doing the “Good News/Bad News” format I’ve done in the past, I’m going to do a “Writing Corner” and an “Art Corner” instead. I’ll try it out and see how I feel about it. Anyway, let’s get on with the news!

TL:DR Version: I’m taking this month off…kind of. Last month was busy, but really fun!😁 This month was busy, but uh, not at all fun…long story.😅 Anyway, so no new one-shots this month. However! I did find some RenRuki fluff drabbles that I think you all might like, so I put them together in their own series. They’re perfect for a rainy day when you just want to feel good!🥰 They should be out later this month!

Read on if you want the long version:

Writing Corner: 

*Sighs heavily* Alright, I’m gonna be honest, this month sucked. Between burnout, family stuff, and depression, I barely wrote at all. I have a nearly completed piece that I could try to rush edit and finish in time, and would at least come out okay. But I thought about it, and realized that while I do like the piece, it’s not at all what I felt like reading right now. I don’t read a “hurt/comfort with a bit of angst” piece when I’m sad, I read fluff, lots of fluff. In fact, I had a google doc with a couple of fluff scraps that didn’t fit anywhere else that I would sometimes go back to and read whenever I was sad just because it made me feel good. And then I thought, what if this month was bad for other people too? Would these pieces make them feel good? So I’ve decided to release these instead in a brand new collection I’m going to call “Soft Moments”. Admittedly, they are more like eating a sugary sweet dessert than having a hearty protein filled one-shot meal, but that’s exactly what they are for! They are there for people who need to read something nice on a hard day. Anyway, they aren’t exactly a one-shot, so that’s why I decided to put them in their own collection, rather than adding them to “We Can’t All Be Winners”. In the end, I’ve decided to release the “hurt/comfort” piece another time. This also works out well for my new (ever changing😅) schedule for WCABW, where I am going to do 3 months on, 1 off, 3 on, and so forth! 

Art Corner: While I haven’t done much writing this month, I have gone back to my roots on this blog somewhat and started working on comics again. If you saw one of my earlier posts, you will know that I’m taking a crack at human based comics. They…are absolutely not proportional. But um…variety is the spice of life, right?!?! Anyway, hopefully they will at least be funny, but uh, we’ll see! That said, I'm thinking of eventually switching to digital art so that I don’t have to redraw backgrounds and unmoving characters, but that requires me to figure out how to draw with photoshop on my mini touch screen laptop so uh…………..

Bloodlines Corner (because let’s be honest, it gets its own spot at this point): 

Me: *glares to some far off corner in my google docs* You do realize it’s been months now, right?

Bloodlines: *shrugs innocently*

So I’ve realized I haven’t actually explained the premise of this story to most people on this blog, so here we go. Originally, Bloodlines was a one-shot in its own series of one-shots based on the idea of “What would happen if Rukia got Hisana’s illness?” However, I realized that I hadn’t really thought it out well enough for an entire series. So then I was going to make it a one off one-shot in a series of one off one shots, thus spawning WCABW. However, it clearly needed more editing, so I decided to release “prestigious school au” instead. Fast forward several months and not only am I still editing it, but that one-shot turned first into a multi-part and eventually a multi-chapter fic, all the while the events of the story still staying within the same time period, and therefore taking place over the course of one day. It is… utterly ridiculous. 

So anyway, it’s pretty long now, (well for me anyway, it’s almost 30 pages), which makes it take forever to edit. Unfortunately, I think that has caused the back chapters to suffer a bit, because for some reason I always prefer to edit things in order, so by the time I get to the end I’m pretty mentally exhausted. Therefore, I’ve decided to divide it up by only editing one chapter a day to make it easier on myself. Hopefully this will work out, and I can have it out by like August or something, but we will see! (Not being done until December is unfortunately still probable! 😅)

*Sigh* Welp, this has gotten long, but this month has been even longer so I guess it’s appropriate. In any case, thank you all for reading! The new fluff-filled anthology series should be out by the end of the month. Like I said earlier, it’s more like having dessert than dinner, but sometimes that's just what you need! See you all next month! 😊

[talenlee]

2023, The 10th Year Of Press.Exe

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: 2023, The 10th Year Of Press.Exe

Hey, it’s January! That’s an odd-numbered month, which means there’s not going to be a theme here. It’s also the start of the year and there’s going to be a bunch of stuff getting cleared out from 2022 so it’s not going to have a proper theme but it’ll definitely have something… themey.

What’s coming? Well:

February is a month of Smooches!

April is a month of Self Indulgence!

June is a month of Pride!

August is a month of Tricks!

October is a month of Dread!

December is a month of ‘Ween!

Then, each month, look forward to

A How To Be article talking about a character in 4th edition D&D

A worldbuilding article talking about building my setting of Cobrin’Seil, or building settings in general

At most one article on 3.5 D&D, one on 4e D&D

Each month I’ll show you at least one article on Magic: The Gathering, where I’ll show you this month’s daily custom cards, and well, we have a big special project for that, which we’ll talk more about soon.

An article talking about an OC, usually from City of Heroes, but hey, wide open world.

One piece of graphic design for a t-shirt, mask, or sticker

A story pile article each monday, with at least one anime a month (loose target)

A game pile article every friday, with at least one video a fortnight (harder target)

Each month I’m going to present at the end of the month, a summary of the game dev I’ve been doing that month, which is also going to be built out of articles posted on other social media spaces.

Ah.

Yes.

Other social media spaces.

You know, like Twitter, where I used to do this all the time.

I’m writing this back in December, of course. I don’t know what’s going on with Twitter. But I think it’s probably bad, and I think I’m enjoying not having to be on a space that predominantly is known for everyone on it screaming about how bad it is. So what I’m going to try and do going forward is do things like dev threads over on my Mastodon, which lets me do long-form threading with graphics, and search my own history. That’s what I really liked about what twitter gave me. I’ll also be presenting things on Cohost and Patreon to see what the audiences there want to say.

Basically, what you’ll find where:

Drafted article ideas where you can comment and give me direct suggestions where I’ll be able to meaningfully engage? Cohost.

Threads for showing ongoing progress on projects where I’m primarily taking notes on my own work? Mastodon.

Places for answering polls and questions about the game development I’m doing where you get to provide meaningful input into things I’m doing? Patreon.

Just the video articles? Youtube!

Each of these platforms is going to do a different job, and that’s important. I need to stop treating you as if you’re going to different sources for content firehoses. What I want you to do is come to my blog to look at the best of my material, and look at those other platforms as places you can go if you want more. This blog hosts articles. Those places are for social interaction, in different ways.

Particularly, this plays into the new way I’m approaching Brainstorm posts. Instead of having each month open with a post explaining that month’s game project, which can feel a bit like an open space, my intention is to present a link to the month’s brainstorming thread on Mastodon. Mastodon serves a purpose that the blog doesn’t necessarily, where it allows for lots of small additions, maintained in reverse chronological order, threaded on one another. At the start of each month, there’s going to be now, a post summarising that thread. This also stops cutting off a bit of extra time, where scheduling meant sometimes a month was more like three weeks of working on something rather than 31 days.

Below the fold, though, there’s some reflection on the history of this blog, why we have ten years of Press, and how I feel about realising this is now one of the longest ongoing projects I’ve ever had.

Goodness me

This blog started out as a byproduct of a change I wanted to make in my life when I was 29, turning 30. I realised that I’d spent my twenties trying things and starting a dozen projects but finishing nothing, which meant that all the ideas I had and all the concepts I was sure of had resulted in a lot of incomplete things. I’d had it in my head that I’d write a book or become a videogame maker or something like that. I felt, in the back of my mind, that I was always working on a thing, and any day now I’d make the thing.

I hadn’t.

I mean, there were things I made! I made things like a D&D setting and outlines of ideas, and D&D prestige classes and feats and magical items, I had been working on these small things but I’d never internalised that ‘small things’ and ‘big things’ were still just things. I mean I had a whole D&D setting, which one of my friends had printed out and put in a book, but that wasn’t a thing for people to read. It was a thing for me to be happy I had (which is noble enough on its own).

This blog is a thing that charts to my life, and now it charts to this particular period of my life. The year I turned 30, I made a plan. I would write one thing a week, a short story being the aim, and at the end of the year I would have 52 things that were made ‘together’ and that would count as a book. It had no option but to count as a book. Fox made this blog, which I think was her idea and it was a good one. Give me a place I had to put things, after a period where we once shared a blog on another site.

I wrote that first book. I’ve told this story before – about midway through the year I realised just how much I wanted a plan, how I wanted structure. I was using the blog in a very random way, and there’s probably a bunch of stuff back there that’s a big bad or meanspirited in ways I’d probably not be wild about now. I think I should keep things up, generally speaking, to make sure I’m accountable for things I said and so that if I did something that deserves an apology, I can actually do that. But I did write that book, The Sixth Age Of Sand.

It’s not great. I mean I like some of the ideas in it a lot, I like the way that it built bits of a world. I kind of like the idea of how a modern setting becomes a magical setting, with the idea of it being like buildups and thresholds and I liked the idea that the previous civilisation that we never knew about on earth was entirely made up of crabs.

In the November of that year, of my first year of university, while studying for my first exams, I wrote my first book for Nanowrimo – I wrote Immortal Engine, which was much smaller, tighter, and built out of a burning desire to finish a story that I could make with a structure. I like that book, not because it’s amazing writing or because it’s very good, but because it was my first book, and that book required a world that then became the setting for my next book, One Stone.

One Stone is a book that even now I’m proud of.

When I started this blog, I started making this blog because I imagined I would become a videogame journalist who wrote books on the side. Those were two things I liked, a lot, conceptually. Still kinda do. But what happened along the way was being believed in by teachers, and guided by friends and enabled by an audience. To shift from I think games doing this are bad to the next level of well why don’t I do things differently to suddenly… there are games. We made games. We made games, because again, Fox has been instrumental to this.

It’s been a weird few years. I became a game maker. I grappled with the challenges of self-identity. I started a youtube channel, because I was intrigued by the different ways you could use video to explain ideas. I acquired a stalker at one point. I got a dog! I progressed through multiple types of conceptual rage and started writing about my material conditions. I became an anarchist, which I’m still cautious about saying because I’m afraid the boss of anarchism will find me and yell at me for saying it and I know that’s dumb.

There’s a sort of soppy inclusivity that internet content creation wants to induce you to, the ‘we’ did it, you did it with me, you, the reader, you helped, and you totally did! I really like to imagine that someone is reading what I have to say, and that alone is enough to make sure I do it. I remember someone letting me know they laughed at something I said about Touhou predating Dark Souls and…

I smile.

