#i just don't necessarily feel the need to do anything about it. it's just a feeling. or a way of life idk

[dao-the-starlight]

Alright, it's time....

Say hello to my main OLNF MC!!!!!

This is my baby Marceline Jeandel!!! σ(≧ε≦σ) ♡

I want to make a much more formal post about them in the future where I go more in depth into who they are but that'll wait until later because I want to talk about Marceline and I want to talk about them NOW!! So this'll just be a quick intro (under the read more)

So! At 10 years old little Marceline Jeandel moved to Golden Grove all the way from their birthplace, France! The move was a pretty daunting event, especially since they were travelling to a completely different continent, to Marceline it was as if they went to a different dimension entirely! But, Marceline had their Maman, their most loved and trusted figure in their life, if she was there then they'd be able to do anything

Marceline (in this step) is a young transgender boy with He/Him pronouns, their journey with their gender is one filled with quite a few twists, turns, and feelings that I won't delve into in full here, all you really need to know now is that they eventually figure out that they are genderqueer and primarily use they/them pronouns!

For the most part, Marceline is nonverbal in step one (in steps two, three, and four they're not necessarily nonverbal but they still talk very rarely). The reason for this is that they have a fairly severe form of Apraxia of Speech, a neurological disorder that essentially makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for the brain to send signals to the parts of the body that control speech, this renders Marceline unable to form coherent sentences and makes it so they can only really make random vocalizations and maaaybe say a word or two on good days. They are in speech therapy for this and are slowly but steadily getting better at forming proper speech but for now, they only really communicate through various vocalizations when it's needed. I will mention here as well that Marceline is also Autistic! I've done extremely thorough research into both of these conditions to make sure I'm representing both in a respectful way, I'm aware of the stereotypes a nonverbal autistic character can easily fall into and whenever I do anything Marceline related I always make sure I'm not running them right into any possible stereotypes

Lastly! Their relationship with the leads!

When it comes to romance, Marceline is paired with the one and only Qiu Lin, it was a crush at first sight for them, Marceline just couldn't resist the typical Qiu charm! For step one Marceline and Qiu are naturally very close but there is just a tad bit of a distance between the two simply due to the fact that because of their crush, Marceline holds Qiu on an extremely high pedestal and greatly admires them which ends up leading to Marceline never acting like they're on the same level as Qiu and letting them guide everything (basically, Marceline is accidentally feeding into Qiu's self-sacrificing behaviour, but don't worry! They grow out of it by step two I promise!!) Nevertheless, while the two go through many hardships they do end up on the other side as forever lovers <3

As for one Tamarack Baumann, she and Marceline are inseparable lemme tell you- From day one those two became the best of best friends and get along with each other better than anyone else. Their playful and carefree personalities and energy melded together perfectly which led to them almost immediately forming an unbreakable bond with one another that lasts all the way into adulthood. Whatever Tamarack needs Marceline will almost always be there, whether she needs a playmate, support, personal cheerleader, partner in crime, and whatever else Marceline will always be there. The only time there's ever any tension between the dynamic duo is if Tamarack's bossiness gets the better of her and annoys Marceline, but the two are always quick to apologize and make amends (and this pretty much stops being a problem entirely by step two as they both for the most part grow out of these habits)

And I believe that's all the main stuff you need to know about Marceline! Now I can actually talk about them more!! Thank you so much for taking a look at my MC and have a wonderful day!

P.S. Dividers by @cafekitsune

[gffa]

Hey, I saw an interesting discussion about the relationship between Leia, her fathers and Obi-wan in reference to her son(s). I never read some of the older books so I was surprised that she has a son called Anakin. The discussion is about the fact that she asked Obi-wan if he is her father and that she later gave her son his name. I have an opinion about this but it would be interesting to hear yours! You know so much about the books, interviews etc.

