#i really need to make an effort and carve out time for my blog in my life again

[inkykeiji]

I love you

I worship you

💕💖❤️💖💕

oh my!!!! i don’t know what prompted this but i love u too anon!!! i love u so so so much!!! ♡(˃͈ દ ˂͈ ༶ )

[colourstreakgryffin]

Yo sup! I love your blog soooooo much!!! Your writing style is great in my opinion ^^. I'd like a yandere! Rui (platonic) with sister reader. She actually puts effort into making "family bonds" and while she is nice to the other "family" members, she never questions Rui's methods and actions and genuinely loves him despite the behaviours he displays. He is really overprotective over her and he likes her attention. I'd love a scenario like that

Hmmm! Okaaay! I have never written for Rui yet so let’s try it out, I’m optimistic! Been getting a lot of Platonic Yanderes lately tbh!

Yandere! Platonic! KNY Lower Moon Scenarios: Ayaki Rui

Rui, on the inside, is a lonely miserable child that is so desperate to feel nearest and dearest love for once in his new life that he does truly cruel and twisted means to get what carves so badly

Rui finds weak, pathetic demons and transfers his strength to them so they become infused by blood, cementing them as his family for good. He has done this too many to count… but most go against him and end up fried

Rui figured you’d be the same. Another sister who dares to try run away from him and will become his next toasted spider but no. You’re nothing like the ones who came before you and he is very shocked at first

Rui, needing to know if this behaviour is genuine, begins to keep a close eye on you and is very pleased everytime with the answers. You’re sweet and considerate to the other family members he brings home, you never argue with his methods nor measures and you even ask him how he is

Rui suspected you’d be angry at him for his drastic punishments to your siblings and parents, but no. You never once go against him, you just smile and proclaim you understand if he must hurt you. But in that moment, he won’t lay a single thread on you, he gently pats your head and orders you return to your room

Rui becomes favouritistic towards you, to the point it becomes obvious to everybody in the house. You’re a real sister and he needs to keep you as his, at all causes. No demon slayer can take you away from him and no demon can try trick you into abandoning him, he grows a intense sense of overprotectiveness over you, his one true sibling

Rui never really gets the love he wants with this makeshift family he has forcibly created. You’re the rare diamond of the pebble pile, you give him love and affection with no fear nor opposing intent. He is very tense and tries to push back but once he realises you’re just kissing away the blood on his cheek, he lets you. His obsession over you growing in the process

His obsession over keeping you as his sister at all means. Must he kill all those other failures? None of them please him at all and none has true worth to him, Rui is tempted to just kill them all and keep you. Sure, two siblings aren’t necessarily a family but the risk of losing you, who actually loves him, over a family who doesn’t love him. He is going to pick you everytime

Rui eventually moves you out of the attic you were in with your surrogate siblings. You don’t deserve to be around those pieces of filth and he ends up giving you the room, right next to his. So he can come to you very easily and demand your affection without needing anybody else around

He wants you nearby 24/7, his one and only beloved. He wants you close so he knows you’re still here and you haven’t been twisted by anything else that can twist your views

Rui is very desperate for attention so he wants it from you all the time. He’ll just sit down before you as you read/other and wait for you to acknowledge him. He doesn’t get hissy nor attack like he usually would if you take a little while, since he knows you’ll apologise and give him hugs or kisses as extra sorries

Rui will never let you out of the house nor out of the forest. You can go outside when he is with you, just to make sure no slayer can hurt you nor a demon can intervene. It’s all from his anxiety that makes him step in and take those extra precautions to keep you with him

At all causes, he doesn’t care how big the bill is he must pay to have you

Rui holds your hand as often as he possibly can, loving the feel of your warmth. He summons you to stand besides him as he deals out punishment, he sends you to the safety of the household when he finds threats he must dispose off. He is loving, he is favouritistic, he is possessive, he is overprotective; he is all of the above and so much more

“My dear sister. Come here, I am exhausted from taking care of such useless humans, may I get some affection to ease all my tense nerves? I don’t suspect you’d refuse, here now. You know I don’t bite you”

[laundrybiscuits]

I've recently been tagged in a few WIP/"last thing you've written" type games, and…to be completely candid, I haven't been writing any kind of fic lately because I've become a little bit obsessed with analyzing the Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along.

Not for any particular purpose, I just saw it at the Hudson a little while back and have a lot of feelings about it! In my tiny scraps of spare time, I've been working on an essay about Merrily and inevitability that will probably end up rotting in my google docs*, because that's how I approach writing as a hobby.

There's just so much there, holy shit. I'm focusing particularly on "Franklin Shepard, Inc." because Radcliffe's Charley brings a frenetic, desperate vulnerability to the performance that reads so, so differently from earlier productions. Throughout the show, I was consistently blown away by the heavy lifting Radcliffe, Mendez, and Groff do in shifting the core tension from "art vs commerce" (fine but basic, and difficult to keep modern) to "how people prioritize different types of relationships in their lives."

In an effort to make this slightly less wildly off-topic for this blog: this has gotten me thinking about the way that platonic relationships are treated in narratives, particularly but not exclusively in fandom.

"Found family" is and has always been a popular trope, but I do think its current incarnation trades a lot on the underlying fantasy of relationship permanence. When we recategorize friendships as familial relationships, we're making a claim—whether or not it's justified—about the indelibility of those relationships.

That's not inherently bad (or, god forbid, problematic). I think it's very very natural, especially for those who don't necessarily have a lot of experience with the way adult friendships change over time. Why wouldn't you want something as precious and unique and amazing as a good friendship to stay with you forever?

Certain people can feel like pillars of your world, and it's fucking terrifying to think about that being yanked out from under you—or even worse, to think about your lives slowly shifting like geologic plates until suddenly you realize it's been weeks, then months, then years since you last really talked.

CHARLEY: We're not that kind of close any more, the way we used to be. And a friendship's like a garden. You have to water it and tend it and care about it. And you know what? I want it back.

It's a peculiar, particular kind of grief when it happens, because even though it's a fairly common human experience, it doesn't get socially acknowledged in the same way as e.g. a romantic breakup.

So yeah, it makes a lot of sense that found family is a popular trope in all kinds of media, not just fandom.

However...at this point, I've developed a knee-jerk wariness to the phrase "found family," because I've found it often correlates with a really flat, simplistic depiction of human relationships. In extreme cases, it simply recontextualizes a relationship within the socially acknowledged/acceptable framework of a stereotypical family unit.

This does a disservice to familial and nonfamilial relationships alike. Every family is different, so why do so many found families in media look the same?

(I was monologuing about this to my very patient girlfriend, and she pointed out that this also sets up a success/failure binary condition in relationships, where permanence is the arbiter of success in both romantic and nonromantic contexts. She is of course both beautiful and correct!)

I have friends with whom I can sometimes share a glance and know exactly what they're thinking. I even have a running joke with one friend about the sheer number of times we've said the same thing in unison over the last 15 years. I still need to be intentional about building those relationships, extending empathy when we differ, and carving out time to reconnect. Truly intimate long-term relationships of any kind involve disagreements, conflicting priorities, and negotiating and renegotiating boundaries.

