#there is an absence where you used to be

[aibhilin-atibeka]

Why's the writing urge hit at the most inopportune times?

[anonymousdandelion]

A general tip for students who are sending those dreaded Religious Absence Emails to your professors: Rather than asking permission to take the day(s) off, politely let them know that you will be taking the day(s) off.

In other words, consider not saying this:

"May I miss class on [date] so I can observe [holiday]?"

It's not that there's anything wrong with the above, per se. But because it's phrased as a request, it risks coming across as optional — a favor you hope to be granted. Problem is, favors are not owed, and so unfortunately asking permission opens the door for the professor to respond "Thanks for asking. No, you may not. :)"

Instead, try something along the lines of:

"I will need to miss class on [date] because I will be observing [holiday]. I wanted to let you know of this conflict now, and to ask your assistance in making arrangements for making up whatever material I may miss as a result of this absence."

This is pretty formal language (naturally, you can and should tweak it to sound more like your voice). But the important piece is that, while still being respectful, it shifts the focus of the discussion so that the question becomes not "Is it okay for me to observe my religion?", but rather, "How can we best accommodate my observance?"

Because the first question should not be up for debate: freedom of religion is a right, not a favor. And the second question is the subject you need to discuss.

(Ideally, do this after you've looked up your school's policy on religious absences, so you know what you're working within and that religious discrimination is illegal. Just in case your professor forgot.)

[breadmecoshy]

I drew myself a wallpaper with a morning Souda, because who, if not me

You also can use them as wallpaper on your phone if you want, I don't mind♡

The regular and slightly more vintage version is at your service

Tumbler greatly spoils the quality of the picture, so I uploaded them in their original quality to Google drive (sorry if this is inconvenient, I don't really understand such things)

[lunar-years]

obviously Jamie not being in season 4 would suck mostly because I simply want Jamie to be there and to get more of his story and get to enjoy more interactions between Jamie and the other characters. At the end of the day though, I can just not watch s4, which I'm perfectly okay with.

what sucks EVEN MORE to me, and is far harder to avoid, is that not having Jamie in the show totally changes the *canon* of the character in a way that will inevitably bleed over into fan spaces, regardless of whether or not I'm actively watching. However they write him out (I assume it would just be having him go to another team) becomes the new "Jamie Tartt canon." And that small thing totally changes his story and we don't even get to see it play out! When i was perfectly happy playing in my sandbox of a million equally valid possibilities.

[aeolianblues]

BLEEEEEHHHHBRGHHH

[strixhaven]

gripping your shoulders and shaking you as violently as possible. where are the trans men. have you bothered to think about trans men at all. how does transmasculinity slot into the worldview you’re espousing here. what ideas of queerness and gender are you ignoring and leaving out of the conversation. who else are you making invisible and perpetuating the erasure of. do you even understand the violence that comes with erasure and silence. if you do not take into account the varied lives and experiences of trans men, transmasculine people, and the actual wide spectrum of non-binary people outside of those you can forcibly assign the identity of woman-lite, to your idea of gender, oppression, queerness, and the world itself is fundamentally incomplete and Wrong. literally just entirely Wrong and you need to address that. where are the fucking trans men.

[corrodedcoughin]

90s au where stobin and Gareth and Eddie meet at a bar. How do they meet? Arguing over the bar’s sonic the hedgehog game. For months the two pairs have been playing it separate nights. Eddie and Gareth on Fridays (usually they have gigs on Saturdays) Steve and Robin on Saturdays (the Official start of their Saturdays nights). Both pairs unknowingly having vendettas against each other for the leader board (never the top spot, they accept they aren’t that good and it’s always headed by some guy called jargyle<3)

Anyway one weekend corroded coffin have a gig on a Friday so gareth and Eddie decide to keep their tradition alive but move it along to Saturday. They arrive at their usual time and set up shop at the game, quickly devolving into their routine of each others nicknames, Eddie being Sonic and Gareth being Tails. They are getting In The Zone when Steve and Robin arrive, absolutely OUTRAGED that somebody is at THEIR game and not only that! They’ve stolen THEIR names, Steve is Sonic, Robin is Tails. They plant themselves in a booth and order drinks, ready to pounce on the machine as soon as those two imposters move.

Only they end up maybe drinking more than expected, possibly riling each other up to the point of storming over to the two guys because how dare they steal Steve and Robins Saturday night ritual?! Their names! Maybe even their high score!

