#fear of imperfection

[alice-the-kittycat-yt]

[nmjackson]

Running in circles ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ | Fear of Imperfection

I'll be honest. This one I don't quite understand. Not writing your wonderful idea because "it needs to be perfect first" is like spending 26 hours doing hair, makeup and wardrobe only to end up running a marathon. In 2 feet in diameter circles. Under torrential downpour.

(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) ？

Writing is a long and messy process. If this is what's got you blocked in your writing process, here are some things to keep in mind.

Just #@$%ing do it.

Like, seriously.

The first draft is for messing around.

Doesn't matter if you're hearing this as a beginner or a pro, don't sweat the first draft. Getting your story from point A to point B is the main goal. That's not to say you can't' have fun writing your draft. All I'm saying is that getting it out of your brain and onto your paper of choice is what you should be focusing on.

Write an outline.

Maybe you're worried you'll leave out really important, silly, mysterious, romantic, xyz bits of your story. Write an outline. Having an outline is a great tool to use anyway because you're less likely to have huge plot holes by the end of your draft. Just don't make it too detailed because getting lost in the sauce could be your future if you're not careful.

You'll have your chance to perfect it during the editing process.

If it really bothers you, just remember that you will have multiple chances to get your story just right in the editing process. If you're thinking that having it perfect first means you'll have to edit less later, you've got another thing coming. Editing is a much different beast. Not to mention having nothing to edit isn't proving your point very well, now, is it?

Just #@$%ing do it.

At least give yourself a chance, okay?

Hope this helps! Happy writing! ✌︎︎♡���

Click here to find out which of the 7 potential reasons for writer's block you may have.

[milliebellae]

take back your creativity from capitalist deception hell today!

[zestsoflemon]

Embracing Imperfection: A Journey to Overcoming Atelophobia

Atelophobia, the fear of imperfection, is a concept deeply entrenched in the societal fabric of today’s world. The relentless pursuit of perfection is often romanticized and revered, creating an environment where the fear of not measuring up to unrealistic standards becomes a distressing reality for many. The societal pressure for flawlessness permeates various aspects of life, from physical…

[dreamy-conceit]

It's okay to be seen trying.

— Meg Josephson (Substack, 24 March 2023)

[grunklebongrip]

Every time someone uwu-ifies Fiddleford, I find a new way for him to cheat on his wife

[qiyuue]

going on a crashout tangent again after a while bc of another black x white hair doomed yaoi…

tbhx ep 2 spoilers below cut and in tags

So we know how the public’s perceptions of the heroes alter not only their powers and appearances but ALSO their personality (og nice slowly became a perfectionist because people expected him to be perfect), right?

And like. Wreck being Nice’s nemesis is a publicly known fact and the public OBVIOUSLY roots for Nice to defeat Wreck. So what if, because the public THINKS Nice hates Wreck, og Nice ACTUALLY slowly began to resent Wreck at some point :))

Because of what the public thinks of Nice, the persona “Nice” erased his true self and crafted his entirely new “perfect” persona. Wreck was the only person who truly knew and loved Nice before that, before he was perfect. Wreck was the only thing Nice had left that was HIS OWN, that wasn’t given to his superhero persona.

So what if in secret, og Nice had tried so hard to fight those feelings of resentment? What if even when his true self no longer remains, buried and erased by his perfect persona, he had hoped that he could at least keep a part of his true feelings and continue loving the person who mattered to him the most?

[urfavcrime]

dsmp is still SO insane to me. still not completely convinced it wasn't a social experiment. it is something that can never be replicated again due to the really specific circumstances that attributed to it's creation and popularity

[thepersonalwords]

Perfection is born of imperfection.

Richie Norton

[skecherss]

"He knows I'm not the possessive type. I'm totally cool with him having other friends." Girl twenty issues earlier you stole your mom's scrubs to sneak into a hospital and spy on your boyfriend's female friend after he repeatedly told you they were just friends. ARE you cool with it

from Robin (1993) #101

[possamble]

What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.

so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.

Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:

She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent

Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married

She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came

She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays

She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home

Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)

She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words

the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.

She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)

Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues

She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)

She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).

She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)

She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.

She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food

(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:

She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it

seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)

slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)

(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))

However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.

Subsequent conclusions about her personality:

Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).

Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:

Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.

Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?

Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:

It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:

Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.

We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.

It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.

It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).

And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?

Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?

I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:

copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.

It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.

But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.

What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."

Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.

All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)

There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.

but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.

(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)

[gingermintpepper]

I have finished the book. It was not a very good book at all. My preliminary thoughts are as follows:

Prose is the best part about it but also one of the worst. Evocative and lovely language was used for what I can only describe as manipulating the reader. In a different book by a different writer, perhaps that would be the mark of a good unreliable narrator but this is not that kind of book and the writer, I fear, is not clever enough for that kind of narrative.

