#i mean i literally wrote a template for it

[wist-eri]

i’m not really sure about what KOSA does to censor the internet. what exactly is there to it? i’ve heard a lot of awareness posts about it but not about what it actually does

i’m just going to copy-paste and slightly edit a previous reblog i made. though i’m not too sure how completely accurate this is, hopefully this can be of help if anyone wants a bit more info or wants to write a letter on their own:

——

basically, they’re forcing companies to limit certain content based on age and what could be considered dangerous to minors. they do somewhat give examples of what’s “mature content” but 1. they’re incredibly vague and 2. they open up for many other interpretations.

they also give the state attorney general the right to file a civil lawsuit against companies they think is infringing on this and showing minors “mature content.” however, this also means that this is completely up to the state attorney + state court’s interpretation, which can VERY EASILY be influenced by personal and political views. aka, a lot of LGBTQ information and other resources can be easily censored if the state deems it unnecessary for minors (and if the state court agrees with that belief). if one state does that successfully, it causes a ripple effect. aka, this can literally lead to censorship and the bill is straight up allowing that interpretation.

and another qualm i have with the bill (other than just the censorship part): the bill also states that they want ways to verify a user’s age so that they can filter content properly. however, the only way that’s truly foolproof is LITERAL GOVERNMENT IDS. this basically means that your personal information is collected by a “covered company” (the term they use for social media platforms and stuff) and used for age verification. let me tell you i don’t think that’s a good idea AT ALL. it compromises everyone’s security, not just minors. like, what are they gonna do in the case of a data leak / security breach? how many people will have their personal information revealed and taken advantage of?

KOSA is a trojan horse with a LOT of consequences. it’s way too risky to implement into congress at this current stage, unless either of these problems can be solved through amending the bill or just straight up not approving it entirely.

ALSO: the bill is currently introduced in the SENATE and is being contemplated over. however, there’s still a lot the bill needs to do before it passes into law (house of representatives, president, etc) aka, do not stop expressing how DANGEROUS this bill is, in the case it’s passed in the senate. keep talking when it’s in the house of representatives. do what you can

THIS TOO: (https://www.stopkosa.com/)

[davycoquette]

Questionnaire~

Thank you for the tag, @drchenquill!

1. Is writing a hobby or way of life?

I always call it a hobby, but almost always prefixed with some form of, "greatest," "most important," or "favorite." I think way of life fits a helluva lot better. I've been writing since I can remember.

2. A journal full of writing notes or a clean, completed manuscript?

The journal one. I have like 900 I'm actively writing in at this very moment.

3. Who (or what) is your writing inspiration?

Cormac McCarthy. The love I have for my shitty characters. The agonizing unignorable need to put words on paper or screen.

4.Which is worse: someone you "idolize" reading your first draft or listening to you sing?

The singing one. I am not ashamed of my writing, but I have been taught to be ashamed of my singing lmfao. Which is weird and dumb because singing isn't something I go around telling people I can do decently - I don't tell people, "Oh, I sing," or, "I'm a singer." So, I have nothing to prove on that front, yet... I don't think I could make a peep of noise if someone said, "Sing me a song." Meanwhile, even when my writing's not at it's best, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm a writer. Here's some shit I wrote that isn't good. Sometimes I write good stuff, though."

5. Has writing from someone else's POV ever changed your own perspective?

I mean... in the literal sense, sure. A story looks different from the eyes of a character. By the same token, it helps me "understand" when people make choices I've not personally made. I think, for this reason, it's important to write about characters with different belief systems than we have - to write about them as sympathetic people with complex emotions. Not just to villainize or cathartically punish them, but to explore why people do the things they do and what life events might drive them in that direction. But cathartic character murder has its time and place, and who am I suggest what others write? Y'all do y'all.

6. Tumblr, AO3, LiveJournal, or FFN?

I have not used LiveJournal since I was a teen - is it still a thing people use??? That sounds nostalgic and fun. Not sure what FFN is; something to do with fanfiction? I only write original fiction, so that rules it out if so. AO3 is very cool, but the interface isn't my favorite. Also fanfic-heavy, so I never know if I've got a place there. Tumblr always freaked me right the fuck out, but the Writeblr community has proven to be my favorite writing community I've discovered online. And in a very short timespan, I might add!

7. AO3 wordcount, and are you satisfied with it?

I do not use AO3 but wordcounts can never be high enough 😎

8. What movie/book/fic gripped you irrevocably?

Probably too many to count. Little House on the Prairie A Separate Peace The Road Fight Club (recently rewatching this was humbling because it showed me how much of my writerly personality seems to be inspired by the way it rearranged my brain chemicals) Bullet Train (I fucken love this movie) Lawn Dogs Box of Moonlight Harold and Maude (book & movie) Pride and Prejudice (book & movie)

9. What’s the highest compliment you’ve ever been given, and have you been given it?

I've received some absolute banger compliments, and I don't want to dismiss any in favor of others. My favorite compliments are often ...questions? Just things that let me know people really did read, absorb, and are interested in things I wrote. Also, my love language is when people think about me of their own volition. So, any time people come to me apropos of nothing or say "this reminds me of you/your characters/your writing, I giggle and kick my feet and do a lil' happy dance.

10. What defines your writing style?

Gritty, casual. If it was art, it'd be the kind with the sketchlines still visible. Deep, silly. Visceral, I hope.

Taglist and blank template under the cut!

@albatris

@capnmachete

@harmonic-melodii

@illarian-rambling

@michellekarnold

@nathaniel-zellos

@sableglass

@saturnine-saturneight

1. Is writing a hobby or way of life?

2. A journal full of writing notes or a clean, completed manuscript?

3. Who (or what) is your writing inspiration?

4.Which is worse: someone you "idolize" reading your first draft or listening to you sing?

5. Has writing from someone else's POV ever changed your own perspective?

6. Tumblr, AO3, LiveJournal, or FFN?

7. AO3 wordcount, and are you satisfied with it?

8. What movie/book/fic gripped you irrevocably?

9. What’s the highest compliment you’ve ever been given, and have you been given it?

10. What defines your writing style?

[katyawriteswhump]

the power of love, part 14

Sorry about Sunday's empty post ☹️ I must've accidentally put a draft template in my queue because I am basically tired and rubbish and life isn’t the greatest right now. Anyhow.... Whoops and really sorry again!

Alternate ending S4: Steve has a habit of surviving near death experiences then getting sick for no reason. And Eddie and those fatal bat bites? After an impossible feat of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from Steve, he’s mysteriously fixed. So, Eddie’s back to being banished, this time with Steve and Robin in tow. Eddie’s healing, but Steve isn’t… and life gets even more confusing, when Eddie develops feelings for Steve, which aren’t entirely unrequited.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 15

(also on AO3 here and as part of my steve whump fic series)

Eddie POV

When neither Steve nor Robin show up after ten minutes, Eddie begins to freak out. 

He, Hopper and El are still waiting for the car, out of sight among some ferns. Hopper’s getting antsy, muttering beneath his breath, while Eddie’s wriggling like he’s got ants in his pants. Which he genuinely might have, though that’s not what’s bugging him:

“Uuuuh, shall I see what’s taking them so long?”

“You do that,” says Hopper. “What’s going on with that guy? He could barely stand! How the hell could he…”

Eddie tunes out, retracing their journey into the trees, calling Robin’s name then Steve’s. Maybe Steve passed out, and Robin got lost searching? Somehow, he doesn’t buy it. A heaviness slows his feet, and his guts twist sourly. 

They wouldn’t just ditch him. Surely? Surely!?! 

Fifteen minutes later, he winds up where he started: “They’re not back?” 

“What do you reckon?” Hopper’s breathing hard and red in the face. Evidently, he’s been running in circles like Eddie has.

“This is for you.” El nudges Eddie and presses a scrap of paper into his hand. “I think Steve left it.”

“What? Where?” Eddie’s stomach clamps tight again. 

Her eyes stretch very wide. “Fell out of your pack.”

Turning the note over in his hands, his fingers stiffen, as if shrinking from the task, bracing for… something. In the event, he gets a literal slap around the face.

“You make me sick,” Steve wrote.

