#all of this is something i have to consciously put in work/remind myself to do but never regret it :D it isnt effortless but thats okay!!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

I've referenced before how I have a big google document to keep track of every media I've ever seen in my entire life (just for reference because I like to track everything possible lol… I am the Data Collector), but recently as I was updating it, I thought of actually evaluating them to find out random percentages (like for example, out of Total Shows Watched, what percentage did I finish vs. stop watching, what percentage did I like or dislike, etc.)...

Evaluating these things is made easier by the fact that I already place everything on each subsection of the list into 6 broad ranking categories, so I don't have to go back and guess to figure out how I feel about them or anything. The categories are: Ranking 5 - overall best* (despite some criticisms of course because I'm too much of an Analyzer to ever find anything Perfect lol) Ranking 4 - more positive than neutral, but not good enough to be 5 Ranking 3 - either the good + bad negate each other, OR it's just not memorable/interesting in any way enough to be ranked higher or lower (this is the Default category ALL things are placed in if no other rank applies) Ranking 2 - maybe a few redeemable elements but largely more negatives than positives Ranking 1 - So bad that it circles around to being fascinating to observe in some way (not necessarily Funny, or Good, but just interesting somehow) Ranking 0 - Bad in a genuinely frustrating or obnoxious manner

*("best" primarily defined here as most interesting, rather than most good in a technical sense, or some other measure. I tend to value more highly whether there's something novel or thoughtful about the worldbuilding, tone, writing, base premise, etc - than about whether it's actually executed perfectly.)

And here's the amount of shows that have so far been placed into each category -

TV shows ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 20 shows ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 28 shows ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 114 shows ~ Rank 2 (mid low) -33 shows ~ Rank 1 (low low but intriguingly so) - 14 shows ~ Rank 0 (iredeemably low) - 2 shows

This would make for a total of 211 TV shows overall. However, there are 57 shows within these list marked as "didn't finish" (typically meaning I quit on the very first or second episode - but log them still to keep a record that I at least had a brief view of them).

So my total of genuinely fully watched shows would be more 154. 211 Total, but a More Accurate Total of 154.

Counting them all and using the Total Number Of The List (211) -- that means roughly 9.5% of all total shows I have ever watched (or at least attempted to watch) have been Mostly Good, 13% have been Moderately Okay, 54% have been either entirely Forgettable or some mix of good + bad that lands them right in the Neutral Middle, 15.6% have been Mostly Bad, 6.6% have been Bad (but in an interesting way), and 0.9% have been Terribly Bad.

Additionally, I didn't even get past the first two episodes of about 27% of the total.

Sooo, discounting ones I didn't finish, my total TV shows ever watched in my life would be about 154 (maybe give or take a few, assuming I might have forgotten some from very long ago).

But instead of entire life, let's just say this is the total for 'About 20 Years' (so, not counting very early childhood when I likely wouldn't remember things I saw/have no detailed recollection of them (like for example, I'm sure at some point when I was like 4yrs old I must have seen an episode of Spongebob or something, but I have zero distinct memories of it, can't quote anything of it, and barely recall the premise - so I don't count it on the list, etc.)).

In that case, 154 divided by 20 would be roughly 7.7 shows a year.

Which is actually surprisingly low considering that I often have stuff on in the background for hours whilst I make sculptures and do costumes and stuff (maybe I should have also marked some distinction between 'things I fully paid attention to' and 'things I kind of half listened to whilst sculpting', but that would further split the categories too much probably lol), but I guess a lot of that is youtube videos or random documentaries, so .. eh.. maybe I get it being lower.

Now, doing the same thing for movies-

Movies ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 4 movies (3.4% of total) ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 12 movies (10.3% of total) ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 91 movies (78.4% of total) ~ Rank 2 (mid low) - 8 movies (6.8% of total) ~ Rank 1 (low but interesting) - 1 movie (0.8% of total) ~ Rank 0 (irredeemably low) - none in this category (0%)

That makes 116 for a Total (Actually Remembered) Movies Watched In Lifetime (Or At Least In 20 Years).

116 divided by 20 is roughly 5 or 6 movies a year (I feel this has probably been skewed though by adding everything since like elementary school onwards, as I remember a lot more movies from child/teen years.. Whereas, the past 3 years I feel like I've barely seen maybe even 5 movies?? lol). I also have "Didn't Finish" marked on 18 of them. Which means I quit halfway through about 15% of the total movies.

So, a for broader summary stuff..

I seem to be less forgiving to movies than tv shows, by far. Which makes sense to me, I guess, because I love elaboration and details, so "short form" things that only last an hour or two are often lost on me a bit. My biggest complaint with movies is indeed usually walking away just wishing there had been more exposition, more scenes where characters are doing nothing, more "mindless bantering" conversations, more Quiet Downtime and Lore Elaboration and so on lol, so... of course most 1-2hr films end up feeling a bit Not Enough To Draw My Interest/Nothingy to me.

If you count 5 and 4 as "like" and rankings 2 to 0 as "dislike", then for TV shows I at least somewhat liked 48 of them, and at least somewhat disliked 47 of them.. So it's almost exactly the same lol. I'm just about equally as likely to find something bad as I am to find something redeeming about it. But overall, the largest chance is that I just won't really care much for it at all and it will be tossed into the 'neutral' pile, forgotten forever. Movies have a bit better of a balance, "liking" 16 of them, and "disliking" only 9 of them. So I'm slightly more likely to enjoy a movie than to find it annoying - though still VASTLY more likely to just not find it anything in particular, possibly not even finishing it.

ANYWAY.. this is vague and literally pointless, but like I said, I just really find information fun. Like my document where I've rated every apple flavor I've ever tried (like 40 of them now?), or reviewed every oreo flavor (32?), or ranking data from my entire 10 years of Trying To Make Friends process (out of 100 people, roughly 8% chance of a moderate compatibility, 3% chance of high), or etc. etc.. I love to have random pointless things to analyze I suppose lol.

I doubt anyone tracks things in their life in this same exact way, but I'd be interested in hearing any at least somewhat similar data !!! (like, how many TV shows you watch a year on average, and what percentage of those you like vs. dislike (if you keep track of that sort of thing), etc.)). I guess it might be easier with movies, since I think some people use those websites where you curate a list of movies you've seen and you can rate them or something, so maybe the numbers are already available on those places. :0

[huntershowl-moving]

one of my favorite things in the whole world is getting invested in other people's muses. finding ways to bring them into my muse's backstory! actively having my muse engage with/comment on/worry about their muse's past and ongoing conflicts! asking the writer questions for the sake of asking questions! reacting to each little bit in the infodumps they give me!!

DONT GET ME WRONG it deffo takes mental effort and actively reminding myself to do it, but it's so rewarding because i KNOW how good it feels when someone does that for me. it's a reliable way to show affection and make your rp partners feel seen & appreciated! it makes plotting more productive and rping more emotionally rewarding, and i feel like it also allows us to bond more ooc & become long-term friends even outside of rp :D (points directly at rio @crowshoots u are such a stellar example of this, ilu so much and im so glad we got to become friends thru putting our blorbos through hell together)

(more rambling about this under the cut, not necessary to read i'm just musing about culture)

idk if this is just a thing with the rp community or a generational thing or both, but i feel like our (at least gen z folks in the US, which is my circle of experience) culture has become really hyper-individualistic? like there's a big emphasis on focusing on your own shit, prioritizing your own self-care and passions etc, which is great of course! but i feel like we've lost the conversation on acts of love and putting in effort for other people. it's like you're expected to have blinders on and just kind of exist alongside other people, but not do anything for them if it would cost any amount of mental energy 🤔

idk i'm rambling now but FOR CONTEXT i was just thinking on that last post i rb'd about how to write better rp replies and realized how infrequently, as a community, we emphasize the other muse in our writing. which made me think about the partners i gravitate towards — aka, people who actually make an effort to care about my characters in return when i get invested in theirs. but it feels like suuuuch a taboo topic because when u say things like this, people think ur expecting them to burn themselves out for the sake of others, which?? nO???? and it made me want to ramble into the void about it KJSDHKDS

it Also got me thinking about how many d&d games i've played where the rest of the people at the table immediately like... mentally disengage when their character isn't involved in the scene. it sucks! it feels bad! the best groups i've been in are the ones where the players are interested in and invested in the conflicts of the characters around them.

also worth noting for fellow neurodivergent pals: TRUST ME, as an ADHDer with intense hyperfixations, i know it can be difficult to poke my head out of the bubble of ur own plotlines and ask about others'. but it's possible! it gets easier over time and it is SO worth learning!

anyway that's all. put in work for ur mutuals! rp is a collaborative activity!

[comicaurora]

Tahraim is my fav absolutely adore him! I love that you’ve made the smith deal in introspection and cryptic bs, a lot of times smiths are very straightforward characters in stories. What made you decide to shake it up?

Can gods be tied to concepts as well as cities? As Tahraim seems to be a god of blacksmithing (or at least has some serious motifs) does he have a city thats just forges?

He also seems a lot more mobile than the other gods, or is he just “tied” to Danix?

Tahraim is a conceptual god, a class of deity considered grander and more untethered than city or nature gods. Also in his weight class are Emnis and Erebas (dreams and nightmares), Shanyasi (music), Sennaia (knowledge), Jiya (war), and a whole bunch of others. They're gods of ideas, and their domains are in the collective consciousness of mortals. They can manifest anywhere they hold sway, and several of them have constructed domains of their own in pocket dimensions; Sennaia has a transfinite library hidden away somewhere, and Tahraim has a forge.

Tahraim's personality comes from my own experience with artists and craftspeople. Many artists are acutely aware that in order for their work to be better, they need to be better. The process of creation and introspection becomes inextricably linked. Forging a tool changes the forger, little by little.

There's also an element I've observed from teachers. I was always a firm proponent of "don't be cryptic or cute, just tell me the thing and I'll get it," and while that's true a lot of the time, there are concepts that cannot be Just Told in any meaningful way. They don't hit or stick if the person doesn't put them together themselves and construct a way that works for them. Teaching isn't always the impartation of information; a lot of the time it's guidance so the student crafts the tools that work for them. Even if the teacher can perfectly communicate what method works for them, everyone is different, and a student that does the exact same thing exactly right might gain no benefits or be actively harmed by the process. Instead, the student has to parse the lesson and create their own tools to execute the same goal.

