#i had to get this out my brain first because i've thinking about it a lot

[ilikeyoshi]

"#yes yes yes!!!! #and ngl it makes me want to read or engage with it more too!"

i hope it's ok to point out these tags bc this is SUCH a huge mood i think deserves a little more explanation!!!! (at least from my perspective as both a creator (writer) and fan (of artists))

i used to have a ton of anxiety when creating and especially sharing my works, and my impulse was always to talk down on it, because a) i* (*my anxiety) believed it to be bad, and b) because i had this idea in my head that if i lowered people's expectations, they wouldn't be as disappointed when reading it.

i want to tell you what i've learned in my years of both being a writer and being a fan of artists, and it's that this is a terrible, terrible anxiety fallacy (like so many ideas/misconceptions borne of anxiety are) that ONLY hurts you, your work, and your potential readers(/fans/etc). it SOUNDS like a good idea when you have really bad anxiety, i know, i used to DEPEND upon this idea just to have the courage to SHARE my writing—and i want to emphasize that it's OKAY if you've done this before, it's an easy, easy trap to fall into, but i also want you to try and stop doing it because there are a lot of reasons you would feel better and do better for doing so.

you are what you practice! if you only ever focus on or speak about the flaws in your art, you WILL feel negatively about your art. my very first therapist explained it in a way that still really resonates with me: you have created a well-beaten, highly trafficked "road" in your brain. it is very easy to take this road because even though it's longer to your destination, it winds and bends, it's walked on so much it's flat and easy to traverse. when you try to build a NEW path—in this case, a path where you focus on what you like about your art—you're starting with no path at all. it's all undergrowth and vines and thorns and it hurts and it's tiring and you feel like this will NEVER be easier or feel better than the old path. but you have to keep taking the new one. you have to beat down the undergrowth until it recedes, cut down the low-hanging branches until you can walk with your back straight, and if you keep at it, if you keep at this thing that feels so pointless and stupid and hard, eventually, the path will be clear, and easy to walk, and you'll make great time getting to your destination because it cuts straight through; no winding or bending. and the old path? it will overgrow, and it will become hard and stupid to take. you have to beat the new path because once it's beaten, it'll be the far superior path in every way, including ways the old path was never superior even when it WAS the one you were always taking.

further—as these tags point out, and as i agree with wholeheartedly—by disparaging your art, you DO lower people's expectations. people don't want to be sad, frustrated, disappointed when they look at art—at least, not unless the art itself is trying to tell a story about that. you get what i mean, i hope—they don't want to go INTO something they already HAVE negative reviews on—your reviews! you, the creator, have already told this person the story/art/whatever is going to be bad, and i know, i KNOW it's not your intention, you're hoping someone will see through what you can't and tell you no, no, this is good, i liked this! and some people do! but you make it a lot harder for them TO do that when you tell them right at the beginning, "this is going to be bad, i don't like it," because what you're unintentionally telling them is, "and you probably won't like it either." the first way i learned this was in people always saying in their fanfic summaries, before you even open the fic, "the summary is bad, i'm bad at writing summaries, the story is better trust me bro." because what this does—again, so unintentionally, i KNOW what you're trying to do because i've been you—is you're telling the reader, "here's my pitch, here's the hook to my entire story, it's the worst part, it's bad, but the rest will be better," and what they KNOW is they've already put the time in reading the summary, and it's hard to commit MORE time to something when you've already told them it's bad, even if you promise the rest is better. it's like biting into a fruit and you hate the taste of the skin; it's harder to try the rest of the fruit when, so far, it's been bad (or you've been made to believe it's bad).

so what's the solution? how do you begin beating that new path? well, it depends on you. everyone's a little different in how they navigate stuff like this. but what worked for me, and what might be a good place to start (and by all means adapt as you figure out what works and what doesn't), is start by just NOT saying anything negative. no, "i don't like this," or "the summary's bad, sorry," or anything. write your artist's comment, author's note, whatever as normal, and REMOVE anything that depicts your art/writing/etc in a bad light. just don't give people any opinion whatsoever on what experiencing your creation is going to be like. this, for me, was easier than jumping straight to, "i'm pretty proud of this," or "i enjoyed working on this," because it wasn't withholding AND replacing, it was JUST withholding. going back to the roads and paths metaphor, i think of this part as the "taking a breather before i get to work on this monumental task of beating this new path" stage.

