#because otherwise it’s just excuses to procrastinate

[greenstudies]

Study session essentials

I’ve probably made a post like this before but I’m getting better at studying and so here are my tips on how to have a more effective study sessions. Keep in mind that I am neurodivergent and I can usually do 2 hours of work in 3,5 hours on a good day. I still procrastinate and struggle a lot, but these things help significantly:

Ambience of my current obsession - I love game background noise and ambient music. They keep me focused and entertained without distracting me in anyway. Recently I’ve been having a witcher 3 ambience or “walking in red dead redemption 2″ videos in my headphones

Open-back headphones - I have tinnitus and so noise canceling headphones are not an option. And for a while I didn’t want to wear any headphones until someone got me big open-back ones that don’t seal me away from surrounding noise and absolutely perfect

Putting my phone in a different room - Just put it away. The forest app or putting it out of reach/sight can be good options if you need your phone around but otherwise putting it far is the best option.

Specific study space - For me personally I have to sit at my desk. Studying on my bed or sofa is never as effective as I need

Clean space - Cluttered space means cluttered mind and worse I feel more easily depressed

A toy for my hands - I need to hold something, feel something, look at something. It helps avoid scrolling and it keeps me entertained while my brain does the hard work. It also helps with stimming if I get overwhelmed. I keep around rocks, palm sized plushies, small wooden hearts and animal figurines.

Paper for thoughts - I always have a piece of paper nearby that I scribble thougths, notes and tasks on. This way when I get an idea I just write it down and deal with it during my break. When I remember something I have to do or want to do, think an anxious thought or just need to scribble it goes on the paper.

Candle - I’m a bit afraid of fire and having a candle burning helps me stay in the room because I don’t like leaving it there burning. I like to pick weaker, clean smells like cotton or vanilla. Watching it burn can be very calming too.

Water/juice/iced tea - I always start with a full glass so I don’t have to get up and get water too often

Cup of tea - Besides having a glass of water I always have a warm cup of green or black tea

Snacks - I usually keep an apple or a banana around so I have to leave the room as little as possible. Hunger is usually a good excuse to leave and this is a great way to eliminate it.

Gum - Chewing is very calming for me which usually means I overeat just so I can chew. Sugar-free gum solves this well. I usually need only one since I don’t quite care about the taste as much as the act of chewing. Be careful not to have too many!

Hot water bottle - When I’m stressed and tired my face tenses up a lot and having something warm to put on my face helps a lot. It makes my muscles relax and I often avoid a headache this way.

Medication - I keep my asthma and anxiety meds around. Sometimes studying can really stress me out and it’s good to have those on hand

I hope you find these helpful and have a great day!

#greenstudies #studyblr #studying #study tips #neurodivergent #how to #tips #advice

[fixing-bad-posts]

I looked around and didn't see anything about this on your blog but I apologize if I missed it.

I was wondering, what does doing the work behind this blog...feel like? I guess what I'm asking is if it does anything to you. Like, I had a thought. For a flash, I imagined you as Butters from South Park in that episode where he is tasked with filtering out all the negative comments on Cartman's social media. It ended up really messing with Butters, what with him having to see all that negativity.

You're definitely not being affected to that extreme, I assume, but I wonder if you would have anything to say about the process of finding these negative posts and reading them several times to edit them. Has it exposed you to unpleasantness that you wouldn't have otherwise seen? Or is there perhaps a kind of catharsis in editing such filth?

I'm making a lot of assumptions here. Maybe I'm also asking about your process. I just think what you're doing is neat and would love to hear about your experience with it.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have plenty of reasons to feel joy <3

oh boy, i love talking about myself haha—so thank you for giving me an excuse to do so! i have answered similar questions in the past, though never at length. every once in a while, someone pops into the inbox to ask about my mental health (which, rest assured, is just fine—i don’t put this blog’s operation above anything; it’s honestly pretty low on my list of life-priorities), and it’s always quite sweet. having a mob of strangers following one’s sideblog has its perks: one being that sometimes parasociality results in some well wishes, kind thoughts, and general goodwill. which is very nice, and probably an unearned vanity-boost for my ego.

what does the work behind this blog feel like? in turns: mundane, challenging, vindicating, annoying, amusing… and probably other things that i’m forgetting. most of the work i do on this blog is actually me procrastinating! i am a certified adult with a job™, and i’m definitely guilty of slacking off at work sometimes to queue posts submissions from my inbox, which is more fun than like… proofreading financial documents and making spreadsheets. other times, i’m sitting in a café with my partner, and allegedly i’m “writing” fanfiction. but, uh, if you know any writers, you know that sometimes “writing” means, ‘looking at a blinking cursor’. so it’s in those moments that i open up tumblr and start writing image descriptions and adding tags to prep posts for my queue. that’s mainly when the blog feels mundane.

something that i think helps me avoid negative doomscroll-spirals is that i don’t actively seek out bad posts for this blog. being a citizen of the internet delivers fodder to me naturally. that, and running a semi-popular sideblog on tumblr. when i see a bad post in the wild, that’s when the feeling is annoying/challenging. challenging, because ever since starting this sideblog, hateful posts don’t feel as vicious to me. once i see them, they stop being posts and turn into word-puzzles. and i love word puzzles!

solving the word puzzle is amusing for me, as is getting to look at my resulting “blackout poem.” it makes me laugh, it stretches my brain. when i started, i used to have to read a post several times to find the ‘good post within the bad post’ so to speak. these days, i’m so used to it, i barely read the bad posts more than a handful of times. but as i was saying to my partner, one of the reasons i love found poetry (erasure poetry, and cut-up poetry) is that it uses the same part of my brain that loves scrabble (the board game). then, of course, it's vindicating to see my posts get so many notes, sometimes surpassing the original bad post. that's more of my own vanity, i'm sure.

as for the last part of your message: yes, i have plenty of reasons to feel joy. i work with people who respect me, i live walking distance from a bubble tea café, and have friends and family whom i love. i have the good fortune to be safely out as a queer person. i’m a fanbinder. i’m currently working on a long fanfiction which is getting some very nice comments on ao3. and i’ve recently decided to become a poet (like, for real).

i must admit, i’m fascinated by how you imagine me. i often wonder how i am perceived, especially because i keep many cards close to my chest here on my sideblog.

anyhow, thank you for this excuse to ramble about myself and the process of running this blog. i hope you also have plenty of reasons to feel joy 💛

#what are your headcanons about me i'm so curious #ask fbp #ittybittykittyfingers

[mindfulstudyquest]

starve your ego, find your peace

these are my personal thoughts, an outburst. if you want to share your opinion in the comments, i welcome it, but please be kind. if you just want to insult, go elsewhere. if you're not interested, don't read <3 i remind you that english is not my first language, so there may be a few mistakes.

ego, what an interesting word. it is a latin lemma which literally means "I", it indicates

the self, especially with a sense of self-importance.

(psychology, freudian) the most central part of the mind, which mediates with one's surroundings.

a person's self-esteem and opinion of themselves.

in a society like ours, we fight against our ego every day, the anxiety of constantly being in the spotlight, the overwhelming thought of having all eyes on us.

the idea we have of ourselves is the strongest chain that prevents us from freeing ourselves from this mental cage. both positively and negatively. if you have a distorted idea of yourself and low self-esteem, you will never be able to become your higher-self, to take that extra step that allows you to transform your daydreams into a solid reality, if you think you are unintelligent, you will tend to take this truth for granted. "i'm not smart enough for this" and you'll give up your dreams of a higher education, or of getting all A's on your finals, or of having a great and fulfilling job.

but sometimes we think too highly of ourselves too. i always joke that i make study plans like i'm a genius who studies 200 pages in a day, but the truth is, i'm not joking at all.

many of you will recognize themselves in the stereotype of the burned-out gifted kid, especially when you move to a higher level of education (from middle school to high school, or from high school to university) and at that moment all certainty of your acclaimed intelligence collapses. you are no longer in the pond with the small fish, now you are in the big tank with the big fish, relating to a much bigger world (at least in italy, the difference between high school and university is abysmal) and your brain will do everything to maintain an accurate simulacrum of your self-image.

in fact, your brain spends less energy processing two pieces of information that agrees rather than disagreeing information and since our biology is based on self-preservation, your mind will do everything to preserve its rightness. when i started university i was incredibly afraid of taking my first exam, why? because i didn't want to find out that i wasn't good enough for a more advanced education, that i wasn't the straight a student i thought i was.

but waiting for the fear to go away will lead to you staying in the same place forever, because the fear only goes away if you face what you are afraid of, and yes, being afraid of exams may seem silly, but i'm sure many people who follow this blog will understand what it means to identify so much with your grades and to crave academic validation more than anything else.

so i did it, even though i was scared, i had to have the certainty that this was the right place for me, i studied hard, and i definitely rocked my exams. but then the spring exam session arrived, and the fear returned. tired and burned-out from the winter session i had little or no desire to study, so when the exam date approached, i was afraid of not achieving the same results as just two months before, so i postponed, i procrastinated, until the day before, i knew i had to study otherwise i wouldn't pass the exam, yet my brain continued to do everything to protect itself, to protect that completely crazy idea of myself that i could study the entire program in two days (i wish). i don't even have social media (tumblr and pinterest excluded), which is why i found every excuse possible not to study. i didn't want to sit at my desk and realize that i wasn't going to pass that exam, that i should have studied harder, try harder.

that is until i realized that it wasn't laziness or procrastination that was stopping me, or rather, procrastination was just a symptom of a bigger cause: a distorted image of myself. understanding this in my first year of university will perhaps change my next academic years, or perhaps not. i don't know how many of you have drawn these things or reached these conclusions, i just hope that you soon understand that you are not lazy, nor procrastinators, you are just humans who are afraid of failure like all other humans.

the problem arises now, how to change this image? i don't know yet, honestly, but i won't let it stop me from living my life.

uptade in the end i was so fucking lucky and got a 30/30 on my exam yesterday, but still at the cost of a lot of sanity, sleep and unjustified stress.

