#i've done a LOT of self reflection the past week

[yuriio]

growth is knowing he sees me as the villain in his story even though i did all that he asked of me, and still allowed him to end it between us peacefully

[steamberrystudio]

2024 wrap-up and 2025 plans

It's been a really weird year for me and the last few months have been particularly challenging - so much so that I can't really remember much of the start of the year. There's been a lot that has happened and yet it feels like almost nothing has happened.

With a personal move in the works at the moment, and lots of lists and packing and cleaning, the last couple of weeks have felt like a blur of limbo as well.

But rather than just complaining let's jump into the wrap up and plans for 2025.

2024 Progress Wrap up

When looking back over a year of visual novel development, it can be really easy to forget progress and victories because it all smears together into an indistinct timeline.

You know stuff happened but you lose sight of the details of that stuff.

Even while writing this last night, I forgot that A Faerie's Tale was something completed and released this year. I remembered it just now while doing a final proofread of this post.

Development is such a long and repetitive process that you forget all the individual steps it took to get where you are. When I look back over 2024, I admit I feel like I somehow didn't do that much...that time slipped away while I did very little actual work.  

And of course, that isn't true. (Or is it?? Self-doubt assures me that I didn't do anything noteworthy this year.)

When Stars Collide

At the start of 2024, When Stars Collide sat at 485,000 words. I was finishing up editing Asher's route but had portions of the other routes to draft. The UI was still the old design, most of the backgrounds were incomplete and none of the additional features like the flowcharts and affinity meters were set up.  

I wanted to release an updated demo and the more new people told me they were playing the demo, the more I died inside because it was not at all reflective of the project any more. But I was missing critical backgrounds that I actually got only a few weeks before Episode 1 went to beta.

The point is that back at the start of 2024 the game was still very unfinished but I had big plans. My goal was originally to start releasing episodes in June of 2024 but editing and coding just took so much longer than expected that it just wasn't possible.

From a writing perspective, I learned that drafting and editing a game in this overlapping route style was hard. It was just genuinely so much more difficult than the separate route structure I'm used to. It really requires different processes and styles of planning than what I've done in the past. The burden of meticulously matching a timeline of events across 6 routes simultaneously is really tricky with the way I write and form the choices in my games.  

You kind of have to either never refer back to anything that happens within a choice scenario or you have to remember and track a lot of variables and conversations and events. Additionally, writing one plot line from multiple relationship perspectives is actually quite tricky. Things have to align in very specific ways but you also kind of want to make sure that each play through is interesting. You don't want the conversations within the LI-specific content to be identical but they have to be similar enough you can manage the difference with a few key variables.  

I honestly found it a really exhausting way to write. There's so much less complexity and so much more freedom when you are writing separate routes. And for that reason, the writing took a lot longer than I am used to.

One day I want to write up all my thoughts on route structure in visual novels but I haven't had time yet.

Ultimately I drafted about 172,000 words this year. The total word count of the game before I coded it was around 657,000 words - plus an additional 8-10k or so of bonus content. Of course, that shrinks when I code it but that was the total uncoded word count. So that is quite a jump from the 485,000 words I started with this year.  

I always say that working on VNs really skews your view of what "a lot" of words is. To me, as weird as it is to say, 180k doesn't feel like that much writing, which is silly because it's like writing two YA novels.   

But between the end of the Kickstarter for Gilded Shadows and the end of that year, I think I wrote about 250,000 words. That's 70,000 more words but in less time. I think it just shows how much more difficult writing WSC has been due to the structure of the routes.  

I remember having a conversation with someone once where she told me that writing a game like Gilded Shadows is *definitely* harder and more work than writing a game like When Stars Collide. GS has multiple plots and a lot more words. In WSC, the routes share a plot, they share scenes and content, there's only one plot line and there are far fewer words.  

I think it really underestimates the simplicity buff and the freedom buff that you get from having a single separate route in its own space time where you don't have to care as heavily about continuity across routes or a shared timeline of events or all of this other stuff that was such a burden to me when writing overlapping routes.  

I maintain that I'm really glad I wrote When Stars Collide the way I did. I learned so much about game structure and choices and all this mechanical stuff about how visual novels work that I'd never really had to think about for. It was really, really enlightening.  

But I will never do this game structure again. Lemme just say that.  

Drafting aside, I had to also edit all that writing which was its own special layer of hell.  

And then the art. The art has been enjoyable. I really love this game's aesthetic and the character designs. And the characters. I really enjoy them all so much. They are the most adorable crew of nerdy gremlins out there.  

But the art has had is own challenges. I've done about 20 CGs for the game so far and a lot of them are easy enough but the colour slider MC is definitely a bit of a challenge for the CGs. With GS where I recoloured by hand, there were times that I had to slightly tweak Morgan's default colours to look good in CGs. For instance, one of her skin tones looked quite odd next to Magnus, who is very pink. And I had to just slightly tweak that skin tone in his CGs so they looked okay together side by side. It was easy to test that sort of thing before the CG even got into the game.

But I colour Wil in greyscale and I don't see them in colour until I test. And each colour available on the slider is represented by a number. And there are essentially 100 of them. So testing all of those isn't really viable. I do test multiple skin tones from my saves. But in some ways it's more cumbersome to make sure all of that looks good.  

Wil also has 8 hairstyles…in two colours (which are recoloured manually because a couple of the hairstyles just don't really looks as good recoloured automatically (it's my art, not the dynamic colour slider tool).  

It's a lot of work. Hair 5 usually puts my hand out of commission for the rest of the day (so I save it for last. Ha ha). I don't regret it and again, it's something I wanted to to do as an experiment. I knew that 5 hairstyles was probably manageable and 8 was definitely pushing and I was right so no hard lessons really learned there.  It's sometimes valuable experience to push yourself right to that line and really see where the division between "feasible" and "too much" really is. Because then it's no longer hypothetical. You know where the line is.  

A lot of how WSC is set up was me testing if the line was where I thought it was.

Beyond the art, I also got all the other new features set up and experimented with a few things I hadn't been planning on. Many of those features had the core elements set up and coded by wonderful programmer friends and colleagues (Feniks and Windchimes and Jeneara) but I still had to implement all those things in the code to make them function as part of the game.  

Which, for things like the flowcharts - is time consuming. Flowcharts are like that.  

The flowcharts in WSC use a different method than the ones in GS. It's a brand new tool and I'm still learning how to use it but there are also some kinks that rear their heads (not those kind, you guys! The annoying kind that break the game!)  

I think the feature most people are most excited about would be the save screen. It's quite popular. Ha ha.  

With all of that stuff done, I was able to finally….*finally* release the official version of Episode 1 to Patreon and on Itch.  

And I released Episode 2 (minus two CGs that have been delayed by an abrupt move to a new place and me just not having time to draw right now) to Patrons in early access. (and the Itch version should go out mid-January. I hope).

So the point is…that is actually a fair amount of work that has taken place this year. And a lot of challenges that have been met and overcome.

A Faerie's Tale

Another thing I did this year was finish and release A Faerie's Tale as part of Amare Fest and with a team of friends to help out.

