#and talk and talk.............

[heroes-fading]

tumblr did eat this but as a wise poet once said “honey i rose up from the dead i do it all the time”

so i feel like i have been slowly entertaining in the back of my head for a year or two now the idea of writing again. it started with like, writing bad poetry in journals. i’ve been consuming media, but in a lot more of a disconnected way. engagement was like, reading reddit and twitter threads for a day and putting it back down. then episode 8 happened, and i was like FUCK i’m unglued.

to put in perspective what kind of shit i was up to in high school: i wrote half a million words of like...once upon a time fanfiction. and in that i found lots of lovely connections to people but amidst a sea of other factors: being a literal teenager who still thought i could be the smartest person in the room (spoiler: never), having no real social net outside of the internet (and i will say my internet friends -- many of whom i still love and talk to today -- got me through some of the WORST times of my life), and having a very fragile ego. probably related to points a and b. everything felt like the biggest thing in the world because my world did not feel very big.

now i look back at it like...holy shit you wrote a goddamn novel. who cares if it was like, literature or not? 

to be honest one of the things that got through to me was this cj the x video, especially their point which i’ll recap here:

“We are under the impression that art is something special people do, and to do it well makes you a genius, and to do it poorly is embarrassing. This sectioning off of the art world for artists from regular life and regular people is completely artificial and it is bad for the soul of your society.”

and they talk a bti about the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and perfectionism and just the amount of fuccccckin mental blocks we put around what’s good art and bad art and we spend so much time agonizing over what’s good and what’s cringe and you know what? embrace cringe! who cares! none of us will live forever!!! sharing art is the way we sustain ourselves in the long run.

i always have an internal voice saying something’s not good enough. i’m Always like “damn, these metrics ain’t metricing like they were earlier...” and then i’m like fuck...am i doing this for the Idea of Fandom Success or because of my fun silly lil hobby? my fun silly lil hobby? aight guess i ought to just embrace the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and accept that silly lil numbers ain’t what’s fufilling, it’s the practice of writing and sharing and going at the end of the day “at least one person liked this, and being known isn’t the Most Horrific Thing Ever”.

another thing i Never did when i was a teenager is tell anyone i wrote fic in real life. now my husband and friend and sister-in-law know (the latter involved either alcohol or being confined to a plane, which is a lot like alcohol) and you know how much they think i’m embarassing? they don’t. oh and actually a co-worker. they just go “lol, this is My thing” and it’s a novel they tried to write in college or fanart they post on a secret instagram or a monsters inc page they ran in high school (all real examples) because everyone has some kind of thing they care about, some artistic expression, and we’ve conditioned people to think trying is embarassing. trying is vulnerable and the point, i think! no matter how cringe! 

and vulnerability is this awfully stingy thing because sometimes when you think about it for too long it’s not unlike putting your hand on a hot coal. like, fuck, laying awake at night knowing that people know You Tried and what if they still didn’t like it? humiliating. awful. please schedule me with the goddamn firing squad. you didn’t get the metrics you wanted. or worse, you did and now people don’t think you deserve it. they’re gonna find out you’re just a big fanfiction writing fraud.

but maybe that’s the point! i don’t know! vulnerability is hard and painful and growth and sincerety is almost WORSE. but there’s also something lovely and cathartic about it and at the end of the day knowing that other people feel that, too. can never get too lost in either sauces of thinking you’re the worst thing ever or the best and the only one who gets it. just gotta accept the vulnerability of it all~

i’m back in my daydreaming era, i think fic gave that back to me. i shut her off for a little while, but she’s still there! and it’s not the worst thing, having overwhelming creative ideas on the treadmill or in a hotel lobby or furiously writing in a google doc in the middle of the night even if it does feel Silly. sometimes it does make the world a little more magical, framing in a narrative. 

(my therapist at some point has made comments about my narrative framing skills in the context of my life and getting out of a shitty family situation with a lot of embedded generational cyclical fun stuff to a point i have a lot of the things now i used to dream about despite it, my pathological need to write my way out also applying to my life and maybe it’s not the worst way of moving a locus of control inwards. i used to dream about feeling safe and being respected interpersonally and professionally because it’s something no woman in my family ever really got and i get that now. anyway, as i said, radical vulnerability!)

narratives are powerful and meaningful and art is too, i don’t care if it’s fanfiction at the end of the day! we’ve all felt something or gptten something or felt community and that’s meaningful enough. 

this is a very long-winded and frankly chaotic way of saying sure, i’m a writer enough!

