#then we're square

[thatbadadvice]

Dear Advisor,

I tend to be a very reserved and shy person so making friends is super hard. Recently I’ve been wanting to socialize more , but I genuinely don’t know how. Is there any advice that you have that can make me look more approachable and not be scared to talk to people. I’m so stressed about being alone and not having any friends, but I just find it so hard to go up to people and make a conversation. I tried once but it became super awkward. I just really need good advice from someone on how to approach a person and continue a conversation.

Dear Awkward Anonymous,

It would be so easy to get into a whole deep let's-skeetshoot-therapy-on-the-internet session and try to help a total stranger unpack all of the GA-FUCKING-ZILLION ways in which social awkwardness shows up in a person's life. It seems easy, and it even seems meaningful and worthwhile, but to do so I would have to presume a bunch about your life, and make a bunch of assumptions about the ways in which my own experiences maybe/probably track with yours, and it would be a whole big wank-fest, and frankly ... it would be awkward. I'd be like you, standing there at the party, hoping that what I'm saying resonates or lands or even vaguely tracks with anything a stranger has ever known or experienced, presuming (probably rightly!) that it doesn't, and then flailing and blaming myself when I didn't emerge from the interaction with all the world's gold stars.

So here's what: stop talking to other people as a primary social occupation. Going up to people and just talking is fucking terrifying. The Bad Advisor says this as a Certified Extrovert™ who rarely shuts the fuck up.

Instead, find a thing to do with other people that involves some sort of task or goal or activity. Talk about the thing you're doing together, when you're doing it. If it feels okay, maybe introduce one or two of your own relatable-to-the-activity experiences in the process. See who picks up on it. Ask the people who pick up on it genuinely interested questions in response. This is what we awkward people call: engineering a conversation. It is the way, I am told, humans make connections with other humans. I have seen it work in my own life.

Depending on where you live and your ability level and skill set, I bet you have some options! You could seek out an open board game night, pub quiz session, knitting/quilting circle, or mutual aid meetup that's looking for volunteers. Especially look for social activities with strangers that involve a dedicated, pre-prescribed activity (such as a hiking or mall-walking group, stuffing envelopes for a political candidate or cause you care about, planting trees at your local park, or tasting tea/wine/beer/etc.). (Somebody is going to say join a ballroom dancing club or suchlike; I am personally terrified of this, but if you have a higher tolerance for strangers touching you and fewer than two left feet: it's literally an option. Line-dancing, on the other hand ... absofuckinglutely.)

Even if what's available in your area isn't your precise and specific interest, it might be worthwhile to check out something you are decidedly meh about -- you might not be the only meh person there. You can bond over shit that's boring or shitty with other people who find it boring or shitty! Some of my best friends, arguably my very best friends, came out of experiences we mutually loathed or found at least moderately and mutually miserable.

Consider especially finding an activity where you yourself are the manager of operations and/or have a designated task to take care of that is unique to your position! This doesn't have to be complicated or skill-dependent; can you become a voter registrar in your area? Well, bam! You've got paperwork people have to fill out and a good reason to jibber-jabber with folks who have to ask you the questions. Other ideas: join your local neighborhood association board, become a notary public, or see if your local pet rescue is looking for intake line volunteers. Do you have a trustworthy, especially outgoing friend who might agree to play "social glue" for you a couple of times at their activity-centric events? Make it explicit! Ask them if they'll play friendly wing-person for you at their D&D game, fantasy sports league, or some such.

Alternately: Do you have a unique and fun and shareable skillset you can share with others? Are you pretty good at drawing, programming? Simply a font of endless Merlin or NFL or Real Housewives knowledge? You might start a local Discord or other online social group to discuss and share your interests, then move it to the real world in a few weeks once folks get comfortable. You get the idea.

Most of all: Look for stuff that has more-than-just-talking opportunities available outside the designated group jam for you to maintain connections. Perhaps a group chat, a Discord, a Slack, what-have-you, where you can take more time to consider and draft your responses and posts? Connections with humans get made a thousand ways, and talking raw-dog with strangers is but one.

