Guys We’re Not Being Cringe To Keep Out The Twitter Users. We’re Being Cringe To Keep Out The ALGORITHMS,

youll be able to find books and movies and music that change your life until the day you die. that's pretty good

i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create

Hey

If your anxiety, depression, or executive dysfunction is making you scroll endlessly on your phone or laptop

Stop

It’s okay, I’m not mad. It happens to everybody sometimes. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? But it’s time to get up now.

Don’t worry! You don’t have to do that

One Thing,

just get yourself a glass of water for now, or brush your teeth, or pet a cat.

After you’ve done that, maybe you could make yourself a nice cocoa, or open a window. If you’re feeling really crazy you might finish a homework problem, or respond to an e-mail, or wash a dish.

But no matter what, if you get up then you’re moving forward, and I’m

super proud of you!

I know you’re having a difficult time, but I’m really glad you’ve made it this far, and I love you!

Have a nice day my friend, I’ll see you soon, but right now it’s time for you to get up.

To the ones who want to vote 3rd party, or don't want to vote at all

I reblog political stuff, but I rarely make my own posts on this kind of thing, mostly because for as much as I read and I try to understand the U.S. Political system, I know I don't know everything and so I try to keep my mouth shut.

But I'm feeling so depressed and despondent today, after the Supreme Court ruling, and so I feel the need to make this post.

If you're someone who's wanting to vote 3rd party this November, or if you're not planning on voting at all because "Both sides bad", I deeply, deeply encourage you to do 2 things.

Look up Project 2025: Highly recommend watching this video in particular, but if it's too long or you don't want to watch, please look it up. It is very real, it is coming, and it should concern you.

Please consider your friends and family. Even if you yourself will not be directly affected by the Project 2025 plans, chances are very, very good that you know someone who will be directly affected by these plans.

I get it. You don't like either of them. I don't either. Biden isn't the best choice. Biden isn't someone you necessarily want in office. But our country is presently operating on a two party system. It's wildly unfair, but abolishment of the Electoral College and two party system is not this year's fight. No matter how fervently someone may believe their third party vote could change things, I guarantee you that this time, this election? It won't.

If you don't like either candidate, think about your family. Think about your friends. Think about what's at stake for those people. Even if you don't like either candidate, there's probably one you hate more.

To all of my disenfranchised, tired, hopeless, apathetic peers who feel like nothing matters and that they don't care about two old men fighting for the white house, I beg of you... Now is not the time to stop caring. Revolution can and will come. Radical change can and will come. But it has to start with creating a space that allows radical change.

42+ ways to fix a story in progress

(Also posted on: 42+ ways to fix a story)

Here is a list of (some) ways to fix a draft or story in progress. I started it in the observation journal when I was struggling with some story changes.

In summary, these can be reduced to intensify; focus/tighten; swap/invert. But in a tight spot, specifics are often more useful. And making the list was also important, because it reassured me I knew all these techniques, and had used them before, and should calm down.

List 10 terrible endings (adapted from a Helen Marshall exercise), or just 20 endings. Or 100…

Re-outline it

Map it onto another story (I like to quick-outline fairy tales until one resonates, and then identify the parts to strengthen)

Fill it out as a synopsis questionnaire (I used to use Sue Dennard’s 1-page synopsis to trap story ideas)

Ask — what is the story behind the story?

Change the place

Change the era

Genderflip main character

Genderflip everyone

Change the genre

Change the adjectives

Describe the story in one emotion, & align/adjust

Do the same for each scene/section (see also three moods)

Flip (main) character’s personality (quiet to loud, etc)

What happens after

What happens before

What’s happening at the same time

It’s a metaphor for: ___

Pick/change emotional note for end

Scene-map

Match to 3-act structure

Match to 5-act structure

Give characters a preoccupation or secret

Start it later

Start it earlier

End it earlier

End it later

Map it onto a song

Blow something up

Make everything worse

Change [define & intensify] the aesthetic

Explain the reasons

Invert

Make it/ the weak bits A Whole Thing

Make it/ the weak bits a Good/Bad Thing

Make it/ the weak bits The Shape of the World

Tell from a non-obvious point of view (see also: by whom and to whom, and some less common points of view)

Change the type of character in the role (think archetypes and stereotypes)

Change drama – pose (?)

Change motifs

Change sentence structure

Change form, shape (e.g. list, pastiche, non-fiction)

And to these I’d add:

change voice, and

change age.

I might add more as I go. But in the meantime: hey, my debut collection of short stories, KINDLING, is now out from Small Beer Press (in the USA, and coming soon to Australia). It includes the new story “Annie Coal”. And if you look closely at the journal page above, you’ll see that was the story I was editing when I made this list.

I think it needs to become common knowledge that "inability to read social cues" can show up as overcompensating.

You don't know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.

You don't know if someone is irritated with you, so you'll be extra generous and self-effacing.

You don't know how much is expected of you at work so you'll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.

"Hardworking and quiet" should be as much of an autism red flag as "ignores rules and doesn't know when to stop talking". Or why don't we just start using words to communicate so i can stop tracking everybody's eyebrow twitches, that would be great.

forgot to post this here but i was messing around trying to find a good inking style so enjoy a nightwing headshot <3

also feel free if you want to color it just tag and credit me as the ink

they dont want us to know this but the real cure to the agonies is to engage in shenanigans. tomfoolery even 

I do actually care marginally about the guy in that reddit screenshot who voted for Trump and is now worried that he might lose his medicaid funding because I did not fucking stutter when I said healthcare is a human right but the people losing their internships and job offers to the hiring freeze are straight up hilarious.