#no unsolicited advice please

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm gathering a list of things I need to get ready to start (or stop) doing in 2024, I feel like I'm in a good headspace to get some clarity on this kind of stuff so it's a good moment to write it down.

1. Stop giving a shit about your appearance. Like at all. It is doing you no favors and it's not going to magically start being anything but an embarrassing burden now that you're old.

2. Stop telling people about your mental health issues. Once in a while it does some good when you have sound reason to believe somebody experiences the exact same thing as you, but most of the time it results in annoyance, misunderstanding, and people scrambling to correct all your bad thoughts out of some kind of misguided moral obligation. Basically it's just exhausting and confusing for everyone involved, and venting actually has no measurable effect on your problems, contrary to popular belief. And God forbid you tell the wrong shrink the wrong thing, then you're fucked.

3. Stop, like...getting involved. Stop waking up with that feeling like today is the day you'll achieve something if you just try a little harder; you already know what happened the last time you tried a little harder. You're just going to fuck things up if you take the initiative on anything, which you already know from repeated direct experience. If anybody tries to get you to help them with something, warn them frankly and thoroughly that there's a very good chance you'll ruin it. They might hate you for being unhelpful and avoidant, but not as much as they'll wind up hating you if you convince them to count on you for anything.

4. You need a job, but make sure to aim as low as possible. Your resume makes it look like you can do more advanced stuff, but you know that you actually can't; however, there has to be a sweet spot with menial labor that you appear overqualified for (even though you aren't) but that is actually just about right for you. The trick is to figure out how to apply in a way that doesn't make you seem as desperate and insane as you actually are. Jury's still out on how to achieve this, but it should be possible.

5. Stop getting all excited about lofty ambitions and projects, and for fuck's sake stop telling people about them. If you really care, people will find out because you're just already doing your projects. Otherwise you just look stupid, and this is maybe the one way of looking stupid that you can avoid.

6. And stop fucking eating you idiot, you're not doing anything with your caloric intake anyway. Maybe you'll actually save some money for once.

[lilliths-httyd-blog]

I've got my pre-period bad feels and it's not doing me any good...

Anyway uh I crave engagement and interaction with other fandom members (normal caveman urge to interact with people I like who have interests similar to mine, so fair enough)... but like... I feel like I have to be constantly putting stuff out in order to trigger this engagement, which has thrown me into this really unhealthy cycle of "I must work in order to earn the ability to have conversations with people" basically. Like... "Nobody's talking to me, must be my fault for not posting a fic! What? I did post a fic? Oh, people just aren't interested in me anymore because I haven't been putting out work consistently, whoops, I'm just gonna be alone for a while now..." like that's where my brain is at rn and it sucks so much...

Comments on my fics are definitely slowing down. YouTube views feel like they're slowing down even though I know they're not. YouTube comments are absolutely slowing down. Notes in the tags/reblogs are too but that's because I haven't been writing many of my own posts recently because my brain is sleepy. Discord interactions aren't as down but it's just not the same, like it feels like friendships are just. Disappearing.

And I feel like it's my fault. Because I've been taking breaks from writing and video-making to interact with the real world and partake in other hobbies and have fun and GET OVER MY FUCKING PRODUCTIVITY COMPLEX WHEREIN WHICH I CHASTISE MYSELF FOR NOT BEING PRODUCTIVE 100% OF THE TIME AND IT'S ABSOLUTE HELL. Like bruh I went swimming, I baked cupcakes. I should feel good about myself but I don't. Because I haven't been posting as much recently. My art has become my means of 'earning' friendships and interactions.

I'm aware of how unhealthy and fucked this all is. I don't need advice (I've heard it all before). It's just another issue I gotta work through.

But damn, it would be nice to feel like I can actually fucking talk to people.

And I feel like all this wouldn't be as bad if I wasn't having pseudo writers/art block.

Also, I feel like it's my fault because I joined a new fandom and have been creating less for the old one.

[allhailthemightyquattro]

Seeing the hate Luke Newton is getting for the crime of having a girlfriend who isn't Nicola Coughlan, I think a few people need to consult Father Dougal's diagram.

[friend-crow]

I can't tell if it's low blood sugar or low blood pressure I've been getting, so I just rapidly alternate between eating and drinking things like "maybe THIS will balance my humors!"

[fox-teeth]

Hey everyone! Last weekend my cat accidentally knocked a drink onto my laptop, destroying half the keyboard and the ports on an elderly machine that already had issues.

I am asking for your patience and understanding while I deal with this for any delays and disruptions in store order fulfillment, responding to emails/messages, getting the TCAF debut stock up in my store, and posting art online; as my laptop was integral to all that.

If you were interested in Werewolf’s Lament or the medieval manuscript riso stickers please keep an eye on my social media for updates on their availability—unfortunately this is going to be a “replace” rather than “repair” situation and is a big, unexpected but necessary expense for me.

