Wait what? Why can’t you bring water in?? That’s ridiculous. And that research paper sounds awful. Do you think taking a break after this year (like before college) might help? I know it’s far off, it could possibly help burn out though? Also, if there’s anything that you can do pretty well and don’t need to do really well on for later, maybe you could put a little less effort into that? Also try to find what’s relaxing for you. I’m completely hypocritical here, I literally can’t relax (my idea of relaxing is analyzing different ballets or trying to memorize ballet books XD). it’s not good actually it’s part of why i can’t sleep probably. Although i slept until like 3 in the afternoon today??? Except i wasn’t actually asleep just kind of sick. I hope i didn’t get sick at orchestra but i probably did… even though the iv thing was supposed to help with that… although i think it’s actually for something else because my tests for the other thing aren’t quite bad enough or something… 

I actually don’t mind needles XD i actually kind of like getting my blood drawn because it’s interesting (i like veterinary stuff idk. I used to want to be a vet and i got some old vet textbooks and would diagnose my stuffies :D lots of creepy pictures XD also i would always go to the vet with my cats and ask a lot of questions, which i still tend to do when i have the option. Plus our vet is really nice and knew i really wanted to be a vet. i still wouldn’t mind being a vet but i’m more of a violist/violinist now :( ). My tests are always weird and they can never figure out what the heck is wrong with them XD Like “so this is low and this is high and if this is low this should not be high and this thing over here contradicts with both of those”. My bruises are getting better :D although they always hurt after they stop looking like they’re bruised. And i feel like i always have a ton of bruises and have no idea where i got any of them *shrugs* 

You should go to a ballet!! Or talk to your friend’s mom!! At the very least you could be like “so i have this kind of crazy online friend who talks about ballet too much, could you tell me what the heck they’re talking about????” XD i need a friend whose mom runs a ballet company ToT although they’d probably get annoyed with the interviews every time I came over XD

Don’t worry about a goal if you don’t have time :D you already sound really busy. Besides, 1,000 words is already good. Certainly don’t stress about it. Shockingly i actually have gotten the goal more or less so far? Still not yet but i tend to write in the middle of the night. I have 1469 words :0 though i only wrote like 300 last night. Like i said, i can’t relax XD I’m just surprised i’ve remembered it and actually done it, honestly. I’m trying to write the book in question (which’s working name is All the Secrets Long Forgotten) fairly quickly because i always start over after like 10,000 words because i’ve noticed some way to improve it or because i’ve gotten obsessed with some other book. I quite like that book. I’m also trying to get the Library of the Stars ski lodge back up and running in a new and improved version, though at this point idk if anyone’s interested. It is so hard to put something out as you write it ToT (edit: at the timing i got today but missed yesterday but made up for it???)

Also here’s how things are right now gender wise: I came out at orchestra, that’s been going strangely well. My mom will only use my name and pronouns when she’s with someone else who will, which is interesting. She kind of avoids referring to me sometimes though, ig that's nice. My dad isn’t protesting but is still using the old ones. Overall, better than it has been??? Mostly because i don’t have standards??? But i also kind of doubt it’s going to get better because i’m just too scared to do anything else so yeah… idk things have been relatively fine lately but that’s usually the worst in its own way. And it’s not like being out fixes anything else anyway but it does feel like one less reasonable thing to be upset about, especially since so far nobody's been awful about it (well, nobody at orchestra). also - i tend to like feminine stuff, but i feel like if i had to choose a gender it'd be more masc than fem... and yet i also kind of feel like a girl but dysphoria... and yeahhh i kind of feel like a really really feminine boy to the point where i'm as much a girl as a boy, but also not. also like little kid boy stereotype stuff, kind of. and then also like kind of dark Halloweeny stuff, definitely masc there. also for a body i don't really want anything that's stereotypically feminine, as in it all gives me major dysphoria get it off. gender is weird XD somehow the physical dysphoria stuff is its own special kind of hopelessness though. also online people are so obsessed with your AGAB which is just really really weird and i don't want anyone to know or care about that ever (especially because then you get put into expectations or like "basically a girl/boy" or that sort of thing). anyway. also side note but it's so annoying because one second it'll be fine, the next everything will be completely out of control, and the next my parents are like "i didn't do anything to deserve this, why are you so mad all the time, are you scared of me or something?" i think i could take all the breakdowns if it wasn't for that part. at least somewhat. it's just all so patchy and completely fine or completely not fine. that or it's my memory again. which it very likely is that largely too. i mean sometimes there will be the one off comments or that sort of thing but it feels like more often it's really drastic.

