Feather Spiral

First of all, hope everybody has a happy New Year!

Second, holy jesus fuck I haven't been here in forever... and yes, I've still been having weird dreams. And some with storytelling potential, which I wrote down in my journal + various themed files on my laptop for ease of use.

Like last night, I was in photography class, kneeling on my seat with pants and undies down... *ahem* aaanyway. It was just the basics intro course, where we discussed stuff like angle and lighting and backdrops. Then a student suggested presentation, such as putting small descriptive captions, either below/above or directly on the image.

In another recent dream, I started out in an airship of sorts, supported by a continuous layer of mottled clouds. As I stood on the deck's edge to watch the night sky, the cloud layer ended; as the ship's floor went past the cloud's edge, it fell apart. After dropping in the middle of a town, I stopped a boy's "crime" of paying money for merch instead of vandalizing the store, so the owner celebrated by breaking its windows himself.

Last week, I also dreamed of creatures in the night sky, made of galactic clusters leaving a trail of stars and green gas. Somebody evoked a legend about Hayao Miyazaki reaching out to those creatures, to which a girl replied it was silly and modern science explained stars. I told her, "just because we don't believe in mythologies anymore, doesn't mean we won't write more of them."

Before that, I remember dreaming of a werewolf named Mulhouse, who hung out with a vampire and a zombie whose names I forgot.

There are more, but this is all I'll share right now.~

If you haven't seen Into The Spiderverse, I watched it yesterday (was planning to share with my mom but she left like 20mins into the movie to do really boring things) and highly recommend it.

Early this morning, I saw myself in that collider as one of the Spider-people there (guess you could call me Feather Spider?) and my superpower was electromagnetic field perception (*). There also was a villain in there, a kind of pearly-white lizard I hadn't seen elsewhere, which actually was a hologram.
Naturally none of us could fight a hologram, so while the other Spider-people battled their enemies, I drew the white lizard's attention to myself. Then I circled it, and with my EM sense, determined the projector's direction; repeat so I slowly approached its location. Eventually I found an "anomaly" where the projector must be, and sure the hologram tried to get in my way, but another Spider-man swooped in. I tore off that panel to reveal the projector, drawing the hologram's aggro again, so the other Spider-man smashed that projector lens.

(*) ah, electroception - that's the word

Sometimes I'd like to learn sign languages (not just American) so I could talk to deaf/mute people and maybe find employment in such domains.

Anyone seen Sister Act 2? well I was part of a high school class, in a choir competition just like that movie's climax, and naturally we won.

Then some Chinese dude brought us into a lab with a whiteboard, saying he liked our creativity. On the board he marked a bunch of different research topics being worked on, and offered us all scholarships with the different teams.
We also went looking for various creatures in that establishment, which (turns out) was a space station with artificial grav. I searched for opilions (harvestmen), though I couldn't see any but was convinced I could somehow sense them nearby.
However we caught glimpses of another, much more alien being in there, a lot like the Undine or Species 8472 (Star Trek) using portals to move around.

After that creature got either contained or reasoned with, our class was finally allowed to return to Earth with some sorta space plane. After checking the controls and sharing the tasks, I came to be the pilot and radio man, with other students handling the finer details.
(Rather than known space planes, this was more like an airliner; terrible idea as the long wings could get torn off during reentry. Still, it had very strong retrorockets, so if necessary we could use those to ease up some of the stress on its hull.)

So anyway, I had a direct radio line to NASA ground control, where I said something like "you'll never believe where we're returning from". They confirmed they could see us, then the plane's nose began to glow from friction, and I tried my best to ease us towards the directions given.
When I saw the (presumably) NASA facility, they said I was coming in too fast, so I used the retrorockets again as we approached the landing strip. A student lowered the gear, I still asked ground control who confirmed it was down; in passing I said, verbatim "I've literally never landed a plane before".

Sadly I woke up without knowing whether the landing was successful or not I'd like to think I did an okay job and we were all in one piece albeit shaken (in both senses)

This past year or so, my sister musta gotten tired of her usual years-old ramblings.

Because she decided to dig out DECADES-old ones, from the rotten depths of my toddler years. And one of those, brings forth a traumatic memory that -I- would rather not fucking remember.