I throw a lot of words out there and they wouldn’t be here if not for Fox. I press post because I imagine my audience, I visualise people who are interested in the kinds of things I want to talk about in the way I want to talk about them and bless, some of you are out there and have found it.

This blog does give me stressful nights sometimes, when I feel I haven’t done enough, written enough, worked enough for the Patreon dollars I receive, and the inherent anxiety of knowing the Queue Hungers. but I still love this feeling, this moment, when I’m able to bring my focus to bear, and let words spill.

Thank you for showing up, and thank you for telling me what you think about what I do.

Hey, wanna know why the blog is called press.exe?

I’ll tell you at some point this year.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[marxalittle]

I have mild-to-moderate-to-severe general anxiety disorder (GAD! Is, in fact, how I often feel, both in general and about this). It’s medication-resistant because my brain is hooked up funny, which is also a reason why I have this problem in the first place. There are various ways I can reduce or assuage it, and various things I have done over the years to placate it; it comes and goes, it better and worse, but it’s always there.

One of the things which this gives rise to is “nagging worries about everything especially the unfamiliar,” which often manifests as “paranoia that something which shouldn’t go wrong may suddenly go wrong and upend an entire necessary sequence” resulting in me making double or triple sure of things, scouting routes before I need to be somewhere at a time, and generally doing a lot of things which strongly resemble time-wasting busywork. Again, the severity and degree is better and worse depending on my overall state, the severity of what could go wrong, the degree of unfamiliarity etc etc and so on.

I try not to listen to the paranoia too much, but sometimes it’s just easier to eat the time and settle my mind. Today, I got one of those little reminders about, not Why I’m Like This (brain hooked up funny), but the positive side to listening to the urge to be certain.

Recently I moved to Chicago, and I brought a car with me because I had no other viable choice. My plan is to sell it in the next few months, but for now, I’m saddled with it. Anyway, Chicago has a lot of rules about who can park where and when and for how long and what days and they’re generally posted where you can see them on street signs every block but it’s very overwhelming for a person inclined to having their mind eroded if left uncertain about something with Consequences. Through careful street sign analysis, however, I located a few blocks within a reasonable walk of my new place which didn’t require a neighborhood code on the tags and didn’t have standing April-Nov street sweeping (and weren’t snow routes, and didn’t have school-hour or M-F special parking or tow zones, or … on like this), and parked my car there before leaving for vacation.

A lot of things happened in a very short span in August, okay.

Anyway, when I got back I had received the city tag entitling me to park in the city without getting ticketed (if noticed), slapped it on my car, and then left it for another week, satisfied that it was immune to further interference by the parking regime.

Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow is Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I’m doing a bunch of logistics stuff which requires the use of my car. Once I had taken care of all the other scheduling, my anxiety immediately demanded that I check on the car. It hadn’t been started for two weeks. There might be an abandoned-vehicle regulation about cars that don’t move for 14 days. Someone might have hit it while parallel parking.

I had two choices: ignore the itch (and let it fester), or take a trip out to see my car. It’s a twenty minute walk, about half that on my skateboard, or if I catch the bus at the right time, about ten minutes still but air conditioned. I grabbed the board (I love living somewhere with big enough sidewalks that I can just take the cruiser to cut down my travel time) and my car keys and set out to calm the paranoid demon that would otherwise gnaw on my brain all goddamned day. Besides, if something had happened, I was going to need the maximum amount of business hours to figure out who to contact about vehicles towed by the city, and where to buy my car back from its officially sanctioned thieves.

Well! As soon as I got into the neighborhood, off the main thoroughfare which gets street-swept all season, I noticed a bunch of the orange temporary signs that the streets and sanitation dept wraps around trees to signal their intentions to the locals. Specifically, a bunch of W for Wednesday signs on the side of the street where I’d parked my car, and TH for Thursday on the opposite side. Those weren’t there last weekend, so they must be fairly recent. 9am-2pm, tow zone, street sweeping, photo enforced.

I sped up, sweating and muttering, hoping that those had gone up over the weekend and not last week. My relief when my car was still there, unticketed and untowed, was damn near catastrophic.

Very calmly, I unlocked the car, started it (right up like normal), let things run for a minute, and then pulled out of my spot and into a new one, half a block away, on the Thursday side. Tomorrow when I get there, my car will not be in danger of towing for being on the street sweeping side, and it will start. When I’m done with it, I will drive around a little until I find a spot on the Wednesday side, park, and be at ease until next Tuesday morning, when I will head over to move it again, until the signs go away.

Things like this happening don’t do a damn thing for my attempts to calm my anxiety and resist doing the things it wants me to do, by the way. They do, however, impress upon me that sometimes, especially in new environments, it’s worth it to be sure.

[losingitinjersey]

I can’t very well declare to be “back” without making blogging a priority again, can I?  So here I am for better or for worse with zero idea what my blog voice is anymore.  Please excuse this all over the map post while I remember how to do this again.  

A couple questions from my last post I wanted to address at large:

1) @lizloveslifexo “I believe you owe us a story about buying the house :)”

Yes!  Here’s the post from back in April right after our offer was accepted where I shared all the feelings!

2) @stackofpaperbacks “why did I think you were moving to PA instead of NJ or did I miss that post?”

You’re totally right!  We were absolutely planning on moving to PA since Kevin’s residency is in Philly but the offer that was accepted (after seven previous attempts in three months) happened to be in NJ.  Where we now live is about a 30 minute drive into Center City (which is apparently what the downtown section of Philadelphia is called) so while not super conveniently located, it’s definitely doable.  (She says not having to drive anywhere to get to work).  

My daily routine is: 

Wake up at 6 a.m., get Erp’s lunch and Aug’s bottles packed for the day.  Wake the girls up by 7:30 a.m. if they aren’t already awake.  Drop them off at daycare by 8:30 a.m. (ideally earlier if we can swing it).  Please note that this hour and a half is pure chaos with all the power struggles, tears and sometimes super sweet moments that can only come with trying to get two children dressed and fed and out the door by a specific time.  

THEN, if I’m lucky with timing, I’ll come home, throw on a hat and my ear pods and hit the road for a 40 minute 2-mile walk where I’ll get to listen to the Sandman.  Loving it SO MUCH.  I’ve been told to read the graphic novels for yeaarrsss but I’m just not a graphic novel person so I’m glad it’s now available in audio format.  Then shower and log into work by 9 a.m.  Throughout the day I’ll do other exciting things like make breakfast and do laundry and hopefully find some corner of the house to organize from the move.  I swear, I never get tired of working from home.  It’s my favorite way to work!  

Next week I’m off work and FULLY excited to do all the home projects!  Hopefully I’ll actually get my office organized (the least important of the rooms to put together) and put up all the pictures on walls!  Also, a trip to the DMV is planned to get a NJ license and plates.  WOoooo!  ALSO, perhaps a haircut??  I haven’t had a haircut since January 2020 (and before that it was two years since my last cut).  This was a few weeks after I had Erp, my first time entering out into the world again and I was actually dedicated to keeping up a trim schedule.  Then the pandemic shut everything down :)  So here we are.  We’ll see what happens!  

The fourth picture is giving me such rockstar vibes.  Can’t wait until Erp is a famous musician so she can use it as her album cover :)

[lululawrence]

Can u please be nicer on ao3? Maybe you should try answering people's comments

when i read the first line i was honestly flabbergasted and wracking my brain trying to figure out when in the world i wasn't nice on ao3 ever. because i honestly truly try to be nice to everyone always, even when i'm angry or frustrated or people are going after those i love and want to protect. if there was a time i WASN'T nice on ao3, i wondered if it was maybe because my comment had been misunderstood or someone saw me razzing an author i'm good friends with and they didn't get that we are close and i said what i did with so much love and appreciation, you know? like what??? did i do???

but then i read your second line. and please forgive me if i come off as rude in my response to this, because honestly i'm in a pretty bad spot mentally and emotionally in general right now, but PARTICULARLY today, and this ask triggered an anxiety response in me. so. i'm trying really hard to word this in a way to educate without being condescending or mean, but i might not succeed.

firstly, thank you for your comments i'm assuming you've left. i'm also assuming they were nice comments, in which case extra thanks. i'm sure i'll send you effusive responses on ao3 when the time comes.

secondly, please understand that sending an ask like this, on anonymous no less, is incredibly entitled. writing is not my profession, i receive no compensation for my works that i post for free online, and as a part of that it is not required of me to respond. i do my very best to reply to every comment i receive, but it is not always in a timely manner, because i have other priorities in my life. all of which leads us to my third point, which is:

writers do not owe you a reply to your comments. end of. there are no other qualifications or quantifying modifiers to be added to the statement. is it nice to be acknowledged and know your comment was seen? sure. but do they OWE you one? hell no.

in fact, i'd like to offer you a suggestion. a way of tweaking your thinking about the comments you leave on fics. instead of looking at comments you leave as being something that deserves a reply from the author, think of your comments as your way of paying the author for the gift of their time and talents that they have shared with you by posting their fic. that's how i think of the comments i leave for authors. i'm giving them my thanks for the words they've shared! i want to help THEM feel as amazing as they have made ME feel when i read their fic. in fact, my hope isn't necessarily a response from them, but instead my hope is THE GIFT OF THEM SHARING MORE FIC WITH ME. i'm a selfish bitch in that way and i always want all the fic to read. i never want that well to go dry. one way i can ensure that doesn't happen is by supporting authors and being kind to them and spreading all the love and excitement i can about their writing in the hopes that my words will inspire them to share more.

because whether they reply or not, i GUARANTEE they are seeing your comments. i PROMISE they are. and for all you know, your comment might be the one that keeps them writing even when their words aren't coming easily or when they are tempted to give up.

but, again, please remember that no matter what, these authors (including me) don't actually owe you anything.

the rest of this is going under a cut, because honestly my reply is already far too long and i have a LOT more to say now that you've gotten me started.

now, all of this in mind, i'll explain to you why i'm not great with keeping up with comments made on my fics the last couple of years. i don't owe you this explanation any more than i owe you a response to your comments, and i'm honestly not sure you deserve this explanation either, but i'll still offer it anyway. it'll help me feel better knowing i at least put this out there, whether you care or not, mainly because if i don't do that it will cause me greater anxiety having you possibly think i am not responding to people because i feel all high and mighty or that i think i'm better than the comments or whatever the fuck kind of motivation you're attributing to me to see my lack of a response as something "not nice" towards the commenters.

i'm not sure if you've noticed, but i put out a lot of fic. like a lot. a lot of words and shit. i love writing, it's often my therapy and a way for me to help keep my anxiety and depression and ptsd at bay.

