#I've got a bunch of stuff that's getting donated this week and a lot more that will eventually go

[jedi-bird]

Today I acquired several new Star Wars rpg books I've been looking for (and left a lot behind because I didn't have my master list updated), some shiny new dice, and a few new cheap collectables. I was also good and didn't spend fifty bucks on a plush gelatinous cube (even though I really wanted him). Did get some new miniatures that I'll eventually get around to painting once I get my work space finally set up. I have a very long list of things that need to get done before the summer heat and I'll probably only get a small bit completed; progress is progress though.

[ros3ybabe]

Daily Check-in: April 7, 2024 🎀

Today was such a good, productive day. I woke up early, had my entire room and bathroom reorganized and clean before 12noon, did homework, and started my depop shop (which I'll link below!) super happy with today, has to be one of the best Sundays I've had so far!

🩷 What I Accomplished:

completed pre class stuff for chem that was due today

completed pre class stuff for chem that was due tomorrow

reorganized bedroom

cleaned bedroom

reorganized bathroom

deep cleaned my bathroom

started my depop shop + uploaded some listings

called my dad to come help donate the stuff I'm not selling (he's gonna help me tomorrow)

planned out some more stuff for this week

got an extension on the Lab report that was originally due last Wednesday but my friend has my lab book (by accident) so the profesir extended the precious extension

did dishes

cooked a yummy dinner

washed my comforter

washed my sheets + pillowcases

washed all my towels + robe

washed all my laundry and put it away

threw out a bunch of trash from my room/bathroom

decluttered my closet

did some reflecting on the previous week

🩷 Good Things That Happened:

got the extension for my lab report

got a lot done after waking up early

my dinner was really good

my depop listings are getting likes

a rental house i really want to get is back on the market

🩷 Things That Could've Been Better:

my boyfriend and I got into an arguement, so not doing that would've been better

did not drink enough water

🩷 Stuff to do tomorrow:

reading quiz for psyc

study Spanish

update depop shop a bit

financial aid meeting with advisor

work an 8 hour shift

not the worst day. It's definitely been a good day.

check out my depop shop! will be uploading listings regularly!

til next time lovelies 🩷

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Choice exploration + finished scenes💙

Hello and welcome new followers, here's an update on how things are going with the game! Firstly a big thank you to the sudden influx of support I got this week, I'm happy knowing people liked the little meme video I did! :,]

This post might be a little long since I had to rewrite a few things, I was trying to upload a picture of one of the new areas you can go in but I got an error and couldn't save what I wrote. :,S

Anywho, I mainly focused on quality of life changes and continued working with the one of the endings you can get at the start of the game.

I don't really know where to start but this ending took a lot longer than expected to really hit what I've been trying to go for. At first, it was going to have two different endings. I took out one of them because I didn't have much of a connection with it and I liked the idea of it being straightforward instead. When I went back over it, everything happened too quickly for my liking. To fix this I went back and added a few choices to at least give you an idea of what the area is like and how it effects the player(Y/N) while making sure the dialog transitioned correctly with what you see on the screen. It's nothing too wordy but I do like it a lot more than I did before. Even though this is still considered one ending there is a alternate version you can get depending on a certain choice. Towards the end I fixed up all the spelling errors I could find and happily enough, there wasn't many. For right now I'd say this ending is finished! Yay! x]

Here's one of my favorite CG's I drew for it:

I love how it turned out because I really want to do different angles and perspective through the terrain, I think this one is my favorite so far! :,,]

Here's a evening time version of it:

It's suppose to be raining in this image but I still need to practice getting the angle correct. :,,]

I'm also fixing/brainstorming up the second/third ending. This one will have two different areas you can navigate through to get an idea of where you are and a few hints of lore that will be referenced later on in the game. Those that have played the [Extended Demo] you probably know which ones I'm talking about. >;]

I already like the idea of them but for one of the paths, I didn't have enough time to branch it out and make backgrounds for it in the [Extended Demo] so here's a peek of a placeholder since I'm still sketching stuff out, nothing is finalized yet. :[]

Super close to the cabin section, yay! I actually miss writing/drawing out the segments in the cabin a whole bunch so I really can't wait to fix up that part once I'm done with the swamplands. :,,]

I said last week I'd post some of the new backgrounds/areas so here you go:

Kofi update:

I also had a small talk with my play testers and one of the things they brought up is that I should be promoting my ko-fi better so from now on I'll have little mini doodles doing so at the end of every game development post as a way to promote it! :] All donations and tips help tremendously while I work on the game. If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do here! I was able to use previous tips to get a new wrist support brace when I'm drawing so a very big thank you to everyone who gave a tip! :,,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I enjoyed answering the asks I got recently this week! I'm trying to finish the rest when I can including the ones I remember that got deleted. There were some I genuinely couldn't answer because it would require me to mention major spoilers/the questions have spoilers in them. :,]

This post is getting really long now so that's all I have to discuss, thank you guys very much for all of the encouraging support this past week, I appreciate it a whole bunch! :,,]

[gffa]

Be proud of me, you guys. I got kind of knocked down the last week because of shark week and some bad reactions to food I ate, which had me utterly wiped, so today has seen me: - Get six hours of sleep, go me! - Up to over 4,000 bookmarks on AO3, where I'm probably halfway through the Star Wars stuff and then I can wrap up with the DC stuff. It took longer than I expected because I was doing some external bookmarks for some of my favorite X/Tokyo Babylon and Weiss Kreuz and Bleach fic, but mostly it's just that I've read A LOT of Star Wars fic. orz - Half an hour of exercise which was actually really hard considering how wiped I was, but I did it! - Finally started cleaning out the fridge and getting rid of the perfect temp (so cold it's on the edge of icing over) soda, you guys don't know how hard that was to let go, I love that stuff, it was exactly how I liked it, but I am determined to cut out the caffeine and aspartame. But. So hard to let go!!! - Six more bags of garbage on top of the usual stuff and about five more (little) boxes (of so much detailed stuff you have to go through piece by piece) to donate. - Finished Iron Widow and I would like Heavenly Tyrant to be out now, please. Currently, I'm trying to psych myself up to get back to cleaning the fridge again, I started Jade City by Fonda Lee and am enjoying it a lot so far, and now it's time to relax with stupid on-line stuff, I have a whole bunch of podcasts and video essays to catch up on!

[cordria]

Need some help

I've found myself in a little pickle, and I need some thoughts from people who are not involved. If you'd like to read and answer the ending poll, please read more. Poll at the end.

Necessary backstory part 1: When I first met my brother in law (BIL), my husband referred to him as an 'asshole'. BIL was raised in a family with very 1950's thoughts of how women are supposed to be, drank all that kool-aide, and got a huge dose of 'I get everything I ask for' on top of it.

In the years I've known BIL, I've found my husband's initial description to be apt. Always needs the best stuff, saves no money at all, bounces between jobs, gets everything he wants but never seems to be happy. Took up drinking about ten years ago and never looked back. Haven't had a sober interaction with him in years.

Necessary backstory part 2: Every year, my in-laws do a big family reunion at the end of December. Plan it a year in advance. Put down a deposit on a large party room. This year, in early-ish December, BIL texts and says he got the greatest tickets ever to go to Mexico - super cheap flight and resort stay. Only the plane leaves the day before the big family get-together... so can we move it?? Everyone reorganize their schedules instead of him just not come?

And... yes. Apparently my mother in law bent over backwards to move this family reunion for him. Everybody lost our non-refundable deposits. Had to do the reunion at my mother in law's tiny little house. Had to listen to my husband complain for a week about the whole thing.

