#i guess i really should just post my own stuff more...even if my perfectionism wants full render stuff yet my wrist wont allow that SFXGJNM

[unfo11owmeplz]

Kero Tumblr and Pixiv are either getting boring or straight up unusable. And it feels like twitter is slowly going down too. 💀 Komatta na...

[sniffanimal]

*procrastinates by journalling publicly on Tumblr*

something I worked on a little in therapy a while back but maybe I need to focus on and work on more myself is my obsessive need to be my own source of competency porn

like when I was 14 and a freshman, a senior asked me if I was excited for graduation and I said idk that's 3+ years away and he balked because he assumed I was a senior since I always seemed like I knew what I was doing. and that somehow became some sort of defining Moment for me that I was never able to shake fully. I can remember exactly what I was doing in the moment and who said it to me and everything it was that important to me.

I have this insane need to act like I'm hyper-competent and know exactly what I'm doing at all times, and to be the best at anything I can be in that moment. it's like perfectionism except less focused on the result being perfect and more on everyone thinking I'm perfect.

I think about work, and how I've decided to be fucking teachers pet again still, going above and beyond the scope of my job description for my classroom. I go to non-mandatory trainings and spend time outside of work putting together projects and curriculum and stuff. I thoroughly love being the one with all the answers when I can be.

I also pride myself on having impeccable research skills. I like to think I'm very good at getting sources, double checking information before I share it, diving deep to find the kind of information in looking for, keyword searches, database searches, etc. I don't do anything without knowing exactly how to do it first.

all this culminates in a guy who gets very very nervous when I'm faced with my actual real disabilities that can make me actually really struggle with things. A neurotypical/mentally well person probably doesn't need visual reminders for simple things and then 4 redundancies for when that reminder isn't effective. They probably are able to complete multiple tasks a day without forcing themselves to carry a laundry basket up and down stairs through searing back pain. They probably can eat enough food to fuel their brain and body without stomach pain or nausea. It's like imposter syndrome maybe, where I'm terrified people will find out that I have to work 10x as hard as other people to get things done. But paradoxically I wish people would acknowledge that I *am* working 10x as hard as they are to get things done.

I guess my point in posting this is if you feel like this behavior describes you as well, you're not alone. I am willing to bet this is very common in medium-support-needs-but-heavily-masking-autism-burnout folks. Maybe it's also common in people from other marginalized communities, like disabled and trans from my experience, but maybe also racial or other demographics, where you feel an obsessive need to be a model minority.

The last facet of this I want to explore is the guilt I feel when my brain reframes this all as "boo hoo I'm so good at doing things and it makes me sad", like I can't feel anxious and frustrated and burnt out about burning on my own pyre here, simply because other people are not good at things and they experience struggles based on not being good at those things. Maybe I'm just raised Catholic and so I feel guilty about everything I do, or maybe it is legitimate guilt that I can use to reframe my whole situation. But I think what it is is social guilt built off the idea of oppression/struggle Olympics. If I find walking up stairs often painful and exhausting, I should be grateful I can even walk because some people cant, etc etc type stuff.

I'm going to look for essays on this topic later, maybe some DBT worksheets that could be relevant. I'm not currently in therapy but like I said before, I'm really good at researching what I need. I need a different way of framing my perfectionism that gives me grace, not anxiety, when I fall short of it. I think I have some saved books from my reading list about perfectionism, maybe I'll start there.

[perpetual-stories]

How To Fight Writers Block

hello, hello. hope everyone is doing well. as you can all tell, this post will be about how to fight writers block.

it’s really annoying to me when I hear people say “oh you don’t have writers block, you’re just lazy.”

first of all, yes, I am naturally lazy. second of all, how dare you. writing isn’t as easy as many think. granted, all you have to do is write down words on paper, but it’s not always easy to find the right words to express what you are feeling, or what you wish to say.

I have had terrible writer’s block for the last few days and it’s horrible! as a business owner or a small writing store, I have to be ready to write and fulfill my clients’ ideas and orders.

it’s not easy. It takes a heavy toll on my imagination, and digs me a deep pit of blockage, drowning in the lack of originality because of the constant writing and repetition or certain phrases and sentences in different projects.

i am making this post in the hopes to remind myself about over coming the dreaded and sometimes skeptically believed writer’s block.

What is writer’s block?

Yeah, I know. We all know what that is, but let me define it.

is the state of being unable to proceed with writing, and/or the inability to start writing something new

some people believe it to be a real problem, others believe it's “all in your head”

What Causes Writer’s Block?

in the 1970s, clinical psychologists Jerome Singer and Michael Barrios decided to find out

they concluded that there are four broad causes of writer's block:

Excessively harsh self-criticism

Fear of comparison to other writers

Lack of external motivation, like attention and praise

Lack of internal motivation, like the desire to tell one's story

How to overcome writer's block: 20 tips

1. Develop a writing routine:

Author and artist Twyla Tharp once wrote: “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.”

it might seem counterintuitive

if you only write when you “feel creative,” you're bound to get stuck in a tar pit of writer's block

The only way to push through is by disciplining yourself to write on a regular schedule. It might be every day, every other day, or just on weekends — but whatever it is, stick to it!

2. Use "imperfect" words:

A writer can spend hours looking for the perfect word or phrase to illustrate a concept

You can avoid this fruitless endeavor by putting, “In other words…” and simply writing what you’re thinking, whether it’s eloquent or not

You can then come back and refine it later by doing a CTRL+F search for “in other words.”

3. Do non-writing activities:

one of the best ways to climb out of a writing funk is to take yourself out of your own work and into someone else’s

Go to an exhibition, to the cinema, to a play, a gig, eat a delicious meal

immerse yourself in great STUFF and get your synapses crackling in a different way

Snippets of conversations, sounds, colors, sensations will creep into the space that once felt empty

4. Freewrite through it:

free-writing involves writing for a pre-set amount of time without pause — and without regard for grammar, spelling, or topic. You just write.

The goal of freewriting is to write without second-guessing yourself — free from doubt, apathy, or self-consciousness, all of which contribute to writer's block. Here’s how:

Find the right surroundings. Go somewhere you won't be disturbed.

Pick your writing utensils. Will you type at your computer, or write with pen and paper? (Tip: if you're prone to hitting the backspace button, you should freewrite the old-fashioned way!)

Settle on a time-limit. Your first time around, set your timer for just 10 minutes to get the feel for it. You can gradually increase this interval as you grow more comfortable with freewriting.

5. Relax on your first draft:

Many writers suffer form perfectionism, which is especially debilitating during a first draft

“Blocks often occur because writers put a lot of pressure on themselves to sound ‘right’ the first time. A good way to loosen up and have fun again in a draft is to give yourself permission to write imperfectly.” — editor Lauren Hughes

perfect is the enemy of good,” so don't agonize about getting it exactly right! You can always go back and edit, maybe even get a second pair of eyes on the manuscript

6. Don’t start at the beginning:

the most intimidating part of writing is the start, when you have a whole empty book to fill with coherent words

instead of starting with the chronological beginning of whatever it is you’re trying to write, dive into middle, or wherever you feel confident

7. Take a shower:

Have you ever noticed that the best ideas tend to arrive while in the shower, or while doing other “mindless” tasks?

research shows that when you’re doing something monotonous (such as showering, walking, or cleaning), your brain goes on autopilot, leaving your unconscious free to wander without logic-driven restrictions

showering is my favourite thing to do if I may add

8. Balance your inner critic:

successful writers have in common is the ability to hear their inner critic, respectfully acknowledge its points, and move forward

You don't need to completely ignore that critical voice, nor should you cower before it

you must establish a respectful, balanced relationship, so you can address what's necessary and skip over what's insecure and irrelevant

9. Switch up your tool:

a change of scenery can really help with writer's block. However, that scenery doesn't have to be your physical location — changing up your writing tool can be just as big a help!

if you’ve been typing on your word processor of choice, try switching to pen and paper. Or if you're just sick of Google Docs, consider using specialized novel writing software.

10. Change your POV:

great advice from editor Lauren Hughes: “When blocked, try to see your story from another perspective ‘in the room’ to help yourself move beyond the block. How might a minor character narrate the scene if they were witnessing it? A ‘fly on the wall’ or another inanimate object?

11. Exercise your creative muscles:

Any skill requires practice if you want to improve, and writing is no different! So if you’re feeling stuck, perhaps it’s time for a strengthening scribble-session to bolster your abilities

12. Map out your story:

If your story has stopped chugging along, help it pick up steam by taking a more structured approach — specifically, by writing an outline

13. Write something else:

Though it's important to try and push through writer's block with what you're actually working on, sometimes it's simply impossible

feel free to push your current piece to the side for now and write something new

14. Work on your characters:

It follows that if your characters are not clearly defined, you’re more likely to run into writer’s block

15. Stop writing for readers:

write for yourself, not your potential readers

this will help you reclaim the joy of being creative and get you back in touch with what matters: the story.

this is something I really need to do. because of my etsy business i don't write for fun anymore, but instead as a business and a deadline. i'm going to have to pull out my old crappy wattled fanfics or write some new ones.

16. Try a more visual process:

when words fail you, forget them and get visual. Create mind maps, drawings, Lego structures — ideally related to your story, but whatever unblocks your mind!

17. Look for the root of it:

writer’s block often comes from a problem deeper than simple “lack of inspiration.” So let's dig deep: why are you really blocked? Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I feel pressure to succeed and/or competition with other writers?

Have I lost sight of what my story is about, or interest in where it's going?

Do I lack confidence in my own abilities, even if I've written plenty before?

Have I not written for so long that I feel intimidated by the mere act?

Am I simply feeling tired and run-down?

once you identify what's wrong, it'll be so much easier to fix.

18. Quit the Internet:

If willpower isn’t your strong suit and your biggest challenge is staying focused, try a site blocker like Freedom or an app like Cold Turkey

19. Let the words find you:

meditate, go for a walk, take that shower

Word Palette is a great app that features a keyboard of random words, allowing you to simply click your way to your next masterpiece.

You can also try AI auto-completers like Talk to Transformer, where you can enter a phrase and let the app “guess what comes next.”

even though they often produce nonsense, it's a great way to help that writer's block.

20. Write like Hemingway:

And if your biggest block is your own self-doubt about your prose, Hemingway offers suggestions to improve your writing as you go

it's a pretty cool app if you ask me.

it highlights your sentences (if need be) and makes suggestions on how to improve them!

well, there you have it! a lengthy post on how to fight writer's block. now i just hope i can combat my own soon.

like, comment and reblog if you find this useful! feel free to reblog in instagram and tag me perpetualstories

Follow me on instagram and tumblr for more writing and grammar tips and more!

[painted-crow]

Hey I hope this isn’t awkward but that post about your burned badger (lion?) secondary really hit home for me. I’m pretty sure I’ve had the same burned model in the past - I think I started off with a healthier badger/lion model (I can’t figure out which and am still figuring out my sorting anyway) and some external life stuff going on later, I’m really just pushing through and getting stuff done with all the delicacy of a brick. And same here with the emotional rollercoaster ... 1/2

And same here with the emotional rollercoaster of it between panic/apathy. And the burnout. And the ignoring physical pain. And I can see now how this was uh. Pretty unhealthy actually but it really was just so. effective especially given the circumstances and I kind of miss it in a way. It would be nice if I could get back a healthier version of whichever model it was. Anyway I love reading your blog you always have such insightful things to say thanks for reading this ramble <3 2/2

💙💙💙 :D

Not awkward! I'm glad that was useful for someone, rather than just being an angst dump on my part lol

Emergency secondary mode, Badger or Lion?

Links to previous posts:

- post describing my emergency secondary mode (cw for burnout stuff)

- the worst version of this post (cw for terrible memes)

So, after a lot of consideration and chatting with some lovely SHC people (looking at you @mooglesorts and you @magpie-of-a-birb), I've come to the tentative conclusion that I have a Lion secondary performance.

Which is not something I ever expected to say! I've long had a knee-jerk "aaaaa scary!" reaction to Lion secondary, but actually I think that's because I have this performance and I've had to use it in unsustainable ways.

I should probably put a trigger warning here for self harm through overwork... yeah.

So, I found this song:

(While it is a bop, it is also x2 trigger warning combo for self harm ahaha)

This song's primary is exploded Glory Hound Lion--that's not what's relatable about it to me tho. What I wanted my friends' opinion on was the secondary that's displayed here. Sounded familiar. So I brought it up on the SHC Discord server (which is out of beta, dm me for an invite link if you wanna join!).