now, more personal shit for you, i've got three kids ages 9 and under. the oldest has adhd which we have yet to find a med for that helps to the extent she needs without side effects that aren't healthy for her to continue with, she also has anxiety, AND she's extremely gifted and starting a new program at a new school, all in the midst of a pandemic. and all of those situations exacerbate her anxiety! huzzah! she's also dealing with the beginning of her tween growing up shit, which is great fun because it means where she used to be pretty damn understanding of her younger brother, she is finding it much more difficult to. because the second oldest? he's autistic with some pretty significant gross motor, speech, and socialization delays that have only been exacerbated because of the previously mentioned pandemic. PLUS he transitioned from his special needs preschool to a fully integrated elementary school for kindergarten last year and then had to deal with all the ups and downs of the switch from e-learning to hybrid to all in schooling when everything in him screams for a normal schedule he can rely on to keep his own anxieties and fears and struggles at their minimum. and that youngest child? he was born in january of last year. he STILL barely leaves the house and has only met other children in close range a couple of times because, once again, pandemic!

add onto all of this my own mental health issues, the fact that my husband ALSO battles major clinical depression, adhd, and anxiety, AND we live with my parents who have their own health issues, both mental and physical. i run the home for our house of seven. i keep this place functioning, fed, clothed, clean, and everywhere we need to be for all of our five million appointments every. fucking. day. there is a REASON i've been borderline burnt out for the last fucking year and a half.

now, for fun, i have fandom shit. i love it here, even if it is a dumpster fire on the best of days, and getting to be a part of the writing community is so very lovely. i adore it. honestly, it's because of those friendships i've built with other writers that i have been able to keep writing and have found just how helpful it can be for my mental health. but i'm REALLY. INCREDIBLY. BUSY. i hardly have time to get on tumblr for just a quick swipe through my dash most days. i put off asks so long i forget i have them. i don't have the mental and emotional capacity to talk to people on here or interact fully a lot of the time. but i do my best to do so and be kind while i'm at it even when i don't want to be.

then, on top of that? i also run fic fests like @wordplayfics and help friends run their own. because not only am i a writer, i'm a reader. i LOVE fic. fic has saved me soooooo many times over the past seven years that i've been here. i want to do what i can to support other writers the best way i can, which is to provide a space for them to create their works that welcomes and helps promote them, but also by doing my monthly fic lists and pocast highlighting what i've been able to read, reblogging their fic posts, and then commenting and kudosing their fics too.

sometimes i get really fucking down on myself because i'm so behind on replying to comments, but my brain is very much a "if you start this, you have to finish it" kind of a brain, and i feel even WORSE sometimes if i reply to comments on some fics and not all of them. but i do my best and reply when i can. i was actually really fucking proud of myself because i had a couple days to myself in june, and i spent hours replying to comments on 20 of my fics. when you have almost 150 fics (i think? i don't even know how many fics i've posted by now), that is only scratching the surface. but i tried and i was so so happy i did that many fics at once. it's exhausting, though, and takes a lot of spoons for me to reply to them in mass like that plus time consuming. so i tried to be happy with those 20 fics and the comments i responded to there and told myself that when i ha a moment to breathe, i'd go and work on replying to some more.

but see, that again causes anxiety and guilt. because i haven't replied to all of them. and that anxiety and guilt can cause me to put it off further OR to put off important things like feeding my children or getting sleep in order to finish it, so i have to make myself put things into perspective and ensure i'm doing the important things, like taking care of myself and my family, first.

and then, i have a moment where i CAN go ahead and reply to comments... but i also have MANY fics that are on deadline and i actually have a schedule. a SCHEDULE. for when i'm going to focus on which fics. i can spell it out for you if you really want. i made it back in APRIL to make sure i didn't sign up for too many fic fests because there are so many going on right now that i want to participate in, but i know i can't do all of them so i had to pick and choose. and when you are SO overscheduled and busy that back in APRIL you had to figure out what fics you would focus on at what time to ensure you got everything written when you wanted to through THE END OF THE YEAR, more choices have to be made.

for example. my writing time and time for myself came down to only one evening a week for ALL fandom things i'm doing and a part of right now once the kids were out of school for the summer. it quickly became apparent that for my own self care i needed more time, so i worked with my husband to find two other days i could carve out at least 30-60 minutes to myself to write every week. and i did. but if i'm already only getting that much time and have committed to those fics and fests and things that you're running etc, you have to choose am i going to use this time to try to squeeze in some comment replies? or am i going to write? and i choose to write. simple as that.

so yeah. see it as selfish if you want. see it as mean. you can honestly see it as whatever the fuck you want, but for me? i know that as soon as i possibly can and i can breathe freely for once and not feel like i am constantly drowning in my day to day life and am doing pretty well when it comes to my fic deadlines and getting started on those christmas cards i'm once again going to be making by hand for everyone on tumblr who chooses to sign up for one this year out of the KINDNESS of my heart and the love i really do feel for so many of you, then i promise i'll be on ao3 catching up and commenting. my friends laugh and make fun of me for it sometimes, because they will sometimes get 10-12 replies to their comments in a single day. they know that's how i work. i WILL reply to every single comment i get, no matter how old it is. but for the love of all that is holy, do NOT add to the anxiety and guilt i already feel over it. the only place that will get you is the ask/comment getting deleted if it's a good day, a fucking long rant like this one if it's not, and a block if it's a REALLY bad day.

if you're asking me to be nice on ao3, then i ask in return that you also be nice by not demanding things of people that they are not in any way obligated to give.

[thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness]

Kaoru & Toshiya Rolling Stone Japan 18th May 2021

DIR EN GREY talks about the current unique expression method and fun.

DIR EN GREY has postponed their concert scheduled to be held at Tokyo Garden Theater on May 6th. However, if you read this interview that took place two days before the decision to postpone the live, it's easy to imagine that the band will continue to move forward no matter what.

Using the single "Oboro" released on April 28 as the reason for this interview , we asked leader Kaoru (Gt) and Toshiya (Ba),who makes his first appearance in Rolling Stone Japan, about the current state of the band.

Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistakes or any confusing parts. Links or credits to this post when the content is reposted or captured in other SNS is appreciated : ------------- Original interview: Rolling Stone Japan (includes pictures)

Text: Joe Yokomizo -First of all, please tell us the details of releasing this single at this timing. Kaoru: We've been talking about releasing a single around this time for a long time. But, we were asked by the company to release it sooner (laughs).  They told us “Can’t you release it around February?”. But we said we couldn’t record it in such a hurry and pushed the release back (laughs). So, the release was decided  at the time it was originally scheduled.

-Is it a song you wrote recently?

Kaoru: We chose it from the ones we had in stock.

-How do you choose a song? Like, is there a discussion among the members? Kaoru: We had a talk about if it’d be good to release a ballad or a melodious song this time. Then, we chose it from the songs we had at that time. Toshiya: That's right. We thought  a melodious song or a mellow song would be good, so we chose it from the songs we had in stock. As a result of the discussions we had, we came to the conclusion that “Oboro” was the best choice. I personally thought this song might be able to become a single, but I also thought that it could be a good idea to save it for the album.  I thought it could become a song  that would be the core of the album even if it was just included in the album. Kaoru: We haven’t released any ballad as a single recently. We did it quite a while ago so we felt like it would be good if we tried it.

-It's true that a ballad as a single is quite fresh for DIR EN GREY, and the arrangements are ... Kaoru: Simple. Pretty simple, but it took us a while to get there. -Do you want to increase the number of notes that are being played at the same time? Kaoru: No. Rather than messing with that, it felt like the notes were gradually confronting each other. There wasn’t a big change, but it took us some time to decide the overall flow, how to do it and the final result. -DIR EN GREY has a strong image as a band that is playing lives often. Until now, you released something and toured, released something, and toured. All over again. The releases haven’t stopped yet but the tours and therefore the lives themselves have stopped because of Corona. How do you feel about the state of the band? Toshiya: Since we couldn’t play lives, I think the part of exploring as a band is big.  But personally, at some point, I got over that. The band wants to move, but it’s hard to do it. Even if we think about it, we can’t do anything about the situation so, we haven’t stopped thinking about it, but I think we got over it at some point. Rather, we had no choice but to get over it. -Even if you keep thinking about it, nothing will happen.

Toshiya: That’s right. Even if we just write songs and do the pre-production all the time, if that’s all we are doing, it feels like a pie in the sky all the time. It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it? We didn’t get another answer before but, the process of getting that answer has changed. There was a series of routines like making an album, playing lives, making an album, and doing live performances after that but wasn’t that cut off entirely? Then, we are doing it as usual, but something has changed at some point.  And it may just be that kind of era from now on. I think we have no choice but to adapt to this. However, even I think about how it was before, I’m starting to think that it won’t be like that again, and we may just get over it. -Did the production itself change due to the lack of lives? It is often said that a song evolves when it is being playing live, but if you make a song in a situation where it is difficult to imagine playing it live, will the image of the song, how to make it, and the depth of making it change? Kaoru:  Even if we are making songs, it feels different from usual. To put it the other way around,  as the situation is unique now, maybe it’s a song that can only be done at this moment. But it’s like…. wouldn't it be nice if we could create something interesting? I don't know if we are even thinking about it. I think that the fact that there was always a tour up until now had a big influence. As we always had a tour, until then we’ve limited production time. That's why there was a switch, because now we have infinite time. To be honest, if you take it easy, you’ll space out. After all, it was great to be pushed, force myself into doing it  and work hard (laughs). -About making it “the right time” by themselves -Regarding the unlimited production time, how was it for you, Toshiya? Toshiya: I think I'm grateful. However, I want to use it as much as I have. As there were moments I got distracted/ was being lazy, I feel that there are good points and bad points, to be honest. -What's the good thing about this recording? Have you tried something new? Toshiya: After all, in the end time is chasing me (laughs). But this time, I felt that I had a little leeway in my heart. That's why I thought about the single in various ways.Then I wondered if I could release this or that and people would listen to it. It’s common to say this but, when you start thinking about figures, I've even thought about if it's good or bad to release something at this timing. I wondered if it’d be better when this corona situation has settled down a bit more. But well, even if you wait for that time to come, then I would wonder about when that time would come, so in the end, I thought it was unavoidable to think about it. If the right time doesn't come, I think we should make it become the “right time”. Rather than worrying about it, I thought that if such a song was completed and it felt good, we should release it. -It's certainly important to create the right timing. Toshiya: People all over the world are dealing with it now, or more like, we are waiting forever, aren’t we? Personally, I don’t think the situation will return to normal even if we wait. I think it’s more useful to think about how to proceed in a situation like this. I personally came this conclusion, or at least, I’m trying to. -Listening to what you are saying, I remembered Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot." The two main characters are waiting for Godot, but in fact, no one knows who Mr. Godot is, and I don't know if Godot actually exists. But they are waiting, believing that he will eventually come. Toshiya: Everyone, including myself, is waiting now. But what on earth are you waiting for? If you think about it, it’s like we're just waiting for "that moment”, right? But honestly, I don't think “that” will be back. I think it has changed. Then we have to move towards it. I'm a bit scared to stop waiting any longer, but I think we have to take a step forward. Kaoru: I agree with you. -DIR EN GREY Unique ideas -By the way, the new song "Oboro" is said to be a sequel to a previous song. The lyrics are done by vocalist Kyo but for you two, is it a sequel? Kaoru: I was told that but I wasn’t particularly drawn (by that song). The beats and tempo of the original song of "Oboro" are similar to that song. So maybe he was drawn by that and made the lyrics like this. After hearing that the lyrics would be like that, I've never been aware of it. Toshiya: I wasn't even aware of it at all either. I thought “is this it?”.

