#sidleyparkhermit

[knifegrrrl1312]

me: "this person is inciting swatting and has racist motivations and that violates your violent threat guideline and also this person has *multiple* posts violating hate speech too."

tumblr staff: "ackshually this doesn't violate our guidelines bc we said so, we arent removing shit"

[cerealxperimentslain]

if anyone wonders what prismatic-bell is up to

under the cut because it’s horrific

update 20/8:

ID: @changeling-droneco asked:

“we can report for terrorism?! damn, that's a lot more useful then spam”

@prismatic-bell said:

“We sure can. I've started using the hate speech and terrorism options as appropriate.

These fuckheads want to be Hamas so bad, I'll treat them like Hamas. We'll see how quickly they cry when the FBI shows up at their door.”

@sidleyparkhermit said:

“In fact, you can cut out the middleman and directly report them to the FBI (assuming that the author of the posts appears to be somewhere in the FBl's jurisdiction).”

(link to electronic tip form on fbi’s website)

@prismatic-bell said:

“Oh REALLY.

Well, that's good to know.”

End ID

We should all know the danger it could put marginalised people in if the FBI or other authorities were to actually show up at their doorstep. This is way over the line and could actually get someone hurt or killed. Please report prismatic-bell before xe puts people in real actual danger (i’ll pin a post detailing how on my blog)

[melancholic-pigeon]

Let's try this again. I'm curious if it'll explode the way the last one did (my money is either on "not a chance in hell" or "yes, but it'll blow up because hamasniks will start calling me slurs").

also it makes me sad that so many supposed leftists think the answer to "Palestinians are suffering" is "redistribute the suffering to the filthy Jews I mean Zionists", not "try to reduce the suffering of Palestinians"

It's extremely punitive-justice oriented but they'd have a ragefit if you told them how carceral their logic is

banner by @sidleyparkhermit 💜

[flownwrong]

Last sentence tag game

Tagged by @sidleyparkhermit <3

RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

Twenty-seven hours to go, he knows without looking at his wristwatch.

And oh no lol, I think I got lucky with this sentence of only... eleven? words. I'm gonna die inside a little tagging every writer I know haha :') Sorry guys. No pressure, the uzh.

@rupertgayes @prince-of-elsinore @preetkiran1016 @itwoodbeprefect @juniperpomegranate @spacetimeconundrum @portlandwithyou @purgaytorysupremacy @redmyeyes @nigeltde-fic @zmediaoutlet

[stellerssong]

happy wip wednesday to all who celebrate

in the spirit of the holiday, i'm starting a round of my favorite wip game, Describe Your WIPs Badly! on the docket, i have:

Heartwarming! The Seal Child Bride Who Just Completely Kicked This Guy's Ass Is Transgender—selkie au

more than you cared to know about the possibly critically endangered but most likely extinct Hawaiian 'Ō'ū—revisionsverse

Oops All Creature Description (subtitle: it was revealed to me in a dream)—htown what i am tentatively referring to as the "black dog au"

all werewolves do is have existential crises, go on a stupid little walk, be bisexual, agonize over the possibility of having to kill their best friends, and lie—wereverse

for starters, an ethical therapist would probably not try to treat his own mother, DREAM—revisionsverse

panic attacks are more fun in close second person/can we have ONE round of pillow talk that doesn't devolve into a whole crisis, please/the one with three titles (by Fall Out Boy)—revisionsverse

pov character tries desperately for several hundred words to describe baffling, exotic objects like "chair" and "clothes" and "tree"—selkie au

We Got Dream To Seek Professional Intervention For A Wide Range Of Physical, Mental, And Emotional Conditions, And All It Took Was Turning Him Into A Bird—chimeraverse

bodysharing feat. dueling and mutually exclusive textural sensitivities—alien au

tagging @the-everqueen, @two-hands-toward-the-sun, @sidleyparkhermit, @sunsorbit, @eri-223, @aboxthecolourofheartache, and uhhhhh whoever wants to join me in being sillyfunny about their own fic on this fine wednesday.

feel free to send asks about any of the above aus even if they're just like "please seek help"! your concern is noted and appreciated but no amount of treatment has ever made me stop turning strange-looking men into birds and no amount of treatment ever will.

[veryace-ficrecs]

IT Time Loop Fic Recs

I did not realize how many of these were Richie getting sent back, sorry Richie!

This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)  

Into the Dark by darlingargents - Rated T

This time, Richie is going to save Eddie. (Except, in Derry, it’s never that simple.)

