#I'm going to be in an actual good writing mood

[yan-lorkai]

can i ask: leona and tweels with gn! reader who is a writer who is hopeless? like their whole soul is in their writing and they spend too much time overthinking (franz kafka and fyodor reference fr 'cause i love them both)

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: This is such a mood. I'm the overthinking writer most of the time as in both with my fics and the actual book I'm trying to write. Like, it's just the first draft but I want to be perfect already aaaaa. And you're so real for this, anonie, Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky are such good writers, I love them both (⁠๑⁠♡⁠⌓⁠♡⁠๑⁠)

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Jade see the effort you put on your writings and how passionate you are about your work. He is almost the same when he is thinking about his terrariums and mushrooms so he won't judge you or tease you, though there's a part in him that wants to tease you restlessly. He often questions you about what you're writing, about the plot, the characters, if you write just for fun or if you're going to publish it. He likes hearing you talking about it so excitedly. The sound is melodical, soft and happy, while there's tons of ways to punish if you misbehave, Jade would mess your book if you do something he disapprove. That way you'll learn. And then he gets to help you write everything again, his memory is great after all.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Leona think it's both entertaining and annoying how much you overthink every little detail about your book. He see you doodle and writing on whatever you get your hands on; notebooks, sketchbook, your hands, the table, on his arm - even though you only did that once - so you don't forget something you were thinking about or you spend too much time browsing the internet for a specific topic. Your whole soul is on your work and he see it. And he hates it. He wanted you to be this obsessed with him as you are to your little book. Yet, he can't find in himself to tell you this. Not when you ramble endlessly to him while you cuddle him, petting his ears and braiding his hair or ask him to read your work. You're cute when you're overthinking.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Floyd, sweet Floyd, he thinks it's a waste of time to spend so much time thinking about this or that. If you want your book to be this way or have this trope, go for it, you don't have to overthink everything - he says as if writing a book was something easy to do but you ask for him to sit by your side for two minutes, boy's going to be bamboozled. He may have his energy peaks where he will lose focus on what you are saying or doing at that moment or his mood swings, but overall he always remembers the things you said about the book. While Jade take to be your editor, Floyd fits more the role of reader, speaking freely about what he thought about your characters, the plot and all that. He may be blunt in his review but he will not sugarcoat things for you, even more if you want to publish it someday.

[skylermadness]

Snack Shenanigans [A Side] (Scott Howl TF/TG/MC)

(Original Date of Upload: October 27, 2023)

Wow, it's been about a year since the last time I wrote an FtM TF/TG and so far both FtMs I've written back to back are into werewolf characters. I've been itching to write out another Scott Howl FtM for a while now so I decided to finally get off my butt and actually write one! I'm trying to go back to more simplistic plots and such so the set-up and such is a bit short but I don't mind it. I'm just glad to provide more jock character FtMs in the world. It's a fun little subgenre that there just isn't enough of! On a more interesting note, this is the first time I managed to complete a second self-imposed challenge on myself: giving a story an alt! This was an idea that I thought worked for multiple characters and decided why not reuse it for an alternative version of the story into a different story! If you want to read it (which is a TF into the character Gunzo from Tokyo Afterschool Summoners). That'll be uploaded later this week.

   One of the more prominent constants when it came to Madison's daily trips to her college campus were her visits to the cafeteria vending machines. And more often than not whenever she did she would typically buy the exact same thing from the machine’s array of snack foods. Most of her freshman year in college was spent buying out the machine’s mini-sandwich cookie stock, but she eventually grew tired of those and switched over to either chips or chocolate bars depending on her mood that week. With all things considered her trips to the vending machine were short, simplistic, and unchanging.

   That was until today anyway. Madison found herself staring through the machine’s glass in curiosity, her eyes instantly scrutinizing a change in the machine’s selection. Usually the item labeled 206 was some random bag of chips whose brand she didn’t care to memorize since it wasn’t the kind she ordered. However she knew that what occupied that label wasn’t the brand she didn’t remember. Rather it seemed to be something new and unfamiliar to the woman.