Imagine you live your life with this vicious, vindictive, on occasion manipulative, much bigger person. You were conditioned to see every wrong as an honest mistake, learn to forgive the worst shit she does. YOUR wrongs, on the other hand, were obviously on purpose and you clearly fucking MEANT for her to be upset.

Then it dawns on you that her behavior was abusive, so you stop taking her shit and begin telling her off. Of course it doesn't work, she's too used to unleashing her rage on you and blaming everybody else for intentionally hurting her.

All because she was told "no" this ONE TIME in the 90's, when she was a hormone-enraged, spoiled and bitchy little adolescent.

Then all of her bitching ends up FORCING YOU to remember that TRAUMATIC shit she did to you, and you scream back at her. After a dozen such outbursts, she FINALLY gets the message and moves on to other fake complaints... until she goes back to the same fucking one.

Spend your existence with a stronger person, who keeps warping facts to suit her own desires, who daily harasses and regularly assaults you and the people you love... then just as you start to put your foot down, cries and bawls about "not HAVING BEEN allowed to love a boy" DECADES AGO.

How would you feel?

I want to know, because I'm too deep in the real thing to actually put a name on it.

I'm such a mess because of many reasons, but the main one I think is my sister being autistic. She's extremely high maintenance, and won't hesitate to throw tantrums or make horrible accusations and name-calling if she doesn't instantly get what she demands.

Not to mention, the moment my parents saw I wasn't like her, they automatically decided I didn't need any particular kind of attention. Oh there still were expectations, for sure; just, none of the support or trust that come with them. I was hurt for "love", instantly shamed when I wasn't present and immediately available to do legwork.

I grew up with severe anxiety and hypervigilance causing terrible sleep issues, a complete lack of focus that gets in the way of performing tasks properly, and a pathological lack of confidence.
It was obvious in my academic decline, and visible to teachers and several doctors I saw. Yet it came up only when a persistent PHYSICAL illness manifested, a throat irritation that's been making me cough for three years.

I made an entire blog post about that recently, but I felt like letting this off my chest again, because there's yet another horrible person in our lives now.

The piece of shit who just bought the office on the floor below ours, and is now making renovations. Often times I wake to the noise of drills and the entire fuckin place shaking like an earthquake.
But that's not even why I call him a piece of shit, because he legit is a pathetic excuse of a human being. With below-zero reason and intelligence, orbiting a self-entitlement and a smugness the size of supermassive black holes.

Aw... I like picking things apart in movies (and shows). It's all part of the fun for me.
Plus, I've been studying science for a decade at university. They instilled a critical approach to everything in me, and other students (at least they tried). It's not easy discarding all that training, even when I sit back and chillax with a movie.

On another note...

I'm not trying to be discriminatory, but... is it me, or are French people much more self-important, disrespectful and insolent than the human average?
My father's been dealing with like a dozen different issues right now, at least three of them involve individual humans. All three of those people shut him, won't listen to his take on a problem that affects us, speak to him condescendingly as if they knew everything...
Plus, one of them rudely told him she wanted to finish "before my shift is over", how tf is she supposed to do that if she won't even hear out the involved party?
It's like the French train their children to never go five fucking seconds without filling the area with their own voices.

I had my lower incisors replaced with a bridge (single piece with 4 crowns together) last friday. A permanent (ceramic) one, but with provisional sealant as it still needs adjustments. Hence next monday evening's appointment to finish up the fine-tuning.

It actually was unsteady when he first put it on, so rather than trying to correct it by filing things down, he tried pressing on it - hard. It actually hurt my jaw muscles, I thought it was gonna dislocate, but all he managed was to make the bridge bend.

The front of my jaw felt awkward and unstable throughout the week, but I chalked it off to it being newly done. Last two days felt like something stuck between the crowns, which made no sense because the crowns are joined tight.
This morning, the whole bridge became loose, it tries to come off when I touch it - I think the sealant is outright gone.

Now I still have my appointment on monday, but I ain't gonna spend the weekend on edge, so I called. At least he accepted to give me an emergency appointment, in half an hour.