[horreurscopes]

hey quick legal question - so i get 2/3 meds at one pharmacy that is cheap and accepts online coupons, and my adderall at a different pharmacy that has it consistently but doesn't take any kind of discount except haggling lol. the pharmacist is kind of insane and most of the time it's good fun but last time i went there my psych accidentally sent all of my scripts to him, and when i asked to buy just the adderall because the other two were many times more expensive than they usually cost me he got all offended that i was buying from another pharmacy and threatened to not sell me adderall unless i got the other two meds too. i finessed my way out of it because ive built skills to pacify his bananas personality and haggled down to about what i usually get them for (like, a 75% discount, so it was just an arbitrary markup...) but i was really pissed/scared afterwards and want to only keep getting adderall from him -- does he have a right to refuse to sell me a prescription medication specifically because im taking part of my business somewhere else? like that sounds bonkers illegal to me but idk. it's also likely by the time i go get addies again he will have forgotten lol but i hate having to walk on eggshells now. law knowers and part time karens please advise

[bogkeep]

my special skill is that i'm not afraid of emails. in fact i vastly prefer sending emails because i can do it whenever i have time... the alternative is usually making phone calls, and the phone call times are pretty much always work hours at work days, AKA the SAME TIME AS WHEN I'M AT SCHOOL!!!! this really sucks if the only time i have the opportunity to sit down and do Important Paperwork Stuff is the weekend or the evenings!!! Let Me Send A Written Message Please Please Please

[pathologising]

I know, like, the whole Christian thing is "spread the good word," but maybe you guys could try keeping it to yourselves for once... just a thought

[midnight-wood]

Thank u for reading Nightfall. 🥺🥺🥺 Means a lot to me since I worked very hard on it but it just didn't take off.

Omg of course!!!!!!

I really enjoyed it so so much 🖤🖤🖤

Should you ever add to it, put me on the tag list!!!!

Also I will say, back when I wrote consistently, (pre COVID, a lifetime ago) nobody ever loved the ones I put my all into??? But that did not stop me and it should not stop you. 🖤

[loxosceleslolo]

this scythe looks ridiculous but it melts fucking everything so I'm keeping it. (where my INT/FTH/DEX people at)

[donnerpartyofone]

.

When I was little, in one of the earliest grades I forget which, my teacher sent me home with a note for my parents explaining that I was probably intellectually disabled and they should have me evaluated. The reason was that I was having an inordinate amount of trouble cutting and pasting. I'm sure the fact that I didn't talk and other kids treated me like a plague carrier contributed to this casual diagnosis. As my father tells it, he and my mom kind of freaked out about the possibility that they had a retarded child, and booked an IQ test for me. The legend goes that I tested higher than my mother, who had scored pretty high already, and it turned out the whole thing had been a misunderstanding; I was so shy that I always got stuck with left-handed scissors, because there was never enough of everything for the whole class, and I just never told anyone I needed something that I probably wasn't going to get. So therefore all my cutting and pasting efforts looked pretty "retarded". Ha ha ha. But I think that my parents' initial reaction to the note, that they thought it was completely possible that I was handicapped, is telling. I used to think about this anecdote in terms of how painfully introverted I've always been, but as a full grown adult I often wonder if my life could have been different if I had been put in special education. I'm just really, really incapable of things that my peers seem to do easily. Just now I was trying to organize something, and I even looked up the answer I needed (I typically use a calculator for even basic addition and subtraction, and look everything up online because whenever I just trust myself something gets ruined), and basically all I needed to know was whether or not 2 was greater than 10, and I just could not wrap my head around it, and actually I should have known the answer to my problem immediately because it was the same answer I already had for a different but related problem, but instead of just connecting the dots I started from scratch and got it wrong. And I didn't even know I had it wrong until I moronically said my conclusion out loud and someone else had to say "Ummm..." And I remember the last time I did this exact type of thing wrong, too. And on it goes. I don't know what the fuck to do with my life. I'm really fucking stupid, but you're not even allowed to admit that or someone accuses you of being negative or hard on yourself or some other thing that gives them permission to not listen to you and go on believing that life is equally great for everyone and we're all filled with the same limitless potential. It's painful to hear people tell me that secretly I'm actually smart when I don't produce any evidence and I don't reap any of the benefits. I usually go to the same allegory I use in response to the idea of being "beautiful in my own way", that saying I'm really smart when I can't do anything smart people do is like telling me I have a million dollars in the bank, just for some reason no one will take my money. I honestly think that, a lot of the time, people just assume I'm smart because I'm dorky and awkward and wear glasses and say a lot of adjectives. But I've never done anything in my life that would prove to someone that I'm smart and I struggle with the most humiliating concepts and operations all the time. I barely even got through college. It's just not there.