#outburst #venting #college #education #school #academia #note taking #student #study aesthetic #study blog #study inspiration #study motivation #chaotic academia #light academia #dark academia #academic validation #academic overachiever #i should study #study tips #student life #studying #study community #study notes #study space #studyblr #studyblr community #university life #university #uni life #uni student

[toaster-trash]

@shotofstress

When I tell you I read this I saw it and I WHEEZED I was in TEARS and I shouldn’t be bothered arguing about it but quite frankly I’m trying to procrastinate anyway and I’ve had a god awful week and need to take out my frustrations somehow, ergo, I’m going be petty not because this person disagrees with my reading of the novel, but because they implied that in reading queer or neurodivergent elements in a work, people “can’t see the important themes that the novel is about” which actually does piss me off a fair bit

Right so first before we argue we’ve got to decipher because English apparently isn’t this person’s forte for someone who is, apparently, such an avid reader and esteemed critic of English literature. Also I just realised I haven’t really provided any context here so apologies this was in response to that joke post I made about mischaracterising Frankenstein adaptations (again yes the pettiness is not lost on me but I’m embracing it anyway)

“He is not gay nor autistic” cheers this person disagrees that Victor Frankenstein is either gay or autistic. To each their own. Wonder what kind of backup they’ll have for that argument.

“Pls stop seen representation of us everyone bc u can’t make the difference,” Right so this is where we get confusing, I’m going to take a wild guess and I think they’re trying to say “please stop seeing representation of us everywhere because you can’t make the difference”, and I still don’t know what “make the difference” means, but we’ll go with it.

“read nothing new”, alright so they’re saying people who see representation everywhere read nothing new, and then the kicker that’s kind of the only reason I decided to respond to this anyway, “nor really see the important themes that the novel is about.”

First off, “stop seeing representation of us everywhere”, let it be known that as I make a hundred jokes about Victor Frankenstein being homosexual, I myself am thoroughly through and through without a doubt bisexual as the days are long. Absolutely love men. Also adore women equally. So no, I am not a Disney corporate executive trying to squeeze in as many queers as possible for the entire purpose of using the fact they have representation in media to excuse the fact it’s a shite film but also, not trying to revisit every old piece of media to squeeze representation where it doesn’t really fit or make sense just for shits and giggles. (Also just saying, you made this comment on Tumblr. So even if I was just going haywire with lgbt headcanons on my favourite media with no real backup, who gives a shit? Who actually gives a flying fuck? I don’t. Let people live, man. It doesn’t mean they don’t understand the source material just because they’re having fun and playing loose with it. It’s Tumblr, not a Netflix adaptation. Let people do whatever they want and have fun with it. It’s cool.)

But like I said, I do have backup and a lot of it so let’s get into that, shall we?

First of all, whoo, autism. I’ll be real not really a hill I’m going to die on but the wording you put of “he is not autistic” is just ridiculous because yeah, no, there is a lot of perfectly decent ground to read Victor Frankenstein as autistic and a lot of people do, mostly people who are autistic or otherwise neurodivergent themselves. Just because in the 18th century people didn’t necessarily have the language for things doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, and I mean, now we do. So what’s the harm in using it? They had their own language for things back then, do we have to revert back to speaking in early 19th century English every time we want to refer to a character who was written back then as neurodivergent or lgbt or anything else?? What’s the point in that??

But yeah, Victor Frankenstein. I can’t even be bothered to explain and to be honest every single other person I’ve said “Frankenstein is autistic to” has immediately responded “oh yeah, obviously”, even my father who famously is just hypercritical of all sorts of headcanons just went “oh yeah no for sure the man is definitely autistic no doubt about it”. So instead I’m just going to include some quotes.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately.

It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them.

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.

Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

Like I said, self explanatory. It’s harder to come up with an argument for why he isn’t autistic than why he is, and frankly, what’s the harm in reading him that way? It doesn’t really change anything about the plot or themes, and his character doesn’t change. It’s just a very probable diagnosis for said qualities. It doesn’t change them, whether you use that word or not. The concept of autism was coined in 1911 anyway, so its not like Mary Shelley’s going to be sat at her writing desk in 1817 writing in big bold letters “BY THE WAY, FRANKENSTEIN HAD AN AUTISM DIAGNOSIS.” It doesn’t change the fact that people still had autism back then, just because the term wasn’t discovered yet. Anyway.

Now, second bit. “He isn’t gay” – now, if you read Frankenstein and thought “ah yes, this man seems perfectly heterosexual to me”, then honestly, sure. Go ahead. But to say that reading Victor Frankenstein as queer in any way means that people “don’t understand the important themes of the novel” is completely bloody ridiculous because, again, there is astronomical ground to read him that way.

Victor Frankenstein never really shows interest in any women in the novel, except for Elizabeth, who he has been raised, since he was five years old, to see as his “gift” and was told by his mother since he was a very young child that he was going to marry her – to the point where his mother, on her deathbed, tells both Victor and Liz: “My firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father.” Also, they’re cousins/adopted siblings. If you don’t think that’s fucked up, even by the standards of the time, I’m not really sure what to say to you. Of course he married her. And before he married her, he generally expresses very little romantic interest in her bar just expressing as much affection as you would a close friend or sister, or seeing her as his “gift” who he “has to be wed to”. Read any other story from this time period, in this genre, and you will not be remotely questioning whether they’re actually attracted to each-other or not. In fact, here’s an excerpt from The Vampyre, another book born from the same trip to Geneva that Frankenstein was, by John William Polidori, about the protagonist’s love interest:

And that’s only part of it. So. Yeah. Victor’s lack of romantic affection for Elizabeth is not “a product of its time” nor “a product of its genre.” And The Vampyre is a short story.

And so you may be saying, “well, just because Victor doesn’t show any interest in women doesn’t necessarily make him gay”, and yeah, true that (ace and bi Vic hcs y’all are valid) but there is very good basis to take the reading that he is attracted to men.

For one thing, just the fact that he’s so particular about creating “the perfect man” is subject to a lot of queer readings in itself, but let’s be real here, you all know me enough by now to know that I just want an excuse to rant about Clerval and Frankenstein. And rant about them I shall.

First, I’m lazy, so here’s an excerpt from one of my previous essays I’ve written that I’ve never posted everywhere on Frankenstein in general:

Just as The Creature is Victor’s narrative foil, so is Clerval. He's equally ambitious and fascinated with the secrets of life, however he’s healthy with how he goes about it and healthy with how he keeps the balance between taking care of himself and pursuing his dreams, while Victor goes over the edge and neglects himself and his sense of morality to complete what he set out to do. He's supposed to represent the ideals of gothic romanticism in Victor and he's supposed to be his anchor and support, (something the Creature doesn't have), caring for Victor during his illness, (“reanimating” him, almost, once again showing that comparison between both Victor and Henry, as Henry “reanimates” Victor with compassion and cares for him after, and Victor reanimates The Creature in a haze of obsession and mania and immediately abandons him, showing what Victor could have been), and constantly accompanying and being sympathetic and empathetic towards him. I also find it very interesting how he does also seem to have those darker aspects to him, lying to Victor’s family about the extent of his illness and caring for Victor in his apartment despite the fact that, for all he knew, from the evidence lying around his workspace and Victor’s feverish rambling, he very well could have murdered someone, and Clerval chooses not to press him on the issue and instead to intentionally help Victor cover it up. The fact that Clerval exhibits these traits only makes Victor’s own downfall all the more tragic when we consider that it likely very much isn’t a stretch to imagine that Clerval, too, likely exhibits a lot of the same morbid curiosity as Victor; he isn’t a superhuman figure with purely positive attributes who is completely far removed from Victor’s situation, the only difference is that Clerval chooses to prioritise his own sense of morality over his selfish aims, which only emphasises the point that Victor’s downfall is, ultimately, Victor’s own fault. When Victor "kills" the Creature’s chance of the same support and love (his unfinished bride), the Creature kills Henry and sends Victor into a downward spiral of suicidal thoughts and heavy depression because the character that represented that stability, that romanticism, that balance of keeping healthy, is dead, and that throws Victor downward into his inevitable obsession with the monster's destruction and his own death.

On this point, I feel like it’s worth bringing up that a reasonably good case could probably be made regarding a lot of queer subtext in the novel, although I won’t rant about it excessively as it obviously isn’t the focus, the theme of love is a very prominent theme as I’ve previously mentioned with The Creature; familial love, platonic love, parental love, romantic love, and I don’t think it’s particularly much of stretch to suggest that Shelley, intentionally or unintentionally, might have added a lot more romantic subtext than given credit for. Not that it matters particularly narratively speaking what kind of love is portrayed, but in reference specifically to Clerval and the Ingolstadt chapters there’s a very good argument to be made regarding Shelley’s poor relationship with her own husband and how she may have projected a lot of her wish for that kind of care and sympathy into his character, perhaps not taking into account, or perhaps she did, how it would come across – author intentions are mostly lost with time and we’ll ultimately never know for sure, but even for the standards of the late 18th century when the novel was set and the early 19th century when it was written, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic,” and “your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend,” probably weren’t standard platonic sentiments.

