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No wisdom from me this week, I don't know WHAT MY ISSUE IS

ADHD Alien Graphic Novel & Stream here: https://linktr.ee/adhdalien

I'm still thinking about the guy who saw me realize my wheelchair wouldn't fit in the elevator because he (also a wheelchair user) was already inside it and immediately quipped, "This elevator ain't accessible enough for the both of us."

writing-prompt-s

Magic wands are usually only given to young children with freshly awaken magical powers, to hone and focus their abilities. Despite the humiliation and harassment you face, there’s a very important reason you still use one at the age of 18.

screamingatanemptyroom

“Wands are for children.”

Lana didn’t even bother to look up from her spell at the condescending words. She didn’t have to. She had heard similar statements so frequently that she could picture the disapproving expression, the gaze filled with part concern but more disdain, extremely clearly in her mind. She continued muttering the incantation under her breath, a familiar headache starting behind her left eye.

“Didn’t anyone ever show you how to perform magic without one?” The voice grew louder and more annoying.

Lana still didn’t react. By her estimation there was still a roughly twenty percent chance that the speaker would go away on their own if she ignored them. The muttered words grew more feverish, a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead from the strain.

At the tip of her battered wand, a faint glow began.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” The young man, not getting a response from her, stepped closer with a scowl. His magical power rippled out unknowingly from his skin, responding to its owner’s emotions.

“Don’t.” Lana whispered desperately in between magical cadences, hoping against all hope that he would move away.

But it was too late.

Food.

A deep growl rose from within her soul. Lana tried to push it down, but it casually brushed aside the attempt. Formless, yet immense and terrifying, it stared hungrily at the unwitting victim that stood in front of them.

Young, about her age, nineteen or so, he wore the standard Academy uniform, but with enough expensive decorations added to it to announce that he was from a Family.

Which meant he would be missed.

“Run!” Lana abandoned her magical attempt, clutching her wand like a lifeline, and forced out the warning with the last of her spare energy, all of her focus on the battle within.

“How are you still at this school?” The young man, ignoring her cautionary shout, leaned forward. The magic drifted from him like a heavy perfume, stirring the force within her to fight even more fiercely.

Prey! Food!

“I’ve heard about you.” Unable to hear the invisible predator inches away, he smirked. “The daughter of the most powerful witch and wizard in the realm. The one who should have been a force to be reckoned with, a new world power.”

I must feed. Let loose the chains so I may eat!

“Instead she never graduated from using a practice wand. A tool for children.”

Lana took a deep breath, gathering all her strength to imprison the beast roaring hungrily deep within her. She gained ground, with a flash of triumph, and finally had space to speak.

“You don’t understand, and I cannot explain everything to you here. Just know this… Magic isn’t what we think it is. It is far more ancient than humans, and will feed on our fossilized corpses long after we are gone.” She gestured with her wand. “The more powerful something is, the more control is needed to prevent disaster. So please… while I still have that control… please go.”

She stared at his face for a few tense seconds, hoping for a positive response.

Instead he laughed.

“What a pathetic excuse for a witch.” He reached out, grabbing her wand and tossing it to the ground. “Grow up and learn to use magic like an adult….”

FREEDOM!

The voice ripped out from her body, soundless yet deafening to the both of them. The young man turned pale as he sensed the danger, falling backwards as he scrambled to put distance between himself and the now perceived threat.

But it was too late.

An invisible claw tore out through Lana’s chest, causing her to scream in agony. It grasped the student, tearing something from deep within his body. Terrified and painful gasps filled the air, but he was too far gone to do more. The invisible appendage retracted, bringing a bright light with it.

As it exited the young man, his body collapsed in on itself, turning into dust and scattering on the breeze. The beast pulled the light within her, leaving no visible wound for the extreme pain she had been forced to endure.

Lana collapsed to the ground, barely breathing. The beast, which some called Magic, consumed its prey happily within her soul, before becoming dormant once more.

Shakily, after what felt like an eternity, Lana reached out and grasped her battered practice wand. Feeling the extra lock slide into place she sighed with relief.

She stood up, and brushed off her robes. With sad expression she looked at the empty space where not long ago a living, breathing human had stood.

“I told you to run.” She whispered painfully.

With that, she abandoned her spell and headed back to the dorm. She thought of the glances, the words, the gossip that would await her. The daughter of the strongest, dependent on a wand to use even small amounts of magic. But they didn’t know. They didn’t understand.

But she did.

She would find a way to destroy Magic. Destroy the beast.

