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hirik0 · 9 months ago

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Back to you part 5

Makarov/Yuri

Yuri opens the door to his apartment he's exhausted and sleep will not come to him in this very early morning hours. He throws the mask and the card on his couch table cursing under his breath. He didn't saw Makarov outsite of the ring, but god Andrie eyes never left him the whole night, so he is expecting a not so nice viste any moment now. Makarovs fighting style only got more aggressive after his first win and even people that never saw Makarov before can see how tense the man was. The whole drive back Yuri thought about what to say, how to explain himself, knowing he's has to face a absolutely furious Makarov and having only one chance to survive. Betray is the most deathly sin in Makarovs eyes and Yuri, even if he's not working for his old friend, comided it. He dont know why but around 30 minutes after returning home he opens his appartment door clearly catching a angry, beaten up Makarov of guard with this. Yuri steps to the site lets the other in against his better judgement but this clearly calms Makarov down a little bit. Its like one tiny rain drop falling on a inferno. Yuri is pressed against a wall next to the door a knife against his throat Makarovs eyes have a cold rage in them, also noticed the injured knuckles that are not bandaged. "You better have a good explanation, Yuri", Makarov hisses the force he's using to press the knife against Yuri lessens a bit. "Got a packet after the fight last month, with a mask, a card and a note. Thought its from one of your man I regularly work with", Yuri wispers out not daring to talk louder. "You already have a card." Makarov is using more force again, putting the 'one of his man thing' down as a cheap excuse. "Only found out about the card and note tonight." The pressure on his throat making it hard to speak and its getting worse, a little bit of blood running down when the first skin is broken. "Convenient", Makarov spats out, not caring he's cutting Yuri. "Fuck, I didn't know there's a colour system. If I knew I would not have gone with him, I swear." The end of the sentence is nearly getting cut of then Makarov is applying more pressure, now a littel stream of blood is running down Yuris throat. "The note?" Makarov asks removing the knife from Yuris throat for now. "Couch table", Yuri answers not daring to move away from the wall, this is not over also his legs struggle to keep him up. Makarov picks up the mask, card and note from the table, looking them over. It's clear that Makarov is reading over the note several times. Before dropping everything on the floor and returning to Yuri. The knife is still out but for now away from Yuris throat. "Can't believe you gone with Zahkeav, but who did he introduced he to you? And why?" "My name in IT is in the dark net, specialised in malware", Yuri answers catching Makarov of guard for a second time, the knife is getting lifted a bit, now at the hight of Yuris kidneys. "You sell malware?", Makarov asks he has to talk with Pavel his main IT guy later. "Yes, I'm the Magpie", Yuri confirms the knife stays were it is. "I will ask about that later you better don't lie." With that Makarov is putting the knife away Yuri is sliding down the wall not caring what Makarov is thinking about this. He has to look up now seeing the other thinking. "Why didn't you ask me when the mask came?" Yuri frowns at this is he hearing hurt in Makarovs voice. "I honestly didn't though about it. If I found the cart earlier I would have", Yuri admits trying to calm his heart down. Makarov makes a displeased sound at this he gave Yuri a number to reach him for a reason. "Did you atleast won some money?", Makarov asks sudenly to change topics. "No, Andrei tryed to kill me with his looks. Thought betting wrong would make it worse" Yuri stammers his answer carefully feeling for the cut on his throat, he will have to look at the damage in the mirror later.

Makarov is clearly still upset, but he also didn't leave yet, what Yuri sees as a bad sign. When his legs are able to hold his weight again he slowly stands up before walking in the kitchen. He gets a cool pack out of the freezer for Makarovs black eye, that is swollen up pretty badly the longer he's angrly standing in Yuris livingroom. "Did you atleast get looked over before you tryed to break in?", Yuri asks while giving the other the pack not able to get the worry out of his voice. "Others had it worse, its just some bruises", Makarov says getting a pisst look from Yuri for it, who then is storming out of the room. When Yuri is reappearing he has a first aid kit with him and Makarov just sits down on the dinner table. "It's nothing Yuri, had worst injuries before", Makarov says his anger slowly boiling down. "That you also don't let other check over", Yuri huffes annoyed he still has to have this conversation after 5 years for fuck sake Makarov is a BOSS now you would think he takes injuries more seriously or has somebody that makes sure he gets checked. "Does Andrei know you're here?", Yuri asks while carefully feeling the black eye, to make sure the eye socket is not damaged. "Yes." Makarov hisses annoyed before getting out of his sweater and the undershirt not with out feeling pain and having struggle to lift his arms. Yuri goes over the ribs first, Makarov took some painfull looking hits there. Getting a hiss out of Makarov when he carefully touches around the 4th rib on the left site and a flinch for the 6th on the right. "You should get a chest x-ray", Yuri comments the reaction getting a eye roll as answer. "It's ahhhh", Makarov groans when Yuri is pressing the bruises on the left site, to get his point across. Next are the bruises on Makarovs abdomen Yuri carefully making sure there is no internal bleeding, getting Makarov to squirm a bit because he trys to flex the muscles under the touch, but the painful bruises are preventing him from doing so. The next sound is a pained gasp when Yuri is touching Makarovs collar bones. "I will get the stupid x-ray", Makarov presses out when Yuri gives him a pointed look. When Yuri is lowering his hands and steps away Makarov puts his cloths back on. Again struggling to lift his arms but he with a bit of help from Yuri he manages. Then Yuri is opening the set pulling out gaze, cotton balls, tweezers, some creme, a bandages, iod solution and a pair of gloves, then gets a small dish from the kitchen. "Shouldn't you wear the gloves the whole time?", Makarov asks sounding annoyed. "Wouldn't be a problem if you would have waited to get patched up", Yuri retorts while putting on the gloves, having a quiet good worst aid knowledge from patching ip Makarovfor years. He purs some of the iod on the dish before soaking a cotton ball in it. Picking it up with the tweezers and pressing it on Makarovs knuckles. "Ah shit Yuri", Makarov hisses hating the burn the iod is causing, making Yuri to press the ball for longer on the next knuckle. "You're the worst nurse imaginable", Makarov complains getting a annoyed sound out of Yuri who really holds back a mean comment, only because it would be mean to somebody that's not Makarov. When Yuri is finished with the probably excessive use of iod he smears a big blob of the creme on the back of the left glove, before he applies a generous amount on the knuckles and is covering them with gauze. Finally using the bandage to protect the wounds from getting dirty.

"Do I need to get Andrei on the phone for your x-ray?" Yuri asks while packing up and looking for some painkillers. "No", Makarov huffs out, before taking the two withe tablets from Yuri. "Thanks." "Can't believe you still pull the same shit from for 5 years", Yuri sighs defeated feeling exhaustion washing over him. Makarov bits his lower lip to not answer getting a pisst look from Yuri who is leaving the room again. Makarov phone vibrates so he pulls it out.

Andrei: I have a body bag and shovels in the trunk

Makarov: Not needed Andrie

A: Yuri is still alive? Saw you kill people for less

M: Need to check something he said can kill him later

A: I pick you up in 20 and then you get seen by a medical professional

M: need a chest x-ray

A: 🙄 again ?!

"Leave you in 20", Makarov informs putting his phone away, when Yuri reenters the room. His own injury also attended for and having a change of cloths. "Good." Yuris answer is passive and the silence that follows is nearly unbareble. Makarov won't apologise and Yuri knows better then to ask for one.

"We will talk", Makarov says after 15 very awkward minutes only getting a nod as an answer. Yuri sighs loudly when the door closes behind Makarov finally being able to go to bed he can sit with the feelings later. Makarov pulls the car door open siting on the front passenger seat, ignoring the look his right hand man is giving him. "Everything worked out?", Andrei ask while pulling in the traffic again, driving Makarov to one of the private doctors that is working for them. "As I stated I need to check something", Makarov answers his bad mood now mainly caused by the pain he's in, what ever Yuri gave him is not strong enough. "I can do it?", Andrei offers unsure if Makarov really can kill his old friend, he would never question it for Milena but Yuri is a different story. He isn't dumb knowing how Makarov and Yuri were 5 years ago and he's not sure if he can relive this expirince. "Doc is already waiting for you." Makarov groans at this information of course Andrei brings him to the Doctor that is one complaint away from losing his licence, probably because that man has his own x-ray in the doctors office.