Hi! I was never too deep into Legends, so I knew about Anakin Solo, but I barely read anything with him (I barely read any Legends books, I tried more than once, but they just didn't take until I got infected with prequels brain, no shade, just personal preference). So, my area of expertise (such as it is, I mean, this is the pew-pew franchise lmao) is more with Lucas continuity (the first six movies + first six seasons of TCW) and Disney continuity and, to be honest, I've never been that wild about the idea of Leia naming her son 'Ben'. I think it works better after the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, where it gives her more of a connection to him, and in theory there's something interesting to play with on the idea of naming him 'Ben' after the person that brought them all together (I forget if that was from an author interview or in an actual book now), but it never just quite coalesces for me. I do like that it works better in that it's not just that Ben rescued her, but that he settled a huge question in her, that even as a little girl she ached to know more about her birth parents, she was turned around about how she wanted to move forward as a princess of Alderaan and what to do with her path in life--and she decided those things for herself, but he helped guide her along that path. I really do like that it helps smooth out why Leia would name her son after him! I just don't feel like it's quite there yet. What I would actually love to see is a story somewhere (in a post-ROTJ novel or comic or something) where Obi-Wan appears to Leia as a Force Ghost and talks with her occasionally, as he does with Luke. To tell her more about her parents (all of them), to provide someone to listen when she needs a calm voice in her life. Not necessarily that he's there constantly, just once in awhile to have a conversation with her, to show he still cares about her and watches over her, I think that would go a long way to making me believe she would name her son after him. I end up kind of in the middle re: Leia naming her son after him. I see potential, I can make it work, but it's also something I feel like was just a remix of Legends (Ben Solo instead of Ben Skywalker) rather than because it felt organically connected. But I can be convinced in multiple directions with a little nudge here or there!

[youcouldmakealife]

Stuff that Helps me Write: Pacing (no, not that kind), and burnout avoidance

So this was supposed to be about something entirely different., but every time I started making a point, I got distracted by a second, bonus idea (ways to trick your brain when it's not cooperating with you! things I've tried (I will try everything) and what worked and didn't! what to do with writer's block!) and then start writing about that, and I've got half a dozen unrelated paragraphs going in my drafts, so I think I'm just going to make this a mini-series of 'stuff that helps me write and may also help you (or maybe they won't, I don't know, this shit's all subjective)'.

If there's anything in particular you'd like to hear about, or something about my process you're curious about, absolutely feel free to reply or shoot me an ask and I'll do my best to address them as I go.

But yeah, pacing. And more specifically, not burning out. I figured it was important I hit this one first, because I think it's the most important one, or at least, the one that makes the biggest difference.

With the caveat that I am someone who has repeatedly driven myself into burnout, I'm also someone who now knows why that is, and have been teaching myself how to, you know, not do that.

So. Here's how I, you know, don't do that.

Will preface this by again mentioning that most writing advice (and advice in general) never seemed to work for me, and I mostly thought I was just Bad at Doing Things, until I learned my brain's literally wired differently, and that I'd been trying to apply processes that didn't actually work for said wiring.

So instead, I figured out what worked for me. And what works for me isn't necessarily what will work for you, or even what will work for me a month or five years down the line, but it's going okay right now.

I'll straight up say that, contrary to all the Writing Advice, I don't write every day, and I don't think it's necessary, or even necessarily a good idea -- I have at times, but I no longer do, because if I write for more than six days straight I find the proverbial well dries up and I write less than I do had I just taken a break when I needed it.

Cognitive energy and the sort of ephemeral ~inspiration (work that's been done on a subconscious level) are fundamentally no different than physical energy: if you don't replenish it, you will run out. If you overdo it, you will run out. If you consistently overdo it without replenishing it, you will burn out.

Taking a page from hockey players here: if you did an intense workout right before a game they'd ask what the fuck was the matter with you. You need a nap and a meal and to get some stretching and light work in. Running at 100% all the time will burn you out in every single field, including this one.

That's not me saying not to run at 100% at all. I generally try to pace myself now, but if I'm really in it, and the words are coming easily, I don't stop until they stop -- I wrote just shy of 4k of later scenes for SAIT last week (my 2024 record!), all in one sititng, by hand, when I was supposed to be sleeping, because that's when the inspiration came. I didn't fall asleep until past 6am that night, and my hand is still mad at me.

But you know how much writing I got done the follow day? (None, I was busy transcribing 4k of handwriting). The rest of this week? (Not much more than that). Those bursts of energy are awesome, and honestly can make you feel like a writing god, but the well's the well, and I've learned my personal well is about 5000 words a week deep.

Before my most recent scrape with autistic burnout, which I'm still sort of climbing my way out of, that well was closer to 7500 words. But honestly, it probably wasn't; I was likely just siphoning words from future wells and then it all caught up with me when I was looking at a horizon of dry-ass wells ahead of me. (I'll admit this isn't a perfect metaphor.)

