Crooked imaginaton @inqamor - Tumblr Blog

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This campaign defies censorship in social media to raise awareness for early detection of breast cancer

iamanemotionaltimebomb

this is actually super fucking smartass of them

snake-lady

Reblogging as this is so important everyone! My mum had breast cancer and that shit is not nice so please check yourself ladies and gents! 💕💕💕

secretlifeofjohnlockdolls

She gets this from you

conversationswithjohnlock

LOLLLL

acesapphic

Ready for a long ace-centric metaphor about sex?

Alright, so. Coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I have no desire to drink coffee. I find people who enthusiastically go on about the flavor differences of lattes, espressos, and french press brews, both amusing and mildly baffling. All the coffee ads. Coffee jokes. Bustling coffee shops. To me, all coffee is similarly bitter and unpleasant. I have been through so many “Try this, it’s sweet! You can’t even taste the coffee!” Alas, I always can. And I’m sensitive to caffeine anyway. So, I don’t really think about drinking it when I wake up or am tired.

Yet I love the smell of coffee. I love the idea of coffee. The feeling of a warm cup taking the chill from my fingers, the cozy ritual of having a drink and chat. I might try someone’s coffee. If they ask, if I want to please them and share in something they enjoy. I am also perfectly capable of learning the preferences of those I care about and creating a cup for their pleasure.

But I don’t want coffee, generally speaking. I will probably make a face after trying their coffee and wash the taste out with something else. They may rush to reassure me that it is an acquired taste. And I’ll have to reply that it’s a taste I don’t particularly care about acquiring in the way they did. ‘Drink it till you like it’ will never work for me.

But that doesn’t mean I am against coffee or think people shouldn’t drink it. Doesn’t mean I’ve taken a vow to never drink any. And sure, maybe if you get one of those sugar and whipped cream disasters, more of a warm milkshake than a cup of coffee, I’ll probably be happier sipping it with you. But honestly? I’d rather smell someone else’s coffee and not be expected to drink it. I’d really rather have the heat and sweetness of my hot cocoa.

onemillionspiders

I love this

daja-the-hypnokitten

The best part is it works for ALLLL the ace spectrum! Maybe you like one specific type of coffee on rare occasions! Maybe you enjoy coffee when you’re sharing the drink with someone! Maybe you can’t even stand the smell of coffee!

This needs to be on my blog.

#yes

wrex-writes

Rehab for writing injuries

You’ve heard of “making writing a habit,” and you’ve tried, but the pressure to write fills you with horrible pain and dread. You spend all your time wishing you could write but somehow never writing. The “make it a habit” approach doesn’t work for you. But you still want to write, maybe even regularly. Is there nothing you can do?

Here is an alternative approach to try. A rehab program, as it were, for writers with a psychological “writing injury” that has destroyed their desire to write and replaced it with shame, anxiety and dread.

If you have a writing injury, you probably acquired it by being cruel to yourself, by internalizing some intensely critical voice or set of rules that crushes your will to write under the boot-heel of “you should.” “You should be writing better after all the years of experience you’ve had.” “You should be writing more hours a day, you’ll never get published at this rate.” “You should write more like [Hilton Als/Jeffrey Eugenides/Octavia Butler/Terry Pratchett/etc.].” “You should write faster/more/better/etc./etc.”

You know what, though? Fuck all that. Self-abuse may have featured heavily in the cool twentieth-century writer’s lifestyle, but we are going to treat ourselves differently. Because 1) it’s nicer, and 2) frankly, it gets better results. My plan here is to help you take the radical step of caring for yourself.

1) First of all: ask yourself why you aren’t writing.

Not with the goal of fixing the problem, but…just to understand. For a moment, dial down all of the “goddammit, why can’t I just write?” blaring in your head and be curious about yourself. Clearly, you have a reason for not writing. Humans don’t do anything for no reason. Try to discover what it is. And be compassionate; don’t reject anything you discover as “not a good enough excuse.” Your reasons are your reasons.

For me, writing was painful because I wanted it to solve all my problems. I wanted it to make me happy and whole. I hated myself and hoped writing would transform me into a totally different person. When it failed to do that, as it always did, I felt like shit.