The old man is waiting at the door for them, only one of his other staff members present. "Ah Mr. Makarov", he's greated getting the most forced smile from Makarov, the praxis looks still like the Soviet Union never ended, they still use some of the ancient equipment as well. "Doctor", Makarov finally says trying to get his x-ray and then go home. "Everything is prepared just follow Anna here", the doctor says and he follows the nervous looking nurse. The poor woman is clearly afrait of him and seeing his tattoos and him beaten up dont help with her slight trembling fingers. "One chest x-ray", she reads from the chart she's holding for dear life, before she is doing her job. 10 minutes later he sits with a tiered looking Andrei in the doctors office, looking at his nearly broken right rib, his broken left rip and the many tiny cracks in his collar bones. "At least a week of bed rest and after that only light work for atleast 2 more weeks. No heavy lifting, no tac vest, I writte down some pain meds so also no alcohol", the Doc says sternly and Makarov barely looks up from his phone. They all know he will NOT do any of this, besides maybe the tac vest thing, the last time he did this he needed a operation to fuse his bones together and was forced to not work for nearly a month. He already is mailing Pavel to be at his office at 15:00 for some questions he has. "Of course", Makarov lies getting a side eye from Andrei who know better then to try make his boss follow the orders, people die for this.

On the drive to Makarovs place the car is silent. Andrei said he will drop the pain meds of later, when the pulled out of the parking lod. Andrei thinks he never seen his boss pouting before and he's pretty sure that it's because of Yuri, seeing him sitting with Zahheav really upset Makarov, he may dare saying hurt to Milena. Yuri is becoming a weak spot and they both know it, but Andrei is not sure if they agree with Yuri having to go. They stand at a red light when Andrei is saying it. "If Yuri becomes a to big of a problem, I will do what I need to protect the organisation." "I know." It's a simple answer and Makarov is still visible tense, being unsure if having Yuri work for him will fix the problem, but he cant have any weaknesses especially not one that can be so easily exploited. It would honestly for the best if Yuri lied to him over being the Magpie, then he would be dead and most dead people can't cause problems anymore. His chest pain is getting worse at this thought, like a invisible knife is stabed into his chest, he trys to lie to himself that this is not a bad sign.

Makarov lays in his bad and he feels miserable. His body arches, his black eye is pulsing, but the worst are the feelings he's feeling. He never feels bad for threatening a person, nearly killing them or for killing them, till Yuri came back in his life. The betrayal of Yuri being with Victor Zakhaev hurt him badly, he hates that Yuri is being angry with him. He hates that Yuri is his weakness, he hates that Yuri isn't far away anymore, only a vague memory he sometimes recalls. Things will go back to normal when Yuri is just another member of his organisation where the only reason for Zakheav and the others to get to Yuri is because he works for him. His phone is vibrating again.

A: do I need to exploit Yuri as your nurse?

M: didn't you just say you will kill him if he gets a to high risk

A: don't mean I can't exploit him till that's the case

M: I will follow Docs order for the most part

A: I will drag him in your place if you don't

M: I survived worse

A: .... yeah to bitch about being in pain

M: I don't bitch

A: sure

Makarov throws the phone away not caring where it lands or if it breaks. Maybe he needs to look for a new right hand man his curent knows to much about him. Yuri can count himself lucky if he survives the rest of the day. Also he got a taste of Nurse Yuri and didn't like hit, probably related to the whole knife to throat thing. Yuri really needs to get over himself, he knew the moment he saw Victor Zakhaev this would happen.

#call of duty #makayuri #cod makarov #cod yuri

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milehighmegs · 21 days ago

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My Genderfluid Journey: Part 1 of ?

A periodic series of observations

As a 42-year-old AFAB with 2 grown kids and 3 ex-husbands, coming out as genderfluid seemed... daunting. At least, I thought it would be. Turns out that was the easy part for me. My 3 best friends (one of whom is my ex) had zero issues with it, as did my daughter, son, & mom. Haven't been brave enough to tell my dad yet. Announced it on FB, here on tumblr, and on Xitter. The reception has been wonderful; lots of support & congrats, even from people I don't know. It's been sublime.

I won't get into all the details surrounding my genderfluid realization; most of it is 1) too personal, 2) TMI, 3) NSFW, and 4) puts other peoples' business/inclinations on blast and that ain't mine to put out in the world. What I can say is that this is far from recent, not just a whim, and definitely not a phase. I've been... not so much battling with as confused/indecisive about my gender identity since I was a kid. When I was 8 or 9, I saw the film 'Ghost' and fell in love with Demi Moore's super short pixie cut. I asked my mom if I could get it, and she (shockingly) said yes. I thought it looked adorable (and it DID), but when I got to school... you guessed it: I got teased for looking like a boy. I never could figure out what was so wrong with that. But I grew my hair out afterward, not cutting it short again until I was in my 30's.

Things got even more confusing after high school when I started wishing I was male because I wanted to be like all the wonderful gay men I was meeting in WeHo in the early 2000's: confident, expressive, fun... they just looked so FREE. They could be super masc, super femme, & everything in between in a way I couldn't be. On the few occasions throughout my life that I've been brave enough to adopt a more masculine look, I've been told I look like a 90's lesbian. Hardly an insult, but a) inaccurate (I'm not), and b) not what I was going for. It was like, DAMNIT, can't I just BE a GUY for like, a few days? And go back & forth whenever I want to? Why is it that I'm "supposed" to shave my legs because of what's between them? Why am I expected to wear dresses & heels because I have hips? And why the FUCK do I get dirty looks when I wear a plaid shirt with a band tee & Docs? Is it because of the TIDDIES?! Fuckin ridiculous, man.

As I got older and the world became (blessedly!) more accepting of all gender identities/orientations, I learned that there was a term for what I'd been feeling since childhood. Scrolling through FB, then Pinterest, and eventually Insta & TikTok, seeing genderfluid & trans people adopting & embracing their identities fully & openly gave me a great deal of happiness for them and for the world, but also mad gender envy (a term I learned only in the last 2 years). It really hit me hard when I saw 'The Sandman' for the first time: the ineffably amazing Mason Alexander Park as Desire had me asking myself some serious questions. I spent the better part of a year trying to put together what it was I was feeling with the new things I'd learned about gender fluidity before coming out. Now that I have a more fully-formed idea of what that means for me, I'm ready to really be MYSELF.

I've created a new Pinterest board titled 'masc looks & tips,' got a dozen open tabs on my laptop of genderfluid TikTok accounts, and a whole list of "guy stuff" I want on my phone. The part that sucks is that my broke ass isn't able to buy the $50 binder that's been so highly recommended by many; shit, I can't even afford the boxer briefs I've been eyeing for months. I also got a super feminine body: thicc thighs, wide hips, tiddies that make sure everyone can see them... in other words, it's pretty hard to drown these curves under an ocean of fabric. And since I'm only 5 feet tall, oversized clothes will literally just drag on the ground, making me look more like a kid who stole her older brother's clothes than a male-presenting genderfluid adult person. Gah.

I know that the next step for me is to lean into the traditionally masculine presentation that I've been craving most of my life. There are a lot of ways to do this, but I know step one for me is to tame these tiddies. I've been told that Ace bandages are a bad idea for binding, but I've also heard that they're perfectly safe as long as you do it right. Guess I'll just have to find out for myself. Also, I'll be dyeing my brows in the near future; I overplucked them in the 90's (yet another stupid ass beauty standard for women) and now they refuse to grow back. I ain't got the steady hands needed to draw them bitches in, so dye it is. Finally, I've got a haircut lined up for 3 weeks from now. I'm planning to undercut about a third of my head (think Natalie Dormer in 'The Hunger Games') and keep the rest of my hard-fought grown-out hair in a wolf cut. Maybe this will help encourage me to work harder and save up for all that "guy stuff" I've been craving.

Until then, it's tits & hips & feminine lips, all drowning under an ocean of fabric. Sigh.

#genderfluid #not as hard as i thought it'd be #and also so much harder than i'd like it to be

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nifreti-ii · 6 months ago

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My silly “little” OC Eike! (this is gonna be a long one, buckle in)(Also yandere related content)

Eike is the youngest of three children and the shortest in his family (hilarious isn't it), which is a slight sore spot for him. He was raised by both his parents and two older brothers. Eike started being homeschooled when he was 11 after a bullying incident in middle school that left him hurt (ref scars on his face) and the school did nothing to stop it. Due to spending a large portion of his adolescence (and subsequent MAJOR growth spurt) at home, he constantly hits his head on door frames at most places. Despite his height, he’s just a big ‘ol puppy. He loves going to college and being able to make proper friends, just smiling constantly and excitedly talking to people. When he first meets Gavin, he genuinely finds his (awful) jokes hilarious and proclaims him to be his best friend (Gavin gave up trying to flirt with him). Perfectly remembers the first time he met Harper and had a “waaaaaait a minute” when he met him again (greatly appreciates not having to break his neck to talk to someone).

(now on to his likes and dislikes) Love love LOVES bugs, but loves moths even more. The first time he saw a fluffy moth he said it looked just like him and cradled it in his hands till it flew away (he denies it to this day he cried when it left, don’t listen to his brothers). His entire family has a very close connection to nature, their home is a 5-minute drive to the closest road. It’s to the point that the inside and outside of the house are littered with plants (even the bathrooms man). He finds it the greatest honor when someone tells him a secret and takes keeping it VERY seriously, you can’t even torture it out of him. His mom gave him his first knife when he was 11 after what happened and made him promise to protect himself if someone tried hurting him (he now has 30 knives…). He grew up listening to folklore, cryptids, and myths; Knows all the signs of nearly any supernatural creature and habitually tells people “not to anger the spirits”.