I was thinking it might actually be the fully Burned "anything that works" secondary, but Magpie was like "no, that's a Lion sec with a Snake model" and I went "huh..."

...and then Moogle was like no that's a snakesec with an unhealthy Lion model, the masks aren't working so they're busting out Lion--and especially there's the focus on the character feeling powerful because they can hurt themself with it and keep going anyway

And I was like "oh shit that tracks more than I was expecting it to... whoops"

Badger hits different without unhealthy pressure

I do have and use a Badger secondary model, and I used to think my emergency secondary mode was just my Badger model taken to unhealthy extremes. But I don’t think so now.

First, because I actually think that my emergency mode is/was often a product of my exploded Badger primary model, which itself idealized Badger secondary.

I'm still picking through that thing's shrapnel and finding its influence in old memories and automatic reactions I still have and stuff like that--not to mention rooting it out of my system. Which is to say, now that I know what I'm looking for, I'm still discovering how far back this thing goes! Turns out I've been trying to whack this piñata for years, and it used to be so much worse.

The self-destructive "I'd rather run myself hard into the ground than fail" nature of my emergency mode makes a lot of sense in retrospect. When you tie your self-worth to achievement... well: the lyrics "I'll never lose / I'll never die" from the song seem less "I have achieved immortality!" and more "I basically equate failure with death." This song really straddles that edge of relatable but also obviously messed up. It's... something.

Second, my Badger secondary model is very different when it's not under pressure from the 'splodey primary model. I'm kind of having to figure out what it's like without that and it's weird. It seems to be a whole lot more chill and also I'm getting more Courtier than I'm used to?

Yeah, turns out if you dig out "you should help other people to justify your existence, but don't accept help back or it cancels it out" from your system (because damn, there's a system piece I didn't look at closely enough) it might have been holding up Courtier potential you haven't been using.

What's the difference?

I don't know who pointed this out first, I think I read it somewhere, but Badger secondary is very process focused and Lion secondary is very results focused. (Bet you this was from @wisteria-lodge. I'm not sure, though.)

Badger usually shows up as a few main things for me: mirroring, chipping away at big projects, picking up life maintenance and self care type tasks (especially when Bird secondary is burned), and caregiving/service stuff. It can also Burn on its own, which is its own brand of "motivation is a cryptid" exhaustion. None of this looks like Lion, so where does the confusion come in?

The only time my Badger model starts to look like Lion--and here the line really blurs with the performance--is when I've tried to get it to do tasks it's not really meant for. There are things I need Bird unburned in order to tackle (perhaps it's the presence of burned Birdsec that gets in the way? That injured confidence can be really debilitating) and I can't do them with just Badger.

I'm sure actual Badger secs know how to, say, learn Adobe Illustrator's unbelievably complicated controls while under deadline using Badger, but I have no clue. I powered through using probably the least efficient controls possible. (If you're using the nudge tool as a form of measurement, you're probably doing it wrong. I'm guessing.)

Needless to say, that's exhausting. I think there's some point in the project timeline where it stops being "well it's not efficient but at least I'm making progress!" and starts being fueled by raw stubborn determination and a little bit of spite. The contentment with the process goes out the window. I'm fighting my own perfectionism (and usually losing) because I just want this thing done.

Which, that's not necessarily a bad thing! Sometimes it's really useful to be able to go "screw it" and charge. It becomes a bad thing when you ignore all your other needs to do it, possibly because you've tied success and/or productivity to your self worth, and also you're still clutching your perfectionism and hissing "my precioussssss."

also:

It's not always obvious, but I sometimes use Lion secondary in ways not connected to the splodey Badger primary model.

(Occasionally it is obvious though... haha)

I do have this one story about realizing my younger brother might be in danger and charging off to find him, armed with a heavy wooden coat hanger against potential assailants. I went from Bird situational analysis to "this is the best weapon I can find on short notice" in like 30 seconds. In my defense, I was very sleep deprived at the time.

(It makes more sense in context.)

(Sort of.)

so.

I think the emergency secondary mode is a Lionsec performance.

This post took me like a month to write even after figuring it out. And then another few weeks collecting dust in my drafts, because how do you edit something like this

But I've been sitting on it for way too long and I'm tired of saying I should finish/post it, and tonight I'm feeling bored and a little impulsive... so, screw it--I'm calling this done.

(can you hear it? it's there... fighting my Birdsec/Badgersec model perfectionism again.)

(this time, I will listen.)

[luvstrology]

About your virgo venus obs. astrologers always say virgo placements are critical of other ppl but they are the most critical of themselves... so? this does not justify the fact that they criticize people nonstop. And I realized something about all of the virgos I've known. They cannot achieve two or more good things at the same time.i.e. they have a good academical record but they are socially awkward, they have a good job but they struggle in their relationships. etc. but still they keep telling you what you are doing wrong??? What I mean is virgos only capable of being great in one thing and it makes sense of they are critical of themselves. However, that's just from what I observed from my 2 best friends, an ex and my sister.

......damn u really went off here!! the virgos in ur life must’ve really been testing u 😭😭

look, I’m not at all saying/implying that just bc virgo placements tend to be overly self critical they should get a free pass to treat others or speak to others badly at all, like that is definitely not justified no matter what placement/sign !!

I think that any virgo placements (or any people) that are overly critical of others to the point that they are very vocal/expressive of this definitely need to work on learning when constructive criticism may be well accepted and/or beneficial to others (and how to do this in a way that does not come across as judgemental, rude or assuming) but also when to keep their mouths shut and opinions/criticisms to themselves lmaooo

as for ur other observations, I do understand what ur saying and can see ur point of view. personally, I do know virgos who seem to have it all together while being quite self critical or unable to see just how much their hard work pays off. on the other hand, I also know virgos who, like you said, are seemingly unable to balance succeeding at multiple things at once and may direct their focus, time and energy into one area while severely neglecting others... I guess it often comes down to the other placements alongside virgo in their charts too and how this impacts their lives/behaviour 🤷‍♀️

I personally don’t agree that virgos are only capable of being great at just one thing... while yes, it is common for virgos to become perfectionists very quickly and prioritise the things they are good at; therefore becoming very skilled, successful or talented in that particular thing - I believe they absolutely have what it takes to be successful in multiple things/areas if they put their minds to it; but it is often their perfectionist nature and self critical tendencies that prevent them from this, which is often just something they need to work on in order to build their confidence and abilities. as u said, I think virgos are very self aware and definitely know their weaknesses which they might even think about too much, so if they aren’t able to thrive in everything they do, they are bound to become even more self critical! more often than not, it’s their perfectionism and self criticism that limits them, not their actual abilities or skills. they may fear not doing something well enough or not meeting their own (very high) expectations and therefore just not even try which is kind of sad 🥺

I think u would greatly benefit from informing whatever virgo that appears to be constantly telling u what ur doing wrong that u would prefer to only be given criticism from them if and when u ask for it! personally, the majority of virgos/virgo placements I know are only critical in their heads and very rarely speak their criticisms to people directly. don’t be afraid to tell people how you feel if they are making u feel bad! just don’t tell those virgos the stuff u sent in this ask for their sake 🥲🥲 lol

in conclusion: yes, virgos are often extremely self critical and they usually have a whole storm/crisis going on in their heads at most times due to fear of not doing enough, not being enough, failing etc. but this by no means excuses rude behaviour and unwanted criticism towards others! I think many virgos would benefit from reassurance, encouragement, support as well as being lowkey put in their place when it comes to their expectations and actions/words towards others. it’s likely a terrible idea to tell a virgo that they are only capable of doing one thing well, can’t achieve multiple things at the same time etc - this would really hurt them and send their self critical side into overdrive! they may seem hard headed, stubborn and cold at times but all they want is to do well more than anything ☹️ but yea any virgos (or people in general) that seemingly care too much about what other people are doing and how well they’re doing it definitely need to chill

thank u for sending this ask in response to my observations post, it was really fun to read your observations and share my thoughts in response !! 🤩💖

[kayliemusing]

21

1. Is there something you have been trying to learn lately?  - There’s kind of a few, because I feel like they all tie into one. Self acceptance is a big one, self-discipline, productivity, and trusting in God (which has proven to be the hardest thing. It hurts to trust in something you don’t see the outcome of, but it hurts too much not to trust in God.)

2. If you ever feel like you are different from your extended family, in which ways is this?  - My dad/s side of the family is really toxic. There’s a lot of hypocrisy, drama, mental illness, drug addictions, and religiousness on that side (and when I say religious, I mean shame-y religion which I don’t agree with at all.) But my dad was really different from them. He was very kind, open to council, very steady and stable despite coming from such a dysfunctional background, and he loved God so truly that a lot of that pure ‘religion’ that exists within his family was broken off of him, and then I have my mom too, who is very fun, kind, caring, etc, so I grew up around more normalcy than my cousins did. My parents just parented me well and they talked about God to me and my sister a lot in such a good way that I never grew up around pure, shame-y, rule-bound religion which I think is the explanation why I (and my sister) are very different from our extended family. My dad died when I was fifteen so I don’t see that side very often, especially because they’re just entirely chaotic and dysfunctional so when I am around them it’s way more noticeable how different we are. (Sorry for big explanation. I’m in a super reflective mood lol.)

3. When you think about your future career, do you envision yourself becoming the head honcho or CEO? If not, why not?  - I’ve always kind of wanted to have this leader-esque feeling to my career, but no, I don’t see myself being a CEO. I really just want to be an author so I guess I would have some level of being a leader to my own business, but not quite on a CEO type level. Right now, I’m trying to focus on fiction but I’m easily overwhelmed by it so I have been considering other mediums of writing. I just don’t know what that is or what fits right.

4. Is there something that you are sort of weird about talking about? Like, a thing that other people find casual, but you feel uncomfortable when the subject comes up? - Sex, is the first thing that comes to mind, but not sex in general. More like the conversations that are too much, you know? Lol. Some people go really into detail or can be graphic about their sex lives and I’m just like, please don’t. I don’t mind generically talking about it, but there’s a line.   5. Can you think of a time when you seriously misjudged a music artist based on their name?  - I don’t think so. 

6. Do you ever make negative comments about other body types? How does it make you feel when you see or hear negative comments about your body type, or a physical trait that you have (even when it’s not directed at you)?  - Sometimes I have the tendency to judge other body types (i.e. I really don’t like the thigh gap look), but it’s never malicious and I’m always trying to be aware that others can’t help what they look like and if they’re happy in their body, that’s what matters. I struggle with disordered eating and kind of sit on that line between having an eating disorder and not having one so I’m very sensitive about my body and its type. I have a chubby tummy and I’m so insecure that it’s not flat that when I hear anyone say anything negative about not having a flat stomach it’ll ruin my day or I’ll just feel really ashamed.

7. If you are in a situation where you feel like you are being attacked or not respected, how easy or difficult is it for you to stay and keep your head rather than leave in a huff?  - I’ll usually leave the conversation. Maybe slam a door lol. I’ll usually stand my ground until I finally feel like I’m not heard or no one cares and then I’m out.

9. When you think about how attractive you feel and your favorite features, are you comparing yourself to a societal ideal?  - Yes. I happen to be well-acquainted with the comparison game.

10. If you have a favorite song right now: What is it? How did you first hear it? Why do you like it so much?  - My favourite song is probably Coney Island by Taylor Swift right now. It’s from Taylor’s new album Evermore, but I have a couple on that album that tie for my favourite song right now (Honorable mentions: Willow, Cowboy Like Me, Tis The Damn Season). I absolutely love how poetic this song is and I think one of my all time favourite lyrics she has ever written is in that song: “If I can’t relate to you anymore then who am I related to?” This song for me just feels like I’m reading a poem and I just sink right into the story she’s telling. 

11. Have you ever had someone that has been your friend for a while come to you and tell you they had romantic feelings for you? How did you respond, and did the friendship survive?  - I did have a friend of mine tell me they had feelings for me. We had become friends in the eighth grade and then he confessed his feelings for me in the ninth grade, I told him I didn’t feel the same way but we stayed friends and it didn’t ruin anything, and then he confessed again in the eleventh grade and I said no to him again. After that final rejection, we never really made it back to being friends for a few reasons a) We stopped being in the same classes, b) I think he was really hurt and c) his friend (who is most dramatic than a girl by the way, and ironically dating one of my friends at the time) stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and gave his two cents and that was kind of when it fell apart. I didn’t really know his friend so it was weird that he had this narrative of me that he said “was leading X on” when I was just trying to be his friend but it’s whatever now. That was when I was like sixteen lol. 