   The bag was simply labeled Scott Snacks with a fairly simple graphic of a bunch of potato chips with what she presumed to be the bag’s mascot (a thick bearded and fluffy haired man) giving a thumbs up. On one hand, the bag did look fairly generic. Then again most chip bags have that feel so it didn’t fully matter to Madison. She couldn’t really discern any other details from the bag such as flavor, but at the same time the graphic gave the vibe of either something plain or something cheesy. Neither prospects were ones she was against, especially since in the end all of this was just an excuse for her to deaden her appetite for the remainder of her classes. 

   With her mind made up Madison made the order with the vending machine. A satisfying thunk could be heard as the bag was pushed forward off the conveyor and into the machine’s pick-up box. She always despised when things got stuck in the vending machine, it was always a slightly embarrassing hassle…

   Successfully retrieving her snack, she idly placed it into her backpack before hauling it onto her back and making her way out of the cafeteria. Madison disliked eating around other people she was unfamiliar with, the woman much rather preferring to find a nice quiet seat on one of the hallway benches and eating whatever she retrieved there. A short trek and a turn would lead her to her favorite spot of solitude (barring the occasional person who would walk out the elevator beside the bench). Placing her backpack beside her as she took a seat she removed the bag of unfamiliar chips from its confines and opened it. Casually she leaned her back against the wall behind her, finally opening the bag of chips and taking one out.

   Considering the unfamiliarity of the situation, Madison had deemed it necessary to eye up the singular chip for a good few seconds. Standard looking potato chip, orange dust that denotes a cheese flavor, some flecks of salt. Although as these exact terms roamed through her head she realized that she somehow sounded like some kind of chip elitist. So in the end she just disregarded her concerns and placed the chip in her mouth.

   …yup, very cheesy. Even has a bit of a meaty aftertaste as well. It wasn’t actually that bad. Perhaps this was a sign she could add a third snack into her vending machine rotation!

   With those thoughts in her mind Madison continued eating, the woman blissfully unaware of the changes starting to form on her body as she did. It was rather isolated at first. The fingers on both hands slowly got thicker, ends and nails getting more blunt with each passing second. This evidently continued as her fingers continued to grow in thickness with a similar shift in size quickly jumping to the hands themselves. A firm meatiness steadily accumulating within each hand; larger, bulkier, seemingly more powerful in appearance.

   That wasn’t the weirdest part of this transformation however. That came when something coarse started to poke out of the back of her hand. It was short at first with what looked to be follicles only millimeters in length, but it didn’t take long for them to grow out and quickly overtake the backs of each hand. What had rapidly sprouted from each hand were large amounts of dark brown hairs. This new development practically gives a more defined masculine feel to her already larger and almost blockier hands.

   Evidently this supposedly masc appearance was one that would quickly spread beyond her wrists and beneath the sleeves of her sweater. Her musculature was the first that began to get affected. A mild heat surged through them as a steady thickness slowly burgeoned within each arm. Raw strength building up in each limb and filling their once slender appearance with a now dense and much more powerful look to them. It wasn't long until the sleeves of her sweater began filling out and the outlines of her muscles etched into the fabric.

   The warmth in Madison's arms only grew more prominent as well with the hairiness of her hands quickly trailing up to her forearms. Heavy amounts of brown hairs coating their way across the back of each arm, the density of this forest of almost fur-like hairs getting more and more thick the closer it got towards her elbows. This steady increase in arm hair density would soon result in a thick tuft of arm hair that practically spiked out of each forearm. Unfortunately for the time being it would seem this major growth would remain hidden in her sleeves.

   Less dense, albeit still very prominent, arm hair growth continued as it made its way to her upper arms and shoulders to coat the outer sections of them with ease. It was also by now that some of the more major muscle groups had gotten their almost instant workout with her biceps having bulked up alongside her triceps. The broadness of Madison's shoulders increased drastically as the deltoid muscles developed and rounded out even more. By this point the almost fragile seaming of her sweater began to break, tears forming against the new brawniness of her arms and revealing bits of her new coat of hair.

   The sudden sounds of tearing finally alerted her to the changes, Madison placing the chip she was holding in her mouth before inspecting the source of the sound. Her eyes widened. "Wh-huh…? What happened to my arm?? And is that… hair…?"

