6 | tender minds

Some updates.

My interest in a project seems to have to be rekindled every three or four days, where my natural interest in working on it anymore starts waning. Some things can help averting this shift, like feedback on something I've written from the universe, having something waiting on the horizon, relating to it, in this case, with Adazakura, I have books waiting to be picked up at the library and two books being ordered from my local bookstore that should be ready for pick-up in two to three weeks. Such things can help my focus stay... well, focused. Yet, sometimes I just have to admit defeat and jump between projects. Like, I was very close to just changing my focus to my Sappho stuff today, but then I got stubborn, hahaha.

So, plans for today is riding that wave of stubbornness. Hopefully write some more fic for Adazakura, probably more Inu-centered stuff. I have a Natsu-centric piece waiting, for when I get my books home on haiku, but until then we're sticking to Inu's PoV.

Yesterday, I posted this epistolary fic, letters sent from her to Natsu. I'm very, very pleased with it, not going to lie.





Other important things have happened.

I quit Plurk. Plurk is a Chinese SoMe platform, a bit like Twitter/X, and it's a main platform for Dreamwidth roleplayers. I've had mine for ten years now, though only been active periodically, and the past year I've been very frustrated with it. I don't have a lot of friends on it, bc some drama happened a while back that made me cut a lot of people to avoid it repeating itself, and while that did help on the drama, it also meant that I didn't get a lot of responses to things when I posted. As in, often none at all. Talking into the aether like that never really feels very satisfying and I decided yesterday to stop using Plurk for at least some time - to focus my attention on things that actually energize me rather than drain me. So far, it's working splendidly.

However, what I also realized when logging out of Plurk was that most of the roleplay I do (in public communities), I do to "make friends". It's a social hobby anyway, right? But I'm tired of that. I'm tired of trying to appease the people I play with to have them like me enough to maybe create a social contact. So I'm taking a break from public roleplaying as well. I have a PSL (private storyline) going with my girlfriend and I'm sticking with that, but all the public stuff, begging for scraps, trying to be noticed bullshit... I'm done with that right now.

However, it's addictive and I've already almost caved in three times, going back to the main public RP community there is and get play, but every time I'm just reminded that it doesn't make me feel good, so why bother? Why waste energy on it, that I could use on a million other, more rewarding things. Write more. Read more. Relax more.

Those are the things I want to spend my time on. Not the other stuff.





So, today, I'll be rewatching Pale Dawn, the Japanese Takarazuka musical that started this whole Edo period craze, and I'll try to write either one or two Inu fics, one about a conversation she has with her father about marriage and maybe one where she and her childhood sweetheart, Natsu, reunite after a couple of years away from each other while Natsu has been out travelling.

K. has piano lessons tonight, so it'll be a long day mostly on my own, meaning I have time enough to fiddle around with.





I dreamt about my parents last night. I had a dream where I tried to talk to them about the things they've done wrong in their handling of me, as a kid and as an adult. I don't remember how it went or what I said, what they said, but I remember them sitting in front of a low, Japanese-style table, in seiza, the traditional Japanese way of kneeling with your weight on your heels. I don't know what it's that detail I remember, when all the rest is fuzzy, but it at least amuses me somewhat.

I know why I dreamt it, though.

Yesterday, my mom called, wanting to talk to me about them having sold the house. Which was initially fine. It's nice for them that they got the house sold in less than two months, knowing the market as it is at the moment.

However, then she wanted to know whether I would be able to change the date of our next in-person meeting (June 6th), because dad had made other plans. This is itself not weird, because - hang on - my mom hasn't told him we were meeting up. Not as in, she forgot. She deliberately didn't want to tell him that we were meeting up, because it had to be a father's day surprise. This was her idea, by the way, not mine. Anyway, she wanted us to move the date, now that he unknowingly had made other plans, to the end of June, but possibly the next date for our Discord writers' meetup will be in one of those two last weekends of June, so depending on what the result of that is, I can't. My mom knows I'm pretty rigid in terms of planning and changing things stresses me out, she even said so over the phone, but she still wanted us to - instead of her just telling my dad she'd arranged for the three of us to meet and give him the chance to decide whether he thought his new plans were as important as that or not.

And now that we've made a halfway agreement on a new date, she still doesn't want to reveal to him what's going on. She drives me nuts. She never shows any consideration for my position, especially when she's triggered or stressed. She becomes a total child and expects me to be her parent.

I hate it.

That was why I had that dream.

I need to do something about the situation, I know. K. insisted last night, because I'll look like the unwilling daughter in the end, if we have to keep postponing due to my mom's crap issues. So, yeah... I need to figure out how best to handle this, I guess.

Sigh.