#//but tl;dr i won't be around much for the next month because i'm going to visit my partner (so blackthorn needs another reason)

[blackthorn-legion-irl]

welcome to Team Mall Santas Save The World i guess.

//picrew source link

yeah if angy's gonna make me dress up i'm at LEAST taking a photo of him being a mall santa too. and pixie's just vibing. (i swear if people just try and flirt with him. simon started as a joke and it's. actually kinda funny but---)

anyway. tl;dr i've gotta be on this job for a while. it's a long story, but i won't be online as much for... about a month if i'm guessing? i'll probably be on for least a bit every day, so i can get to messages and pings and stuff in okay time, but can't guarantee much else... probably will just queue some cute stuff when i see it.

so uh. yeah. stay safe out there, if you need anything that's not time-sensitive (or is something i can just run in the background) let me know, all that sorta thing.

//ooc under the cut

so this is an ic explanation for me not being around much for the next month. ooc i'm going on holiday and visiting my partner but blackthorn's aroace so get wrecked she has to dress as a reindeer B) i can post a more detailed ic explanation if asked, but since this is an overall explanatory post i want to make it also be viable for people who ignore multiversal stuff (pixie can easily just be her name and the wings dress-up so)

i'll probably be /technically/ online a lot more than she is, but not necessarily responsive. i don't know if tumblr says you're online if you have the tab open but haven't touched it in a bit, so if you need an answer to something more urgently feel free to drop me a dm on the main @demifiendcruithne since i'll be more likely to be checking in on there, or on discord if you got me

some preemptive approval for 'hey i talked to blackthorn and got this going' interactions, only request is that you do ping me in the post so i see it

basic talking to a friend about issues to try and work through it if there's no one around to or you'd rather not RP it with someone

basic hacking requests so long as they fit her ethics (for example, tracking down people causing Actual Trouble / who are lost, or getting dirt to blackmail the cops)

any hacking requests from the following people as we've interacted enough that they'd know if it fits, this includes 'hey could you help out my friend' even if i don't know said friend:

· · anyone involved in taskforce distortion (including pyrite and topaz even though they're not members just hang out in the chat)

· · any member of the pokemart household (ESPECIALLY if it involves rescuing nya)

· · sprite, indigo, kittsu (since we hung out. void and andrea OK too)

· · i am probably forgetting people and i am sorry about that. if you ask something and i'm like 'oh yeah i thought you were on the list' consider yourself on it

legion interactions: requesting things such as: homemade bread and soup, cooling pads, baby poochy pictures; dimensional travellers stopping by if they need somewhere to rest (this explicitly includes nya. yes you can mention hecking with simon)

probably more i'm overlooking, but - if it's not 'i need this immediately' then i should get to it within the day with an answer, and if it is urgent and within both ethics and capabilities then i'll be okay with it. magic anons are off for the duration; pelipper mail is still on though (sorry whoever sent the switcheroo one. i will get to it eventually...)

stay safe, happy whichever holidays you may celebrate, if you have to deal with heckers for relatives may someone blow an airhorn every time they say something stupid.

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi cas 🌟

the moral support you give your community with this help boxes / asks is truly astounding, i admire you so much for it and i think it's incredible how you managed to create this safe space, not only for you but for other people as well <3

having said that, i too come looking for advice 🙈

explaining the whole story would take waaaay too long, so the tl;dr version is this: i'm not a very social person to begin with, i've always struggled with keeping relationships and forming deep meaningful bonds, but for the past few years the closest thing i had to a "best-friendship" was with this one group of female friends from university. we used to live all together in a student residency, but back in november i had to move out, and ever since then i've had the feeling that our relationship completely deteriorated. we still all live in the same (small) town, we're all doing the same program so we have all classes together but we still never really see each other outside of academic settings (eg lectures or exams). i know they see each other all the time because they're still living all together and i've been feeling very left out.

about a month ago i finally snapped, so i tried addressing this issues i was having with one of them, and she was incredibly understanding. we had a long conversation about how we both felt about the situation and by the end we had agreed to both try our best to be more involved in each other's life.

except a month has passed and....nothing really changed. i still hear very little from any of them and we still only ever see each other if we're doing exams together (which happens, like, once every couple of weeks, and the whole time we're either stressed or concentrated, so there's not really time for catching up). we're currently going through my university's exam period so i really understand how we're all busy with school, but still...i wish they made an attempt at involving me more.

so now i'm wondering if i should try and address these problems i've had / i'm having with all of them instead of just the one friend. we'll all go back to our homes in a few weeks (we live all scattered around my country), and next year we'll all be on different year abroad programs so the next time we'll be together all in the same town will probably be in about a year (not counting the one week vacation we're going on this summer, but it won't be just us girls then).

what do you think? would it be counterproductive to rise the problem now? i'm afraid of how they'll react with me addressing it so ""late"" and that it could potentially ruin the little relationship we currently have.

thank you for whatever you will answer <3

Hi! <3

So first off, I have to ask..you seem to say a lot about how they aren't including you...but have you asked them to make plans? Reached out to them? I think with friendships, it's a two-way street, you know? You can't place the blame solely on them if you haven't really reached out either.

That being said, yes I think you should say something. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to mend fences. Try to be honest, but not accusatory, and tell them how you're feeling. I think it's best to try to fix it before you all go study abroad. As far as you waiting this long to address it, if they care, they'll be happy you said anything at all! And it they're mad you brought it up- take it as a sign that those friendships aren't worth keeping. Either way, it's worth it to know and fix what you need to fix.

Good luck, I know you can do it! <3

Naming you late anon

[dragons-and-misc]

a lot has happened over the past few months.

tw: animal death, depression

TL;DR:

Was real depressed, failed a course

Got a chance to make up for failed course, passed

Got real depressed again, failed another course

Fought it, passed the course

My cat died

Started a co-op placement

Feelin' weird today

-----

I failed a course in my bachelor's program because I was going through a depressive episode. It was right around the time I started most of my blogs on here. I just... couldn't keep up with anything. I was gone to the world, and being here was a beautiful respite. My spouse was (and still is) beautifully supportive, and I'm so thankful I have them.

But I got the chance to make up for it. I got an extra assignment (on top of the course load for the next semester), and I managed to pass. The extreme high of passing and knowing I was still in my program was met with another crash. Another episode. I was gone to the world again, but I was too embarrassed and sad to post anywhere. I don't remember much from my winter 2023 semester, just that I wasn't... here, you know? I wasn't in my body. I was somewhere else.

I failed another course, but this time, I fought it. It was law (why they made us take a law course in a design program, I'll never know), and I failed by 2%. I fought. I was so fucking angry and distressed, but the prof relented. I can't go into the details of it. I'll just get mad. Suffice to say, I'm glad I passed.

I got a co-op placement. I was overjoyed. Things were looking up. I had a week between the end of my winter semester and my 8-month placement starting.

My semester ended on April 21st. I saw a friend on the 22nd. On the 23rd, my cat didn't get up for breakfast. He just laid on the couch, raised his head, and set it back down. I should've taken that as a sign something was very wrong, but I brushed it off. My spouse fretted over him (an understatement, I assure you).

He hadn't really eaten anything by the 24th. We took him to the emergency vet.

The 24th, 25th, and 26th were a mess. The poor thing was in and out of three clinics - two emergency and our regular vet's office. I slept on the floor with my kitten. I barely ate. I tried to be nonchalant. Of course my baby was fine - he just wanted to freak us out. He'd done it before, and we'd all come out of it alright. My spouse was anxious, and I couldn't blame them.

On the night of the 26th, I finally let myself descend into worry. I asked my spouse, "You think he's gonna be okay... right?" 

They reassured me. He was going to be okay. He was being monitored, and his condition was taking a turn for the better. He was going to come home tomorrow. I was so confident that everything would be okay that I saw a friend on the 27th.

It was mid-to-late afternoon when my spouse called me. I thought maybe it was time to pick up my cat.

I remember saying, "Hey honey, what's up?" They were quiet for just a second, and then I heard a choking sob. I knew. I knew. I knew. They didn't have to say it. I knew. I couldn't move. The friend I was with called my name once. Twice. I was frozen. I knew. I knew. I knew.

