#i just wanted to get some feedback first

[homoeroticvillain]

uwahh im making up for the not great drabble yesterday by having wrote smth completely different. this is actually the first part of a crossover fic im writing. idk if ill post all of it on here or mostly just end up waiting 'til its done so i can post it on ao3 but whatever here it is

Victor stared at the plant Vincent had very carefully placed on the window sill of their dorm. It was obviously still growing and Victor watched Vincent faithfully water it every day. It was the only plant present in their dorm, considering that most of the belongings Vincent brought with him were thick legal books and Victor had always killed any plants he had when he was younger. He thought it was sweet honestly, that Vincent very obviously cared for the little guy but on the other hand, Victor was getting a little jealous. Not that he’d ever admit it under pain of death but sometimes he caught Vincent gazing softly at the plant and he couldn’t help the tinge of jealousy that ran through him. 

“Victor. Why are you glaring at Charley Jr?” Vincent strode into the room having just come back from a class. He set his book at his desk and leveled a stare at his roommate.

“I wasn’t glare- Charley Jr?” Victor halted his excuses in bewilderment and looked over at Vincent, who had perched himself on the side of his desk, just to see his cheeks flushed. He clearly hadn’t meant to let that name slip. 

“I- yes, his name is Charley Jr. Don’t change the subject, why were you glaring at him?” Vincent was trying his best to act nonchalant but Victor wasn’t blind. Victor couldn’t help but grin at Vincent attempting his usual glare while his cheeks were still flushed that delightful pink.

“I think you’re the one trying to change the subject here, my dear. I wasn’t aware our other roommate had a name. Care to expand on that?” Victor watched Vincent’s flush even more at the pet name, he was so getting out of having to confess that he was jealous of a plant.

“I- He’s- Uh…” Vincent looked over at Victor’s shit eating grin, and resigned himself to explaining this, “I didn’t choose the name, I just propagated it from the original Charley-”

“Charley Sr. you mean?” 

“I- I guess, yes. My sister is the one who actually proclaimed him Charley Jr. and it just stuck I suppose.” Victor watched as Vincent fiddled with the edge of his suit jacket during his explanation. The man really was so unintentionally cute sometimes. 

“Hmm, I didn’t know you had a sister. But really? I never knew you to be such a big plant guy that you’d be propagating them.” Victor had always thought Vincent was an only child but he supposes he was wrong. Him having a sister actually makes sense when Victor thinks about it, he wonders if she’s younger or older. Maybe he’ll ask later.

“Ah, I’m not really. But when I was young I realized that Charley-” Vincent sighed again, “Charley Sr. meant a lot to my family so I researched how to care for him properly, since I wanted to be helpful. I suppose it worked considering he’s been healthy for almost 15 years now.” Vincent was idly organizing his text books on his desk as he talked.

“You really are adorable sometimes, Vincent.” Victor softly smiled at his roommate and saw a soft look returned his way before Vincent forced a stern look onto his face.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what, dear?”

“Stop.”

Victor laughed as Vincent swatted at him. He had made his way across the room and was trying to plant a big sloppy kiss on Vincent’s cheek. Victor realized there was no need for him to be jealous over a plant. Although he was *so* laughing at Vincent if he ever saw him reading Leviathan to his plant, which was soundly like a pretty likely scenario at this rate.

[thefirstknife]

can we please. go one (1) week without the PVP obsessed people going off about how PVP is the only thing that matters in the game. im so very tired. "PVE people are probably about to find out that PVE can't carry the game because PVP is ruined and we're all gonna quit and play better games" please just can they shut up and go already instead of threatening us with a good time they never follow through on??

I saw that stuff as well, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's incredibly disingenuous and deliberately incendiary to cause more people to bitch about the game being doomed or whatever.

They are constantly using "steam numbers" to show that this is the lowest population count that Destiny 2 ever had and how that's proof that the game is being ruined and dying, that pvp bros and content creators are more important than we think they are, that Bungie needs to make Destiny 3 (yes, that is unironically stuff that people are saying) and other really incredibly tiring things.

Not to mention the vitriol towards the devs. Every time they bitch, more and more people show up in the comments saying awful shit about devs and how they are lazy, they don't work, they don't care, they are bad at development and so on. This is what eventually fuels harassment.