He’s interestingly enough very private about his family life, no one who knows him has ever met any of his family or seen them (Only ever talks about anything they’ve done to him/for him.) …Spoons… So. Many. Spoons… (His brothers hid spoons in his room…his closet, his bed, and his bathroom, it was the one he found in his plant when repotting it months later that made him hate them.) Hunters used to hunt on his family’s property and constantly were a problem; It took one of his brothers getting hurt for the problem to be taken care of (he was too young to remember what happened, but does remember all the blood). The town tried to intimidate his family into giving up their land to build more homes, starting to cut down the trees right outside of the property. It was when one of the cut trees landed and destroyed some trees on their property did the town learned its lesson. The first and last time he went to the beach, a crab grabbed his toe and nearly snapped it off. He was 13, so his family just left him home whenever they went to the beach (His brothers tried scaring him with a crab shell, but he ended up liking it and now hangs it up on his wall.).

(referring to 5 min ship, not all tho) He would always steal his family's clothes and hug them whenever he had nightmares or missed them. It feels like he’s being hugged by said person (if he can’t wear it, he just wraps it around his head T^T). His family mostly showed love through actions, always hugging and gifting each other things (they say “I love you” at least twice a year). He tends to admire bugs and take pictures of them before letting them go. He either gives the meanest glare to whoever is bothering his love interest or physically intimidates them when they try to touch them. He’s only been in 2 relationships, each lasting over a year and both ended because he was too possessive (He’s better at his jealousy now but will be in a foul mood for a few minutes… or hours, really depends)

Was this long? Yes. Did I space out halfway through it and just realize that? Also yes. I love my skrunkly little OCs and giving them fairly fleshed-out backgrounds. I wanted to add that Eike is a decadent of Dryads/Nymphs along with his father and brothers, his mother being a witch. I know that supernatural creatures are canon in-universe, I just hope I'm not stretching tooo much T-T. The leaves in Eike’s hair are PART of him and hurt when pulled on, kind of like pulling out a weed or carrot (they grow back) I love his little ears and slightly greenish skin :3 Im gonna crawl under a rock (for now). Harper and Camp willow peak belong to @campwillowpeak (the silli knows too much but likes to pretend he doesn't :>)

Check out my Masterlist for my art and (limited) writing! :D

#digital art #yandere #my art #digital drawing #art #fanart #digital fanart #my fanart #camp willowpeak fanart #camp willowpeak harper #camp willowpeak #campwillowpeakvn #yandere vn #I have more to say but im too tired #May or may not add more #campwillowpeak #cwp #oc

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inkovert · 10 months ago

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Things I want to do in 2024

I've never been the type to make resolutions and I know we tend to put more weight on them than they actually are meant to have, hence why we never follow through with them. So! I am attempting to just make a list of things I am hoping to do in 2024. very low stakes. not going to think of these as goals, just things I want to do. and hope that I follow through with some of them.

Health-related

Planning my meals and keeping a food journal: I've been on a health journey for about the past year and I want to try to get back on track with that and be more consistent with it. I've been trying to be more consistent with preparing home cooked meals rather than relying on frozen meals/eating out, eating 3 meals a day etc, and that's been going well so far, but it could be better. I think one way to help myself be more consistent is planning my meals out (not like meal-prepping just literally being like this day I'm going to eat these things so I have a more structured "menu" vs throwing things together in my head the day of). I think I also want to start keeping a food journal. I peeped that iOS added a Journal app to the new software and I might try that out to see how useful it would be for food journaling, doing things like documenting my mood around the times I eat, what I eat etc.

Find a new dentist and start flossing: When I say I've been on a health journey over the last year I really mean in every possible way you can think of lol. Dental health was one of them. I've made a lot of improvements but I'm so prone to getting cavities that I think I could make a few more. I am one of the 60% of people who do not floss every day bc I found it hard/time-consuming/unnecessary. But I started doing it a couple weeks ago and... it wasn't so bad? I was pretty consistent with it until I went home for the holidays and that fell to crap bc I couldn't find the floss I had packed. anywho. I want to continue to be consistent with that and make that a habit, in addition to finding a new dentist bc the last one I saw was a bit too...assertive and I didn't like their staff so decided never to go back there again.

Personal/things that actually make me excited

Decorate my room: lol. Can you believe I've lived in my apt for two years and I've yet to decorate my room (even the bathroom has some stuff hung up on the walls). I literally have the decorations sitting in a pile by my bedroom door collecting dust. So yeah. I wanna actually do that. Tbf what stopped me before was that I wasn't confident I'd be able to stay in this apt for long. I thought for sure after a year they would jack up the price and I would be forced to move. But, we're now going on three years and things have been fine so I should actually properly decorate the place.

✨ Get a tattoo ✨ The sparkles are because this is probably the thing I'm most excited about on this list. I have wanted a tattoo for as long as I can remember. And I finally decided last year that I was going to say fuck it and get one. But unfortunately the finances weren't financing so it got delayed. But it's happening this year!! For sure!!! Hopefully in the next few months!! I need to stop delaying it and just do it!! So yeah. I've made my best friend keep me accountable each step of the way so I can stop procrastinating. So she gave me a deadline of Friday, 1/5 to at least have a list of tattoo artists I'm considering. We're doing this!!!

Actually leave my house and spend time in places I enjoy: Since my two closest friends moved away last year I haven't had a lot of incentive to go out and do things. So I've just been spending a lot of time at home by myself. And solitude is so nice. So comfortable. So blissful. But I need to end that. Or at least cut down on it a little. There are things I actively want to do in my city but every time the weekend comes I end up staying in my house doing nothing for 2 days straight. And it's been great. But I need to push myself to actually go out and do things by myself. Go to live music concerts, hang out at bookstores or coffee shops. Just something to have a change of pace and environment. I know I will be better for it. I'm gonna challenge myself to go out by myself at least once a month. If I do more? great. But we're starting small.

Writing-related

Track my writing: I'm not going to push myself to have word count goals or anything like that because I think that would be counter productive and take the fun out of writing for me. I actually wrote a lot last year (I just calculated it - 174, 817 words according to Scrivener; kinda insane can't remember the last time I wrote that much in a year) so I don't think I have issues with word quantity or writing enough and if it ain't broke don't fix it! But I do want to track my writing a little more closely. I just think it could be fun tracking the stats behind it and looking back at it at the end of the year. and also maybe help me continue this consistency with writing that I've suddenly developed?

Write something for fun: I can't tell you how much it hurts me that I don't have any fun/silly projects that I can work on on the side that I don't care about getting perfect. I think it will be nice and freeing and challenge my writing chops a bit to write something completely out of my comfort zone, totally absurd, and purely for my enjoyment. I've just been too crippled with fear to even try and idk why. I want to do it so badly but I struggle with coming up with ideas (and with working on more than one thing at once). We'll see it if it happens. this is just a list of things I want to do who knows if I'll actually do them.

Finish the second draft of MDE: just gonna throw this one in here out of obligation. refer to the last sentence of the previous bullet point. I wrote half of it in a year, maybe it's possible to write the other half in a year?

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. gonna come back to this in 6 months and see if anything I listed here actually panned out lol

#inkoverted thoughts #this is probably the most I've shared about my life and me as a person on my blog like ever lol #don't usually talk about personal things that are unrelated to writing #also writing the 'health-related' part of this made me realize just how much depression makes you stop taking care of yourself #like the way I have completely transformed my priorities and started working on things I didn't care to or have energy to work on before #kinda wild #2023 was a good year ngl

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popculturebuffet · 2 months ago

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American Pop Review: All Those Dreams, All Those Sons (birthday review for Brotoman.exe)

In Loving Memory of Ron Thompson 1941-2024

Hello all you happy people and it's time to kick off your shoes i'm breaking the news as it's time for a LONG delayed look at American Pop. So as a bonus my patrons get, in addition to a 5 dollar review a month for 5 dollar or higher patreons, a review on their birthday. As a gift for their support. I forgot to ask about Brotomans and gave him his late... and even later as some delays kept hitting this poor thing and I kept feeling awful about it. Thankfully we're FINALLY here and talking about Ralph Bakshi's American Pop.

While most of you seeing this probably know who Ralph Bakshi is , a quick refresher for those who don't: Bakshi was an animator, and one of the rare ones who focused on animated films geared at adults. He'd branch out on occasion, doing the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings and in his mind and no one elses Wizards for a family audience, but he primarily stuck to tales breaking down society and being filled with sex and drugs. It's remarkable to me he could do this and saddening we don't have more people trying to make animated films for adults. And I love children's animation, I do, but ther'es some stories you simply can't tell and also have kids come see the movie. Sometimes i'ts because you want to have a cat do drugs, sometimes you want to have a man fuck a cartoon, sometimes you want to write a riveting generational saga about a families constant all too real tragedies.

