#i'm sorry i can't be more helpful

[tarysande]

Apologies if I'm prying, and obviously you don't have to answer at all, or publicly, if you don't want to: I've only been diagnosed with ADHD a couple of months and I'm still looking for admin jobs/working a few part time bits. Do you disclose? Or do you think it's a bad idea to disclose/wouldn't work for your situation?

I'm always happy to talk about my experiences!

So, my situation is a little different because I'm self-employed. Part of the reason I'm self-employed is because I have ADHD. I like being able to set my own schedule. I like not having to work in the morning (when I'm pretty much useless). I like being able to (for the most part) choose my work based on whether it's interesting/novel/challenging enough to keep me interested--and I like that my work is always changing. Even if I get bogged down on one project (i.e., I'm so bored I want to pull my eyeballs out), I know it'll end and I'll get to move on to something else.

In my primary source of employment (I'm a freelance editor and writing coach), I'm quite open about my ADHD specifically because I want neurodivergent writers to know I understand and empathize with many of their struggles. I can (and do!) tailor my approach when working with folks who have, for example, issues with rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, or trauma around criticism. We're all in this together.

That said, I am also very aware that my employment situation is made possible by the fact that my husband has a good, salaried job that includes the health insurance that pays for the various and sundry (ridiculously expensive) medications I'm on. And I live in a country where my health care is not tied to employment.

I do have a very, very part time gig for an employer (I'm still considered a contractor, though), and I did disclose to them--but only after we ran into a situation where I was made incredibly uncomfortable by the extremely neurotypical way they decided to handle a difficult situation. Without going into details, they called me in for a meeting that I would much, MUCH rather have preferred as an email. I explained that everything about the way they handled things led to extreme issues with rejection sensitivity and emotional dysregulation that would have been entirely mitigated by a) clearer communication and b) giving me time to process the information in a private space. While they didn't get it at first, I was able to eventually make them understand where I was coming from, and they changed the behavior to accommodate me. But--and this is a big but--I already had a good relationship with the management, so they were willing to listen without judgement.

Even though there are meant to be anti-discrimination protections (including providing accommodations for neurodiverse folks), I'm not entirely sure I believe they ... work? There's still a lot of stigma. And sometimes people hear "ADHD" and assume "flake"--which absolutely is not the case.

I would say that if you do disclose, be sure to clarify what kinds of accommodations you might require and to heavily lean on the strengths you bring to the role instead of what an employer might perceive as weaknesses. (For example: I work extremely well under pressure. I will be less effective if given work with vague or non-existent deadlines. I am an excellent problem solver who often discovers or invents solutions not just for existing issues but for those that haven't yet become critical. My enthusiasm for work I find interesting, novel, and rewarding is boundless. I am creative, dedicated, and motivated ... but only after about eleven in the morning.)

[thefloatingstone]

If one were to visit South Africa, what sites and activities would you recommend? Also, which is safer cash or card?

South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries for crime (especially violent crime), so 100% card. Do not carry cash.

It depends what sort of things you enjoy, but I would recommend visiting the Western Cape what is called "The Garden Route" here. It's the most beautiful part of the country and you can get a LOT of tourist attractions involving our nature. The Garden Route is also along the coast so you can have a choice of visiting Game Parks to get guided tours to see our wildlife including Elephants and lions.

Some parks have Rhinos too but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T TELL PEOPLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA WHICH PARKS HAVE THEM AND DO NOT PUT PHOTOS ONLINE!!!!

We recently have an old bull poached because an international tourist couldn't keep their fucking twitter to themselves and HAD to let everybody know which park had a large bull. And that tourist got that animal killed. And yes I am STILL fucking angry about it.

Anyway

Being along the coast you can also get things like charted vessels to go see the whales that come to our shores.

If you go to Cape Town you can also enjoy a lot of the art scenes, visit Table Mountain, visit Robben Island to see where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, but also you can check out the old Dutch forts and the canon which fires every hour on the hour.

Just be sure to have a VERY good idea of where your GPS is taking you and avoid driving through anywhere that looks dodgy. It would be best to get in touch with a local of some kind who can help you get around in a way that is safe if you are going to any bigger city of any kind.