These "steam numbers" are disingenuous because they are taken out of context and they strip all other external reasons from the "low player count."

Is there a low player count? Yes! That is correct. Even when we account for console players, it's still low.

This is nothing new. This is a constant trend. Last month of the season ALWAYS has low numbers. People finished their story and their pinnacle grind and their seals and are doing other things.

More under for length:

Is this the lowest it's been so far? It seems to be, though the final month on steam charts isn't over so we can't fully tell yet, but it seems to be one of the lowest. However, there's been similar numbers before during seasonal end. It's quite literally nothing new. We go through this every season, except this season it's slightly lower than usual.

Why is that? Well, the chart Aztecross put to prove there's not many people playing happened on a Monday before the final Tuesday reset of the final week of the season. Yeah bro, very few people have things left to do in the season. They're not bothering. Unlike you, other people have other hobbies and games to play. I haven't played in days, I only got on on Saturday to finish my King's Fall seal and that took 10 minutes. This is what I mean by "disingenuous." It's a cheap bait tactic. Find the lowest number and ship it for cheap outrage engagement.

Others are constantly also posting the cummulative steam chart for every month of Destiny since the game came to steam and they're pointing out that we have lowest numbers now. Which is, again, posted for cheap outrage. They look at the number and see it's low and their conclusion is "game is dying." They don't care about the trend (every season end is "dying"), they don't care about external reasons (other game releases), they don't care about overall how some seasons are just weaker and have less interest (not the first time), they don't care about anything.

They just want people to be mad enough to harass the devs. Because like, what do they think is going to happen when they spend 2 months blogging to hundreds of thousands of people about the game being ruined by evil devs who don't do their job? When they constantly talk about how everything in the game is bad, pvp is bad, pve is boring and easy, story is bad, seasons are bad, events made for fun are bad, small community event is bad. What's going to happen is thousands of people are going to harass the devs. That's what going to happen.

I took the "steam numbers" chart that people are throwing around and I went into it in-depth to explain what the numbers mean and add context to them. You can see it here. It's a big image but you can zoom in and explore. It makes more sense when you see it separated by seasons; you can CLEARLY see the main trend of "low population at season end."

Another thing to consider with these numbers is the scheduling pattern. Shadowkeep released in October, Beyond Light released in November after a delay. October-November are usually months with a lot of other game releases and holidays. In 2019 and 2020, Bungie had an expansion themselves to cover that time. In 2021, there was no expansion in Oct-Nov; and that was the last time the game had the lowest population record ever. WHAT A SURPRISE. In this period, if Destiny doesn't have an expansion, people move on to play other games!!!! WOW! We have the technology to decipher the low numbers!

It's important to also note that back in 2021, that was the first time a game was delayed properly and significantly, so the year was without an expansion and there was a lull in Oct-Nov period. However, at that time, it was the first time this schedule happened and people generally didn't know how will it go. We were also kept in the dark about the seasonal story end (the infamous When Is Exorcism incident) so people had to keep coming back. Now, we're in the same situation; no new expansion in Oct-Nov, seasonal lull, nothing is happening. However, now, we know how this goes. People know how this schedule works AND we're not dealing with an extended season. We know when this season ends and there's nothing to wait for. People are more comfortable taking a break. So there's less people in Oct-Nov 2022 than there were in the previous lowest point, Oct-Nov 2021. It's almost as if there are reasons for this that go beyond "game is obviously dying."

These people also seem to be incapable of understanding that some players just... stop playing. For no specific reason. The game isn't dying, some people just lose interest. Content creators are especially guilty of this, because THEY can't stop playing, because they tied their income to a single live service game. To them, quitting the game is losing a job. Curious, maybe that influences their views about the game and about burnout and taking breaks and the quality of the content?

They simultaneously want Bungie to drop FOMO and reduce burnout, but they ALSO want for there to never be "content droughts." Which one is it? Because these two things cannot both be gone. If you want less FOMO and less burnout, then there will be less content. If you want more content, then you have to get on that burnout grindset.

It's the end of the god damn season. Yeah, nothing is happening. Yeah, fewer people are playing. Players finished their grind in the Destiny mines and are doing other things before the new season drops. Stop catastrophising it for cheap outrage bait. You not being able to take a break and having to keep making new content even when the season is ending and there no new content is your problem. Not Bungie's, not the other players'.

