#have to keep reminding myself that it’s all worth it

[romanticize-until-you-drop]

After every holiday I feel ever more reluctant to drag myself back to school.

But back to my regularly scheduled bullshit I suppose. Final stretch now!

[cutietrait]

last batch of shots from the meadows' home (for now)

PREVIOUS | NEXT

[tacroyy]

i am still and will forever be in absolute pieces about the difference between the first line in the first* manuscript draft of charmed life and the first line in the published editions. LOOK at this:

first line of charmed life, from the first manuscript draft:

Cat ^Chant did not like his sister Gwendolen particularly.

first line of charmed life in all published editions:

Cat Chant admired his elder sister Gwendolen.

i mean!!! its so simple and so obvious but so essential. in the published book, cat never states outright that he dislikes gwendolen, and that is SUCH a clue for the reader, because gwendolen is the worst, and so you are sitting there going: am i missing something?? why does cat not absolutely loathe his awful sister?? but if you are writing this story from scratch, you have to get the obvious out there from the get go: cat doesnt like his sister, and why? because nobody likes his sister. nobody likes gwendolen. because she's the worst.

now, you can't keep that line in revisions, obviously. you have to say something else, because the whole point is that cat doesn't know how awful gwendolen is. but it's a really good concept for an opening line, because you have to set up their dynamic first thing. so what can you say that cat feels about gwendolen? well, he... he doesn't like her. but she is all that he has, and in his eyes, she's competent and, well, admirable. plus you want to add their birth order, so you add elder. and you remove those little hedge words, "did not like," "particularly": those are such weak words to use in the first line. but, that hedging weakness is very accurate to gwendolen-influenced cat, so she's got that element of his character down immediately. and cat wouldn't say "hate" or "dislike" after all, and would add "particularly" to soften the blow. so while it's accurate characterization, it's just not a very good first line. so to be clear, that first draft line isn't a failure at all. it still serves to frame cat's character, even if it states the unstated, and it gets the novel's most important dynamic front and center.

*: first available. there were no earlier ms drafts in the archive, this is the only handwritten draft, and it seemed like a first draft literarily. if there's been research stating otherwise since 2015, which is when i last did a formal check-in on dwj chrestomanci scholarship, lmk.

^: a ^ in my notes always referred to text added later. so, dwj added "Chant" in after she wrote out the sentence. i might have a picture of this? i need to check my manuscript copies. anyway, it's so true that cat chant sounds better in a first line than just cat. plus, if you have "Cat" as a name as the very first word of a sentence, that C is definitely going to be capitalized, so adding his last name makes it clear that this is a person's name. plus plus, chant is, of course, a surname of all time, and thus perfect to introduce Immediately.

[bugswarm]

What are you talking about? I didn't need a week long break. I needed a break for a few hours, maybe a day at most. Also "What stops you from thinking this intrusive thought then going, internally, 'damn I need a break'"? Uh, I did. That's exactly what happened. Want a timeline of events?

Initial thought was "God. The people of my country are so fucked up. Maybe we all should just get nuked off the map. Yeah that inlcudes myself and everyone I know but maybe its worth it so the US can't keep fucking up the planet and causing the death of millions of innocents. Ends justifying the means of whatever" Then I started crying and went "Fuck. That's actually really fucked up. I need to step away. Ill let my followers know that they might not see me online for a bit and then close the app". Thus I made the post you are oh so upset about, closed the app, went back to doing other things, and then got 30 notifications when my email synced because I had email notifications turned on for replies to posts.

I saw what people were saying and went "oh fuck they think Im talking about palestine. I should go explain and clarify that the reason I can't logic my way out of these intrusive thoughts right now isn't because Im a psychopath and so morally corrupt as to thinking this about palestine or something. This anger is entirely directed at the people who are ultimately responsible for the death of millions including palestinians and who have proved that they don't care about that or are directly for that more than once. Also some people are taking this as me being a direct danger to myself or others so I should also clarify that Im not. That im exclusively having intrusive thoughts about how I wouldn't be that upset if a 3rd party nuked us off the map to get us to stop being a problem for the rest of the world. Not that Im gonna like, go shoot up a mall or something like some people seem to think. " and followed up with an explicit request to be left alone and a reminder that harassing me was the pro-genocidal thoughts move (since the whole point of the post was that I was upset about the thoughts, getting mad about the post means being mad that I wasn't just straight up pro-genocide. There isn't another thing to be mad about so that's the only option left).

