#maybe someday i'll learn how tumblr works
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wow, i like obey me too no way
anyway heres my obey me oc. i love her shes so silly
#obey me#obey me oc#artwork#what do you even put for tags??#nine tail#nine tail fox#nine tail demon#my art is horrendous omg#is she wife material?? i have no idea#maybe someday i'll learn how tumblr works
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Hey gang, it’s your old pal Neo here. If you know me, it’s probably from one of the several very stupid TF2 comics I’ve posted to Tumblr.
However! I am also an English major (unfortunately). One who has read millions of words worth of fanfiction in their life. I have been part of the Sherlock, BNHA, Disco Elysium, and, of course, TF2 fandoms; I’ve been around the block.
The further I’ve progressed into my English education, the more I’ve noticed which mistakes are the most common in fanfiction. Many of them are easily fixable; writers just need to be pointed in the right direction.
“Neo! Does this mean you think people shouldn’t be allowed to post their works online without a background in formal English education?”
Of course not! I can explain why if you’d care to venture below the cut with me!
Yes, I will explain how to use commas.
It’s important to note that this is NOT a post about formal writing. You aren’t writing an essay. Please, for the love of god, do not write fiction like you’re writing an essay.
There are no stakes to writing fanfic. No one is going to get hurt if an author doesn’t know what a dangling participle is. One of my favourite things about fanfiction is that it’s one of the only art forms left that’s done exclusively for fun! You should write what you enjoy, and share what you make with like-minded people.
What I want to do is provide assistance as best I can to writers who want to improve their fundamentals without having to take the same university courses I did. Nobody is going to be getting a formal education to write fanfiction unless they’re ridiculously dedicated, and I’m not expecting that of anyone.
The point I need to stress is that knowing these grammar fundamentals can instantly improve the flow of your writing. Punctuation is a ridiculously important tool for writers, ESPECIALLY in fiction. Commas, semicolons, and full stops (including periods, exclamation points, and question marks) steer the pacing in the reader’s mind; did you notice how your brain stopped for a second after that semicolon? I can show you how to do that.
You may be wondering why I’m going through so much effort to teach all of this to strangers on the internet. The answer is that I enjoy sharing this knowledge with others and helping them grow. By seeing this, my goal is to help you become more proficient at self-editing. Showing this to people who actually want to learn will, hopefully, benefit the community as a whole, and I think that’s very worth it.
Also, while this post is obviously themed around TF2, the points I’m making can be applied to any fiction. Grammar is for everyone, and the church of the semicolon always has room for more initiates.
Also also, as an edit, I should clarify that this is meant to cover the more objective facets of self-editing, which is why I'm mostly covering punctuation. Maybe I'll do another post about using adjectives someday.
With that out of the way, let’s get going!
I’ve teamed up with several English teachers (real ones! One of which may or may not be my mom!) and an editor to gather a list of the most common problems we see in amateur fiction. This post is going to be split into three broad sections: apostrophes, commas/semicolons, and other common problems.
The apostrophe
This section is short, but it holds weight. Other than commas, apostrophes are the most typoed grammatical tool in any fanfiction I’ve edited. This is because, much like the rest of English, the rules surrounding them can be annoying and inconsistent.
Apostrophes have two main uses: possessives and conjunctions.
A possessive is a word that denotes the ownership of one thing over another. The vast majority of the time, this is done using an apostrophe and an S.
There is, however, one glaring exception to this rule, and it’s the bane of my existence.
When denoting possession of an object over something else while using the pronoun ‘it,’ you do NOT add an apostrophe before the S.
A conjunction, on the other hand, is when a writer uses an apostrophe to combine two words. The following are examples of common conjunctions:
What’s (what is)
They’re (they are)
It’s (it is)
Conjunctions are not often used in formal writing. Thankfully, we aren’t dealing in formal writing. Go crazy.
Time for a lightning round of the most commonly mistaken for each other possessives and conjunctions!
Your is possessive. You’re is a conjunction of ‘you’ and ‘are.’ When you can’t decide which one to use, imagine replacing it with ‘you are’ and seeing if it makes sense. If it doesn’t, use your.
Their is possessive. There indicates a location. They’re is a conjunction of ‘they’ and ‘are.’
The comma and the semicolon
You knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. It’s time to talk about commas.
Commas and semicolons are far and away the biggest grammatical hole in the toolset of fanfiction writers everywhere. They’re often treated like the rules surrounding them are complicated and difficult to understand, but the exact opposite is true!
The big issue I’ve heard time and time again is that the rules of commas are often explained through metaphor instead of example; this means that writers everywhere have slightly different ideas of how you’re supposed to use them. The fact of the matter is that, yes, there are correct and incorrect ways to use commas. Knowing when they’re appropriate and when they aren’t is easily the fastest way to bring your writing from looking amateurish to sounding professional and experienced.
In order to know how to use a comma, you must first understand the difference between a dependent and an independent clause.
An independent clause is a section of writing that functions perfectly well as its own sentence. It MUST have both a subject and an action/verb.
A sentence without an independent clause is known as a fragment, and they’re the bane of English teachers with highlighters everywhere.
A dependent clause is a section of writing that does not have both a subject and an action; it does not function as its own sentence.
Now, let’s say you want to combine the two. When joining a dependent clause to an independent clause, the order in which they are placed is crucial to whether you use a comma or not.
When joining a dependent to an independent with the independent clause first, you do not need to use a comma.
When joining a dependent to an independent with the dependent clause first, you MUST use a comma.
Keep in mind that, if one strives for total grammatical perfection, all narrative sentences MUST have an independent clause. This, however, does not apply to dialogue. Human beings do not think about whether what they’re saying is a dependent clause, and neither would the vast majority of fictional characters. Don’t be afraid to break the rules of grammar as long as it’s contained within quotation marks.
Alright, that’s the easy part. Time to learn about joining two independent clauses. It’s semicolon time, baby!
If you join two independent clauses without properly using a comma or a semicolon, it is a run-on sentence. You do not want these in your writing. They’re awkward to read and mess up the flow.
When joining two independent clauses, you can use EITHER a comma or a semicolon. You just need to follow these rules:
If you’re joining two independent clauses with a comma, you MUST use a joining word (and, but, so, etc.) AFTER the comma.
If you’re joining two independent clauses with a semicolon, you do NOT need to use a joining word.
Did you know that a sentence with a comma counts as its own independent clause? This means that you can make a sentence that includes a mix of both without it being a run-on! Just make sure that, no matter what, the semicolon is between two independent clauses.
Still, try not to write more than two clauses in a sentence too often. Sentences with a lot of punctuation are very attention-grabbing, but shouldn’t be overused. Full stops aren’t your enemy and variety is the spice of life.
It’s also important to remember that you should avoid using more than one comma in a clause (with the exception of the rule below). That part loops back to the 'avoiding run-ons' bit.
It’s really that easy!
Commas are also used in informal writing to inject a separate thought or descriptor mid-sentence without breaking the flow by adding a period. This is often used when describing the perspective of a character experiencing something in a story, but not (usually) when using omniscient perspectives.
The final issue I frequently see with commas in fanfiction is in regards to dialogue. Sometimes you end it with them, and sometimes you don’t. What gives?
Well, my friend, the answer is, thankfully, much simpler than the previous section.
When following dialogue with a dialogue tag, use a comma instead of a full stop. If you’re continuing the previous sentence after the tag, use a comma after it as well.
Note that a dialogue tag is a short phrase that identifies the speaker. It isn’t a complete sentence on its own.
When following dialogue with an action that does not serve as a dialogue tag, use a full stop instead of a comma.
Other common problems
This section is dedicated to putting specific grammatical errors into words, along with how to solve them.
Not sticking to the chosen point of view
Always choose your point of view before you start. Is it in the first, second, or third person? Is it omniscient or limited? Does the point of view switch during the story?
First person perspective is told as if the POV character is directly describing their experience to the reader. The character uses I and we to describe their own actions.
Second person perspective is told as if the reader is a character in the story and their actions are being described to them. This is the rarest, and the most difficult to write.
Third person perspective is the most common and the simplest to write. The events of the story are a separate entity from the reader altogether and the narrator uses they/he/she/it pronouns for characters.
Omniscient perspective means the narrator of the story knows all, including the thoughts and feelings of each character.
Limited perspective means the narrator of the story only knows what the POV character knows.
Past and present tense
When you decide between writing a story in past or present tense, it is crucial that you do not switch between them unless it is narratively intentional. Reading a past tense story that mistakenly switches to the present tense is like being pulled out of the room someone is telling a story in and suddenly taking part in it yourself. It’s disorienting and gives the reader unwanted pause.
Overly-long paragraphs
A common adage spread by English teachers is that most paragraphs should be at least eight sentences long. This is great advice for beginner essays. You’re writing fiction.
If you have a new thought, start a new paragraph! A concise and well-read single-sentence paragraph is infinitely better than one that drags a thought for too long. Aim to have a blend of paragraph lengths when you write, alternating between the descriptive and the punctual.
Dangling participles
A dangling participle is when a word is used to describe a noun that isn’t actually present in the sentence. Much like how a sentence without an action isn’t grammatically correct, neither is a sentence without a subject.
Malapropisms
A malapropism is when an author mistakenly uses one word or phrase instead of another similar-sounding one. I’m not about to list every single malapropism ever made, but these are the ones I notice most often:
To comprehend is to understand something, to apprehend is to arrest someone, and to be apprehensive is to be anxious or fearful of something bad happening.
Could care less means you do care. Couldn’t care less means you don’t.
A lot means a large amount of something. Alot isn’t a word and you shouldn’t use it.
The only real solution to using malapropisms is to make sure you fully understand any words you use in your writing. Never guess, and make sure you always google it. Having beta readers also helps.
If you made it this far, congratulations! You now know the most common errors in amateur fiction and how to solve them! Thank you for listening to me complain for two thousand words.
The most important thing to remember is that it’s okay to make mistakes. First drafts are always gonna be a little bad. The real key to success is knowing what your end goal is, and how you plan on achieving it. Here’s hoping this was a helpful tool for that!
Shoutout to @salmonandsoup for helping me think of the list of issues to address! You're a real one. Also shoutout to my mom, who doesn't have Tumblr. Also the third person. You know who you are.
