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your-honor-im-zesty · 9 days

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What do I deserve, really?

Will should've known better. He really should've.

When Nico had first mentioned the idea of a family dinner ("Persephone's just about dying to meet you, she'll turn me into a flower if you stay away any longer"), Will had been elated. It meant another significant step in their relationship; it meant they were becoming serious. Not to mention, he had always wanted to meet Hades. Call him weird, but he had a strange fascination with death. He was a medic, after all, and however much he studied and healed and learned, there were always surprises in store for him. Death was an infinite topic; Will would've gladly sat through a lyceum taught by Hades.

But now, as he sat at the dinner table in the Underworld king's palace, he wished he had just thrown his boyfriend under the bus and let him be turned into a flower.

It was just the four of them- Will, Nico, Hades, and Persephone. They each sat on one side of the long, rectangular wooden table, which would've been a nice table had there not been literal skulls hanging off the sides. Just his luck, he was seated all the way across from Nico.

He couldn't tell what was worse. Persephone's onslaught of rapid questions ("You're the camp medic, correct? The one for the past few years?" "Tell me, are children of Apollo allergic to lies? I've always wondered." "How did you and Nico meet?"), Hades's stony silence (the closest thing to conversation Will had made with him was a request to pass the salt, which he'd done with rather unnecessary force), or the amused glint in Nico's eyes as he watched the scene unfold. Will was very tempted to strangle him, except choking your boyfriend in front of said boyfriend's father was probably not the wisest move.

The only thing that kept Will remotely close to sane was the food. It may have been the Underworld, kingdom of the dead, but the food was spectacular. 5/5 stars. Hades truly didn't accept anything but the best.

He gulped. He hoped Hades would lower his standards for him; Will wasn't exactly the best, compared to other demigods. Like Percy Jackson, for one. But then again, Hades hated Percy with a vehement passion, so maybe that was all for the best.

But the dinner wasn't bad, per se. It was awkward, sure, and very much uncomfortable. But Will Solace was the master of uncomfortable. He was a veteran of 2 wars, had saved more campers than he would've ever dreamed of; he'd spent sleepless nights, working to aid injuries and prevent death. He could do uncomfortable.

At least, that was what he thought.

Hades signaled the skeleton waiter to take up their plates and prepare for the dessert course, then leaned towards Will. His eyes were dark, obsidian. Like Nico's, his mind thought unhelpfully.

"So...Will," Hades said his name slowly, like he was testing out the sound of it. It was probably just his nature, but Will got the strong impression that Hades had spent the appetizer and main dish courses analyzing him, sizing him up. Probably wondering why the hell Nico had even given him a second glance. "I understand you and my son have been...courting, for a while now."

Courting? Will bit his lip to hold back his laughter. It was such an old-fashioned term, yet Hades looked completely serious. "Yes, sir," he responded, trying to sound as amiable as possible. He schooled his features into an expression of utmost respect; across the table, Nico (the little shit) was smirking again. Will refused to make eye contact with him (first of all, Nico had absolutely NO business looking that good in his father's palace of all places).

Hades studied him, those dark eyes unnerving. It reminded him of how Nico first used to look at him- distrustfully, coldly. He involuntarily flinched.

The corner of Hades's mouth twitched at the movement. "I am sure you know by now that Nico has incredibly high standards."

"I do," agreed Nico- were they ganging up on him? A father-son duo? Gods, Will should've asked for Apollo to be invited; but then again, the sun god would probably rather be stripped of mortality again than step foot into the Underworld.

Will swallowed nervously and licked his lips; they were getting dry. Had he drank water today? He was supposed to stay hydrated; he of all people knew the dangers of dehydration. "Yes, sir," he said, almost hoarsely.

Hades leaned forward then, further this time. His eyes flashed. "Let me ask you something then..." There was something in his tone that incited a sliver of apprehension within Will's chest. Nico's face grew serious, like he, too could hear it.

"Do you believe you're worthy of my son?"

Nico stiffened up, his face flashing with unidentifiable emotions. Persephone's eyebrows shot up, and she gave her husband a look. Not surprised, but unimpressed, like she knew something along these lines would happen and disapproved.

Will felt a warm flush creep upon his face. He stared at Hades, stomach lurching unpleasantly. For some reason, his lips seemed to be sealed tight, and determined not to re-open.

"I..."

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So this is part 1 of my angsty will + solangelo fic :))) i'll post part 2 prolly sometime this week lmao but until then enjoy this load of shit

edit: part 2 is up! check my blog :)

#percy jackson #pjo #pjo fandom #percy jackson fandom #pjo fic #solangelo #solangelo fic #will solace #nico di angelo #angst??#part 1 #will solace centric fic

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copperbadge · 1 year

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Apologies if you’ve answered this before, but since you’re such a prolific writer, I am curious: how do you find/make time to write?

Sometimes, between work; cleaning/shopping/cooking/self-care to continue functioning; and time for other hobbies, I feel like it doesn’t get the attention I want to give to it. Thank you!

Oh, I've probably answered it before but if so I don't remember when or what I said :D I think it's a combination of things, some of which are within my control, some of which are not.

For a start, it really depends on how you write. I write in chunks, and I tend to write pretty continuously when I'm at it, there's not a lot of "blankly staring at the page" that some writers have to deal with. I am either Writing or Doing Other Things. I also have a fairly fast typing speed -- last time I tested I was in the 120 wpm range, and given I spent two years doing audio transcription I'm probably faster now. So I can get the words on the page basically as fast as I think, unless I'm on a phone, but even then I'm pretty fast. A significant chunk of Infinite Jes was written on my phone, mainly because while writing it I sometimes didn't have convenient access to a computer.