It takes a true social unicorn to be simply good at talking and only talking to other people. There are some of these one-horned wonders out there, to be sure — but let me assure you that the vast majority of folks want to be accepted and seen just as much as you do, and they're staring at the ceiling at night thinking just as much (more, probably) about all the weird, wonky shit they themselves threw at you than they are anything you ever said to them.

#good advice #good advice interlude #socializing #awkward #introvert problems #shy #shyness #get out there we're all fucking squares

[petitesmafia]

hc Dazai and Chuuya may fight over the stupidest shit but the one thing they have never fought over is Nintendo switch controls. Dazai always grabs blue and Chuuya always grabs red methinks

#ena.hc #enarchive: skk #bungou stray dogs #skk #they do start fighting 2 minutes into the game tho #it does not matter what the game is they WILL find smth to argue about #animal crossing? we're tusseling #stardew valley? square up #don't even get them started on super smash bros #they will transition that fight from the screen to real life

[lostboywriting]

Okay. Okay, there's a bunch of wildly speculative stuff that I can't quite pin down right now, so for now I'm going to stick with a couple definite points and just a tiny bit of the speculation:

Point 1: The case from TMAGP 4 is dated November 19, 1831, according to its case number. That's only two days before the letter in MAG 127, from Jonathan Fanshawe to Jonah Magnus, that detailed how Albrecht Von Closen died.

Which is interesting not just because of the dates, but because how Albrecht died seems REALLY FUCKING SIMILAR to what we know about what happened to Red Canary. Albrecht took a bunch of books from the Württemberg tomb. He went wildly off the rails. And when he tried to return what he had taken:

"Do I need to tell you what I found, Jonah? Do I need to detail what covered his organs, his bones, the inside of his skin? What clustered together in their dozens, and all turned as one to focus on me as I opened his chest, their pupils constricting in the light, with irises of every hue and color?" (MAG 127)

Point 2: As I said over here, TMAGP 3's case is dated very close to when Anya Villette crossed between realities at Hilltop Road. They're only about three weeks apart, which seems pretty close for coincidence considering Anya's the only character we see definitely make that crossing at any point in TMA. The timing gets closer if you recall that Anya landed in TMA's world two weeks before she went to Hilltop Road in hers.

The tiny bit of speculation that I'm posting for now in a desperate attempt to conserve my sanity:

There's all this emotional/thematic resonance between the case files each voice has read and the characters they each appear to be linked to (if not to be outright), and I've been pretty swept up in that. And still am, won't lie! But I'm starting to suspect that they (or whatever is behind them) are actually searching, very deliberately, for something else entirely, and using potentially significant touchpoints from TMA's world as starting places. And that the cases we're actually hearing, and many of the thematic parallels they contain, may be only tangential to that.

#I NEED MORE DATA and also oh god we're only four episodes in #the fears may not manifest in the same way here but I am going to be squarely in the spiral before this thing is over #tmagp #tmagp speculation #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol spoilers #tma spoilers #(kinda) #tmagp 4 #tmagp 3 #tmagp 1

[star-shapedfruit]

Limit Break you say.....?

#LIMIT BREAK: ACTIVATED #flashing gif #kingdom hearts #kh #Square look what's happening to us in this news drought we're going mad

[sergle]

FOREWARNING FOR GROSS-OUT SKIN CLOSEUP SHIT DON'T YELL AT ME FOR SHOWING YOU has anyone else gotten this really weird phenomenon on youtube. I swear every algorithm on every website is actively and purposely worse now. Where you'll be scrolling through vids after searching for something (I was looking at crochet stuff) and SANDWICHED IN THE MIDDLE OF ACTUAL SEARCH RESULTS... YOU KNOW. LIKE THINGS RELEVANT TO THE KEYWORDS I TYPED

are a couple of completely out of left field SHOCK VALUE VIDS. like to intentionally be alarming. drama vids and things you're enticed to click on bc they're upsetting, and deep deep closeups on zits. what the fuck is going on. Sandwiched between videos about GRANNY SQUARES. crack? is it crack we're smoking????