Do not go to Johannesburg.

[gamebunny-advance]

hey, sorry if im completely wrong but your art style looks extremely familiar and resembles the art style an old internet friend i had who dropped off the face of the earth had. did you ever go by the username puffypugs??

No, sorry. I've never used a name like that online.

[skrunksthatwunk]

non-comprehensive haruhi autism creature comp

i mean just look at him she's literally

[uncanny-tranny]

Hey, if you have speech impediments, you are so amazing.

If you stutter or have a lisp or misspeak easily or you have a flat affect or a limited verbal vocabulary or if your voice is AAC or if you just have a difference in your vocality, you are so incredibly important and amazing.

Just know that your voice is yours. Nobody will ever be able to truly take it away. Your voice is part of you, and you deserve to make it as true to you as you deem fit. I hope you have the space to grow with your voice and whatever about it makes it unique.

[nostalgia-tblr]

okay, so the thing with wishing we could kudos every chapter of a fic.

i get it, we all want to hit the little like button more than once, it's the easiest way to express our approval/enjoyment/gratitude. i am going to address this to a generic 'you' (hello Y/N!) and assume that 'you' has either never posted fic to ao3 or hasn't posted both oneshots and multichapter works.

hits, kudos, comments, bookmarks. every marker of popularity (which many will interpret as quality) on ao3 is inadvertantly weighted in favour of works with more chapters. no, not longer necessarily, but with more chapters. go and sort a few fandoms by any of those stats and you'll probably be able to spot this trend in action right away.

oneshots are only at the top of a tag (by the default date sorting) once, and even if you re-read it you can only leave one kudos on it.

a multichapter can stay near the top of the update-sorted results for months if you time your chapter drops right, and of course every time someone comes back for the next chapter that's another hit, and being seen more it is more likely to end up with more kudos. you can still only leave one per work, though, which limits the effects to some extent. multichapter works still tend to overall outperform oneshots on stats, and the longer they are the more likely that becomes, but you'll still usually see a couple of oneshots on the first page if you sort that list by kudos.

and a lot of people (percentage unknown) do sort by kudos (or some other stat) and works at the top of 'by kudos' will thus attract more readers and more kudos. so there's an incentive to get as many kudos as you can on your fic, and if cutting it up into 250 chapters will help... well it already does, and that's had an effect whether writers will admit to dragging fics out a bit on purpose or not, but imagine if that effect were to become orders of magnitude more intense.

even if you personally prefer longer fics cut into fairly short chapters, you probably don't want to get your 150k epic in chapters of only a 100-300 words, do you? you don't want the oneshot writers to just give up when every page, no matter how they're sorted, is full of 5000-chapter works to the point that readers now riot when asked to read a whole 2000 words in one go. your fave author is now feeling insecure because chapter 12 didn't get as many kudos as the last one did.

and this is why ao3 will never let you leave kudos on every chapter. they're aware that the site already incentivises chaptering works and doing that more than you otherwise might. so you're just going to have to learn to put an emoji heart in the comment box.

[h20milk]

wtfrick!

[satoruxx]

the way i was staring at my screen when mc threw a whole ass cup at caleb and he just stood there after it shattered and said "did that help you calm down?" in the most relaxed voice ever..

[kerryweaverlesbian]

Dean Winchester of Supernatural fame is NOT reading parenting books he is putting on Cheaper By The Dozen, Daddy Daycare and Honey I Shrunk The Kids taking notes.

[fortune-maiden]

Thinking about Shao Yuanyuan and her wildcard potential and it hit me today... just how much does she know? Does she live in a time loop similar to Lu Guang or does she hop in and out of the past like Cheng Xiaoshi? Does she know that Cheng Xiaoshi also has a death node?

It suddenly occurred to me to that the Shao Yuanyuan we likely saw during the fire in Ep 4, was either a time leaping SYY from the future or at least one who had information from her future self to know to be in Bridon at this point in time and also a Shao Yuanyuan who might have just realized Cheng Xiaoshi had awakened his own powers.