I'm fortunate in that I have a job that doesn't really take up eight hours of my day, so if I want to stop what I'm doing and spend an hour writing, I generally can. I specifically have tried to take jobs that allow this and avoid jobs that don't, but I grant that's a privilege of being a college-educated white dude. I've worked retail, but I've also often been able to avoid it in favor of jobs where I'm not constantly public-facing and can huddle behind a computer doing god knows what (it's a joy to have a job where nobody really understand what it is you do).

You say I'm pretty prolific, and this year that has been true -- I wrote around 300K words. However, in 2021 I did very little writing at all, and in 2020 I think the only real work I did was on Six Harvests, which is less than 100K words. I didn't post a single fanfic in 2021, which shocked me when I realized it. I'd have to do some data vis to confirm this, but I suspect there was a curve to my output across my 20s and 30s -- I know that I wrote less, even if it was perhaps better quality, as my career began to take off. Work, depending on the kind, does take brain power, or physical energy, or both, from what we'd rather be doing. It can also stimulate it, but realistically that's not super common. So I wouldn't beat yourself up about giving time to work and self-care; those are necessary, and I take more time from writing to give to those as I get older.

I think also as you get older you figure out your rhythms. I am capable of much more physical activity in the morning, and I'm capable of writing pretty much anytime, so I tend to do physical things -- working out, cooking, cleaning -- earlier in the day, then "go to" work, then write in the evenings whether or not I got any writing in during the day. I cook in bulk, so I'm rarely "cooking" more than one meal a day, just reheating stuff I cooked earlier.

Working remotely has absolutely been what allowed me to write so much this year -- and not even the time gained back from commuting, because my commute was short, not quite an hour round trip. But I'm not trapped "at" work -- I can do chores during the day, fuck off and write, even take a nap if I desire, in a way that I couldn't when I was in slightly uncomfortable business-casual and stuck in a cubicle from eight to four-thirty. I could do pretty much what I wanted in the cubicle in terms of reading tumblr, writing, researching, et cetera, but when you're confined to a physical space where you're not super comfortable and sharing it with thirty other people, it's not as conductive to writing.

And like. Also I'm a hermit who lives alone and very rarely goes out.

I don't have a partner or children, I don't have family nearby, I have very few responsibilities and don't belong to social clubs or nonprofit boards or religious groups the way many of my colleagues and friends do. I have a circle of brickspace friends who are fairly tightly knit at this point, but we don't do a lot of like, weekly-brunch or friday-night-drinks or anything like that. I am finding it much, much, so much easier to go to parties and social events now that I'm properly medicated, because I don't feel like I'll be punished by my own brain afterward, but we're also still in the grip of a pandemic, and while we are socializing, it's still pretty constricted. Over Thanksgiving I had two events in two days and loved going to both but by Saturday I was exhausted and happy to stay home.

When the quarantine began, a lot of people found themselves "trapped" at home and very bored, and while I empathized I was also quite confused because my outside-of-work life didn't materially change. How often were these people going out? What were they doing? In a regular year I was home at least six nights a week if not all seven. I go to bed at eight o'clock most nights, by choice. I love my friends and I'm generally happy to hang with them but I don't have a driving need to go out and be with friends and certainly not with strangers more than about twice a month.

So yeah, I wish I could say it's a matter of Making Time To Write or some secret time management trick but the truth is, my prolific output (such as it is; it varies wildly) is a result of a really good job for Fucking Off To Write, not many other obligations, and an obsessive personality. :D There are ways you can adjust your life to give you time for creativity in whatever form that comes, but that's got to be personal to you -- learning your rhythms, learning how to manage your other responsibilities, maybe letting go of some things to give yourself more time for what's important. But it's got to be you looking at your life and making adjustments, there's no single solution to the problem.

#writing #creativity #sam has adhd

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princesssarisa · 1 year

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Character ask: Aslan (The Chronicles of Narnia)

Favorite thing about them: His infinite love and kindness. When he's first introduced, he seems like a remote, faintly frightening, awe-inspiring deity, but gradually he reveals himself as a truly generous-hearted figure, as he shows warm affection to his devoted followers, romps and plays with Susan and Lucy like a kitten in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and sheds tears of compassion for human grief (at King Caspian's death in The Silver Chair and at Digory's grief for his dying mother in The Magician's Nephew). Like his human incarnation, Jesus, he lets himself be tortured and killed as a self-sacrifice, but where Jesus did it for the whole human race, Aslan does it to save just one boy, which further reinforces the depth of his love for all creatures. And he rewards all good deeds done in the name of another god as through they were done for himself.

Least favorite thing about them: The harsher side of his character. The side of him that claws Aravis's back as punishment for leaving a slave girl to be flogged in The Horse and His Boy, and that speaks of the many people he has "swallowed up" in The Silver Chair. Since he's a deity of justice as well as kindness, it's only natural that he has a punishing, fear-inspiring side, but for a person who doesn't care for that style of religion, it's still slightly uncomfortable. I'm glad he leans much more toward love and compassion, though; in the hands of an author more fundamentalist than Lewis, it might not have been so.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I'm loving and compassionate, or at least I try to be.

*I'm sometimes more comfortable interacting with children than with adults.

*I'm serious when I need to be, but I can be energetic and playful too (as when Aslan joyfully romps with Susan and Lucy after his resurrection).

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I've never created a world.