Kidney failure. He wasn't going to make it, and we weren't going to let him suffer. We rushed to the vet's office. Our friend stayed with us the whole time. When he was brought into the room, we all knew it was time.

I'm grateful that I got to hold him as he passed. I held him in my arms, repeating, "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you."

It's been 4 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days since my kitten died. A family member warned me not to ritualize his death - that it would only make it harder to find peace. They're right. I don't care. I want to know how long I've been without him. One day, I won't need to know. But right now, I do.

I started my co-op placement on Monday, May 1st. I spent 4 hours commuting (2 hours to work and 2 hours to home) for the first 3ish months. I was exhausted all the time. I would get up at 5:30 am, leave the house at 6:00 am, come home at 6:00 pm - 6:30 pm, and be asleep by 7:30 pm - 8:00 pm.

I started to work from home in late July (thank fucking gods). I get up a half hour before I'm supposed to start most days. I'm still tired, but not as much.

I like my placement. I like the work, I like my coworkers. I like what I do. If I hadn't had this structure, I would have toppled harder into the abyss. I only cried at my desk a few times, and I think only one person picked up on it (and only once). I don't think I would have done anything rash, but the summer months would have been lost.

I miss my kitten. I dream about him from time to time. I won't dig deep into my spiritual beliefs in this post, but I know he's visited. I know it's him in the dreams where he presses his forehead to mine. I know that when I tell him, "I know, buddy, I missed you too," it's not just a subconscious form of coping.

I can't remember him very well when I'm awake. Sometimes, it feels like we never had two cats, just one. I have difficulty remembering where he would curl up or the sound of his meow. When he first passed, I thought I saw him everywhere. Now, it's all fuzzy around the edges.

But when I dream, I see him healthy and happy. He's firm. He's here.

Sorry. This is the part that's been sticking with me the most. Maybe it's because losing him was so recent. Maybe because I just... can't remember much between October 2022 and April 2023.

Good things have been happening, too.

I've been learning Blender (though I don't think I've drawn anything for the past month and a half). My spouse and I have had beautiful days together. I've seen friends. Thanks to my co-op being paid, we've gotten some things we've needed for a long time.

I read a lot of r/NoSleep on Reddit. It makes me want to write again. I got Tears of the Kingdom and decided to go for 100% on this run. I got Portal 1 and 2 on my switch - I beat Portal 2 for the first time a couple of weeks ago (god, it's a good game). I was playing DnD with an old friend, but work got in the way. I think I'll be able to pick up again soon, though.

I dream of my kitten.

I'm feeling empty today. Well, not exactly empty. My head is a jar with a hornet inside. I can't focus on anything, and I feel like I'm vibrating, but I can't bring myself to move. I don't feel sad, but I don't feel happy. I guess I'm anxious.

This is a lot. And it's really just a stream of consciousness at this point. I dunno. I'm still going to post this and repost it to my other blogs (DiscoBrainRot and MightBeArt), but it might all get deleted at some point. I dunno.

Anyways. I hope I come back to posting more. Hopefully soon. I hope to get back to drawing and share some of the stuff I'm doing in Blender. I can't make any promises, but I can try.

A lot has happened over the past few months. I'm tired. But I'm okay. Or I will be.

And that's enough.

[cumaeansibyl]

health and diet (not weight loss) stuff under cut. tl;dr I'm chronically ill now?

around about the time of the panini I started having a lot of fatigue and muscle soreness, and I thought to myself well, I've gotten quite sedentary and I'm stressed the hell out about everything all the time, that's probably what it is

I had a history of mild hypothyroidism but it seemed to have resolved itself around 2013, so I mentioned this to my doctor and she put thyroid testing in all my labs since then, but it was showing up as "subclinical" -- basically one number was normal and the other was high, which is not generally thought to produce symptoms

so I sought allergy testing and shots as another possibility (and learned I'm allergic to cats, lol) and I'm sure that's not not helping, like, I do feel somewhat less stuffy overall, but the fatigue persists

at my last regular blood test I finally hit the hypothyroidism threshold so they prescribed me some medication and also some more detailed followup testing after a month. which found that the medication was working but also that I have incredibly high levels of thyroid enzyme antibodies. which indicates that it's autoimmune (aka Hashimoto's) and also that, even with my thyroid producing the correct amount of things, my immune system is still attacking me. which quite neatly explains the fatigue and muscle soreness that's still persisting! (and also possibly the mild elevation in white blood cells that's been persistent in other tests)

so! Doc says she's seen this in other autoimmune thyroid patients, where the medication gives some relief to the primary symptoms, but there remains this other problem. And her first recommendation is an elimination diet to test the response to three common inflammatory foods: dairy, gluten, and refined sugar. So that's my next 3-6 months spoken for.

now if I'm honest I see a lot of that "inflammatory foods" business from the same kind of people who think the body's full of "toxins" requiring fancy expensive laxative potions to sluice out -- and also I'm sure that like, refined sugar isn't providing any health benefits, but I'm skeptical about the actual chemical differences between that and the "unrefined" stuff (yes I know there are many different sugars but how much difference does it reeeeaaaaallly make once it's in the body)

but as far as I know there's no like. antibody chelation protocols or whatever. so I have to give this a try because if it doesn't do anything then at least we know. I'm not super thrilled about having to go into "good foods vs bad foods" mode, which tends to take me into dark places pretty quickly, but I am hoping to focus more on "these are the good things I can eat lots of" instead of the alternative.

anyway this is requiring some cognitive reframing from "these are real symptoms but it's mainly stress and poor lifestyle choices" to "oh actually I'm sick and have been for some time" which, on the one hand it's incredibly affirming when your doctor says "yes, you do feel terrible and there's a reason!" but on the other hand, whew, that's a lot to take in actually.

(we won't talk about the times when i told myself "this is just how people feel and you're a whiny bastard for not handling it better" because I was mostly sure people don't just feel this bad all the time.)

anyway I only have to go dairy-free first, then take out gluten, and sugar goes last, so that shouldn't be bad -- Charles is lactose intolerant so we've already switched over to some non-dairy options. And I can sort of gradually phase out gluten-containing products as I use up the last of them. Anyone got any pasta recs? That's probably gonna be the heaviest lift for me.

[nyrator]

I hope you're doing well. <3

Thank you, I be hanging in there.. A rough time mentally, but life just keeps going day by day

For a general life update for everyone: Kinda want to use this site more, but just not sure what I'd use it for.. Rambling time~

(tl;dr: anxiety's a butt, going traveling and cosplaying and will finally be seeing a therapist in a few monthss)

I've been in a huge art rut lately and just struggle with coming up with ideas what to draw, and have a lot of insecurities about the content of my past few pictures (which I think are against guidelines here so I probably won't post them on the RN tumblr after all.. I did update the website with all current images at least, but I still feel sick thinking about what I've made and regret it..)

Was in a huge wave of depression the past few weeks, but slowly climbing back out of it.. Still jobless and living off of being a vtuber on Twitch and art commissions, which is a struggle, but I'm just managing to scrape by- definitely been feeling the burnout, though..

Also going traveling across the country next week- meeting up with some online friends and going with them to a con, got a cosplay made and everything to go as my husbando Mizuno Yuu (I'd prefer a better cardigan, though.. the one I got was more yellow than I'd hoped and the only decent alternative I've found on Uniqlo won't be in stock in time, I think)

Still anxious about it, though.. will be gone for ten days, my social anxiety is very bad, and I'll be in an unfamiliar place hanging with people for the first time for ten days.. I'm not really interested in the con at all and I'm pretty scared about going, but will try to just keep my brain turned off and try to have a good time.

But yeah, otherwise just existing and floating around day by day- haven't been able to do much of anything and it really gets to me.. My anxiety has been so severe that it interferes with everything and I can't even think of doing anything because of it- anything can give me a bad panic attack these days, and I'm too afraid to take medication to treat it just yet, though I think it's needed at this point.

However, I did get a new primary doctor earlier this month, and they were able to find me a therapist for depression/anxiety and a nutritionist to see for my eating disorder- I'll be interviewed for that once I get back from my trip, so hopefully those go well..