oh and Silver, how are your stuffies?! did i ever introduce you to my new chicken or fox? and then of course there are old stuffies. I have a lot :D side note, i saw someone mention The Conscious Closet by Elizabeth L. Cline (on a thread i made) and i got it at the library and it's a fantastic book so far (even considering i'm pretty low on being fashionable, i have 8 pairs of pants (i counted while reading the book. oh wait 9 actually because there's one i was going to try to tailor) and mostly wear like 4 of them which are the same kind XD like my mom tries to get me more sometimes but why would i want them? especially if they serve basically the same purpose?). but anyway the reason i brought it up is because i just don't get how people can have so many clothes?!?!? like i'd be like "well if they enjoy it that's great" but no it actually isn't it causes HUGE problems (i made a thread about sustainability and overconsumption on DtE if you're interested in what problems, it has a thing about that). i'm the kind of person who wants to wear the same thing every day but it'd all have ballet stuff plastered all over it or be cool in some other way, ig. fast fashion is horrible.

I was just discussing with my partner the thing about needles lol. I've been pretty sickly a lot of my life so I've had my blood drawn a lot. It used to make me really nervous, but now I like to/feel like I have to watch them put the needle in or I get anxious. I've wanted to go into the medical field so I guess I kind of got used to it, too.

Impressive writing goal, BB! I wish I could do something like that! (Maybe I should seriously try?) I'm pretty busy with college and other responsibilities, but nothing's impossible, right?

I'm sorry about school, Silver, that does not sound fun at all. :( I assure you college is different with a lot more freedom! Still relate to feeling burnt out on the third week though, unfortunately. All I can say is that I hope things get better.

Some news from me is that I am Assistant Director (directly under the Advisor) for masque in college! I was hoping to get into crew or tech, or maybe elected as treasurer, but I think this is way better??? We have two Fall plays as well as a Fall musical, so it'll be a lot of work. My (adopted-out) brother (the good one) also scored an important role (even though he was a little disappointed because he wanted a more flamboyant role, and the one he got is more serious) and we're going out for coffee Wednesday to celebrate! I made a few friends too, (mostly theatre/alt kids, ofc) which I was worried was never gonna happen. I got a mushroom pin from one! (I am obssessed with anything mushroom/toadstool) I also got a Zelda Sheika pin from my local game shop where I play Dnd with the owner, who is a family friend. He's the one who got me to reconsider world-building and trying out an RP again! 

Things are going really well with my partner, and I came out to my dad about dating him and him being trans and the age gap and it went surprisingly well. Like really well? It actually feels like we're a healthy family kinda for once. My dad agreed not to tell my mum or youngest brother or anyone who might (definitely) have a problem with it, and his mum agreed to let him go on dates with me (although sadly we couldn't go this weekend because he got sick.) We still called for the first time in a long time until we fell asleep and have been hanging out every day that our schedules allow. He's really sweet and after not seeing him in-person for nearly a year it feels like heaven to be able to physically be close to him so much. We also discussed gender stuff, like he is going by he/him exclusively now rather than he/they and I was explaining how I'm fine with him calling me his girlfriend/partner/boyfriend, idrc, and I basically use any pronouns except she/her rn. It was nice having him understand without me having to try to explain myself.

(btw i might be changing my name at some point - probably transient_whale_fall, bottled_haze, or hollow_spectre. maybe faded_ink_stains. i still wish fog_warped_rose_thorns fit in the name box. rose_thorn_maze _ is also cool, i had forgotten about that one and i really like it. and dissonance_steeping, but the music and tea connotations might not be as clear as i hope. i might try out a few of them on here)

Jaybells!!!! hi! I’m glad things seem to be going better. i have my blood drawn a ton too XD i’d say i might have less done now, and i have a blood draw like every month or something. also cool about theater! That sounds fancy :D i also think mushrooms are cool, though i don’t know a ton about them. Yeah it does sound nice to be able to talk about gender stuff without having to explain all of it :D in person at least, i can here (generally). Also your mushroom outfit from Random Thoughts is amazing :0 it sounds like college has been good?  

