#<- bc I spent like…. Half an hour max on this

[jonahmagnus]

Unblinking

[forgotten-daydreamer]

Took twice the max dose of melatonin before the final revision for tomorrow’s exam, I’m shitting my pants and I genuinely don’t know anything as thoroughly as I should but if I sleep less than 4 hrs before it I just know I’m gonna do even worse somehow

[ln444]

1D songs as f1 drivers prompts

included: lando norris, oscar piastri, charles leclerc, carlos sainz, lewis hamilton, george russell, max verstappen.

cw: slight angst.

note: i spent days making this omg 😭 i'm so glad it's finally out bc i'm a huge fan of one direction's songs (had my directioner era lol) i really hope you guys enjoy it ! also i was thinking about making it a serie, let me know if you're interested by any of the prompts !

click on the title to play the song!

_________________________________________________

lando norris ☆ stole my heart (bestfriends in love)

“under the lights tonight, you turned around and you stole my heart with just one look, when i saw your face, i fell in love„

lando really tried. he attempted to bury his feelings as deeply as he could, but you make it so difficult. the way you're the only one who laughs at his silly jokes, the way you try not to miss any of his races (and send him a good luck text when you can't be there), the way you randomly smile down at him – he could talk about everything you do for hours because he loves and knows every single details about you. sometimes he hates how you make him feel because he just wants to say, 'fuck it,' and kiss you for hours and hours. he can't even count the number of times he's thought about kissing you or the countless times the three words almost slipped out of his mouth out of nowhere. but the thought of losing you forever hold him back everytime, he can't even imagine his life without you. he doesn't know how, but lando has fallen for you, really, really hard and it just keeps going, he just can't get enough of you.

oscar piastri ☆ 18 (teenage love)

“i have loved you since we were 18, long before we both thought the same thing, to be loved and to be in love„

oscar initially watched you from a distance, even memorizing your schedule to see you as often as possible. he'd daydream about finding excuses to start conversations with you, sometimes getting so lost in thought during class that he'd lose track of the lesson. then, one day, he finally gathered the courage to talk to you, pretending to need notes from a shared class. since that day, you began exchanging daily messages, making oscar dumbly smiling. you started having study sessions, eating lunch together, sitting together in your shared classes and he'd even wait to walk you home. and just like that, oscar start falling for you. he found himself daydreaming about you more often, imagining how it would feel to hold your hand and how your lips would feel on his. those thoughts would fluster him, but deep down, he hoped they might come true.

charles leclerc ☆ summer love

“you were my summer love, you'll always will be my summer love„

midnight swims, picnics, sneaking out to watch the stars, late-night talks, sharing earphones while lying on the beach, biking, taking pictures of each other with your old camera, whispering sweet words to each other when no one's watching. that's what makes summer your favorite season, because you get to be with charles. but why does being in love with charles have to be so complicated? why do you have to part ways when the summer ends? most importantly, what makes you hold onto this love, so complicated? maybe the fact that charles always promises to be there next summer and keep this promise — or the fact that you're madly in love with this boy—. the craziest part of all of this is how your love for each other never fades, to the point where charles promises to marry you and get a beach house where you can spend all your summers together when you grow up. charles always keeps his promises.

carlos sainz ☆ change your ticket (long distance)

“you should probably stay, probably stay a couple more days, come on let me change your ticket home, don't go, it's not the same when you go„

you never imagined that having an f1 driver as your boyfriend would be so challenging and that you'd have to spend half the year far from him. at first, it wasn't a big problem, and you got used to it quickly. but at times, it really tugged at your heart. carlos always makes sure to call you when he is free and send you texts at random times of the day to ask how's your day going and tell you how much he misses you, but it's not the same. carlos had asked you more than to join the venture, assuring you that his income would be more than enough for both of you. you thought about it—a lot—but the idea of making such significant changes held you back. now, when you think about it, you realize that losing carlos over a simple matter of distance would be a mistake, especially when there's a solution within reach. perhaps traveling the world with your f1 driver boyfriend isn't such a bad idea after all.

lewis hamilton ☆ heart attack (bestfriend's sister)

“got your voice in my head, sayin' «let's just be friends» [...] never thought it'd hurt so bad, getting over you„

lewis doesn't even know how he fell in love with you. perhaps it was the way your smile warms his heart or how you effortlessly make the most boring conversation so captivating. it seems so absurd that, out of all of the people, he fell for his bestfriend's sister. lewis never imagined that it will be this hard to fight his love for you and act like his mind is not filled with thoughts of you 24/7. how could he possibly get over you when just being in the same room as you drives him crazy? he thought about telling your brother, he really did but the thought of losing his long time friend and you along the way held him back. so he decided to bury his feelings deep in his heart and keep his thoughts in the back of his head. yet, with every echo of your laughter from the next room or just the sight of you, his heart would go crazy.

george russell ☆ loved you first

“i've been waiting all this time to finally say it but now i see your heart's been taken, and nothing could be worse, baby i loved you first„

george can't help but think about the stupid mistake he made a few months ago— not confessing his love for you. he had so many chances to do it, to tell you that he fell hard for you and he can't stop thinking about you. but the day he finally decided to do it, he didn't expect to find you arm in arm with another guy, totally breaking his heart. he just couldn't take it anymore, seeing you with him every day and acting like it was fine, as if the looks and smiles you gave him didn't warm his heart and make him want to take your hand and run as far as he could. because george, he's deeply in love, and it's getting deeper every single day. it's so unfair— he was there first, he loved you first. the worst part is that you know how george feels, and you might even feel the same way. george loved you first, and he's going to make sure that you know that.

max verstappen ☆ still the one (ex lovers)

“you're all i think about baby, i was so stupid for letting you go, you still the one„

max tried to date other girls, multiple times. however, it never felt the same. how is he supposed to move on when he's consumed by thoughts of you 24/7? he can't even engage in meaningful conversations with his dates because his mind always drifts back to you. he spends countless nights trying to erase you from his thoughts, to convince himself that it's truly over. yet, deep down, a flicker of hope for your love still lingers. max thought about the endless nights he's spent replaying your conversations and wondering what went wrong. he's haunted by the way your smile lit up his world and the warmth of your hand in his. even though he's tried to move forward, the heartache is still here, reminding him that sometimes, love refuses to fade.

_________________________________________________

requests open!

[stardyzzed]

I think me and clean lineart don't get along bc somehow the top looks better than the bottom and I spent over an HOUR lining the bottom piece, and the top piece I did in like a half hour max aughhh

Nyways more hybrid stuff

[moralesmilesanhour]

mad props! 04

summary: in the week leading up to the show, your grades begin to slip. whatever will you do... word count: 1820 a/n: hiii i rlly enjoyed writing this chapter bc some of the stuff in here has definitely happened to me lmao. if you feel up to it, reblog and tell me what your favorite song from any musical is in the tags! songs mentioned: 'Chip On My Shoulder' - Legally Blonde the Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording) prev next

“Max, you’re a little flat, hun.”

The choir director pulled her shawl tightly around her as Max–the chosen casting for Emmett Forrest–ran through some of his sung lines for ‘Chip On My Shoulder’. 

The brown-skinned, dark-haired boy was an excellent actor; he breathed life into the words on the script and delivered them with all the earnestness and humor required to play Emmett. Hell, he even improvised his own jokes.

But he couldn’t hold a note to save his life. 

For some lines, Max could get away with half-singing, half-talking, but he was practically tone-deaf once the song got more involved. The choir director–Ms. Johnson–had to be called in to help get him somewhere that was at least within the ballpark of the correct pitch. His high notes remained painful to all present in the room, no matter what she did.

You huffed from your spot on the fake park bench, resisting the urge to scratch your scalp beneath the itchy wig. Everyone had heard the exact melody on the piano by now. Hear it, sing it. Like Spanish vocabulary, you couldn’t comprehend how people got that sort of thing wrong.

Harmonizing with Max went about as expected; you lost your place several times because of the distracting dissonance between your voice and his, like hearing a parrot and an eagle squawk at the same time.

Regardless, it was too late to recast Max now. He had a leading role with too many songs and lines to memorize. 

“Alright, take five!” the director yelled with a clap of her hands. 