[starocean]

y’all i’m so sorry i’m hardly active on here, i really am.

i sound like a whiny baby but i’m so exhausted all the time, and mentally and physically i’m just not doing well. this has been feeding my depression and making it worse, which isn’t helping in the slightest. why do these always keep getting really long lmao

tl;dr i'm tired and all i do is sleep or lay around and rest and do nothing productive and it's taking a toll on me bc idk when i'm getting anymore extended time off and i just want to have time to properly rest and recuperate w/o worrying about work. and it's preventing me from doing anything productive

i'm a broken record but idc anymore man.

my vacation keeps getting pushed back, and i’m ngl, i’m still miffed my boss hasn’t even talked to me about it. i’m just. so tired. so physically tired that atp, if i let myself sleep without getting up to do anything that i need to do, i am getting around 12 hours of sleep or more. that’s literally half the day. i should not be sleeping that much of my time away, and it’s because my body is literally exhausted to the point that i’ve been getting headaches and fighting to stay awake while at work even when i am getting normal amounts of sleep.

i can't keep going on like this, and i really hope it changes soon bc it makes me want to cry. i hate feeling this way, feeling so sick and tired all the time. i just want my frickin extra time off, and the fact that my boss won't even talk to me about it just upsets me even more. the asm will literally pitch a fit if she can't get her vacation time or keep her off days. she does it all the time. when she starts trying to put her vacations in too close together and the sm rejects it, she will come to the store on her time off and demand to know why her time off requests were denied. she rarely has to cover for anyone if they call out, and when she does, she doesn't hesitate to let everyone know how pissy she is about it.

and not to go back to it, but that's a thing that really pisses me off about the sm trying to guilt trip me for wanting that one off-day back. i'm not like the asm. i don't gripe to all my coworkers about not having off this day or that day or whatever. i have not ever, actually, said anything to her about all the 9 - 13 day "weeks" she keeps scheduling me for (which will probably change, bc if i found out that the reason i have next weekend off is bc she's scheduling me for an extra long work "week" again, i will be saying something to her bc i'm fucking tired of it. i should not have to work two damn weeks for one day off). i have quite literally NEVER said anything about my off-days being taken without her contacting me before—even when that's been the reason i've had to work 13 days straight, but whatever—unless i had to remind her about certain times i'd already requested off bc of prior appointments (mostly for medical), and it's rare i have to say anything to her about that. i keep my displeasure to myself and bitch to my mom or on here, but i never say anything to my coworkers or my boss bc i don't like feeling like i'm being a nuisance.

but like??? that was the first double she'd had to pull in months. i've pulled more than they have, bc of someone calling out and the asm and other coworkers refusing to cover for anyone. and i still don't feel sorry for her covering that night bc she got the next day off. if i'd just let it stand and not said anything to her, it would've lead to another one of those 13-day work "weeks" for me and i wasn't having that lmfao. and, like, i am the only one that this happens to regularly. not even the girl who wants to work for days on end with no time off gets to do that. the sm has denied her requests of less time off because "you need to take time off, no one can work like that without a break here and there." which is true, yeah, but it's really fucking hypocritical bc?? she expects me to?????? she's scheduled me for these long ass "weeks" more than anyone in that store without even asking me if i'm okay with it, so????? fuck that.

it fucking sucks and it makes me wonder if i made the right decision about not taking a chance on that work-from-home job i found. i can't tell if i dodged a bullet by listening to the reviews, or if i screwed up a really good chance.

let me have my extended time off! damn!

[respectable-username]

🔐 Why You (Probably) Don't Need A VPN

A rant by a software engineer sick of VPN ads from her favourite YouTubers

TL;DR:

Here are some legitimate reasons the average internet user might want to use a VPN:

To connect to their company's internal network

To bypass the Great Firewall of China (or other types of website blocks at country or organisation level)

To watch Netflix etc as if you were in another country

Here are absolutely rubbish reasons to use a VPN:

Privacy

And today, I'll tell you why.

Hang on, won't a VPN stop hackers from stealing my passwords?

I mean, it does encrypt the web traffic coming from your device.

You know what else encrypts web traffic coming from your device? Your browser.

Yes, in the year 2021, pretty much all websites on the internet are accessed over HTTPS. The "S" stands for "secure", as in "your request will be securely encrypted". If your browser is using HTTPS, nobody can capture the data you're sending over the internet. More detail in the "I like too much detail" section at the bottom of this post.

It's very easy to check if you are using HTTPS by looking at your URL bar. In most browsers, it will have a lock on it if secure:

(From top left to bottom right: Chrome on iOS, Safari on iOS, Chrome on Windows, Edge on Windows, Firefox on Windows, and Safari on Mac. Screenshots reflect the UI at the time this post was written. Oh gosh this has taken over 4 hours to write.)

But isn't moar encryption better? What if somebody breaks HTTPS?

For starters, nobody's breaking your HTTPS, and there isn't any benefit from double encrypting. This is because of the maths behind encryption/decryption!

Encryption works kinda like a lock and key, except the lock is maths and the key is a special number only known to the person allowed to unlock the information.

The important thing is, without the key, all the locked data looks like complete and utter garbage. Completely unusable. Barely distinguishable from random noise. There's absolutely no way to tell what the original data was.

The other important thing is that the key is nearly unguessable. As in, with current technology, will generally take more than the lifetime of the universe to guess by chance. And when technology gets faster, we just make the numbers bigger again until they're once again secure.

For any major website you use, they will use a strong encryption algorithm (ie lock) with big numbers so your keys will be strong enough to withstand an attack. This means your data is safe as long as that lock icon is in your URL bar.

A VPN will not make the existing garble any more garbled. The extra $10/month or whatever you're paying for does not buy you any extra protection.

If you want to know more about how encryption and HTTPS in particular work, see the "I like too much detail" section at the end of this post.

Something something viruses

How's a VPN going to stop viruses? It controls the path your internet traffic takes, not the content that gets sent down that path. I guess it could block some known virus-giving hosts? But if it's known to the VPN provider, it's probably also known to the built-in antivirus on your computer who can block it for you.

(Oh yeah, 3rd party antivirus is another thing that's not worth paying for these days. Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender is as good as the third party options, and something something Macs don't get viruses easily because of how they're architected.)

Honestly though, keep your software up to date, don't click on anything suspicious, don't open files from sources you don't trust, and you'll be right most of the time.

And keep your software up to date. Then update your software. Hey, did I mention keeping your stuff updated? Update! Now! It only takes a few minutes. Please update to the latest version of your software I'm begging you. It's the number 1 way to protect yourself from viruses and other malware. Most major software attacks could have been prevented if people just updated their damn software!

But my ISP is spying on me!

Ok, it is true that there are TWO bits of data that HTTPS can't and won't hide. Those are:

The source of a request (your IP)

What website that request is going to (the website's IP)

These are the bits of information that routers use to know where to send your data, so of course they can't be hidden as the data is moving across the internet. And people can see that information very easily if they want to.

Note: this will show which website you're going to, but not which page you're looking at, and not the content of that page. So it will show that you were on Tumblr, but will not show anyone that you're still reading SuperWhoLock content in 2021.

It's this source/destination information that VPNs hide, which is why they can be used to bypass website blocks and region locks.

By using a VPN, those sniffing traffic on your side of the VPN will just show you connecting to the VPN, not the actual website you want. That means you can read AO3 at work/school without your boss/teachers knowing (unless they look over your shoulder of course).

As for those sniffing on the websites end, including the website itself, they will see the VPN as the source of the connection, not you. So if you're in the US and using a VPN node in the UK, Netflix will see you as being in the UK and show you their British library rather than the American one.

If this is what you're using a VPN for and you think the price is fair, then by all means keep doing it! This is 100% what VPNs are good for.

HOWEVER, and this is a big "however", if it's your ISP you're trying to hide your internet traffic from, then you will want to think twice before using a VPN.

Let me put it this way. Without a VPN, your ISP knows every website you connect to and when. With a VPN, do you know who has that exact same information? The VPN provider. Sure, many claim to not keep logs, but do you really trust the people asking for you to send them all your data for a fee to not just turn around and sell your data on for a profit, or worse?

