#like my improv teacher even pointed out specific things i did and was like THAT WAS AWESOME I LOVED IT SO MUCH and guys

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

guys i got such a good grade in improv yesterday

[noira-l]

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠

⋆ ★ '𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞' - 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

chapter summary: You are falling into darkness and meaninglessness. Satoru refuses to let you do that.

pairing: gojo satoru x f!sorcerer reader

warnings: hurt/comfort, lots of comfort, after 'premature death', after suguru deflection, describtion od depression, apathy, lost meaning in life, slight eating disorder, sleeplesness.

author's note: We finally get to see his softer side, though as is his fashion, he does it in his own way.

4 months after Suguru defected

"I know that the situation that happened has left its mark on you, however, you must not give up like this."

Yaga had been trying to reach you in his office for several minutes. To no avail. Your gaze was still blank, staring at a single point on his desk since you sat down, it didn't seem like you were present in any way.

Silence. You didn't answer anything. Just as you always do.

This is not your first meeting with your Sensei. Yaga has been trying to make his way to you for about a month.

A void in your head, so great and black that it swallowed you whole. Your body indifferent to every sense that reached you, you did not analyse it at all. If Satoru hadn't dragged you here, literally holding your hand and leading you, you wouldn't have come here at all. You didn't have the will or the strength for it.

Everything stopped at that moment. It ended. There was nothing left. Anything important and beautiful in your life was taken away from you by the terrible malice of fate. Your house burnt down. Your beloved had descended into madness. You no longer had anything to care about. Your entire past no longer mattered. Everyone is literally dead.

Even you died that day.

You wondered what was still alive.

Or at least that's how you explained it to yourself, unable to accept that the same person who promised you the world had just taken it away from you.

You were lifeless. It didn't take much to conclude that.

All that remained was a fragile, frail and empty shell of a person once filled with love, dreams and passion.

You no longer had the strength to cry, or to utter any words. If it wasn't for Shoko, you wouldn't even eat, and if it wasn't for Gojo, you probably wouldn't sleep.

You could smile altogether now. The world of jujutsu never broke you, the person you loved did. But you didn't, even though it crossed your mind.

What an honour to be the exception to the rule.

Yaga sighed leaning against his expensive chair.

"(Y/N)." he called out, though you didn't even flinch "I don't want you to end up like this. As your teacher, I recognises your self-doubt as his personal failure. The situation that has befallen you is a very difficult one and I understand that you would need time to get things back to normal."

He leaned towards you "However, in this world we live in, we cannot afford such a luxury." you knew his eyes were drilling into you.

"It has been more than four months. Your condition is not improving, only getting worse. At your request, I have specifically let you skip part of your training." you heard him grinding his teeth, but not out of anger, but out of helplessness "I'm doing my best not to send you on missions in this condition, because I know that even if something attacks you-" he paused.

-you won't even try to defend yourself.’ you finished for him in your head.

He was right, you knew it, and so did anyone who would just look at you. You lost a lot of weight, your skin turned pale got a shade of gray, and your eyes lacked their former spark.

You could see that Yaga, in that silence, couldn't find the right words. When he opened his mouth to say something, you finally muttered, pausing his speetch.

"But Sensei, you should…" you raised your gaze from the one point where it was cumulative to look the man deep in the eyes

"..let something finish me off. It's all meaningless anyway."

★ --

Yaga sat in his office, surrounded by a silence that seemed to deepen his worries. Outside the window, the rain drummed against the glass as if to wash the weight of anxiety from his soul, but it only deepened his sense of helplessness.

Your words, haunted him.

‘Let something finish me off. It's all meaningless anyway' constantly echoed in his mind, like a silent cry of despair that gave him no peace.

Never before had he seen such emptiness in someone's eyes - an emptiness that testified that all hope, all will to fight, had been sucked out of you.

He was incapable of seeing Geto Suguru roll into a similar spiral.

It was a failure that has pursued Yaga, reminding him of the fragility of the human mind.

You are reminder of that too.

Now he saw the same symptoms in your - empty eyes, unresponsive to sensory input, avoiding contact with others.

Every day when you came to training was like seeing a ghost moving among the living, unable to fully return to life. You was physically there, but you soul seemed to be elsewhere, trapped in a place you couldn't get out of.

In this state, Yaga knew he had to seek advice from others.

He must act. He will not make this mistake again.

You will not be a case to regret.

And he had a lot of them.

He was the first to go to Shoko. He met her in the corridor, as busy as ever with her work, locked in a world where medicine was everything.

"Shoko, have you tried to talk to her? Something about her condition?" he asked, although he already knew the answer. Shoko sighed, not stopping for a moment.

"I'm not good at such conversations." she replied briefly, looking at him fleetingly, as if those words would explain everything. Yaga knew that Shoko was doing as well as she could, but he also knew, that she was avoiding emotion like a fire. She couldn't help you in this battle that was going on inside. She was only capable of healing you on the outside.

The next stop was Nanami. Always serious, always composed, Nanami was someone who could be counted on in the most difficult of times. However, when Yaga asked him the same question, the answer was equally overwhelming.

"I understand what she is going through. I've tried to reach out to her, but… she's silent. I don't know how I can help her when she won't talk.’" there was a note of helplessness in Nanami's voice that had never been there before. Yaga knew that he sympathised with you, that he had tried, but that he himself could not break through this invisible barrier you had built around yourself.

Last was Satoru, always the enigmatic one, always full of contrasts. Yaga found him in one of the training rooms as he watched the younger students' classes.

"Satoru, did you talk to her?" he asked, knowing that Gojo was someone who could see more than others.

"I don't talk. I just sit by her when she's awake. That's all I can do." replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Yaga felt a mixture of relief and sadness upon hearing these words. Satoru, in his typical style, had found a way to be beside you, but even he, with all his unlimited potential, could not pull you out of your state.

★ --

3 weeks after Suguru defected

Gojo was initially not supposed to get so involved.

He kept repeating to himself that he wasn't good at such things, that he didn't know how to talk about such topics, couldn't find a solution for you or show you something he should.

Your storm you showed him that day left a mark in him. It awakened something in him. He couldn't deny it. He just kept living in the belief, that he wasn't capable of doing anything about it. He didn't feel that there was anything in him that he could offer to help you. He never knew what to say, he never knew what to do. He felt hopeless about it. Satoru was not the kind of person who makes the same mistakes twice or never learns from them.

He blamed himself for Suguru's departure. He felt that his corruption was his fault. His lack of attention, his lack of interest, his powerlessness - his failure to adapt to such situations.

Gojo Satoru was the strongest, that was the reason he was born. It was what he was made for.

He was not made to come into contact with the problems of humanity, he was always above others, he never touched such topics. And now here you are. In front of him. You are showing him this.

You bring him closer to this subject, you prove to him that he, despite his title, is still human.

He feels exactly what you feel.

You are proof that the feelings he has inside him - make him human.

What ultimately made him abandon the idea of leaving the subject to himself was the sight of you. Soaking wet for long moments on the training field.

He saw you from a distance, as he walked with Shoko to class. He separated from her to letting her go ahead, saying he would catch up with her. The rain was dark and heavy. he didn't need an umbrella, so he walked throught it like was nothing. A white beam of light, walking throught the dark.

The sight of you, sitting on the training field with a bamboo sword, completely soaked - stuck in his mind. It was an image that spoke more than a thousand words. You were physically there, but spiritually you seemed to be far away, in a place where no words could reach you. Satoru, though usually full of energy and humour, this time simply walked up to you and without a word took your hand, pulling you out of the rain. You didn't even defy him as the force lifted your body and made you float slightly above the ground.

He sat you down in his room, giving you a towel to dry you off. Gojo left for a while, leaving you covered in towels and a warm blanket.

He quickly teleported to the kitchen, to brew a mug of warm tea for you. He waited patiently for the kettle to boil the water, tapping his fingers against the kitchen counter in thoughtfulness. He thought about bringing Shoko to you, as you might have caught a cold. Suguru had mentioned that you catch such colds quite easily.

As he moved back, he set his mug down on his notebook-cluttered desk and looked at you. You stood at the window, watching the rain that had kept the world quiet all day today.

"Why the rain?" he asked, trying to strike up a conversation. You did not answer immediately, still staring at the raindrops reflecting on the window.

After a moment, you raised your gaze, looking at him with a blank stare. "Because the rain is clean. It washes everything away. Maybe if I stood there long enough, it would wash me away too." Satoru felt his heart squeeze with pain at those words, but he didn't allow himself to have any emotional outbursts.

You sat like this for a long time, he beside you, looking out at the rain. In the silence that surrounded, he could feel how devastated you were, how much you had lost the will to live. He knew that these feelings would not disappear overnight. He was aware of that.

So from that moment on, Satoru implemented a plan that seemed strange and effective, exactly his style.

★ --

1 month after Suguru defected

The first month was a time of anticipation and patience for Satoru.

When he first entered your room, he felt the dense atmosphere almost overwhelm him. The quiet, enclosed room seemed as if trapped in time. You were sitting on the bed, your back turned to the door, shoulders tense. It was clear that your thoughts were far away.

Satoru closed the door behind him, then took a seat against the wall, far away from you, right next to the door. He sat down on the floor, pulled his gameboy out of his pocket and began to play, pretending it was a normal everyday situation.

At first you did not even look at him. Your gaze remained fixed on one point, as if you were trying to find a meaning in it that you could not find anywhere else. Satoru, however, was not bothered by this silence. He concentrated on the game, allowing you to get used to his presence while giving you space. Managing the space was his special skill.

Every day he would spend a few dozen minutes in your room, sometimes playing, sometimes bringing something to eat with him. Often he would sit there with a meal in his hand, eating slowly, and the sounds of munching were the only sounds in the room. He never tried to get you to talk, knowing that your personal space was crucial at that moment.

★ --

2 months after Suguru defected

The second month brought slight changes. Satoru, feeling that your reactions to his presence had become more bearable, decided to get closer.

Instead of sitting on the floor by the door, he took a seat in the chair by your desk, which stood slightly closer to the bed. When he entered the room, you looked at him - that was a success! Noticing change in his behaviour, but you took a quick glance at him, so he couldn't be happier. He passed you a small smile, that was a welcoming greeting.