A collective sigh could be heard as students dispersed for their well-earned water and bathroom breaks, the tension in the air dissipating. You stepped carefully off of the stage, when you heard a snicker in your direction.

Miles was in the middle of painting a cardboard sorority building in an obnoxious shade of hot pink, shaded with strokes of fuchsia and cyan that managed to work together somehow. You frowned at the fact that you couldn’t say anything bad about it.

The boy struggled to hold back a laugh, looking up as you stood over him with crossed arms.

“Something funny?”

Miles stood to meet your eyes, carelessly wiping bits of paint onto his pants.

“That frumpy-ass 613 wig you got on, for one,” he replied with a teasing grin. “Are you gonna wear that for the actual show?”

You rolled your eyes.

“No, for your information, I’m not. This is a placeholder wig,” you ripped it off of your head for emphasis. “Why are you even here, anyway? Don’t you got posters to make?”

In actuality, you knew about the art club lending some of its members to paint sets for the show. But you wanted to make sure Miles knew he was unwelcome.

“Just doin’ what I do best,” he shrugged. “You should be grateful for my sacrifice.”

You snorted, “What ‘sacrifice’?”

Miles jabbed his thumb behind him towards the left side of the stage, where Max was going over his lines. “I gotta listen to that nigga sing for over an hour. I’m sacrificing my time and my ears.”

Despite yourself, you laughed brightly at the comment, causing a more genuine smile to spread across Miles’ face. You looked pretty when you laughed.

“Oh my god, he sucks, right? Spent the whole damn song looking for the note.”

“Too late to replace him now, though. Show’s in two weeks.”

You nodded.

There was a brief pause before Miles asked, “So what made you sign up for theater? I was kinda surprised to see you on a stage.”

You gave him a wary look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he raised both hands in defense, “You just seemed like more of the quiet type, that’s all.”

I signed up to avoid you, you thought, but didn’t say aloud; That would’ve given him the satisfaction of knowing that you thought about him that much.

Instead, you answered, “I used to do theater at my old school. Got the lead part most of the time, if you can believe it.”

There was an arrogance in your voice as you said that last bit that soured Miles’ expression. 

“I believe you, no need to convince me,” he said flatly. “Legally Blonde’s an interesting choice, though.”

You shrugged, “The part really lets me show my voice off, so...”

“Showin’ off,” Miles muttered beneath his breath, “Sounds like you.”

“Excuse me?”

Before you could start to argue, his eyes went wide, like he’d just heard a noise that no one else could hear.

“It was really nice talking to you, Y/N, but I gotta go,” he said, spinning on his heel and bolting towards the auditorium door. “Watch my stuff for me!”

Your jaw dropped in offense. Was he allowed to just bail on a club activity like that? And with the gall to ask you to watch his things for him. You totally did, though.

Once you got home, your feet throbbed and your muscles ached from all of the choreography. You were just barely out of your school uniform when you decided to lie down for a quick nap. Or what you thought was a ‘quick nap’.

The blaring of your alarm made your heart jump as your eyes flew open, half of your face damp with drool. The early morning washed over your room in a pale blue shade, and the sight would’ve relaxed you if not for the sudden realization that you weren’t in your pajamas.

You shot up, wiping the side of your face with your sleeve. Your Spanish and AP Physics notebooks were still strewn across your bed, along with several worksheets that had remained blank. Unfinished.

…Oh no.

Your heart was practically in your throat when you explained to Mr. Sanchez why you didn’t have any homework for him to collect. 

The man noticed your glassy eyes, and held up a reassuring hand in the middle of your frantic explanation.

“That’s fine, it happens,” he said gently, “Just bring in the missing work tomorrow, and it’ll only be ten points off. Don’t make it a habit.”

He adjusted his glasses, and returned to grading the pile of worksheets on his desk as you trudged back to your desk, a pit forming in your stomach over those precious ten points.

“You good?” Miles asked as you sat down, concern coloring his features. He ran a finger over a small band-aid on his right temple. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

You buried your face in your arms on the desk.

“Nunya.”

He sighed, “I dunno why I even asked.”

Unfortunately for both you and Mr. Sanchez, missing assignments did, in fact, become a habit. 

You began to spend more time lingering in the auditorium after everyone had left, practicing your line delivery. Adding little details, like extra hair flips or twirls. The spirit of Elle Woods had practically taken over your body.

You got home later and later into the evening, sometimes flopping down onto your bed and falling asleep before your head could even hit the pillow. This new ‘habit’ had you scribbling down vocab words and formulas in a frenzy, balancing your notebook on your lap on the bumpy bus ride to school. The flashcards that you had made for Mr. Sanchez’s class were now sitting untouched at the bottom of your bag.

By Friday, it landed you in front of his desk for office hours after you received your very first ‘F’. 

“As you’ve probably noticed, Y/N, your grades have fallen a significant amount in a very short period of time, and I’m a little concerned,” Sanchez slid your weekly grade report towards you and placed his finger on your Spanish grade. “What’s going on? This is very unusual for a student like you.”

Your sweaty fingers clutched the sides of your seat as you stared down at the report. How did you let it get this bad? Elle Woods would never.

“I-I just…”

You shook your head. “I’ve just been busy with extracurriculars and stuff, so assignments slip my mind sometimes.”

“You’re having trouble balancing them with your schoolwork?”

“Yeah, basically,” you leaned forward, looking desperate. “Can I still re-take that quiz? I didn’t really get to study, and–”

“Oh! That’s actually what I called you in for, one second.”

Sanchez rose from his seat, and made his way over to the door.

“You know about our Study Buddy system, yes?”

You nodded slowly, skeptically. “Am I getting a ‘Study Buddy’?”

“Pre-cisely. Come in!”

He opened the door, and you almost groaned audibly at the lanky figure that appeared at the entrance.

Miles entered with a friendly smile on his face that dropped the second his eyes landed on you.

“Oh. You.”

The Spanish teacher sat back down and gestured towards him.

“Miles here is both a native speaker and beyond proficient in this class. He was so kind as to sign up for the program, so I thought it might be nice to pair him up with someone in the same period.”

Shocked into silence, you were unable to say anything other than a quiet “Okay” as you stared blankly in front of you.

Study buddies. With the guy who didn’t even study. This had to be some kind of sick joke.

“He’ll be giving up a bit of his lunch time to tutor you in my classroom. I’d also highly recommend you two study with each other after school as well, if you can make the time. Sound good?”

“Yes,” you both said in miserable unison. 

“Well, that’s all,” Sanchez waved his hand. “You’re both dismissed. Have a lovely weekend!”

“You too!” you smiled tightly as you got up and made a beeline for the door, nearly bumping into Miles as you did so. 

Your weekend would be anything but ‘lovely’.

You fixed Miles with a glare as soon as you got out into the hallway.

“I’m not giving up my lunch period for you,” you yell-whispered. “I hope you know that.”

He took a step towards you and fired back, “Neither of us have a choice, your highness. If we’re not both up here during lunch, I get in trouble, and you gotta take the L and fail this class.”

“I’d rather fail, then. I don’t give a fuck.”

“Oh?” he laughed mirthlessly. “You were in tears over a damn ‘89’. Makes no difference to me, but I think you do give a fuck.”

You opened your mouth to shoot back a rebuttal, then closed it. Miles raised an eyebrow.

“I’m lying?”

“...No.”

Miles leaned forward until he was only inches away from your face. “Then cooperate. Or we both lose.”

You sighed in defeat, “Fine.”

He nodded curtly, then left to go grab his things from his locker.