In effect, you're trading one snooper for another. One snooper is heavily regulated, in many jurisdictions must obey net neutrality, and is already getting a big fee from you regardless of where you browse. The other isn't. Again, it's all a matter of who you trust more.

For me personally, I trust my ISP more than a random VPN provider, if for no other reason than my ISP is an old enough company with enough inertia and incompetence that I don't think they could organise to sell my data even if they wanted to. And with the amount of money I'm paying them per month, they've only got everything to lose if they broke consumer trust by on-selling that data. So yeah, I trust my ISP more with my privacy than the random VPN company.

But my VPN comes with a password manager!

Password managers are great. I 100% recommend you use a password manager. If there's one thing you could do right now to improve your security (other than updating your software, speaking of, have you updated yet?), it's getting and using a password manager.

Password managers also come for free.

I'm currently using LastPass free, but am planning to switch after they did a bad capitalism and only let their free accounts access either laptop or mobile but not both now. I personally am planning to move to Bitwarden on friends' recommendation since it's not only free but open source and available across devices. I also have friends who use passbolt and enjoy it, which is also free and open source, but it's also a bit DIY to set up. Great if you like tinkering though! And there are probably many other options out there if you do a bit of googling.

So, yeah, please use a password manager, but don't pay for it unless you actually have use for the extra features.

No I really need to hide my internet activity from everybody for reasons

In this case, you're probably looking for TOR. TOR is basically untraceable. It's also a terrible user experience for the most part because of this, so I'd only recommend it if you need it, such as if you're trying to escape the Great Firewall. But please don't use it for Bad Crimes. I am not to be held liable for any crime committed using information learned from this post.

Further reading viewing

If you want to know more about why you don't need a VPN, see Tom Scott's amazing video on the subject. It's honestly a great intro for beginners.

I like too much detail

Ahhh, so you're the type of person who doesn't get turned off by long explanations I see. Well, here's a little more info on the stuff I oversimplified in the main post about encryption. Uhh, words get bigger and more jargony in this section.

So first oversimplification: the assumption that all web traffic is either HTTP or HTTPS. This isn't exactly true. There are many other application layer internet standards out there, such as ssh, ftp, websockets, and all the proprietary standards certain companies use for stuff such as streaming and video conferencing. Some of these are secure, using TLS or some other security algorithm under the hood, and some of them aren't.

But most of the web requests you care about are HTTP/HTTPS calls. As for the rest, if they come from a company of a decent size that hasn't been hacked off the face of the planet already, they're probably also secure. In other words, you don't need to worry about it.

Next, we've already said that encryption works as a lock and a key, where the lock is a maths formula and the key is a number. But how do we get that key to lock and unlock the data?

Well, to answer that, we first need to talk about the two different types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption such as AES uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt data, whereas asymmetric encryption such as RSA uses a different key to encode and decode.

For the sake of my writing, we're going to call the person encrypting Alice, the person decrypting Bob, and the eavesdropper trying to break our communications Eve from now on. These are standard names in crypto FYI. Also, crypto is short for cryptography not cryptocurrencies. Get your Bitcoin and Etherium outta here!

Sorry if things start getting incoherent. I'm tired. It's after 1am now.

So first, how do we get the key from symmetric crypto? This is probably the easier place to start. Well, you need a number, any number of sufficient size, that both Alice and Bob know. There are many ways you could share this number. They could decide it when they meet in person. They could send it to each other using carrier pigeons. Or they could radio it via morse code. But those aren't convenient, and somebody could intercept the number and use it to read all their messages.

So what we use instead is a super clever algorithm called Diffie-Hellman, which uses maths and, in particular, the fact it's really hard to factor large numbers (probably NP Hard to be specific, but there's no actual proof of that). The Wikipedia page for this is surprisingly easy to read, so I'll just direct you there to read all about it because I've been writing for too long. This algorithm allows Alice and Bob to agree on a secret number, despite Eve being able to read everything they send each other.

Now Alice and Bob have this secret number key, they can talk in private. Alice puts her message and the key into the encryption algorithm and out pops what looks like a load of garbage. She can then send this garbage to Bob without worrying about Eve being able to read it. Bob can then put the garbage and the key into the decryption algorithm to undo the scrambling and get the original message out telling him where the good donuts are. Voila, they're done!

But how does Alice know that she's sending her message to Bob and not Eve? Eve could pretend to be Bob so that Alice does the Diffie-Hellman dance with her instead and sends her the secret location of the good donuts instead.

This is where asymmetric crypto comes in! This is the one with private and public keys, and the one that uses prime numbers.

I'm not 100% across the maths on this one TBH, but it has something to do with group theory. Anyway, just like Diffie-Hellman, it relies on the fact that prime factorisation is hard, and so it does some magic with semi-primes, ie numbers with only 2 prime factors other than 1. Google it if you want to know more. I kinda zoned out of this bit in my security courses. Maths hard

But the effect of that maths is easier to explain: things that are encoded with one of the keys can only be decoded with the other key. This means that one of those keys can be well-known to the public and the other is known only to the person it belongs to.

If Alice wants to send a message to Bob and just Bob, no Eve allowed, she can first look up Bob's public key and encrypt a beginning message with that. Once Bob receives the message, he can decrypt it with his private key and read the contents. Eve can't read the contents though because, even though she has Bob's public key, she doesn't know his private key.

This public key information is what the lock in your browser is all about BTW. It's saying that the website is legit based on the public key they provide.

So why do we need symmetric crypto when we have asymmetric crypto? Seems a lot less hassle to exchange keys with asymmetric crypto.

Well, it's because asymmetric crypto is slooooow. So, in TLS, the security algorithm that puts the "S" in "HTTPS", asymmetric RSA is used to establish the initial connection and figure out what symmetric key to use, and then the rest of the session uses AES symmetric encryption using the agreed secret key.

And there you have it! Crypto in slightly-less-short-but-still-high-enough-level-that-I-hope-you-understand.

Just realised how long this section is. Well, I did call it "too much detail" for a reason.

Now, next question is what exactly is and isn't encrypted using HTTPS.

Well, as I said earlier, it's basically just the source IP:port and the destination IP:port. In fact, this information is actually communicated on the logical layer below the application layer HTTPS is on, known as the transport layer. Again, as I said before, you can't really encrypt this unless you don't want your data to reach the place you want at all.

Also, DNS is unencrypted. A DNS request is a request that turns a domain name, such as tumblr.com, into an IP address, by asking a special server called a Domain Name Server where to find the website you're looking for. A DNS request is made before an HTTP(S) request. Anyone who can read your internet traffic can therefore tell you wanted to go to Tumblr.

But importantly, this only shows the domain name, not the full URL. The rest of the URL, the part after the third slash (the first two slashes being part of http://), is stuff that's interpreted by the server itself and so isn't needed during transport. Therefore, it encrypted and completely unreadable, just like all the content on your page.

I was going to show a Wireshark scan of a web request using HTTP and HTTPS to show you the difference, but this has taken long enough to write as it is, so sorry!

I could probably write more, but it's 1:30am and I'm sleepy. I hope you found some of this interesting and think twice before purchasing a VPN subscription. Again, there are legit good uses for a VPN, but they're not the ones primarily being advertised in VPN ads. It's the fact that VPN ads rely so heavily on false advertising that really grinds my gears and made me want to do this rant. It's especially bad when it comes from somebody I'd think of as technologically competent (naming no names here, but if you've worked in tech and still promote VPNs as a way to keep data safe... no). Feel free to ask questions if you want and hopefully I'll get around to answering any that I feel I know enough to answer.

Nighty night Tumblr. Please update your software. And use a (free) password manager. And enable two factor authentication on all your accounts. But mostly just update your software.

[marzipanandminutiae]

I don't actually think bobbing was that expensive in the 1920's. Considering it was just a line from ear to ear, it could probably be easily accomplished by a roommate. I do think, however, it was very frustrating for socialites, because there wasn't much you could show off. Anyway, my grandmother grew up in the 1930's, and she said most of the haircuts were obtained by parents putting bowls over their children's heads and cutting.

