#literally every one of my problems every hurdle every

[smute]

this is going to sound arrogant but i have yet to hear about a fancy office job that doesn't make me go "oh wow i could do that" and yet when i read an ad for something like junior assistance assistant that pays minimum wage and makes access to indoor plumbing sound like a perk im like "god im so underqualified"

[drchucktingle]

THE TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION TELLS CHUCK TINGLE TO STAY HOME BUT WE PROVE LOVE ANYWAY

just when you buckaroos thought 2024 would be a break from book drama, here comes chuck tingle in the mix. recently i was asked to be a featured speaker at the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION annual conference. a few days ago they rescinded my invitation. here is what happened.

(EDITED TO ADD THIS LINK. if you have a hard time reading this on way of tumblr you can also read for free on chucks patreon)

i would like to start off by saying it is not my intent to start a fight, and all those reading this should know that the actions of a few misguided folks do not speak for the whole TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. i am sure there are many involved who will be very upset to learn what others at TLA have done in their name. there are many individuals here, so please do not paint them all as villains in your mind. besides, chuck loves the dang library everyone knows that.

the point of writing this is not to vilify. i am writing this is because MOMENTS OF DARKNESS are the best places to SHINE A LIGHT AND PROVE LOVE IS REAL. this is a perfect time for learning and growing and for us talk on some very important things that queer buckaroos and neurodivergent buckaroos face every day. this is an unfortunate moment that WE can turn around and use to prove love is real.

i am also writing this to understand some of my own personal feelings on the matter. for something that seems very simple on the surface, the trot is complex, and i am still working out my emotions on the whole dang thing. i am learning in this way.

PART ONE: BAG OF LOVE

a few months ago chuck was asked to be a featured speaker at the 2024 TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE. i have been asked to do things like the before and it is ALWAYS a fun time to meet bookseller and librarian buds. trotting around face to face and talking about my story of conquering chronic pain and overcoming my mental hurdles is VERY IMPORTANT to me. i say YES to these things whenever i can. (here i am with authors at CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS ALLIANCE conference. they are a WONDERFUL group and they proved love with their OWN invitation to chuck. this was such a moving event with so many amazing authors and stories. got very teared up during this photo)

ANYWAY BUCKAROOS i get the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION invite and say 'YES BUD LETS TROT'. we are then confirmed.

months pass. a few weeks ago i get a call from my manager and agent and publisher saying ‘the TLA have rescinded their invitation.’

turns out some things had been going on behind the scenes

at some point the TLA asked chucks INCREDIBLE HEROIC BAD ASS PUBLISHER if chuck would be okay with not wearing the mask, to which tor/nightfire/macmillan said ‘what the heck are you talking about of course chuck is going to wear his mask. this is how chuck presents himself’ (NOT EXACT QUOTE)

as you all know, my pink bag way is a VERY IMPORTANT SPACE. as an autistic buckaroo it is a boundary that allows me to express myself freely and relieve my chronic pain from neurotypically masking all day. i have talked about this for years, and it is why i consider my private identity a SACRED THING. it is literally a health issue.

fortunately THE PINK BAG is never really a problem when making appearances. i have spent years going on television shows, doing interviews, speaking at other conferences and conventions, hosting book events on tour, and even MEETING WITH LAWYERS in my pink face covering. it is always respected and that is very validating to my way.

when arriving anywhere i always take precautions. i always warn buckaroos ahead of time that there is a masked man coming. i always have someone go in ahead of me JUST IN CASE. again, there has never been an issue. at a big conference where i am a special guest there is ESPECIALLY not an issue because my face and bio are printed IN THE DANG PROGRAM

SOME FUN TIMES AT BIG EVENTS BELOW:

CHUCK ON TV SHOW NAME OF 'AT MIDNIGHT' BACK BEFORE I WROTE LOVE IS REAL ON MY HEAD:

well, there has never been an issue.... UNTIL NOW.

PART TWO: RESCINDED

a few days ago TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION suddenly messaged my publishers and said that chuck tingle is no longer invited. my invitation was rescinded. the reason given was that people could possibly be uncomfortable with my mask

right out of the gate i would like to say this: it is absolutely the right of the texas library association to disinvite someone from their conference. it is their event, after all, and they can ban anyone they would like, for any reason.

of course, that doesnt mean other folks HEARING THIS NEWS wont have their own opinions the TLA choices. if the TLA disinvites someone, their reasoning for doing this can be discussed and analyzed. whether or not they follow their own guidelines can be questioned, and certainly their kindness and tact can be considered

there are a few BIG POINTS to make regarding this choice from the TLA

first and foremost, i just gotta say buckaroos, it is incredibly rude to invite someone to be a guest speaker at your event, have them confirm and mark off their calendar and turn down other offers, then rescind their invitation. this is maybe the simplest of the points, but it is an important one.

second, (DEEP BREATH HERE WE GO BUCKAROOS) i personally do not think of my autism as a disability very often, but i also KNOW that despite these feelings it ABSOLUTELY IS. autism is important to be listed as a recognized disability because of the help some autistic buckaroos need regarding government programs and things like that. ALSO just because my neurodivergence has helped me in some ways (hyperfocus and a unique artistic sensibility for example). i personally need to step back and remember my battle with stress and chronic pain from having to neurotypically mask all the time. for as much as i love being autistic it has made some things very difficult.

in other words, i am perfectly capable of speaking and interacting with folks without this pink bag on my head BUT WHEN I AM IN THE CHUCK TINGLE SPACE I REQUIRE IT. i can ONLY use this space while covering my face. is not a want. it is a need. holding this boundary is more important than i can ever say. i will not, and can not, let these spaces cross.

TLA not letting an autistic author wear the face cover theyve set up to express their neurodivergence in a safe, healthy way is--for lack of a better term--NOT A GOOD LOOK.

i cannot fathom them disinviting another author for using a disability aid. i cannot fathom them saying that a buckaroo who hears better with a hearing device cannot use it during their panel because it would make others 'uncomfortable'.

but here we are.

PART THREE: WHAT DOES A BUCKAROO GOTTA DO TO GET BANNED AROUND HERE?

this is the TLAs official stance on disability issues according to their website:

when poking around on the TLA website i noticed a few other things. i noticed a previous guest speaker wearing a niqab, and i was left wondering if the religious significance is what make that okay but chuck tingle banned. that made sense until i looked deeper and saw mascot buckaroos dressed up on the exhibition floor, and saw some kind of spiderbud in a costume contest. nobody around them seemed to be all that scared. their invitations REMAINED INTACT.

it should be mentioned here that AT ONE POINT during the discussions an email was sent from TLA saying chuck is allowed to come and wear his mask in the exhibition halls and smaller panels, just not at any of the big PAID PANELS i was once supposed to participate on. this was a confusing offer, but their explanation was that people who paid for something should have the option to not see chucks 'scary neurodivergence aid'. i tried to wrap my head around WHY they would make a distinction. maybe the exchange of money (rather than time) causes some kind of philosophical adjustment that i just cant grasp?

i wonder, would the author who wears a niqab ALSO be banned from the paid panels? i hope not

my answers trotted up short until i investigated deeper and found this quick moment from one of the TLA help videos. while some events DO require additional buckaroo cash, it actually appears that THE ENTIRE CONFERENCE IS TICKETED AND COSTS MONEY.

at this point i realized there is clearly no actual official policy about not covering your face (other than one from a few years ago saying that you HAVE to cover your face), and the addition of 'money' is a red herring. these excuses make no sense

PART FOUR: CLOSE THOSE GATES

it appears that my neurodivergence is 'scary' enough to get me uninvited, REGARDLESS what their disability and mask policies may say

BUT WHY? why is chucks preferred physical presentation valued SO little by the TLA that a THEORETICAL complaint is worth more? is my neurodivergent expression so awful? is my own safety as a queer activist such an afterthought?

is a pink bag with the words 'love is real' scrawled across the front REALLY going to frighten someone when the posters and pamphlets on the way into in panel would have a photo of my masked face saying THIS IS LITERALLY WHO IS ABOUT TO APPEAR BEFORE YOU.

if THAT accommodation is too much, would it really be so difficult to have someone trot out beforehand and make an announcement? to say 'there is someone on this upcoming panel who needs a mask to express this part of himself, if this makes you uncomfortable then this panel might not be for you'.

and really, i have to heckin ask, is this physical expression of my raw inner truth really so hideous and frightening that fear of making someone uncomfortable is a REAL problem?

(a terrifying display of autism. apparently)

i cannot imagine what kind of precautions they need to take before a stage play featuring costumes and masks.

you MIGHT think chucks queerness and left leaning politics could be the issue with this organization, but they have had drag queens as past speakers (also featuring some GLORIOUS makeup and hair that covers almost all of their faces. VERY CURIOUS). regardless, the TLA do not seem like a conservative bunch.

if you are bisexual or an autistic person who is good at 'passing' you probably already know where this is headed, your dang spiderbuckaroo senses are tingling at FULL ALERT. i will say i do not KNOW the real reason why i was uninvited, and i do not have enough information to make any concrete statement of the real answer. there is only evidence that masks have been fine at TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION events in the past, but not much else to go on.

so the FACTS part of our discussion ends there, but i think it opens us up to talk about some very important feelings that bisexual and autistic buckaroos know well.