Being "basically the same person" or "sharing a braincell" actually sounds super fucking lonely to me, personally, and it handily elides the difficult, essential process of keeping people in your life.

FRANK: Old friends let you go your own way. CHARLEY: Help you find your own way. MARY: Let you off when you're wrong. F: If you're wrong. C: When you're wrong. M: Right or wrong, the point is, old friends shouldn't care if you're wrong. F: Should, but not for too long. C: What's too long?

That's a more complicated and much more mature narrative to tell than "friendship will save the day!" Because it's not that common and there's not a deep bank of references to draw from, it takes a lot of effort and skill to depict well, and I don't blame creators for not wanting to let it suck up all the air in the room. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that platonic relationships can also be flanderised and flattened.

In the context of fandom, which has always traded heavily in Romance genre conventions, I would really like to see more thoughtful explorations of complicated nonromantic relationships. I'm not even talking about genfic here! I've actually been thinking about Stobin specifically because that relationship (rightly & understandably) tends to show up in any Steve-centric fic, including the vast ocean of Steddie fics, so it makes the issue slightly more visible than I've seen in other fandoms.

I'm not saying I want to see them fight, or not be friends, or not love each other fiercely and near-obsessively in the way that lonely teenagers can. I'm just saying I want them to be distinct individuals who view the world in very different ways, and choose each other anyway. They already have a complicated past; I know from personal experience that it's possible as a lesbian to be best friends with a guy who once made a little speech about how into you he was, but that little layer of history never quite goes away.

I don't want frictionless relationships in my life. I want people who will challenge me and whom I can challenge, in the context of love and trust. I want people in my life whom I have to work to understand, because my life is richer when I do. And sometimes, I want narratives that will reflect the grief of friendships that are no longer part of my life, despite the best efforts of everyone involved.

In Merrily, Charley sings, "Friendship's something you don't really lose—" but Radcliffe's thready, pleading delivery makes it all too clear: Charley already knows he's lying. The audience just needs to catch up.

*Other essays in that particular graveyard: understanding the cast of Peanuts through the lens of anomie, humor and subversive linguistic nationalism in 00s Singaporean TV, how to fix Miss Saigon. WHY am I this way.

[elfhunk]

it's so funny that this stupid tumblr blog is paying a key role in the re-socialization of my fucked up brain.

below the cut because it's a sentimentally hopeful bummer but still indeed a bummer about some mental health brain stuff.

like. most of you do not actually... know me? i am making no effort to separate this blog from my actual identity.

but you do not have the context of me working my ass off for four years in art school, hitting an art block so severe that it sent me into a tail dive so severe i did not draw for several years, to my life being blown up and pieced back together at least three times now. it was a perpetual cycle of adrenaline fueled sprinting and cataclysmic disaster that i intentionally hid from everyone until it was too late.

like. i literally don't know how to draw anymore. not consistently, anyway. people joke about not using their degrees but i have taken it to an unexpected extreme. my friends have honestly (very nicely) begun teasing me whenever i say that i am bad at drawing because of how patently untrue it is.

anyway, if any of you have been wondering why i'm so delightful?

it's because something is deeply wrong with me, in a way that i am only starting to understand recently.

i now know that i am (probably, adult diagnosis is complicated!) autistic, i know that i have ADHD, and i know that i have experienced certifiably CPTSD level trauma. my therapist even confirmed for me that these things in combination do in fact result in me meeting diagnostic criteria for BPD, which is fun. did you know that entire diagnosis is under contention? it's a whole thing!

anyway, i learned that there was something deeply fundamentally destructive about the ways i was using tools like twitter or tumblr.

when i was using social media ages... what, 13-25? i was effectively a roiling ball of overstimulated receptors seeking to be everything to everyone in the desperate attempt to have my existence acknowledged. i saw that art that i made for myself didn't get me attention, so i stopped making it. i became a terrifyingly self-critical ball of nastiness that saw no point in doing anything unless it was perfect.

i saw no point in existing unless i was perfect. when i stopped making art, it began to bleed into the rest of my existence. my job performance had to be perfect. my etiquette and attitude had to be perfect. my body had to be perfect. my skin had to be perfect. my hair had to be perfect. if a flaw was identified, it was buried immediately.

this whole "delightful prince charming" shtick i've ended up adopting just sort of gradually became the safest way i knew how to navigate the world. it was a character i got extremely good at playing. it was turning into a perfectly lovely way of living life exclusively in service to other people. everyone thought it was so admirable and good of me. but then the gnawing evidence of my flaws continued to build up again. and everything blew up again.

because, dear reader? this is a terrible character to try and occupy in all waking hours of your life. the mask is going to fall eventually.

so, that brings us to this tumblr. this silly little place.

i am 28 now, and things are very different. i still have a lot of problems to figure out. i still have emotional flashbacks of varying intensity to an age where i am not even verbal and do not have words to articulate what i want or need. it's wild. i didn't even know that could happen. don't get traumatized as a baby, y'all.

but i do know what man i am trying to be. i do know that people really like that man. he's cool and interesting and sexy as fuck. i need to afford him more space to be imperfect, because i am the only one expecting perfection from him.

so that's why i am kind of digging this blog. i still get to play that character. i still get to enjoy existing in this weird way that i've carved out for myself. but i don't need to obsess over it being perfect all the time. i don't have to care what you think of me. i don't know you.

you're a goddamn stranger passing in the train station.

and i am a silly little horse doing a dance. because damn this silly little horse loves to dance. and he's doing it for himself.

[mmriesoftvat]

For Wanderer!

What’s a fail-safe gift for your muse?

What’s something your muse has done, in canon or in a thread, that just makes you Love ThemTM?

How important are apologies, to your muse? Do they have to be aloud?

What's a fail-safe gift for Kaminari?

THE SAFEST gift to give to kaminari is a good old fashioned book. he's very into reading, and even has his own mini library in wherever his home is. personally i like to think he carved out a space for himself in the sanctuary with nahida, but that's beside the point. kami enjoys reading a ton. it doesn't matter the book or genre, he'll probably read it if it sounds interesting enough. and for an immortal, he has nothing but time, so he'll basically read anything! it's fun and relaxing for him. so a gift of a book will genuinely make him happy.

What’s something Kaminari has done, in canon or in a thread, that just makes you Love Them™?

i REALLY got my feel for writing him when i bantered with @erabundus! (avalon is now on an astarion blog and i adore the hell out of them forever!!) avalon and i would have dash crack that turned into crack threads, that turned into serious roleplay where we developed an entire verse and had so many feels for each other's wanderers. it was so much fun to develop kaminari even more through that and develop my own voice for him. avalon and i even had similar headcanons, and yet still so different from each other.

i can't pinpoint anything specific from there, but i know i just adore the hell out of kami and he's been the gremlin in my head for a long, long time. personally i feel like he's ALWAYS loveable, but as his creator and writer, i think i might be a bit biased. he's a snarky, insecure bastard who has one braincell about half the time, the rest of the time he's head empty.