Personal example under a readmore because it got a little long:

I've sporadically dealt with intrusive thoughts my whole life, though I didn't understand what they were at the time and they've mostly gone away on their own. When I was little, upsetting thoughts would get stuck in my head and stay there; things would give me nightmares that lasted for weeks, or I'd be stuck awake in the wee hours ruminating on every time in my life I'd done something shameful or harmful or wrong. My dad recognized I was upset, and tried to teach me a method of "counting thoughts" that worked for him, where I could sit for a few minutes and just passively observe the thoughts floating by, counting them and observing them and thus becoming aware that they were small, fleeting things with no power on their own. The problem is, this method didn't work for me at all, because "count the thought" didn't communicate to me "and that makes the thought not a problem anymore." The thought still hurt just as bad, all I was doing was reminding myself how many bad thoughts were happening. I would get overwhelmed and end up more distressed, and the fact that this thing that should have worked didn't work just convinced me that I was trapped and nobody could ever help me.

It took actual years before I found a method that clicked in my brain, and it was just one step further down the path of counting thoughts:

"Having that thought is harmless."

Every thought that got stuck in my head was about times or ways I might've harmed people. The things that distressed me most were things I'd done wrong that I had zero power to change, so the wrongness would just haunt me forever, making me miserable forever. But the root of the distress was that I had messed up and hurt people.

The thing that clicked was that having the thought does nothing to anyone but me. The thought is harmless, even if the event the thought is about wasn't or wouldn't be. Having the thought hurts no-one else. And since 90% of my distress was distress at the thought of hurting other people, it hit me that in reality, even in the depths of my angst, I was just sitting there, hurting no-one.

And suddenly I found that the last few intrusive thoughts rattling around in my brain withering, because the last thing that had been feeding them was gone. I was given the technique for Counting Thoughts, but it wasn't made for my hands. I had to make my own version out of it. And just because it worked for me and my own personal brain doesn't mean this method would work for someone else, just the same way the method that worked for my dad didn't click for me. If I wanted to teach someone a way to bypass intrusive thoughts, all I would have to work on would be what worked for me, but I could try to guide them through a path similar to the one I followed to find my method so they could maybe find their specific hangups and what specifically would work for them. Every mind is different.

This is also why it's so frustrating to hear someone say stuff like "Oh I used to worry about that too, but it's actually fine, you can just stop worrying about it!" And it's like, "oh, fuckin brilliant, just stop worrying about it? Absolute genius, I just hadn't thought of that-" like yea it sounds flippant and yea it's not helpful, but they are using the only frame of reference they have and describing what they did. They stressed about something, realized it was not actually a problem, and knowing that was enough to make it leave their mind alone. But saying that they "just stopped worrying" doesn't make you understand or internalize how they did it. And because they can't seem to help you, it makes you mad. But then sometimes, with time and perspective, you look back and think "wow, yea, at some point I really did just stop worrying about that." It doesn't mean their advice worked, it just means somewhere along the line something clicked in your mind and started working.

Tahraim is a smith who sees no difference between shaping a tool and shaping a person, but there are some ways that people can't be shaped from the outside, and instead have to shape themselves. He likes to be subtle and cryptic, but he also has good reason to be. The only way to make something click in someone's head is to guide them towards it and nudge them when necessary. It's not all hitting stuff with hammers.

[endofthedaymp3]

reminder that oliver stark is out there somewhere, nervous about going back to set because he's afraid he forgot his fake accent during hiatus and I think that's adorable

His American accent “certainly doesn’t come naturally” for him. “It’s something that I have to consciously think about and work on. Some days it’s easier than others when we’re actually working. It’s not something that I really put into practice between seasons, but then, kind of as we start ramping up to start work again and then a couple of weeks before we start shooting, I go into panic mode like, ‘Oh my goodness, I don’t think I can do it anymore." | Outsider.com (2021)

(Are you American on the set?) "Absolutely not. I know for some people that is their process, to me that sounds very draining. I also find that with the accent comes a character. If I was staying in the accent all day, I wouldn't feel like I was being myself with the people I was interacting with when the cameras aren't rolling." (KTLA, 2022)

[weirdmageddon]

the original post i want everyone to see is way out of my hands now, so i’ll repost this again here as new but separate post. it touches on things i want to go into more depth about.

@wasabikitcat gets this idea. this reply—thank you so much for not just understanding what i was going for, but putting my exact thoughts into cleaner words on the bad reading comprehension site.

i can't believe how misunderstood my point was about “spirituality” (i didn’t know it was that much of a loaded phrase!), but thank you for putting what i meant into more nuanced terms.

it's something that can be hard for me to put into words, and maybe i gave people the wrong impression by using the word "spirituality", since words mean different things to different people. i just haven't seen people discussing it so i wasn't sure how to really put it. but regardless of terminology, this reply is exactly what i'm getting at. and this is coming from someone who has a very scientific mind. i wouldnt even consider myself a traditionally “spiritual” person in the normal connotation of the word.

edit: this one as well!

i see this as a cultural/political factor that we shouldn’t ignore, because this sense of meaning has driven people's motivations since the beginning of human civilization.

there's a primal aspect that hasn't really left us but there seems to be no room for it in our modern culture because half of these “guides” seem to be driven by “i cant wait for civilization to collapse so MY ideology can rise from the ashes" and the other half of it seems to be driven by greed. and often they are hand in hand.

i would really like to see actual enlightening ideas stemming from buddhist thought, analytical psychology, collective unconscious, and archetypes to take off in the public consciousness. (completely divorced from jordan peterson. just the original jungian stuff)

i am especially supportive towards getting people interested in carl jung's works. his idea was to get people to understand, "what myth am i living?" based on the same archetypes and symbols that recur time and time again throughout human history that we can all collectively recognize regardless of culture. so it's a sense of meaning based in the self. i don't want people being sent down reactionary paths when looking for meaning in their lives.

i think it would benefit people to who feel lost especially in uncertain/unprecedented times like, with those “there's got to be more to this, something deeper,” insinct. i see that people are looking for this but get taken advantage of or manipulated.

but on this deeper sense of meaning in life thing, the Left isn't doing a great job at providing an option for “lost” people looking for meaning that the Right seems to be having no trouble with. i wonder if this is why we've seen so many of these lost young men flock to reactionary commentators?

this reminds me of an excellent point contrapoints made in her video about jordan peterson, saying,

“The last thing I like is that you talk about deep shit. I was watching a video where you and a couple of zany goons were talking about Plato and Aristotle and the meaning of life. And I thought, ‘Huh… on the Left, we don’t really talk about that kind of thing. All we talk about is how society oppresses people.’ And that might not be enough. Because people need to have a positive purpose in life. I mean, personally, I don’t give a shit. I’m pretty happy to sit here watching the same three seasons of Strangers with Candy until I die. But other people, like Dostoevsky, Camus, other white guys who talk about lobsters…they have this need to have purpose in the face of suffering, and like, not just complain about patriarchy. I guess it’s easier to not complain about patriarchy when patriarchy isn’t the thing that’s making you suffer. But I do think that an education that only teaches people about oppression is inadequate. We spend four years teaching undergraduates why capitalism is bad, and then we say, ‘Well, you’re educated now. Good luck getting a job under capitalism, bye!’ …And that really kind of sucks! But you know, I think that’s a point that can probably be made without comparing transgender activism to Stalin.”

speaking of her, this is a related post i wrote earlier on young men being radicalized and how to approach communication

and by the way, if you are interested in learning jungian psychology and want to see what it’s about, here are some resources to get you started:

i think the jung subreddit has a great collection of resources on its about page.

i highly recommend Demystifying Jungian Psychology to start. it’s meant for beginners. it is available in english and spanish. you can currently find the book in the comments section here. since sometimes these links lead to a 404, i don’t want to link directly to the google drive page. i want you to have a link to the original thread in case it gets broken.

[contamination-zone]

Fresh drawing tutorial? Maybe even a colour picking tutorial? If you want,,,

I dont' really know how I would do a Fresh tutorial.. so I just drew up a quick process thing and also some design notes for things I keep in mind when drawing fresh, anatomy/body type wise.

I do a LOT of yapping, under cut

To make things look extra fresh to me, I try to keep in mind his body type, or what I see as his body type, when I'm drawing him, as well as shapes that remind me of him. [very triangle man!]

[note: when I draw him, I don't usually use different colors to go from step to step [that's just to show it off easier], and I don't usually Think about it all that much.]

Color wise! I don't really know, so much of it is just Experience, having drawn like this over and over, and trying out things that feel like they work or not. I don't consciously think of my color choices all that much, I'll try my best to explain it though.

[This will be going forward with the assumption you know basic color theory [ie. red looks nice next to green cus they're on opposite sides of the little circle, cyan and blue look nice cus they're next to each other, and that making blue go closer to grey makes it look warm, and making red go closer to grey makes it look cold.]]

V cont of the process thing in the first image.

First I want to know my "base" colors. For Fresh I have him pretty simplified to 5 colors, but this goes for any time I'm colorpicking. I want to know what it looks like devoid of any tints or lighting or similar. [They're kinda ugly since they're so .. grey haha]

After that, I want to think of the tone/environment I want to put him in, or a color that I want to work with.

With that, I'll decide my Line Color; this'll be a dark, usually highly saturated, color that'll decide the tone of the rest of the piece. Using my line color I'll oriantate myself by doing "black" & "white" next, black will be close to the line color, and white will usually be the line color very lightly and unsaturated. [sometimes I'll ignore that, and use a very light cyan. tinting white colder colors can make your whites look cleaner, especially if everything else is warm toned.]

For the other colors in the peice, I'll just be trying to pick things that are like the base colors but tinged by the line color I'd picked, as well as just fitting and looking nice next to it. Sometimes it doesn't need to be tinted towards the line color if there are other ways to make it look cohesive. If a piece I'm working with has a cyan tint, making the pink more red-toned looks nice, because red is complementary next to cyan.

To tint colors that are far away from the line color, you can also de-saturate them. De-saturating pink makes it cooler, and fit more next to blue.