   Her gaze trailed downwards, the woman inspecting one arm up until she laid eyes on her hands. "How long have they been like that!?"

   A part of her wanted to panic but something about the sight was just intriguing. She held a changed hand up in front of her, looking at the thickness and hairiness of it all. It was a little uncanny, especially with all the chip dust, but it looked firm. Strong.

   While Madison preoccupied with staring at her hand the changes in her physical form only continued. It didn't take long for everything to move beyond her shoulders. The two waves of transformation quickly crashed into each other at the midline of her chest and from there expanded even more across the woman's body. 

   The overall width of Madison's frame was probably the next thing to start changing, her form broadening out and shifting to dispel her usually skinny figure more. This type of change got more prominent as her chest became the next part of her body to get altered. While the hair continued its spread and coating her chest, the fatty tissue of her breasts began to melt off and slowly flatten them. As it did so the muscles beneath them began to grow, swelling out rapidly to the point it would almost appear that her breasts hardened into thick meaty slabs of pectorals. These newly developed muscles would quickly grow to fill up the upper portion of her sweater, her now more masculine cleavage denting into the fabric.

   The lower half of her body followed not long after as it too was changing. Her abdomen churned, bubbling almost as abdominal muscles steadily rose from her skin. They slotted out almost sequentially with row after row extending out until she had been granted a six-pack set of abs. All the while the hair that had coated her chest was cascading downwards, the coarse brown fuzz rapidly consuming her abdominal region. By this point the frontal portion of her body just looked like it had a darker shade than the back due to all this hair. And as the hair trailed to the sides she could feel her oblique muscles begin to burn a bit, alongside some cramping inside her that took her focus off her hands so she could use them to support her abdomen as she bent forward in mild pain.

   "A-agh-" she winced, the sound of her voice seeming to crack only momentarily playing in her ears. She started to realize just how tight her shirt was getting, and she presumed it wouldn't be long until everything else would change to fit whatever form she was taking. A light haze was also entering her mind, thoughts steadily becoming a little bit harder as all these changes were overtaking her form. Curiosity faded to confusion, and that confusion quickly jumped to worry as she was still conscious enough to realize she didn't want to rip out of her shirt in a public hallway.

   Madison ultimately decided to forgo her backpack and the rest of the chips to her side, then lifted herself up from the bench and hastily made her way around the hallway's corner in order to head into the nearest bathroom. Luckily it was unoccupied, so she just rushed in there and locked the door before heading to the mirror. Although it would seem she didn't notice that she had subconsciously rushed into the men's room…

   Staring at herself in the mirror she came to the slow realization of just how large she had become. Not just in width but also in height as she evidently looked a little taller, especially with the hem of her sweater rising up her body. That and the slightly prominent feel of decompression in the woman's spine that seemed to grow more and more. Then there was this building pressure at the base of her spine that only continued to grow in prominence the more she continued to stare in the mirror. That coupled with the sight of more hair growing up her neck and beneath her jaw all made for this experience to feel even more surreal than it did prior.

   Madison raised her head a bit and scratched the scruff on her neck. "A-ahh…" she let out a light breath. It felt a little good to finally scratch that fuzz after all this time. It helped clear her brain up just a bit, but it inevitably filled back up with fog. All she could do was stare at herself in the mirror and scratch herself, her only statement being, "Just… what is happening to me?" She asked that with a smile however. There just felt like nothing to distress over. Not the weird muscular form she had, or the increase in hairiness, or the fact her voice continued to shift to a point that sounded deeper and more laid-back. 

   She didn't even feel the need to worry over hearing the back of her pants suddenly split open, a tail with thick brown fur seeming to have almost instantly elongated from her spine's tailbone and freed itself from the confines of her legwear. All she did was look behind her as something in her brain seemed to click with the new appendage. She curled it up towards her and gently grabbed it with her free hand. All the while a goofy grin had formed on her face. "I have a tail now!? Cool!"