How important are apologies, to Kaminari? Do they have to be aloud?

useless. kaminari doesn't like words if they're not followed up with actions. he's been burned and tossed aside way too many times to count on both hands, so words to him mean absolutely nothing. if someone shows they're sorry and actually puts effort into it, he'll probably swallow his pride and hurt and let himself be receptive to said actions. it's too easy for someone to spit words out and use flowery language to try and win him over, but he's a very straightforward person. he's not won over with poetry or pretty words, he needs to see a genuine action that shows intent. otherwise, he's pretty much done. he doesn't have time to waste on false promises and no actual change.

[makangerous]

Yusuke Hawaii Date

As part of my Persona 5 female protagonist confidants project, I'm writing date events for the existing P5 characters as well! I have a really cute one of these for Ryuji too on my blog. Hope you enjoy some cuteness! Default FC name: Emi Yukimura

You receive an IM from Yusuke!

How are you doing, Emi? I had a list of spots I wanted to draw in LA, but sadly it was never to be. I’ve heard about some ideal locations here in Hawaii, but I don’t have the time to make anything now. In other words, I’m bored. If you’re not busy, would you meet me at Waikiki?

You meet Yusuke at the beach.

Thank you for coming. I’m usually fine by myself, but when I don’t have any projects to work on, I start having unsettling thoughts. So, would you like to walk around the area? Or do you have a particular activity in mind? I’m all right just being with you.

>Let's build sandcastles!

In that case, let me run back and grab some sculpting supplies! We shall create a masterpiece!

A while later, Yusuke has built a huge sandcastle.

So I based the layout on some of the Palaces we’ve been to. I used seashells to simulate some furniture, and carved plenty of windows and other details into the exterior. I’m more used to canvas than sculpting, but I think I did a decent job. Let me take a picture with my phone.

He finally notices the crowd surrounding the castle.

Emi, where’d all these people come from?! They’re all taking photos of my sandcastle. Excuse me! Can you please back away a bit? I need a wide, clear shot!

(Nobody’s budging…)

>Everyone, please move!

Tanned woman: Hey, that girl’s yelling at us!

College student: I don’t know what she’s saying, but she looks pissed as hell!

Middle-aged man: Gah, all this yelling is hurting my ears!

The crowd disperses.

Ah, thank you, Emi. I can finally hear myself think. I did manage to get a lot of pictures once everyone started leaving. There’s one more I do need. Emi, pose naturally in front of it. Great! Now smile!

He stands next to you and snaps a pic.

Mm, that turned out excellent! I honestly haven’t seen myself smiling that wide in a long time… I’ll send it to you.

(Obtained Beach Photo x1)

This is my favorite picture from today. Sure, I put a lot of effort into that castle, and I’m proud of it. But most importantly, I had an immense amount of fun today working and talking to you. I’ll treasure this day forever. Oh, I’ll get prints of this photo once we go home! That way, we can both easily look at it and remember. Actually, allow me to take one last picture of the two of us. Scoot in a little closer. Good. One, two, three!

He wraps his arm around you and kisses your cheek as the camera goes off.

Hmm, I think I have a new favorite photo! Do you see how cute you are? T-that wasn’t too forward of me, was it? I’ve been wanting to do that for so long now… Oh my, your cheeks are still flushed! I wish I could just take you back with me. I’ll be good and walk you to the lobby instead…

[hockenheim]

hi everyone! i’m so sorry for being inactive the past couple of months. my absence (little to no gif-making, not responding to asks/messages as quickly as i should’ve, almost no activity on my blog) has boiled down to several reasons. i have been interning full time from 8:30-6, resulting in an overall lack of time to gif and be active here on tumblr. as my attention has been increasingly spread out i found it overwhelming to be here, which has also contributed to my inactivity.

although i have tried to carve out some time to be here on my blog more, it’s not really worked out for me when most of my mental headspace is occupied with internship work and the stresses that come with it. to my surprise, i’ve also been less engaged with the sport than i have been compared to most of the years i’ve been watching f1 (though i still make an effort to watch whatever races i can).

overall i’m better than i have been the last few months, though there still needs to be progress made. not just to be more active here but also more present with you guys and especially my lovely mutuals. you have made f1blr a brighter space for me and i am so grateful for the sense of community and friends made here. thank you all for being so, so patient with me the last couple of months, and i promise to get back to you all as soon as possible (if there are any outstanding asks/dms etc). i love you all so much <3 words can’t describe how much i appreciate you all.

it’s my aim to come back to this blog more often and, more importantly, to interact with you all again. thank you all for everything. love y’all deep 💙

[blucifer08]

So I haven't done a "propaganda post" for the @woltourney in a while, so I figured I'd make another! I struggled to think of what I wanted to put for this one, but I finally decided on something. The thing that is most striking to me about Naru is the way she fights, and I'd like to share a little about the inspiration for how I write about her prowess on the battlefield.

As such, I will be putting this under a readmore, as it does contain descriptions of violence; all wols have to face danger on the battlefield after all!

You can vote here!

(also woltourney i'm not actually sure if descriptions of violence are against the rules for propaganda; if so just lmk and i will remove ;v; i couldn't find anything on the blog but i may have missed it)

!!!!!! so cw for gore and violence under the readmore, and here's a photo of Naru to go with it :) !!!!!!

Naru grew up as a toddler mostly alone. She was eventually picked up by Magnai when he found her out on the Steppe and he took her in as a younger sister. Naru's family had all been killed. As such, she had needed to manage on her own for a long time. This involved learning to hunt and kill animals on her own.

This wasn't easy. She had only a dull knife and needed to learn to carve out the right parts of the animal to eat, and a lot of it was trial and error. As such, she became pretty good at dismembering things.

So for Naru's fighting style, I took a lot of inspiration from a passage from the Zhuangzi. The Zhuangzi is a Daoist text (and a philosopher) full of short passages from which you can derive certain lessons about the world and about Daoism. It's a very complicated text and I spent a lot of time in classes in University going over it. (Funnily enough I feel like every professor had different ideas about what the texts inside meant.._

But there's one passage in particular that has always been my favorite.

Cook Ding laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now I go _ at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint. "A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I've cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room more than enough for the blade to play about in. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

This is from the Burtson Watson translation, I believe!

So yeah, it's this short little story about a butcher not needing to change his knife. The effort you will have to expend to do something is easier if you follow along the natural way. If you cut through the joins, you need not hack through bone. And this is how I've pictured Naru managing to get through her childhood--she had one shitty dull knife, but figured out that it would work as long as she cut correctly. And this gives her an edge in battle-- a horribly terrifying one, but an edge nonetheless. She is able to size people up and figure out the best places to cut. Here's a section from a fic I'm working on as comparison.

Slipping in and around the footmen is not that hard, really. They’re not prepared for someone as fast as her. Her eyes gravitate immediately to their weak points. Gaps in armor, gaps in clothing. Her blade slices through the elbow of an arm holding a weapon. She drags her knife through the back of a knee, sending someone to the ground. Every movement of her shoulder, every step she takes, every pressure of her joints while she swiftly and lightly wields her knife, all of this was as carefully planned and prepared as the routine of a dancer.

Every man is divided into parts. 

A good carver may change her knife once a year, but Naru has used the same knife all these years. One needs only to insert the thin blade in those places with space, cut through what need be cut and preserve what is left of your blade. 

Every man is divided into parts.