AFT is a concept I've had since about 2020 (prior to WSC actually). It was based on a dream I had as was always meant to be a cute little side project. But it kind of fell by the wayside in favour of my larger projects.

Being able to get it released was definitely fun. Jen and I definitely want to go back to it and release Lachan's route though - it was something we didn't have time for previously and it would be nice to get it truly complete.

Thornewood

And while I haven't specifically mentioned it anywhere outside of my server and Patreon...

The truth is...

I've secretly been planning my next project. But not really all that secretly since I have mentioned it a few times.

I've been torn, for a while, on two projects I'd like to tackle. One is called The Crown Wheel and the other is called (tentatively) Thornewood. I still go back and forth over which one I really want to do next. 

Crown Wheel is the one I *really* want to get out there. It's another story that's close to my heart with some ancient characters of mine that I really love and would love to throw out there for other people to enjoy. But…

Thornewood is a bit more solid a project when it comes to planning and plot. Crown Wheel is a little more nebulous in terms of where the story would go. I'm getting side tracked…I'll get into this more in my 2025 plans.

I have not been working on any other project regularly or in any truly significant way. I've really been working on outlines and character profiles more than anything and I typically do it late at night when I can't sleep but can't draw any more because I'm resting for the day and while I just don't want to be working on WSC because I worked on it all day.

I think I have about 13000 words of outline. I did a rough summary of each route and have been trying to expand those and detail them out a little bit more. So technically that is work I've done this year too.

2024 still somehow feels like a weird year for development. I can't articulate why but it definitely was an odd year for sure.

So What are my 2025 Plans?

That's really the big question at this point. What is in store for Steamberry Studio?

First and foremost, the plan is to get When Stars Collide fully released. This isn't as straightforward as it seems though. With the writing complete, I'm focused on the coding and art, but...

Coding expressions is currently a bit tedious because there have been a ton of group scenes in this game so far. This is because it is somewhat of a 'closed set' so when you are not 1x1 with a love interest…you tend to be with a group. This will diminish in upcoming chapters as the plot kicks off more and you also get longer scenes with the love interests. But unfortunately it does come back in the last few chapters.  

But for now I'm looking forward to heading into parts of the game that are more 1x1 or at least smaller groups at a time.  

Additionally the CG situation has been somewhat up in the air for me. I was originally planning to do CGs in every chapter but I wasn't sure if that would a) be sustainable for me and b) make sense.  

I suspected that there would be chapters coming up where there just weren't necessarily any good CG moments. So the "CGs in every chapter" thing was always going to be a bit squishy.   

I know, for instance, that chapter 6 probably won't have any because there aren't any good moments for it to be honest?  

Anyway. I am thinking that I may take a less formulaic approach to CGs and focus on making sure there are CGs in every episode if not every chapter. Maybe chapters 5, 8, 10...and then...Idk. One or two of the ending chapters. 

Even if it's just four of the remaining chapters, that's still 24 more illustrations for the game. Which I feel like is a very reasonable amount considering there are already about 20. 

Another thing I'm really going back and forth on is the nature of episodes moving forward.

Do I want to continue with 2 chapters per episode or do I want to drop to 1 chapter per episode? I battle myself on this all the time. It's such a hard call for me.

One challenge with moving into single chapter episodes is that I just feel the episodes would be less satisfying with only one chapter. Realistically the chapters aren't that small - even the short ones are more than 30,000 words each. That's...half a YA novel.

But, again, *realistically* when we reduce that to a play time, it's not that much.

People consume unvoiced visual novels at a rate of about 250 words per minute. That means 15,000 words per hour.

So 30k is just two hours of content. When you start dividing this up between "main plot" and "LI route content", you start whittling away at how much content *per character* there is. If there are 20,000 words of "LI content" - yeah, that's more than half the chapter. But that gets divided by 6 characters. And that means 13 minutes of playable content *including all the choices* for each character which isn't a lot. And most people are not going to play through every choice option.

Which means people could be getting through the unique content for their favourite character in less than 10 minutes.

By combining chapters, that means we get episodes that are 70,000 words or 90,000 words. It boosts the amount of content per character by a significant amount and that is really what I'm looking at when I consider episode layout. 

I try to think about what is going to make for the most satisfying episode for players. The drawback of 2 chapters per episode is that it's…a lot. It's a lot of expressions. It's a lot of flowchart work.  

It just takes more time.

Regardless of whether it's just 1 chapter at a time or whether it's 2 chapters at a time, I really want to move forward with steady releases and get the game fully released to players in 2025. That is obviously my primary focus going forward.   

The story is finished. It's burning a hole in my laptop. (Not really). But I want to get it released.

Having the story already written but delivering it in smaller bites to players is doing a lot to save my drawing hand from inevitable doom but it's so hard for me mentally. I know the things coming up in future episodes and I'm so keen to release it and see reactions and talk to people about it. And it's just so difficult to not be able to do that as fast as I want.

I'm trying to be patient and I hope all of you are willing to be patient with me.

In other work…

I will likely continue to plan out my next game on the side, though I don't intend to start working on it or writing it until WSC completes. It's too hard to manage two projects like that - at least for me - most of the time.

When it comes to Thornewood (the most likely contender for 'next project'), it is a 'dark fantasy' in that the setting is gritty and grimy fantasy with an underlying darkness in the world. It's not really a dark romance though.

I always view dark fantasy as including settings where the darkness comes from outside the main character interactions. The setting is dark and the stories have danger and darkness....

But dark romance is when the relationships themselves are also dark. And I feel like I don't really write dark romance. I don't write perfect relationships either but I wouldn't describe them as 'dark' by any stretch.

Either way I'm looking forward to working on something more overtly fantasy again.

I've been dabbling in science fiction for a long time now (since 2019 - that's when I started Gilded Shadows!!) and I've been wanting to move back into fantasy settings for a while now.  

Even just working on the profiles and outlines and world building for fantasy projects, it feels like the Fae and the magic are calling me back home. So I'm really eager to wrap up WSC and bury myself in a more fantasy themed setting again.

But I have a long journey to get to that point.

There's a lot to do in 2025 and I still have a lot of stories to tell.

I hope you will all be here with me for the journey.

[aphroditestearsofjoy]

𝕊𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕥:

Saturday is rest day. I personally really need one reset day a week. This day will be be focussed on my progres form past week, planning upcomming week, doing my weekly self care tasks and doing a deep clean. For me personally weeks go from monday to snday. SO by making saturday my reset day, I still have sunday to get the things I missed past week in check before starting school again on monday. If I've done everything for that week I can either relax on sunday or start getting ahaed with my plan for upcomming week.

❧◦°˚°◦.¸¸◦°´•.¸♥ 𝓉𝓪𝓼𝓴𝓼 ♥¸.•´°◦¸¸.◦°˚°◦☙

Mental ☙ Journal for at least half an hour. ☙ Make time for hobbies.

Physical ☙ Go on a walk outside. ☙ Redo my nails. ☙ Make and put on a face mask. ☙ Dip my face in ice water.

Planning ☙ Make a meal plan for upcomming week. ☙ Make a workout plan for upcomming week. ☙ Make a school tasks planning for upcomming week. ☙ Reflect on planning from past week. ☙ Reflect on monthly goals.