   All during this sequence of events, the changes were also making their progression down to Madison's legs. This section of the transformation mirrored that of her arms, muscle mass easily packing into both sections of her legs with a quick pacing. Thighs grew thicker with bulkier hamstrings and quadriceps, and she could feel a surge of heat flare up in her calves as they bloated up with muscle mass as well. Her height continued to increase as well, and the brown hairs rapidly rushed downwards to encompass the surface area of her legs. All of this combined contributed to her jeans feeling severely more constricted, a few tears forming in the sides as a result.

   What followed were the changes in her feet. While hair emerged from the bridge of her feet, the overall size of them steadily increased in all directions. They got wider, pushing up against the sides of her shoes easily. And they got longer, heels digging into the back of her footwear while her toes pressed up against the front. It wouldn't take very long for them to grow to a fitting proportion for her new body, their appearance having quickly altered to fit the more rugged and masculine look that Madison now was possessing. It resulted in her shoes having immense trouble containing her larger feet with a couple rips already forming across the sides.

   The last person of her physical form that remained unchanged was her face, but as Madison started to see and feel the soft pricks of hair poking out her skin she knew that wasn't going to last long. 

   "B-bro!" she casually yelled out to no one in particular, her voice now settling into that aforementioned laid-back and male cadence that had been etching into it this whole time. "Guess I'll be getting a beard next! Might as well start considering myself a guy at this point!"

   The very thought of that was appealing to him. If anything, it felt like the always correct assumption. For some reason something about this new form felt so good and so much more correct now! It was as if it should have always been him!

   He continued to stare into the mirror, a look of enjoyment on his face as he saw the brown fuzz continuing to grow out his chin. This fuzz grew thicker and thicker, and it's spread expanded across his jawline rapidly. From the middle, trailing up his sides, slowly connecting to the slight sideburns he possessed. As his beard got more dense and bushy it gained an almost spiky styling as well. All the while his jawline shifted beneath it, broadening and chiseling out into a more square shape.

   If anything it would seem Madison's entire face shifted to gain a more masculine appearance. Skull widening for a broader structure, nose enlarging slightly, a certain level of toughness formulating across his skin. Bits of his beard even poked out from his jawline and onto his face in order to grow on a small portion of his cheeks. There even came a set of even stranger changes to his head's physicality such as his ears lengthening and sharpening to a point, or the hairs on his eyebrows increasing in amount drastically to gain a similar level of spiked bushiness that his beard possessed. There had also seemed to be a level of sharpness entering much of his teeth as well.

   All while these changes occurred, his hair was in the process of shifting and restyling to fit his new body. It had already begun to shorten as his beard was beginning to grow, and it continued to do so as his beard got more prominent and his face continued to change. Slowly it went up from being shoulder length to trailing up the nape of his neck to being of equal length with his chin, and it still got shorter as time continued. All the while the waviness of it was straightened, and the dark blonde coloration was deepened to the same brown as the rest of his body and facial hair. By the time his hair got to what the transformation seemed as an acceptable length, its density seemed to shift into something fur-like before bits of it fluffed and stuck out into a thick and messy spiky style. One that he just couldn't resist running a hand through to just feel the fluffiness of his hair.

   "This is so cool, dude…" he said, watching his hair spike back up after getting run through by his hand. And the man only continued to poke and prod at bits of his body by scratching his beard, scritching himself behind his ear, and giving his muscles some good flexes. He even couldn't help from tearing open his sweater from the front to let his pecs and abs breathe. Everything about this body felt so new, but at the same time the cloud in his mind was making it seem so familiar as well.

   Shouldn't this be his body? Why was it so hard to even recall what his other body was like? Did he even have another body? If this body is so familiar it just must be his, right?!

   He could feel his eyes beginning to drift to the side in confusion. "Ooh, too many questions in my brain! Is this what happens when you think too much…"

   For some reason he really felt like he wasn't used to using his brain for extended periods of time. If he were to be honest everything about it just felt drained! Like so many aspects has been dulled down or simplified in himself. All of this was making the concept of having an identity prior to this one feel so fleeting and incorrect. He just wanted to completely disregard it as too complicated. A lot of things just felt complicated at this point.

