#c| personal letters

[the-insouciant-scientist]

Formally introducing my evil old woman, Lady Geneviève "V" Blackwell, the Frenetic Impresario! A theatre director who's absolutely obsessed with putting on the most perfect performances of shows that should not be performed, whether that be for Ministry of Public Decency reasons or for "this show drives everyone who sees it mad" reasons. Morality will always come second to art, for her.

Simultaneously terrifyingly intense as far as her work is concerned, and also the type to hide in the stage curtains and sulk if people seem to merely like the shows she directs. Or walk laps around her theatre in the dead of night while seething to herself about how no one understands her vision.

[csuitebitches]

Personal growth truly isn’t as complicated as some of you make it seem.

If I could write a letter to my 18 year old self…..

“You don’t need to purchase fancy guides or watch hours and hours of YouTube videos. You don’t need to have 13 degrees in psychology in order to understand yourself.

The main reasons why one fails at “levelling up” are quite simple.

Lack of discipline.

Lack of accountability.

Not being able to manage time.

Not being able to say no to things in order to prioritise yourself.

Doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing, and yet, you do it anyway because FOMO.

How do you prevent the above from happening?

You have to be hard on yourself and listen to your rational instinct. When your intellectual side tells you that its best not to engage in a certain thing or not to be lazy about doing something, listen to that side. People always seem to know better but choose the easier path of not doing anything.

It’s your decision whether you want to look back at life and get upset with yourself for not having the willpower to do yourself justice. Or, you look back at yourself and thank your stars that you had the sense to start early.

Even if you don’t end up getting 100% of what you visualised, at least you’ll respect yourself for sticking to your guns and doing what was best for you and your life.

It’s not about ego. It’s not about hustle culture. It’s about ending this cycle of misery and procrastination and constant justification of your mindlessly stupid actions.

It’s time for you to grow up and put in the goddamn effort, because no one else will. You can’t demand the best of the best when you have nothing to bring to the table.

Stop wasting your time with idiots who don’t share the same values as you. Start reading more again. You’re not going to marry that guy you’re with and you know damn well that you’re going to leave him anyway - so just do it already. Stop the vicious cycle of breaking up and getting back.

I’m glad you enrolled in that university, even if you were a little nervous to leave home. It’s going to change you as a person. Absorb those experiences and realise that the world is not black and white.

There’s much to learn from and you’re wasting your time watching brain-dead influencers on YouTube and instagram. Minimise your social media footprint. Go back to doing the things you loved, even if you feel that the whole world mocks you for it. They don’t. Nobody cares.”

[iamanartichoke]

Posted this on twitter but it applies here, too. Also a plug to I guess follow me on twitter if you want - I'm not super active there insofar as posting goes, but I'm on there a lot (more than I ought to be, tbh).

Anyway I'm posting this partly to share but mostly bc I have things to say about it and I want to come back to it without it getting lost in my brainpan.

[xbraveheartx]

Just full of ✨ Thoughts ✨ over the development and progress from when you start the game to when you finish on how P/Carlo just evolves, and kinda just thinking on some internal stuff on how I would like to write him.

How you start and he's just P, he doesn't know his purpose, he just knows he's being called somewhere. Lost, alone, faced with peril and made to fight when he hasn't even stepped out of his "birth place". He wakes up and he's just handed a sword. And he fights. At the start he's very much this empty slate; A newborn stumbling through Krat, and despite the man who calls himself himself father saying stuff like "Krat isn't how you remember it--" He really doesn't 'remember' anything at all. What is there to 'remember', he wonders?

And then he starts to get the memories-- they're not his but also... they are? They feel so close and yet so far away; Foreign and yet familiar. And then he hears a name whispered: Carlo-- and his whole world shifts right from under him. He feels sick, the name makes his head spin. The voice to have said it makes his head spin all the more. And bit by bit. He remembers. Not all of it, but... he remembers enough.

And he's hurt by what he remembers.

But by the end of it, after he claims his own freedom, after everything is resolved, and he returns to the hotel, he doesn't feel fully like Carlo-- doesn't feel at all like "P", either. He woke up not too long ago, and suddenly his life is flipped in its entirety. He's neither, and yet he's both. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but the name sticks. It's all he has left, even if a part of him feels some strange form of imposter syndrome, somewhere deep down... But he doesn't like being referred to as Geppetto's Puppet, either. He's not a puppet, not anymore. He's human, albeit, a different kind of human.

