Things I Liked Today

A very random collection of things I like! If you're interested in my fanfiction, I have a fic-specific sub-blog at dycefic.tumblr.com

[elidyce]

As Recommended By Experts

The experts say that you should pimp a Patreon on your other social media to get more followers. This is... pretty much all of my social media. So here goes!

I believe that I have met, and indeed surpassed, the entirety of the Game of Thrones saga on its own ground, and done so in less than two thousand words, for yea and verily, I have enmarried a pair of siblings in a pseudo-European fantasy world, and behold, it is not creepy or weird  or vaguely voyeuristic, but actually touching and sad.

Want to see how I did it? Go here, and subscribe a mere AUD$6 or AUD$15 to read this, the Patreon Exclusive Story For November, and receive a new exclusive story every month in addition to other neat stuff. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"It turns out that if you put Elon Musk on the graph, almost the entire US population is crammed into a vertical bar, one pixel wide. Each pixel is $500 million wide, illustrating that $500 million essentially rounds to zero from the perspective of the wealthiest Americans."

- Ken Shirriff, Wealth distribution in the United States

[erraticprocrastinator]

Not sure about anyone else but I re-read all my favourite AO3 comments when I’ve had a rough day so if you’ve ever taken the time to write a deep, funny, or just kind comment, thank-you.

[ladyshinga]

THERE'S TORTIE KITTIES IN VEILGUARD AND YOU CAN PET THE ANIMALS

[socialmaya]

[shitacademicswrite]

[only-cat-memes]

[revilonilmah]

Quagsire lookin very proud of his Jack o' Lantern.

[anexistingexistence]

Yes I want to write my story but my story doesn't want to be written so what the fuck am I supposed to do about that huh?

[dyrewrites]

Write a different one to make it jealous.

[aichu-dechu]

[s-n-arly]

Apparently my favorite picture books as a child were written by queer authors.  This brings me joy.

[down-sizing-redux]

Look, most of the queer people I know, myself included, had pretty rough childhoods (for a variety of reasons, but being recognizably queer was part of it) and as a result, we are fiercely protective of kids. Not protecting kids in a walled-garden sense the way conservatives want, but celebrating the wonder and whimsy and weirdness of being a child, and treating children as people - people who might need more supervision and care, but people with opinions and thoughts that really do matter. So of course the most beloved children's books of the last 40 years are written by queer folx. It makes perfect sense.

[sophiaslittleblog]

This is what an evil boop looks like.

[elucubrare]

ok i think what gets me about the kind of post that's like '[children's media] has child soldiers, where are their parents!!' is that those stories really and truly aren't for people who'll think about that, they're for the people the children's age, who don't, for the most part, want to be kept safe or told they're too young to participate in the world, they want to be given a sword

[portraitoftheoddity]

#''children save the world'' stories are for the children to feel powerful and strong  #''responsible adult steps in'' stories are for adults looking back realizing they shouldn't have needed to be strong in the first place  #because someone should have done something (and that someone could be them now)  #the former is an important story to tell because children deserve to feel powerful and strong  #the latter we see a lot on tumblr because. well. that's who's here (via @iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid​)

Spot on original post, and great addition in the notes.

[findingfeather]

…I mean, I wanted “actually decent adult steps in” stories as a kid.

I wanted the fantasy that one of the people with power around me not only WOULD but COULD actually make the bad shit stop. (Because I sometimes even had adults who wanted to but it turned out their help actually made it worse - through no fault of their own.)

And I’m not alone. I’ve straight up HAD KIDS go ask to be pointed to stories where Someone Helps. Or talk about how much they hate it when a story tries to imply that so and so has okay parents but their parents are still [letting them fight demons/the government/whatever] alone for no reason.

Some of these were kids who had felt a LOT of the sharp end of adults totally failing them. They wanted the fantasy of adults who WOULDN’T. And sometimes they wanted that fantasy WITH dragons, or dystopia, or saving the world.