then, overtime, i started "stretching" my positive comments about my works. if i liked, say, TWO LINES out of a whole piece of writing, i'd say, "i'm really proud of this work!" because i AM proud of ANYTHING AT ALL, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, within the work. it's not a LIE, to anyone including yourself, but it is, perhaps, an EXAGGERATION. that's OKAY. we're trying to teach our brain to look on the bright side, to take the new path, and i've found that treating it a little bit like a dog—giving it a treat for ANY TINY BIT OF PROGRESS, was a good way to encourage myself to start making MORE progress. ESPECIALLY because the tags i reposted above are RIGHT: LOTS of people are MORE interested in a work when their very first impression (YOUR impression!!!) is positive. 'the artist/writer/etc is proud of this? oh, i'm so glad they had a good time creating, let's take a look!" it probably sounds too easy if you're still taking that anxiety-beaten road, i know, but try to think of how you've felt when someone disparages their creations versus uplifts them. were you put off by the negativity? were you sad that your friend worked so hard on something and didn't even like it? conversely, doesn't it make you a little excited when an artist says they really feel good about something they made, especially in a world where so many artists ARE feeling inadequate? i hope you see what i mean.

it's not an overnight thing, of course, this took me YEARS. this took a miracle that doesn't happen to most people: i wrote something i felt SO TERRIFIED people wouldn't like, even though i was secretly very proud of it (but too scared to dare suggest i was proud of it), so i indicated all kinds of things like "i hope you like it, i dunno if it's any good, it's just a little thing i'm chipping away at in my spare time" (it was not, it was a full-blown passion project) and, against the odds, a LOT OF PEOPLE told me they really really really liked it. a couple of friends who were decently popular in the fandom it was for liked and shared it and i got A LOT of encouragement. i basically got to beat my new path with a HORDE of helpers, and it was more like THEY beat the path for me and i chased along like, "what is happening, oh my god, what are you doing???"

i got really lucky. that doesn't always, or even usually happen. in most other areas of my life, i've had to beat the path myself. and it takes a long time if you're doing it on your own. but you should anyway, because it's so fucking worth it dude. yeah, it was awesome to get so much help with my writing confidence specifically, but it's been just as worth it every time i've had to do it alone too. and i have good news! there ARE ways to tell people you're on this journey of making yourself a new path. here are some suggestions:

"i'm new/rusty at this, so please let me know what you think!" - informs potential readers/viewers/etc you are learning and gives them an opportunity to HELP you learn. this is a positive interaction! this allows people to find a GOOD experience EVEN if they didn't enjoy the story much, because they can help, and people DO, MOSTLY, like to help.

"i want to improve at [dialogue]" or "i'd appreciate advice on [lighting]." - similar to the first example, but does 2 things: gives viewers specific instructions that can be really helpful for those that aren't sure how/what to critique (surprisingly common thing; the more specific you are about what you want advice on, the more likely you are to GET advice), AND allows you to, neutrally and non-disparagingly, ask for help in areas you don't feel confident about.

"leave a comment if you liked it!" or "let me know what you liked best!" - listen. i don't think 'fishing for compliments' is bad as long as you're not being manipulative about it. these examples are very clear in what they're asking for, which is compliments, positive reviews, etc. and that's okay!!! first of all, lots of people LOVE praising works they like, i promise, and asking them to DOES make them feel like they have "permission" to (i know that sounds silly but i also know if you have anxiety about creating, you have anxiety about commenting, i see you, i was you). secondly, i have gotten the MOST encouraging, confidence-boosting comments this way, especially with the latter example. there is NOTHING more immediately anxiety-curing than a comment that says "i liked [scene/dialogue/character/etc] specifically." it's AMAZING. (also, if you're looking for advice on commenting, this is a GREAT thing to do. imo, this and "speculating/interpreting the work" are the two coolest comments i get they make me feel AWESOME.)

remind yourself, as many times as you have to, CONSTANTLY if you have to: likes/kudos mean someone enjoyed your work enough to press a button. views mean someone liked your work enough to click through for more. these are POSITIVE interactions, they are not "less positive" than comments or reblogs/reshares. i know those last two things are more obviously gratifying, and depending on if you NEED your work to spread (for exposure/commision prospects/etc), very good, awesome ways to support you, and i don't mean to say you shouldn't WANT comments and reblogs/reshares. but for me, it's helped me a lot to recognize that any bit of effort whatsoever means someone LIKED my work. it's also helped me to think of all the times i've shared a link to an artwork in a discord or something, and know that there is an entire, untangible metric i can't and will never see that, sure, i can choose to believe doesn't exist or isn't very high, but i can ALSO choose to believe it happens quite a lot, and the latter makes me FEEL better about my work and makes me want to create MORE, so i think that's the more productive mindset personally. it doesn't matter what the truth is, you know? we'll never know it and it doesn't harm us to never know it. but it DOES harm us to assume no one quietly, unseen by us, likes our work, and it DOES ENCOURAGE US to assume lots of people do.