Before it became strong enough to escape.

Nothing could stop it then.

True Happiness

My spouse got a phone call from our daughter last night asking if she could come over and do some housework. After the short conversation they hung up and my spouse had a good cry. We moved to the city 2 years ago to be closer to them but they're adults and don't need us much anymore. My spouse was SO happy to go spend 3 hours helping them out this morning. Made her feel like a parent again and not useless.

#helping out

kiragecko

Wayne Manor Second Floor Plan (Complete) — artwork by geckobot on DeviantArt. [Image shows a floorplan for the second floor of Wayne Manor.

Finally finished the second floor of Wayne Manor! Not as polished as it could be, but it's DONE.

(Edit: Now with hopefully readable text!)

kiragecko

Wayne Manor First Floor Plan (Second Draft) — artwork by geckobot on DeviantArt. [Image shows a floorplan for the main floor of Wayne Manor.

First floor has been polished a LOT, and I've added furniture to a few blank second floor rooms!

Banquet kitchen almost done, but it currently has a REALLY dumb looking gap in one spot, so I'm not posting it until I've figured that out.

kiragecko

I just had the realization that salty lemonade and amm panna (sour mango) are ELECTROLYTE DRINKS. Water, salt, acids, and natural sugars. Like the post about switchel, and other rehydration drinks.

This isn't me expressing surprise that other places could have invented electrolyte drinks. This is me suddenly understanding why they had that flavour palate a bit better!

do-not-u-dare

let’s talk about how they made it impossible to function without a phone and digitalised everything and then turned around and went “actually! these phone things aren’t safe for kids but it’s magically ok once you’re eighteen. guess you’ll have to have your life dictated by your parents now lol cause we’re gonna take the devices away from you. IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING”

do-not-u-dare

ok my apologies. take away my ability to buy anything too ig because these fuckass stores don’t accept cash anymore. take away my ability to communicate with people outside my house and school because I can’t text and I can’t email and I cant drive to them either and I can’t even fucking get public transport without a phone either. can’t order at a fucking restaurant without being asked to get a membership and install an app and also very sorry but you can only order through our online menu now! have you ever considered that it’s not just about instagram?

dykepuffs

I keep thinking about how WhatsApp is counted as "social media" which means that teenagers won't be able to text each other unless they have the right kind of (often more expensive) SMS plan - And how the physical environment that I grew up in that made it possible for kids to just walk to each other's houses and bang on the door is now largely gone, and parents are just less likely to let the kids go roaming like that with no real answer about where they're going or when they're coming back anyway.

Or how spending hours on the phone to a friend a long way away, then hanging up and ringing another one, was a cliche for "the teenager" since pretty much the dawn of mass adoption of phones and only died as they moved from the landline to the mobile and then to MSN...

[Images- one photo per decade from the 1940s-1990s of a teenager lounging on the phone]

This feels like a really dangerous attempt at curtailing kids talking to each other.

kiragecko

Also, for us antisocials: a lot of research is online only now, a lot of books are only available at the library through Libby (or other ebook platform), most weird foreign media is online rather than on sketchy VHSes or DVDs ...

As a teen, I snuck out to the video rental place to ensure that yes, my parents were right, those movies WERE too scary. I lived at the library, reading anatomy books and about every type of mental illness that existed, slowly figuring out what was going on with me. I read about superheroes and ancient India with equal passion. I convinced my parents to let me bus downtown to go to the BIG library, and read even MORE about ancient India!

My kids are that age, now, and the downtown library is a dystopian nightmare where you get to watch armed guards abuse Indigenous people all day. There's maybe 3 video rental stores in the city, none of which my kids could sneak off to. Libby doesn't really allow browsing in the same way a library shelf does, so my eldest just stopped reading when they left middle school, since the high school library isn't aimed at kids like them.

I WANT TO HELP THEM EXPLORE! I'm letting my youngest go to stores by himself and spend his money on terrifyingly giant bags of chips. I'm encouraging his visits to the neighbours. I encourage my eldest's art, as best as I can. I try to help both of them get things online, and learn basic computer literacy, despite apps and the cloud making that difficult.

But how do I teach my eldest to spend time on anything other than a screen when there's basically nothing else to do for an extremely antisocial kid who gets lost if he can't see his own house? How do I NOT run his life? He has no way to escape me, no alternatives. The screens are worsening his depression, BADLY, but what can I offer in alternative? The streets are empty, the library has no books, and there's nowhere else for him to go!

