#and i already feel like a failure for taking this long with my degree

[extremely-nervess]

I had wanted to do a more thematic picture for halloween this year, but I just didn't manage to make time u_u But I am at least delivering on my promise of more Needle. Honestly I had a bunch of things I wanted to add to this but It was also just taking too long, so I'll leave some of it to text... ---- Lore ---- Artificial Vampire: Needle Age: 21 Age of death: 17 Height: 156 cm Weight: 70 kg (She has a decent amount of brass in her body) Needle comes from an alternate earth setting similar to modern life that we know on the surface, but with shadows thick with supernatural horror just below. One such horror is vampires, of which several kinds and cultures exist, but most major governments co-operate with the largest most organized group of them - Afterlight Agency, which has grown to be more of a sort of government than a unified origanization. Agency vampires negotiate the protection of humans from other supernatural entities in return for feeding rights, information control, legal protections, whatever else they can squeaze from their hosts. Naturally this is a carefully kept secret, and for the most part genuinely beneficial to humans on a population level, if not on an individual one. Still there are those who resent Afterlight and its 'people' convinced that this is nothing more than a large scale protection racket (okay it sort of is) and bristle at the idea of keeping the masses ignorant sheep, sheparded by those who consume them for sustenance. Needle is the product of one such group -The Steel Masons, an extremist secret society that seek to secure occult power for the benefit of man, and to expose vampires for the parasites that they are. Needle was created by Dr. Tilly Hornwood, by gradually saturating the flesh of a living human with specially treated vampire blood and various surgical interventions. Dr. Hornwood hoped to instill vampiric power into a living human and do away with their less desirible traits. In this regard Needle is a failure, for while she technically never died during the long and painful process she is certainly not alive now (not conventionally anyway) She does possess some of the common advantages of the undead - regeneration, strength, speed but to a lesser degree than even a young vampire, and still has most of the typical weaknesses flaws one might expect of their kind. Needle's most unique trait is that anything in which a sufficient portion of her cursed blood flows acts as a part of her body, and she can feel, perceive and control it as if it were a natural extension of herself (After some adjustment). The effect attenuates rapidly if the blood does not make a round trip to her heart, but still last a few minutes in ideal cases. Anything affected by this also enjoys the benefits of her vampiric powers allowing her to integrate with all sorts of attachments - like her injector tail - or various weapons and devices devised by the Steel Masons. Her blood is most effective on dead flesh, including that of vampires, and brass. I'll leave this here for now since my self-consciousness is getting unbearable and I'm sure I've already made 10000 typos u_u

[sanddollarpoems]

I left my job in May. It wasn't a decision I had been planning to make. I may not have loved my job, but it was a paycheck, and I didn't have anything else lined up. The worst thing about my job was navigating my unhinged boss' mod swings. One day, I would be her favorite employee, showered with praise and compliments. But then, like a switch had been flipped, the next day, she would find fault in everything I did. She would verbally berate me and make me wonder if I was actually a terrible employee. This bizarre behavior was starting to leave stress marks on my life. I hated the days that she was in the office, and I was terrified any time she would come to talk to me. I didn't know what was wrong or how to fix it.

It ended one day when she called me into her office.

"I'm writing you up." She said it almost smugly. I tried to hide the shock and horror on my face. Write me up for what??

I remained professional and calm, trying to keep my mind clear on everything she was saying. There was a vague "isn't living up to work expectations" and a comical "overly social" (my work responsibilities required me to be very outgoing). She even threw in something from months ago that had already been resolved. None of it was legit.

I went home, and my shock turned to anger. I've always been an extremely hard worker, dedicated, professional, and kind. This wasn't my fault. But being targeted in such a way by my direct boss felt like total betrayal. When I shared it with my friends, they all agreed that she was just doing the paperwork to eventually fire me. They said I should stay and let her play out her plan so that I could sue the company for wrongful termination. I wanted to do that. It sounded so vengeful. But the thought of letting that woman continue to abuse me was more than I could do. Instead, I wrote my resignation letter and turned it in the very next day. I worked out my two weeks, not because I had to, since it was an "at will" company. But I've always given two weeks everywhere I've worked, and I wanted to keep my own standards. It was a painfully long two weeks.

I want to say that I left and never looked back, but the truth is, the words she said to me still hurt. There's still a part of me that wonders if she was right. There's still a feeling of insecurity and fear that I'm actually a failure. I think the hardest part was that there was still that similarity between her and my mother. The way she made me feel so worthless and weak felt too familiar. Perhaps that's why it's so hard to shake.

I have taken the opportunity to go back to school and finish up my degree at last. I know the right job will show up at the right time. I can feel that providence in my life. A part of me is scared. I keep thinking about the chance of getting another boss who gaslights and abuses me. After fighting to get where I am now, I won't take that anymore. I want to find a way to prove to myself that I can make my own success without risking my emotional safety. I need to have a reason to say, "See? She was mentally ill and cruel. I am really good at this. She was a liar."

She was a liar.

[quill-of-thoth]

Can't walk much so have a story: how I fell down a mountain and got my 'rescuers' stranded

(It's temporary) (The not walking and the stranding) Backstory: I periodically can't walk because my feet are, to use a technical term, flat ass bitches. I discovered this near the end of my second semester of college by getting a raging case of tendonitis that felt like someone was trying to drill a hole in my foot. Instead of taking another ice pack from the campus nurse, I promptly got a pair of too tall crutches and swung my way to finals with a 104 degree fever, scaring my philosophy professor badly enough that he threw out my final and just wrote in an A. Which is lucky, because. I sat down to analyze The Odyssey and woke up writing about The Tempest.

A doctor, physical therapy, a pair of custom insoles and three months later, I went back to college. With some amount of optimism because hey, I was 19. 19 year olds make full recoveries. Also the reason why I was a failure at gym and my feet hurt a lot had been figured out so I was probably going to get BETTER at, you know, being fully vertical for extended periods of time. Once I worked up to it.

And then for reasons known only to 19 year old me, a person who took a Spanish minor largely because I felt I should use 16 free credits somehow, I signed up for a month long trip to Guatemala during winter break.

Which is how I got to the mountain, but not how I fell down it.

The class was technically an econ course, but Profe. Ed was a closet anticapitalist and every year he dragged about 20 young people to Guatemala to

1) make business majors less insufferable by giving them a "cool" way to pad out econ credits while making them meet the realities of the world and how capitalism doesn't, you know, feed people well, 2) Distribute some American cash directly to the locals, via the purchasing power of said hungry young people who were willing to pay the equivalent of the price of a nice dinner for a single frozen chocolate banana because to us it was like 50 cents

and

3) let his advanced Spanish students do immersion by the sink or swim method. I was a member of group number three. I was in charge of speaking Spanish to guide my group of 4 around. I was also on uh. An amount of painkillers. Enough that it was not recommended that I do any drinking. Nobody warned me about doing any walking up a mountain though because they figured I was smart enough to know that already. Anyway we made it to the first stop and my group was charged with finding the new location of the weavers' collective, with whom our college's chapter of Amnesty International intended to deposit over a thousand quetzales. (So... maybe a hundred USD?) We did not find them on the first day. We were at over 5 thousand feet (and as midwesterners we were used to an elevation whose distance from sea level is a rounding error), we were jet lagged, we were working in a second language, and we didn't know how to find anything without, you know, an address. Also, we thought the directions we did get were to somewhere on the other side of town and my limp had become the fifth member of our party. We pulled out our instructions sheet, hopped back on the Lancha (a boat serving as a bus), took some dramamine because everyone working public transit in Guatemala drives like they're in mario cart, and I told the driver that we were returning via Las Lomas at Tzununa. I felt like I had gotten a second wind.

I remember being a little lightheaded but I thought it was heat exhaustion. Or possibly the moment of second language fluency that feels like either enlightenment or a stroke.