Necessary backstory part 3: BIL was married and had two kids (currently 18 and 21), then divorced and found this new girlfriend and had two more kids (4 and 6) with her. When he got these tickets, he had framed it as a 'family vacation' and said 'the kids were going to have a blast'. Apparently when he said 'family' he meant him, his girlfriend, and his two newer kids. Not his older kids, who had thought they'd be invited as well, only to find out they don't apparently count as family anymore.

So we're walking into this reunion with feels, right? And lots of people are walking into this reunion with FEELS. Tense would be a good word for it. Ready to punch BIL into oblivion if he says the wrong thing would be another way to describe it.

SO. Story time.

Holiday gifts are being exchanged. We get BIL and family a gift card for a dinner out, and get nothing in return (as usual). Towards the end, BIL pulls out his wallet and grabs a bunch of money. Calls his two older kids over and hands them each a hundred dollars. That's it. That's their entire holiday present. Then he calls over (most) of the rest of his nieces and nephews and hands them each fifty dollars. My son gets skipped.

Normally, I'd call him out on it, because he's drunk and probably forgot my son (who was quietly playing with his new Lego set in the corner) even existed. But the atmosphere was tense and I was definitely on the side of just let it go. It'd take more than $50 to stick my hand in that hornet's nest.

Nobody really noticed. My daughter did, even offered to split hers with him, but I shook that idea off and just gave her a hug for being awesome. Repeat the phrase I've said plenty: gifts are given, not demanded to be received. BIL is under no obligation to give everyone a gift - even if he's an asshole for skipping just one kid, it's his choice.

Party goes without too much of a hitch, but everyone is definitely happier when BIL leaves early to go to a different party. (although the amount of bitching about how we had to move the whole thing and he left early?? was just insane to listen to)

Afterward the party is over and we head home, daughter goes shopping with part of her money (donated some to the food shelf near our house, saved the rest) and gets some doll thing she's been wanting. Son picks out a dinosaur that roars when you squeeze it. (They ended up with a significant sum of money from several relatives.)

We go home, write thank you cards. (yes, I'm old fashioned. If you get money or a gift in the mail, you send a thank you card.) Daughter writes out her cards (she had five to send), son does his four (same four, then not one to BIL). Thank you cards are getting too expensive to send for not getting a gift. Mail them off, think nothing of it, move on.

About a week later, I get a text from mother in law asking when my son's thank you card to BIL would arrive. I reply back that he's not getting one. If one does not give a gift, one does not get a thank-you card.

CUE DRAMA. OMG levels of drama. BIL was too drunk to remember what happened, and thinks he gave my son some money, and refuses to be talked out of it. Thinks that if he really missed someone, he would've been told at the time. He's dug himself a deeeeeep hole and nobody's going to be able to get him out of it.

Current situation, which is now almost six weeks of this insanity: My daughter's birthday is coming up, and BIL is threatening not to come and bring a gift if we don't send him a thank you card from my son. My instinct was to respond 'you were not invited; I don't want your drunk ass in my house ever again', but thought better of that before I clicked 'send'.

MIL is on BIL's side, thinks I should just send the thank you card and keep the peace, that it's just a silly little card and it doesn't mean anything. Husband is on my side, thinking BIL is throwing a man-child sized fit my three-year-old is old enough to know not to do.

Nobody's arguing that I'm in the wrong here, btw (other than BIL). I'm not the asshole in this situation. Nobody thinks I am.

HOWEVER. Sometimes you can stand on the moral high-ground of one battlefield and watch the war fall apart around you. Makes you wonder what's the bigger goal? I'm not 'fixing' my BIL with this. I'm not making a dent in the toxic hell-hole of a FOX-riddled black hole he calls a brain.

So now I have to make a choice - a bigger choice than just the stupid $2 thank you card. And here's where I need your thoughts.

Option 1: send the stupid thank you card. I'll likely hear about this later when he tries to lord his 'win' over me, but it'll stop the family rift. My children will not have to be in the middle of an almost-50-year-old throwing a tantrum any two-year-old would watch in amazement. Even though I and my husband would be willing (and happy) to never see BIL again, it's harder to unilaterally cut that tie from my children's lives. They deserve to get to know their family, and understand their family - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Option 2: send an essentially blank thank you card. He'll get his card, but I am not sinking down to actually thanking him for anything. 50/50 on whether this would solve anything or make it worse, though. Would simply depend on his mental state when he gets it.

Option 3: hold onto my moral high ground, disinvite him from a party he wasn't invited to anyways, and wait for the chaos or for BIL to forget about it. This could possibly be the stake that drives BIL away (not sad at that thought). My worry is that where BIL goes, my children's nana will go as well. And the ultimate worry would be that we (me, my husband, and our kids) stop getting invited to family functions, since MIL coordinates most of them and she has zero backbone when it comes to BIL. It's a not-unreal possibility that this could cut a good portion of my husband's family out of my children's lives for some time (and most of the rest are wonderful people). And even if the worst was not to happen, this'll be a constant source of stress and strain on everyone.

So I'm... not sure really what to do. My family thinks I should hold my ground because morals are more important than having a relationship with a drunk asshole - and that there are more relatives to fill the hole. (all true) My in laws think I should just send the card because I'm not 'winning' anything here and I should look at the bigger picture. (also true) One even offered to purchase, fill out, and mail the damned thing for me.

I just... I dunno. This is just stupid. So, so, very, very stupid. Stupid enough it makes me want to cut BIL out of my life just because I don't want the anxiety surrounding this any more.

I'm trapped in a stupid, bizarre situation and I'm to the point where the thoughts of random internet people I do not know apparently mean something to me.

tl/dr: My asshole of a brother in law forgot to give one of my kids a gift, and is now causing major family drama by demanding a thank you card.

[t4tvglow]

Sorry if you've been asked this before or if it's too personal, but are you microdosing T or taking a 'standard' amount? I'm just asking because I'm a trans masc butch and I've thought about going on T, but I don't know if I want to micro dose or go with a more standard dosage. I have a lot of anxiety about the whole thing for many reasons! No need to answer if it's too personal. I hope all goes well with your job applications!

not too personal at all! gonna ramble a bit (also thank you!)

so i started T in 2020 after i got my top surgery (which was on destiel day... imagine waking up to That. whee!) pretty unorthodox way of doing things, but alas. started small of course, eventually worked my way up to the max dosage of 0.5, but then my blood started doing weird shit (it can raise your hematocrit and such, people with higher T levels can have more cardiac and blood stuff going on sometimes, just like E can affect your bones) so i had to be brought down incrementally until i was at fucking. 0.2 for fuck's sake.

after donating blood, i actually managed to get my hematocrit down to a nice regular number and bumped back up to like, 0.25-0.3, which is where i'm at now! it's a middling dose, but i take it every week. i try to do wednesdays so that my midcycle is a saturday, when i have more time to go to the doctor and get checked out. but also lately, i have been apathetic and lazy and Not Smart, so it's been anywhere from thurs to sat, lol. Don't Be Like Me.

so, really, there are a bunch of reasons a person might take a lower dose or not, you gotta go to your checkups and make sure everything else is in working order. nobody wants funky blood.

i totally understand your concerns, though. i'm about to say some Stuff but please do Not take my own flippity floppy feelings as me trying to discourage you from doing this; the benefits CAN outweigh the things that being Not A Man, Strictly™ can make feel kind of weird. every single person who transitions is going to feel different ways about the different aspects of how it changes your body and how it makes you feel is going to be personal, don't let anyone's mixed feelings influence your own true feelings and desires.