Gareth and Eddie are heading towards drunk themselves, losing more money to the machine than they can justify and over the top celebrating when they clear a level. Which is when Robin taps Eddie on the shoulder, spinning him round to explain Just How Rude he’s being with Gareth standing just behind Eddie’s shoulder, sipping his beer and squinting at Steve who is giving Scary Dog behind Robin. Gareth is maybe further gone than he realises because in the middle of Robin’s speech (which is very eloquent and impressive he must admit) he’s whisper shouting in Eddie’s ear ‘hey dude major hottie behind the cool lesbian. Want me to wing man you?’

And Eddie? Eddie slides his eyes over to ‘major hottie’ who happens to have the fluffiest hair and sharpest jawline he’s ever seen and whisper shouts back to Gareth because he too, is more drunk than he possibly wants to admit, ‘oh my god he’s so hot man, I think he might be a meringue. Menagerie? Mirage!’ And goes to extend a hand towards Steve.

Robin, now slightly endeared from being noted as a cool lesbian, turns to look at Steve who has his Loverboy Game Face on and figures she can swing this display of bad flirting into an opportunity to get her Saturday Night Ritual back on track. Nothing is getting in the way of her playing Sonic with Steve, it might just be a little detoured along the way.

[rhaenin-time]

This is your reminder that ambiguity in a (competently written) story functions to force the reader or viewer to engage on a thematic level, rather than a literal plot level. In other words, you don't "answer" ambiguity with conspiracy-grade theories born and "proven" through easter egg hunts and counting breadcrumbs. The thematic answer, the message of the ambiguous part of the story, should fit regardless of whichever of the likely possible "answers" is the "true answer." Because in cases of ambiguity, the thematic answer is the "true answer."

Do with that what you will.

[kinnoth]

If I see ONE MORE FUCKING PERSON be like "well I played and finished the dlc, but I'll wait to draw my conclusions about the lore until after the vaati video comes out"

FUCKING WHAT. It's not vaati's fucking lore! That man is just another fan, just like you! He is not your authority!!! Fucking dig up your own lore! All the information you need is there! Walk around the fucking game, open your eyeballs, and draw your own fucking conclusions!!!!!

I swear to fucking God you are all such cowards about "getting it wrong" that you are denying yourself half the fucking experience of the game by refusing to engage with the lore until someone tells you what to think about it.

Get your heads out of your asses!!!!!

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 725: Towards a new trial!!

Pag 1

1: Sohoku will become even stronger!!

An injection of will-power to power up!!

Pag 2

1: The Izu Peninsula is a group of massifs perched on the Pacific Ocean, with a view of Mt. Fuji and Hakone

2: In the center of the peninsula there's the hot spring Shuzenji

3: Since a long time ago, a railway for the hot-springs has been made

4: And it made it prosper as a tourists attraction

5: About 10km east of Shuzenji, climbing a ridge in the mountains

Pag 3

1: There's the sports park circuit for bicycles

Pag 4

1: Ohh, woah.... it's so huge, teh

Waaaaa this is incredible Rokudai!!

2: A huge pylon!

It looks like an hotel from that anime with the cars

3: It's- it's huge, teh

Where should we run, I don't kow this level!

4: You've never come here, Kinaka-kun?

I... I've ran in races, but I only went as far as Saitama, it's the first time I come here!!

Pag 5

1: This is Shizuoka!!

When we in the car, we even saw Mt. Fuji...!!

2: Th-th-th that's Mt. Fuji, teh!!

Wooah, it's true! It's so huge! It's more huge than in pictures

3: The camera makes it look smaller

You're right, teh

5: They're in high spirits, those two

Yeah

Pag 6

1: They were chose for the quaolifiers.... and won...

Of course they're excited

3: Let's go, the meeting is soon, Furuya

Yeah, Murakami

5: From now, for the next four days, the training camp will start!!

Pag 7

1: Those of you who get injured or don't feel good, report it immediately

There's no need to overdo it, you can retire in the middle

2: So we can retire, too?

Yeah

I'm glad

3: However

4: This training campalso serves as a selection for the six members who will participate in the Inter High

5: Those of you who want to run in the national competition, the Inter High

6: those of you who want to make a name for themselves, those of you who want to contribute to the team, and those of you who have the secret ambition of playing a flashy active role....

Pag 8

1: Run with everything you have!!

Squeeze out beyond your limit!!

This training camp's finishing order...