And honestly on that essay excerpt, that still sums my thoughts on that subject up pretty much perfectly. After all, a character in a book talking about his best friend going “I loved him with a mixture of reverence and affection that knew no bounds” as well said best friend tenderly nursing him back to health, and the character talking about how his body is “divinely wrought and beaming with beauty” and gently pressing his hand and referring to him constantly as “my dearest”, “my dear” and “my beloved”, while living together and travelling together and talking about how his voice “soothes” him and “cheats (him) into a transitory peace”, pretty gay!

And yes, before anyone says a single thing, if it wasn’t already obvious from the essay excerpt, I do understand “the important themes the novel is about”. I do understand that there are more themes and characters and subject matter, and more than that, I bloody love it! Because this is one of my favourite novels! Of-fucking-course I’m invested in it on a deeper level than “ooOoooh what classical literature characters can I RUIN with my gay agenda today!” But you commented this on a joke post, a joke post, again, on Tumblr. No harm but Jesus Christ if there is a singular platform I can go on and just post stupid bullshit about two book characters from 200 years ago being soft and gay without having to justify that yes, I did in fact read the book, and shock horror yes, I do know that there are other themes, it’s bloody Tumblr. (Absolutely love you lot btw especially all my lovely fantastic incredible mutuals all your takes and readings and art is 👌✨ chef’s kiss)

Oh and by the way, op, I noticed you reblogged this:

And to be honest if I had to say any take or reading was a misunderstanding of the text, it’d be that one (as well as “Victor is sexist for cutting women out of the creation process” takes – Christ that’s just gross. And feels mildly if not explicitly homophobic.)

So just for shits and giggles to counter that argument, here’s another excerpt from the same older essay as before:

Speaking of Hugo, it is rather interesting how many adaptations and literary criticisms seem to go down the route of the Hunchback of Notre Dame moral of “who is the monster and who is the man?”, suggesting that Victor is the “true monster” of the narrative. And, as much as I am a decent Victor Hugo fan, (I’m over 50% through Les Misérables, have you seen the size of that book? I’d have to be), in reality the point of the story is that neither Creator nor Creation are more monster nor man than the other – Victor mutilates corpses and brings the creature to life, and allows Justine to be executed without owning up to his actions, and The Creature murders a child and a multitude of other innocent people, Clerval and Elizabeth who had nothing to do with anything and Ernest left completely alone with his entire family dead. We can’t acknowledge The Creature’s sympathetic qualities without also acknowledging Victor’s, and regardless, sympathetic motivations don’t make up for immoral actions.

Also this meme, which I can’t for the absolute life of me remember who posted it originally I’m sorry I use it all the time in GCs whoever it was you’re so valid:

#gothic lit #classic literature #gothic literature #goth lit #classic lit #frankenstein #frankenstein weekly #frankenstein or the modern prometheus #essay #Frankenstein essay #Victor Frankenstein #queer lit #elizabeth lavenza #henry clerval #clervalstein #clervenstein

[bump1nthen1ght]

may i request a drabble of a reader (any gender or lack therof that you please) with a goblin partner, maybe with a meet cute in a research/academic setting? Thank you so much :)

Of course Anon! We need more goblin stuff in the world. I also loooved doing stuff in an academic setting, as y'all can tell my inner nerd came out in some parts of this piece. Hope you enjoy!

Gender Neutral!Reader x Nonbinary! Goblin: Meet cute

You have a complicated relationship with your University’s library.

On one hand, you love it. It’s big, close to your apartment, and astoundingly beautiful. The architecture feels like it's ripped straight from the 20th century, with vaulted ceilings, dark wood and stained glass windows. The dustiness and history is perfect for setting the studying mood, the library never getting too rowdy even during its most crowded time.

On the other hand, it’s so fucking old that nothing is done efficiently. The bookshelves are all stretched up to the ceiling with no regards to the non-flying species students and the categorical system is ancient enough that there are no computer versions of anything. If you’re looking for a book you just pray it's been properly shelved, low to the ground, with big obvious letters. Otherwise you have to flag down the librarian or one of her many assistants.

Today is one of those days where your complex feelings come to a head. Yeah, the atmosphere has certainly stirred you to read those archived experimental reviews you’ve been procrastinating. And yes, you have no idea where to find it because the First Last Name in the paper starts with an X and you’ve got NO clue where it is. You’ve been wandering 20 minutes; spending 15 minutes trying to convince yourself you don’t need help and another five trying to find an assistant to guide you.

You finally come upon a step ladder, ridden by a small figure around 10 feet above you.

“Excuse me!” You whisper-scream. The assistants' large, green ears perk up, and one swivels back to better hear you. “Do you perchance know where I could find articles by a Dr. Xander?”

The assistant’s tail fidgets back and forth, ears turning back before they finally lean back and look down at you. Even from so far up, their yellow eyes seem to glow in the shadowed ceiling.

“Sorry, what was that?” The goblin assistant whisper-screams back.

“Um, Dr. Xander-” You say at your normal tone, promptly shushed by someone another bookshelf over. You huff and go back to whispering. “A Dr. Xander? It’s a scientific article but I couldn’t find the X section-”

“What?” The assistant says again, now speaking normally, craning their back and pointing their ear downward.

“Dr. Xander-” Another shush. Jeez, why can they speak normally but not you? “Dr. Xanders article about in the most recent Science?”

The assistant leans down further, mouth opening for another “What?” When the step ladder begins to shudder and shake. Your brain goes into bullet time, seeing the assistants flailing arms trying to regain their grip in slow motion as you grab the bottom of the step ladder to steady it. But the momentum forward only makes the goblin’s feet slip off the sides, throwing them backward and falling down.

Your heels scuff against the carpet as you propel back as well, arms thrown out in your own attempt to balance yourself. The goblin screeches at a high pitch and you yelp, realizing how fast and far they are coming at you. But as if possessed by a cheerleader, You outstretch your arms, bracing your stomach and clenching you legs.

The colors are all a blur, but you somehow keep your eyes open, only coming back into focus when looking down.

The goblin breathes heavily in your arms, bright yellow eyes wide with slitted pupils. A dark green blush paints their cheeks, your arms having scooped them down in a bridal position, faces a romantic distance away from each other.

You feel your own face get hot with embarrassment and adrenaline, still shocked you were able to catch them at all.

“Uhm, you can let me down now.” They whisper.

You bumble through a “Oh yeah, of course”, bareky making sensible words as you let them down. Blood pumping so hard you can practically feel it in your veins.

The assistant straightens out their vest, brushing their hair back into it’s combed style and taking a deep breath. If not for their thrashing tail, you wouldn't have thought the fall barely phased them.

“Thank you very much for..catching me. I imagine that would’ve been quite the injury if you had not.”

“Oh yeah! No problem, no problem.” You mutter, fiddling with the hem of your T-shirt. Their eyes are so bright, their demeanor so smart, it only adds to your flustered state. “Happy to help.”

“Indeed, it is most appreciated.” They tuck a loose strand of hair behind their ear. “Now that I’m down here, what can I help you with?” Utterly shocked by their resounding professionalism, you stammer out the Last Name your looking for. “Ah, that should be in the fourth stack back there, on the 5th shelf. I’ll lead you to it, the lights are busted in that section so it can be a bit difficult to navigate.”

“Oh, thats alright. I don’t want to be a bother-”

They hold out their palm, just the slightest bit indignant.

“I insist.” Their pleated shoes click as they shuffle past you. You pull up the strap of your backpack, trying to brush back your own hair to seem as put together as they are.

The two of you scurry past several larger than life bookshelves, taking several sharp turns in a random order. You become thankful on the assistant insiting they help; you definitely would’ve gotten lost.

“May I ask what your researching? If it is not too invasive a question.”

“Yeah, of course! I’m actually interning in Dr. Close’s lab right now, working with hummingbirds.” The assistant takes another sharp turn, leaving to follow their tail as a waypoint. “This paper has some interesting data, so I’m trying to see if it can inform my future research. I’m trying to dive more into torpor.”

“Fascinating.” They murmur, finally stopping at a bookshelf, gazing upwards towards a higher shelf. “And what got you interested in it?”

Your lips curl up in a smile, that giddiness when talking about your field.

“Well, hummingbirds already have a crazy metabolism, so the fact they can just slow it and their heart rate down is fascinating. I mean, their eggs are barely bigger than a pea yet they burn through so much nectar and use it so efficiently, all while hasically dropping into a coma for part of they year. It’s just- how did they even evolve to do that? Its such brilliant machinery-” You realize your rambling, the assistant’s big yellow eyes looking intrntly at your gesticulations, paused in their search for a book. “Sorry, I bet it seems silly, getting worked up over such a tiny thing.”

But the assistant just smiles, wirey and relaxed. Their ears flicker in amusement and you can feel your nerves ease.

“Don’t be. All pursuit of knowledge is admirable. Those who look down upon the little things often are ignorant of what the big things even mean. Plus-” they turn back to the books, standing up on their toes to reach for your article. “-you eloquate so expressively, it’s hard to not get excited as well.”

Your face groes hot, twirling a baby strand of hair.

“Thank you. You s-speak rather eloquently too.”

“I read a lot.” They lean up again, jumping just a centimeter off the ground, but their fingertips barely graze the end of the book. Their cheeks flush that embarrassed green again, but they don’t look to you for help.