Anyway we were dropped off at Tzununa and pointed up. We walked. Increasingly slowly as I discovered that sometimes instead of being in increasing pain your nerves do an end run around your consciousness to make you EXTREMELY spacey. We saw a parking lot that said "Las Lomas" and went. Past it. Slowly. Until we found a cow and decided we should probably locate a human to ask for directions. At which point we were directed three or four miles up the private driveway we had skipped because we'd been told to follow the calle, a word I only knew as 'road'. The thing is that despite feeling like I was legitimately going to fall apart, and also barf, and probably also faint, I had to keep it together because I was the primary Spanish speaker, damn it. The token guy in our group for machismo safety was like, two classes behind me on a Spanish minor. Also if I didn't have something to do I was gonna hurl. So I cracked a lot of jokes that landed very poorly due to me looking kinda half dead and kept going until we finally reached Las Lomas, the place we were supposed to be over an hour ago. They told us, and I quote, "follow the path through the maize over the ridge and you'll come down right at the edge of town." Which was on our agenda. They also told us "you should be able to make it before dark" which was optimistic even if our group hadn't included me, current winner of the global misery award. They did not tell us that they had their own private dock with ten million stairs. Which was where we were supposed to dock.

I would not have been able to climb them. I was barely able to descend them. But. If we had known they existed we would have known three things: 1) We were now about two hours and five miles late for our original itinerary.

2) The alleged two mile mountain hike across the ridge had not yet begun

3) We could get back on the fucking Lancha from here. So when the hike turned out to be on an 8 inch wide dirt scuff through a field of maize that looked ALL the way down into the extremely sharp and rocky beach we might have thought of getting back on the boat instead of towing my - now violently shivering - top-heavy carcass in a conga line of suffering across the mountain. Hand in incompetent hand we crept like a concussed centipede around the point of the mountain only to see yet another ridge with a huge rock slide crossing the path between us and it. We tried to cross the gravely bit. I promptly slid fifteen feet, ripped the entire butt off my shorts, and kinda passed out for a second. At which point we decided to call Profe. Ed.

This was before international cell phone plans, or even good sim cards, or possibly the existence of cell service anywhere in Lago Atitlan that wasn't populated by American and European expatriates. "Profe Ed we're lost, the trail is washed out, Quill has like broken her ankle or something-"

"Tendonitis! It's actually not the bone -"

"-And the sun is going down and it's like. A million miles back to the lancha. Are there any wild jaguars around here? I hope there aren't jaguars."

"Pretty sure we need to worry more about freezing to death." (When in peril I become a font of extreme helpfulness.)

"GET BACK TO LAS LOMAS YOU HAVE 45 MINUTES TO CATCH THE LAST LANCHA AT 6 PM." The concussed centipede returned the maybe half a mile back up the mountain, at top dragging speed, with one fourth of its underwear on display. I only nearly fell twice. The time was 5:30.

It was decided that two of the team, Token Guy who spoke a bit of Spanish, and French club girl, who were cross country runners, would run and try and delay the lancha while Amnesty International treasurer girl would be my human crutch and keep me from going into shock or something with a water bottle and a bag of chips. The last I saw was of Token Guy literally jumping over a wheelbarrow as they sprinted... down the four mile driveway... to the town of Tzununa.

Whose last lancha was, unbeknownst to us, at 5:45 pm. Because we didn't know about the secret, private dock. And because not a single one of us could estimate distance well enough to realize that we had started by getting off at the wrong stop.

Someone at Las Lomas saw that I was an American in distress and offered their phone. And an English speaking front desk worker because my Spanish had been reduced to me duele las pies, which is less than grammatical, and my English had gotten kinda thin.

All I really remember is the phrase "we have a dock and you can flag the lancha from there" and then. Hundreds of millions of stairs. Uneven. winding. with handlebars added haphazardly to prevent me from just pitching off into the water. You can slide down a handrail on your armpits if you have to but not if it's broken up by a thousand turns. And then we were on the boat and Amnesty went up and down looking for Token Guy and French Club before realizing: they were not on board. We had the cell phone. The time was 6:15 pm and nothing we said could induce the lancha driver to turn around, though he did offer that we could get off in the middle of the lake if we wanted.

We crawled into our hotel at 7 and a new chunk of Profe. Ed's hair spontaneously went white while we tried to explain, in tears, what had happened. At least there (probably) weren't jaguars on the driveway from hell. "I'm going to make some calls" he said, in a voice that was reserved for crises, not the aftermath of dumbassery, and Amnesty dragged me, by way of a bottle of naproxen, to dinner where we sat in silent, guilty, treacherous misery, poking at the fish and wondering exactly how much shit we had just stranded our friends in. Everyone else, who had gotten in hours ago, was talking about the shaman, who was going to come and give us a lecture about how the world was not going to end this year.

No, it was just Amnesty and I who were going to end this year, because if the tendonitis didn't get me, leaving Token Guy and French Club on the side of a foreign mountain was going to do me and Amnesty in. Profe Ed was going to send us back to America, because we were dirty rotten traitors who split the party.

Meanwhile everybody sat playing with the candles until it was very dark. Amnesty and I had procured a blanket and sat under it like two hermit crabs trying to hide in the same guilty shell. Profe. Ed's dinner was attracting mosquitoes.

Until finally in a blaze of flashlights, the Shaman appeared, with French Club and Token Guy carrying like seven bags of his stuff between them.

[gorgeouslypink]

hii pink. i'm a little scared to post this publicly but honestly what's the worst that could happen LMAO.

anyways,, i'm in a little bit of a rough spot w the void. i've reached the point where i can confidently say that i've had enough epiphanies to know that i'm doing everything absolutely right— i know that i'm the operant power and that there's nothing beyond or above me. every morning before my 'attempts' i pep talk myself/subconscious and basically remind myself that i have no limits and there's nothing i can't achieve and all i need to do is decide. i go in so confident and completely convinced that this is 'the one',, i affirm to keep my mind focused and place my awareness on being one w myself. i see the void as a state like any other. everything about my physical body and realm is a product of my assumptions so i know i don't have to jump through hoops to separate myself from my own creations. i could go a little more into this but honestly my mindset is perfect as far as i'm concerned.

i've been like this for a few days now ?? i'm not sure how many exactly but i know it's been long enough to completely purge the old story as i never walk away from an attempt discouraged and immediately revise it. i do have a small amount of opposing thoughts from time to time but they're really weak and i shut down them down immediately with a "these thoughts are not mine and have nothing to do with me".

i'm sorry this is a lot but i just wanted to give insight on my situation before i ask why i haven't 100% tapped in yet. i completely understand if you don't have any advice for me,, i'll keep persisting no matter what.

also to anyone else who might see this; it might not mean much but please don't be discouraged by my situation !!! you and i are totally different beings so my lack of complete success has absolutely nothing to do with you,, keep pushing and don't mind me :)

Hi love! I honestly stay away from LOA asks because I didn't use LOA during my own void journey and I have not researched it enough to be at a degree of giving others advice on it, as well as my opinion that the law is very reliant of interpretation, meaning it might be understood and utilized by everyone in a different way. However, I just thought that your ask was so sweet so I'll try my best to answer. I'll start off with this quote:

"If, having read this book, having a thorough knowledge of the application and working of the law of assumption, you faithfully apply it in an effort to attain some intense desire and fail, what is the reason? If, to the question "Did you persist enough?", you can answer "Yes" – and still the attainment of your desire was not realized, what is the reason for failure?

The answer to this is the most important factor in the successful use of the law of assumption.

The time it takes your assumption to become fact, your desire to be fulfilled, is directly proportionate to the naturalness of your feeling of already being what you want to be – of already having what you desire."

-Neville Goddard, The Power of Awareness

During my own void journey, I struggled with the law. There are a few things that I manifested but others, I struggled with, including the void and I ended up entering without LOA. However, now as I've helped others on their void journeys, and have read more posts from all the amazing bloggers here as well Neville's work itself, I've realized that the thing that I was missing from my manifestation equation was exactly this: feeling my desire to be natural.

And how do you feel your desire to be natural?