12. Hypothetically speaking, if Hillary Clinton were running for President as a democrat against Chris Christie as a republican in 2016, who do you predict would win the election?  - Well, since it’s 2021 now, I would predict that Trump would win and divide America. 

13. When you are getting to know someone new online (particularly someone male), how cautious are you of the possibility that they are serial killer/kidnapper? - I honestly never think of this, mostly because we live in such an online world now and I’m an adult. I don’t really know how much of this still happens, but you just don’t hear about it anymore. Not to mention, if it is a male, it’s most likely a pedophile (which is still gross) rather than a killer or kidnapper.

14. If you are talking to someone that you want to get to know, what are your go-to conversation topics? What subject makes you disappointed when another person isn’t interested in or knowledgable about it? - Tbh I feel like I’m really bad at conversations and I don’t know how to lead them because I’m quiet and scared of looking stupid. I know I really like deep conversations more than basic questions. However, it’s very important that I know their opinion on Taylor Swift because if there’s a chance they don’t like Taylor Swift, I already know that the person is probably not worth my time. For real though, if I’m having a conversation with someone, I usually get disappointed if I find out they’re a partier or drink a lot, because I’m really not into any of that stuff so it’s immediately like playing the Sims and having the minus sign appear above my head.

15. Say you have a lot of free time and want to join a club or class. You are browsing postings on local bulletin boards and online. What sort of group would you be interested in joining (e.g., book club, game group, crafts, golf lessons, etc.)? - A romance-only book club, DIY club.

16. Have you ever kissed someone that you didn’t really want to kiss (not assault, just indifference)? Why did you go along with it and how did you feel after?  - Nah I’ve never been kissed

17. Have you recently learned anything about your personality? If not, have you ever consciously tried to change your personality? - Sort of recently, it was something I discovered last year which is that I’m a neurotic perfectionist and what I mean by that is I’m a perfectionist in a very self destructive way. I’ve always known I was ‘particular’ or others would say ‘has high-standards/expectations’ but I realized that it’s literally just perfectionism.

18. Are you or any of your friends in a sorority or fraternity? Would you be interested in belonging to one?  - No and I don’t really understand what they are or why they’re a thing.

19. Can you recall a recent time that you were surprised, but in a bad way? - Yes. When my job eluded that they thought I was stealing from the registers. This happened around September 2020? Basically they didn’t flat out say that’s what they thought, but they made comments that the tills were either short or over at the ends of the night whenever I would be working and dead ass said “it looks suspicious”. I think it was surprising because I’ve worked there was two years and really felt like they should have known my character. (I literally am afraid of getting in trouble for the smallest things and they seriously thought I was capable of stealing from them lmao)

20. Do you feel uncomfortable when you receive praise for doing certain things? If so, does this make you less likely to do those things?  - No totally the opposite. I really struggle with validation and I never feel good enough, which is something I’m working on, but it feels almost like I thrive on praise. Maybe it’s because my love language is words of affirmation?? I just always like/need to know when I’m doing a good job so when I don’t get praise or validation my self esteem plummets. 

21. Do you make spontaneous purchases often or rarely? When you are upset does it make you temporarily happier to buy yourself something new?  - Spontaneous purchases, often because I have no self control lol, but lately I’ve been working hard to try to save more. And yes when I’m upset, it does make me feel better to buy things.

22. If you have to wake up early for something, what time is just TOO early for you to be there and be presentable and sentient? Have you ever had to be somewhere that early?  - 5 am. I think I can manage 6 am, but anything before that is a no from me. I used to work at 5 am when I worked at Chapters, but it was a nice shift because I finished work at 10 am and then went home and napped for two hours and then had literally the entire day.

23. Have the majority of your romantic relationships started with a physical attraction or a deeper connection? - I’ve never had a romantic relationship oops. But at least I read romance novels every day (and I write romance too!) I’ll try to answer this based on what I think would happen. I think it would start as a physical attraction and I think a lot of relationships start that way but they become something when you have a real connection. I think there are relationships that can start the other way though too, but I’d say for me it’ll probably be physical attraction first. 

24. Do you ever catch any of those conspiracy shows on Animal Planet, like Bigfoot hunting or proof of Mermaids? Do those shows make your more or less likely to believe in the existence of such creatures?  - No, but I DO watch ghost conspiracy theories/”REAL GHOST CAUGHT ON CAMERA” videos on Youtube for fun. But no I don’t believe in any of that stuff. 

25. Did you ever write a fan letter to a celebrity? How about submit something to a magazine? - I’ve never technically written a fan letter to a celebrity but I wrote a post on tumblr to Taylor Swift a couple years ago that she’ll never see lol. And I’ve never submitted anything to a magazine, but I’d like to one day. 

[esepoimipullula]

So, there’s this reply to that “do you ever read you friend’s writing and you wonder why they even put up with you” post, about how that’s an unhealthy attitude that will only hurt both you and your friend, even if you pass it off as a joke. About how you should try to better your writing because you love writing and it gives you joy and improving makes you feel proud, not because you keep comparing yourselves to others or because you’ve been told you can’t be too confident in your achievements and now think hating everything you create is the way to improve when it’s really just a way to both destroy your self-esteem and make creating unnecessarily difficult. And the thing is, I agree with it. The wording feels a bit harsh to me, but I’m kind of an oversensitive softie, and I suppose people do need a good kick in the pants once in a while. And I really do agree.

I think love is fundamental, and if you don’t love writing or what you write, you should either stop or take a good, long pause to figure out if you can love it, again or at all. I write because I love it. Or at least, I feel something close to love for it. I don’t really think about it. Sometimes a sentence, a description or a line of dialogue or a simile or anything else, pops into my mind out of the blue and I’m like either, “Oh, what is that? Who or what is it about? Where do is it lead me?” or “Yes, that’s it, hold that until a less ungodly hour/a moment when I’m free to try and do something with it or at the very least write it down.” Sometimes I’m watching or reading or doing something and my brain says, “Yeah, but you know what would be cool? If this thing happened to these characters!”, and the thing that should totally happen to the characters may or may not be related in any way to the thing I’m watching or reading or doing. And sometimes I have a sudden craving for a certain story or character or scene, or a want that has built up through years, but of course I know I won’t find any piece of fiction that fits my tastes exactly and precisely and because I don’t know any writers who happen to be mindreaders and I’m not about to become the kind of prompter who feeds the plot almost line by line to the unlucky writer their asking for a story, so in the end I go, “You know what? This is actually a very good idea and it’s a shame no one has written it yet so I’ll just do it myself!” And sometimes I feel frustrated or unsatisfied or irritated or even just a little too frantic and in too deep to actually feel any love or joy or anything else while I’m writing rather than when I take a step back to reread and edit what I’ve written, but I wouldn’t trade all those other “sometimes” I’ve just mentioned for anything in the world. And honestly, I wouldn’t do it even with these less pleasant “sometimes,” as much as I like to complain or joke or jokingly complain about them. Because they are all part of what makes me me and the idea of ever giving them up, even for some relative peace of mind, feels as absurd and unnecessary as the idea of consciously trying to change my tastes in food or music or fiction or jokes or pets --- I can only guess at where some things come from, so how would I even go about upturning or taking away things that feel almost more like instinct than anything else? And why would I ever wish to? And I don’t think I’ve never been in romantic love, I’m not even sure if I know how that’s really supposed to feel like or work out, but this is kind of love I know. The kind of love I feel for my family and my friends, who all have annoying, stupid habits because that’s what people do and I’m sure they find my habits annoying and stupid, too, and that’s fine, and the kind of love I feel for our cat, who yells at me when he’s hungry and scratches me when we play and bullies the neighbour’s overly friendly, peace-loving dog and does a lot other things that made me fear and wonder, “Oh, god, what if the novelty of having a cute little cat all for ourselves wears off after a while and we don’t want him anymore and we become one of those families that take in a pet and change its whole life only to immediately give it back and give it trust issues in the process because they’re not actually fit to have a pet” before we’d actually gotten him but now they’re just part of him and you’ll have to fistfight each and every one of us in a parking lot if you try and take him away from us. That’s the kind of love I have for writing, and even if it’s not always joy, and sometimes it’s annyoing or irritating or no more pleasant than merely, simply breathing, what does the unpleasantness or the lack of enthusiasm really matter? Nothing, or at least, very little. It’s my love, I can only guess where it really comes from, it’s always with me and I can’t imagine it ever going away, and you can fight me in the aforementioned parking lot.

And I think it’s this love that allows me to... not quite be carefree about my writing, but something a bit like that. What do comments and reviews and kudos matter, if my love expresses itself through fandoms most people don’t even think can be considered as fandoms or themes nobody but me thinks or cares about? Sure, validation and compliments and people genuinely enjoying what I create make me feel great and may even warm my heart, depending on how much thought and effort I put into a particular work or how long I’ve wished to be able to find other people interested in a certain fandom, but they’re not my reason for writing or even something I really need -- I’ll keep doing my thing whether I get a hundred kudos and fifty comments or only three views. I did use to compare myself unfavorably to other writers and despair over all the ways I found myself inferior and lacking, but then I realized... what good is wishing I could be as good as someone else, or even someone else altogether, if my writing is part of me, stems from who I am? What influence on me could another writer’s success and the methods and techniques used to reach that success even have? I should strive to satify myself while doing what I want, to become as good as I can be according to my standards and through the methods and techniques that work for me. I can take what I like and analyse it and try to make it mine and incorporate it in my style and my ideas, there’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a good way to broaden my horizons and challenge myself and improve my work and love writing even more, but in the end, I can’t be anyone but myself --- and I may have lots of flaws, but in the end, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Actually, there is some joy, and even pride, in that. And so, I reread my old works and see them with new, more charitable eyes, remembering the fun and the satisfaction and the need to write precisely that specific thing, pushing aside the old doubts that gave me nothing but endless nitpicking and rewriting and saying, “You know? Maybe my use of em dashes wasn’t actually as overbearing and cringy as I thought, maybe I should start using them a bit more freely again.” I reread my new works and tell myself, “Fuck it, of course I enjoy this and I am actually a bit proud of it, I wrote it for myself, according to my own tastes and following my own inspiration and putting as much effort and care into it as I thought it needed!”

I still have doubts and fears like everyone else, but they’re more along the lines of, “I know I can write better than this, so why am I not doing it right now? What is the problem here?!” or “I love and care and believe so much in this idea and I want to be good enough to do it justice and make sure it’ll make me feel perfectly satisifed and proud with the final result”, than “Everybody is doing the thing I feel is my thing better than me” or “I’ll never be this other writer I admire.” My writing blocks are usually more about getting stuck in the middle of a work while struggling to find the right words to put the exact feelings and actions I have in my mind on the page precisely as I’ve imagined them (”No, thats not it! There’s something missing and I can’t go on until I find out what it is! The words here don’t sound right!”), or struggling to find the Right Words to start a new project at all because I still have to work on internalizing that perfectionism is the enemy and a first draft is meant to be changed and corrected and maybe even kind of suck even if rationally I understand both concepts, or having Something Big in mind but knowing I usually just follow the flow of my ideas until it dries up and feeling my best works really come from truly getting lost into it and then worrying about how difficult Building An Actual Plot Like A Rational Person will be, or having scenes or even whole stories feels just so complete in my head that laboring to get them out of it feels like doing the same exact work twice for nothing (which isn’t true, but tell it to my brain), or just... not being able to start or go on or even end even if I have everything from ideas to motivation ro the right, relaxed but willing and driven state of mind, for some reason. Or, like, utterly dumb stuff like, “This paragraph will only make me feel good if I manage to get the lines to align in this specific way without changing the meaning or ruining the tone and atmosphere, so I will now modify it four or five times until I get it right even if I know this doesn’t make any sense.”

Except... there’s this friend. Her writing is the kind that uses a scant amount of sharp, essential words to tell whole worlds made of unsaid things, so soft they make you feel like you’re inside a dream or so harsh they're like a punch in the gut but always so clever and full that you always feel you’re always missing somthing, you just aren’t smart enough to figure it out. I have to make a conscious effort not to compare them to my works, because then mine feel overwrought and overdramatic, childish and naive.

