#RL stuff

[oydis]

Bite-sized update

I’m working on myself trying to stop overthinking so much and get in touch with my feelings instead. I thought things were getting sorted out for me but that wasn’t the case and for the past month+ I’ve been going through a situation that’s still causing me occasional stomachaches.

One day when I was particularly disheartened I happened to see this cutie around, I called out to him without holding too much hope and he came over to let me love him. He rolled over too! 12/10 experience, much needed.

Thus the break is still ongoing but I hope I can eventually muster up enough motivation and energy to finish up some things for Simblreen. As expected, it’s hard to create with a heavy heart.

In order to keep my mind off things I decided to finally start learning Welsh and it’s making me reasonably happy with myself.

Lots of love from yours truly 🩶

[blacktofade]

hello my boy Arthur turns 9 today please wish him a happy birthday thank you

[tarisilmarwen]

Some years back now actually my external storage hard drive had an error and I nearly lost the whole thing, including my collection of saved amvs and other videos from YouTube. The husband managed to recover the files for me but they were all jumbled up and generically labeled and in a couple very large mishmashed folders and reorganizing and relabeling them into the proper order has been.... tedious.

Anyways be proud of me I finished like over a hundred relablings this weekend alone. (And found dormant ship feelings cropping up again ngl.)

[ralkana]

All right, accountability post!

I HAVE to file and delete old emails. I'm going to work on this over the next week or so because it's freaking me out.

Work inbox, read: 4,955

Work inbox, unread: 10

Let's see how this goes...

[whimsi-clown]

Girls in romance books getting in between two guys fighting: Please! Stop fighting over me!~

Me in rl getting in between three dogs fighting: Oh for the love of- PLEASE STOP FIGHTING OVER ME!!!

[greenbergsays]

I’ve only been home for 30 minutes, and part of that was taken up by a shower, but I’ve still managed to be followed around by an overgrown 18 year old telling me no less than 4 different stories that I genuinely could not retell under pain of death, each one punctuated by “okay, love you! Night!” and a kiss on the cheek before he’s back a minute later to repeat the process

…I’m starting to think I showed this butthead too much affection as a child

[fandomspicebingo]

Kinktober and an Apology

I wanted to do this quickly, because I know a lot of you are waiting for the bingo cards - and sadly I have run into a bit of trouble with that so far.

While two of my IRL friends are helping me with the selection of "tropes"/prompts, I (@alpaca-clouds) am doing the cards on my own, and sadly I am currently struggling with big time issues because of health related stuff - and because I am spending way too much time at work.

And because of that I am working very slowly through the cards. Though I hope that come the end of next week, this will hopefully look up finally, because work should get better then. Fingers crossed!

Until then, I thought I would share with you a kinktober prompt list, keeping you busy for a bit. ;) I will also repost anything this account gets tagged in in regards of Kinktober for now. (Same rules as with everything else apply: No RPS, no AI generated stuff etc.)

Full List under the cut:

AlternaDay 01: Kitchen Sex Day 02: Rope Bondage Day 03: Temperature Play Day 04: Sex Magic Day 05: Thron Sex Day 06: Knife Play Day 07: Massage Day 08: Whipping Day 09: Bath Sex Day 10: Humiliation Day 11: First Time Day 12: Voice Kink Day 13: Pregnant Sex Day 14: Slapping Day 15: Face Sitting Day 16: Animalistic Sex Day 17: Anal Fisting Day 18: Being Walked In On Day 19: Cunnilingus Day 20: Nipple Play Day 21: Loud Sex Day 22: Urethra Play Day 23: Cream Pie Day 24: Altar Sex Day 25: Pegging Day 26: Speculum Play Day 27: Biting Day 28: Rough Sex Day 29: Kink Exploration Day 30: Vaginal Fisting Day 31: Monsterfucking

Alternatives:

Flogging

Outdoor Sex

Public Sex

Electro Play

Fuck or Die

Uniform Kink

Food Kink

[pretentiousfoxling]

The downfall of being autistic and an academic is the struggle of wanting to attend some sort of college or university and be completely devoted and absorbed in your studies, but then your autism chimes in on your parade and decides that your ambitions are temporarily hyper-fixated on a subject that is either not related to your degree, course of study, or even offered at that location. This is why I am $12K in student loan debt...and still have not obtained any certifications or degrees as proof.

[fireflowersims]

Death, dying and funerals in the Netherlands (pt 2)

The part in which we discuss options

My dad died this monday and as it turns out: funeral planning takes a lot of time. This part will go into more detail about your options of what can be done with your body. And also why one may want to subject their funeral director to police-level interrogation. My dad's final trips.

Part 1

So, same tw as part 1 on all of this: cancer, death, dying, corpses, handling corpses in various ways, funerals, undertakers, huge sums of money, insurance company (derogatory), religion

So where will the body go?