Bungie is not going to force their devs to crunch 80 hours per week so you can have brand new content every Tuesday that no regular player can catch up with. As it currently is, I want MORE downtime. I want seasons to be 4 months and to have less time and more downtime to catch up with stuff. Imagine the outrage though. Genuinely, society if these people would actually deliver on their promise and leave. Someone else will take your place, bro.

Also, as a final note before a dissertation in the tags: these pvp mains are weak. They whine about only having 2 new maps in 2 years. Gambit got -2 new maps. Like, literally we had 6 maps and now we have 4. LMAO. Crucible has a total of 24 maps and 8+ modes, constant updates, Iron Banner rework, multiple Trials reworks, incoming competitive rework, Crucible labs, three different sets of armour, prestige weapon loot, three different seals, entire twabs dedicated just to it. And they whine about not enough attention for the Crucible?

It's getting more attention than any other core playlist. Their problem is that they're not the ones being catered to. An update doesn't count if it doesn't satisfy mister Crucible Main #37. Fuck everyone else I guess! They are the most entitled selfish childish little pricks I've ever seen. They do not deserve Bungie talking the players at all.

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

me, through gritted teeth and blurry tears, doing literally anything:

it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to exist, it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to exist, it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to exist, it doesn't have to be perfect it just-

[northern-passage]

how would we feel about an update that doesn’t have all of the paths available immediately? as in you could see the choice but it wouldn’t be selectable and would be marked as a wip?

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

me, having fun, listening to @thehillywoodshow Good Omens Parody

suddenly having a trauma flashback of this line:

im fine everything is fINE its all sOooOOOoooo fine

[astragatwo]

BTW, if you've ever said anything nice to me or left a comment on my art in any manner — whether in tags or in an ask — that I remember, and it's one of few things keeping me somewhat sane and not a dumpster fire of emotions right now. Genuinely, thank you — I don't know how to express how much it means to me.

[akemi-snow]

Chapters: 1/? Relationships: Hagane Kotetsu/Kamizuki Izumo  Summary:

At age 25, Kotetsu throws out a question: "Where would I be without you?" Casual, distracted, a rethorical question. However, it leads Izumo into a deep thinking to imagine really where Kotetsu would be without him.

Because it's an interesting question, when asked by Kotetsu. Because while most people could track meeting their best friend in school, at the candy shop, in the park, or somewhere uninteresting where they could have met anyone else and where their lives wouldn't change a whole lot if they had never met, Kotetsu was the only one who could say that if he hadn't met Izumo, he would probably, quite literally, be dead, gone rogue, or still be missing since age three, living alone in the woods, barely verbal, and more an animal than a person.

The story of how Kotetsu at age 7 had been missing and isolated from civilization for so long, he refused to let anyone near him; except the one kid who, after a bad first meeting, started giving him what no one else had offered him before, and what would, in their adult years, transform into something even greater: genuine care, patience, and love.

------

*slaps the roof of this fic*

I started a new baby.

[bluemeetyellow]

ok a little bit of (maybe bullshit) costume analysis here for your consideration: the triangle pocket on Mike’s shirt here... reminded me of the triangle symbol used on the pink triangle pride flag. (not to mention the fact the muppet poster behind him has a rainbow on it already lmao)

(the first flag pic is taken from footage of one of the ACT UP protests of the 80s)

EDIT: now that there’s confirmation from Finn that this outfit was handmade for Mike this season... I’m gonna post this again lol.

[tw for the Keep Reading section: contains references to/images of gay men in N*zi concentration camps and discusses the persecution of gay men. nothing graphic, but i wanted to put a warning just in case...]

(+ disclaimer: i am not a historian or prominent activist, any and all of this research has been conducted by myself and is limited to what i have currently seen/read. i do not claim to be an expert. some of the information i have may be faulty, plain wrong, or now outdated. feel free to let me know if you spot anything that is incorrect, has bad sources, or is disrespectful so i can fix it!)

now, while i certainly would hope mike’s struggle with identity and his feelings would become more overt over the course of the season, if this is where they’re going to officially take mike’s character, it would make sense to have the first few episodes using mostly coding/subtext to convey Mike’s confusion  until mike feels ready to talk about it and feels he has the right words so it doesn’t feel too abrupt to general viewers not as closely following/used to decoding subtext (which would also make sense because, again, in-universe he likely doesn’t have the words to describe his feelings and experience just yet).