Eddie’s skin burns with the blow. Wow! This is why I never have and never freakin’ will write love songs.

“What does he say?” demands Hopper.

Eddie scans the note one more time, scrunches it in his fist. “I’d hazard a guess he’s gone back to Hawkins.”

“Goddammit! Robin’s gone with him?”

“I think that’s a safe bet.” A wobble in the back of Eddie’s throat finds its way into his voice. Because, boy, is he still processing.

You make me sick. 

What does that even mean? To be fair, Eddie did make Steve sick. More than once. But why the heck write… that. Would suck less to be dumped without a word. 

Thanks for the overkill, man.

“Don’t you even think about scooting off,” growls Hopper. “Your uncle would never forgive me.” 

Oh yeah. Wayne. The only person who ever actually cared about him.

Eddie plonks his butt down on the ground and waits for the car.

…

Steve POV

“C’mon, giddy up,” says Steve. He and Robin make their way along the muddy bank of the stream towards home.

“Is this some kind of race?” she asks. “While I’d forgotten your former life as a douchebag jock, you’re doing a stunning job of reminding me, and… Uuuuugh!” 

“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong this time?” He spirals about, plants his hands on his hips—he’d ditched the sling a while ago. 

She scrubs madly at her lips. “I swallowed a bug! Ugh, ugh, ugh, mega-gross. Eeeeurgh!”

“Maybe if you weren’t complaining, like, constantly, there’d be less opportunities for bugs to get in.” 

“You shut up, shit-bird! I could die of malaria.” She spits into the stream. “Ew! EEEEEEEW!” 

“Ssssh! Hop said the military will be crawling everywhere soon, or—”

“Eddie might hear?” His heart heaves a loaded thud. She looks back sharply, purses her lips. “You know, he could be lost in the wilderness, all alone. Being hunted by evil army thugs. Or bears! Did you think of that when you sauntered off?”

“I did, yeah. I left him a message saying not to follow.” He shades his face from the afternoon sunlight, which shafts between the trees. Also, he can’t look her straight on and say this: “It was kinda brutal, I guess. It was for his own good, right?”

“Oh. Riiiight.”

“You done spewing insects?” he snaps.

“Still heavily grossed-out here. Gimme a minute, ’kay?” She plonks herself on a rock, crumpling forward.

He mops his brow, strips his sweater, and takes the opportunity to check in on his bat bites. They’re still sore, the bandages a bit bloody. Nothing too fresh, though. For the billionth time, his thoughts fly back to Eddie. He hopes Eddie doesn’t get hurt and need healing while they’re apart, and… Holy shit, will he ever see him again? He ties his sweater around his hips, trying to make fumbling hands look casual.

“Steve? You okay?”

“Other than the fact I’m modelling a ‘shoot-me-now-why don’t-you?’ Hellfire Club t-shirt,”—and that I want to punch myself in the face about that moronic note—“I’m good, Robin.”

“You know what? I don’t doubt it.” She brushes her flyaway hair from suspicious eyes. “You’ve gone from death’s door to super-human speed in, oh, I don’t know—feels to me that we’ve been marching for a week. I think it’s been barely an hour.”

“Yeah? We got a long way to go then.” He starts off along the stream’s edge, forcibly slowing his pace. He senses her puffing, panting, then following on his heels.

“Look, Steve, this water goddess who’s pulling you back, whispering in your ear—”

“I can’t actually tell if they’re male or female. Does that matter?”

“Not in the slightest. So, your water… deity. Have they, by any chance, enlightened you as to some kind of divine plan? Or told you exactly where you’re heading?” 

“I got an idea where I’m going, yeah.” To the second place he died, swept away on that blood-red tide—even now, he sees it in his head, like a few frames of a horror VHS stuck on eternal repeat. “Where’s the best place for army generals with dodgy agendas to hang out in Hawkins? There’s never been an army base, apart from—”

“You’re kidding me?” She grabs his elbow, jerking him back. “The Soviet tunnels?” He nods, and her obvious dread has her dropping him like a stone. “No way! I don’t think I can go anywhere near without a major panic attack."

“I’m not gonna march straight in.” He’s already wandering on. Trouble is, now he’s said the idea out loud, it’s become real and terrible. And he’s gotta pretend like his blood’s not congealing to ice. “I don’t know how I’m gonna get in anyhow. I mean, the Starcourt lift is buried under a ton of rubble. I think Hop might’ve know other ways—”

“Oooh, I got a great idea. Let’s go back and ask him.”

“Yeah, real subtle.”

“Steve!” She seizes him again, twisting him around with a furious force. “I know you want to help El, but what can you ACTUALLY DO?” He shrugs before he can stop himself. “Rain? Lightning? How does that benefit us—especially in underground tunnels? Plus you’ve had literally zero time for practice. If we don’t slow down and come up with a decent plan, this is tantamount to suicide.”

“We? Seriously, Robin, I…” His teeth clamp his lower lip. Any moment now, he’ll tell her how terrified he is, how he really, really doesn’t want to get tortured again, let alone die; how the idea of anything bad happening to her is as frightening as any of it. “I don’t think I have much choice.”

“Steve,” she says, gentler now, though her grip gouges into his flesh. “It’s screamingly obvious you’re not thinking straight. You’ve been ill for days and now you’re in a funk, beating yourself up over Eddie.”

He yanks himself free, glares. “That doesn’t make any dif—"

“Bullshit! Trust me, however ‘mean boy’ your literary masterpiece got, Eddie won’t want you to do anything this dumb. Oh, and your resident gender-fluid angel saved your life. They’re not gonna want you to sacrifice it pointlessly.”

He opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it again. He laughs—not a particularly happy laugh, but not totally miserable either. “You win,” he says, kinda sagging with relief. “You got a plan, smarty-pants?”

She laughs with him, equally edgy. “I say we go to Lover’s Lake, wait till it’s dark. If that’s too dangerous, we find some hidden pool where you can practise whatever badass moves you think you got. Hopefully without the puking. It’ll be a bit like Band Camp. But for Magic. Magic Camp. Okay?”

“You really aren’t gonna be happy until I’m a bigger nerd that any of… Shit!” 

He’s been considering hugging her. Instead, he seizes her sleeve, dragging her down into a deep, wet gully. They land with a splash, crouching low, close. She doesn’t complain, because she’s heard what he has.

The distant sound of barking dogs. Likely, army search dogs.

“Dog barks travel for miles, huh?” he whispers.

“Possibly.” She sucks in a scared breath. “One thing for sure—those sniffy wet snouts can pick up a human scent from the next county.”

“We’re in a stream, Robin. They can’t pick up our scent here, right?”

She crinkles her nose, dubious. “Dogs’ sense of smell is pretty amazing.”

“Yeah? Let’s hope this bunch caught colds or something.” 

He’s now the one clutching her way too tight, and he half-wishes he’d ditched her with a bitchy note too. Though, not quite. She smart; he needs her, and she’s really has gotten him thinking clearer: 

“We head for Lover’s Lake. C’mon.”

…

Eddie POV

When the sound of the car engine finally reaches his hearing, Eddie feels almost nothing.

“Don’t move.” Hopper pitches Eddie a forbidding look and grabs El, keeping them low behind the ferns. 

An owl hoots. Despite the hollowness in his chest, Eddie silently cracks up. Seriously? Top secret government goons can’t think of a better signal than me and Robin? 

Hopper’s grip slides to the firearm at his side. He rises slowly. “Over here.”

Peeping between the foliage, Eddie can make out a limo-style saloon with blacked-out windows. A severe-faced woman in lethal stilettos climbs out. “Chief Hopper, I presume? I apologise for the delay. O’Sullivan’s got men everywhere. We must leave right away.”

Hopper, nevertheless, remains stood well off the road with Eleven, not rushing for the car. And Eddie? 

You make me sick.

Steve’s made it simple for him. He should cut his losses and take this chance of escape. Wayne would want him to. Apart from… Eddie literally can’t. What was it that Steve said? Oh yeah. That he was being stretched in the wrong direction. Or something along those lines.

Yeah, I’m feelin’ it, Stevie. 