So, your loved one has died. You got to give them their final care and they are now "opgebaard" (ready for viewing). Now it is time to choose how to "dispose" of the body. There are several options you can choose. Before I continue with my dad's story, it's good to tell you a bit about what each involves:

Body donation

It is possible to choose to donate your body to science. If you go for this option, the body will be picked up within 24h of death to be taken to wherever donated bodies go. Before that, it is possible to spend time with the body and say your goodbye's. My grandma's sister opted for this. There was no final service.

Cremation

You can also have your body burnt. This happens at indoor crematoria. The funeral service is done prior to the cremation as Dutch law requires the ashes to stay at the crematorium for 30 days after cremation. My grandparents on my dad's side went for this. Both times we had a service at the crematorium. Songs were played, memories recounted and poems were read. The services were non-religious in this case. I remember my grandpa had a sea shanty play. After the service there was food either at the crematorium or at family. Coffee and a snack or some soup is common. The ashes can later be kept in an urn or scattered. You may also bury them in an "urn grave".

Burial

Burial is where some people may get surprised. In the Netherlands, "eternal rest" is not a given. In most cemeteries, you don't buy a plot, you lease one. After the initial period expires, the grave will be cleared so it can be used for someone else. There are two types of rental graves: algemeen (general) and particulier (private). With an "algemeen graf" the cemetery determines how long your loved one can stay in there. Often 20 or 30 years. Extending the lease is oftentimes not possible. When the lease passes, the grave will be cleared. Private graves also tend to start at 20 or 30 years but family can choose to keep extending the grave lease if they wish. Urn graves are the same in this.

Dig up that grave

When a grave gets cleared, there are several things that can be done with the remains: they could be reburied deeper (if possible). They can be cremated and the ashes given to family. They can be reburied in another grave chosen (and paid for) by family or they can be reburied in a common grave (aka: the big grave, some may call it a mass grave). Either way, exhuming a grave is not an ordeal legally speaking, it's just a part of life and death. The Netherlands is a small country with limited grave space and so we have to be efficient.

Eternal rest

Sometimes rental graves can be hard on people. Will you choose to renew the grave of your child or father who died way too young? It is not gonna bring them back and it is a big chunk of money, especially if your funds are low. Is it really worth it to extend the geave lease of people you never knew? Fortunately, nowadays there is a way to never have to worry about this: natural burial.

At a natural burial ground, you pick a grave in the middle of nature. The grave often gets a temporary wooden marker. Once it has decomposed, you might be able to get a new marker, but after that one's gone, the grave is unmarked and can only be found via GPS coordinates. After all the graves on the burial ground have been filled, it will get turned over to Natuurmonumenten (natural monuments) who will take care of the area and ensure that it stays pristine and undisturbed. This means that graves will not be dug up. The bodies are left to decompose naturally in the soil. Sometimes in a coffin, sometimes in a shroud and their relatives will never have to make a decision about the grave lease.

This is what my parents chose. They went to a natural burial ground and picked a plot where they can be buried together on top of one another. It is a good fit for my dad, who always loved to be out in nature. I'm glad they got to choose together. Though I do hope I won't have to bury my mom anytime soon.

But what's with this insurance stuff?

Oh, insurance, I could probably dedicate entire posts to how much of a pain dealing with our insurance/funeral director has been at times. Dutch funeral insurance often takes the form of a sum of money to spend on a funeral. You can use it to pay to buy or lease a grave, but since my parents already paid for theirs, the insurance fee is used for things like cards, transport, renting the ice plate, renting space to keep the body and catering. Yup, catering. It is also possible to get a package. Grave/cremation + all needed services or a combination thereof (grave/cremation + a sum of money to spend on other funeral stuff).

Between life and death: corpse hauling

So this is where my dad's story gets absurd. So far, my dad's body has been in basically all the places you can store a body (for viewing and just storage).

First, we kept him at home. We didn't want to keep him there for too long though, as we didn't think he would've appreciated it (he was never one to confront death). He died monday in the early morning and was picked up by the hearse tuesday late in the afternoon.

Them he was brought to the crematorium's cooling. We were not allowed to follow. We found that out just as he had left the house.

Those 90 FUCKING EUROS

Wait, the crematorium? Didn't you go for burial? Well yes, the reason we had him transferred there is that we thought that should we have him transferred there, we would have access to a so-called 24h room. Turns out that wasn't the case. The crematorium doesn't have a 24h room and we'd have to pay 90 FUCKING EUROS PER VISIT! We were not informed about this nor about that a "visit" is only 45 minutes, needs to be requested via the funeral director and that the crematorium apparently doesn't work with digital systems or something, because appointments may only be made during working hours as the people who put them in the agenda are not there later in the day!

I repeat: 90 FUCKING EUROS to be in a room with a corpse for 45 minutes. For that money I can buy a museum card, spend the entire year looking at corpses daily, bog body, mummy, skeleton, plenty of choice and still have enough money left to buy a sandwich.

Needless to say, we were Not Happy. She did fix it fairly quickly by getting him transferred to a 24h room the next day, but yeah, that's another car ride, another corpse transfer, more costs. My dad was being driven all over town I tell ya

But .. how?