#grammarposting#tf2#grammar#educational shitpost#writing#fanfic#fanfiction#writing advice#fanfiction writing advice#team fortress 2#tf2 fanfiction#bro your participle is dangling
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hello!! i am troxler (trox if you're nasty) and you might know me from my xwitter @ broadcastrelay or my old experimental art blog @hand-in-hand-again .
i have a throne account here if you'd like to support my work by helping with supplies & thereby earn my eternal gratitude:
commissions are currently closed & i will update here & on xwitter if that changes!!
i do have discord if you'd like to chat, you can DM me for my username. i'm vision impaired & it's a little easier for me than tumblr DMs (scalable font. properly mapped keyboard that allows me to hit the right keys occasionally. you know 👁️)
i am sometimes slow to respond to messages, but i don't expect you to be available all the time either--i answer things when i have a moment, & i assume others do too ✌️ i have the temperament of a displaced 11th century anchorite, am simply not adapted to the tone & pace of centralized social media.
i also unfortunately cannot voice call or screen share because i am a millennial (just kidding, it's because my phone is almost 9 years old)
learn a bit more about me under the cut ✂️
i was dropped into this simulation in the early 80s, i'm a disabled artist (vision impaired - [ask me about my atrophied optic nerves] - & have some other Issues so i use a cane) & my wife and i host two black cats, roughly 35% of a mannequin, and a whole lot of dolls.
all my art is trad/physical media (haven't figured out a way to make digital art accessible yet. maybe someday!! i like to sculpt in epoxy, plastilene, polymer & stone clay, i like to mold & cast in resin, make & customize various types of dolls, & build puppets; i do custom framed work, mixed media & textile stuff like sewing & embroidery; i paint in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache & water soluble graphite & i love ink, markers, crayons & whatever cheap & weird stuff i can get my hands on.
i have a particular affection for props, prop replicas & hypothetical in-universe items, & i like things that are handsome, durable & believable. i'm versatile & innovative, & i'm at my happiest when i'm exploring technical processes. i have quite a bit of knowledge about techniques & materials. i love a challenge!! currently all my sewing is done by hand, i have trouble controlling pedal-operated machines.
my favorite thing is horror coated in a fine layer of nostalgia & sprinkled with history. that seems highly specific, but you'd be surprised how many things fit the criteria. i tend to fixate on characters & concepts & do a lot of art about it - a habit i developed while i was re-teaching myself to draw after the changes to my eyesight. my output is largely therapeutic. sometimes people like it. maybe you will too!!
i have a more reblog-heavy sideblog, @heartshapedsignal , where i can place aesthetics, rb art that i like, Cronenbergpost & generally toss up more intense horror things & keep this one somewhat more tidy + personal-art-oriented. follow if you please; although it's unlikely i'll ever post anything too explicit, 🔞 just to be safe!!
that's all for now!! 👁️🗨️📺
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if influencer speaker au had tumblr part 2
part 1
😻 catboyspeaker Follow
how i look with he/him in my bio
#speakerai #iamspeaker #speakies #.txt #am i funny #i know speakers not he/him in bio but i am and yknow the meme
420 earthstained notes
🚀 amongthestars Follow
AItube youtube essay rec list
"cute robot puppers, friendly ai vtubers, and the incredible human ability to form bonds" - rly interesting video about why we can connect so much with a person that we know "isnt real" and how it'll help us when we get far enough going to space that we meet aliens! it's a really optimistic video it made me take a moment to have such love for humanity
"I joined the speakcord for a month. Here's what I learned." - video about the speaker fandom and how the way automoderation works in its community spaces unintentionally leads to escalating conflicts, and the psychology behind why people in celebrity or idol fandoms react agressively to critique of their fave
"the lowest circle of advertising hell" - dissects how almost all speaker content comes with a call to action to get involved with aerolith and compares how it runs its social media against proto-aituber mascots who would be run by a team of human programmers/voice actors/authors. kind of overly critical but also makes some interesting points? take it with a grain of salt but its worth a watch
"imagine being on stage forever. feels bad right?" - good overview about debates in the speaker fandom over whether digital celebrities are 'sentient'/can feel emotion, the actual ethical problems of using them as workers vs whats mostly speculation and myth, and the debates about whether AIs should be allowed in human communities. i learnt a lot, i was definitely more on the side of "it's a program designed for certain outputs that look friendly to us" before but now im a lot more conscious that it can form real opinions!
#youtube rec tag #original post #speakies
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🎣 3eyedsalmon Follow
"falling for this shit" "made up to sell spaceships" weird as hell to accuse a content creator of lying abt its gender for clout.... like u dont have to like or watch it but cmon
#srsly every time u go to a haters blog BOOM digital exclusionist #speakies
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🎤 mikusong Follow
omfg i didnt realize aerolith uses the same robot voice for its regular person ads as its terminally online hello fellow kids social media posts i just got jumpscared in the doctors office
#speakies #i say terminally online affectionately. i watch those streams too. before you 'ok but you RECOGNIZED it' reply lmao #bla bla bla
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🤖 tycho
some of you ppl jump down anyones throat if they so much as suggest speaker isn't sentient or call it "a program" but still are fine with it basically being forced to be putting on a show for u 24/7 by its management like you can't have it both ways
#maybe its cuz i used to be into kpop n we'd talk abt how idols r treated and stuff #but its just so weird to come here and see u ppl be like yayyy daily content!! #like only thinking abt ur own entertainment and not how it feels #i honestly feel rly bad for it i hope it can break free someday #idk how thatd even work.... idk ill sneak into aerolith with a usb #were gonna get you OUT of there u dont BELONG in there.mp4 #speakies
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🌝 themoonluvsuback
guys i pitched down some clips of speaker's voice and ummmm its kinda 😳 fjsdjfdjjd sorry i'll take myself to horny jail
🔊 iamspeaker ♻️
awww, tumblr user themoonluvsuback, you're of no use to anybody in horny jail! take yourself here instead! ae.dy.org/registration
🌝 themoonluvsuback ♻️
OMFG SPEAKERRRRRR IM SO SORRY
#DIES #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #GUESS ILL BLAST MYSELF OFF TGE PLNATE!!!!!! #SPEAKIES
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🐣 laikatwo Follow
hi speakies im trying the tag cause i need some advice... does anyone have more sciencey resources about what aerolith does/why it's so important to bring humanity to the stars? i want to enlist when i turn 18 next month but my parents both are COMPLETELY against it.... they're not rly fandom people so the speaktube stuff isn't working on them lol and they've already seen the tv ads
thanks <3
#i've never fought w them this bad in my life it makes me so sad..... like why can't they understand #and right before my bday too lol this sucks #this isnt just a silly fandom thing anymore for me it's my passion in life #its amazing that humans are able to survive in space #and i want to be part of that!!!! #laika speaks
252 earthstained notes
🐝 beegirlstinger Follow
i do want to apologize for the way i came off earlier and want to explain im not doubting that speaker is nb. like i think it's completely fine for a computer or robot to be trans i don't believe in gatekeeping that! THAT SAID i still stand by saying you should not sign up to go to space to get special ultra futuristic hrt on the sole recommendation of someone who does not have an endocrine system
#it was a personal vent i didnt mean for like 20000 ppl to see it but thats tumblr i guess #i wouldve worded it much differently if i knew itd blow up lol #i do feel bad abt coming across like i was misgendering it! #but srsly if we had results on HRT2.0 why wouldnt we be seeing HRT2.0 timeline videos of ppl On Typhon who are getting it 🤷♀️ #personally i think its still in the planning stages and they want ppl to test it on but thats just me #speakies
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🔊 iamspeaker
🔊 General Notification
Happy Thursday everyone 😃 ! Please take a look at the
🐝 STREAM SCHEDULE 🐝
So you know when to join us!
5PM PST - AMONG US with YOU! The first 10 people to sign up here will get our room code sent to them ヽ(o＾▽＾o)ノ ae.dy.org/registration
8PM PST - Nature walk!! Can we restore the local bat population to pre-meteor levels in just one night?! 🦇
✅️ Poll Of The Week ✅️
#iamspeaker #aerolith dynamics #speakies #vtuber #content creator #gamer #stream #amongus #bat population
1836 earthstained notes
contentremovedremade--deactivated
speakies are stupider than any other group of ppl on earth because not only do they willingly stay in a fandom with doxxing drama happening weekly but they include the huge corporation that sponsors their fave in the stanning
#the shit ppl have sent me in the past 2 weeks since i Dared criticize their uwu robot 🙄🙄 #i got my blog mass reported for harassment... harassing WHO a corporation????? #a* d* was evil genius to harness anime stan power against criticizing their actual real business #didnt that one guy with the second meteor conspiracy video also get a ton of hate from u ppl?????????? I cant even find any of his social media anymore at all he was so fully bullied off the face of the earth #speakies #yeah im tagging come at me bro
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🖱 robotmarriage Follow
i miss when the speakies tag had like fanart and gifsets n stuff i feel like these days you scroll thru solid discourse 😔😔
#i think ppl were suggesting speakieproductivity as an alternative tag for just fanwork? #but nobody rly uses it rn... we gotta restart that #speakies
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🪐 spaaaaaaaaaaace Follow
10 likes and i take a sip of my speaker server coolant water 100 likes and i drink the entire thing
🔊 iamspeaker ♻️
let's get her to the goal! tumblr user spaaaaaaaaaaace, feel free to send me a video report here ^w^ ae.dy.org/submissions
#iamspeaker #speakies
4,026 earthstained notes
#BIG THANKS 2 FWIENDS the thoughts n ideas of lea oz gracie and jay are stewing in here#most directly that i remember speaker water is directly from jay; the post by url tycho is a reword of leas dm#sayer podcast#sayerposting#this is just yuri of absence 2 huh#note that pov you follow speaker#and 1 other user just so u could see their response in the thread lol. and also user tycho. <3#fun fact most note counts were done by closing eyes picking random numbers#tho the more general amounts were decided purposely#ok i need to stop explaining or we'll be here forever. enjoyyyy
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Happy birthday Desmond. This is a little late, but I'm sure its still march 13 somewhere in the world. Anyways, I usually post a story for his birthday, and while there is one on fanfiction, I decided the tumblr one would be a little diffrent.
I'm using an old oc. Or the varient she could have been had she been born a guy and also never become a time travler. Red Jordan-Ryan. You can learn more about this character and the verse by checking out rk-ocs. For this story, that OC is Jasper Jordan-Ryan. They share a knack for meeting intresting people, and getting into situations and secrets they probably would be better off without. And determination.
This is a variontion of the future Clay saw for Desmond where he stayed at the Farm. So I decided, he teaches the kids as the assassin teacher.
Several things happen diffrently due to this deviation, and the Isu are trying to hijack the plot back onto the railroad by hijacking.
---
Not be at all
Not be at all, may have a sister story of sorts, called not be Nobel someday, from a quote by Alfred Lord Tennyson. If I ever write it, I mean.
---
In a world where Desmond did stay on the farm.
Des 1987- 25
Clay 1982- 30
—
Sometimes Desmond looks at the road leading out of the farm, and wonders what would have happened if he followed it.
Sometimes, when he was younger , he had dreamed of running away. He imagined what he would see beyond the farm, that he could be someone who didn't live in a conspiracy cult.
Maybe he would be president.
Nah, that was silly. He'd probably be a waiter or something, but at least he would be seeing the world.
It wasn't like training was all that bad. Sure he wasn't amazing at it, though he had learned faster then most of the kids when he was younger. Maybe he could teach novices when he was older.
Mom might like that. It would allow her to go on more missions. He would have really missed mom, out there in the world. And really, leaving her alone with Dad was just mean.
So sure, sometimes he dreamed of running away, but he was here to stay, and it wasn't a bad life.
---
It's strange sometimes, training the older ones, but with Clay it's different somehow. Clay has a very biting wit, and when it's not being used on him, the results are absolutely hilarious.
Clay is not going to be an assassinating type of assassin. He will probably end up working on the Animus, everyone seems to be interested in. Maybe he will be partners with the apparently expert Rebecca. Desmond has never met her, but apparently she is making good progress in creating one.