But seriously, my advice for basically everything, not just writing (and something I wish I'd learned before I hit my 30s), is 'figure out what pace you can work at sustainably'.

Please note that 'sustainably' is not 'without literally dying'. Because my literal ass thought when people said 'give it 100%' they meant, you know, 'give it 100%' (I know! absurd of me), rather than 'give the best effort you can give in this moment considering your current resources'. So I gave it my all (also interpreted that one wrong I guess?). And then I wondered why I kept hitting a wall all the time. And why, eventually, I stopped being able to climb that wall entirely.

I don't think I'm ever going to reach that 7500 word threshold again. There will be weeks I'm so inspired I write that much, but the next week I probably won't manage more than 2500. Or maybe I'll have two 7500 weeks in a row, but I'll need to take a whole week off after that, or spend several weeks working at a lower tempo while I let the well replenish itself.

I've been tracking some metrics quite closely as I sort of tweak my life into its new shape (said shape being 'do the best you can given your resources') , and during my most productive month of this year I wrote 3x as much as the worst (writing wise, I was finalising publication at the time), my current weekly average is about 4800 words. Sometimes it's a bit higher or lower, sometimes much higher or lower, but that's what I can sustainably do right now.

Frankly, I'm a little cranky about this: I know I can do more, because I did do more. But my priority now is not to send myself straight back into burnout again, so when I sprint, it's just that, rather than my previous 'trying to run a marathon at the pace of a sprinter'. I'm writing less than I used to, but it's honestly not that much less: because the pace is sustainable rather than boom and bust, I don't run myself ragged enough to desperately need a break.

I'm aware this advice only works if you have control over your own time, and a schedule that doesn't force you to focus on writing say, one day a week, or around other obligations, but the only real workaround for burnout is consistency, and that consistency cannot be your maximum.

Or, it can, but I guarantee you that will bite you in the ass at some point, and the pain of not getting enough done is nothing compared to the pain of not being able to get anything done because your nervous system threw up its hands and decided if you weren't going to listen to their clues (feelings, symptoms) or their warnings (Feelings, Symptoms) that you were overdoing it, they were going to shut your ass down until you listened.

0/10 do not recommend.

Next week: how to trick your brain into doing shit that it doesn't feel like doing, even though it's onto all your tricks by now. Or at least, how I trick mine.

[adamantineheart]

this poll (i don't want to reply to it because i don't want to discuss it with randos) is making me feel so hmmmmm

over the years i've really seen that descriptions of demisexuality really fit with my experiences. intimacy with strangers just doesn't mesh with me, but once i know someone and have an emotional connection, yes.

but if you ask me about my tastes in FICTIONAL romance i do not care. i love to read smut i do not careeeeee if the characters know each other or if they've been married for 50 years. granted, instant love and attraction in romances can be really hard for me to get into for original work but fanfic is a bit different there... but i think at that point it's my own interest in the characters and not necessarily anything to do with my sexuality. like i don't find it unbelievable (i believe ppl really can have instant attraction! why would they be lying!) it just can be dull to read in the same way i wouldn't necessarily care if the two characters were shot in the first chapter either.

all this to say... ace friendly is such a weird way to imply no smut in a fictional context. like "ace friendly" is the ability to say you're not interested in hookups on a dating app. it's not about... fiction. ratings and tags on AO3 and spice "ratings" on places like romance.io tell me everything i need to know about the sexual content in a story. and that's something anyone can be interested in. it also works as a way to find things so people who don't want smut and people who want smut are both benefiting.

[shift-shaping]

I think this is a really important part of the article from yesterday that people are overlooking. I absolutely understand the frustration people feel about the lack of choices brought over from Inquisition, I'm also frustrated. However, they have said not just here but I believe during the dev Q and A a while back that some choices are consciously being saved for future games.

Rambling thoughts below cut, feel free to ignore

I get the sense that Veilguard is going to be a very focused game, and the focus is on Solas and the Veil.

Here is my suspicion.

I think that this game is going to set up Mythal to be a major force in the next game by decisively finishing the roles of Solas and the Inquisitor, and by tearing down or at least significantly altering the Veil. That game is when we'll see the Well of Sorrows and Kieran and the payoff for whoever we left in the Fade during Here Lies the Abyss.