Cleaning ☙ Clean devices, and delete everything I don't need from them. ☙ Replace bedsheets. ☙ Clean my room and bathroom with a vacuum and soap. ☙ Clean out schoolbag.

❧◦°˚°◦.¸¸◦°´•.¸♥ 𝓭𝓪𝓲𝓵𝔂 𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓷 ♥¸.• °◦¸¸.◦°˚°◦☙

6.35 Morning routine. 8.15 Do all cleaning tasks. 10.00 Do all planning tasks. 13.00 Make time for journaling, hobbies, going on a walk and my nails. 20.45 Make a face make face mask.

Be sure to like, comment and reblog! If you like my content, consider buying me a book. <3 Lots of kisses, ~ Pearl 🐚

[thequeenofsastiel]

I've always found it rather strange that Spike is shown to be someone who doesn't spend a lot of time thinking complex thoughts or focusing on any self reflection, while Angel/us is, given who both of them were as human. Liam was a drunkard who spent a lot of time in taverns, not going to school or seeking out any kind of career. William was a romantic poet. And yet when they became vampires, Liam turned into Angelus, who took the time to learn lots of languages so he could psychologically torture his victims. Then, when he was ensouled, he spent a lot of time brooding and reflecting upon the things he'd done without a soul.

Whereas William turned into Spike, and lost interest in poetry and essentially became an almost mindless killing machine. Though he did retain his romantic inclinations. Then when he was ensouled, it initially drove him insane for a few weeks. But once he started to receive emotional support, he slowly regained sanity. Yet as soon as he did, he didn't seem to spend much time brooding, and even told Robin that he wasn't interested in self reflection. Even getting a soul wasn't much of an intellectual choice. It was an emotional choice. He hurt Buffy and figured that the only way he could make sure he never did that again was by getting a soul. Sure, that involved some thought, but it was mainly emotion that drove that decision. I don't think he gave a lot of consideration as to how it would really affect him past taking away his desire to hurt Buffy.

So why? Why did they both react that way to becoming vampires? I've discussed how people react to becoming vampires in the Buffyverse on this blog, and have come to the tentative conclusion that what happens isn't that a demon with its own mind simply possesses the human's body, because the vampire retains parts of the human's personality and emotions. Liam kills his entire family because as a human he didn't really care about them, at least not enough to counteract the instincts of the demon soul that possessed him. Whereas William turned his mother into a vampire because the love he felt for her as a human was so deep that he wanted to save her from her human suffering and be with her forever. He also didn't kill Cecily despite her cruel rejection, and I believe that's because of how much he cared for her as a human. So what I think happens is that the human soul, which holds a moral compass, goes away, and is replaced by a demon soul, a soul which has no mind of its own, simply gives the human vicious instincts. A desire to kill and torment. But the essence of who the human was is still there. It's why Spike was capable of falling in love with Buffy and wanting to protect her loved ones, while there's no chance in hell that Angelus, who was not shown to have been romantic at all as a human, would have been able to do that.

I also think that the vampire isn't different enough from the human to absolve the vampire of its responsibility for the actions they took while soulless. In s5 of Angel, Spike is shown to be destined to go to hell, despite the fact that he had a human soul. Then again, perhaps his human soul would be parted from his vampire soul and go to heaven while his vampire soul would go to hell. Who knows?

But again, why were Angelus and Angel so interested in deep thoughts? Why weren't soulless and ensouled Spike? You'd think it would be the exact opposite. Was this just a case of Whedon not putting enough thought into it? Or am I missing something?

Open question, I want thoughts.

[jodiellie]

Week 1 Evaluation

It's been a week since I've started this journey, so let's reflect on how the first week has been!

First of all, let's have a refresher on what my GOALS for this 30 days initially is~

Fixing my sleep schedule

Incorporate more physical activities (doesn't have to be exercising, can be stretches or walks!)

Drawing more often for practice

Sleep:

I'd say sleep wise, I'm slowly getting better at it. Though, there are moments where I couldn't get myself to sleep and ended up getting worse. But in general, I think I've made good progress than before I started on this journey, so good job me! ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

Physical activities:

I'm pretty proud of my progress for this! So far, I've managed to do something everyday for the past week to get my body moving! Whether it be actually following along exercising videos on Youtube or some stretching to ease some tension on muscles! Again, good job to myself uwu

Drawing:

Now this. I did NOT meet this goal at all during this entire week, which is a shame. I think I was focusing a lot on taking better care of my own body that the thought of taking care of my skill set kinda slipped my mind? Which, to be fair, is kind of expected since even trying to remind myself to do certain basic self care task is difficult in itself. So, it's okay, we'll just have to do better during the following week~

Extras:

Other extra stuff for my health that I think would I've done well is also finally taking my meds and vitamins. Though it's not consistent yet, I'm glad I finally was able to take them more than I was before. This goes for my water intake as well! Sometimes I would go on days without drinking any water at all, which is quite bad... But now that I'm trying to actively record down my days and what I've done to better my body, it serves as a reminder in itself to drink more water, so yayyy another great job done for me °ʚ(´꒳`)ɞ°

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Things I need to improve/add for the following week:

After a week into this journey, I think I'd like to adjust some of my goals and be a little more specific in what I want to achieve for hopefully the next week! This will help me be a little clearer with what I need to do and help myself feel good in the future >:)

Try to sleep 30 mins earlier than the last, but the latest time for me to go to bed would be 3am. I have been doing quite okay with only a few slips here and there on this. So hopefully by the end of the next week, I can somehow sleep around 12am instead.

Still moving my body every single day, but let's try to exercise 3 times this week for at least 30 minutes! It's been a long time since I've exercised that I forgot how good I always feel afterwards both physically and mentally. So yes, I'd like to challenge myself to actually do some exercise more often! ( *` • ω •´)ゝ

Since I have 0 progress on my drawing, I want to start slow and easy myself into it. Since it feels daunting (for some reason), let's try achieving at least 30 minutes per day for 3 days of art practice. Can be anything, like anatomy, color study, or even just my own personal art. As long as it reaches the goal I set, then it's good :>

[anangelwhodidntfall]

Picasso: Dad!JakeSully

Avatar Masterlist 

word count: 1k

Request:  hi! can I request a dad!jakesully with a daughter reader?? i love the way you write those chapters they are great!! it's totally up to you what you write about just lots of fluff and love between the two :)

A/N: Sorry for the late response, I've been student teaching for the past two months and going to class two days out of the week, and I've been sick so much, so I'm trying to write when i can :)

Each of your siblings had a role in the family, your twin neyetam was the mighty warrior, lo'ak was the troublemaker, Kiri was the healer, Tuk was the baby that had everyone wrapped around her finger and then there was you the artist. You had been artistic from an early age, what started off as bracelets and necklaces, evolved into paintings and much more, to the point where you started expressing yourself through your hair.

Norm and a few of the other scientists were showing some pictures from the earth, and that's how you learned about hair dye and hair color. They had given some hair to test the dyes out that you made to see how they would look before you dyed your actual hair to see what you liked and didn't, and provided you with many reference photos.  

You were currently sitting up against a tree working on some color ideas, for your hair right now you were leaning towards pink, liking how it stood out against the black.