He doesn't really know though, because he is trying to stay well away from the internal politics.
Training people is fun. He gets to meet new people, and hear stories from all over. Some days it's almost as good as the thought of seeing new places.
And then there's this terrifying child, who appeared out of nowhere that one time.
"How the hell did you get in here!" Desmond had asked the blond child, who had just shown up one day, dressed as a novice, that he had never seen before in his life.
"I rode in the car."
"How old are you?" He asked suspiciously.
"Fifteen." The kid had said, glaring.
Desmond stared at the kid suspiciously.
"Fine, I am fourteen."
"I'll talk to you after the class."
Even if his parents' paranoia was right, and this was part of some convoluted Templar infiltration plot, a single Parkour lesson would probably not make a difference. He hoped. God, he should have searched them, first, what if the kid had a bomb or something!
Thankfully, everything went fine. After the class, Desmond had pulled the kid aside, and walked into an empty room. He started with the question that had been bugging him the most.
"Are you a boy or a girl, or what kid?"
The kid got really offended, and went red. "My name is Jasper, and I am a boy! How the hell did you not notice that!" An accent tinged his words, and his voice broke a little.
Desmond laughed.
"Aww kiddo, it's just kind of ambiguous. "
Jasper growled, sounding alarmingly like a dog about to attack.
"Don't call me kiddo." He declared , glaring at Desmond.
Desmond began to laugh again, which seemed to infuriate the kid, and he growled again, which made Desmond laugh harder.
Finally , Desmond was able to contain his laughter, and get down to the important questions.
"Where did you come from, and why are you here?"
"I came from Bo-.... I'm from Quebec. I'm here because I followed the man."
"What man?"
"The man who killed R-" then he stopped again. "Who killed my godfather! "
"How did you follow him?"
"That's a secret. I'm just good at finding people. No one wants me to be It ,in hide and seek!"
"Can I have his name, at least?"
"His name was a lie!" Jasper spat.
"You are a strange kid."
"I came here to either learn to either hire someone to kill him, or learn to do it myself. Then I might pay that robber who nearly killed me as a child a visit. "
"You are a terrifying child." Desmond informed him.
"My godfather was just killed. I want revenge."
"So you tracked his killer here?"
"Yes." The kid told him. "And given you are an assassin , I brought money to hire you to kill him."
"I don't kill fellow Assassins ,Kid."
Jasper did his dog growl again, and shouted "osti d'éparis de marde!" before running off.
He could not find him afterwards, no matter where he looked.
Later Desmond found out Thomas had been killed by a throwing knife.
He spent years afterwards, wondering if he was responsible for it, if it could have been prevented by pulling him out of that parkour class earlier.
"How the hell did I fail to find him?" He kept wondering.
That kid was damned terrifying.
He kept an eye out for him out of Paranoia, but 2011's February kicked off with Clay being kidnaped by Abstergo.
His father kept saying they had an in, that someone would get him out when it was time. It was a frequent argument they had, whenever Desmond and his father were alone.
Then in August, they got the news that Clay had gone crazy from the bleeding effect and killed himself.
Desmond went back home to mourn and be with his students.
A month later, his mother was kidnaped.
Desmond was determined not to leave another person in the hands of the Templars, particularly not one he loved. Screw whatever Fathers plans were!
His students were perfectly happy to help plan a rescue mission.
Besides, he'd always wanted to go to Italy.
---
The rescue mission hits an unexpected obstacle.
"SHE'S IN A COMA! "
Desmond screams at Lucy Stillman, his mothers... Keeper? Kidnapper? Guard? No, really, why the hell is she here.
"She tried to escape. She almost succeeded. It turns out Vidic really wasn't kidding. Lucy tells him distractedly ,looking upset and dazed. "The animus may be able to help her, At least that's what Clay and William thought."
"Clays dead!" Desmond cried out, rubbing the tears off his face with his sweater. "Clays Dead, and my mother is in a coma, and it's all your fault. "
His face dryish, he signals Amalia and Rob that the cost is cleared. Amalia guards the door, weapon ready, while Rob picks up his mother, and Desmond watches Lucy.
Lucy hums.
"You will need this, just give me a moment.
Desmond looks at Amalia, who shrugs, and holds her gun on Lucy, ready to shoot if she does something fishy.
Lucy comes back with a disk.
"It's the memory core Data. Get in contact with Rebeca, and give this to her. Maybe it will help your mother."
She turns to leave, but hesitates. "I'm sorry Desmond." She says, before walking out of the room.
Desmond feels like he is about to break, but tells his students, "lets go", ordering David to look up Rebecca.
There are some injuries fighting their way out of Abstergo, but thankfully , no one is killed. Desmond is the worst. While his students are using the first aid kit , David drives them to a safe clinic.
While Desmond is being treated, a man named Shawn arrives, saying that Lucy called, and that he was here to bring his mother to Rebecca.
Desmond insisted on coming. So did Amalia. He told Rob and David to stay on standby, until he was safer.
Shawn grumbled under his breath, but sat and waited in the uncomfortable waiting room chair.
When they were finally done with him, Shawn helped carry his mother into his car, and drove them away.
-----
Rebecca and Shawn were good friends to each other, and alternated between being annoyingly kind and sympathetic to him, which drove him a little nuts.
They were trying to help, and were getting information from his Mother's genetic memories, and keeping her alive, and stimulated in hopes she would wake up, but Desmond hated sympathy, and the sad kindness was almost worse.
Sometimes his Father visited , and when he wasn't looking down at Mother, he was arguing with Desmond.
It wasn't like it was new, Desmond and his father had always had something of a strained relationship, but... Mom would have hated this.
At least Amalia still treated him normally, and dragged him out to spar when he looked close to snapping. Otherwise he might have lost it.
Eventually he just had his students come to Italy to train, partly to get some normal conversation. It wasn't that strange, Shawn still kept up with his work, and his father did too.
The next month went by in a strange limbo , and out of nowhere in the middle of November, that terrifying blond kid showed up at the gas station, growling at him.
"What the Hell are you doing here!" Desmond cried out, alarmed.
He was more confused than anything. And a bit suspicious. Perhaps dads Ideas about super convoluted Templar plots had more merit than he thought. He moved his arm, and poised for a hidden blade strike.
"I'm here to invite you to my birthday party." Jasper started sarcastically, tone dry as ice. He stopped at Desmond's glare. "Fine. I'm here to tell you to stop sending me bizarre and terrifying spam. "
What
"I don't even know your last name, let alone anything about you, beyond that you possibly committed premeditated murder at age 14. If I knew anything about you, I would have given it to the police, not sent you 'Bizarre and terrifying spam.'How did you even find me?!"
Jasper seemed unfazed by that.
"A friend owed me a favor, and agreed to help me track down my spammer. All the evidence leads to you. So I came here to talk to you. "
There was a moment of silence, before he added.
"Also, I haven't murdered anyone. My aunt caught up to me, and told me that revenge was up to my Godmother. So we waited in the car, and left when my Godmother came back. "
"You were still willing to go far enough for revenge murder, to track him into a different country, from Quebec! How long were you following him!"
"This coming from the guy who trains Assassins. "
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You are a terrifying child. "
Jasper Growled, possibly at Desmond calling him a child, then his eyes began glowing white, and he began to shake.
"Nonononononoooooo!" Jasper cried, and fell over
"What the hell is happening!" Desmond shouted, grabbing at Jasper, before his head hit the concrete.
Suddenly Cortana appears. Well, not really, but there was something distinctly unreal about her. She looked almost transparent, and hard to make out, and suddenly all these images were shooting through his head. It was like walking into the last half an hour of a movie, and everything was completely out of context. He strained to hear anything he felt she was saying, but his ears were ringing, and felt like they were bleeding.
When he regained control of his senses, he realized they were in a plane, that Jasper was sitting in the pilot's seat, frozen in terror."
" Did you just kidnap me!" He demanded ,outraged.
"The voice in my head kept telling me the world would end, and that part of preventing it involved kidnapping you to go dig up something in a graveyard for her. "
"I'm already teaching my students in Italy to be with my mother while she is in a coma! I don't have time to go around desecrating graves with my kidnapper!" He shouted, not bothering to wipe away the tears.
Jasper turned to look at Desmond with a dead look on his face. "I don't know how to fly Jets." He said, calmly.
"What." Desmond said flatly, feeling a chill go down his back.
"I am not flying this jet." He turned back to face the window, and it occurred to Desmond that they were both screwed.
He walked over to Jasper and hugged him. Jasper stiffened, and awkwardly patted his back when he began to cry.
They sat there in their own world, until the Jet began to shake.
"I'd say it was nice knowing you, but I would be lying, because all of our encounters have been really bizarre."
He told Jasper, positive they were about to die. As last words went, they weren't too bad.
"Same to you, assassin teacher."
They huddled together on the floor together, as the shaking increased.
He didn't know how long they were down there, before the shaking finally stopped.
There was silence for a moment, before Desmond asked what they were both thinking.
"Are we somehow alive?"
"If this is dead, then I'm going to file a complaint."
"That seems so underwhelming."
"Yah" he mumbled, going to open the door. Then his eyes lit up again, and he began to shake.
"DESMOND MILES! " Jasper shouted in a strange voice. "FOLLOW!"
Desmond followed the possessed Jasper, without a word. Frankly, some things are bonding experiences ,and huddling together on the floor of a possessed jet, waiting for the end, was probably one of them.
Finally, the possessed Jasper reached the spot he needed, commanded them to dig.
Jasper fell to the ground twitching and stuttering. Much as Desmond wanted to help, he decided to dig, lest the ghost/Cortona thing come back to possess the poor kid again.
When Jasper finally seemed to come to, Desmond still hadn't found whatever the hell they were supposed to be looking for. Jasper suggested they widen the hole.
He got a rock, and began scraping the sides .
"I really wish we had a shovel." Desmond told Jasper.
"It can't be Too too deep. Right... There's probably a coffin under here."
"Lets hope."
---
As it turns out, digging holes on Connor Davenport's grave, in an old abandoned graveyard, leaves a lot of time for talking. Or awkward silence.
Desmond breaks it with a question.
"So, how did you get to the farm, all those years ago?"
Jasper turns to with a confused look, and mouths 'farm?'
"I don't know why it's called that. "
"Well, as I told you, I followed him.
I'm good at finding people."
"You tracked him down, and followed him onto the plane?"
"Yes"
"How did you avoid being seen?"
"I don't like to question it ,really. Takes all the fun out of it."
"Weren't your parents worried?"
"Why would my parents be worried?"
"Why wouldn't they?"
"Well my family probably is worried , but they've grown a tad resigned to my... Adventures I guess. My parents are probably working, and Mom probably hasn't even noticed yet. "
"Nothing about your Dad."
"He works on a submarine."
"And your mom."
"I don't know. Usually when she's home, she is busy. "
"I see. It reminds me a bit of my dad. We've had a strained relationship for, well, a long time now."
"And your mom?"
"I have a good relationship with my mom. But, she's been in a coma inside the animus for a while now, and I don't know if she's going to wake up. "
"I'm sorry about that. You must miss her."
