#Lockdown 3 diary

[sophsweet]

My Diary 2021 - week 4

It all starts with Sorry Sophie Scrambled – RAF_Luton on Twitter

[monsterrae1]

Tumblr story time

Tagged by @spotsandsocks @shipperqueen6

Given this blog is like 16 years old at this point I don’t really remember it all 😂

I do remember my friend made it for me cause I didn’t have any social media at all at the time so she made me a tumblr blog, a Facebook profile and a Twitter profile (I’ve long abandoned Twitter though)

At first I was an aesthetic blog but I quickly shifted to fandom content with supernatural, the vampire diaries, and teen wolf. I was a superwholock for a while and then a marvel blog too.

I’ve always reblogged more about my current hyper fixation but I keep my other interests around as well so it’s always been a mess 💀

I took a break for about 2 or 3 years when I was in college cause I didn’t want the distractions but after I settled on a job once I graduated I made my way back slowly.

I had been watching 911 for a while before I fell to the pull of the fandom but during the first lockdown in 2020 i decided to read buddie fics and follow some folks from there on here and well, 4 years later here we are 😂

Im just a silly lil guy having fun here but also i try to help out if I can with signal boost post and other stuff. Still mostly im just here for a good time and to have fun!

Tagging if they’d like to share their journey

@loserdiaz @hoodie-buck @bi-buckrights @eddiebabygirldiaz @saybiwithme @doublecheekedkinard @honestlydarkprincess @bigfootsmom @spaceprincessem @bidisasterevankinard @jackluvsdaniel @jesuisici33 @evanbi-ckley @katries @thewolvesof1998 @canonbibuck @ronordmann @underwaterninja13 @steadfastsaturnsrings @theplaceyoustillrememberdreaming @rogerzsteven @exhuastedpigeon @loveyouanyway @hippolotamus @watchyourbuck @father-salmon @giddyupbuck @devirnis @elvensorceress @queerdiazs @spagheddiediaz and whoever else wants to do it

[notjosieyouremy]

every edsheeran book ive ever read and what i thought

*reblog without tags please

update #1: i just finished reading Letting An@ Go by anonymous. the teenage drama and romance is gross and annoying. the protagonist has a lot of strong opinions about peoples weight, especially her mother’s, which is very triggering. plenty of m3an $pO if that’s your thing. rampant fatphobia. i give it 3 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

5 star tier ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• hunger: a memoir of (my) body by roxane gay. one of the best edsheeran books ive read. it’s about sa, food addiction, boolimia, feminism, fatphobia, the struggles of just trying to exist black woman in a large body. would recommend

• i’m glad my mom died by jennette mccurdy. it’s so good. i think i finished it in a day. it’s about a lot more than edsheeran. highly recommend. go read it right now

• unbearable lightness: a story of loss and gain by portia de rossi. a gay actor’s struggles with edsheeran. one of the few i’ve read more than once. would recommend

• wasted: a memoir of an0rex!a and boolimia by marya hornbacher. really deserves to be in a class of its own. it’s the best written edsheeran book out there. it’s sad, hilarious, intelligent, perfectly captures the internal voice of mania. highly tr!ggering, so proceed with caution. after wasted was published she relapsed, which she speaks about in madness: a bipolar life. it’s also a very good book but edsheeran is not the focus

4 star tier ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• insatiable: a young mother’s struggle with an0rexia by erica rivera. if you wanna read about someone who takes fistfuls of bisacodyl and exercises intensely, you might like this book. it’s very good. would recommend

• dying to be th!n by nikki grahame. imagine being so severely malnourished as a child that you never go through puberty. thats how serious her illness was. she basically grew up in treatment facilities, managed to recover against all odds, went on big brother (the reality show), published a book, relapsed, and tragically passed away in 2021. the covid lockdowns were hard on her mental health. would recommend

• the girls at 17 swann street by yara zgheib. semi-autobiographical work of fiction. what sets this one apart is the protagonist isn’t a teenage girl. she’s, like, 28 i think? something like that. would definitely recommend if you get tired of reading about teens and preteens all the time

• elena vanishing by elena dunkle. at a certain point, all these books can be summarized in one sentence: she had to choose between recovery or death. it’s a very good memoir. would recommend

• born round: the secret history of a full-time eater by frank bruni. we love to see male representation in the edsheeran community. he was a chubby kid, turned to unhealthy means to achieve we!ght loss, eventually learns to heal his relationship with food and becomes restaurant critic for the new york times (ever heard of it?). would recommend

• sure, i’ll join your cult: a memoir of mental illness and the quest to belong anywhere by maria bamford. if you don’t know who maria bamford is, she’s one of the best stand up comics, period. that’s not even my opinion, it’s just an agreed upon fact within the stand up community. she’s brilliant. the book is about her mental illnesses and all the different self help groups she joins (so many!). she does go into her struggle with exercise boolimia, though that’s not the primary subject. it gets 5 stars as a book, but 4 stars as an edsheeran book because there just isn’t a lot of dis0rder talk

3 star and below ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• stick figure: a diary of my former self by lori gottlieb. good but i had trouble relating to the protagonist because was quite young and immature

• the art of st4rving by sam j. miller. some much needed male representation in edsheeran literature. and some lgbtq representation. it’s YA (young adult) fiction, not really my taste. would recommend for those who like YA. great cover art!

• wintergirls by laurie halse anderson. a lot of people love this book. i thought it was ok. it’s a work of fiction by an author who isn’t really part of the edsheeran or recovery community. it’s another YA book. i will always prefer memoirs and non-fiction

• fat chance by lesléa newman. this was the first edsheeran book i read. it was assigned reading for my high school health class. it’s a YA novel about a 13 year old girl who wants to lose we!ght. she re$tricts, she b;nges, she poorges, she becomes boolimic. i can trace my edsheeran back to this book. i started d;eting, b;ngeing, and abusing lax4tives as a direct result of reading this material. it did the exact opposite of its purpose, trying to steer young people away from toxic d!et culture. my take away was, i’m overweight, therefore i should be willing to do anything to get th!nner. it’s not very good tbh. maybe if you like YA you’d like it but otherwise, would not recommend

[zahri-melitor]

Cataclysm and No Man’s Land, to me, are one of the parts of DC Comics that are the most concrete in their time and place.