Veilguard doesn't necessarily need to address any of those things if the writing is careful enough. Maybe we don't actually see Morrigan for very long, maybe the Well hasn't actually done anything yet, maybe we just don't get a chance to talk about who was left in the Fade.

This is not without precedent. DA2 carried very little over from DAO, and easily could have given us a much more stripped down list of choices than what we had. Did it matter if we sided with or against Zathrian in DA2? No. I don't think that one even got a one-liner. They easily could have asked us 3-5 questions about our choices in Origins and the game would have been functionally the same.

That all being said: what frustrates me personally is that while you can strip out many of these choices and have what is functionally the same game, the subtle continuity of your decisions from one game to the next has always been a big part of the appeal of the series for many fans.

For example, there's a minor quest early in DA2 that involves Renvil Harrowmont, the last member of House Harrowmont still alive if you chose Bhelen to lead Orzammar. This is a very small quest that, like most quests in DA2, kind of just results in you fighting more random bad boys in the streets.

But that's not the point, is it? The point of tiny cameos like this isn't the overall impact they have on the plot of any specific game, it's about the continuity they create for your world state. The little one-liners and brief cameos and bullshit quests actually do matter to fans because they reinforce that this is the same timeline they've been playing in, and give the impression that your choices are affecting people. Knowing that even these little things won't be present in Veilguard is frustrating and a bit sad.

[mushimatsu]

choromatsu handwriting post

compiled all of choromatsus handwriting that i could find bc i love him

i realize these were all made by different teams and have different sources (anime/games/webkuji/etc) but there are some similarities between them all and i think its cute. i'll try to make it easier for ppl that cannot read japanese too

(note: some of these may or may not be valid criticisms, im not a native japanese speaker but i got my bachelors in japanese. idk if this means anything to anyone im just pointing out things that im noticing and maybe it will be interesting to you. if you notice anything else interesting feel free to add)

commonalities i noticed:

sometimes will combine multiple character strokes into one (normal thing to do, i've seen some native speakers do this)

with a few exceptions (mt takao for some reason), generally neat handwriting. proper and easy to read. not too big, not too small, not over stylized, but not messy either. very choromatsu

letter in s1e24

very nice handwriting, legible and neat. this is closest to how i think i would picture his handwriting. i know that the staff across different ososan things probably don't care too deeply about keeping minute handwriting details consistent and that's why they're all gonna look different but i like this one best for him.

new years cards in s2e13

very cute, love the stupid drawing of himself. everything very nice and tidy. to me these characters look a much curlier and rounder than the ones in the letter.

for both the letter and the new years cards it looks like he was careful to properly write out all the strokes of the kanji, even for more complicated ones like 緊張 and 就職. we see in mt takao that his handwriting gets a LOT messier. i know the real reason is because it was probably different animators that did his handwriting, but i'm choosing to believe that in canon it's because both of these are more fancy/formal letters addressed to people, whereas the trip guide is just for him and his brothers and doesn't necessarily need to look nice.

also i adore his tendency to add little drawings to things, like this and the mt takao guide he's everything

trip guide from mt. takao s3e8. his handwriting here, for some reason, is exceptionally bad especially compared to everything else. he writes like a little kid and i love his shitty little drawings. he's so cute.

my teachers would always correct my kanji down to the tiniest strokes, if i wrote like this is class i would get scolded so bad. you can see him combining his strokes together for 記念撮影, this will continue for the other pictures too. cute detail imo

the 昼 in 昼食 is definitely written wrong, but the second kanji 食 might be a little nitpicky. technically that bottom part is three different strokes, not two crossed over each other

more of him combining the strokes together. i wouldn't necessarily say that's wrong, since i've seen people do that before; it's probably just a habit that happens over time. i do it in english too

HOWEVER, he did write the 日 radical in 撮影 wrong here. previously, i thought he was just combining strokes again so that it looked like three lines instead of two (note 3 and 4 are two parallel lines, he just didn't lift his pen up)

but when you look at this it's clear that he very much did write three lines this time. that's the wrong radical

anyway

another example of him writing a two stroke character with just one. again, this is fine, ive seen people write their characters like this. however it looks bad when he does it here

i love how he wrote "campfire" i love how for some reason he didn't keep the letter sizing consistent or straight. also his little campfire drawing

１９時

キャンプ

ファイヤー

also there's two ways to write そ, its just a matter of choice its not important but he writes it the second way. and he messed up a kanji again

these next ones are maybe less canon cause they're not from the show itself

Airport Matsu

very tidy, combines a couple strokes together. both 松 (matsu) characters look like he combines the last two strokes together instead of writing them as two separate ones

and he does a similar thing with the right half of 野 in Matsuno

nostalgic moments webkuji

this one he writes every stroke and doesn't combine them and that's probably because different people worked on these and the tiny details like this don't matter to anyone but me. or you could say that he wrote a little neater in high school and started simplifying things as he got older.