*I've never sacrificed my life and then been resurrected.

*I'm not Jesus Christ in an animal form.

Favorite line:

From The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when he explains his resurrection to Susan and Lucy:

"It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

From The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, his allusion to his earthly identity as Jesus:

"I am [in the human world too]. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

From The Magician's Nephew, the words that complete his creation of Narnia:

"Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters."

From the same book, foreshadowing the events of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, after Digory confesses that he brought Jadis into Narnia:

"You see, friends, that before the new, clean world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it; waked and brought hither by this son of Adam. But do not be cast down. Evil will come of that evil, but it is still a long way off, and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself. In the meantime, let us take such order that for many hundred years yet this shall be a merry land in a merry world. And as Adam's race has done the harm, Adam's race shall help to heal it."

His speech to Digory about the latter's temptation to steal a magic apple to heal his mother:

Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness... That is what would have happened, child, with a stolen apple. It is not what will happen now. What I give you now will bring joy. It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal. Go. Pluck her an apple from the Tree."

His thinly veiled foretelling of the atomic bomb and the rise of HItler:

"It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware."

And at the end of The Last Battle, when he reveals to Lucy and co. that they died on earth and will now live in his paradise forever:

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

brOTP: The Friends of Narnia (Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer, the Pevensie siblings, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole).

OTP: None.

nOTP: Jadis the White Witch.

Random headcanon: All-knowing though he seems, he isn't completely omniscient: his father the Emperor Beyond the Sea (i.e. God) is the only real omniscient being. So when Aslan trades his life for Edmund's in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he doesn't know for certain that he'll be resurrected. This explains his sadness as he goes to his fate, and why he "can give no promise" that he'll take part in the battle afterwards. He knows about the prophecy that an innocent victim killed in a traitor's stead will be resurrected, but he doesn't know fore sure if it's true or not, because it had never been put to the test before. (The 1988 BBC adaptation makes this explicit.)

Unpopular opinion: I don't blame him for Susan's being left behind when her whole family dies in the train crash in The Last Battle. Unless you think he controls everything that happens either in the real world or in Narnia (which might fit with some people's beliefs, but not with mine), there's no evidence that he causes the train crash or arranges for Susan not to be on the train. To me, it seems likely that the crash would have happened no matter what; Aslan simply brings his Friends to Narnia at the moment of their deaths, to witness its end and then pass into the paradise of Real Narnia. The reason why they were all together in the first place was to try to use the magic rings from The Magician's Nephew to send Eustace and Jill back to Narnia, so Susan's rejection of Narnia was the reason why she wasn't with them. Therefore, her survival while her family dies is just a consequence of her loss of faith, not a punishment for it. And I do believe that when she eventually dies, Aslan will bring her to join her family in his country – Lewis implied as much in a letter in 1960.

Song I associate with them: None to speak of. I hope that someday The Magician's Nephew finally gets a screen adaptation, so we can actually hear a version of the magical wordless song Aslan sings to bring Narnia into being.

Favorite picture of them:

This classic illustration by Pauline Baynes, even if it does get Lucy's hair color wrong:

This illustration by Ruth Korch:

These illustrations by Deborah Maze. Aslan with Peter:

And with Lucy:

From the 1979 animated version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (my introduction to Narnia), his first meeting with the Pevensie siblings (minus Edmund) and the Beavers:

From the 1988 BBC miniseries of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, with the Pevensie siblings:

From the poster for the 2005 Disney/Walden Media film of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

#character ask #the chronicles of narnia #aslan #c.s. lewis #ask game #fictional characters #tw: violence #tw: death

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bltngames · 1 year

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Returning to Donkey Kong Country Returns

I am subjecting myself to Donkey Kong Country Returns again. This game and I have a bit of history.

I'd played Returns on real hardware near when it came out originally, and I sort of hated it. The game felt prohibitively sluggish to me. Some of that is due to Donkey Kong himself, which is made to feel big and heavy like a 300lb gorilla ought to. But some of that was also just, like, a strange problem with input latency. The game did not feel responsive, like I'd push the jump button and it'd take a frame or two for Donkey Kong to actually jump. This made platforming very difficult. Never figured out if I imagined it or if it was a real problem.

Though, for the record, playing Rayman Origins on that same Wii also felt sluggish in the same way as DKCR, leading me to believe it might have been a hardware problem, and not just my imagination. Either way, DKCR made me so mad I didn't even finish the second world, to my memory.

Tropical Freeze, the sequel to DKCR comes, and I receive it for review on TSSZ. I expected to savage that game's controls because of the way I felt with DKCR. Instead, I fall in love with it. Whatever problems I had with the Wii game don't exist in Tropical Freeze. It controls well and plays great. An awesome game.

Which makes me wonder: If everybody else loved DKCR, could it really just a hardware problem for me? Could I play DKCR somewhere else and have a better experience? Eventually, Nintendo ran a program where you got a free 3DS game as some kind of reward for a thing they're doing; like, if you buy a certain amount of games in a short length of time you'd get a free game? I forget. Point is, for my free game, I picked the 3DS port of Donkey Kong Country Returns.

And yet, the latency problem persisted even there. The game just felt sluggish and unresponsive and hard to control in a way I didn't enjoy. I guess it probably felt better than it did on the Wii, but not much. I played through over half the game on the 3DS, getting up to the dinosaur/cliff world, but struggled to muster up the energy to finish the rest of the game.