If i may rant for a second, it's annoying because i keep getting “okay sure it’s fine, but you know you’ll still have to be your deadname at the doctor and stuff, and you’re probably going to grow out of it (one person cited a study that like 80% of kids grew out of it, but i’m fairly certain that study didn’t differentiate between like cis boys who played with dolls and that sort of thing and actual trans kids, among other issues like it was parents’ reports and counting not following up later as detransitioning, if i’m correct - it’s not to say that there aren’t people who will change or be mistaken, or that it’s not okay to change, but still), and it’s going to be so hard for us and we’re going to get it wrong and you have to be okay with that,” and then in one case once that’s over they do use my name, but my parents did some of the same and they just aren’t. and my mom kept using my old name and pronouns a ton yesterday, and ughhh. It’s really not as bad as it could be but like - I KNOW all of that and ig it’s not bad enough for me to completely disconnect myself from it so it just keeps being in the back of my mind more than things normally are and ugh. It’s also probably that i never bring it up. I don’t get how i can be so like… i’m half like people pleaser or never asking for anything and still overly idk and mostly the reason i’m people pleaser-y is because i don’t care enough to fight it but i also hate the idea of being so pushover-y and that makes me fight it unreasonably sometimes. Besides, they see me as unreasonable and overreacting no matter what. 

I kind of wish i was a theater kid XD i mean i actually used to a bit and got some big roles in a very small group, but i mean i could never do the dances or anything… idk acting in general just seems fun. I’m probably better at viola/violin though XD

Silver, Don’t worry about if what you’re writing is embarrassing - the only way to get to quality is by writing a ton anyway. And anything that you just write without editing is going to be bad anyway. 

Side note, people always say not to edit as you write but i often do (it’s often necessary for the way i often write, since it’s often easier to come up with the proper metaphors and such while i’m currently writing, and if i come up with too many i have a google doc to add more to). I usually only rewrite sentences that i’m currently on, though.

I completely agree that thrift shopping has become way too expensive, especially considering its roots. But yeahhhh it’s ridiculous. And it’s so annoying because places like Goodwill are basically as expensive as getting actual new stuff now. I mean i guess it’s sometimes higher quality but not always??? That being said i’m not sure you can overconsume in the same way from thrift shopping - i mean you don’t need that many clothes but at the same time so many are always being produced that it might actually help less stuff get shipped off to countries like Ghana, where a lot of it is just burned or put in landfills. And a lot of the clothing is still perfectly useable and even trendy or cool but apparently the market is so saturated that nobody there can sell it. There’s very simply too much stuff being made in the first place. Also i can imagine a whole family, especially one that has never cleaned out old broken shoes or old shoes that don’t fit anymore (i’m totally talking about mine XD) having 35 over a long period of time (because kids grow out of shoes and they break anyway) but one person? At one time? also 35 is probably way more than i'm thinking. Also collecting and that sort of thing can also be the same (like stuffies)... granted some people really like clothes and spend a lot of time and energy on them but it’s still somewhat bizarre to read about. Granted, i have never liked calling myself a collector of anything because that implies that i just want to collect the items to have them.

I’m going to post the basic plot of AtSLF in a bit - it’s kind of long so i won’t overwhelm the admins too much. Anyway it’s kind of MG-ish. I feel like my books are always in between MG and YA - perhaps darker and more complex than MG, with a more complex writing style, but nowhere near the levels of dark and complex that people expect in YA. (Granted, my writing style varies A TON depending on the character. It’s not always to the degree of rambling in Library of the Stars XD) it’s dark, but not in the YA way, and it’s not light in the YA way either. Plus, I tend to write characters who are older than most MG books but much much much less mature than in YA books (and generally still younger.) It’s probably because i’m writing it for myself, which is really not a good idea if you want to get published and fall deeply outside of the norm XD i wish there was either lower YA (like there’s lower MG) or a section in between YA and MG. In that case, YA could be for actual young adults and take up New Adult into it, actually, so that might be a good idea. It just annoys me so much that there’s very very little in the range that i would really like to read, which is like really low YA or really high MG. also because so much YA feels like it’s purely designed for shock value. Although maybe some people actually feel their emotions and have any form of memory and all of that heh… so maybe it’s less unrealistic than i think.  