   He braced himself on the bathroom sink, mind in complete confusion to the point he wasn't keeping track of what was going on with his clothing. His attire had seemed to finally start to shift.The sleeves of his sweater slowly lifted upwards to unveil the dense fluff of his forearms, the rips all sealed themselves while the tear he made down the middle of his shirt restitched itself to look like it was meant to be there. The coloration of the sleeves bleached to white while the wrists shifted to red, meanwhile the actual body of the sweater shifted to the same shade of red. Buttons and eyelets lined the split while a small white and red-striped collar raised from the neck. With the formation of pockets on each side of the newly shifted clothing, it seemed his sweater had altered into a varsity jacket. Meanwhile a plain white t-shirt materialized beneath it and around his body, its size being just baggy enough to still reveal the upper portion of his chest.

   Following this came the less impressive changes in his legwear and footwear. His jeans just grew a bit to better fit his legs while repairing themselves. The tear in the back also restitched to look intentional, seemingly becoming a hole for his tail that went beneath the belt loop. His shoes did go through a bit more drastic of a change, also growing and repairing while the sides brightened to a red and the soles and front became white. The cloth toughened up as the strings became straps, fully shifting his footwear into a pair of athletic sneakers. 

   The man's thoughts continued to simplify as his earlier concerns were constantly drained away. Thoughts of a former identity and life disappearing, the rising worries about them being dispelled as he couldn't even remember what he had to be worried about! All that mattered was football and hanging out with his bros after all! Nothing to worry about from that!

   It was also by this point that his identity fully solidified. Scott Howl!

   Wait, is he telling himself to howl?

   "AWWROOOOOOOOO!!!" he howled out, the sound echoing through the small one-person bathroom. Once it was all let out he opened his eyes, a nice royal blue having embedded within them.

   "Oh wait, I was just thinking about my last name!"

   One of Scott's ears flicked as he heard someone knock on the bathroom door. "Uhhh, I'm taking it this is occupied?"

   The werewolf made his way to the entrance and opened it. "Was just finishing up with… whatever I was doing!"

   The comment made the guy who was on the other side of the bathroom door somewhat confused, but between that and the fact they were facing a large hairy man with a tail this whole situation was already feeling weird. "What were you doing… howling??"

   Scott just smiled and ruffled the other man's hair. "Sometimes you just have to let one out, y'know?" He then moved past them and made his leave. The random man just watched him leave, both unaware that the burly football player's interaction with him had left an almost pitch black stain in the follicles of the man's hair that very slowly spread across it. But they just shook their head and walked into the bathroom, deciding to just disregard the strange interaction.

   Meanwhile, Scott made his way down the hall before his heightened sense of smell caught a whiff of something… cheesy? Meaty? His head turned to find a bag of chips labeled Scott Snacks beside a backpack on top of a bench. For some reason his brain registered both as his own.

   "Oh, can't forget about these!" He walked over to the bench and hauled up the backpack to his back before picking up the bag of chips. Popping one in his mouth he comments, "This'll make a great snack before practice!" before going about his day…

[halothenthehorns]

When you want to want to be in the mood to write, so you just sit there looking longingly at your computer screen

[despairforme]

Who wants some fun-? ~

[erstwhilesparrow]

was trying to gently coax myself into looking at the feedback i got on something i wrote and opened the doc and there was. exactly one comment, for a thing i already had plans in place to address.

[merspots]

Another reason not to let your cats free roam

TW: Animal injury (but hopefully the cat will be okay)

Well, I just had to rescue one of my neighbors' cats from dangling from a fence by her back leg :/ I don't know how long she had been stuck there, but hopefully not too long, and she's with her owners now so will be getting checked by a vet.

She was lucky that I seem to have an ear for crying cats, though, because no one else was out looking for her, not even the people in the houses on either side of the fence she was stuck in. I fear what would have happened if I wasn't one to go looking and she was stuck there until who knows when.

Just remember this when you let your cats free roam - it is very easy for them to get injured and for no one to find them until it's too late. So please don't let them if you can.