THIS is where we take a unfortunate, hurtful moment and turn it into a discussion. this is where we prove love is real.

as someone who is constantly doubted and put through purity tests because of my unique way, we are pushing up against a subject i know well. thats right buckaroos: we are talking GATEKEEPING

AGAIN, i do not know if this is the answer, but someone in my position might be VERY STRONGLY INCLINED TO THINK that a few well-meaning left leaning buckaroos think i am a joke and that this is a character, and that there is something problematic about my work because i am not really a real person.

any upstanding left leaning organization would OF COURSE allow a mask for a neurodivergent buckaroo with an unusual visual presentation, an autistic buckaroo who conquered his chronic pain ONLY by creating this important space... but what about a FAKE autistic buckaroo?

any upstanding left leaning organization would OF COURSE allow a mask for a queer LGBTQ activist standing up for gay and trans rights against a torrent of scoundrels hunting for his legal identity. its a matter of safety... but what about a FAKE queer activist?

let me be very clear for the 100th time: i am a real person. this is not a joke. i am not playing a character. i am really autistic and bisexual. tinglers are sincere and they are not ‘so bad theyre good’. they are just good. camp damascus is not ‘my first serious book’ because my queer erotica is serious. my art is important and real.

when people tell me to unmask they often do not know WHY they want it, and of course one very good reason is innocent curiosity. but there are SOME cases where i start to get THAT feeling--that tingle all of us ‘passing’ buckaroos get when we can sense the real intent behind the poking and prodding. that is the feeling of stumbling into a gatekeepers crosshairs.

if i was to take off my pink bag, what about my face would you analyze to tell if i was REALLY queer. my eye color? my ear shape? if you learned my legal name, would you see if it sounded autistic? is my voice neurodivergent enough?

or is all of that utterly absurd? i am curious what the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION thinks.

PART FIVE: GENDERED

this will be the shortest of parts, but it has to be said. i have a very complex relationship with gender, as written about at length here and here. i understand these things can be difficult to parse for some, but i ask that you trust me when i say that the ONLY reason i have been able to talk about my gender and sexuality and learn these things about myself is because of this pink bag. this outward appearance is a direct expression and reflection of my gender journey.

if the texas library association does not care about my appearance as an expression of my autism, then i cant imagine them giving a dang about it as an expression of my gender and queerness. that being said, it is personally very important to me and i think it should be mentioned

PART SIX: SO YOU WANT TO REMOVE AN AUTISTIC QUEER AUTHOR FROM YOUR EVENT BECAUSE PEOPLE MIGHT FIND THEIR DIFFERENCES SCARY

there is a question to be asked here: how could the TLA have done this correctly?

i have one very big piece of advice i would like to shout from the rooftops. please, for the love of sweet barbara, DO ENOUGH RESEARCH to know if this appearance will be a problem and, IF SO, dont extend an invitation in the first place. unique buckaroos with different presentations are constantly left in this place of limbo because we are bombarded with careless actions like those of the TLA. before you consider extending a branch to an artist who might need more accommodations than usual, think to yourself 'CAN WE MAKE THESE ACCOMMODATIONS?'

putting all of this on the shoulders of a single 'buckaroo with a difference' is exhausting. as the TLA has shown, we currently live on a timeline where a buckaroo like myself never really knows if an invite is SOLID without doing a deep dive history lesson on how often a group discriminates and against who.

i did not want to spend my whole family holiday worrying whether or not i should say something publicly or just lie down and shut my dang mouth. i had to consider HOW i should say it. i had to worry whether or not its worth standing up for myself in the face of the largest state library association in the country. i think buckaroos with differences are with me when i say: WE ARE SICK OF HAVING TO DO THIS WORK TO COVER FOR THE POOR BEHAVIOR OF LARGE ORGANIZATIONS WHO TREAT US BADLY

another option would just be to use kindness and common sense and happily accommodate artists with unique presentations to your conventions

PART SEVEN: LOVE IS STILL REAL

i would like to close by saying THANK YOU to my publisher nightfire and editor kelly for standing up for me. they immediately stood firm and had my back. they are the real dang deal. THANK YOU to my management and agent buds dongwon and gino for trotting along beside me. THANK YOU to the folks at the texas library association who initially invited chuck with goodness in their heart and then likely got bowled over by someone else, and maybe even got knocked to the side by a big closing gate.

i hope there are librarians in texas who are still interested in carrying BURY YOUR GAYS when it comes out (which is ironically about someone who creates a space through art to express their queerness where they cant otherwise). libraries prove love is real and what they do IS SO IMPORTANT. it was SO IMPORTANT TO ME as a young buckaroo and i cannot thank you enough. i am not sure if me writing all of this will hurt my sales in some way, but this opportunity to speak about the reality of disability awareness and queer gatekeeping is too important to stay silent. (if you have not already preordered BURY YOUR GAYS then give it a preorder to make up for some texas library losses i guess.)

which leads me to my final thank you. THANK YOU to the buckaroos reading this. yes YOU. i am in the position to stand up and speak my mind against scoundrel forces ONLY because i have the might of you buckaroos by my side. the buckaroo trot is ALL OF OUR TROT and we are ALL HERE TO PROVE LOVE. i cannot tell you how much i appreciate the way you have created a space for me to express these important parts of myself. you have seen this pink mask over my face and saying YES, I ACCEPT YOU, you have literally saved my life. for that i am so thankful.

if you are UPSET by what youve read here, then turn it into something positive. you can support autistic creators, or make a donation to the AUTISTIC SELF ADVOCACY NETWORK

and besides WHO IS REALLY MISSING OUT? this is what it looks like when you invite the worlds greatest author chuck tingle to your event and treat their identity as valid. WE HAVE A DANG GOOD TIME

KEEP TROTTING INTO THE FUTURE. KEEP KICKING DOWN GATES WHEREVER THEY MAY BE. KEEP PROVING LOVE IS REAL AND PROVING IT TOGETHER. lets go buckaroos - chuck

UPDATE AN HOUR AFTER POSTING:

true buckaroo TJ KLUNE was set to be another author on panel chuck was removed from and has informed me he has now chosen to decline his invitation in support and solidarity with chuck. i am so deeply moved by this. thank you from bottom of heart buckaroo

to be very clear TJ has a huge platform and DOES NOT NEED TO DO THIS. these conferences are great for book sales and he is taking a hit out of pure solidarity. this is queer buckaroos standing up for eachother. i am floored by this kindness and love

please consider checking out his books if they are not already covering your dang bookshelf. chuck blurbed IN THE LIVES OF PUPPETS and i was blown away i heckin loved it

MOST RECENT UPDATE:

here is more

[drdemonprince]

woof. your recent posts really resonate with me especially now that im making more gay and trans friends, im meeting so many cool nonmonogamous trans people that seem to have casual sex with basically all their nonmonogamous trans friends and like. its almost giving me a complex where if i think someone is cool and want to be friends with them, even if im not attracted to them, i have a perception that the only way to befriend them is to pursue them sexually. or that if they dont wanna fuck me when they fuck all their other trans friends that means there's something wrong with me (again even if i don't particularly want to fuck them!)... i love being trans and poly, and i love having more trans and poly people in my life, but sometimes i think about this one reddit comment where a dude said he noticed his gay friend had way more fun at straight bars than gay bars bc at straight bars he wasn't worrying about his appearance/body image/validation/sexual prospects

yeah honestly i get this so much and it's a very dismaying swirl of emotions to have. i don't like fucking friends. at all. it actively makes me feel unsafe and like i'm only useful to someone insofar as i'm satisfying a desire for them. it makes me feel more disposable. plus im insanely jealous if i have an actual emotional connection with someone i'm fucking so i wouldn't do well in a whole poly queer mish mosh of dear devoted friends who also sometimes bang. i would be plotting the downfall of the people i was most primed to view as a threat and sowing discord between people and shit. not good.

i also think it is a little fucking concerning when people only date/have sex as their sole way to make friends, and are only friends with people they want to fuck. this tends to create a very homogenous friend group that is heavily restricted based on desirability politics. it's also just really objectifying and unsustainable.

now i must say!! this is very much in the minority of poly people -- poly people are generally fucking AMAZING at being friends because even as just their buddy they treat hanging out with the same degree of intention and care as they would going on a date. they can hang! they want to go out and do things! they're more practiced in building a new intimacy of *any* kind than most monogamous people are.

it's just that there are some weird culty up their own ass bad boundaried polycules out there, in the same way there are abusive, codependent, jealous, miserable fucking monog couples.

but even tho most queer and poly people are more ascended than that, yeah, there is a weird unsettling constant self-evaluation that can happen in spaces where fucking almost anybody is theoretically on the table. some of that is a problem in how people treat one another, and some of that is just insecurity in between your own ears.

i get it fully. im hyper conscious of myself and how i imagine im being perceived and how people are seeing me when im out in queer spaces. and most of it is me being fully insane and making myself miserable based on nothing. because literally who cares who is attracted to me in that space and who isn't??? what matters is what i want in that moment, and my behavior, which i have control over. i should be able to just float around smiling at people and dancing and chit chatting and if someone is feeling my energy and we can talk, great, if they try to make it sexual when i dont want it to, i can just walk away. like it fully does not need to be that deep.

but it's a hard internal hurdle to overcome and every time someone hits on you, ignores you, misreads your identity, etc it can be used by your mind as fodder for The Narratives and The Insecurities and make things worse and it really has to be an intentional practice to not do that to yourself.

if you can bounce along carelessly in the straight club because you're not worrying about how people see you, you can bounce along carelessly in the queer club and not worry about how people see you. literally treat queer people the same way you'd treat straight people who seem perfectly fine but are not your problem and not a focus for you. you can stop trying to mind read the intentions of every queer person and stop sizing yourself up in their eyes and not worrying about who is fucking who and who is in love with who and who is secretly jealous but pretending not to be. and just. hang out. and feel things out. and exist in your own body and pay attention to what interests you and what you are experiencing rather than how they are experiencing you.

i say this as a reminder to myself!!

