#but this positive work environment is why i've been able to push myself so hard to go to conferences and speak on stage

[aurosoulart]

my boss messaged me awhile ago saying that Figmin's previous artist (who did the UI design) recently transitioned and that "all the artsy stuff in Figmin is trans 🎉" 😭😭😭💖💖💖💖💖

also we wanted to change the silhouette in our banner to be more androgynous, so now it's literally just a picture of me that I traced

anyways!!!! trans joy is REAL and it is stored in the Figmin XR🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

[tsukishiro-himari]

「Memorandum a few years ago」

I was crying involuntarily.

But I've opened up the future

by pushing forward.

That's why I won't run away.

Repaint despair with a new color.

Last night I waited for hours to rent a car,

but there was a problem with the rental.

So I walked to the motel under the

cold sky and finally got there at 1:00 am.

When I found out dinner was cold rice,

my tears welled up.

Having warm rice to eat every night is

so wonderful…

Singing from "my living heart” in

all black while surrounded

by sparkling idols makes me

so nervous but when my song resonates

with your heart I cry with happiness.

I will continue to fight as the one and

only Isiliel.

sometimes m＆m's inside

American chocolate bars…

chocolate in chocolate aaaaa(*o*)

I've been receiving messages

from Mexico fans for a long time

asking me to liveperformance here as well.

And I'm contacting the eventer and

working so that I can go to the near future.

I will sing to the whole world with

Mexico's "Day of the Dead" livestream.

Your words are our future!

It's difficult to continue.

But I want to continue to love.

I'm overwhelmed by life’s difficulties

and can get lost in myself.

Alone in a place where the ground was

shifting and a cold strong wind blowed,

I really felt that.

But I will always keep standing.

That’s Isiliel.

To everyone I’ve met on this path,

the greatest love and gratitude.

From today, I will head to the east coast

for the end of the tour.

I still don't know the meaning of

"it's risky to travel by car",

but the 14 hours x 3 days death relay

will start.

But anyway, I'll do my best positively

so that I can proceed while

enjoying various things!

I think.

" Wonderful memories become

treasures and strength in our heart."

Many of my expressions were influenced

by Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Yesterday Evangelion was broadcast in

my background, and I became

a part of the story and roared

with "散華一体" for the first time.

As a personal impression,

if "Myrkur" is a music

that reminds me of the texture of

dead trees in the deep forest,

"Nightwish" is

a profound velvet-like music,

and I really like both of them so much.

I could cry…

#himaplaying

I finally arrived at Chicago, the final place

of Isiliel's 1st WORLD TOUR!!

There have been various changes

in the environment,

but I will calm my mind and

do my best to send my song. GANBARU!!

#moonbowrising

Sometimes, I get attacked

by anxiety before going on stage.

But yesterday, I said to myself,

"First of all, having fun

is the most important thing.

And to work hard.

That's enough, it's definitely okay."

What I was able to say to myself

was a big growth for me.

I did it. my first time Jollibee is so good……

It was a so hard schedule,

but a lot of new things were born

among them.

Thank you for spreading Isiliel together!

I'm a metal baby now,

but I want to grow more and send music

that will keep you alive in the future.

Don't forget our treasure. See you again!

Pinky promise♡

[thechaoscryptid]

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

(ask me writer questions!)

I love this question! I have many thoughts on this and I'll try to make them coherent lmao. I'm pulling out my writing books for this too because in Gentle Writing Advice (pg. 199), Chuck Wendig pretty well summarizes my thoughts:

And therein lies the secret: Writer's block isn't all that bad. Because, if you really think about it, writer's block is sometimes like a warning light letting you know something is off. It is a tremor in the spider's web, or an ill wind blowing. It's doing us a service, as bad as it might feel. Think of writer's block as the voice of your intestinal flora, the choir of hypersentient bacteria in your gut that provides the insight of instinct. You can ignore them and push on - that's okay, too, as long as you fix in edit - and there's also nothing to say our instincts are uinversally correct. [...] My process in this regard needn't be your process: certainly there's value to mashing the accelerator and driving that machine as fast as you can till the thing either gets you over the finish line or explodes in a fiery ball before tumbling down a plot hole big enough to swallow Central Park. You can always fix it in subsequent drafts. The point stands, though, that writer's block isn't necessarily all bad. There's gold in them thar hills. The question is whether or not you can dig for it.

I think writer's block is unfairly maligned. That's my hot take on it. We should spend less time boohooing the fact we're blocked and more time figuring out why it's happening.

Throughout the above book, Wendig talks a lot about the writing process and how your life outside of writing relates to it, and there's also a great section that basically boils down to "block or breakdown," in which he posits that some of what writers consider "creative block" is actually something more serious (mental or physical illness, weird/wrong environment, etc).

