#all i want to do is focus on my writing/youtube/activism stuff

[tirfpikachu]

tfw i have $948cad and rent is $980 AND MY PLACE IS A WRECK

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[helpimstuckinafandom]

I actually feel like i'm losing it I only started playing bg3 on friday/saturday and I am in withdrawl from just one day without it

[y3joon-png]

Minsung and Neurodivergence

As a person with neurodivergence (adhd & anxiety (maybe autism too)), i find much comfort and see myself a lot in Han Jisung and Lee Minho. Over time i've noticed a few behaviors from them that could be explained by neurodivergences. As such, i think that han jisung might have adhd while lee minho might have autism. This way i wanted to write a document about why i think this for both of them using official psychological work. My goal isn't to put a diagnosis on them (because i'm not a psychologist), but it is to at least make some neurodivergent people understand why they might feel so understood by them, or even for some neurotypical people to understand Jisung & Minho 's behaviors.

Han Jisung - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development. ​To be perfectly exact, ADHD isn’t just about attention deficits; it’s about attention dysregulation. (Source : CDC)

There are a lot of symptoms (need to note that ADHD just like autism is a spectrum, as such, symptoms are really different from a person to another and can vary in intensity), but here are the most common ones that can apply to Jisung : 

Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.​ (Source : The Guardian)

Indeed, we can often see that Jisung struggles to give attention to specific stuff especially when he is not interested in it. As someone who suffers from ADHD : I can stay closely focused on things that deeply matter to me (my art, hyperfixations etc) while I can't focus on things that are outside of my interests. -> Jisung often said that he could spend hours in front of random documentaries or YouTube videos because he’s interested, but that he had a lot of struggles studying back then because he wasn’t interested. Hyperfocus is a lesser-known aspect of ADHD, but it does exists and it doesn’t mean that because someone can concentrate they don’t have ADHD (because it is a symptom too).

Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities. (Source : Cleveland Clinic) 

As I explained before : Jisung seems to struggle to keep attention, sometimes even when he is interested in what he does. For example, we can see in one of his vlogs him completely losing attention in working on a song because of the frustration of the work in itself. This aligns with the ADHD symptom of difficulty sustaining attention, which can occur even in enjoyable activities due to fluctuating dopamine levels.

Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities. (Source : Wikipedia)

We all know about Jisung’s lack of organization, especially in his own space. Indeed, he’s a really disorganized person (which caused a few banters with Bang Chan) and struggles also to organize his work in addition to his own space.

Is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli. (Source : Hopkins Medecine)

This side is often shown in his lives or vlogs when he changes topic suddenly because, somehow, his brain thinks the new topic is more interesting. Same thing with the fact that he has to watch YouTube all the time, or how he often seems to notice random things that distract him while he is doing something else.

Often fidgets with or taps hands or feet, or squirms in seat. (Source : Wikipedia) ; Often leaves seat in situations when remaining seated is expected. (Source : Nation Institute of Mental Health)

Those two can also be caused by Anxiety which Jisung suffers from. However, this stimming can be noticed in his behaviors pretty often even outside of situations that could cause anxiety. As such, he is often squirming, bouncing his leg or fidgeting something in his lives or even when he shakes his arms or claps, during interviews or even SKZCODE.

Often talks excessively.​ (Source : Nation Institute of Mental Health) ; Often blurts out answers before a question has been completed, Often has difficulty waiting their turn.​ (Source : Wikipedia) ; Often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g., butts into conversations or games). (Source : Nation Institute of Mental Health)

Jisung is known to be a yapper, especially when he is interested in the topic discussed. Also we can often see him (especially when he was younger) interrupt others to speak or just to play his turn in a game. (note : those behaviors are often toned down by anxiety in stressful public situations.)

Also, stimming is more usual in ADHD than we think it is. Indeed, ADHD often makes you fidget or impulsively say something (e.g., song lyrics, tiktok trends, quotes etc.) (Source : ADDA) ((ADHD stimming is when a person with ADHD displays self-stimulatory behavior by repeating certain sounds and movements unconsciously.))

As I showed earlier, Jisung stims a lot, either it is due to his anxiety or to ADHD and both can occur at the same time.

Lee Minho - Autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability characterized by differences in the brain, leading to challenges in social communication and interaction, as well as restricted or repetitive behaviors and interests. ​(Source : CDC)

There are a lot of symptoms (Autism, just like ADHD, is a spectrum), but here are the most common ones that can apply to Minho : 

Does not show facial expressions like happy, sad, angry, and surprised (Source : CDC)

This might be controversial (as a lot of “official” symptoms of Autism, which are way more numerous than ADHD’s ones) so i chose to put only this one (through all the ‘no eye-contact’, ‘not noticing when others are hurt’ etc.) specifically because Minho has often a really blank expression on his face. If we take away his stimming (which is usual and which I will come back to later), he doesn’t show specific facial expressions a lot. + autistic people don’t always have less expression—they might have atypical expressions (e.g., delayed reactions, sudden bursts of emotion) which we can definitely see in Minho (e.g., his “weird” selcas)

Repeats words or phrases over and over (echolalia). + Stimming – or self-stimulatory behaviour – is repetitive body movements or noises. Stimming might include: hand and finger movements – for example, finger-flicking and hand-flapping. body movements – for example, rocking back and forth while sitting or standing. (Source : Raising Children Network) ; Flaps hands, rocks body, or spins self in circles. (Source : NIMH)

Indeed, and it is one of my biggest point in my theory, but Minho does stim a lot  : his small phrases/words that he often repeats, the way he pouts really often (especially when he’s concentrated), the way he claps his hands when happy, or the way he specifically moves when happy in general. All of those are extremely similar to autistic stimming.

Has unusual reactions to the way things sound, smell, taste, look, or feel.​ (Source : Nation Institute of Mental Health)

I can only remind you guys on specific moments that had happened : Minho getting scared at loud noises (e.g., the small explosion of confetti at the fanmeeting 2024), or how his face contorts when he eats (+ how he stimmed while eating in his lives on the 16/11/2024).

Has obsessive interests. (Source : CDC)

This might be obvious to you but some of Minho’s favorite things actually seem like hyperfixations, the way he always refers to them and goes to them when he needs comfort or a feeling of safeness (e.g., his cats, pudding, or even Han himself).

Must follow certain routines.

This is one of the most known symptoms of ASD, and even though we don’t know much about Minho’s daily life I think the way he talks about his usual work out and other daily activities on Bubble shows well how deeply he is attached to his routine.

Some autistic individuals may struggle to put their emotions into words, leading to the perception that they are indifferent or unresponsive. ; They might show less facial expression or speak in a monotone voice, even when feeling strong emotions. (Source : Autism Speaks)

As I’ve shown it earlier, when he doesn’t stim, Minho can seem extremely blank. In addition, it is really explained in the ‘Two Kids Room’ shows which includes Minho that he really has struggles expressing his feelings, especially in words.

They may have strong emotional attachments to specific people, animals, or objects. (Source Cleveland Clinic) 

As shown earlier : Minho’s 3 cats, Han Jisung etc.

Some autistic individuals may express love and affection in nontraditional ways, such as acts of service, sharing their special interests, or mirroring behaviors rather than through physical touch or verbal affirmation. (Source : Mayo Clinic)

As we said, Minho struggles to express his emotions through words. As such he shows his affection through small acts : the free food tickets for Jisung’s birthday, copying Jisung small dances (or following him in singing etc.), putting his hand on Jisung’s leg, hugging the members etc.

