i am not conquered

El, she/her/hers. right now mostly good omens and star wars, always background silmarillion. small things are the beginning of courage

[straycatblues]

Al Pacino in Serpico, 1973.

[aestheticjunkyard]

Xinjun Yang by Alexander Yeung for Wonderland Magazine Autumn 2025

[ijustwannawritepls]

How to Write When You Don't Feel Like Yourself

There are going to be days (or weeks, or months) where you sit down to write and feel... disconnected. From your voice, from your characters, from your ideas. Like the person who used to write your stories just packed up and left.

They didn't. They're just tired. Here's how to keep writing anyway:

Lower the bar (Until it's on the floor) You are not here to write something brilliant. You are here to write something. A paragraph. A sentence. A single line of dialogue. Movement matters way more than quality.

Write around the story Don't force it. If you can't write the scene, try: ⋆ A character ramble / journal entry ⋆ A conversation that won't be included in the final draft ⋆ A list of things the character would never admit out loud ⋆ A messy summary of what should happen Engage with the story from a different angle.

Borrow a voice until yours comes back No, not with AI. Read something that feels close to what you want to write, or watch a scene that captures the tone, then write immediately after. Not to copy, to reignite your instincts.

Write the emotion, not the plot. What is your character feeling in this moment? What are they afraid of? What do they want but won't say? What's being kept from them? The emotion leads, the plot catches up later.

Stop trying to "feel like a writer" first. You don't write when you feel like a writer. You feel like a writer because you write.

You are still a writer, even on the days it feels distant. Especially then.

[dykepuffs]

This is (mostly) a straitened English man ritual in my experience but now that I spend more time around much-older cishet men in homosocial spaces, I love to see it, and I love to respond to it in kind.

You're talking with a cishet man, and the conversation has turned a little bit serious, you're talking about your feelings or maybe your family, and in a moment of really letting your guard down, you tell him something personal. In my experience, this often happens when I come out as gay, which often takes me a few weeks or months after meeting a new person, but I've seen it happen when someone opens up about drug addiction, or their wife cheating on them, or basically anything where you might want the other person to keep it a secret.

In response to this revelation, the strait man immediately gives you verifiable kompromat on himself, as a way of reassuring you that hey, you gave him a big secret he could socially wreck you with, now he will give you one of his, so you're both safe. You were out on a limb, telling him you have a husband, so now he's telling you about the time he committed treason. Now we're even, I can't betray you by gossiping, because you could get me locked up for 20-to-life. Mutually assured destruction.

It is my favourite and most profound kind of intimacy.

[sailorbrazil]

thursday..... and i bet you wish you were her

[bedupolker]

She should be at the club

Baby mouse had earplugs in the sketch and I straight up forgot to ink them pretend they're deep in there

Meanwhile not at the club:

[bowelfly]

I was so enamored by the party shrew this morning I had to doodle her in my lab notebook at work

[giragirameganedan]

dreamt that itch.io released their own special adaptable accessible super thin flexible silicon game controller called the Butterfly you could also fuck (they packaged each one with lube and toy cleaner) but there was no specific obvious way you were supposed to fuck it they encouraged everyone to find their own special unique way to fuck it. and they ran these ads for it that were different people from all walks of life saying what they do with it . sunburned rural dad who folds it hotdog style and jacks off into it. biracial masc lesbian with undercut who tribs with the joystick. young amputee in wheelchair who lets it vibrate on his lap while he works on his novel. etc. beautiful supermodel woman whos like "and me? i just game. hard." it ended with them all triumphantly saying into the camera "and thats how *I* fuck #MyButterfly"

[sculderand-mully]

skinner gets so tired

[zmeess]

take me with you, or let me follow

tip jar

[prokopetz]

The secret to always having things go according to plan is to have multiple mutually exclusive plans which between them encompass the entire space of possible outcomes. That way, no matter what happens, it will be according to a plan.

[ozth]

fuckkkkkk I cleared the time loop first try

[ozth]

I woke up in the morning and everything was different

[veneratedrot]

🐅

[aworldofpattern]

Sudha Reddy wearing custom Manish Malhotra at the Met Gala 2026.

Metal accessories by Kavya Potluri.

Sudha Reddy: 'Hyderabad is not just my origin; it is a language, a rhythm, a way of being. Through this look, I aspired to translate that sensibility into a form that could exist effortlessly on a global stage while remaining deeply rooted in the South Indian imagination.

The Tree of Life, envisioned by Manish Malhotra in collaboration with Mariel Haenn, becomes the central metaphor an unfolding of time, memory and continuity. Drawing from the storytelling traditions of Kalamkari, it is reinterpreted here as something sculptural and alive, where every thread holds a fragment of history.

This ensemble is not about nostalgia, it is about evolution. A 3,000-year-old textile tradition is recontextualized through form, texture, and movement: sculpted velvet, antique gold zari, and intricate zardozi come together to create something both archival and immediate.

The motifs Palapitta, Jammi Chettu, Kalpavriksha, Tangedu, Surya, Chandra, Kalpa are not merely decorative; they are markers of identity, fragments of home that travel with me.

What moves me most is the human touch behind it all. Thousands of hours, countless hands, generations of knowledge woven, embroidered and shaped into a single moment.' X

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

art by Curtis Lanaghan

[antlered-vixen]

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."

[bryszket]

I WANT THE FAT WITH IT (1000 fire emojis) This this this. I despise 'write like this' advice. Like, write however the fuck you want.

[env0]

I've heard TikTok songs and they are punchy but have no staying power because they don't have the fat. Your art needs the fat to sustain itself much like how your body needs fat to sustain itself. Once any intake is complete.

[decapod-appreciator]

bark bark bark

[loki-zen]

has anyone considered that it was probably her house too. where else was she supposed to put her chintz?