“I can get that.” They nod, brushing their hair back again in what must be their nervous habit. The book is farther back on the shelf, making you perch on the balls of your feet, but you are able to grab the cover with little issue.

(The bottom of your shirt rises as you do, exposing a small bit of your stomach. You don’t notice, but the assistant does, forcing their gaze away as they feel their ears grow hot.)

The scientific journal has a bright picture of a bird on the front, the name of the article you're searching for flashing as you flip through the pages.

“This is perfect, thank you so much!”

“It was no problem, dearie, all in a day's work. Here, I can escort you to the main stacks, this back area is like a dungeon.”

You nod, still thumbing through the journal. There are some interesting articles in here, maybe you’ll find more interesting data to look at.

Once you reach the lighter part of the library you tuck the journal into your side bag and try to match pace with the assistant.

“I can’t thank you enough for the help. I seriously would have never found it without you.”

“It is no problem, if anything I’m repaying you for catching me.”

You rub the back of your neck, eyes darting upward to avoid contact. You’d been trying to push that to the back of your mind, forcing yourself not feel awkward about it. “O-oh that was nothing. I was just at the right place at the right time. Honestly, I’m usually pretty clums-”

With a squeal and dose of irony, the tip of your shoe catches on a raised patch of carpet. You arms flail outward as you try to catch yourself, but instead a small hand pulls you back by the wrist, grip leveraged by their tail now wrapped around one of your legs. You stumble backwards, but a hand lies on your lower back, steadying your posture.

“Yeah, that’s more like me.” You half joke, slimy embarrassment running down your spine.

Behind you the assistant chuckles. Their tail unwraps from your leg, leaving goosebumps in its wake. You turn towards the exit, trying to leave some dignity intact, although you can see yourself screaming about this in the car.

“Thanks again. You’ve been a huge help, in more ways than one.” You brush some imaginary dust off your shirt, trying to seem cool, calm, and collected.

“It’s no issue. Could I get your name?”

“Oh! Y-yes, it’s ____.”

“Pleasure to meet you, ____. I’m Revike.” They step back, adjusting their suspenders. “And I hope to see you again.”

“Me too. Though helpfully I won’t need so much help next time.”

“Like I said, it’s no issue.” They give you a tiny smirk. “I’m a librarian after all, its my job to look after priceless works.”

You’re sure you look like a cartoon character, eyes bulging out as Revike leaves you with a wink, trying not to giggle like a middle schooler.

Welp, seems like you’ll be going to the library more often.

#my writing #reader insert #monster x reader #gender neutral reader #monster romance #goblin

[spoonyglitteraunt]

Brains are weird.

I struggled to log in yesterday. As I struggled, and failed, to log in all week. I wanted to, but something about having been gone so long made it feel too overwhelming to face.

Each time I made the decision that Today would be the day, my brain threw up ALL the executive dysfunctioning walls. It just noped out all the way into productively procrastinating on tasks months in the waiting. The accompanying inner monologue fluctuated between predictable to barely making sense.

It's so. much. work. Brain argued. So much backlog to go through and you're so tired. We'll do it tomorrow. (Not entirely unfair, but then I never have energy.)

You've got tasks to do today. You neglected your to do list all month. You'll get distracted. We'll do it tomorrow. (There is always one task more. Always.)

Oh but would you even still be able to follow? (As if the topics here don't shift with the memes wind.) You don't have the attention span today to try and make sense of the newest blorbo/horse-plinko/spn world news. We'll do it tomorrow.

Do you even have a place still? (Yeah, sorry, I've got nothing on this one either.)

Something was rallying the anxiety gremlins, but the "reasons", were really no more than attempted rationalisations for something grinding beneath the surface. Something I could not put my finger on. Something I could only describe as a wordless, undefined, yet all encompassing dread. ... Eventually I managed to force through. I'm glad I did, because in an odd way it felt a little like coming home. I missed the interesting and funny people in my magic box. Missed getting to see what you are all obsessed with getting up to now.

It wasn't until just now that I think I hit upon what was causing the anxiety gremlins' great wall of awful.

You're given balls to juggle. No choice, no guidance (or guidance you can't understand), just one instruction. Whatever you do. Just. Keep. Juggling.

You do your best, yet sooner or later you miss. An unexpected bump, a freak gust of wind, a miscalculation, and you lose your grip. The ball drops. Shattering to pieces on the ground.

Wait... The ball was made of glass? But why? Are other people's balls made of glass? You swear you just saw someone bounce and grab theirs. That one there is on the floor. A bit scuffed, but whole, and ready to be picked up again. So why did yours shatter on impact? Who even makes glass juggling balls and why did no one warn you?

There are a lot of questions and no answers. But the why doesn't really matter. What matters is that your ball is broken. Shards on the floor. Adrenaline in your veins.

You didn't want to drop it. Your tried so hard not to drop it. You tried so hard it hurt. But it's broken now and you can't put it back together.

This is when people take notice. Parents, teachers, authority figures, peers. They look at the shattered ball and don't, can't, won't understand.

It was so easy! They tell you. It was just a few balls, and they barely weigh anything at all. We told you to keep juggling. We told you it was important. Why can you do complicated tricks, but not keep this one tiny ball in the air? Why didn't you just pick it back up? How did you even break it? Were you even trying? Were you even listening? Do you even care?

There is a unique type of trauma that comes from growing up ND (or with a disability too really). Especially when only diagnosed in adulthood.

You've been given glass balls with no warnings, or functional guidance on how to keep them whole. Everyone makes mistakes, but where theirs bounce, yours seem to shatter. And everyone treats that as your fault somehow. It doesn't matter if it was out of your control, and you really did try very hard. Worse even if you are otherwise quite smart or capable. Because then "you have no excuse". But others aren't juggling glass balls. Glass that weighs nor acts like the rubber ones they are using.

So you learn to internalise that every minor mistake. Every minor failing. Every perceived carelessness, or heck even just one less confident grab that could have missed, is a personal failing. Something to incite ire, disproportionate consequences, and rejection.

I think that is what the anxiety gremlins were trying to wall in. The fear that me not having been able to log in for so long was dropping and shattering a ball. The dread that logging in would somehow end in blame and rejection. Even though I didn't choose to get sick, or get thrown a glass curveball.

Obviously, rational me can see that was never going to happen. But the part of my brain impacted by years of undiagnosed ND-ness? Not so much.

It chose to protect. To shield. To avoid. Unable to even properly convey what was going on beyond a general feeling of dread. Because when the shards are on the floor and the adrenaline is in your veins, you don't stand around analysing feelings. You run.

So yeah, brains are weird.

Good thing we're weirder.

#neurodivergent #neurodiversity #actually autistic #actually adhd #actually disabled #long post #the joys of growing up undiagnosed ND #but I'm glad I got past the wall of awful #I genuinely did enjoy “coming home” :) #but I'll not be reading the entire backlog #you are lovely but also very very active #I applaud you but no thank you #I like to keep my remaining sanity #what little I have left

[ac-liveblogs]

Fontaine, Acts I & II

So, after spending a lot of time procrastinating on the world map, I finally went ahead and cleared the first two acts. I can't say I was particularly impressed with them for a variety of reasons.

I think my main takeaway from everything that occurred here is that Hoyoverse is really bad at balancing its plot, the characters it wants to focus on and its gameplay in a solid and cohesive way, and the way Genshin presents Fontaine’s Justice system is a perfect example of this.

While I could certainly go into more explicit detail on each of these failings and will on request, I’ll keep it brief here;

Like Inazuma, despite early Act I going out of its way to establish that there’s Something Wrong In Fontaine – in this case, the justice system and the culture surrounding it – Genshin’s fear of having its non-Fatui playable characters and those associated with them look like Bad People means that the game awkwardly ends up excusing both those characters and the system itself of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Despite establishing that “truth can get lost in the courts” and that Fontaine has a culture of trial by combat (a very logical and concerning connection), Genshin’s rush to parody Ace Attorney paired with it’s desire to show Chief Justice Neuvillette as a kind, just and compassionate person resulted in Acts I & II focusing on standard trials, which are depicted as being entirely fair and above-board with very little actual show-boating or narrativizing of the cases we do participate in.

In desperately wanting to show you that Neuvillette is kind and great and compassionate, Genshin establishes him as the kind of guy that will try to find the truth behind a case and ensure justice prevails, even when he knows the Oratrice has reached a dodgy sentence and his Archon is doubling down on it – so “the courts are dodgy”, but the man completely in charge of them is wonderfully kind and compassionate, which is... counterproductive at best.

When trying to show the faults in both the duels, the obfuscation of the truth they cause and the culture surrounding them, Genshin shot itself in the foot by having their primary example – Navia’s father – be someone that intentionally obscured as much information surrounding his case as he possibly could, refused to go to trial and chose to die as dramatically as possible on purpose for his own reasons… i.e., the worst possible example of this they could’ve possibly imagined. It’s presumably written this way because otherwise, Neuvillette and Clorinde got an innocent man killed, and it was undoubtedly their fault that it happened – this way, it’s all on Navia’s father instead, at the cost of indicting the justice system itself.

Despite wanting to criticise the culture surrounding the way trials are discussed, Genshin seems to want us to like the major journalistic publication, the Steambird - future playable character Charlotte works there. So only the public's reaction to the cases is criticised - which, again, when the case is "man commits murder and then dies instead of facing trial", considering him a villain comes across as a reasonable and understandable reaction. Besides that, when the on-screen trials are won fairly and squarely and very little time is spent showing what people actually think of them, we don't get to see that "narrative" being constructed.

