#this is very much based on my experience

[spaghetti-academia]

advice that would have helped me in college:

Go for the decaf option. You're already drinking energy drinks. Don't give your body too much caffeine, as it might cause issues.

On the weekend, get out of bed early and go grocery shopping. Once you're done grocery shopping, go straight back home and meal prep. Wash the produce and put them in serving-sized containers. Make your lunches and dinners for the week. Get it done within the next couple of hours after you shop. Once you're done meal prepping, go back to bed and take a nap.

Unpack all of your things. Get everything out of the boxes. Go through everything that's in your dorm. Donate the things you don't need anymore. The sooner you get your dorm organized in the beginning of the year, the sooner you can get a cleaning schedule/organization system going and the less stress your environment is going to cause.

Learn which places are good to study in before 8am and after 5pm. On a college campus, usually there are plenty of buildings that you can access after 5pm, because colleges need to provide study space. However, learning which places are open before 8am is important too, because you might need to get some early morning studying in without disturbing your roommates.

Learn how to budget. You deserve to have fun and use your academic breaks the way you want. Save up your money, so that you can have spring break to yourself and you can have a solo vacation. Even if budgeting isn't a "big deal" in college, it makes for good practice.

Don't be afraid to talk to professors. They're there to help you. You're there to get an education, and their job is to provide that for you. Get your money's worth.

Be creative with the dining hall options. You can sneak in your own food and combine it with the food you have in your meal. For example, I brought in a rice cake and I used their peanut butter and bananas to make a PB Banana rice cake.

Similarly, bring containers with you to the dining hall. If you like the way they make apple sauce, then put their apple sauce in a container. Bring multiple plates and do a little meal prep. Get food to go.

This is more of a wish than a "habit," but try to establish a good boundary between school and everything else. Set rules for yourself. "If I can't complete at least two of these readings, then I won't go to the club meeting tonight."

This is advice from my own school: Every hour in class means two hours of studying/prep for the class beforehand. For example, if the class is 1 hour 35 minutes long, then that's around 3 hours of studying before the class. It doesn't have to be done all at once, but schedule accordingly.

Go to the school counselor. They may not be the best at dealing with specific mental health problems, but they can be a good place to vent without judgment.

If your professor requires you to submit written reflections of your readings, don't antogonize over it too much. "Eh, it probably sounds stupid but it meets the minimum requirements" is better than no reflection submitted.

Learn as much as you can about the resources your college provides and use as much of them as you can. Whether its health/medical, career, academic, disability accomodations, etc. get your money's worth.

If you want to read more, spending at least 15 minutes or reading at least 10 pages per day is a small amount that adds up over time. One of my regrets is not reading more of the books from the school library, since many of them were on niche subjects and were extremely interesting.

If you suspect that you have a learning disability (e.g. ADHD), research the symptoms and management techniques for them, even if you don't have the resources to get diagnosed and treated. I strongly suspect that I have Inattentive ADHD, but I couldn't seek a diagnosis while in college (or now). Learning study techniques and management strategies for people who have similar struggles would have been very helpful for me, rather than going with generic advice for people who had a more neurotypical brain.

Honor your bedtime. I know that college students like to stay up late and pull all-nighters, but my mental and physical health would have been a lot better if I made my nights as peaceful as possible and went to bed on time. Turn your night routine into a ritual. The hour or two before you go to bed should be to help you get a full night's rest. It's time for you, so be selfish and treat it like it's sacred. You deserve it.

disclaimer: this advice may or may not help you. take what works, and leave what doesn't work. it's okay if the advice given doesn't 100% apply to you.

[morally-earl-gray]

star wars fans are so funny bc like you can mention a background clone character who shows up in like, two episodes at most, and there will be some fangirl who's memorized his wiki page, has a pinterest fan page dedicated to him, and ships him with riyo chuchi

[krasnyel]

when connor comes to visit

[wyvernity]

sss day my favorite national holiday WOOOOHHHH

bonus

[flowerakatsuka]

" just know that i'm always here for you, okay? "

i'm finally finishing up my s2 rewatch and getting to the 24th episode awoke a beast in me. so i wanted to make a fake screenshot based on some of their lore that takes place during that episode. i think they'd end up having a heart-to-heart moment since kuroba went through similar struggles after their grandfather's own hospitalization...

also have a bonus doodle bc i need to even out the balance between serious & goofy with these two.

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[goldensunset]

‘the children yearn for the mines’ is a little too real to me bc when i was a kid and my older siblings were trying to get me into pokémon i really never cared to try playing. BUT. i was obsessed with the underground mining minigame in dppt. i used to beg my sister to let me take a turn playing and set it up for me bc i didn’t know how to so i could go mine for gems nonstop until i cleared that entire cave section of glittering wall spots which always made me so sad bc i was having such a great time. i didn’t even understand the significance of what i was doing but 7 year old me was high off of it

[sunw00d]

more human(ish) yellows.. if nobody got me then yellow got me can i get an amen

[flickeringflame216]

.