Naru makes it to the giant machine upon which rides the man she has been tasked with killing. She cannot divide the machine into the parts from which it was created; she knows not how it was built and from where it came. Instead she climbs the metal beast. Soldiers reach up to try and grab hold of her, drag her down. Others shoot wildly at her and by the tiniest stroke of luck, the bullets miss. The man at the control starts to throw the machine into a frenzy.

She grabs hold of some gap in the metal and hoists herself up to the top of the machine. She carefully keeps her balance, tilting her weight this way and that in order to keep herself at an equilibrium. Her tail swishes wildly for this effort. Every man is divided into parts. 

She takes a breath and leaps upon him. He unsheathes a sword but he doesn’t have time to harm her with it. Her blade makes it under his chin and slices that vein that gives life, releases his blood unto the world and all over her body. He sputters, grunts, groans. Blood drips from under his mask, choking on his own ichor. 

She has sliced a part that gives life, divided him from life and into death.

So, yeah! That's where Naru's fighting style really takes inspiration from. She is one of those fighters who kinda shuts off her mind a little and acts on natural instinct--it's just her instinct is good. She's calculated. It makes me happy, it's a point of pride for me. I did a lot of studying Chinese religion in school and I took many classes that went over the origins of Daoism and they always go over the Zhuangzi and make you read some of it, and I just always love to get to this passage. There are many other great passages too, though! But that's a conversation of it's own haha

That's my "propaganda post" this time around, I really just wanted an excuse to share one of my favorite things about Naru. I know it's long so if you ended up reading this far: thank you! and consider giving Naru your vote :D

[socratically]

You Should Get Familiar With Filial Responsibility Laws

The state could force you to pay for your parents medical debts.

By Stewie Stewart

Hey Socratically Readers! Longtime no see. Apologies for the gap in posts for a bit there; back-to-back colds and then the flu really knocks you down a peg. Before we begin consider subscribing to this blog or my official newsletter Socratically.net. Now, let’s dive into one terrifying prospect—Being forced to financially support your parents by the State.

It was recently reported that “Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a rate ‘not seen since the Great Depression’“. While a tragic prospect of an increasing homeless population even above our predicted rates, it also raises another warning for the families of that generation—specifically Gen X and Millenials. You might soon have to bear responsibility for those aging parents due to Filial Responsibility Laws. Filial Responsibility Laws are laws designed to impose legal obligations on adult children to take care of their parents’ basic needs and medical care.

Currently, these laws have remained somewhat dormant for the last couple of decades thanks to advancements in welfare and healthcare accessibility. The only states with relatively active use of these laws are Pennsylvania, which has one of the oldest and most broad Filial laws, and South Dakota.

As those programs continue to be underfunded or, in the case of most Republican budget proposals, outright removed, you will start to see these forgotten laws start to pick up more steam as state governments aren’t able to pick up the tab on the growing financial needs of the aging population—and instead force you to pony up for your parent’s debts.

Stewie, I think you are being an alarmist!

Do you think so? I thought so too, so let’s do a thought exercise; imagine that you, like many of the current Millennials and Gen-Zers, have cut the proverbial cord on your parents. No contact, low contact, however you might classify it, your relationship with one or both of your parents is strained—a not uncommon phenomenon amongst the current generations.

In the United States, roughly 1 in 4 adults are estranged from their parents, up from the 7% estranged from their mothers and 22% estranged from their fathers, as reported in a study performed in 1997. This rift is caused for a variety of reasons;

Childhood Abuse

Sexual Abuse

Difference in Values

Lack of Support

This growing trend of separation is all part of the effort to break down the compulsory inherent loyalty to your parents for the simple act of birthing you or raising you. It is an obligation mandated to them by law and something expected societally, so to expect an eternal reward with no consequences for bad behavior is a form of entitlement to an extreme degree.

Now imagine those aging parents falling on hard times, even becoming homeless, turning to the state for financial and medical support, and the state instead turns to you. Suddenly, you are burdened with their medical care costs, housing costs, and general financial responsibility. Maybe if you are lucky enough not to make enough money, the state won’t be able to foist this on you, but if you were able to somehow carve out a successful life for yourself? Well, strap in because you are now fully responsible for your aging parents’ increasingly expensive care—and the state will ensure you pay for that care.

Look A Court Case Proving My Point…

In 2012, a case was brought to the Pennsylvania Superior Court: Health Care & Retirement Corporation vs. Pittas. In this case, the court held that John Pittas was liable for his mother’s nursing home bill totaling $93,000. John’s mother had left the country along with other members of his family to return to Greece, leaving behind the aforementioned bill at her former Nursing home. John, being the only remaining family member in the US, was then sued by the Nursing Homes parent company. The Superior Court held that the son had sufficient financial ability to support his mother, and Pennsylvania’s filial support statute does not require other possible sources of income to be considered before proceeding against one of the relatives listed in the statute. Lastly, the evidence presented was sufficient to support a finding that the mother was, in fact, indigent.

John Pittas’ mother entered a nursing home for rehabilitation following a car crash. Upon recovery, she left the nursing home and moved to Greece with her husband and adult daughters, and a large portion of her nursing home bills went unpaid. As a result, the nursing home instituted a filial support action against Mr. Pittas, the only child still living in the United States, for nearly $93,000, under Pennsylvania’s filial support law.

While John initially prevailed before a panel of arbitrators, the nursing home appealed, and the trial court ruled in favor of the nursing home. John appealed the decision to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, arguing that the trial court improperly placed the burden upon him to prove his inability to financially support his mother. The nursing home presented four years of John Pittas’ individual and “S” corporation joint tax returns and bank account statements. The nursing home also elicited testimony from John that his net income was in excess of $85,000 (recall, this was decided in 2012). John testified that he could not financially support his mother because of other bills, but he failed to substantiate those other bills. Ultimately, the trial court found his testimony lacked credibility and that he had the financial ability to support his mother.3

The second issue raised on appeal was whether the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to consider alternative sources of income available to John’s mother before finding John liable to the nursing home. 4According to John, before finding him liable, the trial court was obligated to consider other income sources, such as his mother's husband, her two other grown children, and her application for medical assistance that was pending (on appeal) at the time. The Superior Court held that “the filial support statute does not require a trial court to consider other sources of income or to stay its determination pending the resolution of a claim for Medicaid.”5 The nursing home had the ability to choose which family members to pursue for the outstanding debt. The court concluded that if John wanted other family members to share in the burden, he should have brought them into the case as third-party defendants.6

The final issue raised on appeal by John claimed the nursing home presented insufficient evidence for the trial court to find the mother “indigent.” The statute is silent as to the definition of indigent, so the Superior Court applied the common law definition. The court found the meaning of indigent “includes, but is not limited to, those who are completely destitute and helpless. It also encompasses those persons who have some limited means, but whose means are not sufficient to adequately provide for their maintenance and support.”7 The nursing home argued that the mother’s bank statement established the amount of social security income received and her share of her husband’s Veteran’s Administration benefit. This showed that the mother’s income was limited to $1,000 a month, an insufficient amount to provide for her maintenance and support, according to the court. John argued that the nursing home needed to present more evidence of his mother’s indigence, but he failed to establish that any such evidence existed. Therefore, the Superior Court held that the mother was indigent and her son was liable for her nursing home bills.8

While this is just one case in a state with a much broader application, let’s look at how those laws are applied in states like New Hampshire, Vermont, or Louisana.