2: The first

3: six people

5: Will be the Inter High members regulars!!

Pag 9

1: This course has a 5km long climb

The practice menu for these four days

2: is to run

Pag 10

1: 1000km!!

Pag 11

1: 1000km!

1000km

1000Km!!!

2: Running 1000km is the only practice menu!!

3: Kinaka-kun....!!

4: 1000km... don't tell me

5: Yeah, it's an impossible number

My father's family home is in Aomori, so every year we go there by car, and to go there by car it takes half a day

6: How far do you think it is from Chiba to Aomori!?

Pag 12

1: It's 700km!!

3: 1000km is 300km longer than that!!

4: It's longer.... than from Chiba.... to Aomori.... teh

5: And tht's not all

10: This training camp is simple but intense

Naruko-san said it

Pag 13

1: This electronic scoreboard will show the distance and number of laps accumulated

2: There's a chip installed on your bikes

3: So you'll know the individual number of laps and ranking

4: So I don't have to count them myself?

I'm glad, it'll be comforting

1000km, so, uhm...?

5: You can check after every lap

How many laps you did

6: And how many laps did the others!!

Pag 14

1: “How many laps the others did”..... that means that you can see your own rank on the eletronic scoreboard!!

You have opponents to fight.... in other words, this is a “race”!!

2: During this training camp

A race of 1000km....””

3: It's not just running, it's about how to reach the goal faster than the other members

4: We're being tested!!

5: No!! Wait, Kinaka- the third years are included too, and including both the second and third years, there's no way we can be in the top six!!

Furuya

6: If it's just running... then isn't this training camp is useless?

7: We're too much at a disadvantage!!

It's too much for us first years!!

Pag 15

1: No.... I don't think we have no chances at all!! At the end Naruko-san talked about “requirements”

I think those might become our breakthrough!!

2: Requirements”!!

3: Breakthrough!? How!?

Well.... somehow- I've been thinking about various things...

See, as expected it's impossible

4: As nexpected, Kinaka-kun is thinking about how to make a breakthrough, teh!!

5: The “requirements” for the training camp that the Sohoku racing team organized to work towards the Inter High....

6: How to run during the training camp is basically up to you

Think for yourself and run

Pag 16

1: But there is one “requirement”

Huh? A requirement, what is it!?

Like they'll give us handicaps?

2: Until now, in mine and Hotshot's personal experience in Sohoku training camp

3: many things were used to bind us and made each of us stronger

4: But we talked about it and decided not to use them this time

Those who want to do it can do it on their own accord

5: Instead of that

6: For the next 15 minutes, discuss with each other and choose a partner

Huh, a partner!?

Pag 17

1: The onw you choose will be your buddy for this training camp!!

3: Buddy!?

4: They a partner... who you'lll... run with?

Among us!?

Can I choose anyone?

5: What do we do?

Can we choose someone who's around as strong as us? How about that

6: Sure

Pag 18

1: “Fighting in pairs”

This is this training camps “requirements”!!

2: Kinaka-kun!!

3: Rokudai!!

Pag 19

1: I'll say it once again!! Will you run with me, Rokudai!?

Okay!! Yeah, teh!! Kinaka-kun!!

4: The stickers on their helmets!!

5: To make it easy to identify your chosen buddy, stick the same stickers on your helmets

6: Ugh... the two who participated in the qualifiers

Furuya, we can't lose either

Nogami!!

Pag 20

1: Being a pait means that we can protect each other from the wind

That's right

2: And we can cooperate with other pairs, as four people!!

Alright!! Let's settle aqnd run!! No, as six people!!

I have a feeling this is gonna be okay

4: The other first years wioll be a bit of an hindrance

I want to scatter them as soon as possible

5: Can I ask you that?

6: Kaburagi-san!!

Pag 21

2: As expected

3: I guess they started already

We're a little late

4: Sorry, Danchiku

No, it's alright....

5: Uhm... so it's really.... not good?

7: Yeah

It's better to stop

[clownsnake]

just finished chapter three of the damsel route .