Given her meeting with Cheng Xiaoshi in Ep 6 where she acts like Cheng Xiaoshi should be aware of how this all works, I suspect that it's because the version of Shao Yuanyuan from Ep 4 arranged this meeting because she encountered Cheng Xiaoshi during the fire and thus knew he would show up in Bridon and go searching for them through Wang Qing. She needed to set up that meeting so she could tell Cheng Xiaoshi face to face not to pursue her anymore (and make things more complicated).

I also think that was her second attempt at doing so - the first being to go back years earlier to tell the Qiao family not to let him go to Bridon. But the future refused to change so she found another opportunity to try again.

And based on Lu Guang's comments it sounds like she would have also failed again in the original timeline. It's not clear how her conversation with CXS went last time (if there was one) but at the very least she might not have had time to make CXS promise not to chase after her anymore, and that would have likely sealed his fate. If anything, a sudden interrupted meeting like that might have even encouraged him further.

And this is all coming from a Shao Yuanyuan from an unknown point in the future...

Anyway this is a lot of words to say where in time is Shao Yuanyuan?

And what the heck does the timeline look like from her perspective?

[timothyslucy]

they really weren't kidding about the rom-com vibes in this season.

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

Every day I wake up, remember that a Miss Holloway musical HAS ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN, and feel myself go feral.

[brucie-baby]

Thinking of a sentient Gotham AU where she makes Bruce her champion and stuff, and it basically makes B immortal until his mission is complete. Until Gotham is rid of corruption and it's the utopia that B dreams of making it, he's not going to die.

Like, he stopped aging in his mid thirties and no damage done to him is permanent. Bane breaking his back? Gotham healed it up good as new, every time he SHOULD die? He doesn't.

This can go one of two ways with the Batfam:

1) His children are unaffected by his mission and he has to watch them grow old and die.

2) Gotham extends her claim onto his children as well and they are also unable to die.

I prefer option 1 but what do you think?

i loooove sentient gotham thank u for this

i like the idea that like. bruce is constantly grappling with the fact that he's been granted immortality but his loved ones have not. he kind of hates himself for it, honestly. he feels it whenever robin!dick gets injured but never more than that time dick got shot, when he fired him. in this little au, bruce fires him because (in his mind) dick has seen him defy death one too many times and now acts like he can do the same. but he can't. he can die. he will die. but the longer dick is around bruce, the more dick acts like he's invincible. this is not the case, of course - bruce is just projecting. but he thinks, in this desperate attempt to save dick, that if dick stops working with somebody who cannot die, he'll stop acting like he also can't.

but then comes jason. and bruce tells himself that this time will be different. he won't tell jason that he can't die. he won't act like he can't die. this time will be different and jason won't get hurt and everything will be fine and suddenly they're in ethiopia and there's a warehouse and a clown and a boy who knew he could die but who just wanted to save his mother and--

and bruce is constantly grappling with the fact that he's been granted immortality but his loved ones have not. he really hates himself for it, honestly. he hates gotham for it too. why would she give him this blessing and turn it into a curse? why wouldn't she help his children, the people he loves?

gotham may not grant his children immortality, but bruce will. bruce will dig down as deep as he can, tug on strings he didn't know existed, feel the black sludge of magic in his veins and cast it out into the world and it will find his children if bruce has to guide it there himself. gotham fights back, throws everything she has into stopping him, but bruce is too strong, too determined. gotham cannot stop him when he knows her streets better than the endless corridors of his own home.

then something gives. he feels the magic being shared. and he knows, with absolute certainty, that all of his children, past, present and future, will be safe. they will not die.

bruce can now, though. bruce can die. but his children can't, and so bruce is okay with this. because somewhere out there, eyes he thought would stay closed forever have just burst wide open.

[prolibytherium]

I never touched it but I feel like i only ever hear positive things said about song of achilles.. in (rough strokes at least) what makes it dogshit to you?