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Hi, is it possible to have M6 hcs with an MC having a depressive episode please? Thank you in advance, I love your work <3

The Arcana HCs: M6 with an MC struggling with depression

~ apparently you guys' new favorite thing to do is send me requests that I can relate to a little too well. Have some comfort, my darlings, and remember to be kind to yourselves. Healing is slow but it is happening - brainrot ~

Julian

Caring for you during a depressive episode is more instinctive for him than the day-to-day part of living with depression

He knows what it's like to be really emotionally low, but he doesn't know what it's like to be permanently stuck there

And for someone who runs on emotional energy, not having any at all doesn't resonate with him

Which is why he's quickly becoming Vesuvia's leading medical expert on the condition. What he can't understand right away, he'll study until he does

And oh dear, the more he learns, the more he aches for you. It's the emotional equivalent of chronic pain/fatigue and nobody will make you feel more valid in that than he will

There's just one problem - he can't keep a schedule to save his life and he's sometimes more empathetic than is good for him

It's an important growing moment for him. He'll have to learn how to better himself to help you without feeling responsible for your troubles

He keeps a checklist to go over with you every day, somehow without ever making you feel judged if you didn't do everything

Healthy amount of food? Check. Healthy amount of sleep? Check. Sunlight? It was raining. That's okay, we'll go on a picnic tomorrow!

It's also his way of being able to tell if it's getting bad again

When that happens, he'll encourage you to give yourself the freedom of a few days of rest. No expectations, no to-do lists. A good doctor knows the value of bed rest

It's really good for him too - since he wants to check up on you regularly it means he's taking consistent breaks and actually getting enough sleep for once

You bring him so much joy just by being there when he wakes up in the mornings. Being able to help you keep that sparkle in your eyes means so much to him

Asra

They aren't very depression-prone themselves, but they know how hard it is to carry a heavy heart. It's why giving you half of theirs was one of the easiest trades they ever made

And it's also why he gets what you're going through better than anyone else does, because he can literally feel what you're feeling, if you let him

The first time you let them tap in to your shared bond on a fairly bad day, they said it was like trying to dance with fogged-over glasses and weights on every limb. No wonder you're tired!

He doesn't mind doing things a little differently (since when did he do them normally anyways?) so he likes getting the important tasks done with you

They get up with you on workdays and turn breakfast and dinner into daily dates. Wherever their whims take them while you run the shop, they'll always be back in time to help close and take you on a long sunset stroll

Baths used to stress you out - it was the last hurdle before finally getting to sleep - and now they're the highlight of your day

It's not nearly as overwhelming when the bath's already drawn with some new random luxury product to try out and a fluffy-haired lover who insists on lifting you in and out (it makes him happy, let him have this, MC!)

Weekends are for sleeping in, cuddles on the roof in the sunshine, and hours of reading books in the pillow pile

When a nasty episode hits, they'll take you on vacation to Nopal. They notice how much effort you put in, it makes sense that you need rest and they want to make sure you have it

So many hugs and snuggles, all the time, every day. He's so proud of you and he tells you that constantly

Because he doesn't need you to be happy or energetic or exciting for him to love you. He just needs you to know that you're loved.

Nadia

Nobody knows what it's like to feel stuck and unable to get one's life back like she does. She spent three years comatose like that

She's a little horrified when she gets a clear picture of what life can be like for you. She had a way out, and a Devil to blame and subsequently defeat. You're running on your own determination

She thinks you're one of the strongest people in the world for that

It shows her why you seemed to know how to pull her out of her sleep. And she's determined to do the same for you

She pulls you out of bed to do yoga with her every morning. If it's sunny (and it often is) she'll take it onto the balcony so you can kill two birds with one stone

It's okay if you need to go back to sleep after. Just let her do this with you

She has a reason to schedule breaks into her day now to spend half an hour with you and make sure you're both getting what you need

Because lunchtime gets so busy and dinner is often an important event, she makes sure to have a late morning tea with you every day, from 10-11 AM

Fresh fruit, some dried meats and cheeses, juice and tea, and the most delicious baked treats. It's light and filling and nourishing enough to get you through the day if you can't manage much else

It's easier to act like it's not getting bad again when you can save your energy just for your shared moments. It's why Nadia feels so guilty for the first few times she didn't notice until it was too bad for you to do even that much

Fortunately for you, there's a palace full of employees who have you to thank for getting a competent person in charge again

They want to see you flourish too, so one word from housekeeping is all Nadia needs to whisk you off to the seaside for some R&R

You pulled her out of her daze and are the strongest person she knows. Returning the favor for her beloved is her greatest honor

Muriel

Oh yeah, that thing where life feels like walking through sludge and all you want to do is hide and sleep, so that's what you eventually end up doing all day? Yeah he does that too

Or at least he did, until you dragged him down a continent with the scariest woman he's ever met on a wild goat chase

It's starting to make sense to him now. You knew to reintroduce him to the fun of comfortable clothes and good food and the safety of companionship because that's what you needed too

And he's not leaving that fog behind without bringing you with him

He doesn't want you to force yourself into a busy, colorful life of excitement and adventure. He doesn't want that for himself either

But he's learned the value of a life that can move as slowly as it needs to as long as it doesn't get stagnant

You can sleep in if you want to. But he's bringing you breakfast in bed. He won't say anything but he won't leave to start his day until you eat at least half of it

You don't have to go on a walk if you're not up for it. But he'll leave the door and windows open and move the bed right below them

You don't have to take a shower. But he'll hold you in his lap by the fire with a clean rag and a bucket of warm water and some soap and a big, fluffy towel

It's okay if you can't feel anything. It's okay if you can't stop feeling everything. Sit with it as long as you need to. He'll just be next to you with a glass of cool, fresh water from the nearby spring

Of course, things aren't always that bad. You have good days, and better days, and great days, and tired days, and gray days, and everything days, and nothing days, and quiet days, and loud days

Sometimes you're the one bringing him a glass of water and opening the windows

But you're both slowly having more good days than bad ones, and life is starting to get lighter. And neither of you are fighting alone

Portia

Depression and burnout can look pretty similar. The big difference is that one of them is something you generally bring on yourself, and the other one tends to show up uninvited and unannounced

She's plenty familiar with burnout. Depression not so much

She's quick to notice when you go several days in a row without smiling very much. And when you can't pull yourself out of bed one morning, she's so sympathetic and on board to help

But it's hard not get upset with her when her first question is, "so what were you doing for it to get this bad, MC?"

It makes it even harder to talk about, but Portia is the palace's honorary librarian at this point. Between the research she does there and the general medical description and advice Ilya gives her, she'll come back with plenty of notes

She will feel so bad about what she said earlier that you will definitely need to hug it out

She's such a get-up-and-go person that she doesn't have to think twice about helping you keep a schedule. That's how she lives already. Now she's just cooking a full breakfast for two, not one

She still takes you on her ambassador trips, but the plans she comes up with take your energy levels into account as well as hers

You're having a better day? Time to go sightseeing and find an adventure

You're not doing as well? Take a day on the boat. Nap on the deck in the sunlight. The crew love you too, they'll bring you fruit and she'll get all the boring meetings out of the way while you rest

It can be a little daunting being a partner to someone who is sunshine personified when you feel like mud most days

And it's tricky for her to learn how to sit with someone in pain without feeling like a failure for not being influential enough to fix it

She sees you as the best part of her world and thinks, no wonder you're tired. Take a rest. She'll keep things running

Lucio

At first he's worried that you're falling sick very, very slowly

You don't have energy for the things that he knows you enjoy, you're sleeping more, and the dulled look in your eyes makes him wonder if you're in pain

You're trying not to let it get to you because being an adventurer is fun! Exciting! And it's Lucio's fresh start on life, so you're scared of ruining it. You don't want to drag him down on his way up

But finally one morning you just can't get yourself out of bed. And he's increasingly worried, so you explain it to him

It ends up lifting his spirits more than anything. He could tell you were ill, but this illness doesn't seem fatal. It's just something you have to live with that makes some days a lot harder than others

He doesn't have a lot of intuition for taking care of sick people, but he's getting better and better at learning from his mistakes

You say taking care of your body helps? Every time he gets hungry he makes sure you eat something too. Every time he bathes he pulls you in. Every time he goes outside he invites you.

If you say no too often he will pout. Which will quickly give way to his unexpectedly adorable puppy eyes, because he loves you and doesn't want your sickness to hurt you MC!

Of course, healing is never linear. There are still times when the only thing you have energy for when you open your eyes is closing them again

And as much as he worries for you during those times, Lucio isn't burdened by them. It's a chance to show you he loves you and to return the favor you showed him by sticking by his side

It's also his moment to be the magnanimous, powerful Count he wanted so badly to be. He'll protect you, he'll take care of you, he gets to be your hero and let you be comfortable!

