#I always had to ask my mom for help

[moss-on-a-pebble]

So I’ve never actually played the crossover game but I feel like this would be their dynamic

[baejax-the-great]

My brother died very suddenly yesterday.

He was the kind of person who always had dozens and dozens of friends everywhere he went because he was easy to talk to and funny and treated people with respect, and his friends ranged in class, race, age, social ability, introversion and extroversion--no matter who you were, he could and would befriend you.

He would scold me for not asking him for help when I needed it, and he would mean it. He taught me to tip well. He loved helping people. He played practical jokes on the new kids at work, including getting one guy to "chop flour" because the flour they had in the kitchen was "too coarse."

He introduced me to some of the best food I've ever eaten in my life. He would always help with a recipe that wasn't working. He would tell me what to buy my foodie friends for their birthdays, and he never got it wrong. He loved meat and whiskey but also wine and fruit and he got me to eat beets even because he knew how to make anything good.

Mostly, he thought that people were all deserving of respect and decency. He was outspoken on this. For all that his friends ranged across demographics, he didn't tolerate anyone being hateful around him. But even then, he was nice about it. He would try to get people to come around to his side. He saw the good in people.

And he was happy. He had finally quit chewing tobacco and managed to stay off it for three years. He had a girlfriend he really liked. The pandemic had put him out of work for over a year, but he was back at his job and doing well and he liked it. He was good at it. And it's complete bullshit that he's gone.

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Blehhh

[moeblob]

Deacon willing to help people but doesn't recognize people so he doesn't remember what he did for who. So he just agrees and is like cool don't mention it then they mention it and he's like uhhhhhh.

However, that's other humans. He can identify the deities much easier because they have a unique glow. Like can actively tell Ymber "oh Lady Fulj just entered the city" and Ymber is like how the heck did you sense her that far away when I can't sense her that far away. It actually takes a while for Ymber to realize Deacon really doesn't know any of his coworkers and who he's talking to.

[starbuck]

me: hey, so i feel like you maybe disregarded my saying that caretaking on top of work and school and pre-planned travel is a lot for me right now and i’m not comfortable with all of that pressure being on me alone when i wanna make sure you guys have everything you need when i’m not around…

my family: of COURSE we heard you, that’s why we started doing a bunch of things by ourselves at great cost to our physical well-being instead of asking you for help!!!!!!

me:

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I saw you post about Seafarers, but to me, your finest work will always be Fifteen Notes to You, reread all of it the other day and... yeah, it still hits like a fucking bullet train.

I genuinely don't think it's possible to capture Mono's descent into insanity better than you did here. It reminds me a little of The Last Weekend from the anthology Inside no.9, in that, you know, both from the story itself and the context it exists in, that it won't have a happy ending, but the humanization of the characters just forces you to cling to hope that something will go right. But that rarely, if ever, happens in The Nowhere.

FNTY... Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in years...

Thank you so much!!!! I'm super grateful to see folks still enjoy my old stories :)it seems to be the general consensus even among my friends that FNTY is the best complete fic I've put out. Reading thru the comments, I remember one of a person who told me that it made them cry - and the comment made ME cry LMAOOOOOOO😭

I'm very proud of it myself as it was not only my first published fic, but my first multichaptered fic I ever completed as well. Though I am a slow writer (SEAFARERS CHAPTER 5 IS IN THE WORKS😭), for FNTY it was never because I had excessive trouble figuring out what to put on paper - especially never when in regards to the letters themselves. The most troubling parts were the in betweens, funnily enough.

Mono and Thin Man come very naturally to me when writing. I think it may be because I tend to interpret them as having very big feelings... like myself, I guess. And since the story itself is short, I suppose that I managed to make the thing itself feel like there are many big feelings in a tiny box. I will admit I got emotional myself a couple of times... then went on to edit like nothing was wrong LMAOOOO like this is how I looked writing and then editing vvv

For Seafarers, the emotional payoff has yet to come, and it will be different -- considering we have World's Most Emotionally Constipated Woman and Our Strongest Soldier (the PTSD has yet to hit because she's still actively experiencing the horrors) as the protagonists this time.

Six and the Lady are both considerably harder to write for me. I had my chance to write the Big Feeler at the very beginning because the stakes there were skyrocketing from the getgo, but now things have gotten considerably more... silent. The feelings are there but they're all kept in. OUGHHHHHHHHH

I also can't wait to introduce more stuff; I've been writing down concepts for shadow magic and powers, how the Maw works, the various things the Lady of the Maw has to look after to keep it afloat... and the Ladies. Look, I'll say that I'm really happy with what I'm doing with Teapot and Rascal. And with Teapot in general. I really like the characterization I pulled out of my ass LMAOOOOOO and the DESIGN... ok so I'm willing to share a couple of the Teapot's I've doodled

(She's genuinely very silly [read: sick in the head]... i gave all the Ladies some nice additional details because. Ik the point is that they all look very similar but I love designing outfits fuck it this is MY au i do what I want)

So right now I have a suspicion that Seafarers will hit better when it's finished and can be read from beginning to end. Since it's longer (I plan it to be... around 15 chapters? A bit longer if the events require it to be.), there will be more time to let the stuff brew until it reaches its climax as intended.

