i turn 29 on july 1st. i feel like i make a lot of these notes to myself, to check in. hi, me, here's what's happening.
hi, me. hi, you, too, if you keep reading. here's some rules i have been following:
when a book is bad, i put the book down. i choose something i like instead. when i don't like a movie, i don't make myself watch until the end. i care less and less what people think about me and focus more on being a good friend.
for the 6 months or so, i've been asking people what they think should be my next book or tv show. i ask them where i should go on a walk next week. i ask them what food i should try next, what hobby. and then i write it down in front of them.
the truth is some stuff slips through the cracks. but most of the time? within two weeks, i get to send my favorite kind of text - so i tried the thing you were talking about and !
i have a new policy for split-second choices - it's better to try it. i have social anxiety. i have to talk myself into doing many things. i am constantly battling the desire to run away as far as my feet will take me. and then i stand up and i do the thing anyway. i make myself act and dance and sing. sometimes, yes, i know-immediately never again, i hate this. but most of the time - i just have fun with it.
i have a new mantra - nobody is scorekeeping. at the end of my life, there will be no grand reading of how many calories i'd been eating. no reviews on how many boring documentaries i forced myself through, no calculation on how many hours i endured an extremely dull educational podcast. and so what if i try karaoke and i don't actually nail it? so what if i stumble over my words while trying to make a public announcement? so what if i wear something too-showy to go to the grocery store? nobody there knows me, and: nobody's keeping score.
life doesn't resolve with a grade (i know, i was as shocked as everyone else when i realized it). i am not falling behind, because there's no curriculum to life that i should be following. there are no checkpoints; nobody is making sure i have a fully-furnished life resume. i am just here for as long as the earth will have me, and i get to decide what makes me happy.
i don't have a partner or a house or anything that is supposed to belong to people-my-age. i spend most of my time focusing on being kind, compassionate, ready to listen without restraint.
and honestly? i feel good. like actually. i kind of like it this way.
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ccan you share any facts about the lights out au :3
i can try!
one thing i'm trying to incorporate that they get a Lot more puppety once the lights go out - their expressions can no longer change! Frank's frown is fixed! i've been holding off on this a bit since trying to imagine like... Barnaby getting mad but it's just this fuckin blank muppet face kills me but. hey what if they all had eyebrows that were built to move- also it's Important to the "Plot". and if i need expressions to show emotion, i'm failing as a writer
Wally gets a skin cardigan
as time goes on the Goop™️ kinda gets a mind of its own. it finds spare puppets - or puppet parts - to use as a shell. mix'n'match, horror style!
my original design for butterfly Howdy was made for this au. do with that what you will
over the years, Wally reads a lot of books - they teach him quite a few things that he would have never known about otherwise, even if he can't fully understand half of what he reads. how does one know what whisky is - beyond a drink - if they don't know about alcohol is?
Wally makes "friends" with some critters that start living in the studio. though he thinks there's one rat - he doesn't know to call it that - and like... one roach - he also doesn't know to call it that. so he thinks the same few strange creatures are around, when in reality it's a bunch. they keep getting consumed by the Goop
Poppy sets up the post office to be more liveable / pleasant. both for a sense of normalcy and it's just something to do! she makes it nice and homey <3 to the best of her ability <3 she can't really see what she's doing <3
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Prompt 82
Lex Luthor is admittedly, a very petty man. A very petty man who absolutely despises a certain kryptonian. So what if he made a clone- the alien got mind controlled practically every other week, could anyone blame him for being concerned?!
He’s more than a little annoyed that said clone was stolen from Cadmus, even though they had assured him repeatedly that they knew what they were doing. Trying to steal Gotham’s cryptid’s child was not a good idea- even he knew that! So of course they take the clone and the kryptonian discovers said clone and… rejects it. Huh. He should probably take advantage of that.
But he is a petty man.
If the alien is going to reject the child then he’ll just have to prove to be the better father. He’ll of course be the best father, if only to shove it in the other’s face. Really, how hard could it be?
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The idea that Jin Guangyao needs more friends (and that would help solve things) is a misconception I think.