New Hampshire’s Filial Laws are also kind of crazy.

Within New Hampshire, you may be subject to NH Statute 167:2—This statute dictates that your parents or even step-parents, permitting that step-parent provided care for you while you were under 18, could cause one of these Filial Responsibility Laws to go into effect permitting “weekly income or other resources are more than sufficient to provide a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health.”

The definition of “more than sufficient” is not defined at all, meaning it would be up to you, as a defendant, to provide a compelling argument to the court that you could not feasibly afford to bear financial responsibility for your parents. Refusal to pay could result in 60 to 90 days of prison as well as a requirement to pay the assistance that is being refused.

How about Vermont? Worse you say?

Vermont state statute 15 V.S.A. § 202 states that when an individual is found to have deserted or refused to support a relative in need, including spouses and adult children. An adult child who unreasonably neglects a parent in need could be imprisoned for up to two years and/or fined up to $300.00.

This law does have a silver lining in its ability to protect Spouses and Children who are unceremoniously abandoned by their parent/partner if they are being left without providing support or leaving them destitute. So that’s something, I guess.

Okay, but that’s got to be the worst one, right? Louisiana too? ALIMONY??

Louisiana might just be the worst one because it isn’t defined based on poverty but rather treats your parents and grandparents with the same responsibility as divorcees, requiring you to pay alimony.

Louisiana LA Rev Stat § 13:4731 “Alimony for support from children or grandchildren” provides that an individual in need may seek alimony from children or grandchildren, enforceable by the law. Further, both parents and adult children have the responsibility to provide financial support for basic life necessities if they are proven to have sufficient income.

Just more laws to keep you perpetually under the thumb of the generations that came before you.

I believe what bothers me the most about this is the prospect that even as adults with our own agency, we are being forced to clean up for the mistakes of our parents while they get to throw us away the second we turn 18. Most state statutes do not require a parent to provide substantial care for a child after they turn 18. Now granted, some of these states’ Filial laws do work in reverse, requiring parents to provide support for their children if they are deemed incapable of providing it for themselves—but the case for proving that is far more difficult than for your parents to require you to provide support.

I am not saying that these people do not deserve care or support; they absolutely do. But many of these laws are not written in compassion for the family, but rather to bolster the State’s ability to wave away responsibility for its residents and instead make it your problem. Why is it that we are required to pay so much in income taxes to these social welfare programs, and yet when push comes to shove, it would still fall on us to substitute the State’s responsibility for its citizens? Sure, Republicans want to remove these social welfare programs completely, but that doesn’t solve the issue at hand; it would only strengthen the State’s need to force the financial burden onto the children. If anything, we need further funding for these Social Welfare programs and an overhaul of the national budget. We don’t need to increase taxes to support our citizens; we just need to cut a sliver off of our military budget and shift it towards caring for our citizens. You can surely make the asinine argument that the military needs every dollar to keep us safe. But the Defense Department can’t even keep track of the money we give them; why would we not try to force them to act a little more frugally? National Security? We have the largest defense budget of any nation in the world by a magnitude of multiples. Surely, a reduction by even a small percent to our 1.6 trillion dollar defense budget would not cause any undo risk to our nation's security. In fact, strategists see little to no trade-off between defense spending and economic growth. Other strategists argue that the current level of U.S. defense spending is not necessary for U.S. security and is unsustainable in the context of a public health emergency, aging infrastructure, and growing public debt.

Thanks for reading. Consider sharing this post with anyone you may think will be affected by these laws. And consider subscribing to my official newsletter Socratically.net

[norirosewrites]

Horror Film Review: May

Subgenre: Psychological horror

Gore Level: Moderate. (CN: Animal lovers may be upset by some of the scenes.)

Confession time: I love horror movies.

Unfortunately, for most of my life, I haven’t had as much opportunity to engage with the genre as I would have liked to, for a number of reasons. But circumstances have changed recently, and I am now a happy Shudder subscriber ready to get caught up on all the screaming good fun I’ve been missing out on!

I also used to write book and film reviews on one of my old college blogs as a hobby back in Ye Olde 2010s. Writing and engaging with stories is kind of my thing, if you didn’t already get that vibe, and I missed doing that. So I’ve decided to take it up again with the genre I love so much and am finally getting to explore without restrictions.

The first film I watched with my new Shudder subscription was May, a 2002 psychological horror film written and directed by Lucky McKee and starring Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris, and James Duval. The minute the credits started rolling after the final scene, I knew it was also going to be the first review on my list.

In a Nutshell (Spoilers): May is a veterinary assistant who was born with a lazy eye which caused her to be ostracized in childhood, resulting in extremely poor socialization. As an adult, her only “friend” is a handmade doll named Soozy gifted to her as a child by her narcissistic mother, with the adage “if you can’t find a friend, make one.” May makes an effort to form friendships and connections with the people in her life, but each attempt has disastrous and eventually dangerous consequences. She befriends and briefly dates a local mechanic and aspiring filmmaker named Adam, but the relationship ends abruptly when she bites his lip hard enough to draw blood during a would-be sexual encounter – and smears his blood over her face. She takes up a short affair with Polly, a lesbian colleague who works at the same animal hospital who expresses interest in her, only to be cast aside for another woman almost immediately. Polly gives her a pet cat, Loopy, who May kills in a fit of rage when the cat hisses and refuses to come near her while she is depressed and crying alone in her apartment. (Don’t worry, no animals were harmed in the making of the film – all deceased or injured critters were created through taxidermy or prosthetics.) She begins volunteering at a daycare center for blind children and builds a rapport with a lonely young girl named Petey, who makes May an ashtray with her name carved into it, but things take a nosedive when she brings Soozy to the school in her case and inadvertently injures the children and herself when the glass breaks. Despondent, she meets a punk at a bus stop and invites him back to her apartment. When he discovers Loopy’s preserved corpse in the freezer and calls her a freak, May snaps and fatally stabs him in the head with a pair of scissors. After taking time to contemplate her actions, she declares that she needs “more parts.”

On Halloween night, she sews herself a dress and shows up at Polly’s unannounced. She slits Polly’s carotid arteries with a pair of scalpels and murders Polly’s girlfriend Ambrosia before going to Adam’s, where she kills him along with his new girlfriend. She then returns to her apartment and sews together a life-sized doll with Polly’s neck, the punk’s arms, Ambrosia’s legs, Adam’s hands, his girlfriend’s ears, and Loopy’s fur for hair. She names the doll “Amy” with the broken pieces of Petey’s ashtray. Distraught that the doll cannot “see” her, she gauges out her lazy eye and places it on the doll’s face, hysterically begging her creation to “see” her. The doll silently comes to life and comforts May by stroking her hair with Adam’s hands.

The WOW:

– The film has a really unique and creative build-up, especially for a horror film. The beginning almost feels more like a rom-com, complete with a classic meet-cute for May and Adam (awkward weird girl falling for rough-around-the-edges but charming boy). This made the dark turn that the film takes feel more surprising and startling – in a good, refreshing way. It’s a bit of a slow burn for a horror film, but it felt very organic and realistic for the characters and set the overall tone of the story very well. If you love jump scares and a lot of action, May might not be to your taste, but if you enjoy a more character-driven horror story, it’s an excellent choice.