Or: an ever-changing time loop, a complicated task, and What You Don’t Know Can Definitely Hurt You.

Richie Tozier’s Guide to Childhood Crushes, Poor Coping Mechanisms, and Bitch-Ass Clowns by soisserieux - Rated M

“Richie said it the b-b-best when we were here last,” Bill says.

Richie blinks. The house. The Neibolt house. It’s standing again. Right there. In front of him. And Bill… Bill said that already. He said that… yesterday. Before—

“Oh fuck. Oh no no no. No, there is no fucking way I’m doing this shit again. No no no no no. Fuck.”

rage against the dying of the light by apocalypsepoet - Rated T

Richie gets a call from an unknown number with a Derry, Maine area code. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, but not because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon, and not because he’s sick with thoughts of evil clowns, but because he’s drowning in the instant knowledge that he’s definitely, one hundred percent certain, already done this before. 

Derry Days by SidleyParkHermit - Rated M

 Everyone starts talking at once, but Richie cuts through the loudest. “Okay, back up, back up. Where are you getting all of this?”

 “It’s happened before. I keep dying and reliving this day over and over.”

Bill is the first to speak, turning to Mike. “Uh, is that…”

 Mike shakes his head, frowning.

 “Shit,” Eddie says. “I was really hoping Mike would know something.”

Broken Record by spunknbite - Rated E

The house on Neibolt was standing again.

Bill was talking about going in alone. How?

“So does somebody want to say something?” Eddie asked, still breathing, still fucking breathing and alive and not dripping his Goddamn organs out of his chest.

“Richie said it the b-best when we were here last,” Bill said.

“Holy fuck.”

the phrases that keep it all going by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - Rated M

Richie just looks kind of sad, and tells him to stay awake while he runs off shouting, and Eddie thinks I don’t think I’m going to make it that long, but he doesn’t have the strength to shout. He just watches Richie until he can’t see him anymore, and he quietly wishes maybe he’d said something different after all.

And then there’s just darkness.

He wakes up, startled, in the Town House, with his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

“What the fuck,” he says, looking down at his own hands.

hit me baby one more time by Anonymous - Rated T

Series: 2 Works

Richie reaches up a shaking hand and puts it on Eddie’s stomach.  

“Uhhh,” Eddie says. “Is this a bit? Is this a really inopportune bit? ‘Cause I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Richie, but this is kind of an important moment-”

“What the fuck,” Richie says, not for the first or last time, and lurches forwards to hug him.

(Or, Richie gets stuck in a time loop.)

[shunshuntaiga]

Tagged by @quinbi

Rules: when you get this, post 5 songs you actually listen to. Then send this ask to 10 of your favorite people on here.

My music selection is very..... one note right now. And by that I mean it's just sleep token, since the new album dropped. But I'll do my best to give some variety.

Take Me Back to Eden, Sleep Token

Ptolemaea, Ethel Cain

Jigolo Har Megiddo, Ghost

Mirage, Gaerea

Labour, Paris Paloma

As always, no pressure to do the thing but here's a few cool peeps

@lilundeadangel @evilphrog @lachryphage @ginwicche @sidleyparkhermit

[anartificialsatellite]

Tagged by @sidleyparkhermit for a round of Describe Your WIPs Badly!

Guy goes back in time but not really but kind of and hangs out with another guy who is his friend but not really but kind of.

Three friends trapped in a snowstorm do precisely what you'd expect from a fic with that premise.

Dude feels like the only person in the whole baseball AU fic who's taking this baseball thing seriously.

"I'm attracted to my friend but I'm worried it's because I'm secretly a huge asshole."

Tagging @doomspiral, @morgenlich, @council-of-beetroot, anyone else who's currently writing fic and would like to jump in!

[joycecarolnotes]

five songs

tagged by @mirilyawrites to post 5 songs i've been listening to on repeat <3

japanese breakfast - posing in bondage

john doe - the golden state

lil nas x - sun goes down

claud - go home!

blur - the narcissist

and I will tag @mollynoble @okilokiwithpurpose @rockthebeatbro @sidleyparkhermit (no pressure ofc!)