so, without further ado, here are some more examples of the pink triangle and how these messages and their imagery could tie into a possible arc where we see Mike struggling with his sexuality this season...

the famous SILENCE = DEATH flag here also reminded me so much of Mike likely having a ‘One Way’ or ‘This Way’ sign pointed directly towards his closet in his room back in Hawkins... aka he will have to stay silent/in the closet if he stays in Hawkins or doesn’t get away for a while to ‘find himself’. now combine this with the fact that Mike is going to Cali for spring break and therefore getting a chance to get out and far away from Hawkins (and his “closet”), that makes his upcoming arc this season even more compelling to me.. if i am onto something here.

+ since this season will likely already contain heavy themes of how, over time, the continual Lack of Access to Info, Spreading Misinfo & Cover Ups, Repression, Secrets, Lies, and Mistrust as a result of those Lies = Escalation of Tension and even Death [be it a physical or metaphorical death, of self/of relationships/trust/community/etc] what with Vecna being the new big bad or whatever, it would make sense more than ever for them to tackle this side of Mike’s character this season...

as it seems like the 2019 HBO Limited Series on Chernobyl has inspired a lot of the visuals/coloring for this season (and the Duffers even managed to snag the makeup artist from the series to work on the makeup/SFX for Vecna this season), I’d imagine this quote could apply to this season’s themes just as well: “What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.” and these political themes are certainly still just as relevant today as they were in the 80′s.

(separating this bit from the rest since it’s a bit of a detour from the topic as it pertains to themes of this season/series as a whole, rather than relating to specifically Mike’s struggles with sexuality..)

+ [ST4 SPOILERS AHEAD] the themes of ‘going out west’: consider the lyrics from the song that plays over Mike reading his letter from El, California Dreamin’, “i’d be safe and warm if i was in LA...” (compare this to how Will described the ‘Upside Down’ as somewhere dark, empty, dangerous and cold..) and how also in the letter, one of the lines El pens is ‘I think you will love it here [in California].’ when Cali is ...

(blue text’s source: http://picturethis.museumca.org/timeline/reagan-years-1980s/gay-lesbian-rights/info)

[the potential for any ST4 SPOILERS currently leaked Ends Here.]

now, onto the triangle symbol itself. the upside down pink triangle symbol was made infamous as a piece of pink cloth that was sewn onto the uniforms of gay men in N*zi concentration camps as a way to identify them and persecute them.

the placement of these patches was located where the right breast pocket was/would be. so maybe you can see why i immediately did a double take seeing that triangle on the right-side pocket of mike’s shirt.. again, i would certainly hope they’d get more overt as the season goes along-- but i could understand using these subtle cues to the LGBT viewers at first as a way to sort of signal that ‘hey this is where we’re going with this character’

i believe this history ties in as well with a theme in ST of how the 80′s a lot of knowledge and access to information could be more easily limited/relegated to what media you were able to see or read due to there not being an easily accessible source of endless information (and misinfo alike lol) in most people’s homes like we have now. a lot of the history on the pink triangles was difficult to divulge for a long time as well, due to the ongoing persecution of the LGBT community-- so it was unsafe or just didn’t seem wise at the time for survivors, who had already been forced to endure such unspeakable trauma, to hold onto these things which would likely only serve as painful ‘reminders’ for most.

of course, this could all just be coincidence... it could just so happen that they wanted a simple shape and the one they used was a triangle, maybe the costume designer just likes that shape for pockets, or maybe it was generally a popular design in the 80′s (i’m not a fashion expert, nor was i coming of age in the 1980′s so sorry i’m not sure either way there lol)... but if it isn’t a coincidence, i could see this being a visual representation of mike’s fears of his secret being ‘found out’ while also aimlessly signaling how he desperately wants someone who is gay to notice the signals he’s giving off-- he wants someone who understands to answer his changed demeanor as the cry for help it is. it’s even harder to ask for help when you don’t currently have the words for what it is you’re struggling with, because that isn’t me saying mike consciously was thinking these things when he chose that shirt, but rather it’s a way of conveying the subtext/what mike is feeling and thinking by the designers to the audience through recognizable symbols.