Maybe writing hurts because you’ve loaded it with similarly unfair expectations. Or maybe you’re a victim of low expectations. Maybe people have told you you’re stupid or untalented or not fluent enough in the language you write in. Maybe writing has become associated with painful events in your life. Maybe you’ve just been forced to write so many times that you can no longer write without feeling like someone’s making you do it. Writing-related pain and anxiety can come from so many different places.

2) Once you have some idea of why you’re not writing…just sit with that.

Don’t go into problem-solving mode. Just nod to yourself and say, “yes, that’s a good reason. If I were me, I wouldn’t want to write either.” Have some sympathy for yourself and the pain you’re in.

3) Now…keep sitting with it. That’s it, for the moment. No clever solutions. Just sympathize. And, most importantly, grant yourself permission to not write, for a while.

It’s okay. You are good and valuable and worthy of love, even when you aren’t writing. There are still beautiful, true things inside of you.

Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for humans to do things if they don’t have permission not to do them. It’s especially hard if those things are also painful. We hate feeling trapped or compelled, and we hate having our feelings disregarded. It shuts us down in every possible way. You will feel more desire to write, therefore, if you believe you are free not to write, and if you believe it’s okay not to do what causes you pain.

(By the way: not having permission isn’t the same as knowing there will be negative consequences. “If I don’t write, I won’t make my deadline” is different from “I’m not allowed not to write, even if it hurts.” One is just awareness of cause and effect; the other is a kind of slavery.)

4) For at least a week, take an enforced vacation from writing, and from any demands that you write. During this time, you are not permitted to write or give yourself grief for not writing.

This may or may not be reverse psychology. But it’s more than that.

Think of it as a period of convalescence. You’re keeping your weight off an injury so it can heal, and what’s broken is your desire to write. Pitilessly forcing yourself to write when it’s painful, plus the shame you feel when you don’t write, is what broke that desire. So, for a week (or a month, or a year, or however long you need) tell yourself you are taking a doctor-prescribed break from writing.

This will feel scary for some folks. You might feel like you’re giving up. You might worry that this break from writing feels too good, that your desire to write might never return. All I can say is, I’ve been there. I’ve had all those fears and feelings. And the desire to write did return. But you gotta treat it like a tiny crocus shoot and not stomp on it the second it pokes its little head up. Like so:

5) Once you feel an itch to write again—once you start to chafe against the doctor’s orders—you can write a tiny bit. Only five or ten minutes a day.

That’s it. I’m serious: set a timer, and stop writing when the time’s up. No cheating. (Well…maybe you can take an extra minute to finish your thought, if necessary.)

Remember: these rules are not like the old rules, the ones that said, “you must write or you suck.” These rules are a form of self-care. You are not imposing a cruel, arbitrary law, you are being gentle with yourself. Not “easy” or “soft”—any Olympic athlete will tell you that hard exercise when you’ve got an injury is stupid and pointless, not tough or virtuous. If you need an excuse to take care of yourself, that’s it: if you’re injured, you can’t perform well, and aggravating the injury could take you out of the competition permanently.

For the first few days, all of the writing you do should be freewriting. Later, you can do some tiny writing exercises. Don’t jump into an old project you stalled out on. Think small and exploratory, not big and goal-oriented. And whatever you do, don’t judge the output. If you have to, don’t even read what you write. This is exercise, not performance; this is you stretching your atrophied writing muscles, not you trying to write something good. At this stage, it literally doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you generate words. (Frankly, it would be kind of weird and unfair if your writing at this point was good.)

6) After a week, you can increase your time limit if you want. But only a little!

Spend a week limiting yourself to, say, twenty minutes a day instead of ten. When in doubt, set your limit for less than you think you’ll need. You want to end each writing session feeling like you could keep going, not like you’re crawling across the finish line.

Should you write every day? That’s up to you. Some people will find it helpful to put writing on their calendar at the same time each day. Others will be horribly stifled by that. You get to decide when and how often you write, but two things: 1) think about what you, personally, need when you make that decision, and 2) allow that decision to be flexible.

Remember, the only rule is, don’t go over your daily limit. You always have permission to write less.

And keep checking in with yourself. Remember how this program began? If something hurts, if your brain is sending you “I don’t wanna” signals, respect them. Investigate them, find out what their deal is. You might decide to (gently) encourage yourself to write in spite of them, but don’t ignore your pain. You are an athlete, and athletes listen to their bodies, especially when they’re recovering from an injury. If writing feels shitty one day, give yourself a reward for doing it. If working on a particular project ties your brain in knots, do a little freewriting to loosen up. And always be willing to take a break. You always have permission not to write.