You are his best. If that means you need to take a break and sleep, then go ahead. Precious things are meant to be treasured

[beesmygod]

So TotK seems to be clicking where BotW wasn't. Any insight on what the key differences are that work for you?

note: i played botw up until the calamity ganon fight and then went "yeah ok ive played a zelda game before", put it down and never went back. didnt play the dlc

i dont think anyone would be surprised to know that im a "majoras mask was the best zelda" guy but the reason has little to do with the "darker tone" or the lore but because reusing assets allowed the dev team to greatly (GREATLY in this case holy shit) expand on the actual contents of the game itself. i love gold/silver best for the same reason.

botw is like running around an empty movie set. theres nothing in that fucking game. at the time, due to the proliferation of crafting mechanics infesting literally every AAA game, it felt like nintendo was more focused about hitting all the checks on a checklist of tired mechanics that were included just for the sake of saying they had it. crafting! weapon durability! open world! pbbbbt.

none of these things proved to be enjoyable to me. keeping in mind that ive been playing zeldas since the snes (skipping only a handful of handheld games), the changes felt like steps away from what makes zelda games unique. crafting felt like an arbitrary step between me and potions. i wanted to swing my master sword with power, not experiment with clumsy weapons that stop existing after i finally get a feel for them. and the open world, frankly sucked.

mm rewarded me for my curiosity. experimentation and exploration would lead to interesting or gratifying results (did you know theres a paper airplane in ikana canyon...). botw is like playing in the window xp background. theres barely any landmarks, except shrines, or anything to do outside of getting the yiga clan's ass. theyre easy to pick out because theyre literally the only people on the road. the world is put to waste; i cant play with it, i can just observe and be extremely artificially hindered by its vastness.

this doesnt really fit anywhere else in the above open world rant, but trading the shrines for small and sparce dungeons was a huge let down. i was hoping for a series of cohesive puzzles intended to help my mastery of my newest weapon or ability. you know. like a zelda game

totk fixed this and every other problem in the best way possible; the devs dumped a ton of toys into my playpen, gave me a hot glue gun, and told me to go buck wild. i love to build a horrible contraption to solve my stupid problems or kill me instantly. i love that experimenting with weapons involves actual experimentation if you desire or you can have an inventory exclusively full of spear type weapons with vastly different properties by gluing a bunch of rocks or monster parts to it. but most importantly....the "stock up->head out->explore->return" loop no longer feels like i have to go to the dmv over and over.

sure, the depths are artificially large in the way that the map in botw was; theres not a lot to do except reveal the map and do plot stuff. but the overworld was given a complete overhaul using the empty map as a starting point. theres actually stuff to look at, ruins to explore, caves to investigate, holes to jump into, and all that shit in the sky to explore. the sky map might be sparse but its meticulously crafted so that just the process of explorating the archipelagos feels like a puzzle you need to solve, as opposed to a hurdle you have to jump.

there is so much more to do in totk that im pretty sure im over 20 hours in and havent done any of the regional main quests. ive been running around picking up side quests, uncovering the map, exploring the depths, fucking around in the sky, and dying my clothes. but its not annoying or overwhelming. it feels more alive and less like a weird map in an abandoned gmod server. im having fun.

for crit: imo, one of the biggest criticisms i have for both these games is that the voice acting is horrendous. nintendo has too much money to be tapping people who sound like they just got out of the shenmue soundbooth. zelda was not improved by voice acting and they should probably go back to everyone just having short exclamations like "HEH HEEH!" or "hmmm...".

also link doesnt roll anymore and its really fucking me up. im really struggling here lol. i keep trying to do dark souls shit and every fight involves me accidentally zooming in with the sheikah slate instead of locking on, hitting l1 istead of shield, and whistling for my horse instead of drinking estus.

also nerf rain

[heart-forge]

interested in yr starfield take. played a lot of skyrim as a teen as one does but am not per se a bethesda fan and am mostly bemused by how little i have seen anyone talking about starfield either way in my social circles

well listen this with the important distinction that I am a Bethesda fan. Todd wrapped his chess-master's hands around my throat as a child and has not let go, so perhaps it's me that is biased, but I've been asking for years for a Starfield-esque game and I will not complain now that they've given it to me.

The critical like friction point I think with Starfield and mainstream gaming is that it's an FPS that isn't an FPS. I rarely had to actually fight outside of space flight mechanics. Most plot-based fights could be avoided with a keen enough charisma-or-whatever-space-equivalent skill. I think overall Starfield's flaw was Cyberpunk's flaw in a much more professional setting: it didn't commit enough to what it wanted to do, and by doing so added some watered down stuff that didn't work. Starfield wanted to be an exploration game: No Man's Sky, Garden of the Sea, something that's focused on studying the flora and fauna.

But also they doubled down on settlement building, something that people only wanted to use to make themselves home bases in Fallout 4 and otherwise didn't enjoy as a method of resource management (unless there was some bethesda forum silent majority: generally I gauge whether something is broadly popular or unpopular by asking my brother if it annoyed him dsfkjhds). And then also there was combat, but not just the ship combat which was the real novelty, but also base level FPS combat? But only sometimes.

And then of course there were the procedurally generated worlds which everyone knew immediately was not going to work, because No Man's Sky had already fumbled that hurdle. Bethesda narrative structure is not suitable for random distribution: they excel with specific and focused quest lines in limited, fleshed out locations (ie Shivering Isles, particular abandoned Vault side quests in Fallout 3, Rivenspire in ESO) and become overly generic and repetitive once they remove that element (all the busywork in Skyrim, all the backtracking in Starfield).

This is a problem with a lot of AAA video games as time goes on because...they don't want to commit to genre. What if someone doesn't like that genre? Then they won't buy the game. And it's gotten to the point where games are starting to flop because the mechanics are so broadly generalized and bloated that even the interesting stuff isn't relevant enough to do more than annoy players. I love scanning things in Starfield, I loved scanning them enough that they were fully researched, I loved finding different planets with variations on gravity...but there was literally no reason to explore. There could have been: I was in a guild of explorers. They could have done so much to make it worth my while to explore planets, but instead it was a radiant quest that I didn't even get the first time I played.

I've asked for a long, long time for a video game where my core purpose was not "bloodthirsty fighter itching to kill something with a gun or several guns or a knife or a sword murder kill death death death I don't understand magic I just want to cull my enemies". I hate playing ESO and getting treated like a barbarian in every interaction. I hate being railroaded into being a combat marine in Mass Effect (and was thrilled when Andromeda gave me cool biotics like everyone else got except for Shepard even if Shepard was a biotics class). I want class variation, even if we need to take money away from fidelity and put it into narrative so I can have someone treat me like I'm not a complete drooling neanderthal even if I specifically pick a magic or stealth class.

Starfield gave me that. I was able to pick dialogue options that reflected my skills. If I had points in geology, I could reassure Barrett that the story that the mining company fed him about his husband's misconduct was implausible. I could scold people for improper storage and care of relics even without sinking any particular skills. I could choose to be in religious awe of the relic visions, I could choose to be scientifically fascinated by them, I could choose to be power hungry about them. It's the most flexibility that's ever been allowed in a Bethesda game that I've ever played, and combat was so unfocused that I frequently forgot that fighting was even an option.

I really liked building my ship. I liked that it was a bit of a puzzle when it came to connecting things. The UI was awful and there wasn't much of a tutorial, but I said already that I'm a Bethesda fan. I liked ship combat once I got the hang of it, I liked the act of flying the ship around space. A lot of people said "Starfield gets really good...twelve hours in har har har" which I don't think is strictly fair. Starfield gets good once you figure out how to do stuff and use stuff the way it's supposed to be done and used.

Overall I think Starfield was a really positive experiment in trying something new with the FPS genre. Not everything worked which is grounds for a mass murder-suicide when it comes to how level-headedly gamers react to things that are really popular that they're just not clicking with (seriously I think a lot of problems in the game industry could be at least alleviated if we unlocked the 'just because you want to like it does not mean a fundamental right of yours is being violated if you don't' skill tree), but I like that a company the size of Bethesda is still kind of trying new things. Some quests REALLY hit me in the face: there's one where you're hunting down a relic and find a permeable reality where you have to decide to canonize one particular timeline over another, which involves a lot of switching through timelines in order to advance through to the next room. That was incredible, and meant so much more to me than any generic fetch quest. Grinding mechanics are difficult: not all players like to grind, but if you leave off grinding altogether then it becomes more complicated to balance for difficulty, especially if your goal is to present specific challenges to your player.

Anyway I thought Starfield was fun, I thought the story was good, I think fidelity is overrated, I think that many problems with video games would be solved by carefully integrated accessibility features, and I watched multiple videos criticizing Starfield for things that have always been true across Bethesda games (ie "why do guards know I've stolen and what I've stolen between different planets" because that's how Bethesda has always handled theft mechanics, maybe you just don't like Bethesda games and don't have an immutable human right to frictionlessly play and enjoy every video game that your friends are also playing (not YOU anon just the general you)). There's plenty of things to criticize but at this point I think some people just start nitpicking for nitpicking's sake. It's okay that some people didn't like it. They don't have to, but much like not liking something doesn't make it evil, not liking something also doesn't make it bad.

Overall though I'm not surprised that no one has heard much about it: it ran terribly without many options outside of modding to fix that issue. Maybe things are different over on Reddit, but I'm willing to wager that a lot of PC gamers have outdated systems. I said it about Cyberpunk and I'll say it here too: it's nice that your NASA computer can run one billion fps with high detail shadows and 4K reflections. Mine needs to be able to turn that shit off or else I just can't play your game.