[sylvanfreckles]

No. 22: Stumbling

Part 22 of Deck the Hells

Fandom: Critical Role Rating: G Warnings: none

Summary: "Dorian! Stop pining and get back in the fight!" (Read on AO3)

(I will freely admit, this was inspired by a short reblog exchange with @sidleyparkhermit when they mentioned bringing Dorian back with the Orym love triangle unresolved, which made me cackle like the madwoman I am and plot this little tale. Also we decided the Dorian/Orym/Ashton throuple is called Earth, Wind, and Fighter.)

...

Zephra.

The wind blew around them, but the sun was warm above. The scents of Spring—cherry blossoms and rain, new leaves and fresh soil—surrounded them.

In his hammock, Dorian closed his eyes and let the peace seep into his bones. Orym was a warm weight on his chest, head tucked under Dorian’s chin as he slept. It was nice to be here, after everything. After Dorian’s travels had ended, after Orym’s answers were found, after all they’d been through. Just to exist here, in this soft, warm space between them.

He risked a peek at Orym, smiling at the halfling’s sleeping face. To be here…to be together…it was the closest he’d come to paradise.

A cherry blossom petal landed on Orym’s cheek, and Dorian lifted a hand to brush it away. The motion woke him, and he lifted his head to blink sleepy eyes up at Dorian.

“Everything’s all right,” Dorian murmured. He ran a hand through Orym’s hair, across his shoulders. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not sleepy,” Orym protested, even as he laid his head back down. His arms tightened around Dorian’s middle; feet tangled with his knees.

“Of course you’re not,” Dorian laughed. “Not sleepy at all.”

Orym lifted his head again, lips pursed in a frown. It was utterly, completely adorable, and Dorian couldn’t help but pull Orym closer and…

“Dorian!”

Imogen’s voice in his head pulled him out of the dream. He rolled, off his bedroll into the mud, clumsily stumbling to his feet. “Wha-what? What’s happening?”

“We’re under attack!”

He blinked furiously, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The pleasant warmth of the dream was replaced by the harsh reality of life on the road, camping in this cursed jungle. Imogen, a few feet away, was trying to rouse the others while Orym and Ashton fought…

Oh…

That was a two-headed owlbear.

Dorian pulled his scimitar free and sprinted forward to deflect one large, clawed paw before it could smash Laudna. “You okay?”

“Thank you, Dorian,” Laudna panted. She was scrabbling backward on her hands and knees, which was a little horrifying to watch.

He shifted around to block another strike from the creature as Laudna hurried away to a safer distance, then risked carving a long slash up its leg. It roared in pain and swung at him, and he had to dodge back to avoid the blow.

Where were the others? Fresh Cut Grass was tending to Chetney, Imogen had woken Fearne, and Orym and Ashton were fighting together on the owlbear’s other side.

Orym and Ashton…

He watched for a moment as the two of them moved smoothly around each other in battle. Ashton feinted with his hammer, and Orym effortlessly spun around him to catch the owlbear across the face with his blade. It was smooth, practiced…the motions of two people who’d fought countless battles together.

“Dorian!” Imogen screamed into his head. “Stop pining and get back in the fight!”

“I wasn’t pining!” he shouted back, charging back in with his scimitar. He wasn’t…really…all he wanted was for Orym to be happy.

Orym, who had leapt onto the head of Ashton’s hammer, which they spun around in a wide arc before flinging him into the air. He arced over the owlbear, then shot a vine out from his shield hand to wrap around the creature’s neck and pull him towards it, blade out, at lightning speed.

The blade struck true, the beast roaring in pain. Ashton gave a shout of excitement, the glass in their head sparking in rainbow colors, as they swung their hammer in an upward arc to catch the owlbear under one of its chins.

“Dorian!”

He cursed, yanking the diamond from his breastplate to spin up a chromatic orb and fling it at the owlbear’s other head. He barely paid attention to the hit, already darting along the beast’s length to strike at its back legs.

Ashton was laughing at something, and Orym replied—too quiet for Dorian to hear. He cut at one of the back legs, trying to cut through to a tendon, but his scimitar just bounced off of tough hide and muscle. The beast kicked out, catching Dorian across the chest and flinging him back into a tree. He let out a groan as his head bounced off the graying bark, shoving himself back up to his feet to stumble back into battle.

There seemed to be little left to do. Chetney had rejoined the fight, chisel in each hand. Fearne was throwing handfuls of fire. Laudna, shadows sprouting from her fingertips, sent twin spirals of purple energy to carve through the owlbear’s second head, sending it crumpling to the jungle floor.

Dead.

“Dorian!” Orym, leaping off the back of the owlbear, jogged toward him with a worried smile. “Hey, you okay?”