Which brings us here. I don't know why, but I booted DKCR in Dolphin up a couple nights ago and actually spent kind of a long time setting up the controls so that it felt comfortable. It's worth mentioning that when I played DKCR on real hardware back in 2014, I did so with the Gecko Cheat Code to enable Classic Controller Pro support because I refused to waggle. DKCR's waggle was maybe one of the most egregious "this really should have been a button" things ever, to me. Something Tropical Freeze fixed and was much better for!

Obviously the Classic Controller support isn't needed on Dolphin, so I just set controller binds so that the R trigger grabs things and the L trigger waggles. Setting up the latter was a little tricky, because DKCR actually looks for you waggling both the remote and nunchuk at the same time in order to register a proper ground pound. An easy problem to solve once you realize what it wants, but it took close to an hour to find that answer.

And it feels... better? Actually? More responsive than it did on real hardware. Which makes me wonder if the Classic Controller code was the source of the dreaded latency -- but then, that wouldn't explain Rayman Origins or the 3DS version of DKCR.

But I also discovered some of these Gecko cheats just don't work, which could explain the problems I had with the original version. I guess I'll never know for sure.

I've turned on a few cheats here -- Diddy has infinite glide now, for instance, making him feel more like Dixie does in Tropical Freeze. And the clock is stopped during bonus rooms, because those never needed time pressure. But originally, I had more cheat codes turned on -- namely one which did remap waggle actions to the remote's B trigger. But turning that cheat just broke many other elements of control, like completely disabling Diddy's hover entirely.

Thus, I was forced to figure out how to properly bind waggle to my Dualshock 4's trigger. Ultimately, no sweat.

But I still don't know if I'll finish it. Even with the controls feeling "right," the game teeters on the edge of feeling ever so slightly unfriendly. Not much, but the game is weirdly adversarial, like it's trying to trick me into hurting myself. It's a hard thing to describe, and I don't even think everybody picks up on it, but there's a vibe with some retro games where it feels like you're fighting against the game designer themselves, you know?

Games are never just "difficult" or "challenging." There are different flavors these things come in. The way Dark Souls is hard isn't the same way that a shooter like Raiden IV is hard.

In the modern context, DKCR feels closer to something like Kaizo Mario or I Wanna Be The Guy, I guess. Games where you can feel an omnipresent creator watching you play, and they're deliberately trying to trip you up, as if they're shouting "YOU FELL FOR MY TRAP, LOSER!" and laughing at you.

There was a time early in the NES and SNES era where this kind of difficulty was a lot more common, especially in budget or licensed platformers. It's a level beyond the so-called "Nintendo Hard", where some clueless level designer is lost in the wild west of early game development and thinks this is what people want. Obviously games like Kaizo Mario and IWBTG are exaggerated forms of that, but it was definitely a style of game you encountered a lot back in the era.

I never got that vibe from the original Donkey Kong Country games, but DKCR has just a teeny tiny itty bitty sliver of that feel. You reach the third form of the first boss and it's like, "Really? Isn't this a little bit too much for the first boss?"

Who knows if I'll stick with it, but I've already played three sessions already, so it wasn't some kind of one-and-done sort of deal.

I'm surprised how nice it looks in Dolphin even just at 720p. It wouldn't take much work to put this out on the Switch; just clean up some of the GUI. It scales to higher resolutions remarkably well.

#writing #nintendo #wii #emulation #donkey kong #tropical freeze #latency #difficulty

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steveskafte · 4 months

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FOUNDATIONS OF IDENTITY For as long as I can remember, I've known that some part of me didn't quite fit. All through my childhood, every human interaction seemed to suggest that I wasn't quite suited to my social surroundings. The first big realization was that I'm more-or-less an introvert. That's an obvious barrier to building friendships and connections – but it didn't mean I was a recluse. Given the chance, I'd be irrepressibly talkative in the company of one or two people, spilling out about my hobbies, interests, and silly nonsense bouncing around in my head. I was a noisy child. This is when I discovered that the borders of the boxes around types of people didn't easily contain me. Someone might see that as a reason to stroke your ego and call you "special", but as a kid, fitting in was far more on my mind. If someone singled me out as remotely divergent, even as a compliment, I'd make a point to avoid speaking to them again. Normal was all I wanted. Not for anyone to think I looked better, was smarter, or to even notice I was taller. I felt allergic to any physical or mental characteristic that defined me as different. If I'd grown up in a different time, family, or culture, I would have certainly extended that aversion to gender. When I looked in the mirror, or into my mind, I never found a binary state that fit in with the boys or girls. I was a boy in the mirror, and had no problem with that. But in my mind, I was everything I'd observed in the company of girls. All I ever wanted was female company, it seemed like the most natural thing to me. But it was only boys who could get invited to my birthday parties and sleepovers, and male invitations were all I received in return. In my small town in the 1990s and early 2000s, most personal social interaction was segregated by sex. Larger groups could be co-ed, but one-on-one connections were limited to same-sex-only. This was a source of frustration to me, because as an introvert, it left me constantly on the outskirts of feminine friendship. I could talk to all the girls I wanted, but it never seemed possible to be with them alone. When I finally made my first real friend in 2005, it should come as no surprise that she was a girl. We ended up dating, and it didn't work out, because I was clueless to the fact that the joy of finally having a female friend shouldn't have been mistaken for romantic attraction. Over the next few years, I made more friends, and nearly all of them were young women my age. In those cases, I didn't make the mistake of assuming any romance, and I don't think that most of them considered it likely. I just wanted to be one of the girls, with all the social context it entailed, while physically remaining one of the boys. In the age of increasingly specific labels, there is probably already one coined for a straight man who prefers the platonic company of women – so I won't bother trying to invent one. But whatever that's called, that's me. When I met Susy, my wife, it was through a video of my poetry online. That's honestly how I'd hoped it'd go, because I valued my mind infinitely beyond my physical appearance. I wanted nothing to do with a woman who prioritized me being physically attractive to her above all else. Love at first sight was the last thing on my mind. Don't get me wrong, we both think pretty highly of how the other looks. But there's much more happening in the sound of a voice, the construction of a thought, and the mutual expression of unbound emotion. (Last part in the replies)