Nothing supernatural, nothing hinky. You kill me that bad, Babe—even after you turned meanie-King-Steve and dumped me. Oh, and went back to goddamn Mordor without me! 

Gonna trust you had your reasons, and I’m coming anyway.

He turns on his dirt-clotted heels and flees as fast as he can.

Part 15

...

tags: @estrellami-1 @kal-ology @finntheehumaneater (thank you, thank you, thank you!) If anybody else would like to be tagged on this fic or any of my writing, please let me know :) Reblogs, comments and likes also very much appreciated :) Thank you for reading so far :)

(also part of my steve whump fic series on AO3)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 15

[pikapeppa]

Year-End Writer's Round-Up: 2023

It’s that time of year, writer friends — time to take stock of what we’ve been up to this year! Tagging to literally ANY AND ALL WRITERS who would like to participate, but I’ll throw down some tags from the top of my head: @contrivedchaos @jadefyre @kittynomsdeplume @iamcayc @hollyand-writes @elveny @johaerys-writes @crackinglamb @mogwaei @alyssalenko @about2dance @cthu-boo @chloefraazers @fogsblue @lordofthenerds97, join in if you fancy!! If you're not a smut writer, feel free to leave out those stats, and feel free to add any accomplishments and "metrics" that are significant to you! 🥰

(Blank template at the bottom for convenience!)

Words written (published or not, WIPs totally count too!!): 999 496 — ARGH IT WAS SO CLOSE TO A COOL MILLION. I did this calculation on the evening of Dec 31 and I was like DAMMIT I NEED TO WRITE A DRABBLE LMAO. 😂🙈 Honestly, I’m surprised the word count was so high this year — I could have sworn my word count had dropped because I wrote very little for a few weeks after BG3 first came out LMAO!

Smut scenes: 42 — I've done better LOL. I’ll blame the slow-burn BG3 ships I’m working on currently. 😂

New things I tried:

I started dabbling in M/M smut this year, in the context of my beloved Horizon F/M/M polycules (Aloy/Drakka with either Kotallo or Nil). Usually when I write F/M/M threesomes, the focus is on the men pleasing the lucky lady of the group, but I headcanon Drakka in particular as being very unapologetically bi, so it’s only fair and right that he get some sweet M/M action. I’m looking forward to putting this M/M practice use on Halsin/Tav/Astarion when my BG3 writing finally gets to that point! 

This was also the first time that I wrote an AU where I gleefully yeeted the canon deaths LMAO. I’m usually a stickler for adhering to significant plot points including character deaths, but the dastardly and darling @iamcayc nudged me into writing Here Come the Dreams, where Varl and Fashav both get to live, and it was a total delight to keep those darling men alive and happy. 

I wrote a smut scene in first-person POV for the first time, using the adorable voice of Karlach from BG3. This was a particularly interesting challenge because I feel that the first-person voice calls for a more urgent in-the-moment kind of narration, which means that I had to alter my usual way of writing smut in terms of phrasing/wording and pacing, so it was a fun challenge! 

With Astarion/Tav/Halsin, this is my first time writing an OC who falls in love simultaneously with two people, and it’s been… interesting trying to negotiate the polycule coming together. Of course I had to get enamoured with (arguably) the two most emotionally complicated male LIs in BG3 and make my own life difficult, LMAO. I’ve been struggling a little with bringing the relationships together and it’s been slowing my writing down over the past month or two, but I’m trucking on because I love both Halsin and Astarion and I really do believe in the dynamics of the OT3. SILVANUS GUIDE MY HAND AS I FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT.

Fic I spent the most time on: 

Even The Hardiest Desert Blooms! I really sank my focus into my beloved Desert boy this year and wrapped up his fic, which is always a bittersweet feeling when you adore the pairing. 😭

Fic I spent the least time on:

Burning Blue (Karlach/Dammon). I was bitten by a sudden bug of adoration for them, and that piece basically came together in a day and a half because I was on fire to get it out. I LOVE THIS PAIRING SO MUCH. 😭🔥

Favourite thing I wrote: 

Even The Hardiest Desert Blooms has always been my self-indulgent pleasure because I just love Drakka to the moon and back, so focusing a lot of this year on his fic was a treat. But Here Come the Dreams was also an enormously fun project because I just went ham and hyperfocused on it for a month and a half. I really wanted to see if I could finish it in a month just for shits and giggles, but AS ALWAYS it ended up being longer than anticipated so I didn’t meet that goal, but it was still a total ball to come up with a fun little project and finish it as quickly as possible. 

Favourite thing I read: 

Hands-down, without a doubt, What’s A Sex Tape Between Friends?  by @auntie-coagulant. I don’t read much fanfic, and when I do, it's only for the ships that I don't write. So when I saw this fic recommended in the Kotallo server and I was like “Travis/Lis?? You have my attention.” My eyes were popping and I was HOWLING by the first chapter, and I’ve been dead in the water for this fic ever since and procrastinating on finishing the fic because MY EMOTIONS ARE NOT READY FOR THE HEARTBREAK.

Writing goals for next year: 

Finish Coming In Like A Western Wind. I’ve been sleeping on this fic since September because Astarion and Halsin turned my head and I feel really bad about it… but I do mean to finish it! 

Just keep on keeping on with my BG3 fics for Astarion and Halsin! I’ve been DYING to write smut for Halsin for months, and I have images living rent-free in my head of Astarion enjoying some very tender sensate focus, so let’s hope I get around to writing these scenes before I explode. 

**************

Template time!

Words written (published or not, WIPs totally count too!)

Smut scenes written (if applicable)

New things I tried

Fic I spent the most time on

Fic I spent the least time on

Favourite thing I wrote

Favourite thing I read

Writing goals for next year

Enjoy, friends!!! And cheers to another fulfilling year of writing! 🥰🥂

-- love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika! xoxo

[bfpnola]

do you have any tips on managing adhd when you can't get professional help and meds? Especially when I have a ton of schoolwork like 3-4+ important things a day when I can only manage 1-1.5.

hey sweetheart! i'm not sure when you sent this in, so i apologize for just seeing this. i'll try to organize my thoughts into bullet points so it isn't a chunky paragraph:

community! having a support network, for better or for worse, really is everything. (for worse because not everyone may have one, but it can be easy to start building one online at least.) i say this because 1) delegation, 2) body doubling, and 3) of course, emotional support.

delegation, meaning giving out tasks to different folks, can be helpful because then you aren't the only person completing these tasks!

body doubling is something i do, without fail, literally everyday, meaning i do my work in the same space as someone else who is also working because it motivates me to do more! whenever i see my roommate cleaning or typing away, before i even make the conscious decision to do so, i do work too. i even get texts like the screenshot below (literally yesterday) because all of my friends are neurodivergent except maybe one. find a set of friends you can count on for body doubling! there's also in our Academic Resources a site called Study Stream that lets you sit on Zoom with a bunch of other random students but personally that makes me feel awkward lol

[ID: Screenshot of text sent through iMessage, the "heart," "thumbs up," "thumbs down," laughing, "exclamation point," and "question mark" icons floating above. The text reads, "Hey, so I'm working on aleks and doing other tasks and I'd like to have a body double who'd be interested in kicking it afterwards. You interested?" For context, Aleks is a program used to complete math problems assigned by professors.]

and lastly, emotional support, the obvious one. when it feels like you have no one supporting you, excuse my language, but this shit gets hard. especially when you're low on spoons, if you know about spoon theory. you need that support!

i'd also say that prioritization is an important skill. sometimes, you really won't get everything done, and it is genuinely frustrating. i try to order my work by what's due soonest so i'm getting closer work out of the way. but you can also order them by hardest to easiest to do so you knock out the absolutely worst thing out of the way so if you do still have energy you just have little stuff left. OR you can do the opposite so you finish more tasks by completing a list of easy stuff. it's really about what makes most sense to you so i can't really make that decision for you.

