#this explains A LOT about me trust me

[alinedreams]

In my mind, the "you deserve to be loved" concept is entirely undermined by the "you are not entitled to anyone's affection" concept.

I feel any and every affection has to be EARNED; there is and should be no thing as unconditional love, for it could eventually harm the lover and make the loved take said love for granted.

With that being said, I also feel I have to earn MY OWN affection, which is something I feel I haven't been deserving of due to being way too irritable and annoying and lashing out and yapping too much. I feel don't deserve other people's affection for my shortcomings and I feel I should punish myself with no self-affection at all until I get it right. And no, my autism and my lingering burnout are no excuses.

Is this a toxic train of thought? Yes. Does it prevent me from descending into nasty incel-like behavior where I'd feel entitled to other people's feelings just because "if I love myself even though I'm a mess, so should everyone else"? That's also a yes. Can I unravel this train of thought without feeling like a massive hypocrite? UNFORTUNATELY NO! I'M TRYING, BUT IT JUST FEELS LIKE IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO EXPECT THE SAME LOVE FROM MY EVIL SELF I SHOULD NEVER EVER EXPECT FROM ANYONE ELSE!

So, I'm stuck in a cycle of:

Try to love myself -> mess up somewhere in the way -> end up not loving myself because I suck as a human being and I should not be entitled to love because I'm not acting in a lovable way and it'd be very hypocritical and arrogant to love myself under this state -> get way too depressed at my own suckiness to do anything about it -> try to spiral out of it -> remember that whole "you deserve to be loved" thing -> try to love myself once again -> ad infinitum

It's... Very annoying, to put it VERY FREAKING LIGHTLY.

And I have no idea how to leave it without feeling arrogant and believe that OTHER PEOPLE should also love me like I love myself, you know? because I'd be like "well, if I can love myself, why can no one else? That doesn't make sense! That's statistically improbable!", despite the fact I'm an evil gremlin who always messes up and does indeed NOT deserve any love from anyone (and, in this train of thought, I include myself, because, again, it'd be hypocritical not to).

It's the autistic logic running in a hamster wheel inside my brain, I guess?

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[jamandjazz]

My personal headcanon is that Pony got his love for reading from Darry. When Darry was in high school he’d read the books he got in class out loud to Ponyboy and straight up just handed him some of the easier ones so they could talk about it later. In my brain the reason Ponyboy clings onto it so much is because it’s one of the things he and Darry REALLY bonded over when he was a kid and it just brings back good memories of when they got along better.

[applecranberryjuice]

Something something it's a metaphor. Hair as a form of communication but also as passage of time and also as a way for letting people in and also as a detail etc etc you get it

Actual explanation in the tags btw

I'm really nervous about this comic actually, is not the best. It doesn't make sense, and the art is mid, but I put love in it and I think that's enough

[seven-stars-in-his-palm]

the thing i love about bill cipher is that even after i've learned all of this stuff about him, seen him at the most vulnerable he'll ever get, seen him at his most innocent, i still can't give a flying fuck about trying to justify his actions. yes he's traumatized, yes he was twisted into what we know today, and while it gives a semblance of context to why he did what he did, it doesn't matter. he still ruined ford's life. he still drove and baited multiple humans to suicide. he still tormented every human he saw as his ticket out of the consequences of his own actions. he still took delight in his actions. he was willing to commit genocide for fuck's sake!!! (freezing all of the humans into statues). trying to explain away what he did does not get rid of what he did, but it certainly puts it in perspective. you won't be catching me being a bill apologist any time soon <3

[cringefailcabitha]

I don't know you but I'll try to do Anything that gets me closer to you ,

[silverwhittlingknife]

can we have a hint about what the spring break tim patrol chapter of red letter day contains? (you kept having dick say "if the joker shows up" and tim's "he won't." for me to be convinced that goes off without any trouble)

i'm sure it'll be fine. :D

i am delighted you're enjoying the story <333 i haven't updated it in soooo long but i got some very sweet comments lately so i have been looking at my scribbles again <3

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

god tywin lannister deserved worse

just remembering elias death and i wanna puke and the way tywin talks about elia and what happened is so damn gross

but rip tommen and myrcella we all know what’s about to happen in the next book :/

the cycle of violence just keeps spinning and damn you tywin for beginning it

(i got a bit crazy in the tags 💀)

[triglycercule]

something something mtt and branding (i dont know what i can say here but it just feels right. one of them probably has a brand. it's probably killer. erm.........)