The Cataclysm happened mid 1998 (around American Independence Day). It SHOULD be Independence Day. This is a very American story, about national identity. No Man’s Land happened in 1999. For about 18 months there the Bat books run almost in real time.

Mr Wayne Goes To Washington at the end of 1998. He’s going to appeal to Washington to save his city even as the US have midterms. Of course nobody wants to pay to save Gotham - they have elections to win, and there’s no votes in spending big on Gotham, in blowing a hole in the budget.

They blow the bridges at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Even as firework displays go off, as people celebrate, they destroy the connection to Gotham and damn those left behind.

This is a disaster that happened before Y2K. The lack of Oracle’s computing power for the year is almost referential of the oncoming worries about whether all the computers ARE about to crash and the world fall into lawlessness.

Barbara’s diary date count is real, a running concept of time in a place where the date no longer matters, the only thing that matters is how long it has been happening. I understand her record on a deep fundamental level. I too counted lockdowns by day, and knew it was Day 51, Day 97, Day 108. Days since the only important thing happened, since my world changed.

And then, when Tim Drake’s rescue finally captures the outside world’s attention? It’s in late 1999, even as candidates for President are positioning themselves for the 2000 election.

Lex Luthor moves to rebuild Gotham as much to position himself as a possible President, to start his election campaign, as he does to try and acquire cheap title to half of Gotham and screw Bruce Wayne.

No Man’s Land happened in 1999. It must always have happened in 1999, to me. Even with comic’s sliding time scale. It could have happened 3-4 years ago in the past, except if it had, it would be a different disaster, with different effects. People would have reacted differently.

[twig-tea]

A question for you because you seem like one of those people who has watched everything: how did you get started watching bl, and what are your ultimate favorite shows?

Double-barrelled! I'm honoured.

How did I get into BL?

The short answer is that ~2016 the YouTube algorithm served me up Lovesick and I immediately went EXCUSE ME WHAT IS THIS and looked up everything else available and watched literally everything I could get my hands on (which at the time was easy because there was only a handful compared to today, but it still felt like a wealth of content to enjoy).

The longer answer is that I used to be really involved in GL (I was the secretary at the first Yuricon in North America in 2002 or 2003) and then BL manga fandom (was in a scanlation group for awhile) through ~2006? so its extra hilarious that this wasn't my route in; I apparently took a break right before they started making live action versions in Japan. But when I got into Thai BL it was fun rediscovering these tropes in a new medium and through the lens of a new-to-me culture, noticing how they differed and how the genre had matured (and how it hadn't), and on catching up on the stuff out of Japan, seeing some of the manga I read over a decade ago come to life! So I mention this history because it's definitely a part of why I stayed (and probably why the algorithm found me relatively quickly).

I only started tracking things in a spreadsheet in 2020 (and it's not nearly as comprehensive or useful as @absolutebl 's), but I did try to backfill the highlights of what I've seen and I have over 550 rows on there, fwiw. I'm a completionist so I do try to watch everything, though that's getting more and more impossible these days.

Ultimate Favourite Shows

This question is so hard. I know you didn't even give me a limit but you have to understand @lurkingshan, I can't choose favourites, I have a draft top ten list that has been blank for 3 years because I can't commit. Okok. I'm just going to list shows as they come to me (not in any particular order):

Thailand: Until We Meet Again, He's Coming to Me, Diary of Tootsies, WhyRU, Ingredients, Not Me, Secret Crush on You, I Told Sunset About You & I Promised You the Moon, Triage, You're My Sky, Make it Right, La Pluie, My Ride, Bad Buddy, My School President, Laws of Attraction, Moonlight Chicken, Dear Dr I'm Coming for Soul, To Sir With Love/Khun Chai, The Eclipse, Midnight Museum, Lovely Writer... Grey Rainbow [ducks, hides, runs away]

Japan: Doushitemo Furetakunai (no touching at all), Kinou Nani Tabeta (What did you eat yesterday?), Our Dining Table, Takara-Kun and Amagi-Kun, Old Fashioned Cupcake, 7 Days (mon-thurs & fri-sun), His (miniseries & movie), I Want to See Only You, Kieta Hatsukoi/My love mix-up, the Cherry Magic Movie, Life~Senjou no bokura/Love on the Line, 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us, Given (anime is my fave version), Tokyo in April Is..., Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, Utsukushii Kare/My beautiful man

Korea: Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error, The Lover [BL side], Color Rush, Blueming, Cherry Blossoms After Winter, Love Class 2, Made on the Rooftop, Discipline Z, Light on Me, To My Star (yes both seasons), Strongberry (faves are Long Time No See, Confidential Coffee Break, and A First Love Story), Sing My Crush, Just Friends?

Vietnam: Goodbye Mother, Hey! First Love, Nation's Brother, You Are Ma Boy, Follow My Sunshine, FOOLs, Tien Bromance: My Small Family, Love Bill

Philippines: Gameboys, Gaya sa Pelikula, Boys Lockdown, Cheat [warning: horror], Your Home, Better Days

Taiwan: Be Loved in House, My DNA Says Love You, We Best Love (1 & 2), HIStory (Crossing the Line is my fave, and second fave is...Make Our Days Count [ducks, hides, burrows into ground]).

