In my mind

A pitfall a lot of people fall into when drawing afro-textured Black hair is that they draw the curls as if they were loose, using sharp shapes that imply a very different flow than you'd find with 4c-adjacent coils.

it took 3 watches on the big screen for me to clock that when naim sees ryan in the store and tries to talk to him, ryan has already ecountered entity naim. it's blink and you miss it, but when naim approaches ryan you can see a bruise on ryan's arm just above his elbow, and when naim's eyes flick down at the bruise and he asks "are you okay?" ryan looks at him with a tiny pinch between his brow almost like he's confused why naim is asking. "you can't keep doing this," he says. you can't keep doing this, because to him it was naim that came round his house just yesterday. he kept his distance when he spotted him, because even though ryan ached to reach out and pull him in things have changed. you saw the ritual, everyone knows about me now. you're not safe. but naim said he didn't care and kissed ryan like he did at the mill, desperate and tender. but then suddenly it wasn't like the mill, because naim's hand on his arm squeezed hard enough to bruise, and when ryan shook free with a cry of pain, naim's face was utterly blank. it wasn't like naim, to hurt him, but ryan let it happen because he's used to intimacy coming with violence.

ten years ago as part of my creative writing degree we had a class on professional development where we learned how the publishing process works for different mediums and how to choose an agent and what the role of a publishing house is and back then, the advice was "self-publishing has its advantages but a traditional publisher will provide editorial support and market your book and if your book sells well enough they want to invest in your future" and now basically none of that is true anymore. books make it to shelves with noticeable errors and structural issues that could be addressed with one or two more rounds of developmental editing, authors are expected to do more and more of the marketing themselves to the point that they are expected to be social media influencers in their own right, and publishers appear to be prioritising flashy debut novels with huge advances they don't outsell, which means the author is less likely to get a follow-up deal.

Typical Disney-style story of a kingdom with an anxious new ruler whose inherited chief advisor has a goatee, dresses in black and red, smirks a lot and keeps a snake as a pet.

Add-on to this idea: the ruler and the advisor have some elaborate code speak based on like gardening or knitting or something (because chess would be too obvious) to secretly keep each other up to date on ongoing plots. When the advisor slips up at one point, and is kidnapped and replaced with an impostor, this is what alarms the ruler to that the rescue ninja need to be sent out.

happy canada day. please consider donating to an indigenous-led charity. fuck colonialism.

Rest in peace Akihiro Miwa (1935-2026)

Humor aside. Don't buy another USB-C laptop charger. Buy a USB-C power adapter rated for the same power needs as the laptop, Anker makes high quality ones. Then you can easily replace the cable if it wears out.

You can buy one stronger than your laptops needs if you want. Devices these days are smart enough at power management to only take what they need, so a 100w charger won't brick your laptop or anything, but 65w will work perfect.

Babies don't misbehave, they just behave. There's no such thing as a baby being "bad" because they don't understand cause and effect at first and have no concept of others feelings for a while after they do learn that.