When I was training to be a battered womenās advocate, my supervisor said something that really blew my mind:
āYou can always assume one thingĀ about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if theyāre having a day where their best just isnāt that great, or their best doesnāt look like your best, you have to be okay with that.ā
Any now whenever anyone in my life, either a friend or a client, frustrates me, disappoints me, or pisses me off, I just tell myself They are doing their best. Their best isnāt that great today, but I have days where my best isnāt that great either.Ā
Op Iād like to thank you for sharing this. Ever since the first time Iāve read it Iāve held it in my mind and it really has helped me to be kinder to others and to myself.
Thereās a pretty famous Tweet that goes around from someoneās therapist, who told her āYou canāt do your best all the time. If you did, it would be your normal.ā
Hi everyone, Iām SarahāIām Brazilianāand Iām here to talk about the current situation with the game *Love and Deepspace* and make a plea to all of you! š¢
I want to clarify that the situation in China is far more complex and serious than we might imagine. Unfortunately, Valko seems to have become an unwitting casualty of this scenario. We know that Infold Games receives support and financial backing from the Chinese government, and both parties share in the profits from *Love and Deepspace*'s success.
The boycott initiated by Chinese women was reportedly triggered by the inclusion of certain numbers in Valkoās teaser or reveal trailer; these were interpreted as references to World War II eventsāa period when Chinese citizens, especially women, suffered immense hardship and atrocities. This issue caught the attention of the Chinese government, which is known for its strict policies and zero tolerance for such transgressions. Consequently, the government reportedly pressured Infold Games, threatening to cancel the game entirely if the situation wasn't resolved quickly and effectively. Given the government's financial stake in the title's success, Infold Games was forced to act immediately, resulting in the emergency cancellation of Valko to preserve the game's overall viability.
Now, with the recent boycott aimed at bringing Valko back, the game faces a serious risk of being pulled from global servers or even permanently cancelled. To address this, Infold has announced that the game will officially go on hiatus for two months. However, if the hate messages, uninstalls, and social media unfollows continue, the risk of removal from global serversāor worse, permanent cancellationāincreases.
So, Iād like to ask you to be careful about how you boycott! Please, fellow players: do not uninstall the game. Just log in to complete your daily tasks and avoid leaving negative reviews. Please keep following the game's social media accounts; showing our support for the company is essential to keeping the game on global servers. We can all fight for Valko without destroying the game in the process; after all, if the game gets shut down, there won't be a game for Valko to return to. Just imagine the disappointment and sadness if the game were to end.
Weāve also recently learned that some players in China have been complaining and asking Infold to pull the game from the global serverāand I know many players don't want that to happen.
Itās time for us to unite and help keep *Love and Deepspace* up and running, just as it has been since launch. Please share and repost this so more people are aware.
Thank you all for your understanding. šš½
@madam8, @flirtwithluck, @theliving-radio, @rcvcgers, @igotanidea @wendeeesaucy @diamonrot ... I'm sorry to mark you like this without asking, but I'm doing it so that you can help me and help save the game as well.
The OBSESSION with identity is so crazy like the view that when you do something it immediately becomes part of your identity and all the parts of you have to click together to become āperson who wakes up earlyā or āperson who readsā no you can literally just do something without restructuring your whole performance of personhood around it. I donāt know what to tell you except that you will never be able to have an entirely unfractured view of yourself or that you will be able to rationalize all the complex parts of yourself into the phrase āperson who xā like you should just be doing things without performing them. Or aestheticizing them. Just try different things on and keep what works for you. Otherwise you will never learn and grow!
if there was any justice at all in the world āevery helen has her troyā would be an idiom (āevery beautiful woman leaves a disaster in her wakeā) and misogynistic renaissance authors would use it to describe hot women they didnāt like but, of course, inadvertently making her sound insanely awesome in the process. and then in modern times instead of talking about things being their hill to die on women could say āthis is my troy to burnā and people on tumblr would be kind of horny about the whole thing and it would get incorporated into the whole ācan yuo put that out on meā genre of posts. anyway just a glimpse into my beautiful mind tonight
Okay so i see writers mess this up constantly and i need to talk about it. Introverts and extroverts are not "shy vs loud." That's not what it means and if you write them like that your characters will feel like cardboard. Introvert means you lose energy in crowds and find it alone. Extrovert means the opposite. That's it. An introvert can be the loudest person in the room. An extrovert can be soft-spoken and gentle. The behaviour is not the point. The energy is.