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anxiousopium · 1 year

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The Owl House, World Building, and You (Should Really Be Quiet)

I've been seeing a lot of people complaining about the lore and world building in The Owl House. Complaining about inconsistent locations and rules for magic. That's fine, really. Because it is true that stuff like that started taking a backseat half-way through season 2. I take issue mostly with people assuming that the writers could have done a better job of it. Some even saying that they could do better job (despite, you know, never having worked on anything even remotely close to a tv show but whatever.)

Hey, you know what else happened half way through season 2's production? The crew found out that the show got cancelled, meaning they had to scramble to make the story as lean as possible to fit in their new run time. And I'm sorry, really I am, but world building and lore are the LOWEST thing on any decent writer's priority list. Especially for a serialized, animated television show.

You know what's infinitely more important? A show's theme's and over arching message. And no, I'm not talking about accepting POC and LGBTQ+ people for who they are or not forgiving people who refuse to be better.

I'm talking about the promise The Owl House makes for an entire generation of kids.

Kids growing up in a world where hatred and othering run rampant. A world where they don't see themselves growing up safe or loved because of how different they are from the norm.

TOH promises that, yes as a matter of fact you do get what you give. You probably won't get it immediately, it may even take a long time, but it will come around.

It says that there is a place for you. A place that, if you keep an open mind, and love with your whole chest, will love you back. A place that will see you. A place that will reach out to you, and hold you for as long as you need. A place that will allow you to make mistakes, and grow, and breathe. A place where you can stop fighting. A place where you can heal yourself, and others too if you try hard enough.

A place that will not be perfect, but that can be change. A place that you can change.

And you may need to change it a little to fit in just right.

But you will fit in. You will fit in.

It's out there, somewhere. You can find it, I promise.

And it says all that without telling you exactly where Latissa is, or how witch puberty works. Or even whatever the hell Hooty is.

So please, if you genuinely think that you could do better than that, go right ahead! I want nothing more than to hear the story you want to tell. But don't sit there and talk shit about this show's wonderful crew. Because if you can write a message like that when the most powerful multi-media conglomerate in the world straight up kills your show right in front of your eyes? You probably know what you're doing.

#the owl house #toh #worldbuilding #lore #just getting a lil sick of the slander is all #Dana and her crew aren't fresh out of Calarts guys c'mon

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theseptemberist · 2 years

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It feels like you forget about appointments if you don't get reminders.

Or you pretend to listen to music because you don't want to talk to people.

(maybe because you let us wait so long for some stories, maybe you just aren't planning to update them anymore)

-> You should share more about you, I have no idea it's just things I do and think you could them do too

i would be happy to share more about me! here's a fun fact— i don't just write stories for star wars! writing is also my job and my sole source of income. specifically, i've been doing remote contracted work in the games industry for about a year.*

*this is something i usually don't mention on tumblr because throwing my weight as a "professional writer" in a "hobbyist" space would be really douchey. i am under no illusions that it makes me better than any of my mutuals, who i greatly admire and often seek to emulate— that i have this job and others don't has little to do with talent and far more with 1. my specific qualifications and 2. luck.

anyway, my job is really cool and i feel very fortunate that i'm making a (quite modest) living doing the thing i always dreamed of. THAT BEING SAID. it is also work, and very demanding work at that. simply put, to keep the lights on, i have to consistently deliver to the tune of 40-50k words per month.

but writing, even "fun writing," demands a type of mental engagement that is specific, intense, and taxing. if i work for 5-6 hours, more often than not i am tapped out until the next morning. more than a few hours beyond that and my concentration the next day will also be affected. if i push past that barrier, the limiting factor is the physical strain typing puts on my hands.

i wish i could write obikin all the time, i truly do. it's where my passion lies right now. the emotional high when the words pour out is nothing short of transcendent.

but that well is not infinite. and now that i'm tapping it every single day, those transcendent moments are harder to come by. on top of crunch and burnout, i've been seasonally depressed, socially isolated by covid, and GOTTEN covid, among other things. on more than one occasion i have literally sat in my room and cried because i'm afraid that as long as i do this job, i will never be able to write fic regularly.

so, am i planning on updating my fics? absolutely. is that contingent on my ability to do so? unfortunately. i promise, anon, i want those stories finished more than you could possibly understand. i've already heaped so much guilt about it onto my own shoulders that your passive aggressive ask honestly doesn't even register for me.

so thanks for the rude message, anon. truly. i mean, it won't help me update any faster. but it does make me smile to know that, even when i can't make my other readers happy, at least i'm pissing you off :)

#ask game #salt #long post #literally if you can't say something nice why would you speak up #i haven't forgotten that i have incomplete fics ahaha i think about them every day #apologies to my new followers for this i don't usually do this stuff but i'm just like. so tired and behind on work #and sad that i'm not enjoying the owk show the way i wanted to because of my work #i legit care more about fic than about my job on an emotional level but ya boy's gotta eat lmao

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animezinglife · 4 years

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Do you ever just have a mid-morning breakdown?