And in wanting to keep Neuvillette kind and reasonable, we are absolutely fine with our friend Childe – and this chapter did establish we actually are on good terms with him – getting arrested on bullshit charges right after we completed a case proving he did absolutely nothing wrong because Neuvillette swears he'll investigate it for us and if Childe is innocent, they'll let him go.

Personally, I think Genshin has a very bad problem of not being able to identify who their villains should be. They'll want to prop up a system of government as being corrupt or concerning in some way, but will then load down it's cast with playable characters from those institutions. And since Genshin really tries to keep its playable characters likeable and tries to avoid them actually doing anything wrong, you get a Bad System, but the People In It are Good, even though a lot of them are really high up in the hierarchy, but either their roles or involvement in that system, or the system itself, are seriously downplayed.

In Inazuma, we got the plot bending over backwards to explain that Raiden Ei and Kujou Sara are good people that did nothing wrong. In Sumeru, Genshin quickly skips around the question of any culpability characters like Alhaitham and Cyno may have with regards to the Akademiya's wrongdoings, unethical practices or mistreatment of scholars and in both cases instead pinned the blame on a group of rotten NPCs that needed to be excised before things could be Okay again.

Here in Fontaine, we interestingly get the inverse - because there are no alternate groups or powers we're aware of beyond Focalors and Neuvillete (and later, prison warden Wriothesely), there is no-one to blame for the system being corrupt. So instead, instead of skirting around blaming everyone else for the system's failings, the system itself has been almost completely defanged, resulting in almost any condemnation the game tries to throw at it falling apart... even at the cost of us allowing our friend to get arrested on false charges because we have that much faith in Neuvillette.

Think about it -

The Oratrice could have made so many incorrect judgments over the years! This can't be the first time! Okay, but if it did, so did Neuvillette - because Neuvillette presides over the trials, the trials are shown as fair, and the Oratrice and Neuvillette come to rulings independently of each other. So even if the machine was wrong, the mortal was too. And we know the mortal isn't corrupt, so he would have genuinely believed he was making the correct judgment. Besides, Neuvillette is established as someone that will investigate if he thinks a judgment is wrong and try to reverse it if he can.

People die in the duels rather than justice being found in court!

The duels are completely optional. There is no indication anyone thinks that the trials are rigged or that they'd have better odds dueling than going to trial, because Neuvillette is a good and fair man, so the only reason anyone would choose a duel is either because they think they'd be found guilty in a fair trial or because they had another motive for doing so. Or they're Childe. Why there are duels is a separate world-building question - I guess they're just tradition? - but it's not like anyone is forced to participate in them.

Okay then, maybe the trials weren't supposed to be that bad to begin with!

Then why bother with the Hydro Dragon fairy tale at all? We're told that it's a local legend that when it rains, the Hydro Dragon is crying - and that it often rains after trials. So there's a very obvious implication that there is something wrong with the trials - especially once you take into consideration leaks about the Hydro Dragon. Except. You know. They're fine. The trials are fine. The Hydro Dragon is [censored], Neuvillette is an honorable and fair Chief Justice and despite being a diva, Focalors doesn't seem to have any real power whatsoever so it's not like she's causing any problems that haven't yet been resolved.

The point is that the culture around the trials is dehumanising and disrespectful!

Yep, but it doesn't affect the trials whatsoever, and is that Aesop really worth all the effort here? That humans love drama and sometimes that's not great? We may get more focus on this in the context of the duels in a later Act that adds some more weight to it, but right now it just looks like an abstract condemnation of modern cancel culture or the way social media makes it easier for us to interact insensitively to the stories and situations surrounding real people.

At most, aspects of the courts just read as distasteful, and that's the greatest condemnation I can really give about them without tearing apart the trials on a molecular level. I guess it is pretty confusing the duels exist at all, but it seems like a lot of the worst parts of the Justice System got sanded down in trying to make Neuvillette likeable - it's not like he's a bureaucrat that's trying to make the best of a corrupt system or anything when he's the one in charge, so the system can't be that bad.

Which begs the question; why make playable characters in high places if you want the systems to be corrupt or have problems with them? Who knows! It seems that if they wanted to do arcs like that, they would've been better off making characters that weren't press or bureaucrats or prison wardens. Or Shoguns, or Mahamatra. Maybe the framing of the justice system will change in later Acts or more information will be revealed, but right now I think Genshin's just hilariously kneecapped their own story right at the get-go and that... honestly makes me question why they bothered with any of this framing to begin with.

There are other issues present in Fontaine – Childe’s writing is a bad joke, the writing of the trials themselves is so shoddy that they’re just plain stupid at best and actively make Navia’s character suffer at worst. I think Genshin really focuses on the wrong things in Act II – investigating a years-old case full of NPCs we don’t care about instead of actually spending time with Childe or clearing his name was a bad call and, as always, I think in their desire to keep playable characters likeable, Genshin both fails to recognise when someone should be a villain and ends up undermining both their characters credibility and the seriousness of the story they’re trying to tell in the process.

Also, I like Lynette's design, but I think Lyney's is really messy by comparison. I like Focalors, I'm indifferent to the twins and Charlotte, I wish Childe had gotten more attention, I don't like Neuvillette or Navia. But goddamn.... those dogs are cute.

Also Berrypuff :( i love him :( can i adopt him :(

#ac plays genshin impact #fontaine spoilers

[esta-elavaris]

Do you have any writing YouTubers that you watch? Or writing streams and the like, I’d love to know what your writing process is like!! 💞💞

I don't have many that come to mind, I'm sorry! When it comes to creatives on YouTube I tend to lean more towards folk like Rachel Maksy and fibre artists rather than writers - I'm kind of leery of a lot of writing YouTubers because the ones I happen across give me the impression of being more concerned with looking like writers, or telling others how to write, rather than actually writing. Like one recently who tried to act like 2.5k words was insane and unrealistic and not doable.

It's the sort of thing that just can't be taught beyond reading a lot and writing a lot, even my creative writing teachers at uni flat out admitted as much and focused on helping us be the best writers we could be in our own individual ways rather than being all "you must write for three hours per night and before you start you must set your story out into this detailed plan" etc. so I always wince when I see influencers hitting out with advice like that, and a lot of them do because they want to be the ones with ✨the answers✨ // the "right" way of doing things, when there just? Isn't one? Like seeking out advice and new methods to experiment with is all well and good, but I've been in writing groups before where folk have posted showing off the stack of 30+ writing "how to" books they'd just bought (not an exaggeration), and like? At some point you need to just write, get feedback on it, and work things out from there, rather than reading theory and using that as an excuse to avoid actually writing until you've read all 34584 books about it...most of which will give wildly contradictory advice from one to the other. I get the temptation people have to be like "but if I read all of these books before I start my story, my story will be PERFECT from the very first draft!!!" but that's just not the case.

Fic is actually amazing in that respect because you can get feedback for your general style and test out what people do and don't like about it. It got me out of my habit of stupidly heavy introspection in every single chapter when people were like "bestie, enough" during Little By Little 🤡 Not saying there aren't any good writing-focused YouTubers out there! I just haven't found many that I vibe with 💀 my favourite booktubers are Emmie Reads and throneofpages, and CarolynMarieReads (who does also discuss writing!)

I do really really like book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield in terms of other media about writing, I reread it every now and then and I buy it for every creative in my life, it's phenomenal - a lot about how we get in our own way when it comes to creative endeavours and how to not do that, and how procrastination is the enemy. He's done quite a few podcast appearances, I think, if you don't want to get the book! I know Joe Rogan himself uhhh isn't great but his podcast is actually worth watching when he has a good guest, and Steven Pressfield is among them, but he's also been on others all over YouTube if you're not willing to tolerate Joe. Steven King's memoir On Writing was also good, from what I remember of it.

Mostly I just take the stuff David Goggins says, though, and apply it to creative avenues rather than the workout-geared stuff people usually use it for, but I get that he's not for everybody. He just makes a lot of good points about chasing fear and doing stuff when you don't want to, which is a lot of what I struggle with when it comes to writing, I'm always convinced each chapter is absolute dog crap until I'm told otherwise lol.

The content I engage with on that end of things does tend to be more mindset and general, though, rather than stuff that gets into the mechanics of writing. I'm pretty lucky in that I was obsessed with reading pretty much as soon as I learned how, and writing quickly after that, so I learned a lot by reading and mimicking whatever I was enjoying at the time before I'd been at it long enough to develop my own "style". Even now I can look at stuff I write and see the influences, there are just enough of them now that it ends up being its own thing, so I don't approach things from a very technical "ah yes, here I will use free indirect discourse because this will add depth to this character's perspective" or whatever, I'm just feeling my way through based on what I know has/hasn't worked in the past.

I'm not into the whole side of things where people present it as "your story should have X amount of beats and it should follow this graph if you want to write this genre, and these three tropes", it's too scientific and it takes the joy out of it for me, personally. I go into stories with a vague idea of what I want to happen and half of the fun is working out how to get there. I usually know like two or three things that will happen in a story when I start it and the rest just happens as I write. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't! The only indicator I tend to have is how much an idea scares me. The ones where I go in confident are always boring, the ones where I'm certain I won't be able to pull it off are always grand.