I feel constantly misunderstood by people, it's the whole reason I write, to try to become articulate enough to be understood, but after experiencing the same thing over and over again I think I have it inside out. I'm constantly struggling to get anyone to acknowledge or agree with what I'm saying because I'm way behind everybody else. I think it must be me who doesn't understand what anybody else is saying. That's a more rational explanation and I have to remind myself of it next time I find myself compulsively reiterating something that left everyone else scratching their head. I'm always wrong, and things have happened to me in my life that could only have happened to someone really fucking stupid. And like that would be fine if there were something for me to do. If there were some sort of halfway house I could get admitted to, or some sort of jail for stupidity. Sometimes I fantasize about like a commune I could go to where I can just do really basic manual labor like farming, and just eat what comes out of that, and just stay in my little cell all the time and be contained by having a stable routine and only one place to go. But of course any situation like that winds up turning into Jonestown or Willowbrook or whatever. Eventually I'll do something so stupid it will kill me and I'll win a Darwin award or something, but the more pressing issue is that my stupidity contributes to my emotional dysfunction. It's agonizing to be stupid, to be beneath everything you care about and admire and would like to do, and then you become hard to be around because having emotional problems is a bad quality that makes people dislike and avoid you (and who could blame them). And because I'm an intellectually-oriented person, like culturally and such, my stupidity becomes the defining characteristic of my existence. It would be OK if I were "sweet and dumb", or a dumb jock, or a sexy bimbo, or if I had a goal in life that was more material and sentiment-oriented like being a really great mom. But I don't have any of those co-components going on, only the dumb part, and you can't do anything with dumbness. It doesn't have a silver lining or a useful byproduct. It's incredibly destructive actually. I really don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself, and I don't want to do anything of the things I'm doing now. There just aren't any options for someone like me.

[softpastelqueer]

When a longtime mutual unfollows you

[otterjpg]

as a gay trans man i love the term pussyboy for many reasons, but bc of chronic pain i dont actually use mine and when i go for a lower surgery i'll prob get rid so im working on alternatives

defunctpussyboy

expussyboy

depussyedboy

[yinyuedijun]

mao, hi! i feel like my tags under “translation” weren’t enough hehe so i’m sliding into your inbox rn with some bonus thoughts and compliments <3

you’re the “wise” mutual in my eyes and adore reading your posts — i feel like i can gain a better perspective on so many things (putting aside omegaverse /j !!! the lore bits were intriguing). english isn’t my first language so i was surprised that you use many specific phrases that only someone deeply interested in some topics would use, so it’s like +++extra wise because i’ve never used these words (i know the meaning, but that’s all).

and it’s so visible in your fic with aventurine. to write about certain situations with such detail, i don’t think i could come up with ideas like that. after reading “translation” my brain expanded lol especially since your take on cultural loss isn’t something i can relate to or find in my daily life, so it’s really interesting to learn more about it.

i hope you don’t mind me being so attentive to your blog lately — i’m here to absorb knowledge and appreciate your (online) persona <3

OH MANU!!!! T_T you are so sweet i cannot describe how this ask makes me feel. it's very funny that i am the wise mutual to you because i just feel like a silly little guy yapping into the void haha. but! i am also very happy to hear that i am able to provide some interesting perspectives for you, that you might not otherwise think about! thank you for engaging with my thoughts !!

i do have to say though, as one writer to another - i think the secret trick to writing very specific narratives has a lot to do with reflecting on your own experiences or perhaps special interests, and coming up with a story that is thematically shaped by those self-reflections. (at least for me it works like that idk i do feel like a very uncreative person....catfishing everyone into thinking i'm creative when really i am just writing stuff that is familiar to me LMFAO.) there will always be narratives that you can write that no one else will be able to, because the only person with your specific set of lived experiences is you!

and omg please don't apologize for all the interaction - i love being able to vibe with you and chat with you!!!! i am looking forward to chatting more with you in the future beloved <333

[clonehub]

bliz, always in need of advice, too proud to ask, makes a demand of his desperate need for help

[bogkeep]

first week back at school and ahhhhhh everything is a little overwhelming currently

- my living space is full of boxes i have simply not had the energy to unpack at all.... hopefully this weekend (but i have also been invited to a Social Event so WE SHALL SEE)

- this school year is going to have So Much Important Stuff happening inbetween the many weeks of practice placement

- such as The Academic Text

- AND i need to finish the big project i was supposed to have finished ages ago

- our teacher this year speaks swedish with a very thick french accent and i speak norwegian with a dialect, we really struggle to understand one another but maybe hopefully that will change over time.... please...........

- i'm stressed about Stupid Bureaucracy Stuff

- and im so so sleepytired :(((

- and it's too humid and warm for comfort :(((((

AT LEAST I HAVE CUTE SOCKS

purchased in a distraught jetlag haze and subsidized by my travel insurance. they're my favourites now