"Whatcha working on babygirl?" Your dad asked taking a seat across from you.

"Hair color idea, norm, and some of the scientists had shown me of people having different hair color back on earth and it kinda got me thinking." You said showing him the self-portrait you had been working on.

"Your talent amazes me each time I see it." Your dad said looking at your artwork.

"Thanks,dad, so what do you think? Do you think the pink would look good on me?" You asked him.

"Angel you could pull off any color but I think the pink would stand out more. Are you thinking of adding color to your hair?" He asked."Uh maybe? Would you be mad if I did?" You asked him nervously.

"No I think it would suit you, you've always been different from everyone, and I think it's time that the outside reflects the inside." He said making you smile.

"So you're not mad that I'm not a warrior like nete or a healer like Kiri?" You asked him.

"No babygirl, I've known since you were little that you were an artist that's why I always pushed you to explore that. I don't care that you aren't like your brother or sister, I love you for who you are, nothing more, nothing less." He said placing a kiss on your forehead.

"Thanks daddy. I love you too." You said to him.

"Your welcome. Plus I love the designs you come up with for the war parties and ceremonies." He said making you laugh as you two started heading home.

A few days later one of the scientists Diana was helping you add the pink strands to your hair while you worked on a painting for your dad after his comments the other night when your dad walked in.

"Daddy what are you doing here?" You asked him as he took a seat across from you.

"I came to learn how to do your hair that way I could help you do it next time." He said.

"Really? You? Mr. I've had one hairstyle since I was born, wants to learn how to do hair?" You said teasing him.

"Oh it's like that huh? Then you can forget about getting your hair done." He said.

"What? No I'm sorry daddy." You said setting your painting down and crawling over to him and into his lap.

"Nope it's too late, you have bullied me for the last time." He said.

"Nooo I'm sorry daddy, it was an innocent joke. I love you and your basic hairstyle." You said making him roll his eyes.

"I love you too, now go finish getting your hair done before I change my mind." He said squeezing you and kissing your head before you went back to your chair.

It took about an hour to add the color to your hair which gave you time to finish your painting, and for your dad to learn how to do it next time but Diana said that she would help you in case he messed up.

"So what do you think dad? Does it look as good as it did in my painting?" You asked him.

"It looks even better. The pink definitely suits you and now I'll really really be able to tell you and neyetam apart." He said making you roll your eyes.

"Thanks dad. And I made this for you." You said handing him the painting you had worked on.

"Ohh angel this is so beautiful, thank you." He said hugging you.

"Your welcome I sort of got inspired by what you said the other night." You said as you two walked home.

You guys return home and your mother froze when she saw your hair instantly making you feel nervous as your siblings looked at you in shock.

"So what do you think mom?" You asked her nervously as she ran a hand through your hair.

"It looks pretty, who did it?" She asked."

Diana, but she showed dad so he could do it next time. I'm sure she could teach you if you wanted." You said.

"I would like that. You look pretty my dear, now I'll be able to tell you and your neyetam apart." She said as you and neyetam shook your heads.

"Do we really look that much alike?" You both asked.

"Yes you do, this will make telling you two apart so much easier." Your parents said as you two laughed.

[thecurioustale]

My New Book Is Out! | Tokens of Zeal

My new book is out!

Buy it! Buy it now!

That's right: In secret, on January 2 of this year I began writing a book of essays. Some of you may know that I have an online journal, which I created in the summer of 2003 when I was just 21 years old and have kept up with ever since. For my new book I went back to the journal and read through it, entry by entry, drawing out excerpts of interest that became conversation pieces for 81 various and sundry essays reflecting on my past life and past thoughts.

The essays are short, often very short. They are less challenging than my usual writing, I would say. My purpose was not to advance my personal frontier of philosophy and intellectual thought in 2024, or to reach a niche audience of deep thinkers, but instead to reflect sincerely on some things I've seen along the way and muse upon how my thoughts have changed and stayed the same over twenty years.

I mention this to you because I am a bit worried that anyone who reads this book might think there's not much to me as an author, and might be dissuaded from reading my works of fiction when those books eventually come out, so I'll lampshade that by adding that I wrote this book in two-and-a-half months. Make of that what you will. I told myself I wouldn't self-sabotage the book by needlessly saying negative things about it, and I am proud of it, not only the fact that I finished it at all, let alone so quickly, but of the actual contents too.

This book is "Volume 1" in a hypothetical series, as it doesn't cover the entire twenty years of the journal but only the first four months, from August to November of 2003—at which point the essays had reached "book length" (lol). So really this book is a snapshot of my life in the latter half of 2003. At that time, I was fading out of college due to financial hardship and other issues, and did not realize that I would never (as yet) return.

I have been wanting for years to go back and reread my journal, and writing a book out of it was the perfect impetus to finally do it. I think a few things stand out about the Josh of 2023:

First, my principles have remained remarkably consistent, but my awareness and understanding of the world has grown drastically, and so those same principles have led me over time to some different policy views and worldviews on some things.

Second, I was a 21-year-old arrogant block of cheese, full of hormones and self-conviction, and that definitely shows up at times in ways that I simultaneously am not proud of and yet which I admire for their sheer gall. There is something very magnetic about the old me which doesn't exist anymore.

Third, following up on that point, it was pretty inspiring and encouraging to revisit the old me, with all that native optimism and drive. I don't express those qualities anymore because life has worn me down and also because I have come to recognize that humanity's problems are a lot more stubborn and irremediable than I thought. By glimpsing into the past, I couldn't help but be cheered on by the old Josh's proud, utopian sense of human inevitability. It lifted my own spirits in the here and now!

I made the mistake of announcing the book on Patreon right after I finished writing it, i.e. back in mid-March. Then I had to wring my hands every week about how post-production was taking longer than expected. Between the irritating realities of formatting a book in software not properly equipped to format a book (never write a book in Google Docs), the complexities of my detail-oriented manner and strong vision regarding the cover design (and engaging for the first time ever with modern generative AI, and having to learn those ropes), and sustaining illnesses and other life priorities and so on, it would take me another two months in all to finally reach today, where I can now publicly declare:

The book is done! It is for sale right now. It is called:

Tokens of Zeal: Words from a Vanished Age

(Caption: Book front cover of Tokens of Zeal: Words from a Vanished Age, by Joshua Calars.)

You can buy it through Amazon in either paperback or e-book format. (I recommend the paperback version for aesthetics as it is much truer to my design vision for the book's layout and appearance, but my profit margin is actually a dollar bigger with the e-book version, so really just go with whichever version you prefer.) It is available in the US as well as in basically all the other countries that Amazon has expanded its publishing service into. If you need help finding a link to a particular version, give me a ping and I will point you there (if there is a "there" to be pointed to). This is my second published book, following Prelude to After The Hero in 2015, and the first book to be published in print.

If you do read it, first of all thank you! It's an honor that you would take the time. Second of all, I would love any feedback you care to offer. That's not a platitude either; feedback is hard to come by and I really would be interested in anything you have to say, good or bad. You can e-mail me, DM, reblog this, drop an ask, or tag me in an independent post. Whatever you like! Feedback will help me greatly when I eventually get around to writing Volume 2. And feel free to leave a review on Amazon, whether good or bad (though hopefully you enjoy the book); I am told it pleases The Algorithm. But most of all, if you enjoy the book, tell someone about it! Your word-of-mouth is currently 100 percent of my advertising budget, lol.