[happilychee]

thinking about aromantic lucy

I saw a terf saying aspec people aren't actually queer so fuck them here's aromantic lucy heartfilia

cw: a few mentions of internalized arophobia

lucy who doesn't know that the word love exists until she reads it in one of the few fairytale books in her father's extensive library. lucy who doesn't quite get the kissing and the physicality and the fiery proclamations, but thinks that it's an okay price to pay for someone to be so passionate for her. to choose her and care about her, like her mother did before she passed.

lucy, who's eight years old and crying after another argument with her father, who summons aquarius and asks "do you love me?" aquarius feels her blood pressure rise, but seeing the broken look in her wielder's watery eyes, she decides to drop the snark. "I do, kid." "does that mean you wanna kiss me?" aquarius almost smacks lucy over the head.

lucy who doesn't quite understand the difference between how she cares for her spirits and how she felt about her mom. lucy who cares deeply for everyone who's important to her, who thinks that aquarius could just as easily be her knight in shining armor as the storybook prince. lucy who reads romance books because she wants someone like that in her life. lucy who's never had any friends besides aquarius. lucy who thinks it must be nice to have someone choose you, care about you, protect you. lucy decides that that's what love is.

lucy who's old enough to know she doesn't like her father. lucy who's so confused when she hates him but still cares about him. lucy who's old enough to run away from home but too young, too young.

lucy who joins fairy tail and has no idea what to expect. lucy who's startled by her new friends' openness and easy acceptance of her. lucy who blushes when natsu throws an arm around her, who feels warm and fuzzy when gray guides her by the small of her back, who has a lopsided grin on her face when erza links arms with her as they walk. lucy who suddenly thinks that she's in love with three people at once and panics (her storybooks never mentioned that!!).

lucy who turns to who she can confidently call her best friend, levy mcgarden, for help. levy sits her down with a cup of hot chocolate and cookies. they talk for hours about sexuality and attraction; lucy sleeps over that night. the word that sticks out the most in her mind is aromantic.

lucy who gets drunk at a party and gets a little too close to cana, and suddenly they're in cana's apartment, making out like there's no tomorrow. lucy who feels guilt creep up in the morning because she knows cana and gray and loke have something going, and she might've just ruined it. lucy who tears up when cana laughs because she's so, so confused. cana's expression morphs into concern and she wipes away her friend's tears, warm skin on skin. cana who tells lucy that what she does with gray and what she does with loke doesn't restrict her from what she does with other people. "we talked about it, I promise." cana reassures her. then, leaning in with a sexy smirk on her face, she whispers, "besides, they're probably jealous I took you home first~" the rush of heat is enough to make lucy's mind go blank with joy.

lucy who shyly asks cana about her relationships and learns so much she feels like her head is going to explode. lucy who has a crisis about her storybooks and her ideal romances. she's never going to have that, she realizes. it feels like someone's scooped out her chest.

lucy whose feelings ebb and flow like the tide. she's not used to this. being so... different. her storybooks are scattered across the floor, thrown in an angry fit. her door is locked, but her window isn't, and that's how natsu gets in. "you okay, luce? we haven’t seen you in a while."

the dam breaks. lucy sobs in natsu's arms, and all she can think is that this is the exact type of hurt/comfort scene she loves in her stories. she wishes she were normal, so she could love normally, so she could love natsu the normal way and be done with it. she doesn't realize she's talking out loud.

natsu cups her face, onyx eyes boring into chocolate ones. he squishes her cheeks together, the way he does when he thinks she's overthinking something. and then, natsu breaks through her entire crisis with three little words.

"does it matter?" he furrows his brow. "you're lucy, and I'm natsu, and I care about you." "but- I don't feel romantic attraction-" natsu huffs, frustrated that lucy's not getting something that's apparently obvious to him. "luce. I care about you, and I trust you, and I want to take care of you and protect you. who cares about anything else?" lucy blinks once, twice, and then she's sobbing again. natsu panics, because he knows he can be blunt and dismissive sometimes, but lucy barrels into him, clutching onto his scarf tightly.

"you care about me?" she whispers in a child's voice. that's more important to her than anything. romantic, platonic, the gray area in between, none of it matters as long as natsu cares.

natsu tightens his grip, wondering who he has to pummel for making his girl feel that way. "course I care about you, dummy. I'd burn down the world for you. and so would erza and gray and cana and everyone else."

lucy who has a really hard time moping when natsu's there every step of the way, trying to cheer her up. erza and gray show up, too, and it's hard to stay sad when she's being tickled by erza while gray cooks dinner and kicks natsu out of her kitchenette.

lucy who feels the hollow fill with something warm and gooey when erza gives her a hug, confessing that she often has trouble figuring out how she feels about anything. lucy laughs when erza tells her about the shenanigans that have happened when she doesn't pick up on someone flirting with her but gray and natsu do. she feels all fuzzy when gray leans against her, telling her that he feels the same way. his hand plays with hers, and she thinks it's nice how well they slot together.

lucy realizes when natsu falls asleep in her lap, arms wrapped protectively around her waist. lucy realizes when gray falls asleep at her side, erza tucked to his chest. lucy realizes that her friends make her feel like she's on top of the world, and she doesn't need a fairytale prince when she's got fairy tail.