If that last one sounds like a bit of a departure, it is. After making Lord of the Rings Bakshi wanted something more down and earth, a musical fable with more relaistic characters, pushing rotoscope as far as he could. The result was.. only a million more than it's budget, but still resulted in a critical darling and cult classic among animation fans. It probably didn't help it was promoted as a rock n roll epic.. when only half the film , if that, has rock in roll in it. The rest is a stark generational saga of failure, loss, and dreams and it slaps. So come see what I mean under the cut.

Production wise I don't got much that I haven't already said and the few bits I do are best so let's get cracking.

American Pop is, as mentioned, a generational saga following 4 diffrent men from boyhood to manhood. It's not an easy watch as only one of these stories has a happy ending the rest all being some form of tragedy as the shortsighted choices and passiveness of these men destroy them and damage their children. It's a hard saga yet anchored by moments of joy humor and music and a triumphant ending, and to tell it properly i'm going to break it up into 4 sections, one for each main protaganist. Now some of our protaganists spill into their kids sections, as you'd expect but it's pretty clear when their story ends and their child's begins. It's a neat sweet spot between anthology film and a narrative film: the film is still essentially one long narrative, but each protaganists story has a clear ending bleeding into the next generation.

Zalmie

Our story begins with Zalmie, a small child as he and his mother prepare to flee russia during one of it's many porgoms, targeted riots designed to wipe out the jewish people that resulted in many lost lives and immigrants. It's a genocide I didn't honestly know happened till this movie and should be talked about more, as it's all too chillingly familiar to the kinds of tactics we see used against minorties today. The porgoms are also the inciting incident for Don Bluth's american tail.

So our hero and his unnamed mother come to New York, where the bulk of our stories take place and the love of Bakshi's life. Most of his films are set in New York. The only one's that don't are his 4 fantasy films and Cool World, which chooses Vegas again. It's clear the city is in his bones and every frame we see of it is lovingly drawn.

That's one of the films strengths: It's backgrounds: only a few characters are rotoscoped to life, a process where ink is drawn on real photos of people to help get thier movements down. Bakshi seemed to use this a lot using it for his tolkien duology and this film. For the backgorunds he uses photos resembling cartoons from the time or historical photos, giving us nice impressionist faces in the crowds. He'll also frequently use live action stock footage to segue scenes which is less effective to me , but I get the budget wasn't that high so you have to make do.

The rotoscoping itself looks pretty good. It can look uncanny valley in places as this was long before they could easily edit it digtially, and even then as we've seen modern equilvents can still look really weird, see in a scanner darkly (Which I need to watch) or polar express (Which is still really good). But it mostly works here.. the teeth never look right and shots with a lot of teeth can look hilarously bizzare, but for the most part it allows some nice flexible expression on the faces they gently edited the best they could and for the big bombastic emotions to really pop.

Zalmie gets into the music scene and begins a generational love of the craft via a burlseque club he happens upon. He's quickly hired by Louie a man with big ears, and a bigger mouth and who takes the kid under his wing, with some minor reluctance but it's clear while he tries to put up a wall he takes to the kid and his talent at handing out chorus sheets for the crowd to sing along to. Sadly back then David Byrne wasn't born yet to summon perfect choruses with his telepathic powers, you had to make do.

Zalmie's mom isn't super happy with his new life, but accepts a gift of a banana he got from an organ grinder.

Sadly.. we don't see his mom for much longer as next scene.. she dies. And it's a historic incident too, thank you wikipedia as I otherwise woudln't of known as they link to it in the plot summary for the film, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. So in the film you see women banging on locked doors.. and it's real. Employers locked the doors to stairwells to prevent unathorized breaks. I don't have a gif for that as it's so inhumane and horrifying to basically lock your workers inside a possible oven I can't joke about this. it's just.. my god. Thankfully this nightmare lead to better saftey standards.. but also cost 146 people their lives in truly horrifying ways... and in this reality Zalmie's Mother was one of them.

In a truly moving scene though without saying a word... Louie takes him in, putting an arm on the kids shoudler. While he tries to deny he's bascially Zalmie's new dad, it's very clear he is.

So cut to puberty which isn't good on our hero: While Louie had him as a singing act puberty's cutting into it homer simpson style. Unlike Abe instead of wrining his hands Louie is TRYING to keep his adopted boy afloat and assumes it'll change back.

Tragically.. it never gets the chance. Zalmie gets drafted into world war one. The good news is he gets uso duty. He ends up as a horses ass, figuratively, and wants to sing again, to get back out there, but it's still not bad... till the planes raid and a stray bullet hits im in the throat. For the rest of the film Zalmie has a deeper voice and it's clear the impact leaves a mark on more of his neck. Louie once again shows he's a stand up guy by showing up at his bedside. Awww.

So later Zalmie's become a deep voiced clown.

And I really like Zalmie's voice, that raw rasp to it. He's played by Jeffery LIppa whose wikipedia article is basically "he exists". That underlies his talent as Zalmie undergoes a bit of a transformation as the movie goes on. But we'll get to that for now Zalmie meets Doris, a stripper working at the club he's working at and is immeditly in love. With Louie's encouragment he goes after her and we get a really charming scene. He goes to her dressing room, she invites him inside and they just stare lovingly at each other as they strip down. While I try my best words really can't do this justice, it's just this look of pure love and attraction between two people. The proof that sex can be romantic in the right context even if we don't get this far because rotoscoping sex would be awkward as fuck.

So instead we cut to some time later as Zalmie's trying to encourage Doris to be a singer, having heard her voice and knowing she has talent.. but while I never have any doubts he actualy cares for doris... I have just as little doubt this is more for him. He could sing, he's badly wanted this, and now he can't so he's projecting onto his wife. He's already shown to be a pretty good manager in Louie's stead, an organizer, he could be happy with that. But he WANTS the big lights, the fame, and even if it's just through his wife it's something.

So they try it.. but let's say 8 months later they've hit a brick wall: Doris has talent but is heavily pregnant and Zalmie is forced to have her perform anyway as he can't afford to marry her. Enter Palumbo, the local mob boss who Louie introduces Zalmie too.. and he'll help both with Doris' career and the wedding.. if Zalmie delivers a few packages for him.

So Zalmie does reluctant at first.. but over a few scenes he settles into the life: his wife is performing in the top clubs, his son is by his side , a young boy at this point, and he has everything he could want. He's gone from hating what he has to do simply to get by.. to welcoming it while Delores is clearly more uneasy when their now having regular poker games at her home.

Sadly Delores.. dosen't get much fleshing out. SHe's mostly there to love Zalmie, be a tad reluctant.. then die horribly, stuffed in the fridge.. or in this case given the wrong package meant for Zalmie that winds up with her exploded off screen. She just dies to create angst for Zalmie and his son Benny, and in general the women in this film are more plot devices than genuine characters. The film does a good job giving the major romances belivieable chemistry, so it dosen't harm the film, but it's noticable as fuck that not a single one really gets to speak and are mostly shuffled aside.

So with Delores sad death.. we move on. Zalmie's story gets to continue the longest, spreading out across three chapters, but he's no longer the focus after that. No the POV shifts to

Benny

It's the late 20's early 30's at this point and when we see Benny next we've time skipped: It's something very common in this film, with big time jumps happening fast. It feels like a biopic in that regard, if for people who never existed: it has to cover a VAST swath of time but unlike a biopic isn't bound by real life so it can pick and choose what we see easier without feeling like it's cutting important stuff out. It still does here and there but most of the time skipped is stuff there wasn't a story for or we get the gist of anyway after we jump ahead.

So Benny is a young man now, working in a dive club with a do-wop act and denying his father's attempts to get him a better job, a conversation that feels well lived in, like this is far from the first time. It's also made clear, if not said WHY Benny refuses: he knows what his dad's up to, having been playing the piano, his talent and calling, when his mother died. He dosen't want any part of the Palumbo family.. which is unfortunate as Salmie needs him to marry Palumbo's daughter. He's resistant till he reads between the lins and gladly agrees knowing his dad probably can't say no and live long.

So we have a suprisingly charming wedding, with Palumbo and Salmie declaring each other brothers and everyone goofing around and Louie is there.. and Louie has not aged. I can't honestly tell if this is a pact with the devil thing or a John Stamos thing.

And.. the two hit it off.. we ge ta deeply romantic scene in their new mansion where again despite teh female characters mostly being props.. bakshi and his actors pull of honest to god chemistry. He makes something that should be schmaltzy, two people crammed together by their parents genuinely falling in love, and make it feel earnest and cute.