(here are some links to sources with more information on the pink triangles:

/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLwSF9uhNQQ&ab_channel=PoweredByRainbows%E2%84%A2

/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj-wGkcyTL8&ab_channel=UnitedStatesHolocaustMemorialMuseum

/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OxH1rqBAgw&t=747s&ab_channel=JamesSomerton 

/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o84srvQAaWk&ab_channel=CambridgeDocumentaryFilms

/ https://thereaderwiki.com/en/Pink_triangles

/ https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/the-men-with-the-pink-triangle-heinz-heger)

the pink triangle was a symbol eventually reclaimed by LGBT activists and became a more well-known symbol amongst the community and then to the general public in the late 80′s/90′s. sometimes this reclamation involved turning the triangle from upside down to right-side up, as a “reversal” of its original usage, and has since been used and adapted as such onscreen... take, for example, one of the costume designs for Dr. Frank ‘N' Furter here...

(https://forward.com/culture/352199/the-secret-jewish-history-of-the-rocky-horror-picture-show/ & https://medium.com/thinking-about-queer-art-performance/rated-r-for-resistance-c6e21611a0fa)

but again.. this could all be a massive stretch so.. just take it with a grain of salt! these are purely inferences i’ve made thru my own lens where i recognize a lot of this imagery pretty immediately so i have a bias probably lol.

+ new addition post-s4: I also found it interesting the parallel between how the Act Up organization made their own shirts for protests and how Dustin makes specific mention of how The Hellfire Club makes their own t-shirts..

[saviourkingslut]

we're here, we're queer, we're telling our thesis supervisor we're handing in a chapter on wednesday evening and now we're sitting here at 1:30 am nowhere near done

[got7]

hello all

[munamania]

ok i wish any of u could have been there in my class today sorry to wish that upon u ok i take it back im just mad i had to suffer i havent been that angry in a class and esp on behalf of my own work like maybe ever like. last semester i’d get annoyed but then id just go to my other prof or whatever and i was also distracted by film girl so like w/e but im really happy with my series idea and ive been having fun developing the characters and trying to figure out what i want to do yk but admittedly would’ve loved some feedback/ideas about how it’s working and etc (yk. the purpose of a fucking student writer’s room) and like. no one engaged with it at all. and yeah that sucks and the dramatic part of me is like well maybe i just suck but it’s like.. they didnt even try like they do with everyone else’s stories? i got pointless fucking questions some of which. litchrally had answers in the outline i provided. you know the whole central idea of class today. when i complained to my prof later on even he was like yeah who cares... (abt their questions. cause they did not matter to my story.) idk i was frustrated to the point that i was holding back tears lol so that was embarrassing. got told to my face that it seemed like i had like 20 minutes worth of content which just. isnt true i just didnt write word for word ‘and then she said this and she said that and he said this and then she did that’ like everybody fucking else did. use your goddamn imagination it’s a film class for god’s sake. and it’s not like anyone asked about what WAS there. oh also every single person that contributed was like yeah whatever this character’s name is haha forgot um yeah like whichever this one was. can you like pretend to care like you did with everyone else’s. it’s not even a 3 page outline u could like. look. youre gonna give more engagement and attention to the 9/11 self insert guy. yeah ok just say u hate women. that’s presumptuous of me i guess sorry. it was just sooooo annoying and i loved that class prior to this but obviously this stomped on my ego and im angry at like everyone who participated and yk. a few of them were ppl i liked before that so. bummer i guess

[morverenmaybewrites]

So I just realized that my posts and my work isn't showing up on the tags, namely Silk Flowers and I suspect the Kaeya one. So I may be reposting them again and/or doing some things to make sure that they're appearing in the tags.

Apologies for any inconvenience if they show up again on your dashboard! I'll be tagging them with "morveren reposts" if you wish to block it in advance.

[grasshoppergeography]

Hey All,

I've been away for some time, as we've been working really hard on something quite exciting:

let me present to you the world's first ever global ocean drainage basin map that shows all permanent and temporary water flows on the planet.

This is quite big news, as far as I know this has never been done before. There are hundreds of hours of work in it (with the data + manual work as well) and it's quite a relief that they are all finished now.

But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows which ocean does each of the world's rivers end up in. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I'll make it myself - as usual :) Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn't so surprised any more that it didn't exist. So yeah, it was quite a challenge but I am very happy with the result.