#are you telling me I can search for crochet patterns and be fed videos of pimple popping and news about anorexic influencers? #THESE ARE NOT ADS!!!! they're just IN THERE. I have ublock I've got all that stuff. these are just completely irrelevant videos #in the search results after I typed like. granny square patterns. or something really basic like that #NASTY shit #and I know it's not the algorithm clocking me bc I can tell when they do that. but I hate hate hate pimple popping videos #so that's not gonna be it. #when mr. algorithm gets me I can smell it. because guess what. nail polish. it's always nail polish. #and I don't watch upsetting shit abt the starvation girl or anything either. and I don't follow drama clickbait channels #WHAT IS THIS. WHERE AM I. #why did they make me look at this!!!! #sergle.txt #you're not allowed to yell at me btw I gave you a warning. which was more than I got. we're in this together now. #i'm not sure what to tag this as bc if i tag it as body horror then ppl will bark at me bc zits are natural. is it natural to get #a camera this close to big irritated holes and boils on your face. lesions. cysts. is that natural. are we friends #do i need to be close enough to smell you. put my eyes directly into the holes in your face

[koppaiterocker]

SOME BARBED WIRE CAUSE @starzwithapen ASKED WHERE MY BARB GIFS ARE. PUTS MY FACE IN NY HANDS THEY'RE HERE

#some are squares because i make them to be my discord pfp #like my profile right now is pfp of “we're all gonna be one nation of trolls.. UNDER ROCK” #and my banner is the one where she runs her finger down the neck #because hello. im very weak fir that scene #its probably a crime i havent made a proper dedicsted barb gifset yet #ill fix it.... #koppaiterocker #dreamworks trolls #trolls #trolls world tour #trolls barb #beeps gifs

[surgingshadows]

i think part of what makes the IDW Sonic supporting cast so endearing is how well they fit into the franchise as a whole. like the Archie Sonic characters were created by and large to match the SatAM continuity, which was created by and large to give context to things happening in the games because it was made at a time when audiences knew shit from fuck about these characters or their world... so those characters kinda retroactively just don't mesh with the games at all. they're adjacent to an adjacency to the main franchise, so trying to imagine them existing in the tone and context of the modern games doesn't line up.

but then you look at the IDW characters, and they are entirely, wholly made to fit into the same mold and world as the games without being redundant expies of existing characters. Surge might be "another rival to Sonic", but she fits a narrative purpose Shadow, Knuckles, and Metal Sonic completely don't; the stories you can tell with Surge and Kit are unique to them, and no other characters would fit those roles. same with Tangle and Whisper; they make the world feel lived-in, remind you that things are happening and having an impact on people whenever Sonic and co. aren't onscreen.

they also have that quality that Pit has in Smash Brawl, where they feel like they have this super storied history and evolution over the course of years that we just didn't get to see. until i actually read IDW you could've 100% convinced me the IDW-originals were all updated versions of forgotten side-characters from spin-off games like Dark Brotherhood or Rivals, and i think that says a lot about how well-conceived they all are.

#text.post #surge the tenrec #kitsunami the fennec #whisper the wolf #tangle the lemur #IDW Sonic #i think about this a lot tbh #the idea of like. trying to introduce New Characters into a franchise that's got such a tight-knit core cast #after a while audiences are so used to the same few people that anyone new feels like a “gimmick” #so when the writers who made these characters leave the book they take their “gimmick” characters with them and we're back to square one #(see also: almost every new supporting character Marvel has tried to introduce in the past ten years) #but Sonic has always subverted that as a franchise #even the Wisps went from a one-and-done gameplay gimmick to a full-fledged piece of the world and that's really cool #can you tell i like this franchise

[grimgrinningninjashark]

#gex #square enix #thief #tomb raider #legacy of kain #deus ex #ninja original #we're all gamers now

[transsexualism]

im so fucking tired

#i dont even want to talk about it #we're back to square one (homosexuality js a legal crime) #russia #lgbt #.txt

[jayswing101]

Fill for G1 - Black Cloaked Envoy on my Guardian Bingo Card!