-By the way, in Toshiya's words, "Oboro" is a song that can be the core of the next album ... Toshiya: It’s just a song. The talks about the album are making rapid progress but now there are endless possibilities, including how to play the songs live. So, I think it's okay if there are songs that exist just as part of the album, and conversely, there may be songs that are only for playing them live. In other words, from here on, how to add value will become even more important than ever. Kaoru: It's nice to have songs that you can only play live. Toshiya: About that, if you might do that at that time, you might want to play it live? I’m thinking about how to add that value to the song. I want to do a live concert, but we can't, moreover if you even do a concert normally, I’m sure it won’t be interesting. -It looks like broadcasting a regular live is difficult, right? Kaoru: A live that it’s going to be only broadcasted is a bit tough. In that sense, hearing what Toshiya said about songs that only can be played at lives are, in other words, songs that won’t become part of an album are really interesting. Toshiya: I don’t know. I was thinking it to myself and I just said it (laughs). Kaoru: There may be quite a few….songs that are like, “Which one is this?". Moreover, no one mentions those songs in an interview (laughs). Toshiya: Ahahaha. Kaoru: Even among the fans, sometimes it’s like “which song is that one?”, and don’t even know the title. The set list doesn't  even have the title of the song. Toshiya: I think it doesn't have to be just the song , but the production. I recently thought about it. In the past there used to be a lot of  imaginativeness/ playfulness on the DIR EN GREY’s cds. Recently, I remembered that was pretty normal. But from now on, if we are going to put out the record ourselves,  I want to make something that can be enjoyable. On the old DIR EN GREY cds, I remember I was asked to find out where the lyrics were written. When I think about it now, it's quite a prank, but that prank was surprisingly interesting. -How about the leader (laughs)? Kaoru: I put a lot of things into the sound (laughs). -The  particularity/commitment in “Oboro” -The “mischievous and eccentric” idea that Toshiya mentioned is swallowed normally before one knows. I think expression itself is a struggle, but in the age of the Internet, the speed at which it is swallowed is accelerating. That’s why,  even if that happens, I think it is important to keep fighting, recognizing that "I am not just like this". Kaoru: That's exactly what I do. Because I never thought I have a good taste. Even though I can’t make a song, it feels like I'm doing it just because I have a competitive spirit. -Like you don’t want to be taken into ordinary things,  or do you want to do something that has never been seen before? Kaoru: I want to do that, but it takes time. Speaking of gimmicks, in “Oboro” there are a lot of them. -What kind of “gimmicks” are there? Please tell me some. Kaoru: It's not interesting if I told them (laughs). There are many sounds that you can't hear. There are lots of sounds that you can feel.  I thought it would be great if you could feel it. And I'm thinking about putting a lot of that into the next album. -There is something I would like to ask about lives. I think we are in a situation where values are conflicting. If you play a live, even among fans there’ll be the conflict of the “Don’t play a live in these circumstances”  versus the  “Thank you for playing a concert in these circumstances”  position. Kaoru: It's difficult, isn't it? Neither of these positions are wrong. However, as a band, we won’t stop. So, if the conditions allow it, the live will go on. I think there are a lot of people who says “"Oh, I'm going to live at a time like this. These people’s views have changed”. But well, I think this is happening in other bands as well. -That’s right.  In any band, there is a faction that says to play lives and a faction that wants to stop. How should they come to terms with each other? Kaoru: I don’t think normal life will be back for a while here. If someone says “Yes, it’s nothing in the end”, it may change, but it’s that going to happen? The point is, I think it will be difficult unless the number of infected people goes down. Because Taiwan, where the number of infected people has decreased, there are even festivals taking place. Toshiya: We are choosing a method (against Corona  virus)  that doesn't work right now, but as it is the government who is doing it, isn’t the situation delicate? I think so. When it comes to what is driving people, I think it’s the number of people getting infected, as Kaoru said. The only way to reduce that number may simply cause damage. If you lock down hard like in the UK, you will suffer tremendous financial damage. I think that's why everyone can get lost on the way. However, although it is extreme, unless you have such a strong will, you will continue to do it subtlety and the number will drop again,  “Oh, now it’s ok because the numbers have dropped a little” and then after a while they will surely increase again, won’t them? And then repeat the same process. If that happens, I’m worried the same process will be repeated again and again if you don’t cut it off at some point. Kaoru: Tokyo is under the state of emergency for the third time, but I would like them to stop doing lockdown so suddenly. It’s so hard if there is no warm-up/grace period.

Toshiya: Regarding this state of emergency, I will obey what they say, because I have to obey. But in order to do it, I want something that gives me hope. I feel like suddenly, time was taken from me. -Before the light can be seen, “Oboro” -I want hope. That being said, DIR EN GREY's music always sees light at the end. But in the current situation, we can't see that light. I don't think you can understand the meaning of the lyrics unless you're Kyo, but I'm wondering what "Oboro" means. Like, in this era everything is obscure in an ambiguous sense? Or is it a night with a hazy moon but, you can see the light even faintly because it’s hazy? How do you two interpret it?

*Joe is making a reference to the song title,   朧 (Oboro) means hazy,dim,faint.* Toshiya: If possible, I think I want it to be hazy before you are able to see the light. Before people lose the courage to do their best, being surrounded by fog all the time. - It's true that humans aren't that strong. If there is hope, what is it? What kind of hope are you seeing now? Toshiya: That would be ……the best would be that the Corona situation comes to an end. But before that, I'd like  "Oboro" to be released properly. Some CD shops are closed due to a state of emergency, so even if you made a reservation, some people may not be able to get it on the release date. So, I hope that "Oboro" will reach everyone who made a reservation. -Which is Kaoru’s Oboro? Kaoru: I think either of them are interesting. In any situation as well, it’s something that it’s only now. It’s also an expression method that can only be done now. Of course, the band will continue, and I will be writing songs, but I think it would be great if we could express something that can only be done now, or something that is interesting. -Anyway, "Oboro" is an excellent title. Toshiya: When you think about it now, that’s right. It can be interpreted as this uncertain situation, and it can also be interpreted as a situation where a faint light is visible. Kaoru: I want you to listen to it and feel it.

[death2normalcy]

This post is part of a series I’m going to call ‘Why I Love Stray Kids’. Each post is going to be dedicated to a different member and is just going to be ramblings of things I love about them, because I just really love making lists and sometimes, I get bored.

Previous Posts: I.N. | Seungmin | Felix | Han | Hyunjin | Changbin | Lee Know

This post is about Bang Chan/Christopher Bang!

Songs I Personally Love Him In:

Red Lights; Ex; Maniac; Waiting For Us; Chronosaurus; Don’t Want to Admit; For You; Thunderous; Scars (Either Version); Mixtape: Oh

Music Videos I Love Him In:

Hellevator; Awkward Silence; Maniac; Back Door; Red Lights; Miroh; Easy; Victory Song; Thunderous; Scars

10 Random Things I Love:

Every single time they show this man looking fondly at his members, I want to cry. He loves them so much, they are his family, and to see how much he cares makes me yearn for things, and I simply do not do that.

The fact that he has openly stated that the members saved him on multiple occasions. I’m so happy for him, that he was able to find this family, these other boys, to bond with, to debut with. I imagine he gets lonely being so far from home for so long, so to have that support system is so important, especially if you struggle with mental health issues, which I believe Chan has stated he has.

How hard he works. He actually stresses me out with it, more often than not, when everyone makes jokes about him not sleeping, but at the same time, his determination to be amazing is admirable. He spent 7 years as a trainee and he’s not going to stop now.

Everything about Chan’s Room. The idea behind it. How he insists on doing it regularly, for the fans. How he makes song recommendations in it, or listens to their own music, or even reacts to their stuff. How he makes jokes. How he listens to the fans and tells them he is there for them. The fact that he takes that time out of, what I’m sure, is his very busy schedule to do that every week is sweet.

How big his heart is. This goes a bit hand and hand with the ones above, but this man clearly has a lot of love to give, and he gives it openly. He not only loves his members a lot, but it’s also in the way he is there for the fans.

How much of a dork he is. He is just unashamedly a dork, and I love that. I love people who are just like, hey, I’m kind of weird, but oh well, lmao. It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to be something different or something cool, he’s just himself, for the most part.

His singing voice. From a technical standpoint, I’m sure Chan isn’t considered the best singer of the group. But it’s not always about who is technically better for me. It’s whoever sticks with me. And Chan’s voice sticks with me. It’s not overly powerful, but it still makes me emotional. This man has a beautiful singing voice. (On a side note, is he the best dance in the group? No. But I love his dancing. I implied once that him, Lee Know, and Changbin during the ‘Maniac’ dance were my favorite, and I stand by that.)

His laugh. Chan is another one that makes me think he’d be the kind of friend you’d laugh so hard with, you’d start crying and be laughing for hours. You can see it in the one clip with 3racha from Chan’s room. But there are tons of clips of him just laughing a lot, and I love it.

How smart he is. It’s not a quality I see stated a lot. I mean, I know 3racha is referred to as geniuses from time to time (mainly Han, but I’ve seen people refer to each member at least once). But I feel like how smart Chan has to be to do what he does, the way he does it, and keep turning out hit after hit. Smart and creative.