I'm guessing this is relevant to something I say from time to time- that the popularity of bobbed hair in the 1920s led women to spend more money on trips to the hairdresser (and, for some of them, on hair products for maintaining waves, etc., although of course things like that have been commercially available for centuries). I usually bring this up as a point against the idea that the trend itself was somehow inherently liberating for women, rather than the broadening of socially-approved OPTIONS for self-expression.

(Take a shot every time some pop history discussion of the 1920s is like "women were freed from the shackles of long skirts and long hair!!!!!" Seriously.)

Now, I do want to contest the idea that the 1920s bob was "just a line from ear to ear." It certainly COULD be, and I've read letters and diaries that talk about women bobbing their friends' or relatives' hair at home. But more often, as with even simple-looking modern hairstyles, there was a great deal more skill involved to create the fashionable look.

(Breakdown of some popular bob types, 1924. There is definitely some layering involved in at least some of these, of a sort that would be very difficult for an amateur to do at home.)

Curls would give you a bit of room for error, maybe, but we've all seen those TikTok Hair Fail compilations floating around the Internet. Hair-cutting is usually harder than it looks.

See also: the F. Scott Fitzgerald story "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," which features a character not even DIY-ing it, but going to a professional (men's) barber and still having to visit a beauty salon to get the result fixed.

I don't know what hairdressers' prices were back then, so I'm sure the upkeep wasn't bank-breaking for everyone (or so many women wouldn't have done it). But it is still spending more money than women spent earlier trimming long hair at home every several months- or having a maid whose wages they were already paying do it.

I will also add that the bowl method being used for children doesn't mean it passed muster with adult women. You definitely won't get Next Best Thing To [insert Jazz Age celebrity of choice here] cutting around a mixing bowl, and that's what most women who embraced the trend were going for.

tl;dr- While women in the 1920s could, and sometimes did, cut and maintain bobbed hair themselves at home, the complexity of the styles did generally necessitate the services of a professional. Which meant a new regular expense that earlier hair fashions didn't usually involve.

[snake-eyes-11]

📱- ooc; Remember when I used to be active over here? Yeah, me too...

I've been going back and forth on whether or not to write this post for weeks now...but I feel I should.

Some of you will know that I went to Canada for my brother's wedding this summer. Well, after the wedding, my brother moved out there with his wife. He had no house, no car, no job prospects and only a few of his belongings. Why? No idea. He still won't give much of an answer beyond: "If not now, when?". Added to that, on the day he left for the airport (with my now sister-in-law) we expected to bid them farewell in their empty flat...only, their flat wasn't empty. Their furniture was still there, they still had food in the fridge freezer, cosmetics, cleaning products and boxes in the cupboards and so much more. It then fell on my family's shoulders to deal with what was left behind, bearing in mind that the flat had already been sold at this point and we had no idea how long the sale would take to complete. Four months later, we have just finished clearing it and the sale has just this week completed.

What has this got to do with writing? Well, I've always been very close to my family...and him leaving has taken a huge toll on my parents, my other brother, my younger niece...and me, too. As a result of this huge, emotional change, my writing inspiration has flip-flopped between tonnes and nothing, and it's also been my coping mechanism. If I bury myself in the daydreams long enough, I can forget about everything else.

But...I've been struggling a lot lately. Added on top of that drama, the funding at work has been significantly impacted by the economic crisis and it's had repercussions across the board. At this point in time, I've been told that the administrative work I do on a Monday will no longer be viable as of next month. The rest of my work? As of this moment, I have no idea.

I've had two pretty severe panic attacks over the past couple of weeks. I didn't mention these at the time because it seemed pointless once I'd sorted myself out and got my head around things, plus I didn't want to worry anyone because I care very much about you guys over here.

I'm trying very hard to find my feet in writing over here again. The dash has mostly been very quiet and I've been roleplaying over on D.isco.rd more often lately which has taken up most of my time. Sometimes, I feel a bit irrelevant over here and I know that's probably untrue but my head is already scrambled so much that it's hard to break out it.

It's my birthday next week and I've booked a few days off, so hopefully I can have some fun and relax a bit during that time.

TL;DR: Mun has been through a lot of IRL emotional drama lately which has impacted her mental health and activity.

[the-modern-typewriter]

Hey sorry if it’s too much to ask but I was wondering what’s the process for choosing what stories you wanna write on your Patreon? Do u have a list and just get started on the ones you feel the inspo strike in first or do you do it by order. Sorry if it seems intrusive I was just curious😅😅😅

So the significant majority of what I do on Patreon is stories that have been requested by Patrons, mostly because I get enough requests that filling them keeps me busy enough that I don't actually have time for writing that isn't requested. At least not if I ever want to do a story on tumblr, or work on my novels.

Anyone on the Fast Track Snippet Request tier ($7) or higher gets priority if they ask for something, because that's what the Fast Track means. I aim to get any of those requests written up in a working week (providing I'm not drowning in Fast Track requests, just because unfortunately I am a human with limited amount of time and capacity to actually write in a week...for context I aim to get at least three new pieces up a week, but it does depend a little on word count and how long any given piece takes me. If that is the case, I will chronologically work through the Fast Track requests first.)

All requests go onto a word document, which working around the Fast Track one week rule, I try to respond to more or less chronologically (e.g., I do the ones that have been their the longest first.)

The three exception(s) to this are:

a) I am really genuinely stuck on a story and I can't think of what happens next in a way that isn't appalling and terrible writing (in which case it sits on the document while my brain ticks it over in the background) because I'd rather give people something good? Also, sometimes I think as the writer, a story is done. Adding more would ruin what made it work in the first place.

b) The second I get a request I instantly know what I want to do with it and cannot keep myself from writing it because I have such a strong idea in my head that I don't want to lose if I wait. Because I always say I won't forget what that idea was, and then I forget because I am dumb!

c) Some people request more often. I like hearing from people and what they want, so this makes me happy. However, for the sake of fairness if I notice one person has (random example) three requests pending on my doc submitted in fairly quick submission (e.g., before I have had time to write something for their last one) I will be more likely to pick whichever of the three I have the most inspiration for to do first, and also will slot another person's request between like request 1 and request 2, just to kind of try and keep it balanced. I'll then work through the other requests alongside whatever else is on my to do list.

My to do list currently tends to be between 10-20 story requests long at any given time. Applying the three stories a week minimum aim as rough estimate, with four weeks roughly in a month, I'd like to say that my turn-around for non Fast Track is usually about a month/month and a half, just because there has been no point in the last two years where I haven't had a backlog of requests going simply because of the whole 'writer can't write all the time, it's not physically, logistically or creatively possible' problem.

TL;DR It goes Fast Track, then chronological. I hope this helps!

For anyone curious, my Patreon is here.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi again! I’ve been off work because of surgery and reading your fics/metas have really been helpful to pass the time. I’ve enjoyed your GSR insights immensely so please forgive me for asking another Q: Can you please share your thoughts on how Grissom and Sara would have defined their relationship post “One to Go”? Technically, they “broke up” (“Leave Out All the Rest”), so would they have just assumed they were still betrothed to each other now that they were back together? And if another proposal need take place, can you please indulge on how that went about?