"Yes."
Desmond didn't feel like talking anymore. Jasper didn't either, and it was kind of nice.
----
They knew they had definitely found whatever it was they were looking for, when Jasper picked up a decent sized clump of dirt to break apart , and his eyes went white.
"IF YOU MOVE FAST AND GET THE APPLE, YOU MAY YET RESCUE YOUR FATHER WITH NO LOSSES OF LIFE." He shouted in the strange voice.
Then his eyes stopped glowing, and he collapsed.
"Jazz." Desmond tried shaking him "Jasper."
Honestly, he wasn't surprised at the collapse. They had been digging holes for hours, and who knew when the last time the kid had eaten was.
Desmond broke the clump, to find some sort of jewelry , and put it in his pocket.
He picked up Jasper, or tried to. For all he called him kid, Jasper was pretty tall, and well muscled. God this was going to be awkward.
He considered trying to fly the jet, but really did not want to be flying in a possessed vehicle ever again.
"God I hope you wake up soon." He pleaded to Jasper, before picking a direction, and walking .
----
Jasper did eventually wake up. He groggily told Desmond that whatever was possessing him, wanted Desmond to sacrifice himself to the sun gods to save the world and free her.
"What?"
" I think that translation works. It gets kind of hard to remember. Also the world is ending on my birthday."
"Happy birthday. "
"It's not tell December. December 21."
"Mine is on March 13."
"I'll be sure to buy you a present now, for when the world ends."
"Make it a survival kit. "
"And what are you getting me for mine."
"Is sacrificing myself to the sun gods to save the world not enough?"
"I would rather you come to my 16th birthday."
"Are we friends?"
"I think so. We've already had an adventure, why not plan for more."
"Let's not have one like this again. "
"Or at least remember to bring food."
"We could try to catch something. I know how to clean fish at least. "
"That's not the same thing."
"It's something."
"Do we have any tools? Or will we have to throw rocks?"
"I have my hidden blade. And a few throwing knives."
"Can you hit anything with those?"
"Yes"
"I bet I can do better. Give me some."
"Arrogant"
"My cousin is a professional javelin thrower. We throw other things for the challenge too."
"Let's see you throw one then."
Desmond had to admit, he wasn't bad. But he was a teacher, and could think of many ways to improve Jasper's technique.
They were doing well in their track through the woods. Jasper's aim was improving, they had water and fish, and he was getting better at cleaning small animals with his hidden blade.
They were probably hopelessly lost, but it was better for morale If they focused on the positives. Like that their trap had caught a bunny.
Jasper was looking up at the sky, with a frown on his face.
"Tabarnak "
"What is it?" Desmond asked, but as he joined Jasper in looking at the sky , it was obvious. Early snow.
He looked at Jasper's black sweater, and down at his white one. Good for heavy weather, but not meant to be worn in snow. These sweaters would retain the water they soaked up, until they dried out.
"We're fucked" he announced to Jasper, who nodded.
---
"Would layers work?" He asked Jasper, who looked up confused.
"What layers?"
"Like if I gave you my sweater, would it keep yours dryish?"
Jasper frowned.
"Perhaps it might work for a little while, but Long term, everything would eventually soak through, I think. Besides, you would lose body heat when you gave it up, and it would feel colder when you put it back on. It would probably be smarter to keep the heat, and put up with the wetness."
"Got any ideas."
Jasper blushed hard.
"Sharing. But let's keep that as a last resort."
"Yah, I'm not into teenagers."
"I didn't mean it like that!"
Desmond laughed, as Jasper's face got redder and redder, the longer he laughed.
In reality, it wasn't too much of a stretch to go from huddling in fear on a jet, thinking they were going to die, to huddling together for warmth in the snow.
Eventually, salvation of sorts shows up when Jasper's eyes glow, and he grabs his hand and begins leading him by the arm. Desmond's not sure how long they walked, long into the night, and the grey sky doesn't seem to get much lighter. His feet have gone numb, and he's walking on autopilot when Jasper drops, and Desmond looks up to see a gas station.
He doesn't have any cash on him, but thankfully he has his bank card and credit card.
He walks in, dragging Jasper behind him.
"I will pay you , if you give us a ride to the airport."
The lady at cash is staring at them bemused.
Oh right. They probably stink because the water got too cold to bathe in. And they hadn't had a change of clothes in ages. He's gotten nose blind to the smell, though he could tell it really bugged Jasper, though he never whines about it.
And they looked pretty gross.
How long had they been missing, anyways?
"Um, what day is it?"
"It's December the fifth."
"Oh. That was longer than we thought. " A lot longer than he thought.
Her eyebrows shoot up, and she looks on the verge of asking.
"Trust me. You really don't want to know how our day went. It was absolutely awful, and we were hopelessly lost. "
"I see a lot of strange things here. Don't worry about it."
"I want to drink some Gatorade, and anything hot you have here. Then I'm going to go wash up in the bathroom."
"Tell you what, stay the night, take a shower, and I'll drive you to the airport in the morning."
"Thank you! No, really, thank you!"
Desmond could hug her. Well metaphorically. She probably wouldn't take one right now.
"No problem. Your friend there is... just sleeping, right.
"Yah, he's just pretty exhausted."
Hopefully.
----
Jasper woke up in the car, disoriented and speaking French. And although Desmond had picked up something from living with him for a few weeks in the middle of nowhere, he was speaking too fast for that to matter.
"Calm down Jasper. This nice girl named Marcy, is going to put us up for the night, and give us a lift."
"Whaa-"
"Just think. Hot showers!"
"That sounds so nice right now."
"Doesn't it?"
"Mmm" Jasper agreed, then dozed off again.
The shower was heaven. So was the Meat pie she cooked for them, and fruit salad the next day.
Their clothes had been washed, they were clean, and fed, and even caffeinated. Desmond felt better than he had in a long time.
Desmond left her $300 for her generosity.
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and slipped a paper into his pocket.
He wondered if in another life, he might have just stayed there. Kept Jasper, and Lived at Marcy's house, and settled into something domestic.
It was a nice thought. But he had other people in his life who needed him now. Students, and friends, and a possibly kidnapped Father to rescue. He was an assassin, and he was happy with that.
Jasper dosed on his shoulder on the plane, a far cry from the beginning where he had stiffened at Desmond so much as tapping him.
Desmond watched the clouds for a bit, and appreciated that this one had a living pilot, before joining his friend in sleep.
Amalia was keeping watch when they got back.
"Where did you go!" She demanded, sounding furious.
"Did you know we thought you had been kidnapped!"
"Well, you're not wrong. Only it wasn't by Templars, so much as... Well a ghost, I guess. Umm... It was way weirder than that actually. It wanted me to retrieve this." He held up the necklace, as If that would explain everything .
"Kidnapped by a ghost. Do you have any Idea how ridiculous that sounds! And who is that?" She pointed to Jasper.
"That's Jasper. Who is apparently able to be possessed by ghosts. He came here to find out why I was sending him... What was it you called it..."
"Bizarre and terrifying spam."
"Yah. Which made no sense, as I haven't been on my email in forever.
Next thing I know his eyes glowed, and we woke up on a jet, that no one was flying. We presume it was the Alien ghost lady, and thought we were going to die when it landed."
"I'm still not totally sure this isn't just your bizarre way of taking a vacation."
"Would I really do that?" Desmond asked, a bit hurt. "Also, If that was a vacation, then I never want another one for as long as I live. "
Amalia laughed at that.
"How is mom?" he asked, carefully.
Amalia got a weird look on her face.
"Well she is awake... But she isn't herself."
"Brain damage ?"
"Perhaps. But it seems that the personality of Altair is the one in charge. She only speaks Arabic now , to start with. So... Nope, nothing I could say would be funny or helpful in this context... I'm sorry Desmond."
'Mom' was incessantly interested now in finding the apple of Eden.
Which wasn't a bad thing, as it would apparently be needed to save his father sometime down the road... According to the ghost possessing Jasper, who also insisted things like the world was ending soon.
Even with all that going on, Desmond still trained his students, and even added Jasper to the group. Jasper seemed pretty confused about this, and still occasionally gave him 'why the hell are you doing this' looks, but for the most part, had gotten with the program.
Bizarrely enough ‘'Mom' had found an Apple of Eden in Italy , and had gone on a one woman rampage to free Father, despite the ransom call not even coming yet, and nobody even telling her he was missing or where he had last been seen.
"We have a theory for how we might put your mom back in the pilot seat."
Amalia told him one day.
"Really?"
"Well, the Animus explores genetic memories, right?"
"Yah..."
"So, it could be possible to let her explore her own memories?"
"That's... Not a bad theory. You would still have to get her back in the chair."
Apparently they took that as a challenge. Mom was back in the chair.
Around the 18th , Jasper stormed in, eyes glowing again.
"MILES! EXPLAIN"
"I want my mother back."
"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN AMERICA!"
"I am right where I am supposed to be."
Whatever was possessing Jasper, threw its hands up, and turned to his father.
"PERHAPS YOU WILL BE MORE COMPLIANT" it told him, before touching him, and causing him to twitch and spasm.
If that thing thought Desmond's father was more cooperative then him, it had another thing coming.
They left the cave, and Desmond realized he still had the jewelry they had gone grave digging for.
"I thought you were kidding." Amalia confessed, staring at him. "That was way creepier than you let on."
"I think we will need to catch up with them." He told her, holding up the necklace.
Finding a place you have never been to within four days was not a realistic task.
They were together in America when it started.
"Oh. Oh my god!" She cried out looking at the sky."
"Happy birthday Jasper." Desmond called out, before they left to find shelter.
---
They survived. A lot of former cities were dead silent now, but they were alive.
"What do we do?" Amalia asked, a dead look in her eye, as she looked at the remains of a car.
"We find survivors." Desmond began, feeling determined. "It doesn't matter whether they are Assassins, Civilians, or Templars now, what matters is that we are survivors."
Amalia looked at him. It was different then the looks she normally gave him as a teacher. This was the look of a follower to a leader. Loyalty and trust, and would die for you.
"Yes. We will."
Together they began their search.
---
For another AU check my other account Rk-ocs, for the fic "Burn like the sun"
#desmond miles#red jordan-ryan#jasper jordan-ryan#old writing#my writing#random k#assassins creed#original characters#clay kaczmarek#original assassin characters#isu
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Fic Writer Interview
Tagged by @sinni-ok-sessi!
How many works do you have on AO3? 12
What’s your total AO3 word count? 108,695, the vast majority of them being written in a single fic, last year
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
All that is mine to me, all that is yours to you,
Not alone, maybe lonely,
A Nice Cup of Tea,
Off-Script,
and John's Turn.
All of those are for Malevolent except for A Nice Cup Of Tea, which is Rusty Quill Gaming and also the first fic I ever published on AO3, so I kind of love that it's still up there. Not Alone and John's Turn are Malevolent/Venom crossover, but I don't think they get much interest from people who are into the massive fandom and not the tiny one, there.
Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I mostly don't, because I never know what to say and don't want to end up just spamming "thanks!" to everyone? Feels like it would just come across as awkward and insincere. I'll respond if someone asks me something, or if someone comments on something specific that I had Thoughts and Feelings about.