In conclusion, I can’t diagnose them at all because as I said earlier I'm not a psychologist. However i hope a few things : 1st, that I helped you being slightly more informed on those two syndromes, 2nd, that you could see their “weird” behaviors a different way, and 3rd, that maybe some neurodivergent STAYs could understand why they see themselves in Minsung (it is specifically because they both show a lot of symptoms). Whether or not they are neurodivergent, seeing elements of ourselves in public figures can help us feel understood and validated. Minsung's behaviors, intentional or not, may provide comfort to neurodivergent fans who relate to them.

[dollishmehrayan]

random as ever, but do you have any tips for learning new languages?

Hii, okay so I gathered a list for you to learn but I definitely know one thing is that all the languages I know became easier for me because I surrounded myself with people who speak it too and just thought that I would share that first because it takes me about 9 months to fluently master pronunciation + speaking + writing and etc and all the languages I listed I have no problem speaking today so yeah , okay so here’s my list!

1. Immerse Yourself in the Language

Surround yourself with the language through movies, music, and TV shows and like if that specific language country has memes so like any social media app changes your algorithm yk?

Change your phone, apps, and social media settings to the language you're learning, like for me my whole phone is in dutch too from back when I was learning but I’m luckily now highly fluent in Dutch but I’m trying to navigate slang words though

Try to think or talk to yourself in that language during the day, like try to talk to yourself in that language in your mind or try to read / pronounce whatever language you want

2. Practice Daily (Consistency is Keyy)

Dedicate at least 15–30 minutes daily to learning or practicing at your desk or just anywhere (I would recommend 30 minutes a day)

Use language teachers but I would NOT recommend duolingo even though it could be used as a small fun activity for you since you’ll learn some small words

Focus on speaking, listening, reading, and writing in equal measure so you don’t get stuck on only being able to write the language or like speak it

3. Learn Vocabulary First

Start with the most common words and phrases (basic greetings, numbers, and survival words, 1,2,3,) just etc

Use flashcards too but you can always find someone to like help you while they hold whatever you wrote while you try to memorize it

Label everyday objects in your brain to your specific language

4. Focus on Practical Phrases

Learn phrases you would actually use in daily life not just very formal like google translate does but instead maybe a bit of slang && casual stuff for everyday and etc

Practice introducing yourself, ordering food, or asking for directions even if you aren’t in that country

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Speak

Even if you're a beginner, try to speak the language early on even though you might be embarrassed slightly it’s okay and it just means the more progress

Practice with language exchange partners or tutors online

6. Grammar Isn’t Everything at First

Focus on getting your point across rather than being perfect but later on try to fix your grammar as you go on yk what I mean?

Learn grammar in small doses; prioritize understanding sentence structure basics and being able to understand

7. Surround Yourself with Native Speakers

Join language meetups or local groups or like pen pals or online friends

Watch native speakers' content on platforms like YouTube or social media watch those specific people from certain country you want to speak its language

Use social media to follow creators in the target language too

8. Make it enjoyable

Learn with activities you enjoy

Listen to music and look up lyrics of specific song

Watch dubbed versions of your favorite shows or cartoons in that language (try to watch educational shows in that specific language)

Play games or read books in the target language

9. Practice Listening Early

Listen to podcasts or audio content designed for learners

Pay attention to pronunciation and intonation even if you don’t understand everything yet but it will help later

10. Use a Notebook or Journal

Write down words, phrases, and grammar rules you learn in your notebook daily

Practice writing short sentences or stories daily

11. Test Yourself Often

Take quizzes, do language puzzles, or play word games to test your memory

Use apps or websites that provide exercises and feedback

12. Be Patient with Yourself

Learning a language takes time and effort, so don’t rush it into months and weeks and don’t quit early too

Celebrate small wins, like understanding a phrase or having a short conversation with someone whether irl or yourself or online

13. Expose Yourself to Different dialects of specific language (if it has any)

Languages can vary by region of like specific country

Listen to different dialects to develop a broader understanding of the language

14. Track Your Progress

Set achievable goals (e.g., learn 50 new words a month, or hold a basic conversation in three months) promise yourself something rewarding like a night out or etc

Reflect on how much you’ve improved, even if it feels small and try to kinda romanticize it too

15. Never Stop Being Curious

Learn about the culture behind the language instead of just learning the language and try to connect with the culture and respect it too

Ask questions, explore idioms, and understand humor in the language and quirks and words that they only have in that language

Okay so that was all my list so I hope you enjoy <33

[allthingslinguistic]

Language Guinea Pig Diaries #2: Highlights & Troubleshooting

I'm trying to improve my skills at four languages in preparation for summer travel: Italian, Dutch, Finnish, and Estonian.

Italian and Dutch I've studied a bit a while ago and I'm now trying to "activate" so I can hopefully have a conversation or two in them, while Finnish and Estonian I'm trying to pick up some rudimentary bits in. Here's the previous post in this series describing these goals and strategies in more detail.

Highlights

I've progressed from my menu of only gelato-making videos in Italian to other recipes in general, and in particular to lots of cooking videos from this popular Italian home cooking channel which was in the recommended videos after another one I watched. Maybe I'll branch out again at some point to other speakers, but for now it's nice to be able to stumble into more videos without having to think up new keywords to search. Also, I might need to make some of these recipes now...

The Dutch podcast listening is going well (though see weird issue below) and I especially like that the podcast I chose because it's the only podcast I knew in Dutch contains a mix of adult-to-adult and adult-and-child speech, which is a fun way to mix it up.

In Estonian, so far I have learned one (1) highly useful word, "tere", which this video tells me is an all-purpose neutral greeting (neutral with respect to both formality and time of day). Ooh, I've just realized while writing this post that it's probably cognate to Finnish "terve", a greeting I learned from Duolingo! (Yes, I just looked this up, seems like they both mean something to do with health.) So I've already learned one neat thing!

I'm also recognizing a few Estonian cognates from the Finnish Duolingo lessons, especially the verb "on" (which means "is"). I'm not recognizing many other words though, and I'm wondering how much of that is differing vocab and how much of that is not having learned many common words in Finnish yet (I've been especially chafing at how few verbs we've learned yet, it would be really useful to have a word like "I want" even if it's unanalyzed because the grammar is more complicated than they want to introduce early).

Youtube's algorithm has, after about a week, adjusted to the fact that I now want to watch videos entirely in Italian, and started recommending further Italian videos on my home feed (it was already doing so at the end of previous Italian videos). Tiktok's algorithm, so far, has not done this yet, and is still recommending me stuff in English, despite me aggressively liking basically all of the Estonian videos I watch and nothing else.

Troubleshooting

I've noticed that it's been easier to remember to do the podcast listening in Dutch and the youtube videos in Italian because I already have habits related to opening those apps, whereas I don't have habits around using tiktok so I kept forgetting to open it and look at some Estonian videos. But a couple days ago I moved the tiktok app on my phone to a more visible location, and now it's getting easier to remember.

Something else very weird that I noticed about listening is that when I play the tracks on my phone fairly loudly, it's relatively easy to focus on trying to listen to them, sometimes while playing a simple visual game on my phone for something to fiddle with (I've already noticed that unfamiliar languages need to be played louder than familiar ones). But when I beam the podcast over to my speaker at a distance, suddenly I very quickly start tuning out the unfamiliar language and opening up apps that involve reading and completely ignoring it. I have no problems listening to podcasts on speakers in English; in fact, it's my preferred method when I'm at home, but for some reason this causes my brain to reclassify Dutch as background noise to be ignored, even if it's the same loudness as it would be when it's played right near me. Super weird, has anyone else ever noticed anything like this?