[humanitys-strongest-bamf]

i fr feel like my worldview is that everyone's emotions/feelings are valid, except for me and its so toxic pls fix my brain ksdjfkdsjf

[that-was-anticlimactic]

sometimes i think about my mutuals. and then. i want to hug them.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

ideal scenario is that i like thinking about this like, essential short story adventure where winston and tuk hook up w/a couple [that bachelorette party] members, and as a foursome/quartet because they have these parallel stories of two pairs of friends who are like "sure i'd have sex with you if things aligned for that" and now are living that short story about expanding a dynamic & becoming closer friends for the end of it (of course billions only wrote winston as standing next to tuk next episode, instead of rian as he's often written to be standing with incl in a previous finale, to shove him out of the path of getting material and let taylor have confusing nonresolution w/rian based on this proximity and coincidence instead. but who can't say that that, And winston next not even trying to sit with tmc in the last finale appearance which at this point is probably for the best and instead again hanging out with tuk and then ben, isn't about having been closer for whatever all happened there in obtaining casual sex together)

and they can have perpendicular stories of also just having some nice chats and enjoying other interactions together such that maybe it's just fun for this one night of crossing paths, maybe anyone stays in touch at all, who even knows, if winston or tuk are dating anyone it's probably only going to come up again in how they were last dumped for being too much effort for how unepic they are, so godspeed to offscreen unmentioned dating. but just friendly acquaintanceship, or again this one-time spontaneously crossed paths night's acquaintanceship, is also a lot of fun. and why not imagine that winston "he's not allowed to not feel self-loathing or, by doing basic things like talking or initiating Or oppositng anything, Not operating as though he's too low in a social hierarchy here to be allowed thusly" type of material where his spontaneity, vivacity to bon vivantocity, self-assurance that is apparently arrogance/aggression to every who thinks he ought to be self-effacing instead, etc, is actually just a social success in other less wretched non-work situations, and his personality is taken as a contribution to the proceedings even before anyone takes up his proffered contribution of himself as a potential sexual partner. and lending confidence to tuk as like one person who won't, at any given time, go into hostile mode with him or even like take up the position of issuing this criticism, which is an inherently elevated (over tuk) one when it's a unilateral thing. such that tuk's personality can be a potential contribution as well. and winston and tuk's Friendship Developing Moments can be happening then, too, b/c Maybe they've hung out outside work on their own aleady, but also maybe they've never really been interacting with a larger group outside work, such that that group is less likely to include some people, or entirely people, who will suddenly go sicko mode on either or both of them. and then meanwhile, who knows anything abt this bachelorette party, could be already a cohesive friend group who all see each other all the time, or people who see each other more infrequently meeting up on this trip, or a mix; could be fun and chill or something so scheduled/demanding it's kind of like a work trip, or fluctuate....and of course zero info abt the individuals such that imagining anything abt them is entire OC territory, and i'm bad at that, or at coming up with stories, so not exactly a lot of details here from me but godspeed if two of them unlock another tier of friendship here b/c like parallel to winston and tuk, they're like hmm okay so we're mutually down re: potentially having a foursome here, and spending some time away from the larger group

(or of course the scenario that tuk and winston can also have that moment but just as putting "and/or: a threesome?" as an option, and that tips the scales for someone who might've otherwise felt more indecisive like "hmmmm casual convenient hookup, or spending more time out & about like this / whatever other activity...." but then is like oho Well, if it's a threesome, i'll seize that opportunity, sure....such that then maybe afterwards [winston and tuk hanging out together] happens sooner, if the third member feels more third wheel about things lol, since now they'd be the only two who already know each other. like ooh who knows, round n+1 in the aftermath just one on one (and/or i mean, maybe another thing the third party's still around for, re: further casual sex opportunities that don't just fall into your lap every day), and/or talk, watch tron together, go back out on the town even. where the conclusion of this truly is the essence of "it Is easy to imagine that winston and tuk are real Genuine Friends for the implicit further offscreen time spent together outside work / interactions between them here. and fun" and with that flair of "and give that a juxtaposed parallel in it being the same for a couple bachelorette attendees, why not, good for them"

[psqqa]

lmao @ me for thinking horikoshi was just neatly going through and tying off the character and plot threads by ticking off the battles. the man doesn’t meander but he knows how to bend and twist for narrative effect.

