#at least I feel like a failure

[ajackofthecraftsandamasterofnone]

So I made 2 candles and a test scoopable. Didn't do nearly as much as I had planned/hoped :(

[a-polite-melody]

“But if a trans man wasn’t trans would he—”

SHUT THE FUCK UP

He is trans.

You don’t get to separate the trans and the man because it’s convenient for you. Trans men are men because they are trans. Trans men are trans because they are men. You can’t just separate trans men’s identities out like this to say they’re oppressed for being trans and not men because THOSE ARE THE SAME THING and separating them to categorize how trans + man interact in a mathematical version of identity politics flies directly in the face of intersectionality and I’m so tired of pretending it doesn’t.

[theythemmer]

phinktober day 10: sister daniel and father philip 🙏🏻

[jellojolteon]

Now that you've made it to the autumn of

Your years and you feel your best yet

-The Bottom of It, Fruit Bats

Izuocha week 2024 Day 6: Cycle/Miracle

[ofswordsandpens]

I'm sincerely very happy for anyone who is enjoying the show but every time I see takes that the show has improved the book characterizations or that the book characters are underdeveloped in comparison to the show...

[user-name-h3re]

i'm posting these mediocre sketches before school kicks my ass again

[witchofthesouls]

Wait something funny just occurred to me. In the AU where the kids get cyber formed but remain on the edge of being adults, someone would have had to give them the Cybertonian version of The Sex Talk.

Would it be Ratchet, giving them the strictly medical side of things, or would it be some bot, talking about the experimental/exploring parts?

(I genuinely believe Ratchet would have an aneurysm of some kind at the prospect of it. But let's pretend)

I have to name this verse properly because Tarn isn't here, but it will eventually lead the D.J.D. to Earth. I'll keep the soulmate au tag until I can figure out something.

Ratchet does have an aneurysm because he has set ideas on what is and isn't 'appropriate' from Functionist-held Golden Age Cybertron, but he also carries a lot of guilt from out-surviving almost all his friends, cohorts, and students...

And it's all being dragged into the mud by the Jasper trio, who gives no quarter on crushing his prejudices and fears. Even Raf, his favorite, casually steamrolls over it with the draconian and American mindset of giving no fucks.

Team Prime had harmless thought exercises of what their charges' Cybertronian frames would be like... and none of them were remotely correct!

Because Miko is a Seeker femme, Raf may or may not be a type of Predacon, and Ratchet can't get proper readings on Jack's base-coding, Ratchet sits them all down because they're not sparklings or mechlings with sealed plates but full-framed mecha with total access. He gives them the reproductive talk, especially since Seekers and beastformers go into reproductive heats, but humans don't have that. He's trying to be mindful, and Ratchet is going through the different sexual methods and the variations of parts. Of course, Raf has to interrupt because the draconian mech has two spikes and no receptacle, and he would like to know about any necessary care.

All in all, it's really Ratchet having another fit because his weird humans are now weird Cybertronians of yore/throwbacks. And the ex-humans are taking it rather well, but Jack, Miko, and Raf had literally lifetimes to explore sexuality: as humans, human-hybirds by exploring their heritage as well as alchemical concoctions and very curious lovers.

This, however, did kickstart the path of Ratchet teaching Miko his medical knowledge as she doesn't want the results. She's burning to have the technical skills and knowledge of the processes. Ratchet does pass on his skills to Raf and Jack, but Raf prefers the science as Jack is more fascinated by procuring research material. Miko literally bullzoned her way to become his student. The howling matches they had shook the foundations of the base, but she got her way because she deliberately aimed at his vulnerable parts. ("You'll leave us one day to go back to Cybertron! And you're refusing to tell me how to properly care for myself!?") Ratchet is highly concerned about how voracious Miko's appetite is for that knowledge.

She yearns to become a Tsunade/Unohana terror among them because they have a strong suspicion that if their status is revealed, then they'll become targets. She'll become a Cybertronian Bloodbourne horror if it means she'll never be trapped like what happened to some of her kin.

[sharonisthebettercarter]

does anybody speak enough right wing to decipher this shit cause i'm at a loss here--

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

"Jason was the happy robin" this, "jason was the angry robin" that. Let's all be fully honest here Jason was the lonely robin

[madou-dilou]

I really hope we get to see Callum go unhinged and war crimes and murder WITHOUT Aaravos's influence because he talks big about darkness but...

"Messed up inside and I mess up everything I touch". Callum, you have done literally nothing wrong ever, you don't deserve the emo Byronic hero lexical field. But do you know who's EARNED the right to say that?

saves his dying son. But has to kill his mentor for it. His beloved wife is horrified, she leaves him, breaking their family.

ends up shifting the blame on the very baby boy he sacrificed everything to save. He became a monster to save Soren and monsters don't make good parents even when they try.

But had he not saved Soren, he would have hated Lissa for preventing him to do so, and the family would have been broken regardless

inadvertently has Claudia taking charge of his and Soren's emotional well-being since he's too much of a workaholic to do so himself

wants to save two realms from starvation. He does. But not only he fails to rescue the two queens of Duren, his friend dies in his arms rescuing him.