Rock School

he drew himself again lol

i think his handwriting looks very good here actually. idk how to describe it but i like when handwriting looks like this specific way in japanese. i've seen other people that have handwriting like this and it just looks so nice. like the characters seem to vary in size, but somehow it makes it a little easier to read imo?

like in the first bullet point (underlined in yellow), the す in 多すぎる is a little big, but like it looks nice. in the second bullet point (blue), the の in 世の中 is slightly smaller but it emphasizes the kanji on either side of it. the stroke on the side of the か characters are written a little longer than usual (red). like it just looks nice, everything is shaped really nice and whenever i see people that have this handwriting i always try to emulate it lol

Neetpro

this one is a bit messier than the others. the way he wrote チョロ just doesn't look as nice as the way he wrote it in airport matsu and nostalgic moments. the way the て is written is more curved compared to the others. also the 界 kanji (blue) is written in a way that looks weird to me, and kara from this same set also writes the kanji that way so i think the same person might have written all of them lol

also interesting is that he writes き differently in this one

i was told by one of my professors that you're supposed to write さ and き with the upper and lower parts disconnected when writing by hand. it's only in text that they're connected. but i've still seen some people write them in the connected way

in all the other examples, choromatsu doesn't write them connected like that, just this one.

sukiya app

my lovely boy and his nonsense words and lies. the handwriting here comes off as very cutesy to me, at least compared to the others. some of the ways he writes, especially any box-like shape, seems round in a way. he also connects the right half of 野 again.

overall writes very neatly, altho a lot of the kanji here seems like its very big on the top and smaller on the bottom, and a lot of the letters seem more rounded. all the other examples just feel like the writing is a bit more angular, with the exception of the new years cards.

extra: coloring book

the way he wrote his name here is messier than the other examples. i like that he added little commentary on his own coloring though ("looks good!" "the tail was black too i believe") maybe he colored this with a paintbrush????? the strokes look as if he was trying to write quickly with a brush as if it was a pen. so maybe that's why its a little messier

anyway thanks for reading. i love choromatsu

[wilcze-kudly]

I read about your thoughts regarding Avatar Bolin and it honestly made me very curious as to the potential of what Vaatu could’ve been and then shifted to more questions. What would a Chaos Avatar be like? What would being a Chaos Avatar mean, and/or what would their roles be? How can that work alongside yet still clash with the Balance Avatar (aka the Avatar we know) & benefit the world in the same way balance and harmony does?

Well, that depends how much credit we give Vaatu.

I personally always felt more compelled to see the potential positive of Vaatu. He is described as the Spirit of Darkness and Chaos, but these traits aren't necessarily bad things.

The term 'Darkness' is prerty vague, but assuming it, for example, means darker urges or aspects of personality, that doesn't automatically mean "evil". Darker, negative emotions, reactions and urges are natural and useful in a lot of situations. We just need to know how to keep them in check and when to allow them to thrive.

Take the Spirits for example. One of the effects Vaatu has on them is that they turn "dark". But they also turn dark when they feel threatened, as a method of self defence. Which can definitely relate to how humans need more negative emotions to do things like defend ourselves both physically and emotionally, to set boundaries, etc.

I also theorise that Hei Bai from Atla was also in his "dark" form, due to his grief surrounding the destruction of his forest and lashing out at random people.

"Chaos" is also a term that doesn't have to be negative. Because chaos is sort of just the way of the world. We see it everywhere, in nature, in our everyday lives, in our history and probably in our future. We can try to micromanage every minute little detail of our lives, we can try to never leave anything to chance, but we still are subject to the rng of life.

And that probably can scare a lot of people, so it's no wonder we attribute chaos to the "bad spirit". It's also how irl humans dealt with the randomness of life.