“What, me?” Dorian asked lamely. “Oh, oh no…no, I’m good. I’m. I’m good. Good.”

Orym frowned, staring up at him. “Did you hit your head.”

“Well, you know how hard my head is,” Dorian tried to joke, laughing a little too brightly. “That was some move you pulled. With-with Ashton. And the hammer.”

“Oh!” Orym’s face relaxed, a smile breaking through. “Yeah, we’ve been working on that for a little bit. Sometimes it pays off to be a little guy, right?”

“Well, you would know!” Dorian thumped Orym on the shoulder, then winced at his words. “Not that…I didn’t mean…I just said…”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m great. Mm-hm. Great.”

“Well…all right. I’m gonna check on the others.”

“Give them my regards,” Dorian called after him. Which was stupid. He just had to walk ten feet and he’d be able to see the others for himself.

“Coward.” Imogen, in his head again.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he shot back.”

“Oh, please. You’re pining so hard I can sense it without using my powers.”

“That’s not true!” he blustered. In his head. Gods, he couldn’t even get out a sentence in his head.

“Dorian, just tell him how you feel.”

He whirled around to glare at her across the camp. “Like you’re one to talk.”

She straightened up, eyes cold. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Dorian smirked. “Laudna?” he called out loud, jogging toward the dark-haired woman, ignoring the death glare from the lavender-haired one. “Wasn’t Imogen spectacular just now?”

[evilphrog]

I was tagged by @dont-offend-the-bees to share a snippet of a WIP. Tagging @sirnotappearinginthisblog @shunshuntaiga @epitomyofshyness @errorbrainloading @sidleyparkhermit

I am doing a bit from an original fic I have been working on for a few years now. The characters in this scene are:

Cal: an involuntarily telepathic human who has spent years continually drunk because it was the only way he could shut out other people's thoughts. He just hit rock bottom and decided to sober up, and has been having a Time of it.

Athena: a half-orc refugee from a very multicultural border city, who was about to earn her degree in art before her city was destroyed. She has been dealing with the culture shock and prejudice in the more insular human-only settlements. She recently had a bad breakup when she realized her ex was only interested because she was trying to rebel against her parents by dating an orc.

“And she didn’t even WANT to see any of my paintings!  She didn’t listen to a single word of my recitation of The Three Bandits!  Who was the REAL uncultured savage there, huh?”

Athena had been ranting about her jerk ex for the past twenty minutes.  Cal sympathized with her, he really did, but the sun was shining directly into his eyes, the ground was hard and unyielding, and he felt feverish all over.  So far, sobriety ranked about a zero out of ten in his book. 

“I mean, what kind of person has never even HEARD of Scavaldi’s epic?!  And raw meat?!  How hard is it to just ask a girl what she eats?!” She was really hitting her stride, now.

“Athena, please!” He finally snapped. “I would normally love hearing all about it, but my head is pounding!  Can we please just walk in silence for a bit?”

She looked at him like he had just tried to eat gravel.  Or raw meat. 

“What are you talking about?” She asked.  “I haven’t said a word all morning.”

Oh.  Oh shit.  Those weren’t OUT LOUD thoughts.  He covered his face with both hands and groaned. He could hear her arriving at the same conclusion, and dropped to the ground.  He could not have this conversation and walk at the same time.

“I am so, SO sorry,” he said. “I swear it was an accident, I would never have kept listening if I didn’t think you were talking to me, I’m not a creep, I swear, I don’t want to know what’s in your head,” the words kept rushing out of him, he couldn’t even find a space to breathe, “I try not to peek, you just think in full sentences, and who even does that anyways, it is SO weird, you’re not rehearsing a fucking play, you’re not running for mayor, just use pictures like the rest of us, sorry, not the point, I promise I will try harder, it’s just all so new—”

“Woah, woah, Cal, hey,” She sounded freaked, and slowly pulled his hands away from his eyes.  He winced in the light, and she quickly shifted to put him in her shadow. Hesitantly, he met her eyes.  She wasn’t angry.  She wasn’t offended.  She was WORRIED.  Why was she worried? She took a deep breath in and out, and he mirrored her. 

“I’m sorry,” he said one more time, for good measure. 

“I can see that,” she told him. They stayed like that for a minute, while Cal’s breathing returned to normal.  After a while she held out her waterskin.

“Do you want some water?” she asked.