His only friend ends up blaming him for everything that ever went wrong before committing suicide. Viren tries to die for him instead but is rejected

He orders his son to kill the princes, Harrow's sons

He orders Claudia to choose to save the dragon egg over Soren if she is forced to choose. Which is understandable, after all Soren chose to be a soldier, and Viren has proven he was ready to do the same

He destroys Lux Aurea simply by walking in

Soren leaves him

He dies a horrifying death. Claudia, his sweet, treasured daughter, goes through unfathomable sufferings to bring him back, to the point that he realises the only good he can do for Claudia, for Soren, for the world, is to leave it. The world is better off without him and he finally knows it

He tries to apologise to Soren but realises it will only harm Soren even further

He commits suicide.

Meanwhile, what has Callum ever done wrong ?

Crushing already dead slugs.

Come on.

[localchocobomerc]

I tried telling someone about this yesterday and they felt it was very bleak, but it doesn't feel that way to me:

I really like what final fantasy 7 has to say about failure! I read it as showing how much defining something as just a failure and assigning blame exclusively to the fail-er depends on removing it from the stream of causation and isolating it from context...

For instance:

1. Zack's failure to get him and Cloud to safety after escaping the Nibelheim lab. This is an easy one, because who looks at what he did and calls it a failure? It's obviously incredible that he made it that far AND was able to protect Cloud enough. But his goal was for both of them to make it, and he couldn't do it. I don't think he felt like he failed overall (thank goodness), but another person might have. Which, in context, and looking at the effects of the attempt, is ridiculous.

2. Cloud's failure to keep an independent sense of self after Zack died (after being tortured for years, after being impaled, after losing his mother, Tifa, and his hometown, all in succession). Maybe the not-that-rare attitude of blaming him for this is a fault of the OG script, which I think makes it sound like more of a reasoned choice than it is, whether through translation error or through Cloud being the only one to really talk about it after he realizes that's what happened (and blaming himself for it). Regardless, it is a failure, in the sense that Cloud definitely wouldn't want to forget Zack, never mind construct a false self from pieces of his memory, but he did. Looking at all the causes of this, and the effects (including both vulnerability to external control but also the ability to be present with Tifa when they met again, and to continue to function as the situation demanded), it just starts to feel too simplistic to view it as a failure only.

The story is full of people trying to protect each other and themselves and not being able to, or not being able to in the way or to the extent they wanted, like failing to:

- Keep the sector 7 plate from falling

- Keep the Black Materia from Sephiroth

- Save Dyne

- Save Aerith

- Save Zack

- Stop Sephiroth from calling Meteor

But if you look at each of those things in context, they both have many causes besides "I wasn't enough" and more effects than just "the loss I couldn't prevent." And in most if not all cases, making the attempt achieved other good things, like saving Marlene or giving Zack the chance to see that it wasn't all for nothing... Things that really matter a lot. Ultimately, saving the rest of the planet besides Midgar is another one of these... a good thing grown in the rubble of failure.

I just feel like, as someone well acquainted with failure, this game is saying it's worth trying and continuing to try after you fail, and that's not bleak to me at all.

[spread-the-influence]

// hopping in again because 2 am is in the timeframe where i become so hyper on accidentally finding vibes like a nocturnal predator

. https://youtu.be/8Gopg80VXwc?si=j_vS5a5xUWvgiBRC

somehow sounds like t.i

// ASHES ASHES DUST TO DUST THE DEVIL'S AFTER THE BOTH OF US //

[everyryuujisuguro]

[humdrummoloch]

How do I put what's in my head onto the page? Is it always hard?

Hello!

If you're asking me how to make the writing live up to the fantasy, just remember: writing isn't a transcription service, it's an art form.

Writing isn't thinking, but between you and me, thinking isn't that great anyways. It's like singing in the shower. Thinking needs to be translated through a skill like writing before it'll make a good scene.

Creation is choices and actions, not recreation. Let me give you an example: I crocheted my dog recently, and I didn't aim to perfectly recreate my dog in tiny crochet form. Instead, while I crocheted, I converted her into a small character with plushie proportions. She had all her recognisable features and was a pretty good crochet dog, checked all the boxes, Dad was happy. But the little crochet dog didn't look exactly how the subject did, sat there wagging on the rug. That's because I wasn't trying to copy her. I was trying to crochet her. In the same way, I don't transcribe my daydreams, I convert them into writing form, and that's 90% less frustrating and 100% more possible.

As for whether writing remains hard forever, yes and no. Writing becomes easier with practice the same way anything does, but it gets harder as you naturally challenge yourself to write better, like a bodybuilder increasing the weights. But if you stop expecting writing to come out 'correctly' and instead lose yourself in the process, you won't feel the dead ends, you'll be too busy finding solutions and thinking on your feet -- you'll be in the zone.

I just wish I knew how to do that on command!

-HM

[milkbreadtoast]

(random) ngl before i started learning korean i felt like the worst failure of a korean but now i feel like the best failure of a korean (/j) HAHA

like im struggling to speak but least im speaking..!! I feel like I've restored an essential piece of myself that was missing...

[touchlikethesun]

it’s extremely frustrating to be able to recognise behaviours in yourself brought on by trauma, recognise the negative impact those behaviours are having on your life, but not being able in the moment to correct them. i feel like i’ve been fighting the same battles over and over again for a decade and never gaining any ground, at least not permanently, and i am so tired all the time. all the time. i don’t want to be a bad person, or a mean person, or a selfish person, i really really don’t, but i am. for whatever reason, i am. i want to do better, i want to choose to do better, but i keep messing it up. nothing even happened today. today was a good day. i just think about this a lot.