Okay it's been a while since I actually read it so some of this might not be spot on accurate. Sorry if at any point I say 'the book never does xyz' and it actually does once or twice but I think my underlying criticisms are accurate

-Patroclus is made into like this soft gentle tender quivering little yaoi boy. In the source text, he's shown as compassionate and moved by the suffering of his own men (and apparently having some medical skill, tending to the wounded in the camp), but very much invested n combat and very, very good at it (pages worth of descriptions of the guys he's killing left and right). In this, the arguably more complex character from this 8th century BC text is flattened into Being A Healer, he doesn't want to go to war he just wants to help people, he only goes because Achilles has to but he doesn't want to fight he's a HEALER he's a gentle lover NOT A FIGHTER who just wants to help he just wants to help everyone around him he HEALS while Achilles is a doomed warrior who is so good at fighting and KILLING its a DICHOTOMY GUYS!!!LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL SUN AND MOON DOOMED LOVERS SO SAD patocluse HEALER . (I Think he's specifically characterized as being BAD at fighting but might be misremembering)

-I don't remember much about Achilles' characterization I think it just makes him less of a jackass while not adding anything of interest and levels out into being mad boring.

-Not getting into the literal millenias old debate whether the mythological characters Achilles and Patroclus were being characterized as some type of lover by the original oral sources of the Iliad or its Homeric writers. We will never know. We don't even know what (if any) culturally accepted conventions of male homosexuality existed in bronze age Greece (we know much more about their descendants). But there are some interesting elements of their characterization in this direction, with how unconventional their relationship is WITHIN the text itself- Patroclus is described as cooking for Achilles and his guests (very specifically a woman/wife's job), Achilles chides Patroclus like a father, but there's also scene where Achilles' mourning of him directly echoes a passage of Hector's wife mourning her husband, Patroclus is explicitly stated to Achilles' elder, and is overall treated as his equal or near-equal, closest confidant and most beloved friend (to the point that pederastic classical Greeks would debate over who was erastes (older authority figure lover) and who was eromenos (adolescent 'beloved')- many took it as a given that this text depicted their present-day cultural norms of homosexual behavior but it existed so Outside of these norms that it had to be debated who was who). Their relationship is non-standard both within the text and to the descendants of the civilization that wrote them.

Basically what I'm saying is this book had opportunities to like, explore the unconventionality of the relationship (being presented here as explicitly lovers), explore the dynamics of why Patroclus wants to do 'women's work' (besides being a tenderhearted softboy), the weird dynamics where they take on paternal roles to each other but also roles of wives, how they feel about being this way, and just kind of Doesn't. Which I guess isn't an intrinsic fault (because it omits much of what I just talked about to begin with). it's just like.... Lame. This book takes jsut abandons everything interesting about the source text in favor of flattening it into bland Doomed Yaoi.

-The conflict that sets off the core story of the Iliad is Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over Briseis, an enslaved Trojan woman taken by Achilles as a war-trophy, Achilles spends most of the story moping because he was dishonored by his 'trophy' being taken. Achilles and Patroclus and everyone else are raping their captives, all the women in the story are either captured Trojans (or in the case of the free women within the walls of Troy, soon to be enslaved, and are slave owners themselves). Slavery as an institution and extreme patriarchal conventions are innate to the text and reflective of the context in which it was developed. You cannot avoid it.

But obviously you can't have your soft yaoi boys doing this, so the author has them capturing women to Protect Them from the other men. Their slaves are UNDER THEIR PROTECTION and VERY SAFE (and they might even Like And Befriend Them but I might be misremembering that. Briseis does though). Our heroes have apparently absorbed none of the ideals of the culture they exist in and the author seems to think "they're gay and aren't sexually attracted to their captives" would translate to them being outright benevolent (also as if wartime sexual violence is just about attraction and not part of a wider spectrum of violent acts to dehumanize and brutalize an accepted 'enemy')

In the source text, Briseis mourns Patroclus as being the kindest to her of her captors, who tried to get her a slightly better outcome by getting her married to Achilles (which probably would be the Least Bad of all possible outcomes for a woman in that situation, becoming a legal wife instead of a slave), and wonders what will happen to her now that he's gone. This is a really really sad, horrible, and compelling dynamic which could be fleshed out in very interesting ways but is instead is tossed entirely aside in favor of them being Besties. Like brother and sister.