Other: Summerdaze (short from Singapore), Stay Still (Hong Kong), HeHe and He (Hong Kong, final season in progress but s1&2 are so funny) and the bromances/difficult to categorize: Scumbag System, Word of Honor, The Untamed, Guardian, Coffee Prince, Bromance (Taiwanese), Great Men Academy, Mr Queen, Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, SCI Mystery

*deep breath* ok I'm stopping lol narrowing it down any less than this gives me pain so I won't try. Also I'm sure I forgot something obvious (and Tumblr was eating drafts of this at various points). All I can say about this list is it's under 100 and that's the best I could do.

Thanks for the ask, and to anyone who made it this far thanks for reading!

[hrhmiat]

Fun Fact:

I have been a fan of the Princess Diaries books since the second book was released in the summer of 2001. I read each book as it came out until book six, which is when school and extracurricular activities became super duper busy. However, as busy as I was, I always bought the latest book, thinking I'd catch up one of these days. Once the 10th book came out, I told myself I had to re-read all the books because I couldn't really remember what happened. But I never did. By the time the 11th book came out in 2015 (I think I just stumbled upon it by accident when I was in the bookstore when it came out!) I told myself I really needed to re-read and actually FINISH reading my favorite series. Well, that didn't happen. I didn't finish the series until 2022. It had been sitting on my shelf for a good 10 years, always on the back of my mind to finish. I am so grateful I did! (Although I wish I had during lockdown since it seemed like everyone was reading it or rereading it) oh well! There are many things I wish I had done during lockdown, but I have to keep reminding myself that my time wasn't wasted since I sewed over 300 masks for people when no one could get masks at the time. In the end, it was worth the wait! I still love this series so much! Now I'm thinking about it. I sorta did this with Harry Potter as well. When the 7th book came out, I lost my place 2/3 of the way, and I was worried I'd read something that would spoil me, so instead of just back reading a little bit, I set it aside and didn't pick it up for TWO YEARS!!!! (I honestly don't know what I was thinking.... I mean I do... I just didn't want my childhood book to end.) I'm amazed I was never spoiled, but then again, it was a different time back then, too. I'm extremely happy Meg Cabot spoiled all of us with another book last year. I hope that she continues to update us on Mia's life in the future. It's good to know she still cares about the series and has gifted us with two extra books after the series ended.

[junkissed]

“6. What got you into writing fanfics?” for the ask game! 🩷

get to know me! - kpop fanfic writer ask game

6. What got you into writing fanfics?

honestly it's a long story 😭 let me ramble for you below the cut!

the earliest i can remember writing actual fanfic was probably like 2012 and i had this journal/diary that i would write in because i was super big into one direction at the time LMAO. but i've always loved reading and writing, so pretty much all my life i've written things, but up until recently it was just for fun without it being attached to any specific person. during the pandemic when i was in lockdown i got back into harry potter and i wrote a 16k neville fic that will never see the light of day (i've looked over it recently and holy hell it is awful) but i would say that was the start of me coming back to fanfiction!

after i first rejoined tumblr around 2020-ish, i had just discovered kpop so i only started out with a sideblog for reblogging fics. but some authors who i loved and reblogged from often (aka @onlymingyus) started talking to me and we became friends! i was way too shy to do anything other than reblog so honestly i probably wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for her and some other really sweet people. and then i joined svthub (it started as a collab among friends, but they decided to turn it into a network and i was invited to join even though i wasn't a writer yet), and after talking to everyone in the discord server for a while they finally encouraged me to post my writing 🥹 i'd never shared anything i'd written before, i always just kept it to myself in journals or google docs, so it was a huge step for me but i'm so so thankful to all the wonderful people in svthub because i definitely would not have done it if not for everyone encouraging me and supporting me from the very beginning. and now i'm still here and i'm still writing, it's difficult to find the time for it sometimes but i definitely plan to be here for a long time :) it brings me so much joy to share my writing and i can't say it enough how happy it makes me to be part of the caratblr writing community! i didn't ever see myself being here but it's been so much fun and i've met so many amazing friends on here <3

[jojotier]

thinking Extremely Hard about a Mamma Mia!-stuck au like:

- Dave originally being a director and having essentially raised Dirk but without the water apocalypse his midlife crisis hits Hard, so he gives away most of the money, buys an island, and creates a lil resort on it, which that’s cool!! He can handle it!!! But now the remainder of the money is in Dirk’s college fund so okay, he’s fallen on some financial straits, but he can still keep the place up and running.

- Dirk helps out and gets them online but eventually comes the day where he meets Jake and then after that comes the day when they decide to sail the world together. Dirk’s ready to go whenever except Dave would be left with the resort all on his lonesome. And Dave is visibly buckling under the stress.

- So Dirk’s trying to figure out how to get this asshole some help when he stumbles on The Notebook.

- The Notebook is actually a Journal which is actually a Diary, Dave’s old diary, and there’s some illicit details in there that Dirk wishes he could scrub from his memory forever, but it proves useful because it mentions that years and years ago, he brought three separate love interests to the island before they all ran off and broke his fuckin’ heart. And now Dirk’s got the gears turning in his brain.

- So Dirk goes to Jake and says hey. I want a wedding. Let’s get married. and Jake’s like ???? okay ?????? what brought this on and Dirk’s like Do I need a reason to have a wedding.

- And Dirk of course is sending letters to the three love interests, posing as Dave, to invite them to Dirk’s wedding. Best case scenario, one of the assholes reconnects with his brother and he won’t be so lonely. Even better case scenario, Dirk can guilt trip the FUCK out of all three of them for breaking his brother’s heart and get Money off of it to give to Dave

- So who are the love interests? Glad you asked!