Alright, the funeral director was set at the table and we were talking about planning the funeral (more about that next post), at some point she made an offhand comment about if we wanted to view the body. We said yes. So she was like"okay, so I'll add a mourning visit" and that was it.

She did not explain that it would be a 45 min visit and that if we wanted more visits it'd be more money. I get it costs money. After all the workers have to get the body in and out of the cooling, into the room for a viewing, keep that room clean, keep the refrigeration running etc, but it would have been nice to get informed before we made that uninformed choice we did.

We thought (based on my BIL's experiences with his family being viewed outside the house) that his body would be put in a room and we'd just get a key to access it basically whenever we like. This was not the case. It was never explained to us. And thus we were totally surprised when the hearse driver told us to make an appointment and (respectfully) drove off towards the crematorium with my dad.

So this is why you interrogate your funeral director, kids. If you're lucky, you get one who understands that not everyone is well-versed in funeral options and may be tired and will explain everything in explicit detail but if not, you may find your grieving process disturbed by having your access to the corpse limited without informed consent.

In the end, my dad spent a night at the coolig where his parents were also kept. We jokingly said he paid the place their bodies stayed at a visit. He is now at the 24h room.

The last home for the dead

A 24h room is a fantastic way to say goodbye. It is a dedicated room where the body is kept and the family can just come in and spend time with it whenever they want or need. The atmosphere is homey and calm. In this particular room, the corpse is off to the side and can be hidden by curtains. One can choose to view him or just spend time on the couch talking with the relatives, enjoying a cup of tea or playing a game. The dead person is there, but life can happen too. It's a space between regular life and the reality of death. I personally find I quite like it. My dad would not want to be kept at home until the funeral, that wouldn't fit him. But I think he'd be okay with this option. It's more expensive than a visit to the crematorium, but you have the freedom to come whenever you feel ready and that is worth its weight in gold. Here he will stay until it is time for his final trip: to church and then to his grave.

Next up in Fire's Funeral Adventures: how to plan a Dutch Funeral (ft. Frustration)

[cloverinblue]

Getting my gallbladder removed today wish me luck 🤞😊

[winterdeepelegy]

Listen… things suck right now. It's going to continue to suck. You're worried, you're probably scared, you're angry… all of that is valid and I feel it to. I see you and I love you, as an Ace to all my queer and trans friends. I'm right there with you, and my inbox is open anytime. Discord too.

I'm also sending this out to my POC friends, immigrant friends, and fellow women. Anyone who is marginalized. It's hard to not feel like we all have targets on our backs which are bigger than ever, but we can't simply stop existing. Get up. Get out of bed. Carry on. Rest. Eat. Drink water. Take care of yourself, your friends, and your loved ones. Remember that you can't pour from an empty cup, and you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can effectively help the person next to you. My door is always open for you and I'm ready to lend an ear if you just need someone to vent your grief to.

[kylo-wrecked]

*steepling fingers* okay, two things.

thing one: I have been assigned four articles—good!! Jfc!! —that are all due like right now so I will be glued to a screen for three days.

thing two: My partner is returning a week earlier than expected to help me sell furniture before the move, which I’ve very tentatively slated for September. Also because I said they’re allowed.

Hunkering down fr cos this all^ involves A Lot of change.

Things are Happening.

I’ve hated typing out this post, thank you for reading. LOL.

[blacktofade]

Wanna hear some fucked up stuff? They laid off more of our team yesterday without warning. Or I was stupid enough to assume we wouldn't be hit since they gutted our team last year. I'm safe apparently, but they haven't shared names (obviously) or number of people lost.

And then this morning I had a call with my boss who basically said I was up for a promotion but he wanted to let me decide what to do. So I just told him I want to give it up in order to fly under the radar. I'm absolutely NOT drawing the ire of Upper Management by asking for more money right now lmfao

So yeah, happy Wednesday, my dudes ✌

[tarisilmarwen]

Happy birthday to me, I'm off work and going to spend the day reading, both my book to-read stack and fanfiction.

In the vein of the latter, would appreciate some recs. :)

[ana-cantskywalker]

Mutuals I need your help please!

Me and Ahsoka (my horse) are signing up for state competition today. She is not papered so she doesn’t have a show/registered name, I have not been able to come up with one to put down for shows. I don’t HAVE to have one I could just put her down as Ahsoka, but I’d like to be a little extra. So if you have any suggestions please let me know! You can look up examples of what a horse show name typically looks like, they are usually kind of ridiculous and I love it.

I’m wanting to either have something with ‘snips’ or ‘snippy’ in it or something else Star Wars related that rolls off the tongue.

(I will be shamelessly self reblogging this throughout the day for boost because I am signing up tonight)

[whimsi-clown]

I asked my mom if she would love me if I were a worm.

Here's how it went.

Me: Hey ma, would you still love me if I was a worm?

Mom: Huh??

Me: Would you still love me if I was a worm?

Mom: Do I know that you're a worm?

Me: Yea?

Mom: Oh. Then yes.

Me: Aw-

Mom: Because I would have stomped on you if I didn’t know.

Me: ...