Satoru stretched out comfortably in a chair, pulled out a book and began to read. Occasionally he would reach for his headphones to turn on some music for himself, shutting himself off from the world but still being there, at arm's length, if you need him.

There were days when he couldn't concentrate on reading, so he would just sit, watching you out of the corner of his eye. As time went on, he began to notice that you would sometimes glance at him, as if trying to understand why he came here almost everyday that was free for him, even though you didn't exchange a word with each other. Even when he was busy, your room was the first stop when he came back from any mission.

★ --

3 months after Suguru defected

In the third month, Satoru felt he could risk the next step.

When he walked into your room one day, instead of sitting in a chair, he walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it. He felt your body tighten as soon as he sat down, but you didn't move away or ask him to leave. This was the sign he had been waiting for.

He pulled out his gameboy, fired up the game and started playing, sitting next to you. For a while, the silence was almost overwhelming, but as time passed, the atmosphere began to relax. Satoru noticed that although you still didn't speak, your presence had become somewhat more conscious.

He started bringing you food when Shoko couldn't. He felt that when he brought you something, you were more eager to glance at it. And you even took a bite of the sweet roll he left with you one day.

There were also moments when you started to move, as if you wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in your throat. Satoru did not push. He felt that these small gestures were a sign of progress.

★ --

4 months after Suguru defected

In the last month of this silent coexistence, Satoru decided to go all in.

When he entered your room, he didn't stop at the door or the chair. He immediately headed for the bed and lay down beside you without a word. He felt you body stiffen at first, but after a while you relaxed, accepting his presence. This was so strange, but so.. welcoming.

Both of you lay side by side, arms barely touching, but it was enough.

Satoru pulled out his mp3 player, turned on quiet music and placed it between you two, letting the soft sounds fill the silence. He watched the ceiling, occasionally glancing up to look at your face. The sight of it, now devoid of such deep pain as it had been in the beginning, made him relieved. He knew that your emotional state was still fragile, but he was sure that his presence was helping you in some way. You were helping him too, he just couldn't say that to you.

His presence in your room become such a small tradition, which he often looked forward to. Besides your dorm was a good escape for him, when he was looking for, there was never any thought that he could be at your place.

One day, as both you lay like this, you gently turned towards him and looked at him with a slightly softer expression on your tired face. You didn't need to say anything - your gaze said more than words.

Satoru smiled slightly at you, then closed his eyes, feeling that you had reached a state of understanding that was only possible through months of patience and perseverance.

He was content, that he could see your eyes weren't so empty or full of tears. That was a breakthrought, that he was so eager to welcome.

★ --

4 and a half months after Suguru defected

Satoru has not visited you for a week.

You knew he was back from a mission, because Shoko bringing you food mentioned it. She also said that it had been a long and exhausting one, on which they had sent him alone, with no support from even specialists.

It was already very late in the night, you had been waiting for him for a long time, and yet he had not come.

For the first time since moths, you got out of bed by yourself.

You poked your head out, to see if the light in his room was on, it still was. You were overwhelmed by a strange feeling, that you could not quite describe. You wondered what the reason was for breaking this little tradition you shared between the two of you.

You came to the conclusion, that he probably needed the space himself and was just using it. Although this seemed to you to be completely unsuitable for a person you came to know. Should you do something about this fact? You nervously bit your nail.

What if he now needs the same treatment that he used to give you? What if he just needs to be alone?

A conflict arose in your mind. You didn't know what to do, how to behave. You felt a little stressed as you slowly sat back down on the bed.

What should you do?

Your decision was made, when your foot visited the kitchens for the first time in months to brew a tea for him.

All you could hear in the quiet corridor was the soft creaking of the floor, as you approached the door of his room. The wooden gates were slightly open, as if Gojo didn't have the strength to close them fully. You carefully pushed it open with your hand, peering inside.

Satoru was lying on the bed, with his arms spread, as if the weight of the world was crushing him to the mattress. His white hair, always so perfectly styled, were a mess. Fortunately, he had managed to change into his pyjamas. There was an expression of extreme fatigue on his face, but when he heard quiet footsteps, he lifted his eyelids.

Your gazes met. You gently closed the door behind you, then stepped deeper into the room, setting your mug of warm drink down on the desk. Just as he had done this to you one time. Your limbs tremble slightly from the cold. Going to the kitchen in just your pyjamas and flip-flops at this time of year was a stupid idea.

You didn't exchange a word with each other. You blandly started playing with the sleeve of your nightshirt. You didn't need words to understand how tired he was, the slight bags under his eyes and messy look told you all you needed to know.

He changed positions on the bed, moving more towards the wall, grabbed a corner of the duvet and lifted it up. He made an inviting gesture with his head and his slightly glowing eyes went out.

You sat on the edge of the bed first. Feeling a little on unfamiliar ground. You had only been in his room a couple of times. The main place for you to hang out as a group was Suguru's room. Immediately you felt the warmth emanating from the sheets.

With a slow movement you lay down next to him, letting the warmth of the duvet and his scent greet you. The mattress bent slightly under you weight, as you turned to face him. You could feel how soft and molded his mattress was, how his pillow was pleasantly arranged. Your body slowly began to warm, heat waves spreading through your body, soothing your mind and dulling your senses. The air around you was warm, enveloping, and his presence added a strange sense of security that you hadn't felt in a long time.

You could feel your body relaxing more and more with each breath. You could hear the calm rhythm of his breathing, which worked on like a lullaby. You were so warm, not only physically, but also internally, as if this place, this moment, was exactly where you were supposed to be.

You slowly closed your eyes, feeling sleep begin to embrace you with it's softness. The thoughts that had been swirling around in your head just moments before, began to quiet down, giving a way to a blissful emptiness. The warmth of his body and regular breathing were like an focus points that, allowed you to pull your head away from your worries and sink into a peaceful sleep.

Finally, you allowed yourself to fully surrender to the moment. You fell asleep, with his hand still gently resting on your waist, in a place that seemed the safest in the world.

★ --

Satoru slowly opened his eyes, feeling the soft rays of the sun on his face. For a while he lay still, savoring the quiet of the morning and the warmth that beat from the body, cuddled into his. You were sleeping peacefully, your breathing was steady and deep, and face expressed the kind of calm he hadn't seen in you in a long time. He smiled slightly, pleased that you could finally truly rest.

He didn't want to wake you, but he knew the day was calling him. He shifted cautiously, reaching for the phone that lay on the bedside table. For a moment, he pondered how to play it, but quickly decided that the only person he could ask to do it - was Shoko.

you: "Take care of everything today? Thanks. >ᴗ<"

7:43 am

Sent a message, not waiting for a respond, he put the phone aside, before turning back to you.

He glanced at your face once more. You looked so peaceful, as if for a moment you had forgotten everything that had overwhelmed you for months.

Gojo gently ran his fingers through your hair, trying not to wake you up. He smiled, seeing how you moved slightly in his arms, as if you instinctively knew he was there.

He was so proud of himself, the sight of your sincere rest soothed his heart somehow. Thanks to him, you were finally able to rest. He felt satisfaction and contentment at the thought. He finally didn't feel so helpless and powerless. He felt that he had just done something, that at least one person, by some screwed up luck, had managed to be saved by him.

With a slight sigh, he closed his eyes, allowing himself to sink into sleep again. He knew that he didn't have to rush anywhere, that this was a day they could spend relaxing, even if he had responsibilities and pressures on him, at this point he totally didn't give a damn. He fell asleep quickly, holding you close to him, enjoying the moment of comfort you brought to him as well.

You two slept all day, cuddled up to each other in warm cozy embrace.

With the peace and quiet you finally rested, as you both deserved.

© noira-l 2024 | all rights reserved. do not copy, translate, modify, or redistirbute my work without permission

tl (open): @kalopsia-flaneur

[huellitaa]

girl's guide to academic success: ep 1! ⊹˚. ♡

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 this post focuses on: actively rooting for success! ♡ part 2 -> ♡

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 1. organisation

first off, have something to organise ur academic life with! i personally use notion (which i'll add later) but u can use anything as long as it's cute, convenient, unique and accessible to you, your life and your schedule specifically. especially as a visual learner, i like to have somewhere i can dump literally everything regarding a singular area in my life, so i do this for almost everything along with school and i highly recommend this <3

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 2. recognition of talents & improvements

analyse your strengths and weaknesses. think back on tests, exams, marks, and analyse which ones you got highest and lowest on. dont beat urself up for it, obviously; it's just to check which subjects you're doing good in and which ones have room for improvement. for example i love science but im not the best at it sometimes and we had an assessment recently and i didn't get as high as i'd like so i wrote down a little list on a piece of paper in my pencilcase for the topics i got the least in for me to study on my own to practise later.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 3. laying out goals

set down specific goals; i like to do this week by week accustomed to my schedule that week in my school notion page along with images and vision boards based on the term/semester, but you can do it for the week, the month, the year, anything as long as its helpful to you

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 4. productive planning

plan accordingly based on ur time energy. when creating any to do list or productivity plan dont pile a ridiculous amount onto it that just leaves you stressed and overwhelmed because that defeats the entire point; this works the same for academic plans and goals and lists etc.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 5. extra credit

put extra work in to the subjects you know will help you in the future. for example, for my personal aspirations i need to excel in english, history and textiles so i always try my absolute hardest and put my all into those lessons and do extra studying for them in my free time where i can. school is to prepare you for the future so take advantage of that

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 6. asking questions

please don't be shy to ask questions! that's what teachers are there for and you won't have them forever so take advantage of it while you can! you can even do it in that little window of time just after class if ur too nervous to ask in class. for example, on my last english exam i went to my teacher after class and asked about what i needed to improve on to get the marks i missed next time, and he told me i added too much detail and some other things so i wrote it down and am keeping a note of it to remind me to improve on that next time! (i got top of my class though so i didnt mind. still kind of pissed i added too much detail though)

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 7. participation

participate! ok im saying this as someone who still struggles with social anxiety a fair amount but if u wanna get higher marks and get on good terms w ur teacher i 100% recommend this. i don't do this in every class but i do it where i can and when i'm confident in my answer, and it's really intimidating at first but what i did is i did it first in the classes i felt most comfortable on and continued from there. it gets easier every time i swear, and nobody's judging you; they'll forget about it after five minutes. plus, what would they be judging you for? being smarter than them?