- You have June, once a childhood friend now estranged, and now also a famous comedian- she might have talked to Dave once or twice after everything, but once Dave fucked off the map, there were no more opportunities to even try to bring up what’d happened between them

- You have Karkat, once someone he fell into a relationship hard and fast, now a famous romance novelist and screenwriter. Is he still an alien? Fuck if I know, but the point is, their break up was messy enough that Dave never contacted him again, and Karkat’s got a shit ton of regrets

- Now my gut reaction for number 3 is Jade, but I’m not entirely sure, since I’m not sure how her relation to Jake is in this yet hbkj. Likely a famous scientist and adventurer at this point.

- If not Jade we could probs do Terezi in that slot? Or else pare it down to just the two love interests lol anyway not important rn

- Point is, once they get there, Dirk is doing double time trying to keep Dave from finding out that Dirk’s the one who invited the love interests, pretending to be excited for a wedding he’s only staging to parent trap his bro, trying to keep Jake from knowing that he’s only staging this to parent trap his bro because he’s afraid Jake will believe the relationship was Only there so Dirk could use their relationship as an excuse even though he still loves Jake, and not-so-subtly implying that Dave’s stress is all these chucklefucks’ fault, so like. Pay up.

- Meanwhile Dave has no knowledge of what the fuck’s happening and has just learned that Dirk wants to have a wedding, actually, which while coming out of left field Dave’s actually pretty excited for. As far as Dave’s concerned, he’ll never have a big white wedding of his own, so it’s probably fine to live vicariously through his lil bro right? Just a little? Meaning he’s gotta get this shit on Lockdown

- and, predictably, Shenanigans Ensue.

- and I have no idea who Dave ends up with.

[basementfairy69]

Rules if we go into a second lockdown:

1) continue to gatekeep this app, we dont need any more gross sweaty men or weirdos finding tumblr and bothering us

2) we could take the opportunity to make tons of communitys and just all be friends because wed be bored so why not

3) bring back bullying, some weirdos on here and all social media are just waaaay to comfortable

4) bring back diaries, i unfortunately dont wanna hear about how your coochie is throbbing when you look at dreadheads, though relatable, it would serve us well to bring back secrets

5) bring back blackberry’s we need social media detoxs once in a while because 2020 was literally like insane

6) get fit, we all swore we were gunna glowup during lockdown but the only thing that happened was we lost our social skills

7) bring back discord servers, contraversial a little bit but being in a discord call at like 2am and playing among us was probably the most fun ever, and its just such an easy place to chat

8) lets not do the whole TW on stuff like toilets, which yes, was a real thing people did it on just about anything, not my fault u fell into a toilet at 8 unless u use a fucking litterbox im sure you see that damn toilet anyways

9) bring back anime, not the weird ones where all the girls moan every two seconds, the ones like death note, watching that was the most entertained I had been the whole lockdown

10) regain our attention span, during lockdown I could watch a 10 hour twitch vod on youtube and not even be bothered in the slightest and i need that back

Thats my 10 things if we go into another hypothetical lockdown which probably wont happen but you never know so thought i’d write it out anyways

[valleydean]

❣️❣️❣️tag! you're it in the self rec game! fic writers dont talk about their wonderful writing enough, so recommend your 5 favorite fictions written by YOU and tell us what you love about the fics or the process of writing them, then tag or send this question to 5 of your favorite fic writers to keep the game going❣️❣️❣️

ooh this is awesome. thank you, anon. i will always take an opportunity to talk about Me.

Gotta be the Heavyweight series first, because i'm currently posting part 3 of it and i want people to read it lol. this one kinda snuck up on me because i didn't expect it to take over my brain when i was writing part 1 - and i never expected to make it into a series. i just kinda like taking the worst parts of dean and cas' personality traits and running with them. to be like "they're awful but they love each other anyway and they're perfect for each other." it's been fun, but i do sometimes say to myself "i can't believe this level of asshole is living somewhere inside of me." like i think i've become more arrogant since i started writing this series??? but i love writing fight scenes so it's been great to write a story about boxing.

Raise the Black. my favorite fic i've ever written. it wrote itself lmao. it's the first au concept i ever came up with like.... over a decade ago. and i just never wrote it. it kinda became the super secret fic that i would tell myself in my head as i was falling asleep, and i do miss dreaming about it now that it's all out and over. but at the same time, it changed a lot over the years and the show and characters grew and expanded, so it's cool to have a finished product for the story.

The Shawnee Trail. this one kept me sane during the first year of covid. i love westerns. it's my favorite genre. and i always wanted to write one, but i never really had the time to dedicate to it until lockdown. i thought i'd be nightmare while writing it because it had to be Perfect, but i was actually in a good mood the whole time. it was sooooo fun to write! i've never had a better time writing a story as i did with this one. i do need to write more westerns.

Redux. the season 16 i wrote out of spite for the ending of the show. started working on it on november 20th, 2020. it gave me a lot of closure, in a way. i just love these characters so much so i wanted to give them a happy ending. they deserve it, i deserve it. i'm glad i could give it to them in some small way. writing this really helped me work through my emotions and grief about the end of the show.

I can't really decide between Castiel Novak's Office, This is Dean and my horror series (which is multiple fics, so i guess that disqualifies the series lol). Cas Novak's Office is basically my diary, and whenever people say "omg this is the best dean characterization i've ever read" it freaks me the fuck out because these are just my innermost thoughts that i've never told another soul hahahah. and the horror series is just fun! i put one out every year around halloween and they're usually my favorite fics to write. i love writing horror. i look forward to it every year.

i know a lot of people will probably be surprised that a ghost story isn't on this list but ??? idk. in a way, that fic will always be special to me and it's definitely the one i'm most known for, but to be honest it's not in my top 5 list of favorites sorry

[downthetubes]

In Review: "3 Stories featuring An Egg, A Saint, and Border Guards" by Edward Taylor

A dive into the thoughts of a sleeping egg, a snarky cat and bewildered border guards, Edward Taylor is back with a doozy of a comics anthology