That's all. I wrote a book; it took four-and-a-half-months; it's done now; and it's the first time I've ever gotten to hold a book that I wrote in my hands as a physical thing, and that's pretty neat.

[peachpety]

Upon reflecting this past year, I’m reminded of one area as a fandom citizen that i am lacking - reading fic. And so was born an idea to canvas my fandom family and friends to share with me a fic they've written, art they've created, a podfic they've recorded in 2023 of which they are most proud.

This two part 'rec yourself' list is the result.

Part One features Drarry creations (heavily featured since that's my OTP). Part Two (here) includes a kick-ass mix of various HP ships and ships from other fandoms, including Carry On, Check Please!, Good Omens, Teen Wolf, and Stranger Things. Also, and most importantly, each entry presents a smol blurb from the creator about why they chose their particular piece as their 2023 favorite.

For ease in reading, I've also placed all submitted works posted to AO3 into a filterable bookmark collection, Rec Yourself 2023. Be aware that there's a range of ratings and archive/creator tags, so please, take appropriate responsibility for your personal consumption. And please also be sure to shower the creators with kudos and lovely comments.

Y'all. This endeavor has been a fucking blast. One thing's for sure, I am blessed, humbled and honored to know a whole bunch of fantastic, brilliant, fun folks. Big love to you all, and thank you for participating.

So go forth. Indulge and enjoy! xo peach

* * *

✩ @pato-roldnart ✩ Quiet as a mouse HP | Viktor Krum x Ron Weasely | ART | G rating | Unleashed!Fest 2023 I'm quite proud of this one, I don't know how I made it, I had never drawn them before! My mind went full "oh yeah ronvik " Also, I like the idea of them bonding over their pets and Ron seeing that Viktor cares about something else that is not Quidditch.

✩ @tontonguetonks ✩ Coffee and a Croissant HP Next Gen | Scorpius x Albus | 903 FIC | G rating There are parts of myself and my lived experience in every story and character I write—how I socialize, how I take my coffee… I can’t help it. In *Coffee and a Croissant*, I put a lot of myself in my ace and autistic Albus. He is very dear to me in this story, and in my Fizzy Lifting Drinks drabble. The fic is just a toe-dip in the Soulmate waters where Albus grapples with what to do if he is someone’s Soulmate, but they’re not his. Parts 2 and 3 are in the works, but there is no timeline on either of them. Maybe in 2024?

✩ @crazybutgood ✩ I Bloom Pink For You HP | Narcissa Malfoy x Pansy Parkinson | 993 FIC + ORIGAMI COMIC | M rating | HP Bodice Ripper Fest 2023 This whole idea came about because I got so excited to fold a corset for hp bodice ripper fest, realised I couldn't just submit that one thing, and started brainstorming more loose ideas. It all clicked together when I was inspired by a fic by @schmem14, whose writing I adore. I was so grateful and even more excited when Em gave permission to make this. From there started the self-indulgent process of folding fancy things with fancier papers for this origami comic, and I couldn't have done it without Em and my lovely support team.

✩ @seekercass ✩ Something Cosmic HP | Cedric x Draco x Harry | 1.7k FIC | M rating | Polyship Week 2022 A self-rec that I am still extremely proud of is a short fic written for Polyshipping Week 2022 called Something Cosmic. It's a small coda to Something Good to Always Keep, another fic that I wrote for Quidditch Fest 2021 that I cherish very much. Even though writing is still hard for me these days, I often think about this 'verse and what life is like for Harry, Draco and Cedric after they graduated from Oxford. These three and slice of life bring me such joy. I hope to write more of them.

✩ @roseharpermaxwell ✩ Sounds Worth It HP | Hermione x Draco | 5k FIC | T rating | D/Hr Advent 2023 Being nominated for d/hr advent was a sweet surprise. It gave me a good excuse to remember how to write and the nudge I needed to create something this year.

✩ @basicallyahedgehog ✩ (They) Keep Me Warm HP | Hermione x Harry x Ron | 5.8k FIC | E rating | HP Trans Fest 2023 This was my transfest fic - I wrote it as a love letter to all my trans and Enby friends and as a way of processing some of my own feelings. It’s my first (and so far only) foray into poly golden trio and I loved playing with their dynamics with that added layer to their relationship.

✩ @lumosatnight ✩ For I Have Found Salvation HP | Harry x Severus | 7.1k FIC | E rating | Snarry AUctoberfest 2023 Although this is a smut fic at its core, I tried really hard to make the pacing flow, bringing in background characters, and creating memorable imagery. I am very proud of how it turned out. However, this is probably my favorite fic from 2023 simply for the fact that I had the most fun writing it!

✩ @sugareey-makes-stuff ✩ Feel You Breathing Teen Wolf | Derek Hale x Stiles Stilinski | 8.4k TEXTING FIC | E rating | 2023 Year of the OTP This is my fav 2023 piece because I learned how to create a custom text message AO3 skin, stylize things for plain text reading, and I wrote a whole story  that had some plot that was told through text messages. Also, I did not know I could achieve so much spiciness and throw in so many bad pick-up lines through this medium, but hey, the more you know! XD

✩ @schmem14 ✩ Mastermind HP | Harry x Ron; Draco x Harry; Ron x Draco | 10.7k FIC | E rating | Dronarry Fest 2023 This is one of the few times a story just flew out of me. Possessive stalker Draco sets out to win over Ron in this creepy thriller, but there’s a catch: Ron is already in love with Draco’s boyfriend, Harry.

✩ @drwhoisginnyholmes & @fledglinger ✩ Not Bad, For A 6000 Year Old Classic! Good Omens | Aziraphale x Crowley | 11.8k FIC + ART | E rating | DIWS Reverse! Reverse! Mini Bang

✩ @sniperjade ✩ The Sounds of Us HP Marauders | Regulus x Remus | 20.4k FIC | M rating | Remus Lupin Fest 2023; HPFC Spring Fling 2023 I've been thinking about this for a couple of days and whilst I would really love to say it was the drarry I wrote for this fest last year my favourite would have to be this moonseeker I wrote for Remus Lupin Fest last year. It's my favourite because I lived this fic. It became the entirety of my personality for a whole month because I desperately needed to get to the chapter where Regulus was riding on Padfoots back, through the forbidden forest, with only the light of the full moon to guide them, just to try and help Remus. It's also just because it's very musical and I'm very musical so that makes me love it all the more.

✩ @ghaniblue ✩ Sleeping With Ghosts HP | Regulus x Draco x Harry | 21.9k FIC | M rating | Harry Potter Rare Pair Fest IV I posted a Regulus/Harry/Draco fic last month that I'm very fond of. I started writing it more than 1 1/2 years ago, before I ever read a single Regulus fic. It's triad fic, and I'm pretty proud of the way the individual relationships develop. That was important to me, and I think I succeeded. Posting the first fic on ao3 with this triad tag doesn't hurt either.