In a forced attempt at courtesy, you called out towards his back, “See you next week–”

“Whatever!”

taglist (comment to be added!): @vhstown @alaoraangelix @shuna-boin

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 5/28/2024

we are rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of my ill-fated cross country move. i have changed from having a bad time in massachusetts to having a bad time in texas, but this time with my best friend's shoulder to cry on in real life. so an improvement i suppose

listening

i can't fucking believe this wasn't already in my driving playlist. thanks autogenerated spotify dance playlist

-

reading

the maltese falcon by dashiell hammett. i didn't really appreciate philip marlowe the-human-detective-not-my-cat's bisexual eye for interior design and outfits until i started reading this book. this passage really threw me with regards to shoes before pants in what i assume is a fairly normal suit and not a specific type of formalwear? i have a very specific blind fashion blind spot and that's pre-wwii menswear

this led to an absolutely VICIOUS argument with my bestie bc our grandfathers were from very different eras and held themselves to very different levels of formality. hers was a fancy white collar bastard and mine wasn't. i never saw mine in a suit outside a funeral.

anyway i KNOW that the fashion in the latter half of the twenties up to WWII was for a very wide legged pant (the oxford bag) and i GUESS you could certainly shove your whole goddamn shoe down that leg but like. it threw me. socks before pants, certainly. especially if you have to fuck with sock garters. but shoving your whole shoe down a pant leg seems. well it just seems. there's an order of operations i thought was sacred for most things. was the seat truly so tight in an oxford bag. are suspenders really that awful to bend over in. so much womens formalwear is uncomfy on purpose so i feel like i have a skewed view of acceptable pain for an outfit to cause you

why am i reading this? can you think of a more on-brand book for me to read? please let me know if you do and i'll add it to The Pile

-

watching

the tremendously charming soviet childrens film The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967, Ptushko). court intrigue! a swan princess! giants marching out of the sea! a slightly unsettling squirrel puppet shelling gold and emerald walnuts! a lot of sight gags, some lovely ballet sequences, and there are so many little moving parts to look at in each scene. at its densest it's like howl's bedroom in howl's moving castle

this was on my library's streaming platform Kanopy and i had credits to use up.

-

playing

two things in genshin that took absolutely forever to accomplish:

i finally maxed out the overall XP system (not the character XP system) so the game's just been chucking in-game currency at me instead, which has been helpful!

and i finally caught two thousand fish! very nice to clear like forty fishing spot markers i put down on my map, in advance of the forty billion markers i'll want to put down to mark stuff in the next big release at the end of the summer.

i forgot that i can use my desktop for things that aren't genshin and applying to jobs, so i reinstalled steam and fired up powerwash simulator. they popped out one new DLC in the year since i touched it, a santa's workshop level last winter. a good hour well spent. i spent a LOT of time with this game right before my move last year and it did genuinely help my anxiety.

-

making

not a fallow week but a pictureless week. ended up painting most of my best friend's bedroom bc we didn't have anything better to do on a saturday night. i think this was the hardest i've ever raw-dogged a painting project bc we had no tarps or painters tape or paint trays or rollers wider than 3". just a bucket of paint and a need to make the half-painted bedroom wall look nicer for her new job zoom training. we have to do a lot of things like move the bed and paint that wall, and paint the ceiling, and do all the trim + doors, but it does look much nicer on zoom now!

[moregraceful]

12, 20, 22!

[from this list]

12. Talk about a new friend you made this year

This question is hard - I'm trying not to single out new internet friends because I made so many. But also because I spent so much of the year just like catastrophically depressed, I didn't make a lot of new close meatspace friends since I basically did not leave the house except for hockey 😵‍💫😵‍💫 I will say, I met a TON of internet friends in person this year and they all made me really really happy. I think I can pinpoint specific moments in every meeting where I was just so delighted I got experience life with them in that moment. I hope next year I meet even more!

20. What’s something you learned this year?

I loved answering this one for Max so I'm answering more. I learned: how to do crossovers, forward and backwards. It's okay to just like take a break or leave if I hit my limit with the sports happening to me. I am good at congregational care and that people in my ministries trust me with their hearts. Also, the rule in hockey where if the puck crosses the red line, all the players who are on the offensive (so like not the team defending their half of the ice) have to leave that half of the ice. I cannot believe how much of the play that cleared up for me. Thank you kb for explaining that one!!

22. Favorite place you visited this year?

Where did I go this year. DC, Philadelphia, New York City for five seconds, and Coachella Valley? Oh and a roadtrip across the US, which both counts (travel) and doesn't count (went mildly insane). I think that's it. I think my favorite was honestly New York City even though I was there for a total of like...8 hours lol, because I got see Kelsey and I hadn't seen her since 2018 and even tho we were watching the Orioles completely shit the bed, it just made me so so so happy to reconnect with her again and just hang out with her honestly. I love baseball games, the ultimate hang out and enjoy my friendships situations for me. My main beef with the pitchclock is that they shortened the game so much that we don't get into the really raw part of the game where my friends just bare their hearts you know.

On my roadtrip, I think my favorite states to go through were Wyoming bc the rest stops were so beautiful, and Iowa?? I think it was Iowa. It might have been Indiana. Whichever state that has the most corn, because I liked stopping at the rest stops and listening to how the corn sounded in the wind. I thought that was so lovely. Everything after Iowa was evil bc I had to pay for the highways.

[gotjacobian]

Travel journal-type posting, just describing some of the stuff I've gotten to do in Japan.

Day 1: Got off the plane, got through passport control and customs with minimum issues (I fucked up my entry date bc time zones and had to hold up the line while I fixed it whoops). Took the subway to Yokohama, also screwed that up because I was hopped up on benadryl and still only managed to sleep for 2 hours at a time max on the plane. Unscrewed it up with the help of a very patient attendant, made it to the hotel. I bought takoyaki and a highball from a place across the street from the hotel, which reminded me that I don’t actually like takoyaki. It’s too mushy. Then passed out.

Day 2: This was my full day in Yokohama before the conference. I beelined for a 7-11 to get the canned coffee I like and can only get here (and some pastries), then went to a park by the baseball stadium to eat it. Then I took off to try and at least see the (closed :( ) gundam factory exhibit. There was a triathalon in the way, so I spent awhile wandering through parks to get around it and get close enough for a picture. There were tons of beautiful gardens, and lots of people taking photos of their costumed dogs there? Like, 3 dog photoshoots for every presumed child/romantic partner photoshoot. They all seemed very happy to chill in the flowers and get fussed over.

In general Yokohama is really well suited to my kind of travel wandering - going along the harbor coast takes you through a couple different gorgeous parks and past a few museums, and also gives you a great view of the water. I ended up going into the doll museum, and immediately learned I had vastly overestimated the amount of english they’d have on the exhibits based on their website. I speak basically no Japanese, so used an image translate app a lot. That’s wasn’t an option the last time I was in Japan in 2019 - it was really useful! I drained my battery using it on basically every single plaque in the museum. The style of the exhibit captions felt different than I’d expect from a US museum. They were often more anecdotes from an artist or curator than they were descriptions. I’m curious to what extent that was cultural or was something lost in translation? The translations I got definitely weren’t perfect, and seemed to get worse the more anecdotal or conversational the material was.

The exhibit that attracted me to the doll museum was called “Why do we create objects that look like humans?”. It had exhibits of historical dolls and sculptures, as well as installations from modern artist and dollmakers. A lot of it touched on an inherent alienation in recreating the human in the nonhuman, and the ways all depictions of the human form are exaggerated in ways we sort after the fact into “beautiful” or “grotesque.” I liked it, but honestly wanted it to be more like, embodiment philosophy-y. Very much a me problem.

On the way back, I stopped by Yokohama’s Chinatown. I feel like it was much more of a tourist attraction than the equivalent in Boston or SF - lots of street food stands and people hawking specific restaurants or palm-reading services. Lots of panda-themed merch. It was VERY crowded. I bought a single pork bun for lunch, wandered through a few stores, and then ditched to try and find somewhere calmer.

A friend recommended that I check out Kaganecho, the arts district about a half an hour walk along the canal from where I was staying, so I went that way. I immediately saw a lot of signs advertising an “Art Bazaar” that was supposed to be happening in the area. There were people wandering around with tickets and brochures. It took me an hour to figure out how to get one - I was saved by stumbling on a performance piece that was part of the exhibit, a woman playing a song by hitting a series of bowls with wooden mallets, that just happened to be scheduled right then. It was right under the train line, so you got the loud rumbling drowning her out every few minutes, and also the ambient city sounds of bikes and children and wind under her playing. When she finished, I stalked some people who were watching with me and finally found the office that could sell me a ticket.