So just Carlo, is fine with him, even if he's changed far beyond of who-- and what-- Carlo was.

'--an Ergo puppet can have a second life and become another kind of human--' He just needed now to decide just what that second life meant for him, now.

[batfamfucker]

There are four main types of Batfam fans in regard to how people interpret Bruce Wayne as a dad (/Joking. This is mostly satire and should not be taken seriously):

Fans that think Bruce is emotionally constipated and isn't the best at being a parent but still tries (Differs per person). Don't necessarily think he's absuive but thinks he can be toxic or have unhealthy expectations for the Robins. Can smell the Oldest Daughter Syndrome coming from Dick and have Family Line (By Conan Gray) as their top song on their Dick inspired playlist and Daddy Issues (By The Neighbourhood) for Jason.

Fans that choose to believe Bruce goes to therapy in their own canon. Love B:WFA. Thinks the comic can be cheesy at times and so find a balance between B:WFA Bruce and Please Go To Therapy BruceTM as their middle ground. He struggles. They advocate that Bruce is not a bad parent, he just has bad writers that seem to forget Bruce wouldn't hurt kids, especially not his own. Love the humane moments and scenes he has in BTAS and the early JL cartoons. He may not be perfect but he's not literally abusive. Whores for Bruce being able to admit when he is wrong and for Jason and Bruce reconciling. I recommend Grow As We Go by Ben Platt for this one.

A mix between the first two. Was fine-ish when Dick was younger. Didn't help him in the healthiest way but eh. Still emotionally constipated but that happened more so after Dick left and Jason died. Started getting better when Tim came back but was still closed off. Should probably go to therapy with the kids so they can drag his ass about all the things he's done that have actually affected them negatively. Understands his mistakes and is also able to admit when he's wrong, eventually. It's not easy but he starts to do better and learns to be more emotionally available. Still has to get chewed out by Alfred sometimes but definitely better than he used to be and it shows. Reconciliation is slow and gradual but progress is made for everyone involved.

The one's I personally avoid for my own sanity and wellbeing:

Think Bruce is a complete bastard and abuser. Want him to choke. Hate any and all interpretations of him. Some of which will refuse to understand how anyone could have a different interpretation. Will point out comics where, in all fairness, he is a dick but forget that characterisation can significantly differ from one series to the next, as comic characters are constantly passed around to different writers and have been for decades. Not to mention movies, shows, etc.

[deadpresidents]

What books have you been reading since your last update?

I don't remember what I shared with my last update, so apologies if I repeat anything, but these are some of the books I've read over the past couple months:

•An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) I'm actually still reading this new book by the legendary Doris Kearns Goodwin, so I still have a couple of chapters to go, but I can definitely recommend it. This is undoubtedly the most personal book that DKG has ever written, and it's a fascinating story.

•Charging a Tyrant: The Arraignment of Saddam Hussein by Greg Slavonic (BOOK | KINDLE)

•Life: My Story Through History by Pope Francis with Fabio Marchese Ragona (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

•George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy by Sally Bedell Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

•Byron: A Life in Ten Letters by Andrew Stauffer (BOOK | KINDLE)

•The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuscinski

•Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

•The Making of a Leader: The Formative Years of George C. Marshall by Josiah Bunting III (BOOK | KINDLE)

•The Year of the Three Kaisers: Bismarck and the German Succession, 1887-88 by J. Alden Nichols

•God Is Ever New: Meditations on Life, Love, and Freedom by Pope Benedict XVI (BOOK | KINDLE)

•Paul VI: The Divided Pope by Yves Chiron (BOOK | KINDLE)

•Buffalo Bill and the Mormons by Brent M. Rogers (BOOK | KINDLE)

•The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union by Stephen Puleo (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

•Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage by Jon Finkel (BOOK | KINDLE)

•Business Is About to Pick Up!: 50 Years of Wrestling in 50 Unforgettable Calls by Jim Ross with Paul O'Brien (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

•Zanzibar Was a Country: Exile and Citizenship Between East Africa and the Gulf by Nathaniel Mathews (BOOK | KINDLE)

[tiny-poems]

Imagine Your OTP #4

Character A is in a dead end relationship with Character B for a reason of your choosing, slowing falling in love with their penpal, Character C.