As far as what you haven't heard about the main plot, I'll say this: it's a very, very interesting twist on infinite replayability. Nothing is truly infinitely replayable, but Starfield makes a very bold and frankly fascinating leap into how to achieve such a thing, to the point where before I found the ending I was like "it would have been better to redirect resources from x to the ending in order to achieve this insane thing" and while it's not perfect, I was SHOCKED that they just...literally do. It's so fascinating that I'm kind of surprised that no one talked about it.

[practically-an-x-man]

talk shop tuesday: is there a fandom you'd like to write for but you haven't been able to for one reason or another (lack of ideas, fandom is toxic, etc)?

Thank you!!! <3333

Talk Shop Tuesday

Ooooh, great question!

That's a tough one to answer, I think. For one thing, there are some pieces of media that I think are fanon-open and some that I think aren't, and that's okay.

Y'know, like... I love Ex Machina, it's probably my favorite movie and I've literally analyzed it shot-by-shot for a project before, but I can't say I'd want to write for it because I don't think there's anything I'd want to add or change from the original canon. There are a lot of books and movies that are like that for me - I can enjoy the hell out of them, but there's a difference between enjoying the finished story and leaving it there and enjoying it in the sense that I want to keep building on it. I write to expand on the themes and messages of the story, but not every story needs to be continued in that way.

I don't think ideas are ever something that stops me. I'm never really at a shortage for ideas (if anything, I've got more ideas than I'll ever conceivably be able to write), and usually once I decide I want to write for a fandom I can have the early scraps of an idea within a few hours or days. Sometimes it's easier than others, of course, but the ideas are never really a hurdle.

I have bailed on a few fics because of problems with the fandom. I've talked about the Wednesday fic that I bailed out on after various problems came out about the show, and there are a few other fic ideas in my writing masterlist that I don't think I'll ever end up writing. I'm not really *deep* in any fandom and I try not to get involved in discourse or anything like that, so I've been able to keep even the more tumultuous fandoms I'm involved with (MCU, Star Wars, etc.) to a minimum for the most part, but there are still some things that just aren't worth getting involved in.

[yourkimjaejin]

Blame It On My Youth

"Hannah-ssi, you missed the timing again."

"Ah! Sorry, again." Hannah sighs, the disappointment written all over her face.

Hannah was recording for WayV's much anticipated 2nd full album. After literal years of waiting it was finally time for the group's comeback. The members had been in and out of the practice rooms and recording booths for weeks now. Perfecting every move and note to get the best product for their fans. Recording the title track, On My Youth was the last thing left to do and the dancer kept messing up. This was her third time in the booth this week.

It had been tough recording and shooting everything for the album all while getting ready for AG's first tour but she'd pushed through every hurdle. Singing all her parts for the b-sides was easy. Like everything was finally coming together. But now she was stuck on her lines for the second verse of On My Youth.

The producer started the music over.

It's okay Hannah. You got it! This is the one. The dancer hyped herself ready to nail this take.

. . .

"Hannah-ssi...."

"You don't have to say it......I already know."

.

.

Within the last thirty minutes, Hannah tried and re-tried ten times. TEN. DIFFERENT. TIMES!!! She either came in late or started early

"Why don't you take a break while we reset." Hannah didn't even respond to the producer. She just let her body hit the wall behind her then slid down until her butt hit the floor. She buried her face in her hand. The sounds of frustrated screams were muffled.

You have to nail this.....Everyone's waiting for you so they can finish the song. You're incredibly unprofessional. It's four line in English how is it this hard! Her thoughts kept spiraling. Water began to pool in the corner of her eyes.

"Hannah-ssi? Wanna try again?"

"Cou...could I step out? I'll be right back." Her voice cracked in the middle, betraying her.

"Of course, take as much time as you need." Hannah was out the door and down the hall in seconds. not even noticing two of her members walking by.

"Was that Hannah-jiejie?" Yangyang and Ten watched her run down the hall turning toward the elevators.

"Definetly. Follow her, let me know where she goes. I'm gonna see what happened." Yangyang nodded taking off in Hannah's direction while Ten made his to the recording booth.

He knocked before coming in, smiling when the managers and producers greeted him. "Hello. I hope I'm not interuppting."

Jessica, one of WayV's eldest managers, waved him off, "We were just waiting for Hannah. Did you happen to see her? Is she okay" Jessica asked.

"I came here to ask you. Yangyang and I saw her running down the hall."

One of the producers turned around, "That because she's been having problems with On My Youth. She's probably feels bad cause her part is last thing we need to finish the song." Ten nodded, seeing what the problem is before anyone else explains. His phone beeps with an incoming message for Yangyang

We found Jiejie. She's in our practice room.

"I'll have her back within in thirty minutes. I promise." Ten bowed and rushed out of the room. The WayV group chat was blowing up with messages from the members. Everyone dropping what they were doing to get to Hannah's side.

Ten raced down the hall once the elevator doors opened. The door to the practice room was cracked. As if a closed door would keep him away from his precious dongsaeng. He made sure to close the door behind him and took a seat on the floor across from Winwin near Hannah's feet. There wasn't any tears or sniffling sounds. The older took that as win.

"Hannah?" Kun started grabbing the hand not covering her face, hiding the tear tracks. "If you feel up to it....wanna tell us...whats going on?"

Hannah just sighed, already feeling ridiculous for getting worked up over this. Her thoughts already spiraling at the thinking of what had gone on the past three days.

The dancer bit her lip but still removed the hand from her face. Gently, Xiaojun used a wet tissue to freshen up her face. She nodded, quietly thanking her same aged friend. He wrapped an arm around her waist, his way of accepting her thanks.

Hannah took a deep breath before starting, "I keep messing up. I've missed the timing for my verse for three days straight and I'm this close to letting SM use an ai to finish the song so we can move on." It felt like some of the weight was lifted off her shoulder but some stuck around.

After some time Winwin asked, "Okay. Its normal to have a problem recording. Everyone does but we get through it. And you'll get through this as well." The older's words brought her tears back to the surface. Hannah shook her head, disagreeing.

"I have to nail this. It's been too long. We've been waiting too long. I can't be the reason this comeback is held back. After everything that happened with him," A chill settled in the room. His mention bringing back a year of hurt the seven of them were still getting over. "We don't deserve anymore waiting. Not from me."

A silence fell over them. Nobody really wanting to admit that Hannah.....was right. More than a year of waiting and they were finally coming back. Stronger than they were before. Even more ready to represent the NCT name internationally.

But despite they're readiness, it was still daunting. To comeback after all this time. Had fans forgotten about them. None of them felt like dealing with answering the question of if they were NCT or not again. Phantom was them dipping their toe in to see if the water was warm.

On My Youth was them diving headfirst into the deep end with no floaties. Just waiting to see if they'll sink or float.

"We're not waiting. Not anymore." Kun spoke confidently, determination in his eyes. "It is finally our time. We can't waste it. We have to attack everything we're given. We fought for this." The leader used his pointer finger to draw a circle in the middle of the seven member. "We not giving up now. And no matter how many times any of us mess up a recording or goof off in practice," That gets some laughs from the members, "Nobodies getting left behind.

With every word Kun spoke, the lump in Hannah throat grew smaller and smaller. Maybe what she was really worried about was losing the six boys around her. They had been through so much and this album felt like their last chance. Hannah wanted to make it count. She wanted to give her all.

She wasn't losing WayV without a fight.

Hannah stood up and walked to the door without a single glance at her members.

"Jie-jie! Where are you going."

"The recording booth." She answered with a smile. "I have a song to finish so that we can have an album to promote."

I think it goes without saying Hannah nailed her verse in one shot.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I really wasn't expecting to love On My Youth so much but that album is flawless. It's somehow different but it still feels like WayV!! Also congrats to the boys on becoming million sellers!!

anyways have a great day and enjoy the post ~ Author Izzy

Taglist: @alixnsuperstxr / @1-800-call-ria / @sophrodite / @sunflower-0180

[zo1nkss]

I see so many "why don't people comment on fic?" posts trying to explain the psychology of something they don't even struggle with personally, and it actually pisses me off royally. So allow me to just break this down from the perspective of someone who almost never comments on fic, as a writer myself who understands both sides:

I have selective mutism.

Something that can effect literally every single aspect of my fucking life. Sometimes I have to shut off every single thing I use to communicate with other people even online because the requirement to talk and engage and participate in the social culture is physically debilitating.

The worst trigger for my selective mutism is ANY and EVERY situafion where I feel obligated to respond, this is due to severe psychological abuse I faced because of selective mutism. So your little posts debating with the imaginary reader in your head about why they do or do not comment on fics that you feel entitled to get attention on? The ones who always frame it as just a silly little social anxiety problem that can easily be hurdled over if we just dumb our comment down enough?

Yeah, not fucking helping.

[rottingwaysofmisery]

Past Time Travel Ramblings

Hello, I'm gonna ramble about the logic of literal past time travel.

Okay preface. This is not a scientific essay. I am not a scientist, I barely passed every science class I've been in and remember nothing from them. No sources will be cited, and all of these ideas come from my own thoughts. I do not claim to be the first to think of anything, however, I do not see others speaking on any of this. I am most likely just not looking hard enough, but I'd just love to see the thoughts of others here and the input of people who know more than me on the subject.

Preface over, I'm going to be going over possible complications and mechanics that would have to be answered for if one were to build a real time machine, at least in my mind. The general problem, I believe, is bridging the gap between the mechanics of the universe and our social constructs. If that sounds confusing, I will elaborate.