Okay, this point is going to be a little different, I just want to randomly gush about him. I’ve been a fan for only a couple months. I got into Stray Kids on April 1. I’ve stated before that the first person I noticed was Han, because the first thing I saw was the ‘Maniac’ music video. But the first person that stuck with me, the one that made me start to love this group, was Chan. He has a presence. And I don’t mean that ‘6 foot tall’ energy he exudes when he walks. I mean, he was interesting to me. I was like, I want to know more about this guy. (It was the exact opposite feeling I had with Minho.) And I’m grateful to him for that. I’m so fond of this man. I am aware that this is a purely parasocial relationship, lmao. I expect nothing from him. I simply want him to be happy, I want to continue to enjoy what him and this group can put out. Even if I post about other members more, at the end of the day, Bang Chan is my actual favorite.

Let Me Be Superficial For A Moment: Like the rest of them, this is hard. But I’m going to go with his smile, and the way it lights up his face. Seeing Chan smile is such a wonderful thing.

Two Dynamics Of His That I’m Fond Of: Felix and Jeongin. This one was hard. Almost all of them were, to some extent, but I struggled with this one. Much like Jeongin, I love all of Chan’s dynamics equally, so picking just two was difficult.

[friendly-neighborhood-study-pal]

Today I’m doing something a little different for my 100 Days of Productivity / Day 11. Inspired by a reply I had on a @starsandaspirations (who’s super sweet and has a very cute blog!) post, I’m going to be detailing how I create my study schedule. It’s going to be rather detailed, so I’m going to put most of it under the cut. 

1. Know when your large assignments are due. 

As soon as I get my syllabus, I write down the dates of my major assignments, exams, and finals. I use a planner and a monthly calendar so that I know when my big deadlines are on the horizon.

2. Do a monthly overview at the beginning of each month. 

At the start of each month, look at what assignments you have due for the month and then determine how you should go about tackling each assignment. I’m going to use a real month from my last quarter of university as an example: in the month of April, I had two exams - 

April 7th - midterm in my International Relations class

April 14th - midterm in my Physics - Astronomy class

3. Prioritize, allocate time, and prepare.

I’m not the best at Physics, so I dedicated a week of time to studying, while I only dedicated 3 days to studying for IR. Additionally, I prepared for them differently.

For IR, I mainly used study groups to talk through concepts and hypothetical situations, since the exam would consist of applying concepts. IR is a fairly easy subject for me to grasp, so I went into my study groups feeling pretty good about my understanding. I studied for two days with my study group - once the day before the exam - and one day on my own, which I spent reviewing a study guide given by my TA. 

This was not the case for Physics. I reread the textbook, reviewed old exams and quizzes, emailed and spoke to my professor and TA when I needed clarification, and went over practice problems and textbook examples. I needed thoroughly explained examples so that I could understand why something was correct. I essentially tried to use every resource I had at my disposal to ensure that I had grasped that material, whereas for my IR class I already felt comfortable with the concepts going into review. I studied for Physics for 7 days - 3 days to reread the textbook, 2 days to review other material like quizzes and practice problems, and 2 days to gain clarification and improve in my weaker areas. I knew that I didn’t fully understand some of the required reading, so I had to reread it and, as I mentioned, thorough examples work wonders for my understanding, so I used many textbook and lecture examples as the basis of my studying. I would try to explain to myself why an answer would be correct to an example and would email my professor if I needed help.

Studying for different subjects sometimes requires different study techniques and different workloads. And that’s okay! You gotta know how your brain works, how you process different information, and what works best for you. It comes down to knowing yourself and your understanding for the exam. 

4. Before the test, take care of yourself.

You’ve probably heard this a million times, but it’s important! The night before my IR midterm, my study group went out for dinner where we discussed anything but the upcoming test. I truly believe that helped relieve a lot of stress I had. I tried to get as much sleep as I could and woke up early enough to have breakfast on the day of both my exams. Take care of yourself not only so that you can go into the exam as your best, but also for your own health.

5. After the exam, relax! Celebrate! Wait for your hard work to pay off!

You did the thing! You took the exam(s)! You studied, you did the best you could, there’s nothing more you can do now. I’m still working on this myself, but I think I’ve significantly improved. You completed the exam, and you should celebrate! Personally, I often treat myself to a Thai tea with boba after I finish an exam.

🤍🌟🤍🌟🤍🌟🤍🌟🤍🌟🤍🌟🤍🌟🤍

I’d like to close this with this is how I create my study schedule for exams, so it may not work for everyone, but I hope, if nothing else, you may be able to cherry-pick parts of this that you found helpful and apply it to your own study habits. I was also going to originally include essays in this post since I had two in April, but it would’ve made this post absolutely ridiculous in length, so let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in hearing about! I’d also love to hear about your own study schedules and how you plan them! Have a nice Friday, loves! 💛☀️

[rivalsforlife]

AA7 Speculation Post: One Year Later

here we go again.

A year and a day ago, I made a speculation post about if/when we’d ever be seeing AA7. Obviously, my claim that AA7 would be announced in September 2020 did not turn out to be true, but later that year we did get a leaked calendar containing information on the new ports for Chronicles, and also plans for a new aa7, which I summarized in this post.

Now that we have Chronicles we can verify that the leaks contained legitimate information (as if a statement from Capcom saying they were hacked wasn’t legitimate enough). So that leaves us with one key question: is AA7 still happening? If so, when can we expect it? As well, what other information from the leaked calendar can we consider, especially with early sales data on Chronicles? In addition, what are the implications of this new survey on Chronicles from Capcom?

All of that will be discussed under the cut so that this doesn’t take up too much space.

Revisiting The Calendar

Once again, here is a rough translation of the calendar that was present in the leaks:

As a note, in this post, I’ll be referring to our new games as “Chronicles” to prevent this from being blocked by people avoiding spoilers.

So: this original calendar, generated before the pandemic, had Chronicles releasing in Q1 of FY2021 - and it’s also important to note that in Japan, each fiscal year starts in April 1st, so FY2021 is actually April-June 2021. This shows that Chronicles was pushed back about a quarter from their expected release date. However, Chronicles was a port of already existing games, therefore somewhat less work was needed on them - upscaling models and textures, adding in some new features like autoplay and story mode, and of course, the English translation and voicework were needed, which is still a lot of course, but less compared to development on an entirely new game. In addition to that, the pandemic hit AA7 in its early development stage, assuming this schedule was still being followed by the time the pandemic hit. That could cause more delays than expected.

So the original plan was for AA7 to be released in Q3 of 2021, which corresponds to October-December, aligning with the 20th anniversary of the series in October. While it’s a desirable goal, it’s quite likely the pandemic pushed it back at least a quarter, if not more, if not cancelled it entirely. ... haha.

We’ll only know the fate of AA7 for certain when it’s announced. Which it is possible it may never be. However, I have two theories for, if AA7 is getting an announcement, when it will be:

1) Sometime during September 2021, either in the leadup to or during Tokyo Game Show this year. These are for the same reasons as I outlined in my initial speculation post. It’s a popular time for Ace Attorney game announcements, after all. TGS, according to what I can find, will be held online this year from September 30th to October 3rd. If Capcom announces AA7 earlier in September through Famitsu, like they did with AA6 for example, then we can expect to get some information during TGS... 

2) Sometime during a 20th Anniversary Event, possibly in October 2021. I’m assuming AA is planning something for the 20th anniversary - Chronicles wasn’t really marketed as a 20th anniversary release, for instance. If they can’t release a new game for the 20th anniversary (which at this rate, seems unlikely, as we’re about two months out from that with no word about it) then an announcement would be just as good at generating hype for it.

Naturally, if we reach this time next year with absolutely no news on AA7, it’s probably safe to say it’s been cancelled or at least delayed so severely that anything we currently know about it isn’t worth much.

There’s one more point of interest on the calendar: reconsidering the porting of 456. I feel that this depends heavily on how well the Chronicles ports are doing; if it’s not financially viable to keep porting games, then why bother? So, let’s take a look at that.

The Success of Chronicles

As I write this, it’s about two and a half weeks since the release of Chronicles worldwide. So... how did the games do? It’s a bit hard to tell, especially as I am not a game marketer and don’t know the expectations for Chronicles. What is obvious is that, if Chronicles does much better than expected, porting 456 and possibly even the investigations games seems likely. (If Chronicles, indeed, does especially well in the West, than a porting of the investigations games and localization of investigations 2 after ten years could very well be possible.) If Chronicles does absolutely terribly, it damages the chances of porting, and possibly of continuing the series. If it does terribly especially in the West, where the games are essentially new, it could damage the chances of any new games being localized at all.

So, a lot is riding on this, and I don’t know enough to tell how well it did. Here’s what I have found, however:

Nintendo Enthusiast reports on Famitsu sales of Switch games, and overall thinks it’s not doing so great. Chronicles ranks third on the list of Switch sales in its first week, with 14,460 units sold, over 4000 less than NEO: The World Ends With You, which was released on July 27th. Keep in mind that Chronicles was released in Japan on July 29th, which is two days later, and that these are only Japanese sales (where they’ve had Chronicles for years on both mobile and 3DS) and only Switch sales, where NEO:TWEWY is currently only available on Switch and PS4 (Chronicles has the additional platform of Steam, where there could be many more sales). In the next week, Chronicles ranked 22 overall, with NEO:TWEWY at 23, though of course they’re still a little less than 4000 units behind NEO:TWEWY overall. Slightly closing the gap, I guess.  

How about overseas data, then? ... It’s hard to tell. I can find this report from gamespot which discusses the top 20 games sold in the US in July, and Chronicles is not on the list, while NEO:TWEWY is at 16. However, they don’t give any number for the units sold, and it seems that they aren’t considering digital sales for a lot of them, so it’s hard to tell how much of a hit that is.

However, let’s go back to Japanese sales for a bit, and look at the 2019 Trilogy re-release for a comparison against Chronicles. Allegedly, combined Switch and PS4 sales in the first week of the trilogy’s release only amounted to about 8000 units, a little more than half that of Chronicles’ Switch sales. It’s also important to note that the 2019 trilogy ended up being the only ace attorney game to sell over a million copies. Ace Attorney is not a big series; I’m sure Capcom takes this into account when considering sales data, especially for ports. If Chronicles does end up doing better than the trilogy overall, it’s definitely looking good for ports and especially so for Chronicles.

However, there’s more to this than just sales data.

The Survey

Capcom now has a user survey for Chronicles, which you can answer even if you’re partway through the first game. I believe it’s only open until September 30 2021, so if you think you can finish the game before then, I’d recommend filling it out once you’re done so that you can give the best feedback.