Previously in Language Guinea Pig Diaries:

Summer 2024 travel plans and Language Guinea Pig Diaries

[shippingmyworld]

What are your headcanons on how Danny and Sam's relationship ended? I'm interested on how you see Danny's background because I really like how you write him! He's just so *devours him in the way an animal would eat meat and leaves a clean bone behind*

A wild animal devouring a corpse, to my writing? *sniffles* that's so kind of you to say =D

I kinda touched on how I think the Sam x Danny ship sunk a little bit in this ask here, but your ask got me thinking about it again. I've gone a bit more into detail below the cut (apologies for the word vomit because it's a lot lol)

There are a few factors that I think played into the ending of Sam and Danny's relationship, but I think the biggest part of it would be that Sam takes a step away from ghost hunting as time goes gone. I mentioned that I think Danny and Sam's relationship lasted like 4 months tops following the shows finale. That's because I think that big ghost activity died down following Phantom Planet. There's an unspoken truce that holds between the Ghost Zone and Amity Park for a while. Ghosts still cross over now and then to fulfill their desires and feed of human emotions, but the haunting stuff is mostly harmless now (i.e., Ember crashes a few open mic nights to play music, Lunch Lady breaks into restaurants right before opening to do kitchen prep work, Box Ghost rearranges the contents of warehouses overnight to his own liking). Since this stuff is all sort of juvenile annoyance now, Tucker and Sam don't really need to tag along to help Danny. In fact, most of the time that they do tag along, Danny just has to frown at the offending ghost and they'll begrudgingly fly themselves back to the Ghost Zone without a fight.

Now that ghost hunting is more or less 'boring' and require no effort from Tucker and Sam, they start focusing on their own things. I think that with Sam's personality, she wouldn't want to simply ride through life on her families wealth. She'd want to double down on her studies and get into a college that could help her get out and actually make a change in the world (I personally see her trying to get a double degree in Sustainably Sciences and Zoology or something so she can work with endangered animals and better their society for the environment). I think Tucker would be the type of person to try and capitalize on how fast technology and social media is growing and try and make his living that way. The show takes place vaguely between 2005 and 2009, when stuff like YouTube is in its infancy after all. I personally feel that with his personality (and vanity), he'd absolutely eat up the attention being an internet personality naturally comes with and would want to dedicate himself fully to cultivating it.

Inadvertently, cutting down on ghost hunting to focus on their own desires means that they're cutting also down on Danny time.

When Tucker turns down a ghost hunt with Danny the first time, it doesn't affect Danny that much. After all, their relationship hasn't changed. They're still best friends, and they've had years to get to know each other. When Sam however, turns down Danny the first time, it becomes a very big deal and strikes painfully in Danny's heart in a way he wasn't expecting. After all, their relationship as a couple is still new at this point. Being boyfriend and girlfriend is still uncharted waters. Danny expected some change, but Sam acting the same as normal makes him start to question if this is the kind of romantic relationship he wants.

Danny is over-protective (Jazz with Johnny 13, Sam with Gregor, Maddie with Vlad), which I believe is a sign that Danny is codependent to a slightly unhealthy degree. He wouldn't be aware of this facet of his personality at this point in time, simply because Tucker and/or Sam have always been at his side when it came to ghost hunting. But once Sam innocently sends him off to deal with the hunt on his own (she thinks nothing of it, just that she's really got to get home and study for this test next week), Danny's perception of Sam changes. He becomes hyperaware that she's her own human person, with her own dreams and ambitions that are different from his own.

It's not immediate, but the intrusive thoughts start to fester in the back of his mind. Sam can simply step away from ghost activity when she wants to. Hell, she could move out of Amity Park and away from this ghost hot spot (which she will probably do with her ambition of wanting to change the world). Danny however, can't. He'll literally always be aware of ghost activity, no matter where he is, because he himself is half-ghost. Doesn't that mean that Sam might chose to step away from him one day? If she wants to take a break from ghosts, then that means she wants a break from Danny, doesn't it? Danny doesn't voice these concerns though, letting them warp his thoughts and perceptions until it quickly becomes a 'fact' inside his head that Sam will leave him one day. He'll realize that he doesn't want Sam to walk out of his life because she's important to him, which only gives him more reason to not communicate these feelings because that will accelerate her departure.

However, that opens up a whole new can of worms because why is she someone that's just 'Important to him?' Doesn't he love her? Yes, absolutely, she's irreplaceable. But does that mean he loves her romantically, or platonically? Is she just a convenient replacement for the lingering affections he had for Valarie (yes but he won't admit it)? The longer he lets himself think about it and reflect on what he wants out of a romantic relationship, the more he will close himself off because he doesn't want to accidentally say the wrong thing and lose Sam.

Sam however, isn't as dense as Danny thinks she is. She quickly notices that something is bothering him. However, the first few times she tries broaching the subject, Danny shuts down. Sam will chose to drop the conversation immediately after the first rejection and wait for Danny to feel comfortable enough to share his feeling with her. However, this isn't what Danny wants. Danny wants someone that will call him on his bullshit, someone that will storm through the Ghost Zone if need be, someone as headstrong as he is that will pester him into opening up about what's bother him because that shows that they are actually concerned about his well-being.

(*Cough* Manny-no-tact-Rivera *Cough*)

It's not enough for someone to just physically be there with him. Danny's love language is seeing/hearing someone show concern for him, stuff like words of affirmation and choosing to actively engage and talk about both halves of his life. This is important to him, especially since I believe he's very self-conscious about the ghost half of his life. He doesn't show it, but all hatred the town and his parents showed towards ghosts in his early years deeply affected him; he wants someone to talk to about this half of his life because it will make him more comfortable with himself.

Since Sam believes the right thing to do is back down, this causes more strife their relationship. And what's terrible about it isn't because they don't like each other, it's simply because their perceptions of a healthy relationship are fundamentally different and they haven't been able to communicate this to each other. Danny believes that a good relationship is a partnership with both partners willingly engage and are involved in pretty much every aspect of each other's lives; whereas Sam believes that each person in the relationship should be independent to a large degree and respect the boundaries that their partner sets.

Incidentally, Danny subconsciously puts a pin this train of thought and references it later when questioning his own sexuality; when he's reflecting on it all later (once the dust from his and Sam's breakup settles) he realizes that the gender of the person he's with doesn't matter to him. What matters to him is everything above (I headcanon Danny as identifying as Demisexual and Biromantic).

As time goes on, Sam and Danny's relationship continues to sour. Just like how Danny's letting his emotions and intrusive thoughts fester, Sam is too. She's starting to get upset that Danny's not sharing whatever is bothering him with her. Does that mean he doesn't trust her enough to be vulnerable and honest with her? Again, neither person is communicating this with each other, and they start to not enjoy each other's company.