I guess what I'm saying is that they put everything on screens, being on screens for 12 hours a day leaves many people deeply depressed, but if I take the screens away ALL THE OUTLETS I FOUND AS A TEEN ARE ALSO GONE. The kids SHOULD be complaining!

cheeseanonioncrisps

“It's not fair.” The little ghost kicks impotently at the chalk lines around her feet. “I ain't done nothing.”

I nod, setting down my chalk and spellbook. “It does sound like there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“She took against me, that's what happened,” the dead girl says with a scowl. She looks about fourteen, round faced and spotty, with whisps of brown hair peaking out from under her mob-cap. Her face and her crossed arms have a tell-tale bluish tinge to them. A cholera death.

“I been here for don't know how long and never gave any trouble. Nobody ever complained about me 'till her.”

…well, that's not strictly true.

Number 12, Barclay Street has been attracting rumours of haunting since the mid nineteenth century.

Sounds of faint singing and crying in the corridors at night. Cold spots. Doors that open and close by themselves. Animals acting strangely. Harmless, mid to low-level stuff, typical for a bored teenage poltergeist.

Still, pointing that out isn't likely to achieve much, and certainly the most recent complaints of blood running down the walls, screams in the dark and paralysing night terrors seem distinctly out of character.

The ghost toes the chalk again, more tentatively this time. It stays resolutely unbroken.

She could get out if she wanted to. I'm not one of those assholes who brings out their full arsenal of wards and sigils for a first meeting with a level 2 spectre. The summoning circle will keep her in one place for as long as I need her to talk, but it wouldn't hold for a moment if she really fought against it.

I take it as a good sign that she's still here. Pouting or not, she's clearly willing to work with me.

“None of the others could do this,” she says. “None of 'em even saw me.” She looks up. “Are you here to exise me?”

“Exorcise,” I say instinctively, and curse myself when she flinches. “Sorry, no, no! I don't exorcise people from their homes without good reason, not if they're happy where they are.”

“I was happy. Till she started calling in all them ghost hunters.”

Mrs Delaney had been quite persistent in her attempts to 'fix' her haunted house. Most of the people she found were charlatans, of course, but I'd still arranged an appointment as fast as I could once word reached me. It wouldn't have been long before she happened upon somebody with Talent, and unfortunately not everybody in this field knows how to behave like a professional.

“I think we might be able to help each other,” I say, careful to keep my voice calm and level.

“Don't see how. Not unless you can exorcise Her.”

“Not quite what I had in mind.” I pull out my phone and scroll through my photos. “You say that you're not the cause of the most recent incidents of paranormal activity?”

A pause. The ghost gnaws on her lip. I wait, patiently, keeping my body language open and nonthreatening. “I… I knocked her coffee cup over,” she admits at last. “She was being mean and talking on her telephone, saying I done all these things when I never did! So I decided to show her what I could do if I wanted.”

“Hmm.” The ghost eyes me nervously, as if expecting me to pull out a book, bell and candle and banish her on the spot.

“I only tipped it,” she adds. “I didn't break it or nothing!”

“You shouldn't have touched it at all,” I say sternly. “But… I can appreciate that you were frustrated, so let's say no more about it.”

The ghost looks relieved.

“My point is,” I continue, “if you weren't the one making blood rain from the ceiling or tormenting people in their sleep, then what was? There's no other ghosts on the property.” I find the picture I was looking for. “You can get anywhere around the house, right? Including behind the furniture and in the backs of cupboards?”

“Yes'm.”

I hold the phone up so that she can see the picture on the screen. “I'm going to let you go free in a moment, and I need you to see if you can find anything that looks like this.”

The ghost wrinkles her forehead. “What's that when it's at home?”

“Black mould,” I say, reaching out a foot to break the binding circle. “And I'm pretty sure it's the cause of this haunting.”

jadagul

Found myself wanting to say that "consuming text is easy and passive, unlike video which requires active effort to watch" and then realized this is the opposite of what basically every other human being would say.

kiragecko

#well. on tumblr you get the thunderous applause. #I recall watching Hank Green talk about how under intense stress he didn’t want to read a bunch of text #he wanted a video to explain things to him #and even though it should have been obvious that a VIDEO CREATOR likes video #my mind was moderately boggled #what do you MEAN you find video EASIER and lower effort #that’s not a real thing - via @tuesdayisfordancing

kiragecko

Yesterday, I was talking to The Husband about making the Masterlists, and he asked me to explain what 'collate' meant. I made the mistake of referring to it as 'a specific type of sorting.'