The “art bazaar” is a yearly exhibition in a series of apartments converted into studios in the few blocks around a particular train station. You’re given a ticket and a map where some of the buildings were marked. You wander around to find them, go in, and there’s Art there. I’ll probably post separately about this, honestly. It was one of the coolest gallery experiences I’ve ever had. The theme of the exhibits was “The world through no art”, and a lot of the material directly engaged with the history of the area - a neighborhood that housed a lot of bars, brothels, etc starting from the US occupation in the city post WWII, which were forcibly evicted in the 2000s, then later replaced with the studios as part of a city initiative to ‘rejuvenate’ the area. I went to every single exhibit that was open and stayed until I was about to pass out from the combination of walking and art feelings. I chickened out of going to a restaurant alone when I was already exhausted, and instead grabbed a katsu sandwich from 7-11 to eat in my hotel room.

Day 3: Start of the conference. It was raining horribly, and I have big fears about walking in the rain with my laptop, so I skipped the first couple hours until it calmed enough that I felt okay buying and using an umbrella. The conference was in this giant exhibition hall on a peninsula in the city that was all fancy hotels, shopping centers, and an amusement park. My maps app kept trying to get me to walk THROUGH the amusement park to get there, which was a kind of ominous experience when it was empty and raining. I met with some friends and labmates, we got Singaporean food for lunch (chicken and rice), and went to some of the afternoon talks. There was a welcome banquet where a guy performed with Kendamas (japanese toy/prop with a wooden ball attached to a wooden thing with cups and a spike). He did a bunch of poi tricks with them, and seemed to be having the time of his life. They also opened the expo, where I discovered they did at least have the gundam head from the gundam factory exhibit left over (still cannot believe they would close it a month before the robotics conference). Me and one of my former labmates got dinner at a katsu place that claimed to be the oldest in the city. We had to split from the group to get it, since there weren’t any vegetarian options there, but it was really good. I discovered that my hotel is like 1/10th as fancy as any of the other conference hotels, idk what happened. Very jealous of the main venue hotel people who had a room overlooking the harbor.

Day 4: Got there in the morning, did some conference stuff. We got sushi for lunch in this giant mall right next to the venue. I ditched for half an hour in the afternoon to wander through a different park by the harbor, which was also very pretty. All the greenery is very green and the water is very blue. I took another break to try and work some on my paper, since I feel bad for not doing more of that, but finding a place with decent wifi is hard. I meet back up with my labmates to get dinner, at a nearby ramen place with vegan options. I got their signature yuzu shio ramen, which was good, but I still prefer the pork-based styles.

Day 5: Is the day I’m helping present. I go to my coauthor’s presentation and then stand with him at the poster session, and get to talk to a few people. I’m surprised how fast the paper comes back to me, even though I haven’t really thought about it for at least a year at this point. I get lunch with another labmate at a milk-themed restaurant in the mall. I’m weirdly charmed that in Japan, “milk” is a flavor? And that there are prefectures proud of their local milk? The restaurant has both western-style food with cheese or cream as ingredients, and a milk and cheese bar where you can get bread, spreadable cheese, and toppings. I run back to the hotel before the conference banquet, get lost in the other hotel the banquet is in, finally arrive and realize all my labmates are either ditching or got a different banquet venue, so I sit with a very nice person from the university of edinburgh I met at the poster earlier that day. I talk about firespinning and mugs because I’m incapable of not doing so. Every one of the venues has a different style of food and performance - ours performance is actually a lion dance, which is notably… not japanese, put on by students from a school in the local chinatown. It’s still really impressive, especially given that they did it between the tables people were eating at. Like, I’ve attempted to be a base for a cheerleading toss once, and it was hard for 3 people to hold one up - these performers were jumping on each other’s shoulders the whole time, while puppeting the giant lion. They kept having it pretend to eat the heads of the people it walked past, it was a good time.

I spend an hour or two that night on my Quest, which is that I saw some kind of peach jelly drink in exactly one vending machine early in the trip and didn’t buy it. Now I want it, so I’ve been wandering through the city inspecting vending machines to try and find it again. Tonight I wander up and down this shopping center street that has a lot of them, in the rain, but no dice. I buy peach flavored ice cream at the 7-11 instead and reaffirm my mission.

Day 6: I wake up feeling bad, in both a stress and a physical way. I stay at the hotel and work on my paper, then go to a nearby cafe and try to work on my paper, but they don’t have wifi. I go back and end up sleeping, which I feel bad about, but probably needed - I can get disconnected from my own tiredness levels when I’m doing extended crunch time for a project, and I’m trying to be more aware of that. I don’t go to any of the conference stuff, but do leave at one point to get the local kind of ramen from a place I saw recommended online. The style is called ie-kei, and is an emulsified mix of pork broth and shoyu with chicken oil, served with pork, seaweed, short noodles, and spinach on top. I redeem myself by ordering and eating in the restaurant alone. It’s good in a comfort food way. I go back to the hotel and alternate working and sleeping, and end up skipping dinner with my labmates because I still feel gross.

Day 7: I feel better when I wake up, but have already committed to skipping this day of the conference because I’m going to Osaka. I find another cafe that actually has wifi, and eat there to do some work in the morning. Tangent - people really go nuts for the egg salad sandwiches here, and I don’t get it. I tried one and thought it was tasteless and had that bad cooked egg yolk texture. Super not for me.

I check out of the hotel and take the subway to Tokyo station. I get there an hour early because I forgot when my train was, so wander around the station for a while. It is SO crowded and there are SO MANY stores selling train bento, souvenirs, boxes of desserts to give as gifts, etc, and every single one has a designated salesperson shouting into the void. It is the most sensory-overloading, maze-like place I have been in my entire life. I take great pride in managing to eventually actually find the internet-recommended places to get ekibento for the train. I buy one with more traditional food, and one kids one that comes in a fake JR train freight container, because I really want the fake freight container. I also get an apple-custard pastry and a crepe with cream and melon ball topping. And then I am exhausted, and still too early for my train, so I stand by the platform and am extremely confused when someone asks me for directions (correctly assigned english-speaking person who knows where the ekibento are at the tokyo shinkansen station, I guess).

I do get on the train eventually, and eat one of the bento (I save the second because I am worried the person sitting next to me is gonna judge me for eating 2 bento, one of which is definitely meant for children, but I will eat it eventually). I said I was gonna do work but instead I’m writing this and watching out the window of the train. I feel like everyone has their travel fixation - my grandparents laugh about how when my mom and brother would go on trips as kids, they’d get disposable cameras. And when they developed the photos, all of them were of ponds, lakes, coastlines, because they grew up in the west texas desert. I grew up in the flat, flat Texas plains, and now I’m like that about mountains. This train goes straight through them, and right past Mt Fuji. It gets to me how distinctive the landscape in japan is - I’ve looked at a lot of traditional japanese art as like, a precursor to modern styles in comics, because I find it interesting. And I feel like I looked at some elements of that style - atmospheric perspective, depth through stacking flat layers of scenery, the specific abstract-seeming way Mt Fuji gets drawn - and assumed it was entirely an artistic choice. But like… Mt Fuji just looks like that. The landscape just looks like that, with the fog and the layered mountains. The green is such a specific shade of green, and the blue is a specific shade of blue, and the buildings are all such a particular faded palette in a way I feel like must make Japan instantly recognizable on geoguessr, a game I am very bad at. I love looking at the cities and buildings, too - I wish I knew the words to describe the specifics of the style and design. I feel like I'm getting increasing city architecture obsessed these days, despite not having that language. Getting to see it is the bit of travel that really makes me feel like I'm experiencing something I couldn't anywhere else. I'm gonna find my hotel in Osaka once I get there, hunt down some food, then will probably try and do some more work before bed. Then tomorrow, in theory, Osaka castle and whatever else seems compelling.

[presidentkamala]

Ok im being SO brave and chugging a mug of peppermint tea before i suit up and GO ON A WALK and get my steps in but uhhhh emotional personal word vomit below that is too cringe and immature to share publicly probably lmao

Yesterday things were going really well, i brought my parents some of my muffins and two of the new farmers market apples and part of the brie wheel, and bc its a religious holiday one of my mom's friends invited us to a party in virginia.