"The essential feeling of naturalness can be achieved by persistently filling your consciousness with imagination – imagining yourself being what you want to be or having what you desire."

-Neville Goddard, The Power of Awareness

So the key things to take away so far is that for our desire to come into fruition, we ourselves must rest easy in the feeling of naturalness (It needs to seem natural to you). How do you do this? Be persistently imagining yourself with your desire, imagine and feel it until it feels natural to you.

This is kind of like when you keep practicing something, like a presentation over and over, pretending like you're acctually presenting. At first, you kind of forget words here and there and it just feels unnatural but as you keep practicing, doesn't it feel way more natural and eventually it is just natural and you know youre going to wing it? Same thing applies to the void. You need to keep imagining that you've already entered, with whatever scenario that may be, over and over so that entering the void and succeeding feels natural to you.

This is why I personally vouch for SATS. In SATS, you turn to your imagination and feel yourself in the feeling of the wish fufilled and keep repeating until you fall asleep, so that you fall asleep in the state of the wish fufilled, allowing for you to attain a feeling of naturalness that will guarantee your desire.

You have to understand that the basis of the law is that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact. Anything you can assume and create with your imagination can come true, but the way to bring your desire into fruition is by attaining the feeling of naturalness and the method I personally interpret as the best way to do do is SATS, so I recommend looking into this and this post.

I hope this helps! 💗

[lemonandtheart]

Guess who only has one job now instead of two and is back! It's me!

I have made my own TMNT iteration! I'm still drawing out the comic. I've got a lot written but now I have to sketch the pages and line and color everything in. I'll hopefully keep making more fun little things to post before I'm done. The comic is going to be fully colored, so I made this reference sheet for the boys and April. I'll give some little fun facts of my iteration too.

April:

I think she should be allowed to be more girly. She's still just as brave and tenacious, she's just going to do that while wearing cutesy clothes. I also feel my April is a girls girl and as much as she loves her boys she prefers the company of other women. She's still into journalism and is going to college for it in my version, while getting a minor is computer science because 2003 April had a thing for machines just like Donnie and I want my April be able to benefit the team like that. She's also a little chubby as I am guilty of giving her my body type. April's nails are real and she paints them whenever they chip.

Leo: *Holds him gently* I am a Leo girly through and through. In my iteration he's 18 and his brothers never let him forget he's the adult but only when things are going bad so he has to take the fall. He's got very bad anxiety because he's fully aware that every action he takes could result in someone getting hurt or dying and it freaks him out and makes him very cautious and overprotective. All of the boys have fangs, but his left one is too big to fit properly in his mouth. He also has a hero complex where he feels an intense desire to be a hero and save people. He feels like he's always steps away from failure so he makes up for it by giving everything his all all of the time.

Raph: My Raph is more of a jokester than a menace. His face just looks like that by the way, he's actually in a very good mood in my reference picture haha. He enjoys sports and weight lifting, but he also enjoys working with his hands in crafting and knitting. He's knit all of Donnie's sweaters. He likes the quiet when he's home and loud exciting get-your-hands-dirty action when he's not. He's the closest to normal out of all of them, just a slightly angsty and sarcastic teenage boy who wants to throw hands and fool around. Ride his motorcycle and kick ass. He has an intense and deep love for his family, like all Raphs do. He would take a bullet for each and every one of them. He enjoys coming home bloodied if it means that no one else got hurt. His favorite way to interact with his brothers is to lovingly bully them.

Donnie: My Donnie must be wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks, and shoes at all points in time. I stole this from me as well, as I'm autistic and so is he and I have to dress like that unless it's too hot out. His feet are highly sensitive and he will cry from overstimulation if made to walk barefoot. He can feel every rock and it hurts. Sometimes he can feel the rocks through his shoes even. He wears shoes in the house, also like me (I have inside shoes and so does he). He doesn't emote much, his face naturally settling into o_o. He's very good at lying because he's so stone faced. He often throws Mikey and Raph under the bus for bad things he does and no one ever figures out it was him that did it. He's got lots of tech and spends most of his time in his lab. Mikey often bothers him, so he made an AI to respond on his behalf and add any potential activities Mikey wants them to do together into his calendar. Mikey does not know he's not actually chatting with Don.

Mikey: In my version, when they mutated they were all already different ages. Mikey was a literal baby, not even able to sit up on his own yet. He's treated with little brother privileges and he gets away with so much. He's a menace, getting away with everything because he's got a cute face and his little brother status makes it very hard for them to say no. They all speak varying degrees of Japanese because they learned it from their dad. Mikey uses Nii-chan to get whatever he wants. He is a master manipulator and can cry on command. The only way they can tell if his tears are real or not is if he throws up. If he throws up, they're real. He's needy and bratty and wants to be the center of attention at all times. If not enough eyes are on him, he causes problems and pulls pranks to get negative attention. Despite all that, he's incredibly sweet and caring. He's a bleeding heart. He thinks of April as his big sister, even though no one else does. Later, he gets matching bracelets with April and she gives him makeovers and when she paints her nails she paints his too. Like 2003 Mikey he likes to dress up and play roles and be silly.

[lazyyogi]

Hello dar Lazyyogi,

First of all, it is so good to read your words again after quite some time. And it always is. Thank you so much for continue to share, thank you so much for being here!

My question today is about medical school and going through a hard tough learning or academic journey. I started a bachelors in musical composition one year and a half ago and it honestly has been one of the most tough period in my life. I feel dumb. I struggle to understand concepts and I feel slow compared to collegues. I feel so fucking tired, that when I have the option to rest or study I need to rest - and that makes me question myself, if I am "meant" for this, or if I can truly do this as it's meant to be, or just how can I be the composer I want to be if I'm so tired I can't study properly in this period which is meant to be my composition uterus. I feel difficulty to understand my teachers, and I feel lonely when studying (music is a lonely study truly). I love music. I aspire to be a good composer in the classical field (and popular, which I already do). But I do not feel motivation and I just feel very, very tired. The first year was high in energy and I was struggling but fighting. This year I don't even have the energy to want to do it. But I want to continue because I know I can achieve what I envision - I know I can create beautiful music in complex forms. And I think I want to do it for a long time.

Did you encounter similar dificulties in medical school, please? And if so, how did you deal with it? Specially the tiredness.

Thank you.

Wow this sounds so challenging! Good on you for taking it on in the first place.

Firstly, all of this is challenging enough without adding stressful/depressing thoughts or questions regarding if you are "meant" for this, if you can do this, or if you can be successful.

When I decided to become a doctor after graduating college with a degree in English, I was taking on a path and coursework that I had deliberately avoided since high school. There were times I questioned if I could even do it or if I would ever become a doctor.

But none of that mattered or was important. All that mattered was on thing: Was I willing to find out?

So when all of these thoughts arise questioning if you're cut out for this, if you can manage to succeed, just direct all of it into one question: "Am I willing to find out?"

So long as you're willing to find out if you can do it, then nothing else matters. Just proceed, do your best, and find out.

If you succeed then great. And if not, then you have to evaluate why and adjust your approach.

I failed to find a place for myself in the film industry, which then led me to becoming a doctor and then a surgeon. There's nothing wrong with failure so long as we aren't afraid to honestly evaluate and adjust our approach forward.

Secondly, the tiredness. My advice here is prioritizing your physical well-being.

I like that you choose sleep when necessary, because that's important. Recognize when your studying is ineffective so that you stop wasting your time. If you need a break, take a break. If you need to stop for the day and go to bed early, do that!

Get enough rest but also make sure you set aside 1 hour a day for self-case. Exercise! Doing 15 minutes of cardio daily is huge and will make a big difference. Do some yoga a few days per week. Sitting and studying so much can take a real toll on your body! Seriously.

Make sure you are eating well. Take a multivitamin. Make sure you are getting enough vitamin D.

If you can work 15 - 30 minutes of meditation into your day, great. Even 5 - 15 minutes is still helpful.

Lastly, and this is a big one:

Don't confuse knowledge/skill acquisition with intelligence!