Normally I eye-balled off the color-wheel, but if you're having trouble, multiply and overlays can help in a pinch [picking normal colors and than overlaying with like, blue or green or something]. I wouldn't recommend relying on them though, because they can often lead to your colors being de-saturated, or washed out if over used.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  katdeerly! @katdeerly has 3 fics posted to AO3 in the Stranger Things fandom and all of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by katdeerly:

Here For A Reason

you remind me of someone (it's probably you)

if you were a melody (i used only the good notes)

"Each of katdeerlys fics are like putting on a comfort movie, sitting back and enjoying. Each story is visual and dynamic and I've gone back to read them as comfort fics over and over. The ensemble casts, the characterizations, the ensemble cast. It's all so good and I return to them like a warm cup of soup and blanket around my shoulders." -- Anonymous

Below the cut, katdeerly answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I write Steddie because it was the first pairing in a really long time that affected me enough to get back into writing and fanfic and fandom in general! I was dealing with a lot of big personal life changes when S4 came out and I somehow fell into Steddie fic, so it wasn’t long after reading that the itch to write finally hit. I love the duality of Steve & Eddie’s dynamic - on the surface, they are the stereotypical “opposites attract” but when you examine who they really are as characters, there is so much they share: caring, self-sacrificing, passionate, thoughtful. Even from their few interactions in canon, there was so much to build on and so much unexplored potential.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I love angst, so really any trope that inspires that, like a good miscommunication or misunderstanding. And I believe all the best relationships are rooted in friendship, so I love a friends to lovers or a second chances fic. And always need a happy ending!

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Doing this exercise really made me take a big picture look at my stories so far – so apparently, my favorite tropes to write are slow burn, found family, romcom AU, with a little forced proximity, slice of life, character study.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I literally have too many to count, I have an obscene number of private bookmarks on AO3. The ones I’ve reread the most are probably “Exactly What It Looks Like” by Bilbosmom, “You Taste Just Like New York” by IrisLanding, “Dog Days of Summer” by WabiSabiPapi, “Buy Local: Steve Harrington’s Guide to Modern Sexuality” by loudsnapdragon, “swing for the fences” by occassional_loverboy, “Tuesday’s Gone With the Wind” by thisapplepielife, among many others…

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’d really love to do a future fic. I’ve written a lot about first falling in love (and for good reason!), but I like the idea of showing something more lived in, a well-worn but well-loved relationship or something about the passage of time and grappling with the “what could have been”s and roads not taken.

What is your writing process like?

SLOW. Not actually but currently? Yes, it’s slow. I find myself needing to really immerse myself into the story to write and edit from the mindless scribbles that my outlines start out as and sometimes that takes more time and energy than I find myself with, especially during the week. I write mostly in sprints where I set aside a few hours to get out a big chunk in one sitting. So I guess my writing process is: sporadic and finicky. Oops.

Do you have any writing quirks?

Not so much a quirk but a lot of my initial outlining happens in the middle of the night while I’m half-asleep. I set the brightness on my computer on low, close my eyes, and “stream of consciousness” write without looking. Which means my first outlines are usually riddled with misspellings and logical leaps that make no sense in the light of day.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I post as I go. I usually have everything vaguely outlined but (as noted above), sometimes revisiting my middle-of-the-night draft weeks or months later means I’ve backed myself into a corner or what I’ve outlined doesn’t fit into what eventually made it onto the page in earlier chapters. So, in the spirit of “it’s good enough”, I post as things actually get written!

Which fic are you most proud of?

“if you were a melody”, if for the only reason that it’s the first fic I finished! It’s the first time I really got the rush of getting engaged readers as I was posting and I’ve received the most lovely comments on it. It was also definitely the most fully formed in my mind before I even started writing, which made it feel almost effortless from the beginning.

How did you get the idea for Here For A Reason?

When I first started reading Steddie, after S4, the pieces of the storytelling I connected with the most were about what came after - after the trauma, after the healing, after you start putting yourself back together. I loved the idea of starting from scratch, but not starting from a clean slate. You bring everything with you, for better or worse, so for me, the story really started from this place of having both Eddie and Steve recognize where they are, what they have to build on, and decide where they want to go next, together.

When writing Here For A Reason, what was something you didn’t expect?

what was something you didn’t expect? This story was the first thing I wrote in a really, really long time. Until I got back into fanfic via Steddie, I had a mental block on creative writing for years. I look back on the early chapters and I cringe! So I guess what was most surprising to me about this story was the fact that it allowed me to find my voice as a writer again. Reading back, I can see myself experimenting and finding my style, so just the sheer rediscovery of this passion of mine is something I never expected.

What inspired you remind me of someone (it's probably you)?

I came up with “if you were a melody” after a drunken movie marathon of The Holiday and White Christmas, sprinkled in with a little Stick Season by Noah Kahan, and after I finally finished it, I still had romcoms on the brain - and my favorite movie of all time is While You Were Sleeping. Looking back across all my fics, they all seem to stem from a character’s inherent loneliness and then tripping their way into love and community (oh boy, let’s not delve into that particular inherent trauma too deeply). And apparently, I was not done telling that type of story! Lucy in the movie is truly that lonely but loveable character archetype, and I found it translated so well to my favorite Steddie dynamic to write.

What was your favorite part to write from you remind me of someone (it's probably you)?

Honestly, delving into the character motivations! While “Steddie but make it romcom!” seems simple on the surface, I spent a lot of time trying to make the character motivations realistic. What inspires Steve to keep the lie going? Why would Wayne keep encouraging this absolutely insane scenario? What would ultimately get Eddie to forgive Steve in the end?

How do/did you feel writing if you were a melody (i used only the good notes)?

It was so fun! Yes, there’s angst and obstacles, but ultimately the time pressure of the set-up and the “love at first sight” nature of the Steddie dynamic made it so easy to write their relationship journey and really intertwine the fluff and the angst, the mistakes and the inevitable happy ending. I also just really loved Eddie in this one, confident and competent but still a chaotic goofball at heart.

What was the most difficult part of writing if you were a melody (i used only the good notes)?

I didn’t want the happy ending to seem too easy or inevitable! They were so clearly in love but with Steve really trying to be strong and not fall into old patterns, having him realize that pride at the expense of happiness isn’t worth it and that trusting in love again after heartbreak is one of the bravest, strongest things to do - again, really making sure his emotional journey made sense. And also, exploring Eddie’s POV in the epilogue was challenging just for the sheer logistics of how he would have done all the things he needed to do; I had a spreadsheet with different time zones for each character’s story beats.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

Honestly, I have a terrible memory for specific lines, I’m sure I wrote some good ones? I remember scenes and emotions more so than specific lines – so the blue wall at the end of “if you were a melody”, the downtown Chicago rooftop at sunrise in “you remind me of someone”, Eddie & Steve at the tattoo parlor in “Here for a Reason”… all of those evoke the same feeling in me, of the two boys experiencing something intimate and magical, of finally giving in to that undeniable pull between them.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Oh god, I don’t want to embarrass myself by promising or promoting anything in the future when I’m such a slow writer! It is my solemn vow that every fic of mine will be completed. Not to say I don’t have a few plot bunnies hopping around in my head, but in terms of anything specific, I guess I’ll know more after my next sleepless night…

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

It was truly such an honor to be asked to do this! Life has been rough and writing has been slow, so taking the time to look back and explore my own process and fics was such a lovely, much-needed reminder of why I love fanfic and this Steddie community. Thank you for thinking of me, and thank you to anyone who decides to read one of my stories because of this.

Thank you to our author, @Katdeerly, and our nominator! See more of katdeerly's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[murfpersonalblog]

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFqc5yJ3/

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFqcGyPq/

I hope this isn’t weird but, I stumbled upon these TikTok’s and they reminded me of some your iwtv metas.

@louis-of-nola omg it's not weird at all; thank you for liking my IWTV metas, and for sending me links to these REALLY good analyses of Black & LGBTQ+ people in white media! ❤️ TBH I'm never on apps like TikTok, Twitter or Instagram, so NGL I was bracing myself for rage bait when I clicked the links, only to be pleasantly surprised by these two videos by Mouseabolition on film theory--I sincerely appreciate it!

The first link especially got to me:

Cuz in Mouseabolition's critique of the White Gaze--particularly the White (Female) Gaze--she mentioned one of my favorite horror movies, Get Out.

"A lot of black people I know are able to very deeply care about and empathize with pieces of media that are attempting to speak to our experiences, even when it's done poorly. And we're not necessarily trying to say: 'That's a good thing and that was done well.' But it's the same reason why Chris from Get Out--THE template for black horror--why Chris from Get Out felt like such a new, refreshing horror protagonist. A huge part of what makes Get Out work, and what differentiates Chris from the average horror movie protagonist--outside of just like the surface level analysis of he's a black man--is that Jordan Peele (who is also a black man) was able to write a black character with the realistic higher level of consciousness and alertness towards danger, that all black people have to move with. And that higher level of consciousness is a huge part of why most black people I know can't take white people's horror movies seriously anyway. It's because white people walk around throwing themselves into situations that are destined to create horrific scenarios; and when you are somebody who has to walk around going: 'I can't do that, I'm gonna die!' it's really hard to feel shocked and horrified and surprised when somebody does something that you know damn well is gonna end up with them dead! Black people--particularly like black women and queer folks--don't really have the privilege of walking around with the illusion that we are more or better represented than we are. And so you learn to look at things more critically, and that gets stereotyped as nagging or a bad thing! But it's not, because thinking about things critically, genuinely all the way through, is frequently what leads the black people I know to finding those kernels of good in stories, where most people are just like: 'No, I just think that's silly, it's just dumb.'" (4:10 - 6:02)

I've made four IWTV metas comparing the horrific experiences of Chris in Get Out and Louis in IWTV, cuz I noticed that the core themes of Black men in white spaces wrt vulnerability, exploitation, gaslighting & manipulation resonated between both horror shows in a way that directly reflects IRL experiences.

This is particularly the case when Black people are involved in toxic interracial relationships that end in horrific tragedy for the Black partner. The horror comes into even sharper focus when it's the Black victim who ends up blamed/lied on by their white abuser/murderer that tried to play the innocent victim, weaponizing White Tears to justify/get away with literal crimes--which I've also provided links to before, cuz this BS really happens to us (x).