It asks you a bunch of questions like what platform you bought it on, why you bought it, your expectations, and all sorts of detailed questions on the various mechanics, difficulty and enjoyment of the trials and investigations, satisfaction of visuals, plot, characters, music, and even free response sections for what you liked and disliked about the game. It’s a very detailed survey that’s pretty long but I think is worth filling out. At the end they ask you to fill out some demographic questions (such as age, gender (male, female, other), country, what kind of things you like to spend money on, and what kind of games you like, what platforms you have to play games on). But what’s possibly the most interesting question is this:

“If a new [Chronicles] game is released in the future, do you think you would buy it?”

This means that, depending on the answers to the survey, they could very well decide to work on a third game to Chronicles.

This has huge implications for the future of the series. I’ll probably make a separate post on plot-related stuff later, but for now... let’s talk about logistics.

In my initial AA7 speculation post I said I highly doubted that they would ever make another Chronicles game. I also said that they probably never would be localized, so, guess who’s a clown now. 

Right now the AA series is in a bit of a dry period, with no new games having been released in the last four years. As well, with Yamazaki (the director of the investigations games and AA5/6) having left Capcom, the next director of the mainline games is completely unknown. As described in this video, the main reason Chronicles ever came about was because Capcom went ahead with mainline AA5 before Takumi could come back from the Layton crossover. Now, since 2017, we don’t really know what Takumi is working on. It’s possible he’s gone back to mainline to work on AA7 (though of course, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that he has, so definitely don’t take that as any sort of confirmation).

However, if we do get a Chronicles 3, it’s quite likely Takumi would return to work on that, as he directed the previous two games. In addition, if Chronicles ends up being such a success to completely eclipse mainline (from what I’ve heard, though I have no serious proof, Resolve is considered as highly rated as T&T by many Japanese fans) then the series could permanently go down the road of writing more Chronicles games, leaving mainline stagnant (which, let’s be real, it’s already stagnating). The success of that is uncertain considering how neatly our current Chronicles duology wraps up, but... we’ll have to see how things unfold in the future.

For now, I highly recommend filling out the survey to give your input to the series’ future directions. Maybe mention that you want localized investigations 2 somewhere in the free response section because uhh I forgot to do it in mine. do that for me.

TL;DR

Main takeaways from this post are:

- I personally expect an AA7 announcement either during TGS or a 20th anniversary event

- If Chronicles does extremely well, then 456 ports are likely to happen, and I personally speculate investigations ports (along with localized investigations 2) will as well.

- Fill out this Chronicles survey before September 30th to give your input on the games and possibly the future direction of the series. I recommend completing the games before you do, but if you think you won’t before September 30th, you can fill it out at any time.

- We Very Well May Get Another Chronicles Game. Who saw that coming. Not me.

Thanks if you read through all of this, let’s hope September/October doesn’t leave me looking like a fool again.

[oklcmc]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀،̲،̲⠀⠀⠀𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘 𝐍𝐎 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 [𝟏𝟖+]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀゛⠀I left that sexy dress out on the bed with a note there layin’ for ya with directions where I’m waiting with dinner and waiter for ya! ⠀〟

summary：⠀⠀⠀‘’⠀⠀⠀An imagine turned drabble⸝ dating back as late as April of twenty-eighteen in which Kendrick and his long-term fiancée⸝ Rachel try to prove to their close friends and family that sex isn’t the core of their engagement. Heavily based on the Martin ❪1992❫ episode Whoop! There It Ain’t.⠀⠀⠀‘’

word count：518

pairing：kendrick⸝ circa 2017？ ✕ black!female oc ❪lorraine ward❫

forewarning：this drabble contains sexual content and strong language thus far. read at your own discretion.

fun-size playlist：i. big sean⸝ chris brown ⅋ ty dolla $ign - play no games

author’s note：⠀⠀⠀‘’⠀⠀⠀Y’all know how infatuated me and my husband are with the television show⸝ Martin⸝ so it had to be done⸝ but oh my God⸝ guys⸝ I must confess to just how butt I was with writing smut during this phase within my life! It’s a wonder I hadn’t actually fell through with finishing it off! It’s atrocious⸝ for real. My husband didn’t deserve this⸝ like at all. I’m not sayin’ I’m the best with writing it nowadays either⸝ but God have I came a long way! That’s the main reason as to why I’m posting these；To see my growth with writing from then to now. To humble myself. Hopefully you guys can see it too.

I’ve always had this thing of being really apprehensive when it comes down to writing about Ken⸝ but especially with imagines because I want to be 1000% sure that I’m depicting his character right. I literally want his imagine(s) to top whatever I have posted before now. I think that’s another reason as to why I hadn’t finished this one and LOVE. which will more than likely be posted sometime tomorrow afternoon. After that’s said and done⸝ we’re going back to the drawing board for Kenny even if it’s not following my previous update schedule. I’m sorry⸝ but this has to be done for my own sanity. The other shit can wait⸝ even Underground Combat! What Cookie say？ ‘I gotta put me first⸝ Lucious!’ It would be lovely if I can have it out in time for his thirty-fifth Birthday⸝ but I’m not even going to put that type of pressure on myself right now. Last chapter of Underground Combat was already frustrating enough with reaching a deadline in time. I’ma just go with the flow this time around and see just how rewarding the outcome’ll be for myself. God willing⸝ I’ll revamp this plot one day⸝ so don’t steal it! I’ll see y’all then! Happy readings!  ⠀⠀⠀‘’

Hollywood Hills⸝ Los Angeles⸝ California ⋆ July 10⸝ 2017

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐎𝐌𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓

⠀⠀⠀𝓣HE COUPLE LEFT BEHIND MORE traces in the master bathroom of one of their few close friend’s rented Hollywood Hills pad with their expeditious love-making than those that could be found at a crime scene.

The body-hugging salmon pink satin gown with a V-neck that showcased her small bust and two thigh-high slits that blatantly gave off the fact that she wasn’t wearing any panties which not only was his favorite article of clothing to see her laced in, but the main reason as to why they had ended up in this predicament to begin with was now pooling the sink’s glass countertop like a coat of fresh paint. She swore out that if even the smallest of specs were to end up on that dress before the night were over with, their session would be done for, and so he went through great lengths to ensure that those few minutes of pure bliss that they shared amongst one another were the most memorable.

The lower half of her body dangled from the countertop with the support of only one of his dainty hands palming her bare ass cheek, the other pressed firmly up against the mirror behind them just as she had been dangling from the intense orgasm she had built in the last fifteen minutes.

She could feel her lower back bruising against the steel rim of the glass countertop and her Swaroviski crystal-embellished gold metallic Giuseppe Zannoti Coline sandals slipping from both heels of her feet each and every time his body came crashing into hers.

If it weren’t for her best friend’s colleagues mingling in the living room area right above their heads, she would’ve drove him further by screaming out his name, but she instead channeled the pain and pleasure she was enduring by clenching his 2018 Fall Season Versace print T-Shirt into her fists and burying her face within the crook of his neck, being cautious not to leave her foundation lingering behind just as much as his cologne had been.

“Ooh, Kendrick!” She squeaked, so desperate to meet the toe-curling, joint stiffening, stargazing orgasm they both had been chasing for the past fifteen minutes.

Her body was sinking like an anchor from the countertop, her thighs locking around his torso and her vaginal walls contracting around him like never before. All he could do was work against it. His hand went from smudging the mirror behind them to wrapping around her neck in order to keep her afloat as he mercilessly pounded himself inside of her.

“Shit, Rae, let it go!” Kendrick grunted, giving her a few encouraging slaps to her ass, causing her eyes to roll to the back of her head and her top alignment of teeth to close in over her bottom lip. She without a doubt loved that shit, and he knew it just from the way her thighs quaked.

“I’m cum’n, I’m cum’n, I’m cum’n, baby! Fuck!” She repeated, releasing herself not even a second later.

Now that his primary focus of keeping his woman satisfied had been accomplished, he could finally set it on himself.

[coderfortourette]

Statehouse Headcanons

State Headcanons based on city research

Thanks to Ben's city name videos, I have started researching the etymology of different places in the United States. And naturally I've come up with lots of different headcanons based on all of my research.

Pronunciation Headcanons: How some states will pronounce other states names

- Louisiana says "Eye-way" instead of Iowa. [From place Iowa, Louisiana. Which was founded by a bunch of people from the Midwest]

- Kansas says Arkansas's name wrong, but that's on purpose because he's a little bugger.

- Kentucky says "Lee'siana" instead of Louisiana. [This one is just a personal thing. I'm from Kentucky (ok, Ohio-Kentucky hybrid, but I pick Kentucky) and that's just how I sometimes slur Louisiana together.]

- Texas says "Colo-ray-do" instead of Colorado. [Colorado City, Texas. The "Mother City of West Texas"]

- Wisconsin says Arkansas's name correctly, he just spells it "Arkansaw". West Virginia also spells it this way sometimes. [Arkansas, West Virginia (or sometimes Arkansaw) and Arkansaw, Wisconsin.]

- Then Nevada's name... 3 pronunciations (a). Ne-vad-uh = how the state says it (b). Ne-va-duh = the Spanish pronunciation (How I headcanon New Mexico says it. Gov/DC also uses this pronunciation) (c). Ne-vey-duh = The one used by cities in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and Arkansas. [Nevada County, Arkansas actually, not a city. And it's named that because it's shape is/was similar to that of the state of Nevada.]

State Names:

- Alaska's name comes from an idiom. So I propose this New York: It's an idiom! Florida: You're an idiom. Alaska: Actually I'm an idiom, he's an unoriginal copy.

- Kentucky named Washington. The original proposed name was "Columbia" for the Columbia River and Columbia District. However a Kentucky representative (Richard H. Stanton) felt that was too similar to the District of Columbia. So the name Washington, after the president, was proposed and obviously accepted. There is still confusion between the city and the state though, so it wasn't really a thought out decision.

- Pennsylvania named Wyoming. The name comes from the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania and is derived from a Munsee word meaning "at the big river flat".

- Wyoming is indifferent towards being named by Pennsylvania. Washington is looking into maybe changing his name, but hasn't said anything aloud to avoid hurting Kentucky's feelings. [Based on the fact that name changes have been proposed to avoid confusion if/when Washington DC becomes a state]

- Florida's name means "Little Flower". He was given the name from the lush greenery and the fact that it was Easter season when Juan Ponce landed. (Pascua Florida).

- There is apparently a state holiday in Florida called Pascua Florida. It's celebrated around April 2nd. Florida, the state personification, absolutely celebrates it. I'm still not 100% sure what festivities entail, but Florida wears a flower crown that day (Orange Blossoms and tickweeds specifically)

- Florida has tried to include some of the other states in his festivities. But given that the holiday falls right around/sometimes on April 1st, they think it's just an April's Fool Prank and don't join.