(The best of this post and its reblogs, but with links that work)
Here is a website where you can scroll down to all the different levels of the oceanĀ
Here is a website where you can see the future of the universe
Here is a website where you can press aĀ āmake everything okayā button, over and over, until things really are okay
Here is a website that you can read if you feel like a burden
Here is a website where you can look at strobe illusions (TW strobe/flashing)
Here is a website where you can cut stuff up (TW blood/sh)
Here and here are websites where you can play with sand
Here is a website where you can draw with macaroni and other fun foods
Here is a website where you can paint someoneās nails
Here is a website where you can grow a garden with emojis
Here is a website with hundreds of videos of people hugging you (rightfully dubbedĀ āthe nicest place on the internetā because it really is, yāall, it made me cry)
Here is a website that will take you to other useless websites
Here is a website where you can make a tiny cat play bongo drums (and other instruments!)
Here is a website to help give you gentle reminders <3
Here is a website where you can grow a tiny farm
Here is a website where you can take a bunch of scientific personality tests
Here is a website of calm rain noise
Take a breath. Itās going to be okay, I promise.
Stages of writing a novel: (1) this is a great idea (2) this is a good idea (3) this is an idea (4) what even is this (5) i have made a terrible mistake (6) okay there's something here (7) this is actually good (8) this is too good, something is wrong (9) wait did i accidentally write something real (10) close laptop. do not think about it for three days. open laptop. start over from stage 4.
(aka: the one where he jokes about his professional instincs)
People thinks he's cold.
And he's okay with that. Knowing that surgeon life is lonely and emotions are killer, especially in the OR.
But when he comes home after another 48h shift and finds her still awake, laying in bed, staring at the ceiling ... it hurts.
And somehow, for the first time in a very, very long time, he feels like explanining himself.
Something he never does.
With light steps, he approaches the bed and settles next to her, the dip of the mattress seving as a familiar welcome home.
"Y/N?"
"Yes?"
"I know i'm dry and curt sometimes, but -"
"That's not much of a surprise though." She muttered, not shiifting to look a him, eyes still boring a hole in the ceiling.
Andi it felt like some twisted sort of ice bucket challenge on his already frailed psyche.
Why would she say something so cruel?
But then... Perhaps he did deserve it. He definitely deserved it.
"Hm." He hummed, like a neutral sign he internally agreed and wished to no longer discuss it.
"Hey. Hey no." Y/N realised her slip in a matter of seconds. "Let me finish. I only meant that... Well, you operate on hearts. You give a piece of your own to every patient on the table, no wonder you have nothing left for yourself..." Her hand landed on his chest, feeling the steady rythm of his blood being pumped. "But for what it;s worth... you have mine. I'll share if that's what it takes."
"Y- Y/N..." he was literally speechless.
"Sh. It;s okay. It's strong. It can beat for us both..." She nuzzled into him, this time guiding his hand to her chest. "I'll be your heart outside your body."
"Should I remind you, you're talking to cardiac surgeon?" He tried to dead-pan, but the way his voice faltered (in a way his hands were never allowed to) gave him away. "What if one day I decide to steal it and transplant it?"
"Oh Zayne, you silly man. Cardiac surgeon habits or not, you can;t steal something that's already yours."
A non-writer asked me "but where do you get your ideas" and i genuinely did not know how to explain that it's not a place. it's not a website. it's not a folder. it's that i was on the bus and a woman was holding a paper bag very carefully and something about the way she held it made me need to know what was inside and then i needed to know why she was sad about it and then there was a whole person and then there was a whole story and the bus had already stopped and i missed my stop. that's where.
Imagine Your and Zayne's daughter coming across the fics you wrote in your teens/young adulthood.
She's been just casually scrolling through some long-forgotten-but-still-underground-alive social page ad figuring that the name of this author actually sounds familiar.
And being a curious little thing she started digging.
Only to find out that the author from 2000-something was...
HER MOTHER,
And if you start to wonder why the sudden flushed cheeks and glossy eyes and closed door to her room?
Because she's enamoured by the stories.
Yes, even those written on bad days, self-indulgent ones with completely unrealistic amount of fluff aimed to sooth your inner child while feeling sad, lonely and depressed.
And you only figure it out when one day you find both Zayne AND your daughter on the couch, engrossed in reading YOUR works.
And then it dawns on you.
You always had it in you. And maybe those days spend with your own imagination and pouring out feelings into words were exacly the thing that led you to this.
(aka: the one when you show off your very specific sense of humor)
After a whole week of mess, Saturday could not be more awaited for Y/N, though since Zayne was stuck at the hospital duty she had to fill in the day herself.