This is something I learned during my residency. I have always had learning disabilities but I never appreciated what that really meant until residency. I acquire knowledge quite slowly. I am a slow learner.

If I judge myself solely based on my learning abilities, I would feel quite stupid. But I'm actually quite clever and ingenious in the ways I apply my knowledge and skills. Understanding this distinction has provided me with more confidence in myself and more self-insight.

To summarize my advice here:

Don't make a challenging process even more difficult by adding your own negativity, doubt, and fear. Learn to meet your challenges in an objective, strategic, and tactful way. Find a self-care regimen that works for and supports you.

And it's never a bad idea to consider speaking with a therapist as well. Someone to help you work through this endeavor could be an amazing resource.

Hang in there, take care of yourself, and see where it takes you!

Much love.

LY

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Aftermath

This chapter, 1124...it really didn't feel that different than the last two. It starts here with our opener. Morgans here takes on a very similar role as Buggy did in 1122, and we're still unpacking the immediate worldwide reaction to the transmission. Importantly, Luffy's gonna end this chapter with a good reminder none of it was very important to him, but Morgans starts it with a good lesson in why it should to a degree.

It's cool seeing Vivi roast him over lying, but this right here is the essence of why shaping your story matters. Buggy could take the moment and make it work for him, Vegapunk was so disconnected he realized his message might stir panic but didn't do anything to ameliorate that. Morgans is setting up Luffy the same way Sabo was. This story should rattle worldwide faith in the government. As is though, it could just end up being a tale about Luffy massacring a beloved figure worldwide. This time I don't really think the opener casts as long a shadow over the rest of the chapter, but it's now something becoming a pattern with these past few chapters. But let's get to the real meat of this one:

Talking with IRL blorbo from my blog Fallensnowfan really helped with this one but it's so stark when you see it in the actual chapter. There's this very interesting juxtaposition in the fallout of Vegapunk's death. Lilith picks up on the conversation we saw with the VegaBoys last time, a theme we've explored throughout with them. What does death mean when you've split yourself into seven parts and have a giant brain floating in a vat?

Well, here we have some interesting answers to this question. Lilith pops up and makes this big show of trying to cheer up Luffy. Get him past these feelings of failure. It was a very sudden shift but it does feel earnest, even if it reminds me a little of Carrot in WCI's End Roll. As earnest as Sentomaru and of course Kizaru. For one, we've talked about how these spotlight moments remind us of Wano's bigger ones. "Have you ever had to kill your best friend?" Well, the Akazaya Nine know that feeling. Especially Kin'emon & Kiku who had to take on the dirty work with Kanjuro.

But man...what a moment. Even Akainu cracked a little and realized he stepped over the line. Seeing Kizaru actually shaken for once too. The little flashback helped cement it as does this amazing shot of him watching all that work go up in flames. Simply put though, Kizaru/Sentomaru clearly don't feel the same way as Lilith here. Which is why part of me has to wonder if Lilith's just putting up a brave front. It's interesting Usopp raises the question of what exactly makes her the "evil" one, which is an idea we never really answered.

And of course, we do end off on what certainly seems to be a final note for Egghead Arc as a part of this story. I do have to say, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. Lilith feels well primed to pick up that New World thread we've talked about going forward, I could certainly see this shaking out in a way where we maybe have a chapter or two away from the Straw Hats to finish off this story and give some people like Drake a moment in the intermission. Then head right into a perfectly straightforward Elbaf arc. We could even do that interspersed with clearing up some of Egghead's lingering mysteries...

But there's still enough weirdness to make me wonder. One thing I've thought for a while is that if the Giants are already here, they can tag along for a bit of island hopping. On some level it's kinda weird to keep them and Bonney and Kuma and Lilith floating around but we of course don't know what Elbaf's story is so it could easily have a place for all that. What it really comes down to for me is that, as it stands, Elbaf really has no apparent conflict set up. Which could work if it's a Zou-type arc where we reset our course or something. But if say...something happens and this group gets blown off course I could see that too. Use an intermediate arc to set up something to do on Elbaf.

Of course, this final panel gives us something to think about too. Who is the mystery silhouette? Sadly we'll have to wait for a break week to really know the next steps. Which means I have a decision to make too. I get the feeling enough people like these writeups for their own sake, but the original intent was to maybe do a little bit about the next arc reflecting on where it ties up Wano themes. Hence "Post-Wano Musings" and I could never keep that hyphen consistent in the tags. Didn't expect Egghead to keep giving me a lot to talk about there. I also just kinda thought it was funny to call an entire arc as long as Alabasta "Post-Wano."

We still have a lot of oddities and through lines though, and those could easily be left hanging as we get to Elbaf. I think my plan is to switch it up and just make normal chapter reviews when we reach a new island, Elbaf or otherwise, with a new tag. I'm leaning towards "Massive Musings" for now, but maybe something better will come up before we get there.

[kostudies]

04.08.24 ; hello. how are you? i'm good. it has been a while, and i'll share with you a long post full of updates. It's crescendo.

I didn't validate my last year in psychology, so i'm retaking it this year. It is very stressful for me, it'll be my... sixth year in uni without a bachelor's degree. I'm getting tired of this, and discouraged - though i'll keep it up.

I wanted to change of city; I wanted to meet new sceneries, to leave myself with me and I only. I wanted to embrace another lifestyle, far from what I already know and feel comfortable. I wanted to change, and to become more active in my own life.

Friendships were hard. People sometimes repeated toxic behaviours, as I did too. I may be the one who values friendships too much, and it hurts to see it is not returned the same way. And, other times, insecurities talked, and it hurt the same way.

I saw my older, middle brother - it has been around one year now that I didn't see him nor talked to him. He, somehow, became someone I don't want around me; impulsive, freely hurtful, conservative, overbearing and deaf to people's opinions and feelings. He enrages me. He's unfair. We saw each other for my grandpa's funeral.

I lost my grand-father. I wasn't close to him, I thought he was a asshole for the abuse towards my grand-mother and my own mother, he was ignorant and arrogant. It had been quite a big change and event in my family's life, and it still weighs on my grandma.

Recently, I thought I would die. In another city, around 1am, with a friend who can't run, we've been followed by a group of 5 dudes. Slurs, threats were thrown, and I never hated men more than at this moment. I thought I would die, for the city was known for some mafia stuff. I am terrified by the idea of stalking and intrusion, it was quite scarring to me.

I stopped smoking. Even if it happens for me to have one cigarette here and there, I completely stopped buying packs and I am grateful. I breathe better! It's amazing! My throat is not as sore as before, my heart is thankful, and I assure myself to low down the chances of breast cancer. However, I'm struggling with weight gain...

... So I'm trying to get back to working out. It's a real up-and-down journey, but I feel like I'm going somewhere. For the past month, I walked one hour (home to work, work to home), 5 days a week, and it helped me a lot. I do some home exercises here and there, and I'm waiting to get back to the swimming pool to do lengths.

I uninstalled Instagram. I also think about going to therapy. I am a priviledged person - my parents take care of my rent and my transports subscription, though they might not be able to in the near future - but I still don't have the money for it (I still have to take my theory test, driving test to have a driving license). I might try to save.

I plan to work on the side during the upcoming uni year, and I want to invest more time in associations. I want to go out more and see more people, more things. I want to try more, fail more, understand things more and reach people's minds, stories - I don't want to hide in fear of failure and shame anymore.

I met new people, but I don't know if they'll stay around. Through them, I tasted how magnificient friendships could be, how sharing experiences was an amazing thing to do, and wanted to do this more often. I'm also progressing on my way to see people as experiences, not possessions. It is hard and triggering, but I keep it up.

Finally, I had the pleasure to discover the world of drag; and it has been therapeutic. I felt myself connecting with my feminity, as I always struggled to express it. I've never felt this confident about my own body and about me wearing more revealing stuff, acting different towards people; I enjoyed this progress in me. I am deeply thankful for the community, for their performances, for their work, for what they embrace and what they share. I am thankful for their existence.