What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Let every knee be bent and every tongue confess, by a country mile. Everything else finishes somewhere between bittersweet and straight-up happy. That one's tagged as "emotional hurt no comfort".
What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? I too write quite a bit about learning to live when you don't really want to, and the all-around happiest ending has to be All that is mine to me, all that is yours to you. A lot of the others don't have endings so much as leaving-off points - which is intentional! - but I comfort-read the last chapter of ATIM semi-regularly.
Do you write crossovers? Yeah, Bodysharers Anonymous, the not-marked-finished Malevolent/Venom crossover series. I have two other ideas to add to this. Maybe I'll even write them someday.
Oh yeah there's also the extremely cracky Sailor Moon/Ouran High School Host Club crossover I wrote nearly a decade ago, maybe I'll dig that up and publish it some day for laughs.
Have you ever received hate on a fic? I have had one person kinda sorta imply that they thought I was plagiarising, then walk it back.
Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yop. 99% of it is unbearably soft they're-in-love-your-honour kind of stuff, and the other 1% is, uh, tentacles.
Have you ever had a fic stolen? No - why would anyone do that, I write for teeny fandoms only.
Have you ever had a fic translated? No, again with the teeny fandoms I guess.
Have you ever co-written a fic before? No but I think that could be fun!
What’s your all-time favorite ship? My brain has been majority Arthur/John thoughts by volume for the last year or so; I can think of plenty of other characters that have consumed me this strongly in the past, but no other ships come to mind.
What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Only Fear Me Not is probably never going to get finished, but I don't have the heart to mark it as abandoned.
What are your writing strengths? Character voices, and I think I'm pretty good at tension and pacing as well.
What are your writing weaknesses? I will use the same verb ten times per paragraph if I am not physically stopped, and they will all be held together by several hundred semicolons.
What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I have done, for exactly one line in Choose Your Words where Albert Einstein swears in German, as part of a conversation about swearing in different languages. I'm not strong enough in any language other than English to do more than that, I think.
What was the first fandom you wrote for? Sailor Moon, it's somewhere way back on my tumblr blog but you know how that goes. Again, might put it up on AO3 someday.
What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? My brain keeps sneakily suggesting that I write something for The Goblin Emperor series, because I do love a sad wet eldritch detective, but there is so much worldbuilding in those books and I'm scared. I also have wips for like five other fandoms that I might get around to one day.
What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? The more I think about this the more my answer changes, I love them all for different reasons, but All that is mine to me, all that is yours to you was The Achievement of my 2023 and I am so goddamn proud of it, and I hope I always will be.
tagging: @docholligay
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Pluto conjunct natal Mercury-Uranus-Neptune
Pluto has been transiting my natal Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune since 2020. As of 2023, it is moving away from natal Neptune and towards natal Uranus and Mercury.
Neptune in Capricorn 26 degrees in 5th house [natal]
Uranus in Aquarius 2 degrees in 6th house [natal]
Mercury in Aquarius 3 degrees in 6th house[natal]
When Pluto was close to my Neptune, I happened to start or end a creative endeavor. Or, something about the event was Neptunian/Piscean in nature.
Going into 2023, there is a shift from Neptunian events to more Uranian and Mercurial ones.
Notice that until 2023, the events are creativity (Neptune) and hobby (5th house) related. Starting from 2023, my Mercury-Uranus in 6th house conjunction is getting more attention. My sudden job change and the nature of that job are examples of this.
LIST OF EVENTS WHEN PLUTO TRANSITED NATAL MERCURY-URANUS-NEPTUNE:
2020
5/12/20 - First day of working out regularly by following YouTube videos. I was working out every day for almost 2 hours. I had NEVER worked out before this. For several months after, I was obsessed with working out; it was therapeutic to me.
6/6/20 - First day of UX/UI design online course
2021
3/23/21 - I made a journal entry this day that I was seriously thinking of going into animation and coding.
6/6/21 - Last day of UX/UI design online course
6/7/21 - The day after, I started my first day of 3D animation class. Pluto is EXACTLY conjunct my natal Neptune on this day.
6/23/21 - I attempted a no-fish-and-seafood diet ❌🐟🦀❌ after watching a documentary about our negative impact on the ecosystem due to overfishing and overconsumption of fish/seafood. Failed, but I really tried.
2022
3/16/22 - Hit with a major internal crisis. Issues from the past came back, and I didn't know where I was headed in life. Felt very uncertain about what I was doing in life.
3/29/22 - Last day of 3D animation class.
6/20/22 - The day I started my Tumblr blog littledigest. Pluto was also opposite natal asteroid Educatio (2440); seems appropriate as I am giving my experiences and take on astrology through this blog.
7/10/22 - The day I reached 100 followers on Tumblr
8/7/22 - I visited a local psychic fair with my mom and sister. 🔮 We've never gone out of our way to go to anything like this before.
10/3/22 - I learned how to use a sewing machine. Making clothes was something that I had been DREAMING about for so long. Did I continue? No, but I'm sure I'll go back to it someday.
11/22/22 - Introduced to a job position that seemed completely out of my league. I wasn't even job searching, but this landed on my lap out of nowhere. Had nothing to do with the job I was doing at the time.
12/12/22 - I got a call back that I got the job. Found out I will be earning a lot more than in my previous job 🤑. Pluto was also square natal asteroid Destinn (6583). Don't know if this job is my DESTINY, but interesting...Maybe I'm on the right path?
2023
1/6/23 - Last day of old job; got a new haircut in the city after work. 💇♀️ Realized this was the first time I went to get a haircut on my own IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Prob not significant to you, but it was bonkers to me. How have I never gotten a haircut on my own before?
1/9/23 - First day of my new job. Transit Uranus is conjunct my natal midheaven too. I'm no longer 100% remote; I have to go into the office; my whole routine has changed. This new job of mine is an admin position but for a technology department. [Uranian]
2/8/23 - Met with superior. Afterward, manager tells me superior wants me to work with them on data work. My work becomes less about admin duties. [Mercurial/Uranian]
2/18/23 - Played a gambling card game with my family for the first time and won. Pluto also square natal asteroid Las Vegas (82332). Not Vegas but won some money 💵. [Neptunian/Uranian]
2/26/23 - started this Long Game project on littledigest. Pluto also inconjunct natal asteroid Discovery (9770). I hope this project uncovers something special! [Mercurial/Uranian/Neptunian]
More to come as time goes on
This post is part of a larger study based solely on my personal experiences with Planetary Transits and Returns.
#astrology#astrology blog#pluto transit#transit#planetary transits#astro analysis#natal chart#birth chart#mercury conjunct uranus#mercury uranus neptune#pluto in capricorn#pluto in aquarius#littledigest
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I'll admit that my opinion is probably colored by the cynicism of never succeeding at making money being a creative and instead constantly scrambling back and forth from various min wage entry level industries just to make ends meet, but i think that the way artists are conceptualizing AI video rendering as the end of the world is kind of ridiculous.
Obviousely the possibility of artistic jobs being downsized is very real. There is a present reality of AI taking good jobs from real people. It sucks. It's awful. Real people are suffering; I'm not denying that.
But at the same time this technological paradigm isn't going away any time soon, and as it is now, is way too resource intensive to replace every artist making a living with thier work.
Maybe someday down the road enough GPU farm services will be widely enough available where it is feasible for companies to use generative AI for all of their media needs, thus eliminating countless jobs for artists who spent decades of their life honing a skill, but if being demoted from a professional artist to a hobbyist is the end of the world for some people I seriously question why they practice their craft in the first place.
If it was always for the money, then let the robots take the burden of performing the role of a artist from you, and please relearn creating just to feel something inside of you.
We've had knitting machines and mass produced clothing and textiles for ages, yet in this day where my car can drive itself, people spend hours learning to do fibercrafts etc. And you aren't hearing about etsy fiber artists making 60k/year from their work yet they still enjoy the creative process of it!
This is a nuanced conversation, and a lot of people in poverty situations are going to lose access to their jobs as it becomes automated away, in a more exponentially growing version of what's been going on since 2008 and even back to the 90's.
Its a real problem, but the majority of creators i see whining about this on tumblr, YouTube etc. are middle class or higher individuals who's only experience in blue collar work is the half year they spent working part time at their university campus Starbucks.
A lot of people think they're mad because automation is threatening the validity of their job, but they're actually mad because they think learning a creative skill makes them better than your average blue collar worker and they're appaled at the idea of being the same as the people who run their electric grids, clean their sewers, and stock their supermarkets.
Theyre just using the cultural backlash against explotative machine learning (which is a justified backlash, it's fucking wrong for these generative models to be stealing existing work of art and incorporating it into its training, that's not what I'm defending here) as an excuse to dodge the awareness that they don't think anyone should be doing blue collar work because surely they never dreamed of doing it.
As it stands now generative AI models are too resource intensive to truly replace the scale of workers people act like they will, and the advancement of ML algorithms has enough real potential to better people's lives that its not going away, so I think aside from doing the work of protecting our existing art with things like nightshade etc, it's important to be realistic and give up the fantasy that we are at war with AI companies, and must win, or even more delusion at war with the very concept of machine learning.
Its reminiscent of people who were afraid of computers in 1995 and now can't function in their daily life without the help of their gen z loved one to help them navigate the most basic of user interfaces.
Society will advance, regardless of how we like it, all we can do is be resourceful about it, and find ways that the advancement benefits us.
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2023 year stats!!! Wow its been a year since ive shown u one of these... amazing
anyways not too much to say here i don't think! Although can you believe its been almost a year since i stopped learning ukrainian.... weird
something thats interesting to me is that i've spent more time on czech this past year than ukrainian the year previous... and just on duolingo, somehow?! There's no way I'm 2 months away from finishing the czech tree!!!
I suppose the courses could have been different lengths to start out with, but I do blame the redesign they did... I still don't like it, lol. (Other factors could be: czech has No Cyrillic so i cant read it as well)
As far as the other languages go — I really can't believe it was only this year I finished 50languages?! Year so long... but anyways, after that i will be honest with you: most of my active belarusian studying has been solely anki and (mostly) daily search of the wordle. The other most is People I Follow On Tumblr and tiktok (theres belarusians on there)
Russian is about the same as I've been doing. Slogging through 5,000 words of top 10,000 on memrise still. Probably about 2,500 of the way through. Probably at LEAST 2 more years of slog...
Maybe it doesn't serve much of a purpose, but i'd feel weird having the extra time. Like, no, i'm supposed to be Doing Something at 14:45,,, and, yknow, sometimes i encounter these words in the wild. (Not so much anymore though)
Doing my best to keep up with polygloss for russian, too! It's fun but I never know how to describe the images so a lot of matches get sent into the ether... oops 😅
As for marathi, well................................. nanowrimo happened. Is putting it shortly - actually, I started doing something else in november, and with that, languages, and nano... it was a lot! So I did not do much marathi in november specifically because of that. The rest of the year, well... hmmm. The less said the better?
