chdarling

[chdarling]

i feel so powerless to stop what's happening. i did the right thing. i voted for harris. and what did it amount to? it's not like my state matters in national politics

You did what you could, and you can continue to do what you can. Donate to organizations in need, pressure your elected officials, continue to speak up and show you don't approve. Part of the point is to make people feel powerless so they don't try to oppose what's happening.

[chdarling]

help amany’s family escape gaza’s hardships — hi all, amany is the dear friend of one of my friends. they have been trying to organize her escape with her family for over a year now but it is so difficult and so expensive. amany, her husband, and their two children have been displaced several times now. her daughter has a severe case of hepatitis and no access to medical treatment. they have lost their home and have narrowly escaped being killed by israeli airstrikes. they are still only at $13,809/45,000 and even the smallest donations help them get a little closer to safety. here is a youtube video that amany made about a year ago and there is more information about her family in the gofundme link. please donate and share <3

[chdarling]

Hi :) if you like folk you probably already know about Peggy Seeger, otherwise I recommend checking her out!

I recently had the privilege to see her live and I can only hope to be as witty and confident and wise when I am 90 (or to even get there). For some reason to know what times she has lived through and that she is still singing about them gives me hope that we too have the strength to get through these times and that there will be a beyond.

Speaking of hope, being able to witness your wonderful art also gives me hope! I feel it is like a beatiful garden that I get to look into as I am walking and that brightens my day. So never feel pressured and remeber how absurd it would be to demand (like go to their house and bother them) from a stranger to work more on their garden, just so you can look at it!

Oh yes, I love Peggy Seeger. I'm so jealous you got to see her live! I bet that was incredible.

And thank you so much, that is so kind. 🥲 I have actually been tending to that garden more in the past few weeks than I have all year, and it's been a delight. Going to be a while until the flowers bloom yet, but I sure have enjoyed digging in the dirt. 🥰

(I like this metaphor 😂)

[chdarling]

Do you want to be politically pure in theory or help your neighbor. Is it fruitless to help your neighbor because there's no Perfect Pure way to do it ?

[chdarling]

Don't Hesitate, Mary Oliver

[chdarling]

don’t answer if it’s spoilers ofc but just wanted to ask… is graham gonna make an appearance in book 3, or have we seen the back of him?

cause I loooove graham (his relationship with lily and also his weird thing with sirius just have so much depth and UGH I love) and i really want to see him still (even if it’s just little cameos here and there)

Hehe. I too love Graham. We will see him again...but I won't say where or when. ;)

(and thank you!)

[chdarling]

Hi, I noticed your story has conflict in it, and I was wondering why you didn't just write people who are right doing everything correctly with a note saying "I enthusiastically co-sign everything in this story"? Must be some kind of mistake haha

[chdarling]

I feel like some of you guys think "bad art" is like someone gluing rhinestones to a water melon, or a guy who made his own armchair out of Ohio license plates, or a trashy romance novel where someone says "the blue-eyed one kissed the brown-eyed one," when in reality bad art is a 1000000 Billion Dollar movie where none of the workers got paid and every single creative decision was market tested to see how lucrative of a profit it could foreseeably make to wow shareholders.

[chdarling]

Question! Since we are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the completion of TLE2, can I ask what percentage you have written for TLE3? No pressure, I am just genuinely curious!!

A whole year 😭😭😭

To be honest, I have written almost nothing, TLE or otherwise. It’s a source of great despair for me, but I’m trying to give myself some grace, because I’ve also been dealing with some health issues over the past year — actually, probably longer than that, I was just ignoring it. Quick side note from Auntie CH: go to the doctor, friends. Even if you think it’s “just depression” or “just burnout” or, god forbid, “just laziness” — go 👏🏼 to 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 doctor. It’s probably not just that, and there’s likely something they can do to help you feel at least a little better! Go to the doctor!! Even if you’re scared of them like me! Do it!!

I digress. I’m in the early stages of an upward trajectory (I hope), and I’ve already noticed that as my physical health starts to improve, the brain fog that has plagued me for the past year(s) is starting to clear, at least a little. So I’m hopeful that I can get back to working on TLE eventually, but yeah, it’s gonna be another minute. (and for the other asks that I haven’t answered yet, it’s definitely still not coming in 2025, sorry.)

Anyway, apologies for hijacking this ask to talk about doctors, but that upcoming anniversary has been very much on my mind of late and I’ve been angsting over it more than a little. I have to keep reminding myself that I will be able to write again, one day, but I have to get healthy before that’s able to happen. So that’s what I’m focusing on this year. 🥲

And to actually answer your question: I have no idea what percentage lmao. I have a bunch of random scenes written, and I know the general plot outline, but there’s a ton left to do.

Thanks for the ask and sorry I don’t have a better answer!

[chdarling]

As , the United States, potentially heads into another forever war I can only think of this quote.

[chdarling]

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.

Angela Davis

[chdarling]

People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter

[chdarling]

I‘m pretty sure you already answered this but how old are you exactly???

I‘m confused because of your 2003 reblog because I always thought you were around 22 but…..

Also I just finished rereading TLE and I am so excited for 2026 when you hopefully publish part 3!!!

(but take your time to make it as perfect as you can!!)

Lol no, I’m not 22. I’m not going to give my exact age, because internet privacy and all that, but I was in my twenties when I wrote TLE1…I’m older now. 🙃

(And thanks for reading! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 🥰)

[chdarling]

It really is 2003 again Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

Like, all Republicans did was replace Iraq and gay people with Iran and trans people.

[chdarling]

This is going to sound so "oldie yells at cloud" of me but the radicalisation of the young into black and white, zero shades of grey thinking, both in the media they consume and in real life situations, is genuinely terrifying.

The world is complex. The world is grey. There is infinite nuance in everything. No amount of trying to shove it all into neatly labeled boxes is ever going to work.

[chdarling]

[chdarling]

weird cultural shift detected

Fam, be careful with your time online. I highly recommend sinking some time and energy into offline pursuits.

Try: knitting or crochet; gentle movement, stretching, walking if you can; playing a musical instrument, whether it's piano or penny whistle; and especially reading.

I do not mean performative BookTok reading that we do for likes because our neurotransmitters have been nerfed by modern life.

I mean actual reading that we do for ourselves alone.

If reading is hard, if attention or energy or memory are operating at a deficit, I get it. Nevertheless, please try. If you notice you're skipping across big chunks of text like a river stone, if you can't finish a paragraph, slow down, pronounce the words out loud. Stop sometimes and ask yourself what you just read. Explain the story or article or poem to your blorbo or your cat or a stuffed animal.

If your head feels scrambled up, no judgment. We may have incredibly intractable neurochemical reasons that this is hard. Just tell the blorbo, "That's hilarious, I don't remember any of what I just read. Let's read it again, together."

(Please don't ask A.I. to do this for you. Please. It's your right to read and think about it your own way. A.I. doesn't actually understand anything. Please don't assume it will guide you safely through this next weird phase of our human culture.)

If reading longform, offline, makes you feel bored or anxious, be gentle and patient with yourself. Start with stories you remember well, reliable sources of well-being. But please know you will need to put some backbone into it in the long run.

I think we are going to need to rebuild our ability to think, to process experience. This will be an unsupported activity. In fact, most of the really powerful cultural forces are making it very hard for us to notice, feel, perceive, or think clearly.

Not sure what, but something's happened quite recently that is making this situation much worse, some kind of tipping point.

Please read something every day.

Your friend, greenjudy