reward systems tend to work really well, that or conditionals. what i mean by that is gamifying the process of completing tasks. my favorite example of this is actually a new trend on tiktok created by @/luxarnold and then further developed by @/this.isjules and @/fromwonder. if you don't have titkok, basically these folks have put ALL of their tasks in either some sort of arbitrary numerical order or ordered by the energy it would take to complete, and when they roll a dodecahedron (20-sided) die, it lands on one of the numbered tasks and that's what they complete. the more tasks they complete, the more health points they deplete off of this imaginary monster they've created. and at the end, just like a game, they win a prize for defeating the monster. some creators wrote extra hours to watch their favorite TV show, some wrote time for crafting, some wrote specific objects. video example below:

an example of a conditional to me is more like every time i check my phone, i force myself to at least take a tiny sip of water. and you could do the opposite. maybe every time you consume your favorite snack, you complete one assignment until it becomes like habit.

breaks! this girl once said that you should be taking breaks based not on how much you complete, but the energy you deplete. and i live by that now! it doesn't matter if you completed only 2 tasks. if you can afford to, i encourage you to just take the break if your body feels drained. pushing past that will not serve you in completing those other tasks to the best of your abilities. if you don't feel like you can hold yourself accountable this way, i would suggest maybe checking out Pomodoro timers.

bravery! at least in my case, i needed bravery to contact my professors and be vulnerable with them. not every teacher will be so kind, but if you feel comfortable, please reach out and explain that the workload does not work well for you. you'd be surprised by the number of folks who are willing to offer you accommodations. i will literally text my teachers at this point and say, "hey, i just had an anxiety attack and i know by now how long it takes me to regulate myself. i won't be able to attend XYZ/turn in XYZ, so can i instead attend/turn it in on [insert date]?" ask for that help, but also be clear that you do still want to show up and do your best, you just need support right now!

gentleness. i think this may be my last bullet point. like i said earlier, the reality is that you very well may not finish everything that you need to. this is a long-term piece of advice, but it's necessary to be gentle with yourself. cliche, i know, but it's true. i've been slowly unlearning these ideas of perfection and it's rough, friend. truly rough, because as i allow myself to make more mistakes, obviously things aren't in tip-top shape anymore. but to make mistakes, to be imperfect, to be vulnerable, especially in such trying times, is part of being human. right now, you're trying to conform to neurotypical, able-bodied perceptions of productivity and the truth is that we can't all do that. i surely can't. this world was not built for us, so we must reframe what we consider success. or at the very least, we can carve out our own space, hopefully with others to support us, to provide ourselves gentle care. you don't have to love yourself. you don't even have to like yourself, i know i'm still getting there. all you have to do is recognize that as living beings, really just as "beings" in general because i'd like to think our inanimate objects deserve care as well, we all deserve gentleness.

i know this was a lot but i had plenty of ideas buzzing like bees in my mind. let me know if you need help understanding anything i wrote. please excuse any potential typos. LOVE YOU, MWAH <3

-- @reaux07 (she/they)

[soul-spices]

watch me age 10 years after reading the short interview with ROP’s script writers

they are so lovingly applied, they aren’t even visible. Amazing.

having to take the passive aggressiveness of a 40+ year old white man-child in a Tolkien adaptation is something I never thought I would experience, but here we are, Mister Payne.

also, can you maybe stop using the “Well Tolkien never mentioned x thing” argument? You can use this as a template excuse to justify basically anything. Which is probably why you’re overusing it in the first place.

 the hairstyles changing over time seem to apply solely to male elf characters, who now sport short, gelled up hair, mullets, fades and buzzcuts; and not the female elf characters, who still have long hair. How very gender normative of you! Truly, the public applauds you for your backwards views in this very contemporary adaptation.

amazing Mister McKay. I’m left in awe at your lore knowledge, yet I cannot help but notice you didn’t gave Galadriel her iconic braided crown hairstyle; the hairstyle that TOLKIEN DESCRIBED HER WEARING during the first age. You show that you know the lore, yet you seem to have put little of your knowledge into the show itself. This is truly and quite an amazing feat. Bravo.

i forgot who created this month old meme, to credit them, but it seems to be still valid to the discussion:

firstly, the fault is not that Galadriel is portrayed as a warrior. The issue is how piss-poor you’ve written her as one ( among other things I won’t go into here). You’ve basically written her as the most generic and unlikable manchild-warrior-protag ™

secondly, Nerwen is not a “nickname”, it is the name given by her mother because Galadriel was the tallest female elf among her peers ( and in all ME history, if we’re going meta), and because she was athletic, and liked partaking in sparring with other elves. She wasn’t called Nerwen because she was manifesting the manchild-warrior-protag ™  vibes you cursed her with. Maybe Mister Payne is projecting his own inner man-child into the character he’s likely writing for the script.

thirdly, since we are playing ‘taking the names as literal as physically possible’ game, did you know that her birth name, Artanis, means “noble woman” in elvish? Funny how we don’t see any of the diplomacy of a noble person in her character during your show. Interesting how you wrote her character to be brash and muscle headed :) with the social skills of a petulant child.

no. no, I don’t think I have anymore patience for this.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter Interview

[porcupine-girl]

I wanna hear about scrivener 👀

OH BOY

I saw I had an ask and I was like oh man I hope someone asked me about scrivener.

I write everything in Scrivener. Not just all my fic. I wrote my dissertation in Scrivener, I write my original fiction in it, I wrote the two magazine articles I've published in it.

First I will link you to my Scrivener tag, which probably contains everything I will say here because I never do shut up about it.

So first off, I will admit that Scrivener is not for everyone. Some people work better with linear programs like Word or GDocs without any bells or whistles.

HOWEVER

It is important to know that you can totally 100% use Scrivener without any bells or whistles. In fact, I recommend it at first! Don't overwhelm yourself. Then start to play with the cool features one by one.

I got it in 2014, and literally my fic writing skyrocketed immediately. Same for my dissertation when I started doing that in Scrivener a few months later. It's so good for my brain. It might not be for yours. But it might be just the thing.

I will put most of my gushing under a cut. My brain is only half-functional right now which probably means I'll go on and on and both repeat myself AND forget half the things I want to say.

Things I have done with Scrivener that I can't do with other programs:

I keep all my fic in one Scrivener file, which is called a "project." All of it. Every word of fic I've written since 2014. This does not slow it down AT ALL. In Word if I get over a few dozen pages it starts to crawl. I have well over 1.5 million words of fiction in this project, organized into many subdocuments and folders, and it is smooth as silk and easy to navigate. See the video below.

Why do I keep it all in one project? I'm so damn "out of sight out of mind." When I had all my fic in separate documents in a folder, it was so easy to forget what was there. I'd be working on one thing and forget anything else existed. If I closed that file and didn't open a new one I'd forget that working on fic was a thing I could do. No more! It's all right there in the sidebar so I can switch between fics whenever I want. And I basically just keep it open 24/7, it opens automatically when I reboot my computer.

I do other stuff this way too. All my picture books are in one project, all my magazine stuff is in one project. Love it.

When doing my dissertation I created my own citation manager within scrivener. This is Advanced Scrivening but it shows the versatility.

I used the notecard/corkboard view for this. It's also very useful for things like listing out plot points and figuring out how they fit together.

I don't write as nonlinearly as I used to but I still sometimes need to skip ahead to get a scene out of my head or because I just don't know what comes next but I know what comes after that. Scrivener makes that super duper easy.

I can also make documents within my fic that aren't the text of the fic. I usually have at least one for my outline, and sometimes have one or two for brainstorming when I'm stuck on a plot point or for keeping track of timelines and such. I often also have a doc where I dump cut bits that I might want to use later (or in another fic entirely - anything I know I need to cut but that might come in handy someday).

For original fiction you can get lots of templates that have various things you can use like character sheets or plot beats or whatever. You can have all your character sheets etc right there in the project.

You can put other stuff in it besides scrivener docs. You can drop entire PDFs into your scrivener file, let alone images and such. When I say I had a citation manager within it I mean I literally had the PDFs of the papers in there too. I use this a lot for my nonfiction writing stuff.

There's a split screen mode that's so useful. Sometimes when I'm editing I'll make a copy of a chapter or whatever so that I can keep an eye on what it used to look like to remind myself of where I want to go with it etc etc. Or I might keep the outline over there, or a character sheet, or whatever.