The world sucks for him and makes it difficult or impossible to make genuine friendships, but blorbo is nice. He's smiley! He's polite! He remembers people's names and interests with an obsessive efficiency! He uses this to buy personalized gifts and help people the way they need it most! He's committed to public service and shows affection by solving peoples problems! If you let him.
He is canonically a beloved president and uncle and boyfriend until the ruin-san-ge's-life-revenge plot shows up. Sure he has trust issues but given enough time and actual stability and space it seems like he would chill out! He wants basic respect, he wants people to like him, he knows how people work and how to create and maintain relationships (arguably better than most characters in the novel). In a less shitty world, he would be fine. He can make his own friends, and does so.
The actual interpersonal disaster who could be saved with the power of friendship is Nie Mingjue. My man has. A younger brother and basically one friend, the world's most friend shaped, Lan Xichen. He has. Deputies. Former deputies who occupy a strained and ambiguous relationship status. He's got. Trusted colleagues. I'm not saying he doesn't know how to people at all, it seems like on a purely functional level, he does fine. He's like your manager who shares absolutely nothing about his personal life and has no idea how to show affection or give praise, but, has very clear and set expectations and is literal as hell, and *at work*, that's fine! Great, actually.
But oh boy befriending that person is hard. Also. NMJ doesn't seem to let himself, want friends? Try to make more? Probably some mix of "don't know how" and "don't have time for, anyway (I'm so fine. Totally alright. Just leave me alone.)"
It's canon that his response to LXC being busy rebuilding the cloud recess is forbidding him from coming to play music for him, not because he's mad at LXC, but because he refuses to ask LXC to take time away from an important thing, for him, even as he's dying. He actually doesn't even ask, he tells LXC he's not allowed to help (and LXC obvs wants to and that's how we get JGY playing for NMJ to begin with).
JGY responds to people being nice to him by being really fucking nice in return. He responds to loyalty and respect really really well. Does he have a low threshold for what breaks that relationship off completely and puts him on the defensive? Yeah (and understandably so). But JGYs trauma doesn't manifest as an aversion to explicit kindness or affection! (Especially/so long as it seems genuine). Just look at how he responds to LXC.
NMJ responds to questions about his values by not answering them, and deflecting with anger. He deflects, most questions, almost everything, with anger. Or super formal work boundaries. He knows how to be the figure of responsibility but as soon as someone says oh hey let me help you it's "fine, grudgingly" and then "oh I see you're busy. Stop worrying about me immediately I am so fine leave me alone. I forbid your presence actually. As sect leader. Ha." When he's genuinely distressed his protests are "I know what I'm doing!" which. Given the context is fucked up but it also shows what he's scared of really well. That when he feels threatened he doubles down on insisting he's competent, he can handle it, he can be left alone, stop interfering, leave.
This is just my headcanon but I think part of that is. Terror that he's going to hurt people, that he tries not to directly acknowledge. But he also knows that even if he doesn't kill someone qi deviating he's going to die eventually, probably soon, so - obviously the answer is to push everyone away before that happens, because it'll hurt less when it inevitably does, right? It's fine. Nothing is going to change the end result. There's no point in asking for people to care when it won't change anything, it won't, and they have better things to do anyway, right?
Which is why Huaisang needs to hurry up and be prepared to be sect leader. Because, he's dying faster than he'll let on, but he can't let anyone know that, can't tell Huaisang "you will actually" when his brother says "I'm never going to be sect leader, you can have that, I don't want it", so instead he defaults to anger, and yells about needing to practice saber and storms off. Because actually trying to explain would mean admitting weakness, which might lead to concern, and attempts to care, which is not allowed. (Have you considered that watching you die actually hurts the people you care about no matter what, and pushing them away isn't the answer nor will it make them feel better for having never seen that it was this bad and never acted faster).
Nie Mingjue. Would not make friends, left to his own devices. I don't even think he knows how, or not very well. Lan Xichen was his friend early enough, and they can bond over having to be responsible to their sect/younger siblings really young. But since then, it's just. Not a priority. And it never made sense to make it more of one, because more friends now just means more friends do inevitably hurt and possibly harm in the process of dying, so why bother? It's better not to.
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