Social v. Material

Shout in your room right now "Teleport me to London on the 15th of March in 1963."

Nothing will happen. You look ridiculous. For one, the universe doesn't know what a "London" is, we made that word up, nor does it know what that date is because we made up all these terms for time, nor would it know the notion of teleporting. Beyond that, who would hear you? Your neighbors, roommates, perhaps. The universe? Who knows. It won't respond though.

So if your goal is to use a time machine to go back to London on the 15th of March in 1963, the main or at least significant hurdle to overcome would be figuring out how to translate those terms into something a machine can understand. You can't hack the universe if reality isn't composed of any language you comprehend.

Location

One possible problem with a teleporting time machine, a part of the last issue, is setting a location for it to move to. There's no "universal coordinates" for anything to ever understand, so the instantaneous movement would have to do more with distance ("Move 5000 miles in this direction") than a name ("Move to 8.436 at the Fart Quadrant"). Then after that, how could you ever tell it a direction? The Earth constantly rotates and the universe knows no ups and downs. A computer can move you up if it understood the concept, but could it adjust for the spinning Earth's movement, in real time and constantly? Even then, think, London in 1963 isn't in the same place it is now, at least not in a specific technical sense that'd get your nerd glasses broken if you mentioned it to a varsity jacket jock. Sure, it is the same place on Earth, but everything in the solar system and everything else around it is moving constantly. That is to say, even if you solved the other problems and went to where London is now in 1963, you could just end up stranded in the galactic void waiting for a planet to hit you in sixty years.

Time

How do you make a computer understand the concept of 1963 A.D.? You can't, it could read you the definition if programmed but it could not in any meaningful capacity take you back to that time just by the phrase alone.

Okay, so instead of asking it to drop you into a year, what about pushing you back? Asking it to go back 60 years from the present 2023 to 1963. Such a thing would require us to find and observe a measurable unit of time that can send you back in time a certain amount for each of the unit. The further back you want to go, the more of the units. Also remember, the present is constantly moving forward. You may have to make a system where the units increase for each second the time machine isn't travelling. Or not, you wouldn't need to care if you're not the type to fuss over the exact second in a given day you time travel to. It would honestly be a little dumb to, anyways.

No Teleportation

So what we can conclude from those first two sections is that a hypothetical time machine could not teleport. It would have to involve some sort of pushing back in time. You cannot tell something to drop into a coordinate, but you can workshop it to move in the direction of where you want. How that'd work is beyond me, at least at the moment. It's like telling your car to "be" in New York instead of driving to New York, you'd have to drive it or nothing would happen.

The one big exception that would make it possible would be if we were able to harness something beyond our current understanding like a wormhole or a fantastical portal or something.

Past

If you want to build a time machine, you have to ask yourself at some point, to what extent does the past exist? Going back to a past implies our very reality remembers or records. For all we know, it only exists as far as our memories and social constructs around it allow. Imagine you're playing a video game and you never save and you're at the final boss. You're at the final boss and you've unlocked everything, that proves that you actually played the game this far. However, you couldn't go to a previous part of your playthrough because there are no previous save states. Does the universe "save" anything? How could one go back to a past that does not exist in any meaningful way beyond memory and explaining the present? I'm saying, you can't go back if there's nothing to go back to.

Time Travelers

Something that must eventually be asked on the question of real time travel is: where are all the time travelers? The idea is that if past time travel were possible, someone in the future could invent time travel and make it evident that it's possible by going to the past. Perhaps it is possible and yet nobody was able to invent a time machine due to the doom of humanity as the last advanced civilization on Earth before we could even grasp the mechanics of such a device. Maybe we're in an objective present as opposed to a relative one where a future hasn't been recorded yet for any supposed time travelers to even come from, which if false would have a lot of audacity as a theory. Maybe it's stupid fucking science fiction novel bullshit where we haven't seen evidence of time travelers because of a secret time-keeping organization strictly regulating such a device and also trying to prevent paradoxes or whatever the fuck and doing their job really well, that one is my least favorite.

Relativity

I'm gonna do this one assuming you all know the gist of the theory of relativity and the idea that time is relative to where you are, though I very well may have no idea what I'm talking about. Imagine this, we have Not-Earth and Earth. Not-Earth is an inconceivably long distance away from Earth to the extent that it goes through time slower comparatively than Earth does, though the human consciousness on both planets experiences both at the same rate. Remember the hypothetical measurable time units? My question is, would relativity suggest the hypothetical time units needed to go back a given amount of years would vary on location, or would it just need the same amount regardless of location?

The Science

This section is going to be brief because I don't know jack shit. From what I've gathered, past time travel can be possible according to certain scientific laws. Knowing whether or not past time travel can be achieved for certain, at least as it seems to me, seems like such a fantastical thing to know that it has to be out of our grasp for a long time. I'm not gonna link the article so either google it or call me a liar, but I saw an article about how scientists successfully simulated sending a particle back in time through a quantum computer. That suggests nothing on the possibility of physical particles time traveling back in time though, only that a computer can show us fantastical things which I know already from watching videos of horse dressage. That's a joke, I don't watch that.

In Conclusion

So, time machines capable of backwards time travel, what a mouthful. Basically, if you wanted to make such a thing you'd have to think of something so immensely clever and beyond the imagination and science we currently have. If it's ever done I'd love to learn how they solve these issues, at least the parts I could wrap my head. Hell, maybe even science fiction writers know how to jump the hurdles, even if they lack the technical fortitude.

If you got this far, thank you. I doubt this will interest much of anyone at all. If at least one person thinks it's an interesting read, though, I will be happy enough.

[seraphim-soulmate]

anyone know what ur supposed to do with ur life when you're unable to work? like I need something that I'm obligated to go to (or else I won't do it), that's a couple times a week, helps me progress towards something and/or leaves me feeling accomplished, but without entirely depleting my whole life source bcs I also have other responsibilities.

Sidebar; I think part of the problem might be that my stressors are literally inescapable and I'm therefore just perpetually stuck in stress mode but idk what to do about that one... Ig therapy? I do therapy about it?

and considering that handling phone calls and working in an office environment for 3 hours, 2 days a week was too strenuous for me, I'm not sure what other activity I could do that would actually be feasible. like I thought that would be the easy option for me..

oh right, I also have very low motivation and nothing is particularly interesting to me conceptually. It's more like "eh well, this satisfies the criteria I need to meet, so it'll do" but there's nothing that I'm truly passionate about. There are things I could be interested in, given the right circumstances, but I haven't found the right circumstances. There's often something inaccessible about the thing I've engaged in.

essentially, every time I'm in a depressive episode like this, it's bcs I had a pretty major life change that left me without a daily activity and the depression did its job of keeping me out of trying new activities. but eventually, I found a new activity each time. it's just that every time, that activity wasn't feasible on a long-term for me or had an eventual, planned ending. it just takes an incredible amount of effort to try a new thing, knowing it'll end or that I might have to quit bcs I'm physically or mentally unable to keep up. often when I commit to something, I'll get myself too involved in it bcs I get interested and then I'm unable to keep up with the new pace or additional responsibilities I set for myself or accepted. even when I don't do that, I'm just generally not capable of evaluating what is reasonably manageable for me.

like right now, going on a walk each day is really difficult and I have to head home earlier than I'd like to bcs my legs hurt. 3 months ago, I was able to walk distances like that without a problem. if I'm engaging with someone while walking though, I'm capable of walking further, so I know it's a mental block more than a physical one. I just don't know how to overcome it. There are a lot of hurdles in my life at the moment and I don't know how to overcome a lot of them bcs I don't know which action I should be taking while also making sure I'm taking care of my own needs.

[venjamin-kingdomhearts]

OKAY I HAVE TO APPROACH ON MAIN THIS TIME

i got to read a couple of your writings after the past few days of work and i just ??? Holy crap, what a stroke of genius to take the replica concept with Roxas. im always enamored by the reality that KH has set up, with the rules behind hearts and bodies and souls. like a heart being able to shatter. having a replica start to break down? im gonna sound like an insane person, but there's just something there that's intriguing.

the manga for chain of memories and 358 tried to tackle that kind of thing, but it never went too far past some creepy visuals. but having it written out, something like losing your sight, the sensation of touch. it's terrifying, and it's so fitting for Roxas. it would be horrifying for him, familiar in a sense to when he gave up his life to Sora in kh2 and was forced into non-existence.