So some time later we're back where we started.. while Benny's performing in a much more upscale place, Zalmie is berating him... but this time.. it's because he thought about the army and Zalmie said son you fucking high. His reasons are also clear: if he makes it out of the war, he can support his family... and get away from THE family. As the next stretch will make clear his wife also isn't too keen on mob life and Benny likely dosen't want to fall for the trap his dad in: Getting in deeper due to debt and having to do worse and worse things that could get his family killed in the crossfire. Zalmie seems dead to it, accepting of what he lost.. but Benny remembers.

Tragically it's this heroic impulse, wanting a better mob free life for his family.. that leads to Benny's end. What happens to the poor guy in WWII is easily the best scene of the movie: Benny is inflirtrating a town when he spots a piano, playing it. Maybe he misses his art, maybe he just knows he dosen't have long to live. But this one moment of simply wantin ga break.. costs him as a German soldier sneaks up behind him... and even knowing he's going to die and leave his family behind... Benny plays. He plays soulfully from the heart, his last performance and his best... and he dies for it. the Soldier letting out a thankful danke.. before savagely murdering him. A reminder war knows no peace, no freinds.. and no hope. He leaves behind a wife greving her father forces to get remarried and a son...

Tony:

Tony grows up comfortably in the suburbs like his dad and thus catchs the end of his grandfather's story: Zalmie is brought before the senate to testify and while Palumbo is confident he won't talk.. he does. Zalmie's story ends here as he lays out why: his son died leaving him a wreck, he got thrown in prison, and Palumbo's assurances h'ed get out slowly stopped coming. Zalmie's story.. is a heartbreaking one: a kid with all the talent and potetial who slowly lost his parents, his wife, and his morals, and despite everything still lost his son. All he has left is the truth: he knows he probably won't live long.. and dosen't care. And given Palumbo dosen't come up after this it's safe to say he probably did go down. Did Zalmie go with him? We'll never know. Tony didn't find out, so neither do we.

Instead Tony becomes a beatnik, adoring poetry slams and really getting into it. Thus he's a bit pretentious and jokey, but a good kid and my faviorite of the four, with Ron Thompson giving a standout performance. Thompson originally auditioned for a bit part, but his delivery of "GREETINGS PIZZA MAN" got Bakshi's attention, he asked who he was then cast him as Pete, our Finaly Belenski and eventually Tony. As a result he got top billing thanks to Tony having a sizeable role and Pete getting used in all the promotion as the modern star.

But we'll get to him later.. for now the focus is on Tony who hammy as he is feels isolated at home, his sisters and brothers ignoring him and his mom and step-dad both not really paying attentoin. So he steals his step dads car and books it for California. It's also a large part of why I think Palumbo went down: while Tony's Parents never came looking his grandpa would've gotten pissy over what he saw as an insult. So without him around Tony gets a clean slate. We neve rfind out what happened to his family or his poor mother who already lost her husband nad, no matter how lax she might've been it's left unclear, lost a son.

So Tony heads to the wild cornfields of Kansas, doing dishes for a night and meeting a waitress named

While they have the standard Belenski starring at each other adorably we've come to expect, with him giving a fun monlogue about she's the prize in the box of cracker jacks we call life. Which yeah, is pretenious as it sounds, but also cornily sweet and fits given Tony's likely still 17 at this point. What Teenager isn't a tad corny? It's what makes the character works: he goes into operatic rants and what not, but he comes off like any overdamatic teen and tends to be funny in the process.

So Tony can't convince the waitress girl to go with a strange man she just met to california. It was the 50's, they didn't know how bad that sounded. So they have a one night stand as represented by a train going through a tunnel

And we cut to tony i'm guessing a year or two later, washing dishes in a dingy club. He clearly WANTS to be on stage but his boss points out he can't sing and he can't play guitar.. even though there's a wide wooly world of insturments. He quits after a rambling monologue about dish washing, that again is funny because we're clearly not entirely laughing WITH tony, and frankly given the boss is a douche and thinks there's only one insturment in the world, I support this.

Tony then gets lucky... metaphorically this time, as he plays the harmonica, Benny's harmonica likely recovered from his body, and his sweet groove attracts Frankie Hart, the lead center of a six piece band and her guitarist also notices and invites him up in the 60's sense of piece brotherhood and passing the joint around, which he gladly takes. To the films credit it dosen't portray weed as the reason some of these guys get into hard drugs later or evil, just something done casually which for 1981 is progressive as hell. We weren't to just say no YET, but it was coming.

Bennie can't sing, though guitar man poitns out the obvious EVERYONE can play guitar, and his harmonica skills aren't exactly prime. He can WRITE though and eagerly takes them up on their offer to read some running home to get it and making some on the way home. For this segment a lot of real 60's songs are used and if I haven't covered the soundtrack it's not becaause it's bad, more because I don't recognize a lot of the songs and they play breifly. Music is at the heart of this movie.. but it's only mildly a musical. It still counts as there are music numbres and several factor into the plot, as well as a load of montages, it's got music in it.. but it's all brief and mostly lisecned. IT's still good and Tony's chops get him a regular gig with them.

Tony still wants to perform.. but is happy to soak in his music being sung. He's honestly fine being simply a part of things.. at first. But a later performing session shows two problems: The first is a drug problem: Frankie has one and Tony's been knocked down to her suplier, the second issue being she dosen't seem to value his music or at least acts like it. She still invites him on stage for a performance.. but after he'd done some acid kool aid leading to a truly trippy rendition of don't you want somebody to love you that really works. The songs been used a fuckton for promotoin and stuff by my time, but it works well thematically her.e

Tony fall down and go boom and it's here his story really gets tragic: his grandpa fell to his ambition, his dad fell to simply wanting some peace... Tony's fall.. is drugs. He gets addicted to painkillers and starts to spiral, seprating with the band for two months , feeling they don't need him in his stupor and thinking they fired them. We think that too.. till he returns to the studio and instead has simply been misisng, mildly butthurt Frankie married the drummer for all of two weeks. His spirit returns when she shows up and slaps the shit out of him... and says she needs him.

The relationship.. is about as healthy as it sounds. The two are happy together.. but also feed into each others addiction and by our next time skip while Frankie and co's album is a huge hit and they've got jimmi hendrix opening fo rthem, with an awesomely animated stand in of him. And while usually I feel Purple Haze is overplayed as it gets used in pop culture all the damn time as the stock "I'M DOING A DRUGS" song, it works here.. for basically the same purpose but also to contrast Hendrix at the height of his powers.. and to have them ironically opened by someone who'd also die far too soon from too much drugs. Tony and Frankie are burnt out at this point, and clearly out of their mind.. and have a guest. A young blonde haired blue eyed boy. Their in kansas. And like you Tony quickly connects the dots and freaks out a bit over it.. and the heroin in his system.

He dosen't have much time to react as after she sings for the kid.. we cut to Frankie dead. And while over the top.. tony's reaction is utterly heartbreaking, his face broken as he clings to her. Their relatinoship wasn't healthy.. but he still loved her.

Tony decides to get out of music and take his son Pete with him. Tony is... no less stable, spending most of their time dealing drugs and selling drugs and yells at his son for buying cornflakes and taking care of the groceries and you know.. being the parent in the relationship. I'ts heartbreaking: Tony was a mild ass.. sure.. but he was just a wide eyed kid who could've gone far , as could've frankie had he not got hooked on drugs and she not died from it. INstead h'es just a washed out wreck of his old self, heavy bags under his eyes, not even THAT much older. It's a truly heartrending end and a sign of what heavy drugs does t oa person and it's not pertty.

Eventually things hit their breaking point on a park bench: Tony wants to sell Pete's guitar, pete obviously does not and reveals during the argument he knows Tony's his father.. and it's why he's been protecting him. Tony's eyes go wide.. and he realizes both that his kid has been trying his damndest to save him.. and that he's beyond it. He dosen't want to get clean and won't.. and being around his kid is forcing the poor kid to take care of him when ther'es more to him. Granted his solution of pawning the guitar and telling a random passer by to tell him goodbye is... something, he coudl've gone to his family, but the fact Tony got as far as "shit I need to leave before this poor kid ends up like me" is still something. And as tony fades into the abyss, to never return... we move on to our final scenes

Pete: Pete gets the least screentime. Techncially I consider the start of pete's story to come at tony's end but they overlap heavier than Zalmie with his son. At any rate Pete really only gets about 20 minutes of screentime, 10 of which are purely focused on him and not entertwined with Tony's tragic end.

Pete has done okay for himself but not great. On one hand he's got bitching shades, a love of music like his papa, and a slick purple jacket I really want. He also has a cool tendnecy to drop his shades when he sees something musical and intresting. Despite having a short runtime we do get a sense of who pete was: someone whose cool, has swagger.. and deals drugs to get by, but learned from his old man's horrifying example to not do them himself as far as we can tell. He also has a girlfriend. She sure exists.