Side note: The meta/short fic re who proposed post “Immortality” is one of my fav reads of yours and I look forward to when you add more to your fic/WIP collection 😊.

hi, @renb80s!

thank you for your kind words! i'm so glad you enjoy my metas and my fic.

re: your question:

i have a big, ol' meta here that talks about the status of grissom and sara's relationship/engagement between episodes 09x05 "leave out all the rest" and 09x10 "one to go," if you're interested.

the tl;dr version is that i do think that once sara sends her video message, both she and grissom understand their relationship, including their engagement, to officially have been terminated.

that said, since the impetus for said termination was never that they'd fallen out of love with each other or that they wouldn't actually want to be together if they could but rather just that they both (in their own ways) felt that with the intractability of their apparent "she can't stay, and he won't go" situation, being broken up was their only real recourse, i think that the second they realize that said situation has indeed been resolved—i.e., that grissom has finally made the decision to leave vegas and follow sara out into the great, wide world after all—they also consider the termination to be moot, pretty much immediately.

like.

the only reason they weren't together was because they had a distance problem, so once grissom closes that distance, there's no reason for them not to be together anymore.

and that's pretty much an instantaneous thing.

just watch sara's face when grissom appears out of the jungle: it's clear that despite how she's tried to be "strong" and "set grissom free" for his own good, she has spent every day she's been apart from him fantasizing about a moment exactly like the one that's currently playing out, where suddenly he'd just show up and everything would be okay again. her expression once she realizes what’s happening makes it so obvious that this whole scene is literally something that she's dreamed of before and hoped for a thousand times over the last few months. it takes her all of zero seconds to be like, "there he is—there's the man i'm going to marry. he's here for me. he came, just like i wished he would."

and it's just as immediate on grissom's side.

as for how things progress from the between the last image we see of grissom and sara kissing each other breathless in the jungle in episode 09x10 "one to go" and newlywed sara showing up to vegas in episode 10x01 "family affair," i've got some speculation on that subject here and here, if you care to read it.

to elaborate somewhat:

(here be headcanon)

to my mind, the kissing segues into making love in sara's tent, and somewhere in the afterglow, tangled up under the canvas and mosquito netting, they start talking about everything that's happened and their relationship and their aspirations and their feelings and how much they just want to be together more than anything.

all of a sudden, sara's blurting out that she'd happily marry grissom tomorrow if he'd still have her—because i like to imagine that this time it's her who broaches the topic, since last time around grissom was the one to propose—to which grissom replies that absolutely he will.

that night, sara introduces grissom to everyone in her research group as her "fiancé from the states" over dinner and explains that they're going to be departing from the group the next morning.

cue more lovemaking in the tent after dark, followed by a trip to the capital city of san josé the next day (or however long it takes them to travel there from the jungle).

honestly, since unlike the majority of "destination weddings," this one is unplanned, they probably end up doing things a little backward—having a kind of unofficial ceremony first, which they then legalize at a later date.

as part of this process, they likely have to hunt down a lawyer who speaks english to officiate the event and sort out the paperwork for them ex post facto. they also probably have to notify the us embassy's consular office.

there is technically a one-month waiting period for us citizens to file a wedding application in costa rica, but grissom and sara are not about to wait another month after everything, so, like i said, i think they have the wedding first and get the license officialized a month later.

this whole rigmarole may take them a couple days or even a week or two to put into play, but in the end, i think they get what they're looking for, which is a wedding that is first recognized by them and then later by the powers that be.

all in all, i think that the wedding itself is a supremely simple affair—stark, quick, "courthouse," and incredibly impromptu, attended only by the lawyer and whatever employees from the law office need to be there to serve as official witnesses—but that's okay by grissom and sara because they care less about the superficial trappings than about what is being signified. for them, they both very much feel as if they are finally doing something that they wanted to do months (or even years) ago, making good on a promise that they lost sight of for a while but have both always, always wanted more than anything to keep.

as for what they might say during the ceremony, i've got some speculation here.

once the knot is tied, they embark on a canoe trip through the jungle to look for bugs as their honeymoon.

anyway, that's what i've got.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

and good luck with your recovery from your surgery! i hope it's going well.

[raleighliving]

Update: Slow Times Ahead

So this isn't gonna be about my city or cool things in it (technically I'll talk about Wake Tech but it's not really the focus here), but instead, it's gonna be more personal. I won't reveal anything concrete enough to guess the author here but hopefully, you'll read this anyway.

Posts are gonna slow down a bit (Funny I know, with my multi-month gap in content) because I am going back to college.

Community college specifically, I'll be attending Wake Tech (hopefully) starting this Summer semester. I've applied for FAFSA, some scholarships, and I'm waiting for my good ol' High School to send me a copy of my transcripts from 8+ years ago.

"RL," I hear you ask inquisitively, "You're such a well-spoken alphagigaomega Chad. You never completed uni? Are you just a poseur?"

To that, I have to say thank you and yes. I never completed University because of some poor life choices I'd made surrounding my life. Nothing like drugs or alcohol, but I flunked out of my junior year university and let some friends convince me to join them in an endeavor that both helped and hurt me in the long run.

Now, after a series of half-formed ideas and this blog being the longest one to stick around I got the idea to go back and try again. I'm still working on some of them, and I'll definitely continue writing this blog for fun if nothing else because it's oddly cathartic, but I've reached a point in my life where I definitely need something larger to set me apart from other candidates in the career pool and every inch I get is something I'll need to help.

So why wake tech? Why transfer when I'd completed 3/4ths of a degree already? Why the sudden urge to do this now?

Most of these are related to money. My previous school was too expensive, if I get all the financial aid I applied for my courses will be essentially free, and if I get even an Associates my earning potential becomes much higher than it currently is.

Additionally, this gives me a chance to kinda restart. After speaking with some friends who went to the same degree, their diploma didn't really take them as far as they would've liked. Either working fields totally divorced from their dream job or doing nothing to move them up the corporate ladder.

Wake Tech Community College is a venerated institution that has graduates working in numerous fields, and I did enough generic credits that could transfer to my new degree that getting an Associates hopefully won't take too long. My goal is to finally achieve something, not spend another few dozen years of my life doing nothing and going nowhere.

Lately I've been feeling kind of like a loser, looking back at my past mistakes. I think everyone does that every once in a while but I've been looking to course-correct for a while now and it took a while to get to this point but at least I'm finally taking the first few baby steps.

I don't know what'll happen next, but hopefully, I'll get my associates and pivot into something helpful. Education looks fun but that'd also require some additional certs and time input to become viable.

TL;DR: I'm gonna probably post slower than I already have been because I'm gonna dive headfirst into trying to improve myself and I don't know what's gonna happen but wish me some goddamn luck cause I could really goddamn use some.

[wernerherzogs]

your tags!!! yes! i also think harry really listens to criticism and tries to get better. so i'm already excited about the next album lmao he will have more experience, it will probably be clearer what he wants, there will be enough time to write some kickass songs, there won't be that pressure of people saying his debut album shouldn't be less than perfect and he proved he can produce a successful album, so maybe he'll have even more cretive freedom. i'm excited and very proud!

YES, EXACTLY.

the thing is, harry IS surrounded by clear eyed reptile men, and his team /had/ been quite obviously going for that grammy from the very start. and i think harry wanted it, too, and that’s why he’d been willing to compromise on Some Stuff at this point in his career. i want to reiterate that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting things like grammys! some parts of this fandom can be stupidly childish about it. there’s nothing wrong with wanting either money, or critical success, or commercial success, or ALL OF THE ABOVE in the field you work in. especially because harry is 10000% driven mostly by PASSION, there’s no doubt about it for me. he was just born to be on stage, man, and it’s evident how much he loves being a performer. it’s evident how much he wants to excel at what he does, to be the best he can be, and that THAT is his Main Goal. and he’s made IMMENSE progress musically/technically -- he plays instruments, he writes music and lyrics, he doesn’t struggle vocally almost at all anymore (and the note changes he does at practically every gig! he’s always experimenting! having fun! amazing!!!). he’s just SUCH A HARD WORKER, MAN. he works SO HARD. and some ppl think that you can’t be a Genuine Artist if you’re not trying to be an indie singer songwriter whose record features guitars only, and who struggles to pay bills every month. like... harry would never be authentic if he tried to be someone he’s not. and what he is, IS a rich post-boyband member. he needs to find his voice while not trying to pretend this isn’t what he’s experienced, not trying to dismiss his past, and it’s HARD. he’s been in the industry literally since he was 16 -- he’s missed out on some crucial stuff in life, even if a lot of that stuff is somewhat ordinary. then again, he’s got to experience other things (some of it is what most of us won’t get to do... probably ever in their lives), and that’s important, too. that’s still experience, albeit different than mine or yours.

i think in general it’s dumb to expect people to sing about their own lives only. look at adele -- she got some flack after trying to be “relatable” on her last record, because what IS THERE to sing about once you’ve made so much money, won so many awards, once you’re a mother in a stable relationship, once you’re not that hometown girl anymore, right? again, bullshit. artists should be allowed to just tell stories, like artists in other fields.