- In a universe where Georgia and Florida have a father-son relationship, Georgia would call Florida "Little Flower" as a nickname when Florida was younger. He still does occasionally, but not as often anymore.

- There exist a few cities named "California". I'm going to focus on California, Kentucky (totally not because that's my favorite state, what?) The city was set up 1852 and was named California because of the Gold Rush. The occupants would receive lots of news and letters about it. My headcanon: California and Kentucky are pen-pals. In fact, they are pen pals who don’t know that they know each other in real life (which, at this point everybody’s giving them questioning looks bc they’ve been sending letters since the 1840s and it’s the 2000s. Who else would they be sending letters too?) They're just dumbasses. Literally everybody else in the statehouse has figured it out except for these two. Like, the others will watch one of them write the letter and send it. The letter will arrive at the statehouse after a few days and the other one will be reading it in view of the first one After the first few times, even the mailman was like “this letter is just coming back here?? Why should I take it??” But I also headcanon Kentucky with OCD/Autism (totally not projecting here...). He would get upset if the mailman wouldn't take the letter because OCD/Autism Logic TM. So the mailman humors him. Does this mean that Kentucky and California should recognize the return address and stuff? Yes. Do they? Of course not. I will need to do a separate post just for my Kentucky and California headcanons.

Other random things:

- Kentucky just... can not pronounce things. That, or he has his own way of doing it and will not listen to others. Specifically when it comes to French or Spanish based names. There's a lot of cities in Kentucky pronounced differently then their foreign language source. [Louisville, Versailles, Cadiz, Erlanger, etc]

- Kentucky sings under his breath a lot. The three most common songs are "My Old Kentucky Home" [state song], "My Bonnie Lies Over the Sea" [Bonnieville, Kentucky], and "Pastoral Elegy" [Corydon, Kentucky].

- Kentucky supplies Utah with most of beekeeping equipment. [Walter T. Kelly Beekeeping company started in Leitchfield, Kentucky].

- Virginia no longer names anything Fayette anymore. He named a place Fayette County, in honor of Marquis de LaFayette. Then Kentucky became a state and took it. So in 1830, Virginia named another place Fayette County. Then West Virginia became a state and took it. West Virginia and Kentucky have joked that maybe District should change his name to Fayette and he'll get statehood a whole lot sooner and easier.

- Georgia really likes bacon. [Bacon County, Georgia and Baconton, Georgia. Both are technically named for people who's last name was Bacon, but shh]. He will argue with you if you don't like bacon.

- Whenever the BBQ argument pops up between the South, North Carolina likes to point out that his BBQ is the best, he even has a place named Barbecue! The other states are not amused.

- Kentucky is the type of person who gets his paperwork done ahead of time. He's very busy with it. (Not to the point of ruining his sleep schedule though). [Busy, Kentucky. Named because the enterprising citizens were "busy as bees".] (Is it obvious I have a favorite state?)

That’s all I have for now. But I’m going to keep up the research still anyway and may update it with new revelations and thoughts.

[lovemesomesurveys]

What do you like about the house you live in? I like that it has tile floors.  What's the most cliche song you can think of right now? I heard that Pina Colada song a few times yesterday in different TV shows and it’s used in various other shows and films as well.  Name three of your favourite crepe toppings. I’ve only had a crepe a couple times, both of which had bananas and chocolate syrup.  Do you watch How I Met Your Mother? What did you think of the ending? I saw a few episodes and caught parts of it now and then, but I never really got into it. I did try to give a real chance once and just couldn’t get into it.  Have you ever played paintball? Did you get hit? No, I’ve never played. I wouldn’t enjoy something like that. 

Right now, are you too hot, too cold or just right? I’m kind of hot.  What was your favourite fairy tale when you were a kid? Alice in Wonderland.  How do you feel today? Tell me about it. It’s only 1:16AM, but as of now I’m feeling hot, tired, and kind of hungry.  What's the weather like today? It’s currently 63F. I think it’s supposed to be in the upper 80s later on.  Do you ever use a laptop in bed? Yeah, that’s always where I use my laptop.  What were you doing in 2014? I was doing my last full year at UC.  Are you wearing socks right now? What colour are they? No. What time are you taking this survey? It’s 1:18AM now.  Have you ever eaten Caribbean food? No. Do you need to make any purchases soon, big or small? I need to get my laptop checked out and see if it can be fixed, which I know will cost a lot. I wish I could just buy a new one, but I definitely can’t afford it. I’m so thankful my brother has lent me his and I’ve been able to use it all this time (mine went kaput back in April) cause he rarely used his. I can’t just keep his, though, I eventually need to get my own somehow.  What was the first movie you saw at the cinema? How old were you? It wasn’t the first, but the first one I remember seeing is the Rugrats movie. Do you feel hopeful for the future? The future scares me, I have to just take things a day at a time.  Where did you last fly to on a plane? Back home from LA.  If you were going on a daytime date tomorrow, what would you wear? A graphic tee and leggings like I always wear.  Are your parents still together? If not, do you know why? Yes. Have you ever been evicted? Why? No. Would you say you're an organised person? For the most part I would say I am. I’ve been lacking a little the past few years cause I just haven’t had the energy or motivation. I’m currently bedridden and my room isn’t as organized and clean as I’d like it to be.  Have you ever worked as a manager or supervisor? No. Do you eat at a table or on the couch? We don’t have a table, I typically eat in bed (currently that’s the only place). Sometimes I’d eat in the living room or in my parents’ room if my mom was in there.  Tell me something good about the last week of your life. I finally have that damn swallow test scheduled. Hopefully I’ll be able to eat whatever I want soon.  When was the last time you heard a siren? What kind? I heard an ambulance siren about a month ago. Do you like jogging? I don’t jog.  What brand is your TV? Phillips.  What was the last thing you voted for? A poll someone I’m subscribed to on Youtube posted.  Do you remember much from high school? Not really to be honest.  What's the longest you've ever stayed awake? Why did you do it? Like 30-something hours. I certainly didn’t plan to, it just happened.  Do you live in the state/province/territory you were born in? Yes.  What do you want to eat right now? I wish I could have ramen.  Have you ever been wrongfully accused of something? No. What are the five apps on your phone that you use most often? Kindle Unlimited, this crossword game app, Facebook, email, Twitter.  What's one of the most useless things you've ever purchased? I don’t consider anything I buy to be useless, I bought it because I liked it and wanted it. 

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

So I looked through a detransition blog just out of curiosity, since it was one you reblogged, but now I’m super... freaked out? I have a top surgery consultation in April but now I have this weird fear that I’m faking it or that I’ll regret it afterwards. I’ve identified as somewhere along non-binary and trans (he/they!) for over a year, and I’ve known I’m not a girl for even longer, but now I’m just so afraid that maybe I don’t know myself at all. Do you have any advice on what this is?

Lee says:

Discussing your feelings with a therapist can sometimes help you untangle the anxiety from everything else. It’s reasonable to have some apprehension about a major surgery that can have a big impact on your life because it is a big change- and like any other surgery, it also has medical risk and can result in complications. 

And reading about other people’s feelings about their surgeries can be helpful! I do recommend reading things from people who were happy with the outcome and reading things from people who weren't to get a better perspective on the range of experiences that can exist. Only reading the negative or the positive doesn’t provide a balanced view!

But even if you read other people’s stories, and talk to them about why they feel the way they do about their choices and bodies, nobody else can tell you what you should do for yourself. Even a therapist can’t know for sure if you will regret surgery (or anything else that you choose to do) because nobody can see into the future, see into your heart, and see into mind simultaneously to and determine for certain what it is that you need. 

As soon as I came out as non-binary when I was 15, I started saving money for top surgery. I was someone who ran towards top surgery at full tilt and I didn’t give myself any space for doubt about whether it was the right choice for me because I felt it was the only choice I had-- forwards or nothing. I was pretty severely depressed at the time and had a brief hospitalization the month before I turned 18, and I was sort of pinning all my hopes on top surgery reducing my dysphoria and booting out my depression. So I scheduled my consultation as soon as I turned 18 and was legally an adult and could do so without parental permission. I immediately scheduled my surgery for the soonest available date, and had inverted-T incision top surgery about 3 months after I turned 18.

Now I’m 21 years old, and I’m 3 years and 5 months post-op from my top surgery. 

In retrospect, top surgery was 110% the right choice for me. If I could do it all over again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Top surgery really did reduce my dysphoria by a significant amount, and that made it easier for me to cope with my depression and other mental health issues. I was proudly parading around the house shirtless as soon as I was able to stop using post-op compression, before my incisions had even healed into scars.

I don’t have any dysphoria about my chest anymore, especially now that I’ve gotten tattoos to cover my scars. I finally feel like I look like how I always knew I was meant to look.

I don’t post pictures of my chest anymore because I have distinguishing tattoos but I’ve posted a few before/after pictures when I was 3 years post-op and I think things have only gotten better now.

I was lucky to not have any complications; I don’t have any nerve pain, and hypertrophic or keloid scarring, and I didn’t need any revisions. But there are some things that are non-ideal compared to if I had just been born with a typical cis-guy flat chest. My nips are a little wonky in color and shape, and I plan on getting medical tattoos at some point to even the edges out. I also have slightly muted sensation in my chest now, so everything is like slightly number than it was before.

When I was pre-op, I did enjoy having nipple sensation that was pleasurable; even though I had inverted t-incision top surgery which preserved the nipple stalk, I still only have tactile, temperature, and pain sensations in my chest. If you put an ice cube on my nipple and my eyes were closed, I’d know it was cold. If you poked me while I was looking away, I’d still feel it. And if you squeezed me, it would hurt. But somehow it doesn’t feel good anymore like it used to. 

I don’t know how much of that loss in erotic sensation is a mental thing and how much is a physical change caused by scar tissue build up around the nerve. But regardless, it is a real loss. 

For me, that loss is well worth it. While I might have been physically capable of experiencing erotic nipple/chest sensation before, I rarely actually did have that experience because it made me too dysphoric and I didn’t like to take my shirt off during sex. Now I feel more fully present and comfortable in my own body and it makes me more engaged so I can focus on my partner and on the other feelings I’m having and how I look isn’t something that is detracting from the experience. 

In general, top surgery has made my life better in a million ways. I love running shirtless with my college cross country team, I like going swimming at the beach with no shirt, and I like the way I look now when I see myself in a mirror after stepping out of the shower. 