i'm personally torn between whether i think the lower dose i'm on is a good thing or a bad thing, because i am personally struggling with my transition right now and with feeling "attractive" (though for me a ton of that is internalized fatphobia more than being read as a guy)

so some part of me is like "let me go on the dose that'll make the changes happen Faster so i can lean into being more masc!" but then my nonbinary butch ass goes "but wait not too much" so it's like. uuuugh. it's not easy right now. but i don't know that stopping would make me feel better, especially because i do Not want my period back 🩷 lol!!!! like I do not want to Detransition necessarily, but sometimes i wish i read more as A Butch like i used to beforehand.

that's likely just because my personal life has led me to let other people think i'm a guy so they'll use my pronouns, though. people still ma'am me, my voice hasn't changed so drastically that people hear it as a man's voice yet, it just kind of Outs Me As Trans. totally destroyed my singing voice, too, which i do lament.

but overall i prefer my voice this way in the grand scheme, and i LOVE my body hair i am absolutely THRILLED by the body hair it's so much more comfortable this way and it feels sexy. the acne can be hard sometimes, but it gets easier. prepare for butt hair also that's one of the weird ones lmao and Scents changing can throw you off but you get used to it. it also impacted my hairline? but not too bad. my face shape Definitely changed like if i showed you a picture of pre transition me you'd be like "is that your cousin" because she is NOT me. i was very fem for a long time. had a short window of embracing being butch while i still had tits and felt really good. i don't regret my top surgery necessarily as much as I know that NEITHER option would make my nonbinary ass fully happy. i'd always, to some extent, long for the opposite of whatever i had going on.

shame we can't just take tits on and off. cmoooooon.

but yeah so that's my Journey and Current Place with testosterone. it's not the perfect happy story i wish i could give, but i wanted to be honest about how complex transition can be and how many things factor into how we can feel about it.

for me, fatphobia and a lifetime of comparing myself to women and always being insecure about how i look no matter what stage of my life i'm in kind of overtakes the joys sometimes, but that's just ME. that's my mental hangups and my things i need to unlearn, not a universal thing that will make Everyone regretful or upset.

there ARE joys, there are so many wonderful things about being on T, and i think if you've been thinking about it for a while and have things you want to see change, i say go for it! you only live once.

so! most important thing: you could always start by microdosing, and if you decide you wanna accelerate it, talk to your doctor! the same goes for if you ever wanna go back to a smaller dose. nothing is set in stone, it's a very fluid process that you can take at your own pace and you can start and stop (safely, by tapering) whenever you want!

i am sorry i ranted so much, there's a lot of this that i haven't gotten off my chest until now, hahaha. i genuinely hope this didn't disappoint or discourage you. transitioning medically has definitely changed my life in a multitude of ways, and there are some checks and balances to it, but at the end of the day, i'm making a new me! and that's a wonderful thing imo

best of luck with your decision! take your time, and just remember that if you're Super Happy, you can crank it up, and if you're not, you can dial it back down! very flexible. i hope you settle on an option that works for you and brings you so much happiness and excitement and comfort and peace 🩷

[danpuff-ao3]

Danni! For the Behind the Scenes ask --- 5 & 12!

Scarlet!! <3

5.) What is the perfect environment for you to write in?

MY OFFICE!!!!

Eddie (my partner) and I decluttered and reorganized our home recently. We still have some smaller projects to tackle, like the kitchen cabinets and the outdoor shed, but...the point is, we've made a lot of progress!

(Forgive the rambling but I'm really happy and wanna talk about it!)

Our space has been super cluttered and chaotic for a while because my partner's work hours were insane, and they've only been slightly less insane the past year. And over time, my own motivation to stay on top of things, basically alone, waned. But late November/early December we were super motivated to get moving and we did! Every weekend we'd tackle another room. Donated a bunch of excess stuff. Got supplies we needed to set up some stuff. And voila!

When we moved in, what is meant to be a dining room (but neither of us has use for a dining room) was made into a computer room, and our spare room was...basically a library? But for our fantasy books specifically. But our needs changed over time, so now the dining room is my office! And the spare room is his fantasy/MTG/DnD/Nerd Cave.

So rather than just my desk crammed into the computer room (slash junk room, basically) I now have my very own space! My HP bookcase is in there, a bookcase for my astrology books, a desk bookcase for reference books. I have various figures all around, and my mugs on the wall, and SNARRY ART. SO MUCH SNARRY ART. I AM SPOILED BY SNARRY ART AND I NEED MORE. Ahem. Anyway. Basically I have a very special space and it's perfect and it brings me so much joy and I'm all teary just typing about it.

ANYWAY. I now have the Ultimate Writing Space. But I've not properly used it for writing yet. 😂 It's only been properly set up for a few weeks and I've not written much since I submitted White Lies & Silver Bells.

Wait wait I lied I wrote Again last weekend 🤣 So it might be more accurate to say I've not written much there yet. And tbf I was fangirling too much about writing fic for A_Loveunlaced's art to properly appreciate the experience. 😅

But it's great! The aesthetic is great. I have much inspiration from all the Snarry. I have candles to set the mood! I have comfort in the layout, from my laptop stand, to my ergonomic keyboard and my vertical mouse, and my footrest! I have lots of lighting options between my whimsical string lights and the mood lighting from our Philips Hue bulbs. I have much coffee! And since my office is what should be the dining room, it's so close to my InstantPod!!!! Just a few steps, grab a mug along the way, and COFFEE!

Ideally I'd have some ambient noise playing. I have enough room to prop up my ipad and pull up YouTube to pull up a video from MiracleForest or one of the Hogwarts Pomodoro videos. That way I have chill noise that isn't distracting and nice imagery!

Idk I have everything I need in one little area and it has such a good vibe and it genuinely brings me so so much joy. I still have a few art pieces to hang but once it's all finally finished I plan on sharing pics with everyone!! 😁

And with luck, I'll get more writing done there this weekend!! I'm getting a head start on Thon 😎 (in theory, anyway.)

12.) Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

Omg!! Probably. But what is it...? 🤔

The big one that I can feasibly write soonish would be soulmates! Even though Snarry are soulmates so every Snarry fic is a soulmate fic, but I digress. But I have an actual idea for one!! Mega angst and wrongness and weirdness. I've made a few attempts but the time isn't right yet. It's not come out right so far, so I just poke at it every few months and see how I'm feeling about it.

Others I have vague desire to write, but have no actual ideas for yet, would be like amnesia!! I want a good amnesia fic where Harry forgets Severus and has a super negative reaction to his present life and Severus being all heartbroken and defensive...😌

Also! I'd love to write a case fic, I just don't know that I have the right skillset for that. Or maybe it just requires more time and thought than I can really give right now. Who knows! But I really do need more Snarry case fics in my life.

Oh! I actually do have an idea for an arranged marriage fic, but I'm still hacking out the details on that one.

OH!! And a sex pollen fic I need to write.

Okay so I have more Actual Ideas than I thought I did, oops. But yeah! Lotsa cool stuff to play with one day. But I don't really wanna pump out stories for the sake of writing an amnesia fic, but to have something really solid that I'm really excited about. And even when I do have ideas, other ideas are ones I'm more jazzed about and steal my attention...😬 So I'll get there one day! Maybe!

Behind the Scenes of Fic Writing: 30 Questions for Authors

Answered: 1, 4, 23; 5, 12

[fairykukla]

Season's Greedings, 2023!

Every year I try to post my Greed List (What I want for Christmas" which includes the even more vital "Do Not Want" list.

Do Want:

1. A functional dishwasher.

We have one, we've had it serviced several times, and I don't think it's ever going to properly wash dishes again. It needs to go away, a new one needs to be installed, and I have terrible decision fatigue about figuring out which one I want. I want it to wash dishes. I don't even fully understand the choices I'm faced with.

You can contribute in one of the following ways: cash or electronic transfer donations to the dishwashing fund, solid recommendations for a specific make and model, or bad "features" I should avoid.