In addition to the global map I've created a set of 43 maps for different countries, states and continents, four versions for each: maps with white and black background, and a version for both with coloured oceans (aka polygons). Here's the global map with polygons:

I know from experience that maps can be great conversation starters, and I aim to make maps that are visually striking and can effectively deliver a message. With these ocean drainage basin maps the most important part was to make them easily understandable, so after you have seen one, the others all become effortless to interpret as well. Let me know how I did, I really appreciate any and all kinds of feedback.

Here are a few more from the set, I hope you too learn something new from them. I certainly did, and I am a geographer.

The greatest surprise with Europe is that its biggest river is all grey, as the Volga flows into the Caspian sea, therefore its basin counts as endorheic.

An endorheic basin is one which never reaches the ocean, mostly because it dries out in desert areas or ends up in lakes with no outflow. The biggest endorheic basin is the Caspian’s, but the area of the Great Basin in the US is also a good example of endorheic basins.

I love how the green of the Atlantic Ocean tangles together in the middle.

No, the dividing line is not at Cape Town, unfortunately.

I know these two colours weren’t the best choice for colourblind people and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ve been planning to make colourblind-friendly versions of my maps for ages now – still not sure when I get there, but I want you to know that it’s just moved up on my todo-list. A lot further up.

Minnesota is quite crazy with all that blue, right? Some other US states that are equally mind-blowing: North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming. You can check them all out here.

Yes, most of the Peruvian waters drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the maps of Peru, if you want to take a closer look.

Asia is amazingly colourful with lots of endorheic basins in the middle areas: deserts, the Himalayas and the Caspian sea are to blame. Also note how the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra are divided.

I mentioned earlier that I also made white versions of all maps. Here’s Australia with its vast deserts. If you're wondering about the weird lines in the middle: that’s the Simpson desert with its famous parallel sand dunes.

North America with white background and colourful oceans looks pretty neat, I think.

Finally, I made the drainage basin maps of the individual oceans: The Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Pacific. The Arctic is my favourite one.

I really hope you like my new maps, and that they will become as popular as my river basin maps. Those have already helped dozens of environmental NGOs to illustrate their important messages all around the world. It would be nice if these maps too could find their purpose.

[toastsnaffler]

it was waaayy shorter that time... they didn't even ask me to do the lab assessment again lol

[desertskiespodcast]

I tried to write a novel. Not once. Not twice. But about 12 times. Here's how that would play out: 1. I sit down and knock out 10 pages 2. I share it with someone 3. They say "It's goooood" like it's not good 4. I ask for critical feedback 5. They say, "Well....the plot just moves so quickly. So much happens in the first few pages it doesn't feel natural." So I'd write more drafts. I'd try to stretch out the story. I would add dialogue that I tried to make interesting but thought was boring. I would try including environment and character descriptions that felt unnecessary, (why not just let people imagine what they want?) Anyways, I gave up trying to write because in my mind, I wasn't a fiction writer. Maybe I could write a phonebook or something. But then I made a fiction podcast, and I waited for the same feedback about the fast moving plot, but guess what??? Podcasts aren't novels. The thing that made my novels suck became one of the things that made Desert Skies work. I've received some criticism since the show started, but one thing I don't receive regular complaints about is being overly-descriptive or longwinded. In fact, the opposite. It moves fast enough that it keeps peoples attention. I always felt I had a knack for telling stories but spent years beating myself up because I couldn't put those stories into novel form. The problem wasn't me. The problem was the tool I was trying to use. All that to say: If, in your innermost parts you may know that you're a storyteller but you just can't write a book, don't give up right away. You can always do things to get better and there's a lot of good resources. But if you do that for a while and novel writing just isn't your thing, try making a podcast, or creating a comic, or a poem, or a play, or a tv script. You might know you're an artist but suck at painting. Try making a glass mosaic, or miniatures, or try charcoal portraits, or embroider or collage. You might know you're a singer, but opera just isn't working out. Why not yodel? I could keep listing out examples, but the point is this. Trust your intuitions when it comes to your creative abilities, but don't inhibit yourself by becoming dogmatic about which medium you can use to express that creativity. Don't be afraid to try something new. Don't be afraid to make something new. You might just find the art form that fits the gift you knew you always had, and what it is might surprise you