iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

But there are a lot of times I prioritized new experiences, personal safety/growth, adventures, and opportunities over roots, and *sometimes* that feels super lonely. Wouldn't trade the adventures for the world, but wish I knew how to balance it better.

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I'm a bit of a reclusive drifter by nature, and I have severe social anxiety and RSD, so I also haven't built up a lot of deep social networks, and have a tendency to end up mostly looking back and going "huh, guess I drifted away from that group." It's not *bad*.

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So I'm going 'home' for a week and spending maybe 6 hours with people I knew before I turned 25. No family or school reunions. The two friends I am still connected to are busy moms. I love them, but our lives are pretty far separated.

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More chillingly, literally half of my church friends from my teens are dead. Anti-vaxxing parents got 2 of them. The rest are in traditional conservative lifestyles, mostly. Some briefly escaped and then were dragged back in.

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Coming from a small hyper conservative Christian family, I have very few connections to relatives, mostly by choice, but also just bc most of one side is gone. And I don't have school connections really bc I was homeschooled and isolated in my teens.

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But this trip is making me hyper aware of how little connection I really have to... Anywhere. Aside from lunch w/my childhood best friend and checking on my grandparents to make sure they're literally alive, all the friends I'll be seeing were made when I lived elsewhere.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 07/04/2026

Something I think we don't talk about enough is how isolating it can be to 'forge your own path'. It's kind of on the top of my mind bc I'm going 'home' next week. I walked out on the people who raised me the day I turned 18. A year later, I moved across the country. It was the right thing to do.

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Someone with the handle @velocity69.bsky.social is sharing a video with the caption: "The highest quality video of the moon was just released… so beautiful * Artemis II" It's gone viral, but it's not from Artemis II. If you've shared it, you might want to un-share.

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Later: The Kids Are Alright The Kids Aren't Alright Kids These Days

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Unintentional poetry in song library: Feelin Feelin Good Feeling Exceptional Feeling Good Feels like (it feels alright) Feels like the First Time

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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

oh my scattered smothered and covered god

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

I love love love that we have humans heading farther into space than ever before. It's amazing. I also am firmly not thinking about the reality of that, as someone who had severe anxiety about the land to sea ratio in Hawaii last time we went. But god, it's good to have something beautiful rn.

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

I wish I could say that I've learned the value of taking time off to just let my brain reboot, but I know myself better. Oh, and I went from on-fire burnout to singing and dancing while I worked. So, you know, MAYBE I SHOULD LEARN SOMETHING.

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

My brain was so busy lobbing ideas at me that I was still emailing them to myself as I was getting ready for bed and basically figured out the outline of a whole setting/series. The best part is, I got the idea from that jacket panel, the idea for which came from road trip planning.

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Hit bad burnout/anxiety/depression today, so took the afternoon and shoved myself into the studio to craft. Made an evening bag, started painting a jacket panel, designed a couple of other small projects, cleaned the office, organized my desk, reviewed perfumes, and wrote a BUNCH.

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Blocked attie ai. Highly recommend you also do so.

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Party In The Front - Comms Closed @partyinthefront.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Lol attie now more blocked than the white house. Loving the energy

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ApocalypticaNow @apocalypticanow.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Unmedicated ADHD: my plans for today are none of my business

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Dave Jamieson @jamieson.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

If you're furloughed from DHS or still working without pay, I would like to speak with you. Anonymous is fine. Find me at dave.jamieson@huffpost.com or Signal: davejamieson.99

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(The whole 'forgot a whole-ass novel thing isn't surprising to anyone who has asked me what part of a game book I wrote. For some reason, as soon as words go on a page, they are just GONE.)

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I also realized tonight that trying to write a specific number of words per day or whatever just does not work for me and probably is part of why I stopped writing. I also can't do brain-dump drafts, I generally write nearly final text on the first pass. So I have to really be in the story.

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(I've been writing professionally for games for almost a decade since that one. I still can't plot my way out of a wet paper bag, but my prose is damn solid.)

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First novel was... Very much a first novel. Second novel was pretty much all religious trauma catharsis (I also do not know where that draft ended up). This one is... Not terrible, but also is very, very 'young' in skill.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Just found a whole novel I'd forgotten about. Yes, one I wrote. I remembered writing two, but discovered this one when I was looking for notes for a long-running old project. I still only have the VAGUEST memory of writing it and could not tell you anything about it.

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a thing historians will marvel about when they study this era is the extent to which the "war is a thing that happens to poorer, browner people" class went about systematically dismantling every aspect of the global political order that confined the costs of war to poorer and browner people

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

In "well, didn't expect that to make me tear up"... I've been a fan of Mucha's work for years (and was fortunate enough to see his Slavic history series in person in Prague), and some of the quotes in here hit right where they needed to. This book is huge, beautiful, and a love letter to the artist.

A picture of the massive Alphonse Mucha's Le Pater coffee table book, with gilt lettering and ornamentation.

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Jaym Gates @jaymgates.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Two beloved, cantankerous, intense warhorses who have earned all the love and cookies in the world.

A bay horse and a black horse nuzzling over a fence.

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gita “the formalist” jackson @xoxogossipgita.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

“Epstein Class” is catchy as fuck

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Jon Cryer @mrjoncryer.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

A massive scandal. Kash Patel and Pam Bondi refusing to investigate the murders of American citizens to cover up Trump administration culpability.

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Tade "Will Eat Your Heart in the Marketplace" Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

1. Not news. 2. Lots of people know this and still use Substack. Holding their noses and closing their eyes, no doubt.

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It's probably not nice to laugh when your partner messages you that he just woke up because the youngest dog was snuggled up to him and farted. But I've been suffering all evening, so. This man could probably sleep through a tornado, if that tells you how bad Magni has been today.

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I was supposed to do a bunch of stuff to help my horse be more mentally prepared, but the weather and my injury means that hasn't happened either. He's an anxious, hot-headed ex-racehorse, but he's also a Standardbred, but the vet calls him "the spookiest Standie" so this is gonna be exciting.

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I just paid today for a riding clinic next month and it has ramped my anxiety about that clinic to 11. I was vastly underprepared BEFORE I spent a month and a half of prep time benched with a broken leg. Don't mind the high-pitched screaming from my side...

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Oh, they're terrible movies, which makes it even more impressive that I hated this one so much.

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I could see it being manageable on a plane.

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