[blluespirit]

I sort of like the thought that Zuko and Aang take the Sun Warriors' warning not to tell anyone about the dragons a little more seriously… and they keep it between them. Of course, they trust Sokka, Toph and Katara. Of course they know they wouldn’t tell anyone, but now three people (including Iroh) know the truth about Ran and Shaw. And that’s three too many when you’re trying to keep a secret.

(and there are other people at the temple as well - like Haru, Teo and The Duke - who, while trustworthy, aren’t as close to them as the others, and when it comes to secrets with as much consequence as this one, you can’t afford to take any chances.)

Furthermore, the culture within the Fire Nation since Sozin’s rein has been warped. The culture is not to respect the dragons as the original firebenders, it’s to conquer and kill them. It’s the ultimate proof of your strength as a firebender. All it takes is one mistake before rumour spreads, and people go looking for the ultimate hunt. It’s not something Zuko or Aang can risk.

Whether Katara, Toph and Sokka (and Suki) ever find out the truth is up to you. But post-war, after Zuko returns from a strange, poorly explained trip with a dragon, and eventually develops the ability to use rainbow fire, either the others have some questions about Aang’s knowing look, or they are finally let in on a monumental secret.

[mysicklove]

the amount of ppl who have lied to me about their age and then used my kindness to their advantage truly makes me want to delete this account

[scribefindegil]

Thinking about narrative pacing (my nemesis) again. It's one of the most crucial aspects of any kind of narrative art, but also one of the most difficult (for me at least) to conceptualize as you're working.

For one thing, you have to remember that pacing is somewhat a matter of personal preference; a slow build that I think is perfectly constructed might bore someone else to tears, while a really fast-paced story that they love might feel frenetic and overwhelming to me. "Good pacing" isn't an absolute, and is very dependent on your style and your audience and the mood of your story. You have to learn to tell the difference between "Bad Pacing (doesn't serve the story)" and "Bad Pacing (doesn't serve *me*)."

And pacing isn't really one distinct thing; it's the effect produced by an amalgamation of a bunch of different choices. It's about where you start and end your scenes, the length of them, the level of detail in your descriptions, how long and how focused your conversations are, the tone, the tension . . . There are some general rules that are useful: you need to vary the tension or your readers will stop feeling it; don't feel like you need to narrate every single thing that happens when you can just cut to the next important thing instead; know what each scene is accomplishing within the narrative so you don't lose focus. But all of these things need to work in tandem or they don't work at all, and that can be *really* tricky to navigate.

[salty-software-engineer]

Man I just finished Babel and I was excited to read discussions online because there's so much going on in it with so many little things and just....angry white people. Everywhere. Truly a dead dove moment.

[lurking-latinist]

🐈

[moe-broey]

REALLY. STRUGGLING TO PUT THOUGHTS INTO WORDS.

[duchessofostergotlands]

Another story about my family’s distaste for authority. My grandmother was in most ways deeply conventional. She was a committed Christian, she was softly right wing, very Hyacinth Bucket. And I remember when I was young they opened a shiny new police station in my local town. They did tours for the public so we went to visit and the police officer was showing us the cells and said in a jokey way “and this is where we put the bad guys.” And my grandmother at the back pipes up with “well people are innocent until proven guilty.” For the rest of the tour he looked at her like she was some kind of anti-establishment infiltrator. My grandmother and I haven’t got a good relationship but I have always respected this little, unassuming, middle class Christian woman basically saying Fuck the Police in front of a crowd of people