#handling difficult conversations

[theluckygirlblog]

Calm, Collected, and In Control: A Woman’s Guide to Male Aggression

Male aggression—whether in the workplace, social settings, or even within family dynamics—can be intimidating, frustrating, and, at times, emotionally draining. Women are often conditioned to either shrink in response or appease the situation, but these are not the only options. Understanding how to navigate male aggression with poise, intelligence, and strategic thinking can not only help you…

[femmefitz]

Can we take away the term moral OCD from Tumblr actually it's getting annoying seeing people misinterpret it as "something I can use to dodge accountability" or "something people use to dodge accountability". If you don't know what something means then stop talking about it.

Moral OCD does not, in fact, reflect any sort of morality on the person that has it. You are not a worse or better person for it, and your capacity for harm remains the same as anyone else's.

Just shut uppppppppp

[stayatsam]

okay i’m doing wayyyy better today about this breakup and have entered the “what the hell was all that about” phase

successfully moved my mindset from “i can’t believe i dated someone for almost half a year and he didn’t even like me” to “wait. who dates someone for that long and just pretends to have feelings for them”

i’ve been on a million dates and second dates and i have always told the other person when i’m not feeling it, especially before we get too far. and i have ended everyone of those situations amicably and with grace because it turns out adults react well to open and honest communication 🤯

[vigilskeep]

Have u considered posting any of your OCs on characterhub?

a few people have requested over the years that i have some kind of reference site/document for my ocs but personally i don’t know how any of these sites work... also i don’t actually need my stuff to be more convenient/accessible than it already is 😭 the attention and following i get are lovely but it can rlly be uh significantly more than enough sometimes. i’m always happy to get questions even repetitive ones like ‘who’s so-and-so’ though!! and i quite like writing up summaries or digging through my tags for ref posts i’ve already made, so if people want to know smth abt my creatures i’d rlly rather they ask me directly :) even if i can’t get to every ask

thanks for asking though!! im still happy people are interested

[chase-the-ladybug]

Went back to compare shima-ujie interactions

It’s interesting how the words revolving around Shima and Ujie when he was practising volleyball in chapter 41 compare to what their interactions this chapter(61) were.

Shima had said before how he couldn’t get angry before bc he couldn’t empathise, but here he is, clearly upset. He’s come far from the kid who wouldn’t bother getting upset bc ‘it’s not worth it’. What specifically changed though?

Let’s compare to Mitsumi in the past. She was upset in chapter 41 when ujie told her to stop playing a good person, bc it means something to her to look out for other people, and she values it. She could empathise with ujies pain and yet he treated her with disdain in response.

Shima however didn’t care at the time. But now, he’s finally learning to look forward and go after what he wants, so when ujie says what he does, it hurts him. It’s like a dismissal of what he’s working toward, but it scares him bc it’s also a feeling he empathises with.

Ujie says here he probably doesn’t understand that. But Shima got mad bc he DOES UNDERSTAND, it’s a point of contention for him that he just can ‘play along’ in whatever way to please others. He wants to change that though and Ujie hadn’t recognised it.

There’s also the case of how he still holds in a lot of self-hatred for the type of person he is, imo. He finds it incredibly hard to be ‘selfish’, and it’s already taken so much for him to chase acting again, but there’s always this worry that he’s just taking advantage of the people around him. Even though him pursuing this doesn’t logically hurt them at all.

In the end though, when he does talk to Ujie again to explain what he thought, it comes back to the words of assurance he himself gave Ujie in chapter 41

Because since that chapter he DOES know what it’s like to try hard for something, he DOES care about the role he worked towards, it’s NOT a role he stole from someone more deserving. And in the end, it resonates with Ujie too.

[elytrafemme]

and obviously this is by far the least important part of ANY of this, but i'm going to pretty strongly dissociate myself from anything relating to that smp-- mostly for my own mental health (again, not to center myself here). as for CS, i would like to continue it, though obviously the disclaimers again will be heavy. it is a story i wrote to cope with abuse, and if fanworks like that are called to be stopped then i will obviously rethink things. but i will give it a lot of time to figure out how to meaningfully create something from a piece of media created by unfathomably shitty people, and i'd like to be able to continue writing for the message that CS was set to convey.

again, this is not the focus of the conversation, but i just wanted to say that since i am online for once and i figure i may get an ask or two about it.

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

.

[ilkkawhat]

you ever feel yourself actually grow

[chirpybirdy]

ok im so bad at meta lol but im thinkin about bucky and what if he just changed during or before meeting gale lol

like, what if his loved ones remember him as someone who just wanted to be left alone. the "strong silent type" who wasn't interested in letters or phone calls.

its pretty easy to find proof but idk that replacement unicorn that he has gale hand deliver is hard to explain... was that scene meant to prove that john is good at procuring supplies? john is so good at supply runs annnd now im distracted goodbye attempt at meta

[faggling]

I love taking care of people omggg 😍😍😍

[miralyk]

happy CNY! wishing u well with school and confidence, i know u don’t have high confidence being “cringe” about protocreed or pokemon, but i believe in u, let this new year be happier!!