We’ve previously featured award-winning comic creator Edward Taylor‘s wonderfully inventive work on downthetubes, most recently with 2 Stories (Both Involving an Egg), released last year and, previously, Godzilla’s Lockdown Diary and Godzilla Tries To Get Out. Well, good news, he has a new book out, offering three often bizarre but always engaging tales – 3 Stories featuring An Egg, A Saint, and…

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

For the writing ask: 1, 2, 5

Which of your fics would you keep the basic plot of but rewrite completely? Probably Lamentations of a Starry-Eyed Twit, which I started writing in high school -- the diary of Auriga Sinistra, the Bridget Jones figure of Hogwarts! Because I wrote it as a young teenager, it radiates such pure, poorly aged insanity and foolishness. I'd love if the early chapters could match the writerly maturity of the last few chapters that I wrote when I was in my 30s in the height of pandemic lockdown madness. However: I will never do this because I have so much other writing to do, and because I guess it's sort of charming -- in a super cringe way -- that it exists as a relic of my fanfic-writing journey. I could have only ever written Snape as a romcom love interest in the deranged heights of my youth.

Anything that you’d like to write but feel like you’re unable to? I answered this yesterday, but: long fics! Can't commit. Not enough writerly energy in my soul. I gotta stick to the one-shot life for fic.

What’s a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies? I actually don't really get this question because I've never quite figured out AO3 tagging culture where you do all the really specific tagging. I tend to just tag characters and pairings and that's it. Everything else is a T-rated surprise to the reader who dares click! And I'm fine with that!

Thanks for sending asks! <3

[chibabymumma]

This is my private Diary, obviously not that private as it's on Tumblr, but a place where I can scream, vent, cry and freak out without judgement from those close to me, I have to be balanced constantly which is battle.

A little bit about myself I am a mum of 4, 3 adults 1 toddler, the Toddler who will call little lion, has Congenital hyperinsulinemia, hypoglycemia,heart defect, peg fed, sensory issues, possible autism, non verbal, oral aversion and is literally a baby shark! If you can see the state of my arms you would believe me.

I just so need a safe space where I can find some sort of solace in my journey, of being a older mum navigating through the horrors of menopause after finally getting my autism diagnosis at age 49! And ADHD, with the sheer terror of having a little lion and about to be a grandma for the first time! Oh Goddess help me! And the new and improved tantrums now little lion has hit 3!! How do you cope with it? When my premenopausal self just literally wants to lay in the road with him and scream and shout at the injustice and sadness at the world, but no I move forward gently trying to get little lion to stop having a meltdown in the middle of the road, while he's biting my knuckles so hard they are swollen when I get home! All around me people are staring and tutting at me, I don't blame them he's a complete diva when he gets started, the ear piercing screams can shatter the sky, they certainly shatter my ears and my heart.

Little lion was a surprise. I wasn't expecting him, he just sort of arrived, I had at this point as well as my 3 adult children, 6 miscarriages. 3 very painful ones in the few years leading up to his arrival. My husband noticed first I thought the perimenopause had started and only did the test to say "nah see the changes have started" and there they were those 2 clear lines. I freaked out I'm not going to lie, Gave my poor husband a heart attack squealing and fainting. I remember the day so clearly one of my adult children had got COVID I was beside myself with worry this was the day the UK went into lockdown. My wee boy well man, was working ok a diary farm away to try and boost his funds, we had all just watched the news conference and I took the test reading about the effects of COVID lamenting my sadness and worry for my other boy, praying he would be ok, the world was a scary place. The test was next to me. As I read I got more and more panicked for him, I barely noticed the test I finally got my head out of the BBC news site I picked up the test and instantly had a meltdown! The joys of being me. And that was the start of this insane ever ongoing saga that is my life.

[iviarellereads]

All Systems Red, Chapter 2

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which the humans, in true human fashion, want to packbond.

When MB wakes up, it's up to 80% efficiency, and Mensah has extended the security lockdown an additional four hours, but left a message asking MB to report to her. MB has never been asked to do this by any client, it seems, but thinks maybe she wants to go over the planetary hazard info packet and why it didn't mention the giant predatory worms.

MB takes a moment to say it really doesn't care about its clients or what their goals are.(1) It knows that these clients are from a freehold (not associated with a major corporate confederation) called PreservationAux, and the survey is to see if this planet is worth buying a share in the planet's resource extraction potential. It wasn't expecting much from them, but they've been surprisingly easy to work with.(2)

MB cleans itself off, and puts its armour in its repair slots. It doesn't want to dig out the spare armour set, so it puts on the uniform provided for it instead, something like exercise clothes.

When MB goes out into the main hub, everyone is talking and Mensah is busy, so it waits silently. Ratthi is the first to notice it, with a comedic double take. MB comments that's why it prefers wearing armour as much as possible: the humans like to pretend it's a mindless robot, and that's easier when they don't see a human body shape.

Ratthi asks who this is, with the security lockdown preventing anyone coming in or out. Mensah is busy on an interface, so MB has to say it's their SecUnit. They all look almost as uncomfortable as MB feels, and it wishes it had taken the time to get the spare armour.

Part of it is, they didn’t want me here. Not here in their hub, but here on the planet. One of the reasons the bond company requires it, besides slapping more expensive markups on their clients, is that I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half-assed version of my job. But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell.(3) No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Shortly (subjective: half hour, objective: 3.4 seconds) Mensah turns and sees MB, and asks it to review the hazard report, just as it expected. It does so, and can feel Dr. Gurathin, an augmented human with his own interface, poking at the data while the others, on touch interfaces, are more distant.

At first, MB thinks they're being paranoid, but it finds discrepancies in phrasing, indicating deletions in the warnings and the section on fauna. Everyone's pretty pissed off about it, and MB likes their openness with each other. It outlines their interpersonal relationships, and says they're very low-stress and restful to be around… just as long as they don't try to interact with it.