He's tired of dealing though having the good sense to get out of crime his grandpa had his great grandpa learned too late and his father never learned so when dealing to a band he knows asks to play. They shoot him down and the exec says they can find anothe rdealer if he refuses... but when he almost walks out the need for drugs is too strong and the lead singer makes a compromise: they'll play ONE song. not recording it. Pete agrees and dosen't throw away his shot.

It's here he sings, or rather a recording of Bob Seger sings, night moves, a song I truly love and is awesome, a simple song about a first time.. fitting how his parents met and what his mom told him. Thing is.. that's not what bakshi wanted. Bakshi wanted Freebird, which fits the father son angle more, even if it's sung to a lover instead of a child. Me I prefer Night Moves as a song and feel it still fits.. but agree Freebird fits better tonally.

No matter the song the band and label is impressed and we end with Pete singing a medly of songs as he rises to rock stardom... and the film rises to batshit insanity, using green colored footage of the actors singing and performing, splices in bits of Pete's family history he likely dosne't know about, and in general being what I assume acid feels like. Ralph Bakshi would know. But i'ts a solid finale and I like the lack of finality: We know Pete made it but we don't know if that holds, if he stays sober unlike his old man, if he ever finds said old man or any of his family. Learns more about them. We just know for one breif moment, after over 70 years of strife, a belinskiy reached his dream.. and that just has to be enough.

American Pop is excellent and if this hasn't convinced you to watch it I don't know what will. At the time this article was pubished it's free to view with ads on youtube and I strongly recommend doing so: It's a tragic yet joyous tour through parts of music I hadn't really carred to look into before but might now. A love leter to music, new york, america and those who didn't quite make it. It's a wonderful film and well worth your time

thanks for reading

#ralph bakshi #american pop #bob seger #night moves #animation #the 80s #film #music #jimmi hendrix

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old4sa · 11 months ago

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A lot has happened to me this year, so I'm summarizing it under the cut. It gets heavy but nothing graphic. Thank you for reading.

Back in February, I had the realization that I'm a victim of CSA, and this set in motion a lot of things that've happened this year. I was subsequently diagnosed with C-PTSD, and was going to therapy once a week, but I was still very badly spiraling at work, and after a couple months trying to keep going like nothing was wrong, I finally realized I needed help and took a leave of absence.

I joined an outpatient program and it helped get me more stable by teaching me coping skills and grounding techniques for when things would get bad. It gave me a place to talk about my feelings, something I've never had before. It helped me realize that I'm not alone and that other people can be trusted to know my pain.

Ultimately, the most progress I've made with my healing has been thanks to EMDR these last couple months. I've realized my problems come from more than just my CSA or the way my father raised me, but also in the way my mother raised me as well, and how growing up with C-PTSD has shaped me. With EMDR, I can feel myself moving from a constant state of reactionary panic, into something calm and receptive.

This has been a really difficult experience. Both in having to confront the ways I've been hurt, and in recognizing the negative patterns I've been taught and inadvertently used to hurt others. Abuse is a cycle. It's not enough to look at your own abuse and say "I won't do those specific things," you have to look at the overall picture, what about situations trigger you into behaving in harmful ways. I never would've been able to see that clearly without the help of my EMDR therapist and this terrible realization I've had.

This year also saw the end of a 5 year and long distance relationship (for the best, but still heartbreaking) and more recently my decision to start going by my birth name and pronouns again. There are lots of things I've learned from being a trans guy and it was a lifesaving decision at the time, but I know my aversion to being my original self is very trauma-informed and warped by systemhood, and I want to be able to be myself again.

Lots of terrible things have happened, but they've all informed good things, more truthful things, and I'm so immensely grateful for that. I've read a lot more this year and have pushed myself out of my comfort zone to join some groups on Meetup. I'm planning on moving out early next year. And I'm more ready to welcome people in, now that I'm in a safer mindset, and I'm so grateful I'm getting a chance to start over and be kinder to the people around me and receive kindness in turn. I want to heal and I really feel like I'm moving in a good direction.

Thank you so much for reading this, I hope we all have a healthier, happier 2024!

#our posts

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equinoxts2 · 1 year ago

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15 Questions from Mutuals

@withlovefromayre tagged me and although I feel awkward singling anyone else out to tag, I’m happy to answer these questions. Ramble incoming!

Are you named after anyone? This is very embarrassing, but in 2014 I changed my name to one of the regions of a world where a then-favourite game site was set. Five years later, when I couldn’t take the high-tension, high-drama events that site did at least twice a year or the way the site’s staff encouraged the greedy, heartless attitude of most of the other community members, I turned my back on the fandom and have regretted picking that particular name ever since. Either way, I just couldn’t live with my birth name any longer - that never felt like me, to put it mildly.

When was the last time you cried? Last week, when I had two major emotional crises in two days. Sometimes I feel so out of place on 21st century Earth that I want to sue the universe for misincarnation or something.

The second time it happened last week, my mum took me for a walk round the park across the street to help me calm down. Nothing could lift me out of the depths of despair though - until we were nearly home and she picked a dandelion and gave it to me to blow the seeds off. Getting to be a kid again for a couple of seconds helped me to smile again, and pulled me back from the brink. I’m going to buy myself a piece of jewellery with a dandelion on it, so I can remember how much it helped me.

Do you have kids? No, I acknowledge that I’m not cut out to be a parent or a partner. I do consider all nine generations of sims I’ve raised so far to be my babies, though.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Sometimes, when I’m with someone I know won’t take it personally, like my mum. If I’m being completely honest, I can dish it out but I can’t take it.

What sports do you play/have you played? Truth be told, I’m a couch potato. Sixteen years of depression can do that to a person, though I am trying to get more active and healthy. However, I was very active as a child and I did once win a skipping rope race at my primary school sports day.

What is the first thing you notice about other people? Whether I feel comfortable around them or not. I’m autistic and I find it difficult meeting new people, but there are some people - including my regular support workers - who I’ve clicked with almost instantly. Others, I just get... spiky vibes or something from them.

Scary movies or happy endings? Definitely happy endings. I love musicals and Disney movies - and whatever I watch, it always helps for me to have a box of tissues handy.

Any special talents? I’ve been told I’m very insightful. I’m good at language creation, wordplay, worldbuilding and writing, with a particular flair for comic verse. I can also create and edit mods for Sims 2. One day I’d like to publish fantasy novels for children and young adults who might be going through rough times, to offer comfort and escapism and not hit too close to home by setting them in our world.

Where were you born? Whipps Cross Hospital in Walthamstowe, London. Apparently David Beckham was also born there. *shrugs* Whatever.

What are your hobbies? Mostly it’s Sims 2, reading about and creating various fantasy worlds, solo roleplaying, Plants vs. Zombies 2, and my mum and I are currently hyperfixating on another game app, Two Dots, which I discovered by accident. I also love being out in nature and have planted some wildflower seeds around the park near my home.

Do you have any pets? At the time of writing, I have an aquarium with six fish - one male and three female platies, one rummy nose tetra and one silvertip tetra who is easily the boss of the aquarium - and there’s an indeterminate number of amano shrimp in there too. It’s been nearly 18 months since we had to say goodbye to our elderly dog, Charlie, and I still miss him, it doesn’t feel right without a clueless lump of fur around.

How tall are you? 5′4″.

Fave subject in school? School was a living nightmare for me, but I did enjoy writing and art. I used to cry myself to sleep on nights before geography lessons though, because although I love learning about other cultures, I couldn’t bear hearing about wars and natural disasters.

Eye Colour: Dark brown.

#tag game #meme #ask meme #non sims #personal

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fellow-traveller · 2 years ago

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I have a fic idea that I probably won’t write about, but I don’t mind sharing it. It’s really long, so under the cut, if you’d like to read it. Also, canon-related au, HolPol and Part 5 spoilers(?).

We know that Polnareff was MIA circa mid-1990s, after his first fight with Diavolo that not even Jotaro knew where he was. And since he was labelled as MIA, that could have meant that the SPW Foundation didn’t found him after or that he never contacted the foundation about his condition (possibly not to alert Diavolo since he’s still in his turf), hence it might actually not be the group that nursed him back to health and gave him his prosthetics. So who did?

My idea: Hol Horse did.

Being a drifter, a mercenary and an informer, Hol was a perfect substitute to not only hide Polnareff from danger, but might have the means and network to fix him up. It also kinda explains why his prosthetics didn’t look updated and advanced which the Foundation could have the access to, and are basically just metal rods and springs that wouldn’t allow Polnareff to stand for too long.

The story is this; Hol Horse drifted off here and there after the events in 1989 Egypt, though one of his goals was to meet up with Polnareff and apologise for every trouble he caused him when he was working with Dio (and to an extend, J. Geil, since it’s a headcanon of mine that Hol never knew about what his ex-partner did to Polnareff’s sister until much, much later).