There's a revision mode that will keep track of up to five text colors for different revision stages - BUT what I use it for is tracking my word count. I do all new writing in revision mode, then every so often (especially if I'm about to delete a chunk) I select everything that's whatever color and record the word count in my word count text doc before removing the revision color. Then as soon as I go back to writing everything new that I type is the color again, I don't have to remember to set it back each time. IDK if how I worded that quite makes sense but it works great.

Here is a video I made a while back showing my fic project - as you can see, the ONLY time it slows down at all is when I try to view ALL OF IT at once, which I only ever do very occasionally out of idle curiosity as to my total wordcount. I just checked - I actually now have nearly 2 million words in this project right now. Can you even imagine trying to navigate a 2 million word Word file? That's about 8000 pages. No thank you.

Also there are mobile versions but I haven't gotten around to downloading those yet. I really should though; when I get the urge to write in the middle of the night on my phone I do it in an email and send it to myself and in the morning I paste it into scrivener lol

Anyhow, I highly recommend trying out the free trial (which is 100% functionality for 30 days) and seeing if it works for you. If you want to buy it, you can find various deals all over the place - for example, a code for Nano participants for 20% off, or if you win nano I think you can get 50% off.

I will say, it's not the best for formatting. I've said this before - I view it very much as a writing program, not a finished-product-creating program. I move my writing to Pages or OpenOffice if I need actual formatting beyond the most basic stuff like bold and italics. Fic I can just put right into AO3, though.

[takeariskao3]

can i just say that i love how relatable your ginny is? in many stories ginny is perfect and harry is messed up, but in this they are both a hot mess. and what i love is how you do a great job of portraying ginny’s mindset in a way that not only shows that she blames harry, but also makes the audience blame him. but if you really think about it, she’s just as much the reason if not more that they’re so messed up. not saying harry’s not a complete wreck 24/7, because he definitely is, but our girl’s got trust issues, understandably so cough cough childhood trauma, and she’s all HARRY RUINED EVERYTHING HE DOESNT LET ME IN WHY IS HE LIKE THIS meanwhile this beautiful badass emotional trainwreck of a human is actually blocking him out even more then he’s blocking her and she’s creating problems in her head and making everything way worse for their situation. like harry’s got issues but he’s over being sad and is ready to snog the living fuck out of her and hold her and protect her and be there for her and she’s like why must he be so closed off and push me away and be unwilling to try meanwhile she gets angry every time he so much as breathes and avoids him at all costs but also loves him but has convinced herself it’s all 100% his fault and then gets pissed that she has feelings for him and tells herself more reasons why he sucks. self sabotage at its finest.

i love it. me too ginny

I HAVE HELD ONTO THIS MESSAGE FOR SO LONG BECAUSE I OPEN UP MY INBOX AND READ IT AND GRIN LIKE AN IDIOT!!

also i was reluctant to respond because like HOLY SHIT YOU GET IT!? you know??? you. get. it. and if i go on a total rant about HOW MUCH YOU GET IT i would literally spoil everything lmaooo so i'll try to freak out over this message with minimal spoilers skdfjskldjfs

under the cut because length

when i first set out to start the path from you, i knew the story i wanted to tell, but i knew it had to be a long evolution of both their internal thoughts and their views of each other. because we can make inferences and interpretations of their deepest, most intrinsic thoughts from the source material, but it's really fun for me to ask how does that change after trauma..?

and i knew (I KNEW) i wanted them both to be the most unreliable narrators imaginable. because that's how we think right?? or at least that's how i think, i can't speak for everyone else i suppose, but we rationalize and try to put puzzle pieces together that don't actually fit. and if you look close enough, ginny is such a PERFECT template for this kind of storytelling because she is so strong willed. she is open and emotionally mature with most everyone, except herself?? now a lot of this is me filling in the blanks between CoS and OoTP/HBP but i mean how does a girl spend an entire school year possessed and then just casually go on to be the most well-adjusted, well-liked, social butterfly?

she suppresses. she suppresses HARD.

and with that habit of suppress and overcome, all the sudden she is falling in love? and providing emotional support and a delightful sort of stability to a person who has never felt that in his entire life.

so i ran with it! i sat down and wrote out pages and pages of what ginny thought of harry, and what harry thought of ginny, and how ginny thought harry saw her, and how harry thought ginny saw him... and its the second half of those questions that gets *really* interesting.

how does ginny think harry sees her? how does ginny react when she thinks she can't be that ever again? what happens when suppress and overcome doesn't work anymore? what is she going to do when harry actually decides to open up about something for the first time in his life?

ginny has created this narrative in her head that blames harry and absolves her of guilt because the alternative would be admitting that she has kept him as far away from her as possible because if he saw her (the real her, after all the shit) then she thinks he wouldn't want her anymore. and that is just too devastating for her to even contemplate so she doesn't bother, and she goes along heightening all harry's mistakes in an effort to dampen her own.

and let me tell you... once harry looks outward and stops focusing so much on his own internal war when it comes to his feelings for ginny, he starts getting real tired of it.

[neodreamgirl]

~Manifesting Seunghan's Return~

I am writing this post so that I can manifest Seunghan's return. Do I think it will work? Absolutely not LMAO however, I do think it is worth trying. For God's sake I just want to see my boy back with his 6 goofy friends ripping stages and making history.

Now, I don't follow any specific template or rules when I want to manifest something. I don't do crystals or do tarot readings for this. I literally put it into the universe by speaking or writing it down and put my trust into all the things I PERSONALLY BELIEVE IN to make things happen. What exactly do I say or write? My gut feelings, hopes and thoughts. That's it.

Mmkay...I shall begin

-Recently a former member of NCT made a comeback that no one was expecting or even wanting...with the exception of his fans. I'm not sure why, but something tells me to expect something similar in the case of Seunghan. There are many people that think he (Seunghan) is going to get kicked out of RIIZE after going quiet for probably as long as the former NCT member. Because SM is...SM, I can understand why some people would believe that and honestly, I don't see why I should throw that option out the door because quite honestly, I don't know what the fuck goes on behind it.

-HOWEVER, in Seunghan's case, if he were to make a comeback and return to our precious RIIZE, I strongly believe it will be after RIIZE has established itself as a group. My gut is telling me that it is likely that he returns after they drop their mini album, however, it isn't clear. My gut is telling me that their management is taking this very seriously because they invested a lot in RIIZE and are hoping that they are the next big group in SM. Also, I am not too sure what my gut means exactly when it says that Seunghan is likely to come back after RIIZE establishes itself as a group. I don't know if it means winning a specific award or what exactly.

-If his comeback is RIIZE's next comeback, which I believe will be their mini album, then we should expect to see random sightings of him, which have already started. Two people claimed to have spotted him shopping in Hongdae in late February. Literally today (Marh 06) an article was released that confirmed RIIZE will have a comeback next month, and in this article they mentioned all 7 members. Then, the article was updated to not mention him... Suddenly his name is making noise again.

-I feel like his team genuinely does not want him to be removed from RIIZE, though. I think many of them believe that the backlash he received was insane and unfair.

-When he comes back, there will 100% be a song about regret

-I think there is a huge likelihood that he will return to us because his scandals were not crimes or morally wrong. I'm mad they're even called scandals tbh but anyway

-I have two images in my head: a twitter post about seunghan in a couple of years praising him for his hard work and remembering the nonsense he was put through in his early debut days. The post praises him for overcoming obstacles that he faced and for becoming one of the most celebrated idols....the second one is another twitter post that feels very sad. The person that wrote the post feels like Seunghan was wronged and is disappointed...The post is also in the future, years from now.

-I don't feel the second post as strongly as the first.

-Idk I keep seeing these images in my head that feel like relief, praise, and bittersweet. Compilation videos of the RIIZE members looking at Seunghan fondly

Okay...Enough about my thoughts and gut feelings...

I hope that Seunghan returns to us very soon. I hope the people around him acknowledge how unnecessary this "hiatus" is. I understand that they probably felt like hiding him because they didn't want to tarnish the group's image (whatever), but it has been far too long. I think they kept him locked away because they realized RIIZE was riding a high wave and they didn't want any scandal to interrupt them.