[senseofharmony]

c!tommy who takes up calligraphy as a hobby

[lesenbyan]

i wish tumblr users a very vet blogs before you donate to them

[unproduciblesmackdown]

on that note had also been thinking about the hilarious classic maneuver of taking things i go "smh always doing that weird/wrong" & instead putting it in the context of like oh i dunno my life experiences. like going "smh once again in one millisecond i noticed something was about to fall & just sort of Tensed instead of instantly going to catch it & in the next milliseconds hash out like 'oh but could i catch it. oh but now it's in progress am i too late' etc" but like well hang on. first of all the Tense Up / Brace For Impact approach can have its strengths too. second of all like why just kick myself when Of Course the vastly more frequent & relevant experiences of having to stifle reactions & tense up to Brace For Impact / Weather The Situation means that's the standard approach. sure tends to be the case that like "okay test your reflex time :)" type things when i Know It's Coming, i.e. preemptively Tense Up, i turn out quite slow. throwback to a true classic [my roommate that said my cat was performative while their cat did things out of true emotion] at my doctor's appointment at like age thirteen when the ol Knee Bonk Reflex Test would make me Tense/Seize That Knee Up and Then kick. and then afterwards my "big fan of unprompted criticisms / declarations about your internal experiences or true intentions" mom was like you were faking those reflexes. i'm like well i wasn't. she was like yes you were. consider the camera jimmed

secondly i was also thinking like, always been the case that when Talking, often even if in writing format, i can't really avoid mirroring the characteristics of the other person's Style / Patterns lol. was thinking about it in my Relative ease of adopting pronunciations for different language's phonemes when it's like, i guess i do have experience in Doing Voices not b/c i really often Did Voices (sometimes lol, as like, direct quotes or whatever. echoing....) but b/c like i'll just be picking up all kinds of mannerisms / tendencies / ways of speaking, including accents slightly (my default accent being disney channel) not b/c i'm messing with anyone or trying to do anything, in fact trying Not to do this is generally unsuccessfully & This Is What Happens Naturally & always has & it's like yknow what i think it might have to do with the fact that i don't think Talking in general is oh so "natural" for me / a matter of "just being myself" (things virtually never are lol) like. i think that time i had that friend in second grade where i'm like ummm i'm not sure we spoke the same language b/c i'm not sure we spoke hardly ever? but we had fun & played & amused ourselves etc til the teacher as usual went Biggest Time Sicko Mode on our "not paying attention" like nobody else's got & then didn't give a fuck abt "intervening" again when we didn't feel like we were Allowed(tm) to interact at all. & like i'm pretty sure i'd be "supposed" to feel like omg we don't talk (almost) at all?? that's SO weirrrd i remember that soooo welllll

and when i Do talk most "naturally" / "just being myself" it's all at once, wordy, and Theatrical, and even then. i did it some the other day and was Sweating, literally, less so figuratively but it does still feel demanding, and of course even when it doesn't Feel thusly, doing a Lot a lot of verbalizing can really still be draining to Taxing. and i've noticed better like yeah sometimes i'm markedly struggling to speak when i'm already extra wearied. and another thing i put into context better was like "when i'm being put tf through it why do i tend to cry through interactions. b/c i'm being a PUSSY????" like lol just on principle was like okay well who cares, i'm sure you, by which i mean i, have my reasons b/c so too would i think someone else does, like. and i remember like, i tend to Not "directly" cry of stress or sadness virtually ever. while i Do tend to be simply keeping that shit contained but Exactly When i have to try to speak? is when i happen to start crying. hmm. Hmmmm. talking Always this performance that i may often not be up for. similar to [personal visual style / Look / clothes] like my default is "basic outfit i'd want to wear every day" & my ideal is "i do not want to be perceived" & (this &) everything else is performance / drag to me, Would That that always be on my terms

another banger is my till oh so recently kicking myself like "aah [pathologization time] i'm sooo slow to be at ease / comfortable around people even when they're surely being nice, what a hassle for others" like well it can be viewed as a hassle for me but it's also like, wait, i end up having stayed uncomfortable around people who weren't being That nice by putting in That much [any effort from any Consideration] and often turn out like. ultimately not that Safe. and i look at "oh right yeah and also i sure Can be like instantly quite comfortable / at ease around people, including people i literally just met. so" &/or my not being at ease either is still way less of a deal than having to literally/figuratively sweat it while i'd feel so much more Okay avoiding detection much less interaction