It's especially effed up when you're dealing with victims of abuse who suffer from mental illness, and are blamed/attacked by the authorities/masses. IRL we see Bipoc mentally ill folk who call the white cops for help and are the ones who get killed (x x); yet the IWTV fandom is overrun with racists who REFUSE to put 2 + 2 together to save their biased AF souls. I felt so vindicated in 2x5 - 2x8 when AMC explicitly showed that Louis & Claudia were telling the truth about the Drop Scene in 1x5, and that Armand had lied the whole time, effing with Louis AND Daniel's memories; after so many racist AF white Lestans & Armstans said the Lou & Claudia were spiteful liars who just wanted poor uwu blorbo Lestat & Armand to look bad cuz they're not Black, like WHAT!? We saw a literal Black LYNCHING happen on screen, where Black!Louis was buried alive & Black!Claudia was burned alive by a bottle-blonde white man in front of a predominately white audience in a "play"/snuff film co-written & directed by 3 non-Black people (Armand, Sam & Lestat); meanwhile the fans INSIST that this show's NOT about race. 🤡 BUFFOONERY!

By race-swapping Louis & Claudia & heightening the abuse they suffered in the books to make their treatment WORSE, AMC was literally talking to the predominately white gaze of the audience that SALIVATES over fetishizing Black people on one hand but still perpetrates injustices against Black people on the other hand; and the racist IWTV fandom proves them right every effing day!

And I also LOVE what MouseAbolition's Tik Tok said about the careful & highly conscious ways that Black people (esp. Black queer people) have to move in society, BECAUSE they're more vulnerable to persecution & penalties & punishment than white people.

Black gay men are marginalized by white AND black people alike; there are Black fans who are also against seeing Louis as a female-coded character. Because this is a white world, the white gaze affects ALL of us, and the panopticon of censure & censorship forces us to police each other and mistreat our own sometimes even worse than white people will--look at emotionally abusive/negligent mothers like Florence who has a particular image to uphold amongst the conservative Catholic Black elite during Jim Crow (vs. white Gabrielle who CAN support her white son's eccentricities); and homophobic women like Grace (who herself is married to a man who's NOT "the man of the house," Levi coddled by Florence & financially supported by Grace's inheritance & Louis' money). But at the end of the day the problem still lies with white (wo)men who weaponize Othering by means of race/gender/sexuality/etc in order to isolate marginalized peoples from systems of support, so that they might be more easily exploited & abused--which I've constantly argued wrt to Loustat.

It grates on my effing nerves when white fans (esp. Lestans) hypocritically talk about gender, culturally appropriating Black queer terminology like "Mother"--which originated in Black gay drag, pageantry & ballroom culture, a la Drag Mothers as exemplified in Paris is Burning, and shows like Ru Paul's Drag Race & Pose--in order to prop up Lestat's femininity and dismiss Louis', all because Louis (as a Black man they've hypermasculinized) doesn't conform to their cis white paradigmatic bias of what femininity & motherhood looks like--which is informed by the white patriarchy to control the social hierarchies of both women AND men, straight & gay alike!

I've adamantly critiqued white female fans' surface-level discrimination against Louis as a female-coded character just because Louis doesn't crossdress--as if Lestat's Mardi Gras dress is the only indexical determiner of gender; esp. for closeted & conservative Black gay men who historically CANNOT safely & freely move in public spaces the way out white liberal LGBTQ+ men can.

Cis white women lusting after Lestat & screaming Yaaas Mother~!, or circling the wagons around Armand cuz they want AMC to move on to Devil's Minion (which not even AR GAF about, lol), just loooove to jump on Louis for being a pimp, for not being feminine enough, for fighting back in 1x5. Black men are hypsersexualized to the point that straight AND gay Black men are perceived as universal dangers to white/non-Black purity, and were lynched by the mob in DROVES whenever if it was even suggested that they stepped out of line; "Louis can sometimes act out."

So yeah, people act like I'm crazy cuz I call this ish out, when the facts are staring them right in the effing face. But I've already been explicitly told by white Lestans that they're deliberately ignoring the red flags cuz it's not fun to turn their brains on & look at their precious blorbos critically and that they'll casually dismiss negative portrayals of Lestat on the show as "poor writing"--

--then the same stans spin their effing tops when they actually pick up a effing book and read for themselves that we're telling the truth when we say AR's darling Lestat's a LEGIT abusive rapist p.o.s.--

--and that Hannah Moscovich was legit for pointing out that it's not character assassination when Lestat's abusive oppressive toxic behavior is effing CANONICAL.

[4dkellysworld]

Hii hope you're doing well, if you're okay with it, I'd like to ask for some advice?

So, I've been trying to manifest something for a long time. But.. I haven't seen it. At all. It's been a really long time, like months. Normally I just brush it off and remind myself it means nothing, and imagination determines my reality, but after awhile.. it gets demotivating yk. It's been a long while, my self concept is pretty good, but I think it's slowly eroding because I haven't seen my manifestations yet. Thoughts?

Well, I have no idea what you've actually been thinking/doing/being to 'manifest' so you haven't given me much to work with. Also I am not a manifesting blog lol though I am changing my views on this, after all we are all creators of our own realities; we can either create consciously or unconsciously and self-mastery is all about taking responsibility for all our creations after all (this isn't an invite for more manifesting questions though, there's so many resources on this already lol). You might want to look into @aphroditeapprenticee-archive. A quick look at the asks shows me this one might be helpful to you, the others might be too. This reddit post might be helpful too.

Some other possible reasons:

You never accepted it as a reality/certainty and see it only as a fantasy or daydream

You told yourself you've accepted it as reality when you haven't actually. You can't lie to yourself

You're too fixated on checking if it's there or not, which just reaffirms the reality where you need to check [therefore it is not] >> you lack faith in what you have decided on

[An extension of above point] You keep changing your mind on whether you have it or not. Or you are also entertaining and identifying with thoughts that are opposite (Put another way, in LOA terms, "The old self has to die so the new self can live. Bury the old and live only as the new". Keep choosing the same thing)

You have resistance in the form of one or more: attachments, attachments to outcomes or expectations, fears, desires (you can't desire what you already have) etc which prevents you from accepting your "desired reality" as truth

The following excerpts may be helpful.

I've linked a video below which might be helpful to you, it's not geared on methods and talks more on the importance of faith and being conscious of what thoughts/beliefs you entertain. Very spiritually-geared as opposed to being outcome-focused (their titles are rather clickbaity but the content is alright actually).

Navigating this landscape of thought requires a conscious effort to cultivate a garden of positive life affirming beliefs. Imagine your mind as fertile soil and each thought a seed. What kind of garden are you tending, are the seeds of doubt, fear and negativity finding too much purchase or are you diligently planting and nurturing seeds of hope, love and abundance? The mastery of thought is not an overnight achievement but a lifelong journey of choosing moment by moment which seeds to water and which to weed out. This deliberate act of selection empowers individuals to shape their destinies guided by the unwavering belief in the secret power woven into the fabric of their being.

[sexydreamgirl]

Hi! I just wanted to share this somewhere so I feel I have the obligation to complete it.

I’ve been apart of the LOA community for some time now, and I’ve had struggles manifesting (not persisting, over consuming info, etc.) and often I would feel upset whenever my desires didn’t appear when I felt I’ve been putting my all into them. I took a break for LOA for a while now because of that reason, but I feel that I am ready to come back because I have been scripting my dream life that I want to live for over a year now and I know that I can live it if I really try.

I mainly moved away from this community because I would just search and search for information and not apply it or put it off, but I’m ready to stop that. The manifesting guide that you posted is going to be my only source of information and soon I’ll remove myself from LOA tumblr and truly persist in my desires.

I know that I have to tackle my self concept, and that will be the first thing that I will do. Sometimes I feel nervous knowing that I am going to live this life behind but honestly I’m going to embrace the thrill. I know my dream life is waiting for me on the other side and I have to get to it.

Are there any tips that you can share before I start my journey?

I think I'd like to clarify very quickly that self concept isn't something you "work on". Self concept is another term for your current state of consciousness, so it's not really something you tackle first so much as it is something you change period. That said...

If there's anything I'd want to leave you with before you initiate your deliberate shift in consciousness it would be the following reminders:

There is no one and nothing to change but self. If you want to change something on the outside you must first make changes on the inside, there is no other way around it. Leave the world alone and change your conception of self. To fight against what 3D is showing you is to fight your own shadow since the world is simply yourself pushed out.

Consciousness is the only reality means that you will only ever experience whatever it is that you are conscious of (being). You will never be able to bear witness to something you did not become conscious of.

There is a difference between thinking of and thinking from. Thinking from is done through declaration of I AM. Thinking of is confined to "I would like to be" or "I will be", both of these are confessions that you are not that which you desire to be. You cannot believe yourself to be rich while also believing that you are poor. You either are it or you are not. You cannot serve two masters.

You can repeat affirmations, script chapters, visualize day in and day out but if you are not identifying and feeling yourself to be one with your imaginal acts, you are performing in vain.

You cannot fail. If you remain faithful to your ideal and you feel yourself to be it, no power on earth will impede its fruition. This is the unbreakable law of life. Failure can only be the end result if you allow it to be the end result.

[hikari-drkspc]

❅ “In The Name Of Love” ❅

character: yandere! shishio tsukasa [dr. stone]

warning: yandere, implication of m0rder, c0nfin3m3nt, poss3ssiv3 tendencies ; MINOR/AGELESS BLOGS DNI, PUT YOUR AGE IN BIO/PINNED POST TO INTERACT

words: 1.2k

a/n: this is a repost from my main blog (@/hikari-writes) so yes this writing is old + bad, i just moved them here w/o editing bc im lazy and wants to keep reminding myself how bad my writing used to be <3 also this was a request from my main blog!!

“Tsukasa, remember what I told you before?”

You ask in a monotone voice, looking up at your boyfriend who was hugging you from behind.

“I remember every word you say, love, but you have to specify for me to know which one you’re referring to.”

He holds you closer to him and you could feel his warmth seeping in through you. If this were you from 3000 years ago, you would’ve enjoyed his warmth and think of how lucky you were to have someone like him as your lover.

But now, it all just seems so…suffocating.

Ever since he’s been revived back by Senku and joining the Kingdom of Science, he has become more protective and possessive of you.

No, that’s not it.

He’s already shown that kind of behaviour long ago. Maybe you didn’t realize it 3000 years ago because you two just started going out but even before when Tsukasa still was in charge of his own empire, you could’ve at least noticed the red flags he was giving.