sorry this took so long - might explain why later heh

I’m aware detransition rates are pretty low, thanks for pointing it out though Silver. The worst part is that person is literally a therapist who has worked with trans people before (it’s not her job or anything but she mentioned it), and she has such bad views about it (also she clearly only knows what the people have told her. Also she was talking about how it was hard to call them their names and pronouns and stuff because they had feminine or masc features which was also very icky to hear… not in a mean way but still). Also, it’s totally fine if people do decide to detransition, for any reason. Gender can change, and people can be wrong, and that’s okay. It’s certainly not worth letting people hate themselves their entire lives, and besides, it might make that part of their life better until they decide it’s not for them. Which is obviously harder if it’s a more medical transition but even then, it’s not necessarily a bad thing (certainly not morally). Also she had a copy of a very widely criticized report on her desk. Like i read a response to it (like a paper from a medical school) and i only read that one but yeahhhh it was pretty clear that was not a well done study. Like it basically just ignored or blatantly misinterpreted most of the evidence it cited?? It’s not like she’s that bad, and she doesn’t think it’s wrong or anything, but her views about it are just so so ignorant, at best.

I love editing too :D i actually like editing more than actually writing sometimes XD i think it would be really cool to be an editor because i tend to like that sort of thing, actually.

Oh and i made tea with dandelion leaves from our yard and it was really good. The flavor was really nice, it was kind of weird because the water got kind of thick though. I’m definitely going to make it again though. All parts of a dandelion are edible too (as long as it’s actually a dandelion ofc). Though i’ve read the stems are bitter.

Oh, and Jaybells, what kinds of mushrooms do you like? I have some pictures of shelf mushrooms and such somewhere, i can try to find them! 

You should audition for a role Jaybells! I mean not if it will cause you too much anxiety but if you want to, go for it! I don’t really get anxiety performing, unless i haven’t practiced enough or it’s an audition. But i even like auditions because they’re a performance. i honestly tend to get more anxious for orchestra rehearsals when i haven't practiced enough XD as i haven't this time... 

I’m completely failing on the word count goal though. I should have known better than to make that during the beginning of orchestra. Or in general. 

Also Jaybells I completely know what you mean about stories coming in phrases - not as much with the editing thing, but for me it tends to come to rhythms and that sort of thing, and i have to fit words to it. And sometimes later i’m like “what was i thinking?” XD also images and feelings, but mostly rhythms and the rise and fall of the words in a semi-musical way. Oh no does that mean i’m writing recitativs the whole time?! Those are always more boring than arias… except for sometimes when they're mind-blowing.

Oh btw Silver, thank you for mentioning you use the internet to find stuff to draw - it’s actually a great resource for finding references! I’d still love to see some of your art :D i haven’t been drawing much lately but i did draw Odette, and also Chamomile being Very Silly, meaning he is wearing a silly hat and a silly bow tie with lots of ribbons and holding silly balloons and the colors are just a bit too bright and I scribbled over a sketch in the background with a big black question mark and scribbles. XD i did overwork it, but i mean i was just drawing it to be Very Silly. 

still going to post more about thrifting and AtSLF later - AtSLF is one of the few books I like enough to write but am not so pasionate about I have to turn it into a series XD  

I’ll respond to the rest later, but for now I'm going to disagree with both of you with the thrift stuff. well i mean you're right, but i still disagree. it's true that thrift store prices are getting ridiculously high - i was at a goodwill and got a shirt for like 15 dollars. I needed a new shirt anyway, and i wear it all the time now (i’m actually currently wearing it i didn’t plan this), but you could get a new shirt for 15 dollars. Probably not a high quality one but still! some of the clothes probably were 15 dollars to begin. there are plenty of clothes that are really bad quality and falling apart, and that’s getting worse as clothes quality gets worse. 