Actually now that I think about it...What if my gut feeling of them waiting for RIIZE to be more established is actually them waiting for the right time for them to garner enough fans and anticipation to release theirr first mini album? RIIZE has established itself as a pretty powerful rookie group despite all the "backlash" they received (using the word backlash very loosely here btw). They have the entire industry waiting on their mini album so what if now is when Seunghan returns?!

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but right now would be a good time to bring him up IF what I am saying is true... Anyway,

I hope that Seunghan is able to return to practice with his friends. I wish for him to be locked in and focused in the studio making music with his friends. I want Seunghan to tell the world how cute he thinks Sohee is, how Shotaro is actually the real maknae, I want to see him play around with Eunseok. I want to see him dance with Shotaro and Wonbin. I want him to joke around with Anton. I need to see him talking to Sungchan. I hope that all of these things can be done soon, on camera, for the entire world to see. I want the world to see Seunghan as a member of RIIZE. RIIZE has to promote as a 7 member group.

RIIZE is a 7 member group.

7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7.

Seunghan will return.

7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7.

7

[nirikeehan]

2023 fic round up

I have decided to do this because why not.

Tagging: @monocytogenes | @delicatefade | @theluckywizard | @rowanisawriter | @oxygenforthewicked | @bluewren | @exalted-dawn-drabbles and anyone else who would like to participate!

words posted: According to AO3 - 139,622. Which seems awfully high for how badly my output tanked in the second half of the year.

additional words written: Idek. but i do know I have at least 14k of my Dragon Age/Curse of Strahd crossover I'm probably never going to post. So that's how I'm rolling these days.

grand total of words: A lot, supposedly.

fandoms: Dragon Age, and I can never tell if I should count Twice Bitten as its own fandom, or stick it under the umbrella of Curse of Strahd, or stick both under the umbrella of Dungeons and Dragons. But that.

highest kudos: Through a Glass, Darkly, aka nightmare au, with 84.

highest hit oneshot: A Brief Respite, an extremely short and fluffy piece about Thalia and Cullen taking a nap together, lol. 470 hits!

new things I tried: A weird AF, extremely self-indulgent crossover.

fic I spent the most time on: Through a Glass, Darkly, I think. I updated 7 chapters!

fic I spent the least time on: All those wips that didn't get updated at all this year....

favorite thing I wrote: No contest. It's Thalia and Metrion. Every damn scene. They play off each other so well. I definitely didn't mean to get into an extremely obscure DND podcast and give Thalia a new best friend, but I did and here we are.

Second place is probably Samson taking a literal shit, though. And the continued adventures of Cullen and Samson as Templars in Kirkwall is a close third.

favorite thing(s) I read:

• ceasefire by @rowanisawriter - absolutely beautifully written, heartbreaking second chance romance between Cullen and an Inquisitor who made him keep taking lyrium.

• the words of the prophets (are written on the subways halls) by @inquisimer, a gift fic she wrote for me about Cullen and Samson's troubled friendship and IT IS GUT-WRENCHING AND DELIGHTFUL

• Aggressive Negotiations by windwalker57, a gift fic he wrote for DAFF OC Swap featuring Thalia in a fantastic action/adventure at the Hasmal Circle.

writing goals for 2024: Finish a wip before I have to ghost fandom in anticipation of Dreadwolf probably. Kingdom Come might be the closest to actually being finished, but I put the most brain power into Through a Glass, Darkly, so maybe that one. That seem ambitious, though.

new works: Too much assorted nonsense to name here. Feel free to peruse my AO3 if you're curious.

Template under the cut.

words posted:

additional words written:

grand total of words:

fandoms:

highest kudos:

highest hit oneshot:

new things I tried:

fic I spent the most time on:

fic I spent the least time on:

favorite thing I wrote:

favorite thing(s) I read:

writing goals for 2024:

new works:

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

watching the sonic ova again and it’s genuinely so impressive how throughly the people working on it get metal sonic like it’s obviously been an influence towards every portrayal of him since bc the staff there understand him on a deep conceptual level. like it’s most obvious with sonic heroes which takes heavy inspiration from the film except it portrays metal's identity issues in a much darker light but like just in general like. the ova portrayal of metal sonic is The template every other portrayal of him. like his personal identity issues his beyond monomaniacal obsession with sonic to the point it leads to him defying orders them having a much deeper personal rivalry than the other sonic robots eggman made him being severely mentally ill like. cd establishes that he’s cruel mocking and ruthless but the ova is the origin of his complexities of a character, ones that were absolutely carried over in the rare cases sega let metal sonic even have a character (like where’s his sass from cd he's as dramatic a bitch as sonic in that but they don’t even let him taunt sonic he’s lost personality he had in the sega cd games how do you DO that) like. heroes metal sonic is pretty undeniably a beyond terrible person but it’s clear that he's also had a complete mental breakdown from how inherently traumatic his existence is and mania adventures depicts him as borderline suicidally depressed again like. the ova clearly influenced both of those immensely.

and not only does it do that but then it goes delightfully off the rails and uses it’s complete understanding and establishment of its character to take him in a completely unique direction. i mean for one it’s a canon metonic soulmate AU like. they're metaphysically linked and share a soul and mind they’re literally soulmates by definition. but also it fully embraces the more complex areas of his characterisation and makes him a full on tragic villain with a redemption arc. metal sonic in the ova is undeniably a person, and one who can care for others and be good if given an opportunity (even before the final scene! like, he gave the old man owl “his”/sonic's favourite clothes, and they share memories and likes so presumably they’d be something he very much likes and would want to keep too) and the fact he's basically been programmed only for destruction and never able to live a proper life is sad. he kills himself at the end. it’s not something triumphant or even satisfying, because it’s so fucking sad that he's aware he'll never be able to live that normal life. how there can only be one sonic. and yeah, he fucking dies, so the ova (which was planned to be a full blown anime) defined metal sonic's whole everything for the next thirty years while having him as a one-shot character. they wrote the best metal sonic for a one off appearance. incredibly ballsy decision and it makes me sad it never got picked up bc if they completely defined a character who appeared in like, one episode the fucking geniuses could have done some insane shit with a full series.

[kaydeefalls]

would love some director's commentary on basically any part of Carthaginians you'd like to talk about, but my favourite part was the second last chapter/the siege itself and I'd love to know how you worked out what trajectory to take the characters on through all the historical records. would also love to know more of your thoughts on Yusuf and Nico's backstory and families, if you have thoughts!

Thanks! <3 All right, Carthaginians, let's go.

The siege - or, more specifically, the final Fall of Carthage - was definitely what came first in terms of planning out this fic. When I first had the idea of writing Joe & Nicky's backstory further back in history, the Punic Wars were a logical setting to start with due to simple geography - Carthage being in modern day Tunisia, and Rome being, well, Rome.

So as with any vague idea, I started with a wikipedia deep dive, kind of assuming that I'd stick to the general canon template of them killing each other for the first time in battle and then becoming lovers afterward. But I immediately stumbled across the fact that Carthage's final stand, after the city had surrendered, consisted of about 900 Roman defectors in the Temple of Eshmoun setting the temple on fire around them rather than allowing Rome to execute them. Which. So that was obviously going to Nicky's arc. Which meant he would have to defect to Carthage much earlier on. Which meant I could give him and Joe a much richer relationship build over the course of the war itself. At that point, there was no question that their first deaths would be more of a suicide pact due to having no other options. I thought about having them, IDK, leap off the temple roof together or something, but nah, it felt much stronger to have them kill each other directly, as per canon, but with a complete subversion of what got them to that point.

I wrote chronologically and posted as I went, but it definitely helped going in to know exactly where they had to end up. For example, I deliberately seeded their exact dialogue together in the temple at the end of the siege as lines in their very first idle political debate in Rome in chapter one, so that Nicky could do a complete 180 on his initial stance in the debate by the end.

Embarrassingly, while that was all planned out from the beginning, I was WELL into the middle of the fic before realizing that, uh, Eshmoun is literally the god of healing. I mean, I knew that from the start, but I literally had my own personal OH DUH moment that they would be dying and resurrecting for the first time in the temple of the god of healing, and would OF COURSE think that Eshmoun himself had literally healed them due to their sacrifice on his own figurative altar. So that was an incredibly lucky piece of historical fact to tie into the immortality narrative.