Then, the whole thing comes to a head during a trio game night. Tucker, Sam, and Danny are playing an online co-op. Sam and Danny can't seem to get it together, resulting in Tucker going 1v3 against the enemy team. When Tucker asks why their coordination sucks, Sam's annoyance with losing the game will make her remark about how Danny needs to communicate more when something is bothering him (referring to the fact he's getting spawn camped, but also their relationship). Danny shots back a remark about how she needs to be more aware of when something is happening to her team and stop focusing solely on her own task (the spawn camper and their relationship again). The passive-aggressive remarks escalate until it becomes a full blown shouting match and eventually they end up saying they both think they should break up mid-match.

Meanwhile poor Tucker is just sitting there listening to them argue on headset like:

I already mentioned in the other ask that Danny and Sam would eventually reconcile, talk, and remain friends (thanks to Tucker getting annoyed at them) so I won't retype all that here. Instead, I'm going to throw in that I think following the break-up, Danny would lean much heavier into his friendship with Tucker.

I think Danny would ugly cry in Tucker's arms following his breakup with Sam, believing that he's forever lost someone important that's been in his life since second grade (and as a high school teenager barely 15 years old at this point, that's pretty much his entire life). He basically lets everything he was holding back from Sam spill to Tucker in the most dramatic version emotional sobbing. Tucker's gotta verbally reassure him that he's not going to walk out of Danny's life, even if he becomes some techno billionaire one day. This does actually help Danny calm down and start to think rationally again, instead of emotionally.

In fact, this sob session is what start Tucker on the path to wanting to make his friends reconcile again because he knows that the whole situation came about from poor communication. When he does get Sam and Danny to talk it out, it ends up being one of those really deep conversation you have at slumber parties at like 3am when no one can sleep. They end up talking about the future they all want, what they all value in their lives, and basically reaffirming their friendship with each other. Sam and Danny agree that what they want out of a romantic relationship with someone is fundamentally different, so they should just be friends instead. They also agree they both have some unhealthy habits, and that they will call each other on them should they ever see the other person fall into them again.

Tucker meanwhile says this will make great content for his channel, and Sam and Danny both instantly turn on Tucker and says they'll sue if he uploads anything about them.

[maive-the-sheep]

Hey, I just wanted to say your post about how people without ASPD can be prone to locating our goodness in feeling the “correct” emotions (guilt, shame, a feeling of care) instead of actually helping other people has been knocking around in my head since I read it. What an absolutely scorching and correct take. Thank you for sharing.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that’s had a profound impact on me and I think like that other post says doing good things without the evolutionary wiring for it should be recognized for the revolutionary act of care that it is. The world is better with you in it, and I hope you’re having a good day.

Much 💚 from one person pathologized as fundamentally bad because of my experience of empathy to another

For the reason for long response, been dealing with a severe ear infection cause severely below freezing weather where for a week heaters only function that worked was sensing when too cold so blasting air...so constant freezing. Have to try 2 extra meds for final phase of recovery cause whats left is uncommon.

Figured I should give the courtesy of that explanation as I have read this and your tags and such on my posts.

I'm glad my takes on aspd and morality have had such an impact on you, it's honestly inspiring and hopeful to me to see what I say having a positive impact on others. I deeply want to promote a positive change in perspective. Of people more open to the nuance of the world. More focused on actions. Break down assumptions to the truth. Willingness to be wrong and to learn. To actively work for change (including of own bad behavior) over simply wanting to but not willing to put in the effort. To be perseverant over defeatist.

Like my goals for vtuber (which will start with pngtubing which in the process now) while i will do self imposed challenges on stream (entertainment) while being openly aspd (no other vtuber) the primary goals will go towards youtube. With videos talking about actual psychology looking at studies in depth but making it more digestible to average viewer while always giving proper sources. A punk rock rap album talking about part of aspd and societies views in a nuanced manner. Talking about the variety of ways to determine if vtubing is right for you (so many push for others to get a free or cheap easily copyable model that simply by being that, wont vibe with as well...so becomes a self fulfilling doom promotion), about various big world issues people are focused on that they can barely dent and how they can switch that to other smaller things they can make huge impacts and how that stuff adds up and builds on eachother (empowerment focus)

I'm actually currently in the process of writing a post about the true benefit vs detriment of fake vs real leather, fur, wool, embalming fluid, latex vs nitrile, milk, types of meat(cause all connected) with all the nuance associated with it. Because so many get caught up to what they presume is the best moral option or the fact that they feel can't make a difference in this. And I have the knowledge. So why not help?

Anyways, thank you for being willing to listen and learn. And for saying good for me to be in it.

And I hope you have been having atleast decent enough days.

[anheliotrope]

So here's my WR run. It's uncommented so frankly it's kind of boring. I'm going to use this post instead to babble about my Journey.

Hero Beggining

I started out because I saw Nitram and Ramisme doing a DXRando race on YouTube and I thought it was the coolest shit ever.

I've missed the train on a lot of online activities in the past. There are more communities and gaming eras I missed out on than I can count. Largely due to EF or lack of knowledge or just... passivity. I decided I can't let another one just slide past me, so I joined.

The community was very encouraging and after doing my first run at 3h12m I was thinking... damn this shit is exhausting and I can't imagine ever being as good as Ramisme or Nitram!!

3h-2h30m

I kept going though. I didn't want or need to be the best. I was enjoying myself and knew there was a lot of room to improve. By the time I got down to 2h30m I realized I could beat the time of the head developer of the mod. I found the idea very appealing for whatever reason and made it my target.

Feeling like I had so much room to improve and entering this iterative process was amazing. Not a lot of games give you that. You often progress through games and you often add more layers of complexity, but it's actually quite rare for an experience to be centered so much around self-improvement and doing better. It's even rarer that you actually feel that improvement pretty much constantly. I can get significantly better at Starcraft 2, or AoE2, or MOBA, but thanks to EloGPT I'm generally not going to feel it as much. And there's so much stupid bullshit those games throw at you that it often distracts you from being an effective improooover.

2h30m-1h50m

Once I got close to 2h, improving at the game became easier because it took less time to get a complete run. The iterative process became even smoother now. Every run had a dozen low hanging fruits I could get better and better at picking up.

This is where I became better than the devs, which was quite satisfying. Of course, they spent most of their time actually making the game, but I'd take anything I could get! This was still in the range of "any dedicated gamer could probably get this".

Also towards the end of this segment I had memorized all the goal locations (which are exhaustively listed on the wiki and can be seen via an in-game feature too!) and most of the important datacubes. A significant chunk of annoying busywork was now finished and I could focus on the fun stuff.

I would say that 2h10m to 1h40m was the most enjoyable segment overall. It had an ideal balance of exploration and optimization, of enjoyment and tryharding.

1h50m-1h30m

Once I hit 1h50m I was getting closer to the top two runners, but I still thought that there's probably no way I can ever beat them. After all, they'd pump out 1h30m runs on average.

I thought I could at least get to 1h30m. You know, my best could be as good as their average, right? So I made my way there. This segment was weird and still very enjoyable. The weirdness comes from running out of low hanging fruit and having to shift approach gradually.

Getting closer to 1h30m is where a lot of tricks become more relevant. You unlock a plethora of them because earlier it wasn't worth doing them. Saving half a minute when your total time is 2h is nothing, especially since you have more important things to improve on. As you go below 2h, this changes.

You learn how to jump over laser tripwires, where to use thermoptic camo to phase through said tripwires, places to jump to avoid triggers. You learn you can shoot the LAW through solid walls because it spawns the rocket a bit in front of the player model. You learn how to quickly fall down ladders and catch yourself at the last moment. You learn you can go down one path in the game, memorize or write down a code, then load the game so you don't need to spend time backtracking. You learn you can shoot weapons while in water if you emerge from the water in a specific way and shoot at the right time. You learn you can destroy the generator by throwing a LAM in a completely different room because the generator is part of a family of objects in the engine that don't do LOS checks for explosions.