here's the thing: anxiety disorders fuck you up by making you believe extremely negative, scary, depressing things. the disorder gets worse the more you allow it to make you believe these things, and the only way out, as stupid and hard and at times impossible as it feels, is to say, "no, i don't like that interpretation, i'm going to replace it with a positive one." anxiety is making paths all throughout your brain, and you have to just, make paths too. anxiety needs YOU to make paths, but YOU don't need anxiety to make paths. your paths WILL be better, safer, easier and happier. you just—and i know that is the biggest "just" ever—have to make them.

but i believe in you. i don't need to know you or your circumstances to believe in you. i believe in the sheer amount of control you have over how you face the world. and it's so much more than anxiety would lead you to believe.

i looooove seeing artists & writers proud of their work!!!!! i looooove captions & authors notes that say things like “i’m quite happy with this” “i love how this turned out” “i had so much fun making this”!!!!!! i loooooove when the act of creation is joyful & we take pride in what we make!!!!!!!!!!

[felassan]

David Gaider on Shale, under a cut for length:

"Oops! I realized I'd moved on from DAO but missed one of the companions I'd written. Which checks out, honestly, because I almost didn't write Shale and, even after I'd written her, she almost didn't happen anyhow. Then she did. Prepare yourself for... PIGEON QUEST. 🦤 So... I'm wracking my brain, but I don't recall how Shale began. I have this vague memory of us wanting a "weird" party member who didn't conform to the normal classes (this was back when Dog didn't need to be in the party), and I think my mind drifted to an old indie comic character named Concrete."

"Now, your reaction to that is probably "who?" That's OK. When I explain that HK-47 in KotOR was inspired by an old Canadian TV show called the Littlest Hobo I get the same perplexed response. 😅 In short: Concrete was just a regular dude. Who happened to also be a walking hulk of rock. Cue hi-jinx. The problem here is I don't remember whether the Concrete thing was part of the original inspiration or something I thought of at the point when I started writing the character. Because I didn't, at first. That was later. Shale was initially taken on by Jay Turner, then one of our junior writers. Jay had an idea to make Shale more of a robot, an emotionless automoton killer... think HK-47, but without the layer of sarcasm. I was leery, and told Jay he'd have to be very careful. "Emotionless" can very quickly turn into "boring", after all, unless you're VERY careful. But Jay was determined. Sigh. This was a fail on my part, as his lead. There's been a couple of times in my career when I've let a junior convince me with their enthusiasm to take on something my experience said they shouldn't. And then watch their confidence crumble despite every effort I made to reassure them it was OK. This was one of those times. Jay, no idea if you'll read this but: I'm sorry. Even an experienced writer would have found that a daunting challenge. Tonia, my other Big Fail on a similar situation in DAI: I'm sorry. Both times, I should have known. You did your best, but I set you up to fail. 😔"

"Jay did his best, and this version of Shale was certainly interesting... but, when he was done, it was one of those peer reviews where every writer had that look of "I'm REALLY sorry to say this..." It felt flat. Jay tried numerous revisions, but the issue wasn't his ability - it was the concept. I only allowed my writers a certain number of tries before I take it away. This hearkens back to an earlier time at Bio when writers would hack away at something that wasn't working 6, 7, 8 times or more until finally their soul was dust. Mike Laidlaw can attest. Revision isn't always the answer. So I moved (a much relieved, I think) Jay onto something else, and the question arose: what do we do with Shale? Do we cut it? It was already very late. Then Shale dropped in my lap. I don't remember if it was me refusing to let it go or maybe Brent (Knowles, Creative Director) giving it to me. I suspect it was the latter, because I recall being a bit bitter about the whole thing. WHAT am I going to do with this character? At the time, they'd moved me out of the writers pit to instead be in a big office with the other leads. I had this corner desk by a window (yay) with an awful view (ugh) What was so awful about it? It looked out onto the neighbouring roof, where there was only an HVAC unit to see. In the winter, pigeons would gather around it. They pooped all over everything - there was this alcove around the access door, right? The pigeons roosted there and it was POOP FAUCET city."