Writer's block is my sign to check in with myself on both a writing and personal level to ask what's gone sideways. Sometimes I can push through it with an extra coffee and a little effort. More often, it's my sign to rest, chill out, cool my jets. Take a break for once.

In the same vein, low creativity!

AWFUL thing to experience. Terrible! The worst! There are fewer things I hate more than the times my creative well has turned to sludge and writing is a fucking slog.

And, like writer's block, realizing my well is running dry is a signal for me to stop, step back, and reassess.

I've actually been struggling really hard with both block and being creatively dry for like, four months now. I've been writing fuck all except 100 words of BG3 fic at a time on work breaks, and it's been rough.

What I have been doing?

Reading. A lot of reading, and analyzing style/structure/characterization to figure out what new elements I might be able to incorporate to a new creative project. I've been reading fantasy, sci-fi, classics, writing books, other nonfiction, books on myths - I'm really chewing through titles 😅

Resting. Not forcing myself to sit down and work on projects. I've actually avoided working on writing projects even on days I feel like I can or want to write.

Other creatively involved work. I've been cooking and baking more, as well as doing a lot of zine admin work. Shit that involves creative projects but doesn't necessarily involve creativity. I looooove creative-adjacent work for low creativity times!

Redoing old work. I'm talking like, rewriting and editing 5+ year old work from the ground up. You already have the raw material, and this is an easy, low-pressure way to get back in the saddle OR just keep those writing muscles limber (but also, you canNOT beat yourself up about "oh I was so bad how did anyone ever like this" that's not allowed).

Not putting pressure on myself to perform. This is a huge cause of creativity issues for me, ngl. But over the past two years or so, I've really been working hard at just allowing myself to create at my own pace. I feel, especially in fandom, people feel obligated to churn out content as quick as they can lest they get ignored and forgotten; learning to break out of that "gotta go fast" mentality has done WONDERS for not draining me as quickly, even if it still feels shitty to see more popular writers dropping a new 15k fic every week.

Slowly but surely, my creative well is refilling. My blocks are becoming fewer and farther between and when they do hit, I'm better prepared to know if it's something I can push through and fix later OR if it's something I really do need to sit back and consider.

So yeah!

I guess TL;DR my advice is basically (though easier said than done, I will admit):

Know thyself and thy limits

Step back, get your head clear, and assess

Do non-writing creative work that sparks joy

Remove yourself from the comparison game

[ahiddenpath]

Life Update

Ramblin' about life beneath the cut.

I've been wanting to write one of these for a while, but... It's been hard??? Like- It just seems like such a task, somehow xD Maybe it's difficult to translate into a lil post?

I've been at my new job for nearly 5 months. It's hard to explain the difference between this place and the last. At my last company, the mental/emotional strain was high for everyone. The layoffs, people leaving without new hires, and trying to shove equipment from the locations my company let go of into the one remaining building... It was a lot of challenges and job insecurity, which translated into coworkers being constantly on edge. Not a good environment.

However, I loved my boss, I knew what I was doing, and I was perceived as experienced and capable. I never went in wondering if I'd be able to do what was asked of me. I also worked 9:30 to 4:30 most of the time, although I often didn't break for lunch (usually it was 10-20 minutes at my desk, shoving a packed lunch in my face while doing computer work).

At my new place, everyone is so... So goddamned smart. And so nice! There's not a single buttface at work! My company is successful and growing, people are curious and motivated and brilliant. The company offers career progression (something I've never had before), we're fairly paid, we do innovative work and push the boundaries of science, buzzword buzzword buzzword.

But good god, we work hard.

I've learned more in these nearly five months than I think I ever have in my life. Hell, this is more than I probably learned in six years at my last place, and definitely in the six years before that. The amount of information I absorb every day is just bonkers. I spend far more time not knowing what I'm doing than knowing.

I feel like an absolute rube. The truth is that I've been assigned nothing but difficult work, lol! I fall asleep and wake up thinking about how to make my experiments work, my anxiety constantly tells me I'm an idiot and everyone else thinks so, too. I currently have an entire work day of overtime mentally logged- I've been trying to leave early to offset extra hours here and there, but instead, the total of extra time keeps growing. I'm considering taking a sick day to counter balance it.

I don't spend as much time online anymore. I know I've been missing posts and not keeping up, but it can't be helped. I haven't been able to create as much, either. I'm worried about burnout and being able to keep this up. I try to tell myself that growing as a scientist is exciting and worthwhile, but instead, I end up questioning if I have what it takes.