[giddlygoat]

my brother can make me laugh without moving at all. he can make me laugh on command, just by existing, and there is no physical tell or indication that it is about to happen. it’s like he can will me to laugh and i will. of course we’re not telepathic, but we do speak in unison sometimes. we improvise like no one’s business. we could fool anyone into believing we are psychically linked. when i try to explain it, i sound silly saying it out loud, but i really CAN tell what he’s thinking. we exchange so much information just with a look. he can make me cry laughing and he doesn’t even have to move

[hballegro]

i am a metronome of 'this problem is easily solvable if you talk to a certain person in your life and it'll only get worse if you leave it be, calm down and bite the bullet' and 'you've already left it a long time and asking for help even from loved ones is really really hard so actually cry in a ball'

we must destroy the grey head jelly for being the most inconsistent and rude bastard in the world

[sqlmn]

Ananza is the wind deity, though she's not the first with that honor. Originally the elder gods selected a man as their wind deity but after he witnessed Oh and Fulj being punished he requested to relinquish his role. Basically asking them for a mortal death rather than immortality. They obliged since the deities exist to help humans and a miserable deity won't do the job properly so no need to keep a deity bound to a task they don't want to do.

So Ananza was selected as a replacement. Fulj has no recollection of the first wind deity and Ananza has already been told by the fire deities that it wasn't Fulj's fault but she was the final straw for the former wind deity. So, Ananza doesn't hold any dislike towards Fulj and actually really likes listening to her talk. Ananza loves to dance and wander around her city so when Fulj stops by to visit, she listens to Fulj's adventures while they roam the city.

Because there are two fire deities and one can stay in their city while the other wanders and because Fulj no longer has a city to be focused on, the three like to visit the other cities to check in. Ohime and Ohiwe really like to visit Ananza while Fulj prefers to visit Ymber. While Ananza likes Ohiwe, Ohime, and Fulj, she really isn't fond of the ice deity or Ymber. She doesn't like to scramble for topics and ice/Ymber don't start conversations enough so it's a bother to Ananza to try forcing friendliness. She loves light hearted stories though and Fulj and the fire deities excel at that type of story.

(Ohime and Ohiwe sometimes call her Nana and on that note it's lore in the tags time)

[bambiraptorx]

sometimes i forget that being depressed isn't normal honestly

[nervocat]

I could have therapy rn yk. If my dad didn't outright say no to me when I ASKED HIM BTW

[curioscurio]

Most of my sinus infection has cleared up besides the occasional cough and irritated throat but now this ear infection.... everything hurts can I please have a break before I have to go back to work just a day without pain so I can clean up my sicknest without feeling like ass

[brittlebutch]

actually, having a kind of revelatory moment here of if HRT was something i have been considering for this long, but has remained inaccessible to me, then that means i Do actually have opinions about my appearance/presentation, so just because i can't take That Particular step doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other avenues i could be pursuing (ie, clothing/accessories/etc.) that i just haven't let myself up until this point. like i don't have to shove it All aside just because there's one thing i can't get -- I'd probably still wind up a lot happier if I took those other steps I've spent all these years ignoring

[itsalwaysdark]

anyways sry its not srs eventually ill get it together . and be a person again. one day

[blizzardfluffykpop]

why the fuck do i miss pigeons

[mars-ipan]

overcoming anxiety (through practicing the things that scare you) is so interesting. i used to be horrified of taking up space or alerting other people of my presence. now i'm compelled to tell strangers i like their outfits or hair or earrings- on bad days i tell maybe a quarter of them. do i still overthink it? absolutely. but i call attention to myself to tell someone else my opinion. and with the way they tend to smile and tell me "thank you!" i'm pretty sure it's taken to heart.

i used to be horrified of making phone calls as well. this is one i'm still getting over- i just Don't Like Doing It. i used to have a phone call routine that i still joke about- realize i need to call someone, cry, avoid it for a few days, suck it up, write a script, memorize the script, cry again, final script read, make the call with the script in front of me. and i would be Exhausted by the end of it. i don't cry when i need to call people anymore. i'm even needing scripts less and less- i've found out that people actually won't kill me if i talk a little too fast or stumble on my words. i doubt i'll ever like making phone calls- i especially hate robots (i'm afraid they'll mishear me and direct me wrong or a person will suddenly show up and i won't be prepared)- but i can make them now.

i get overwhelmed really easy. just a thing that happens to me. my brain is really really good at taking one task and breaking it up into thousands of little tasks and it feels like i'm drowning. if i try to make it fewer larger tasks then it starts to feel insurmountable. i was completely lost on how to deal with this (other than avoid until you get that panic attack and can do work in the post-catharsis calm until 6:00 AM) until one night when my dad (who i often meet late at night due to overlapping mental illness symptoms) asked me how to eat an elephant. i looked at him, confused, and he said "one bite at a time." that was way more effective than any other analogy i've seen has been. "light at the end of a tunnel"- i don't feel like i'm moving forward, i feel like i'm scaling a wall. "steps on a trail"- i can see my destination, but it feels impossible to move forward. but eating an elephant? that sums it up perfectly. this huge task which seems impossible at a glance. but it must be done. so you eat the elephant, a bite at a time. every time i'm overwhelmed i repeat that phrase to myself. it hasn't made any major changes yet, but it keeps me calm enough to start before i hit the panic attack, which i'll take.

i was such a perfectionist growing up- i actually thought it was a good thing (school always taught me to strive for perfection). but it made me scared to try new things- if i wasn't immediately good at them, then it clearly wasn't for me. i'm still not great at starting new hobbies, but i try a lot of new things within the hobbies i already have. i test out different ways of making art, i try new puzzle games i don't understand, etc. and the feeling of steady improvement reminds me that i don't need to be good right away. some of the most satisfying moments don't come from immediately being good- they come from achieving that skill over time. i'd like to try to learn to sew soon.

idk it's interesting. i rewire my own brain's fear response by doing the Horrifying Thing enough times for me to understand that no i will not die. and while i'm doing it it feels like nothing is changing. i get so stressed every time- it can actually take a lot out of me (turns out fight-or-flight burns a lot of energy). but i look back at then vs. now and i realize how far i've come, and i can't help but think "huh. neat"