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 8. prioritising ur health

this is mentioned a lot in these types of posts but if you're tired or burnt out or overworked or just feel like you need to take a break then do. do the best you can and compromise like i said earlier if you need to, just make sure u are prioritising yourself over anything. <3

──★ ˙ ̟🎀inspo

──★ ˙ ̟🎀my notion

i also really recommend this layout by @honeytonedhottie ♡

all my love 🩷✨💬🎀💗

[starry-bi-sky]

miscellaneous danyal al ghul things

specifically about the danyal al ghul from my post/prompt here and i wanna get my misc. headcanons/thoughts on him (especially in his early stay with the fentons) out here before i make any other danyal al ghul aus

list under the cut because whoops this got longer than i expected. which really i should have expected

the Fentons are unaffiliated with the League, which was perfect for Danny faking his death.

he struggles with empathy. Empathy was not taught nor encouraged while he was with the League, so it's a skill that's been pretty stunted. At 15 he's better at empathizing with people, but he still struggles with it. He's pretty bad at reassuring/comforting people and usually acts as an emotional rubber duck for Sam and Tucker to vent to if need be. He sometimes offers blunt and sometimes mean opinions, especially if its about another person.

Sam and Tucker do not know he's an ex-assassin, they are however, pretty positive that he used to be part of an eco-fascist cult with a focus on martial arts?? They've been helping him tone down some of his more,,, extreme views on humanity ever since they caught wind of his more extreme ideologies.

He and Sam are still avid environmentalists and feed into each other quite a bit. They spend plenty of time at protests and pestering the school into more eco-friendly options.

Dash is not dead on the sole fact that Danny knew he had to lay low in Amity Park and killing someone was not, in fact, 'laying low'.

he did, however, traumatize him when Dash first tried to bully him. Safe to say, Danny is not bullied at school and neither are Sam and Tucker.

Danny didn't make any friends in his first year at Amity Park. He was surly, grumpy, standoffish, more stubborn than Sam, and pretty self-important about himself. Jazz was trying to teach him against these things, but she is a 12 year old unaffiliated with the League. Danny did not respect her nor listen to a word she said. It wasn't until like, year two that he finally started paying to mind what she was saying and slowly started to improve on himself

Sam approached him first, he rebuffed her quite harshly, and then Danny approached her sometime afterward when he overheard her talking about environmental rights. Sam completely ignored him though when he agreed with her, and Danny had to later learn that he needed to apologize for being rude to her when they first met. He did so eventually, and they started to talk more with Tucker and Sam.

Danny's a bit more reserved than he is in canon, although he steadily learns how to act as a regular teenager when he's out in public. He's a bit more friendlier at least, although when he's around Sam and Tucker he drops the act. He still has a somewhat formal way of talking, it's just become more casual after a lot of ribbing from Sam and Tucker. When he's angry or annoyed he starts talking poshly though.

His humor is relatively the same as in canon, if somehow dryer and more insulting at some points

Those rare moments where he gets really pissed usually ends up with him insulting someone in arabic or any of the other languages he picked up from the league. He is the go-to for Tucker's Spanish homework. (Tucker makes that mistake and learns that Danny is a very strict teacher)

while Danny doesn't view the Fentons as his parents, even five years after living with them, he does respect them to some amount. He respects them enough at least that when Vlad Masters comes sniffing around, he is suitably offended on both Maddie and Jack's behalf. And when he finds out Vlad was the one who tried to kill Jack and tried to tell him to renounce him as his father/parental guardian, danny threw a suitably sharp object at him and insulted him quite horrendously

Vlad still wants him as his kid. In fact perhaps even moreso after this.

Danny trains with Maddie to keep up with his training. It's not quite the same but it prevents him from getting completely rusty

Sam and Tucker know that Danny has a little brother, but nothing else beyond that other than Danny cares about him quite a lot and that he got his facial scar from keeping him safe.

Danny cares about Sam, Tucker, and Jazz quite a bit, but he struggles to convey it. Especially early on when he realized he cared about them and like instinct started being harsher to them and more critical of their actions. This resulted in quite a few arguments with Sam and Tucker and Jazz until he got sat down and told outright that the way he was treating them wasn't okay. It's a process he's still trying to unlearn even at 15. He has become kinder towards them as a result, and has begun looking for what they did right rather than what they did wrong.

He harbors a lot of guilt over how he treated Damian in the League, and its a pretty big conflict he has with himself since he's torn between telling himself it was for the best to make sure Damian survived the League, and feeling like crap over how harsh/critical of Damian he was and realizing that he probably could have come up with a better way of training him despite being a child himself at the time. Danny comes to the realization that more than anything, that he just wants to apologize.

His ghost form, specifically is outfit, is a combination of his hazmat suit and his uniform from the league, and he carries a sword with him. He also doesn't know how to react to Dani, honestly. Although it is fair to say that he figures out she's a clone instantly because of her whole 'I'm your third cousin once removed' thing and he freaks out. She spills the beans pretty quickly after that. And Danny is pretty skittish around her - or the equivalent of skittish. Her being younger than him kinda reminds him of Damian, so he's uncomfortable by her presence but learns to warm up to her.

[bluemirrorangel]

the DPS book & characterisation

so I'm reading the Dead Poets Society book and while I don't particularly like it all that much it has made some bold choices when it comes to the characters, some I really dislike and others I really love. I'm going to go over that in this post :)

Todd Anderson:

Todd is so much angrier than he is in the movie and honestly he’s so real for that. He and Neil actually don’t get along as much as they do in the movie, they don’t really get each other because they are in opposite situations, Neil’s father has too many expectations for him and controls his every move giving his son little to no agency whereas Todd's parents actively neglect him, they both want what the other one has to a certain degree; Todd wants someone to care about him and Neil wants freedom. 

The book also gets rid of the flying desk set scene and we instead get a more sombre scene 

“Todd?” He called, walking over to get a better look. Todd sat shivering in the dark about a coat. “What's going on there?”  Neil asked his roommate, Todd didn't answer. “Todd, what's the matter?” Neil sat next to him on the wall. “It's freezing out here.” “It's my birthday.” Todd said flatly. “It is?” Neil said. “Why didn't you tell me? happy birthday, You get anything?” Except for his chattering teeth Todd was silent and still. He pointed to a box. Neil opened it to find the same monogram desk set Todd had.In their room.”This is your desk set.”  Neil  said. “I don't get it.”  “They gave me the exact same thing as last year” Todd cried. “They didn't even remember.” “Oh” Neil said in a hushed tone. “Oh.” Todd mocked. “Well, maybe they thought you needed another one, a new one” Neil suggested after a long, awkward pause. “maybe they don't think at all. Unless it's about my brother” Todd said angrily. “His birthday is always a big to do”  He looked at the deskset and laughed. The stupid  thing is, I didn't even like it the first time.” “Look Todd you’re  obviously underestimating the value of this desk set”  Neil said flippantly trying to change the mood. “What?”  “I mean” Neil said and tried to smile. “This is one special gift. Who would want a football or a baseball bat or a car when they could have a desk set as  Wonderful as this one?” “Yeah.” Todd laughed, infected by nose humour.”And just look at this ruler” they both laughed. They both looked at the desk set. By now it was pitch dark and cold Neil  shivered.“You know what my dad would call me when i was growing up? Five ninety-eight. That’s what all the chemicals in the human body will be worth if you bottled them raw and sold them, he told me. That was all I'd ever be worth unless I worked every day to improve myself. Five ninety-eight.” Neil sighed and shook his head in disbelief. No wonder Todd was so screwed up, he thought. “When I was little” todd continued, “I thought all parents automatically love their kids. That's what my teachers told me. That's what I read in the books they gave me. That's what I believed, well, my parents rather have my brother, but they did not love me.Todd took a deep anguished breath and walked into the dorm. Neil sat motionless on the freezing Stonewall, groping for something to say. “Todd,” he called lamely. As he ran after his roommate. 

Todd is less shy and nervous in the book and more quiet and brooding which changes his dynamic with most of the characters specifically Neil.

Neil Perry:

 Neil is meaner in the book, not flat-out mean just meaner, this makes him feel more like a real teenager. His dynamic with Todd is still a friendship and they still mean a lot to each other but there’s more depth.

“So what do you think of my father?”  He asked blankly. “I'll take him over mine,” Todd said softly, almost to himself. “What?” Neil asked “Nothing” “Todd, If you're gonna make it around here, you've gotta speak up. The meek might inherit the earth but they don't get into Harvard know what I mean?” Todd nodded, holding a white button-down Oxford cloth shirt. Neil held the achievement pin in his hand as he spoke. “ The Bastard!” He shouted suddenly, jabbing his thumb with the metal pointed pin and drawing blood. Todd winced, but Neil just stared at the blood intently. He pulled the pin out. And hurled it against the wall. 

He also calls Cameron a jerk to Todd instead of saying ‘he was born with his foot in his mouth.’ like he does in the movie this paired with his comment about Todd being ‘messed up’ shows that Neil can be judgmental of his friends and peers, this being said Neil still cares deeply for his friends especially Todd; talking to him gently and trying to figure him out.

“By the way, there's a meeting this afternoon.”  Neil said, “Are you coming?” I guess, Todd said as he grimaced. Neil put down the play and looked over at his roommate. “None of what Mr Keating Has to say means anything to you, does it?” He asked, incredulous. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Todd was defensive “Being in the club means being stirred up by things. You look about as turn up as a cesspool” “You want me out? Is that what you're saying?” Todd said angrily. “No,” Neil, said softly. “I want you in, but it means you gotta do something. Not just say you're in.” Todd said angrily “Listen, Neil, I appreciate your interest in me, but I'm not like you,”  he insisted. “ “When you say things people pay attention, people follow you. I'm not like that.”  “Why not? Do you think you could be?” Neil Pressed. “No!” Todd shouted. “Oh, I don't know. I'll probably never know. The point is, there's nothing you can do about it. So, butt out, all right?  I can take care of myself just fine, alright” “No” Neil said “No?” Todd asked astonished. “What do you mean no,”  Neil shrugged matter of factly and repeated “No, I'm not going to butt out” Neil opened his play and began to read again. Todd just sat and stared at him. “OK”, todd said defeated “I’ll go.”  “Good” Neil smiled and continued reading the play.