It marks my comeback here. It has been a few months now since my last post, but it didn't mean that I was giving up. I don't want you to give up, either. I'm confronting my laziness and comfort zone, because I feel like I can't continue to feel stuck like this. It is very hard and I would prefer to give up, but the learning is tasty, it feels nice. And I wanted to share with you, even if you're not really following what I'm doing, if you forgot about this blog, if you don't care anymore.

I wanted to share, simply.

[illarian-rambling]

Thanks for the tag @theink-stainedfolk!

OC Deep Dive

I feel like answering for my best of bitches, Nyda Burningrock 🤘

Do they have any pet peeves:

Anything to do with authority, Nyda is not on-board with. She spits on obedience for obedience's sake and strongly dislikes those who refuse to question the current order.

What uncommon fears/ phobias do they have:

Nyda has a crippling fear of physical violence. She freezes the moment a punch is thrown, and though she's a certified shit-talker, she goes out of her way to make sure she's not actually gonna get hit for it. It's not the blood or pain, she's not squeamish, it's more the act of violence itself that terrifies her. A lot of this stems more from a fear of failure and her childhood as the daughter of a famous mercenary family, but we won't get into all that.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom:

None of the ghosts have an actual bedroom or belongings, but her corner of the cargo hold has a screw she uses as a fidget, a stack of notebooks full of calculations, and some shiny rocks she took from Lai'teh.

What do they notice first in people:

Probably if they're armed. Nabafyrians like her treat weapons as an essential part of an outfit, so not only is she judging if you could be dangerous, but she's judging the make and style of your weapon like she would an outfit.

What is their pain tolerance on a scale from 1 to 10:

Probably like a 2, ngl. Nyda is about as fond of pain as she is of fighting, even if she is already dead.

Do they go into fight or flight mode under pressure:

Freeze, to a disastrous degree. She'd stand and watch someone swing a sword at her neck, unable to move from pure fright.

What animal represents them best:

A gopher snake. It's a rattlesnake mimic, but while it shakes its tail like the rattler, it's non-venemous. Perfect for a loudmouth punk whose bark is worse than her bite.

What is a smell they dislike and like:

Nyda loves the scent of a forest. It reminds her of the more peaceful moments of her childhood and of long trips spent stargazing. A smell she dislikes is the oil and sweat mugginess of a training hall. That reminds her of the less peaceful moments.

Have they broken any bones:

I'd imagine she broke plenty when she was training to be a mercenary as a kid. Also, someone has absolutely broken her jaw at some point - she talks too much shit for that not to have happened.

How would a stranger describe them:

"Oh, honey, steer clear of that one. You see her over there, don't you? The elf with the green mowhawk and a face full of piercings. She's got the scars of a mercenary and she's wearing a dueling belt. I don't know what all those hair tufts on it symbolize, but I doubt it's prized pie baking. Ugh, what a nasty expression. And... is- is that a hole in her chest? Fuck, is she looking at us? Oh, oh gods, run!"

What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love:

Nyda loves a good barbecued chicken and a beer. She doesn't have much of a taste for sweets, oddly enough. Her least favorite is custard of any kind.

Do they have any favorite hobbies:

Though it eventually became her career, Nyda has always had a passion for the stars. She loves stargazing and tracking the constellations, even taking long solo trips to remote areas in search of the best spot to set up her telescope. She also plays the accordion.

Boom! Surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises:

She's not a fan of jumpscares, but otherwise, she'd be delighted for any excuse to party. Bring out the drinks! Bring out the presents! In exchange for her friends planning the event, she'll make sure to keep it popping as the life of the party.

Do they like to wear jewelry:

Yes! Nyda has lots of piercings, most notably a chain stretching from her nose to her ear, but also a pair of fanged angel bites, a vertical labret, two sets of eyebrow piercings, and a bridge, as well as a whole mess of ear piercings. Below the neck, she's got both nipples pierced, and a Prince Albert for those gals lucky enough to get there 😏

Do they have neat or messy handwriting:

Fully illegible. Awful. Makes you wonder how she graduated elementary school.

What are two emotions they feel the most:

Rowdy excitement and deep shame.

Do they have any favorite fabric:

I feel like Nyda is more knowledgeable about fabrics than she looks, given how much of her style is DIY. I'm gonna go with leather. She's quite skilled at working with it.

What kind of accent do they have:

Canonically, she has a vaguely Slavic accent, but in my head, she's from Chicago.

I'll tag @mk-writes-stuff @tragedycoded @finickyfelix @sergeantnarwhalwrites @mysticstarlightduck and anyone else who wants to play :)

(Questions under the cut)

Do they have any pet peeves:What uncommon fears/ phobias do they have:What are three items you can find in their bedroom:What do they notice first in people:What is their pain tolerance on a scale from 1 to 10:Do they go into fight or flight mode under pressure:What animal represents them best:What is a smell they dislike and like:Have they broken any bones:How would a stranger describe them:What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love:Do they have any favorite hobbies:Boom! Surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises:Do they like to wear Jewelry:Do they have neat or messy handwriting:What are two emotions they feel the most:Do they have any Favorite Fabric:What kind of accent do they have:

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Hi! I'm in law school rn and having a lot feelings and thoughts about it. Would ou share some thoughts and positivity? Am I in the right path? Cries and panics in finals are coming and I don't know if this is for me

IMO there are two potential reasons for these kinds of feelings:

You don't feel like this is the right path for you because you feel incapable/incompetent and lawyers are supposed to be Very Very Smart And Capable And Good At Shit All The Time.

You don't feel this is the right path for you because you just genuinely don't like law: you don't like compiling big piles of data into neat bins that match the elements of a particular statute or a specific holding or a coherent argument.

(The third potential reason is for later in your career, in which case it might be that you don't like certain elements of the practice of law: dealing with needy clients, meeting a billable hours requirement, working long hours, etc. In that case, you can always try changing the type of law you're doing - like, if you hate litigating in courtrooms, you might prefer going in-house, or becoming a law librarian, or being a clerk.)

If it's that you don't like law, you do not have to keep doing it. You are allowed to find something else that you like better. A couple of people in my law school class dropped out to be teachers; my clinic partner has a law degree and a PhD and has only ever taught as a professor; you do not have to throw good money after bad on a career that you don't like.

If it's that you feel incompetent and stupid and not like A Lawyer™ because lawyers are geniuses: first of all, I bet you are perfectly fine and can totally do this, because you got all the way here and that's pretty fucking hard already. But let's pretend that fear is actually true and you really are that bad (I doubt it): I promise you, I promise you that there are people practicing law right now who have no idea what the fuck they are doing. Not even in a cutesy "we all get imposter syndrome sometimes" way, I mean "holy fuck how are you still practicing" way.

The CPS attorney I worked across from in my old job did not know any of the rules of evidence, had no legal writing skills whatsoever, and couldn't handle making or defending objections to save her fucking life. She was the attorney for the entire fucking county.

I once got a response to a multi-page motion (like four pages of argument and another 25 or so of exhibits) that was two pages with enormous fucking margins and paragraph spacing, spelling errors, and no actual argument from a guy who had been practicing longer than I've been alive. I actually saved his reply (and the judgement with the footnote that says "as Attorney Bespectacled correctly notes in her brief") as a pick-me-up for when I'm feeling like a fucking idiot.

There are lawyers with a shitload of experience, who make millions of dollars taking on high profile cases, who fucking suck at it. Seriously, watch either of the Sandy Hook trials on the Law and Crime Youtube channel (or listen to any of the depositions that get covered on the Knowledge Fight podcast - they're all titled "Formulaic Objections") if you want to see just how bad a person has to be at being a lawyer in order to get sanctioned.

At one point when I was studying for the bar exam and panicking over it, my partner said, "Michael Cohen passed the bar exam, and I know you're smarter than him, so if he can pass it, so can you." I'm certain you're both smarter and a better person than, like, any of Trump's lawyers, or even a good chunk of my law school classmates (like the entirety of FedSoc cough cough).