Some of the tricks are annoying to do, others feel good to have in your belt. Overall, the game is mercifully sparse on heavy micro tricks. The developers intentionally made the speed+jump aug cost 1 energy when you activate it, to avoid creating a meta where you activate the aug, jump, deactivate, activate on land, jump again -- this would reduce your energy cost to 0 and make you almost as fast as using the aug the regular way. We lucked out that the base game isn't very micro-exploitable and the devs took decisions to minimize that as well. I really really liked this because it allowed me to focus on the things that felt meaningful in the game.

Race Interlude

At some point I participated in my first race. Just a while ago I was admiring Nitram and Ramisme as shiny gods in that YouTube video of their race. And now I'm racing alongside them! The race was exhilarating and humiliating. I ended up over 10m behind them, which looks really bad when all the video feeds are playing side by side. But I did not regret it and for at least half an hour it looked like I could have kept pace.

1h30m-1h20m

I went back to focusing on speedrunning rather than races. I had joined to do races, but I was hooked on getting closer to the WR. I wanted to see how close I could get. For races you needed to find people to do them with and there was some pressure to broadcast them on Twitch, which made speedrunning the easier activity to reach for.

My behaviour became more competitive and a bit degenerative, but the way I approached it was highly effective. I would quit very eagerly the moment I made a major mistake or knew that the current seed wasn't good enough.

I was told I shouldn't do that because I'll never learn later levels or never learn how to recover from a mistake. This is true, but irrelevant for winning the world record. My goal was to not make mistakes on an ideal seed. As I got closer to the WR, this behaviour intensified.

It made my early game much better than my late game for sure, but that's fine, because the early game is simply more impactful. The pace you establish, the resources you get or miss, these things set the tone for the rest of the game.

This is also where frustration started mounting and managing my emotional state became an actual thing.

The truth is that resetting seeds a lot was the most unfun part of the experience. I developed a whole list of heuristics to decide when to reset a seed. My criteria was brutal compared to the other runners.

Because they would often by streaming, there was probably some social pressure to not reset too much. Since I wasn't streaming most of the time, I felt no such pressure. But yes, there was a part of the game that was hella grindy.

No aug upgrade can in mission 2? Restart. Boat is at Filben's? Restart. No biocells found in UNATCO? Restart. Bad Plasma? Hmm. Bad Plasma and no GEP Gun? Restart. etc.

My approach worked.

This is also where I complained to the devs a lot to try to change the game in ways that will reduce the incentives for resetting early. But the problem is fundamentally unsolvable on a game design level and I can maybe get into why in a different post.

1h20m-WR

Once I got to 1h20m and maybe a bit before that, my attitude changed even more. I had gone from "WR is not something I should even try" to "maybe I could get WR some day" to "it is only a matter of time until I get WR. I'm better at this."

I was overplaying and the grind was a drain. My high level of confidence actually made finding a good seed frustrating. And sometimes when I found an amazing seed, I'd still fuck it up and the level of pain this would generate was immense and maybe a bit delectable. Conversely, managing to improve at this point felt rather momentous.

I was definitely playing more than was optimal for improvement and for enjoyment. There are a lot of activities I've suddenly lost interest in over the course of my life. Never gaming as a whole, but I've definitely had moments where, in a couple of days, I went from really wanting to play a game to not wanting to play it at all. I was terrified this might happen. Or that somehow the community would fall apart or disappear. I wanted to ride this experience for all it was worth now, not later. I didn't want to have another "I wonder what would have been" entry in my life.

When I was on my WR run, I was sleep deprived and somewhat dispirited. I was feeling like the seed is probably not good enough and that I've made way too many mistakes. It was the last run of the day, it was well past midnight.

I had a near WR run where my hands were shaking at the end, something I get rarely. I had a bit of that during the WR run too -- it was caused by getting a lucky break that elevated the run from "hmm probably not good enough" to "oh god, I HAVE to perform now. I CAN'T waste this."

And I didn't waste it! I got the WR! I already don't even remember the feeling well all that well. Being so sleep deprived didn't help. It felt somewhat surreal. I'm not the most emotionally reactive person, but I was definitely happy. I was happy the next day. And the day after. Then I started getting the "oh shit what now" feeling. Which is why it took me so long to even talk about this here.

Closing Remarks

In retrospect, I really wish I could redo my journey before hitting 1h30m or so. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. But you can kind of only do that once. A "you can play Dark Souls the first time only once" sort of thing. Which is why I'd really like to see more people playing, but this is a pretty niche activity.

Because of the grind of resetting runs and finding good seeds, I don't think I will ever target WR like that again. I think speedrun races, where players play the same seed with no advance knowledge are strictly superior. They can be done async provided the runners trust each other. They are a fundamentally healthier and more sustainable way of approaching the game. WR speedrunning gets less fun the more optimized the WR is.

Additionally competing for WR is something only a few people can do. Doing speedrun races is something anyone can do provided they find at least one opponent of a similar skill level. It's an underappreciated and esoteric way of gaming, but it's good!

Speedrung DXRando was a valuable experience and I'm not sure that I could have gotten it from any other game. DXRando is lighting in a bottle! The way you iteratively improve at the game can be likened to Hades or maybe Binding of Isaac in some sense, maybe? The difference is that the former two are roguelite and their action component is entirely different from DXRando. Additionally their time pressure component is highly optional, the game isn't built around it.

DXRando is a very unlikely game to exist. It's very unlikely any gamedevs will make a game that is anywhere similar to DXRando at all in terms of gameplay. It's basically a high time pressure roguelike FPS/RPG. It's possible that for a decade or even my remaining life, I won't see this kind of gaming experience replicated.

The high time pressure part is so important. I cannot overstate how important it is. Deus Ex is a game that is incredibly easy once you have advance knowledge of it. There just isn't that much skill to defeating the AI.

You can wrack your brain trying to think how to fix this from a game design perspective. Imagine you could mod the game however you wanted -- what do you even do so that veteran players still feel engaged? Or even just players that are good at this type of game? You can add more exploration, that always works. But adding things to explore is one of the most costly approaches in terms of game development. It takes a team 8 years to make a new campaign for Deus Ex which I finish in 15-40 hours of gameplay.

Time pressure however solves it extremely well. People tend to hate time pressure, but I think it is severely underexploited. It can turn trivial encounters into harder ones without needing to make the game more complex. It's a niche but very valuable game design tool which is often ignored, frankly for good reason, but in this case it reinvigorated and transfigured a game that I thought had permanently dried out for me in terms of enjoyment.

Maybe something similar already to DXRando already exists out there and I'm ignorant of it. I'm pretty ignorant of most randomizer content. A lot of randomizer stuff comes off as silly. Even DXRando has a very funny memey picture of JC Denton associated to it. But the gameplay value is way beyond that of funny hijinks.

[wenellyb]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that people who say stuff like this are straight up lying? Or is there some important piece of information I'm missing?

It's unbelievable to me that some people would like that non-canon ships like Stucky or any other non-canon ships paved the way for representation in modern media. Unbelievable.

Destiel, maybe, because of how big the fandom is/was but even Supernatural and even Destiel started out small and got popular because of the fandom and the ship(s).