But, there are also plenty that aren’t. Some of them may not be trendy anymore, or maybe they have small rips or tears or missing buttons that could easily be replaced, but that’s easy to remedy (for the trendy ones, you can just fix it up so it isn't or something). And some of them are perfectly fine. because there are also just so many. From The Conscious Closet: “in a single year, New York-New Jersey area Goodwills collected 85.7 million clothes, the equivalent in weight of about 200 million t-shirts”. And more than that - 1.7 billion pounds - gets exported to those other countries. From just the United States. This book was written in 2019. It’s probably more now. as clothing quality goes down, less and less of the clothes donated are useable. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to just give them to other countries - often they just get burnt, and in those cities respiratory problems are super common, and like a lot of the stuff used is toxic. and also people pick through the landfills, which have a ton of other toxic stuff. and it's just all horrible.

in the end, I care less about people who thrift as a hobby not being able to get the super high quality clothes at the thrift shop as i do about us throwing all our trash to other countries where a lot of it is burnt, releasing toxic chemicals that everyone there has to deal with; i care less about resellers taking the high quality stuff and more about there not being high quality stuff to begin; i care less about resellers selling things for higher prices than i do about thrift shops themselves taking up the prices to the point where people who need the clothes might not be able to afford them, especially because of how long it can take to thrift. we need to find a way to deal with all of our trash, instead of forcing it onto other countries that often can’t even afford to deal with it, when the people dealing with it there often aren’t able to make a good living off of it, even if they like the work. It’s far more important to make much less trash to begin.  

Also - i have a strong feeling this is going to be divisive and fine but i honestly don’t think it should be - we are not the ones being hurt here. not by this. And i think often people see people in the US in general, but also those who maybe have to “exploit” the fast fashion system because they have to have clothes as real people (exploit in parentheses because it’s not a choice in this case, or not much of one in others). And then they see the people in the countries where people are more effected by the fast fashion system as nothing but props for an argument. Like i’m not trying to say that classism in the US doesn’t exist ofc, it does, and the people who can’t afford good clothes often get used as argument props too, but idk, "i can't afford all of my clothes from sustainable fashion! i could afford a few though, and i could afford to thrift, but i don't care enough!" is seen as an equal argument to "you need to get less clothes because it's very literally killing people and ruining lives". (here i'm talking about people who actually could afford it btw, i realize some people legitimately can't, and i'm also not saying we should like interrogate people about this, but still) And i don’t want to cause a ranking of “people in the US can’t complain”, but the truth is in the US it’s usually different issues. young kids in the US (I mean like 10 - i believe there are actually people trying to take away child labor laws in the US to a degree, and it’s not perfect, but it’s so much less) are not spending hours and hours in factories working with toxic chemicals instead of going to school. And I struggle to think that anyone could get away with having people, for instance, mix mercury with gold, inhaling a lot of the fumes, until they can get the gold out. And if that did happen, people would recognize it as an outlier, and a horrible thing, and laws could probably shut it down (unless the company paid enough, ig). In a lot of the other countries, this is so necessary that it’s normalized. Because the only other option is to starve. And often they’re not aware of the risks because the companies cover it up and most of these people can’t go to school if they have to work all day in order to survive, or they are but have to do it anyway and don’t have any proper protection and have to use folk remedies instead. And a lot of the issue with the secondhand market is just the pure saturation, and if resellers can take a bit of that down, like ultimately. It’s not the biggest deal. It might be good. It’s not like there aren’t enough other clothes to replace them, even if they’re not quite as nice. This is the damage that making clothes is causing, and that's without the environmental impacts because we're talking more about social ones.

And while the major inflation of thrift prices is a big problem, ultimately, we are not the ones who matter here, as far as being hurt. Like we could send cool pieces to Ghana and Kenya that the resellers (they resell and also sometimes make new fashion out of it i think, it’s actually quite cool outside of all the major major issues) could actually make a profit off of! We could support them and help them and find different ways to make less trash and deal with the true trash ourselves! But in general we’re not. We’re sending them those Shein hauls, and most of them probably get burnt. some of it's cool enough to get put in thrift shops even if it's bad quality; a lot of it isn't. 