#fic talk #and talk and talk............. #i have a job i love that fufills what i want to Do and Be but also i will always love writing so much #and to get to do that in space where i get feedback and community #at the end of the day when i'm hittin #g that lil refresh button for a dopamine hit because social media has broken our brains #i do take a deep breath and be like #oh cool #i did that #and the more we police that feeling or worse misplace it the harder it gets to the Point #of just doing shit for the sake of it and having a good time! #don't get sucked into all the other shit #i think a big turning point in my life honestly #was being in the car after having the worst fucking day of my life or second worse #after a really terrible situation with my mom #and i was in a goddamn target with a radically different hair color in my hands #and after that i was like #i'm not doing this to myself! #i'm not going to doom myself! #i'm going to listen to some goddamn kelly clarkson #because of you LEGENDS ONLY #and live for myself here and build my own existence #i literally found old journal entries to myself saying something to the idea of this #and then i interned at my current job and met my husband and slept on the floor of people i still love and am friends with today #and this isn't fic but #NARRATIVE #and what i was and wasn't going to do #and i read that a year or two ago and just bawled my eyes out #because she did that :') #and that's the power of building something for yourself and owning your own lil narrative even if sometimes it's just lil fanfic

[strangestcase]

Geological horror. You find a geode and crack it open and the crystal lining its walls is human blood that can't be genetically matched to anyone. You find a human skeleton but every one of the bones is made from rock, a rock that you know can't be whittled into those shapes. You find layers of clay and loam that sport ancient fossils at the top and the still-rotting corpses of modern animals at the bottom.

#doc talks

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

EDIT: reblogs are STAYING OFF. op was right and correct and i have never regretted making a post as much as this one. if you want to reblog my art you can reblog something else from my blog. or commission me, lord knows i deserve financial compensation for the nightmare this post has put me through

#art #i had to block multiple people because of this post and i easily could have blocked more #do you guys have any idea how exhausting it is to hear 400 people make the exact same unfunny joke each thinking they're being original #or worry that another person might get harassed over a post i made because of the way people are talking about them #or be harassed/insulted YOURSELF because some people don't know how to fucking behave #you guys don't get reblogs back. you should be grateful i'm leaving the post up at all.

[bookslutskye]

so i recently got top surgery and this was on my discharge papers after a mild complication

#me and my family have been laughing about this nonstop #transmasc #top surgery #book talks

[peach-pot]

trans guy who doesn’t realize he’s turning into a werewolf because he assumes it’s all just normal side effects of starting testosterone

#hannah talks sometimes

[buryymeinblack]

THis news is better than gay sex

#gex #julian talks #tumblr updates

[necromimetics]

can’t stop thinking about my friend’s cishet partner who said last night that he doesn’t think anyone is the same gender. god-tier take.

#sky.txt #we were talking about how some people conceptualize nonbinary as like a 3rd gender #rather than a huge spectrum of experience #and he just hit us with that

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

#yeehaw #1k #5k #10k #posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours? #also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that! #unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference #edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense #also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags #1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now #he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic #2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign #like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock #3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing #it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is #extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once #it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life #i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about #Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect #if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it #aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week

[bronzetomatoes]

Why dont we all look at Andy

#look anika's talking! #it gets rough out here #(not any specific fandom. this is a general statement) #anika famous moment #greatest hits

[teaboot]

When I was a kid one of my moms would call her period "moon time" or "her monthlies" or shit like that and my other mom straight up stealthed it, but when I'm a dad I think I'm gonna go straight down the middle and call it Werewolf Week. Like sorry kids, dad can't roughouse right now, it's Werewolf Week

#Plus my sense of smell always goes crazy like a couple days prior #So #I feel like I could really lean into the mythos #They'll get the talk of course but Werewolf Week sounds way cooler than Lady Time or whatever the fuck

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

#EDIT: Added a great resource for ESL and African languages that weren't found elsewhere #I do NOT recommend memrise and will talk about it another day but #langblr #duolingo #duo #language learning #language learning apps #mandarinblr #resource #reference

[ninjaotta]

this tweet has DESTROYED me

#elri #elri talks #hbomberguy

[spiribia]

personal injury lawyer billboards are all like INJURED?

#talks #EDIT: I DID NOT MAKE THIS IMAGE. #This is the “people with blue eyes” meme originally posted by twitter user @Pubby_Kat.

[gabrielora]

When I was younger and researching the autism diagnosis criteria and symptoms, I thought “oh I couldn’t POSSIBLY be autistic.” Because when I read “takes everything literally” I thought it literally meant EVERYTHING and I was like “I don’t take EVERYTHING literally, just most things!” And I just realized the other day that it didn’t actually mean EVERYTHING and that was an overstatement.

#textpost #text post #neurodivergent #actually autistic #autism #autistic things #autistic experiences #neurodiversity #why is there a hyperbole in the statement talking about people taking hyperboles literally

[angelicgarnet]

the way people online talk about autism is getting really weird, like do they know that neurotypicals still have interests? that someone being passionate about a hobby doesn't mean they're autistic? you guys know that right

#woof #like self diagnosis is one thing #but saying someone is autistic because they talk about a specific hobby a lot is weird (and waters down the actual definition of autism) #and its no different than saying someone has ocd bc they organize their books alpabetically #or saying someone has ADHD because they got distracted by something #and people who aren't even autistic are honestly getting way too comfortable with autism jokes

[aquilaofarkham]

every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

#aquila talks #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi spoilers #laios touden #SERIOUSLY THO I WAS WORRIED THEY WEREN'T GONNA ADAPT THIS SCENE BUT THEY DID AND IM SO HAPPY