I feel like people who saying they started shipping non-canon couples because their wasn't any LGBT representation in the media at the time aren't being genuine. I say that because before joining Tumblr, I didn't even know shipping non-canon couples was a thing (I had heard of Destiel, but it was more of a concept to me, even though I unironically watched SPN).

I feel that was they mean is that there wasn't any representation in popular shows or maybe they mean they weren't enough main characters. But otherwise there was!!!

These are just the one I can think of on the top of my head, but there are much more and there is en more if you go outside of the US. And these are just the shows.

If we add the movies... well!!!

You want romance with a Happy Ending?

You want Murder Mystery?

You want Drama?

There are so many many more and, yes these weren't blockbusters but it's not "no représentation and Stucky and Destiel were the only options"

Grey's Anatomy started out at the exact same time as Supernatural and now has over a dozen canon LGBT characters and half of them are/were main characters (Callie, Arizona, Amelia, Teddy, Yasuda, Helm)

When I joined Tumblr, I never even for a minute thought shipping was about representation or activism because there were so many shows and movies I knew but they were barely talked about on here.

Not criticizing ships by any means but I feel like people are trying to pretend that shipping is something it isn't.

In my humble opinion, non-canon ships were never about representation. Shipping was just shipping

I wasn't on Tumblr at the time, but I was on Youtube (old school) and to me, the people who were doing edits of the canon ships, in shows and movies were the real heroes.

Some people might say : "but those characters are side characters or weren't in major blockbusters/popular shows".

But fandoms could have decided to make them more popular if they wanted. Because believe it or not, Supernatural was a niche show at the beginning and I don't think it would have been as popular or gotten as many seasons without the shippers. They chose to make the non-canon couple (at the time) popular. So the fans could have done the same with shows that have canon LGBT characters But they didn't, they focused on non-canon couples.

I have no problem with shipping non-canon couples at all, I do it too, but I'm really surprised by people who want to make it seem like it's some kind of activism... It's not.

And I know there wasn't enough representation that's true, but why focus your energy on shows with absolutely no canon LGBT characters and pretend it's activism??

You guys could have had Noah's arc or Hit the Floor renewed and you focused your energy on Marvel characters.

And some people will say they ship Destiel anyway because they want fantasy and paranormal... Well does nobody remember Dante's Cove? Was it a fever dream😂? I admit the writing was bad, but have you seen the writing in Supernatural (I say this as a SPN fan)???

And I know some people will say they ship Marvel characters because they have a bigger audience and there were no canon Queer characters in blockbusters, but I feel like that a lie too because when there were indeed Queer characters in those blockbusters, they were ignored as well. Like in the Eternals.

Fandoms can be so powerful when they want to...they can make or break a movie, so acting like the focus on non canon couples was the only option surprises me.

Shipping is just about shipping. It's a hobby.

Stucky or any non-canon Marvel ship isn't "History", it's just a ship.

Last exemple: Let's take a look at 2 popular couples from the same franchise: 9-1-1 and 911: Lone Star. Only one of the couples in canon, but Can you Guess which one is more popular on Ao3 and on Tumblr ?

The non-canon couple!

Almost 3 Times as much fics for Buddie than TK x Carlos who are an actualcouple and even got married!

Shipping non-canon couples isn't about representation but about finding a story to fantasize about, which isn't bad itself but it's bad when you pretend shipping is something it isn't?

TL:DR: Shipping non-canon couples isn't activism imo.

I would be happy to hear tour thoughts because as I said, I only joined Tumblr later so I don't have all the info.

[rezdragon]

Hello! My name is RezDragon, and you've found your way to my update social. I use this space as a sort of live blog for projects I'm working on, as well as give by the day updates on current and new projects. I occasionally reblog posts here, but they're always either related to creating/art, or are related to my work in some way. Reblogs are tagged with "reblogs" if you want to blacklist those posts and not see them.

So what is it that I do? I'm an artist is the easiest way to explain it, working with all sorts of different mediums to express myself, my emotions, and how I feel. Sometimes stories come out. A lot of my work has a heavy focus on mental health and other such dark topics that come along with it. Being a person who suffers from mental health disorders myself, I want to tell my story, share my darkness, and get it out of my system. I share this with the world in hopes of it being cathartic for others as well, giving them a safe space to retreat to the dark if they need it.

In other words, Vent Art is the primary focus of my entire body of work. If that ain't your thing, I highly suggest you do not continue, you won't like it here.

All of the work I post is filtered under specific tags here, they are as followed:

Rez Art - All of the visual art I post here, whether its vector art or photomanipulation. Films - When I release something on my Youtube, I post it here too. Music - When I release a new track, it goes under this tag. Audio - Generic tag for any audio posts that are not music; things such as bloopers, weird sounds I find, etc. Deep Dives - Randomly I'll just write a big article about either a particular piece of work, or theme in my work. These are tagged under this. Collections - Sometimes I post about my little collections and file them under this.

My tumblr is the catch all for EVERYTHING I do, but you can find me elsewhere doing more specific things.

Sheezy - Where I post my visual art, sometimes music, mostly art. I also have an Instagram, but I pretty much only use that as a portfolio (i.e. only my best stuff gets posted there). I am SUPER active on Sheezy. Youtube - Films & Full albums mostly, although I also make videos where I take a deeper look into my work, as well as explaining some of my creative process. Bandcamp & Music Youtube - Music only places. Bandcamp only gets updated with new albums. Music Youtube gets updated with new tracks. Newgrounds - Mostly post music there; it's where you can get the downloads to singles that aren't on an album yet. BlueSky - Another catch all, kinda just there to hang out.

Get to know my cast of idiots

Rez Addison - Protagonist of The Disaster Archives. Angry and sad all the time, takes out her frustrations with her gun, and stinks. She stole my name, don't worry about it. Ash - She is both the protagonist of Running With the Devil and my Smashsona, but each version are two separate people. Confusing, I know. RWTD Ash is a cat that bites, but also hates herself more than anything. Persona Ash is a god and does not care about anything other than death. Here's a helpful graph on their differences. Orintheous - Antagonist of Orintheous' Revenge and my oldest character period (first made in 2002). Angry grandma who drinks and hates Rez Addison with a passion. There's way more than that, but these are the most important three to remember as they're referenced the most.

None of these characters exist in the same universe, but sometimes I make art where they cross over. For fun.

"Hey, question, are you a Persona 5 fan or something? What's with all the Joker?"

Short answer: No, I'm a Joker main in Smash and he's my gender. Long answer:

Thanks for stopping by!

[foxxyrola]

Step 0: Learning to Learn

The biggest challenge in my self improvement journey begins with a question: "How in the nine hells am I supposed to sit my ass down and learn anything? My body just keeps pacing around, looking for yet another distraction. iwi"

Don't get me wrong, I desperately want to apply myself, just struggle in the initiation. And the follow through. I would take a few lessons in learning Godot for game making, then move on to something else, new and shiny. I'd learn all the Hiragana, but then not touch the Japanese language for weeks. All ambition, no action, or something like that.

Being fed up with this, I do get moments where honestly I sometimes just have to, well... Do things! Anything. I'm desperate for the dopamine hit of accomplishing something non vidya gayme related. I have to plant my ass in a chair (even if it takes an hour of pacing before I can even settle down), and give myself something to focus on as if it's life or death. I'd journal when I can. Watch some informative videos without absorbing much of it. Get stuck passively on self help YouTube and all that.