All of the above pisses me off so much. If you don't want to engage in the icky parts of ancient/bronze age Greece then don't write a retelling of a story taking place in bronze age Greece. I'm not gonna get mad at children's adaptations of Greek myths or silly fun stories loosely based on them for omitting the rape and slavery but it is SO fundamental to the Iliad. If you're not willing to handle it, either fully omit it or better yet set your Iliad inspired yaoi in an invented swords-and-sandals setting where you can have all your heartbreaking tragic doomed lovers plot beats and not have to clumsily write around the women they're brutalizing.

-The author didn't seem to know what to do with Thetis and she made her just like, Achilles bitch mother who spends most of the story trying to separate our Yaoi Boys (iirc her disguising Achilles as a girl and hiding him on Scyros is made to be more about getting him away from Patroclus than trying to save her son from his prophesied doom in the Trojan War) until she sees how much they loooove each other and I think helps Patroclus' spirit get to the afterlife or something in the end?

-This is more of a personal taste gripe but it has that writing style I loathe where the prose feels less like a story and more like an attempt to string together Deep Beautiful Hard Hitting Poetic Lines that will look great as excerpts on booktok (might predate booktok but same vibe). It's all very Pretty and Haunting and Deep but feels devoid of real substance.

I really like The Iliad and The Odyssey in of themselves. They're fascinating historical texts that give a window into how 8th century BC Greeks told their stories, saw their world, interpreted their ancestors, etc. And genuinely I think these texts have 'good' characters, there's a lot of complexity and humanity to it.

WRT the Iliad- all of the main Achaeans are pretty fascinating, the one singular part where Briseis Gets To Talk and laments her situation is great, Achilles fantasizing that all of the Trojans AND the Achaeans die so he and Patroclus alone can have the glory of conquering Troy (wild), Achilles asking to embrace Patroclus' shade and reaching out for him but it's immaterial (and the shade being sucked back underground with a 'squeak' (the squeak kinda gets me it's disturbing and sad)), Hecuba talking about wanting to tear out Achilles' liver and eat it in a (taboo, exceptioally pointed) expression of rage and grief for his mutilation of her son's corpse, just one tiny line where the enslaved women performing ritual wailing for their dead captors are described as using it as an outlet to 'grieve for their own troubles' is heartrending, etc. A lot of grappling with anger and grief and the inevitability of death, a lot of groundwork laid for characters that could be very interesting when expanded upon in the framework of a conventional novel.

And Song Of Achilles really doesn't do much with all that. I know a lot of my gripes here are kind of just "It's different from the Iliad", I would have thought of it as mostly mediocre and forgettable rather than infuriating if it wasn't a retelling (and I DEFINITELY have strong biases here). But I think the ways in which it is different are less just a product of a retelling (of course there's going to be omissions and differences) and more a complete and utter disinterest in vast majority of its own subject matter, to the book's detriment. I think a retelling has a point when it EXPANDS on the source, or provides a NEW ANGLE to the source. This book doesn't Really do either, it just shaves off the complexity of its source material, renders the characters into a really boring archetype of a gay relationship, and gives very little else. Its content boils down to a middling tragic romance that has been inserted into the hollowed out defleshed skeleton of the Iliad.

Bottom line: I definitely would not be as mad about it if I wasn't familiar with the source material but I think it's fair to expect a retelling to Engage with/expand on its source, and I also think it's weak purely on its own merits. This book was set up to disappoint Me specifically.

[friendlesscat]

Guess who disappeared, came back and decided to catch up with everything they missed, got stressed out and started procrastinating just because they could, disappeared again and reappeared at 1AM to spam whumpy sketches! :D (Yes, that is, indeed, me)

Anyways, I got a free evening and don't have to wake up early tomorrow, so guess what I did? Of course, I decided to play Skyrim with the wounds mod on, as one does. And it was so nice and whumpy that I simply couldn't resist squeezing in 3 minute sketches for every new injury my poor character got. Not sure if it's a good idea or just something that 1AM me decided to be a good idea, but those sketches are going here. Maybe the more-awake me will regret these decisions, but that is neither here nor there.

These even gave me whumperflies so I needed to share the joy. Forgive me if I'm being odd, haha

I hope all of you will have a wonderful day or night! (*´∀`)✨️

[ibrithir-was-here]

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