7) Slowly increase your limit over time, but always have a limit.

And when you’re not writing, you’re not writing. You don’t get to berate yourself for not writing. If you find yourself regularly blazing past your limit, then increase your limit, but don’t set large aspirational limits in an effort to make yourself write more. In fact, be ready to adjust your limit lower.

When it comes to mental labor, after all, more is not always better. Apparently, the average human brain can only concentrate for about 45 minutes at a time, and it only has about four or so high-quality 45-minute sessions a day in it. That’s three hours. So if you set your daily limit for more than three hours, you may be working at reduced efficiency, when you’d be better off saving up your ideas and motivation for the next day. (Plus, health and other factors may in fact give you less than 3 good hours a day. That’s okay!)

Of course, if you’re a professional writer or a student, external pressures may force you to write when your brain is tired, but my point is more about attitude: constant work is not necessarily better work. So don’t make it into a moral ideal. We tend to think that working less is morally weak or wrong, and that’s bullshit. Taking care of yourself is practical. Pushing yourself too hard will just hurt you and your writing. Also, your feelings are real and they matter. If you ignore or abuse them, you’ll be like a runner trying to run on a broken ankle.

I know I’m going to get someone who says, “if you’re a pro, sometimes you gotta ignore your feelings and just get the work done!”

NO.

You can, of course, choose to work in spite of any pain you’re feeling. But ignore that pain at your peril. Instead, acknowledge the pain and be compassionate. Forgive yourself if pain slows you down. You are human, so don’t hold your feet to the fire for having human limitations. Maybe a deadline is forcing you to work anyway. But make yourself a cup of hot chocolate to get you through it, literally or metaphorically. Help yourself, don’t force yourself. If you’ve had a serious writing injury, that shift in attitude will make all the difference.

In short: treat yourself as someone whose feelings matter.

Try it out! And let me know how it goes!

Ask a question or send me feedback!

onedamnminuteadmiral

THIS

writerlyn

This is the kindest writing advice ever. I love it.

chicklette

This is amazing.

anarfea

🔥 your favourite unpopular HC

That Irene is actually gay and actually interested in Sherlock. I know a lot of people like to say that Irene is bi and using “gay” as a shorthand the way bi people often do, but I really do think that she is primarily, and perhaps nearly exclusively, attracted to women, and that Sherlock is an exception to her usual orientation. I know that reading is “problematic” because it means that a lesbian is sexually attracted to a man, but I think it’s the only way the lines, “If anyone out there still cares, I’m not actually gay,” “Well I am, look at us both” make sense. When John says he’s “not gay” what he means, IMO, is “not attracted to men.” When Irene says she’s gay, she also means is that she’s “not attracted to men.” And yet both of them are attracted to Sherlock, because he’s exceptional.

notagarroter

This is pretty much my HC as well, but I also think it’s reasonable to interpret it as Irene telling John, “yes, doofus, I’m not talking about S - E - X, there are other ways to be drawn to another human being.” I think Irene could just mean that she is fascinated by Sherlock, excited by him, intellectually stimulated by him… feelings that may or may not overlap to some degree with the realm of the erotic.

And she is suggesting to John the same deal – i.e., “you could still be a couple, you could still be soul mates, you could still care deeply about him, even if you don’t particularly want to rub your bits together.”

In any case, I definitely don’t buy that Moftiss’s Irene is some kind of affront to gay women, and I think claims that the show means “all lesbians are just waiting for the right man” are ridiculous, and based in an extremely shallow reading of the episode.

pennypaperbrain

IMHC (In My HeadCanon? should be thing…) it’s simply that Irene and Sherlock are both extremely kinky. Gender is sometimes secondary to that.

unreconstructedfangirl

I think it’s just possible that we could all benefit from a more flexible approach to thinking about human sexuality and attraction. I also see Irene as gay and John as primarily not gay, but both undeniably attracted to Sherlock. It’s a shame that all the labels that give people the sense of belonging they need and desire, and help so many people give a name to their experiences are also so potentially limiting to our erotic imaginations. I say this as someone who has recently been forced to rethink her own place on these spectrums. Why so much enthusiasm for neat, hermetically sealed, immutable identities? What’s ‘problematic’ about the idea that your desires might surprise you with new permutations?