[glubandeepspace]

what goes hard- rafayel (not like that, although yes like that, but not right now, bc im still thinking of oceanic nightfall)-

falling back into various poor coping mechanisms he used when he was more alone because being partners with mc doesnt mean he'll stop being lonely especially whenever mc has to be away and hes still spent centuries longer facing all kinds of isolation despite other company available or welcomed (humans he didnt want to / couldnt befriend, lemurians he loves but could still be aloof to).

his comfortability being real but also as gradual as the love and with a part of him remaining somewhat resigned to the possibility of losing his happiness again one way or another (abt both mc & other things/people), some of this communicated blithely because vulnerability can still be scary, and if someone doesnt see past his half-assed acts / occasional testingly ambiguous phrases (and instead maybe sees him as some fickle failure or burden or w/e) then thats totally their fault,

except mc almost always understands and calls him out, calls him annoying or whatever whenever right to his face unlike most other people bc mc is like that with anyone/anything and he loves that about mc, needs that, as much as he does for mc's assurances in times even hes unsure about himself.

the sea god's first love was a more equally lonely person but got remade into someone who knows what it's like to care and be cared for and in that they still achieve a balance—not mc "fixing" him, but being an anchor and a reason for him to hold onto other anchors too and be mc's in turn instead of going the convenient route of accidentally/semi-accidentally letting others define what he does or feels he has to for the dozenth time.

rafayel (seeming so composed n sure of himself & a lot of things most of the time abt the major things) messing up sometimes in ways that are major without quite being a matter of life or death anymore, and rafayel resting.

[konfizry]

echoes of wisdom was alright!

[kopivie]

y'know, it's kinda funny that i asked myself why i write. over the years, people have asked me that a lot. i've had graded assignments ask me that question quite a bit. "why do you write? what is your motivation for writing?"

...my answers were always pretty bleak. "i write because i'm scared to talk to others." or: "i write because nobody will listen to me." and outside of those assignments, i've never genuinely asked myself why i write.

well.. warning for a big ol' dump here, i guess. this blog is basically a diary, so you know the drill.

the story always starts in the same place: in the back of the empty sanctuary of my childhood church with sunlight pouring in the stained glass windows, the colors pooling on the pages of my blue composition notebook. i was ten years old.

looking back on it now, i don't know why my story starts there. i think that's just the earliest time i can remember getting immersed in the act of writing. kind of like how people describe their earliest childhood memory as the day their consciousness fully developed. but that day was so colorful to me – more so than most days from my childhood. an old friend was plinking tv show tunes on the piano at the front of the sanctuary, a few older kids were chatting away in the frontmost pews, and i was standing at the back on the left side near the window, scribbling in my notebook about... magical girl anime. at the very least, i know why i was writing back then.

back then, i had a friend who was writing her own story. completely original with characters she was drawing as she went. the stories were written in screenplay format in her notebook with little doodles to give the stories some life and... i wanted to do that. i asked her to teach me how to draw – which she did with enthusiasm – but what intrigued me more was the writing aspect. i already had a habit of conjuring up vivid imagery in my head when reading, but the thought of being able to do that myself was amazing to me.

my ten year old brain lacked the creativity to create characters from scratch. naturally, i had to start with something i already loved – something i could easily reference and build up from there – so i started with sailor moon.

sailor moon, tokyo mew mew, pripara, pretty rhythm: aurora dream, precure... (all of which used to be uploaded to youtube with each episode fragmented into three parts, i might add.) ...that's where my writing journey begins. i used to write fanfiction in the same screenplay format. i filled several notebooks cover to cover with my big, messy handwriting. i wish i still had those notebooks. but the point is that i had no need for the artwork – my mind was enough.

i later developed a love for mythology – greek mythology, specifically. it expanded into astrology, anthology, and gemology... i would always weave these things into my works somehow. my love of linguistics would come into play as i'd learn languages and cultures just to use them for the sake of giving my writing more depth.

now that i'm looking back on all of this, i... don't think i ever had a purpose. when i began, i wanted to be like my friend. i wanted to show her that i could do it, too. later, i just wrote because i wanted to create characters in the animated worlds that i loved to lose myself in; it was a form of escapism, i think. it was definitely escapism from high school onward since my mental health worsened from 2017-2022, but before that.. there's nothing.

which is a little scary, y'know? realizing that i lack a purpose – that my writing lacks a purpose. the very hobby i decided to dedicate my future to feels meaningless now.

i wrote to replicate someone else. i wrote to escape my own thoughts; i wrote to comfort myself when i needed affection the most: i wrote to comfort and connect with others, but i also wrote to shield myself from my own reality.