“Want a beer,” he replied, but he still took the water.  It helped, a bit.  His stomach felt a bit more settled, and the pain in his calf started to dissipate.

[sidleyparkhermit]

I posted 1,361 times in 2022

That's 671 more posts than 2021!

292 posts created (21%)

1,069 posts reblogged (79%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sidleyparkhermit

@gilligould

@butterflydm

@odekirk

@amazinglybeautifulphotography

I tagged 1,100 of my posts in 2022

Only 19% of my posts had no tags

#bcs - 264 posts

#better call saul - 251 posts

#bcs spoilers - 162 posts

#wheel of time - 65 posts

#howard hamlin - 53 posts

#wot on prime - 50 posts

#omitb - 50 posts

#brba - 43 posts

#kim wexler - 42 posts

#only murders in the building - 41 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#the one thing metastasis were cowards for though is that when saul brings up shanking they didn’t have walter look @ jose like ‘are we sure’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Gus has a lost love that defined what humanity he ever had and stands at the center of his renunciation thereof. Lalo has an eight foot vertical leap

117 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

#4

Charles booping Oliver on the nose while singing in the kitchen was somehow gayer than them actually holding hands in front of Charles’s ex-kinda-stepdaughter

161 notes - Posted July 14, 2022

#3

Something very beautiful about Patrick visiting the set when they filmed that scene on the beach 😭

[Photo by Marshall Adams]

165 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

#2

Learning from the Wheel of Time RPG wiki entry that Robert Jordan used to run D&D games for his stepson and other neighborhood kids -- presumably in the 1980s, ish -- makes everything make so much sense. It's wild to me that no one mentions this.

Anyway here's the Edmond's Field Five as an old-school D&D party:

Egwene: wizard

Nyneave: cleric

Mat: rogue who consistently makes the worst possible choices and insists it's just what rogues do

Perrin: big strong fighter who never seems to want to do any fighting

Rand: another wizard, but with a super fucked up backstory

Moiraine: aloof NPC who herds cats and withholds important information

Thom: more down-to-earth NPC who dispenses lore and occasionally averts TPKs

and of course

Ta'veren: how you all meet

See the full post

220 notes - Posted February 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Do they have... cats and dogs in Randland? I mean, they have wolves. Please tell me they have cats and dogs and I can just use the idiom "it was raining cats and dogs."

235 notes - Posted January 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[stellerssong]

@sidleyparkhermit says:

Buddy, I don't understand a word you're saying but I want to encourage it so how about #5

'preciate ya friend. i feel at this point our fandom experiences are no longer on even remotely parallel tracks so the willingness to wade into this incomprehensible word salad bespeaks a strong and noble soul

#5 is the...not next installment, but the next-next installment of revisionsverse, i.e. "sandman is over! i think Dream and the librarian should make out about it." the librarian really only has a cameo in this one because it's mostly just Dream talking to his mom. to which he would probably say SHE'S NOT MY MOM ANYMORE SO I CAN DO WHATEVER, to which i would say A) BUD YOU'RE CHEESING THE MAGICAL DISSOLUTION OF BLOOD RELATIONSHIP VERY HARD RIGHT NOW AND B) YOU'RE MADE OF BELIEF MOTHERFUCKER! SHE'S YOUR MOM AS LONG AS SHE BELIEVES SHE'S YOUR MOM! TAKE OFF THE THERAPIST HAT

“Do you like the summertime?” she asks. “Does it matter?” “Well, you asked me.” At least, she thinks he did. He must have. No reason to talk about it, otherwise. And it’s too nice a day to be rude to a friend. And her companion is a friend, isn’t he? Why else would she be sitting here with him? He pauses for a second, as though surprised she’d bother with the pleasantries, before pronouncing, quite solemnly, “My opinion is immaterial.” Lyta sighs and traces her hand along the rough block of white marble she’s sitting on. Even though the corner of it gleams blinding-bright in the direct sunlight, the surface of the stone is cool to the touch, almost icy. Odd, if not quite unpleasant. Her fingertip brushes the edge of a long blade of grass poking over the edge of the stone. Green on white. Something about that tickles the back of her mind. White and green, green and white. Once upon a time there was a little white house in a green field, and in that house lived a family, a mother and a father and…

[sidleyparkhermit]

I finally dug this canon-divergent Howyl fic out of the back drawer to fulfill my turn on the shiritori challenge, if you're one of the four people worldwide hungry for content on this theme

[markantonys]

wheel of time + text posts (credit to @sidleyparkhermit for the last one) (part 2) (part 3)

[evilphrog]

First Lines Meme

Tagged by @sidleyparkhermit

List the first lines of the last 10 stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

This is a bit different for me because I haven't published most of my stuff, and most of it is analysis instead of fiction.