The base pattern is taken from this daxiushan (大袖衫) pattern. To make this daxiushan (Heipaoshi's Version), I shortened the sleeves a bit, added extra length to the body, added a hood, and added the weird gauzy bits on the back. I also added some cording on the shoulders and the sides of the hood, following the design from the show as closely as I could. You'll also notice a couple decorative bands of black ribbon on the chest and at the waist, as well as a square of skightly different black fabric on the back — these are also embellishments added to follow the model in the drama.

Fabric: raw silk noil, cotton lining in the hood, a silk habotai square, silk gauze, silk ribbons, cotton cording. Entirely handsewn using waxed black linen thread.

#guardian #heipaoshi #guardianbingofest #cosplay #(ish) #fanARTifact #handmade #modified hanfu #this was my first time making anything other than a basic circle/half circle skirt and it was very fun and im very happy with the result #there are places i could for sure improve for next time (and there will be a next time - this is one of the comfiest things I've ever worn) #but for my first time drafting a pattern and sewing anything more complex than a circle skirt #i say this is a job very well done #also the hood was so scary but it was actually pretty simple to make!! it's also GIANT #i could for sure hide a big black cat in there no problem #i am also planning on making the rest of heipaoshi's outfit (belt and little hand guards and all!) #we're posting just the cloak bit and calling that square filled bc i won't have the rest finished before the end of January 😅 #but i keep getting intimidated by the closures on the yuanlingpao im making and then not sewing for months on end so. #jaysart

[bonebabbles]

God the new ultimate guide sucks

It's not JUST the awful art, either. The art's just worth mentioning because even if the book's info had been terrible or contained nothing new, really cute art can make it still worth having.

But, no, it's even full of recycled lines we've been hearing for years like "Bramblestar Can Match Squirrelflight's Fire Not Contain It," and that's when it DOES get everything right. These entries leave out major, important details (making them bad summaries) and are sometimes even straight-up incorrect.

SUMMARY THOUGHTS

Leafpool is said to have watched Brambleclaw kill Hawkfrost to save Firestar-- but for one, no, she was not there because Ashfur was still leading her and Squilf towards the scene. For two, no, Brambleclaw did not kill Hawkfrost just to save Firestar, it was self-defense. Hawkfrost had him pinned and was going to kill him.

They're REAL cute about Leafpool's death, too, neglecting to mention WHY the Sisters needed to be saved at all and just saying Leafpool's "generosity" lead to her death in that cave-in.

I'm not even going to get into everything on Bramble's entry jesus christ.

Sagewhisker's entry is ESPECIALLY fucken' dandy, framing Yellowfang's Secret like she was simply waiting patiently for Yellow to realize her 'destiny' and not actively shoving it on her at every opportunity.

Leopardstar's entry states that romantic interest in Tigerstar was part of her motivation. "Perhaps she'd hoped he would be her mate" please speak to a woman irl for once in your life.

Gray Wing's entry forgot that the reason he "blamed himself" for Bright Stream's death is because he was literally staring at his big strong brother too much and tripped on a root in front of him. It IS his fault she died.

Clear Sky/Skystar's entry is just obscene. "He regretted abandoning his son and after a fire, he encouraged him to live with him" instead of "saw his teenage child was useful now and bullied and belittled the kid and his uncle into letting Thunder come with him." "Retaining his fierceness towards his cats and outsiders which caused his son to leave" instead of "murdering, brutalizing, and abusing everyone around him caused Thunder to leave." I'll just say this tho; "Fierce" is an interesting way to spell "Cruel."