i think the reason why this feeling of existential dread exists is because i'm finally in a place where i'm perceiving myself. for almost a decade now, i didn't want to be perceived by anybody, much less myself. i didn't think of myself as a person. i didn't exist. i was just some worthless lump of meat on this doomed earth who just so happened to know how to string words together. i was irreversibly flawed and unlovable.

i'm at a point where i now know what kind of person i am. i can look back on how broken i once was and be saddened by the pieces. i can finally pick up those pieces and put them together; i can set them aside and start anew using those pieces as a reference. what i'm saying is: i can see myself. i finally know what i look like. (i still don't understand how i look to others, but that's besides the point.)

but when my whole purpose for writing was to avoid that – to avoid seeing myself – what happens now? why do i write?

that's the reason why i haven't written about anything for a while now. i have nothing to hide from. i wither and rot for a few days at a time and then come out stronger, ready to brush it all away and move forward. i never did that before. before, i would wither and rot for months, and write to fill the void. i wrote recklessly and without abandon just to get my feelings out there in hopes that someone would hear my voice and know that i'm alive.

in essence, i saved my life through writing. literature saved my life. but now that i've taken the reins, i don't know what to do.

i refuse to leave it behind. i still have my creative spirit. i still have these passing ideas, these bursts of inspiration that characterized my teenage years. but the flames of passion die quickly without any kindling, leaving me lost. i feel hollow without writing but lighter without my agony weighing me down all the time.

...i'm lost. i don't know what to do. i'm more insecure in my writing than i have ever been in my entire life, and that scares me. i want to try, but there's this... block. a lack of emotion that i can't quite explain. there's more apprehension than there is inspiration, so my creativity shrivels up and dies, leaving me disgusted and horrified by myself. i don't know what to do.

i'm not going to give up.

i'm not. little by little, i will try to find my new meaning. i don't know what it will take for me to find it, but i will. maybe i'll just sit and do some research on my favorite topics when i get home? do some bullet journaling on my favorite things and dedicate time to making pages of my favorite facts. maybe something will blossom then.

[chiropteracupola]

fan-fiction wip guessing game! song, sword, and rest :)

from my second fic for The Wolf and the Watchman, an Anna Stina/Johanna fix-it:

She still wears mourning for a man she had hardly known, but sometimes catches herself stepping quicker to see her skirts spin out. Even if her dress is steadfast charcoal black, it’s finery the like of which she has never had before, rich even in its grimness. If she is a widow, she is by no means the merry one out of the plays and songs, but she has her happiness, and of that, more than she had ever expected. Anna Stina does not know where her mother was truly laid to rest, and as for Kristofer Blix, who had chosen to make his grave at the bottom of a wintered-over harbor, there remains very little with which to make a funeral. The man who she had married had not been dredged from the icy water, and Anna Stina had been perfectly satisfied to place a churchyard stone over an empty grave rather than to dress his cold blue body for the coffin.

from the foth wormsfic:

He had never seen himself fully since his death, but the house had all the accoutrements that it ought to, silver and carved wood and antlers above the fireplace, books and worn leather and a mirror hanging in the hall. Keith pauses there in passing, having gotten a flash of his own reflection out of the corner of his eye. The man who looks back at him is recognizable, but only just. The whites of his eyes are yellowed and bloodshot, rolling glazed and dull in dark-circled, red-rimmed sockets. What is visible of his hair beneath the binding around his chin is lank and lifeless, dark against his pale, damp face. And his face itself — it barely looks like the one he remembers as his own. There is more wear on his face than he had recalled that his years of sword-service had laid on him, the scars on nose and chin and brow turned stark and silken with the years.

from the sharpe ladyhawke au:

Harris had heard poets describe love as a thing that glowed, bright and warm as a second sun. Having had but little experience of the sort of love that wasn’t paid for out of scraped-together small change, he had consequently never put much stock in such descriptions. But now, watching Sharpe and Teresa, he saw what was meant by a sort of joy so radiant that that they shone with it. Steadfast, sure-footed Teresa… Sharpe had lifted her off her feet, and she leaned into him and laughed like a waterfall of light. He spun them once, twice, Teresa’s boots swinging out into space, and then dropped her back to earth with an oath and a grimace, and pressed his hand to his lower back. And so it was that his face was caught in a mixture of surprise and pain and delight when Teresa reached up and kissed him there, and it was that expression that Harris thought he’d remember for the rest of his days.

[ghoul-haunted]

this is about antony, but actually whatever thoughts I had about crassus being narratively weird in roman history have been taken up several notches