The best analogy I've heard for it is that it's like walking through the dark with a flashlight - as you move forward, you can see just far enough ahead that you know where you're going in the immediate future, but you don't know what's at the end of the road.

The only thing I'd really, really recommend, beyond lots of reading and experimenting with what works for you, is daily writing. I think my stuff improved so stupidly quickly when I started that, and the hardest part of writing is actually sitting down to write rather than the writing itself, so if you write daily you take the "ugh, I really should write today" out of it, and everything is easier from there. It's not even difficult, either, I've had days where my writing was done on my phone on the bus on the way to or from somewhere. It's just about showing up.

I hope some of this massive essay was helpful 💀 I'm super flattered that you're interested in my process! 💜 Feel free to ask any questions anytime I love an excuse to inflict dissertations on people.

#believe it or not I tried to edit this down #there are like 50 tangents here #i'm a nightmare on this topic lolol #asks #anon #dissertation!lucy strikes again

[gliyerabaa]

ok gelphie and/or gliyeraba: Who does the dishes? Who makes the dentist/doctor appointments and who happily lets them do it? Do they take PT, bike or a car to work? Does someone still iron their clothes? Who's the one who does the groceries? (no i'm nOT listing housework stuff im currently procrastinating on...) Basically, this is your excuse to ramble about mundane domestic shit with your fav pairing, GO

*explodes* hi sam thank you for feeding my gliyeraba brainrot >:)

domestic fluff gliyeraba is literally my brain cell right now. they do laundry and taxes together. literally any chore that can be done together, they do together. things get done three times as fast that way!

dishes? one washer, one rinser, one dryer. (fiyero, glinda, elphaba, respectively) (elphaba drying because water)

house cleaning? one sweeper, one mopper, one polisher (elphaba, fiyero, glinda) (elphaba sweeping because broom lmao)

laundry? one washer, one folder, one to put things away. (fiyero, elphaba, glinda)

cooking is different. i feel like glinda can't cook to save her life. so elphaba and/or fiyero does all the cooking, glinda does the prep work like chopping vegetables and stuff

taking notes from a certain farmer au, i feel like they'd grow a lot of their own food if space allowed it. otherwise, lots of shopping would probably be done at a farmer's market or something. (that's an elphaba influence. why spend money supporting big business when you can get better quality produce AND support local farmers?) grocery store visits are few and far between, just to get snacks for celebrations and stuff. fiyero likes to ride in the shopping cart.

if farm raised food is a thing that would change the cooking dynamic. elphaba grows the food, glinda preps, fiyero cooks.

this got very very very rambly and i wish i knew how to write poly dynamics better cause i'd be so down to write some modern au gliyeraba ficlets if i wasn't so scared of misinterpreting the dynamic

#ask #answered #gelphie #gliyeraba #fiyeraba #bannedfromtheaters

[mightbesmall]

Their Fae Bestfriend: How you met

Genre: Fluff

Characters: Heartslabyul version plus a bonus character at the end.

Warnings: Plant based nicknames, most likely ooc.

Summary: You are their Fae bestie, you have seen it all being old and all but what if you met some very…interesting people!

Additional note: I was taking a nap and my eyes flew open, probably looked like a gremlin, and I yelled “I have an idea!” Please help my dad yelled at me😢 Anyways this will be part 1 of 2, how you met and then there will be little headcanons on your relationship in part 2!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ace

He was in the Botanical gardens, looking tools for those chestnuts when he found…someone… laying down next to a flower bed. Usually he’d ignore people when he doesn’t feel like being a jerk but they were holding a pair of clippings, he could use those! 

He decided to just carefully.. carefully… pry them from the strangers hands… almost there…

A hand gripping his wrist sent shocks all over his body. ‘Huh?!’ A single eye opened and just stared at him. 

…

…

…

How awkward. Thankfully the stranger, who he now acknowledges to be a fae shit is he going to die, let go of his wrist before sitting up properly. They seemed to be staring into his soul, it was creepy..

”Mh, you are odd.” They said. Odd?! Him!

”Excuse me but you were the one staring into my soul!” He retaliated because of course- they just smiled at him. Weirdo.

”What’s your name?” 

“I’m not answering that until you give me yours!” It probably wasn’t a good idea to have this attitude with someone who could fold him like a beach chair but he’s on a tight schedule trying to get this collar off so really he doesn’t care all that much right now.

”My my, you are amusing! My name is…” They replied with a mischievous glint in their eyes.

”Huh that’s a weird name. I guess I’ll introduce myself, the names Ace.” 

“It’s lovely to meet you Ace.”

Deuce

Deuce was running late, he got up early and decided to gather ingredients for the project in potionoligy that was due in a couple of hours because he procrastinates like that but he got distracted and missed the first bell so is now running like his life depended on it and- 

And he just slammed into another student! Not to mention his ingredients are falling in slow motion, at least it looks that way. Is this going to be another egg situation?

A hand shot out.

”You should look we’re you are going.” A voice sounded out, he looked up only to see the student he probably slammed into standing before him, ingredients in hand. They were a fae.. and a third year by the looks of it… shit!

He backflipped onto his feet before proceeding to slam his forehead into the ground yelling “I AM SO SORRY I BUMPED INTO YOU SENPAI!!” Honestly if they weren’t used to Sebek yelling, they would’ve gone death. 

“Eh? Please raise your head, you’ll get a headache otherwise.” 

Deuce raised from his position and turned into a board, he was so stiff. 

“You don’t need to look so rigid either Hyacinth.” They said with a small smile. Hyacinth? What’s with that name?

”Uh- Hya-Hyacith uhm wait no, Hyacinth?” He struggled to pronounce the weird nickname he was given.

”Yes you are small and blue like a Hyacinth! They also are associated with spring and rebirth!” They said with a little dorky smile that he almost forgot that they were a tall, fae upperclassman. 

“O-oh tha-that’s interesting!” He replied, inwardly cursing himself for stuttering. To his surprise they just chuckled.

”Heheh.. no need to be so afraid Hyacinth. Now let us introduce ourselves yeah? I’m…” They stuck a hand out to which Deuce shakily held.

”My name’s Deuce Spade. It’s nice to meet you!” They shook his hand with a close-eyed smile.

”Wonderful to meet you Hyacinth!”

Cater

Cater was out for a walk, the sky was so pretty and totally Magicam worthy! So he obviously took a selfie, he positioned his phone so you could see the golden sky, him of course and the gorgeous apple tree. He threw up a peace sign with an aesthetically pleasing grin. After reviewing it, he deduced that he looked great as always and the background was fabulous! 

"And posted! #GoldenHour #NoFilter!" He was quite content with that post, seeing the like button getting spammed.

"Well I can agree with that." 

"Gwah!" He almost dropped his phone from that jumpscare. Whipping his head in the direction the voice came from he saw a classmate of his.

"Hehe... did I scare you?" They had a cute grin on their face.

"OMS, you are tots adorbs!" He was gushing! So cute!! They only blinked before laughing, it was pleasant to listen to. 

"You are a bold one huh? I'm.... a first year." The fae introduced themself. Cater beamed,

"Cater Diamond, a first year of Heartslabyul!" He shook their hand.

"It's lovely to meet you Cater!"

Trey

He was humming a tune whilst making pasties for upcoming unbirthday party. He then turned around only to jump from being face to face with the fae first year.

"Hello!" They waved with a closed-eye smile. Trey cleared his throat before replying.

"Ah yes, hello." They opened their eyes and looked around him, at the pastries. 

"Ooh, what are you making?" They asked with childlike wonder as if they weren't centuries years old. Nonetheless, Trey only shook his head and chuckled, they reminded him of his younger siblings.

"These are the pastries for the unbirthday party." He explained, enjoying the way their face lit up. It was like they haven't spoken to someone yet, though he supposes they haven't due to the fleeting rumours he's heard. 

"Can I help? Lilia-san taught me how to cook!" Yeah, they weren't the scary, brooding fae from those rumours.

"I don't see why not." He replied with a shrug, unaware of the severe consequences. 

"Nice! My name is... by the way." 

"Trey Clover, a second year." They smiled up to him.

"Pleasure to meet you Trey!"

Riddle

It was odd. Not only did he have Floyd following him but a classmate of his started taking an interest in him as well.

"Hello Rosebud! How are you this morning? I also heard you got promoted to Housewarden, congratulations." They said in one breath, impressive to be honest.

"I'm fine [Surname], can you please stop calling me that... and yes I got the title of Housewarden." He replied curtly. He really didn't want to speak to them at all but their insistence was making it hard.

"Hehe~ no can do Rosebud! But I am glad you're well." They said sincerely, it almost made Riddle feel...warm...

"Hmm, heyy Rosebud?" They asked after a brief blanket of silence. Of course he couldn't get any silence with them around. He sighed.

"Yes?"

"Would you like to have an afternoon tea with me?" They asked with a welcoming and warm smile. Well when they look at him like that how can he refuse? (NO! He does NOT enjoy their company.)

"Fine but the Queen of Hearts' rule number-"

"Yes yes, I remember Rosebud. I'll have the right tea for you." They smoothly cut him off. He only huffed and didn't take their head surprisingly. 

"Good. At least someone remembers the rules." He said curtly with an inclined head. They only chuckled.

"I look forward to your visit, Rosebud."

??????

"Ohhhh Mozuuusss~" Ah, them again. This fae won't stop following him around since they found out he taught them History of Magic. They were rather headache inducing.

"Please leave me alone." He lost count how many times he has said that to them but he knows it started somewhere in his youth.