And honestly? It kind of felt good. After all it wasn;t like they were glued together. They could love each other and still not go all mopey and miserable while the other was busy and having a life. Zayne definitely wasn't overly sad about it (being himself of course) so she wasn;t going to dramatise either.
Instead, she called one of her friends, asking him if he wanted to visit the arcade and play claw because a new merch has just been dropped.
Lost in fun, laughter and having a good time, she didn't pay much attention to the surroundings. Unfortunately that made her miss someone looking at her from the distance, assessing the threat.
Blissful ignorance came crashing down later that evening when she got a disturbing text.
Saw you having fun today. Who was the guy?
Right. Typical Zayne. She knew damn well he was overthinking everything, trying to find the logical solution, but having to fight his own brain into skipping to conclusion when it came to them.
He was just a colleague.
You didn;t tell me about him.
Oh dear. He was jealous. And while other girls may tease him mercilessly about it, Y/N chose against it.
I did. Just maybe I didnāt use his name. Dylan. He's the one who's going to be transferred soon.
Oh yes. I remember now.
She decided to wait for what was coming next, but as the silence kept on stretching, it was time for a bit more drastic measures.
***
He was wondering how to answer her without admitting he was jealous when his phone started vibrating and her name lit up the screen.
"Hey." he said with a calm (not cold, never cold with her) voice
"What is going on in your head right now, Zayne?"
If they were at the beginning of building a relationship he would wriggle out of the answer. But they've been together for two years. TWO YEARS, And it was Y/N. And he had no intention of questioning her.
"Zayne?"
"Still here."
"Talk to me."
"I didn't like you with him,"
"I figured as much. But you do realise he has a girlfriend, right?"
"Noted."
"And it's not like we've done anything, you know. Oh, and by the way, I won a plushie for you. Do you want to see it?" without waiting for an answer she snapped a photo and sent it to him without disconnecting.
Oh, for crying out loud, it must have been a joke....
A carrot.
She won a carrot plushie for him.
Zayne pinched the bridge of his nose, a mix of disbelief and exasperation bubbling in his brain (and heart).
"This is not funny."
"It is a little funny. Admit it." she teased.
"Y/N--"
"It's on its way to you. I called an uber about half an hour ago so it should be there soon."
"Of course you did. And what did the other guy get? A heart?" he scoffed pettily.
"Spoken like a true cardiac surgeon." She pointed out, not letting him off the hook easily. "And for the record, he got nothing. The claw is our thing. Yours and mine. Just cause I found a temporary replacement doesn't change it. It's me and you. Together. Remember?
"hm." (meaning: inside happy dance, cause he was still her no.1)
"See you tomorrow?"
"Hm."
"Good. Don;t lose sleep over carrots, Dr Zayne."
a soft click signalled the end of the conversation. But at least now he had his hope restored.
Even when a moment later a driver delivered that silly carrot, who seemed to start watching him the second it was put on the shelf.
Because it may have been an attempt to torment him, but it came from her, so of course it was getting a honorary place.
"Stop staring at me." he muttered childishly, turning it away so those two black lines of eyes were facing the wall and not him.
And if that was a kid's action? That was between him and the enemy.
he knows it's petty. yet, that does nothing to abate the furrow of his brows and the pout on his lips.
your mii is refusing to date his mii. the stubby big-headed character he poured way too much effort into making it look like you using the face paint and tinkering with the facial placementā though it is but a pittance compared to the real deal. not to mention the fact that he had to make you based off memory since he had been too shy to confess that he made both of you as miis on his island and wanted a reference.
the only two residents on his island, in fact.
and he's still getting rejected.
if he was lucky you'd let him talk to you whilst sitting together on the fountain. only for his mii to vaguely ask to hang out and make things awkward.
he had even made place holder miis, before unceremoniously removing them, until he got the island expansions! the restaurant. photo booth. pawn shop. hell, even the ferris wheel! yet, no juice could be made from the fruit of his labor.
your mii had been adamant in constantly rejecting his advances, even having the gall to fall in love with one of the placeholder miis.
and after every rejection, his own mii kept falling back in love after a trip to europe to subside his despair. after the first few times the love bubble inevitably popped up, jason had told his mii-self that it was too soon to ask your mii out only for that equally big-headed bunch of pixels refuse his advice and ask you out anyway. rinse and repeat.
perhaps it was a cruel joke on him for even trying. was it because your mii wasn't accurate enough? jason swears to himself that he'll keep a small photo of you in his wallet from this day forth.
perhaps it was poetic. that, no matter what happens to him, he'll always come to love you.