✩ @celilasart & @wolfspurr ✩ Shifted Teen Wolf | Derek Hale x Stiles Stilinski | 25k FIC + ART | T rating | Sterek Reverse Bang This work was created for sterek reverse bang, a collaboration fest where the artists create first and the writers write second. wolfspurr and I just clicked when we talked about my art and the things that it inspired in their writer brain ;D the result is just an amazingly sweet and wholesome fic, that is still set in the teenwolf universe as we know it. but unlike many other fics which are full of violence and danger, this one starts with a bang and then it is a beautifully woven story of two people who just complete each other. also... the working title for my art was: tiny fox & sour wolf.

✩ @orange-peony ✩ At the speed of light Carry On | Basilton Pitch x Simon Snow | 26.3k FIC | E rating I picked [this fic] because I had a lot of fun writing it! It started off as a drabble and ended up 26k because I just had a blast writing it and the fandom support was so lovely. Last but not least, Pato made an absolutely stunning art piece for this fic, and it was the best present ever.

✩ @wynnyfryd ✩ i don’t know, you figure it out Stranger Things | Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson | 35.4k WIP FIC | E rating bragging about yourself is difficult, but i’ll just say it’s my favorite because i’m proud of myself for sticking to one project for this long, i love all the artwork the fic has inspired, and i just think the line “the river styx must taste like pennies” fucks severely lmao.

✩ @decaflondonfog ✩ growing pains Check Please! | Eric Bittle x Kent Parson | 50k FIC | T rating i am not usually a long fic gal, which i think is in part lack of patience, but also how attached i get to a universe if i’m working on it for a longer period of time. i finished writing this back in june but this fic felt very “me” in many ways and i think about them so often still  so it’s definitely my 2023 creation i’m proudest of!

[o2studies]

༻`` 1 June — Saturday 56/60

🧡 academia >> / (planning to study a lot of Russian as I've finished this year of school now)

🧡 physical health >> I walked a good bit today, there was a kind of fun day at a park and so I went there with a friend and it was SO MUCH FUN!

🧡 self care >> Sleeping in that little bit extra this morning

I went with K today on a single ride 6 or 7 times and it was amazing! So so much fun, we were screaming our heads off (it the one in the middle picture) and enjoying the music and the slightly sick feeling of being spun round at 100mph. It also felt really freeing to just scream and really funny whenever I'd say 'wee' in a childish tone whenever we'd start spinning in the seats again. We went to her house afterwards, had food, watched Emperor's New Groove (1 & 2) and had way too much fun texting out friend from each other's phones. It was an amazing start into summer.

More updates about this last week:

My exams went quite well I think. There is a couple I might have to retake next year but we'll see whenever I get the grades (I'm praying to God they're all A's or at least high B's). I'm quite happy with how they went tho and mostly proud of the revision I've done for them (I have really died down the revision in the last week and was so tired—physically and mentally— of it all)

I've been falling into some depression-related habits on this past week, sleeping in way too late and constantly, not taking care of myself, being really tired in the evenings and just wasting away the afternoons on my phone & isolating. I am already better and I know I'm working to keep being better. I'm really proud of myself for how quickly I'm bouncing back from that

I wrote some more in my journal recently and started writing out some goals for this year's summer! I would like to write at least some of them out on a post here soon and properly reflect on the list.

My parents had a conversation with my the other day about how I'm allowed to get a part-time summer job this year! I'm really excited, it would be good for me in many ways plus it'll keep me slightly more busy in these next 3 months which is good

I also got my driving licence!! Woo!!

I'm talking with my friends more often and really bonding with them too. We're getting a lot more comfortable around each other too (and the friendly flirting sessions we sometimes have are just so fun XD). We are going to make a good few plans for meeting up over the summer.

After the last exam I talked to another friend, A, while waiting for our buses and I forget how much I love having them as a friend. It was really nice to hear more about them and how she's been doing and her plans for the summer. I'm hoping to meet them sometime next week after their Birthday.

This might be it for now.. If I can remember anything else major that's happened I'll make another post to add to this.

Good night/morning everyone :)

[sapphire-weapon]

I always felt as though Luis and Leon's relationship were a case of lost love or a possible unrequited love (on Luis's side). It makes it sadder.

i wouldn't say that i felt that way in OG, but you can absolutely make a case for it in remake.

i don't have a whole lot to say about luis's perspective personally (@theggning is your resident luis expert, not me), but just in terms of their dynamic in general, i was absolutely shocked by how intimate luis's death scene was.

i'm a former smoker, and maybe i'm weird in this idk, but i only let someone light a cigarette for me once and then never allowed it again because of how profoundly uncomfortable it made me; to me, it felt like that was the most intimate you could be with a person without physically touching them. it crossed a line for me. so that + the angle at which the scene was shot, and just the cinematic direction of it in general... and then for it to be capped off with leon very gingerly placing the lighter back into luis's hand and holding it there -- it was just a very, very intimate moment. far beyond what RE has done in the past -- with any two characters.

remake did a lot of interesting things that OG didn't, and one of the most interesting things was its use of themes. there was a whole lot in there about "can people change" and "penance and atonement" and "chasing the idealized version of the self" and a lot of that shit is shown through leon and luis.

i think, in leon, luis saw someone that he wished he'd personally always been: someone who can view things at a far enough distance to see the bigger picture (though LOLOLOL the irony is that luis has no idea just how much leon had to learn to do that the hard way), and someone who does the right thing because it's right and won't be tempted or swayed or bought off his path. and that's probably ultimately the reason why luis gave ada the finger and threw his lot in with leon instead. ada was too much of who luis already was, whereas leon was someone he wished he could be.

and in luis, i think leon saw a reflection of his own failures, and was forced to face the uncomfortable reality that luis was actually doing something about his past misdeeds, whereas leon himself was just going through the motions and moving forward numbly and blindly.

honestly? i don't think leon could have/would have killed krauser in remake if not for luis -- because krauser was the other side of the coin. for all intents and purposes, krauser had done exactly what leon was in the process of doing -- he was the culmination of years of letting shit build up and not doing anything about it. as a result, he became an angry, unhinged, bitter, unforgiving, sexually repressed traitor who lived for nothing and died for less.

luis was the opposite of that; luis chose atonement and penance, and he died a hero as a result. and i think leon looked at that and made the decision to walk the same path as luis instead of continuing along the path that might one day lead to him becoming krauser. he realized that couldn't keep doing things the way that he'd always done them, because if he did, he'd just get the same results -- and that would lead to the angry, bitter resentment etc etc etc.

and to have the kind of shared growth and inverted perspectives that leon and luis have as characters is absolutely 100% romantic. you see that kind of shit in romance novels all the time. so there is really something to be said about it.

sorry i know that a lot of this is super meta and kind of abstract, but it's something that i've been thinking about for a few weeks, and this ask kind of gave me an excuse to explore it a little bit lmao

[k00295632]

Project: Movement. Week 4. Thursday, 1/02/24.

Painting: Studio Time.

I did a bit of thumbnailing for what I had in mind and even shot some reference pics in my bathrooms doing different actions/ different positions to help decided with what direction I wanted to take this painting. My initial idea was to create a portrait of my past self looking into the mirror at my current self, reflecting my theme of the movement of time and how much I've changed since cutting my hair for the first time.