And I know, believe me I know, that despite how much of yourself ends up in your writing, despite how much your writing can be a part of yourself, skill as a writer is not synonymous with worth as a person. You can be a good and/or succesful writer and be a complete shithead, and thinks like kindness and open-mindedness will always be fundamentally more important than the ability to string words together in a pleasing manner. But she’s kind (perhaps kinder than I deserve, because I know sometimes I can be a real dick), and open-minded, and sweet in her own way, and brave, and confident, and so smart and cultured, and sharp, and funny, and interesting, and she seems to understand people a lot better than I do. And even when we’re just chatting, I’m not always sure I understand every layer to everything she says, I’m not sure I can keep up with her wit and her mind. The confidence I feel while writing evaporates and I feel slow and shallow and boring and dumb and wonder why she puts up with me, how she hasn’t realised she could be talking to her people more like her yet.

The worst thing is, it’s not even her doing anything to make me feel like this and I know it too well. I don’t even think she knows, and I hope she never finds out. She’s not just kind to me, but affectionate and supportive, and in a honest and genuine way, and I know it’s irrational and stupid to think I might have tricked her into behaving like that with me, or that she’s not being sincere, or that she just doesn’t care enough to  take a good look at me and find out what my brain thinks is the truth. I know it would be hurtful and ungrateful to tell her. 

I also know she’s not perfect, because no one is. She has her flaws, too, and sometimes she says things that make me roll my eyes or sigh in frustration. There are some things I know more about than her, too. And we don’t even live near each other so I’ve never even met her in person, so I know if that happened at one point, I’d probably find out a bunch of annoying things about her.

But when she compliments my writing, sometimes my brain either shortcircuits for a moment or starts coming up with all kinds of bullshit like, “She’s just saying that because you’re friends and she’s a very supportive person. You’re pretty much the only one writing for this ship, so this is more like when you’re desperate enough to run fics in Russian and Chinese through Google Translate and you still leave kudos even though half of it came out as gibberish. It’s like when you read something you know is actually not well-written or well-plotted at all just for a certain specific character or trope in it, she’s just the type who doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures. She’s using a very happy and pleased tone but that doesn’t mean anything on the internet, almost everything here is hyperbole anyway so her actual reaction must have been a lot more lukewarm.” And when she writes to me or says she enjoys talking to me, sometimes my brain will go, “That’s great and I appreciate it! ... but seriously, why.”

*sigh* I guess that’s another thing I’ll have to try and work on this year. Being more open about what I feel -- at least on a sideblog read by only *checks* fourteen people, none of whom are the friend in question or any friends we have in common or any of my regular internet friends at all -- instead of keeping everything bottled up inside at all times is another one, apparently. Let’s see if it’ll really make me feel lighter.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 47

TFW you have to go back in your own Tumblr feed to figure out what day it is. Forty-seven days, yeesh. That is so many days. 

I hope I don't read back on this in some future time and laugh at how little I knew back then. Irony is a dangerous thing. 

Anyway, it was in fact Monday today, the last Monday of an April that has lasted approximately one (1) glacial age. The first half of the month went fast, then there was my birthday, and after that there was nothing in particular to look forward to. Then I got the kittens and stopped sleeping, which makes every day considerably longer. I've mentioned before how time is no longer real, but at this point it has basically stopped even being a thing. The only time is "time to feed the kittens" and I keep track of that with an elaborate set of phone alarms. They are down to a mere nine feeds per day now! I had to set an appointment today for next week and for a minute it was like "..._next_ Monday? We're going to do this _again?"_  So yeah, this Friday will be May and we will all post our Justin Timberlake memes and somebody will probably post the dancing skeleton that says it is June just to be contrary, and Tumblr will lurch through another, weirder year than ever before. 

Kittens had their first non-emergency vet appointment today, the first one with a real vet. The rescue has an actual vet coming in now once a week to do exams, very snazzy! I have not met her before because she started while I was studying for the bar exam and after Mork and Mindy graduated to Big Kitten Foster. I like her, she seems nice and did not say that dehydrated kittens should not have Pedialyte, which is insane. I got new syringes for the Pen G, which will go for five days now, and detailed instructions on exactly what sorts of poop to look for. I was kind of hoping the vet would give them ponazuril just as a safety measure, but she's going to do the test for coccidia and giardia first. I guess it makes sense, since ponazuril can upset the kitten system a little, but it does mean I need to bring them back down to the shelter if they've got gut parasites. Still better than at my last rescue, where I had to deal with six kittens with coccidia and we were still using fucking Albon. It was a very, very poopy month, but they did all survive. So we're still using the Pen G, terremycin, Forti-Flora, and then sub-q fluids as needed and B12 shots every three days, plus mixing Pedialyte into the formula. Kittens are big confusing, y'all. And that's even before the revelation that Jake is actually Jackie and sexing kittens is hard. Whoops. 

The kiddo has been stretching his creative muscles this week, he started a fanfic about Bendy and the Ink Machine that is much more atmospheric than plot based at this point. I am deeply proud of him for writing, and annoyed at myself for the deeply ingrained perfectionism that wants to rewrite it like an adult would write it, spelling and grammar and punctuation. There is some line, somewhere, between helping him proofread his stuff in such a way that it becomes easier to understand and micromanaging his writing until it is not fun anymore, and I do not at all trust myself to find that line. I am a born pedant, and it is one of the most useful and most annoying things about me. Plus you'd think that for somebody who claims to be so concerned about grammar, I'd use fewer poorly constructed run-on sentences. But he is writing stories and thinking about stories and actively engaging with the media he consumes, and that makes me happy. He's also drawing pictures of the Bendy characters and showing definite improvement over his early attempts. Nice job, kiddo! 

Today he also wanted to stretch his creative muscles in the kitchen, using recipes he and my husband found in the New York Times app. I didn't have any cocoa powder, so he had to make a box cake, but I did have all the ingredients for whipped coffee. I've been making it a lot, in fact, always decaf because I am trying not to explode my heart before the cholesterol has a chance to finish me off. I showed him how to measure out all the ingredients and work the stand mixer, then to scrape the creamy coffee foam onto the cup of cold milk. Even though he knew exactly what was in the coffee foam, he could not resist tasting something that looks a lot like chocolate whipped cream. I told him that he could if he wanted to, but he would not like it. The faces and noises he made upon trying it were v. hilarious, and the coffee was good! 

The only other big thing today was grocery shopping. My plan was to make the pickup eleven days ago last for an entire month, and it really could, especially since I acquired a gallon of milk the other day at Walgreens. But now states are starting to open up again, and cases of Covid-19 are still increasing, and I think we are not nearly done collapsing yet. This is not a time to be eating through one's stockpile, this is a time to be increasing it. And even if that weren't the case, hurricane season will be here before we know it! So I took some of the stimulus money I'd set aside for later and put it towards another large grocery order, this one mostly freezer foods and non-perishables. I very much hope that someday I read this entry in the future and laugh at all the normal, unexciting, largely uncontaminated months ahead in which we slowly ate through all the canned goods and frozen turkey I acquired in a moment of anxiety. Fingers crossed, yeah? 

[sinesalvatorem]

Shoot Your Shot

In biology, there’s a concept of r/K selection. Reproductively, an r-strategy involves an organism trying to produce as many offspring as possible, with low resource investment in each individual descendant. Meanwhile, a K-strategy involves producing few offspring which each receive a large fraction of the parent’s resources to ensure that descendant’s success.

This is of course a spectrum, and the greatest extremes are across biological kingdoms. For example, fungi reproduce via spore dispersal, which is the most extreme version of throwing individual cells into the wind and hoping that some of them live maybe. Meanwhile, while some animals are very r-selected, the most K-selected species in nature are generally animals (eg, whales).

Humans are among the most K-selected things out there. Because of our huge brains, we gestate for nine months. (Compare rats, which gestate for about three weeks, or mushrooms, which just tell individual cells to fuck off and probably die.) Plus, we invest years in raising our children until maturity - and then we delay natural maturity a couple more years to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on them going to college.

Of course, even among humans, there’s a spectrum. As with most species with two fixed sexes (reproductively speaking), males can get away with a more r-like strategy, because in theory they don’t have to invest a ton in offspring. However, with few exceptions, males can’t actually get away with too much of this, because that nine month gestation period puts a hard ceiling on how r-strategy females around them can afford to be. So instead we tend to do pair bonding and families and all the other shit mushrooms would be baffled by. (Except they can’t be, because they don’t have our big expensive brains.)

OK, so this post isn’t really about reproductive biology. It’s about human psychology. Specifically, the fact that the r/K split in how willing one is to engage in [high output | low investment] vs [low output | high investment] can be generalised across way more domains than making babies.

In the biological model, organisms generally lean toward r when the environment is very high-variance. In such a situation, the amount that you invest in individual offspring matters far less than luck (ie, environmental factor’s beyond the parent’s control). Like, fungi can’t really change the concentration of dead logs in the area - the best they can do is hope their spores fall on some.

Likewise, if you are engaged in any pursuit where how well a given attempt goes has more to do with unpredictable conditions than with your own level of investment, r strategies are better. Meanwhile, K is ideal for the reverse. The only problem is, for some reason (I would guess due to some mixture of culture and biology), most people are stuck on K.

Call this perfectionism. Call it fear of failure. Whatever it is, a lot of people are unwilling to act unless they’re confident that any individual attempt will succeed - even when they can make an unbounded number of attempts. They just seem unable to comprehend that failure is low cost - or they’ll come up with a bunch of justifications for why failure actually is high cost. “Oh, but people I’ve never seen before and will never see again might laugh at me!” Excuse me, but what? The fuck?

All my observations seem to indicate that very few people actually shift their strategy between the r and K poles based on the circumstances. r/K becomes a feature of them - not of the optimal environmental strategy. Case in point - women in general tend to be less willing to do things they might fail at, no matter how soft the landing. I see this all around me. My male and female acquaintances are, in general, about equally competent - but the men do while the women practice and practice and practice and are never good “““enough”””.

The reason the world isn’t run by perfectionists is because perfectionists won’t get out of bed. The reason the world is run by men is because (many) men will shoot their shot at anything. Do you think Donald Trump would have run for president if he was only willing to do things he thought he’d succeed at? Are you not going to run for office because you might lose? Well, congratulations - now you know why bullshit floats.

And almost everything is like this! The modern world is made of soft landings. Almost nothing truly hurts you these days. Embarrassment doesn’t mean getting thrown out of the tribe - it means you can just do the same damn thing tomorrow and it’ll probably work. If you think you’re not good enough, you are almost certainly wrong, because few things today have a “good enough” - it’s just whether this time the right person/company/algorithm was impressed. Why are they impressed some times and not others? Honestly, this hardly matters - just keep shooting out spores and eventually they’ll land on wood.

Most people won’t put their art online because they don’t think people will like it. So??? If they don’t then they... Won’t look at it. If they do, you’ve just got both fans and information on what kind of stuff those fans like. I don’t think I’m a particularly great writer - I’ve met tons of people slaving away in obscurity who are clearly better than me. But I wrote my way to America because I wrote where Americans could read it - while my obscure acquaintances don’t let their writing out far enough to get a response.

Likewise, when I go to a concert, I’m generally the first person on the dancefloor. It’s rare that anyone else will visibly move their body until I’ve proven that it’s “safe”. Safe from what - who fucking knows? In reality, nothing. That’s why I don’t hesitate to bust a move. In the minds of everyone else - death, I’m guessing. So, of course, they all dance less expressively than me, in the hopes that no one will notice them. Meanwhile, I’m not an especially skilled dancer - I’ve taken two dance classes in my life - but at the end of the night, all eyes are on me. Of course they are - there was no one else to look at.

It’s hard for me to overemphasise the degree to which every. thing. is. like. this. This particular psychological bug is one of the most frustrating things in the world to me, because sitting over here on this heap of utility it just feels so obvious. Yes, you should ask people out! Yes, you should apply to that job! Yes, you should submit that manuscript! Yes, you should post your sketches on Deviant Art! Yes, you should try antidepressants! Yes, you should stop curtailing your life and start winning! More than half the time, the main obstacle is an unwillingness to lose cheaply.