"Not only that, the pigeons used the HVAC like some kind of sex den. Angry, ugly pigeon sex. The only respite was when a hawk would appear and the pigeons scattered. Then I'd get maybe a day when there was a single pigeon corpse, like an exploded ball of down, to act as a scarecrow. Good days, those. What does any of this have to do with Shale? Well, there's me, staring out the window trying desperately to think what I'm going to do. But I CAN'T stare out the window because, gross. But what else am I going to stare at while I think? It was making me furious. I hated those pigeons SO SO MUCH. And then it hit me: Shale is basically an animated statue, right? Something that pigeons are rather notorious for also gathering on? And so I wrote. I wrote like the angry, angry wind. I had zero time to do this so it was basically me vomiting all my annoyance at everything into a single character. Not that it helped much. There was a battle going on over Shale - first, as I recall, it was the art team. They were going to make every doorway in the game EXTRA HUGE because they were worried that Shale was too large and might clip. So, yes, let's alter the whole world to fix that. Good idea. 🙃 Eventually, they compromised by making Shale smaller. Sten-sized. Or Brent went Akira mode, but I don't really know. This was a battle happening above my level. Yet Shale got cut anyhow. There wasn't time to do her abilities and we were short on cinematics time. There was never enough time on DAO."

""Oh well," I thought. "That's that." I did what I could, but cut content is almost never resurrected. The idea was floated of making Shale into a DLC but I scoffed. Yeah, right! But... it happened. That's why the "almost" is there. Enough of the team liked Shale they made it happen this one time. This meant I could finish up the writing once we'd more or less wrapped DAO, and the rest of the team (cinematics, in particular, who were pressed the hardest for time) could move onto the Shale DLC once they were ready. It was supposed to come out well after release, but you know. Shenanigans. This particular shenanigan was EA deciding to sit on the finished DAO a few months in order to delay the release. Why? Again, not my level. To get closer to Christmas, maybe, or maybe for sim ship. It did mean Shale ended up being ready for release day. Unexpected confluence of events, honestly. Cue some fans getting upset that "cut content" was sold to them separately, which... fair, I guess? The alternative would have been that Shale was simply cut, period, and it just worked out this way but... yes, fair. This was back when DLC was the main beef of hardcore gamers. Oh, the good old days. Overall? I have a soft spot for Shale. She has no soft spot for anyone, being... you know... made of rock. It's why I put her in Asunder, and why she was also going to be in the - apparently now notorious for its Fenris murder - cancelled fourth DA novel. Also, if you're a pigeon fan: not sorry. 😇"

[source thread]

[ir-abelas-vhenan]

Losing My Mind Over Veilguard 6/?? Aka the Dread Wolf Double Bind

These posts are getting up here in number (yes ma'am that is 1 2 3 4 5 instances of me not being able to get my shit together and coming back again for more)

and quite frankly there's nothing I can do about it until the "we've been treated and tormented by this game" demon has been exorcised from my body, so here we go again.

Today I give to you:

(Modeled after Inquisition Solas and his sad, bald-ass basset hound mage bum glory becuase I think it's important that newcomers know exactly who his fans fell in love with/who inspired his enemies to conduct speed-runs to punch him. Yassified Solas ran only because this mangled membranous man crawled first)

Part of what's making me lose my mind here, I've discovered, is a strange sort of survivor's guilt where everything I really like or really hate about Veilguard can be traced back to Solas and I don't know how to deal with it because we've never had such a divide before between one character getting ALL the content and everyone else from their game being left in the absolute dust.

Disclaimer: Yeah, no one from Origins has had more screen time across games than Morrigan at this point, and therefore no one has gotten more robbed of the substance of their character, but even the damage done to her wasn't the kind that warped an entire game. No, the devs saved that all for the Dread Wolf in the Room.

Even putting it down on paper and comparing the two in-game versions of him, it took me a second to work through why I'm so conflicted, but I think I've finally settled on a few key points.

Concern #1: Solas Haters Were Robbed.

Part of the allure of Solas is that if you want to punch that man in the face, you're gonna get the chance to punch him in the face. Is that my personal preference? No. But in a game where your companions are built to make you think instead of letting you turn your brain off, you're bound to have personalities that clash against yours. To have such a non-descript-looking iambic-pentameter-talking apostate be able to inspire strong emotions across the whole spectrum of players was part of his appeal. Now, as far as I understand it, you have four options at the end of Veilguard.