#personal #life in your 20s #adulting #major depressive disorder #anxiety #why right now I don't know #I've been infinitely better working remotely

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differenttriumphdragon · 4 years

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My Best Cookie Votes and Why: Round 1, Part 1

Mint Choco: While Orange is nice and all, she's ultimately a pretty flat character...and not just in the literal sense either. Minty, on the other hand, has an actual backstory, for starters, plus he's not an absolute dick to his closest friend like his opponent is. Plus, Mint's implied romance with Cocoa is infinitely more satisfying than the Citrus Love Triangle that they do absolutely nothing with. (As a side note, I find it hilarious that the very first matchup is literally just Orange Juice vs. Toothpaste.)

Sea Fairy: I like Tiger Lily and all, but literally her only purpose in canon seems to be to never get told what anything is, which is extremely frustrating on the part of the other Cookies and honestly hits way too close to home. That, and her major character arc with Princess is NEVER touched upon, while Sea Fairy presumably actually managed to reunite with Moonlight.

Pilot: This matchup was essentially Good, Loving (probably surrogate) Grandparent versus Awful, Neglectful, Irresponsible Grandparent who is confirmed to have attempted to alter her granddaughter's DNA in order to change her personality. So yeah.

Pink Choco: Neither of these Cookies really stand out at all. I am a fan of Pink's Magical Girl theming, though, and honestly I'd rather see her on stage than Carol. Also, Pink's design is leagues better.

Walnut: I'll admit, she's just more endearing to me for some reason. Her power is more interesting (and I actually understand how exactly it's supposed to work), and honestly the idea of a little detective with a teddy bear assistant is just adorable. I'm still mad about Angel, but that's not exactly HER fault, now is it?

Dark Choco: DC is a compelling fallen hero character who drives the entire story of Ovenbreak with his disappearance. White Choco Cookie is French, and that's about it. Also:

How can you not vote for him when he promises you such important lore? (Granted, he calls you out for being vain if you pick him. Hey, any lore is good lore, pal! Also, I have long hair I need to worry about too!)

Purple Yam: Honestly, the fact that he actually questions the bad writing sold me on voting for him. He's also a genuinely good character despite his only emotion being anger.

Firecracker: I absolutely love her 80s arcade aesthetic, even in spite of her being way too young to have ever been to an arcade in the 80s. She genuinely wants everyone to have fun, too. Also, Marshmallow got Flame Bat and Celestial Star locked up for her Trial.

Squid Ink: To be honest, this was one of the tougher choices. In the end, I decided that Inky needed more love after what they've been through, so they got the vote. Sorry, Fig.

Roguefort: Devsis has a really bad habit this list of putting far more interesting recent characters against old characters with nothing really to them. I mean, yeah, Ninja's mysterious and all, but you've done absolutely nothing with him since not even LINE, but the defunct game Ovenbreak 2! Other than maybe change his name from Ninjabread, anyway. Hell, Tiny Ghost is more interesting than him, but even then newer players wouldn't even know that, since the one throwaway line hinting at something more was in a Cookie Quest, which were removed from the game entirely over a year ago. Roguefort is more interesting by default.

Vampire: Can I be honest for a sec here? I hate Pancake with a passion. He deliberately makes himself seem cuter to get his way. Based on his interactions with Cream Puff, he's just as cruel as his big bro, if not as outwardly aggressive. No, Pancake relies on psychological manipulation to get everything he wants, and the worst part is IT'S FUCKING WORKING. As we speak, he's stealing a Magic Candy from Devil, from Kiwi...hell, he's even stealing it from Vampire! And now he's dominating the polls, adding insult to debilitating injury. He's not even fucking cute. Yeah, I said it.

Pistachio: Soda has absolutely no personality other than surfboard. Do I even need to say more?

Peppermint: DE could be SUCH a good villain if Devsis could decide what kind of villain she even is. Also if they remembered she was a major villain at all.

Lemon: I'll admit, I see a lot of myself in Lemon. Mostly in feeling artificial and having basically no friends, ever. I honestly think I'd be in a much worse place if I didn't have a brother. Whip could be great if they did anything with the White Swan/Black Swan dynamic he has with Skating Queen.

Pitaya: I've always had problems with the "You can only eat if you work for it" mentality. First of all, you need food to get energy to work, and if you aren't fed, then how are you going to work hard for food!? Second, what if you're disabled or otherwise can't work? Do you just starve to death, then? It just sounds awful!

Cream Puff: She's trying her best.

Kumiho: ...I honestly don't remember.

Pomegranate: A genuinely good villain who stole the show with her introduction. She could've easily been a Knight of Cerebus if the writers cared enough.

Cyborg: Blackberry abandoned a child relying on her protection to chase after a man who didn't remotely need her help. Also, she hates Devil. Also also, Cyborg is cool.

Hero: If you've read Hellfyre Speaks, you can probably guess why I personally picked Hero. I'm just surprised at the popular vote; it seemed to me like Herb was way more popular! But I guess not? Or at least not with early voters.

Werewolf: He's far more fleshed out than Gumball by far.

Devil: Have I ever actually explained why Devil is my favorite? Like, sure, he's an asshole, but he's the fun, ineffectual kind of asshole you actually wanna root for that you see in cartoons; like, in shows focused on a 'villain' character's scheming, usually with a naive idiot going along with it and a very-much-ignored voice of reason. Like in Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, or Evil Con Carne. Devil also has a flair for the dramatic, a knack for 'evil' schemes, and even the perfect foil to play off of! He'd be an absolute goldmine when it comes to the more lighthearted antics between acts, but Devsis is apparently content to just haul up gravel.