2. Laundry on-site: I own a washer and a dryer. The washer is down in the basement, but has nowhere legit to drain. The dryer is still at my neighbors' house, in the garage.

You can either be part of the team to bring the dryer home and set it up, or throw some cash at the plumbing problem, or offer assistance to solve the plumbing problem.

Those are the Big Things. Here's the little stuff:

A handcrafted card. I'm a sucker for those, and it will be kept, treasured, and probably displayed every year for a long time.

BJD shoes. All my dolls have lost shoes due to the vinyl or adhesives disintegrating. I need all kinds of shoes, particularly in 1/4 and 1/6 scale.

Shoes for me. I need a good solid supportive pair of shoes to wear to work.

Feed my dish collections: black octagonal glass pieces are always welcome. (They say "France" on the bottom.) Also Steubenville Woodfield pieces, particularly the dinner plates which seem hard to find. All colors welcome.

DVDs: we can't stream, so I need hard copies of anything I want to see. I'd particularly like Marvel stuff (especially recent movies, I'm way behind), Leverage Redemption, anime, or something unusual that you love and aren't sure if I've seen it yet. Ditto for CDs.

Funny collectables: I still love gnomes, mushrooms, fairy aesthetic items, the Nightmare Before Xmas, Tea Party items, etc.

Cat toys. My cats like them and I love to play with my cats.

I do like shiny jewelry, but I appreciate handcrafted items the most.

Hand crafted items. Support an artisan and it's like getting two gifts in one.

I still love to get Lush gift cards. One year I got several and it was The Best Xmas Ever.

Toilet Paper. I am always delighted to receive disposable paper products like TP, paper towels, paper plates, etc.

Food: teas are always welcome. Heck, just bring me a bubble tea and I'll be thrilled! Candy is super tricky; I'd rather get a card and warm wishes than candy. Baked goods are welcome early in the season, but I really don't want a bunch of sweets in the house the week before I give up sugar altogether. (Jan 1) There are very few places I can go to eat, but I'd love gift cards for Thai Nivas, any sushi place, Panera, Cafe Mochi, or Pearl.

Food that you canned yourself. Jam, jelly, apple butter, even regular pickles (because my partner likes them) or, if you want to see me happy-cry, pickles with no garlic or onion in the mix.

Experiences: indoor things are fraught. However, if you want to give me a gift card for The London Tea Room (or better yet, offer to take me for tea) I would love it. Outdoor concerts or performances might be ok, but talk to me about it first.

Do not want:

I have a lot of post Covid issues, as well as my pre Covid IBS problems. Add in my Big Sugar Fast from Jan 1st to late March, and suddenly certain holiday standards don't work for me.

No MSG. This means soup bases, seasoning packets, salad dressings, flavored snack chips, etc. It also means no Alfredo or tomato sauces, and no mushrooms.

No garlic, onion, chocolate, coffee, or peanut. None. Zero. I can't have it in the house. Cross-contamination is a problem. If one molecule gets in the food I can't eat it. These were all things I loved to eat before Covid; now they are completely and totally ruined for me.

Try not to make me part of your Christmas cookie baking. May I suggest instead that you bake some salt dough "cookie" ornaments, and paint one to give me for my tree? Cookies and sweets are cruel unless you give them to me very early in the season.

I hope this helps.

[eponymous-rose]

Wednesday!

MEETING DAY. Not as hectic as usual since I'm not running a seminar this afternoon (we usually have three seminars a week, but because of the big conference so many people are out of town that two of the three were cancelled).

Read a few emails on the bus - the highlight was a request for an interview from some high school kids working on an English project about climate change! I sent them some potential times to chat. Got to work a little early and worked through a bunch more email: got the seminar info from next week's speaker and passed it along to our admin to put up on the website and department calendar, got some additional info from the student I'll be writing a reference letter for, found out about a blood drive with popups on campus (I signed up to donate next week!), an invite to a social on Friday night with faculty and students (I have D&D, so that's a no thank you!).

Taught class! I was a little nervous about this one because it's been AGES since I had to look at this kind of electronics/thermodynamics stuff, but it turns out it's not that tough to explain and the students were extremely engaged so there was a lot of fun back-and-forth. We also went over their first homework assignment (due next week), which I think they followed along with pretty well. We'll see how that goes!

Right out the gate, it's time for the Day of Meetings to commence! Met in person with my PhD student, who immediately pulled out his computer and pulled up his code to work on some debugging. Basically, he has to repeat an operation 60,000 times and currently it's taking 2 minutes per, which is way too slow. And, considering he's parallelized his code and is working on a supercomputer, that's WAY too slow. Like, suspiciously. So we ran through and searched for bugs and tried to figure out what's going wrong when he finally decided to pop up some older code that ran just fine in 8.9 seconds. So he's going to work on incorporating some of what he did in that code in terms of optimization into the new version (something about delayed compute is just not acting like it should) and I'm going to ask a colleague whether he's ever run into this problem on the same supercomputer.

Time for a break! More email. More good email, as there's a notice telling me a research project has been funded! It's not a giant one (one year of funding), but it will pay some of my salary this summer (plus a grad student!), there's money for two publications, and it's aligned with the project I wanted to do for the European conference anyway, so now I'm just actually getting paid to do that side project. Heck yeah. Fingers still crossed about a much, much bigger project (collaborative over 3 years) that I'll hopefully hear back about soon. Sent the good news to my grants administrator and also sent a thank-you to someone who sent me a copy of her successful application from a couple years ago.

More meetings! Virtual meeting with a friend - he's a couple years past tenure but at a very small and isolated department, so we both find work topics to support each other on. We also submitted the aforementioned much, much bigger project together a few months ago, which was a trial by fire where we discovered we genuinely really enjoy working together. We talk a bit about that (I work out that we're not going to hear back until June, booooo) and we spend some time discussing a review article that I was commissioned to write by February that I've looped him in on as a co-author. I bring up my PhD student's coding woes and my friend offers to send him some sample code that might help. We chat pedagogy for a bit and the joy of tiny class sizes (he's teaching a tiny thermo class this year). We also confirm we're both going to the European conference and I yell at him to submit his dang abstract already. Good chat!

Up next: in-person meeting with one of my Master's students! He's trying to finish up his degree a year early, and I'm just now realizing I might be able to apply my newly acquired summer funding to him if he needs it to finish his degree, I'll have to think about the logistics of that. I actually co-advise him, but his other advisor is off on a field campaign so it's just us this week. He shows off some new figures and we fix a quick bug in his code together. I am delighted when he parrots the "justify every single assumption you make" statement I have been trying to instill in him the last few weeks, and he shows it in action with his new sensitivity testing. We go back and forth for a bit and I realize he seems really nervous about coding this new technique, so I get to tell him there's a prewritten package in Python that will do it all for him. Phew. He also hangs around after the formal part of our meeting is done for some career advice that I hope I could help with a bit. Also a good chat!

Normally I'd be rushing off to run a seminar, but it's canceled this week and I kinda want to take advantage of that and go home early again. Email from my grants manager congratulating me on the funding and asking for some paperwork to start that routing. That... sounds like a job for tomorrow, honestly.

Up next: I have no meetings or classes tomorrow so I'm gonna WORK FROM HOME BAYBEE.

Something I wanted to do in the New Year is be more aware of how I'm spending my time at work, so I think I'm gonna try to do little summaries here of what each day entails. Hopefully also kind of interesting/useful if anyone's interested in academia?

For reference: we're on the quarter system, classes started on the 3rd, and I currently teach one class per quarter (heavy research-focused department, so very light teaching load). I also currently supervise 1 PhD student, 2 Master's students and 2 undergraduate research interns.