Any time you’re considering doing something, you should ask yourself what the minimum viable product is. What is the lowest effort version of the thing you want to do that might maybe work? And how easily can you just do that repeatedly until it works? If you haven’t Googled a list of a few dozen companies in your industry and spammed them with your portfolio, why not? Because one might reject you? There are billions of people in this world and millions of companies that have never heard of you. You are not going to run out of options if you’re willing to cast a wide net.

Of course, the psychological bug in question is extremely deep, so I know the vast majority of people reading this will just feel briefly uncomfortable with their life choices before moving on and continuing to shoot themselves in the foot. That’s fine. Luckily, thousands of people read this blog, so hopefully a couple of them will get shaken up enough that they’ll be willing to stop screwing themselves out of success. And a couple people living better lives is as much as I’m aiming for.

In the meantime, I’m going to walk through some business districts in SF today and hand out my resume. Feel free to wish me luck, but I shouldn’t need it. Whether I succeed is just a matter of how much paper I can print on.

[alitheamateur]

The Grind- Chapter 26

“You sure about this place, babe? How come you don’t just wanna grab some coffee from The Grind and go back to crash on the couch at home?” I asked as Colton pulled open my passenger side door to walk hand-in-hand with me down the sidewalk.

Luckily, I cautioned Tia’s persistent advice at dinner last night, and limited myself to only three glasses of wine, and one measly shot of Patron. So, Colton’s 7 a.m. feisty bite to the exposed skin of my cheek under the sheet as my wake-up call, wasn’t ruined with a blistering hangover. He was adamant about taking me to some diner he’d heard about from one of the guys at the bike shop to try their German potato pancakes that he was just so certain I’d love, and I was a sucker for a languid, sweatpants breakfast date every now and then. 

“It’ll be fine, Livvy. Let’s enjoy some good grub, then I promise we’ll squeeze in a nap before we head to the gym later. Deal?”

He kissed the fingers that were interlocked with his own, then smiled mischievously as we slipped inside, escaping the rustling winds of the morning. We didn’t stop at the ‘wait to be seated sign’, instead Colt scanned the room, peeping over the full booths and tables around the room.

“C’mon, I see an empty table over here, babe.” he pointed, tugging me not so gently to the left of the hostess stand.

“Colton, we have to wai-,” I started to argue with his bullish, bizarre behavior, but before I could state my objections, reality slapped me across the face.

Seated with their backs to us, both sipping on a black cup of the house blend, were two Indiana natives, very far from home. Mom turned around to investigate the bustling approach over her shoulder, and stood to push herself from the seat with an unsure smile.

“Wh-..how did you guys get here? What’s going on?” I babbled wrapping a halfhearted, confused embrace around her neck, searching for an explanation from someone in the party of 3.

“It was all sweet, Colton, Liv honey. He arranged the whole thing. He insisted we come.” mom confessed, admiring Colton with a look of appreciation.

“I wanted ‘em here to see you fight, baby. And to see the house and everythin’. They got here yesterday afternoon, and I got them all set up at Westin, and ate dinner with the both of ‘em last night to get familiar.”

The pieces started to connect then. Why Tia was so snarky with keeping me away from the bottle, why Colton was so incessant about dragging me out of the house before 9 a.m. this morning, and why there was a button-down dress shirt discarded into the hamper when I did laundry after a late return home last night. I internally tipped a hat to his successful undercover moonlighting, though.

“Kid wouldn’t take a dime from us, either. Paid for the tickets, a ride from the airport, and our room, too. Seems we owe this one, sweetheart.” I heard dad say as I took one of the empty seats across the table from he and mom.

Their visit may not have been on my terms, or my timing, but I did feel complete having them here. Although there was a suitcase of nerves that landed on that plane along with their arrival to Pittsburgh, it just felt, right. The four of us, together, all in one place had me swelling with a sense of gladness and completion, all courtesy of the mysterious man in blue seated to my right.

“I can’t believe you did all this, Ritter. I expect a play-by-play when we get home, ya’ big box of lies.” I leaned to kiss him sincerely.

“I’m pretty impressed with myself to tell the truth.”

The meal consisted of bacon all around, mom whining about the cold temperature, those potato cakes Colton was correct about me losing my mind over, and a general calm, steady flow of conversation. I was impressed at how normal, and interested Tony and Liz seemed to be the entire time. Dad never brought up a single utterance of basketball, and mom pounded me with questions about my match, and what it would be like. I felt a connection so genuine that had been minuscule for so many years, and I knew Colton played a tremendous role in the healing psychological wounds.

“You guys should come by the house and spend the afternoon with us. All my stuff is moved in, and it doesn’t look like a construction site anymore. Mom, we could swing by the food market to get what you need for gran’s jambalaya for dinner, too!”

My inner, overly-eager, rambunctious childlike manner took me over, and I instantly began bulleting out an itinerary of events. I’d have to take mom to meet Andrew, and she would die over the Americana at The Grind. And dad, maybe Colton and I could take him to the trolley museum and a PNC park tour in the next couple of days.

“Livvy, we’ve got to try and get to the gym for a few hours today. It’s down to crunch time, babe,” Colt reminded me with apologetic tone. “But, we can check them out their room, and settle ‘em in at the house first, okay?”

Of course, the gym. This week wouldn’t be one of family dinners and touristy adventures with the fight countdown fuse burning low. And now, I had even more work to do down at Temple Fitness with my parents in attendance. The weight of potentially letting Colton, Tia, and the rest of my corner down was sickening enough, now add the weight of Tony and Elizabeth and you’ve got one wound tight Liv. Perfectionism is a weakness not all can relate to, and of that they should be eternally thankful. I failed my Warrior teammates and the rest of my small-town not so many years ago, and that disappointment in itself nearly disconnected me entirely. I may have grown and evolved in many ways since relocating to the Pittsburgh, but the will to please my loved ones was a quality I would undoubtedly live with until my final breath.

“You do whatever needs to be done today, sweetheart. I know these next few days are crucial, so don’t mind us. We’ll take whatever time you can give us.” my mom pats my hand from across the table, and shot and thoughtful smirk.

“We’re just happy to be here, Livvy. You’ve got a good one there.” My dad’s opinion of the man I loved was never considered to be a worry I had, but in that moment, I couldn’t have been more prideful in how truly wonderful Colton had been to them, and to me for organizing this little surprise.

 After dragging my parents’ belongings up the front steps of our home, and leaving them the keys to my car in case they got the pangs to explore around a bit, Colton and myself dutifully reported for in for a session down to the gym. The last couple days I had been studying up on a submission move I really wanted to try out. The Omoplata essentially was a move to apply unbearable stress on the arm of your opponent, inevitably resulting in a tap out. Tia, nor Colton had introduced me to the technique, but it was one I had stumbled upon doing some research on my own one afternoon during some down time at the Pilot office. Having never actually seen it done in reality, I only had internet tutorials, and other martial arts circuit fights that had been posted online to educate myself.

Upon trucking into the somewhat crowded parking lot, and settling my duffle into a locker down the hall from the ring room, Tia had called to say something had soured in her stomach, and she wouldn’t be making it in to train with us today unless I wanted to mop up her throw-up. Naturally, I insisted she stay in and recover, leaving me in the hands of Colt.

“Grab the rope, let’s warm up for 10 minutes after you stretch, babe.” my handsome trainer instructed as he downed the settlings of a pre-workout drink at the bottom of his cup.

“Did you remember to tell dad about the construction on Liberty bridge in case they decide to venture out of the house?” My voice vibrated as I bounced with the whip-like jump rope.

“Yep, as we were walkin’ out the front door, Liv. Don’t worry, ‘ight? They’ll be fine. I gotta say though, I wasn’t expectin’ ya’ to be so thrilled about ‘em being here.”

I was fairly flabbergasted myself in that matter, but I had no explanation for my nervous excitement. I guess, maybe it was the common cliché of not knowing how much you in fact needed something, until you had it.

“Thank you, handsome. I really am glad you did all that. Although, I’m a little concerned with all the unsuspected sneaking around you were able to get away with.” I smirked, dropping the braided rope to adjust the tightness of my messy bun.

“It nearly got the best ‘a me lying to you like that, but it was for good reason, at least. Except, them being at the house every night for the next few days may turn out to be a little problem. Seein’ as their daughter can’t keep her greedy little hands off me & all…” he teased unnlacing his trainers to pull of his socks before we moved into the ring. He was knelt on one knee just a foot or two behind where I stood, then inched over in that crouched position to friskily bite the pert cheek of my backside, and grabbed a handful of the other.

I’d never get tired of those stout, mitt-like hands of his touching my body, and I let my head drop backward a bit to sigh into his touch. If by some unfortunate event, things between us happen to fall to pieces again, no man would ever live up to the bar set by the infamous Colton Ritter.  

“I can manage a little self-control, you animal. Let’s make a bet on who caves in first, shall we?” I said, stepping over the middle rope of the mat.

“You better be careful playin’ with fire girl. You may get burned.”

 We had bounced around, grappling and rolling for nearly an hour already, with just a couple rushed breaks for water, and I still hadn’t built up the courage to try the move I had been so eager to crack at. I welcomed the respect that Colton had to never half-ass me when we did train one-on-one, however always extremely careful to make sure I was never harmed in any way. His insights, and words of wisdom related to the cage were something I considered to be a matchless gift, and I loved him eternally for offering it up.

Just as I was about to weigh the Omoplata to be the impossible, especially considering my mock opponent at the current time, Colton let down a wall, and broke his own most crucial ‘golden rule’ of fighting. He attempted to tangle me, but instead, mistakenly gave me his back, awarding me the perfect moment to pounce. I pinched his shoulder between the bones of my knees, then swung one leg hurriedly over his head. Colton’s arm was trapped between the center of my limbs, essentially hooked around my left thigh as I crossed my ankles. I flattened his chest and face to the mat with speed I didn’t know I had, and swung my legs to the side, easing into a squat with his helpless arm still locked in. The stretching pressure of his muscle grew the higher I raised, and defeated, Colton yelped out with a tap.

Instantly releasing, I tumbled to my back, and laid to rest with exasperating breaths. Executing the technique on an individual with such a powerful strength, was equally as exhausting on the attacker as the victim, and I could feel my blood tingling, and rushing through my veins like the Colorado rapids.

“I sure as hell don’t fuckin’ remember teachin’ you that, 2-1,” my captor said still face planted onto the canvas, almost cackling. “But you pulled it off with damn near perfection. I’m impressed, baby!”

“That one is just a little something I picked up on my own. Coach…” I replied, mounting his back to massage his shirtless shoulders.

Colton flipped, doing a 180 to now laying on his back, with me still atop him with a sweaty, rosy face.

“Oh, so she thinks she can pin me now, huh? Don’t get too comfortable up there, Elliott. You know I don’t do bottom.”

TAGS: @torialeysha @eap1935 @littleluna98 @mollybegger-blog

[twistedsinews]

F, I, L, M, S, and W! (I didn't mean to form a word there, but whoops)

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oof.  I… have no idea.

My first instinctive answer was this, from Fuzz:

“What are you doing and why must you be doing it in front of a fucking camera.”

“You really want to nail this bitch?” Gat leaned in closer, and Faith turned her head towards his breath where it tickled her ear. “Think about it… nothing destroys a career faster than evidence of a turgid, illicit romance.”

“Torrid,” she corrected, on reflex, as she half-leaned, half-pushed him back to look up at him.

“Hm?”

“Torrid romance.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure I meant turgid.”

Faith blinked at him, then shook her head, weighed down by sheer incredulity.

“Right,” she said, meeting his expression with a tight, wry smile. “You’re a big boy; far be it from me to tell you whether you’re allowed to whip your dick around on primetime television.”

Mainly because it’s the type of wordplay I have a lot of fun with and am proud of when it works out.  Whether anyone else ever finds it funny is a question, but I get the impression at least some folks out there like my writing, so.

I’m also inanely proud of the fact I got the “You’re under arrest for everything,” thing into a fic here, and I don’t know if proud is the word but I have a lot of fun any time I get to write drunken shenanigans like here.

OH!

This:

He dropped the board flat on the floor, and the pointy thing on top of it.  It danced and spun back and forth.

“Yeah, yeah, can you get me in touch with the guy upstairs?”

W-R-O-N-G-N-U-M-B-E-R

“Fine, then can you ring big red for me?”

T-H-A-T-L-I-N-E-H-A-S-B-E-E-N-D-I-S-C-O-N-N-E-C-T-E-D

“So it’s just you and me?”