Well... It seems I got something out of it. Lately been looking into Cybersecurity (just a surface dive, like most of my dives are) and in addition to learning a little about certifications and stuff, I discovered that Coursera is a good place to find some lessons (for free too mind you, as long as you don't need their certificates or whatevs) not just for coding, but for many other things.

This is one of these (free) courses that I found: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Yup, learning how to learn. Seems cheesy. Almost blew it off and didn't take it. But hey, night shifts give me a bit of free time each night, so chooms, I jumped in about a week ago and without a doubt, I certainly do not regret it.

So far in the first week of the course I watched all the necessary videos, and passed the simple quizzes for week 1. The course establishes two modes of thinking every human uses: focused and diffuse. Focused being when you think deeply on something you know how to solve already, following established prestructured neural pathways. Diffuse on the other hand being that abstract association you get when you passively sift through your brain, in sleep and relaxing, and when you're not actively looking for a concrete solution but rather let your mind wander and put things together.

Now, I've heard about routine and pomodoro techniques and taking breaks to space out learning, but it seems that with this course, something clicked. Applying the things I learned by taking personal summary notes afterwards and both actively and passively thinking about what I've just absorbed, I suddenly felt fulfilled.

I started a self care routine (nothing super much yet, just 2 hours of unwinding and exercise and meditating before bed among other things) by setting up a schedule in an app I found called RoutineFlow. Yeah, I'm not getting it consistently yet, but every day I try to at least take a step to do what I gotta do, that little push that'll help me work through stuff. I just want to get myself to do the basics so that I can grow from there.

Then I encountered my first obstacle: taking notes. The Learning to Learn course has optional materials: readings, interviews, all that fun scop. I go through fairly passively til I encounter one material. A short paper with notes on note taking from Harvard. Some 30 pages. I know I need this, I know I need to sit down and do this as it'll help.

But I couldn't do it. One day, then another day, then the weekend passes, and now I'm back at work again on Monday. My legs are restless, can't seem to sit down and do things.

So I start writing this blog. Immediately afterwards... I still can't do it.

I walk around, pace, try and sit down... Another 30 minutes passes before I open things up and begin taking notes. I literally force myself to sit, set a 25 minute pomodoro... Ok now just gotta focus in this time. Come on I can do it...!

Oh hey I'm doing it! I'm actually doing it! I start learning the material, taking some Cornell Notes on it(a good way to review notes and test yourself die to its structure) as soon as the time'l ran up, I take a break. Wow! That actually wasn't so hard. The hardest part was just sitting down and telling myself that this is what I wanna learn.

So over my free time at work over a few 25 min sessions, I learnt the importance of taking notes in my own words, reviewing them often but not cramming all at once, and testing myself on my knowledge.

It was just that first step. But hey, the more I do this, the easier it gets! Consistency, that's the name of the game. I may not have learned any new coding skills or any new words or anything, but the experience has been a most important one.

Anyways, as I finish this up, it is now time for my morning self care routine. Feeling accomplished, I think things can only get easier if I keep setting aside the time and rewarding myself consistently.

Just gotta put my ass in the chair.

[suzdotranslation]

[Interview TL] 4Gamer’s Weekly VTuber Files #29 - Minase Rio

Source

Name: Minase Rio Company: Holostars (UPROAR!!) Streaming platform: YouTube SNS: X (Twitter) Hashtags: Live #燐央顕現中 / Fanart #燐央絵 / Clips #お試し燐央 Character/Model designer: KEKI Debut Date: March 30th, 2022 Birthday Date: July 26th Height: 170cm Introduction: "You can see me too? This place is quite lively and fun, it's where I truly belong." A ghost who previously died carrying his determination to be an idol. Since then, he has spent the days lingering around, but Fuma's invitation made him walk toward the path of an idol once more. He doesn't like scary things and ghosts beside himself.

10 QUESTIONS FOR VTUBERS

Q01. Tell us your main (streaming) content! I mainly do singing and gaming streams! For singing, a lot of the songs I picked are pretty uncommon for male singers because they often use high-pitched tones! As for gaming stream, when I was still alive I grew up in a household that rarely gives me the opportunity to play games, so now I'm using all the time I have now to experience different kinds of games! I especially like those that focus on the storyline.

Q02. What was the cue that kickstarted your streaming activity? When I became a ghost out of nowhere, I received an audition invitation from my then-genmate Yatogami Fuma!

Q03. Please recommend us your “newcomer’s friendly” videos or stream archive! If you like singing streams then I recommend you to check out my recent 3D live from February this year "Live Without Limits", and my 3D debut live as well! But if you prefer gaming streams, my short horror-game streams and the currently ongoing (as of the writing of this article) streams for Persona 3 Reload are my recommendation! I like to challenge a lot of things like collabs and stuff I've never tried before for this year, so please look forward to any cover uploads too! There are so many things I want to show to everyone…! (lol)

Q04. Tell us things that you like or something you’re good at! Related to streaming, I love story-focused games a lot! I started my activity with no prior experience in playing games, so I've been enjoying my time starting all these popular titles for the first time. It's easy for me to feel empathetic towards the stories so oftentimes my knowledgeable viewers (who have played the game) have been kindly watching me through with a smile. Outside of streaming activity, I'm good at cooking! Although rather than making a fancy-looking meal, I'm good at cooking something tasty with whatever ingredients I have! (lol)

Q05. Tell us a hobby or content that has piqued your interest lately! Both of these are manga but I just really wanted to introduce these titles to everyone…! The first one is "Kemonokuni/Beast Country"! It's a gut-wrenching series about a human who becomes a slave to a beast, every character is really charming, and it's a really interesting series that makes you ponder about the feelings of both humans and beasts alike. It's updated biweekly every Wednesday so I've been reading it diligently! The second one is "Omae, Tanuki ni Naranee ka?/Would you like to be a Tanuki?"! I first started reading it because I find the Tanuki cute!! But more than that, the characters who appeared in the series are also as lovely, and the stories are mostly very heartwarming. Some stories are pretty light-hearted and short, but other times you'll find some chapters that allude to the next one with apt foreshadowing which makes you interested in the continuation!

Q06. Is there any VTuber around that has caught your attention? Let us know! If I started talking about all of the seniors and juniors from the same company I'm in, I wouldn't have enough time to introduce them all. So I'd like to introduce someone outside of it or rather, someone that I'm not personally involved with yet… To be honest, recently I've been paying attention to Kannagi Tenri-san. I always like watching streams of people with good singing skills, be it from my seniors/juniors, other companies', or even indies. Among that, I found out about Kannagi-san– not only she is an overwhelmingly skillful singer, but she's also capable of conveying the emotion of the songs in such graceful ways in my opinion.

Q07. What are other things you’re paying attention to other than VTubers? Within the music industry it's Yuuri-san, while in voice acting it's Chiba Shouya-san! I've been a fan of Yuuri-san's songs from the start, and I've probably sung his songs a lot in most of my singing streams already. Even after he became a successful artist, there are various projects done over at YouTube including discovering new-gen talents, as a performer there are many things I could learn from him. I've known Chiba-san after knowing he was cast as the protagonist of a certain game. This opinion comes from my amateur self but, I thought of him as someone who’s capable of bringing the character’s emotion alive, making his performance a marvelous one. It’s also thanks to his wonderful performance that I’m able to find many amazing works!