Is this really the best time and place to have protests about work conditions?

I mean... I know this is France. Public gatherings with banners and a megaphone, are as extraordinary as a cheeseburger-and-fries menu.

But... bro

...in the recovery period of the COVID-19 crisis (when everybody's busy catching up lost time), inside a hospital lobby?

That's fucking cringe.

Don't be cringe, bro.

Funny you should complain about sleep existing, because this happened

Literally anyone else at late hours: "mmmmh so sleepy... I'll call this a day and head to bed"
My father during late night hours: "Yissss the perfect time to discuss complex monetary and administrative subjects with my son and wife~"

Every goddamn time, I swear... he either brings up something serious during meals, ruining my mood so I don't feel like eating anymore; or just as I'm preparing to go sleep.

Motherfuckin WHY?

Why can't you just get tired when it's night time? why's it the perfect time for you to think of this shit? Why in hell do you nap in your chair/couch first, and only get to finance and administration bullshit at bedtime?

More to the point - why do you constantly expect me to match that same schedule, and ask for last-minute work at night after a whole day doing nothing productive?

How does that fuckin compute?

Last night I was eating in the kitchen, at the usual table we always have our meals together. I was alone, family having already eaten (it's become a habit IRL lately, for personal reasons).

Pretty normal so far

...except I look left and realize our fridge door was left wide open. So I get up and go to close the fridge, which happens to be shorter than it is IRL but the control panel on top is the same. I check the panel, its display flashes -8 °C for the freezer (instead of the -18 it normally is).
At that point, I wonder how my parents are gonna feel about it when they see the display (for some reason I'm positive they will), which foods mighta begun to go bad (if any) etc.

We've had occasions where we put a lot of stuff inside the fridge, it got warmer and struggled to return to normal; no idea why it entered my dream in this specific instance though. It's also true I've found the fridge door open to a crack once in a while, but not gaping wide like that.

Just had my intelligence insulted and been called "lazy"
...by someone who can't put two sentences together without making a dozen errors, and can't understand the plainest meanings.

All because I said I didn't wanna read the five-page rebuttal essay they made to me regarding a video.
Even though I specified, "after the day I had" - hoping they'd get the underlying message, but nope. Guess, since I didn't share details, they just assumed I lived a good life and "bad day" was this ongoing argument alone?

34 minutes ago, Starry Moon said:

I hate it so much that I've been drawing digital art for the past 10 or so years and I'm barely and slowly improving. Not to mention the fact that I'm very rarely commissioned. Probably because my art style is so fucking basic like everyone has been at my skill level at some point.

Draw for yourself first and foremost. Update your OC references, maybe make little doodles for people you like.
Skills develop with practice, so it's best to just draw rather than wait for someone to give you money.

Back on the topic, I really hate how my sister gets teary-eyed over the most benign shit, and then holds it over our heads for decades. I've been cursed at, even wished to die, simply for hiding things that she keeps using unnecessarily.

The last couple months, due to her workplace being closed, I need to sit through a whole hour (sometimes longer) trying to teach her French every morning.
I say "try" because she sometimes dives headfirst into filling gaps without a glance to the provided instructions and examples. She keeps making the same mistakes every single damn day despite repeated corrections, it's clear to me she doesn't revise at all between lessons.
Memories of all the trauma I've lived from her also make it hard to keep it together, my cough flaring up again in the past few weeks doesn't help either.

When I'm venting about all the harmful things my sister does, most replies express sympathy.

Unless I even remotely mention the fact she's autistic. Then all of a sudden, it's "oh poor girl" and "be understanding" and "so sorry for her".
And god forbid I ever bring up wanting to hit her back, cause that makes me "a terrible person" who "hits an autistic sister to vent".

Bitch I spent my whole fucking life being "understanding" and, as a child, watched my mother cry almost weekly.
The whole "poor handicapped girl doesn't know what she's doing" spiel was forced right into my mind. I forgave her so much shit, including but not limited to guilt-tripping my mom and physically assaulting me.
At times I struck back or groaned, but for the most part I just suppressed any reaction.