– Each cast member delivered a fantastic performance. I could tell that the actors studied their roles thoroughly, and each character in the film felt so real. I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of relying on stock characters in a genre like horror, where there are so many well-established tropes and plot patterns, but I didn’t get that vibe at all with this movie.

– The cinematography impressed me from the beginning. There aren’t a lot of macro shots in this film; instead, the camera is focused on smaller details that may seem insignificant at first, but that add up over the course of the film to create a tightly woven, well put-together story. I thought it was an interesting choice since May frequently makes remarks throughout the film that people have different “parts” to them – and later gathers up various people-parts to create a whole person of her own. Stylistically I felt like the camera angles and focus on small details and shots also reflected the smallness of May’s very limited inner and outer world in a way that almost felt claustrophobic at certain moments.

– There’s enough blood and body parts to satisfy gore fans, but the violent scenes aren’t over the top. I was personally a fan of the shot of Ambrosia’s blood mixing with spilled milk on the kitchen floor.

– I loved how the ending was a bit of the reversal of the Frakenstein’s monster trope; instead of the creation begging to be seen by its creator, it’s the creator who begs to be seen by the creation. It was a nice twist and it got me ruminating on the intrinsic need that humans have to create: we want our creations to be seen by others – and for others to see us through the things we make – but our creative work is also an extension of ourselves, even when projects take on a “life” of their own, so to speak. (It is only after May sacrifices her own eye that the patchwork zombie doll comes to life, after all.) Maybe there’s a part of us on an unconscious level that wants to be seen by our creations, too? There’s probably a philosopher out there somewhere who can answer that question better than I can, but it was an interesting mental rabbit hole to tumble down.

The Meh:

– When we see flashbacks of May’s childhood at the beginning of the film, we see her mother insisting that the doctor will fix her lazy eye and make her look “perfect.” She later tells May to wear her hair over her eye patch to fit in with her schoolmates. She chastises May for ripping the paper off of her birthday present (lamenting that it’s now “ruined”) and instructs her not to take Soozy out of her glass case because she’s “special.” I expected that these early interactions would set May up to be something of a perfectionist, or at least for the unattainable search for perfectionism to be a stronger element in the film. I’m not necessarily disappointed that it was not – I think that it is somewhat of an overused theme in fiction – but it did feel like there was going to be a build-up to something that didn’t actually happen. I thought that this could have been tightened up a bit to flow better with the rest of the story.

– There’s an undercurrent of the supernatural in this film: May imagines Soozy speaking to her in whispers and has visions of the glass case cracking each time her connection with someone is broken. The voices and cracked glass are products of May’s fractured psyche (it’s telling that there is only one crack on Soozy’s case when May presents her to the children at show and tell, and that was from when she physically pounded on the top of the box in anger). However, it’s unclear at the end of the film if May’s creation is actually “alive” – insofar as a doll stitched together from amputated body parts can be, at any rate – or if the spontaneous animation is just psychosis. It can be interpreted either way, but all of these somewhat-supernatural-but-quite-so elements felt a little disjointed at times. But then again, that could have also been a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers, as we are watching the story of a very, um…troubled young woman, to say the least.

– I could have done with a little less rampant flirtatiousness from Polly’s character, but I’m generally annoyed by people (fictional or real) who make being flirty the cornerstone of their personality. And Anna Faris certainly delivered on her performance. 

Final Thoughts:

May is definitely one of the most creative and well-written films I’ve seen in a long time – within the horror genre or without – but there’s also a more personal reason why I loved this film: May’s character deeply resonated with me as an autistic person. There were so many moments in the film where I felt my heart crack at her desperate attempts to connect with the people around her, only to be misunderstood, rebuffed, shoved off or ignored (even if some of her behavior was understandably off putting). I know what it feels like to want to make friends and connect with the people around you, but sometimes simply not knowing how, and the awful loneliness that comes with that. As an adult, social interactions are easier for me than they were when I was a child, but even now there are moments where I feel stuck on what to do or say around people. It is scary to feel like all your relationships are fragile and that eventually you’re going to say or do the wrong thing and push the people you care about away from you. That you will, ultimately, be left all alone. Humans are a social species; we have an innate biological need to belong, to feel seen and loved and cared for and to return those feelings to the people around us. The scene where May gauges out her own eye reminded me of the many ways we hurt ourselves just to get someone, anyone, to see and acknowledge us. I think that’s the real horror of May: on a primal level, nothing truly frightens us more than loneliness – not ghosties or serial killers or evil clowns or zombies or monsters – because we cannot survive in isolation from each other.

As May tells Soozy at the beginning of the film, “I need a real friend – one I can hold.” We all do. Let’s hope that we all are able to find one.

(On a lighter note: as a personal aside, I found it hilarious that Adam was dressed in a Roman toga for Halloween since Jeremy Sisto went on to play Julius Caesar the following year in a two-part television movie, which happened to be the first role I ever saw him in when we watched the film in my high school Latin class. 😂)

[rawrtriesagain]

Heya, same anon who asked you for art advice! First, I wanted to thank you for answer my questions and listing all that wonderful advice! I just have some followups. It’s really okay to just draw without even knowing how to put down a line? Won’t that just lead to bad habits or not learning the right techniques? And you mentioned learning how to draw the human body, will the sites you listed help, or are there other resources I should look up (like maybe on Pinterest?). Again, thanks!

Combining your asks into one. Thank you for the kind words! I'll be happy to continue helping where I can :)

So in terms of bad habits and practices, this is where my advice will fall flat haha because I myself don't know what's a good practice actually - I just do what I want to do even if its the worst way to do something anyone's ever seen! For example, my way of doing 'lineart' (just cleaning up my sketches) is to draw big fat lines and then slowly carve it with an eraser into a line I deem good enough. Someone who could grab a pen and draw a perfect line on the fly would probably be like wtf watching me meticulously erase my one fat line lol

But!

If you really don't know how to put down a line at all yet, your best bet really is to just start. There's not really a trick or technique too it, its just practice. I think unless you were trying to go into art school or something and needed to work on a portfolio (btw again I am not the person to ask for that), there's not really a 'bad habit,' its just as long as you're having fun. In my earlier example about my 'lineart' I pretty much know I'm doing it in such a dumb way, but I actually find it really fun to carve away my line with an eraser haha. Yea I could put in the effort to actually learn how to do things properly, but I like wasting hours just nitpicking on this little thing just because its fun to me. (I do the same thing for coloring also. I'll scribble my entire screen and then use an eraser to start carving things out lmao)

Of course while you're drawing and you're doing something that makes you think "hey this actually sucks actually-" that's when you take the opportunity to grow and learn something new that you didn't know before. This is a digital art thing: but for the longest time I literally didn't know anything about layers and my thoughts were just "man there's got to be a better way to do this" which throws me into a rabbit hole of searching "how do I do This Thing"

If you're really into learning art techniques though it might be good to slowly go over all of the 'art fundamentals' especially when it comes to like shading and perspective. I looked at this blog post and it looks like it would help start you out with some links to other resources: link then of course you can look up the corresponding Youtube videos to see someone actually do the fundamental for real. I'd also honestly recommend like a beginners artist course in person if that's something affordable and accessible to you. It's been one of my dreams to go to like random art classes for fun haha but alas life happens so its just me and my tablet until I'm rich as hell I guess. I've never taken a digital course either, but if that's one of the ways you're able to learn that's great too and I'd recommend it!