He constantly asked you to stay with him and won’t let go of you almost until the end of the day. Even when you were about to try to do something else, he would grab you and force you to sit on his laps.

His grip on you was gentle, but it was enough to make you stay and not move around too much.

You haven’t told this to anyone yet, not even Mirai, but you were actually…dreading the time when Senku will petrify him and revive him back.

All those times when Tsukasa was still in his cryogenic state, everyone kept encouraging you to stay strong and reassuring you that Senku will revive him back soon.

And you would always just reply to them with a wry smile and a “I’m fine,” so as to not worry them.

You originally had thought you were going to feel depressed about this whole ordeal too. But you never did.

In fact, you felt so…free. Almost as if a big burden had just been lifted from your shoulders. You were happy with that.

You actually even wished Senku never found the Petrification Weapon. You truly enjoyed the freedom that you felt. You wished it would stay.

But in the end, nothing ever stays.  

Tsukasa was revived and you are back in his grip once again.

You hated every moment of it.

“About being too protective of me! I was just going to help Gen with some of his work. I know you’re protective of me because you’re worried, but can you please just let me do something to help others?”

You finally break free from his hug and turn to him. Your eyebrows are crossed, showing how displeased you are with the whole situation.

“But if I let go of you, you’ll definitely run away from me.”

Your eyes widened at what he said. You didn’t expect him to feel that way. All this time, you had thought that the reason Tsukasa was so overprotective of you might’ve been because he was worried…or maybe even because he wanted to have control of you.

You went quiet for a moment. In a sense, he’s not wrong. But to actually know he felt that way…it’s actually making you feel guilty.

“Tsukasa….I won’t run away from you, so don’t worry, alright?”

You wrap your arms around his large frame, successfully convincing him that you won’t do something like that. He returns the hug and pulls you closer.

“…Y/N, if you truly mean what you said, will you forgive me for what I’m about to do?”

You pull away and look up at him, confused.

“Sure?”

Not even a second after that, you felt your consciousness slowly slipping away from you. You could hear the loud throbbing from your neck after Tsukasa just striked it.

“W-wh…”

You mustered up what little strength you have left to let out a “What?” but even that has proven to be difficult. All you managed to hear was Tsukasa’s last words before you completely lost your consciousness.

“Do forgive me for doing this, love. You’re too pure to be tainted by this dirty world.”

~~**~~

You slowly open your eyes to see the darkness greeting you. You tried to get up but your whole body felt so weak and your limbs refused to work for you. You cursed under your breath and tried to adjust your eyes to the darkness. The place sure seemed familiar.

Then it hit you.

It’s the prison.

You tried to scream out loud but your voice only echoed throughout the prison without anyone responding. You could feel your heart beating rapidly like never before as soon as you heard a series of footsteps nearing you.

It’s not as if you recognized the footsteps or anything, but the way the pace is so calm and unrushed even after your scream of help convinced you that the owner of the footsteps knew you’re trapped in there. And they’re not willing to let you out anytime soon.

And who else would want to do such things other than your former beloved,

“Tsukasa…”

You hissed out his name while glaring at his broad figure towering over you over the cell wooden bars.

“I’m sorry you had to go in here, my love. Trust me, I don’t want you to be placed here either, but I have no choice.”

He tried to cup your cheeks in his hands but you quickly moved your face away from him.

“Tsukasa, whatever this madness is, STOP it. Do you think the others won’t know what you’re doing? Soon enough, you will—”

“They won’t. After all, you are considered dead in their hearts.”

He cut you off with those words and your eyes widened in horror at him. Your lips tremble and you try to hide your unease by glaring at him.

Before you could ask him what he meant, he spoke up as if he had just read your mind.

“I told them that you died. An animal attack, precisely. It’s completed with evidence and all. I did also get some helping hand from some people though. Couldn’t have done it without them.”

He stops for a moment to look at you who were frozen in your place and finally cups both your cheeks to bring it closer to him.

“This cell was built especially for you, back when I still ruled over my own empire. It’s located very deep into this cave, and no one would dare to come here.”

“You mean to say you’ve been planning to put me in confinement for a long time now?! What— I-”

Tsukasa looks at you, his eyes turning soft and he looks so melancholic. You almost snapped at him when you saw that expression. If anyone here is supposed to cry, it’s YOU, not him.

“I didn’t think it was necessary…until recently. When other people started looking at you as if you’re some kind of walking meat that they’re about to devour.  It disgusts me so much, and I couldn’t handle it anymore…so I made the decision to keep you safe here….and wipe those people out.”

Your blood runs cold at that statement.

Wipe those people out?

He couldn’t have meant that literally….right?

“W-why–”

You didn’t even realize your tears were running down your cheeks until you felt Tsukasa gently wiped them away. He gives you his soft smile that you used to know so very well, yet it felt so foreign now.

“Because I love you, Y/N. I always have and will continue to forever be in love with you.”

[recurringwriter]

Dumb question I’ve asked before, but HOW do you enjoy a hobby? How do you enjoy doing things you might not be great at? How do you enjoy doing things when not only starting feels impossible and every minute doing feels like a chore? (Sorry. I know this is negative.)

Not a dumb question!! I think it's something we need to relearn from when we're kids, if i'm being honest. our self-consciousness, things people have said to us, our worries, other stresses that make what we love feel 'less important'... all of it makes it harder to enjoy them. this got long so i'm putting a cut:

Will start by saying that i don't think it's reasonable to expect to Love your hobbies All The Time, and that's not something you should aim for. They can be challenging or the mood is wrong or people interrupt us, or we get stuck. And as our skills increases, there can be more to be frustrated over when our hands don't keep up with our minds. I do get why people vent about it, but i've reached a point where it doesn't feel productive, so that's why you'll see me sometimes complaining about 'writer memes' about how we 'all' secretly hate writing and would rather do anything but write. I will say the alternative to those memes can at times...feel a little like work. Sometimes, you do have to consciously work to change your approach, but I promise, it's so worth it. anyway, what i've found is more productive is:

Look for ways to make your hobby easier--whether that's to start, to finish, to get through a boring in-between, anything. Identify why it feels like a chore, and address that directly. Is it because getting materials out is a hassle? is it because you have an Inner Rule about needing to clear table space? that the first sentence you write has to be perfect? that you need to do linework for it to look nice? find loopholes and cheats to make it simpler and more fun! And if you know specifically what you want to improve on, it's easier to work on or ask for/look up advice on it so that it flows smoother. it's equally fine to want to get better, and to enjoy imperfect creations. what matters is that you find ways to have fun as you do it.

Remember, chores end in a positive--a clean space, a full plate, fresh clothes. How do you feel after you've finished with your hobby? How can you remind yourself of that feeling as you engage in it? When you get to the tricky parts, instead of worrying over how hard it was the first time, try instead to think about the fact that you did it, even if it was a little messy (or a lot). this is me with sewing i'll be honest. embroidery is something i really have to gear up to do, but once i start, i can usually convince myself it's not as bad as i'd built it up to be. sometimes it's almost a let-down. i raised all that fuss for a few stitches? psh. but don't let that feeling dissuade you. just know that you don't need to feel guilty over the time spent preparing. acknowledge the feeling and let it go its own way.

You might want to change when or where you do your hobby, to shake things up in your brain. maybe listen to something out of the ordinary, or watch something while you do your hobby. changing your space even in little ways can make a big difference.

If possible, find buddies to engage in positive sharing of the hobby. online or in person, whatever you're comfortable with. this can help with starting things--i sometimes make pacts with a friend that we both work on something (often not even the same hobby) at the same time, from miles apart. but if you both agree to start on something at the same time, you have a reason to get out your gear and make a start.

Make it special. whatever your hobby is, get materials or collectibles or equipment that you like and feel good engaging with. If you can't, try to customize them in a small way to make them feel special to use, and uniquely yours. Because your hobby is yours, and is a part of you to nurture and care for.

Try new things. Mess up. It's okay. Let yourself play. Many writers will compare their work to playing with toys as a kid. Try to bring that same spirit of creativity and fun to what you do. Whether it's art, games, sports, remember that you're allowed to feel like a raven rolling around in the snow. if you want to improve at a craft, playing and making lots of goofy mistakes is genuinely a superb way to get better at it. just breathe deep, say 'no, this won't be perfect, but that's okay', and try. depending on the medium, some crafts can be started and undone as many times as you want. it's okay to 'erase' your progress and start fresh. doing it the first time still helped you practice and learn!

Try to think about what you would say to someone about your hobby if you were trying to get them interested in it. remind yourself why you began it. what drew you to it? what do you want from it? how can you regain that feeling?

Does it help to do your hobby for just yourself, or for someone else? What's more fun to you and inspires you to engage in it more often?

This one is hard but my strongest Recommendation: Praise Yourself Constantly. Don't beat yourself up over imperfections or a finished product--celebrate that stuff! celebrate you, doing things, enriching yourself and being a part of the world. Practice hyping yourself up and saying good and, frankly, arrogant things about yourself and your hobby. Chances are, it won't even sound outrageous to an outside observer. We've been taught that 'modesty' makes us better people, and that any amount of pride in ourselves is 'ego'. forget that noise! be proud of yourself no matter what! others are! you are allowed to be, too!

A great thing to do is to hype up strangers and friends alike who are doing the same thing--especially beginners. No matter your skill level, encouraging and looking for positives in what a beginner is doing benefits everyone.

Of course, sometimes no matter how we want to enjoy something, it just isn't our thing. It's okay to try things and then let them go without mastering them--but it's also okay to pick them up again months or years later. You might even find you've somehow improved during the rest period! We are constantly changing and learning, even as we just go through the motions of life. that shows in our art and creativity--and when we let ourselves get loose and tell our doubts to shut it, we can have a good time and relax.

there are so many things that i try and feel like i do absolutely rubbish at. i often hold myself back from watercolour painting because of the set up involved and my perfectionism. but whenever i do it, i've enjoyed the process even if i hate the result. i think i need to focus more on that--the mixing of colours, the shine of the page, that sort of thing, so i can stop making excuses and do it more. sometimes it's lack of ideas, sure, but maybe sometime this week i'll get my paints out and make a silly thing and 'waste' my good watercolour paper. and if you ever wanted to talk about your own hobbies, i'd be happy to! i hope that you can find enjoyment and relaxation in something, be it an old hobby or something that newly interests you.