hedwig-dordt

I just want to buy everybody in this bar a round, because this is a fascinating convo

mybrainrots

I’m so happy to find some folks who feel the same way I do - you guys articulated it so much better than I ever could.

addigni

Couldn’t agree more, such a relief to find out that there are others who see it this way as well

its-for-men

they can both be romantically (intellectually) attracted to him which is separate from sexual attraction

eastwndholmes

All the obvious things I’m tired repeating over and over again, but once more unto the breach, dear friends...

Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, any member of the cast and crew, doesn’t owe the haters a thing. They’ve every damn right in the universe to do with their show what they please.

Sending them hate and threats won’t change that. It just makes you look like a whiny kid, yelling cause you didn’t get what you wanted.

Just cause something in the show doesn’t fit your theory, doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, senseless or unnecessary.

Calling a gay man fake, or homophobe doesn’t have anything to do with ‘just having a different opinion”

Just cause some of us ship pairings like Sherlolly, Adlock or Warstan doesn’t mean we’re homphobes.

Sending hate to our writers, cast and crew doesn’t make you look like a mature person

Hate isn’t something good. You’re hurting people who didn’t deserve it.

Mark and Steven have every damn right in the universe not to make S5, just cause of your pointless hate.

You’re giving our fandom a terrible name. Just think and stop.

Feel free to add to this list.

marykk1990

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

theincaprincess

Found these on Facebook how cool are they!! They are amazing!!!!

Credit goes to 山神タヌ

addigni

I love EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS!!!!!!

So adorable!!

#wow #so cute

i-dont-want-to-hold-your-hand

honestly though,, why are there so many goddamn windows???

dogsandnerdythings

Reblog if you utterly and without hesitation support gay rights

It’ll mean a lot to my friend, who’s having a tough time with bullies lately.

alien-fanbitch

Yes! I support it with my life!

ohsherlock

#johnlock #what #this is fine

charcubed

30 January 2017 – The Saga of Sherlock Holmes Finally Being Dicked Down by John Watson.

@ContactSH is an international hero.

DISCLAIMERS:

• According to both Joe Lidster and Sue Vertue, this Twitter is not canon, though it’s got tweets backlogged to 2013. Regardless, it’s a great deal of fun, the person’s a genius and extremely detailed with all original photos, they’re consistently in character and never break the 4th wall, and… Well, there’s some Fucky business, like this elephant wine bottle label that exists nowhere else. 👀 But! It’s (supposedly) not canon–just CANON IN OUR HEARTS. I love them.

• This account is also not affiliated with @ContactJHW or any of the other (mostly brand new) RP Twitters that have popped up this month as far as I can tell. Sherlock never interacts with them in any way. Do as you wish with that info; doesn’t mean they’re not still fun, but they don’t necessarily all exist in the same “universe.”

• If you want to come yell at me on Twitter, I’m @CharCubed.

#i love this #makes my day

fffinnagain

The Final Problem: Making Sherlock Holmes a good man

After The Lying Detective, I didn’t know what to expect for the last episode of series 4. John and Sherlock had reconciled on screen after hurting themselves and each other so deeply over the course of years. Mary had made her mark and worked herself out of the series. In two episodes, the main problems left by Series 3 had basically been resolved. What was left for big finale?

With that trepidation in mind, I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Final Problem. It wasn’t easy to watch, but I found it powerful and convincing in ways that many others apparently did not. It tied up a lot of standing issues: the Moriarty business, from his initial interest in Sherlock to the last Miss Mes, the Why of Sherlock from series 1 onward, the Why of Mycroft and the broken Holmes Brothers’ relationship. It gave an emotional grounding to the fundamental contradiction of this Sherlock Holmes: a strongly empathic person trying to override sensitivity and compassion with extraordinary analytic ability that is (strangely) a source of great insecurity. As a closing chapter on the story of Sherlock’s progress from being a Great Man to a good one, I found it incredibly satisfying. The bizarre premise of a series of rooms on an island fortress was romantic and dramatic, but not out of style for a show that has featured delayed-action stabbings (TSOT), an un-convict-able super-villain (TRF), and a serial killer engaging in a battle of wits with every victim (ASIP).