It's interesting that they don't point out that a major part of Jagged Peak's arc was proving he was "Just As Good" as every other cat in spite of his disability, thanks to his introduced-and-pregnant-in-the-same-book wife becoming his life coach, only earning Clear Sky's respect after being allowed to physically lead a patrol in Blazing Star. Instead they frame him finding his place through taking care of kits, which... was something he seemed to resent in the actual series, considering how the books suddenly treat Gray Wing's protective treatment of him as a terrible thing in Blazing Star because he "didn't give him a chance". But at the same time I actually strongly dislike Jagged Peak and his messy, frustrating character arc so I'm not really UPSET with it. Just... noting it. I suppose this is the official direction they're taking away from it?

Shadowstar's entry is barely even 3 paragraphs yikes.

SHORT STORY THOUGHTS

And if you're wondering if the 4 brand new stories they smooshed into the end in a desperate attempt to make the rush job worth buying are good? No. Of course not. They're all slop.

Story 1: Firestar and Graystripe

First one's a marginally cute story about Graystripe and Firestar which is setting up the framing device linking the mini-tales together. They both remember this situation where Firestar fell into a ditch wrong. The punchline is that Thunderstar remembers it perfectly and they're both like, "WOW! Too bad Thunderstar's memory sucks!"

It's not terrible, but it does feel a bit pointless. But, hey, if you want more Firestar and Graystripe in the series that tosses them fanservice at every turn, who am I to judge?

Story 2: Dovewing and Ivypool

The next one is the Dovewing/Ivypool reconciliation passage everyone's talking about. It's... fine, but immensely dissatisfying to me.

Dovewing is apparently having problems adjusting to her Clan, grapples a little bit with the fact she has no friends but is going to be finding meaning in helping tigerHeartstar "bring the new ShadowClan into existence." She ultimately decides that she needs to talk to her sister, and begs for reassurance that Ivypool believes in her, feeling that her support can help her get through this difficult time in her life.

I think its biggest problem is that Dovewing was not the right choice for the POV here.

Dove was never the one responsible for the rift in their relationship. Ivypool is. Ivypool is the one who was jealous, willing to sabotage anything that would put Dovewing closer to Tigerheart, and continues to be generally aggressive towards her. So when Dovewing is reaching out to Ivypool in hopes of them reconciling, it feels wrong because Ivypool is the one that should be reaching out to Dovewing. SHE is the one who has some things to apologize for, and to show how much she loves and misses her.

It's even kind of frustrating, because Dovewing can never catch a break. She has to have these problems to force her to reach out, Ivypool even ends up suggesting that she leave and come home and take her kids with her, but in the end even a LITTLE bit of assurance from her aggressive sister helps.

I feel super bad for Dovewing, man. She deserves better than this cheap writing. What was the point of such an unsatisfying, rushed reconciliation, shoved into a crummy field guide, when we KNOW from the newest book that they're just going to use tension between them as part of the drama anyway?

shouldn't have even been written, imo. Even ends off with, "They'll always have each other :)" which is so... cliche. It's TIRED. Are any of you really happy with just getting a retconned platitude in a good-for-nothing field guide, instead of seeing complicated, INTERESTING feelings in a main book?

Story 3: Alderheart and Twigbranch

A tale of Cherryfall getting sick during TBC and Alderheart sneaks back into the territory to treat her. Also Crowfeather has a scene where he yells at him. Charming.

Twigbranch comes up with a diversion while Alderheart does his work, which is cute. It's a fine story.

Story 4: Clear Sky

Trash. Three dogs spawn in the middle of a gathering so that Skystar can have an uwu big boy sendoff saving his grandkit. Then he goes to StarClan and throws a fit because they can't give him ANOTHER life, becoming so upset that he attacks the nearest woman. Naturally, Shadowstar brushes it off because it's not the first time Clear Sky has pummeled her in the midst of an adult tantrum and this book series thinks violence is fine if their favorite sadboy does it.

Then Gray Wing brings him to the magic mirror pool where you can see the living, to confirm that Star Flower is ok and that makes him feel better.