[stanleypinesgf]

Falling for Mystery - Chapter Seven

Falling for Mystery Masterlist Warnings: mentions of abusive ex, some injuries and blood mentioned but not described in depth, more angst than i was aiming for my loves but i'll be worth it i promise! Please note: this is a slow burn fic with eventual smut and mature themes, 18+ only and please check warnings at the start of chapters! ALSO idk how long I'll maintain a daily posting schedule as I have a 9-5 too LOL but will try my best!! TYSM for all the support so far!!

w/c: 2,092

The darkness enveloped me like a thick fog, swallowing the last remnants of consciousness. The panic that once clawed at my throat faded into a haze, the roar of whatever creature lurked in the woods replaced by an eerie silence.

“Hey, babe. Miss me?”

I blinked, the world around me slowly shifting into focus. I was standing in the middle of our apartment, back in Portland. The familiarity was unnerving, and his smile was almost animalistic, leering down at me. He had a knack for making me feel so small, insignificant.

“What... why are you here?” I asked, trying to steady my voice to appear more confident, when in reality, I was anything but. Dread crept in, taking hold.

He stepped closer, a glimmer of that familiar charm in his eyes. “I just wanted to see you, to tell you how sorry I am, babe. You know I love you, right?”

“Jake, if you loved me, then it would never have come to this. I left because I was afraid of you!” I reminded him, trying to hold onto the anger that had once protected me from him.

“You know we could still have something special, don’t you? Just give it a chance.”

“No,” I said firmly, shaking my head as I stepped back. “I can’t do this. Not again.”

“Why not?” His expression shifted, desperation creeping into his voice. “I can change, I promise. I was stupid. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“You’re kidding?” I scoffed, the anger bubbling in my veins. “You turned my friends against me; even some of my own family believed what you said about me! You hit me, Jake, over and over. The worst part is, I thought you were justified in your actions… I blamed myself!”

His gaze hardened, the charming facade slipping just enough for me to see the truth beneath. “I made mistakes, but so did you. Always getting coffee with those guys you work with for a start. But I know we can fix it. You know we were good together.”

I tried to find the words to respond, but none came. Was I really at fault for this? Maybe I did drive him to do and say all those things after all. Everyone else seemed to think he was a great guy, people had a hard time believing me when I told them what a monster he had become.

“You think Stan’s any different? He’s never gonna put up with you like I did! I was good to you!” The venom in his words tore through me.

In the distance, I could hear someone calling my name, footsteps pounding towards me. I looked around frantically, trying to find the source of the voice, but before I could, the world around me began to fade, replaced by an icy chill.

I felt myself being dragged into the depths of a dark abyss, Jake’s voice lingering, taunting me as I struggled to break free.

And then, just as quickly, I was jolted awake by two firm hands on my shoulders. I recognised the familiar, gruff voice. The fog of the dream clung to me, and as I blinked, it began to fade, revealing the sharp edges of reality.

“There you are!” Stan’s voice cut through the haze of fear. He was panting slightly, his face a mix of relief and anger. "What the hell were you thinking? Going into the woods like that?”

I couldn’t answer, not yet. My lungs burned, and my legs were weak. Before I could try to stand, strong arms lifted me from the forest floor. Stan pulled me into his chest, the scent of pine and old leather, mixed with something uniquely his, grounding me in the moment.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” His tone was urgent yet somewhat calm.

“I should be able to walk... you can—” I started, but Stan interrupted.

“You’re joking? I’m not letting that thing get any closer to you!” He huffed, jogging towards the shack as I clung to his broad shoulders.

The rest of the journey was almost silent, dipping in and out of consciousness as the guilt swallowing me whole. I had just made Stan risk his life for me; how could I be so selfish? What I had done was reckless and dangerous.

I was pulled from my thoughts by the creaking of floorboards on the porch of the Shack, relief starting to wash over me. We were home. Stan fumbled for his keys to lock the door behind us, his eyes scanning the tree line, ensuring that... thing was out of sight. But there was more than just concern etched into his features; a flicker of vulnerability danced in his gaze, as if he was trying to mask his own fears. I could see him wrestling with the weight of responsibility, his jaw clenched tight. Did he blame himself for not being out here with me? For not being able to protect me? Each time he glanced my way, a mixture of determination and uncertainty filled his expression, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was as scared as I was about what could happen next. As if he was also scared of losing someone.

“You’re okay now; you’re safe,” he murmured, his gruffness giving way to something softer as he held me close for a moment longer than necessary.

“I— I didn’t think—” I started, but my voice faltered. I wasn’t even sure what I was trying to explain. My body trembled, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, and tears started to flow freely.

Stan shifted me in his arms, carrying me inside the shack. “No talking. Let’s get you inside. You look like you’ve been through a goddamn war.”

Once we were inside, the warmth of the shack enveloped me, but it didn’t chase away the chill in my bones. Stan set me down gently on the couch, his hands gripping my shoulders as if he was afraid I’d disappear again if he let go. His eyes scanned me from head to toe, frowning at the dried blood on my arms and legs.

“You need to clean up,” he said, his voice commanding yet edged with concern. “Go shower, wash this off. Then I’ll take care of the rest.”

I blinked at him, the absurdity of a shower after nearly being killed by some forest creature not quite computing. The firmness in his voice left no room for argument, and the exhaustion weighing down my limbs pushed me to obey.

Dragging myself to the bathroom, I peeled off my dirty clothes and stepped into the hot stream of water. As I stood under the spray, I could still feel the intensity of Stan’s gaze on me, the way his hands lingered a second longer on my skin than necessary. The way my heart fluttered against my better judgment when he held me.

When I came back out, wrapped in an oversized towel, Stan was still waiting, arms crossed and that same look of concern etched across his face. He had a first aid kit open on the counter, a bottle of vodka seated next to it, and a neatly folded pile of clean clothes—his clothes. He motioned for me to sit back down.

“I—uh, I didn’t wanna go through your stuff, so I brought you these for now...” he seemed almost sheepish at the admission.

“Thank you, can you—” I started, but he turned away before I could finish. I carefully slipped into the baggy t-shirt and tartan pajama bottoms, their scent enveloping me.

“You can turn around now,” I half-chuckled.

“Let me see,” he said, his voice softer now, though his gruff exterior remained intact.

I sat, the tension between us thickening as Stan knelt beside me. His hands were surprisingly gentle as he took my arm, examining the cuts with care. His fingers brushed against my skin, sending an unexpected shiver down my spine. It wasn’t just the cold air; it was the way he looked at me—like I was fragile, like he was afraid I’d break if he didn’t handle me just right.

“This is nothing,” I mumbled, trying to sound tough, but the vulnerability in my voice betrayed me.

He didn’t respond, just kept tending to my wounds in silence. After a few moments, I couldn’t take the quiet anymore. The weight of what had happened in the woods, of what was happening between us, was too much.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Stan paused, his fingers freezing for a second before continuing to work on the bandages. He looked up at me, his eyes softer than I’d ever seen them. “What kind of question is that?”

“I mean…” I hesitated, unsure how to explain the jumble of emotions swirling inside me. “You don’t have to take care of me like this. It’s my fault…”

His brow furrowed, as if my words confused him. “Of course I do. Who else is gonna do it?” There was a tenderness in his voice, but also something more—something that made my chest tighten. “Besides, I—" he started, then stopped himself, his eyes flicking away as though he wasn’t ready to finish that sentence.

Suddenly, the space between us felt too small. His hands still cradled my arm, and the warmth from his skin was almost overwhelming. Before I knew it, I leaned closer, my breath catching in my throat. The air between us crackled with an energy I couldn’t ignore, and for a moment, neither of us moved.

And then, without thinking, I closed the gap. Our lips met, soft at first, tentative, like we were both testing the waters. Stan’s hand slid from my arm to my waist, pulling me closer as the kiss deepened. I could feel the pent-up tension in the way he kissed me, the restraint he had been holding back finally slipping. My heart raced, not just from the adrenaline still coursing through me, but from the realisation that this was happening—that I wanted this.

But just as quickly, fear set in. The memories of my nightmare, of trusting someone too easily, flooded back. My stomach twisted, and I pulled away, breathless and suddenly terrified of what I’d just let happen.

Stan’s eyes were wide, and I could see the hurt and confusion flicker across his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice rough, like he didn’t understand.

“I—” I couldn’t find the words. My mind was reeling, and all I knew was that I couldn’t let this happen. Not now. Not when everything felt so precarious. Every time I think about trusting someone, I see Jake’s face, the way he used to smile at me before it all went wrong. I remember how I dismissed the little signs—his jealousy disguised as concern, the way he twisted my words until I questioned my own reality. Trusting Stan felt like stepping onto a tightrope without a safety net, and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to balance.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, backing away. “I… I can’t.”

Stan blinked, and for a moment, I saw something in him crack—a vulnerability I hadn’t noticed before. His hand hovered in the air, like he wanted to reach for me, but then he pulled it back, stuffing it into his pocket.

“Yeah. Sure,” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion. He stood up, his back stiff as he turned away from me. “You should get some rest.”

He didn’t wait for a response before walking toward the door. My heart clenched as I watched him go, the weight of what had just happened—and what hadn’t—pressing down on me like a thousand pounds. I wanted to call out to him, to explain, but the words caught in my throat. Instead, I sat there, alone in the quiet, regret settling in like a cold chill.