I decided to further emphasise the change between my past and future self with colours, duller colours for the past and highly saturated eye catching colours for the future. I had to do some thumbnails for how to balance out the colours, and look at some older works of mine to see how I did it in the past. I settled on using primarily red, yellow, blue, green, and orange as my colour pallet. However, I've never used them in the way I intended to here, so it was certainly a new experience.

I started off by choosing a reference picture and doing a rough under drawing to figure out proportions. When doing my rough sketch I actually taped my phone to the wall and tried to draw from a distance so I could calculate the shapes and proportions as accurately as possible.

I decided that since the interior and exterior of the mirror are very different in colour schemes, I would work on one at a time, I chose to focus on inside the mirror to start off with. Once that was done I began blocking out my main base colours and went about adding shadows. the light shadows helped start the process of shaping the face. It was a very "trust the process" sort of situation.

I knew with the approach I took I wouldn't be able to get away with solid blocks of colour for the hair and shirt, so I experimented with layering different colours to gain different textures. For the hair I tried building shapes with different layers of blues and greens before going in with a dark blue for the darker areas and shadows, I then went in with some red and light green highlights. It was certainly an improvement.

As for the shirt, It was very trial and error, I actually had to repaint over certain areas. I settled with using my light blue for the main shadows on the shirt to add a sense of dept, the translucence of the blue paint on top of the orange worked in my favour. Since blue and orange are on opposite ends of the colour wheel they tend to cancel each other out a bit, resulting in a duller hue of blue which was perfect for the shadows. I went in with greens to blend out the blue at the edges and yellow for highlights, I used bits of red and dark green for creases and wrinkles in the shirt. When I was doing the blue areas, I actually covered large areas at a time and then would drag the back of my hand through it removing a lot of the paint and leaving an interesting texture, similar to a wedge tool shown to us during the tool workshop.

That's all the progress I made for Thursday

[uraverageposhgrandmother]

10.1.2024 Weekly Reflection

I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on myself. Especially today. First day of October. This past week has been a lot of trial and error, all to become my best self.

I've rearranged all my social media apps and controlled my media intake to some extent. I've deleted almost all of my social media apps. Of course, it's not perfect; I still have Tumblr, Pinterest, and YouTube on my phone. But, as I've learned from the many videos I've watched over the past few days, more opportunities to scroll means putting myself in a situation I can't control. I cannot necessarily control the content that I see when I scroll. Like Amy Wang (from Youtube) said, there are so many things in life that you cannot control, why add another? (notice the number of times I wrote "control")

It seems from a social media standpoint I'm doing so well already. I've deleted my social media apps on my phone, removed recommended shorts from my YouTube algorithm, and flooded my ForYou page with self-help and study motivation-related content. From countless TED Talks, I've learned that happiness is not a sustainable purpose, I'm not a failure, and I only "don't have time" because I don't prioritize it. Reframing mindset is important, do the next best thing, minimize small decisions, micromanage, don't micromanage.

I've never been more "in control" of my life and less last-minute on assignments and studies.

Yet, I've never felt more mentally exhausted and less enthusiastic about learning.

I feel that our society, or maybe even culture, has made it so important to constantly work and achieve. Though I watched all those self-help videos, I realized that I had lost the notion of "rest" through the constant nagging to be productive, to be disciplined, to succeed. Maybe it's just me, but I'm constantly trapped between productivity and rest. One side of me is burnt out and exhausted, yet the other side is nagging to get something, if anything, done. I end up with an unfavorable compromise: not working, yet not resting. This usually results from doom-scrolling due to stress, the consequence being more mental exhaustion. Maybe you've been in a similar situation.

If you're anything like me, you'd want a solution to the question at hand, not just a meaningless, relatable reflection. Of course, I have a solution. In fact, I've been researching multiple solutions. Today, I will list a few of them and test one of them out this coming week.

Solutions:

mindful rest, mindful work: differentiate when I am resting and when I am working. If I am working, then I should be fully conscious that I am working. Same with resting: fully mindful that I am currently resting. This seems very vague, and I've seen it a lot, so I might not try this one just yet.

micromanaging one day: After talking to a few classmates (also chronic overachievers like me), I've learned that micromanaging what you want to do at every hour of the day eliminates wasted time and prevents you from even having the time to worry about not working, yet not resting.

giving yourself permission to rest: this is the one that I will be trying out this week. It seems the most simple, but perhaps it is the most difficult. When you need the rest, allow yourself to do it. Maybe ask a family member or friend to remind you to rest. Rest can come in many forms: saying no to helping someone at that moment because you're emotionally drained, exercising, not exercising, grounding, watching YouTube (mindfully), gratitude, etc.

This has been a lot more like a rant than a reflection, but that is exactly what Ralph Waldo Emerson did in his article "Self Reliance." (I am merely copying a famous writer and philosopher, you see). I sincerely hope that you can relate to my ranting and reflection. Most importantly, I hope you and I can learn from our personal reflections and take actionable steps toward constant self-improvement.

This is not necessarily the most ground-breaking, revolutionary discovery that I've made, but I hope this is your reminder to let yourself rest. We cannot fill ourselves with new and better things if our glass is already full.

luv, q

[shiitb4lls]

okay gonna talk a bit about my sobriety and struggle with alcoholism under the cut and how proud of myself i am because wow i've done a lot of reflecting this last week.

with my grandmother passing on the 9th, i was really nervous for my sobriety. in the past, i used to drink to cope with any extreme emotion. the hardest bit for me was the month prior when my grandma was in the hospital. when i don't feel control over a situation i kind of spiral, which would lead me to drink. however i pushed through, i stayed sober, and i kicked ass tbh. work has been wildly stressful too, and work is my primary source of stress. and i still haven't given in to my cravings and had a sip of booze.

i am so thankful i got help when i did, that i took that step forward and went to the hospital to get help after my relapse with self injury. that lead me to being in the hospital for four days, away from alcohol. it lead me to opening up about my addiction and actually seeking help for it. if i would have put that off, i'm afraid to think about where i would be right now or how i would be. because i am sober, i am going to therapy, and that i'm back on meds i have been able to process the grief so much healthier.

i just. i look back to where i was at the beginning of october and i do not know that person. it was not well, it was not taking care of itself. now ... wow. now i am trying my best to get better and it's working, and holy shit guys. i'm so proud of myself.