Charlie Dalton:

 Charlie is more emotionally open in the book, he’s also a lot more annoyed by Knox’s Infatuation (obsession) on Chris.

“I feel like I've never been alive,” Charlie said sadly as he watched Neil  go. “For years I've been risking nothing. I have no idea what I am.Or what I want to do. Neil knows he wants to act. Knox knows he wants Chris” “Needs Chris?  must have Chris”  Knox groaned “Meeks,” Charlie said, “you're the brain here or did the dead poets say about somebody like me?” “The romantics were passionate experiment as Charles. They dabbled in many things before settling. If ever,” Meeks said. Cameron made a face. “There aren't too many places to be an experimenter at, Welton Meeks.” Charlie paces as the boys considered Cameron’s observation. He stopped and his face lit up. “I hereby declare this the Charles Dalton cave for passion experimentation.” He smiled. “In the future, anyone wishing entry must have permission from me.”  “Wait a minute, Charlie” Pitts objected. “This should belong to The club” “it should, but I found it now I claim it. Carpe cavem boys seize The Cave.”  Charlie

countered with a grin. “Good thing there’s only one of you around here Charles” Meeks said philosophically. 

Meeks & Pitts: they mainly stayed the same, however they gave Meeks’ poem about the Congo to Pitts and cut out Pitts’ poem about the man that killed his wife, they also have Meeks call Charlie Charles and I think that’s kind of cute.

Knox Overstreet:

Knox has no personality outside of his infatuation (obsession) with Chris, which is disappointing because they could have done more with his storyline, he’s the most athletic of the poets and has an awkward friendship with Ginny Danburry, his reason for not joining the society was that he didn’t really get it and I think they could have made him into a more interesting character by giving him more moments with Ginny and having him do more at the party than assault Chris, he could have brought all the poets and that would have been such an interesting plot point, having all the boys interact with public school students.

“Might as well sit down until dinner,” Ginny suggested in an awkward moment of silence followed. “Chet only Wanted the Buick so they can go parking.” She confided with a blush, not being able to think about anything to say. 

Richard Cameron:

Cameron’s betrayal in the book hits so much harder than in the film because he’s a real friend to the other poets, he’s the first and only one to ask where Todd is at their first study meeting, he calls a club meeting when Charlie asks him too, and he’s the most invested in Knox and Chris. Book Cameron also takes more indicative with the club, he reads from the poetry book something he doesn’t do in the movie. 

“Say what happened to Todd?” Cameron asked as they gathered up their books.” Said he wanted to do history,” Neil said. “Come on, Knox”, Cameron said.  “You’ll survive this chick. Maybe you'll think of something to win her love. Remember, seize the day,” Knox smiled. Got up from the couch and followed the boys to their rooms. 

Cameron took the book. “This is serious,” he said and began to read.

“You know what the dead poets would say” Cameron laughed, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”

Cameron was still well-behaved and overly nervous but he felt like he genuinely cared about the others, kind of like Claire from Derry Girls. 

leave a ship or fandom suggestions for headcanons, fics or just questions in general and I'll do them if you want :)

[loser-female]

Math masterpost!

So you want to learn math. Good. Math is amazing. I studied physics for two years and I miss it SO MUCH. Learning math isn't just cool, but it's a great way to improve skills such as:

Resilience: sometimes you will get stuck for a while on a problem - this is absolutely normal for college-level problems. You won't start from here though;

Self confidence: mastering a subject known to be difficult is fun;

Problem solving: you will be less likely to just sit down and do nothing if something comes up in your life, you will be able to try to find a solution.

It will change your approach to failure as you will become more flexible in your thinking.

Unfortunately most people never learn how to properly study math. We all probably know how to study a book over humanities. We start by reading the material, then we take notes of the keypoints. But this method doesn't work with math, and math teachers often don't really know either.

For the basics I've made this post here. To sum it up:

Please don't start with "but i suck at it". Because then your brain will actually prevent you from learning (self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?);

Realise that you need to master one topic before covering the next one or you won't be able to progress;

Really, the methods you use for things like literature or psychology or whatever won't work

Now I'm not a genius, I always was and I always be a terrible student. I have adhd, depression and chronic pain, all of which add a difficulty layer with learning.

I feel like most people fail because of the first point. I've seen this with people I've tutored IRL, people I try to fix their pc... Don't be the person that gives up before trying because no one likes that. Just don't. Remember that you are learning on your own and no one is going to grade your excercises. Now take that and make a poster out of iy.

Now, resources Where To Find The Stuff.

Khan Academy. I didn't follow this courses becuase well, university, physics, but everyone references them.

Professor Leonard

The Math Sorcerer

3b1b (curiosities in math)

Vsauce2 (fun)

numberphile (this for understanding math memes)

r/learnmath resources are great!

A great study method

Proofs? Proofs.

A 3 page document on learning math (but it's cool)

Terry Tao's famous post "there is more in mathematics about rigour and proofs"

Remember that, even if you don't like a specific youtuber, source or anything it has been a while since college and high school teachers started to upload their own material. Generally, looking for like "calculus pdf" will give you a lot of resources. Youtube is full of university courses of every kind and it's so good to access all of this knowledge for free. I cannot recommend you anything regarding textbooks because I still have my high school one. Also yes, i've used the Rudin as a complementary textbook in university but that's a bit too much.

I really, really want to emphasize the mentality part. Leaning formula is useless if you feel like garbage because you weren't able to solve the first exercise you picked up after a decade not doing anything.

My personal and sparce advice:

Unless you have dyscalculia don't use the calculator. I know, I KNOW. But this "lazyness" will make everything 10 times more difficult.

Beware about overlearning. Basically, when you solve everything at the first attempt and you keep doing the same thing over and over because it feels good, but the truth is that you are wasting time. This is the time to move forward.

Try to differentiate between a knowledge error(did I actually study the subject?), a conceptual error (did I understand the material), or a mere calculation/distraction error (fo example a missing sign, writing the wrong thing etc)

Try to solve the problems in different ways if you can.

After a certain time, It will be useful to review things done in the past, (ref: spaced repetition method).

Write everything down. Reasonings, steps etc. It will be easier for you to review them.

This posts keep crashing so I have to call it quits now.

but:

have fun

[pruneunfair]

Some other changes I made in my crossover. (WARNING: spoilers for my own work)

So I'm planning on releasing my first piece of work on ao3 in December, My remarried empress rewrite and if anyone wants to know what changes are made (and basically spoliers) read below. If you wish you avoid spoilers, please skip until you reach the paragraph in purple.

Navier is not the protagonist anymore, the new protagonist is an OC Aurelia.

More Oc's will be added in the plot with big roles, some you may have already seen on tumblr (Malori, Eva, Royce, Erdene, Ralph, Marybelle)

Delice and Phix will have bigger roles then they did originally.

Some of the characters will have different appearances based on description.

Rashta isn't the villian anymore.

As a crossover would suggest there is other characters from different media in it (minecraft story mode, the princesses jewels, into the light once again, bits of Steven universe and references to the orespawn minecraft mod)

Duke Ergi (unfortunately) had to be aged up for Eva's back story to make sense.

Navier is a morally grey character with her biggest flaw is that she is a willing bystander to evil if it benefits her.

Sovieshu stops pining after Navier at a specific point and marries a third time to an OC. (guess who it is 🙂)

There will be moments of tonal whiplash to show how vastly different the commoners and slaves conditions are compared to the nobility.

Duke Ergi is killed.

Heinrey is the main antagonist for the first half, the second half being Lari.

If you saw a earlier post with a fried chicken bucket then you probably already know Heinrey isn't getting away with that shit alive.

Sovieshu is also killed in the end of the first act.

Finally there will be trigger warning for a lot of dark subjects such as: SA, grooming, childhood abuse, loss of innocence, slavery, descriptions of mutilation, war, racism and homophobia, and more.

Im a pretty decent writer but I still have flaws in it just like everyone else. One of my biggest flaws as a person is that I don't take criticism or critique well which is really detrimental for an author, you simply can't be a good writer if you don't accept critique. It's also pretty hypocritical for me to be criticizing other manhwa and comics while I can't even take critique well myself. I've been trying to thicken my skin by letting my family, friends, and teachers read over some of my shorter stories + essays and among the compliments I also got fair critique for plot holes or things I've could've done better, it did sting my pride but it did help me turn the prototype of the crossover from a mess of a plot to something a little more polished.

I want to be able to improve my writing anyway I can so when the fic comes out and you see a glaring problem, please tell me so I'll know what it is to fix when I make my next work, thank you.

I will also be releasing little asks before December on certain aspects I'm still unsure about.

EDIT: some of this is outdated and has been changed

[senespera4]

I can't believe I have to post about this but the. The fucking-- Honkai Star Rail's writers are fucking insane and I have to write an analysis on the Literal Meme Update With The Funny Monkey Mascot

so uh spoilers for HSR version 2.6 Trailblaze Continuance, I swear I have an interesting angle with this (I'm only like halfway through the story too god fucking dammit)

This game has Opinions about educators and influencers and it is not afraid to be Extremely Blunt about how much they hate specific types of these "idea spreaders." I'm going to sort of work backwards from the point that I'm at (the reveal that Dr. Primitive is behind this) because I'm really just rambling right now and there's not much structure to this but I Need To Get My Thoughts Out

Dr. Primitive being involved in this isn't just an attempt to connect some tidbits from the Simulated Universe into the main story, I think they purposely chose him and this absurd and stupid banana theme because they wanted to comment on how when you have a bad "idea spreader" it's Bad bad. Dr. Primitive is positioned as an ultimate authority on knowledge by virtue of an Emanator, and yet his actions cause a reduction in knowledge because he is Actively causing people to regress back into monkeys.

This makes sense when you consider the two BananAdvisors you've fought up to this point in the story.

The first is a stubborn and close-minded art teacher, one that is clearly just attempting to spread their own propaganda about what art is truly worth something. They assign you a subject when the intent of the class is to paint something you want, they actively punish you for painting what you want, and instead of giving pointers on how to improve your art they will simply bash it and bash YOU until you have no motivation to continue. This fucking bitch did that shit to Chaletka Live and it was so infuriating to watch because you could just tell that he didn't care about her at all, all he wanted was Results. And if you can't produce results, you're a worthless piece of trash that shouldn't even exist in the first place.