As the door clicked shut behind him, a wave of silence crashed over me, amplifying the weight of my solitude. I started to sob, each breath shaking my body as the intensity of everything that had just happened poured out of me. Memories of the woods and Jake’s haunting voice intertwined with the warmth of Stan’s embrace. The struggle within me felt insurmountable, and as I curled into myself on the couch, I couldn't help but wonder if I’d just ruined the chance for something real. The tears streamed down my cheeks, and I fell into a fitful sleep, my heart heavy with the shadows of my past. Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

[loveprncss]

"and after that, I DON'T GO BACK. don't let yourself think differently (i can talk and expand on this more)."

how do u do this? ❤️

hello!

in my journey this has been one of my major issues. so i tried many different shit but i always end up falling right back to the old story. this was when i didn't prioritize actually understanding the 'I AM' being the only creator. i have tons of post saying 'YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE IN CONTROL' and if you read that, don't dismiss it. it means as it is, word for word in a literal sense, that you are the only one in control. therefore when you enter a new state/see yourself differently, it was YOU who put yourself there. now when you fall back, it is ALSO YOU who put yourself there. because there is NO ONE else that is in control. NO ONE ELSE can control you.

i have a post this one, and it's an important epiphany for me.

i emphasized all that's said above ^ because this was the key for me to not fall back. discovering that i have the power to CHOOSE to not ALLOW myself to fall back, since i'm the only one in control. when i discovered this it was like a sigh of relief, that damn finally, i'm in control of myself.

i already answered a similar ask but it remained in my drafts. i wrote that prob a month ago & it's embarrassingly long lol but here's a screenshot of answering the part about 'not reverting back'

---

in practice what it looks like is i just try to not contradict it. when i decide i'm someone who now has this, but i don't see it yet in the 3d, then i kinda feel like i'm falling back, i gently remind myself that i already have it. it feels freeing to be able to have the freedom to NOT CONTRADICT IT. it feels like i really am in control. i'm no longer looking outside of me for techniques to not fall back, bc really, none of those will work unless YOU take control over yourself.

like i understand that we may unconsciously fall back, but that doesn't mean you're going to fail. when i say "i dont allow myself to contradict it" i meant i don't consciously contemplate the opposite of what i want for hours. i don't allow myself to consciously entertain doubts again and again and again, and fall back into that cycle/old pattern. i used to think about my fears, doubts, and possible failure for hours and i'm not even aware i'm doing that. but now, i stop myself before i do that. before, i didn't know i could just go and stop myself. i thought there's something else i needed to do lol basically i overcomplicated it, a lot of us refuse to accept it was this simple 😭 but yea rn in my journey sometimes i still unconsciously fall back at times, but i don't panic anymore and think i'm going to fail bc i fell back. how i go about it is i remind myself of my new truth. i decide i am it. then i deny the fact that i fell back to the old state LMAO, i decide it didn't happen and it's not gonna affect my new truth because this is still true no matter what. i'm just more confident in myself now 🤎

[deadmomjokes]

as a teacher, hearing about the way you communicate so clearly and thoroughly with your child is so inspiring. I wish more people had resources on how to communicate with kids like you do.

I'm very bad at taking compliments, so I'll just say "Thank you" and also qualify that she makes it pretty easy. She's very smart and has always, from day one basically, needed to know the reasons behind everything. In other circumstances, she would probably be called "stubborn" or "defiant." But the thing is, I remember my own "stubbornness" growing up, and it was almost always the result of me not understanding why things were the way they were. From a young age, I hated with a burning passion the "Because I said so" thing. So I determined that I didn't want to do that when/if I had kids of my own.

My daughter is very bright and curious and makes that easy for me. Her "why" phase was/is pretty specific, which is helpful in keeping ahead of the frustration-induced rage-meltdowns. (Not all of them, of course, because some concepts are really hard to grasp even as an adult, let alone when you're 4 years old and everything Feels Too Big.)

But I also made a conscious effort to start practicing early, before she could talk or push back on a lot of stuff. It felt so weird and silly at first, but I basically narrated everything I did with/around her, and put a reason for it. So a trip to the store sounded like this:

"We made it to the store to get our groceries, so we have yummy food to eat. Let's go inside and get a buggy--that's where we'll put all the things we get, because we can't carry them all in just our hands. I'm going to put you in the buggy, too, right here in this seat, that way you can see what's going on but I have both my hands to push the buggy and grab the things we need. Here, look, some bananas! Let's get some of those because you love to eat them. Oh, no, sorry baby, we can't eat them right now. This stuff isn't ours until we pay for it at the very end-- that's the part with the beep-beeper and the bags. When we get home we can have some of the bananas, because then they are our bananas." Etc, etc, on and on.

People looked at me like I was nuts. It felt a little nuts at times, especially before she could respond verbally. But it worked. It built a habit for me to give a reason for why I'm doing things, or making her do things. More importantly, I feel like, it made me stop and question when I didn't have a good reason for my answers or behaviors. Like if she comes up and asks to blow bubbles outside, and I go, "No baby, not right now," she can be like "why not?" And I have to look at myself and my reasoning. Is it because I'm actually busy or we're genuinely about to do something else that precludes the 5 minutes it'd take to do bubbles? Or is it because I just don't feel like it? It's not fair for "I don't feel like it" to supersede her desires for connection and entertainment all the time. (Sometimes you're just worn out and don't have the bandwidth for it, and that's valid. Parents are people too! But it can't be all the time, yk?) So if I don't have a good reason why not, I let her know that I thought about it more and changed my mind, and off we go to blow bubbles.

I also heard the advice, idk where or when, that you need to practice on your children what you want from them. So if I want my child to be kind, I have to be kind to her, in ways that she can see and appreciate. If I want her to know it's okay to change your mind, I have to point out when that happens for me, like in the above bubbles example. If I want her to be a decent human being who respects others, is empathetic, appreciates the efforts of others, speaks kindly, thinks about how her actions impact those around her, etc... You get the idea. It starts with me. And I try to consciously remind myself of that fact.

It's not always easy, because kids aren't always rational (but to be fair, neither are adults lol). And what is rational to a 4 year old is not always the same as what is rational to me, the adult with almost 3 decades of experience more than her. So sometimes it's like explaining to the wind why it ought to blow in a different direction. But the longer I get to know her, the more I'm able to pick up on the way she sees things, her personal defaults, the way she talks around concepts she's not sure about, etc. It's part of what's cool about getting to be her parent. I get such a close-up view of this little person becoming a little person, and it makes me stop and think about things I have taken for granted for a long time.

I'm rambling again, but I have developed a lot of Strong Feelings about the way kids are treated and looked at in general, and a lot of determination to do better for the kids I get the privilege of loving.

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 17: Second Megnitude

That voice, that insidious crackly hissing voice, begins reciting the most incredible clichéd pap inside his very mind.

“With a sky of dragon belly Where a fearful terror reigns While the city cowers beneath it We sing and turn your fate”

And yet, despite how ridiculous and silly it is, he feels something begin to happen.

—

Let’s establish another bit of important planning I’ve done, as I’m landing in the Eastern end zone of the Fairport stadium (it has an official name, that of some businessman, but I don’t care for it).

I’ve left almost everything valuable that I own with Rhoda. 

In particular, I’ve left my ID, name change paperwork, and SNAP and debit cards. The pendant that Chapman made me is not with me either. I still have my purse and tablet, in hopes that they’ve both got the enchantments necessary to survive whatever is coming my way, so I can use the tablet to try to talk to Säure.

Now, whether I’ll survive is a different matter, but I’ve also got a lot of things going for me at the moment.

I’m trying to focus on my uncertainty and anxiety, though, making myself a more obvious target to my adversary, hoping he can feel those emotions radiating from me. So I’m not going to reiterate just what’s going to save my hide right now.

But once my velocity has slowed enough that I can bounce around to face my incoming doom, I do so, and then I let loose with my territorial song once again, just to let him know I’m here and I’m challenging him.

“grrrrrrrrRRUMBLE-SQUAAAAAWK-NOKNOKNOKNOKNOK!!!”

I can see that the sun is about to start setting, shining through a string of poplar trees that are lined up along part of the freeway, visible just above the high wall of the stadium.

And just above that is the increasingly growing shadow of Säure, wings stretching from South to North like an incoming storm, his underside all limned silvery and gold from the sunlight.

His belly scales glow like pearls the size of Winnebagos.

They might actually be bigger than that. His size baffles me.

He roars right back at me and it’s a little bit like being hit by a cosmic oscilloscope.

I stand my ground.

—

Once she makes her final challenge, his eyes pinpoint the speck that is that whelp of queer ersatz royalty, Meghan. 

But his thoughts and intentions are dashed by the next verse.

“The smokey columns rise And dance in wind's refrain Pushed by wings of envy We sing and turn your fate”

Consciousness reeling from whatever foul Architecture these words are constructing, he does manage to remind himself that he can take his time to really burn this one, this Meghan.

He needn’t do his dive bomb routine. He can just soar and spear her with his death ray until the poem has run its course, and maybe even after that.

And he opens his mouth to do so, before his impulses can be interrupted by more words.

—

I do wonder which of us has the greater hubris. Säure or me?

He’s already made numerous mistakes, and he’s digging himself deeper and I’m sure he knows it. Right now he should be in the grips of whatever the Poet has in store for him delivered by Chapman’s speakers.

And, also, since he’s now become the new nightmare of Fairport by terrorizing nearly everyone in the city for so long, that puts him squarely in Ptarmigan’s crosshairs, if her quip about Finland was perchance a lie.

Some of the other stuff I said she said was a lie on my part.

And he’s the clear villain and maybe I’m the people’s champion. And narrative physics should be in my favor.

Oh, I hope.

However, I know that I’m far enough away from the infrastructure of the stadium that he can light me up without doing much damage to it. And I’m counting on magics and powers that are as yet untested by a direct attack on this scale. I’m counting on Rhoda’s need for me to be strong enough that her proclamation will bend everything in my favor, and this will be the only proof of that, if it works. And I really don’t know what Poetry can actually do. It seems almost childish to call on it.

Furthermore, while I think that my imperviousness to my own flames might extend to other forms of heat, that’s really only a wild guess. A fervent wish.

And then, there’s still also the question of whether I can even get him to come down and talk to me if his breath somehow doesn’t hurt me.

He could just try to land on me.

Worrying in thought takes far fewer words than what I’ve written here. I’ve considered these fears and swallowed them within the two heartbeats it also takes me to realize the Poet’s verses won’t likely be done by the time Säure attacks me.

And there it is.

His jaws move and his head becomes the largest sunlamp. I don’t even understand how that works, only that I’ve seen something similar in a movie. And it sparkles with static. It's a true laser.

My nictitating membranes have flipped up reflexively, like natural sunglasses, but I’ve still got brilliant spots on my retinas where his mouth marks the sky.

And every inch of me and the ground around me for several yards reflects that fizzing indigo-white light.

I can smell ozone, the turf smoking, and the hot metal of the goal posts baking in the laser.

And that’s without tasting the air with my tongue.

—

Once he’s started, he doesn’t even think. He just sets himself to the task as the hideous words continue to filter through him.