But even if you're not, remember: there's only ever one CALI winner per class, so most people aren't going to ever get one. Most people who graduate law school and pass the bar and practice law are just incredibly fucking average. Like, that's just math. You're not a failure if you aren't the best, because most people aren't the best. You can still do very well in life as a lawyer even if you're just Some Person, because that's what most lawyers are.

(Also, sidenote: law school and actual law are very different environments. How you do in one has very little bearing on how you do in the other.)

tl;dr: You're going to be fine no matter what you end up deciding.

[postmoderntongues]

You don’t have to respond to this because I know addressing Luna usually ends with your being harassed by lolcow, but thank you for being nice to her. I became familiar with her through lolcow and read her threads consistently up until recently when I realized how it only contributes to her wellbeing in a negative way. Someone’s struggles shouldn’t be other people’s entertainment and I’m so grossed out with myself for being part of that. You are a kind person with a good heart. I’m glad that someone is in her corner rooting for her because she deserves niceness. Luna really is talented and beautiful and I hope that side of the internet goes belly up so she can exist in peace and not under a callous microscope. I wish happiness and success for you too and really enjoy reading your writing. Again, thank you for being nice to her.

No need to thank me we actually have a handful of mutual IRL friends and I genuinely dig her art. For somebody with cluster b struggling so hard to survive if I can provide a dopamine hit with a casual compliment on a hair accessory why would I withhold that? Addiction is a mental health crisis, she’s obviously mentally ill beyond just substance dependance, and mocking her symptoms even the unflattering ones is low hanging fruit it’s laughing at a sick person for being visibly sick there’s not even any cleverness in that. Ive only chatted with her a few times I think to some degree she avoids public interaction with me to avoid lolcow attention but usually responds over dm and idk I’m rooting for the girl I relate to her a lot we just have different preference in chemicals but as a fellow jaded disabled adult who has seen no tangible rewards for the 18 years of strenuous effort I put into maintaining a high academic performance with NPD from the child prodigy treatment who feels like a failure because I was supposed to be famous right now not too disabled to participate in normal society wondering if my work will take off or I’ll die on SSI she and I were from a generation that were lied to and still awaiting payment for the work we already put in OF COURSE were unmotivated to then sign ourselves up for entry level exploitation with the people who dropped out in 9th grade as our equals there’s no reward anymore. What motivation is there to make an effort if there’s literally no reward and every promise of compensation up until this point has been lie after lie how long are we expected to do work with no reward? How long are we expected to feed dollars into a slot machine that hasn’t paid out in a decade? Of course she’s not motivated to get clean and enter the workforce for minimum wage to struggle only slightly less than she’s struggling now for a disproportionate amount of additional effort? Fuck it, I’m on her side, I’d rather rot surviving at a bare minimum level as a disabled person than push my mental capacity to the point where I’m at risk for becoming a public danger due to my symptoms for an extra streaming service and takeout twice more per month and destroy myself in the process. There’s no reward for recovering. There’s no reward for joining the “real world” in 2025. If you’re NOT rotting doing the bare minimum indulging whatever dopamine trigger you can as often as you can you’re a sucker, it isn’t 75 years ago, hard work no longer pays off and there’s no more such thing as upward mobility as a reward for making the right choices. I think a lot of them need to look at Luna to not feel like failures “I’m miserable but I’m putting in EFFORT. I’m also poor and in shot circumstances but I’m DOING THE WORK and BETTERING MYSELF. I’m not seeing any reward for it but I’m MEETING SOCIETAL EXPECTATIONS. I live on TV dinners and wake up every night to panic attacks over my finances despite working but IM NOT ON ILLEGAL DRUGS I just feel bad instead and make a martyr of myself for abstaining from pleasure like a mf catholic” because they have nothing to show for their effort other than the moral superiority they assign to expending it as a late stage capitalist cope. Also their constant comments invalidating her ED are literally dangerous and carry a heavy risk of anti recovery implication and potentially acting as a social contagion with a risk of triggering relapse, as with their display of her self injury photos as being not deep or severe enough to be serious. They’ve move passed bullying moved past harassment this is literally fucking gang stalking at this point idk how it still has not crossed some legal boundary especially given nearly every thread has at least one post that could legally be considered encouragement of suicide which is a criminal offense as was spreading and continuing to spread her paid sw content which is revenge porn aka a literal sex crime

taking a few commissions she became too sick in her addiction to honor isn’t a fantastic career move but it in no way justifies what has been done to her in response.

[vylxeon-blog]

My first post on Tumblr. Im just some dude, currently struggling with bunch of shit. I decided I would write it all down to help me process things and assess my situation, doing so here on Tumblr for accountability i guess. I'm not sure if anyone will read this but the idea that someone might feels valuable to me. For context, I am a 21 Year old man living with my parents in the Netherlands.

Ive just spent a 4th day in a row essentially bed-rotting. I'm struggling with maladaptive daydreaming for 4-6 hours a day, social media and porn addiction. Im also addicted to nicotine, and I've recently decided to quit drinking, and am now 20 days sober. I'm in my 4th year of college and should be getting my bachelor's in a few months, but I only have half the required study points. At my current rate it will take atleast 2 more years to actually get my degree, I have been lying to my parents that things are going fine, in reality I havent been to school for 2 years. (Though I have been racking up debt by paying for tuition, stupidly telling myself I will start going soon. In total I have about 11k euros in debt now.

I have a lot of facial acne because I abused steroids when I was 18, I did so in a very unwise way (oral only, high dose Dianabol, no estrogen base,) and my hormones have been shot ever since. (I think. I haven't been to a doctor or gotten blood work done.) my hormones used to be a lot worse though, I used to wake up in cold sweats, have panic attacks, be extremely irritable and impatient, self harm and disassociate by staring at the mirror for sometimes up to an hour, now I just have acne.

A few months ago the company i worked for decided to stop operations, and I have been procrastinating getting a new job ever since. However recently I've gotten a new job as the Dutch equivelant of an UberEATS delivery courier. I'm glad I can finally start working again and make some money, as it helps me feel much less guilty about my college debt. I have been taking driving lessons for longer than 3 years now, I'm just not very good at it. I've failed 2 exams, and have a new one planned In march. In recent years my life feels like failure upon failure upon failure. I think I suffer from undiagnosed mental issues, I'm probably neurodivergent in several different ways.

I'm very insecure and anxious. which is why I started taking steroids originally. I exercise regularly because I want to become as big and strong as I possibly can. Becoming bigger and stronger is one of the few things in my life I feel I have actual impact on. It's the only thing I'm really making consistent progress in. I do have some hobbies and friends, I won't say what specifically because honestly this post would start becoming pretty recognizable to friends I have who have Tumblr.

I feel purposeless and like a failure. I desire so many things. I want to be independent and not rely on my parents. I want to be liked by people and respected. I want to be competent and valuable and have and be all the good things a person should be, and I'm painfully aware that right now, I am/have nothing. At 21 years old I'm a fairly blank slate with a lot of negative programming already.

Here are some of the POSITIVES of my life: I present like a confident, extroverted person. I have a group of good friends. People say that I'm good with words, funny, and compliment my dancing. I'm generally known to my friends as creative and quick witted. However many of these things are the result of playing a character, putting on a front/mask. Also, I have strangely been somewhat succesful with women, having been in 2! (😎) Long term relationships, with both my girlfriends having broken up with me lol. This might not seem like a great achievement at 21 but my friends are all virgins so from they're perspective im a Chad.

Also, I'm a relatively strong guy, I'm not huge (though I will be some day,) but I'm fairly strong, I also practice MMA and am always able to beat my friends in wrestling. (This is valuable to me because I am deeply insecure. I know this shouldn't matter in a civilized society. I was always very weak in primary/high school, and when I "discovered" the gym at 18, like so many other young men, I became obsessed with physical strength and size.

