and love you shall find...

The way you change your immediate reactions to things is that you catch yourself having an uncharitable/bigoted/overly judgmental thought and you catch it and replace it and then you do that a hundred times a day for your whole life and eventually one day like five years later you realize that you think differently now and you’ll always be working on something but that’s how life goes and that’s fine.

Say you have a bad habit of thinking all other people are stupider than you and want to respect other people’s intelligence more.

So you start paying attention to your immediate first reactions to things. You notice that when other people around you are struggling with a math problem and ask you for help you default to seeing them as annoying and stupid.

Instead of chastising yourself for having that thought, interrogate it. Replace it. Think, why do I assume people with different strengths are dumber than I am? I need help sometimes too. I’m glad they’re comfortable enough with me to ask me for help. I’m glad I’ve got a reputation of being the math guy and can help people with that.

And the first time, perhaps the first few dozen times, it’ll feel disingenuous. The cynicism in your brain will fight it. But in time it’ll become as easy as breathing. First thought, replace thought.

And then one day you don’t need to replace that thought. That might be a month from now or twenty years from now. And it’s annoying to get there. But you do get there.

My 2023 sketchbook is finally out!

40 pages in this baby, and I tried to do some more commentary than usual to make it worth people's time, I hope you enjoy! Since I'm spotty at tumblr (and upload my more doodly stuff to my other blog anyway) this is the best way to see all my stuff at once haha.

(4 and a half months into 2024...don't worry about it!!!)

local healer out of MP and about to start swingin'

this too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass

*SIGHS*

Another AO3 app that's pretending to be official when it's not (or at least isn't making it clear its unofficial.) They're using AO3's name and logo, and embedding ads.

There is no official AO3 app

Someone else is gathering your data, potentially your log in information etc and making use of it how they please. (They say they're not but their privacy policy says otherwise)

They are making money from the ads without the fic writer's consent.

They've also rated it Pegi 3 (which is ludicrous)

Please, even if you care about nothing else, for the safety of your data, please don't use this app. Certainly don't give it your AO3 log in details.

I've told AO3 that it's infringing on its copyright. I will be requesting they remove access of my work as I do not consent to my creative content being used to generate ad revenue for them.

I will be reporting it as incorrectly rated.

The only email address I can find is Narusta@gmail.com which is included in their privacy policy, and boboxway13@gmail.com as their developer.

Looking at the app store, I can't find this particular app, but there's another almost identical one called Archive Reader AO3 App, with a logo juuust different enough to skirt around being outright copyright infringement. This app is also gathering data and showing ads.

I really wish people would stop encouraging this bullshit by downloading and installing these apps - they're not official, it's just some random opportunists collecting ad-revenue and profiting off others' labours of love at best, stealing your data while at it at worst. AO3 is free, it shouldn't be monetized by third parties. No author has agreed to this.

Just go read the fics in your fucking browser of choice - if you sign up for an account, it'll track your history, you can use bookmarks etc and whatever other advantages people are looking for in downloading these apps.

The archive is right there. Just go use it.

I'm so tired.

Nothing will dispell the "the curtains were just blue" myth faster than writing something yourself, because the amount of pretentious symbolism i am putting in my silly little fanfics is ridiculous. I mean SO much with these words, literally every single one of them. This fic has twenty five typos and zero correct uses of punctuation but if there's curtains you bet your ass I put thought into what colour they were.

Job hunting is fun… I have experience of doing nothing for over a year.

I… I don’t … know how to answer this…

mike’s hard past couple of months

Mary Oliver, from “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac”, Blue Horses

Kate Baer, from And Yet: Poems; “40”

no matter how terrible my day is. i can always end my day in bed imagining fictional characters making out sloppy style and fucking raw. and that's beautiful. there's some good in this world mister frodo and it's worth fighting for

For at least some speed-runners, this is canon.

@sara-da-yo he puts on pants after the third memory