“We know you think you own us But your cries they reek of shame And we rise to turn and face you While we sing to turn your fate”

He can’t feel Meghan’s fear anymore, and he hopes that means she’s gone and no longer a problem for anyone. But he’s on automatic. He’s going to torch that spot of ground until he’s about to land on it.

—

The figure lurking in the control booth of the stadium watches impassively through UV blocking wraparound sunglasses that were maybe a little too pricey for not being actual laser grade safety goggles.

Even with them on, it’s nigh impossible to tell what’s happening out there. Not with human senses, anyway.

Timing here is going to be everything, and even though Säure is obviously flying in as slowly as he can it’s still a meteoric descent.

It might not matter if Meghan survives, honestly, but the world would be a nicer place if she did.

The modifications to the stadium’s electrical systems that the Janitor managed to cobble together at the last minute better not go to waste, either. That required a deal that was surprisingly costly.

Siblings sure do love to stick it to you when you’re desperate for time.

Behind the figure in sunglasses, in the darkness of the room, something large moves.

—

“No one owes you allegiance No one here feels your pain Struggle to no avail, Dear Säure We sing and turn your fate”

And that seems to be it. There’s a distinctive pause in that onslaught of supposed poetry, and his mind clears.

Just in time for him to cut off his own blitz, close his mouth, and pull up before slamming into the entire stadium.

He doesn’t feel anything more in particular. While the poem was being recited, something was happening, but now it’s not, and he has no idea what it was.

And as he rises, he steals a glance at the ground below him.

The circle that marks ground zero of his attack is charred completely black and he can’t see Meghan in it anywhere. If her corpse is there, it’s as black as the grass beneath it.

So he takes a deep breath as he works his wings, filling his blood with oxygen to feed his muscles, and to soothe his nerves.

What a nothingburger.

It’s all done and maybe now he can deal with the remaining Architects who’d swarmed his county on his terms, rather than that whelp’s.

He closes his eyes and imagines the peace of his soon-to-be newly reconstructed lair.

And that vision is interrupted by a, “wump, wump, wump, wumpwumpwumpwmprrrrrrrRRRRRRAWACK-NOK-NOK-NOKNOKNOK!!!!”

—

There’s a movie I never watched that had a super famous scene in it, like, back in the 80s. I remember my classmates talking about it on the playground, and one of my friends at the time just fast forwarding to the scene on his parents’ VCR when I visited so I could see it. I wasn’t at all interested in the movie, but this stuck out to me.

There’s a soldier in the jungle, and behind him is a muddy cliff. And as the camera zooms in, an eye appears in the cliff. My memory of it is that we see both eyes slowly opening, but I’ve gone back and checked and it’s just one eye that’s there.

I like to imagine what I just did looked a bit like my memory of that movie, the black patch on the ground slowly opening a pair of flame orange dragon eyes followed by an opening dragon mouth full of teeth.

Säure couldn’t possibly have seen it. He was too far up by then and I saw him looking away. I couldn’t see his eyes. But I like to imagine it anyway.

It’s pretty amazing just how covered in soot I became from that laser attack. But I also feel like maybe I learned something about physics.

I’ve definitely learned something about myself.

Is all this black ash all over me a layer of dead skin? Or several? Am I ablative?

Taking a deep breath after having croaked my loudest call yet, I glance down to find that my purse is now a molten wreck on the ground. All the leather is nothing but charred scraps fluttering around the remains of my tablet.

Shit.

If Säure does take the bait the Poet is about to deliver to him, and comes down here to talk to me, I’m going to have to lean on my emergency vocabulary.

I don’t think this is going to work, but I’ve got to try.

On the other hand, I also expect a few more attempts on my life, first.

—

“No applause is necessary. Snapping like a beatnik will suffice,” the Poet’s voice audibly carries a smirk. “And now that you’re my captive audience, it’s probably worth mentioning that if you take your human disguise, the bone conduction speakers installed on your horns will drop off. So, if you are done with my show, feel free to tune out at any time.”

He’s in the midst of arching his back and twisting to find Meg and slam down onto her as hard as possible when these words slice through his consciousness.

And he thinks this is easy. He can just switch to his disguise and back in a matter of seconds, incidentally allowing himself to change his position more quickly at the smaller size and weight.

But before he does, the Poet quips, “Oh, and please do attempt that at the highest altitude possible, Dear. You’ll want plenty of time to figure out how to remove your costume, afterward, won’t you?”

That gives him a pause of alarm.

Of course! He’s been played like a puppet this whole time. Why should he assume anything the poet is saying right now is the truth? It’s meant to manipulate him one way or another. He knew this while flying into the whole mess. Even if he’d stayed at home, he’d have been playing into their hands.

He can’t disregard what the Poet says, unfortunately. Which leaves him only one reasonably safe thing to do, remain in his true form for as long as possible. Morning Glory Stadium has been overdue for demolition and replacement for nearly a decade now, anyway.

Time to force that issue.

He could just land carefully, folding himself up into his humanoid form as he reaches the ground, to confront Meghan that way, but he doesn’t want to, and it seems like the thing they’re all trying to get him to do.

So, he scans the charred area of the field and its surroundings, but he still can’t find her. He likes to think of his eyesight as exceptional, as he can see clearly to the horizon no matter how high he flies. But the truth is, if something is small enough he just can’t focus clearly on it.

It hardly matters. If she’s still in the stadium, as her challenge seemed to indicate to his ears, he highly doubts she can evacuate in time to avoid being crushed.

So, he folds his wings and slams down into it with all the force of his incredible mass.

And as he does, he catches sight of something fluttering like a moth down the ball field, away from his center of impact, desperately attempting to get out from under him.

—

Maybe I don’t want to test being crushed, actually.

Just before he pulls his wings in to drop, I feel like I notice some kind of telegraphed movement and I just bolt. It’s almost as if I’m a fly that’s about to be swatted, and my body moves before I realize what’s even happening.

The greatest source of movement in my vision is now the ground as I’m sprinting up to takeoff speed, so I’m hyperfocused on that.

Blades of carefully manicured grass proceed toward me in the deepening twilight of sunset under the swiftly dropping doom above me. Every couple of divot ripping gallops, a white stripe of chalky paint flies under me. Sometimes I think I spot a bug, but I think that’s my imagination.

Wings are up, waving to feel the wind and judge a sense of lift while providing the balance I need to shift to a two legged gait, and I bring my forelegs up to my chest. I’ve still got quite a ways to go before I make it out of the stadium.

Which is good, on the one claw, because I don’t see any obvious thermals in front of me, and I’ll need that room to gain enough altitude to make it over the stadium wall before I slam into it at the velocity I’m trying to go.

On the other claw, I think Säure might just hit both ends of the stadium at the same time, he seems big enough to do it, and I’m not sure I can make it out before he does.

I take a big leap and I flap.

Two more flaps in quick succession and I’m airborne, and I just keep going. I breathe in as much oxygen as I can and I focus on that feeling of being chased I’ve experienced so frequently lately.

Either I’ll make it or I won’t, but I’m going to ride every sliver of an advantage I can think of.

And then I experience something fascinating.

Säure is big enough that he’s compressing the air underneath him as he falls. Actually, anything falling does this, though it’s more noticeable with an object that has flat sides, like a box. Drop a box on a dusty concrete floor, and you can see the particles being pushed out from under it by the wind of its descent.

Säure, like me, is normally aerodynamically shaped to avoid pushing that much air around as he flies through it. But he’s now attempting to body slam the stadium, to hit the ground with as much surface area as possible, and he can’t help but reflexively spread his wings a little as he nears impact.

And, with my wings spread, the feel of that wind is a bit more intense than I ever could have expected.

It’s warm from the compression, and lifts me up from below and behind like the billowing currents from a jacuzzi jet.

It’s almost gentle, but it makes staying upright in the air harder, and it pushes me forward at a constantly accelerating rate.

For a few even more terrifying moments I’m worried the wind will slam me into the stadium seating.

I’m now moving so fast I can’t imagine pulling myself up in time.

But as the air pressure rises, I’m less dense in relation to it, and the current also has to go up and over the stadium wall, and I’m flapping, and using my fire below me to create my own thermals, and it’s the direction I want to go, and I’m suddenly free!

And there’s parking lot, freshly heated by the now setting sun.

I don’t know if I’m quite clear yet, but it feels like safety and affords me the moment to wonder if anybody else happens to be in or near the stadium. I didn’t see any runners using the track, but somebody might be taking shelter there in the ruckus of today’s attacks.

Oh, I hope not.

And then the wind blows sharply and as hard as anything I’ve ever felt, tumbling me snout over tail, wings wrenched this way and that, just before I’m hit by a literal shockwave full of dust and debris.

There is a sound.

The entire city hears it.

Possibly the county.

They must feel it.

It has to have registered notably on the Richter scale, though I’m not on the ground to sense it that way myself.

I’m so disoriented and numbed by the whole experience, I’m not even sure I’m still alive.

—

In the darkness of trees on the lee side of Fairport Arboretum, as far from the sun as possible, Wentin steps into an unoccupied trail and opens its mouth.

It starts hacking and coughing just like a gigantic housecat with a hairball, arching its back and thrusting its face toward the ground.

Within seconds, its convulsions are productive and a person-sized lump unfolds from its throat and sprawls out on the gravel and mud of the trail.

Wentin doesn’t wait, doesn’t say anything. Instead, as soon as its charge is vomited up completely, it turns and leaves.

It has business to attend to.

The person-sized lump moves and starts to half-flail and half-brush wetness away from what appears to be a hair covered face.

“Bleh,” Ptarmigan says, instantly regretting the act of speaking as it exposes her tongue to Wentin’s digestive fluids.

Well, that plan was demolished.

—

Säure had turned and twisted, using his wings unintentionally to maneuver effectively, so that he landed on his belly, tail to the East, head facing the sunset. And he’d opened his eyes from blinking just in time to watch the shockwave of his landing slam the whelp Meghan into the wall of the Sportsplex Arena just across the parking lot and street.

That portion of the building’s wall implodes with the impact.

He starts to get up, lowering his head to glower at the mark of her destruction, to walk over and crush that structure as well.

And within two steps, he hears a voice in his ear. His left fucking ear, not his head. It’s not coming from his bespeakered horns. There’s something near his ear with an obnoxious, whiny voice.

And it says, “I forbid you from flying higher than the trees around you.”