Next on human body:

Sorry I should have talked about them more in depth at the time, but yes they will help but only if you're determined to use them correctly! So the sites I listed basically show a pose for 30 seconds, and the idea is you're supposed to just try to take in the shape/form of the pose and draw it without nitpicking over minor details. You can also set the timer higher if you need (I used to set it to at least 60 seconds just because I was just a slow ass artist). But basically it should help you break down the human body into simple shapes and lines.

Now what I mean by using the sites correctly: So there's two ways to approach drawing from references:

1. "eye tracing" which is where your eyes are kind of just following the outline of whatever you're drawing but you're not really processing what exactly you're doing to help you later down the line. I have a bad habit of doing this and I tend to struggle later again for the same pose.

2. Breaking down the reference into small chunks and shapes, and then morphing those shapes into your piece. And later down the line you should start to be able to think of things like "oh the Circle piece of the body normally goes Here!"

Here's a random google image I found to help illustrate what I'm kind of talking about:

So eye tracing would kind of be like a less refined version of #3. Just a blobby but like you can somewhat tell what it is and that's cool I guess, but its not very helpful for when you want to try drawing a variant of the pose above. Breaking down the reference is like steps #1 and #2, simple shapes and blocks that help guide and outline the final shape you want. #1 in particular is very easy to change around should you want to.

So while you're on the sites I linked, you should try to break down each pose into its shape instead of drawing exactly what you see. You should also keep in mind the 'line of action' while doing so:

It's definitely a lot to take in all at once, so I'd honestly recommend just loading up the site and doing your best to replicate the pose, 'eye tracing' or not. Once you get more used to the routine and flow, then try to branch into learning more appropriate techniques. I've seen around that some people also recommend removing the time limit on the poses, as some people learn better by taking their time on one thing and breaking things down even further from there, but that's definitely up to you. You could also go out and try drawing random people if that helps and if you're bold!

My experience with Pinterest has mostly been for inspiration or cool things I've never thought of before, though I'm sure others are able to use it better than I can haha. I'm sure there are step by step guides to help you out around there!

I think resources to learn how to draw better really do come down to what kind of learner you are in the first place. Lots of people learn really well from Youtube tutorials for example, or maybe reading and following along with a book about anatomy would work for you too. I have like the most god awful attention span ever, so what works for me is just raw trial and error and hoping for the best. tbh idk how I even got this far haha but i am happy that I've progressed at all

Let me know if you have more questions and I'll definitely do my best to answer them! If you're looking for more advice regarding traditional art learning fundamentals, I'm sure there are many other artists that would be happy to answer your questions as well!

Best of luck! :)

[bookish-whore]

Hiii I'm new to your blog, I've binged all your fics and falling and exile are my two favorite.

How are you?? How's writing???

Will chapter 11 of falling be soon?? I'm so excited!!!

Hello darling!

Thank you so much for the support it means the absolute world to me to hear from you guys. I'm doing all right I have just been working so much that I've had trouble carving out time to dedicate to writing but I am trying to do better <3

At the moment, I really want to dedicate my time to requests and shorter stories. I am still working on Falling, Exile, and other series I've started but I want to be able to post more frequently and those chapters just take so much more effort and time to plan and write. they are my babies though and I just need a little more time to make sure I feel good with where they are going before I commit to a posting schedule and timeline.

Right now I'm finishing up chapter two of Til Death, and it's kind of a long one (teehee) then I'll be doing some shorter angsty requests and hopefully later this fall I'll have more chapters of my ongoing series for you guys

Love you endlessly ❤️

[merrock]

HAPPY FIRST OF DECEMBER!

Holy moly, can you believe we have entered the last month of the year?! It’s December, friends! And while we’re in holiday mode, we didn’t want to leave you hanging with our start of the month post, so here we are! Read on to see a little bit of what’s to come this month, the fun things we’re offering, a few little gentle reminders, and just ideas about what you could see in the year ahead.

HAPPENING IN DECEMBER:

winter wonderland sleepover (december 9-11): a fun event dedicated to not just holiday bliss, but also to friends and family getting together to have a good time in holiday sweaters!

winter market (december 18-24): the best place to do your holiday shopping, or just support local businesses, and enjoy the wintry, blustery, best parts of the season in Merrock!

new year’s eve party (december 31): hosting our shindig this year, Evolution is ready to see your sparkliest cocktail dresses and tallest heels, and see just how well the gents clean up, too!

EXTRA BIT OF FUN:

As usual, we have our monthly development resource for December, which is available any time that you want to have some fun delving into your character and really getting a good feel for them! And we also have a fun little moodboard challenge for you to create your character’s winter and holiday vibe. Neither of these are mandatory, and shouldn’t take place of you doing actual activity, but could be a lot of fun to jump into!

RULES & REMINDERS:

just a gentle reminder to please read over our rules and be sure that you’re familiar with them, but nothing has changed!

starters!!! with the holiday season here, it’s more important now than ever to make sure you are replying to starters right away. writers (new and old!) are looking for activity and to feel included, and it’s all of our responsibility to keep on top of that.

pay attention to main! please like the posts we ask you to read & like, follow and unfollow blogs as soon as possible, answer questions anons might have. even if you can only check in mobile, or are lurking, it’s better to stay on top of things than fall behind!

& watch the ooc blog as well! welcome new writers, make your fellow Merrockites feel seen & included, and keep eyes open for announcements or things we need help with.

try! that’s basically all that we’re asking right now. carve out an hour at night to do a few replies, or take an afternoon every few days to catch up, as long as you’re genuinely putting in the effort to be active, as admins we are so, so appreciative of that, truly!

THINGS BEHIND THE SCENES:

planning is already well under way for 2023; I will be spending a lot of my holiday break when I am caught up on replies working on stuff for the first few months.

that being said, you might see slightly fewer events on dash just until we build activity back up and have lots of participation! so we’ll be more selective with what we put the effort into based on what we’ve seen interest in over the past few months.

we’re very, very open to your suggestions on what you would like to see and do in the year ahead, so please don’t hesitate to let us know any ideas that you might have! and as always, we’re super open to the idea of your characters planning and hosting events, as well, or adding to the town in any way.

We’re so thankful for those of you who have stuck around during this crazy, busy time, as we know how stressful it can be, and we hope to see you still with us come January 9th when we slip back into normalcy, too. Lindsey and I have exciting things planned for the year ahead and cannot wait for another year of adventure in fun in Merrock -- but let’s finish December off with a snowy, blustery, Ho Ho Ho! xx

[masongrizchel]

Towards Inner Peace 🌿

I have been in a state of mental and emotional turmoil lately. 😔 It was just recently that I felt that I was recovering. And day after day, I feel the constant distractions and demands. 💭 I discussed the idea of being mindful in my recent blog post. 📝 As I read more about this, I guess this can serve as my personal beacon of hope since I am often seeking inner peace and mental clarity. 🌟 Since this concept is not new, it's more about application. The path to mindfulness is not without its challenges.