For years he carefully stalked Polnareff, trying to find the right time to talk to him, up until the fight with Diavolo. Knowing he wouldn’t stand a chance, Hol simply waited out and rescue Polnareff after Diavolo’s gone. He bought a villa in a remote village near the borders of Italy and France to nurse Polnareff back to health, with the help of his network of doctors and engineers whom he was confident had no ties to Passione or SPW whatsoever.

Polnareff obviously didn’t take the help positively. After all, last time they met, Hol was trying to maim him and the Joestar group. But after months, maybe years, of literally living together, with Hol being Polnareff’s primary caretaker and bodyguard, and after learning of each others’ pasts, happiness and regrets, Polnareff took a fondness towards Hol, to a point that he did thought of finally retiring and settling down with the cowboy somewhere where Diavolo won’t find them.

Then the first and short Chariot Requiem event happened. Hol at first thought they were attacked by a Stand, and decided to move them out to another safehouse immediately. During this chaos, Polnareff learnt that Hol had been gathering intel on the arrows, Passione and Diavolo himself, partly to monitor their movements as to not have them near their vicinity while Polnareff was healing. They fought about this, obviously, especially now that their end goals were different - Polnareff wanted Diavolo defeated with the arrow’s power. Hol only wanted Polnareff safe.

One day, when Hol was out for errands, Polnareff stole all the files and intel Hol had, and ran off with the arrow. He only left a short letter to Hol, thanking him for the medical help and the information, maybe even a “if fate went a different route, we could have been together forever” sort of angst.

Hol didn’t give up, of course. Upon knowing that Polnareff went missing again, as well as all the info he gathered were gone, Hol traced Polnareff’s footsteps, which became increasingly difficult now that the Frenchman learnt how to move and hide better. He went drifting again, landing in multiple countries to find his partner and collect more data on the arrows, while also taking up odd mercenary jobs to fill in what free time he had. Including one that landed him in Japan with Boingo’s help (cue CDDH tie-in!).

It would take up until after the second Chariot Requiem event when Hol finally found out where Polnareff really was. But it was too late. Polnareff was gone for good. And Hol didn’t learn that until days after Part 5 ended.

---

At this point, I did want to tie it in with my Kaiserrequiem AU, at the moment when Hol arrived in Italy after Passione was taken over by Giorno. He still didn’t know that Polnareff was already “dead” but he managed to trace his scent close to Passione’s main HQ. What happened next purely involved Il Gatto, that OC I made just for this part of the story. Maybe I’ll talk about it later?

Anyway, there it is. Feel free to use the idea; I give my permission. :D

#hol horse #jean pierre polnareff #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #writing idea #jjba au #headcanons #holpol #polhol #gunbladeship #i think sharing ideas like this is better than actually making it a reality lmao #if only i have more time to spend to actually do something out of this

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spooniesense · 1 year ago

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Week 2 was the first week of classes! My classes are all on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays so I knew I wouldn't really have the energy or time to prep anything the morning of or night before those days. I decided to prep something on the weekend that would hold up really well for those days.

I started by setting some box mac and cheese to cook since it's cheap and a safe food for me. 1 box is enough to be the carb for three of my bentos, so it was perfect.

I had some hot dogs I wanted to use before they expired next month, so I tried my hand at those octopus hot dog things. It wasn't as hard as you'd think, though it did take some time.

Grapes and Gala apples were on sale so on meal prep day I portioned out my grapes and either froze or tossed the ones with textures I wouldn't like. I also made sure to leave the stems on the grapes so they'd last longer in the bento, and patted them dry after washing for the same reason.

I wanted to prep apple slices but didn't want them to brown, so I looked up some hacks. I decided to go with the salt water one, so the night before (or a couple nights before in the case of my busy days), I cut up an apple and let it soak for at least 5 min in a bowl of water with 1/2 a teaspoon of salt dissolved in it. Then I'd take them out, rinse the slices, pat them dry, and then put them in a sandwich bag in the fridge with the air squeezed out until I was ready to use them. Morning of I could just pop them into the bento and go. It worked like magic and I noticed zero browning, texture changes, or weird tastes. Will definitely be doing this again.

For dinner I decided to try my hand at onigarazu. I had a 10 pack of nori sheets, so I figured that gave me three days extra after a week of dinners. I decided those three extra sheets would be used for tuna mayo sushi rolls in my lunches on some chiller days.

For the onigarazu, I decided to use chicken as the protein. I don't like the texture of unprocessed meat most of the time, so I got a pack of those precooked frozen chicken patties. I would set the rice to go in my rice cooker while doing some chores. When it was done I sprinkled some rice vinegar, salt, and sugar over the rice and mixed in. Later I started also adding furikake and sesame seeds and I liked that. Then I'd scoop a little onto my nori, add my veggies (I used cucumber and carrot slices), and then a chicken patty I'd warmed in the microwave and let cool. Then I added more rice and folded it up. It was pretty fast, especially by the end of the week. I also usually made two days worth at a time since they kept well enough, which saved me some effort after my long days.

For the sushi, I made rice the same way. Sometimes doubled up with the onigarazu to save time. For the filling I used small carrot and cucumber slices I had leftover from the onigarazu. I also took a can of tuna, drained it, and then mixed it with mayo and Sriracha until I liked the flavor and consistency. That made about enough for three sushi rolls, which was perfect.

I was pretty happy with how it all turned out tbh. I even ended up taking my leftover cucumber slices and finding a simple quick pickle recipe online that I was pretty happy with. Those got thrown in as well and were a nice contrast.

#spoonie's meals #spoonie #actually adhd #adhd #food #sushi #onigarazu #lunch

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voidsumbrella · 2 years ago

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ough now im thinking about my/my family's pets. it seems to be a running trait of spontaneously adopting exotics and frantically having to go all out for their care and keeping. we have some. wild vet bills.

this post is. a lot longer than i thought i would be jfc im putting this under a cut.

childhood list:

lucy, ella, and snowflake were our birds- lucy was older than me by several years and hated my guts for stealing my mom's attention from her, ella was the world's sweetest conure who we adopted approximately 5 seconds after meeting her at the rescue she was at, and snowflake was supposed to be my first pet but asking a 5 year old to socialize a bird who's species is notoriously skittish was kind of a tall ask, so he was more or less my mom's.

maddie and bleu were our pygmy goats, we ostensibly got them as livestock for brush clearing purposes, but they were pretty much pets.

2 fishtanks, one of which was my mom's and one of which was mine (for realsies this time). my mom veers towards schooling fish, but i had a bigass goldfish named diamond who i loved despite him being boring as fuck.

i also had sole responsibility over two gerbils, dos and ashey. not at the same time, i got ashey a couple years after dos died. they didn't like being handled much, so aside from some affection after weekly cleaning they mostly just hung out and made scuttling noises while i was trying to sleep.

fred was a tree frog who was accidentally brought up with my grandma's orchids when she moved from florida, and like, what were we supposed to do, let him die?? so we set up a tank.

all of them have since died- bleu died of old age at a respectable 13, as did the gerbils (though those were on the lower end bc 9 year old me didn't have as much access to proper small animal care resources, and mostly just followed pet store advice which is by and large: fucking useless). snowflake lived to be quite elderly, but got cancer and i think that's what did it. fred lived a year or so after moving in, but we don't really know what happened there, he just was dead one day.

diamond im still kind of mad about- my neighbor petsat while we were on vacation, and she ignored the instructions and overfed him badly, which tanked the water quality, and we returned to a fish actively suffocating. she didn't mean to, she was incredibly upset and super sorry, but like. she still killed my fish.