Maybe I read too many fantasy stories about quests as a child, but I wasn’t bothered by the improbability of the plot, nor by the use of all non-protagonist characters to further this hero’s journey. This episode wasn’t about John, or Mycroft, or Molly, or even Eurus. However, their respective relationships with Sherlock have made him grow in different ways, and the sequence of crises forced on him by Eurus serve to prove how much he has changed, both to her and to himself. That the depiction of these tests put the audience (well, at least me) through the emotional wringer heightened (my) satisfaction and confidence in Sherlock’s transformation. In the moment, I didn’t care if the action did not make much sense; the why has always been more important than the how in BBC Sherlock.

Over the course of four series, Sherlock has gone from being a self-destructive solitary man-child to shouldering the responsibility of healing his own broken family, and that change in perspectives and priorities is huge. He is willing to learn from Eurus (rather than feel threatened by her abilities), to work for the sake of his parents and siblings (rather than push them away like a whiny teenager), and to care openly about his chosen family. Finally, Sherlock has the stability to treat strangers’ needs with respect and sympathy, as mature Holmes does the stories of ACD.

Besides capping the great progress of Sherlock Holmes, The Final Problem also moved me with the story of Eurus. There are plenty of stories about weirdly precocious children, but this was the first I’ve really appreciated about a younger sister, and it really hit home. Around the comic violence, Eurus is treated with sympathy, her struggle recognised and respected. This is helping me think very useful thoughts about my own familial relationships and that kind of impact is a hallmark of good art.

There was plenty more to enjoy in this episode (just as there was plenty to criticise) but a last point that mattered a lot to me was a big deviation from the usually crime-solving content of detective stories (or stories about detectives). Through the Holmes family’s history and present, we finally have a look at the consequences of violent crime and the criminal justice process on the families of the incarcerated. The temptation to forget, the importance of remembering, the intra- and inter-individual conflicts about engaging with loved ones who are or are deemed dangerous. The specifics were fanciful and not without their problems, but it’s an important change from having so many antagonists dismissed as unconditionally evil.

The Holmes and Watson of ACD repeatedly weight the cost of arresting the guilty with consideration for their families, but on BBC Sherlock, the wrong doers tend to wind up dead or arrested without questions of fall out. We haven’t seen a real moral quandary on screen, and I hope that kind of story will pop up in some future independent story about our Baker Street Boys.

shinysherlock

This helped me see some things differently, thank you. <3

destinationtoast

Oh, wow. Thank you so much for this, Finn!

pipmer

Wow, I could never articulate my perspective in such eloquent detail like this!

vulgarweed

Beautiful. And yes, the description as “Love conquers all” was completely accurate. It did. It was about familial love. (Which, as Sherlock was quick and emphatic to state clearly, definitely includes John, and we can assume his daughter as well). It’s not an easy love even for a more “normal” family, and Holmeses have rifts that can never fully heal smoothly. But I was moved to tears by Sherlock’s devotion to their violin duets - if it’s the only way to get through to her, the only connection they can safely have, it’s clearly important to him. Could he so easily forgive her for killing his best friend so cruelly? Hard to say. What IS forgiveness exactly? Is it accepting what the other person did as OK? No, that’s not what it is. This is, after all, a man who forgave his best friend’s wife for killing HIM (he didn’t stay dead long, of course, that does make a difference). Is that all just self-loathing, or does it indicate someone who’s learning to see sympathetic motives woven into the most unsympathetic acts? I found a lot of things about Eurus stretched my suspension of disbelief even more than I’m used to on this show - but less so than on some other shows and movies I enjoy, so it wasn’t a dealbreaker. I think it’s an episode that’s going to reward a lot of rewatches for me. I liked it better the second time than the first, and the third time more than the second.

tisnotmydivison

REBLOG IF YOU STILL LOVE STEVEN MOFFAT AND MARK GATISS

mycrofts-kitchen

I will always love Mark Gatiss ❤️

Me, imagining a scene in my head: beautiful poetic prose that gracefully and artfully describes the scene in vivid detail, giving the reader concise imagery and beautiful wordplay to ruminate on.

Me, actually writing: The angry man throwed his chair through the window angrily and bigly. "I'm angry and pissed off." He said because he was mad.

#pretty much like that