But then i found out that my dad didn't plan on going (i also didn't plan on going at ALL and in fact i was going to do something completely separate) and my mom decided that she can't drive at night and she was like inviting me and hoping i would go partly so i could drive. And like we as a family don't have any kind of social life lmao and i also didn't want my mom to have to uber so i was like hey i can drop you off! TRYNGGGGG to do a nice & thoughtful thing to make up for why i wasn't going. And the main reason i wasn't going is bc this auntie LOVES to rub her hugely successful lawyer daughter married to a PARTNER in her firm (interesting if you ask me) with three children in my face and im like not in a place to uhhh recieve that energy rn (like along the lines of "[paragraph about how challenging parenting is and how successful her daughter is], turning to look at me and asking me how i "fill my days" and being intensely patronizing and smug about what a professional and academic failure i am, fake compassion, bringing up her daughter's 250k signing bonus completely out of nowhere, the works).

Well of course when i drop her off my mom's like no it would be rude not to come in and say hi so i do that with as much grace as i can muster and start driving to THE OFFICE on a saturday night because when i said hello this auntie was like no we'll be done with the ritual and dinner in 2 hours max and it wasn't worth it going back to my parents' and then back to auntie's place in under two hours

Except on the way to the office im like wait im in VA why don't i hang out in alexandria? And went down king street which has HUGELY recovered from when i lived there during the pandemic and was full of people and HAPPY COUPLES and FRIENDS ENJOYING DINNER and then Me with my whole foods loaf of brioche so i could get free parking like sitting on a park bench listening to a VERY poor rendition of hotel california

And after a couple hourse of walking along the waterfront, king street, etc, i texted my mom to see if she was ready to go and was met with TOTAL silence for. ANOTHER ENTIRE HOUR AND HALF and at that point i was just. Trapped in alexandria sitting there waiting to be called by my mom to pick her up from an event i was too ashamed to attend, filled with people who spent the last 10 years of my life gleefully asking me why i wasnt getting a masters or a law degree or being hugely devaluing of government jobs &work, who clearly have a different understanding about what's acceptable to prioritize, especially right now, especially in this moment, who i will NEVER be able to impress and who i will NEVER be able to give a reason good enough for them to treat me like a first class citizen

And reader i fucking lost it

Year after year after year i have to humble myself and apologize to everyone for not being this or doing that. Yes I'm still in [Agency] no im not engaged no i don't own a home no i'm not working towards a hugely lucrative shift to consulting. Yes my mom is parading me around like a child with nothing better or more important to do with my time. Yes i still remember every offhand remark and every backhanded compliment and every cutting remark. No i haven't radically moved forward in my life in a way you would respect

And the thing is i DID have plans last night!! And if i was more secure or more successful, i probably would have had no issues cancelling and coming to the function by myself. But im so behind in everything, and im getting old, and slower, and my chances of catching up keep slipping away

It all hit me so deeply - it felt like an attack, it felt like im being punished by my mom and everyone else for continuing to put off these things that are my duty, marriage and family or barring that career success on an astronomical level

It got worse when my mom finally DID say she was ready to go almost 2 hrs after the initial estimate. She immediately launched into transports over another guest who "isn't much older" than me and who was a DIPLOMAT and is now MARRIED TO A FRENCH DIPLOMAT and now they OWN A FARM IN POTOMAC WITH 10 COWS and it was the way she said it, so specific, so insistent about her. I don't know if im just paranoid but it felt like she was rubbing it in, i felt the walls closing in again and kind of shut down and i just said "sorry im struggling to regulate my emotions" bc its unfair to put all this paranoid shame on other people and she just looked so annoyed and disappointed and i felt completely overwhelmed by the need to just get away and be somewhere safe from judgment and disappointment and shame

Im not proud to say i relapsed into some self harming later when that interminable drive was finally over and we came home

And then today one of my OTHER cousins just announced their engagement like im SO.

I keep being made to pay the price for being single and for not being a dr or a lawyer.

It's getting old. Im getting old. There are bigger things happening in the world. Im a data analyst im a fucking unit chief i volunteer and i advocate and i work to see change like im not sitting on my hands doing NOTHING but i will NEVER be treated with respect in this family/community until i do get married or become a billionaire.

[gold-rhine]

Would you recommend Playing Star Rail to anyone? Why or why not?

no, i wouldn't. my own dislike of turn based games aside, here are the reasons:

1.Way too little content. Right now there are basically two regions and a starter area. Each has like 6-8 maps, every map is just corridors with like 10-11 chests and couple of puzzles on some maps. You go through basically all of it during main quests. They just released second half of the second archon quest. There are like some side quests, but they play pretty quickly. You can go through all of this in like a week max if you play slowly and bc some quests\puzzles are time-locked to make them feel longer.

There is simulated universe, which is fun at the start, but once you build your characters and figure out best buffs, it also becomes boring, because it's the same enemies in the same corridors. I enjoyed it for like a week, and now I play it once a week for rewards and thats it, which takes like 40 min.

There is also like hsr's equivalent of abyss. Idk, you can theoretically replay same fights over and over there until you get 3 stars, but like. I mean, if that's your cup of tea, I'm not kinkshaming, but personally I play through it once and that's it. so like. another hour in a week mb.

2.So, once you burn through available content, there is literally nothing to do but grind resources. I explain to you my daily routine:

1.log in. Do daily rewards missions for primos.

2.use autoplay to grind resources. mb upgrade characters if you can

3.log off.

because there is no exploration in hsr, there is literally nothing to do but replay abyss and simulated universe over and over

3.Again, because there is no exploration and limited number of quests, it's literally impossible to get primos if you want them without spending. You can only get them from daily rewards (like 60 I think?) and events. Like, if you already did quests and abyss, that's it, you can't get even one wish per day. say what u want about genshin, but if you actually play the game, you can get 2-5 wishes daily just from exploration and quests. And there are roughly bazillion more quests in genshin, bc it's a huge game that was out for years. I have 100% exploration on my main account in every region and I still have like 20 quests and hangouts not done there despite playing for like 1,5 years.

so in genshin, if you want a character and you spent your free event wishes etc, you can grind the primos for free. I know, bc I do on my new f2p acc, like you can get like 100 wishes per banner which guarantees at least one 5 star. I started Kazuha's banner with 0 savings. spent 30 whishes on kazuha and then 70 on alhaitham and then stopped pulling bc i didn't want to main alhaitham again lol, so probably could get another 5 star on hard pity.

In hsr, you can do nothing, but spend money. Like, I started Luocha banner with 15 wishes saved and at the end of his banner I was at 70 pity. I couldn't even get to 5 star pity. I happened to get him on the last day on 73 pity and win 50-50. But if I didn't, I couldn't go grind like in genshin, I could just spend.

So I think gatcha monetization feels much more predatory in hsr bc once you're through very limited content, you're out of options.

TLDR: play this game if you, like me, need to waste time and only have your phone on you. Like I'm often bored at work, this is why I make shitposts on tumblr and have several other time-wasting apps. Also make sure you're won't be tempted to spend money on gacha. Please don't spend money on this game guys. Its turn based, its easier than genshin, you literally DO NOT NEED strong characters to play, and like. Paying money so game can auto-play itself is just insane to me. Please don't. You can find cool looking anime art on the internet for free.

Don't play otherwise.

[sunshine-and-pink-skies]

Y'all! Its a new school year. Reminder in an Aide in a self-contained 3-5 grade special education class.

So at the very end of the last day last school year the the Principal came and talked to me about all the overtime I have. And I was like "I started out the year with the max amount bc it rolled over from previous years where I was the only aide." Seriously. And I complained about it to my teacher (who's fabulous. ) And was like "I'm doing all the things by myself! If they have a problem with my hours they need to figure it out. Bc I've been doing morning AND afternoon duty by myself everyday for 3 years now." For the record, The other SpEd class all have 2+ aides in them. Where my class only has me. They are able to duty is split up morning and afternoon duty between them. But I can't.

So this year. I got to school and my teacher goes "they're hiring another aide for our class." And obviously we're both ecstatic.

But also a little wary. Like teacher and I are on the same wavelength of crazy. We share one brain cell half the time. I'm use to things being a certain way. And it's a little scary to bring someone else into that.

And they've hired aides in the past that were incompetent and couldn't follow directions and made my job every day harder. And I had spent the entire year complaining. (I wasn't the only one complaining either.)

I'm not being egotistical when I say I excell at my job. My teacher was out 8 weeks last year and I ran that class by myself with no imput from anyone. I could be an actual teacher. I don't want to be. The Powers-To-be know I'm excellent at my job.