On the same theme, I had one 14yo who told me once about how a particular quite long fic was the most important thing she’d ever read “because it was the first time I knew what a safe adult looked like.”

Is that every kid? No, of course not. But they also exist.

It’s almost like - and hear me out, maybe this is a new idea - different kids need different things and it’s a good idea to have both and also everything in between because this also isn’t a binary.

Part of what made that fic important to that kid was the story having very visible DIFFERENCES between not only safe adults and harmful adults but also “well meaning but clueless” and “thinks they’re helping with every fibre of their being but are actually fucking you up.” Part of what made the good adults good was deliberate steps THEY took to empower the fictional kids.

Like it’s absolutely valid to say “often this happens bc the power fantasy that the author is writing for, which many kids love, is shaped like X”.

But it’s not a binary, and no that’s NOT all kids, or even the same kid all the time. So it’s also not unreasonable to notice when the pattern is omnipresent and query it; and it’d be nice to stop treating children like a monolith.

[thepoisonroom]

loudly going "YOU'RE GOOD YOU'RE GOOD" to myself to ward off the memory of every embarrassing thing i've ever done

[elmerseason-deactivated-deactiv]

[0gl1tch0]

I actually learned a fun therapy trick for this!

The statute of limitations on arson is 6 years.

So whenever I remember an embarrassing or shameful thing I’ve done, I ask myself if it was worse than arson. If it wasn’t, and it was 6 or more years ago, I forgive myself.

Also just the comedic shock of going “well, that was a stupid and mean thing I said, but 6 years is the statute of limitations on arson” helps.

[tainbocuailnge]

honestly christianity really hit the jackpot with "jesus christ" rolling off the tongue as an expletive so well. the number one problem with fantasy settings is that whatever names you come up with to take in vain will never hit as well as "jesus christ"

[tainbocuailnge]

this guy gets it!!!!! this is the kind of rock solid phonetic structural integrity you have to compete with!!!! and no amount of marika's tits or thal's balls or odin's beards will ever get close because with ol jeezy boy his name alone has all the features you need

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[matthewinatrenchcoat]

Still can't get over the fact that stan canonically wrote fanfics

[elidyce]

What Has Been Up With Me

Brief updates re: my long absence.

I have now had Covid 3-4 times. My health has further deteriorated to the point where I now have full blown chronic fatigue, my ability to swallow successfully has gotten worse, I have developed some new sinus issues, and my chronic pain has levelled up noticeably. It is, pun intended, a massive pain to deal with.

Falstaff has been hospitalised since just after Christmas last year. He has now had one leg amputated below the knee, and he is soldiering on despite a slew of infections, secondary health issues, etc, but as his entire support network, I am losing a lot of spoons to this.

We moved house again! If anyone remembers how fast my online presence dropped to zero after the last move, we now think we know why - there was a MASSIVE black mold problem hidden inside the wall behind the shower. Almost as soon as we moved, we all noticed a marked improvement in our general wellbeing, and the dog stopped having bladder issues within a couple of weeks, which... is probably related somehow, though I have no idea how.

With the improved health, I am trying to resume my normal activities re writing, although getting up to speed again might take a little while.

The cat broke her foot at the beginning of the year, which was excruciatingly expensive because cats need a new cast *every week*, apparently, but she is all better now. We really impressed the vet by having trained her to insert her head into her cone voluntarily. We were removing the cone every morning and evening to allow her about half an hour of CLOSELY SUPERVISED washing and sunning time (with us watching to make sure she didn't lick or chew the things she shouldn't), then putting it back on and giving her a licky treat (those squeezy tubes of cat treat) when it was on. By the end, she would assume her cone voluntarily and swallow her pill with a minimum of fuss, but the licky treat addiction persists to this day. If she doesn't get a squeeze of it at bedtime she will walk up and down the hall shrieking, because nobody is allowed to sleep until the cat is appeased.

[edsrosetattoo]

This is the best idea in the history of film.