1. Solas lives and he might actually not hate himself some day.

2. Solas lives and he's absolutely going to write a diary entry a night about why he hates himself.

3. Solas lives and he's going to write a diary entry a night about why he hates YOU.

4. Solas lives and you better hope he never again figures out how to live in your general vicinity

Do you see my concern here? I, shamelessly, can admit that I would do unspeakable fictional things to get that man his happy ending (within reason...mostly...), but I feel like the game took the opportunity away from the players who threw that knife in their map at the end of Trespasser and vowed to take a bitch down for stealing their best armor and waxing poetic about the Grey Wardens while seemingly sitting on his ass and having no inclination to stop the blight (help). This, then, leads me into my second issue.

Concern #2: The Game Refuses to Give Solas room outside of its own agenda

In the near-decade it took for Solas to slip back into his trickster god persona, he seems to have forgotten why he began his quest to tear down the veil in the first place. I like that Rook gets to experience the version of our favorite hard boiled egg that near-singlehandedly tore down several empires by being an absolute terror to those with bigger egos. I like that new players are going to hear Solas tell them that they've earned his respect and actually believe it until they inevitably get their first taste of ancient elven betrayal. What I don't like? When a nuanced yearning for a world in which three majorly mistreated groups (spirits, elves, mages) would be free from many of the constraints that enabled their oppression suddenly becomes "I am doing this because if I don't I have betrayed my friend. Which friend you ask? Oh, the one that was on board with my plan until it no longer suited the story."

The combo of few characters from previous games and a sanitized near-blank slate for the setting of this game was deadly to one of its best-written characters. Because of it, Solas is forced to abandon his double-speak, the joy he takes in giving you scraps of an answer that, by the time you get it, you will already have missed the chance to piece it together from separate clues that he ALSO dropped. He's not going to get to show you the loyal followers the epilogue of Inquisition made clear that he has, because the game wants to usher you into the new future of the series. You're not going to get to ask him (or any NPCs for that matter) a bunch of questions so that you can form your own opinion of him, because all that matters is that he isn't Elgar'nan or Ghilan'nain so let's move along, shall we?

Because the game needs exposition and a foil to its two other baddies, and needs it FAST, the mythic Dread Wolf becomes a plot device designed to get you where you need to go when you need to be there. It doesn't work purely for that reason alone, at least in my opinion, but it gets so much worse when a game that promises you that it's going to work for players new and old relies on someone experienced players want a personal reckoning with to guide every Rook through the game only to realize that those questions of morality regarding whether the veil is torturous for a subjugated few or the only thing preserving most of life as we know it are going to have to remain questions.

You don't get a choice of whether Solas is in your party or not, and you can't advance in the game without talking to him. You don't get to choose not to impress him. You don't get to choose whether you're going to work with him in the final battle, and as previously mentioned, your only real choice in how his story ends is one of four options in which he lives every time in varying states of self-loathing. You're still going to love him or hate him, but just how strongly you're able to show those feelings towards him is severely curtailed. And that's an absolute shame for a character that commanded such fierce attention.

And that's where, ultimately, I find myself with a weird amount of survivor's guilt.

When I finished my Veilguard playthrough, I had barely a moment to fully contemplate the amount of whiplash and disappointment I felt going from a Solas that I had spent almost a decade knowing to a One Dimensional Fen'Harel who threw out his core values and goals like they were chilling in a cup of tea before. Why? Because I very quickly felt guilty. And then I got angry for feeling guilty!

The game's failure to adequately represent its other characters and lore has created a world in which I don't like the Solas we've been given, but I can't live without him either. Who am I to complain that his most complex and compelling features are gone when other players are mourning the fact that the last they may ever hear of their favorite character is reduced to a scrap in the codex? How can I be frustrated at how the Lavellan reunion scene goes down when other players would kill for the chance to have their Inquisitor seemingly give any sort of shit about being in the game aside from being told it was mandatory to earn participation points? How can I lament the fact that his storyline seems to share all the wrong lessons to be learned from a toxic friendship rooted in a never-equalized power imbalance when someone else is watching Morrigan pull a complete 180 and wondering why the fuck they spent so much time researching whether or not her accepting her mother's choices as her own was what she truly wanted? At least Solas still loves Lavellan, even though we needed to ask Trick Weekes several follow up questions just to double check. At least Solas gets more in the epilogue than one empty "we remember the heroes that came before" platitude.

And to suddenly fear any appearances of past characters from a studio that used to make me stay up theorizing about how a character might grow and evolve and continue to impact the world I helped shape? It's depressing as hell, and it's why I was too scared to get attached to any of the new companions once I finally got past the writing and lack of complexity.

The people that hate Solas, deserved better.