Its hard to work with people who make my job harder than it should be. You bet I've said something to my teacher when that happens. She always has my back. Its one thing I love about our teachership. We can't do this job without one another. And if I'm not happy to the point I say something about it she knows it's serious.

Anyway. We've had a substitute who's come in to get a feel for the position. And we get along. And she makes my day easier. I can actually leave ON TIME. she's officially applied for the job. The Assistant Principal asked last week what i thought in passing and i said "shes great! I love her." the Principal stopped by today bc they got all the paperwork in and wanted our opinion before they finalized everything. To which I said "I love her. And you know I don't love everybody. " 🤣🤣 I have never complained directly to her but I know she knows.

And like okay. I know my opinion doesn't count as much. They can and will hire anyone they please. And I will work with whoever. I will do my job and half of theirs if need be. I have before. But I don't want to have to. It's nice to have someone who seems to gel and is going to work well with us.

And I don't have to do afternoon dismissal duty! Only mornings. I like morning duty a lot more than afternoon.

-----‐-----‐---‐--------

In other news we currently have 9 students. And after 2 years of being at our max I'm constantly like "where's the rest of the kids? Is this everbody?" Bc it feels like there should be more of them. 😆 but thank goodness there isn't. Hopefully it stays that way.

We basically started with a whole new group. Having to teach our expectations is making me miss our group from last year. We really lucked out with them.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

Ok, so I may have buried the lead there on my life as to why no one has heard from me in forever -- first thing is because my every weekend is being spent with the guy that every guy I've ever gushed about pretended to be. I'm going to call him Bard, bc he will LOVE that. Yes, this guy is great enough I am even giving him a loving handle here.

It's not even like big huge shit -- he's just honest, and reassuring, and considerate, and respects me, and he listens and he coddles me on the shit that's not really important to make me feel secure while standing up to me on the shit that is to find a compromise (like his schedule sucks, and his two days off he hosts DND every other week and has band practice the other, and I'm like there's no time for me, just fitting me in -- didn't drop either but we agreed to pause them for 6 weeks to give us time to spend together to make me feel secure, and then I could come with or hang out in the other room if I chose, and non DND weekends or sometimes Saturdays can be spent at my place, not always his. Like he wants us both to have our lives but he gets I'm scarred and so willing to show me first -- with a clock -- that I matter by giving me a window to settle in). He met my older kids and brought Oldest a birthday present, and Boy Thing had been giving shit about the last guy who wanted to impress him sent a fruit basket. This adorable man had no clue what goes in a fruit basket (his first thought were melons) or what fruit baskets were so he bought the apples and oranges and kiwis and put them in a medium laundry basket. Boy Thing straight up laughed out loud at the sight, it was perfect. Every time he left my room, he'd be gone like at least half an hour -- the bathroom is like a 90 second walk max -- bc he and Oldest would get chatting about gaming.

He tells me I'm sexy and I'm beautiful but he also compliments things like how I make him feel understood, how I communicate. He knows I'm perfectly capable of defending myself if insulted or offended but also doesn't think I should ever have to.

And yes, the sex is fantastic and in a way that's fucking revelatory. He tries my kinks even if he's internally a bit iffy on the idea, bc he trusts its OK if he stops as soon as he doesn't like something (thankfully he's liked them all so far, initiating them at times now.) I had to red bc of something he said while I was going down on him, after trying to convince myself I was overreacting (bc honestly it was nothing bad, and would normally not have even fucking blipped my radar) and when I did, he immediately dropped out of the scene and sex and into taking care of me and what was it that triggered me and what came up and not only did I not get any pressure but not even any guilt -- like I knew he meant every word that all he cared about was me. I can initiate with him without feeling paralyzing fear of rejection bc there's zero mind games, zero manipulations.

The first weekend, we hadn't decided to spend the whole weekend together -- we were just going on a bookstore. We spent it all in bed, but not just fucking, we were talking. And the fucking? He couldn't cum. Even had a tough time staying hard. And for the first time in my life it was OK. Normally a guy can't, and it fucks with my insecurities so much that like no, I don't even want to be there. But instead we did everything we could and both reassured the other that it was fantastic -- bc it truly was -- and not an issue. Problem resolved but he's said like he wouldn't even think to mention orgasms if anyone asked him about that weekend that it was like 4 days of the best sex of his life, like how it can be hard to cum while rolling but the sex is amazing.

After I red'd out during the first time I was giving him head (it's a thing for him, but I'd been refusing bc he'd eaten asparagus and I warned him every such occasion would be followed by at least 5 days before his dick came in contact with my mouth again bc it makes semen taste just the worst). Going another round later in a roleplaying scene, he broke character a bit to ask about head, I said I didn't want to risk another round of sex derailed bc I got triggered since it'd just been earlier that day, he's like yeah totally get that, and both back into character and having a blast. I'm completely comfortable naked around him even if my legs have stubble, but in a sexy way, and never ever boring!

He's a musician, guitarist and bassist. He's a nerd. I recommended a book, and he immediately was going to buy a copy and I offered to loan him mine (a fave book of mine) and he has been slowly but diligently reading it and says it's better bc it's my copy and looking at it's broken to shit spine and pages that have been dog eared a million times just makes him love it more bc I love it. He wants me to come to band practice (if I can behave lol) and to join the party at dnd (if I can behave lol -- to be fair, those are my caveats, not his) but also wants to paint with me and take pottery class with me, and write a metal track that can be belly danced to (bc metal is very masculine in the tantra vibe sense, not the gender roles way, while belly dancing is pure divine feminine -- never meant to seduce, it was by women for women -- and I think that juxtaposition would be fucking amazing if we get it right) and likes hanging out with my kids (Oldest made him a dice set) and respects my relationship with B, and tells all his friends about me and wants me to meet everyone and is more worried that I like them than that they like me. He makes terrible jokes that crack me up. He sits through my storms with me. He understands that I push people away and am the poster child for trust issues and hangs through all my bullshit.

He would never want to hurt me, like truly, but also never lies to me to spare me.

We will literally spend hours past when he should be in bed for work on the phone, to the point that I, Little Miss Time is a Construct, have started watching the clock for time so he can get his sleep and I don't resent it bc he's so great about setting the boundary of he wants to stay up with me but has to sleep or will be late for work, and when we go over never blames me or resents me, but owns that he chose to do so bc he was loving it.

Yeah, I might be more than a little gone over him.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Resurrect Bracket (Losers Bracket) Side B

ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to [make it to the finals]

Propaganda below ⬇️

Amon

Being catholic is literally the only thing he allowed himself to keep that he got from his father (who was a priest who turned out to be cannibal feasting on children in the orphanage he built). Anyone else would go 'the person who taught me this never lived by this and was using it as a cover, there is no reason for me to believe in it anymore' but this madlad decided it's go big or go home (and he just lost his home ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and hold to it as if his life depended on it (which totaly doesn't represent how conflicted he really feels about his father despite the superficial hate, no sir, not at all, why would you even think that). His cross necklace was a plot point at other character's moral turnabout, his weapon takes a form of a cross, he talks about God when fighting etc. On a lighter note, he once spent all night doing pushups to stop feeling horny about his coworker. What a loser <3

Literally so catholic he cannot fuck he was in the same room as a woman and felt so guilty about being attracted to her he did push ups all night

He's such a catholic himbo he did push ups for 9 hours to distract himself because had a singular horny thought. I'm not even joking, that's canon

He's like if the antichrist made him catholic and he didn't find out until later

This idiot has the general disposition of a communion wafer.

Orphan raised by a serial killer catholic priest that I'll submit in a second. The priest killed and ate (he's a ghoul) the kids in the orphanage and it's even implied he fed the other kids the flesh of the killed kids like hello eucharistic parallel??? He did not kill Koutarou tho bc he loved him like a real son. 15 years after his father's been caught and thrown in ghoul prison and Amon's become a ghoul cop, Amon still wears the cross he had when in the orphanage *puppy eye emoji* also!! His weapon's ultimate form was a giant cross sword made from a part of himself (he became a ghoul at some point in the story). He used it to kill his dad (he failed bc it wasn't his dad's real body but kudos for trying)

I mean homie was raised by a potentially *censored* human eating priest so that’s. Something.

