take me to the woods

[Image ID: a black and white typography edit that reads "don't want to see transsexuality? pluck out your eyes!" in the right bottom corner is a medical model of teeth. between the teeth is a single eyeball. the entire image is textured to look aged and photocopied. /End ID]

inspired by matthew 5:29

Please reblog and add your nationality in the tags along with what you answered! I'm very curious about this; and it's not to shame anybody, so don't be rude!

If you don't do the reblog part it's not very good as a study 😭

<Reblog to get a sword.> o()xxx[{::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>

My work inbox is a form of perpetual hell for a lot of reasons atm, but somehow there’s something worse than the essential oil cultists attempting to make it entirely unusable on a daily basis, and that’s the sheer number of editing requests from young and first time authors who don’t even really want editing, they just want someone to reassure them they’re not Problematic™ and they’re genuinely scared to death of their potential readers.

They’re so hyperfixated on the terror of inadvertently fucking up and being dragged across the internet, that they can’t even bring themselves to finish their work. So instead of answering questions about how to fix narrative flow, character arc and making grammar changes and fixing typos, I spend a lot of my time answering things like this:

“But what if someone hates it?”

Welp. Can’t please everyone I guess.

“But what if I fucked up this part…”

Did you do your research? Okay good, here is a list of sensitivity readers you can hire to help you make sure you actually understood the things you read. You’ve done all that and taken their advice onboard? Well done. That’s more than a lot of New York Times Bestsellers ever do.

“Okay but what if someone thinks I meant this when I meant that?”

See previous response.

“But what if—”

Your work is always going to be open to interpretation. Sometimes people will read into things you didn’t even realize you were inferring. Sometimes you didn’t actually infer anything but someone will find meaning anyway. That’s just how this works I’m afraid. People find meaning in words. It’s what us humans are particularly good at. Sometimes they find meanings we like, sometimes we don’t. We have no control over how someone else uses their critical thinking skills (if at all).

“But what if someone says…”

Someone is always going to say something you’re not going to like. They may even try to paint you as a villain to justify their dislike of you because they conflate personally liking something with universal worthiness. You can be the most Unproblematic ™, best researched, most woke individual on the planet, and someone is still going to find fault in what you did. Jesus Christ himself could descend from heaven with a short novella about petting puppies and being kind to each other, and he’d still end up nailed to the proverbial wall by someone.

You cannot control every aspect of how people will interact with your work, and I know that is terrifying when you watch the way fandom eats its own sometimes. But if you can’t get over that terror…you’re never going to get anywhere. You need to accept that not everyone will always like you or your work, and it’s not easy. I struggle with it a lot sometimes, especially when people tag my posts with mean comments or personal remarks about how much they hate me, but unlike them I take my issues to therapy and work them out in an actual safe space, and I’m telling you, they don’t speak for everyone.

The echo chamber of discourse is loud, and sometimes you just need to take a step out and remember how to breathe and remind yourself not everyone needs to like you. And not everyone will, and that’s okay. And hey, your work might bomb or it might not. But you won’t actually know until you try.

Perfection is unattainable. Don’t kill yourself trying to get there. You can only do your very best, and even then your very best will shift and adapt with you as you grow and change as a person. It’s inevitable. I dunno where I’m going with this anymore. Permanence is an illusion and we’re all just sentient atoms hurtling toward the great unknown. Write your god damn story.

I’m going to have to reblog this a LOT.

ah fuck

moths started eating the post guys sorry

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

My mom learned it because she figured she’ll go deaf when she gets old

My family went holiday SCUBA diving once, and a couple of Deaf guys were in the group. I was really little and I spent most of the briefing overcome with the realization that while the rest of us were going to have regulators in our mouths and be underwater fairly soon, they were going to be able to do all the same stuff and keep talking.

The only reason some form of sign language is not a standard skill is ableism, as far as I can tell.

For anyone interested in learning, Bill Vicars has full lessons of ASL on youtube that were used in my college level classes. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/billvicars

and here’s the link to the website he puts in his videos:

https://www.lifeprint.com/

Update: you guys this is an amazing resource for learning asl. Bill Vicars is an incredible teacher. His videos are of him teaching a student in a classroom, using the learned vocabulary to have conversations.

Not only is the conversation format immersive and helpful for learning the grammar, but the students make common mistakes which he corrects, mistakes I wouldn’t have otherwise know I was making.

He also emphasizes learning ASL in the way it’s actually used by the Deaf community and not the rigid structure that some ASL teachers impose in their classrooms

His lesson plans include learning about the Deaf community, which is an important aspect of learning ASL. Knowing how to communicate in ASL without the knowledge of the culture behind it leaves out a lot of nuances and explanations for the way ASL is.