That's also when I turned off reblogs. People kept replying though and I tried explaining more but people just kept doubling down and telling me to kill myself so I went and figured out how to turn replies off too. I made a few follow up posts to explain things better because at that point I had spent hours off of tumblr, sobbed on my friends floor and had a conversation that calmed me down and wasn't struggling with the intrusive thoughts almost at all (was more pissed off that people were harassing me for being disturbed about the thoughts than anything else, though can't say that I didn't have any more intrusive thoughts at all that night but they were easier to logic my disagreement) and figured that maybe the wording I used originally wasn't the best if so many people were still misinterpreting things but follow up posts and edits don't help if people are attacking you over a screenshot of the original post's wording and not reading the edits and other posts that explain so that didn't change anything. Tumblr was also glitching and refusing to close my ask box.

Eventually I went to bed and woke up to over a hundred messages in my ask box and some DMs. Figured out how to turn those off and that's when people started @ing me death threat posts. So I turned @ing off too.

Finally you went and found a random unrelated post of mine just so you could continue to harass me and make sure I saw it despite me very obviously trying to cut off every possible communication method for a reason. I haven't had any issue with intrusive thoughts since about 8-10 hours after the initial post was made and yet you keep claiming Im somehow doubling down on shit when all Im doing is telling you to go the fuck away and leave me alone and to stop harassing me over a post about how disturbing thoughts were why I was going to be offline for a little bit.

How are you not getting this? Youre the problem here. You're mad at me for communicating that I needed a break due to disturbing thoughts. You're saying that Im "playing the victim" when all I did was have some intrusive thoughts, explained that was why I needed time away, and then got mercilessly harassed for days. I didn't victimize anyone else and was the only person who got hurt here. Was I maybe not the most articulate mid-mental breakdown? Sure, that's kinda par for the course with how a mental breakdown works. That doesn't mean you should harass me for days, and ignore the fact that despite my explanations, you still are misunderstanding what that post says.

I couldn't even escape from this and fully take that break I was asking for because I couldn't turn my phone off due to most of this happening while I was at work and my phone is something I use for my job at times. Deleting the app wouldn't help because of email notifications. And turning off notifications also wouldn't help because then I would just have to come back to hundreds of people sending me suicide bait and death threats and harassment. I wanted to get people to stop harassing me and when begging people to leave me alone didn't work, i cut off the avenues to contact me. But people just keep finding new ways to do that. And you finally found the one avenue that can't be turned off. Sure I can block you and maybe thatll stop this but if you figured it out, others can too. So forgive me if Im fucking pissed off at you especially when you are saying I will never hear the end of this. Ive done everything I can to make people stop trying to make me actually pro-genocide but yall won't fucking stop trying. Go the fuck away you genocidal freak

Something thing to think about, the most secure platform for conversations is Signal.

Signal Protocol-based platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger's secret conversations, or Skype's Private Conversations are a second best option for making sure no one can find out what you are talking about. These may be a good option for people who need a better UX than Signal itself can offer (Signal is very basic and there is no ability to back up your messages or transfer them to another device, whereas something like whatsapp can do some of those things with minimal security risk for most people).

Telegram is the most well known platform for secure messages. It's... not secure. At all. It has a lot of known security flaws. It's just well known because it has good UX and people don't often think to differentiate between "secure against hackers and malicious actors" and "secure against governments". Telegram is only secure against hackers, not governments. Do not use it for anything illegal nor anything you don't want your government to be able to find out.