1. There exists a pocket dimension inside every coat closet, which is connected to every other coat closet in the world.

This was originally a short story I wrote at age 14, after discovering Douglas Adams and learning you can do That with words. It was literally just about coat closets, but I later repurposed it into a stilly story for my husband about what our future kids might be like. The line holds a very dear place in my heart, because it was the first thing I ever wrote that I was proud of.

2. Orion peered shiftily over his shoulder, verified he wasn’t being followed, and approached the portal.

This was one of my first tries at starting mid-event, instead of with some exposition. It was made as a bit of backstory for our DND campaign, written as a joke for my friends. Orion was my very first character, and my husband and I are working on a book about his adventures in our spare time.

3. The seaside town of Lagrange was the sort of place that could only be referred to as charming. It was populated almost entirely by cow-eyed farmers who knew no greater joy in life than a hard day’s work.

From the same campaign, but a different story about another character, a barbarian who is definitely using "charming" in a derogatory way.

4. “Oh for fuck’s sake Why me?!” - Draw Me a Blueprint of your Heart Shadow and Bone

This is the opener for my one and only longfic. Still a WIP, and one of my few pieces of fiction written in first person. I have trouble with first person, because I like to get in every character's head and show their thoughts. It also feels weird using I to describe things I would never do or say, because I am very much NOT like Alina in this story. But the original book is first person, and I was trying to hold with the writing style.

5. Aziraphale was walking along the edge of the ark, checking up on everything. - Doubt Good Omens (Book)

I kind of cringe looking at this fic now, but I am still proud of it. I had to learn how to write again after a bad head injury, and this was my very first actual story produced after three years of rehabilitation. It isn't the most original or skillful, but I like to see how far I've come in such a short time.

6. When I first hear the news, time doesn't stop. Icy cold terror refuses to run through my veins, and my heart completely fails to skip a beat.

Now we are firmly out of fiction and into my essays. This one is my college application essay from high school, where I exploit my cancer diagnosis for all it's worth. It was fun to go back through very old works, because I was a lot better than I gave myself credit for.

7. I had to watch a newborn baby the other day, and the experience has helped me to reach the conclusion that any child below the age of four is not actually a human, but is, in fact, a tangible representation of pure evil.

Another one from Past Me, and makes me entirely unsurprised that I chose to adopt teenagers rather than babies. Tell me how you really feel, go on, don't hold back.

8. Seven hundred and ten days, and it still burns the same. Some of the color of the world died with you.

This was the opener to a song I wrote after losing someone I deeply loved. Well, Past Me, over a decade later, it also still burns the same. Sorry you had to find out this way.

9. Your motivation can't be self-hate.

This was a lecture I wrote for work, about the paradox in mental health where therapists recommend things like walks outside, healthy food, limiting screen time, learning hobbies, good sleep, etc. But if a client does those things out of an effort to "fix" themselves rather than because those things are inherently enjoyable, they don't get the benefits because their brain views it as work to stave off the guilt and shame, rather than a fun way to spend time. My recommendation was to focus on reinforcing the client's right to fun relaxation and enjoyment of life, rather than pushing specific Approved Activities.

10. People love the Loki series because it is a story of redemption.  But what I think a lot of folks miss is that it is just as much a redemption for Mobius as it is for Loki - Mobius and the Theme of Redemption Loki (TV)

Yeah, Mobius hit me right in the religious trauma. That whole show did, really. I love the complexity of every character involved, and how everyone who watches it seems to have a different idea of which characters were right and which ones were wrong. It was a world where there were no "good" choices, just the constant struggle between freedom and safety.

It was interesting to go back over and see how my writing has evolved over time. I definitely see a clear distinction between the things I wrote pre and post injury. I think I got more focused on the subject, and less focused on word choices. I can't decided if I prefer that or not. My older stuff seems more entertaining, but a bit harder to follow. Past me had a love for exploiting English in ways that leave sentences ambiguous and open for comedic misunderstandings. Present me has a love for human behavior and ethics.

tagging: @sirnotappearinginthisblog @dont-offend-the-bees @yoshiyakiryu @all-about-the-tea-parties @highwarlockofphilly @chaos-monkeyy