Monday!

Checked email on the bus to work, which mainly consisted of me seeing a colleague had received an endowed professorship, me writing her an effusive congratulatory message, and then me editing back the message a bit so it was less embarrassingly over the top. Also sent my students a reminder about their homework due on Wednesday and our little field trip tomorrow morning and accidentally sent it to last quarter's class, whoops. Luckily a former student quickly notified me of my mistake and I got it fixed!

Class was great - lots of flipped-classroom stuff that worked well even with only two students in the room (it's a conference week, everyone's traveling). I knew from previous years that the students had really, really struggled with this one equation, so I had them do a couple of examples in class and after working through the first one together, they both nailed it on the second try. Had to cancel a meeting with one of my undergrad research interns after class because the other members of our research team are out of town this week. Where is everyone? Well, at a conference and doing a two-month-long field campaign on the east coast. Forgivable. She offered to send me some of the work she's done thus far, so that's handy!

Went to check email after class and found that apparently a new remote meeting had popped on my schedule for immediately after class with an old peer mentoring group of mine (fellow 4th-year assistant profs in tangentially-related fields - we all did a professional development course last year together). Luckily it was cameras off so I could snack and decompress a bit while we caught up and made some strategic plans for the quarter.

Okay, FINALLY time to check email in earnest before my next meeting. 36 new messages since I checked last. New software package I need to bookmark and keep in mind for later work. Updates from the conference I'm technically attending virtually this week. Reference letter request from an undergrad student; add to calendar! Title and abstract to get added to the website for a seminar I'm hosting in a couple weeks. Reminder that the Zoom recording of my class is available to put online (which I promptly did). Triple-check with our tech guy that we're good to go up on the roof tomorrow to set up instrumentation for my class's term projects (all good!). Time flies, so here's the email with research progress from my undergraduate research intern and a handful of questions, we'll answer those and see how she likes jumping into a new dataset. New grant opportunities, job listings, a bunch of easy stuff to mark off. An essay about allocating time each week into the categories of Teaching, Research, and Service and strictly adhering to the percentages laid out by your tenure/promotion committee. Got a few minutes before my next meeting so I'll try it this week? Ish? Maybe? Looked sidelong at the new schedule, sure, we'll try that this week. Sent an email to my collaborator who's on a field project to see if we can do a remote meeting tomorrow to chat about a couple research proposals. Queued an email for next week's seminar speaker to see if he can send me the title and abstract for his talk/PhD entrance exam next week - no sense freaking him out before Wednesday, so we'll do a scheduled send.

Next up, meeting remotely with my former postdoc advisor! We've set up these meetings to "work on research projects" together but honestly this week it was just listening to him tell a very entertaining story about his car breaking down in rural Missouri and also listening to him describe a truly tragic tale of his very fancy sandwich getting thrown out of the office fridge by accident. That's scientific collaboration, baybee. We did talk research for a bit and he mentioned wanting to collaborate on a paper (he offered to pay for it out of the much more substantial research funds that come with his 30 extra years in the field) so I'm gonna come up with something for that by our next meeting in two weeks. I like working with him - we've published a couple papers in some pretty high-impact journals and he's always let me take the lead and go for first authorship without butting in, only providing support - so this is a fun prospect! I do have to submit an abstract this week for a European conference that'll be happening this spring, so maybe I can go ahead and lean into that idea a little.

It's now getting a little dark and rainy and I'm flagging a bit but I still have an hour before the afternoon seminar, so probably time to do a little course prep. Did some "grading" (just checking completion certificates for an introductory module the students had to go through). Fixed a mistake in Wednesday's lecture (why is there an anemometer when I'm talking about thermometers???). Reviewed some of the more complicated topics in Wednesday's lecture to make sure I'm not totally lost (some thermodynamics I haven't looked at in a while, thermocouples, semiconductors). Replacement slides uploaded to our course management system.

Aha! Email back from collaborator, she's going to be on a research flight tomorrow and won't be able to meet. All good, I don't have much to report anyway. That frees up an hour tomorrow, woohoo.

Okay, students have a homework assignment due a week from Wednesday, so I'm gonna post it this Wednesday. I have a good homework assignment prepared, I just needed to go in and write up a nice answer key. Got that done (along with some sample Python code to provide them with) and the homework assignment is scheduled to be posted, so it's time to look at next week's lectures. I've inherited this class from someone whose course notes can be a little scattered, so this is usually a bit of a process. Only two lectures to prep for next week, though!

Took a break from lecture prep to go to today's seminar, which purported to be about a really dodgy geoengineering scheme (redundant descriptor, am I right?) but in fact just rigorously tested said scheme and demonstrated it would actually have the opposite effect. Super fun and interesting seminar!

Okay, back to working on lectures for next week. Somehow got both of next week's lectures done before the end of the day, so those should just need a little polish and they'll be ready to go! Uploaded them to the course management system but sneakily and they won't appear to students until I've checked them over.

Tomorrow: going to the roof with my students to set up their term projects, then tons of sweet, sweet, meeting-free office time carved out. Hope this doesn't come back to bite me with a million meetings on Wednesday (...it will).

Important: work is done by 5PM. I try very hard to adhere to "leave work at work", which is not as much of a pipe dream as it seems, even for R1 tenure-track.

[inkabelledesigns]

Hey gang, I have something special to share with you.

https://youtube.com/c/AdrenalineDubs

If you know me, you'll know I've been a part of Adrenaline Dubs since the beginning, a Sonic comic dubbing group that mostly focuses on IDW. We do a lot of charity streams to raise money for good causes. It's a very Sonic thing to do, use your powers for good.

Right now, AD is hosting a stream marathon week to promote the Sonic Hacking Contest, an event where fan creators can show off their hacks of Sonic games. It's an annual thing that's existed for almost two decades now, which is amazing. I can't believe I've never heard of it before now! Landy, our voice of Sonic and the primary guy that runs the channel, is playing a bunch of hacks this week to celebrate the amazing work being done in the community.

Additionally, our charitable cause this time is cancer research. Looking at the channel, you may have noticed Rouge is in the thumbnail this time around. Rouge is the primary role I voice at AD, and they have been an important support network while my dad battled cancer. He passed away in May of this year. The group asked if they could use Rouge in the content for this one as an homage, and I'm honored. My dad was one of the few people to know about my voice work and actively support it. He was also a charitable planner and worked with a lot of charities to help them get gifts and funding. I think this would have meant a lot to him, to see us do this. It's been really hard since he died, some days I'm fine and others I'm like a watering can, but I'm trying to do what he asked, live my life and find my happiness. And right now, the way to do that is by lifting my fellow artists up and continuing to create.

I've seen firsthand how a lot of cancer treatment stuff can go, and I've been amazed at how much cancer research has evolved in the eight years he fought the fight. There is so much amazing research being done that can save lives, and funding it is important, especially with a virus still devastating so many hospital systems who need more space and staff. If you have the means, I'd like to encourage you to consider watching and donating to the cause. There's a lot of perks, from certain donation marks going towards art commissions and voice requests, to milestones like showing off previews of future AD content, to just a generally good time celebrating our community. I've got the house to myself and will be joining for as long as I can today, and hopefully throughout the week I can come along for the ride. It feels like the right thing to do.

Here's wishing you all a wonderful week, and I hope you enjoy the Sonic Hacking Contest and AD's coverage of it!

[asimovsideburns]

Okay I /think/ I've asked this before but I can't find the original question if I did: What are some of your all-time favorite podcasts and what makes them stand out to you?

OKAY OKAY OKAY

LOVE to talk about podcasts!!!