In terms of their family backstories there - I think Yusuf's is about as fleshed out in the fic as it's going to be, it's all his POV and I included all the family info/dynamics I'd thought about. Nicky's didn't get as much detail in the fic, since we're never in his head and he didn't talk about it as much, but his family was the rough equivalent of landed gentry back in Genua - relatively high status for his own tribe, but doesn't mean much to the Roman Republic as a whole. They were granted Roman citizenship when the Genuates allied with Rome, and Nicky received a formal education, but their family wealth took a huge hit during the second Punic War (when Carthage sacked the city) and never really recovered, which is why Nicky left to join the Roman army and make his own fortune. I think he's not the oldest of his siblings - not the one expected to inherit and carry on the family legacy - but probably the second son, with several younger siblings in the mix as well. He has a strained relationship with his father and a better one with his mother, who I imagine died before he left home. He misses his younger sibs, who he helped raise, but never returns to Genua in their lifetimes.

So...yeah! I spent all year with the world of this fic in my head, it's been hard to let go of it. Thank you for asking!

[kamianya-ttv]

A Yom Kippur thread on teshuva, repentance, and apologies.

I wrote this awhile ago on twitter, and it’s still very relevant:

So. Teshuvah. Repentance. Literally "returning"

What does this mean? What does it look like? And why am I talking about this on main, not just to my fellow Jews?

There's been a lot of conversation about apologies and about taking accountability for hurting people/making mistakes. This has been especially prevalent in streaming spaces lately (when I wrote this last year), both with creators and game companies/developers.

This means I've been thinking a lot about all of this, as we go into the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, focused on exactly this.

So what does it mean to repent? Why is the word for it "return"? And why do I feel this template is so important?

So to start with, Teshuvah has three main steps:

1) Regret

2) Confession

3) Committing to not repeating the sin

Note: sin in Judaism is complicated, but is not really the same as sin in Christianity.

Short form on sin in Judaism is three terms:

Chet = mistake

Avaira = Transgression, crossing a line, going too far

Avon = Iniquity, more serious than a mistake or line cross, but still not a "you are damned to hell" type of thing

So lets look at the steps to Teshuvah, one by one.

1) Regret

To do Teshuva you need to regret the actions you did and harm you have done. This means understanding what you did, and actively genuinely accepting the fact that you did something wrong.

2) Confession

This means a few things. You need to be able to articulate what you did wrong. Part of this is the apology. I'll get to a good apology later, but a core piece is that you are apologizing with accountability, and that the person you hurt may not forgive you.

Importantly, you can not be apologizing in order to get forgiveness. And your teshuvah must continue whether or not the person forgives you.

3) Committing to not repeating the sin.

This is extremely important, and really the key part of teshuvah, of returning. It is not teshuvah to make the mistake, go through steps 1 and 2, and then repeat the same mistake. This means active work.

Step 3 requires true understanding of what you did (also key to steps 1 and 2) and figuring out how to keep from repeating it. Depending on what it was, it may mean self reflection, reading, talking with people, watching relevant videos, etc. But again, the key part is that work and doing your utmost to grow and move on and not repeat it.

Which can be hard! Teshuvah can be hard!

All of this requires being willing to listen and hear and change.

To me, this is all really important, & a big piece of how I try to live my life. It's also what I look for in others.

We're human, we make mistakes. How you deal with those mistakes is so key. When we're here, in this public space, especially if we have any level of platform. We have to be ready to accept it when we fuck up.

I truly believe the steps of teshuvah are the steps needed. I also believe that these are the pieces of a proper apology.

An apology in this light:

Here's what I did wrong, here's me taking accountability and accepting I hurt people, here's how I commit to fixing my mistake/not making that mistake again.

Again, it also must be an apology because you are acknowledging wrong, not because you are feeling pressed into it, not to get people off your back, not to appease. It must be made with the awareness you may not be forgiven, and committing to continue the work no matter what.

There's another key part to Yom Kippur that I think is little known but I think is important. Which is acknowledgement of communal mistakes. Over Yom Kippur we have a lot of confessions, and a lot takes the form of "WE have done A, WE have done B.” This is an important conversation and I plan to write a post on this later, but I also think that it's part of what should be on our minds. I think it aligns with understanding privilege and societal complicity.

So, that's all for now, But I have more Yom Kippur thoughts coming.

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Bryan Cogman, second only to D&D in stupidity, says Jon finding out his parentage means he was never meant to be King and that he was meant to just go Beyond the Wall like Ygritte wanted. Those idiots didn’t understand Jon’s character in the slightest. I’m partially really really really hoping (only partially because most important is they all survive) that Jon and Dany become King and Queen in the books because it would prove once and for all that those idiots didn’t understand the story George was telling in the slightest. There’s still idiots who think the books will have the same ending as the show

Paul Haas, the fantasy author’s representative, had this to say when asked about the destination of the as-yet-incomplete book series:

George loves Dan and Dave, but after season 5 he did start to worry about the path they were [going down] because George knows where the story goes. He started saying, ‘You’re not following my template’. The first 5 seasons stuck to George’s roadmap. Then they went off George’s roadmap.

[Source]

In the early seasons, Martin wrote and read scripts, consulted on casting decisions and visited sets. Over time, however, as he stepped back to focus on his long-delayed next ‘Thrones’ novel, ‘The Winds of Winter,’ Martin grew estranged from the show.

“By Season 5 and 6, and certainly 7 and 8, I was pretty much out of the loop,” Martin said of his involvement with “Game of Thrones.” Asked why he grew estranged from the show, Martin did not cite his work on “The Winds of Winter” and instead said, “I don’t know — you have to ask Dan and David.”

[Literally nothing else to say here.]

[inklore]

Hey dear! How long since I wrote to you, I don't know if I can ask but could you give me some advice on how to edit/theme/customize your blog in an aesthetic way?

Idk, even basic tips are fine, I really love seeing your blog and I think you have really good taste in aesthetics ❤️

hey lovey! it would be my pleasure to try and help you <3. i say try because my explaining skills are the absolute worst but i will do my best lmao. gonna do this in bullet points ok:

have an idea / inpisration / a crumb of what you want your blog to look like! you can find inspo literally anywhere, a friends blog even (but please remember to always ask and don't take it harshly if said person declines you doing so). pinterest is also amazing for this, looking up graphics, different aesthetics, templates, i literally have a board on my pinterest i've had for years now where i get graphic inspo or where i go when i just need to feed my creative juices to put me in the mood to create something. canva is also great, i literally go on there and look up headers, moodboards, etc and just star them for later. keywords are everything as well, so like 'aesthetic here + color, vibe, look, graphic, template' helps sites like canva and pin lead you in the right direction. same with just typing things like 'green, grunge, lovecore, etc'.

edit on desktop! now i know not everyone has a laptop or ipad or the ability to do this but i highly rec it over editing on the janky mobile app where sometimes things save and sometimes they don't. plus i always use one of the random saved user blogs i have to make a test layout / theme so if i don't like it everything on my main blog is fine, didn't change, and i didn't waste all that time on a theme i don't even want to look at lmao. so making a side blog where you do that is also great cause you can just copy and paste your nav post over, you can take the graphics you've already made and upload them onto your main without second guessing if they look good because you've already seen what it all looks like!

start small! by that i mean start with a simple theme or idea and build up from that. don't just start with seven graphics and ideas and overwhelm yourself. sometimes i just think of a color and be like yeah i'm make something with this color or wrapped around that color and i create something great.

ask a friend for help! i can't tell you how many times i've asked friends if this theme looked good or to send me inspo pics or what theme they think i should do, or even asked them to help me find resources. utilize your besties and mutuals.

not everyones aesthetic is the same! some people like messy themes, some like overdone, some like super simple. don't compare yourself to anyone!!!! everyone creates differently, everyone sees colors and aesthetics amd themes differently. no matter what you decide to go with is all your own and great and special.

etc: putting all your most important links in your nav is always a good rule of thumb (anything you really want to highlight as well), if you use pngs they're all over tumblr and pinterest 'transparent' + 'png' at the end or beginning of what you're looking for will always lead you in the right direction, and when it comes to pngs i highly rec adding them to a white background or transparent one and make the size of the background 500px and move the png halfway / towards the bottom (centered) of the background so tumblr doesn't make your header all the way at the top and ugly, don't make your nav post too long, take colors from your images / aesthetics to incorporate throughout the whole theme so everything meshes well together, don't use flashy dividers because it's not good on a lot of users eyes and unless you state a tw in the tags it's just not as cool as some people think lol.

that's all i can think of but if you have any more questions bby my pms are open!!