Then it launches into Firestar saying "ouuuugh yum I LOVE the taste of his butthole. Clear Sky is so misunderstood, He Just Loved Too Much."

to which Graystripe responds, "Yes, he was a good and amazing person and his farts smells SO good, and can you believe that some people think StarClan punished his Clan for his arrogance? As if he ever did anything wrong, ever?"

Firestar, indignant, refutes it with, "Ugh!! StarClan would NEVER be interesting, we don't punish living cats we just float around and make vague, frustrating prophecies that do nothing but pad the word count. Why cant ppl understand that, gosh."

who wrote this? Gray Wing??

#The amount of passive voice Clear Sky has to be surrounded with in order to look like a redeemable character is dizzying #I feel like I'm reading a headline about cops who blew up an orphanage every time I read anything official about him #oh wait im sorry. A ''high-pressure accident which occurred at a government institution with 3 officers present'' lmaooooo #ultimate field guide #bone babble #im actually REALLY glad actually they havent been making these #This was garbage #There were a few good things in this but overall? Absolute slop. I wouldn't even feed this to a pig. #I think this is actually down there with Cats of the Clans (with Rock) for worst field guide #This is abysmal #You would be better with the wiki summaries and the 4 stories are mid at best #What a shame that they re-pivoted so hard from Riverstar's SE which I was JUST praising for tossing out that shitty ''redemption arc'' #Nope. We're right back to square one. #How much do you guys wanna bet it's ONE writer who's OBSESSED with Clear Sky and every time he writes anything he does this #I'm not sure who wrote this one but let's see if my hunch is right lmao

[giftrashlord-007]

Skydive || Jongup

#jongup #moon jongup #b.a.p #tw flashing #kpop #bap jongup #kpopccc #dailybg #malegroupsnet #dailymvs #userkngld #kflops #b.a.p skydive #tana creates #my gifs #kpop gifs #i've been gone for awhile #now i'm back! #when it comes to gif quality #we're back at square one

[softesteshouten]

Harry's language is so fucking colorful, and kind of pretentious?

I kind of love it, honestly. What a good fucking character.

#blog #upd8 #homestuck #homestuck squared #homestuck beyond canon #notwriting #notastory #harry anderson #harry anderson egbert #it feels like we're meeting him for the first time all over again honestly

[matchapig]

finally did a solo carmilla itabag. ik the color doesn't suit her but i don't have anything else lol. I also initially wanted this to be a repeat itabag but i forgot where i put the other rubber keychains..

#also the bg is shit so i covered it up with my pocket camp avatar #merch #the budget insert omfg #had me doing arts and crafts #i wanted to put the acrylic stand and square pillow but that might be overkill #or the stand might break idk i'll keep that at home #idk why this is getting rbs so we're stopping that

[churchsideblog]

I guess I just...I know there's a lot in our history that we've done wrong, but is wanting to be proud of my culture really so much to ask? To say who I am in public without being treated like an object of pity for how I grew up? i'm terrified to tell my friends what I believe in case they reject me over stereotypes. the catholics think we're not Christians, the liberals think we want gay people dead, my brother's best friend moved to evangelical country and started talking like we were monsters, and I can't even find solidarity within the church because everybody's too busy trying to assimilate with people who want us dead.

#i know there's a lot wrong with utah we're like if an overly-white alabama town was trying to be silicon valley and got the worst of both #but funeral potatoes and eight-kid families and temple square and weird jello foods aren't the problem. and i'm tired of being treated as #weird for those things. #but no. we're white and from america and too christian for the atheists (even though we're not christian enough for the christians) #so our culture doesn't get to be a culture. y'know. #vent post #tumblrstake

[battybrownboodeactivated]

They're holding hands

#batman: the long halloween #batjokes #bruce just casually grappling on to a literal plane trying to stop this menace of a twink #and joker was like oh hey babe just trying to be a detective just like u #by gassing gotham square cause to kill the serial killer #just like u bats #we're the same yknow #anyway when the clocks straight 12 do i get a little kiss #and batman is just so done with it all and ties him upside to that clock tower #its a hell of a scene