[littleghostblogs]

Playing Fallout 1 and noticing Necropolis disappear from the caravans is just. So perfect.

The game brings no attention to it. No one mentions it. The caravans just don’t go there anymore. It makes you wonder what happened, you solved all their problems already, right?

So now you have a reason to go back there, cause otherwise there’s really no reason too. And when you do, everyone is gone. There’s no more ghouls, just super mutants. They invaded, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. Once you hit that date, the city is gone.

It’s frankly a brilliant moment of subtle storytelling and even though I already knew about Necropolis’ fate it still motivated me to go back, just to make sure.

I wonder how many people discovered it this way? I can only imagine just how effective this reveal is for someone actually playing the game blind.

[rainy-matcha]

whenever I see a fic where a character has a panic attack and another character helps them breathe in deeply like "Can you breathe with me?" or something like that it kinda instantly takes me out of it because I've literally never had someone know to do that for me in real life?? Maybe it's just me but idk do most people have enough basic knowledge on panic attacks to do that? And are also calm and collected and together enough in the moment to help someone like that? Idk man just feels unrealistic 🤷

[aroaessidhe]

2025 reads / storygraph

This Gilded Abyss

fantasy/thriller/romance, start of a series

gilded-age fantasy world where a rare magical substance is mined deep undersea

a sergeant struggling with grief and trauma of her best friend dying in a mine collapse, is asked by a young royal (…her ex girlfriend) to help her investigate a strange murder - on the luxury submersible heading exactly where she never wants to return to

when there’s another massacre, confirming their suspicions that it’s caused by an illness inducing a violence craze, they have to find a way to survive, trapped on the ship until it arrives at the undersea city

[pteraphylax]

I personally don’t hc Gale as autistic, because to me he comes across very neurotypical? I think a lot of people hc him as autistic just because he’s an academic type who exposits a lot. But for me and my brand of autism, he doesn’t resonate like that. He reminds me of my husband who is neurotypical.

I can see why a lot of people hc that though, and a lot of the reasons people ‘hate Gale’ end up being things that autistic people get bullied and punished for in real life.

I don’t hc Gale as autistic, but I take it personally when I see people hating on him for what could be considered ‘autistic-coded traits’.

You know who I DO hc as autistic?

Lae’zel.

Black and white thinking (whether she’s stanning Vlaakith or Orpheus, it’s with the same all-in fervour)

Blunt and abrasive mannerisms. She doesn’t follow societal conventions. She’s aware of them and thinks they’re a waste of time. She doesn’t react or express her feelings in conventional ways. She is often insulting and brutally honest because she always tells the truth as default.

She takes people at face value and is always earnest. For example when Gale compliments her fighting style, she immediately offers to teach him with 100% sincerity. It often catches people off guard. She doesn’t realise when people are asking rhetorical questions vs. actually wanting to know or do something (same, Queen).

Special interests. The way she talks about her insane training regime, maintains her gear, her learning and memorisation of the Gith slates. It’s very intense.

She gets her mind set on doing something a certain way (go straight to the crèche) and finds it hard to understand why the others want to sidetrack from that.

LOVES rules. She has those protocols memorised and it’s very difficult for her to imagine a reality that is not dictated by them. Even comparing her to other Gith at the creche, Lae’zel is so much more rigid. If she turns from Vlaakith she is equally rigid about her new destiny with Orpheus/ fighting Vlaakith.

Toes are out in her starting armour. For my autism shoes are the devil so I am applying this to her too lol.

Sometimes her complaints about Faerun/ the material plane come across as being overstimulated in a sensory way. At least they do to me.

Other sensory stuff: she has as much bare skin as possible in her default outfits. For my autism, tight and covering clothes are also the devil, so I’m projecting this on her as well.

You could also definitely interpret her idling with her weapons/ using the grindstone as stimming. If that’s the case this is NOT my flavour of autism. Lae’zel stimming on her grindstone makes my ears bleed and makes me want to scream. Sometimes other people’s stims are your sensory hell.

She is ride or die for the party. At first it’s a mutual goal based thing, but as she gains respect for the other party members a switch flips and she’s All In. This sort of black and white approach to relationships feels very neurodivergent to me.

I LOVE LAE’ZEL.

[hanzajesthanza]

also i realize i'm saying all these noble and beautiful things about the channel from the purest depths of my heart. but actually i'm also just doing this because i fucking love the witcher books and it pisses me off that people don't know about them that much in english and i can only go for so long (seven years) with people not knowing that there are books. or that the witcher is from the 90s. or polish.

[loonyoz]

Man shout out to the wyllstarion community and discord

All my interactions and the interactions I’ve seen have been generally positive and supportive.

Plus you guys are so creative and talented. Like yeah this is fanart but truly stands on its own as a beautiful piece. And yeah that’s a whump fic abt a video game character, but it could stand on its own as an engaging and insightful novel.

Just truly you guys are great. I just got hit with a random wave of gratefulness. Kind humans that share their hard work with others is something I cannot get over.