Lately, I have had a relentless chatter of the mind. My thoughts race like a runaway train. 🚆

Being pulled away from the present moment, caused a whirlwind of worries to flood my mind. More 'what ifs' and hypothetical dilemmas: learning to quiet this mental noise (which I tried) is really difficult, as it requires patience and persistence. This served as a gentle reminder to return to the breath whenever the mind begins to wander. 🌬️

We live in a society that values productivity and multitasking, making it difficult to carve out moments of stillness amidst the chaos. Finding the time to sit quietly and practice mindfulness can feel like an uphill battle, especially when faced with pressing deadlines and endless to-do lists. However, prioritizing self-care and setting boundaries around our time can help create space for mindfulness to flourish. We need a lot of effort for this to materialize, as well as to ignore external boundaries. ⏰

We should not overlook the emotional challenges of mindfulness; confronting our feelings and sensations without judgment can be uncomfortable, and encountering resistance or fear along the way is not uncommon. Yet, it is through this process of self-exploration and acceptance that true healing and growth can occur. 💪

Societal and cultural factors can present barriers to mindfulness, particularly for marginalized communities. Factors such as systemic oppression, economic inequality, and historical trauma can exacerbate stress and prevent individuals from accessing resources that promote well-being. In order to truly embrace mindfulness as a universal practice, it's essential to address these systemic issues and create inclusive spaces where everyone feels welcome and supported. 🌍

Despite these challenges, the journey of mindfulness is a deeply rewarding one. By cultivating present-moment awareness and compassion for ourselves and others, we can tap into a source of resilience and inner peace that transcends the ups and downs of daily life. As we navigate the obstacles along the way, may we remember that each moment is an opportunity to come back home to ourselves and find refuge in the stillness within. 🏠

Let's embrace ourselves from the inside. 🌻

[fahrni]

Project Tapestry

Craig Hockenberry • Iconfactory

This post will explain the technology behind Project Tapestry and how we tested it as a prototype. We’ll keep this discussion at a fairly basic level: if you’re a web or app developer, you’ll have no problems following along.

And if you think I’m going to describe RSS feeds now, think again! We’ve come up with something completely new.

I’m excitedly looking forward to seeing the final product and I hope they make their stretch goal of bringing it to the Mac. 🤞🏼 Please, go read about Project Tapestry, and if you’re so inclined please support their effort. I backed them early, it was a no brainer for me.

I really wanted to talk about the choice the Iconfactory made to create a highly extensible platform for plugins. It’s a darned great idea! And I love their choice of pushing network requests through Project Tapestry itself as a way to guarantee plugins can’t phish out user data or credentials to exploit later. 👍🏼

As I was reading the post I came across Craig’s mention of the app having a sendRequest method used by the JavaScript code to make network requests. This grabbed my attention and made me realize this is a way better version of a React Native application.

What I mean by that is, React Native is hosted inside a native iOS application framework and uses native iOS controls on its view controllers or its version of a view controller. The JavaScript code drives everything from networking to user interface (it uses UIKit internally) to render content for the user to interact with. This allows developers to write their app using straight web technologies and run it on iOS and Android.

The project I’m currently involved in is an existing eight year old iOS application built with a mix of UIKit and SwiftUI. On the flip side the Android app of the same age is built using Java and Kotlin with a mix of the original XML based UI and modern Jetpack Compose. They’ve both taken very similar and not unexpected paths.

Enter React Native

Something our client wanted to do is integrate React Native into the existing applications. This has been done before by Airbnb and more recently by Shopify. Each with very different outcomes.

So all of that to say, ours has been successful, in my opinion. We’ve been able to fully integrate React Native and carve out a little set of API’s in the native application we expose to the React Native developers to do work the native application is already doing for them for free. Part of which is all the networking calls.

In the Tapestry blog post Craig points out sendRequest. It’s the call they use to handle requests to the internet for the JavaScript plugin. In our application we’ve exposed a makeRequest call that handles doing any type of network request; GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE, and returns a Promise to the caller. Hey, sounds like the Tapestry code! 😄

I have it on my todo list to learn JavaScript. It’s been there for years and years because I knew I’d need it at some point. I really need it now. I can’t see React Native projects going away for the WillowTree team. They’re a very popular way for our clients to get cross platform code and get an iOS and Android app out the door simultaneously without having to spend time, money, and effort on two completely separate code bases.

Over the course of our integration work I’ve done a smidge of TypeScript code to allow other TypeScript devs on the team to make calls into the APIs we’ve exposed in the native application.

It’s been fun and I see a place for JavaScript/TypeScript in my native development world.

As for what Iconfactory is doing, I think it’s a much better version of what React Native does. It gives them the best of both worlds. A beautiful, hand crafted, fully native UI, that gives JavaScript developers the ability to extend the app. That’s a lovely thing. ❤️

[illmoraineakoi]

So, quick update on plush stuff:

Good news is that I've pretty much got the body shape and measurements done to a point where I'm really satisfied with them.

Absolutely Awful news is that somehow I've lost over 4 feet of 4 or 5 inch thick upholstery foam that I bought like ten years ago and never used.

I was counting on that foam, and now I cannot fucking find it. It isn't where I was almost completely certain it was. And that's not the kinda thing I would've thrown out, that shit was expensive.

So now I have to go through all of the bins in the garage, looking to see if maybe it got rolled up and put in one, which I have to pray to god it's in one of them because if it's not, that means it might be in one of the attic crawlspace bins, and I can't get up there! The only person who goes up there is my grandfather, and I already asked him to look up there, I really don't want to have to ask him to pull bins down, go through them, and then put them back up. That's just way too much effort for a chunk of fuckin foam.

And I was kinda counting on finding that foam so I could measure it and figure out both how much of it I could use, and in turn, how much more I might need.

I already know I'll need a new chunk for the head - The head is set to be 6 inches thick at the thickest point, and I don't want to have to deal with layering up foam for the head. It'd be easiest to carve it from a single piece. I'll already be cutting and attaching the horns separately, but I want the head itself to be one solid piece.

But without it, I'm just stuck here with my metaphorical dick in my hand, not really sure how to proceed. I really do not want to have to buy more foam than I really need to, it's so expensive.

It really sucks, because I'm really sure it was 5 in foam, which is the EXACT THICKNESS I NEED FOR SO MANY PARTS! BOTH LEGS, THE HORNS, THE BODY! I'm so goddamn upset.

I haven't even checked if I have any black minky/white fabric yet. I might need to shill out for some of that on top of some super expensive foam.

I hate this. I hate that this seems to happen every fucking time I try to do a project recently. I wanted to knit a cloak, but the pattern gets taken down before I could start it. I wanted to make myself a new custom BG for this blog, my tablet won't fucking work. I want to start a big sewing project that I'm actually really excited to do, and one of the most essential materials that I know i fucking have goes missing.

Am I not allowed to have nice things anymore? Am I not allowed to find enjoyment in my beloved hobbies anymore? Can I no longer do anything without something going fucking wrong? Did I somehow piss off some sort of petty spirit and get cursed?

I'm really really tired of this shit.