Knight: I'll be honest, I saw Alchemist and immediately clicked the other Cookie without looking who it was. But this isn't a post about her, so let's talk about Knight. First off, he'd be the perfect antagonist to Devil; Devil goes full ham when acting out an 'evil' plan, while Knight takes everything WAY too seriously. He adores Princess Cookie but doesn't know jack shit about her, which juxtaposed with Princess's nonchalant rebuttals of everything he claims about her makes it hilarious in a kind of pathetic way. (Ex. Knight claiming that Princess would probably never eat Jam again, then Princess replying she could totally go for some right now to the exact same question.) He's delusional in a way that you'd feel bad for him if he wasn't so over-the-top about it, and yet at the same time he does have skills that match up with his headcanon of how things work, just not the reputation.

Matcha: Seems like the person who'd play both sides for her amusement. I'd keep an eye on her.

#cookie run

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thisnerdsadventures · 3 years

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a summer to remember

hello friends, i definitely just abandoned this whole blog, now didn't i

well i am happy to report that i am still alive, and am thriving!

Here's a rundown of everything that has been going on:

[inserting a readmore because this is long af]

May

So in May, I was definitely just all over the place because I was 1) trying to finish a paper published in a conference!! it literally drove me insane. anyways, then i had to go and finish a 78 page thesis, which involved a really convoluted timeline because i had to finish it ~ a week before the actual deadline so my PI could read it over, but then i had to finish it a few days before THAT so my PhD supervisors could read it over, which meant that i had like one (1) week to write like. all of it.

Luckily I had most of the first half already written, during whatever shitshow April was (April was a lot of coding for the paper, and then not having time to write my thesis). But THEN i had to organize all the data from my own personal experiments, make figures, and draft the entire results section. AND i had like two final reports to do for my class, so my last weeks of academia looked like....

Of course, the day before my thesis was due, I pulled an all nighter, because, of course. What other way would I ever end my academic career. Submitted it though, and I graduated! [LINK TO MY THESIS]

Also! I got vaccinated and felt like death for a whole day, but then my friend came over and we ate fried chicken and watched this show called Miraculous, which is a kids show from France, but for some reason is actually hilarious and really entertaining. Then I felt better, so I proceeded to work on my thesis.

Also, I guess I should talk a little bit about the class I took this semester, which was an industrial organization economics class. We looked at things like how different markets are organized, why they are that way, what market concentration means, how mergers affect competition, and what kind of effect that may impose on consumers. For the final case study (which, I will say, I wrote like 2000 words in a single day, so . applause for me), I looked at the Nvidia-ARM merger and how that may or may not affect competition in the GPU market, the CPU market, and the mobile chip market. I think my analysis was a little bit more surface level, which was fine for me, since I'm by no means an economics expert or even remotely should have any expectations at all, but I read a lot and learned a lot and that's the goal!

So yes, my brief excursion into the field of economics was overall positive, I feel like I learned a lot and now I can read financial articles about the tech industry and not be completely lost, which, again, was the goal.

But yes, May was a lot of work, and once it wrapped up, I got to spend a lot of time with friends post-vaccination! After the 1 or 2 week mark after my second dose, I started going back to the gym, especially to play basketball with folks, which I had missed a lot. I spent a lot of time at my old dorm just hanging out, and got to have a cute salmon dinner over at my other friend's place. And we made cheesecake too.

June (MA->NY->MA->CA)

I finally went to visit my best friend in New York. I hadn't seen her in > 400 days, so it was really a very anticipated event, except we saw each other across the crosswalk, but then the light took like five minutes to turn green, so it was really anticlimactic. Anyways, we ended up bumming around New York and Long Island for a week, and it was nice to spend some time with her after such a long gap.

We spent a day at a vineyard and I fell asleep so

After getting back to Boston, my mom came back from Taiwan to help me move out of my apartment. It was a lot of finding people to sell things to, sweating because it was very hot that week, and praying everything would work out (it did). I also got to have a few final meals with various friends and my mom and I got to take one last lark down the Infinite, which I was really grateful for because it was the first time visitors got to go inside campus in over a year.

Also got into my school's MBA program! Yes i applied to a deferred program (which is like you get into a program, but you don't have to go for 2-5 years, as a way of getting in right after undergrad/grad school, but then accumulating some work experience first). It was hilarious, I was literally shopping in my campus store for a new sweatshirt and I got a phone call from the admissions office saying I got in. My mom had been pushing me to apply to grad programs, and I didn't tell her about it because I didn't know if I would actually follow through. But I got to surprise her with the news, and she was so happy she did the whole "calling all the relatives" thing again.

After flying home, I told myself I'd read more and exercise more, which I have been doing. I got a membership at Planet Fitness, which has been really good for me (going 3x a week), and I've made my way through at least 5 books this summer so far. My holds list at my local library is literally insane. (For recs, I recently read Normal People, which I absolutely devoured, and In the Dream House, which hit really hard for me.)

This summer was also really about reconnecting with high school friends. All three of us were unemployed, with plans to come in the fall, so we were all free to hang out all the time. We started out at the local library planning out a road trip, and we worked out a few times together, and a few coffee dates too. We took a fun day trip down to LA one day, and we visited Malibu, went to the Getty, hit up some local food places in the city. Driving down the PCH with Taylor Swift blaring and the windows down on a hot June day, just hits so different. There is nothing like it.