Even when I was a toddler and she was a pre-teen, her demands for attention were put above my affective needs. My parents gave in to her tantrums and gave her what she wanted, while I was made light of when I tried putting my feelings into words.

It's only recently, a few years back, that I realized some of her irritating and hurtful actions were deliberate. I'm not talking about the constant rambling and repeating old conversations, those are annoying at worst.
But she'd harass my mother or me, then watch with a pleased smirk as her target either growled or struggled to hold back. A few times she actually did things out of spite, then cried victim if she got backlash, and held it over our heads for years to come.

When someone DM's me on Discord asking to be friends because we happened to be active at the same time on a server

...but I can't explain why I ignore it because they disabled direct messaging from non-Friends.

I realize they're simply uncomfortable allowing just anybody (and bots) to contact them. But odds of being DM'd by a random creep or bot are very low, they're very easy to block via either desktop or mobile.

More to the point - it's frustrating to receive an offer and not be able to let them personally know why I'm saying no. I have to say it publicly, on the server I know them from; either with a ping so everyone knows who did it, or without specifying so they may not see my reply.

Last friday I woke up from two different dreams, both the "wtf brain r u ok" kind.

Had another one a couple nights ago, I'll write it down and then head to bed (ironically enough)

I was with Captain Barbossa from PotC, we entered what looked like an elevator cabin with a lever on the side. I told him something like, "hope you got your warm coat" - then yanked the lever and the floor opened up.
It was quite a long way down the chute, so we were falling for a while, I actually felt the wind in my face.
When we finally arrived, somehow we were going up (smoothest transition, even for a dream) and a trapdoor closed back up. We landed back on our feet on what looked like a parallel Earth, but it was cold. There was a chilly wind, with a very pale sun you could directly look at; when I woke it made me think of the Na'kuhl system in Star Trek Online.

I ran along some sort of race track that winded over a railroad, where an old steam train was passing by.

I had to go somewhere, and the only way was to sneak onto the train, trick the engineer into leaving, and take a series of specific turns. So I hurried along the road, leapt and thankfully landed on the roof, where I proceeded to crawl forward to the locomotive.

At that point all I had to do was fool the engineer before we reached the next intersection so I could make that first turn. Which sadly didn't seem to work, as my next memory is the train slowing down while I'm swarmed by the staff.

Since they were all in medieval wear (at least I thought of them as medieval, I can't for the life of me recall the detail) I was a bit worried they might punish me with death. I began acting dumb and incoherent, hoping they'd just see me as crazy and have me taken to an asylum...

I'm sure I planned to somehow escape from that situation too, but I woke up before it happened

I was kidnapped along with other young people, of various ages but all under 30 (which makes 31-yo me the oldest). We were forced to fight as gladiators, either for entertainment or testing.

Somehow I managed to find the way into a maintenance tunnel; with another young adult and two teenagers, we went in. It was a real maze in there though; and each time we entered or left a segment, a door closed behind us, like airlocks. Not to mention it was tense knowing our captors must've noticed and were following us through there.
I recall an intersection in particular that looked like a 'T', we entered from the left branch (which then closed of course) and hesitated. After a brief discussion (and urged on by footsteps from the right path, the stem of the 'T') we walked on straight. I could see the corridor bend right further down, but I forgot how the rest went.

Finally we emerged into a street, which judging from the cops' uniforms was in the US. I think there was a parade or other sorta event going on, which also could explain the police presence probably.
I walked up to one of them and told him my friends and I had been kidnapped, or maybe he knew somehow. I looked around for the other three, but couldn't locate them...

That's where I woke up. Without knowing what happened, or even who'd captured me.

@TBDHa! thwarted your plans, didn't I
Wait... shit... now all your buddies will be on my tail.

I dreamed of a creature that either was a lab prototype or other "exotic" mutant with superpowers, like turning part of itself into shadow or electricity. But it didn't do well in "normal" combat; while it could go through obstacles, things like energy discharges (for example when it traversed computers) damaged it a bit.