[yomiurinikei]

You know which character I want to send for meme but yeah it is obvious can I get Kinji in that meme template?

ah yes, so obvious, we all know ur favorite character is kinji hakar1 (dont wanna invade tags akdsjksd), who everyone associates u with, and totally isn't just the first fictional kinji that popped up when i googled the name.

my identity hc for them

GAY gay homosexual gay. sorry kiyoka calling him out just. i cant view him as anything else. i do think there's canonical backing for this, not specifically him being exclusively into guys, but for him liking guys in general, i think its canon supported. i also Just Like it.

i think he's like. amab, but i think he just doesnt really Get It/feel any particular way- he's comfortable with how he presents and is perceived the way he is, and doesn't really feel a desire to change! he's content, and i don't think he'd be any happier if he changed how he performs gender. and seeing as i want this boy to do some soul searching and examine his relationship with faith, ill let him have a constant in his life. just this once

Thoughts on their home life/family

aaaaa.... i think like. mentioned this in the hcs i wrote for him recently, but i think his dad (the bishop) was a genuinely good person, and a good dad! i just think like..... it would've been cool if after being adopted and coming to italy, he had more than one role model and like. god. i dunno i think that mayyyybe having the person who chose him, who chose to take care of him, be a well-respected bishop who wound up living a secular life and etc etc mightve maybe impacted kinjis path in life. i don't think he was forced into anything, but i do wonder the degree to which kinjis faith started as a way of feeling connected to his dad and feeling that he was part of a community.

anyways though. i think he was a happy child, well cared for, etc. but i feel like maybe someone should have forced him to go outside and make friends, or stopped to question why he might be throwing himself into religious studies so much, or, after all that. maybe. i dont know. NOT SENT HIM TO JAPAN BY HIMSELF AS A MIDDLE SCHOOLER? ??????

its kinda a miracle hes as stable as he is. and while i don't think he's... literally traumatized, i feel like there was some side effects of his childhood past "oh he doesn't Understand friends". honestly a vv interesting example of how childhood and environment shapes people.

anyways though. i wouldn't be surprised if his focus on orphanages/caring for kids stemmed from him being a like... pre-teen/younger, and his brain just naturally orienting towards "wanna be with peers, wanna play, wanna form social bonds", but he had already placed himself in the role of an adult, and so he took on the same place as the priests he was trying to emulate. its kinda silly why did literally everyone go like. well if everyone else is treating him as an adult i guess i will too... kinji is the poster child for "was called mature as a kid"

How i feel about their canonical writing/handling

mmm... its objectively Good. i just feel like.... kinji kinda falls into the issue of so many characters to explore, so little time? like. we don't really get to see a whole lot of the depth that i see (linuj may not get him the way i do), and it makes sense, but it still kinda sucks... it'd be nice if he survived and made it to the end (and then held hands with tsurugi i mean-) buuut. i understand why he didn't. :(

tho one thing i wanna note is. linuj originally intended for his ch3 meltdown to be his true personality of sorts. and was gonna have his motivation just be that he liked murder. and he acknowledges that how he acts in ch3 isn't kinjis normal personality, and that he likes having a actual motive better than his old plan for kinji. but i feeeel like linujs old plan kinda pokes through at times with how kinji is handled? specifically like.. tsurugis response of "woah i didnt know a priest would act like that"- tbf, that does reflect on tsurugis black and white thinking and how he struggles to remedy his values. but also it just kinda feels like linuj is still treating it as a shock value twist that kinji is Just Like That, despite textually saying otherwise. that kinda sucks

The one thing i’d want to make canon about them

im not fucking joking im trying to think of something else. i would like canon gay kinji. again we have NO TIME FOR THIS. but if he had survived, i think that could be something nice to write in + subtextually show. i wont ask for the complete and utter tone shifts that would have to happen for more than subtext to be real. but. i think it'd be a good thing to do w/kinji if he had more time with us.

also i think it'd be neat to hear more about kinjis bio parents, just because im curious? but ya know. i kinda dont trust linuj and can just be weird about why he still uses uehara as his family name in my head, and have that be canon to me, instead of having to ignore linuj, so.. im content

My number one favorite ship for them

tsuhara. nobody look at me.... i promise i will post my thoughts on them one day. currently im trying to handle all myyy.. non-spring quarter graduation requirements (aka, some stuff my hs wants me to get done other than the classes im taking this quarter), so thats kinda my goal for april. and then may will have midterms and then ill be working on finals ughhhh... so im not really dedicating time to it. but its like... the only canon sdra fan content im working on rn? its. its in the works and its on my schedule and it wont take long. its just a matter of when i can get around to it, so i wanna explain why im not prioritizing it akjdjskjdjsdk.

anyways. im so not normal about them and ive been not normal about them for the past ninety three years. my beloved boys with their moral beliefs and their systems of justifying their actions and and and. aaaaaa.....

…Now everyone else i ship with them

uhhhhhhm. i think his ftes were cute? hm. i think there's stuff i objectively like, like... i think it'd be nice for him and would be cute. but there's nothing im really Passionate about/see myself spinning around in my head. for ex like.. i go out of my way to think about tsuhara. theyre just in my brain sometimes. but whereas like... i was uekoba posting a few days back- that was vv nice and fun! but i wouldnt have really talked about my thoughts on kinji and haru if it wasn't for outside prompting, if that makes sense.

u all will never escape my tsuhara posting. kinji canonically got tsurugi to change both in and out of the killing game. he is the one who looked at tsurugi and did not think "oh i can fix him" but simply by existing!! fixed him!!!! aaaaa!!!!! aaaaa.

The thing i will NEVER ship

hm. hmmm. i think ive chatted about them before. ive indulged. but im honestly not a huge fan of kakeru/kinji/kanata? it feels v much so to me like.. just pairing off whoevers there. i could get behind kakeru/kinji if i saw a good argument for it. i think they could be fun i a "everything goes wrong" (aka, every murder plot fails) au, but like. yeah. and then with kanata and kinji. i just dont see the vision

also i did not want to say it. but uehiga because i dont. get. it..... this delves more into mitch's writing and i dont want to talk about him on kinjis ask. but i do not understand it. it feels to me just like when people were shipping mitch and haru but repackaged. im never going to see the vision of mitch getting fixed by his having a crush on one of his male classmates.

a dynamic/relationship i wish was explored more (in canon, or in fandom)

kinda stems from beta. but i think he and mikako could be fun. spiritual buddies!!!! it could be a nice learning experience for them both. also maybe the gamblers ornament crew? that could be fun thats a friendly group of people (and also utsuro is there too/j). i just want kinji to have friends man.

thoughts on their design (appearance-wise)

mmm.. something about it is off. i dont know. it could be the linework the silhouette i dont. knowww? it just. feels blocky or bulky or something. its plain but it works for a priest and it makes sense. i like his hair color and eye color and etc etc theres just Something about his design that feels off to me if i look at it for too long

also. i dont think this is a issue anymore? but he wears a stole. thats what he's wearing. its not a scarf. (also. i still want to tie it into a bow.)

A music-related thought- a song that reminds me of them, or what their music taste is, etc

not even gonna lie i thought i had some sort of song on one of my spotify playlists that would work. wtf.

hmmmm. mercy, by sir chloe, kinda gives me like. kinji ch3 vibes. not really though why is this so evil. every song i see just winds up making me think of a different character.

okay. ive just been sitting down working on this post since i posted the rei one tbh. so. i think that no matter where u hc kinji ends up after evaluating his relationship with faith (personally i think his beliefs stay the same, he never really looses her faith, moreso what changes is his relationship with the church), he likes hearing hymns. i think harmonies and 'pretty' voices is just something he'll always appreciate in music.