Post-Halloween (some spoilers for Magic's Promise by Mercedes Lackey)

I started reading the second book in The Last Herald-Mage trilogy, Magic's Promise, and I love it so much. Was not expecting such a big time jump though! I was so sad reading about all of the deaths that happened during it, but I'm also kind of glad to have been gently skipped over it; reading about Mardic and Donni would have made me cry for so long! So in that sense I'm glad as a reader I was just gently told about their deaths instead of having to read them in detail. Vanyel has grown up so much! I'm so proud of how far he's come since the end of the first book, and I'm excited as I get closer to what seems to be the main conflict besides the family drama.

Halloween was good. I had my best friend over and we dressed up with my sister as Dipper, Mabel, and Waddles from Gravity Falls. It was fun, a bit quiet because my neighborhood doesn't really get in the Halloween spirit, but still fun. My friend and I have been watching Riverdale recently. It's such a bad show! Now that the main mystery of who killed Jason Blossom was revealed I'm not really that interested. But I'll give it a few more episodes before I ask my friend if we can watch something else. I can't believe it's November already. The weather has finally caught up with the program and it is firmly under 80 degrees Fahrenheit every day. Next month is going to be December, and then 2025 will be right after that! 2025 sounds like such a science fiction year, moreso than 2020 I feel like.

Social media has been less and less appealing recently. The only social media I am on for more than 30 minutes a day is YouTube, and even then I have certain restrictions. I just feel like I have better things to do with my time than scroll and feel like I'm being yelled at from all directions. Social media has always felt like something that makes my social anxiety much worse, and recently (maybe it's because it's an election year) I get really overwhelmed by seeing post after post. I feel like I'm at a big party and everyone is trying to talk to me or yell across the room. And I just hate it. I like my Dreamwidth, where I can just talk into the void and maybe receive comments and check out other people's blogs if I want to. It doesn't feel like there's really a timeline where people can yell at me. But also, I think I'm somewhat outgrowing some of the people I follow or am mutuals with. There are mutuals I am still 100% fine with and enjoy hearing from them, but then there are some who are so politically open, and I just hate having my Tumblr, which was always prioritizing fandom stuff, to be turned into that. I understand that there are going to be people online I disagree with, but why do people have to be so violent? Recently I've just been extremely sensitive to violence, even if it's something as stupid as joking about hitting someone with hammers. It's just not funny to me, I find it disturbing that people can talk so horribly about people for something as minor as having a different opinion. And it disturbs me even more that these mutuals who I have followed can switch a dime from "oh this fun thing in our shared fandom" to "I hope this random person dies a horrible death". It's really odd and uncomfortable. But I feel bad unfollowing because some of these mutuals I've known for years. I feel bad.