I'm grateful that im not sexist or hateful, (If I may say so myself,) In our friend group we know some men who are and they are made fun of relentlessly. I think the only reason I am not an incel/sexist or whatever is because of positive experiences I have always had with female friends in school and girlfriends. I have always gotten along great with women. (Except my mom. I do not have a good relationship with either of my parents. They divorced when I was 19, I see my dad once every couple months, and I more or less hate my mother because I remember how she relentlessly verbally abused me for very small things when I was just a little boy. and try to avoid interacting with her even though I live in the same house.)

I want to get better. There was a time when things were better, what kept me grounded was having a job. It kept me from just procrastinating all week. I didn't work that much, around 12 hours a week. But together with going to the gym everyday, and my 2 scheduled hobbies I atleast did 1-2 productive things every day. I had a reason to get out of bed. I felt much less guilty about the way I was living.

I hope my new job is able to do the same for me. I want to: stop endlessly procrastinating, scrolling, maladaptive daydreaming, smoking, masturbating self harming and disassociating.

In a perfect world, I would: pass drivers exam coming up, scavenge whatever remaining study points I can and come clean to my parents about my college situation. Consistently eat clean, high protein at a 500 calory surplus for bulking. Work 3 days a week or so so I can make 11k euros to pay off my debt.

I feel like I'm drowning in things I need to do to get better. I need to visit a dermatologist to finally fix my skin after 3 years of acne. I struggle to say no whenever someone asks me to help with something so I have regular extra responsibilities from my hobbies, on the one hand they teach my valuable stuff and keep me grounded and in the real world, not disassociating. But it also weighs on me heavily.

Writing all this down has helped me clear my mind a little. I have some hope I will maybe be able to make some improvements. I'll try to do my best tomorrow. (Then again, I always try to do my best. Most of the time I fail and end up doing my meh-st)

[shlubbiehubbie]

uwu rawr this is my lore if you even care <3

so theres this guy. ive known him for over a year and we got along really well from the moment we met. long story short i fell in love with him. and it happened on accident. we were friends and i catch feelings for him but never get confirmation if he did or didnt feel the same.

heres the long story lol. we were really good friends like we both lived on campus so we hung out everyday between work and classes. we texted and called every goddamn day. we always met up when we had time. i remember feeling the desperation in a text he sent quickly followed by a call insisting he had time after a meeting to hang out and have dinner together. we even started a club together JUST TO BE ABLE TO HANG OUT MORE AND IN NICER VENUES!!! we just wanted a club where we could play jackbox games and watch movies and shows together. im telling yall he was so ideal. ive never felt so safe with someone before. i even introduced him to the solar car club at our university so we could be on the media and marketing team together. god we were almost inseparable. and he acted different when it was just us vs us with other people. he was clearly very comfortable with me. he would even tease me! he loved getting a reaction out of me. and we would laugh until our sides were sore or we were dying on the floor. we were such good friends and at some point i caught feelings.

we did so much together in the span of almost 4 months. i was having trouble with school due to the death of my grandfather, loss of my job, and being placed in 3 classes i already took at my community college (i was a transfer student). i was expected to do more than i should and felt punished for not knowing all the right channels to go through to get shit done. i felt so tired of the bullshit i didnt think a degree would be worth it at that specific university. but i didnt want to leave my friend. i had a lot of friends but this one in particular was special. this was my newest best friend who i spend countless hours with. he knew i was making the choice to drop out after that semester. the signs were clear he was going to miss me. he hugged me like it was the last time he was gonna see me. he doesnt like hugging and i can remember that embrace like it happened yesterday. i did not want to leave him. i loved him. so what do i do? i give him a card saying thank you for the memories and go no contact on him for 8 fucking months. i got over the worst depression of my life because i missed him so fucking much AND i felt like a failure for wasting my time and money on a school that clearly didnt care for me. i was going to CAPS almost once a week even when i was a student.

anyway. i get over the depression. i pick myself back up. i make great friends through the smiling friends fandom. i meet someone who sounds and laughs like my friend. what are the fucking chances. i am encouraged by new friends to reach out to my uni friend. i take my time but i finally do it. i reconnect with other friends and they encourage me too to call the friend ive been missing the most. and…he doesnt pick up. i want to cry. i feel like a failure again. but i think “maybe he called back?” HE DID. AND I MISSED IT! ACK! so i call him back. he picks up. we say our hellos and how are yous. i apologize for the radio silence and say i thought he hated me. he says “no no no no no no i dont hate you dont even worry about it.” im in love again. and the gentleness of his tone? are you fucking kidding me? we talk for like an hour and then i finally let him go to finish packing before he moves back in. i see him the day he moves in and i meet his parents for the 2nd time. after that we start hanging out again but a little too often. we set up proper boundaries after i have a mental breakdown bc he is the only one of my friends from last year that actually missed me and wanted to see me again. he said he wanted to see me again.

the last time i saw him was september 8. i was escorted off campus on the 9th and the 11th due to depressive episodes during both incidents (undiagnosed and unmediated at the time). i was institutionalized from the 14th to the 19th. i still havent seen my friend. i am officially banned from campus and i miss my good friend everyday. i wrote poetry about him that i may never share. i love him. i always will. what sucks is so many things remind me of him. i feel sick when i get reminded of him because i cannot physically be near him and i just miss him that fucking much. i’m hopeless. but i do think i will see him again even if it is not soon. its killing me to wait to see him again. fuck my stupid baka life. god i miss that goober!

[humanitys-strongest-bamf]

hi. im having a really bad day. (cw for mean parents, academics)

my mother’s really mad at me because i’m approaching 30 and still unmarried and still without a master’s degree, and today she basically confirmed im a failure ���� she knows it’s largely because my mental illness was untreated until this year, not that it matters. 🤣

can i request a quick drabble/scenario for how levi would respond/react to a reader going through this? just a sentence is enough! i’m at wit’s end right now. (turning to fanfic about my comfort character for help. 😭)

feel free to ignore if it’s too much! i get it, just typing this was way too much emotionally for me too. LOL

hi nonnie! i'm so sorry, i got this last night and was too out of it to write this 😭 i hope things at least feel a bit better or less intense today

this is also something i've dealt with—my dad literally just revealed to me the other day that he thinks my life is still a shitshow jkalfsd

notes/cw: mentions of mean parent, academics, self-loathing, levi being sweet and blunt at the same time because it's levi, just sweetness :3 word count: 880

You tried to put on a smile for the sake of your boyfriend, but it felt next to impossible. After all, how could anyone smile after their parent openly called them to chastise them for things beyond their control? It didn't matter that you were struggling with your mental health, it didn't matter that the pieces just didn't line up for you to live that "traditional, prescribed path", all that mattered was that you didn't do it.

You told yourself you didn't care. You told yourself their opinion didn't matter—but part of it still did to you.

You hadn't eaten properly all day. All you've had was a mug of coffee and a piece of a potato chip that you've nibbled on throughout the day to test to see if you could eat. You couldn't. You tried your best to hide this, but you already knew that it was next to impossible to hide anything from Levi. The man was stupidly observant.

"What's going on?" Levi asked as he pulled up a chair next to you.

"Hmm?"

"You've been chewing on that damn potato chip all day and you haven't moved out of that chair in hours."

You glanced down at the chip and then up towards Levi, looking straight into his intense, gray eyes that had a worried look within them.

"Oh, have I?" you asked, genuinely unaware of how long you had been stuck in this position. Your phone was next face down next to you after you had flipped it upside down upon hanging up on a phone call from your mother, in which she had oh-so-kindly decided to provide you a report on her analysis of your life.

Levi glanced over towards your phone and then at your state. He sighed.

"It was your mom again, wasn't it?"

Your eyes slightly widened upon that question.

He knew. Levi always knew. No matter how much effort you put into hiding whatever it was that was bothering you, Levi always seemed to read straight into your soul.

You averted your gaze and nodded.

"Yeah...It was."

"What'd she say this time?"

It took you a while to respond.