Q08. Is there a recent thing that left a deep impression on you, and is there anything else you’d like to try out? Since I worked mainly while utilizing my voice, I'd like to challenge myself with other things besides singing! Also, I really like tea so I'd like to have a job where I could introduce various tea variants as well as make my own flavored tea.

Q09. What sort of content you’d like to challenge yourself for now? Maybe performing on a live stage outside of my own company, I'd like to sing in various places! For that reason, I also want to make more original songs!

Q10. Tell us your message to the readers! Thank you to everyone who has been reading up on this part!! If anyone here holds an interest in me after reading this article, feel free to drop by my stream! Besides me, there are also many other Hololive Production talents you can see almost everyday! It makes me happy if you were able to find “someone” who could bring out the colors of your life. Even more if that “someone” happens to be me! (lol)

[magic-is-something-we-create]

2023 recap + 2024 plans

i wrote 261,200 words in 2023; 172,500 of those for Whispers, 88,700 for Goddess-Touched!

i read 16 books to completion, beta'd for an additional 2, am currently reading 3, and got partway through 5 others before having to put them down.

i maintained my streaming schedule with only a handful of emergency-related exceptions, and drew, uh, a shit ton over the course of the year!

writing goals for 2024:

fix Echoseers (full stylistic rewrite, along with some plot tweaks)

finish the first draft of Goddess-Touched (and edit it hardcore as well)

work on as-yet-unnamed book 4 of tms

fix up Whispers with the added feedback of beta readers

start querying Whispers (i'll look into self publishing down the road if i don't end up finding an agent. the way my brain functions i must cling to the hope of not having to market it myself tooth and nail for the time being)

POTENTIALLY. if my brain fixates on it. write the script for The Lost so that i actually have something to work with to make the comic happen

one of my offline friends is starting to get into writing, and im hoping to help them through some of the early rough patches and potentially co-write a thing with them!!

i completely dropped the ball on the weekly writing updates so im gonna try and get back to that on wednesday. and potentially get back into the weekly ask games!

non-writing goals for 2024:

youtube. i want to make speedpaints and worldbuilding videos and shit. ive already made the basic animation stuff to have a lil sona to do the gesturing for me and i know how to make videos i just havent done it in a While

twitch!! i want to stream a bit more often because its fun and if i let myself branch out into video games as well as art itll be easier to do that. u might see me streaming in the evenings sometime soon. (psst im not streaming this weekend as im still doing a shit ton of holiday/social stuff but the weekend of the 13th ill be back to both patreon and twitch baybee)

SPEAKING OF i want to get my shit together enough to do like. monthly short story releases for my patrons/ko-fi members. early access, that is, so if i post one in january, it'll be posted here a month or two later for all to see/read

i want to read as many books as i did in 2023, if not more! im also considering adding book reviews/thoughts to youtube or patreon/ko-fi perks

my weekend hiatuses aren't going anywhere. having time where im not actively engaging with tumblr + don't feel obligated to do Anything online has done wonders for my mental health and i highly recommend it. focus mode on my phone and leechblock on desktop has helped so so so much

and that's all i'm sharing here!! i hope 2024 is a better year for all than the last <3

[spaceyflowers]

hi!! im still alive!! + updates on this blog

first: i would like to apologize for disappearing without a word for like. nearly a year. im terribly sorry for any worry i've caused T_T;;

honestly i have no good excuse for disappearing like i did especially without reason (not that im obligated to let everyone know my business but i did have a "i wont randomly disappear!" sentiment and yet... here i am) but in a nutshell, its basically: fandom shifts, college, and guilt.

if you want to know about the future of this blog fandom wise;

still going to be a lookism/viral hit blog (havent caught up yet) but most likely wont be as active in the fandom anymore;;; thinking of sticking as a lookism blog until that series ends but who knows when it will so i might eventually just change fandoms 😭

please dont feel bad about unfollowing or anything!! curate what u wanna see with who u follow, i take no personal offense, even if we've been long time mutuals!! ><

fandom shifts will probably be more common; i have this weird thing where i cant focus on multiple interests or i get stressed;; so i get obsessed with one thing for months/years but then once i lose interest and move on, its likely i wont return to it unless something triggers it. thats why i dont think "multifandom" fits me, i'll always be fandom focused, its just the fandom focus changes 😭

p.s. sorry if im being dramatic about this (i feel like a youtuber who got canceled writing an apology 😭😭) i just feel like i owe yall an explanation </3

if you're curious about me, i've left that under the cut;

got into a new interest which made me stop looking at lookism/viral hit stuff -> knowing my blogs are lookism focused, i decided to take a "break"

couldnt get myself back into lookism after my "break" ended -> couldnt get myself back on tumblr

started to feel guilty because i havent been active in a long while

senior year ending, school takes my priorities -> summer break comes, i swear i'll apologize on tumblr but guilt eats away at me and then i have to do college stuff

become a little active on tiktok, start feeling more guilty because im active there but not on tumblr

college begins, get busy with college stuff -> during breaks, swear i'll apologize on tumblr pt 2 but the guilt has piled up so much it feels like the equivalent of when a person cant get themself to reopen their animal crossing new leaf game because they havent touched it in a long time

first college semester ends, winter break starts -> finally convince myself to get over it and start typing all this up

once again im really sorry T_T i was not made for the content creator life bc i cant stay active for shit + i feel so bad gaining followers for one thing but once i move on from that one thing, it feels like im disappointing a lot of ppl even tho i know i dont owe strangers on the internet anything- im just repeating myself now but yknow

oh and for anyone curious: my current fandom is dmc <3

[viasdreams]

hi via! im here cuz i want a little advice hehe

i really want to start posting here but i even know how to do it, like make posts or use this app correctly...cuz i have a loooot of ideas for my posts and stuff so can you help me with some ideas to start posting >< and also i don't know what does "angst" "suggestive" "nsfw" means 😖

it would mean a lot to me if you help me! have a great dayyy! 🩵

i got you!!

dw about not knowing how tumblr works 🙂‍↔️ cuz i didn’t either!! i wasn’t big into tumblr growing up so i had to figure this shit out when i started posting

you truly figure it out as you go but id recommend maybe looking up a YouTube tutorial if you’re super lost

as for formatting, im not sure what kind of stuff you’re going to make but a good place to start is to look at how your fav creators lay their works out!! look at how they title things, their warnings if there are any, the hashtags, and all that jazz!! play around with the text options and find something you like!! if doesn’t have to be complicated or aesthetic. ive read some really good fics that had a really simple layout and ive read shit from the butt that looked beautiful. its the content that really matters, not the color of the text of whatever

my best piece of advice is to just write. youll figure all the other stuff out eventually, but put most of your focus towards your writing 🙂‍↕️

dont focus on the engagement, thatll will come with time. just post what makes you happy and call it a day!!

angst is essentially the opposite of fluff. if the characters are fighting, crying, in pain, or experiencing unpleasant emotions/events, id consider that angst. if a 13 year old emo kid read your work and liked it, then its probably angsty! angst and fluff aren’t mutually exclusive tho, a fic can be both.

nsfw = not safe for work. this means a fic has some sort of explicit content. if your boss saw you reading that during work hours and they had an issue with it, its nsfw. theres also sfw which is safe for work

suggestive is like one step above nsfw. if your fic references nsfw activities, but its not out right stated/written, its suggestive

hope this helps!!! lmk if you have more questions<333