While Raava is the spirit of Light and Peace/Order, which, while sounding very nice on paper can also be negative. Ever heard of "too much of a good thing"? "Good" traits like happiness can become toxic positivity, peacefulness can become passivity and indifference, order can become oppressive.

So it would be quite easy to see Vaatu as less of a Spirit of bad things and more of a spirit of things that humans don't really like. Things and concepts shunned and rejected by society or by humans.

So, where would that leave us with a potential Vaatu based Avatar?

Well, I'm not sure. While the Raava Avatar does have the very vague role of "keeping balance", they don't seem to have a set way of doing so, adapting more to their time period and environment, as well as their own personality.

Like there is a world of difference between Tax Boy Sheto and Aang the Reluctant Child Soldier y'know?

But if I had to guess that the Dark Avatar's goal would be more along the lines of "pushing the world to change and evolve"?

Be it by helping out rebels with a cause that seems just to them, or by working with some type of scientist, or by leading a military, heloing explore new lands... whatever can be described as pioneering, discovering, restructuring, changing, that's where they're at.

So while the Raava Avatar would try to mitigate a conflict completely, the Vaatu Avatar would make a judgement call based more on what they believe would be a more positive change to the world.

Of course, once again, this will probably vary from Avatar to Avatar. Since Raava Avatars have changed the world, by trying ro acheive balance, after all. These concepts will probably mix and vary depending on the individual Avatar's understanding of the concepts.

And whether they work together with or go up against the Raava Avatar depends on both the Avatars too. Their history together, their personalities, the time period they're in and the situation they're dealing with. While they might have diametrically opposed reasons for doing what they do, they still are individuals and they are fulfilling a rather nebulous concept so anything goes ig.

I can also see the Vaatu Avatar being treated with much more disdain and fear than the Raava Avatar, since they are still meant to be the embodiment of darkness and chaos and I think a lot of people would naturally not wanna hang out with you then.

With could kinda tie into their potential relationships with their "better halves". Like "why is the colour our eyes glow such a big deal why does everyone hate me and love you we are both 12 years old and have done nothing to deserve either except harbour spirits within us" or smth.

I can see the White Lotus for example trying to just keep the Vaatu Avatar on lockdown and not let them out ever, because they believe they would throw the world out of balance.

But I think that in this AU, the lack of a Vaatu Avatar could cause society and the world to stagnate and begin to rot as old, outdated ideologies, concepts systems remain rooted into the world, refusing to grow as humans and the world grow.

[culminada]

I sat here scrolling Tumblr and then I heard my dad snoring on the other side of the wall.

And I've been making it a habit to consciously pay attention to the people I love, because I love them.

And so - I wasn't trying but this just came to me because of observations, and knowing, and perhaps the habit of it - I thought oh, that means he's sleeping.

Its the middle of the day. He does this sometimes. He's a very busy person, between two jobs, and 2-4 disabled kids. He takes power naps after lunch. He has a whole strategy. He's told it to me and I listened and I remembered because I love him.

He's also in burnout. My dad is burnt out and I understand because I am also burnt out. I wish I could help him but I am burnt out, and so all I can do is know him, is listen to him snoring and know that he is tired.

I get to listen to him snoring. He is tired. He is sleeping on the middle of the day because he is tired, from taking care of me, who am autistic, and my brother, with Prader-Willi Syndrome (shoutout to ppl with PWS), and his job 1 to pay the bills and job 2 to pay for the future and his wife and his other children and making sure we all get our enrichment.

And so he is snoring on the other side of the wall, and I can picture him tangled up in his blankets and sleeping because he is tired.

And so I get to listen to him snoring and think about all the things he does and how much he deserves rest, and how glad I am that he CAN rest, that he's worried and busy and anxious, but not too worried to sleep. Because he needs to sleep. And it's a blessing that he can do that.

And I'll sit here and appreciate him and all he does because I can hear him snoring (and it keeps everyone else up at night unless he uses his mouth guard, which we all call his snore-teeth, and I know this because I listen and I pay attention and I love him).

And he might never know that I sit here and think of him and love him and all he does, how grateful I am that he takes care of me when I'm his oldest and I'm autistic, and I don't feel overwhelmingly bad about that but I do wish I could help more than I do. Not be so big of a burden as I am. But all I can do is let him sleep.