"Just...the usual," you mumbled. "How disappointed she is that I haven't really finished school, or how I'm not even married yet, and that I'm-"

You took a shaky breath as you felt your emotions building. You felt like a lump was building in your throat and that your eyes were heating up. You gripped onto your leg in a desperate attempt to keep yourself together, especially in front of Levi.

"That you're what?" Levi asked gently.

"She basically confirmed that I'm a failure," you said, with your voice barely above a whisper as your felt tears building at the corners of your eyes. You opened your mouth to speak again, but Levi was faster.

"Do you seriously believe that?" he asked. The question was harsh, but his voice was gentle and instead of a frown, he only looked at you with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"What-"

"You heard me," he said, never taking his gaze off you as he grabbed your chin so that he was looking into your eyes.

"Do you really believe that?"

"I-I mean, she's right in that-"

"Right about what?" he asked again, challenging you.

"Well, I still don't have my Master's-"

"You had to withdraw because of your mental health condition," he said, before prompting you to go on.

"And I'm still not married-"

"And you really think that it's impossible to be happy or successful without it?"

You didn't respond. You knew he was right.

"Next?" he asked again, confident that he was going to succeed in invalidating everything your mother decided to throw at you.

You fell silent.

"I know you're trying to help, Levi," you whispered, "but I'm sorry if I can't find myself believing that I'm not a-"

You felt your lower lip quivering as the emotions began to boil over.

"-a f-failure," you said quietly, your voice breaking.

Levi wrapped his arms around you, pulling your head against his head.

"You're not a failure," he whispered. "You've been dealt unfair cards, and you've come so far despite it. It's her loss for not recognizing that."

You took comfort in listening to his heart beat as you buried your face into his chest.

"You're not a failure," he repeated. "If you want to finish school, you'll get there. If you don't, that's okay too. Just because you've struggled with your mental health doesn't mean you're deficient."

He pulled away so that he was looking into your eyes before gently flicking your forehead.

"So quit pitying yourself," he said, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips as he saw the pout that formed on your face. "You're capable of more than you know."

You rubbed at your forehead. Levi pulled you into a gentle kiss shortly after, with one hand gently placed on the side of your face. He lingered there for a few seconds, before resting his forehead on yours.

"Never doubt yourself, love," he whispered.

He gave you another quick kiss before standing up.

"Now, let me whip you up something to eat, so you get some food in you other than coffee and that damned potato chip."

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 7: The Way Out of the Mountains

People, the fact that I'm using a generic image here is a failure on the part of the fandom. There should be art of this incredibly tiny chapter and its delightful moment! But Google finds nothing. This is outrageous! Great news, everyone! The wonderfully talented @pien-art did in fact make fan art and is even willing to let me use it on my silly little post. My unspoken plans to balefire you all are hereby put on pause. Please go check out their blog for more art!

Also, if you hate spoilers, this whole post is outrageous because I'm going to spoil everything about The Wheel of Time because I can!

This chapter starts with a Flame of Tar Valon icon because Moiraine goes fishing.

Lan spent most of his time scouting their path on his black warhorse, Mandarb, following Rand’s tracks as the rest of them followed the signs the Warder left for them. An arrow of stones laid out on the ground, or one lightly scratched in the rock wall of a forking pass.

Lan and Mandarb get all the more impressive when you consider that in addition to leading the way, he's probably also doubling around them (unnoticed by Perrin) and clearing out the signs he leaves behind so no one else can follow.

Her reply was always very much the same. “If you cannot move any faster than this, perhaps I should send you off to Myrelle before you get any older. Well, perhaps that can wait, but you must move us faster.”

Moiraine, I love you but what the fuck? Lan is doing an incredible job and you're joking about sending him off to get raped because it's not good enough for you.

“No day soon,” Lan said, and surprisingly, there was open anger in his voice. “Never, if I can help it. You will outlive me long, Moiraine Aes Sedai!”

She probably will, but how much longer, I wonder. Did the Finn steal her longevity when they stole her strength, or will she still age according to the power level she was born with? If the former, then she might not even have two centuries of lifespan in her. (Also note how touchy Lan is, to use such a formal address.)

“As difficult as that?” Moiraine murmured. Her hands slipped into the water—and a moment later came out with a splash, holding a fat trout that thrashed the surface. She laughed with delight as she tossed it up onto the bank.

Perrin thinks it's luck because Perrin is very, very silly. Also he doesn't know that she's best friends with a former fisherwoman.

Perrin thought about reminding her that whoever took the fish was supposed to clean them, too, but just at that moment she caught his eye. There was no particular expression on her smooth face, but her dark eyes did not waver, and they appeared to know what he was going to say, and to have dismissed it out of hand already.

Perrin, be grateful that the nice witch caught you a huge dinner. Another problem with not communicating is that of course Moiraine is probably doing useful magic tricks like this all the time with exactly as much fanfare and while effortlessly keeping her composure so Perrin has no idea that as far as the party dynamics are concerned, he and to a lesser degree Loial are the potential dead weight.

“I doubt she sees it that way. First she had to put up with Rand arguing with her all the time, and now you’re ready to take over for him. As a rule, Aes Sedai do not let anyone argue with them. I expect she means to have us back in the habit of doing what she says by the time we reach the first village.”

Loial's probably got a point too about Moiraine's Aes Sedai pride influencing her behavior. She likely strongly feels that she fucked up by giving Rand too much independence (even though really the boy needs as much as he can get) and is aiming for damage control by being extra shitty about things to Lan and Perrin as well.

Loial gave in to it as inevitable, but not Perrin. He tried refusing, resisting, but it was hard to resist when she made a reasonable suggestion, and a small one at that. Only there was always another suggestion behind it, as reasonable and small as the first, and then another. The simple force of her presence, the strength of her gaze, made it difficult to protest.

Perrin is getting worked over like he's saidar and it's a little funny.

He accused her of using the One Power on him, though he did not really think that was it, and she told him not to be a fool.

It is indeed very unlikely that she's Compelling him when she's just so good at social engineering.

The wolves should not have been there. Wolves avoided places where men were, but Perrin could still sense them, an unseen screen and escort ringing the mounted party.

The wolves are of course sticking around because Noam's also in the area.

Short chapter, huh? Next time: Fourteen hundred weddings and no funerals!

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

Okay I tried to hold off on this as I progress through mlb, "don't take it too seriously, just try to have fun" has been my mantra, but. I can't do it anymore I Litcherally Can Not do it anymore sorry I Gotta complain about mlb now.

Because Desparada has such a cool idea behind it, and it was shaping up to be one of the more interesting episodes so far... But then they totally destroyed Adrien's dignity and competence with it at the same time.

And this is just one particularly grating example in a long line of times where Adrien's hero work is some boo boo the fool-tier shit just for the sake of Ladybug or the plot. It's just that this time, it's particularly egregious because they decided to play up his failure to such a ridiculous degree.

You, the hero who's already fought like a hundred different bad guys and assorted minions, can't come up with a way to stop ONE regular bad guy from ruining your plan after nearly *26,000* tries over the subjective course of *months*?

Your Ladybug simpage makes you THAT dense, incompetent, and incapable of adapting?!

Like yeah, the determination's admirable, but it's such overkill that it also loops back around to making that determination look bad too! Like at that point, it doesn't come off as brave, it just comes off as kind of pathetic and reckless.

And then he doesn't even have anything useful he learned to suggest to the others after his bajillion and one failures? It' s just all up to Ladybug and first-timer Luka to figure out a strat?!

"Oh, but then he'd make it too obvious that-" Stop RIGHT there, because literally all he'd have to do is make it sound like an educated guess or a gut feeling, and they'd totally buy it!

And this was all so avoidable, too! You could just add in a line like "oh, time powers are really strong and finicky, so you have to be calm and let go of your distractions or else this power won't work right"

Then have Adrien mess up just a few times because of his ulterior motive, cut his losses, and not make himself look like such a desperate tool *even though, by all means, he should've been resourceful and experienced enough to be able to find a way to simply make his plan fucking **work** instead of fate dooming him to suck infinite ass just so he can learn a contrived lesson!*