#and I just don't feel good about it

[blueboyluca]

Tonight we did an impromptu training session with the visiting judge after the trial ended, and it felt like I was publicly eviscerated. Her approach was tough love, but I'm not in a place to receive that. What I need right now is empathy and optimism. I just felt incredibly defensive, embarrassed and sad. I held it together until I was driving home.

Anyway, she didn't say anything I didn't already know. She also saw me run Marceline when I've been through nearly two years of a downward trend where nothing I have tried has improved the situation. So yeah, I am not performing well and I don't have it in me to be positive when I am in a demoralised state. I know that's not a good place to be, but it's the reality.

Of course, the answer is pay someone to fix it. I don't know who can fix it, and I don't have much money to pay. I don't have the ability to travel for workshops or seminars to get in-person training. I don't know who to fly up on the club's dime that would actually know how to help, and I don't even think I would get time to work with them given that I have to run the club so any seminar hosted by the club means I'd have to run it which means less time to train.

I know that these are just excuses to some, but they're also reasons that fixing this problem is hard. And I don't really feel like pretending it's not hard for me when it is. I'm not the kind of person who sees my dog repeatedly say no and just be able to switch on a happy face and pretend everything's fine, push through it positively, or laugh as I walk away. I was getting picture perfect performance in training, with all the enthusiasm you could desire, and then the literal next day at trial the picture was so colossally different... I don't know man.

I've been sad about this too much. I simply don't have endless money to throw at it, especially if I don't know the money I spend will actually give me the answers I need.

I don't know. I don't know.

[dirtytransmasc]

the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

[nataliescatorccio]

"Originally it was not called 'Good Luck, Babe!', it was called 'Good Luck, Jane!", but my co-writer and I kept getting in arguments about it, so it became 'Good Luck, Babe!'." CHAPPELL ROAN on 'Good Luck, Babe!'

[egophiliac]

can't believe that skeleman has turned on us, and Halloween Prom is tomorrow.

(what a top-tier UM...we are about to be just totally obliterated in the absolute silliest way. what possible use could this power have outside of bringing us to the brink of utter holiday disaster.)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!

[teaboot]

You need to make art that nobody else likes. You need to make art that speaks to you alone. You need to cradle a serpent that eats its own tail and you need to love it until it loves you back

[dragondawdles]

the beastie <3

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 36-39)

* To note. Her hands are scaly. * And...unexpectedly wet?

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[hollowtones]

I'm obsessed with this message. It's so funny. Like, okay. I already know I'm fat and attractive. My wife can't keep their fuckin hands off of me. I already know women and lesbians are hungry for a gal that's built like a brick. I don't really care about validation from strangers about this, but it's a little hard to feel differently about myself when I have SEEN people desperate for me (and people like me)!!!

Not the point, though. Look at the way this message is worded. It's so confused! I love it! You look at it at a glance & it's like any dime-a-dozen "lol the fat freak wants to feel pretty" or whatever but I want you to look closer at the wording. It's the best part. They're implying that the being fat part of this is what will make me & others think I'm hot. Like I'm secretly rail-thin & trying to vie for BBW stolen valour here. It's the first ever hate mail from the Fat World. It sounds like the plot of a really shitty YA novel about prejudice where they try to Make You Think by making the protag the world's only conventionally attractive thin white woman.

Buck Bumble here got so mad about me living in their head for free that they've sent me the completely wrong message. I haven't stopped laughing for like two hours. This is snapping me out of a depressive episode, I think.

[uncanny-tranny]

This might seem like an "old man yells at cloud" situation, but it's just wild growing up and being told how dangerous distracted driving is - how, at highway speeds, you can traverse the length of a football field (100 yards, 91 meters) in a matter of seconds - how one split second sending a text while driving could result in a potential fatal crash, and then getting on the road as a driver and being surrounded by billboards. Their entire purpose is to catch one's attention, so they're lining major roads, which tend to be highways. How is it that you're told how important it is to never be distracted while driving, but still being advertised to?

At best, this type of advertising is an eyesore to pedestrians and motorists and a general waste of electricity to light it, and at worst, it is an active danger considering they are there to advertise and therefore, must catch people's attention.

I'm not even against advertising in theory, but this particular mode bothers me so much and I hate how pervasive it is - especially in large cities or highways.

[inkskinned]

before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.

you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"

and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.

it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.

you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.

in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.

the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.

you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.

after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.

the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.

you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[stil-lindigo]

the machine.

a comic about being a 'creator' online.

creative notes:

[humming-fly]

Wonder what it's like to feel grass under your feet for the first time in your life. Wonder how it feels knowing you'll be the one to destroy it.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[sunderwight]

Thinking about Black Widow Luo Binghe.

Hear me out -- so just like in canon, Shen Qingqiu self-destructs to save Luo Binghe, dies, and Luo Binghe steals his body to put on ice while he looks for methods to resurrect him. But unlike in canon, staving off decomposition is simply not that doable for a matter of years, even with cultivation and Luo Binghe pouring qi into the process. The qi costs are still high, so is Xin Mo, and now Binghe also needs a special artifact that can actually preserve Shen Qingqiu, but that runs on blood sacrifices.

To get the thing working, Luo Binghe feeds it a bunch of prisoners from the Water Prison. Then he starts kidnapping cultivators to drain for his own qi reserves, but that's difficult, controversial, and he can't use the same victims for the blood sacrifice afterwards. Frankly, between one thing and another it would be easier to satisfy Xin Mo with dual cultivation, and focus on finding victims for Shizun's Snow White style glass preservation coffin without having to choose between using targets for one or the other. Especially given that, if he finesses it, Luo Binghe can extend the use of his sacrifices and get more out of them with fewer deaths that way.

He's pretty sure that Shizun would want fewer deaths.

Of course, he is not a fan of the logistics of the plan itself, but he'd do worse things to one day be reunited. He consoles himself that he's building up bedroom experience for one day being with Shen Qingqiu, and that it doesn't really count because his heart's not really in it, and also if Shizun got to spend all that time in brothels then it's only fitting that Luo Binghe be his equal in this as well. It still doesn't make it pleasant for him, but it makes him able to tolerate the necessity of it.

So Luo Binghe ends up marrying a string of rich and powerful figures -- mostly the villainous single fathers and mothers and evil uncles of harem members from PIDW, rather than their daughters -- and coming up with creative ways of making all their deaths a few months into the process look like accidents. After the third one people are undeniably wary of marrying him, but there's always someone with a big enough ego to think they'll be an exception, or stupid enough to believe that it really has just been so much bad luck up to that point. It helps that the universe is predisposed to let him hit it.

When SY wakes up in the shroom body and hears about Luo Binghe's succession of marriages, he's not surprised. What he is surprised by is the bisexual graveyard of toxic dilfs and milfs that has replaced the harem.

What did he do to cause that?!

And what does Luo Binghe mean that he wants to marry his own shizun now? Is this his new method of revenge??? Binghe, you don't have to marry someone to kill them!