"Kehehehee~ My answer never changes Mozus!" They replied, now standing in front of his desk. The man just sighed, running a hand through his greying hair.

"Why do you still insist on following me?" He asked exasperated. They replied without missing a beat.

"You are just so amusing that I can't help but want to tease you!"

#twisted wonderland #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #ace trappola #deuce spade #heartslabyul #reader insert #fluff #funky plant names #brrr’s writing

[thegeminisage]

17, 22, 23, and 35 for the fic writer ask game?

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

oh man i hate to get stuck on wording, but i don't really believe in writer's block!! i wrote a whole post about it here but the short version is that i believe when you are having trouble writing, summing up the general trouble as "writer's block" just makes the problem harder to solve. it's always down to something specific: do i not know where to go next? am i lacking joy in the craft? is there a big intimidating restructure in my future? (there is literally one of these on both my wips currently. kill me) so, to actually answer the question instead of being pedantic, step number one is ALWAYS to figure out EXACTLY why i'm not feeling it. when you figure out what the problem is it's a LOT easier to come up with solutions.

the other thing i do is manage my soundscape. this includes music - i have adhd, so the "right" music, preferably songs i can loop 1000000 times without getting tired of them, will make or break my productivity to a ridiculous degree - but it also includes ambient sounds. i really like this website because you can make your own mixes, and they have a whole section dedicated to fandom-based ones folks have made: inside the tardis, driving the impala, inside the jedi temple, whatever. (they have similar fandom-related atmospheres for video games on youtube. here's one of my favorites.) making one sometimes veers into productive procrastination, but when i'm having trouble getting started (often the hardest part) it usually does the trick. fellow insomniacs - they're also great for falling asleep, lol.

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

not really. i don't have the same problem with first-person, for example, that a lot of other people seem to, and i like an excuse to do a different style or whatever. even things i don't normally read for, like non-con, is something i have written about happening in the past (not onscreen) when the situation calls for it. i have only two hard limits: omegaverse and aus. you won't catch me dead doing either one. i think the first is self-explanatory, but as to the latter: i think so much of characters is who they are and their history. when you write an au from the ground up - like, a flowershop au or whatever, as opposed to an au that just veers away from canon at some point - you are taking and rewriting that entire history, and those characters become different people, and my investment almost instantly tanks to zero. i know those people, i don't care about them, and i don't want to write them. i don't even read aus unless it's from an author whose fic i absolute die over...right now, i could count those authors on one hand, lol. fusion aus are a bit of a gray area if i like both properties in question. i did once outline a titanic au for [redacted fandom] and also an anastasia au for bbc merlin*. but that's because i like both the movie anastasia and the characters from merlin. and even then, it's only a tumblr post to exorcise it from my brain - it's never something i'd turn into an actual fic.

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

YOU MUST HAVE FUN. you must you must you MUST have fun. do not do the thing if you do not love to do it. if you do not feel joy when creating then it will come through in the work, like a cranky cook burning their food. if you are writing only for comments: don't. if you are writing because you think you will let down friends/readers/etc otherwise: don't. "write for yourself" doesn't mean don't share work it means write because it makes you happier, or because you'll die if you don't. DON'T DO IT if it doesn't bring you joy!!!!!

35. What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?

two things. i'm cheating a little sorry. the first thing is pretty simple and common villain advice: remember that in your villain's pov they are the hero, or at the very least are justified. very few good, well-rounded villains are out here twirling their mustaches and being evil for the sake of evil.

the second thing is DO NOT make your protagonists less competent in order to make your villain seem more scary. this will backfire on you every fucking time. if you want your villain to seem smarter and stronger you cannot simply just make your protagonists dumber and weaker. otherwise they look like out-of-character idiots. consider the character of theo in teen wolf's fifth season...regardless of how you feel about the character, especially in other seasons, it's hard to argue his introductory arc was well-structured. in just a few short episodes, he managed to break years-long bonds between established characters...because the writers decided to make those characters mistrustful and misunderstanding of each other for no reason. instead of ANY of these characters using their brains or believing their good friends, they all acted exactly as theo predicted BECAUSE the writers wanted theo to seem smart and good at manipulating people. but it's definitely NOT how those guys would have acted if they were real people, and theo certainly didn't manage to trick us, the audience - so they just look like morons, instead. (this is why season 5 is the worst season by the way.) never do this. figure out what your characters would do first and THEN use your godlike powers to come up with a way to manipulate them. you're in charge of this thing after all!!!

[ASK MEME]

*i looked really, really hard for this, for over an HOUR, but i can't find it :( essentially arthur plays the anya, merlin the dmitri, morgana the grandmama, and gwen the vlad. it's not a unique concept bc i found other people spinning the idea in less detail on tumblr when i googled it, but i can't find MY DETAILED WRITEUP and i'm mad about it lol. if anyone writes one link me to it. if anyone finds it on my blog on god i'll write you a less than 1k merlin drabble of your choice. hold me to it.

#thank you for sending so many!!! they were so fun to answer. i love to complain about theo teenwolf #liz answers asks #twisted-pride #ASK MEMES #liz loves writing

[innytoes]

Hi Inny. I'm procrastinating some work by asking for some Foster AU head canons, preferibly centered around the boys of SS.

Happy Tuesday!

Some headcanons from the Foster Care AU, where I am almost 50k in. Some will make it into the fic and some probably will not.

-Okay first Carlos 100% calls them Sunset Swerve to annoy them, as is his duty of being a little brother.

-Reggie and Willie's social worker is Maxine Gray from Judging Amy because that show is part of my DNA.

-Bobby goes to Los Feliz but isn't in the music program. He only knew Julie as 'that weirdo girl with the amazing voice who sometimes dances in the halls like she's the main character'. He likes her though, and always admired how she did shit like that without feeling self-conscious.

-Eventually, Bobby's grandparents get so sick that he can't keep being in the band. He actually flunks senior year and quits the band, telling them they'll do fine without him now that they have Julie, but he does have First Dibs on being their roadie once they make it big.

-After the lady selling tickets to Prom makes a big deal about how Alex can't take Willie (and Reggie is like: uh yeah he can, Luke got tickets for Julie just fine), they ditch prom. Because yeah, they could go to the principal, but the lady is threatening to tell everyone at Alex' parents' church about their sinner son and Alex just... can't. He's already scared about being kicked out the second he turns 18, he doesn't want to expedite the process.

-So of course Luke makes a giant speech about FUCK PROM and they all decide to ditch prom. Except Alex is sad because he really wanted the whole Prom Experience with Willie: the goofy pictures, the corsage, the slow dancing.

-And Reggie is all: um excuse we live with a photographer. We can make cliché prom pictures happen. Within like half an hour they have roped in Flynn and Julie and are planning the best Not Prom ever.

-Yes of course Tía and Ray help and probably even Emily because she was Sad to miss out on her baby going to prom and then so Proud when she learned why.

-Tía Victoria 100% took Alex and Willie shopping. (Separately, because she insists that seeing your date for the first time in their outfit on prom is A Thing.) She makes sure their outfits match.

-Luke kindly keeps his suit jacket and tie on until Bobby has picked him up and they're out of sight of his mom.

-Okay but do Ray and Emily maybe have a little text thread where they basically find creative ways to say 'fuck the Mercers' perhaps they do shhhh don't tell the kids.

-It might not make it into the fic but Reggie is studying to be a dog groomer until the band makes it big. Like, college isn't for him even with the Foster Kid Scholarship and Ray's support. And they promised No Record Contracts until Julie graduates high school so he needs something to do until they make it big.

-Bobby keeps saying he should practice on Luke because that's basically the same as a golden retriever, wriggles and bad breath and all.

-Alex does get kicked out of the house at 18 but the guys were on standby and basically came and picked him up, cheerfully barged their way inside by threatening to make a scene otherwise, cleared out everything that belonged to Alex (not much, they’d been quietly moving things out already over the past few weeks), stole all the toilet paper (thanks Bobby), and drove him straight to Ray’s house.

-Ray of course had already told Alex he was more than welcome to stay.

#julie and the phantoms #foster care au #not!fic #I wrote a thing #reggie peters #bobby shaw #luke patterson #alex mercer #willex #willie throckmorton #best dad ray molina #can you imagine dog groomer Reggie though #singing to his puppers as he bathes them #trying to harmonize with the husky singing the song of 'I did not want bathtime' #you know flynn was like: I get to DJ a Prom hell yes I'm coming #Julie: it's a prom for like five people #Flynn: yeah but the snacks are gonna be way better than actual prom

[enrapture]

Since I’ve failed to keep in touch on certain social medias like this one that I used to be on all the time, I wanted to do a lil update.

I will try to make this as short as I can. (I failed)

I’ve been taking time to reevaluate, work through, come to an understanding and acceptance of certain things. Trying to change within myself & ask myself questions and take my time figuring things out as I tend to be my own worst critic. Trying to move more with love, openness, respect, understanding and honesty are the core elements I desire in life. I will not settle for less but at the same time I will remember that imperfections make us human. No one, thing, is perfect. Everyone fucks up. It’s okay. everyone goes at their own pace in life unless chosen otherwise. Obv depends on the situation but yeah. Moving on… I feel like if I don’t say what comes to mind I’ll forget and it will eat at me if I don’t talk about it or I’ll remember it later and then I’ll talk about it but now it’s too late and it’s considered out of context and then I’m looked at like HUH. So yeah I’m a bit of a mess. LOL.