but i digress. the thing with harry is that he’s a REALLY fucking empathetic person, and imho it’s evident that he just works some shit through via his art. he FEELS a lot, and i’m not surprised that he's had a penchant for angst (as a genre, in a way) for a while now. that’s why i do believe his work can be personal, or even autobiographical in that aspect. he just takes all that pain/struggles/etc., and works around it, builds on it. he just needs stories to go with it. and some of them will feel more genuine coming from him now, others -- on the contrary. because he IS just a 23 yo person who’s still discovering who they are, but he’s also been alluding at Certain Things for a few years now. so some things don’t necessarily add up at the moment, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! he doesn’t really owe anyone shit! it’s really just the issue of HOW you work with things you want to share, and not share. it’s okay to include details that aren’t really your story, but in that case, it shouldn’t be sold as your story. and it HAS been a part of the marketing for the pink album -- that’s why it’s okay to be disappointent about some choices he’d made on it.

i think harry’s particular advantage as An Artist Signed To A Big Label is that the clear eyed reptile men that surround him genuinely love him -- at least those working most closely with him. i doubt their goals re: harry’s career will change, but i’m hopeful they won’t try to push him more firmly into a direction (heh) that might not be sitting quite right with him. i hope from now on, they’ll try to support him by allowing him to be even more /HARRY/. he’s been in the industry in a long time, but he’d lacked experience as a solo artist, so it’s not like it wasn’t beneficial for him to try to listen to the advice from ppl who’ve been in this game for a long time. especially if those ppl do have his best interests in mind.

tl;dr the pink album was uneven. sott is a fucking DIAMOND that shines most brightly on it. ftdt and mmith are super beautiful, too. he does het content well on songs like woman and ftdt, and the tired tropes WORK well on kiwi, bc kiwi is just BONKERS, not a serious song. but then you’ve got carolina and only angel (although i do like only angel musically), and they’re like... making the whole album feel less genuine (along with making all of the stuff harry does OFF stage less genuine). he’s extremelly spoken out&respectful about his female fanbase, so that’s why those mentions of good girls and short skirts and etc. just felt eye roll worthy to me. he needs to find his footing, and he needs to be allowed to NOT try to be a stereotypical rock star. it’s better to leave some stuff in the 70s, ya know?

THE REAL TL;DR I JUST LOVE HARRY A LOT, MAN. A WHOLE GODDAMN LOT. and i believe in him, because he’s given me plenty of reasons to believe in him. he CAN do better, and i’m sure he will. i’m SUPER excited for hs2. (i’d love him to jump right into it, tbh. i don’t really want a deluxe version of the pink album first, but then again... harry REALLY needs more content for his arena tour, rip. D: i’m a bit worried about the arena tour.)

[hejgyrus]

Cameron's First Time (p 1)

Pre-words: Ok just before we start... this is not legit, this is just the horny fantasy of a virgin fag (me!). Our story begins with Cameron (18 M) getting ready to go out on a date with his new boyfriend Ari (21 M).

//TL;DR to find fucking scene, do CTRL+F and type [FUCKING BOOKMARK]

Narrator: Tonight is Cameron's big night. His heart is flying all over the place as he prepares for his date with his new man he just met on the internet (this will end well, shut up). He has only seen pictures all over Instagram but he knows some things about Ari: he's ~6' 5", dirty blond, long-ass dreadlocks, works out, and tames horses. Cameron himself is: 5" 6', extremely white and red eye'd (he's somewhat albino, it's not obvious from a distance), 97 lb, white hair, and really smooth. For the past hour Cameron has been preparing for this event: choosing cloths, trying clear lipstick, regretting that choice, regretting that choice; and finally decided to just go for a cute messy look. A white button-down t-shirt, light grey shorts and some hair gel to make it seem as a bully gave him a nuggy. (he ended up going back on the lipstick).

Cameron: Fuck, shit, fuck, Fuck, FUCK!!!! Oh god, regret, regret! I'm not doing this, nope, nope, not today. I'll just... kill myself! Ya, that should be a good way out of this. No wait, science is too good for that, and Ari will find me dead.

*ding dong*

Cameron: I'M LEAVING, OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW! I CAN'T TAKE THIS.

*door knocking*

*Cameron walks towards door regretting*

Cameron: I'll just throw up on his shoes, that should make him leave.

*Open's door to a giant Manticore*

Cameron: Woh, Hi!

Ari: *snickers* wSup?

Cameron: (gently)Panicking, (fully)still alive

Ari: Ready to go?

Cameron: (NO!) Sure

Narrator: The two get into Ari's decent looking open cockpit jeep, and head off to an outdoor restaurant on the beach. When they arrived they saw a pretty fun place with a small main building and a field of beach couches surrounding picknick-like coffee tables, the sun was setting beautifully on the horizon. Cameron finally managed to compose himself.

Ari: This place is great, I worked here as a bartender while I was at school.

Cameron: Wow, what were you studying?

Ari: Veterinary practices.

Cameron: Ah

Narrator: The two sit at a "table" closer to the water, when a waitress comes over to to her job, you fill in the dialog.

Her:

Ari:

Her:

Cameron:

Her:

Cameron:

Narrator: Ari got a steak done cut up to be edible without leaning forward, and Cameron got a chicken salad, but the chicken is actually pork, it is a pork salad.

Ari: Aright, ya know what... I'm not good with dating...

Cameron: Oh don't worry, this is actually my first time.

Ari: Really! Then let's do the all the cliches, just for the lulz.

Cameron: Ok.

Ari: So tell me about yourself?

Cameron: Oh, god this is going to take a minute. I guess it all started when I was born.

Ari: ..

Cameron: I was born to a pair of Icelandic swingers who decided to elope to Israel, lying about being Jewish to get in free, who decided to fuck around and got stuck with me! I don't know much about them because the orphanage was incompetent for the most part, but they did tell me my mother was 7" 2'... I guess the Icelandic giant's gene.

Ari: Wait then why are you so short?

Cameron: There, actually, is a good reason for that! It's sad but good. Ok, so they left me at an orphanage... Now the Israelis are on the darker end of Caucasians, right? And the country is mostly a desert, so they didn't know my tolerance for sunlight, and decided to be conservative. I didn't really go out and play a lot. That didn't stunt my growth, but it did make me... smaller then the other kids.

Ari: How big did they get?

Cameron: Look at your arms and drop 3 inches

Ari: Oh

Cameron: So back to the house. *Narrator: Wow he opened up quick!* My first foster family was great, the dad was a high ranking military guy. The mother was very active in the community, her two sons were soo nice to me, always forcing me out of my shell and taking me out with their friends. Their friends, on the other hand, were not good people.

Ari: Y

Cameron: Well there's this word in Hebrew, "Arrsce"... It's a healthy mix of punk and bitch. They were that.

Ari: Where's this going...

Cameron: Well shit happened and they beat me up. Violently... comatose-ly. I lost 3 months of my life, and my Icelandic giant's gene.

Ari: Holy shit dude.

Cameron: Ya after that, and the media fire, technicalities happened and a US dignitary managed to "extradite" me to and keep me as his foster kid.

Ari: Lucky break?

Cameron: No he was pretty cold to me, and the rest of his family, but at 16 the state said I could leave the house and live somewhere else on their rent so long as I worked. And I did. I got an apartment over a subway where I still work.

Ari: Quite the life story.

Cameron: Ya I got use to my past.

Ari: But you can't accept that as normal, that was one of the saddest stories I heard in awhile.

Cameron: Too late.

Narrator: Ok I realize you have been waiting for the fucking, you fucking perv... I'll get to that soon...

Cameron: So what about you? You should have some stories.

Ari: Ahh well. My early life started off boring and bland from a broken family.

Cameron: Same!

Ari: He, sure... my life didn't really start until I got my first job a this little horse ranch. Well, like I said, bland and boring.

Cameron: You aren't boring, I love horses... at my size I need something under me to be my bitch (and it defiantly couldn't be you)

Narrator: The two continue to talk about meaningless drivvle to which I do not feel like writing out. If you have never been on a date, imagine a conversation... there ya go, that's what's happening. After a spectacular diner the two proceed to take a nice calm walk on the beach, now going dark.