YES

“Got any good advice on how to deal with women?”

NO

“Figures.”

was a literal last minute addition under the Yuletide deadline that made me really happy that it popped into my head when it did, because the visual was picture perfect and made me laugh.  And considering the weight of the rest of the fic, it was a nice light little capstone to it, too.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

*snrk*

All of the tropes listed below?

Idk.

*think*

I guess maybe romance stuff.  I always felt really exposed as a kid liking romance stuff, so for a very long time I either suppressed it or pretended I didn’t, I guess.  I definitely read for the fluffy mushy feelings, but it’s still hard to admit that out loud.  (And then there’s the feeling that the specific type of romance stuff I like is somehow SAYING SOMETHING ABOUT ME AS A PERSON, which… nah.  But y'know.  There’s a reason I still can’t write teh lemons.)

Also, I mean, I’ve caught hell for writing fic instead of filing the serial numbers off and monetizing like a sane American should, so fic in general can be a pretty guilty pleasure thing even though it shouldn’t be.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

… … …I’m one of those people who revises on the fly while writing.  :P

I have a difficult time reading my own writing, but it’s better than it used to be.  These days I can manage a spelling, homophones, and redundancy check after I finish.

Perfectionism is dumb.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

…I have a lot, and I’ve probably forgotten some.  

For SR, I have four prompts left from like five years ago, all of them for Halloween and I should probably get on them right fucking now so I don’t miss it again this year.

I have a bunch of pre-Boss Saints one-offs with Gat, Dex, Lin, and Aisha (and occasionally Julius and Troy.)

I have a few longer ideas that I keep putting off, because I suck at writing longform.  One involves Faith’s stint in prison between SR2 and SR3 that lands the Saints under Ultor’s corporate branding.  Another is the Faith backstory fic involving a murder cult trying to avert the end of the world.

More road trip fic in general, on that latter topic.

I have a ‘Saints go to Japan [for contrived probably Ultor reasons]’ idea mostly just get them squaring off with one of Shogo’s cousins.  I have something involving the Samedi and how utterly fucked up a person can get on Loa Dust… I had a Zinyak’s Red Door idea, I don’t know if I wrote down enough of it to remember where I was going with it…

I really want to write more Oleg sometime.

See also: Asha.

I want to write a SR movie script before the actual movie comes out, for the lulz.  I had the core idea a good few years back now, I just haven’t gotten to it.

…and, yeah.  My SR folder has like 3 times as many files as the rest of my fic folders combined, send help.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

Us against the world.

Our heroes either failing or otherwise coming within an inch of completely losing everything up to and including their lives before pulling it together for one last push to make it through.

Hurt/comfort.

Presumed dead.

A wide variety of romance tropes, including but not limited to: battle couples, UST, bickering to hide feelings, light-hearted teasing, heavy emotional defenses that only fully come down in private, heart-eyes in general… etc, etc.

Characters being coerced by the enemy in some way, especially if they have to do things against their grain or fight their friends or something for highest angst value.  Good people from the bad guy’s side switching sides.

Huddling for warmth.

All of the love triangles resolving to OT3s.  All the OT3s in general, actually.

…I know I’m forgetting some, I like a lot of tropes.  XD

W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?

I tend to like more general prompts, because the way ideas spark in my brain I don’t like to feel like someone really wants to see something specific ‘cause I’m just… gonna let 'em down somehow.

Even with general prompts, I sometimes get the feeling that I’m going off prompt, even though whenever I’m writing to a prompt is because the idea came from the prompt in the first place.

It’s my brain, I don’t know how it works.  XD

[newrd1]

How to write a big paper efficiently (and quickly)

Hey all! I know finals are over for a lot of us, but I still wanted to sit down and make a post outlining the way I personally write big papers (10-20 pages). This is the method that is most efficient for me, so I’m hoping it helps someone else out there! (This works best if you have at LEAST 3 days to write your paper. Hopefully you left yourself more time, but I get it doesn’t always work out that way).

My biggest problem when I write a paper is, well, writing. It used to take me HOURS just to finish a paragraph-- just sitting there, agonizing over sentences and clicking away to watch youtube or scroll tumblr every 10 minutes. If this sounds like you, you need a system!

   Let’s get started!

Step 1: Set up!

The first thing I like to do for a project is get a 3 prong folder. Put a chunk of loose-leaf in the middle, grab a pen and you’re set!

Step 2: Read your primary source!

I’m an English major, so most of my big papers revolve around a book. Still, many other papers have a primary source from which you get most of your information. Sit down with your folder and read your book. Working in the 3 day time-frame, this is day 1. As you read, note any quotes that stick out to you, highlight them and write them down in your folder, with page numbers (trust me, that’s important, you don’t want to go scavenging for the page numbers of all your quotes after you’ve written the damn paper and are ready to be done). Under your quote, be sure to note what stuck out to you. Was it theme, characterization, etc that caught your eye? Maybe just an interesting word choice on the author’s part? These little things are important in a strong paper!

Many teachers will say that to truly understand a book, you need to read it at least twice. Well I’m here to tell you that while that’s a nice idea, I had an assignment on Moby-Dick this semester and that s*** just ain’t happening. It’s much better in my opinion to mark down everything significant the first read around, and then if you need to you can go back and reread the  relevant passages. Don’t tell, but if I’m really desperate, I’ll just read the chapter summaries on Schmoop (oop) but trust me, it’s a lot easier in the long run if you read the book and get a feel for it yourself.

Step 3: Choose a paper topic!

Alright so you’ve read your primary source, gotten some good quotes. Chances are as you were reading, some ideas for a paper topic popped into your head. If your prof isn’t assigning topics (which most in college won’t) make sure to pick something you’re genuinely interested in. Even if they are, if you have a topic idea you’re really interested in, pitch it to them! 9/10 times I guarantee they’ll let you write that instead.

A good method I find in picking a strong topic for a research paper is to pair your idea with a pre-established field of study. Marxism, gender theory, queer theory, religious studies, feminism- all that good stuff. Doing this will help guide your research and also teach you a lot about something new!

If you’re having difficulty coming up with anything, there’s nothing wrong with going to a website like Schmoop and reading up on the book’s themes, analyses etc to get a better grasp on it. That’s what those websites are actually for.

At this point you may or may not be ready to write an actual thesis. I say go ahead and make a rough one, which can be amended depending on what you learn in:

Step 4: Research!

Aw hell yeah, baby it’s research day. This used to be the part I dreaded, but now I absolutely love doing research for my papers. Get thee to a library and start searching. And yes I mean that, you’d be surprised how much more productive and convenient it is to do research in an actual library. Start by searching your libraries database. I usually start with really broad terms, just my book and paper topic and see what’s available, then narrow it down from there. ALSO don’t be afraid to use books. Most academic books have very helpful chapter titles. Skim those and add a print source to your Works Cited (professors love that s***).

Print out all of the relevant sources you find and put them in your folder. The next step is much like the first: sit down, read through your articles and write down any quotes you find relevant with page numbers. Personally i give each source it’s own page and put the full title at the top to save time later.

Another good tip, during this step, make your works cited as you go! Most databases like j-stor and google scholar will even cite your source for you. Still, double check the formatting for these citations as I’ve lost far too many points to over-trusting automatic citations.

A rule of thumb I use is to have at least half as many sources as pages in your paper. Once you really get into the groove of researching, I guarantee you’ll find even more than that.

Step 5: WRITE. THAT. PAPER.

This is the hard part, huh? But look, while you were doing all that research and reading, I bet you got plenty of ideas for what you wanted to write about, which you hopefully jotted down as you went. With all the preparation in the last 4 steps, writing the actual paper is a breeze. If it helps, you can make an outline, but I usually don’t.

Your paper is an argument for why your thesis is true, and each paragraph should support that thesis. A simple formula: each paragraph should focus around a direct quote/ instance in your primary source that supports your thesis. Introduce that quote then explain how it’s supportive, even if you think the quote speaks for itself. Then use your secondary sources to back up the conclusion you came to with that quote. You must have secondary sources to support each point you make!!! Same with those, hug your citations with an introduction and explanation. This not only ensures your argument is well supported and expounded on, but adds word count! Finish your paragraph up with a mini conclusion and a lead in to the next paragraph, then rinse and repeat till the page count is met or you have fully defended your thesis.

Lastly, I know we scoff at rough drafts, but I’ve found that telling myself I’m only writing a rough draft and just need to get words on the page pushes through the paralyzing aspect of my perfectionism. And you’d be surprised by how good what you write actually ends up being. Then even if it’s not, revision is your friend!

Step 6: Revision and final touches!

Double, triple, quadruple check those sources and citations. Read your paper aloud. Leave it for a few hours and come back. If you have the time, take your paper to your professor to get their opinion or to the writing lab for help if your school/university has one available. Polish that paper to perfection, baby!

I hope this helps anyone who actually bothers reading! I think these are some really valuable tips that I personally wish I’d been told years ago. Some (or all I guess) of them may seem obvious, but to someone with as much executive dysfunction and perfectionist tendencies as me, having a plan that isn’t just “write a paper” has been ridiculously beneficial.

As cliche as it sounds, getting started is the hardest step, so sit down and get started!!!

[trans-shuichisaihara]

fake it till (we) make it - Scene 2

have i mentioned that i love kokichi? he’s such a little shit and i love that

(read on ao3)

Once his scattered mind begins to calm down, his first response is to shout, “What the hell’re you talking about?!”

Kokichi blinks at him, light fluttering of his eyelashes. “I meannnn, let’s fuck around with the tabloids and stuff. I’m bored and they all annoy me to no end, so I wanna pull a prank on them.”

Okay, he gets that, but- “Why with me?!”

“Becaaause,” he sighs out, “Everyone except Shuichi sucks and he’s going on tour next week. Plus he’s just a terrible actor. You at least have that going for you.” He then grins. “Plus, people eat shit like this up - you know, where the hero and the villain get together? That’s a really popular trope.”

“Dude, that was one time! And what happens when we have to film the sequel?!”

“You act as if this’ll last that long; it’s only gonna be like, maybe a month or two at max.”

A bead of sweat rolls down his face. “If it’s gonna be that short, then why can’t you find someone else?!”

Kokichi raises a brow at him. “Like who? No one would be thrilled to and you know it.”

“Well, uh-” He sputters. C’mon, there has to be someone- “What, what about that one guy, uh, Rantaro Amami?” There’d been some sort of rumor about them once, right?

“Taken. He’s a model anyway, always busy running around in a different circle. Only met him because his girlfriend was working on one of my sets designing outfits.” He sighs loudly, propping his chin on his hand. “He is really cute though...”

“Okay, uh, well...” He trails off awkwardly, trying to think of some other answer to give him. “What the hell do I get out of this? I’m not gonna ruin my reputation or anything just ‘cause you wanna screw around.”

“We’re not gonna fuck, so don’t worry about that.” Kaito has to bite back a reaction to the likely purposefully wrong interpretation of his words. “And I know people think I suck, but pretending to date me isn't going to ruin your rep, so...” He pauses for a long moment, before grinning as wide as he can. “You should just man up and help me prove the media is stupid as hell. I mean, I’m sure you hate them too, and you’re not scared of them, riiiight?”

Fuck. “Like hell I am,” he growls, massaging his temples, “I’ll do it, alright? You happy?”

He nods, grin still plastered across his face. “Yep! See you after your beauty rest, babe!” He winks and blows him a kiss.

An uncomfortable feeling immediately fills him. “Never call me that ever again and maybe I’ll sleep nightmare-free.”

“No promises!” He sings and turns away from Kaito before an argument can start, flopping back down on the couch and pulling out his phone to end all further conversation. He shakes his head and leaves Kokichi be; he has shit to do this evening, he needs at least some rest before his manager starts blowing up his phone asking where he is.

Stardom sucks when no one trusts your ability to get yourself dressed and show up with enough time for the makeup crew to do their thing.

He locks his bedroom door - just in case Kokichi decides he’s bored enough that he’s going to come and pester him more - before closing his curtains tightly to block out the morning sun that’ll soon rise. He then lies in bed for at least half an hour, despite his desire to just pass out into the realm of sleep.

Unfortunately, the tension building in his mind from his sudden deal with Kokichi makes it hard to do such a thing.