The characters - I do not think of them. Trapped as we are in Alcestis' head, she is a passive, dull thing who I do not know any better at the end of the book than I did at the start. I couldn't distinguish where her voice ended and where the author's began and it is through that haziness that all other characters are observed. Admetus is an objectively phenomenal husband but his kindness and regard is made bitter because he loves Apollo not her. Apollo is no more than a ghost haunting them both. Hippothoe and Phylomache exist as images of what Alcestis could be - a woman who dies of illness or children - and Heracles is awkward and small, quiet and passive in the way everything is in this book. Persephone and Hades are perhaps the only characters of some interest in here, but Persephone is a volatile mess of power masquerading as empowerment while Hades, like all the men in this book really, is small and passive and really only becomes worth something when out of Persephone's massive shadow.

The romance - What romance? There is no romance in this book. Alcestis imagines that what occurs between Admetus and Apollo is a romance but we do not get to see that story. The obvious regard and kindness Admetus holds for Alcestis would be romance in any other book - but in this it is described with so much apathy and loathing so as to make Admetus' actions seem unremarkable and lacking. As for Persephone and Alcestis; Alcestis wants nothing to do with her until Persephone forces her. She assaults her, like Hades assaulted her, while speaking the words of that tale into Alcestis' flesh while Alcestis rejects her and somehow this becomes the catalyst of their 'love'. There is no romance in this book.

The queer themes - I am not sure how one makes a story so easily given to a queer imagining biphobic, lesbophobic and not poly but it sure did that. Alcestis' ideas about love and sexuality and how it might possibly have different forms and fashions is unchanged from start to finish and homosexuality, for all that it is what she blames her ruined marriage on, is never explored past a few fleeting, derogatory descriptions and quickly brushed over allusions.

The Apollo Thing - Listen to me so carefully. Apollo is only in a single scene of this book. One single scene and it is the wedding scene where Admetus calls upon him to save them from the poisonouse snakes. Every other mention of him in this book is in passing, an offhanded mention of a person praying to a god, or with the underlying scorn and anger of a wife thinking of her husband's mistress. Apollo is not even there when Alcestis dies. He wasn't even responsible for Heracles eventually going down to the Underworld to retrieve her. If the author could've erased him from the wedding scene too, I'm sure she would've invented a way to do it. Apollo has no relationship with Alcestis, we do not get to see the nature of his relationship with Admetus and every other opportunity which existed to show him on their side was neatly and entirely erased. Thanatos, naturally, is completely absent from this novel.

In short, this was entirely unpleasant from essentially start to finish. I was very excited when I started this book and saw the quality of the prose and also the ambivalent character sketched of its gods but things went so rapidly and extremely downhill that I am left wondering how it was possibly flubbed that badly.

Regarding this book's feminism, I will dedicate a separate post to that entirely. To this book's credit, it did not have the superficial girlboss feminism that many of its contemporaries tend to champion but to its complete and utter detriment, the feminism it champions is perhaps the most insidious kind. The sort that excludes the disenfranchised, the impoverished and the normal woman. This book's feminism is for the privileged and the powerful and it is a deeply upsetting thing.

Lastly, I would like to thank @superkooku , @konu-d and @waterlinkedgirl for cheering me on through this absolute torment. I would not have finished this without them. Take that as you will.

If you are interested in the tale of Admetus and Alcestis or just want to read a retelling, I urge you to just read @reawakened-revenant (CiCiRose on ao3)'s God of the Golden Bow series. It is captivating, enthralling, impeccably researched and so utterly submersed in passion, love and care that it is breathtaking to read. It is a personal favourite of mine and the standard to which I hold all other Admetus and Alcestis retellings.

With all that done, I am going to stare at a wall and contemplate the horrors now. ✌🏾

[ave-immaculata]

fellas we're once again wrestling with imperfect vs. perfect contrition and why imperfect contrition with a firm resolution to not sin again and promptly receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation doesn't save

[mirrorofliterature]

I didn't know it was a controversial opinion to say that the jedi council should not have let qui-gon jinn take a nine-year-old child into a warzone until I posted as such a few days ago. like. that's child endangerment. child endangerment is bad. qui-gon jinn should not have taken him into a war zone, and both he and the jedi council are at fault for that.

the jedi council had the power to stop him; they simply did not care, and at the heart of it that is the fundamental problem with the PT jedi council, and order as a whole: apathy.

I recommend the (very comedic) fanfiction where Jango Fett (recently married to Shmi Skywalker) sues the Jedi Order for custody of Anakin: CORUCAFSS: Case no 9877882 (Jango Fett v. Jedi Order). It includes this gem:

(Could Mr. Fett please clarify what he means by “the Jedi taking a nine-year-old into an active warzone”? No reasonable adult would – oh. Oh no.)

[hellcifrogs]

You know what's stupid? Keeping things you love or that bring you joy just waiting for the perfect moment to use/do/make... I think I've done enough of that :)

[travelersrest]

🪽🌺🪽