He might never know that I take the time to listen to him snore. Maybe one of those days when he's feeling horrible I'll show it to him and say "you are loved and I see you and I am grateful for everything you do, I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you." Maybe I'll make bits of this post into my Father's Day letter. I've been wondering what to do for that because I've been more vocal lately about how much I love him and sometimes it feels like there's nothing left to put in a Father's Day letter that wouldn't just be the same.

There's something special in just the same, though. Like listening to snoring. There's time. And when you're sitting in the middle of time, in the quiet and the dark and listening to snoring, and wondering when the next snore is gonna come, and contemplating life and love and time - well, I'm not doing anything else. And I'm not getting any younger. And maybe right now I can't mentally DO anything else. But I can do this.

I can contemplate my father, who is wise and loving and who pours himself out constantly, fill my mind with MY DAD instead of something else, because I love him.

I lied. My first thought wasn't "oh, that means he's sleeping." Well, it was subconscious. But right after, I thought, "I wish I had someone to love this way," meaning that I want to get married and have someone to love.

But I do have someone to love. I have my father. I can love him. I DO love him. And why am I pining for something I can't have, or worse, for someONE I can't have, when my lovely beautiful Dad is right there loving me in his sleep, in his waking, in his working, in his eating, in his thoughts, in his research, in his everything. I have him? Why do I need anyone else?

[cosettegf]

i love the penumbra podcast and i love second citadel and i really enjoyed listening to the finale but i feel. weird about the way this show treats its female characters???

[toasteaa]

I don't know what's been going on with me recently but like...there's this tiny shred of guilt that I'm not doing anything really engaging on here anymore? Like, my creative block is fading out (finally), but I haven't drawn or written anything substantial recently and I feel really weird about that. Not just for you all looking at my blog, but also just in a creative bust kind of way.

There are ideas and themes and such that I would love to play with or dabble in, but I keep stopping them because they're either too self indulgent or there's no visual work to go with it. I don't really know how to describe it? Like I feel like I've been lazy creatively speaking recently when I COULD be getting more ideas out, but it's about the same ship all the time and idk, I also feel like I've gotten to the point where I'm talking too much again? Not that anyone here has made me feel like that and I have asks that I need to answer so I KNOW I'm not talking too much but I'm!!!! Being splashed with the self conscious and self critical and imposter syndrome buckets and I need them to stop!!!!

[databent]

why the fuck is it that some people cant seem to acknowledge that people can just... be disabled. not through any fault of their own, not because something "happened" to them, just because, you know, sometimes people have disabilities. like, come on

[the-busy-ghost]

Warning- this is a very petty post, but I think I'm entitled to at least one petty, pissed-off reaction every time I finish a classic novel that hit harder than I expected so take this as my quota for the year.

Also spoiler warning for a book that came out over a century ago but still, I didn't know the plot going in so don't want to ruin it for anyone else, if you haven't read it shut your eyes. (Also Local Tumblr User Going Wild Over Book Published a Hundred Years Ago That Everybody Else Already Read should probably be categorised as akey part of indigenous tumblr culture at this point).

Anyway I just finished the War of the Worlds and in between studying I've thinking about Themes and Motifs as you do, and idly looking for further analysis. I then accidentally ran into an article called 'A Quiet Place II Succeeds Where the War of the Worlds Failed' and:

Now I haven't seen any of the Quiet Place films, this is not a rant against them and of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But re: the ending of The War of the Worlds, I have to ask, did this guy somehow miss, uh, the entire point of the book or am I just utterly insane?

[anotheruntitledsong]

i did like the hidden palace but (SPOILER if anyone hasn't read it?) i'm genuinely so annoyed at how Arbeely is handled like... I wish i could be sad but i'm just fucking irritated. I was overly invested in him and that's def why but i just feel like they did him dirty

[queerstudiesnatural]

i just love love. i love to feel love. sometimes i find myself overflowing with love. it's purifying and intoxicating at the same time. i love love.

[agueforts]

yet another stream of consciousness post about how i'm doing nothing with my life and it #sux or whatever

[minakoaiinos]

Ik in the past decade or so anime adaptations have tried to adapt mangas exactly and even gone back and done other versions of anime just to make sure to adapt the source material and that's a good thing and definitely has its place, but also I genuinely think we should let people make up 100+ filler episodes again