The second is a fucking capitalist grifter-ass business professor who promotes extremely toxic "customer-first" paradigms that erode the worker and continuously consume them until there's nothing left. What's worse, his direct student is actively dragged into a similar mindset. Richie is Struggling, he is actively sacrificing his personal life for his business pursuits, believing that if he simply plays the capitalism game (and yes I am going to analyze this as anti-capitalist because I have an angle that HSR is an inherently anti-capitalist text I can't believe I'm fucking saying that that's such a stupid sentence) he will eventually reach success and happiness. As long as he pleases the customer, he will be successful. But the moment he outlives his usefulness, the moment he stops showing any sort of future promise to his employer, this is what happens

He is reduced to a mere resource sink, a mere datapoint on a spreadsheet which the accountant has decided is no longer producing enough profit to justify the costs. His humanity is stripped away, he is silenced, and worst of all he is coerced into doing so WILLINGLY because his employer and advisor and mentor manages to convince him that this is the right path for him, that he would be of more use to society as a speechless monkey than as a human with dreams and desires that are inconvenient for the business model.

This shit was the most infuriating thing to me. It reveals how the BananAdvisor knew EXACTLY what he was doing. He reduces Richie to something lesser, and acts surprised when you protest that he no longer has a voice because "things that are lesser naturally cannot speak." Because he made him that way. Because he purposely removed his ability to speak for himself.

I think the fact that the music continues to be the same goofy track throughout this entire scene of Abject Horrors contributes even further to that feeling of hostility that's made it so hard for me to get through this story quest without textually yelling at the characters. It feels like everything in the world is telling you that you're wrong for feeling this way, that your horror is laughable, mockable, even. Because this is the way the world works, and if you're horrified by it then you're simply too stupid to claw your way to the top, and you'd be better off as Literal Merchandise.

But also this is a lot of really serious analysis and I can't possibly ignore how this entire thing is themed in the most goofy, shitpost-y way imaginable. The monkeys are a deliberate choice, obviously, as a metaphor for regression of intelligence (and I think there's maybe something to be argued that it's a little bit too close to the "sheeple" trope but put a pin in that cuz I do think it's better executed than how that trope usually is), but they're also just like. Funny lmao. And really stupid. And it is also just multiple consecutive hours of banana jokes and I am going to clobber Dr. Primitive for making me endure this.

But I do think the shitpost factor is intentional. Because one of the main comments I've made about the banana visuals and shit is that I feel like HSR is doing some cocomelon shit to me.

And it's just like. The more I think about it the more the truth of that statement just smacks me in the face, cuz Cocomelon has been described as like visuoauditory crack for toddlers, and it's like. It's the numbing effect of how baldfacedly Stupid it is, you know. It's like the equivalent of jangling keys in front of a toddler, it is an overstimulating mess of colors and visuals that make no sense that's designed to just turn your brain off, and I think this is where HSRs criticism of "idea spreaders" extends from just educators in the case of the BananAdvisors to social media influencers in general. Like, I'm sure you've seen some of those tiktok livestreams that are just completely inexplicable reactions to viewer donations where the streamer is basically just entirely at the viewers' command, or the way AI generated Slop is all flashy bullshit and no substance. HSR, I feel, heavily dislikes this kind of stuff because they consider it to be "brainrot ideas" in that they actively turn your brain off because they actively prevent you from thinking about it.

HSR in general clearly has no respect for shitty educators or substanceless influencers because they show them as a Vile and Evil Force manipulating people into becoming speechless monkeys who have no thoughts of their own and simply indulge in meaningless """happiness"""

Back to the pin, this obviously has some connections to the "sheeple" trope, but I think HSR is being a little bit better about this because it does not place like. Any of the blame on the people actually being manipulated. Rappa and the rest of the Astral Express have a clear understanding that it is the fault of the people who benefit from the general public having their brains shut off at all times, and they're very sympathetic towards people who still end up in this kind of situation. It's not because they're stupid, it's because exploitative people and systems have tricked them there, and they have to be broken out of The Ooze

And that's why Rappa has so many indicators of rebellion and non-conformity. She's a graffiti-spraying rapper precisely because she is fighting against a homogenizing force of evil that wants to take away people's motivation and individuality to feed into the machine. Her song's major theme is about waking people up, getting them to see that the rules are purpose-built to suck them dry, and for them to rebel in their own personal way through personal expression. So it's really no surprise that they made her a cyberpunk aesthetic graffiti-spraying rapper ninja lmao

Tl;Dr this latest story is a commentary on how authority figures can purposely spread bad ideas in order to control the people they have authority over, and how this is a result of a system that actively sucks the people within it dry of all they're worth before tossing them aside. It's about capitalism, it's about toxic grifter culture, it's about social media brainrot, it's about breaking the rules when they're designed to hurt you, and hopefully once I finish it it ends up being about the importance of critical thinking and understanding what you want your place in the world to be, and to then defiantly carve out that little place no matter what stands in your way instead of just shutting your brain off and just going with what the people who are "qualified" say, no matter how insane and manipulative the things they say can be.

[runabout-river]

Thoughts on Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 230 (spoilers)

This chapter was harder to understand than previous ones and that was probably because the translation I read was a little shoddy. I might have to make a follow up post on Sunday when the official translation comes out.

But from what I did understand is that Sukuna, that prick, is using Megumi's soul as a punching bag in this fight to let Mahoraga adapt to techniques without him taking damage. In this case it was the sure-hit of Unlimited Void. This probably only works on UV as well.

Theory: to be still able to finish the summon of Mahoraga after getting hit by UV, Sukuna disengaged his brain from Megumi's. Normally this would pose the risk of MegumI gaining back control of his body but not in this specific circumstance because the disengagement meant that Megumi's mind would be hit by UV, meaning even if he had been able to take back control in that moment, Gojo's own attack made him unable to do that.

Sukuna is really a royal bastard who leaves no room open for attack and Gojo was understandably distraught at realising that he hurt Megumi directly.

On Megumi: first, he has his shoes back. Second, he's still at the bottom of the abyss of evil in the same position as last month after Tsumiki's death. His eyes are also looking quite dead BUT despite all of that Gege still made sure to draw the reflection of light on him. Megumi is not in total darkness and at some point in the future we'll see what that means.

There is also Gojo's 6-Eyes look at Sukuna with Mahoraga in the background. We see two white circles in front of him, one higher than the other. These are CE centres most likely, drawn to represent the soul. They're two because there are two different CE signatures, Sukuna's and Megumi's. The higher circle, Sukuna's, has a piece of the lower circle attached to it.

We can interpret this in different ways. Literally, as in Megumi's CE and cursed technique being used by Sukuna right now with Mahoraga standing directly behind Suku. Or figuratively, with Megumi's soul being shattered.

Yuta had compared a burnt-out technique with an overheated engine. The engine was technically fine, there was nothing to repair because nothing was broken, it was just too hot to be used in the next few minutes. So what did Gojo do? He broke the hot engine and repaired it afterwards. Then et voila, a freshly made brain engine ready to use!

Sukuna's Domain breaking soothed my soul after the taunt he levelled at Gojo and did Megumi so dirty. But I did hope that Megumi had an active role breaking it. In the future, hopefully.

This is an awesome panel and even Sukuna's side eyes are bleeding. My problem here is again that I'm confused about the step by step happenings of the fight that led up to this. I might've avoided this problem if my Japanese wasn't as shitty as it is but instead of improving it during my limited free time, I rather write fanfic about Toji getting fucked in the ass by Benimaru Shinmon from Fire Force.

Teacher Gojo finally gets to shine after being dissed left and right the last few chapters. The Tokyo students are watching and we'll definitely see the things these behemoths are doing in this fight used by the good guys in the future. I won't be hearing about any asspulls when that happens!

Sukuna's grin is also extremely menacing.

We get the next round starting with another fist fight and Yorozu's words are back in Sukuna's head. Why? What do those words mean to Sukuna? Why is he thinking about them again? There are multiple interpretations and theories we can go with.

E.g. love for Sukuna could mean the love of fighting and the love to strive towards greatness. This is in contrast to Gojo who we only ever heard talk about romantic love (I'm not a stsg shipper but I am a stsg truther).

The loneliness is about being so strong that no one else can stand beside you. Why this phrase reappears here again might be because Sukuna is standing right now in front of someone who is on his level and Sukuna very much knows that without pulling every ability and trick up his sleeve he won't win.

Still, Sukuna didn't show much emotion in this fight even now, he straight up showed more personality in his fight against Yorozu than here

My theory is that Sukuna, unlike Gojo, started his life at the bottom of the food chain as a hungry child at the edge of starvation who resorted to cannibalism to survive. Sukuna showed a great disdain for lowlife who didn't stay in their lane and I think that's a projection of his own life and his achievements that no one else is ever going to accomplish.

Sukuna always seemed like he didn't see much in Gojo most likely because he saw him as nothing but an upstart who won the ability lottery and nothing more but that might be changing with these last few panels. Gojo fights with more intelligence and skill than just with his abilities alone.

[comicaurora]

Sorry if this is a weird question but how long did it take for you to start making art you felt was good enough, at least at the time? I have a lot of ideas for projects I want to make but I'm slowed down by not quite being at a level I'm happy with for professional endeavours. Wondering if I should quit while I'm ahead and just hire an artist I like.

Hoo. Good question.

It's hard to keep track of, honestly. I think every artist is going to feel a degree of "this could be better" about anything they make, and if that's all you're keeping track of it can feel like no progress is being made - but in hindsight, I think "this could be better" means a lot of different things, and what it means for my work has changed over time.

One of my earliest art-related memories is having a very clear image in my head of a pencil sketch I wanted to make (a family portrait of some wizards, a mom and dad flanking a young daughter) and then being immensely frustrated that what I produced was a pale, inexpert shadow of that image. The starting point I was at was "this doesn't look right and I don't know why," and I stayed there for a long time, even as I got overall better.