The people that valued what he brought to their Inquisitor's small but strong group of friends deserved better.

The people that love Solas more than Sera loved pissing him off deserved better.

And new players, who had a chance to engage with one of the most powerful storylines in the game and instead got a heaping dose of Deus Ex Machina Lite, deserved better.

If taking a character that had the potential and power needed to shape an entire continent and banishing him one of four different ways to Fade jail so that the book could quickly be closed on a years-long legacy is what the studio is calling a return to their roots, I'll stick with the efforts of fans to create art and theories that aren't afraid to double down into what actually keeps people coming back for more.

[ghouljams]

how does one become free of insecurity? i’m already doing therapy but i feel i’ve only moved away from hating myself so much i want to d*e into just thinking everyone’s better than me

It's a long journey, but well worth it.

I don't think anyone is ever truly free of insecurity, but I think there's also a lot that is unpacked simply through the language we use to describe ourselves and the jokes we allow other people to make at our expense.

Therapy is great at helping you deal with the big feelings, but sometimes little things get caught in your head and it's hard to shake them. Here are some things that I do to keep myself feeling good, and also some things that I'm working on:

No suicide jokes. I make it a point never to joke about "oh I'll just kill myself" or anything like that because ultimately it just makes me feel worse and nobody finds it funny. It's also a good way to change your thinking and direct your solution brain away from "I'll just end things when shit gets hard." This one is a constant battle.

I compliment myself whenever I have the chance. I take every compliment someone gives me. I pretend to be vapid and self-absorbed. I make kissy faces at myself in the mirror. I tell other people how pretty I am, and I don't fucking care if they think I'm a stupid bimbo because I'm trying to love myself and that's more important.

Being kinder to my younger self. This one feels weird but I found myself being mean to little Ghoul when I was really sad. It feels easy to take out your anger on a kid that didn't know any better, and it doesn't guilt you because that's you that you're hating. But look. You were just a kid. You weren't stupid or ugly or unlovable or evil, you were a kid. I just caught myself calling my teenage self ugly the other day on my way to visit my mom and I had to stop and go "why am I saying this? I was just a kid." And it made me cry a li'l bit ngl, but if felt... idk it felt good in a way.

Don't let fucking anyone tell you, you're not worth it. Does your friend make jokes about how dumb you are? Or how you're so cringey? Or so embarrassing or bad at something or forgetful or WHATEVER? Yeah, fuck that noise. Tell them to stop doing that. Tell them it hurts your feelings and if they still don't stop they aren't your friend, they're your bully. I fucking hate bullies. Don't let anyone talk down to you, I don't care if it was a joke at first, it's not funny anymore. Fuck them.

This is something I'm working on, but when you start fixing one insecurity another will probably pop up. I've been working for a long time on liking how I look, and it's gone really well. But now I'm insecure about my intelligence. So I have to stop myself from calling myself stupid or not answering questions. I just fucking rocked my work trivia party, and Mr. Ghoul thinks I'm smart, so I just gotta keep track of my wins. Sometimes you realize that making yourself secure in one thing makes you insecure about another, but that's ok! There's a learning curve to all of this.

Everyone thinks everyone else is better than them. You don't have to be the best at everything, you don't even have to be the best at one thing! What's important is that you're doing your best. People notice when you're working hard, even if you're not churning out the best product because it means you care about it. Which brings me to

Done is better than perfect. Sure it would be great if you were God's most specialist soldier, but think about how much work that would be! Ok so you're not the world's best knitter, but the scarf you made your friend is their favorite scarf anyway because you made it. So you're not a world class writer, but you had a story in your head and you wrote it down. That's better than it never being written at all. Also just because you think it's bad doesn't mean other people won't think it's a masterpiece. Hell, half of the fics I wrote when I first started this blog I could write better now but that doesn't make them bad, it just means I've gotten better.

We as humans are constantly improving and evolving. Don't let who you are no stop you from striving towards who you'll be in the future. Taking one step down the path towards loving yourself is better than giving up and hating yourself forever. It's slow going, but man I've been doing this shit for a decade and I'm so much happier than I was at 18.

You might think that the more you improve the harder and faller you'll fall back to the bottom, but the lows don't get that low again. You're doing great. I'm proud of you.

[logogreffe]

In November of last year I decided that I was going to read a book a week. This was a weird challenge because I had been incapable of reading more than a page without my mind being distracted. I decided that this had to end. We're almost in December and I've read 55 books so far. So I wanted to tell you guys how I did it.