The team speculates on what biological niche the hostiles fill, but Pin-Lee brings them back to the important bit: who removed the subreport? She asks MB directly, can HubSystem be hacked? MB thinks how it hacked it easily from inside, to hide its hacked governor module, but from outside… it says it's possible, but more likely they were sent an incomplete report. Mensah assigns Pin-Lee and Gurathin to tracking that problem down, and asks if the other group on the planet, DeltFall, were given the same damaged report. MB checks with HubSystem, which says it's likely, but MB is skeptical of HubSystem's reliability. Aloud, it only says, "Probably".

Mensah gives instructions for the team, and MB asks if she needs it for anything else. Mensah says no, she'll call if they do, but… it could stay in the crew area if it wants.(4)

They all looked at me, most of them smiling. One disadvantage in wearing the armor is that I get used to opaquing the faceplate. I’m out of practice at controlling my expression. Right now I’m pretty sure it was somewhere in the region of stunned horror, or maybe appalled horror.(5) Mensah sat up, startled. She said hurriedly, “Or not, you know, whatever you like.” I said, “I need to check the perimeter,” and managed to turn and leave the crew area in a totally normal way and not like I was fleeing from a bunch of giant hostiles

Back in the ready room, MB is upset that it gave away that it doesn't want to be around them. It worries, because it has too much to hide to make mistakes like that. A slip leaves the rest of its secrets less protected.

It decides to do some work instead of moping, and gets its spare armour to do the perimeter walk, check on the hoppers, double check the emergency supplies, everything it can think to do for its job parameters. Then, it goes into standby with some more Sanctuary Moon.

It's just fast-forwarding through a sex scene(6) when Mensah sends it some images. It's interested enough to pause and save its place. It hasn't really looked at the satellite maps, because it hasn't needed to, but now that Mensah's pointed it out, there are six huge swaths of the planet missing from their documentation.

MB is so grateful that Mensah did it all over the feed instead of insisting on in-person, it gives her its honest opinion: the package was cheap, and it's likely the pieces are missing for that reason, but the only way to know is go out for yourself and see if there's something worth seeing in the missing regions.

MB feels Mensah's attention pull back from the feed, so it tunes into the hub cameras to listen to the humans' discussion. They're all in favour of going to check it out. They've already had a conversation with DeltFall, who agreed to send the missing files, but MB knows how this is going to go, and that they don't know security like it does. It wants to go alone, but if its governor module were working, the failsafes would fry it if it went further than 100 meters away from all the clients, so it can't volunteer.

So when Mensah opened the feed again to tell me they were going, I told her security protocols suggested that I should go, too.(7)

=====

(1) I think this is a little too much protest, if you feel me. MB may not be the most reliable narrator of its relationships. It could have followed protocol and left Volescu in the crater in chapter 1, but it didn't. It could have been aggressive in getting him out, but it wasn't. It took the time to get his attention and, in a totally appropriate manner, distract and guide him out of it. (2) I wonder what MB's criteria are for "easy to work with". Following directions without question from a trained professional? Not complaining about things like the security lockdown while it regenerated? (3) Sound familiar? (4) Humans packbond even with the most unlikely of creatures. We packbonded with dogs and cats, and honestly, we've been packbonding even with the autofill chinese box text generators they're calling AI these days. Of COURSE they're going to want to treat MB like a person when they see that it's person-shaped. Mensah in particular recognized that MB didn't have to do as much for Volescu as it did, and I like to think she sees a spark of something in it. (5) Our dear MB, on the other hand, has little urge to be treated like a person, because that means interacting with people, which it has never been trained or encouraged to do outside the boundaries of its contractual requirements. (6) MB thinks it has no interest in sex scenes in media because it has no gender or sex-related parts, since that would make it a sexbot, not a murderbot. This has, however, led to more or less canon assertions that MB is just ace. This could be considered problematic in some senses, because real ace people are accused of being broken or lacking in some supposedly essential quality, just like MB literally lacks sexable genitals. Notwithstanding author bigotry I'm not aware of, I (occupying spots on the aro and ace spectra) am inclined to forgive the false equivalence because MB is a bot, and even with organic bits, it still has some drives and capabilities that seem inextricable from its constructive and semi-programmed nature. This is not to say anyone else has to feel the same way, or that this counts as any sort of representation because to me it really kinda doesn't even if MB is relatable in this way for some people including myself. This is just the space to put my thoughts as I read. (7) Do you think this is purely fulfilling its function, or does MB seem a little too eager to make sure these humans survive? (I'm in camp the latter if that's not clear, no matter what it says.)

[stargrlinthesky]

ABOUT ME !! <3

I consider this page like a diary or personal blog of some sort so I just wanted to do this for me.

I love music, deftones has been my favourite band for years now but my taste is relatively diverse :) I like most music. I also love TV smmm. My favourite shows atm are bojack horseman, skins and mlp (obviously fluttershy is my fave)

TW->I've struggled with mental health for basically my whole life but I don't actually know why. I can't remember anything up until about a year or two ago, terrible memory 💀. I've struggled w sh almost all of my life in some sort of way but actually started understanding and cxtt1ng around 10, but I'm getting clean !! I've struggled with binge eating disorder too but it got really bad around lockdown, so I've started watching what I'm eating recently.

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If u see this, I hope u have a great day, remember you're loved and take care 💞 !

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

Exploring Con O'Neill's Filmography Day #?- Murder City S01.EP4- Mr. Right (2004)

Murder City S01.EP4- Mr. Right

Warnings: Depiction of a murder, gunshots/gun violence, stalking, obsession over an adult woman(the fucking victim) from both a police officer and multiple victims, minor of the time period transphobic comments. This is Copoganda. It's not even hiding it.