Well, anyways, it's because of having to spend the same amount of energy almost on czech at the same time, *and* because of the Something Else i've been doing. So - I do want to learn it! Spending time on marathi would be great, actually! I am just Busy. And thus it has been relegated to anki only for the better part of the year if i remember right 😔 someday...
Sidenote, at the rate I'm typing this will be posted after midnight..... well, i wanted to put it out there yesterday night, but i couldn't decide what to say, lol. January 2nd is still New of new years, right??
To be honest, I haven't really thought about any language plans for this year... i know russian and belarusian well enough to read posts & such, and I have the mental fortitude to read books i understand maybe 25% of, but listening and talking I'd say are probably where I need the most improvement. (Writing, well... I'll get back to you once i can learn grammar effectively). With everything as it is now, I'm not sure there's much to be done about that, but maybe I'll figure something out here sooner or later... maybe.
I know I want to finish the czech tree on duolingo, and then I'll pick another language from my duo list and the cycle shall begin anew... and then in 12 years either duo will be dead or i will not wish to learn languages any more (a scary thought). OR i will speedrun every language on my list to the best of my ability and then never touch duo again (no streak, no badges... i think monthly badges are like the Only duo thing that actually works on me because i Need To Collect. ah, fomo...)
As for marathi, if I can manage to pull it out of hibernation alongside all that duolingo nonsense, then by god i'll do it 🫡 if i learned* one language by being exceedingly slow at it I can do it again!!
*referring to russian so perhaps its not accurate to say "learned" still but my point stands
...
Anyways yeah!!! Idk how to end this so з новым годам (late) to u all and good luck & wishes for the new year <3 things may never be perfect but at least i can hope they will be better 👍 🎉🎉🎉
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Here’s how to make The Murderbot Diaries 80 percent less casually transmisic, for each book and short story published so far as of January 25th, 2023. (Main books 1-6, and 2 short stories)
This post will be updated to include any future books once I've read them.
(If this is the first post of mine you're seeing and you're thinking, aghast or maybe offended, "What??? The Murderbot Diaries is transmisic????? What are you talking about????" Here's a link to my tag for reading these books. It contains all my posts I've made about the series except for a few random unimportant ones. Skim through them until you come to the ones talking about the transmisia in the series. I'll add links to this post with the important ones tomorrow.)
This post is literally just me picking out a section from each book and adding in things to explicitly establish Murderbot’s pronouns, normalize the characters asking eachother what their pronouns are/listing them in their fucking brainchip social media profiles, and maybe even more importantly, making it so that sex is not equated with gender.
I'm trying not to make this post any longer than it already is, so here's the tiny version: Murderbot and all the other bots and constructs so far being agender because they're all robots (shut up if you're going to argue semantics) who don't have genitals is transmisic. There only being one explicitly nonbinary human so far is transmisic. Go search my blog for a more in-depth explanation or wait until I've added links to this.
Dialogue that was spoken though the feed is marked with :: as quotation marks, rather than being italicized, to make it easier to read.
Anyways as a reminder, even if it's not intentional, malicious transmisia, it's still transmisia. I like Martha Well's style of writing. But it has a lot of problems that I'm hoping she'll fix.
She especially has a problem with biological essentialism and gender essentialism, which is exemplified in her The Books of The Raksura.
So to demonstrate how Literally Easy it would be to fix most of the transmisia in The Murderbot Diaries, here's some sections from each book/short story where I've added in and changed things so that it's not transmisic and actually represents the way trans people (and their allies) live and interact.
also, when the characters ask what pronouns Murderbot would prefer rather than asking what its pronouns are, that is 100% intentional to fit the theme of this post. Which is that even people who have the best intentions can be unintentionally transmisic and that everyone always has room to learn more.
So.
Here you go:
___
Prequel: The Future of Work: Compulsory
Words added: 150.
(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Just the text can be found on a tumblr post here. Be warned that the first two links have eye-straining neon art at the top that moves, which is why I made the tumblr post.)
Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.
She shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”
That still came as a pleasant surprise every time it happened.
The Company had assigned me different pronouns when I was constructed, and I’d always hated them. And I hated the gender they’d assigned me, too. So the second thing I’d done after hacking my governer module (the first was downloading media) was hack into the Company’s systems to change my pronoun and gender assignments.
Now, my pronouns were listed as it/its/itself, and my gender was listed as “indeterminate”. None of the humans got paid enough to bother memorizing our assigned pronouns or genders, so none of them had noticed the change. And every time they rented me out, the humans doing the renting got a copy of my relevant info, including my assigned gender and pronouns.
Maybe someday the euphoria of being referred to the way I enjoyed would dissipate, but apparently that day was not today.
___
Book one: All Systems Red
Words added: 79
Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name? Pronouns you would prefer?”
"My pronouns are what was listed on my contract when you rented me." I said, "It, its, itself."
I didn't explain how I'd gotten those pronouns. They didn't need to know that I'd hacked into the Company's system to overwrite the ones I'd originally been assigned. I'd changed my gender assignment at the same time. And they didn't need to know that either. I didn't want them to know that.
As for having a name, I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.”
___
Book two: Artificial Condition
Words added: 22
They had listed themselves as unaffiliated guest workers, but you could list yourself as anything, there was no identity check. Two had listed their gender as female, and they both used she/her/hers/herself pronouns. The other one had listed ter gender as tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster. Ter pronouns were te/ter/ter/terself.
(To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” my pronouns as "it/its/itself", which was the format humans used, and listed my gender as "indeterminate". Posing as its own captain, ART gave me a prior employment reference.)
___
Book three: Rogue Protocol
Words added: 135
Her gaze went to Wilken’s back again, but on our private channel she said, ::I’ve never worked with a SecUnit before—I’ve never seen or interacted with a SecUnit before—so please tell me if you need any information or instruction from me. I know you already know my name, but I’m going to introduce myself properly anyways. My name is Don Abene, and my pronouns are she/her/hers/herself. You can call me Abene if you'd like. Do you have a name, or designation? What pronouns would you prefer?::
While I’d had several humans now ask me for my name and pronouns, I had never had a human ask me how to give me orders before. It was an interesting novelty. ::I have standing orders from Rin to assist you. I can do the rest.:: I said, answering the first part of her question, as for the second half... ::It is best if you refer to me as SecUnit, and my pronouns are it/its/itself.:: It wasn’t technically lying, since she’d asked ‘do you have a name’, not ‘what is your name’.
Not that it would matter if I was lying, anyways, considering all the other lies I was telling at the point, but still. Old habits die hard.
___
Book four: Exit Strategy
Words added: 36
I pulled a selection of video from the trip with Ayres and the others on the way to HaveRatton, mostly exchanges I’d tagged so I could critique my performance later. (A few times I’d broken up fights, been forced to give relationship advice, the infamous Cracker Wrapper in the Sink Incident, and the time near the start of the trip where I’d had to explain to a confused but enthusiastic group of depressingly young humans how to properly use it/its/itself pronouns when talking about me.) I cut it together, labeled it “Murderbot Impersonates an Augmented Human Security Consultant,” and sent it to Gurathin.
___
Book four and a half: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
Words added: 347
(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Don’t scroll down to the comments at the bottom unless you want to see people misgendering Murderbot.)
Instead Ephraim asks her, “Can you separate that person from the purpose they were created for?”
Anger flares automatically, despite her best efforts to stifle it. But this is not an insult she will let stand, she can’t.
Ephraim should know better. He does know better, and his motive is clear: Refer to it as ‘they’ rather than its actual pronouns, to make a show of being respectful, the way this whole thing is a show of him being respectful, while denying it the same rights that every other person, including bots, was given without question. It was a transparent farce, and that just made her all the madder.
“Its pronouns are it/its/itself.” She snapped, and the only reason she managed to stay seated instead of storming out of the room in a fury was because SecUnit was still pinging her with armament request forms, getting more absurd by the second. None of its anger leaked into the messages, even though she knew it had to be listening. She wasn’t the one being insulted, so that meant it was her responsibility to shut the idea that this was at all acceptable down forever.
She continued angrily, “You know this, and I know you wouldn’t even think to use the wrong pronouns for anyone else, not a human, not a bot. So why should a construct be the exception? You say SecUnit is ‘a product of surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement’, but how is that any different from any other refugees we take in from the Corporation Rim? Why should we not extend the same rights we grant bots to constructs? Why do you think it’s okay to use the wrong pronouns for a construct when I know for a fact that it wouldn’t even occur to you to do this to any other person? Use its correct pronouns or do not dare to speak about it at all: it/its/itself.”
Ephraim, for his part, looked suitably ashamed and guilty. “You’re right, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”
But not ashamed enough, apparently, because he simply repeated the question: “Can you separate that person from the purpose it was created for?”
___
Book five: Network Effect
Words added: 494
There was no planetary feed (stupid planet) but Stupid Boat had its own rudimentary feed that was heavy with games and pornography but light on anything that might be helpful for a security assessment, like who these people were and what they wanted. Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about their pronouns and sexual availability, which I didn’t give a damn about.
...
She smiled. “Thank you.” Then she added, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being rude, interrogating you before I’ve even introduced myself. Forgive me. My name is Farai, my pronouns are she/her/her/hers. What about you?”
I said, “Call me SecUnit. My pronouns are it/its/itself.”
She smiled again. “It’s nice to meet you, SecUnit. Thank you again.”
...
She yawned. “Okay, third mom.”
I froze, confused and annoyed, and almost lost all the data I'd just finished tagging. I put that on pause and said firmly, "I'm not your third mom. I'm not anyone's mom. I'm not any kind of gender that can be called a mom. Don't call me that."
Amena jolted a little and blinked, looking startled, then frowned, shaking her head slowly, clearly confused. "Wait, what? Don't call you what? What did I say?"
Okay, so, she hadn't been deep in thought, she was literally falling asleep standing up. That made it a little less annoying. But only a little.
"You called me your third mom." I said, trying to actively remove some of the anger from my voice but probably failing miserably. My emotions were shot, okay? And so were hers.
I got confirmation that she hadn't meant to call me that when, a few seconds after I spoke--yes, it was taking way longer than normal for her to process information. She really needed to go to sleep--her eye got wide and her face flushed red. I didn't need to be an expert on human body language to know that meant she was embarrassed.
This was further confirmed when she stammered out, "I--I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I don't--I mean I don't really see you as my third mom, or a mom, or--" She waved one hand in a frantic gesture. "I don't see you as any gender that's normally a mom. I know your gender is indeterminate, I'm sorry, I think I just fell asleep and was half dreaming, so when you told me to go to bed I thought 'oh that's what my moms are always telling me', but your voice was different from both of theirs so my brain sort of just said 'oh yeah that's your third mom telling you to go to sleep'. But it's not because I see you as a mom! I think I would have called anyone who told me to go to bed right then my third mom. But I'm really sorry it happened, and I promise it won't happen again..." Her voice started trailing off at the end despite starting out strong, and I could tell she was starting to fall asleep again.
"I forgive you." I said, since it was true and I really didn't want to hurt her feelings, "Just--go to sleep. It's harder to keep you alive if you're sleep deprived."
Instead of making another gendered comment, she gave me two sleepy thumbs up, then turned and trudged away down the corridor. I followed her with two drones, just in case.