IM BAD AT WRITING LIKE THIS, but I wanted to come and sing some praises bc it's just so interesting as a premise. i am going to continue reading everything, but i wanted to drop this comment before i forgot :3

AHH hi again!! im so happy to hear you enjoyed some of my drabbles, thank you so much for stopping by! oooh, eheh, this is a headcanon i haven't talked about too much but have written about a few times!! iii should really post my other stuff to AO3, i have a few older fics that kinda touch on this headcanon... hmm... I've always had a headcanon that since Roxas was brought back into a Replica body in KH3, he sometimes has dissociative episodes and more literal moments of disconnect from his Replica body! I think it can both be terrifying for him and kinda just... "a thing that happens". I have a lotta headcanons about Roxas, Xion, and Ventus, and the effect being a part of Sora has on them. For Xion and Ventus, I kinda imagine they have a lotta issues with their identity (Xion being scared of losing herself again and not wanting to be compared to Sora, while Ventus has to deal with this odd attachment/desire to be more like Sora) while Roxas is more confident in who he is, but has a lot of frustration realizing that other people don't see him as "Roxas", and see him more as just "Sora's Other". Along with that, I like to think all of them are susceptible to feeling "disconnected" from their own bodies, with Roxas in particular having problems adjusting to his Replica body. (Xion's fear is losing herself to "Sora", Ventus' fear is that he misses being "Sora", and Roxas' fear is being seen as a shadow of "Sora". And they all have a hard time being used to just being themselves again, both mental hurdles and physical ones. ) I don't really see the Replica bodies as robotic, buuuut I kinda feel like they wouldn't be 100% human, either. I don't mean in the cyborg sense, juuuust that maybe they'd malfunction sometimes! Especially if the Heart inside (Roxas) wasn't originally a Replica (unlike Xion, who was literally made to inhabit a Replica). Though, I guess every human body can "malfunction". But Replica hiccups are more Heart-magic related, or somethin, like the Heart has trouble connecting to a new body. I just like messing around with that idea, aaand I'm really excited to share my thoughts about this eheh. I don't know if it would make too much sense in canon, but! I think it's fun to think that people who's Hearts have been "disconnected" from their physical bodies at some point might have some issues just... being a person again! Xion, Ven, and Roxas know this best, of course. So they're always looking out for each other. Xion's a lot calmer/more understanding when it comes to Roxas' Replica hiccups, while Ventus is a huge worrywart and is usually in charge of going to get help when Rox wants it. Oh man, I can imagine Ventus doing a lotta research into Keyblade Transformations so he can convert his glider into a wheelchair of sorts if Roxas ever needs it.... though on this note! i didn't know the KH manga touched on this sorta stuff!! if you or anyone has the pages as examples, feel free to tag me in them, if ya want! either way, thanks for chatting to me about this and giving me an excuse to ramble, eheh. 💚

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Man, I was holding it together so well, and then Ingo broke and I just lost it. It's been ten minutes and I'm still crying. That was just so perfect, and I love it so much, but it's so painful how much Ingo was keeping inside and how much they were both holding back, because that's what they thought the other wanted.

Emmet's like, well he doesn't actually know me anymore, and even though it hurts like hell it does make sense if he needs time to be comfortable around me again. And Ingo just... doesn't know anyway else to be. It was never really a problem in Hisui, based on the last one, because he felt pretty indifferent to the distance between himself and literally everyone else. They were all wrong, they weren't what he wanted and he had no way of clearing that hurdle. But now, now, he finally has what he's wanted so desperately for so long, and he has no idea if how close he wants to be is too much, too overbearing. So he falls back on what he knows, not realizing it's making them both unhappy and it feels Wrong because it is wrong for them.

Your Emmet continues to be my all time favorite version. I love him so much, you just Get It. One thing I cannot stand in fics is whenever they have Emmet trying to change Ingo back to how he used to be, even though it's clear that Ingo for many reasons can't go back to that and is being hurt every time Emmet does it. But this!! Emmet is understanding of Ingo's changes and why they needed to happen, is willing to accommodate almost all of them, and isn't trying to force Ingo to hurry up and remember things or just forget his entire life and experiences in Hisui. He's not putting Ingo's needs above his own, that's why they have this talk in the first place, but he loves Ingo and so is okay with putting in the mutual effort to relearn how to live together. The only thing he can't deal with is Ingo not talking to him anymore. He can't help if he doesn't know, he can't rebuild anything between them if Ingo is refusing to open up. Also, ouch ouch ouch at all of the hurt he's hiding when he thinks Ingo doesn't trust him or like how direct he is, because Emmet can't be anyone but himself. What you see is what you get, and if Ingo doesn't like that anymore...

And then the hug!! Brb, crying forever and I may never recover. The way Ingo tried to pull back, only for Emmet to pull him in tighter, just like Ingo needed but couldn't say, is just everything to me. The relief Emmet felt at finally feeling like they've well and truly found each other again. They both needed that so, so much. All that time spent hurting in silence and they only needed like a single conversation to clear one giant misconception up. Emmet knows the value of open and honest communication with each other, and I hope this helps Ingo understand that again too.

;w; THANK YOUUUU.... this is so nice i cri. i love to know i have Inflicted Emotions... tysm...

YEAH... augh "They were all wrong, they weren't what he wanted" that's SUCH a good way of putting it. it was like, he just couldn't. care abt engaging with anyone, really. like, emmet calls him a "structural support" in the last one right, and i feel like that's pretty accurate for both of them. if ingo doesn't have his brother, like, there's nothing else he can do. engaging with the strangers he's wound up stuck with is so far down on his list of Things He Has The Capacity To Think About. but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have welcomed some kind of companionship, like he does eventually bond with sneasler and his team at the very least—he just couldn't put the effort into learning how to navigate this new set of rules and get closer to anyone because he didn't have that one solid, dependable connection to fall back on. like now i'm getting Very Off Topic but i think that's a big part of why both of them can be so sure of themselves and confident normally, bc they know their brother, at the very least, will always back them up. so suddenly losing that is. Really Tough.

i know i say this every time anyone tells me about Other Emmets but WHY ARE THEY SO WRONG ABOUT MY BLORBO. PAIN AND ANGUISH. like... that's SO wrong for so many reasons... these two are fucking pair bonded since birth and platonic life partners that not even Actual God can truly separate and know each other so fucking well and. not to get off topic in a different direction again but i DO think that, one, the foundation of their relationship is trust and communication and they've been working on that since forfuckingever. and that's where i try to come at them from when i write them together (which i... haven't done or posted enough sigh) is that even when they really disagree they're never going to like, fight, or hold it against the other, or even like not address it and just be silently passive aggressive. that's not how they work, at all. and two, another thing that i need to do something with at some point but i think their life in unova is something they Built, extremely intentionally, to make somewhere they could be happy. so like. considering all that. emmet would be willing to MOVE MOUNTAINS to fix shit. he is more than happy to change he just needs ingo to fucking. talk. to. him.

but then obviously ingo's forgotten all of that! which is why it's so goddamn painful!! like emmet's worried that for some reason ingo now like, won't let him be blunt/direct or be hurt by it, which, to circle back to what i said earlier about structural supports, would mean he functionally lost that unconditional support even tho he technically does have ingo back. but it's not even about anything emmet's doing! it's just ingo's learned reaction of pearl clan avoidance that leads to that like, learned flinch response, even tho it doesn't actually bother him specifically, and obviously they're in a situation where it doesn't matter bc it's just the two of them and both of them would be way happier just talking it out. but he like, can't turn it off anymore, at least not until he acknowledges that he's actually doing it. and ironically also not until emmet flat out tells him that he can stop. i could make some obvious parallels here to the way unforgiving nt socialization fucks non-nt people up but like. yall get it already right. the dots are there just connect them

ANYWAY. that was a lot of rambling i am going to. stop now. but YEAH I CARE THEM

[easierreadthandone4711]

Shark Week

It’s about that time for my uterus to start torturing me, reminding me that I am not carrying a child inside. I know this, not only because of my calendar but because my emotions just shifted from sad girl to don’t fxckin try me. This usually lasts only a day thankfully, otherwise I’m just a sensitive girly. I think the most embarrassing time was tearing up from a bounty paper towel commercial.. it’s a problem to say the least.

Truly, I think my period serving as a reminder that I’m without child just brings my ass down. I have three babies, two angel babies and I’m still bumming over this monthly reminder? Yes. If there was anything I was certain about, it’s that I am supposed to be a mom. The silly part is getting bummed out as if I’ve even had the sex to make one. 🥲 #sadgirl for life I guess. When am I not a sad girly? When I’m with my babies. Every month, it’s the same thought: do I really wish I were pregnant? Yes. Every. Damn. Month.

I’ll be honest, I’m not even someone who “enjoyed” being pregnant. I didn’t hate it either, however, the hurdles I went through made it difficult to say “I love being pregnant”.

I miscarried the first time I got pregnant, and almost died after having my first. Two blood transfusions were needed, officially putting me in a “high risk” category after an antibody was found. My youngest was the smoothest pregnancy and labor I had. I imagine she’s the reason I’m so confidently ready to keep having babies.

The flutter that turns into kicks is definitely a highlight of all my pregnancies. I would play with my babies while they were in there, a little game of tag if you will. I would tap on different parts of my belly and wait for their response. I spoke to them all the time. Little did they know, they were becoming my best friends. There was never a time I felt alone while I was pregnant, they were as present to me as if they were out of my body already. “Good morningggg” “What are we going to eat?” “You know what you need to try, your grandfathers veal piccata” “Sorry that was so loud, it’ll quiet down again soon” I feel like my hand never left my belly.

When I say I was SAD when they were out of my body… oof. The loneliness I felt. Now I had to share them with this horrible world and this world doesn’t deserve them. The maternal instincts had kicked in when I saw the positive sign on the stick to protect them but it amplified in ways I never imagined. A trip to the grocery store was scarier than it used to be. I can’t trust the drivers around me, everything is filthy, I don’t want them getting sick, every stranger was a potential danger to my baby and it was overwhelming at times. Getting gas? Stepping out of the car with them inside of it, you’d see me making silly faces or waving into the window. “Mommy is still hereeeee - you’re not alone”

Frankly, I don’t think that feeling has gotten any better. They’re ranging from 12-15 years old now and the fact that I can’t be with them every moment leaves a constant reel of ‘things that can go wrong’ playing in my head. Are their peers being kind to them? Are their teachers treating them with respect? Don’t worry, I’m not irrational in any of this. I realize my kiddos have to grow into themselves and this society we live in today and they need to do that their own ways. I can only hope that if they find themselves in a situation where they are unsure how to move, they’ll reach out to me.