This is one of Con's one-off performances for a TV show. It's a cop procedural and it runs at just about an hour. Watch his scenes, you don't really need to care about the plot. He's a side character that barely matters once the mystery is all tied together. If you're craving a cop show, just watch the Pie in the Sky episode he's in. You will have a better time.

Due to the weird pacing of this episode and scene changes, unless you've seen it you probably won't get what's going on. I've edited to add context the best I can, but you can skip to the end to see my overall thoughts.

As always, I love chatting in the comments. If you've already seen this, don't be afraid to rant!

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What the fuck is this intro? Why does it feel like a HGTV show.

Okay, lets play the game of, is Con the victim or the murderer?

HE'S THE CORPSE?

OH SHIT THAT'S NOT CON.

I'm calling it now, three-way. Guy was let in, and shot him.

I'm guessing right now Con killed them, jealous of the guy for getting the girl. Or Con's character was jealous of the woman.

Definitely Man hands holding that gun, is it Con? If so, #6 of Con's character improperly using guns. (Spoilers, supprisingly, I don't think Con's character touches a gun)

CON APPEARS

'Spencer Grieves. A catholic, a family man. A vicious bastard.' HELL YEAH! HANG ON. He's a vicious flower wholesale person, and if you don't buy from him, he fucking attacks you?!??!!? Flower better be code for drugs, or I fucking swear.

God, I love criminal/competent Con characters, he's having so much fun.

They wouldn't need literally every person in her family to come in and identify the body, this just seems cruel.

This whole purity angle for the victim is just gross. She's a fully grown adult, why the fuck are they so shocked she's fucking people.

This is why you don't let yourself be defined by a certain animal. She's stuck with ducks, and I'll forever be stuck with owls. I wonder if owls will be relevant to my murder.

(Going to the all mens prision to interogate a suspect, our female detective goes in basically alone, with the prisoners walking around their residential area) They would have put everyone in lockdown for her to come on. What the fuck?

CON. That hat is fun. From now on, he's Spencer.

WHY THE FUCK IS HE TALKING ABOUT LOVE SO MUCH IN HIS FIRST SCENE? I know for the 20 years post Blood Brothers he was cast in these types of roles. Sad and wrecked people wanting acceptance. Look at any of his work from the 90s/00s. BUT GOD. Someone needs to rip all of these 'I'm a sad, lonely, blank looking for love, etc. ' speeches into a Izzy edit.

HE ALSO HAS SHIPS ON HIS MEMORY BOARD, HELL YEAH

HE'S GAY(OR BI!!!!! Depending on if he loves his wife, yet to be seen. But given she hasn't visited him...eh)!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HE'S FUCKING IN LOVE WITH SCOVI (the male victim)! I love the 'wow I didn't think this guy was gay' subversion always being Con's thing. He inadvertently makes the subversion a typecast for himself. Funny as shit.

Oh wow. A Queer Con character who devoted his life to someone, only for his lover to suddenly make a total life change, and leave him behind for a blonde. Shocker.

Okay. SPENCER IS SO MUCH FUN. He's bringing Cliff(BBC Uncle)/Angel(3 Steps to Heaven) energy here, and I'm kind of loving it.

"And my wife? She wouldn't approve." OHHH. God, he's funny as shit. Awful and morally dubious, but fun as shit.

Why would you have code names to hide the identities of the men you'd want to fuck in a personal diary.

Also, I don't like that the blonde detective seems like he'd want to fuck the dead woman.

Spencer's wife seems fun. The cop calling Spencer 'A small Alpha of a man who protects his family' is rude. I am one inch taller than he is.

Okay, obviously ACAB. Don't trust cops. But if Spencer's work is endangering her children then, yeah, probably best to gtfo.

They're all kinda sexist as shit to the blonde detective lady.

God I hate this blonde guy detective. He's such a confident idiot. In an American show, he would have been shot and learned not to be an idiot like this. Going in somewhere alone with a suspect of a murder case? Dumbass.

Also, if he got any evidence from that conversation how would he even use it in court?

EY Back at the prison. Nice. Smiling Con is the best Con.

Why would Spencer not hide contraband well?

HAHAHA I am routing for Spencer, this plan the cops had was stupid as fuck.

If I was as paranoid as this character likely is, I'd just throw out my phone.

Idiots. He clearly knows you snooped.

The editing in this is a choice.

This love triangle/circle/fucking hexagon feels like high school gossip.

Transphobic joke is not needed, and neither is the sexist comment jackasses.

I am pretty sure this isn't how phones work?

Good for him, knowing not to say shit regardless if he thinks something could be tracked. Also, Bi-con.

NVM, let's just admit guilt and a few other crimes over the phone.

Why are these innocent people just talking to cops? Giving them free information as they stalk you out of your workplace. I hate this blonde jackass.

WHAT THE FUCK. What is this editing? WHY DOES BLONDE DOUCHE WANT TO FUCK THE DEAD CHICK.

Yeah, it's a fucking diary jackass. It's going to be biased as fuck, why are you taking at as gospel. Does he have a Sherlock Holmes thing going on here? Seeing how things 'really' happened.

DON'T THEY NEED A FUCKING WARRANT TO SEE CCTV! "Enhance it" It's a fucking bald guy. You have one bald suspect. Also, enhancing things doesn't work like that.

Well, now you've probably endangered Spencer's entire family.

We are 40 minutes into this, can you fucks not argue about who gets credit for the case.

God I hate cop shows. Stop being smug bastards, someone's been killed.

YEY! Back to the prison!

Also, as a person who has done tours in my local prison (US) for our government class, it's weird to see how this prison is semi-accurate.

WHY ARE YOU GIVING A PEP TALK TO GROSS BLONDE DETECTIVE ABOUT DATING SURROUNDED BY FELONS. Spencer was a violent offender, all the people surrounding him likely have similar sentences. But no, lets openly chat about how his standards are too high? He's a fucking unlikeable worm of a man.