[canpio]

it's been ages since i've really been active on here, but i just removed the - from my url so now it's like i have a canon url and it feels so weird lmfao

been doing a lot of reflection and self-discovery the past several months after breaking up with my latest ex of 5 years, and especially been coming back around to some really old stuff that i had posted a lot about on here in years prior. mostly a lot of gender stuff, realized thanks to my new partner that i am trans, and now hrt is a real potentiality on my horizon. also realized that i'm intersex given my abnormal menstrual experience (doc says based on my recorded history that i don't even really ovulate naturally, which is fantastic and felt very weirdly affirming) and currently waiting to get some testing done to figure out what exactly i can label my natural state as. 'intersex' has been a pretty affirming label to take too, which i never really expected, but it feels honestly right.

i turn 25 in just over a week and honestly i'm doing kind of the best that i've really ever done, despite going through all that and having to face some crappy emotional stuff from the past 5 years on top of that, now that i'm in my first healthy and mutually respectful relationship. it's been pretty good. so much of this i really have my partner to thank for, for opening up the door for me to explore all of this and realize what's natural and healthy and right as compared to the stuff i was told before. the right-wing political unlearning around covid is definitely one of the most challenging things we've got to tackle, but we're taking it as it comes and he's really good about seeing the balance between educating me on misinformation i was fed and knowing and respecting when he needs to back off when i start to get upset. he's just seriously so so good, i'm really so thankful for him being so supportive of everything and i want nothing more than to be there for him in all the same ways. 600 miles between us is our main barrier, but we've been seeing each other about once a month and it's been, pardoning the reddit speak, so wholesome and really, honestly healing for both of us. really love him so much.

anyway i guess that's it? this turned into a bigger dump than i expected but it'll be nice to have this to look back to in a few years as a reference point. really changed a lot in the last 10 years, glad i've kept this blog around even if i've gone totally inactive

[peppertaemint]

I joined tumblr ‘cause of Shinee just recently and was a babywol (2022), really admired them, especially Key. I feel lost, and like such a fool for feeling this conflicted. As a poc, I’m so done with making excuses for people, it’s always heartbreaking to tell people how I feel, be dismissed or worse just be heard and then they do nothing about it, not even stand by you. It’s gutting when it keeps happening, just never gets easier- like I know they’re going to hurt me, but I also love them because there’s a lot of good to them? Also, how many people can I cut out from my life? I don’t want to see Taekey dragged, it’s just so much worse knowing they’re fully capable of learning and growing from this, but they most probably won’t bother, especially with a lot of the fandom trying to bury our comments. It’s just infuriating when taekey have talked about what it feels like with people commenting about their image/ weight, and they turn around and do the same thing to their own friend. I can’t believe just last week I was all happy for Key being called a ‘safe and comforting presence for fans’ in some article. Do you think they’re likely to apologize/change? I’ve heard some comments about a concert where one of the members apologized in the past. again, feel foolish for holding out hope, but I’m just so tired and feel so torn.

Hi Anon,

I am dictating this, so apologies if any of it comes off weird. I don't think you have to make excuses for people and I don't think it's a matter of them not wanting to learn. My own take is that it's a cultural difference that is difficult to bridge. That's not an excuse that's just a reason; that being said, when I watch old Korean stuff like TV et cetera versus what is out now there is a big difference. That doesn't mean it's perfect, but to me, I see it going in the direction that is what I want and expect.

Basically, I think you can respect someone's art and like their art but acknowledge that you don't like every part of them or everything that they do, the same as the way you love a family member, but you don't like everything that they do. The problem in these spaces, These online spaces, is that People associate an artist with their own identity, and then that artist's failing becomes their own, and it's not, it is theirs for them to own and keep. And it is enough for you to say I'm not cool with that and make your thoughts known.

I think that everyone is capable of making mistakes and mistakes that are hurtful, and it's up to us to decide what we have as a boundary and what we don't. And honestly, I've been a fan of shinee since late 2019, and this is the first thing like this that I've seen go on. I saw the old stuff but I wasn't surprised because I've seen that with every single group that I've looked into and I've seen it in almost every Korean show that I've watched. But they have apologised about things and they are people who self reflect.

not a lot of fans have watched it, but the interview in 2018 with radio star.... There's so much reflection in discussion of changing as people, about growing up and understanding when you've hurt someone, and changing your behaviours, so I just think out of everyone that I've seen, I see a lot more of that with this group than other groups. And it is specific. Key went on about how he used to hurt peoples' feelings. Then it's something that he has to watch out for. Obviously it is something that he probably still struggles with for whatever reason and I think we've all seen that, if you're a fan and you've watched enough stuff. I feel more comfortable with artists who are honest and make mistakes and discuss those things whether it's tomorrow or it's like six months from now. Then people who purposely ignore it or make disingenuous comments. I don't think this is a group that ever makes disingenuous comments, I don't know if that's helpful, anonymous, But that's my two cents.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi sex witch, long time listener, 3rd (?) time caller. You've always been kind and patient with my somewhat odd questions so I figured I'd come to you with something I've wanted to ask someone for a while. Ok so basically I'm 19 (20 this fall) and I feel weird about the fact that I've never kissed anyone or really ever had any romantic interactions beyond holding a girl’s hand at camp when I was 15. Honestly, when I've been asked in the past if I'm a virgin people usually just shrug it off but a few weeks ago I had to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being asked about my first kiss and having to say that I, a second year college student, have never kissed anyone. Realistically, I hear a lot about how people, especially queer and/or disabled people (of which I am both), don't need to operate by the same “milestones“ as everyone else but it seems like that’s always referring to like “don't feel weird if you’re still a virgin at 17” rather than whatever my deal is. Basically, I'm partially asking for reassurance and also just asking how to not feel weird about this kind of thing because it feels like the more time that goes past the more embarrassing it is. Also, if/when I ever actually have a relationship how do I explain this without feeling like I am going to fall over and die from embarrassment. Sorry for rambling, love all the work that you do :D

oh hey, welcome back! go ahead and grab your usual seat. I have a cup of [beverage of your choice] for you.

I would like to open by saying it is of course fine to feel a bit bummed or disappointed or generally odd by your lack of romantic experiences with other people, especially if romantic relationships are something you would like to have in your life. they seem like they can be fun, if you're into that sort of thing, and it's very rewarding to make connections with other people. there's nothing wrong with feeling a bit sad about missing out; please just honor those feelings if they're in you and attend to them constructively rather than letting them become a sort of self-pity soup you wallow in for perpetuity.

now, having acknowledged that your feelings are perfectly legitimate and fine and normal to have: it's time to stop feeling embarrassed about experiences you haven't had, because you may as well be embarrassed about having never been struck by lightning.

"Makenzie, why on earth would I be embarrassed about that? I have no control over being struck by lightning. it's a thing that happens entirely at random, and happens more as a result of freak happenstance than anything else. even if I tried to increase my chances by, say, standing next to a lightning rod in a storm, I still couldn't guarantee it would happen."

yeah, babe. exactly. finding a romantic connection is exactly like that, in that you can only put yourself out there and hope. what happens next is mostly a matter of dumb luck and being in precisely the right place at the right time for something electrifying to happen. how could it possibly reflect poorly on you that that's not happened yet?

the main thing is that, whatever your feelings on the matter, anyone else who feels the need to get weird or judgmental or demand an explanation when you explain your romantic history is a clown to whom you owe no explanation. in much the same way you're not required to explain, say, the exact nature of your queerness or your disability, their lack of understanding is their problem, not yours.

as for any future partners, what is there to explain? you certainly have less work to do than people who need to catch new folks up on entire romantic histories. "I've never dated, I've never done this before, you're the first person I've done x with," those are all perfectly satisfactory. any relationship involves learning how to be a good partner all over again, and someone with no prior romantic experience whose willing to learn is frankly a much better prospect than someone whose had many partners but isn't interested in listening to what a new one needs. if your prospective partner(s) can't understand that, their loss I suppose.