(not in any particular order)

1) Welcome to Night Vale. A classic. The first podcast I ever listened to, and in fact I didn’t even really know what a podcast was, I just used my computer to go to the website and play the episodes there. I dropped off at some point, but then eventually got into podcasts and actually knew what they were, so I picked it back up again. I still am not current.

WtNV was an amazing, incredible thing to me! It had surreal horror-comedy, which I had never encountered before; it was a way for me, a person who hates scary stuff, to finally enjoy what other people loved so much. It had music I’d never heard before! It had a canon gay main character in the first episode!!! WtNV was, in many ways, a formative experience for me. It also has the single scariest moment I’ve ever experienced. I do miss the days when it was all over tumblr, honestly, it was so incredibly fun.

2) The Adventure Zone (and, in spot 2.1, My Brother, My Brother, and Me). If WtNV was my introduction to podcasts, this was the beginning of my personal podcast explosion. Seeing all the animatics for this, along with the clips from the MBMBaM tv show, is what got me to figure out things like “what is a podcast actually” and “how do I listen to podcasts easily” and “who the fuck are these mcelroy guys”.

I decided, okay, everybody’s talking about them. They seem pretty funny. I’m going to check them out. So what did I do? Did I treat it like a normal person? Of course not! I listened to every mbmbam up until the first taz episode, then I listened to every taz episode, and then I finished the mbmbam episodes. I listened basically every waking moment of every day. TAZ is the second thing I’ve ever written fic for (and the first podcast). I will, for the rest of my life, fondly remember the weeks I spent with the constant company of the podcasts in my ears.

3) Not Another DnD Podcast. I think this was my second actual play podcast. It’s extremely good! You just… really do have to power through the first bit, which is… something. Like, “I put the podcast down and only came back to it because of podcast withdrawals” something. I was just very uncomfortable! It’s a podcast that is often funny, often crude, and, surprisingly, often very touching. If you’ve ever seen the full “what an honor. what an injustice.” quote, this is where it’s from, and if you told me that while I was listening to the first episode I would never have believed you. Fondest moments are watching the campaign 1 finale in a livestream with just so many other people and texting my mom the truly unbelievable amounts of damage one of the characters was doing to the final boss every single turn, and the incredibly wild charity livestream they did where they had a bunch of CR1 or less creatures fight in an arena, tournament style, with donations affecting what happened—draw from the deck of many things and the animated armor gets banished! someone else draws the wish card and brings it back! it gets annihilated again! resurrected again!

It really is just a lot of fun, and the cast’s chemistry and friendship shines through at every moment.

4) Let’s Make a Music. Brian David Gilbert, Laura Kathryn Gilbert, and (depending on the season) either Jonah Scott or Karen Han take tweet suggestions themed around a prompt word and turn them into songs. Very fun, and they’re pretty dang good at the music thing, too.

5) Wow If True. This is a pretty recent one! I don’t usually go for podcasts where it’s just, like, people discussing things and sometimes interviewing people, but I follow one of the hosts here on tumblr so I was willing to give it a shot, and I’m glad I did! The concept is that it’s all about memes, but in practice it’s really more about just… existing on the internet? It’s not a comedy podcast, like most of the other stuff I listen to is, but it’s super interesting!

The hosts have great chemistry, they’re fun to listen to, and the editing and audio quality is quite frankly way better than any podcast I’ve listened to that isn’t making a lot of money and/or done by Professional Recording People (whether that’s musicians or people who do many podcasts or whatever). It’s a great way to 1) hear about the New Memes that are going on outside your bubble (or figure out what the hell is going on inside your bubble) and 2) get some interesting info on how other people interact with the internet. Recently they talked about disability and accessibility both on and off the internet, which was really cool.

6) Second Star To The Left. Alright, bringing it back around to WtNV-style audio dramas, SSTTL is my newest podcast. It’s also the one I’ve been the best at keeping current with so far, but that’s mainly because I started listening when there was still only one episode. It’s funny how you find things—I followed someone for her fanfic, and then years later read some of her original work, and then like literally a couple of weeks later she revealed that she had co-written a podcast, so naturally I had to give it a listen.

It’s about a scout who goes to an alien world to make it habitable for human life. She’s canonically disabled (prosthetic leg) and her scout-minder, who is the only person in the universe with a direct voice line to her, is a nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns—and all this in the first episode! I hear they’re supposed to fall in love, too. So far the vibe has been… slice of life long-distance annoyances to lovers in space with occasional emergencies and science that is, while sometimes a bit improbable, not actually impossible/wrong given what we know right now. Also, I absolutely love the way they treat disability—Gwen has a prosthetic leg, and that didn’t stop her from becoming a scout; another character has an issue come up that causes a possibly permanent condition, and the way it’s handled is with incredible care and compassion.

Speaking honestly, SSTTL is probably my favorite podcast right now, and I encourage everybody to check it out so I’ll have people to talk to about it. I’m not sure how long it’s planning to run for, but I hope it’s a while, because I want to listen to it forever.

[trans-xianxian]

getting to know you

tagged by @wenofqishan ty harker 😌

why did you choose your url?:

well you see wei wuxian is simply trans

any side-blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them:

hmmm well my old cql blog was a sideblog to my main on my other account that I literally never go on anymore but then I moved so it's on its own account now so idk if this really counts as a sideblog anymore? but my other account has a few sideblogs the only one I rlly use anymore is my art blog @mossy-rat!

how long have you been on tumblr?:

oh good god far too long... doing the math I've been here a solid 7 years (derogatory). but I've had this blog for a little less than a year and my last blog a little more than a year... at the end of the summer it'll be two years combined!! I got into cql like... Weeks after the last episode aired lmao

do you have a queue tag?:

baby I don't even have a queue

why did you start your blog in the first place?:

hmm well I started my first cql blog because I liked the show enough that I wanted to blog about it but no one can know that I like things so it got its own blog but I moved to a new account because it was just getting annoying having my cql blog be a sideblog and there was just a bunch of stuff I wanted to clear out/I wanted a better tagging system

why did you choose your icon/pfp?:

well you see wei wuxian is simply trans

but this is an exclusive pride month special... my usual wei-wuxian-crying-at-nevernight icon is because that scene makes me feel things so much and the acting.... *chefs kiss*

why did you choose your header?:

I don't have a header bby!!

what’s your post with the most notes?:

on this account it's a donation post but as for like... actual cql posting it's this one abt wei wuxians self worth problems. on my old account it's this one about lan sizhui and jiang cheng lmao

how many people do you follow?:

a pleasant 110

have you ever made a shitpost?:

everyday I'm haunted by that tony hawk wei wuxian post

how often do you use tumblr each day?:

😔😔😔

did you have a fight/argument with a blog once?

baby I've been in arguments you can't even Imagine. people have deleted their blogs because of me. most of the popular cql blogs have me blocked. I Live to antagonize the general public of tumblr, never shut the fuck up, and have no sense of self preservation.... of Course I've gotten into fights with other blogs before and oh it's happened a lot more than just once

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this post’?:

spiteful and belligerent

do you like tag games?:

I do! I don't usually actually do them when I'm tagged but it's fun to learn about the beloved mewtchuals anyway

do you like ask games?:

yes so much!!! tho I always feel bad when I forget to answer things for a million years or sometimes I'm scared no one will respond and well that's just embarrassing skhdmzuns

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?:

I definitely don't have any Tumblr Famous tm mutuals but I have some Popular In The Fanbase tm mutuals tho they are few and far between because most popular cql blogs are evil... I think meisha is probably my post popular mutual? but she's on indefinite hiatus now :"( so I'm gonna say that hannah and teddi are probably my most popular mewtchuals by cql fanbase standards :^)

do you have a crush on a mutual?:

no but I love you all sm mwah mwah kiss me on the mouth etc etc

hmmmm I'll tag @jiangchengspsychiatrist @evakant @arla-fett and @ahomeboylives but of course no pressure *hands you a neat rock that I found*

[sa-kae]

(Danny Phantom voice) "I'm going goth!"

sorry I'm a bad lesbian and I didn't post for lesbian day of visibility, so here's a kind of late pride post!