He can’t stop thinking about how the world will react to them dating. He’s not scared, it’s just- Even if it’s fake, no one would know that until it’s over, and even then it’s doubtful anyone would believe it. That’s just how fans were. He runs his hands down his face, exasperated with Kokichi, but also with himself; why the hell’d he just let himself get dragged into this?

His sleep ends up being restless, broken apart by frequent reawakening and his phone buzzing insistently. He isn’t in the mood to deal with whatever they need, so he throws his pillow over his head and ignores it.

After an unsatisfying 6 hours of sleep, he wakes up for real a bit before noon, body sluggish as he showers and throws on some shorts and a tee. He idly checks his texts as he’s making his way downstairs, astounded at the mess that was created while he slept.

Kokichi Owoma @real_ouma tweeted:

hanging out with the bae @kaitomomota #firstdate

Along with the heart emojis following the message, attached is that dumb selfie he wanted to take, which makes Kaito wonder if that was his goal all along. He pinches the bridge of his nose; the tweet already has well over 10 thousand likes and nearly half as many retweets, along with a fair number of replies. Most of them calling B.S. on it, which is a bit relieving.

He’s about to check the rest of his texts when he notices that Kokichi didn’t leave after he went to bed. Instead, he passed out on the couch, one of Kaito’s space-patterned comforters that he’s almost positive was in his bedroom closet pulled around him tightly. He’s tempted to wake him up and scold him for informing the world without permission, but he can’t be bothered. A sleeping Kokichi is a quiet Kokichi, after all.

He turns his attention back to his phone. Most of his texts are from his friends that have seen the tweet and are informing him of its existence. He doesn’t really post on his twitter, so it’s understandable that they would feel the need to let him know.

His manager is trying to give him advice for dealing with dealing with false rumors and offering to help make a public statement to shut it down, which causes him to sigh. If he has to guess, this looks like Kokichi attempting to stop him from backing out, and it works; it’d be more of a hassle to deny the rumors than to play along, after all.

He honestly doesn’t want to deal with any of this celebrity shit. He just wants to star in cool sci-fi films and be able to afford living in L.A. where all his friends are.

So, instead of answering any of the texts, he takes a picture of Kokichi sleeping for blackmail or something, then grabs his leftovers out of the fridge and tosses it in the microwave. He then sits down, pulling up the tweet again before making the decision to retweet it without any comments. Before he can regret it, he turns the notifications on his phone off and sets it aside, instead starting to make a grocery list for his upcoming trip to the store.

He’s contemplating getting them delivered instead when his lunch finishes with a loud beep, followed by a thud from the other room. He holds back a sigh; the silence he desired didn’t last nearly long enough.

“Huh?” In the living room, Kokichi hauls himself up, hair sticking up all over the place as he blinks sleep out of his eyes. In the time it takes him to grab a plate and dump his heated meal onto it, he reaches fully awake status and hurries into the kitchen to bother him. “Oh, you’re finally up!” His own phone is in his hands as he sits down in the chair next to his. “Did you see the-” For a moment, his face goes flat, before bouncing back to excited. “Oh, you retweeted it! Did you like it too?”

“Nah,” he answers, shoveling a bite of food into his mouth. After swallowing, he continues with, “By the way, thanks for that; had everyone and their mother blowing up my phone while I was sleeping.”

“You’re welcome!” He doesn’t miss a beat as he scrolls through the comments. “Hmm, it’s gonna take a lot of work to convince everyone. Care if I post about you getting ready for your day?”

“I do, actually; that’s really fuckin’ weird and won’t convince anyone of anything except that you’re a creep.”

He pouts. “Fine. But we really should talk about how we’re gonna do this.”

He scratches at the stubble along his jaw. “I guess. I’m not gonna make any gushy tweets or anything like that, before you ask.”

He hums. “Wasn’t gonna suggest anything like that. Let’s say... We’ve been officially dating for two weeks, keeping things on the down low, before we decided to come out about it last night.”

He coughs as an epiphany hits him. Fuck, he has to deal with that aspect of the media on him. “Dammit, I didn’t even think about that part. The media’s gonna be all over me for being, for being gay! Which, well, you know, isn’t a bad thing to be, but-” He can’t exactly say he isn’t when he went through that whole shebang in college, but he wasn’t wanting the world to know that.

Kokichi shrugs. “It was going to happen eventually. I mean, people have been suspecting you are since at least last winter due to the vague gay subplot going on in your latest film.”

Kaito’s forehead falls into his hand, covering his eyes. “God, can’t people tell the difference between fiction and reality anymore? That’s a fucking character-”

Kokichi’s phone rings, cutting him off. The two of them look towards it, Kokichi quirking a brow. “Oh, it’s Toujou, one sec.” He turns away from Kaito and answers the call with an obnoxiously fake shout of, “Good morning, Mom!”

Kaito rolls his eyes; he doesn’t know how Kokichi can address Director Kirumi Toujou like that. She’s scary intense when on set. He’s worked with her for two movies - both of them great, but both of them grueling to film due to her perfectionism and no-nonsense aura. He can hardly believe she’s only two years older than them with how huge the difference in maturity is.

To avoid eavesdropping on his conversation, Kaito gets up and begins to clean up his lunch and what remains of what was technically their breakfast, seeing as Kokichi didn’t bother to. He doesn’t mind doing household chores like this, honestly; he had to do them regularly while living with his grandparents. He’s faintly aware of eyes in his back as he tears up the pizza box to fit into his trash can and moves to begin washing the handful of dishes in the sink.

Finally, a loud sigh sounds from the other side of the kitchen, and he pauses to give him a glance. His phone is facedown, so the conversation is likely over. “What happened?”

“She wants me to come in today. Apparently, one of the cameramen screwed up on the shot we did a few days ago and she just noticed it and it’s bugging her. Important scene and all that.” He waves his hand. Kaito feels sorta bad for him; all scenes were important scenes to her, so this was likely not an actual emergency.

“Just one scene, right? Hopefully you won’t be there too long, then.” One scene could still take hours, but it’s still likely to be shorter than a full session.

“Dunno. You know how it is.” He stands, stretching. “Welp, good luck with your day. Interview tonight, right?”

“Damn, yeah.” He shuts the water off, drying his hands as Kokichi looks around for his car keys. “You know they’re gonna be all over me because of your tweet.”

“Good. Play along. If they ask you who made the first move, I asked you out, and you accepted because I’m ‘kinda cute’ - those exact words. If they ask, ‘only kinda?’, you respond by seeming embarrassed.” He finally locates and plucks up his keys from the ground in front of the sofa, almost hidden by the blanket draped along the side of the couch and onto the floor. “Honestly, it should be too easy to fool them.”

He has a whole script ready, huh. “Man, who died and made you director?”

“Unfortunately, no one; the universe isn't that kind as to rid the world of any of them,” he dramatically says, before he shakes his head and returns to a more neutral tone, “Anyway, I'll be back tonight; we can discuss the schematics of our act then. Don't say anything unnecessary, be vague, they can fill in any gaps themselves. Got it?”

He responds by shooing Kokichi out of his house. “Yeah yeah, don't worry. It'll be fine; I'm not stupid.”

[litterateur97]

.

Okay I know for like forever I've kept saying that I'm gonna post new fic stuff and update my current fics and then I've just kept not doing that, but for real I'm going to this time. I also think I should be honest about why I haven't in so long, and I feel more comfortable doing that here than on AO3 or fanfiction net.

I mean a big part of it is that I have ADHD and constantly get inspired and then lose all motivation for projects. I'll have a million ideas of stuff I want to do and then get none of it done. I also want it done perfectly if I do get it done and I'm a huge critic of my own work. But I do genuinely still love writing fanfics and want to put more work out there, it's just a matter of getting my brain to cooperate.

Another part of it is that I realized the ending I had planned for A Slightly Different Note didn't make sense and I had to go back and rework things. This led to editing a lot of previously posted chapters and I might still go back and edit them further. I don't want to abandon this fic because it's my first multi chapter, so I told myself I couldn't post anything new until I fixed everything. Now I'm realizing I need to just get the ball rolling and start posting again.

And my ADHD and perfectionism are a lot to deal with by themselves, but I also let myself get super freaked out by one incident. Essentially, someone from my past who I haven't had anything to do with in the last six years somehow found my fanfics. He decided to comment on one of them on fanfiction net with a guest name that would make me realize it was him. The comment wasn't even that bad, even if he did criticize my writing in a very pretentious way, but the fact that he figured out I was the one writing the fics and then went so far as to comment on specifically only fanfiction net (where I can't reply to comments and I don't really get any comments in the first place) made me deeply uncomfortable. I don't even know how he figured out it was me because my name isn't attached to anything. Maybe he recognized my writing. Maybe he just remembered that I shipped this pairing and took a wild guess that I might see the comment. Whatever the reasoning, it freaked me the fuck out and I never responded or acknowledged it in any way. Eventually I ended up just deleting all my fics off the site except A Slightly Different Note because people still message me about that one asking when I will update it. And even though he wasn't bold enough to comment on AO3 (maybe he doesn't know about the site or maybe he didn't want the possibility of someone replying to his comment) I eventually got to the point where I didn't want to post there either out of fear of him interacting again.

Honestly I feel really stupid about the whole thing and I really shouldn't have let myself get that freaked out. Had it been a stranger criticizing me I would have just said "damn," bitched about it for a bit, and moved on. But I let it get to me.

But no more. It's late now, but starting tomorrow I'm posting what I want again and putting my other fics back up on fanfiction net. Fuck that guy and fuck my ADHD and fuck my perfectionism.

Thank you to those who read this and continue to support my writing. And thank you to the little community for this rarepair that continues to inspire me. ❤️

[canonicallyanxious]

From one (fic) writer to another: do you have a beta reader? or do you just re-read your fics tens of times hoping to catch mistakes, but actually end up catching the mistakes/typos after posting?

lol can i pick D all of the above

tbh my editing process is stupidly convoluted [like those people who tag their fics with “no beta readers we die like men”? no exaggeration i wish that were me skdfdnskdnf but also i’m the nerd for whom something like this actually is fun so like what can you do] but for anything that i want to be reasonably polished it goes something like this:

Longhanding the first draft [i have a fic notebook for shorter things and a fic binder with cascading tabs for longer things bc i’m just Like That i guess] and then rereading at least once to get a rough idea of what i need to work on in edits

Transcribing the second draft into google docs which is also my first proper editing pass; i rewrite/tweak smaller parts of the first draft as i go and mark the bigger stuff for later

At least one pass through for the big edits, so like any big rewrites, additions, deletions, or anything like that

Depending on how long or involved the thing is i spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks rereading and editing; i like to make multiple editing passes that focus on different things so it’s less things to tackle at once

When i have the sense that most of my big edits are done is usually when i send shit to beta readers because i do usually use them [unless it’s for something quick i don’t want to spend a lot of time on]; in the past i’ve used anywhere between 1 and 4 beta readers bc i have an actual problem but usually around 2-3 bc i have the best and most patient friends who put up with an incredible amount of bullshit from me. and they do help me with line edits but they also help me with plot holes, characterization, pacing, worldbuilding, all that good stuff that is hard to judge when i’ve been deep in my own writing for a while

After my betas have read it and i’ve addressed their comments, i make 1 or 2 final passes to make sure everything’s more or less smoothed out, and then i post it and force myself not to think about it for at least a week skfjsnksfijsf

And sometimes i reread a fic months after i first posted it and there are mistakes i didn’t catch and i curse myself and god and i quietly edit the fic and think “logically probably no one noticed but like. i noticed” lol. but i usually intentionally reread published stuff for editing purposes for multichaps where it’s likelier i’ve forgotten what i wrote/posted in the beginning

is this an efficient way of doing things? absolutely not. can i say i don’t get discouraged by my own perfectionism sometimes? also no lol. but i guess for me i do really like spending a lot of time working on my stuff bc i find it really fun, editing can be like trying to solve a puzzle sometimes and it’s very satisfying and rewarding for me to work on the challenging puzzle of how to make something work with my words in the way that i want to. another thing about my process is that believe it or not if i finish a first draft it’s very unlikely i’m not going to finish it - usually where i give up with drafts is, like, toward the beginning, like i’ve sort of been training my brain to keep with fics and ideas i actually enjoy working on even when it gets challenging [there’s a difference bc something that’s challenging in a fun away and something that’s challenging in a not fun way u know what i mean] so i don’t waste time on stuff i don’t enjoy writing but for the stuff i do enjoy writing i find it worth the effort so putting in the hard work is fun for me! of course i think esp when it comes to fic writing when it’s purely for fun regardless different things work for different writers and no writer should push themselves into a process they don’t enjoy but like this is what i’ve found works for me so it is what is i guess!