And you could say that the resellers lessen that, because just by taking more stuff out, more stuff is going to be put in. although for that, you could argue that largely we’re just sending them the stuff they can’t even use. In the US, it’s not the fast fashion itself that is hurting people, it’s poverty in general making it so people can’t afford better. I’m still against mediocre thrift store stuff being 15 dollars, but i cannot stress enough that for the most part we are not the ones being hurt here, and when we are it’s not in the same major human rights abuses. And as far as resellers go, they’re really not hurting anyone, outside of perhaps mild unfairness that might, in the end, keep more stuff out of landfills. any amount of trendiness to thrifting is going to drive up thrift store prices, and in the end, instead of stopping people from utilizing one of the best ways to reduce waste and such (if you buy it secondhand you’re probably not buying it new), we need to like. Make good minimum wage laws and put in place support when you can’t work - that sort of thing. It’s an entirely seperate issue, and it's a bad issue, but they are seperate.

Ultimately, people who don’t need to thrift not being able to get high quality stuff is barely an issue, and honestly, there is still nice stuff, and honestly, even if it isn’t, you can still wear it, and i know there are things that could affect this but most of the time you can just fix something up and it's really really easy and it doesn't even cost a ton and idk. even though there are things that could legitimately make it harder or impossible, those people aren't usually the ones making the biggest issues in the first place. And if you don’t need to thrift, and it’s just a hobby or where you get nice clothes, well it doesn’t really matter if you don’t get something. it's not like the really high quality stuff is going to be thrown away. Medium quality, non-flashy stuff that could hold up for a long time might, especially if it has minor issues. reselling isn’t a big fix or anything, but in the end it's just not a problem, especially if they take the medium quality stuff or stuff that passes the quality inspection and it ends up meaning that more of the stuff gets used. When i say that you can’t overconsume the same way from thrift shopping, i’m talking about supporting companies that abuse their employees and don’t even pay them for it, and the initial production that is most of it’s carbon footprint, and supporting those specific major systemic issues. The fast fashion part (getting those hauls and then donating them when they’re out of fashion) is also the major issue. You can still get fashion hauls with thrift stores, and they could still get thrown away, but then the shelves have to be filled up again, so maybe somewhat less gets burned and trashed in the first place.

it's just that the degrees of issues are so drastically different, and in the end, reselling just isn't that bad???

If you disagree with the thrifting thing, btw, let me know why, i’d be interested to hear it.

AtSLF! It’s hard to explain the plot; i’ll start with characters. Cynfael/Fennel (ve uses both names but mostly Cynfael probably) Agbayani is 16, disconnected from ver emotions to the point where ve is easily swept up in them without really understanding it, and generally feels very lost. Ve’s also autistic and people have a lot of trouble understanding ver and what ve’s trying to say and such, which leads to general isolation. 

People don’t always put in the effort to understand ver, but ver sibling Sand always did (even if fey wasn’t always perfect, fey was also young). Sand is dead, but is also a mist’n, which is basically a double of someone created out of a specific kind of magical mist when that mist has rolled in from the sea. Fey pretty much took care of Cynfael partially feir whole life and then more once fey was like 11-ish. Fey’s 19 (most mist’ns don’t age but fey does because fey’s more developed) and fiercely protective of anyone fey cares about, deeply needs to be independent and not need anyone or anything, and is easily caught up in guilt and criticizing firself. (Fey also has a tendency to run at full speed until fey crashes and can’t do anything anymore and starts having bad mental health issues, generally seemingly out of the blue and drastically different from fir usual neurotic and defensive but capable self, which scared Cynfael a lot.) 

And then there’s Albryllian, who is more minor, and is incredibly obsessed with rules and regulations, but the fact that his dad died will come into it later.