I'm Kaelee, a 17 year old big ol Femme Lesbo Lez Dyke Lesbian! (She/her or maybe they/them? I have no idea) I love animals (especially reptiles and amphibians), drawing/art, video games, and cool weather. I also have a lot of (expensive) health problems, both physical and mental, most of which isn't treated bc I'm currently in the diagnosis phase, which is the longest and maybe even most expensive part, at least in my case.

I have diagnosed clinical depression/anxiety which I am on meds for and see a therapist, and I have a bunch of pain problems, which could be anything at this point. There are days where I'm just in constant pain, extremely nauseous, and/or just have zero energy. On top of this, my parents divorced last year and me and my mom moved out, and while I've already been more independent and paying for as much of my own stuff as I can, I've been trying harder to work to lessen the burden on my parents, which is hard with my health. I had to quit my actual job due to stress, school, and my health, and am now babysitting, but I normally only get 2 days a week and this week and last week I only got 1.

Long story short, me and my family are broke.

My CashApp is $KaeleeA

My PayPal is paypal.me/kaeleeah

If you can donate, any amount helps. But if you can't donate,

please reblog!

If you want something in exchange for money, I do draw and will do commissions. I need to make a commissions specific posts with examples and stuff, but please message me if you're interested and we can discuss price. I do pencil, ink, watercolor, marker, and digital. I can do stylized (honestly it varies so much based on my mood) or realistic. Either way having a reference is very preferable; basically, if u have a reference, I can draw it.

Help a broke lesbian!

[sturdy-nerdy-stitchery]

I've been watching that new Netflix show with Marie kondo about tidying up! Well some of the show gives me stress because it reminds me of all the clutter and crap that we have in our house...but... It does help in ways to get me organized! These are all my cross stitching cloth and needles... 90% of this was donated by my next door neighbor because she no longer used it! She also gave me a gallon Ziploc bag full of DMC thread but all my threads already organized so I don't need to worry about that LOL!

Marie Kondos method is to keep things that spark joy... Keep things that you truly love and that you want to have around... And if it doesn't interest you anymore or doesn't give you that same feeling like picking up a new puppy then get rid of it and I've already got rid of quite a few things that are going to head to Goodwill!

But I'm really pleased with this box because before I just had them in a tote bag just shoved in there and now everything is where I can see it.

Will I use these tomorrow? no... Will I use the next week? Probably not... Will I use them in a year? I highly doubt it but maybe! The thing is... Cross stitching gives me joy and I don't want to get rid of this stuff because I want to use it one day when I'm not so tired...

I would highly recommend the show for any and all Crafters were following my blog...Yes it may give you anxiety to watch... But when it comes down to it she does have useful tips on how to keep organized and I think it'll be really useful for all your crafting stuff when a lot of us might tend to throw it in a box and forget about it...

Heredia comes from an Asian mentality living an area where space is limited even including your living space until you have to organize your space effectively and only keep the things that you truly want to keep... A lot of times in this day and age of specially As Americans... We tend to buy things because it was on sale or because we have the space or because we want it or because it was the deal of the day... Our house just fills up with so much stuff

But if you think about it... A lot of Asians good. Japanese, Koreans, etc.... They don't have a lot of space to work with and so they have to really think deeply about what they want to keep, especially when their space is limited and they can't keep every single thing they want or buy... And I think that's where Marie Kondo's mentality comes from... Not a minimalist "get rid of stuff" kind of attitude but to value quality over quantity. You can still have more than 30 books as long as those books give you Joy and quality in your life.

I'm only two episodes in but I'm already using some of her techniques and advice! I'm making use of the small space I have in my office... And it's really small... So that I can utilize all my space efficiently

so I encourage all of you Crafters to go out there... to go to your spaces start work on organizing! Start getting rid of things that you thought you were going to use but it it doesn't hold your interest... find new ways to display your things or the store them so that they're not just piled in a messy bunch.

I know you can do it!

[pbandjesse]

Oops I deleted my post. Thankfully I was only talking about last night and hadn't really gotten to write much of the day because I keep getting distracted.

I'm really glad to be in bed. I'm very tired. And I don't feel 100% but I do feel a lot better than I did yesterday. Today was really a good day and I do feel very happy.

Last night was a different story though. I was miserable and I couldn't sleep. I ended up going through Facebook and try and figure out who was married for my graduating class. Because this year is 10 years since I graduated from high school. Which is Wile to think about. I can't believe that that used to actually matter. My people would have reunions and things. You couldn't pay me to go to a reunion for my high school. And then I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible pain. It was like a charlie horse from my side all the way down my leg. I got up a few times cuz I thought I was going to be sick. I was up for a while and eventually I was able to take a Motrin and feel okay enough to lay down. But I was still in pain. James is 1000000 degrees all the time so his body heat lulled me enough to go back to sleep.

I woke up briefly when James was leaving for work. I didn't even feel him get out of bed. But he came and gave me a hug before he left. I really needed to keep sleeping though.

I let myself sleep in until almost 10. And that's been kind of normal right now just because it's cold and I'm tired and haven't been feeling good so I haven't been sleeping well. But it's not like I had a lot to do today. I got up and I got dressed. I had a bagel. I watched videos. I'm most of them watching those SCP read through ones and I've been really enjoying those. They're the perfect amount of Creepypasta but they don't have to have a conclusion which is always the weakness in a creepypasta. So it's been very nice just Mindless sort of creepy and fun.

I left here around 11:30. I biked over to dickblick to get Sharpies for the kids. Which are way more expensive than I thought they were. But ended up getting a great deal on 12 pen Sharpies for like $7. The woman said they were actually mislabeled because they should have been $12 but I want out in the mist occurring and she still let me have the price.

I left there and I went to 7-Eleven. I got lunch. And then I grabbed the bus to go to work. When I got there I found that a whole bunch of stuff I've been knocked over in our storage closet. I went to go talk to coach Banks who sort of runs lunch time. But parent was yelling at him about her child being suspended. So I noped out of there. I found another t-shirt at all. But I just cleaned it off it was fine. I ended up having a funny conversation with health aid because she wasn't sure if I was a student or a teacher. And I explained who I was. And she was just like I've never seen you here before. It was cute.

I found some new organizational tools for our cart. So now each table has their own basket with their own supplies in it. So there'll be no more arguing. So is very proud of myself for that and then me and Chelsea were able to just chill. There wasn't a lot that we needed to do.

And we had a really nice day. It was really small class today we only had about 11 by the end. Just with the snow that was coming in and there's cheerleading tryouts in basketball practice. I think the robotics team also just started up again. But that was nice. It was nice to just be able to connect with the couple kids that were there on a one to one level. And they made good art and that was really nice to see. We talked about foreground middle-ground and background. And how you can use line weight to show those different distances.

We also have the art store today. And the kids are already raised enough money to have a pizza party. I was very proud of them for donating to each other. And they got to have a cool thing over it. Will probably save it for next week. But I'm so very proud of them.