I'm not sleeping well, I haven't exercised in weeks, I'm not creating much or refreshing myself during my time off. I'm considering setting up a few therapy sessions for advice. As I said to my husband, "All I want is a job where I don't need therapy to figure out how to cope with the stress from the job."

And the wildest part is... This is a good job at a good company. We just work too hard with too high expectations. I'm back in that position where eating, drinking, and using the restroom are difficult to fit in- meanwhile, my boss wants me to do all of this extra reading "when I have time," and he asks why I didn't attend social events, etc.

I know from therapy that my job is to deal with what's in front of me in the healthiest way, and if that involves reframing how I think about it, then fine. I haven't figured out how to do that.

And I suppose I don't have much else to say! My focus is constantly taken up by work, so uh... What else would I say? I hope you're all doing well and maintaining that balance that I can't seem to find right now. Take care and be well <3

[xistential-thought]

Where do I go from here?

This spring I am going to be graduating from Unisedade mas Clafinais. I am excited to be done so soon but also feel stuck in a state of shock.

When I first transferred to the Unisedade mas Clafinais. I had in mind that I wanted to become an immigration lawyer. With that goal in mind, I've worked hard these past few years to be able to keep that within reach. Now that I am so close to graduating, I feel that this is something that isn't really for me.

I have been toying around with so many opportunities in hopes that they can direct me to where I should go next. I am still trying to enjoy my time here the best I can, taking breaths when I can and remembering that life is not a race.

I also worry. There are lots of people like myself who are just trying to get by, but then comes the issue of toxic workplaces. In particular, the issues of sexism and oppression in workplaces are constant reminders of what the job market is like.

In our journalism class, we read a piece about sexism in big tech and the struggles that intelligent women have to endure even in this day and age. I am no stranger to the mistreatment of women in the workplace. Having worked since I was 15 in the food and service industry I am painfully aware of the ugly abuses men put women through.

Through my education, I have worked hard to view myself as an equal in society. I have pushed myself to take on tasks that are equally if not more demanding than my colleagues. The problem is that professional workplaces can't seem to offer the same respect to women who are 10-30 years older than me. What a disheartening thought.

Call me entitled or even childish, but I did not put up with shitty workplace environments for years in order to still be oppressed by them as an adult with a higher education degree. No one should. The issue with toxic work environments is that they are upheld by pro-capitalist principles. Even as the article showed, when these companies are called out for these actions nothing is done. I know there are plenty of people who are suffering in these self-degrading workplaces. The way that workplaces are constructed is innately oppressive. They are meant to make the most profit by disregarding the workers who do the labor for a company.

As a young woman of color and first-generation Honduran American who will soon rejoin the workforce, I feel perplexed. As a graduate, I now have something that makes me more desirable to the workforce. But as an educated person with a sense of humanity, I am aware that my education makes me no less valuable than a child who has never attended school but is forced to work for only dollars a day elsewhere in this global economy. We are all pawns, the only difference is my education now allows me to be exposed to a new level of misogyny and sexism.

Once I officially graduate from this fine institution my goal should be to work for a large company. My goal should be to make money. My goal should be to add value to the workplace. My goal should be to withstand the pressures of competition.

So many women have pushed themselves under these pretenses and have been symbolically rewarded with the offer of a position at a board table. These same women are also the ones writing about how oppressive and degrading these positions have been. Their presence is not seriously considered and they still endure the same disgusting advances that women who work in food service endure.

So why should I want this after graduation? Why should my goal be to break the glass ceiling above me when there is a cement ceiling right above it? None of this seems appealing.

This is not to discount the actual change and far worse oppression that women workers have endured in the past but just a reflection on it. More than anything it has made me think hard about what I value in a workplace and how much I am willing to withstand if I am not being treated in a way that is fitting of any human being.

Why should anyone have to work in these horrific and hurtful systems? The answer is that no one should. The one thing these stories have shown me is that people will continue to fight back against unfair workplaces. When workers' needs are being ignored or treated with a lack of respect they can also choose to leave. Many people, like the women in the article, have decided to make their own workplaces that do not stand for this type of harassment. These workplaces are being pioneered with the idea of inclusion, mutual respect, and zero-tolerance policies. This type of reconstruction gives me hope for what is to come post-graduation.

I sincerely have no clue what my next steps are after graduation. I at least know this: morally I have a personal obligation to not allow myself to be othered by anyone or any workplace regardless of the pay. I pray I will never have to endure this type of treatment. I am also supported by other women workers in this world who refuse to stand for this type of treatment. I hope that people feel empowered enough to speak up against workplace oppression. If people's needs are going to be ignored just knowing that others are coming together to create new workplaces that put human morals at the forefront of their work gives me hope that things will be ok after I graduate.