When I get dressed in the morning, my day starts off on a neutral note because it’s just me putting on clothes. Sometimes I pause to think about how I can just put on a shirt and feel good about it and move on. Before, I used to be upset every morning because the first thing I’d be reminded of when I woke up was that my chest was there and I didn’t want it to be. I’m Autistic, and binding was Not comfortable for me sensory-wise, so not having to bind was also nice.

I would choose to get top surgery again, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for each and every person. I am sure it was the right choice for me, and I have no regrets at all, I never want to have breasts again. But someone else might think that not having erotic nipple sensation is a dealbreaker, or they might not be comfortable with scars if they tend to heal with more visible raised scars that are harder to cover with a tattoo like I did mine.

So I can tell you that top surgery has made my life better and I’m glad I got it and I don’t think that there would have been any way for me to be as happy as I am now if I had not gotten it. Top surgery is life saving and life-changing for some people, and I am one of those people. I might be more inclined to tell people that if you think you need surgery you should get it because my surgery went so well and because I’m still identifying as genderqueer, transmasculine, and non-binary, just like I was when I was 15, so my identity is pretty static there.

Some other post-op people may tell you that they regret their surgery, that they wish they hadn’t done it, and they would make a different decision if they could go back in time. They might want to help warn other people to not make the same mistake that they did.  Detransitioned folks often (but not always) have a different perspective than folks who persisted in being transgender and that’s okay- it isn’t a better perspective or a worse one, just a different one. But both trans and reidentified people can feel this way, even though it’s usually more common for de-trans folks to regret surgical procedures that it is for trans folks.

I semi-rushed into surgery for both emotional and logistical reasons but I knew it was right for me. But that isn’t the best choice for everyone and if you aren’t 100% sure that it is what you want and need then there’s nothing wrong with having the consultation with the surgeon to learn more and then thinking things over before you schedule a surgery date (or don’t), you don’t need to immediately schedule a surgery date after the consult. Think of it as an interview and as an information gathering session.

Neither of us can tell you what you should do because neither of us are “right” or “wrong” about top surgery. It’s just a different experience and a different perspective. We all have biases based on our own way of seeing things, and that can inform our advice.

If you know what the risks are, and you’ve given it careful thought and can provide an informed consent, then whether you should get surgery is your decision. I won’t tell you “go get it!” or “don’t go get it!” and I don’t think that any blogger should be telling anons what medical procedures to get or not get. 

Worrying that you’re faking it, that you don’t know who you are, and worrying about regret is something that can be pretty scary and frustrating, but you don’t need to figure it out on your own, and it’s okay to take a little longer to come to a decision and talk it over with a therapist if you think it’s necessary to help you cope with that anxiety.

But yeah, I believe that ultimately you have to trust your gut feelings on what you know to be right for you.

Top surgery 101 links

Finding a therapist

Side note: While we do our best to avoid reblogs from obvious TERFs/truscum/transphobes/racists/sexists/ableists/etc to avoid exposing people to triggering content by boosting the blog’s visibility, and we do appreciate getting heads up asks about reblogs from a problematic OP, if we reblog a post from someone we do not necessarily endorse all of the content in every post they’ve made, and we don’t necessarily agree with all of the blogger’s opinions either. We reblog a specific post if we think seeing that post might be helpful for some of our followers.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

META WRITER SSK GAME #10

AAAAAH MANY THANK AND MUCH LOVE!!!

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Okay, this might sound Wild if you’ve seen my cards/whiteboard set up (sweats), but: I think most accurately it’s ~Guided Discovery~? (Oh dear help I wrote an Essay.) Here’s why:

Literally everything I write starts broadly with a What If? question. (Examples: What if a genetically engineered kid with wings couldn’t fly? What if I tried to write something like Welcome to Night Vale? What if I wrote something in iterations with an unreliable narrator? What if I tried second person? What if I retold Little Red Riding Hood with technozombies?) Cool. I magpie pieces and fragments of Answers to that big question for as long as it takes to compile what nebulously feels like Enough, which varies depending on the story. Right now, I’ve got four Post-It notes stuck to my wall of general ideas for this coming NaNo—this compiling is an ongoing, background process, active at all hours of the day.

When I hit that nebulous Enough (LRRH + technozombies was all I needed, for example; this coming NaNo doesn’t have a shape yet, so I’m still compiling), and when I get excited for the writing and not just the daydreaming, I switch gears into This Is Now My Writing Project. (This schedule is built around NaNo, so I work backward through the year to squeeze in two other projects and a break between them—currently I’m wrapping up Tide Locked, then I’ll take April off and start Driscoll revisions Mayish-Augustish, to have October-December for NaNo purposes.)

Phase one of Writing Project is: Prework and Plotting. Once I’m here, I have a Proper Deadline, because I am fully channeling the ADHD hyperfocus and I can ride that wave for about three months before burnout starts clawing at me. (*squints at Driscoll*) I spend about a month of Project Time in the prep phase. This is where I do character stuff, and worldbuilding stuff, and preliminary plot stuff, and basically figure out what kind of story I want to tell with all the fragments of Answers I’ve accumulated. A lot of this is scribbling on whiteboards (less permanent than paper; fuckups don’t matter), or staring at the ceiling daydreaming different scenarios, and doing those character questionnaires and answering weird questions to get a sense of who they are. This scribbling, I’ve also recently realized, needs to include some voice writing (if I don’t want to toss out the first 3-5k of my manuscript because I haven’t nailed down the Tone), and it needs to include some focus on the villains (because I have a recurrent villain problem). Usually it’s a couple weeks of freeform WHAT AM I DOOOOOING, and then I start making my Plot Cards™.

The Plot Cards™ are why I feel like ~Guided Discovery~ sounds weird to describe my process: These seem very organized and very discrete, but actually what they are is Scene Prompts. Each card gets a Where, a Who, and a sentence or so of a What (and a title sometimes). Eventually these get numbered, but I don’t do that ‘til almost right before I start drafting, because I shuffle them around to figure out the best order until then. I absolutely don’t plot to like. An overarching arc or anything—I just jot down scenes of What Sounds Like Fun To Explore :), and slowly a Plot emerges from those. If the scene cards are too rigid into Plot, I railroad it and it’s a slog, so I have to leave room for characters to breathe and take me in new directions. My first drafts are almost always 30 cards (see: I Work Around NaNo), and I usually end up adding more scene cards in later drafts when I realize what connective tissue I left out (I’m always leaving out connective tissue).

So Prework and Plotting get about a month of Project time, and then it’s onto phase two: Drafting. I usually start this on the first of the month, and write a card a day (more, if I’m on a roll) until the whole book is Written! I let the cards take me where they want—sometimes I stick closely to the prompt, sometimes I detour into cool side ideas. I don’t sweat it: I’m just figuring out the story as I go along! What sparks joy stays, what doesn’t gets blipped over. Card word count is hugely variable, and I absolutely don’t think in chapters, so card =/= chapter, although they are usually discrete scenes. (I try to leave them split by section breaks, but chapters are a future!A problem lol.) Oh, also: I draft by hand. In a notebook, usually, or on looseleaf sometimes. I have special project notebooks for each story (it’s gotta match the Vibe and the Color Scheme), and I use different ink colors! Rell’s is a lovely shade of teal, Lucius is blue, LRRH was red (obviously lol), Driscoll is purple! It helps me get into the right brain space.

Once the book is written, phase three is Type The Damn Thing. I do very light editing while I’m typing (usually for wordiness, because I’m a wordy bitch, as you can clearly see), and I jot down all the revision ideas I have as I work through it—like “Heck, you absolutely should mention this earlier” or “Oh it’d be cool if this happened instead” or things like that. Once it’s typed, I compile all my thoughts to myself, print it out, put it in a binder, and put it away!! I don’t let people read my first drafts almost ever any more, because usually my list of things I know I want to fix is Impressive, by the time I get to the end of Draft 1, and I don’t want to subject readers to that. (Notable exception: For Lucius, I absolutely did not have the objectivity to make my First Draft List, so I gave it to a small handful of readers and got their feedback and went from there!)

Then I put the manuscript away for at least four months (usually more) and work on a different project! It helps that I have them all stacked up to fill my year, and I’m always drafting something new for NaNo. Once I’ve basically forgotten what happened in my Own Damn Book (and I’ve usually worked on at least two maybe more projects in the interim, so I’ve Leveled Up Some), I’ll go back to it! Then it is ~Revision Time~, and ~Revision Time~ follows the same three-month timeline (see: Channeling the Hyperfocus).

Month One for revision is rereading the book and perusing any feedback I’ve got (either mine, or what I’ve asked of readers), and turning the feedback into a Battle Plan. I’m trying not to let this take a full month any more, because I get bogged down in it I think, but we’ll see how it goes when I’ve got a Volume of Feedback (for example: Rell it only took a week, because it’s a short book and the only thoughts I was dealing with were mine, coherently laid out by past!A; for Driscoll, I’m sourcing feedback from….seven? I think? Readers? This time?? I’m not sure I’ll get it from all of them, but concatenating their words with my own thoughts will Take Some Time). I make the Battle Plan fit on one side of one sheet of paper, if I can, because it feels Manageable that way. The Battle Plan is just. Infinite checkboxes, so I can feel good about doing the thing and crossing them off as I hit them.

During the Battle Plan, I figure out what I think I actually want this story to be shaped more like (I’m not always right lol), and then I figure out how to get it there. How To Get It There is a mess, frequently: I’ve been doing lots of Try It This Way, No, Wait, Wrong, Scrap It, Try Again, recently. (And I have only recently realized that this, too, is Discovery: I have to discover all the ways this isn’t right to hit what Is Right, apparently. I usually realize pretty quickly that something isn’t working, but I don’t always know why it’s not working until I step away. I love walks for this lol.)

Months Two-into-Three are for actually doing the revision work, a scene/card/column at a time in my hardcopy binder. I wrapped that up for Rell a couple days ago (it took me two months of Chaotic Life to do), and then I use what’s left of Month Three for inputting the changes into my Word document. Then I do my reread pass (for more future revision notes jotting), and I make my Questions and Concerns for Readers, and I send it to readers! And then I figure out with their feedback what’s working, and what’s not, and having someone else tell me what they see on the page helps me figure out more precisely what I want this story to be. So I rinse and repeat the Revision Cycle (still interspersed with other projects) until I’m happy with it! And that’s my process!

tl;dr: Guided Discovery drafting -> start with What If? -> make a mess drafting (affectionate) -> make a mess revising (affectionate but glaring) -> slowly chip away at mess to transform into What I Want Story To Be until satisfied!

I have a vague outline (that’s the Guided part) but my understanding of the story definitely evolves over time (as I Discover the story!), and by the time I get to the end the cards are only guideposts (I do work with the scene cards at every stage).