When I woke up this morning it was very heavy on my heart but I wanted to talk to Damien's mom. When he was brought to our class for the first time. The couple days before. I was warned that he was really tough to have in class. That he was on the Spectrum and that teachers found him very difficult. But his mom is great and that if there was ever an issue she would come and get him right away and not to worry about it. But that's not been my experience with Damien. He's wonderful. He's a sweet loving little boy. Sometimes he has breakdowns. Sometimes he can't focus. But he is always first to help me and he has a really sweet temperament. And so I really felt like I needed to say something to his mom today. She came early to pick him up because his sister was doing some kind of presentation at an event. And I pulled her aside and I was like Hey I just really want to let you know how much I enjoy Damien. And I told her everything and she started crying and gave me a hug. And you can just tell she works so hard with those two kids. She's a really good mom and I'm glad that Damien was able to be in our class. He's a good boy.

We finished up today. We did vocab in Jeopardy Style. Where they had to say the definition and then someone else had to give the vocab word in the form of a question. Only about half of them understand that but it was so fun. We played a game and then we wouldn't have snack and then it was time to go home. Me and chelsi got to get out of there by 5:30 which was awesome.

I got the bus and I was able to get back to my apartment only a couple minutes after 6. I packed up some stuff for dinner and then I went to James's place. He made Tex Mex and use some of the stuff that I brought with me. And we watched videos and we talked. He explained the game he made to me. Which has a whole lot of numbers in it is hard for me to get but seems to have a really nice system of rolling dice that I hope this DND friends enjoy. And we hung out for a while. And we talked. And then he walked me home.

It had started snowing and he likes walking in the snow so it wasn't completely one-sided. We just enjoy each other's company and we talked and had a nice walk back to my apartment. He said goodbye and he went back to his.

When I got here I checked the mail and Not only was my new rabbit phone case here. The old one was very matted and I wasn't able to brush it out like I was hoping. My new reindeer Furby arrived as well. I'm not sure what to name him yet but he's very soft. He doesn't seem to work. His he won't turn on. But that's okay. He's still very cute. He'll probably get packed away with the Christmas ornament ones as well once the winter is over so he'll be a nice new face to have out next year.

I'm in bed now. Just enjoying that it's actually nice and toasty in my bedroom for once. I'm going to plug in my phone though because it's dying. And then I'm going to try to go to sleep. I am working at constellation all day tomorrow and I'm hoping to do lesson plans. And then me and James are going to go see a play about Johnstown. And I am really looking forward to it. Because I love Cults. Especially murder cults.

I hope you all sleep great tonight. I hope that your animals are nice to you. And that you have a really nice day tomorrow. Good night everyone.

[ambrosiafaery]

Fellow vtuber whose been on both Tumblr and Twitter for a while (tho I don't talk about Ambrosia and my characters here as much as I used to with my art,,,) with a few more general tips

- the no commenting thing like op said isn't set in stone, definitely feel free to comment on reblogs. Typical Tumblr culture is to comment in tags as a more passive way to comment, or often times use the reply button on posts if you don't want it on your blog directly. People love talking here, but hate going viral usually.

- ops of posts can and will read your tags so still be nice

- I can't remember if this still exists but I think there were some exploits and/or extensions to delete ops text on a post. Don't do this to artists or on image descriptions it's super rude

- unlike Twitter it's VERY normal to be like 80% reblogs and 20% you talking here. Don't be afraid to share things others made. It's called a blog and not a profile for a reason

- while there are extensions for Tumblr, the in built tag blocking nowadays works on both mobile and desktop and is actually decent like previously mentioned. Block tags liberally if there's stuff that bothers you or you don't want to accidentally pull up in public - if a post is hidden you'll have the option to reveal it and it will show which blocked tags were on it

- Tumblr is at it's core a fandom site. A lot of people think of their blogs as curating things they like. Don't expect the same things that work else where to work here for reblogs, and even sometimes likes. People often use likes as simply bookmarks

- that also means the character limit being higher is actually great tho, write essays I Will read them if I see them. Twitter threads are godawful when you're used to just seeing in a functional format like here

- the algorithm doesn't work here quite like it does elsewhere. Most engagement is over time as reblogs spread through the community. Likes functionally do very little to increase engagement unlike other social media. Posts that break containment will get notes for a long time

- don't be a dick about people only liking posts though, it's pretty rude. Like I said, Tumblr is a place people typically curate things to a blog and that often means having very specific themes for posts. Sideblogs are really useful for that - in my case I've got my main (this blog), my side blog for mobile games, and my aesthetic/inspiration/resource blog. Sometimes someone's liking from one blog and reblogging to another too

- it is well known that empty blogs with a default icon are typically bots (and you should block them) but apparently a bunch of TikTok migrates didn't get them memo so here: if you're new please make a bio and set an icon to literally anything and maybe just reblog at least one random thing. People Will block you for it

-HOWEVER there's also been an outbreak of people making accounts, filling ablog with random things for about a week, and then making a scam donation post for a sick animal or family member. If someone dms you to reblog their dono post, PLEASE be aware of how often it can be a scam. There are legitimate people looking for help on here, but there's also a lot of bad eggs still

- they mentioned don't censor your tags for tag blocking but also know you won't get banned for saying fuck on main (or other words). I don't think you even get suppressed for swearing, it's just links that sometimes do.

- respect the wizard blogs they held this place together when a ton of people left

Tips For Vtubers

Howdy there, I’m Liv and I’m a vtuber much like you, but I’ve been here the whole time so I’m here to compile stuff for you to help make your transition less scary.

To start, here’s is a post with a lot of tips for general tumblr use and here’s one for giving your blog a custom theme.

Beyond that here’s other things that aren’t mentioned but are gonna be relevant for you:

If you’re coming back to tumblr know that you can’t follow from your sideblog, if you want to follow back it will be from your main, as will your likes, replies, asks. Decide what to do with this information now before you settle into a blog.

Fully explore the settings, there's a ton of stuff hiding in there. AND do it on PC at least once, some stuff is not in the app.

Blogs have individual block lists, no idk why either. So if you want someone banned from everything you need to do that manually.

 Also enable tumblr Labs! It’s got reblog graphs which are rad (my beloved orbs) And alternate dashboards, the Blog Subscriptions one is my fave because it means all you have to do is turn on notifications to get all your fave guys in one dashboard.

Contrary to popular belief there is still a porn and adult content community here, if you want to get anywhere near them you have to have age in bio or they’ll smite you.

Tiktok embeds don't play nice with tumblr for some reason, if you also do tiktok then just reupload your videos and link your account there underneath.

The link post type will show up for your followers but there’s a chance it won’t show up in any tags, so don’t do going live posts like that.

BUT you can straight up embed your stream into your posts! As long as you're using the New Post Editor you should see this menu:

Click the video camera, link to your twitch and bam. There it is. You can also do this with the video post type! If you're ever worried about your post format getting bonked just go through the tags and see what posts that DO make it are doing. Together we can overcome spaghetti code.

General "tumblr culture" is to not comment on posts but its not one thats set in stone, your fellow small vtuber account is probably dying for interaction so comment on posts! scream in the tags! send funny asks! Getting interaction right now is going to be a big comfort during a weird time.

Oh yeah we have ask boxes built in, no marshmallow needed.

ALSO we have pinned posts just like twitter, but as long as you want! Put your ref & socials & art tag (yes you can keep your fanart tags) & your minors DNI & a picture of your cat if you want.

OH I do suggest picking out tags for your personal content if you plan to also do reblogging, makes it easy for newcomers to find what you're doing.

#vtuber and #indie vtuber are full of fanart for the big guys. If you wanna find each other use #vtuber uprising

Okay this post is getting so long but final tip: check out custom pages. They're on the custom theme menu and they're basically mini webpages on your blog that can have their own coding. You can do Literally Whatever. Lore! Credit page! Ref sheets! I once put a choose your own adventure where you navigated by clicking specific parts of a picture on tumblr pages. I Mean Anything.

That's all for now, please add other tips if you want. And please reblog! Not just this post but other peoples too! This will all be way less of a drag if we can find each other. 💖