The first time I remember trying and failing to emulate a specific cartoon style, it was the manga Steam Detectives - I'd mostly been exposed to newspaper comics and scientific illustration, so I had never seen that sharp-angled straight-lined manga style before. There was a liveliness to it I couldn't capture, and that frustrated me. At this point I could see what was wrong, but couldn't yet correct it - my unconfident pencil sketching wasn't going to produce the same kind of three-dimensionality and flow as the brush strokes used in the, in the same way that a traced figure can look strangely odd and off-balance because it's only mimicking the outlines. At this point I'd hit "this doesn't look right and I know why, but I'm not sure how to fix it."

At that point, practice was kind of the only solution - unconfident linework can only be improved by honing the muscle memory and confidence of the artist, which I didn't know at the time or do on purpose but ended up happening anyway, especially once I got going on the channel and was regularly doing dozens to hundreds of drawings per project.

I do remember the first time I thought "oh, that's actually better than I expected" - I had broken my clavicle and my right arm was in a sling, and my art teacher encouraged me to try drawing something with my left instead. I am very much not ambidextrous and my lines were spidery and shaky, but when I stepped back at the end, the thing I'd tried to sketch - a portrait of a regal-looking elf man - actually wasn't too bad. The muscle memory in my right hand was completely absent from my left, but apparently my basic understanding of shapes and shadows had come through and made something that got across the gist of what I wanted. That was the first time I felt "this doesn't look right, but I already knew that, and what it does do is actually pretty solid."

At some point in the process of cranking out channel illustrations, and later chibi character commissions, without even noticing I hit a baseline level of confidence in what I was doing. Certain things got easier because I was doing them a lot more. I stopped thinking about whether a facial expression was communicating exactly what I wanted it to, stopped spending long stretches of time trying to refine poses - because in those specific areas I was no longer experiencing "this doesn't look right and I don't know why." I'd draw a face, realize it could look angrier, redraw the eyes and brows to be angrier, then move on. I'd block out a pose, decide the leg didn't look right, redraw it, line it and move on. It wasn't that I was nailing everything first try, it's that I'd had enough time and practice to quickly diagnose what wasn't working and quickly try something else to correct it.

Instead, I was thinking "this doesn't look right and I don't know why" about other things. Trees, buildings, figure shading, fire, water, metal textures. I still didn't feel ready to do the comic in earnest, but I'd started doing digital illustrations of the characters and mock-up pages/covers, and I kept finding problems in the composition. It didn't look right and I didn't know why. If I didn't know why, I couldn't fix it. A lot of that process boiled down to redrawing stuff until it managed to look right, then trying to reverse-engineer what had worked about that. I'd accidentally draw the most perfect torso and try to figure out what magic combination of lines had made that work. And again, it was a slow process, almost unnoticeable from my perspective, because I just gradually stopped worrying so much about unsolvable artistic problems because the solutions had just arisen with practice and experience. The background looks wack - it's probably under-shaded, darken some corners to make it match the foreground. This texture looks off - probably needs some particle effects to help give it detail. Etc etc.

At present, I very rarely think "this doesn't look right and I don't know why." I still have moments of "this doesn't look right" - almost constantly, probably - but they aren't noteworthy because I've had enough practice improvising solutions that it turns into a brief experimental phase before I fix whatever was bugging me and move on. It doesn't mean it's perfect, it just means whatever problems or places it could be improved are either subjective choices that are fine either way, or small mistakes I don't notice at the time. The process of error-correction and bug-fixing becomes quick and painless enough that I hardly think about how I used to spend ages agonizing over something that was wrong that I couldn't make look right.

The point I eventually got to could probably be best described as "I could make this better if I wanted - do I want to do that?"

Making a comic like this, it's very important for me to consider the value of pouring too much into any one page. If I vastly overdesign anything, I'm going to need to keep up that level of design every time it shows up. If I drew every forest shot by hand-drawing every single tree I'd never get anything done. If something looks off and I know the solution would be more detailing and more texturing, sometimes I'll do that - filigree and particles and all that good sauce - but sometimes I'll just try a few things until I find a shortcut that makes it look fine to my eyes. Art can always be more polished, so that's not really a metric for completeness or ready-ness - I really do think the most helpful metric is whether you're regularly struggling because you can see something is wrong but you can't figure out what. If you consistently know what's wrong - or, more accurately and less judgmentally, what could be polished if you wanted to polish it - you're probably in a pretty good spot.

[nerves-nebula]

Sorry just saw a post saying you do actually DO get taught media literacy and critical thinking in English classes and I was homeschooled until high school, but Ive also been to three different high schools across two states of america- which isn’t a lot but is more than most people get (assuming that most people go to one high school for four years instead of switching schools every year) and let me tell you. The English teachers almost always had the same problem. And I generally liked them all! English wasn’t a class I super hated!!!

Even my favorite English teachers didn’t really end up fostering a love of reading into the material or actually critically thinking about stuff.

What they all liked to do was talk about and lead you into THEIR interpretation to the point of basically dismissing any other readings. At best you’d get a “that’s a good point too, but I was thinking of something else” and at worst they’d basically just dismiss it with a clear lack of interest. As if you didn’t “get the point” for focusing on something else.

I remember this because there were a lot of times when I was bursting to talk about the parallels id drawn of the assignment to my personal experiences but I was too embarrassed or afraid or annoyed to because the few times i or anyone else tried to speak up the teachers were basically uninterested unless you hit on the specific reading they were obsessed with. At which point they’d talk at length about symbolism and stuff that, while interesting to me, was also hella annoying!!

My English classes made me afraid to get into academia because they all made it seem like there were one or two proper ways to read a story and if you didn’t immediately come to one of those conclusions then you’d be treated like you were stupid or hadn’t actually read the text.

This post also claimed that English classes teach you how to spot misinformation ???? The only thing even close to that would be history classes where we would sometimes discuss propaganda. Most of English class is reading assigned literature and then painfully sitting through the teacher trying to lead us into their interpretation. And sometimes you get to write things.

At MOST you’re gonna get the teacher telling you that something an author says is incorrect or a lie or that they’re biased but you don’t usually practice how to spot misinformation when you’re not prepped to find it.

I gained more critical thinking skills from being annoyed by the teachers readings and tearing them apart in my head than I did from any actual assignments. But that’s because I already cared about stories! So i wouldn’t have even had that if I didn’t already have some kind of interest in the classes subject matter!

Does all this stuff you’re supposedly taught in English class happen before high school?? What schools are you guys going to because from my experienced, American high school English classes (like a lot of classes) don’t really teach you shit unless you’re already interested in the subject.

I also think it’s pretty useless and mean spirited to imply people who didn’t learn that stuff were just idiots who didn’t pay attention. It’d be way more helpful to encourage people to want to learn stuff after school ends!! Not just because learning is fun but also because I feel like a lot of people see learning as something you can only do in schools & such and don’t see all the opportunities for self improvement past that!

Sorry I have no idea why a single one paragraph post bothered me so much, I think it’s cuz it’s past 10 pm 😭😭😭 so slightly annoying things lead to entire damn rants. I don’t even know if they were talking about American education I just was suddenly flooded with a ton of memories and barfed them out here.

[starmanbyler]

very important question ANY GCSE ADVICE i'm starting my gcse courses and i'm acc panicking sooo do u have any revision advice or anything!!!

and a fun question!! if u could be any animal for a day what would u be

ILY HAVE A GOOD DAY /p

HII RUBI I CAN TOTALLY SORT OF HELP??

first advice, don’t panic too much yet. or at all. i was freaked out when i started doing my gcses, but for now all you need to do is focus in lessons and if there are things you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask questions or look stuff up so that you aren’t left behind, because trust me, being confused about certain topics when everyone understands can be very frustrating. so if you need to do some extra revision to work on weak topics, that’s cool, but you will be fine if you don’t. at least take note of your weak points so you can focus on them later, because you’re saving yourself some unnecessary time. id suggest having a little notebook for that kind of thing.

if you want to revise this year (i’m assuming year 10) then i’d suggest maybe half an hour to an hour per subject in a week. and btw i did NOT revise at this point at all. i did revise for physics towards the end of the school year (like march-may) because i had a gcse a year early. but unless you’re really behind and stuck then just do the best you can and only intervene if you notice there are things you don’t understand, because again, this will really help in the long run.

i’ll be honest i didn’t start revising for the rest of my gcses until april this year. most of them i revised the night before. not to brag but then got 98877776666 😭 so in some cases you will do alright even with little revision. but you know yourself better than i do. look at how you do currently in exams and whether you struggle a lot without doing revision or not. some people tend to naturally be better at taking in and memorising content, but others need to work a bit more to solidify it which is totally okay and very normal. so if you do struggle then you should try and revise properly for the actual exams. start out just revising when you have specific topic exams throughout the year. revise for like a week before (cus these aren’t that important) and focus FIRST on your weak topics. that’s the key thing. don’t skim through easy stuff just cus it’s easy. it won’t help you much and is just a waste of time. you need to be honest with yourself and really try to improve the parts that are holding you back. try out different revision techniques every so often or when you have exams to see what works for you. i can’t give many specifics since i don’t know how to revise but there are a lot of resources and ideas online. some that worked for me are:

flashcards (i used quizlet over and over to memorise case studies and vocab)

free science lessons is a GOD

also mr salles is good for english! there is a little community on youtube of english teachers that i found helpful (and i’m doing a level now so hey i guess they worked) also just youtube in general is good for a lot of things, revision advice, actual specification content + explanation and whatever you want to find

if you play around with these now (and anything else you find useful) then you can be more prepared for actual exams.

when it comes to mocks (y10 and y11) they aren’t as important as people act like. unless there is a sudden awful outbreak of covid and they have to cancel exams (which is unlikely in a year or two), your mock results don’t have much effect. they may make you feel bad (i can promise you mine did) but even just a little bit of revision can make a difference come may of year eleven. from february mocks to gcses, i went from a 5 to a 7 in biology, and a 5 to an 8 in geography. i didn’t revise at all for mocks, and i did a day or two last minute for my gcses. i’m not saying that’s a good idea… but what i’m saying is that a little goes a long way. so don’t panic if you don’t get the results you want in mocks. i do suggest revising for mocks, to practice revising and so you have a better understanding for real gcses, mine is sort of a cautionary tale that just happens to have a happy ending. but if you don’t because you’re tired or struggling, don’t beat yourself up about it like i did, because it just makes you mad at yourself and it doesn’t help you motivate yourself. use this as fuel to try harder for the real exams.