[overdrivels]

The Hanzo-disliking anon here. I would have actually preferred discussing this w/ you privately but I prefer to be on anon for the whole "doesn't like a beloved popular character" thing. The reason I don't like Hanzo is how he seems to have the audacity to act like the offended party with Genji when he's the one who did wrong. It's not even that he doesn't realize he did wrong. He abandoned his clan due to guilt. I can't for the life of me understand what appears to be his victim complex. (1/2)

(2/2) He goes around calling Genji “trash” to his face in the Japanese version of OW for goodness’ sake. That Genji is dead to him and stuff. It could be that he feels Genji betrayed him by refusing to join the Shimada business or that he feels like his redemption quest has been for nothing, but those are terrible reasons and don’t excuse his shitty behavior. I’ve been trying to think of what the writers are trying to go for with him, but I just can’t imagine anything that justifies his attitude

(3/2 I miscalculated 2 asks aren’t enough) I hope I didn’t come off as a jerk. I have no issue with people who like Hanzo and I don’t want to disrespect or undermine them. I’m just irritated at how self-entitled the character seems to be. The reason I actually brought this up with you is bc I was hoping you’d have some insights on this that will help me understand why he’s the way he is.

You’ve been very respectful in the way you express your opinions and well articulated in your reasons, so I’m actually extremely happy that you’ve presented this to me and feel comfortable enough to share. (You have no fucking clue how pleased I am to have a discussion like this, really.)

This is rather long (very long), so I’m placing this under a cut. To everyone else, please be mindful of each other’s opinions, especially when it’s being conveyed so civilly. Understandably, if you are of the opposite opinion, you may feel angered, but I ask that you refrain from attacking anyone and if need be, present your opinion and thoughts in the same manner as this anon.

(I also ask that this doesn’t get reblogged because I don’t think I can handle my inbox getting wrecked by people who weren’t initially a part of the conversation or know the context of the entire discussion leading up to this.)

I’d be happy to discuss it with you on chat or something, but as it is, this’ll have to work. I’m going to preface this by saying that Hanzo doesn’t need to be (shouldn’t need to be?) justified as a character because sometimes, a character does shitty things and that shittiness (shittyness?) needs to be acknowledged and not justified for any reason because there’s no good enough explanation.

(I’m sure we’ve all experienced or done something like that in real life–did something so inexcusable without proper explanation, but there really isn’t one, and we have to accept it as is.)

I think it’s easy to look at the singular action of Hanzo killing Genji in a vacuum. Based on that singular event alone, and seeing how Hanzo acts afterward, it’s very easy to paint him as an asshole whose actions are inexcusable and he doesn’t deserve to claim that he’s the one who is hurt. In which case, absolutely. He should not act like he’s been wronged when he’s the one who started it.

But what if we start further?  

I want to look at the cause and what could’ve led up to it. Not to justify it, but to see where this could’ve come from. It’s my own opinion, but I think that people are very used to writers having their characters as is–no background unless it’s relevant to the plot, no thought of what sort of life they’ve lead up to this point, and is presented as a given. However, I see that the Overwatch team has put some effort into characters (the level of effort can be debatable, but I’m not interested in debating that), so I want to show some level of respect to the writers by trying to dig a little deeper into where, why, how–who is this character?

And I think a lot of it may have come from Hanzo’s circumstance, his relations with his brother, and his past. To understand it, we have to take a deeper look into Japanese culture (or Asian culture, in general). Now, I can’t claim that I have a complete understanding of anything, so a lot of this is just what I know (and perhaps experiences) and some speculation and logical deductions.

In life, Genji was given a freedom that Hanzo, as the eldest and the heir to a criminal syndicate, never truly enjoyed. That isn’t to say, however, that Genji didn’t have his own fair share of troubles. 「一族の恥」(ichizoku no haji)、the clan’s shame/the embarrassment of the clan is what they called him. We can leave the discussion about Genji for another day, but let’s look at how this affects Hanzo.

So from birth and even after his father’s death, he was held to a strict standard. Everyone was watching him. He was chosen by the dragons. He must not make a mistake lest he bring shame to his entire family.

In Japanese culture (and Asian culture), losing face is probably one of the worst things that could happen to you. In Western culture, it’s not that big of a deal if you embarrass yourself a little or you’re not as successful or you don’t have the respect of your subordinates. People will tease you about it, and move on.

In Asian culture, you’re pretty much fucked. No one will let you forget it, it becomes a part of you now. You will lose the respect of everyone around you, and depending on the level of face you lose, every piece of success you’ve built up can be lost in a second. It is an integral part of your identity and society. Losing face could make you a nobody, scorned, and an outcast. It can affect your job, your family, relations with neighbors, cost you that raise or promotion–it’s a big deal that cannot be contained to the words, ‘embarrassment’ or ‘shame’.

(For example: you’re at someone’s house and you’ve finished off your glass of juice, but you’re still thirsty, so you reach for more from the fridge. You’ve now made the host lose face because, by getting your own drink, you’ve shown your host that they suck at what they do and should be more attentive to you, their guest. You’ve made your host lose face. Now your host is embarrassed and that’s going to be a mark on them for a long, long time. If there were other people there, they would notice this, too, and give that person shit. This sounds absolutely silly because it’s a glass of juice, but it’s a big deal.)

Hanzo was losing face. He couldn’t control his brother. That’s a deep scar on his image, on everything he’s built up in his life. For Sojiro, his father, it was less of a deal–he let Genji do it and probably made it openly known that this was acceptable. And no one will go against Sojiro, the master of the clan and who could have them all killed in an instant.

But Hanzo?

He doesn’t have that rapport yet, so he’s subject to the scorn and nasty comments of his elders and the like. (I’m assuming there are elders and those in the clan who are of a high power that Hanzo cannot take action without consulting. It’s kind of like a Japanese company. While a President delivers the decision, the decision isn’t made it without consulting those who are affected and knowledgeable.) He can’t defend himself against them. 

Why? 

Because of the hierarchy. There’s a very specific type of hierarchy in Japan that’s difficult to explain because to understand it, you have to understand the intricacies of the culture and the dynamic of the clan, which we don’t particularly have.

(There’s a very good post about it by someone about Hanzo losing face on tumblr, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment.)

Regardless, that must’ve built up a lot of tension and repressed anger that he wasn’t allowed to express. Expressing your anger is not taken the same way as in the Western world. It’s…well, not to say it’s not acceptable, but it’s not taken the same way as it would be outside of Japan.

So, Hanzo has quite a bit on his plate. Why can’t Genji just do what he’s told? Why does he have to stand out? (As a side note, standing out in Japanese culture or disrupting the status quo is not looked kindly upon.There’s even a saying in Japanese: a nail that stands out gets hammered ( 出る杭は打たれる ).) So Genji’s defiance is another point of contention. Why does he have to keep disobeying his elders? Hanzo is Genji’s older brother. It’s his absolute responsibility to make sure his brother is kept in line. That’s the burden of being the eldest. If Genji isn’t in line, Hanzo has failed in his basic duties in being an older brother. (The implications are much more serious, and I’m not quite sure how to express it.)

He may be acing his studies, and listening to his father, but he can’t seem to exert the right amount of authority over those who should be listening to him. And his father isn’t helping by letting Genji do what he wants. He also has this constant pressure to do better because his best isn’t enough from both his family and the clan. Logically, they wouldn’t follow someone who is weak or doesn’t have his shit in order. But he doesn’t. There’s always something tripping him up, and that’s his brother. Not to blame Genji, because again, he has his own share of troubles, but from Hanzo’s point of view, he was likely the source of a lot of his resentment.

In short, Hanzo is a failure. His accomplishments, his perfectionism, none of it means anything if he’s constantly getting shit thrown back at his face.

I seriously believe that all the lines he says in-game to himself such as, “Never second best,” or “Unworthy,” or “You will never amount to anything!” were all just Hanzo projecting.

In the Japanese version, he refers to Genji as 「くず」 (trash). I don’t know what to make of this. I could take the angle that it’s Hanzo projecting onto Genji still, or I could speculate that he truly believes he’s superior, or take it a little more neutrally, he’s repeating what everyone else calls Genji. But if I had to guess, it’s a mixture of everything. This is something that stumps me a little bit, but the above is the best explanation I have for it.

When Hanzo becomes the master of the clan, he was probably told to put Genji in line. And Genji didn’t want anything to do with the clan. He wanted to live his life, enjoy it. But that sort of enjoyment came with certain responsibilities that he has shirked since the time of their father. But with Hanzo as the new leader of the clan, he had to put Genji in line or…do something about it.

It’s very likely that the rest of the clan saw this as an opportunity to make their name good, to get rid of those who stood out, to right everything. Their new leader is young and inexperienced without his father to protect him. So, Hanzo was presented with those two choices: straighten Genji out or kill him lest you bring more shame to the clan.

Now, Hanzo is given an opportunity to redeem himself and his image and the clan’s image. This goes beyond the redemption quest he set out for after Genji’s death. I think he was on one even before then. He can save face and fix everything if he listens to his elders (his betters in the hierarchy). He can fix everything if he can get rid of the problem–Genji.

He did it. He did not take an insult to his power passively, he rectified it by putting an end to it. He restored confidence in his clan as an assassin, as master of the clan, as his brother.

…but it wasn’t so.

After killing his brother, we all know he left the Shimada clan. We’re not sure if it was immediately after or some time after. The timing may be very significant, but as we do not readily know, we’ll skip over it for now. We can easily call his leaving an act of cowardice, or the result of his guilt, or that he wanted to do something he always wanted to do but never found an opportunity to do so. He wanted to leave. He wanted the freedom that Genji had, but couldn’t have because his immediate family still existed.

By leaving, he thought for himself for once.

Ah, not to mean that he was blindly following anyone’s orders or anything, but for once, he thought of himself. He was selfish. In Japanese culture, the collective comes first. The clan, the whole of Hanamura, the whole of society comes first.

But for once, Hanzo became selfish, and so, left everything behind. Here’s the funny thing though, by killing Genji, he found a way out for his freedom, but by killing Genji, he also managed to never fully express the envy and hate he may have had for his brother.

In many or most cultures, you’re supposed to revere the dead. It’s pretty much the same in Japanese culture.

Now he’s been mourning for ten years, still unable to express that hate that he has supposed buried when he killed his brother. And guess who shows up? Genji. Back to sling shit into his face again. Not only is he a failure as a brother for being unable to keep his brother in line, as the master of the clan by leaving, but also as a killer by having one of his most life-altering kills come back from the grave.

So, under such circumstances, I would absolutely be pissed beyond hell and vent in almost any way I can because pride is a fragile thing. Or at least, it is for Hanzo.

But here’s an interesting thought: I also wonder if he knew, deep down, that it would come to this. He didn’t seem entirely too surprised beyond the first few seconds. As a matter of fact, he seemed to have gone back to something more childish, acting almost immediately like a big brother–scolding his younger brother for something and telling him to get his life together. He slips into the role almost too easily.

We can chalk it up to shock, but couldn’t it be that he also knew he never actually dealt the finishing blow and that’s been nagging at him this whole time? Not that he gave his brother a chance to live, but that he let his brother suffer. If you’re going to kill someone you love, you’d make it quick and painless, right? We can argue that he never loved his brother, but we can also argue that he was warring with himself and couldn’t bring himself to do it.

I must sound like a broken record, but to me, it’s very interesting to speculate and think about. There are so many angles we can take on this and the possibilities are endless. But it could also be that his character could also be very simple broken down as an man who mistakenly thinks he is being wronged all the time.

But yes, your thoughts are valid and meaningful to me in a way that I can’t explain. They also gave me some perspective on why some people might not like him, and I really want to thank you for helping me expand my horizons. In light of that, I hope I’ve been able to articulate why he may be the way he is, whether he is justified in his behavior or not is a completely different story. I’m just interested in why.

(There was a lot more I would’ve love to elaborate on, but I think this would’ve actually turned into a research paper. I hope this has been helpful and sufficient in answering your questions even though it’s a little disorganized in its presentation. Again, it’s perfectly fine to dislike a character–not all characters are made to be liked, and not all people are expected to like all characters.)