First, a few rules I've made up : - If I read two books during one week, I don't have to read and/or finish anything the following week. - This is not a race ! I'm basically aiming for 4 books a month more than 1 book a week. I've finished reading 3 books in June but finished reading 5 in July to "compensate". Some advices on how to get back into reading :

1. READ IN YOUR MOTHER LANGUAGE : Out of the 55 books I've read only 10 were in English, the rest were in French (my mother language). Listen, I know you're fluent in this and that but hear me out : I don't care. Think of your poor brain, with the attention span of a wooden spoon. Don't make it harder on yourself and read a book in your damn mother language !

2. LENGTH OF THE BOOKS You use to read 500-page books in a few days as a child / teenager ? Me too, but again, you wouldn't join a marathon right now just because you did one 10 years ago, you have to start slowly. So avoid dense books when you start (aim between 10 and 300 pages, not above for now).

3. UNTOUCHED PILE OF BOOKS For the love of the universe, don't even look at that pile of books next to your bed or in your living room. It doesn't exist, okay ? You could not read them before, you will not suddenly be able to read them now. You're not ready for this.

4. LIBRARY But If I can't look at the pile of untouched books in my home, what do I do ? You go to your local library (hopefully you have access to it) and what you're going to do is simple : you're not going to meticulously pick one book, no no you're going to walk around and take 4-5 books with you. Why ? Because this isn't a punishment, you have to enjoy your reading experience. Which brings me to my next point...

5. LETTING GO Something that I found hard at first and that I still struggle with : if a book doesn't interest you YOU CLOSE IT AND YOU TAKE ANOTHER ONE. Same thing if you realize the content is just too much for you, YOU CLOSE THE BOOK AND YOU TAKE ANOTHER ONE. Personally, I really wanted to read "Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara. I couldn't do it, it was too much. I almost dreaded opening the book, so I put it aside. One day I'll read it, or maybe not, and that's okay. No one is going to punish you for not finishing a book, nobody cares (this is not highschool). That's why I take 5 books each time I go to the library. Sometimes I'm lucky, and every book is great, sometimes only one of them is okay. You've read 100 pages already and don't feel like continuing ? No one cares, close the book !!! Once I've started doing that I felt so much better, no more pressure to quickly finish a book I didn't actually enjoy.

6. NONFICTION Don't read nonfiction at first. Some of you might have attention span issues, some might have anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping making it all impossible to stay focus on a book : don't make it harder on yourself by reading nonfiction, it has to be a pleasurable experience. Reading about water pollution isn't going to put you in the mood to read (or to sleep better for that matter (Trust me, I've tried it)). So please fiction only : fantasy, adventures, dragons, romance, something light !

7. STUPID BOOKS Something light ? Well, the first books I've read were almost exclusively out of the teenagers/young adults section. Listen, I know some of you are not teenagers or (according to google) not even the target audience for the "young adult section" BUT those books are easy to read and some of them are quite enjoyable even for an "older" person. For example, the third book I've read was "L'année de Grace" (The Grace Year) by Kim Liggett and I enjoyed it a lot. Some of the books I've read were not winning literature prize kind of books and some were meant for teenagers and you know what ? I don't care, some were so bad that they made me laugh out loud, sending screenshots of awful dialogues to my friends. I've enjoyed reading them and that's all that matters ! I've read a book called "A connecticut Fashonista in King Arthur's court" by Marianna Mancusi , and let me tell you, it was stupid, so stupid that I couldn't wait to get home to see what else would happen. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I still really loved reading it.

8. THEATER PLAY -> Short / funny / well written, go for it. I've read Corneille, Edmond Rostand, Marivaux, Cocteau. You could finish some of them in an hour !

9. TIME Now, one thing I have to concede is that reading takes time and I'm not a student AND I have a non brain-frying stable job, so I do have some time on my hands. Some of you might not have said time, BUT some of you also spend a lot of time on your phones. I've found myself gravitating toward a book more than my phone once I found good books to read. I used to watch tv-shows and youtube videos a lot, but I've slowed down since I started reading more (it's even starting to become a problem because I'm not hearing my target languages as much as I used to). 10. CONCLUSION SO FAR I still struggle to read non-fiction for more than 5 minutes, and unfortunately the majority of the untouched books in my living room are not cute adventure stories...However, while on holiday, I've read an 800-page novel in 3 days like I used to do while I was a teenager, and it made me feel really happy. 11. FINAL WORDS OF ADVICE : Reading is great BUT some of you are too stressed/anxious/in the middle of your studies, so don't even think of starting this kind of challenge. Relax, go to bed, go walk in the sun, have fun with your friends, take care of yourself. I used to be so angry at myself for not being able to read, but now I realize that I was in a very stressful moment in my life and I think my brain just wanted me to relax. Forcing myself to read 10-25 pages a day was only hurting me in the end. Only when my situation got much better did I even think of starting this challenge. While I don't think I said anything that you guys have heard before, I hope it can still be of some help to some of you !