id say for actual gcses, start properly revising in the january of year eleven. january is mainly mock revision, but after mocks, you can focus more on the right topics from march-may. and make sure to continue revising before each exam. it can work to just go over your weaknesses over and over again until it’s basically branded on your brain. even if you forget these the second you walk out of the exam, you will still succeed. especially with right-wrong answer kind of subjects (maths, science and maybe geography) gcses are 1% inspiration, 19% motivation and 80% memorisation. that’s probablt an exaggeration, but my point is, it’s okay if you don’t really have the capacity to fully comprehend every concept, just memorise things so you can regurgitate it into your exams. no harm done really. it’s only important to fully understand the subjects you plan to continue onto a level and beyond.

i knoww this is mostly year eleven focused so it might not be as relevant now but trust me the main point is do not stress right now. you are safe so don’t freak yourself out. it’s good to try and get ahead if you have the motivation, but now is your time to have fun and relax before all the academic pressure piles up. not slacking off, but just don’t worry! especially when it’s just september. you don’t need to start immediately, just try things out and work your way up to a system that works well for you!

and out of interest, what gcses did you choose? (besides the obvious maths english etc) and does ur school make you do religious studies?

and good luck of course!! i sincerely hope you do really well and you deserve it :) just work hard and do your best really.

also, if i was an animal for a day it would not be any bug cus i’m dead. if i had a human brain maybe so i wouldn’t act like an idiot and annoy people. or a dog because they’re chill. and cats can climb shit so maybe cat.

anywayssss love you i hope you have the best time at gcse cus i’ll be real with you i wish i could go back sometimes. sixth form is super interesting but way less worry free; so save your worrying for later!!

can’t believe i just put a lana gif in a post. lmao

[jin-zixun]

MDZS Reread - Chapter 4 (Part Two) - The Elegant Flirt (Refinement 11-18)

Manhua Chapters 30- Well 35 in this post.

Ch 4.1 ; Ch 3.2 ; Ch 3.1 ; Ch 2 ; Ch 1

"When Wei Wuxian reflected on it later, the start of his poor relationship with Lan Wangji could probably be traced back to the year when he was fifteen."

Poor relationship, yeah sure. Last we saw these two like zero lines ago they were snuggling in bed together. Come on Wei Wuxian get it together man.

"There was a highly respected and reputable elder named Lan Qiren in the Lan Clan of Gusu. ... Over the years, he had raised countless exceptional Lan disciples. Anyone educated under him for a couple of years, no matter how terrible they were going in, would appear decent coming out—or, at the very least, their poise and etiquette would see considerable improvement. Many parents wept streaming tears of excitement when they picked up their sons upon completion of their tenure."

Okay I did not remember Lan Qiren specifically being so sought after but like good for him? Maybe my feelings are colored from watching CQL but like Lan Qiren's classes in CQL at least... Kind of suck? But you know what, if the novel says he's the best damn teacher there is and everyone wants their kids in his class then like, sure. Send your kids to Lan camp.

What is with threatening to break legs? Is this a thing? I've gotta assume it's just a thing.

"Nie Huaisang continued, “And that Lan Zhan, he’s…sheesh. He’s the same age as us, but he’s not as lively as a boy should be. Stiff and strict. He’s the same as his shufu, or worse.” “Oh,” Wei Wuxian said. “Is he a pretty good-looking fellow?”

Presented without comment. I have no words. Okay okay, this is clearly Wei Wuxian's "hey this is the guy from last night" conversation but still "oh the hot guy?"

And Jiang Cheng's response like "Uh, they're Lans, they're ALL hot." Like thank you Jiang Cheng. What a great point.

The clan REJECTS DISCIPLES WHO AREN'T HOT ENOUGH oh my GOD

Wei Wuxian: "no no but he wears all white and has a forehead ribbon and also a silver sword" Buddy in what way are you narrowing it down that's literally all Lans. All Lans wear white and have forehead ribbons and have silver swords, probably. Silver is the standard color for swords, I think?

Yeah, Original/Novel Wei Wuxian absolutely was a little shit here.

Nie Huaisang and co being fully engrossed in this story, but unwilling to do the troublemaking themselves I guess. Tiny Jiang Cheng's expression here though... He's so unimpressed. He's just like "*sigh* and then what happened? Did you make it worse? You made it worse didn't you? Why am I even asking that of course you made it worse."

"Wei Wuxian wasn’t scared in the least. He waved dismissively. “What’s there to be scared of? Didn’t they say Lan Zhan is a child prodigy? If he’s so precocious, then his shufu should’ve taught him everything by now, and he should be spending his days in secluded cultivation without any free time to keep eyes on me. I…”

"Jiang Cheng tapped Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and whispered, “His eyes are on you. Best of luck.”"

Now I know (or at least Wei Wuxian does) what you might still be asking about all this...

"Lan Qiren was tall and thin, his back as straight as a brush. Although he had a long black goatee, he was most definitely not old, and in line with the Lan Clan of Gusu’s tradition of birthing beautiful men every generation, he was most definitely not ugly."

Is Lan Qiren hot? Well sure, but Wei Wuxian isn't really into dilfs. If you're into dilfs though... Well, just be careful he's very strict!

He then reads them out all 3000 rules one by one as the kids sit there in silence, gets mad about the kids not already knowing the rules, singles out Wei Wuxian (not unearned he's been a little troublemaker) and then scolds him for getting the right answers because he shouldn't be proud anyone could get right answers (but when Lan Wangji gets an answer right that's a reason to look up to him ok buddy). Then Wei Wuxian, the known troublemaker, the guy who Lan Qiren is apparently targeting as a known troublemaker and trying to humble because he's an arrogant little shit or whatever, that guy, he says some edgy shit and Lan Qiren gets immediately outraged and kicks him out of class.

Lan Qiren... He isn't THAT great my dudes.

"“Wei-xiong! You’re amazing! He told you to get out and you actually left! Ha ha ha ha…” “He couldn’t wrap his head around what happened for the longest time after you left, his face was so sour!”"

Wei Wuxian is an arrogant little shit though. But like... Maybe Lan Qiren should ask... If he is the one... Who needed to be humbled... Hmm... What about that huh?

Power move. No notes.

You know what? I'm gonna say it. Using your nephew like that in class, as an example to humble others... Hmm... Kinda shitty to Lan Wangji. That's literally an awful position to put him in oh my god. And LWJ is probably just like "this is normal" like why would you do that to him. And Lan Xichen like "uwu Wangji needs more friends" I WONDER WHY HE HAS NO FRIENDS OH MY GOD

Anyway.

"Nie Huaisang contemplated this. Then envy began to surface on his face. “What Wei-xiong said is actually very interesting. Obtaining spiritual qi requires cultivating and laboriously forming a golden core. Who knows how long that’ll take for someone like me? Any aptitude I have seems like it got chewed on by dogs in my mother’s womb. But resentful qi… That’s abundantly produced by all those nefarious creatures out there. If it could be put to use, how nice would that be?”"

Demonic Cultivator Nie Huaisang! Demonic Cultivator Nie Huaisang! Demo--

"Wei Wuxian laughed. “Why would I leave the grand avenue under the sun to walk the single-planked bridge in the shadows?"

Oh no an arc phrase that will reappear inverted ironically later on in the story oh nooooo what an emotional time to have emotions.

"The Righteousness Collection was the Lan family precepts. Their family precepts were so numerous that Lan Qiren had edited and assembled them into a thick collection, and the “Highest Justice” and “Standard Etiquette” chapters took up most of the work."

Stop! Stop! I already hate the Lan! I don't need any more incentive I am a Su She stan and you had me at 4000 rules. No one needs that many rules. You can cut those down. Some of those things probably just don't matter that much.

"Wei Wuxian spat out the sprig of grass in his mouth, dusted off his boots, and said, “Copy three times? I’ll ascend after the first time. I’m not a Lan, and I don’t plan on marrying into the Lans, so what do I need to copy their family precepts for? I refuse.”"

See it's funny because he does marry into the Lan and become a Lan. Bad Ending Should have realized it would be a Bad End after they killed JGY

"He was graceful and elegant, as if he himself were a tree of jade, mottled with the shadows of the leaves and the sun’s rays."

"Wei Wuxian, however, jumped down and went over to call after him, “Wangji-xiong!”"

"Wei Wuxian didn’t care. He chuckled aloud. “He can ignore me all he wants. It’s not like he’s even that pretty.” But then when he thought about it, yes, the boy was indeed that pretty. So he nonchalantly tossed that pouty feeling to the back of his mind."

Wei Wuxian falls first. He is smitten. Like, you're seeing this right?

"“Please, I beg you, Wei-xiong. This is my third year attending school at Gusu..."

Huh really wow Lan Qiren must be such a great teacher lmao. (Sorry, I'm bagging on poor Lan Qiren now, does he deserve it? Probably not, but like... Maybe a little bit yeah.)

"This Wei Ying really was as he had expected—the largest threat to humanity!"

He's an edgy 15 year old. You know there's people actually killing each other. Dude there's at least four types of evil things you taught in class as standard stuff everyone should know about.

Is it because of the crush on Lan Zhan? It's the crush on Lan Zhan isn't it?

"Wei Wuxian blurted praise in spite of himself, “Beautiful writing! Best of the best.”"

"Seeing that he’d finally been able to tease Lan Wangji into talking, he was secretly delighted, like he’d seen the bright moon at last after waiting for the clouds to part."

Then he tricks Wangji into reading porn and I've got nothing to say to that. I'm sure that's very funny if you are an edgy 15 year old and very not if you are Lan Wangji.

It's a very cute Lan Wangji though.

Alright, I'll listen to him. No need to send him off.

We'll uh... Well I'll try to power through the rest next time (there's no chance it doesn't just devolve into me fawning over little baby minshan forever and delaying the end of Chapter 4 even more. No chance. It's Minshan all the way down.)

[flutterbloom]

This is a rant read it if you'd like.

Yesterday I had to take a speaking test which will make up 20% of my final exam. It is the first year that this new testing system has been implemented where there's an extra test or two for every subject that a student has chosen and most of them will make up 40% of the subjests final exam (besides math and the native language which have two tests and each makes up 20%).