My friend's birthday was in June, so we put together a little video for her and bought some jewelry, and had a Zoom call to celebrate. Then I got BBQ with some friends and sat in the parking lot eating ice cream until 11 at night just trading stories from our pasts. It felt like the perfect summer life, just staying out until whenever, grabbing food wherever we wanted, with friends I had had for literally a whole decade.

It was already a really good summer, but then July. July was crazy.

July (CA -> MI -> CA -> NV -> CA -> WA -> OR -> CA)

So one Sunday morning, I woke up to a text

Actually, I'm going to do a separate post on the whole Michigan trip because that sh** was on another level of spontaneous, impulsive, crazy life stuff. But anyways, so July started off with a trip to Michigan to visit my friends, and then I came back for the 4th, had 36 hours of rest before my high school friends and I went on a road trip.

This road trip was a little ambitious. We hit spots all up California, from hiking in Sequoia Nat'l Park to Kings Canyon, driving up to Sacramento and visiting art museums, and then going up to Tahoe but staying in Nevada, going kayaking and hiking and sitting on the beach for hours. It was reallllllly hot, but luckily I don't think it ever broke 90 degrees. The views were beautiful, especially at Kings Canyon. The drive in, you're surrounded by huge rock walls, with a thin river rushing by next to you. The hike itself literally feels like you're in nature, like the trail is somewhat defined but not paved, there are no sounds of traffic, the path isn't heavily trafficked so we were the only ones there for the most part. We even saw a deer and washed our faces in the river. Throughout the whole thing, we climbed into so many waterfalls, trying not to slip on rocks.

I hadn't been to Sacramento in over a decade, but it was a cute day trip. There isn't a ton to do there, but it was a nice reprieve from the constant driving and nature. We visited the Leland Stanford Mansion, the Crocker Art Museum, and Old Town Sacramento. A good chance to get a nice coffee, a sit-down meal, and some air conditioning. At Tahoe, we went kayaking on Pope Beach, with the clearest water I have ever seen, followed up by a hike up to a beautiful view of the Lake.

On our way back, we stopped at a lot of interesting places, like small towns like Lee Vining, where we found an Upside Down House; Manzanar, the site of an old Japanese internment camp during the WWII era (which also hit hard); and Randsburg, a literal living ghost town. Overall, getting to travel with my friends finally was so fun, they were so much fun to be around for five days, and getting to explore so much of California was so fun - even though I'd been here for so long, I never knew these places existed.

So I came back and had around 48 hours to recover before my mom and I took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest!

I've always wanted to visit Seattle, and figured I'd hit Portland on the way too. We originally wanted to go to Hawaii but it got so expensive by the middle of the summer, so we decided to stay a little closer to home (probs the better decision bc I was already so tired by this point).

Seattle! Got to visit Pike Place Market many times, grab some coffee at the original Starbucks, see Mt. Rainier, and grab food with three friends! Also went to Bainbridge Island for a day which was SO cute - got to do an olive oil/balsamic vinegar tasting, which sounds so extra, but is actually really unexpectedly fun. At Starbs, I did a cold brew flight, which resulted in a rough night of tossing and turning for me, but I think it was worth it. Other things included the Pinball Museum, Space Needle, and Chihuly Glass Museum!

So I lowkey really wanted to visit Portland because I wanted to achieve a long-lasting dream of seeing an NWSL game in person. So I went to the Thorns Pride game!!

The Thorns fanbase is actually insane, I cannot express to you, like there's this whole fan section that actually did synchronized cheers and routines and was actually ROARING when they scored the entire game. I swear the audience was actually watching them at points instead of the match. Overall, the stadium was going crazy, like I thought I was at a tied Celtics-Bucks game with how loud it was in there. Also I swear, Ali Krieger made eye contact with me and waved.

In addition to that, Portland also has a huge rose garden, a nice Japanese tea garden, a lot of good donut stores and a huge bookstore, so all very up my alley. We also took a day trip to see Mt. Hood and more waterfalls!!

That's a summary of the SEA - PDX trip. Once I got home, my high school friends and I did not waste any time on reuniting to hang out - we went and played ball, grabbed lunch, and then coffee, and then did the same exact thing like two days later and watched a bunch of TikToks, and then spent a whole day at the beach to send my good friend off to medical school in Arizona. They somehow convinced me to go in the water and I got body checked by a wave.

Saw this sculpture on the beach and teared up a little

So proud of my friends for making it to med school, I am so excited to see them at their white coat ceremonies and beyond, I swear I will cry at every step of the way I'm so happy for them. Now that July is pretty much over, most of my fun summer plans are too, and I finally get a chance to catch my breath from that busy busy month. Spending a lot of time watching the Olympics and trying to muster up the motivation to start a fulltime job in < 1 month!!

Overall, I feel like I've been having a really solid summer given the year that was the covid year. I had a Lot of fun, literally probably two summers worth of fun consolidated into one. I think in the beginning of the year, I really wanted this summer to be good, and I didn't have a lot of set plans for the summer, even by the end of May. But somehow, things came together, like Really together, and I had the best summer of my life in this summer 2021. On top of that, I'm reading more than I have since probably middle school, I feel the most in shape that I ever have, I can DRIVE NOW. Only thing that would've made it better was if I got to go back to Taiwan to visit the fam, but unfortunately I can't go back because of strict travel restrictions there and they had a COVID outbreak too :/ I still got around 3.5 weeks of summer to go, so we'll see how the rest goes :)

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