At the start of the book, Sand had died, Aster (Sand and Cynfael’s sister, not a good person at all) had abandoned Cynfael, and Cynfael is living at the orphanage that Sand and ver stayed at, running errands for a restaurant and selling foraged and grown plants to get money to help it keep running (it recently lost its main benefactor.) Cynfael doesn’t know Sand is a mist’n yet. Ve very much feels that everything is pointless at this point; at least before ve had to take care of Sand to a degree. (though ve is painfully aware that having to take care of ver was really hard for fir.) When Cynfael is selling some plants to Web (any pronouns but mostly he/him idk), who’s currently dating Albryllian’s other dad Pewter (who runs an apothecary), Web tells ver he has a job: get a mist’ns tears, willingly given. Ve isn’t interested initially because it’s not plants, but then ve hears the amount of money ve will get and accepts. (Ve also needs the money so ve can buy more plants and plant books, or so ver line of thoughts goes.) But as it turns out Albryllian is helping ver. they initially clash a bit because Albryllian is very precise, meticulous, logical, and rule-oriented and Cynfael makes careless mistakes, doesn’t always care about rules, and is easily caught up in overwhelming emotions. Also Cynfael grew up with a million superstitions from multiple cultures (ve’s mixed race) and Albryllian scoffs at them, despite his love for real myths and legends. (the first conflict is that they try going to a place where Albryllian has seen a lot of mistn’s because it’s by the ocean and the mist hasn’t come in fully yet, but it’s supposed to be haunted and Cynfael is like O_o) They eventually become decent friends - and that’s when they discover that mist’n tears combined with some of the plants Cynfael has sold Web can be combined to make a potion that will give mist’ns power and permanence in the world. desperations are not always things that should be done, and also mist’ns are generally miserable and cause others to be miserable, and there's probably other chaos. Albryllian would never turn it in. However, things are getting worse at the orphanage - and then Cynfael sees Sand the mist’n. Anyway, Cynfael turns them in, determined to get Sand back. Only now everything is chaos. And then ve, Albryllian, and Sand have to stop the mist’n spell - and work things out among each other, which very well might be the harder challenge. Notably, if the mist’ns go away, so will Sand. 

Silver, how are things? I know you’ve been really busy (and you don’t have to respond ofc) though. Have you made more jewelry or drawn anything cool?

Jaybells, yes, the detransitioning argument is really really frustrating. Congrats on having a role offered! I really like shelf fungi in general. I saw some giant ones yesterday while i was in the car!

Also by “the internet” i meant a specific site Silver had mentioned, that didn’t really make sense.

the arbitrary and huge divide between MG and YA strikes again!! Or, I want the ending of AtSLF to be that Sand has to go, because fey’s a mist’n and fey doesn’t really want to stay and fey can’t anyway and fey would only be a mist’n anyway because feir real living self is dead, but that’s a really depressing ending for MG, and usually you get some sort of happy ending, and it feels more YA the way it's going to go; the rest of the book is also somewht dark and complex for MG especially because of the writing style; and yet the plot, themes, atmosphere - all of it is far too MG for it to be YA. augh. They say “write what you want to read”, but what if there’s no audience for it? Or what if there is, but you’d be the one pioneering it, and besides the book is to queer and Asian and disabled and whatever else anyway? 

also is it weird that i often find characters who you wouldn't think were that deep and well-written much more understandable than the supposedly realistic-er ones in YA? (like ones that get really good reviews for that) for instance Barclay from Wilderlore: The Accidental Apprentice by Amanda Foody (which is a fantastic book, idk if it's something either of you would like though). He isn't really anxious or depressed or anything, but it feels like he's actually been affected from it. Like he very clearly believes the lies his town has told him, and does his best to uphold them and all the rules even after he's left, which actually causes problems for him; he goes back and forth on it a few times and panics and reverts to his previous beliefs; he's kind of snappy and harsh just by nature, with much less of the soft underside YA characters seem to always have. idk. he just makes so much more sense to me, because YA characters seem to have anxiety and/or depression and none of the underlying stuff. and when they do, it rarely seems as strongly-held, and often seems like it's mostly just referenced in the text, and like they recognize it to not be good, instead of believing it. which it makes sense to, when believing it has kept you alive, as it has in the case of Wilderlore. idk if anyone would agree with me though.