Justin

he's soo. idk how to describe him. he never takes out his earbuds (which are constantly blasting music), he's killed at least 99 (probably more) monsters by the age of 17, he thinks his boss is god, he dresses like a catholic priest. the autistic homophobic gay guy ever

He is a priest who can turn into a guillotine. Has killed at least a hundred people. He constantly wears headphones that play non stop death metal music at max volume claiming that doing so helps him hear the voice of God causing him to shout when talking so he can hear what he's saying and people have to repeteadly signal him to take them off so they can talk to him and when that inevitably fails knock the off. He eventually betrays the good guys after going crazy and allies himself with a demon who wants to take over the world. After beign damaged by a magic sun ray the left half of his faces becomes perpetually engulfed in flames.

[sasukimimochi]

Hi guys, so you might have noticed me being quite absent these recent weeks (which, at first bc i was just really drained) but shit's been hitting the fan recently one thing after another. I'm stressed and finding it hard to write at all despite wanting an escape from everything going on.

So as short an explanation as i can gather here...

I had to rush the man I live with to the hospital on my birthday, which some of you knew I had a rough birthday but not what happened. He's alright, but I spent six hours in the ER hallway while sort of frozen up, hoping that he didn't have a stroke or seizure. Luckily he didn't, but the experience obviously is changing how I'm treating his care at home so I can make sure it doesn't happen as frequently.

TLDR; spent six hours with the man i live with on my birthday at the hospital.

Then, my renters gave me a very impromptu notice that they're moving. They left the place pretty trashed outside and yesterday i was so stressed about it I was getting hella physical stress symptoms. (anxiety pins and needles, scalp tingling, fever) not to mention not having received the second half of rent, which was due already and hasn't been paid. Hoping to get someone new in but i need to write an agreement up to avoid stressors like last time...

TLDR; We're losing rent this month. Hoping to get someone new in but i need to write an agreement up to avoid stressors like last time.

+ We got an unexpected nearly 600 dollar charge from an insurance company (I need to make a call about it)

and there are a few more things I'm not going to list because of privacy but they're related to our home.

TLDR; All this is leading into me saying the next chapter for gom is very likely if not surely going to be delayed. I'm super stressed and its affecting my health because of all this irl business.

I will be trying to upload one thing this weekend I had prewrote before all this shit, which is a bonus scene for chapter 26 for a part i had to cut from it. I want to scribble something for it, but it might end up just as is, since this week is so terrible lkjfgdhfg

If any of you would like to help me out at this stressful time, i'll doodle mdzs for some donations (tell me an au of mine and who[max 2 characters], no specific requests beyond that) though it might take me a moment to get to them bc of all the stress. Send me an ask or a message on Kofi with your dono.

[mithliya]

When I comes to hair, I think that while hair texture (thickness, curliness, oilines) are huge factors, what the individual think is “necessary” hair care/styling is what can determine if long hair is considered harmless or not (safety hazard aside).

Like, I used to have hair down to my ass crack back in the day. Very heavy, oily, and very wavy/borderline curly hair. The only thing I’d do was wash it every couple of days and let it air dry. No styling or products (other than shampoo/balsam), and I’d mostly keep it in a bun or a low ponytail. And that was enough to keep my hair healthy (soft, moisturized, shiny, no split ends etc.). It was super easy, not time consuming at all.

After chopping off my hair to shoulder length, it grew out much more curly, like 3a/3b curly, but my routine was the same. Wash it, air dry. Still easy and not time consuming, and my hair is still healthy. Only difference to having long hair was that i spent 5 minutes less time showering, and needed less shampoo. For me, hair is harmless no matter the length.

I know that other people with my hair type spend a lot more time/money/effort to use products and care for/style their hair, and maybe that’s what they need to keep their hair healthy, but I also think that different standards and opinions on what constitutes healthy hair affects how “demanding” you perceive your hair to be, and thus how “harmless” it is.

idk like my hair gets tangled and i only tend to wash it 1-2 times per week max but that ends up taking me an hour & a half, most of that time is spent brushing my hair. i only use hair serum bc my hair is prone to being frizzy and it still takes a lot of my time simply brushing it. my cousin who has very curly hair tends to take around 2 hours and most of that time is also spent brushing her hair. my sister has curly hair and takes a lot of time with her hair bc she uses lots of products so that her curls turn out nice but her hair also gets very tangled so that probably takes a lot of time for her to deal with too. when i have shorter hair, its way easier to detangle it. and all of us have to use a LOT of conditioner to even make brushing our hair manageable so its not cheap either even if we dont use many products

[kobabeach]

gayme update

here's the games i played this past week while i was logging off for my mental health. you're gonna read this bc ur gay and autistic and stinky and so am i

Star Ocean

I went to Astral to get the Emblem, got Phia, also passed by the Tatroi Arena to get T'nique (I really don't like how he speaks like Yoda when he's very Chinese coded, but I think that may have been in JP as well?) and passed by Kraat to get Pericci, did the Muah Emblem sequence, got the Bunny Whistle, and I've spent the past day and a half just grinding a lot, working on Item Creation etc etc. In terms of Customize weapons, I've managed to get Roddick's Aura Blade, Ilia's Kaiser Knuckle (made by Ronyx), Pericci's Q Power Punch☆, Millie's Charm (for Roddick), and Cyuss's Cyuss Special. I've had to quote unquote "spark" the Originality talent on all of them though (Ilia exempted ofc, she has no need for Customize) with the help of Pericci using Violin 2. I'm not going for all talents on everyone because that is an ordeal and it'd be wasting a lot of time I could be using on actual gameplay, but I may just add Originality to the two fuckers I need to Customize shit for. Now, I've also been using the weapon duplication exploit in the arena, you basically enter with no weapon equipped (this may work with armor, I need to look it up and cross-reference it with a few fansites and guides) and when you enter the ranked matches, you equip the weapon you want to clone. When you lose a Ranked Match or win that Rank's entire roster, you get tossed out of the arena, but regardless of whether you lose or win, the weapon you have equipped does not decrement from the ones in your inventory. I've done this for Ilia's Metal Fang for the Kaiser Knuckle as well as Cyuss's Silver Sword, Pericci's Cat Fang☆, and Roddick's Sylvance. Sparking the Originality Talent otherwise is a fool's errand and I advise anyone playing the SNES version to use this exploit if you're going for the ultimate weapons. I've also got Tri-emblems on Roddick (one Tri, one Charm), Cyuss, Ilia and Pericci (the former three having two), and I'll try to get more people with double Tri-emblems, as well as Dream Crowns (Roddick, Cyuss, Millie, Pericci already have that). As for the other Abilities, Millie has her Alchemy maxed out, this way she can make Orichalcum for a few ultimate weapons. I've revealed the Favorite Dishes of my entire party in the status screen, I probably won't be using them much, the Art skill is pretty good for Ronyx and Roddick, their copying skills are good enough, especially since I can buy Magic Colors without hurting my wallet much. Authoring is also fine, I need to get T'nique and Phia's skills that they can learn from books up to level 7 as well, and for Smithing I think it's alright too, Millie can handle that one, though I may also work on that on Pericci since she has the Talent for it. Compounding and Crafting are good as is, Crafting takes a few attempts, but I can copy Rainbow Diamonds all I want, and that's basically all I need for Dream Crowns. I'm gonna keep levelling the stat affecting skills for the people who haven't maxed them out yet, though, just to see how broken I can make my party, that's what's keeping me going right now. I'll try to do the Arena with everyone to the best of my abilities, and later on I'll try to figure out how to do the Gabriel fight before wrapping up the main game. Unlocking all music compositions... Maybe? I won't really use them. Cat-Fu♪ and Pa Kwa Zhang obtained (PKZ on both Ilia and T'nique), as well as the 7-Star skill for Roddick. I still have to get all items available on the Familiar skill, too. The Ethereal Queen's dungeon is a definite. Oh and I also need to build up T'nique and Phia a bit, they're at 20 and 17. Their time will come soon, it'll just take like 10 or 20 more in-game hours. I'm using fast forwards.

Clash at Demonhead

The face I was making in sheer disbelief when I beat this game (good ending)

Super interesting game, has a lot of good ideas, but doesn't stick the landing a lot due to its sheer jank. Literally everything in this game is jank.

But it's a fun enough proto-metroidvania. I'm a fan of how everything has its internal logic, the game acts a lot like an adaptation of some property, its jokes are characteristically shounen gag anime.