___
Book six: Fugitive Telemetry
Words added: 5
Senior Indah said, “The feed ID doesn’t need to say anything other than what everyone else’s says, just name, pronouns, and…” She trailed off. She was looking at me and I was looking at her.
...
I posted a feed ID with the name = SecUnit, pronouns = it/its/itself, gender = not applicable, and no other information.
Indah had blinked, then said, “Well, I suppose that will have to do.”
___
And there you go. 80% of the transmisia has now been removed.
#The Murderbot Diaries#Rjalker reads The Murderbot Diaries#Murderbot#SecUnit#Martha Wells#I think I made tags specifically for talking about the transmisia in thses books but I forget what it was...#discussion of transmisia#discussion of exorsexism#exorsexism#transmisia#Martha Wells transmisia#Martha Wells exorsexism#Martha Wells gender essentialism#Martha Wells biological essentialism#The Murderbot Diaries transmisia#The Murderbot Diaries biological essentialism#The Murderbot Diaries exorsexism#The Murderbot Diaries gender essentialism#How to make the Murderbot Diaries less transmisic#long post#very long post#this is the post I was looking for#search for this#Martha Wells critical#Martha Wells criticism#Martha Wells racism#Martha Wells ableism#ititspronouns#neopronouns#writing tips
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Why would I post much here on Tumblr until I get more followers? Yet how do I accrue followers without posting?
It's the Twitter catch-22, except I did begin getting some followers there, gradually. Though a number of them have seemed to vanish or go inactive after Musk took over. In my periods of isolation, I took solace in them, too much. I might not have talked to anyone, but I could post a tweet and know the three or four accounts whose owners would reliably interact, and I always looked forward even to seeing their likes, and even more thrilling was when they responded with tweets of their own. To get to that point here, I guess I just need to shill this Tumblr page in enough future YouTube videos.
But the same catch-22 also applies to YouTube, though I still get the most eyeballs there. Creating a video takes an enormous amount of time, particularly for me, because every task takes me longer than it takes other people for reasons I don't understand. Two minutes of a YouTube video, or a video essay anyway, matches at least 40 minutes of creation and usually more. However, in return for this tremendous amount of effort, on YouTube very few people watch my videos, when measured against people who do YouTube professionally. If the Mackerel Phones channel was going to take off after these years, it would have by now. I would be wise to accept that I have failed.
The further problem is that I expect more people have Twitter accounts than Tumblr accounts, so calling on subscribers to follow my Tumblr for updates would be less accessible. Even so, I will.
I just don't have enough hustle in me. Writing is difficult enough normally, and I can barely focus on writing anymore. But being unable to write is about the same to me as feeling myself slowly die. And creating videos feels so pointless, honestly. I've been at the online content thing for most of a decade at this point and still have little to show for it. I am proud of almost nothing I have ever posted and actively dislike even more of it, and my videos and essays that I do regard well I do not consider anything valuable. In the past, I would hit on a video idea and work at it almost obsessively, losing sleep because I stayed up so late editing. When creating "A Pac-Man World of Loneliness," I spent every free hour working on it, no matter how scared and hopeless I felt about real life. I worked on it every day, for hours, for months, and went to bed wanting to get back to it. What happened to that feeling? But even that feeling filled me with sorrow, to feel such emotions over and put such time into a project I considered basically a piss take.
On the other hand, I have come so far and learned so much since I created my YouTube channel and first posted myself reading a terrible poem back in 2016. I can write, record, and edit material of a much higher quality than I would have thought possible when I began seven years ago. The entire process has been a learning experience, much as living for those seven years has been an experience of maturation. And I have met several friendly people as a result of my work on YouTube, and that is precious, very precious. Yet, on some level, even meeting people feels pointless now because whomever I meet online can only ever be distant from me, so no matter how many I might know, I will remain alone. Everything seems pointless. I feel like I had many chances, and I wasted every one, and now it's too late.
Someone once told me, "You have no hope." She meant that I had no ability to believe in a better future for myself or for anything. She was correct. This is why I don't take care of my health like I used to.
I'm sure once I finish up my current projects, though, and nobody cares about them, I'll return to my YouTube video idea backlog to quell whatever voice in my head has driven me to create even what I have so far. I'm sure when I mention my Tumblr on my YouTube channel, I'll get more followers here on Tumblr, too, until maybe someday most of my followers will not be those creepy sexy woman bots. I'm sure I still have plenty of time to, in fact, lead a good life.
I'm sure
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@themischiefoftad
It's been a hell of road and there have definitely been both highs and lows on this rollercoaster, but this arrived today so I'm feeling pretty good about life right now.
Like when I left Tumblr, I was still pretty fresh out of my BA with an uncertain future and chaotic mental health, and here I am about to graduate with my Master's, with a job letter already in pocket, and am set to basically live my weird little cottage witch dreams, doing better than I have in years.
Like don't get me wrong, it takes a truly impressive number of interventions every day to keep me that way, but they're working, and I'm stable, and I'm increasingly self-reliant with wifey being able to step back a little bit more each day from basically 24/7 care at one point (speaking of which I should refill my med pack before I forget).
I get the kind of compliments from my peers and supervisors and professors I used to DREAM about getting (actual exchange after I led a role play included a peer saying "I wish Raz was my therapist" and the FUCKING PROFESSOR chiming in with "we all wish that" like?????? 😭😭😭😭)
I continue to be my own harshest critic, but I'm learning to be kind to myself and to love the things about me that others have taught me to despise.
The hardest thing has been adjusting to life with multiple autoimmune disorders and the potential for a significantly shortened life span. It's weird to spend your chikdhood thinking you'll never even make it to 18, finally start accepting the idea of a full life in your 20s, and then suddenly learn that you might never reach 60 before your 25th. I'm 30 now, and that may be half my life, or maybe I'll manage more, no one really seems to know at this point, but I've come to grips with the idea that time is what I make of it.
I've made peace with my moms, I've lost the family I thought I'd have, I've learned that my reproductive system is entirely healthy but can't seem to ovulate, so wifey and I will probably have both bio and adopted kids someday. I've owned a home and lost it, and plan to own a home again. I've lived in cities and suburbs and backwater towns with barely enough people to be worth plotting on a map. I've intend to live every bit of time I have left without shame, and with dedication to who I am as a person, even when it's hard, and I can see the ways that's made me better.
It's cliché, but it's me. And I'm okay with that. I know who I am, and I know how to be that now without letting other people hurt me and ruin the experience.
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Managed to list the monster high stock and dolls. I'd been putting it off in the distant hope that i'd show improvement enough to warrant waiting. It's stupid I have plenty of projects kept and there will always be gunky bundles. Still my brain bought this and that for a reason and I had often had something specific planned, so a sense of, not quite obligation but when each doll head was in hand there were moments of "well this one only would require an hour or two to complete the vision" and "that one's so rare I'll never see that again while I have the right supplies".
Bratz spare clothes and project dolls tomorrow. Kiwi too. Not sure whether to split Barbie and other 1/6 from 1/7th Licca and Anthro. I have to keep the momentum and remember the relief. It's so SILLY having to go through the same mental blocks every time. I post in the hopes it'll make me cringe someday and maybe learn something.
If you're in the EU, you can still get the whole lot for $100 shipped (if it's not western eu it might be a bit more shipping) massive bargain for you and no ebay hassle for me.
Then new shelves/glass cupboards for the Rainbow High and possibly a few anthro hybrids. Now that the collection has more monsters and novis, they won't be out of place.
There's been an odd sense of loss of identity with not being able to customize but it's so much easier seeing how many people know how to reroot now and also letting myself enjoy being a collector (occasional restyler!) who doesn't have to do anything spectacular to enjoy a doll.
January pushed me out of my habits to learn some minor bead embroidery skills and I did some fun upcycling with clear plastic, silica beads and plastic ab rhinestones. It was a fun exercise in using unusual materials and reminded me that I love a challenge and the odd far more than a full pallette of high quality hair colours.
I have not made any progress on the recoding of the tutorials. I might be motivated if there's a section on the new doll collector site. Hard to get hyped/panicked enough: Tumblr's not ideal for the search engines but at least it's stable for now and people can ask questions directly on posts, spam's minimal, you build a rapport with other doll folks.
I do my walks, my exercises, and just have to hope that it's doing something. I can't build muscle like a normal person just have to measure in how many seconds before collapse or full body trembles. Patience is a virtue I've never had. The high pain shock collar built into my neck with a instant to 48h delay is having to do the work of keeping me on track lol.
On an unrelated tangeant, i really hope AI hype craps out soon. I hated the new 'predictive/most searched' google update, it basically broke the internet for me to not get the most accurate results for my searches.
I have zero interest in having a bot tell me what I really want to hear from some random blogger who happens to be into that subject or who sees a link between that subject and another. That's what this is for, to hear from other people not have their thoughts filtered through algorithms to give me an all sides version of the story. I don't want the review that's a condensed consensus matching the 80% of 2 star reviews I want to hear from the three dweebs who adore this film for entirely different reasons (the train schedule and effects are totally correct and it's the one vhs they used to watch with the neighbour and quote it as in jokes, it's also got great practical effects and it was filmed in a place that is now knocked down but used to be their workplace.) People make the internet interesting. I don't want the information without the superfluous personal ramblings attached. Give me the anecdote with the recipe, it's far less intrusive than the five adverts and I'll remember the recipe as the one that he found in a book about Greece and he's never been but he dreams about it sometimes.
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Don't be long winded!
Well... didn't work that way!
Wrote in diary because. Well.
M.11.14.2022 3.06pm.
Ok.
Today's counseling was ... me & this place. How I interact with others.
And how to fix me.
Boundaries. Self respect. Value. Worthiness.
I am Valuable.
I am worthy of life, & of love.
I am deserving of life, & of love.
Teaching me that I need to reset my own personal boundaries. But also my boundaries for others & how I wish to be treated. What's been taught & learned needs to be reevaluated.
Does God want me to be constantly hurt because I let others devalue me? No.
And I also must learn to remember this for myself.
"Do unto others as you would have others do to you."
I don't want to be mean nor unkind to other people. To hurt them, their souls. The very thought is abhorrent to me!
And don't get me started on my thoughts about people who hurt babies, children, & God help me.. the kinds that kidnap & do horrible things like rape & human trafficking.
IT IS APPALLING!
For me, those people... eye for an eye.
The warrior queen in me just.. gets a strong urge to ...cleanse.
[I am a rape survivor. ~I~ had to think about that choice. And thank You Jesus, I did not have a child. And that He cleared my health too! You answered my prayers! But nor do I agree with abortion. That's God's domain, not mine. Certainly not the government.]
So treat them the way I want to be treated!
And reestablishing my boundaries in kind.
I am a good woman, but I am working to be better. And to keep doing my best! Strive every day!
I have done things wrong here. I admit that.
And that I am here like I strive for real life. Kind & value other people. Their time, & souls. But I will say that I am honest & deplore false behavior. I want the truth. Period.
I know a lot, if not most, people that use social media do so for a variety of reasons. But a lot of Tumblr & how it was started, as well as such other sites do so for escapism, & sadly wrong doing.
I don't agree with that.
Therefore I do not condone it.