Lastly, his lessons are just a lot of fun to watch. He is patient, entertaining, and funny. This good natured enthusiasm is contagious and learning feels like a privilege and not a chore

And it’s all FREE. Seriously. If you’ve ever wanted to learn ASL

ever wanted to know what your epithet would be if you were a character in greek mythology? now you can! you could be the next wine-dark sea, or maybe you’ll be unlucky and end up as the phallic gecko, because everything is possible in greek mythology

Hey, remember the awful audio quality back in C1, especially with the liveshows and the Skype-in episodes, and how nobody blamed the cast for having loud reactions or said that they should stop yelling and shouting despite the literal blowouts?  Hey, remember when Percy used to take over every other group conversation and push for his ideas over the rest of the party’s suggestions, and people just went “Yeah, he’s being a dick, but that’s the type of person Percy is and Taliesin is doing a great job of role-playing as this character”?  Hey, remember when Joe Manganiello came in with a clearly evil PC with his own agenda who ultimately ended up betraying the party, but no one complained that Joe was making the cast uncomfortable and should leave the show?  Hey, remember when Kashaw was interested in Keyleth back in the early days of C1, and no one mocked him for pursuing a PC who wasn’t yet in any canon relationship but had hints of romance with other characters?

Gotta take another peek at those standards because they sure are looking doubled right now.  But hey, I’m sure those are the only reasons why people are criticizing Erika so much for things that other cast members and guests get away with and are even praised for.

Now, this might be a wee bit of a controversial take, but the Critical Role cast are in fact adults who have been playing D&D on and off the Internet for a long time and who have invited many guests to play with them.  They’ve spoken extensively about safe play environments as well as open communication both at and away from the table.  If anyone was uncomfortable even for a minute with someone’s character choices or play style, they’d bring it up off-camera.  If Matt thought a character concept wasn’t a good fit for the table or the story, he’d work with the player to develop something that was. Hell, Erika is a long-time personal friend whom most of them have played with before. If they didn’t like how Erika played D&D, or weren’t comfortable with something they did in-game, they’re perfectly capable of having that discussion with each other as friends and professionals.

Y’know, you don’t have to like either Dusk or Erika, but you do have to examine how you’re talking about them because right now, a lot of the flack they get boils down to “I don’t like them for doing the exact same thing that white cast members are doing/have done, and I assume that because I dislike how they’re playing D&D, they must also be making the cast uncomfortable.” And it does not matter whether you had any conscious racist intent or reasoning, because the impact of your words is singling out the sole nonbinary person of colour at the table and treating them as some kind of aggressive “threat” towards the white cast members, whom I will reiterate, are their long-time personal friends who invited them to play in this campaign in the first place.

i want a panel just for the critical role ladies so they actually get some questions because i am bored as hell watching this 😴

i love hard hitting character lore questions but when only the men get them and instead the women get WOULD THIS PET LIKE THIS PET and DO YOU LIKE BEING MADE FUN OF it’s like ????? what is the point

Edit: Please don’t send me spoilers for later episodes. This includes “you are right/wrong about xyz interpretation”. Thank you!   

Episode 17 has so many incredible, heartbreaking, heartwarming, hilarious and frustrating moments; it’s one of my favorite episodes thus far for sure. A friend of mine told me that he fell in love with the Bells Hells in this episode and I’m inclined to agree. 

Between episode 14 and 17 I feel like the rest of them have really come together and have had the opportunity to show some of their softer, less silly sides. I love the silly, but sometimes it can get in the way of genuine character moments and those episodes are full of both, which is great. 

Here’s a little roundup of my impressions of the characters so far:

I thought about listing my favorite relationship dynamics so far, but the truth is that it is… all of them. I genuinely enjoy all of their interactions and how the characters mesh with each other. Eleven more episodes until I’m caught up and can laugh about my naïve impressions of them as of episode 17. 

Every midwit literary fiction novel from the past 5 years has been called something like The Little Things We Do To Ourselves or Back Then I Didn’t Think So Clearly or I Have Been Trying To Venmo You.

The last three digits of your current follower count is the Dewey Decimal Classification subject on which you must immediately give a 15-minute presentation.

How would you do?

come see what flower you are bc while the world is dark u deserve to be told u are bright and beautiful 

What do you consider the pillars of your diet? Like not what you consider the most delicious, or even necessarily your "favorite" food, but the food that if you look within your heart and are honest with yourself actually eat more often than anything else? I think mine is toast, broccoli, and eggs