(I forgot to specify when I made this post... the above creature was the protagonist of a Dead Space-esque game, with aliens or mini-kaiju as monsters and Eggman being the mastermind behind their invasion)

I dreamed that a Borg sphere was falling onto a planet with a pre-industrial civilization on it, got blown up in the atmosphere so pieces scattered and burned up.
But many years later, a humanoid swimming at the beach complained about something stabbing into his foot. He walked out and checked his sole; an L-shaped circuit board was stuck inside, though no blood. Suddenly the piece began to spread, the way Borg "infections" are sometimes shown in Star Trek...

Another dream, I was in a party of sorts, one of the people was a cop and, apparently I had a shady past cause he was suspicious of me?
Then I pointed at a van outside (Street A) with people working around it, saying they were some terrorists were planning an attack. He asked how I knew, I told him I'd passed by it earlier and seen them assembling a bomb (and maybe I knew them too).
After an uneventful party, I left the place and walked along the sidewalk (Street B, intersecting A) to visit a plaza nearby. Bizarrely there were phone boxes all along the streets along that plaza, and people were flocking to them. Going back to Street A, I saw the van making its way to Street B, so I thought the next stop could only be the plaza. I ran back to the plaza, and shouted something like: "Stay away from the phone boxes! It's a lure for a terrorist attack!" twice.

Sent you a few clips a couple days ago as promised, if you need more I'll see what I can do.

(On a sidenote, I need to take some time to do something for a mental health evaluation (and hopefully a diagnosis). I don't know how long it's gonna take, but there's a long survey that's bound to tire me out.)

I was in a university amphi, somewhere on the rear row. We'd just gotten our exam sheets back, and were graduating from college I guess?

Then each student, starting from the back-left, climbed up onto their desk and began walking across the row high-fiving the other students on the way. They formed a "handwalk chain" or "caterpillar" of sorts, which grew with every student, and sure enough I joined in when my turn came.
So there we were, hand-walking all the way to the right end of the row giving high-fives; then "stepping" down to the row ahead, and going left in the same manner.

We uh, serpented? all the way down to the front row's leftmost chair like that; then got back on our feet and kinda crowded around the exit. Most graduates chattered and took their sweet tile leaving, so there was a bit of a clog there.

(Don't ask me how we were able to keep our balance on our hands, much less ONE hand when high-fiving other students.)

I am! been plopping in to check once in a while. I'm more present on Discord though (see previous post for name)

Can I like... stop being accused of "fallacy" and "ignoring counter-arguments"... by the same people who keep bickering after I proved their statements false?
And when I put them on timeout (this is about a Discord server I moderate), they bitch and moan in DM. They act surprised when I say they disrespected me... then continue slinging accusations until I block their bratty ass too.

I mean... I've been a stuck-up bitch towards other servers' mods, on occasion, when I felt like they were taking sides and/or blowing things out of proportion. But I can't recall persisting in "calling out" after two whole days of shitstorm over a simple case of posting one picture in the wrong channel.

16 hours ago, Bakugou Is My Man ❤ said:

This isn’t necessarily about homework but I am taking an exam tomorrow (boards). It’s a 150 question exam and I have 3 hours to take it at a testing location. I have done my own studying but I am looking for resources that can give tips & tricks on how to pass/get through a multiple choice test. If anyone can give me something, I’d really appreciate it. 

Here is an example of what I am looking for: https://www.businessinsider.com/4-ways-to-outsmart-any-multiple-choice-test-2015-6

I found this: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/libraryservices/library/asc/documents/public/Short-Guide-Multiple-Choice.pdf

TBH it... doesn't seem all that much different from a guide for preparing any old exam? Particularly highlighting key vocabulary and concepts, trying to find or make up questions to practice...

It's also crucial to read the questions and understand them - I saw much of that was lacking during my limited time as a replacement teacher. The only significant difference to me, is the ability to proceed by elimination during the test. (I find MCQ to be the easiest kind for that reason, they accommodate my terrible memory.)

The article says to cover up the answers while you read the question, and try guessing before you see the "spoilers" below. But that might not work out for you, if you're like me...

The best piece of advice though, find out whether negative marking will be used. "If your exam penalises wrong answers, only answer questions if you are reasonably confident that you have figured out the correct answer. If negative marking is not used in your exams, answer all questions, even if you have to guess" (it gives you a chance to get the points).