[apomaro-mellow]

this court system needs to stop playin wit my feelins

[pastafossa]

Halfway done editing, current wordcount of tomorrow’s TRT update is 7.3k because I wanted to add a thing. LOOK AT US GO. WE ARE PRODUCTIVE, WE ARE POWERFUL, WE ARE SCREAMING INTO THE SICKNESS VOID BECAUSE FUCK YOU, COUGH.

[zeraphimtwins]

"I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief."

-- C.S. Lewis

[tomybubba]

March 17th, 2024

Dear C,

hi bubba. it's been a while, hasn't it? i wanted to keep writing to you but I was scared that you weren't gonna want me back

i haven't gotten a text from you in three weeks, and it makes it scarier and harder because for the first time, I'm scared that you didn't follow through with your promises and that I'm actually screwed. the promises that if we ever lost our spark, we'd work on getting it back, that you'd always be here for me and that I'll always be yours, that you wouldn't ghost me.

one thing i always regretted was the fact that my friends showed me the thing, that it came up. i feel like because of that, you had a change in your heart towards me. or perhaps the reaction I had turned you off. regardless, I wish we had worked it out.

i wish you had told me you wanted to go no contact.

i went to my last uni formal yesterday, and all I could think about was you, how i wanted you to be there, dancing with me. i looked at the dance floors and saw all the couples, and all I could think about was our plan to dress up like we would've for prom and dance even though we both have no clue how to dance. all the couples in the photobooth made me want to cry because all I could think about was doing that with you. i wish i could've shown the world how amazing of a person I had in my life, how I had a bubba that made me feel like I was enough and that I was a princess. i wish i could've shown the man who is truly the most perfect person in the world, and I wish I had loved you publicly and shown the world that you are the one.

my friends have been trying to make me move on, they say that I can't stay hung up over you and love someone who never wanted me or loved me, or that I'm wasting my time on someone who's a dick. perhaps that's true, but they also have no clue because they never loved you or got to know you the way I did.

i'm starting to accept the fact that maybe you won't say happy birthday to me this year, but still hanging onto the slightest hope that you do. I'll understand if you won't though. I'll cry about it like I do every night, but I'll still understand and I won't ever hate you at all. I could never hate you.

i love you so so much C, so much. I know I must be the annoying ex who can't take a hint, but i'm scared that if I don't say it, no one will. I love you forever and always my love, my love for you is infinite bubba. I'll be right here, waiting in our little home we built for 2.5 years with a cup of hot cocoa ready for you, whether you're the old you or new you.

yours and yours only,

F

[jacoblovesyou]

everyone please Consider🩸

[morningstargirl666]

Hello, sorry to bother you. I’m an avid fanfic reader and i am bilingual. I’m wondering how fanfic writers feel about translations of their work (with permission obviously). Is it flattering? Is it something that you would want so more people can read your work? Or is it more neutral? Obviously you can’t speak for all writers, but i’m curious about your opinion and what you know of other’s opinions

I think, generally speaking, most writers including myself are okay with translations of their work as long as you ask permission first and give credit to the original author. They may also not want their work posted to another site, so as long as the translation is posted on the same site as the original work, you're good then too. To offer to translate something is normally seen as the highest compliment, as the idea someone loved their work so much they wanted to share it with more people - presumably in their native language - is a HUGE compliment. Of course, every writer has their own preferences, so may not like the idea for their own reasons - hence why you always need to ask permission and if they say no, respect that decision. But as long as you stick to those three unspoken rules (ask permission, give credit, don't post to another site), it's normally all good.

There's a lot of AI scraping and copying of original works to other sites happening right now, so writers can be nervous. I, myself, and several others I know, have locked down our fics on AO3 so only AO3 users can view them due to the AI shit. Just be polite and respectful to them and their fics, and you're golden. I'm sure there's plenty out there that would love to see fics translated, including myself! 👍