Cameron: This is a day I won't forget for a long time, thanks for this luv.

Ari: Why dose it have to end? Ya know I have a whole tent and camping shit just lying around in my car, we could just camp out on the beach for the night.

Cameron: I don't know, I don't usually sleep with a guy I just met.

Ari: You've never dated.

Cameron: Point, let's do it!

Ari: Great, take this flashlight and start collecting fire wood, I'll go get the jeep... it's gonna take me about 10 minutes.

Cameron: *sarcastically* I miss you already.

Ari: Bye *kisses Cameron on the lips lightly, like they've been together for years*

Cameron: I... Iiii.. wut

Ari: *with slight regret* I'll be back *Leaves running*

Cameron: Wait I just let this guy leave me alone on a beach at night! He kissed me! How do I know he won't run away. Wait I just had my first kiss! *turns on this tiny pocket sized flashlight that lights up the entire rock face of the cliff the beach sits on* Wouw... I don't know how shallow he is but I'd come back for this flashlight.

Narrator: Cameron collects whatever scrap wood he could find, growing a large pile by the time Ari came back following the immensely powerful vibrator sized flashlight as a beacon.

Ari: Aright! Let's see what we got here...

Cameron: You kissed me.

Ari: Lemme just get started on this fire first.

Cameron: Is this how first times go?

Ari: *fiddling with matches* You mean me not thinking before I act, sure why not.

Cameron: Are we just going to forget that

Ari: *looks him in the eye awkwardly* Yes *Boops Cameron on his snoot*

Cameron: Ahowkey I'll just unpack the tent.

Ari: Oh its one of those spring loaded type deals, just pull off the straps and it will explode.

*Pulls off straps and out pops a giant tent*

Cameron: Oh!

Narrator: Now with the fire blazing and crackling because of moisture, the tent exploded out and tied in place with an inflatable mattress inside (No Ari isn't a creep who just caries around a fuck tent, and it isn't a fuck tent). The two just sit around staring off at the black horizon talking about some deep shit.

Cameron: I was beaten a lot.

Ari: Why

Cameron: Governor Shit-ass was for corporal punishment

Ari: What the cold American family

Cameron: Yup

Ari: You wanna talk about it.

Cameron: No.

Ari: What did they do.

Cameron: Everything.

Ari: Tell me.

Cameron: Nothing was ever right. I couldn't make my bed straight, speak without stuttering, keep straight A+(s) for 4 year.

Ari: *hold him* you're not alone.

Cameron: At some point, he couldn't stand me so much he put me in an orphanage in his town to teach me a lesson.

Ari: Did they also beat you?

Cameron: All because of him.

Ari: Hey, come here... ya wanna know something? One time my Dad was having one of his fits, and he threw me across the house so hard my arm broke in half. I came back at him so hard he lost consciousness.

Cameron: I've never been naked.

Ari: What.. how?

Cameron: I mean I bathe and everything, but in living alone for 2 years, I've never just been naked.

Ari: Was it Governor Shit-ass?

Cameron: The orphanage had a very creative way of punishing those who explore themselves.

Ari: What?

Cameron: The doctor said I started puberty, and the a week later, I got my first boner. I didn't understand what was happening so I ran to the bathroom and started poking around at it. And a nun followed me thinking I was sick, but she caught me, and she thought I was masturbating.

Ari: ..

Cameron: Then she dragged me out of the bathroom and kicked me senseless.

Ari: No

Cameron: But it didn't end there. The next day they took me to the auditorium, which had a thrust built out for a play. They stood me in the middle of the thrust and told me to strip.

Ari: Did you?

Cameron: I didn't understand why, but after I finished stripping and was just stood up there ashamed of myself I heard a storm of foot steps coming towards the door. I tried to run but the nuns were all there looking at me. Then the entire orphanage burst in looking confused until one boy pointed at me and started laughing.

Ari: Oh my god

Cameron: I tried to cover myself up but a nun whipped me on my back and told me to straighten up and put my hands on my head. *now crying a little* and I did.

Ari: *holds him tighter*

Cameron: Then she said, "This is what happens when you explore

your body, you have to share what you found!"

Ari: That's terrible

Cameron: The boys were just pointing at me laughing, and the girls were giggling and disgusted. I couldn't do anything but stand up there and cry. Then the nuns cleared a path for me to walk out naked and alone with my hands on my head, then they led me to my dorm and left me to get dressed.

Ari: ..

Cameron: I cried in my bed for hours until the rest of the boys came to go to sleep. I heard them talk about me, but they didn't notice me.

Ari: You were hiding.

Cameron: The next day no-one would look at me straight, and even one kid pantsed me in the middle of class so that everybody me see my bare ass like yesterday.

Ari: Hey look at me, that's all in the, loook at me. You're 18, you're out of the system. I'm here for you.

Cameron: *hugges Ari as hard as he could*

[FUCKING BOOKMARK]

Ari: D.. Do you want to be naked?

Cameron: Yes.

Ari: Ok come here, stand up. I'm here for you, just follow my lead.

*Ari standing on his knees starts unbuttoning Cameron's shirt slowly*

*Cameron watches him as one half of his face is pitch black and the other glows in the fire*

*Ari gets to the bottom of the buttons, and pulls his shirt off, letting it fall to the ground*

Ari: How do you feel?

Cameron: Nervous.

*Ari undoes Cameron's belt and with one swift move pulls it out leaving it a few feet away*

*Cameron feels his pants drop slightly, suddenly he feels some of that same fear from the orphanage*

*Ari undoes the single button holding Cameron's pants up and slowly lets them drop while looking him in the eyes*

*Cameron feels his knees shutter*

Ari: Now how do you feel?

Cameron: Scared.

Ari: Do you wanna keep going?

Cameron: *nods*

*Ari looks at Cameron's underwear, they were big loose black boxers*

*Ari slowly moves his hands up Cameron's smooth legs to his pants and gently grabs each side*

*Cameron remembers the feeling of that one boy who too pantsed him and prepares to cover what's underneath*

*Ari pulls, ever so gently and slowly taking in every moment of the experience, Cameron is about to break out of a thick shell. The waist line almost got to the base of Cameron's cock when he moves his hands in to cover himself.*

*Ari continues to pull until they're all the way down*

*Cameron has his head down, he's all tense... like he's hiding*

Ari: Look at me *tilts Cameron's head up*, how do you feel?

Cameron: Alone.

*Ari swiftly grabs Cameron and gently lays him on his back, on the sand, next to the fire and sits over him. All of Ari's dreads flow off the the right, away from the fire, forming a curtain. The fire illuminates Ari's whole face glowed in the fire*

*Ari grabs Cameron's wrists, still firmly covering what little was left, and moves them to his sides. Cameron is now totally exposed*

Ari: *softly* How do you feel?

Cameron: Like running away.

*Ari puts hand on Cameron's chest. Even if he wanted to, Cameron couldn't run away... but he didn't want to.*

Ari: What about now?

Cameron: I want to scream.

*Ari comes down and kisses him on the lips, he was so slow and took his time*

*Cameron whimpers slightly, he can feel Ari's tongue slowly slip through his lips and rest on his tongue. The sensations, emotions, and fears finally got to him and he blacked out*

Narrator: Ok what? I just got back in after I was forced out of the script because I was labeled a distraction for this scene. Ok.. so, the night goes by and Cameron slept like a rock. The next day he wakes up to the sun and finds himself undisturbed, the fire somehow went on all night and Ari was asleep at his side. There were a few people at the beach that early, all nude... turns out this was a nudist beach. Cameron pays them no mind as he walks into the ocean to wake himself up; the water is warm. Ari wakes up a few minutes later and sees Cameron's white hair glisten in the sun as he plays in the water. Ari found some of that weird instant-coffee-juice-shit and pours out 2 red solo cups. When Cameron got back, his smooth white skin wet and glowing in the sun, he sat down on Ari's lap, wrapped his arms around his neck and started to make out with him. Neither of them cared that they were being watched.