God I say so much detailed shit that makes 0 sense lmao. This is all a jumbled mess but go on keep reading if you give a shit. ily, for those that take the time to get me, understand my scattered thought brain. You’re dope. Thank you. Anyway, It’s all about within yourself. Feeling your feelings. Experiencing things and surrounding yourself with similar <good> natured people. With Happiness blooms in the bones so to speak. Just doing. Just being. Just flowing. So it goes. Figuring out what I want out of life currently, the people I want to be surrounded by, and work on my mental health. Work on things because I want to and try to become a better person overall. (Speaking of mental, mine hasn’t at all been the best or the easiest this year. taking it one day at a time. Is the nicest way I can put it.Adhd/Depression/anxiety are difficult to juggle.) I know as time goes by life won’t be easy. Trying to accept that. realizations can be impactful. Making actual decisions instead of procrastinations as well as learn and practice accepting things for how they are. For what they were. And not make excuses. I’m working on a lot haha. I’m <trying> to get back into various hobbies such as (art, writing, poetry, photography) as of late all I’ve been doing is working, planning for New York, going out and about, watching films/shows, listening to music, once in a blue moon playing video games (im waiting on my monitor to come in since mine just stopped working for no reason. It’s a Samsung thing HAHA just trust, I’m not the only one it happened to unfortunately) and reading with my time.

For those who don’t know I’m visiting New York for the first time in two weeks and I’m (most likely) moving there in the beginning of the year. Maybeeeee around my birthday (Jan 28th) I dunno yet as of current. But Im thinkin about going to school sometime after everything is settled. I’m taking some time to figure out what I want to do rn. I know I want to take a few classes in art, do something in regards with cinema, maybe do somethin with coding/graphic design??? Idk I have a few things in mind. I just need to take time after running around like a madman getting the house ready/myself ready, work currently and work on balance 🤍🖤 try to not be up in the clouds too long ya feel? I’ve got goals and I’m working at em one day at a time. :,) it’s hard but I think it will all work out in the way it will and it will all make sense eventually. For the first time in a long time, I’m hopeful.

It’s a new start. A new beginning. I’m nervous/excited. More growing, learning shitsy shits to do~

Authenticity is sexy. Consideration. Reciprocation. Communication & understanding is sexy. Taking the time to figure yourself out as well as others is sexy. The realization of truly Highs and lows - flaws and growth not being stuck in one or the other for too long despite them are sexier.

Romanticize •positivity• into your life.

And if you’re going through shit, know that it will work itself out soon. Easier said than done, but it will. Everything will make sense in time. Give yourself that time. 💛

As someone who’s been through a lot of unspeakable but some speakable hell, who gets it, trust me you’re meant to be here.

If there’s a sign, this is it.^ stay. Continue on. But yeah update Im probably most likely moving LMAO.

Okay, Phew.

#mine #tbh #personal #thoughts #update

[roxygenstudiesagain]

100 days of productivity (12/100) 12/30/22

2023 is so close and oddly foreboding. I worked more yesterday doing comms but today still had its productivity spurts

Content warning: prescription medication n me being generally unhinged but that’s normal

Bad news- I blew up at a professor (not in her face just sent a strongly worded complaint to the head of her subject) over just generally feeling antagonized all semester and it reaching a boiling point over not being given the ability to redo a quiz I got 0 when it counted a lot and was not my fault. I think studyblr would empathize with my anger

But equally i was immature and a bad moment and full disclosure I have spent the last 3 days since looking into anger management to avoid it again. Totally a trauma response but no excuse to be mean to someone who’s going through a lot. But it’s brought out this entitled mean version of me to compensate for feeling defensive and it makes me miss my therapist because he’s so good at dealing with that version of me

Been reading a lot, some educational nsfw titles (otherwise I’d post a screen cap of what I’m reading) bc i want to kind connect with my body in an academic understanding but also learning about untaught insight into the human condition. Idk I’ve always desired an academic relationship with erotica as much as i admit to my own consumption.

Maybe I’ll write an essay lol

I actually larped as him giving me advice all this which was what pushed me to take it easy and self medicate on klonopin just to breeze past it. It helped. I hope my new therapist comes fast to fill the void

It may seem cowardly to many of you but my strategy to cope for now was to block all email conversations n threads with her since the class is over, avoid her classes like the plague and keep taking anxiety meds (I’ve been having to take a klonopin to take the edge off every day since it happened, hoping to take a break from it tomorrow to save it for pmdd). Might look at it eventually but rn I’m just not emotionally there and don’t have the support system in case scrapping with faculty hurts me even further

Yesterday i played ukulele and i made 2 songs and a game plan for getting my stuff out there for next year. Might look into something to study to help me figure it all out

Today:

Big reorganization n list update for all art projects for next year

Got closer in starting a volunteer gig I’m getting into

I usually hate going in and fixing stuff when I’ve called it done but I actually snuck on sbpro and did some last minute edits to boards

Put a new story seq in folio

Cleaned house, vented, hoovered, laundry n dishes and even the air con. Dusted yesterday

Went out to get new years food

Did my eyebrows and a lil face mask

Cleared some cupboards and made spade

To do

Drive drive drive God I’m so tired of procrastinating on it

Keep looking for gigs on LinkedIn

Prep for new part time gig

Await reply from new client

Message storyboard prof to beg for school copy of sbpro

Cut hair out at least tidy it

#student life #studyblr #best self #100dop #100 days of productivity #highly motivated #hustle

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

love to procrastinate going to bed because you know you’re going to lie there worrying about how it’ll go discussing your performance evaluation tomorrow or otherwise real soon when you’re definitely below target for reports published and you don’t have a good reason to offer, and you have no clue how much of a fuckup this is in the scheme of things or how much adults are like…allowed to fuck up, or if you can just try to do better without having to give a reason

(the reason is you are mentally ill in 80 different ways and you have a hard time staying on task sometimes, but you don’t want to talk about that unless it’s to ask for specific accommodations, which you’re not doing because you can’t think of anything that would actually help, because your brain is just that much of a dumpster fire. like, being micromanaged might be effective in the short term, but it would be stressful as fuck. and also there’s a pandemic and the world is on fire and that’s really fucking distracting, but nobody around you seems to be distracted by it so that’s not a good reason. and you’re in pain a lot of the time, but that sounds like an excuse, especially because you don’t know what to do about it but if it’s affecting your work then surely you should be doing something. or maybe the reason is really that you’re a waste of space and resources, actually, especially since you know how lucky you are to have this job.)

anyway I probably should’ve taken more Lunesta because I slept real bad last night and it’s almost 12:30 now, and if I can’t sleep tonight it’s only going to make…whatever…even worse

also the fucking power went out so I might even need to go in to the office tomorrow if it’s still out in the morning, so that’s great

#this post may self destruct

[transmalewife]

like i get where "laziness does not exist" and "what you're doing is already your best" is coming from, it's a good way to make parents and teachers etc empathise with the people they think are just useless, but at some point i think it begins to feel... infantilizing, and can actually make it harder to explain real conditions like executive dysfunction or chronic fatigue to those who don't experience them.

because anyone with adhd has heard at least once that "everyone feels like that sometimes. everyone procrastinates and forgets deadlines, you need to just get your shit together, stop looking for excuses and not medicalize your problems." and I see people countering that with "actually no one is ever lazy, they're all just dealing with some other insurmountable stuff in their life" and that prompts the obvious answer of "well, I have been lazy before" which then requires you to explain someone's own life to them to argue against it, which is both impossible and a dick move

But the truth is. laziness does exist. I've got chronic fatigue, chronic pain, I've got adhd and i've had some pretty unpleasant external life stuff killing my motivation. I know what all of those feel like, and yet sometimes i'm still just lazy. sometimes i sit in a haze of executive dysfunction, starving because i can't force myself to make food. sometimes i lay in bed for hours staring at a wall because my limbs feel to tired and heavy to move and my brain is so foggy i couldn't understand a word if i tried to read or watch something. sometimes i try so hard to do some work but my heart is beating so fast from stress because of a crisis of my life i can barely breathe. sometimes i choose to harness my hyperfocus to clean instead of study bc i know otherwise i won't do anything

but although sometimes i just spend a day in bed because i need the rest, sometimes I do the same for absolutely no reason. sometimes stressing before an exam makes it impossible to study for it, and sometimes going to a party the day before does the same. sometimes i let my dishes rot in the sink because my back hurts too much to stand to wash them, sometimes it's because i just don't want to do them.

I don't really know what the conclusion to this is, other than like. things are never that simple. it's easy to counter "you're just lazy" with "actually, no one is ever lazy," but it's just not true. your experience is not universal, and if you're being honest with yourself, you can probably pinpoint a few moments where you were being lazy. and that's not a bad thing! it's a privilege to be lazy. It's a privilege to not have to dedicate every ounce of energy you get in a week to keeping your life from falling apart. it's lovely to be able to choose to do nothing, and sometimes you should! laying all day in bed because you desperately need the rest is not treating yourself. laying all day in bed occasionally because you can, is. and being able to tell which is happening at any given moment makes you more in tune with your body and helps you track your symptoms and changing needs for rest and leisure

and viewing every single part of your existence exclusively through a medical lens is honestly just a depressing way to live. the point of healing, getting medical help and learning healthier coping mechanisms is to break out of the chokehold your disabilities have on you and be able to make a choice of where you use your energy. if everything you’re doing isn’t already a week late and urgent, you get to choose when to rest and when to push yourself. when to do your best and when to consciously aim lower.

#mine. #adhd