[noxtivagus]

SHADOWBRINGERS.... listening to the song again n oh god i love the lyrics so so much we r ignoring the fact that i have to wake up in like less than 4 hours

[keeps-ache]

neat thing is how i can just listen to the same playlist with ten songs in it on repeat for three weeks and not get tired of it

[clumsyclifford]

first off after rereading a good portion of your fics, I have a question to ask. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF TEA. because that is a consistently reoccurring theme in your fics and hell I am NOT complaining just very curious now because you are very clearly invested in tea ajcjjsnxnxncnl

SECOND!!!!!!!!! DID YOU HEAR THAT ALL TIME LOW IS RELEASING A NEW SINGLE ON OCTOBER SEVENTH?!?! IM SO FUCKING EXCITED BELLA OMFG. THE LAST NEW ORIGINAL SONG WE GOT WAS IN 2021!!!!! (I’m not counting Blinding Lights. They could have chosen ANY song and they did blinding lights. I’m.) (AND PALAYE ROYALE IS RELEASING THEIR ALBUM ON MY BIRTHDAY AAAAAAA)

ANYWAY I seem to have a habit of commenting on your fics a ton and then not touching them for a while and then you go and reply to them and immediately my brain goes SHES ALIVE ITS TIME TO LET HER KNOW I STILL EXIST MUAHAHHAGAHA and I go and leave like +200 more comments and I kNOW you said it’s not annoying but ankxksjxnnx

ANYWAY ANYWAY I HOPE YOURE HAVING A REALLY GOOD DAY BELLA <33333

HFDLKJG i will happily tell you !!! i only ever drink one kind of tea: english breakfast with milk and sugar. i probably put more sugar than a normal human being is supposed to put, but i stand by my decisions. as a matter of fact i am drinking this exact kind of tea right now at this moment

yes!!! i saw !!!! and ghsfhgdslgdkmgj i agree so hard with the blinding lights comment they could have literally covered any song in the world and. they. and they went with blinding lights. they went with blinding lights. i haven't even listened to it under protest. exciting about palaye royale though ! i don't listen to them but mazel tov to you. maisie also just announced that she's releasing a song on october 7th so it's gonna be a good day for music

dsfgdklj well your commenting habit is great i enjoy it so carry on as you were fldkghgdh and thank you for the well wishes sol, my day started pretty bad but has slowly gotten better

[fivehundredsporks]

gonna use smn else to keep track of these bastards now!! but here they are anyway!

[porcupine-girl]

An important message to college students: Why you shouldn't use ChatGPT or other "AI" to write papers.

Here's the thing: Unlike plagiarism, where I can always find the exact source a student used, it's difficult to impossible to prove that a student used ChatGPT to write their paper. Which means I have to grade it as though the student wrote it.

So if your professor can't prove it, why shouldn't you use it?

Well, first off, it doesn't write good papers. Grading them as if the student did write it themself, so far I've given GPT-enhanced papers two Ds and an F.

If you're unlucky enough to get a professor like me, they've designed their assignments to be hard to plagiarize, which means they'll also be hard to get "AI" to write well. To get a good paper out of ChatGPT for my class, you'd have to write a prompt that's so long, with so many specifics, that you might as well just write the paper yourself.

ChatGPT absolutely loves to make broad, vague statements about, for example, what topics a book covers. Sadly for my students, I ask for specific examples from the book, and it's not so good at that. Nor is it good at explaining exactly why that example is connected to a concept from class. To get a good paper out of it, you'd have to have already identified the concepts you want to discuss and the relevant examples, and quite honestly if you can do that it'll be easier to write your own paper than to coax ChatGPT to write a decent paper.

The second reason you shouldn't do it?

IT WILL PUT YOUR PROFESSOR IN A REALLY FUCKING BAD MOOD. WHEN I'M IN A BAD MOOD I AM NOT GOING TO BE GENEROUS WITH MY GRADING.