I’ll never be able to understand the neglectful parents, The abusive parents, The absent parents - never ever. When I look at my children, there’s not a damn thing I wouldn’t do to keep them happy healthy and safe. Not one fxcking thing. Our babies are born and as a mother, you’re literally their lifeline. You’re it. You’re the one responsible to love them and take care of them. I’m not going to dismiss fathers here but let’s be realistic and admit that there’s something about the bond between a mother and her child. The baby felt you first, they heard you first, their heartbeat started in you. That’s something NOBODY else in the world can say they have except that mother and that child.

Post partum depression is a struggle in itself. Not only did you spend the last nine months growing a life inside of you but now your beautiful baby is here and for some reason you’re not okay. Then you blame yourself. 😓 I should be happy. I should be over the moon in love with my baby. I’m already a bad mom, I’m not even happy. The guilt, the shame and the doubt that inserts itself creates such a dark shadow over you. The baby is crying and you sit there staring off or maybe you cry too. If by chance you’ve dealt with this before, or maybe dealing with it currently, please know, there’s nothing wrong with you. Give yourself some grace as your body just went through something truly traumatic. You did not just deliver a pizza, you grew a life inside of you, managed to bring them into this world - THAT in itself is incredible, as many women who were unable to do so can probably tell you the same, it’s not easy for some. Be proud of yourself, even if just for this moment right here as you read this. Be proud of yourself. You made it this far and you and baby are gonna grow with each other, into this new life together. The life before them doesn’t exist anymore, it’s not supposed to feel easy and seamless. You’re gonna figure it out and I know you’re strong enough because you made it this far already. Don’t discredit the last nine months. Don’t discredit the labor. You did that shit and you’re gonna conquer so much more and it’ll be the most bittersweet and incredible thing to watch your baby learn and grow into their own selves… and as strong as you remain, they’ll mimic your strength in the future. There’s no giving up now mama - you’re gonna show that baby EXACTLY what you’re made of. You’re that badass who brought them into this world and you’re gonna walk alongside them in this world - frankly, they won’t even notice that they’re carrying you too. They’re the reason you keep going ♥️ y’all have each other, just like that day you saw those two lines show up on that stick.

Didn’t expect this post to go this route but I miss my babies and there’s not a second that goes by that I don’t remember why I’m here - and that’s because of them 💜💚🩷

[rogers-the-musical]

A few thoughts on Rogers: the Musical Controversy that is Bucky

*sighs* okay, look. I have hesitated to post anything much about Rogers: the Musical because it is something that is so special to me. It’s the one thing that’s almost made me cry.

But in my attempt to stay away from tumblr haters (I usually hide out in the steady corner and don’t leave it, so I’ve had an incredible amount of non-haters in my time on tumblr), I got into a discussion with a family member who saw it with me about why Bucky isn’t in it a lot, why Peggy gets Bucky’s line (the official reason), and why Peggy gets the “end of the line” motif.

They’re Bucky’s, I get it.

but I don’t think anyone was trying to just give away all Bucky’s things to make Steggy better. I’m not sure that was part of it at all.

the composer/writer came out and said Peggy got Bucky’s line because they wanted to fit it into the story, and couldn’t get it in there with Bucky. Bucky is hardly in it; he’s a side character who would have had a lot more time had there been more time to give. They’ve told us that much. I also have reason to believe that it was a good way of introducing her character and telling us how tough she is without *actually* giving us loads of scenes from the movie. If it didn’t fit, it wouldn’t have been there.

I also understand why people are upset that the end of the line doesn’t refer to him. It’s his thing; of course it should go to him! But again, I’m not sure this was by accident. As far as I know know one’s come out and said why. I get that, too. But, with the little information and what they did to it, I can’t believe that they gave it to them in order to make the relationship “stronger”. Peggy and Steve have their own inside jokes-some which are used, and some which aren’t.

Y’all. Sometimes a move it just a move. I see that motif as a clever way to tie Steve’s show arc together, as a way to make a nod to the movie for the fans, and as a way to say, “but what happens after?” That motif isn’t just a Bucky thing: it’s also a Steve thing. What happens when you get to that end?

Yeah; I know. I sometimes wish they would have made it a song about Bucky having a conversation with Steve about going back. But the way they did it was just SO COOL and so WELL done that I can’t even be upset; I love it. It’s not there to say, look, this relationship isn’t important. It’s there to say-hey, look! We can take a cool line from the movie and weave it into Steve’s arc! We can show you in a way you’ll understand that this is the end of STEVE’S line; it’s what happens after they reach that end. It’s never been about his companion on the way there. So, yes, is it about Peggy? Yeah. But does it FIT? I’ve encountered way too much hate on Peggy (back before I knew how careful you actually have to be on fandom sites), to not have thought this out already.

And for heaven’s sake; stop hating on other people’s likes. I know I’m in the minority, but I’m also into what’s canon. You can like your ship; I’ll like mine. I have no problem with that. But having a screen in between us doesn’t give you an excuse to be unkind.

Now, why is the show even ABOUT Steve and Peggy? On paper? They said love stories make great musicals.

NOT on paper?

Peggy’s literally the most important influence in Steve’s life. She’s the single greatest relationship that influences him, and I couldn’t be happier that they honed in on it. She’s in the shadows of every movie. Other characters are important, but she’s the reason he became Captain America. So if you had to hone in on one person, it makes sense that it was her.

And besides that, this tells Steve’s story at its most basic. It’s the bare bones. Said guy gets the serum, falls in love, goes through a bunch of hurdles, gets tired, goes home. That’s what his emotional arc is about, at it’s most simple. And I love that someone also honed in on that.

I realize Bucky deserved a bigger part, and that he was the second greatest influence, but they just didn’t have time.

And remember, y’all: a show is just a show :)

if you don’t like it, that’s totally fine. But please just be respectful.

[paradoxicwashere]

Mr Freeze: The Man Who Lost Everything

Buckle Up everyone because I'm obsessed with the Snowman and am about to make it everyone's problem. Here's my pitch for reinventing Mr Freeze with his own mini-series.

Alright, first hurdle to jump is that I *hate* the New 52 retcon that Nora was never his wife. It's dumb and it ruins everything that makes Freeze great. I don't know exactly what Rebirth did but I'm sure it, or one of the other yearly universe ruining events was catastrophic enough to undo that stupid, stupid retcon.

So here we go! Long start up with the actual pitch a little ways down.

Mr Freeze was reinvented by Batman: The Animated Series with a new tragic origin that made the character everything he's become today. But the one problem with the character is his story is quite literally, frozen. Every appearance he is trying to cure his beloved Nora and every time he fails. Something has to change, and Nora finally being cured / awoken has already been explored beautifully in both the Adventures Continues & The Arkham Games. So we have to go in the other direction:

Out in the arctic, Victor works against the clock - freezing Nora slowed down her condition, it didn't stop it. He has one last chance, he races to finish the formula that will save Nora. He has but moments to save her.

He fails.

The Serum wasn't ready in time. He missed it, he didn't even get to say goodbye. Nora Fries has passed on, and Victor failed. He's broken, of course. He was so desperate to save her he didn't even see her go.

And then Batman arrives. The Dark Knight, perusing the hijacked Research Vessel. He finds it in the middle of a blizzard. Victor, kneeling in the center of it. His rage fueling the storm. But Batman dosen't stop him, he dosen't throw a batarang, he dosen't even raise his voice.

He offers Victor his hand. He knows what it's like to lose your entire world and dosen't want Victor to suffer alone. He couldn't ever get through to Victor when he was blinded by desperation, but now - maybe grief can bring clarity.

Later, back in Gotham - Police get a report that the villainous Mr Freeze has been spotted walking into a store on 34th and 12th. They arrive only to see a slightly surprised Florist with a $20 note on her counter. Elsewhere, Victor apologizes for being late as he lays flowers down on Nora's grave.

Victor has new purpose. He couldn't save Nora, but she isn't the only one to suffer her disease. He will finish the cure, and in his mission he will come to blows with the Company that ruined his life in the first place: GothCorp.

My Comic follows Mr Freeze re-imagined as an Anti-Hero hellbent on war with GothCorp, the corporation that turned Freeze into the cold-hearted Doctor in the first place and stole key parts of his research, research that he wants back. With a few new allies Freeze will do whatever it takes to complete his research, spending the rest of his days doing everything he can to leave a good Legacy on the world

For Nora.

TLDR: When he fails to save Nora, Mr Freeze is given a chance by Batman to honour her legacy. He turns his life around and is reborn an anti-hero with his sights set on reclaiming his stolen research from GothCorp so that he can finish his cure for the disease that plauged Nora.

And now some additional ideas:

Victor enlists the help of a desperate Gotham University student to drive his mobile laboratory and do some of the less dangerous work that he cannot do due to his inability to blend in. In trade he compensates them and helps with their degree.

Victor and Red Hood get along splendidly - and they both operate under Batman's rules that they're allowed to operate in Gotham as long as they do not kill.

The other villains didn't respect Victor as a threat until he reminds them how dangerous he can really be. He makes sure they know to stay out of his way upon his return.

GothCorp want to use Victor's cryo-tech to permentantly suspend patients of 'incurable' diseases as a way to wring money out of the families of the patients. The joys of American Healthcare.