[lunar-serpentinite]

me when i remember that ultimately harry just really wanted to go home in the arms of a mother and father that he never had a chance to have

[flowercrowngods]

i don't know how to be merely acquaintances when we used to be friends. or i think we used to be. i don't know how to yearn for a simple hello when you've been heaping your affection on me months ago, and i don't know how to talk to you when you won't say anything. when suddenly it's all about me. you know i have nothing to say, you know my brain is void of everything but horribleness and i cannot tell you about my day because i don't even know about my day. i cannot tell you about my day when i know you won't listen, when i know you'll apply your philosophy to my world and don't believe me when i say that everything is terrible. i don't know how to be the person you seem to think i am, or the person you want in your life. i don't know if you want anyone else in your life now that you're in love and sappy, found another recipient for your affections, leaving me empty and wounded and yearning.

you said you missed me. said it many times, while i was gone. now i'm back, have been back, and i wonder how you missed me, why you missed me, when you won't talk to me. i think you mistook missing for worrying. i think you mistook caring for a feeling of obligation. i think you like missing me more than talking to me.

and i think i can't breathe with how much that hurts

[butnotbubblegum]

using the tags to vent my current emotional state into the void bc ig story feels like a bad plan for this, read at your own risk.

[thecowboykatsuki-anon]

I can’t believe this is happening oh my god I am shaking everytime I think of it

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Had an ADHD assessment a few years ago and the fuckwit that assessed me said, as a direct quote, "You're too smart to have ADHD." Like that's not any type of paraphrasing, that stupid fucking statement is burned in my brain forever and has been since I heard it.

I talked to my psychiatrist about getting a referral to a different psychologist for assessment, and she agreed and sent it in.

Today I got a call that said they don't agree that I need reassessment, and I'm welcome to pursue it elsewhere, but they won't provide reassessment. Which is just.

I don't even know where to start with that one. I just needed to get it out. I'm so tired.

[pixlmonkeys]

gonna be real I am already so over this whole medical issue thing

[vampirecatprince]

yeah-

I need out of this job

Like- I am the first to admit that I am having some issues here and there, but instead of them stepping back and reassessing the situation and watching me struggle they're instead doubling down and insisting that I'm entirely at fault. And when I voice annoyance at how they communicate with us and the lack of verbal communication when it comes to certain aspects I'm basically told to suck it, shut up, and deal with it... When I am the far from the only person complaining about how disorganized this place is or how bad my manager is at communication.

It's like when there are substantial changes to the reports that we have to do my manager will simply update the checklist... and that's it. No warning. No heads up in the work group chat of "hey heads up! the checklist has been updated!". You're just going to delegate that responsibility to us instead of taking 60 seconds to write a Teams message? You're going to just update a fucking list, not tell anybody, blame US when we inevitably miss some small change, and call that good management and good training?

And on top of all of this, while I'm struggling with things that I've been saying for months I do not fully understand, you're ALSO over-scheduling me?? And making it so that I literally cannot finish the big Gaming Board reports that I'm required to get finished??? And when I bring up how the last time I did it you scheduled an entire day for me to get it done? I get a passive aggressive comment because I just happened to be on vacation last month and someone else did it and you forgot that I need an entire fucking day to do this thing.

Like why do I have to stress out so much over YOUR shitass management skills? It's like the moment we actually got more than 10 people in the department you became one of the worst managers I've ever had suddenly

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

being sick as an adult sucks. wdym my mom won’t just automatically make sure I eat food instead of exclusively drinking Gatorade all day. wdym I have to ask my roommates to make me dinner. I have to Venmo a friend money to buy me more Gatorade?? I can’t focus enough to do homework??? I hate this.

[mytardisisparked]

I got tickets to FOB. If anyone ruins this for me before next April I will explode.

[running-in-the-dark]

my (virtual) meeting with my thesis advisor is in... 7 hours. I'm sort of almost finished writing the exposé that I was supposed to write. sort of. I'll probably need another hour or two until I feel okay enough about it to actually get any sleep.

unfortunately my left arm is realllly starting to hurt and I can't lift it much anymore (thanks to the covid booster I got today). hopefully I'll get it done anyway. and hopefully the pain won't be so bad that I can't sleep.

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[natandacat]

btw im feeling a lot today bc my neighbor is having a bbq and i really wanna go but i had to lie and say i was working bc everyone there is a hardcore party goer and theres too many covid cases rn so even in an outdoor setting i would need to mask and that crowd would be super weirded out by my n95 and also it would suck bc i wouldnt even be able to eat. anyway. being at risk is like living in purgatory while 99% of the population literally doesnt care.