I'd recommend this to most people if you can stomach the messy gameplay, it's one of the most interesting NES games in my book, and I love characteristic NES 'nihonjank'. On top of that it's hilariously unhinged. I guess you could compare it to Undertale?

The Undertale of Dark Soles...

Super Mario Sunshine

Okay so I was binging Scott the Woz the other day for fun and he mentioned how this has "the tightest controls Mario's ever had" or something, and I think Nitro Rad said the same and I'd like to ask these people what fucked up personalized version were they playing?

Maybe it's because I'm a keyboard man (lion) but the controls feel so squirrely and loose. They're fine with FLUDD (Flash Liquidizing Ultra Dousing Device) but in the bonus stages where you're naked, it's pretty bad, a lot of overshooting and lack of air control on top of those stages' camera which make it hard to distinguish the distance of each floating platform. Hate those, even if I'm getting better.

Either way, 45 Shines and 63 Blue Coins. I was wrapping up Gelato before doing Pinna and I got three blue coins while getting the 100 coin Shine. Got Yoshi, finished Pinna and decided to get some blue coins earlier.

Bianco and Ricco are super cleared, I used some savestates on Gelato 8 because it's dogshit. I could probably do it without it, I didn't savescum too much, but I'm almost 30 and I don't want this in my life.

The most unhinged this was, was how having the camera face Mario from a birds-eye view actually helped the most in the Orange Yoshi secret Reds, fucked up.

They should have made it so what matters to get to Corona was like, the amount of Shines you get, if you could like do almost any shine at any time like in 64, while still being able to dip in and out of worlds while also being able to rely on blue coins for filler Shines so you didn't have to do the more annoying missions, I think non-believers would enjoy this game more.

Sonic Adventure DX (BetterSADX on)

Very nostalgic game of my youth. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are done, around 28 emblems are obtained. I'm gonna do Amy, Big then Gamma, then Super Sonic, do the Trials and Mission Mode, and then lastly just grind out Chao in the backburner.

Sorry I don't have much to say.

Zillion

Super good Impossible Mission clone. I'm almost done with the cyan section of the Norsa HQ, Room D5. Currently have 7 ID cards and one of the five floppies I need to take down the main computer.

Fun game to do kinda blind. Having fun just tanking some of the laser barriers to amass as many ID cards as I can. Fuck God And All Living Creatures

If you like weird old 8-bit games, please consider this one on the Master System. Good stuff.

Cu-On-Pa SFC (Endorfun)

Made it to from Stage 2-2 to 5-1 on Normal (World 2 to World 5 in other words). Really enjoying the maps that rely more on chaining Color and Thunder Panels to access unreachable Life Panels, but the game in general is super good. I'd like to try out the PC original sometime. Good stuff, I'm glad T&E Soft's SNES port made me aware of it! And so kinda did StrangebuttsPHD's old YouTube Poops. The PC version has a lot of strange sound bytes that are used as "positive reinforcement subliminal messaging"? Very weird but at least they're trying to encourage positive thinking, especially on younger kids, which is nice ofc. And it's also kind of my sort of vibe, I adore feelings of unreality. Watching footage of the original PC version is such a trip, for better or for worse... Seems like Normal/Easy and Puzzle both have 10 worlds of 10 stages. I'll do my best to clear them as blind as I can. I can't really find many guides online... But the game doesn't seem to be overly complex, Puzzle Mode may make me retract that statement though.

VIP and Wall and Alaska Mix 4 (VIP Mario 4)

This actually isn't my favorite VIP, that one's 5. Though this one is kinda fine-ish. Super cleared the first world, all VIP Coins obtained, I had to use the occasional savestate though. I'm getting too old, even with unlimited lives.

Sonic Heroes

"Marriage?!?!?!?!? no way!!!!!" - sonic "buddha" the hedgehog

Having a ton of fun with this game, I already beat Team Rose sometime ago, so I'm doing Sonic now. I'm at Frog Forest right now, Rail Canyon and Bullet Station are terrible, the rails are way too jank for what they want you to do in them.

Biggest problem is how they fucked up Adventure 1&2's physics to make it faster by cranking up the acceleration according to something I once heard years ago on Sonic Retro. Deranged.

Did you know this game was gonna have an even bigger roster of characters? Like parties made of like Mighty/Ray/Metal Sonic, Bean/Bark/Fang (the gift of prophesy..), Chaos/Gamma/Big, Amy/Cream/Rouge?

The SA1 team (CGB) was the biggest issue apparently, people in staff had a problem with bringing back Chaos and Gamma like that. Someone suggested that Chaos didn't really pass on to the afterlife in Sonic Adventure, he just went up into the sky, and someone replied with like. "That's just sophism!!!!!!" It's so fucking funny and I think it speaks of how deranged Sonic Team kind of is.

Anyway they still brought back Shadow so make of that what you will.

Fire Emblem 1

Okay so, full disclaimer, I am using savestates on this to cut back on iteration times from just straight up resetting. Even if this is like The One That Purposefully Gives You A Billion Units Each Map.

I took the time to level up people a bit in Chapter 8 due to its arena. Got people only up to level 8 for now, don't wanna break the game. Roger and Bantu were good enough to stonewall the fuckton of Knights and reinforcements in that chapter, but I think me picking Bantu for this map may have been a bit of a fluke?

Or not, I may have remembered that Manaketes are just super strong. Level 8 should be good enough for the midgame. Next arenas are Chapter 11 and 16, so I'll try to get more people up to speed there.

I did savescum a bit for Roshea's grind but the way Cavaliers' arena rosters are set up are different from how most others have it, the power scaling isn't as linear. I had more luck going for the Cavalier early on then going for the Mage while making sure it misses at least once than risking it with the Mercenary at the bottom tier.

Everyone is properly leveled up, Gordon is at Lv7 because his Arena got really tough for the poor guy. I'll let him pick away at normal on map units for now. People who need to be leveled up a bit are Castor, Merric, Wendell, maybe Rickard and Julian?, Vyland, Sedgar, Cord, Darros, Draug and I guess Jagen, just in case I need back up.

It's kind of fun trying to learn how best to handle the maps, but I'm gonna be real these maps are pretty ass. I'm just way into turn based strategy sadly. Should play that Vyland Emblem hack, apparently it has edgy homophobic jokes.

Also I was perusing FE Wiki and the way I went into Basilio's page and the way my eyes just made a beeline for his toes. I love being sick in the head.

Gdleen

Just exploring Edona after catching up on the story thanks to a Japanese streamer's archives, after this it's back on the money grind for equipment.

This game's lore is fantastic and I love how weirdly everyone talks, even the save is called like. Pot of Souls or something? But apparently this game doesn't fully portray the Gdleen books, just a bit of 1 and 3. The game's story isn't the most obviously told thing as there isn't that much of an intro, it kinda starts in media res without much explanation, this isn't much of a good thing either.

I do want to see if I can pirate Yuto Ramon's original books after this and Digan no Maseki on PC98 and read them on my own time with a dictionary and OCR to help with my subpar Japanese knowledge. The gameplay is pretty subpar, there's a few options for battle, but they're really not very useful, you can mostly coast by through sticking to the bread and butter Attack, Defend, Item and Run. I do dislike how easy it is for you to die in this game.

I feel like the Stamina counter below HP and MP has an effect on that, like the Vitality and Life Points on Beyond the Beyond. I'll see if I can find scans of the manual to know more about this mechanic.

RPG Maker 2003

Okay so I got gifted this and 2000 in like December, and I sometimes just open it up to do unhinged shit. I'm Kind Of a programmer so I just have fun programming shit. And now I'm seeing if I can make an ATB system closer to FF4-6, just for fun?

Was just reading up on programming custom systems on Yadot's site, while also taking notes from other RPGs I've played and how their systems work.

Currently have to figure out text displaying through pictures, the on in the image is static, make a simple attack menu (attack, magic, special, item), figure out a row system. Item and magic submenus, I don't have to go to in detail I think? I'm not sure I'll figure out scrolling menus for now. And get started on the ATB gauge system.

I'll try to code attacks and make a basic game with this whenever. I'd like to make some custom characters for it.... Maybe bara.

. . .

And that's it. Why'd you read this.