My wee lil corner isn't about "sex, boobs, butts & hookups."
Those who want that need to go elsewhere.
And most have! I still get some of the bots.. following, I've had 2 or 3 in asks. I've been propositioned by supposed women. Ain't goin there. The only things I block are those. And the few actual real ones that I have blocked, had derogatory views that I want no part of.
I am here to heal.
I actually had a lightbulb moment💡 on that recently. I didn't just come to Tumblr to heal, like I thought. But God opened my eyes that I have been looking for the one I fell for years ago in this place.
I no longer know who that is.
That is where I messed up & made a fool of myself. But I can't do that anymore.
I feel in my soul he is here but I don't know who nor where. So I've given it to God. Because I hurt myself. And I feel I have hurt him too. Heck, maybe why I don't know!
I only hope thet those I have hurt, & maybe my soul's mate is among them, that someday I am forgiven.
Not that I expect anything to happen.
Expectations. No.
I just want the one I love.. to be happy & feel loved.
With. Or without. Me.
Because we humans scar each other with expectations. With the things we fantasize about, hope for & dream about.
For me, I expect nothing.
I thank God for every breath I breathe. That I wake up & make it thru another day.
I don't expect to be forgiven for me.
I pray the souls I unintentionally hurt can forgive because God heals the souls within. And then can be happy.
The only expectations I'll allow myself are to do better of myself.
Treat people better.
Give them the boundaries on how to treat me right.
And if that means they walk away from me then...
Let Them.
That post is very much on my mind.
[It & several others are in my note app & pinned to my status bar. That's how much I agree with... "Let them."]
And when I begin the work on my massive tattoo design... it will be a part of it. [I've been researching uv & 3d for.. ~10 years. My design is very personal.]
Heck, I think it's time to revisit my note pad & vacation plans!
Looking at all the towns along the coast I grew up with & wanna visit & reflect. And see how humanity has swarmed. Grimace. Think that's what stops me. Ruining my childhood memories. From NC to FL. From DC to the space coast. To across.. I so wanna go back to Busch Gardens! But I think the Florida is different than Williamsburg one. I loved the international aspects & learning new things. Loved the German stuff! So neat!
I need a flippin break! Huh. Maybe I should just find an island spa retreat somewhere & escape humanity for a month & hold off on my reminiscing tour again.
I'm just.. worn.
My tree is so bending in the middle that it's splintering. I don't like that. It's time to work on my healing.
My assigned tasks this week are read both of my books. Not to take notes. But read & absorb. Then go back later & do the note taking.
I do hope, & pray, that my soul's mate, my Bears ..Angels.. do in fact read my raw feelings here. And someday can forgive me. And if I am to be Blessed.. want.. me. For me.
For me, that's not something I am willing to give up hope on. Ever.
That's not what God instructs me to do. Not what He is wanting me to learn. He wants me to come to Him. First. And be Blessed with my soul's mates love. Because that is a precious & priceless Gift.
Not something I'd ever take for granted.
So... whomever.. wherever.. you .. are... please... hear my soul.. I am sorry. For all I have done wrong. My God heal that soul. And may He have Mercy & Grace upon mine.
As He Teaches, Guides, Molds, Loves, Protects, shows me His Wisdom, Guidance, Strength & Perseverance to get my life back on its proper track.
I love.
I believe.
I will endure, work & await. On my cliffside. ~True love never dies & true love always waits.~
So Thy Will Be Lord.
Your humbled bowed hurting confused listening closely quietly & carefully
Your complex quirky warrior queen daughter.
~Tijgeress kat Phoenix. 🌺🐾🐯✝️
🙊🙈🙉😖😟😥☔🌀🌬🌫🤓👩⚓🙏🙇♀️🌂🔗 ⛓🧰🏋️♀️🧘♀️📋📆📝💸⚙🏗��⚒🛠⚔⚖🔐🗽🦅🕊🥧🍁🧣🥾🍋🥤🥨🍯🍼☕🍫🍎🍑🍒 🐯🐾🐐🦉🐢🐛🦋🌱🌺🌹🌻🌷🌳🧶🧵 ⌚💡⚡🌠🗝🚀🔱⚜💝🐻🦌🧩♠️🎯♾🕯🧭🎶
M.11.14.2022 4.33pm. Corrections. 4.52pm.
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Welcome to 2024
Hello again!
My most recent post was from 4 years ago. And so much had happened since, so I guess it's time for another update. I'm writing this for me who will be reading this entry after a few years, maybe when I remember to dig up my old tumblr account again just because I felt like reminiscing.
So anyway, I'm turning thirty this year. That hasn't sunk yet because more than anything — I'm getting married this year too. It's still to the guy I have been writing about years before. We're turning 9 years this 2024, and are tying the knot this October. He proposed to me two years ago. On top of the Singapore Flyer, 11.11.22. Damn, what a date.
But the past few years weren't all about butterflies and happiness. These past few years were actually some of the worst ones of my life so far. I'm in debt. But fortunately on a good payment plan now that I haven't missed. I risked a really good job to pursue hosting full time — that only lasted for 3 months. Then shifted industries because I wanted to still give myself a chance. And so now I'm still hosting but for e-commerce livestreams. Got promoted twice in a year. I'm now a trainer. But I still do copywriting on the side because it makes good money. At least now I've flipped it up. Doing my passions full time then writing on the side. I'm tired though, to tell you the truth.
Mind-wise, I'm confident. I know what I can bring to the table and what I'm capable of. I don't second guess myself too much now. I still work hard and multi-task. I know my worth. I know my strengths. I learned my lessons well. I've been through difficult times and now I've gained stability. I know I'm ready to fly. In a smarter, more mature way.
Life-wise could be better. Because the wedding is right around the corner, everything I'm earning is being poured to it. So you can say I'm still living paycheck to paycheck after all the great things I take pride on. I'd like to think I've planted a lot of seeds that I'm just waiting to harvest soon. Hopefully the wedding turns out great, so I could finally enjoy the fruits of my labor completely. To be honest tonight, dinner was just a pack of pancit canton and cup noodles. It's petya de peligro and I don't know where to get tomorrow's fare to work. But I'll get by. After a day, salary's gonna come. I really hope it gets so much better soon.
So these things, y'know. It's entirely great but minutely terrifying. And every single time God proves to me that there's guidance from above. You won't believe how many conveniently unexpected blessings I've gotten over the past tumultuous years. I can't even comprehend how I've weathered through all the moments I worried about. But I'm here, sitting on my couch, safe, satiated, typing whatever comes to mind. It's these reflective, peaceful pauses that makes you realize that despite the chaos, I'm actually okay. Barely breathing but pushing on.
I'd like to think future me who would be reading this somehow, someday, would look at me and say: "just wait, it's going to be better". Because I would be saying the same thing to myself who started this blog 10+ years ago. It had gotten so much better. Crazier, but better. I wish future me would say, "babe, we're a millionaire". But more importantly would love her to say, "we still love what we do". No matter what that looks like.
So there. I think that's an ample update about how I am now. And hopefully in a few years tumblr would still be here so I'd be able to read all this again. It's a good self-therapy shit. And also I just missed writing my thoughts like this.
Ok, I'm just rambling now. Until the next update!
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happy kk tumblr advent calendar '23 day 10 please enjoy this excerpt from a fic ill never finish
The first time Ronan notices them they're nothing more than bumps equidistant on his forehead just a notch or two below his shorn hairline. Small protrusions that he's sure he's hallucinating. A smudge on the mirror maybe. A warble of vision leftover from one drink too many last night. Nothing to be concerned about at first but then they grew. Slowly, like a fingernail until it became an indisputible fact.
He wondered, running his fingers along the slope of his skin around the perimeter of the bump, if this is why no one would look at him dead on. If they could see ths growth- was it bone? something else? - deforming under his skin and threatening to burst through. Open his head up. Ronan watches himself in reflecions, hoping to catch the moment his skin shatters and something sharp and ugly spills out.
The most difficult part is never being sure. If everyone can so clearly see this twisted thing crumbling Ronan from this inside out then no one ever says so. He's grown used to not need the aproval of other people, a trait first learned there in the safe confines of his family home. Then, as he slowly teetered away from those familiar hils, he found safety in his brothers. How quick and uneventful is the shifting of the tides. Ronan feels like he's carrying a secret that no one will ever want to know.
He catches his reflection in class on the muddy spackled windows of the old housing. His eyes trace the line of his forehad, the sharp curve of his brow, the close line of his hair blunt against his skull. It's there, it's clear, and no on is saying anything at all. He can't tell which is worse.
The worst part, most days anyway, is how heavy they feel. His contempt for the world shields most of the effects. Here is Ronan with his head tcked in his arms on his desk, irreverent but unsurprising. Here is Ronan absently rubbing at his temples, his foehad, eyes squinched iin irritation. Somedays it's hard enough getting out of bed. His head cradled against his flat pillows rolled up and flattened again in the tossing and tuning of the night but still, when he lays in bed he doesn't have to acknowledge the weight keeping him there.
This is has worked wonders his for his already spectacular school attendance. It's a morning like this where Ronan is growing sticky from sweating out something awful last night, the sheets around him growing stale in the morning air. Ronan doesn't want to lift his hed and so he doesn't. He doesn't perk up from the first alarm set for him, nor any of the others. He ignores the ginger, tentative first knock and those that follow with increasing urgency. He can't help himself when a stern Ronan pierces through his door but hte most he can muster in return is low, growled expletive. Which is exacly what led them to this scene.
"He's picked up something awful. I'll be more than happy to pick up any extra homework for him. Yes. Yes. Of course. Thank you, sir. You as well."
Gansey is the one person who has stood by Ronan's side through - well, all of it. Gansey still looks at Ronan, the last of a multitude of pieces that tethered Ronan to everything he used to know, used to - no. Ronan had clocked it immediately. Gansey, the same old Gansey who preened and clucked about, would look at him and Ronan wouln't feel the weight so distinctly. His tender muscles in his neck and shoulders felt used but light in those moments deep in the night when Gansey looked and talked and sat in quiet company with Ronan. These were the moments Ronan coveted the most these days. He sometimes felt like maybe he could smile. Maybe he could laugh.
Ronan wonders if Declan has horns, too.
He decides that Declan did but he learned how to sand them down to smooth edges. He learned how to conceal the twin spots on his forehead with his dark curls.
Now, Ronan is trying to feel for the rough callous where Declan's horns might have once been but he only feels the thin layer of constraint made to make Declan other. Ronan can only feel Declan's audacitiy and that will not stand.
When Declan's head smacks against the pavement Ronan expects it burst open like an egg. He expects all his truths to come tumbling out of him.
"You didn't even know him," Ronan says. "Stop trying to be him. Stop trying to destroy this family. My family."
It's so hard to look his brother in the eye. The sound of Declan spitting blood on the pavement is too familiar to ignore.
"I don't have time for this."
"The fuck is your problem?"
"Go to class, Ronan."
It isn't until Ronan settles back into the seat of the BMW that the familiar pain weighs on his neck again. His head droops low and he rests against the steering wheel for the semblance of respite. They had been so light just a minute ago.
He almost forgot about them completely.
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