awh, thank you so much, you're too kind—i'm always worried about annoying people and "ruining" characters especially when drawing ocs/sonas, i just want to be conscientious, haha;; i'm still surprised but happy to know people are okay w and even like what i've doodled lately, so your words mean a lot, and while i'll still always be busy, i appreciate the kindness and will continue to draw things to share the fun w everyone, ty again!

i continuously apologize for what i say/draw by downplaying and deleting my own works in favor of others' works, but it's still on me for not noticing the signs ex-friends still hid their works and refused to talk to me about the same characters to realize they were annoyed at me the entire time, so at the very least, i aspire for and want better transparent communication wrt art, it's not just drawing that's important

[goldensunset]

cheers to this guest lecturer for nearly giving me a heart attack making me think there was a paper due tomorrow that i hadn’t even heard about so i couldn’t focus the rest of the lecture and like rushed home and opened the site to find there was nothing at all

[tommyexplores]

How to destroy your attraction to straight guy

I confessed my attraction to my straight friend, although I knew he’d never feel the same way and it would completely destroy our friendship. Frankly, the excitement of it had long wore off and I was feeling emotionally exhausted. I knew a confession like this would only push him away, but I had to move on. We had met just over a year ago. I saw an opportunity in him to finally make friends with…

[theaspirationsinstitute]

Leaders must navigate difficult conversations to foster accountability and trust. Learn how to approach tough discussions with honesty, empathy, and confidence.

[vilepie]

my manager broke her car’s driver door handle completely off which is an entire story in itself but i have taken the liberty of carrying it around with me everywhere (grocery store, mall, family’s house thus far) and let me say in the past twelve hours or so it has become my main character trait

[aughtpunk]

That Time a Published Author Told Me to Un-Queer My Novel

So, I don't think I ever shared this story on Tumblr before.

As you may know I've spent the past ten years turning my old Welcome to Night Vale fanfic into a stand alone novel called Echo of the Larkspur. Now, I haven't been working on it ten years straight. I'd pick it up, do a bunch of editing and rewriting, submit it to agents/publishers, get turned down, put the book away, wait 2-3 years, dust off the book, re-edit and rewrite, etc etc. A cycle that repeated itself far too many times that I would like.

Well, during one of these cycles when I was in the 'get rejected by every agent and publisher I submit to' stage I asked the writing group I was in what I was doing wrong. Because at this point I had reached a hundred total rejections and I was starting to suspect that the issue was with me.

One of the members of this writing group, a male author who was traditionally published, offered to read my first chapter and give his advice on how to fix it. This was, in retrospect, a mistake. But I was desperate. I sent him the first chapter and waited for his response.

Folks. The email he sent me changed my life.

First he said that agents wouldn't publish my novel because it was Sci-fi with hardcore gay erotica in it. This is curious because while the book certainly is queer, at no point in the conversation with this man did I say it was hardcore erotica. Nor did the first chapter feature any. It's almost as if he assumed that just because something was gay, it had to be hardcore erotica. Interesting.

He went on to say that a Human/Robot pairing was weird and that there was "No Way" my story could seriously address the issues of a relationship like that. Once again, he only read the first chapter. He just...assumed I wouldn't think of that? And that my book wouldn't cover it?

The author then said “I also felt that the LGBTQ inclusion really seems to cloud things.” Direct Quote.

And then this is when he said my favorite quote of them all:

The idea of a book being a sci-fi with romance AND a mystery is a Modern Art Marzipan Owl. It's just too confusing! No one can handle a story that is a mystery in a sci-fi enviroment AND has a romantic subplot! THEIR BRAINS WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE!

Thankfully he had a solution to my book problem. His answer? Turn the book into an Action Spy Thriller and turn S.A.G.E., a robot that identies as a gay man, into a sexy lady robot who needs a MAN to teach her what it means to be human.

(I assume the male lead will teach the 'confused' female robot how to be human via his penis.)

Now my favorite part about this advice is that at no point did he outright say "Remove the gay part". No, instead he sneakily changed the robot love interest into a female robot as if I wouldn't notice. Just sort of swept away the gay bits as something totally unneeded and just mucking up the narrative. Also that's not the plot of my story, I have no idea where this virus thing came from.

(Also note that the female robot can't be robotic-like at all. Must preserve the average straight-man sex drive at all costs I guess)

He then finished his email basically saying that I should remove everything that 'traditional publishers' don't like (aka the queer parts) and make it easier for 'your average reader' to digest and my book will be good as published!

When I said this email changed my life I meant it. Because it made me realize I'd rather be self published and unknown than traditionally publish milquetoast trash like he suggested. Like holy fuck. If I removed all of the "Difficult" to digest stories out of Echo of the Larkspur then there wouldn't be a book left!

So here I am. Self publishing my Marzipan Modern Art Owl of a book. I know it'll never see the inside of a bookstore or top the charts on Goodreads but hey, I'd rather it speak to one person than have a thousand people get excited for the part where the male lead teaches the lady robot how to be human (via his penis).

If a Queer Sci-fi/Romance/Mystery novel sounds like your jam then consider preordering it!

Looking for something to read now? Can't afford the book? Willing to read in exchange for an honest review? You can join my ARC book readers here!