'Collating' is specifically putting things into sequence - one after the other. It's usually used for pages, documents, books, etc. I described this, and he went, "Oh, it's specifically a quick sort!" And I was like, "Maybe?" but quickly realized that no, merge sorts and insertion sorts are also collation.

We frequently use computer science terminology when talking, so it took a bit for me to remember that 'sort' MEANS 'collate' in computer contexts - 'grouping into categories' and 'classifying' have different terms. The idea that 'sort' could be a broader concept was quite distressing to The Husband, and he resisted my examples of "sorting the laundry" and "sorting the groceries".

Eventually, I had to accept that 'sorting' as a conceptual space that paralleled 'organizing' was NOT something I was going to be able to excitedly discuss with him. He doesn't even see things spatially, conceptual spaces aren't a THING for him!

But anyways, I think that 'collate' has vibes related to physical action, 'organize' has more connection to mental processes, 'sort' is more about the whole process in general, and 'group' is similarly physical to 'collate' but involves groupings rather than a list.

Anyone else have strong opinions about terminology? I'm sad I missed out on this discussion!

avayarising

I work in publishing services. To me collation is specifically one of two things:

Collating pages: if you have multiple copies of page 1, multiple copies of page 2, etc., collation is the act of sorting all the pages into sets with one copy of each page, in order.

Collating proofs: if you have multiple copies of a proof document, each with different comments and corrections on it, collation is the act of combining all those comments on to a single document and resolving any conflicts.

Now I come to think of it, these are rather different concepts, aren’t they? One is sorting and the other is combining.

kiragecko

Yeah, the word comes from the same root as ‘confer.’ It’s about creating things that are in agreement with themselves. Combining is a type of sorting. So is separating. I think it’s really cool!

kiragecko

Wayne Manor Second Floor Plan (Complete) — artwork by geckobot on DeviantArt. [Image shows a floorplan for the second floor of Wayne Manor.

Finally finished the second floor of Wayne Manor! Not as polished as it could be, but it's DONE.

(Edit: Now with hopefully readable text!)

mapsontheweb

Writing of the /ɲ/ sound in the European languages using the latin alphabet

rainbow-femme

Hi yes hello it’s me the local wizard, and I- Ok well “evil” feels like a strong word but yes, that’s me. Anyway, I need your help. I know I stole away the kingdoms 12 princesses, that’s my bad. Listen, I didn’t think this through. It didn’t occur to me that having a dozen angry young women from early teen to early 20s and giving them giant powerful wings would be a bad idea.

I know I’m the one who cast the curse but it can still only be broken with true love. I’m begging you, somebody, please come and fall in love with these girls and make them leave, I can’t take it anymore, it sucks so bad. I can’t keep getting viciously bullied by one of the largest living species of waterfowl anymore. I’ve tried running away but they can fly so they just find me. I’m getting nothing done.

I’ll pay you, I’ll grant you wishes, I don’t care, please just come and fall in love with the mean angry women who live in my yard and hate me so bad

supreme-leader-stoat

DNI if you've ever:

Been to Greenland

Been to Denver

Buried treasure in St. Louis (or St. Paul for that matter)

Been to Moscow

Been to Tampa

Been to Boston (only if you went during the fall, though)

Hoisted a mainstay

Swabbed a poop deck

Veered to starboard

You know what just DNI if you've ever sailed at all

Walked a gangplank

Owned a parrot (I shouldn't have to explain this one)

Been to Boston in the fall (cannot overstate this)

edgar-allan-possum

Okay, but what if I've never plucked a rooster and I'm not too good at ping-pong, and I've never thrown my mashed potatoes up against the wall, and I've never kissed a chipmunk and I've never gotten head lice, and I've never been to Boston in the fall?

supreme-leader-stoat

You're safe

cobra-bubbles

my life with ADHD

mardu-mama

This is very true and a great post.

But low key makes me think about how people with adhd have been raised their whole lives to value a day based on what they accomplished vs what they experienced

thatgirlwithadhd

I think your point is excellent. But also consider:

That list might say things like “Paint a picture. Go birdwatching. Finish that great novel I started reading. Call my grandma. Learn to bake a cake. Visit my sister. Play piano.”

For me at least, the good/fun things are harder without meds too. I can have the best intentions, but following through is hard.

adhd-informative

This addition is so important.

adhd-alien

Why can I only get myself to work 2 days before deadline?? 😭 Part 2 & Poster version http://adhd-alien.com Why am I a Fish? I don't know but I'm live right now http://twitch.tv/adhd_alien/

susanoos-wife

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