[ashleys-doodle-corner]

ACT 2 "You're... me?" "That's right, stardust!"

You know I've been drawing Loop as their Siffrin form so much that it's got me thinking. I've read and seen so many fics and artworks of Loop eventually getting back to looking like their old self, but I don't think I've seen any so far of Loop already being a mirror copy of Siffrin. So uh, yoink?

ISAT AU where the game plays out the same way (plot-wise at least) but Loop looks like Siffrin the whole time and while Siffrin is extremely perplexed that there's another him, he's still gotta accept their help because how else are they supposed to escape the loops? Good ol' Loop is here to help, helpful friendly Loop!

Siffrin is going through it still but Differently.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[talkorsomething]

want to cut my hair again like you wouldn't believe. What are the possible consequences of going bald

[youremyonlyhope]

why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up

[fingertipsmp3]

Ughhhhhhh I hate writing and I hate not writing and I hate myself

[hekateinhell]

I know I talk about this line a lot (far too much) from Lestat on Armand in TVL as a twenty-one year old baby vampire before he leaves Paris:

I loved him. I knew it, as incomprehensible to me as he was.

And at least once a day I remember that Anne intended for Armand to be the villain in IWTV, TVL, and QotD, before she changed her perspective on him when writing him with Daniel.

But it adds another layer to the way I read Lestat and Armand's complicated dynamic in TVL.

Why emphasize so much that her protagonist has loved the villain, and that the villain has in turn desired him, for almost two hundred years?

When Anne started thinking through QotD, did she originally intend to have Lestat destroy him when the Akasha plot failed? (Armand was supposed to tie into the Akasha thing).

Was all of that to make it hurt for Lestat that much more if she had followed the traditional hero/villain arc?

I HAVE QUESTIONS.

[turtlemagnum]

one of my favorite parts of strategy games like chess and advance wars is that feeling when you haven't quite won yet but the enemy has no real options so it feels like you're just sloowly wrapping around them like a snake. when all your enemy has is their king and you've managed to turn 3 of your pawns into queens, and all you've gotta do is get in juust the right position, and in the meantime all they can do is squirm. god, that's such a wonderful feeling. nothing quite like it

[nexus-nebulae]

the aftermath of having 2 terabytes of storage

[sysig]

I finally set my last notebook to rest, so it’s time for a new one (Patreon)

[elytrafemme]

i remember when klavier split off and how, like, happy we all were. because before him it was just me, dahlia, and nightshade all fighting with each other. like not just mental fighting like physically fighting with each other, my first interaction with nightshade was on a discord call where i had to mute because we were co-hosting and throwing shit and threatening each other. and then klavier comes and he’s an instant ray of sunshine and at the very least, me and dahlia realize that we had a missing piece. and the three of us became so much closer, dahlia and klavier were a little queer for each other and klavier made all these friends and dahlia would front to keep me from having breakdowns, or front to buy clothes, or front to talk to my therapist about us. and klavier would come out and listen to his like 7 hour long playlist. and we were happy because i was like, well, they’re not gonna go. they can’t do that. 

and now they’re gone. dahlia last fronted for a life or death situation and then she left and i thought that would mean she’d be around more but, no, that was it. klavier always seems sad or upset with me whenever he fronts. rory and nightshade and cynthia and daisy and all the others i never knew the names of have never come back. the first alter, orchid, she’s never fronted either. not since it was too late. she might have fused with me but it’s hard to say because i haven’t been the same person for longer than two months in a very, very long time. 

like is that not all fucking crazy to you? it’s crazy to me. it’s crazy to think that now people are going to say they were never real at all and it’s like no you don’t get it. i hear different languages i don’t speak in my head. i get flashbacks to trauma that isn’t my own. i have headaches that feel like my brain is splitting open that have lasted 5 hours because of non stop switches. 

it’s not that they were never here. it’s the opposite. 

[disdaidal]

The way I'm still not finished with writing the first two ideas I had in mind for this ship, I'm suddenly getting two more. 🙈🙊 Could somebody please arrange it so that I'd have all the time in the world to write it all? Because 24hrs a day is simply not enough.