I can't prove it's written by ChatGPT, but I can tell. It does not write like a college freshman. It writes like a professional copywriter churning out articles for a content farm. And much like a large language model, the more papers written by it I see, the better I get at identifying it, because it turns out there are certain phrases it really, really likes using.

Once I think you're using ChatGPT I will be extremely annoyed while I grade your paper. I will grade it as if you wrote it, but I will not grade it generously. I will not give you the benefit of the doubt if I'm not sure whether you understood a concept or not. I will not squint and try to understand how you thought two things are connected that I do not think are connected.

Moreover, I will continue to not feel generous when calculating your final grade for the class. Usually, if someone has been coming to class regularly all semester, turned things in on time, etc, then I might be willing to give them a tiny bit of help - round a 79.3% up to a B-, say. If you get a 79.3%, you will get your C+ and you'd better be thankful for it, because if you try to complain or claim you weren't using AI, I'll be letting the college's academic disciplinary committee decide what grade you should get.

Eventually my school will probably write actual guidelines for me to follow when I suspect use of AI, but for now, it's the wild west and it is in your best interest to avoid a showdown with me.

[thebibliosphere]

Speaking of therapy, I say, as though we're old friends, and you're not a stranger trapped in this metaphorical elevator with me and you can hear the suspension wires starting to fray.

I've been doing a lot of work recently that's focused on imposter syndrome and the feeling that no matter how well or how much I do, I'm not good enough. That I'm somehow tricking everyone into thinking my work is actually good.

Some days it's a minor niggle in my head that I can gentle and soothe with logic and affirmations. Or smother, depending on the mood. Other times it's loud and all-consuming and the mental anguish it causes me is so real I can feel it twitching in my muscles. This desperate fight-or-flight instinct with nowhere to go and nothing to fight but myself.

Anyway, because I'm several types of Mentally Unwell™, I was switching between workshop sheets ahead of next week. Filling in different forms. (Trying to get a good grade in therapy) And I got my "recognize your harmful ADHD coping mechanisms" worksheet mixed in with the "you're not actually lying to people, you just feel like you are because your brain is full of weasels" worksheet, and seeing them side by side made something go topsy turvy in my head, and I just had to sit and breathe for a couple of minutes until the urge to scream passed. Because it clicked, it all suddenly clicked.

The reason the imposter syndrome workshops and therapy sessions aren't sticking was because I do routinely trick people into thinking I'm someone I'm not.

Because I'm masking my ADHD for their convenience.

I've always known there was something wrong with me. My neurotypical peers made it abundantly clear I didn't fit in or was failing in some way I couldn't see nor remedy, no matter how hard I tried.

So I compressed myself into a workaholic box of hyper-competence in the hopes they'd stop noticing the flaws and exploit like me instead. And then subsequently lived with the daily fear that if they looked too close, they'd realize I'm a monumental fuck up with enough personal baggage to block the Suez Canal.

If you ever need someone to burn themselves to ashes for your comfort and convenience, I'm your gal.

Or I used to. Until I had a bit of a breakdown, and the rubber band holding my brain together snapped and pinged off into the stratosphere, never to be seen again.

Unfortunately, the trauma of living like that didn't also fuck off and instead left a gaping maw where my personality ought to be, so now I get to deal with that aftermath.

And it's that aftermath that's affecting the imposter syndrome shit. Because yes, I am hyper-competent and good at what I do-- but it doesn't feel real because that is how I mask.

And the truly frustrating thing is I am good at what I do. I am not pretending. I worked hard to be good at this. It just feels like I'm dicking around because 90% of my personality turns out to be trauma masquerading as humor in a trenchcoat, and having people genuinely like something weird I'm doing is so foreign my brain has decided it's just another form of masking.

I'm pretending to be a good author so people will think I'm a good author, and my brain thinks we are in Danger of being found out. We are in Danger, and writing is Dangerous because then people will know I'm Weird and not whatever palatable version I've presented myself as for their NT sensibilities.

Like the neurotic vampire with a raging praise kink wasn't an obvious giveaway.

Anyway. I got nothing else. Thanks for listening.

I'm going to go be very normal in another room and not stare into the abyss of my own soul for a bit.