While I understand the intention of these tests that we as students should take studying seriously but this new testing system was beyond rushed. I will mostly focus my thoughts on the speaking one but I will give a quick overview of the overall negative aspects first.

Firstly with the new tests came new programs. Teachers were not given the proper tools to prepare us. There were no new textbooks. They barely even started creating them when the new programs were implemented! Hovewer the teachers are doing a wonderful job trying to educate us in this havoc but I have definitely noticed how the quality of teaching in certain subjects has dropped since everything's been mixed up and we need to work from our older textbooks (which are perfectly fine and very clear in my oppinion).

Secondly the new tests were rushed. Currently I'm talking about the math one. Mistakes were found in the questions, they were made too difficult based on what we were studying, there wasn't enough time... And as a result we will be getting a better score? A few extra points? Sure this sounds great but do we realise how wrong this is? There shouldn't have been any mistakes in the first place for this to happen! And how will this even work? Will we all just get a +1 or +2 or will they have to check what we wrote in certain questions? It's all such a mess and such a joke.

This whole situation makes me worried about what to expect from the upcoming tests and our future. Because what does this say to us? That because of other peoples mistakes we have to blame ourselves for not doing better? Needless to say that these people are supposed to be responcible for upbringing a well educated youth out into the world!

Now that I'm done spewing my thoughts about the overall situation I will talk about the speaking test. Before I do I want to say that I think I did ok on the speaking part so that this whole thing doesn't sound like "I did bad so all of this is bad".

Basically we had 20min to read the text and prepare a 5min speech based on it. The text was displayed on the computer but we had the ability to print it out. This is where the problems start like the printer not working or other technical difficulties. That didn't happen to me fortunately but it still could've happened to someone else. This would've greatly affected the students ability to prepare and in such a short notice. Secondly the teachers didn't even know the testing criteria until there was very little time left until the test. Preparations were also difficult since how can you help each individual to perfect their speaking from a class of 30+ students? Again this was a mess.

The main thing I don't get about this specific test is what does it even test? Sure it's your ability to quickly make a high quality speech but if you really think about it this sounds like they're testing the students ability to do their homework that they didn't do during a 20min break. And we had exactly that much time to prepare. Besides how can you judge a student based on their rushed speech? We had to prepare a speech last year and you could see that the students worked really hard on perfecting it in order to get the highest mark and I was one of them. I started working on it quite early, I went to talk with the teacher about what I could improve, I researched and re-read books because I wanted to do the best I can. Now compare all of that time and preparation to 20 minutes. Again how can you judge a student and their potential based on this? Ofcourse there will be mistakes and some things left out or unmentioned even if you had made notes because it's stressfull and in a way unfair! Unfair in the sence that some students know they won't be able to do well in such a short notice. This doesn't mean they're dumb or not responcible if they are fully capable and willing on doing something well with enough time given. I'm sure that this whole thing left many worried, dissatisfied with themselves and brought a lot of unnecessary stress.

To conclude this whole thing is a mess. We are the only ones who will have the ability to retake all of the tests exept for the speaking one since it's the first year they've been implemented. I wish the best of luck for the next year students who will have to deal with this. Or maybe by some miracle they won't have to.

[chai-hat-tea]

2023 writing self evaluation

I was tagged by the bestest and my favourite @beardyboyzx ❤️❤️

1. List of works published this year:

Oh man this is kinda long lol:

Basic White Bitch

Heat Waves

Read Like a Headline

The Lonely Dance of my Despair

Share a Single Page

Wish it Could be the Same as it was

Saved you to Find me

Twogether we’re Alone, and we’re Finally Home

And if you’re Thinking of me, I’m Probably Thinking of you

Saving Sweet Creature

Sweet Merry Loumas

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

All of them! Writing was hard for me on many levels, so to pull these off, I’m very very happy about it. And I’ve also not fully hated (more like cringed hard) reading my works so I guess that’s improvement 

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

Well no I’m proud of all of them, but what I’m not proud about is how I finished everything so last minute and I mostly wrote only one shots/short fics. Nothing was over 10k really. 

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

I think the poem in The Lonely Dance of my Despair. Because I was originally going to copy a poem off the Internet but I felt so wrong and guilty for doing that and then I whipped this baby up in less than 5 minutes. Didn’t think I had it in me:

How can life go on

When I feel stuck here.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide

Life has left me far behind.

How can the rainbow disappear

When every colour bleeds into oblivion

The remnants of them leaving gashes

Deeper than the sadness that lays within

How can time fly

When I know not what or who am I

As the clock ticks by

I feel further lost outside

How can I go on

When everything holds me back

Chains me down in the trenches

And my magic sinks deeper in

As the escape moves fast ahead  

5. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

I don’t receive a lot of comments, but I’m blessed and lucky that all the comments I receive are only positive and encouraging. Also, I can’t choose. All comments are great comments (unless they’re meant to be nasty).

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Oh the entire year lol. I’ve been in the worst place mentally, so writing on top of real life was so so hard. I’m glad to simply pull this off. 

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

I’ve had a bunch of those. I don’t remember the specifics, but when I read a few of my fics, I was so surprised I managed to come up with things. And during the wordplay fest, I also wrote for the travelling fic fest and so I legit had no time to read what I wrote because I was having the worst time at school (as a teacher, not a student thankfully) so I literally wrote and posted whatever @beardyboyzx betaed without checking. To the point I didn’t even know what I was writing. Literally functioned on autopilot that month. And then she would tell me about a scene she found adorable and I would blank out because I didn’t even realise I wrote it. So yeah, I think that’s pretty cool. 

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I grew because I didn’t cringe or get embarrassed while reading my fic? I think that’s a decent growth. 

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

The year didn’t start great, so I don’t know what to expect for the rest of it. But I do hope I somehow learn to stop procrastinating and pushing everything to the last minute. I’ve also noticed a sort of pattern in the way I write and I hope I can break that and learn to write differently. 

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

Oh @beardyboyzx and @thinlinez have been literal saviours. I’ve had proper meltdowns that both have helped me through differently and I’m so so thankful to have met both of them and can talk to them about everything apart from the fandom and fic. Like no amount of thank yous can ever suffice. 

I met a lovely, kind human in @always-in-love-x and she’s helped me so much the past year! I can’t wait to implement what we planned this year!!

Shoutout to @kisochkalena for helping me out with moodboards as well! If I had to make moodboards on top of writing my fics during wordplay and travelling fic fests, I would’ve cried proper tears. 

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Oh yeah plenty! I don’t want to get into specifics but yes there was a bit. 

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Just write. Don’t focus on the hits, kudos, and comments. I know it’s easier said than done, but you first need to do this for yourself than others. Validation is temporary and fickle, it’s always going to be you.

13. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read. ;)

Would love to know about @jaerie, @greenfeelings and @mercurial-madhouse! Anyone else who sees this is welcome too :))

[she-waves-at-cats]

Ok, I really want to talk about it. I have thoughts that will rot my brain if i don't get them out.

I had a meltdown in karate class. (My entry for the "most autistic sentence ever uttered" contest if someone wants to organise one.)

It was my first experience of public overwhelm since my autistic realisation, so I can now see these events from a new perspective.

The how and the why: Intense day of mostly-positive experiences that included a phonecall (omg) with a job recruiter who was extremely nice to me. Also I forgot to eat lunch. By the time the evening class rolled around, I was in a good mood overall, but my brain had had enough I guess, so it started "shrinking". It was hard to coordinate movements, which stressed me out, so it was hard to recall movement sequences, which stressed me out, then we did an exercise with a partner and I was self-conscious, so I just froze... And then the teacher took notice, so he took time to individually drill me in basics, which was what pushed me over the edge. I know the basics, I'm so good at this stuff actually. I have more theoretical knowledge than any other student in that room, and he knows that, but seeing me fail once made him forget about all that. I cried. He lectured me, publically.

Here's something he thought was appropriate to say: "You're not supposed to be crying, you're supposed to enjoy the class."

Isn't this the most controlling, gaslighting bullshit an authority figure can say? You're not experiencing appropriate emotions, so I will now remind you what emotions you're supposed to experience. And I used to swallow things like that, hook, line and sinker. I used to grab myself by my own nonexistent bootstraps and beat myself into expressing emotions others can comprehend. That's what masking is, not a happy acting exercise, it's violence that you are convinced you have to exert on yourself.

But my real conclusion is that while up to a point, I could've prevented this event if I had read my own clues better (positive stress is still stress, and I was not careful managing my resources because I thought happiness was giving me more resources), OTHER PEOPLE MADE IT WORSE.

The teacher could've just let me do the exercises badly for one day. He could've just given me corrections like normal, without worrying I was not immediately improving. Without making it a whole thing where he pairs me up with another student specifically to watch me and correct me. And it's not like I didn't say "remembering things is hard for me today". He just didn't get that it means "leave me alone today, tomorrow I will remember things again". He did extra work with me that was completely useless.

And when I took my bag and left, the other female student followed me, wanting to know what happened, not taking "just a stressful day" for an explanation, kept asking if I was definitely ok, disparaged the men in the class for not knowing how to take care of a female friend, and then offered me a ride home. I let her drive me - I'd wanted to be her friend and was actually frustrated that she always came late to class and left immediately after, so we never had a chance to connect before. But man, was it hard to think of things to say in that car, when my mind was the size of a pea and my memory behind 3 vault doors.

It took a whole night of processing and then a whole day of being quiet and treating myself gently until I felt like myself again. If people had just left me alone, there would've been nothing special to process and recover from. I would've had a mediocre class, then taken a long walk home and remembered I was basically happy.

Showing that I struggled wasn't WRONG, exactly, but the problem is that if I show struggle, or god forbid a tear, people react in ways that make it impossible for me to calm down. And the worst thing is that none of the people in this story are neurotypical - we're adult karate nerds after all - but neurotypical methods of dealing with emotions are so ingrained in us, we think we will let a friend down if we don't pester them for more emotional work when they are already at their emotional limit.

I used to think that to get the support I want, I needed to communicate better. That day, I communicated. I was so articulate for someone who can barely think and talk. But people did not accept my true words at face value.

What we need is more education about autism before there's acceptance of alternative ways of experiencing stress and processing emotions. We are only taught neurotypical communication, to the point where we hurt each other.