Just let him be single. Jesus Christ.

DID SPENCER GET A GUN TO KILL THE GUY WHO SOLD HIM OUT! (Or used bought loyalty to get the guy killed)If so, badass. And he got away with it cause he had help. Perfect.

How about we just assume anyone who was involved will be killed.

God, Spencer shouldn't be hot...What am I kidding myself, of course he's hot.

Spencer is also cheating on her. If he's catholic enough to care, he already thinks he's going to hell. Both for cheating and fucking men.

Also, cops are paid to lie to you. We as the audience know the cop is just lying, but Spencer should have assumed. How he doesn't know this as an experienced felon is bullshit.

ALSO WHY WASN'T SPENCER TIED DOWN OR HANDCUFFED! I swear to god, does having a violent record mean nothing in England? WHAT DID YOU EXPECT! The cop was riling him up.

Oh, finally someone guilty has a lawyer

That blood looked like paint. Nice red apple. How the fuck is there 20 minutes left.

Yeah, maybe if you think Spencer is guilty wait until he's out. Set something up to watch him after he leaves prison, and wait. Jesus Christ.

Why the fuck does an older blonde woman care about the younger blonde detective's sex life? This is the third scene that's like this. Like, it's sweet that she cares about work-life balance, but being a cop is one of those jobs where that shit goes out the window.

Nope. I hate this. When Sherlock does it, it works cause Sherlock isn't trying to picture sad desperate women looking for love. He treats them with respect. This jackass is just lonely and pictures victims being his friend. Weird as shit.

(He tries to kiss his imaginary ghost victim) WHAT THE FUCK. Is this supposed to be charming?

CON! THANK GOD! Rescue me, please. Look at that summer drip. I think I own that shirt. At least he's being nice about handing the phone over for evidence.

ENHANCING IMAGES DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT

A shrine? Weird. Also, I know this person is obsessed, but seriously? Who decorates like that.

Eh, that pun was awful.

Yeah, having both men be obsessed with her just points out how gross the detective guy is.

So a gross man thinking he knew what was right for a woman, wow, shocker.

Yeah, bullets go through people. Idiot.

THE DIARY SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN EVIDENCE THE ENTIRE TIME JESUS CHRIST

So what was Spencer whole deal, just gay and knew a guy at the wrong place at the wrong time?

HOT CON ALERT. Shirt half unbuttoned, chest hair exposed, sunglasses on. This is the mental wash I need after remembering how god-awful and scary it can be to date.

Why is he talking to the cop? I thought he hated him.

SHE LEFT WITH THE KIDS OH SHIT. AWWWW. Jackass cop.

Is he going to get shot? Well, now he's left with a dead lover, no wife, and no kids. Likely no place to work. He'll probably go right back into crime.

I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS BLOND DETECTIVE. Oh, he can see her? It's a ghost thing? Ah well. If this was actually her consciousness, it doesn't make his obsession with her any less creepy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story: 4/10. Spencer's thing was the only part I enjoyed.

The entire cop crew pissed me off, I didn't like a single character. The victim was guilty of being young and pretty. A bunch of men felt like they were owed her attention, and she gets accidentally killed out of possessive jealousy. So what do the writers do? Make our main protagonist fall for her. Dumb and gross. Even in death, she's just eye candy. Not a person. Her parents knew her as innocent, which is the first thing that interests the detective. Just gross. The other detectives were either just assholes, or uninteresting.

Con: Loved it. Honestly, I love when Con gets to play competent people. He felt lived in, and like what Angel should have been in 3 Steps to Heaven. All of this comes from Con's performance as a cautious criminal, not through the writing. More about his character and the way he holds himself. Gender and confidence envy.

Spencer Grieves: The sarcastic maybe Bisexual Catholic with a history of violence. He wasn't even directly tied into the main murder, he just fucked the wrong guy. Love destroys you, indeed. Again, the mother probably made the best choice getting the kids out of there. But I felt like Spencer genuinely cared, and loved his family. So in all likely hood, after all this good behavior and growth, he's probably going right back to jail.

It kind of feels like the writers threw in his queerness as a 'look at how awful of a parent/spouse he is'. Or maybe in a 'wow, a gay 'immoral' criminal, no one is shocked' copoganda way.

Which isn't great, but of the time period. Spencer is a fun and compelling character that doesn't deserve to be in this copaganda bullshit. Speaking of copaganda.

Bias that almost made me skip scene by scene through this: It's fucking propaganda. We're supposed to be sympathizing with the wisecracking asshole cops. Be happy when they lie, or mislead, or abuse their power. But no. Everything they said made me hate them, and want the criminals to get away with fucking murder. In Pie in the Sky, yeah they were cops, but they were still people. Solving stupid no stakes crimes, the assholes in the show were other cops and we as the audience were supposed to hate them. This show felt like every bad part of CSI, but British. No fault to Con here.

Overall: If anyone has clipped Con's scenes, then that's the best way to watch it. Even without context, Con's performance is fun. The way thay handled the victims part just felt gross. She was never a person, just an item, to everyone in her life. A victim who was taken advantage of by their want to love and be loved. Kind of like Spencer when you think about it, passionate about his family, and how he freaked out about his wife cheating on him. His world fell apart because he loved the male victim and his wife. Now both are left with nothing...No, im not giving the writers that much credit here.

Just rewatch Pie in The Sky. This is weird for me, cause Con plays a confirmed queer character here but it feels more hateful.

B-tier for Con's performance/character. The show around him ties him down sadly, fucking D for the story. I don't know how I'd scale this on a /10 scale. Just know, not high. While his other stuff was fun to watch, as soon as Con was off-screen I was uncomfortable.

As always, love to @ivegotnonameidea for the suggestions ;)