(this did result in a moment that i think defines my dad- he constantly protested how many pets we had and how much of a hassle it was to take care of them all, but while my mom and i were frantically changing the water and cleaning the tank, he got a tupperware of fresh water and gently moved diamond back and forth in it to force clean water into his gills. he gave cpr to a fish he didn't really like because my mom and i cared about it. i love my dad a lot.)

maddie actually died after only a couple months- we had followed the advice we had gotten for putting them on a runner, like, attached to a cable so they could wander around a set area but wouldn't run off into the street or anything, bc it wasn't viable at the time to fence a large area in, and we didn't want to use like shock collars or anything. her a bleu got into a scuffle, which is super normal goat behavior, and the cable got wrapped around her neck. we did not use the runner again. bleu got kind of doted on after that.

lucy died of tuberculosis. fun fact: birds can get tuberculosis. we spent months driving her back and forth to the only decent avian vet in the area getting her treatment or at least shit to make her more comfortable. in the middle of all that, ella choked on a piece of food and died extremely suddenly. then lucy died like a week later. im still kind of upset about it.

we did say we were Not getting any more pets after that, especially no more parrots- we had mom's fishtank, bleu was still alive at the time, and that was it we were done. this lasted about 8 months.

second group:

ike, the rose breasted cockatoo, who is the darling of the household and the reason why none of us are allowed to hold any birds at any pet stores unless we are actively shopping for a bird.

quincy, bibi, and kiwi, three budgies who were ostensibly my sister's but my mom was fully aware going in that these were not going to be the 7 year old's responsibility.

angel, who was given to us by a neighbor- she had belonged to her mother in law, who could no longer take care of her, but she was not Remotely socialized bc her father in law thought it was funny to wave his hands at the cage to scare her, so she was terrified of hands, which made her a bit hard to train. my mom is very good with birds, tho, so she wound up coaxing angel into liking her. only her, tho, the rest of us got bit.

we got a flock of guinea hens somewhere in here, but those were genuinely livestock instead of pets.

karma and nermal, our first cats! karma was from a litter of kittens a local feral cat had under one of the outbuildings, and got left behind when the mom noticed us monitoring her and ditched. nermal (young but an adult) showed up a year or so later, and my dad (who is allergic to cats, doesn't want cats, loudly protested the adoption of karma,) was like I Must Tame The Feral Cat. so then we had two cats.

theo, george, and tessa were our second go around for goats, because we do have a lot of brush to clear out, and used goat bedding makes really good compost. they were netherland dwarfs this time, not pygmies.

this ran through late high school, which means that some of this shit can probably be fact checked in my tumblr archive if you look really hard lmao. the pet lifespan timeline is going to blur a bit when i was at college, but:

we still have ike and he is still the household beloved!

kiwi died shortly after we got her and i don't actually know what happened there. bibi and quincy lived through old age, and only died a couple years ago. angel died due to egg laying complications, after yet another round of "hour long drives back and forth to the bird vet for several weeks."

karma was the runt of her litter and had some problems with her organ functions, and we had to put her to sleep a fewyears ago when her kidneys failed- i think she was 9 or 10. nermal died a couple years after we got him, we don't know why. he wasn't injured or visibly sick, but he was an outdoor cat please do not outdoor cat discourse at me, trust me, i know so like. it could have been anything tbh.

theo george and tessa got killed by a bear. we do not usually have bears in the area, and thought the fencing we had was sufficient. apparently not. we have also stopped keeping guineas after losing the bulk of the flock to what we suspect was a tag team of a weasel and a fox- we couldn't manage to get their house secure enough to keep them out, so birds are on hold until we get a new setup entirely.

modern group:

achilles and patroclus, adopted barn cats bc karma spent 90% of her time lounging in the sun and didn't do any hunting, which meant the mouse problem came back after nermal died. also my sister is weak to the charms of kittens and makes very good puppy eyes at my parents.

camille (cami), the first bird i got after moving out of my parent's house for college. she was fucking perfect.

the button quail- this was a mistake, we unanimously fell for the trap of cute videos on the internet because the babies are tiny and the adults are also very small and cute. we incubated 26 eggs with an estimated 25% hatch rate, and got 24 birds out of it. we managed to adopt out 17 of them, i kept four in my apartment, and my parents kept 3 at home.

latte and sybil!! latte was the first pet i adopted with my wife, after they went "i would love to have a holland lop" and i went ok we can do that. get in the car there's one at a shelter 3 hours away. lets go. sybil was adopted from the same shelter after i got an urgent call for fosters because they had something like 30 rabbits dumped on them and the larger shelter they partnered with fucked them over. we had been looking into getting a companion for latte anyway so we fostered her until she was old enough to get fixed and then adopted her fully.

dionysus, who was a betta fish and hallmark of a fun lack of impulse control on my part. i got gripped with the need to rescue him from the stack of shit-tier cups at petco because he still looked healthy enough to recover. wonderful dude tho, i hand fed him bloodworms with tweezers :)

rupert, my sister's corn snake, who is a flawless specimen. 10/10, no notes.

latte and sybil are, of course, still around, as are rupert and patroclus. we think achilles got electrocuted somehow, we literally don't know how. dionysus had chronic fin rot- don't buy fish from petco- which i religiously treated and he died of old age a few years back. my four button quail died after a year and a half, partly because i had all girls and their life expectancy is only like 2 years, partly because i was too depressed to be taking care of that many pets and also handle college. lessons on knowing your limits. my parent's three- hamilton, burr (parent's choice- the musical had just come out), and hinata (sister's choice, she really likes sports anime)- all lived past the standard maximum lifespan, and hamilton is still alive and kicking. today!

cami flew out the window and i never found her. im still upset about this.

which brings us to contemporary era:

cleopatra, a cat we adopted from a shelter after achilles died because patroclus was being concerningly listless. we were told she was too unfriendly to be an indoor pet and could really only ever be a barn cat, and that is not remotely the case. im trying to convince my dad to let my sister take her when she moves out, she would be miles happier indoors.

buster, baby, and buddy, 3 whites tree frogs we got for my sister that mostly belong to my mom. baby and buddy got a fungal infection and after another run around of frantically trying to get to an exotics vet who would treat frogs and learning how to give medication to amphibians via injection, both died. we still got buster tho, and we're trying to find a frog roughly his size as a companion.

percy and mary shelley, two african giant millipedes my wife got! they're neat, they're also nocturnal and i almost never see them.

fishtank that was planned to have cherry shrimp, neon tetras, and kuhli loaches, but presently only has kuhlis and a fuckload of snails, because all my shrimp died for unknown reasons, and i stalled long enough on getting the tetras that my loaches started breeding, and i will Not be fucking up my chances of seeing baby noodles on the regular.

my mom still has her fishtank as well! she's setting up a quarantine tank so she can add angelfish.

robespierre/robi/bastard of my life, my green cheek conure who my mom got me after cami left because she was worried about my mental health. he spent half the time i was writing this trying to burrow under the laptop, and then pulled the esc key off and i had to put him back on his cage. he stayed there for like 15 minutes and then walked across the floor back to the bed and i am actively having to shoo him away from the keyboard as we speak. i love him so much.

#real life mango #home full of creatures home full of plants home full of people i love #is the key to having any sort of mental health at all for me #pet death discussion/////

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halleymacleod666 · 2 years ago

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So update on how it's been going cause I have posted updates on tumblr in a while.

So after I reached my lowest weight in the summer, after summer was over I managed to gain like 10kgs in a few months. I started binging and I couldn't stop, like I've been starving and then binging for years now but it always changes, like I'll starve for a week and that will make me binge and so on... and I've been stuck in that cycle for 5 years. I never had a long period of starving (few weeks usually) and I have never had a long period of binging either (usually about a week at most) but after summer I just started craving junk food so so so bad and I couldn't stop myself from eating it, gained 5kg in a month and another 5 the next month. For the first time in 5 years I gave up on starving completely, like I just ate what I wanted when I wanted and there weren't many healthy choices, I didn't make myself throw up or burn any of the calories off and I didn't tell myself I'll starve tomorrow to make up for it, I just didn't care, I was depressed as fuck, I was sick of trying and I just kept on eating. And then I had reached my highest weight ever, my highest weight used to be 77kg, now it was 78kg. I was at such a low point, I am pretty tall so that was like normal weight per BMI although it might have been slightly overweight.

Anyway, recently (8 days ago) I decided it's time for a change, like I can't live like that anymore, almost none of my jeans fit and I feel absolutely disgusting in my skin, my belly has always been flat but it got so bloated and it even collected a layer of fat, so that had to change asap.

So yeah 8 days ago I started a diet, today I weighed in at 74.7kg so I lost a bit over 3kgs. I started a 30 day challenge where I eat no more than 1500kcals and if I eat more I have to make up for it some other day. It's not starving. The calories are a lot more than what I ate in the past while starving. I do want to starve so bad, I want this weight off of me, I wanna be so fucking thin, but what I want more is to keep the weight I lose off. I always fucking gain it back when I starve. I gain back more than I lost. So I'm eating healthy food, a lot of vegetables and I'm working out and I refuse to regain any more weight ever. I'm gonna stick to this until my weight loss slows down then I'll cut the calories more. But my main priority right now is losing weight and not gaining it back ever again. I haven't binged in a while, I didn't have the need to because before I started my diet I would it whatever I wanted and now I'm eating really healthy foods so I'm satisfied and don't crave junk food.

I've been trying to lose weight fast for years and years, it never works permanently, the puking doesn't work, the overexercising doesn't work, the 500kcal a day doesn't work. None of it will last. It took me a while to learn but I think I need to let go of the idea od fast weight loss and complete starvation and just count my calories but eat a higher amount. I know there will be days when I'll be tempted to overeat and I'll do it willingly in order to avoid binging but I'll also likely make up for it another day by fasting. But no more all or nothing mentality. Like that "I'm gonna eat nothing or everything" is what ruined me, it's perfectionism that's killing me. "I already fucked up so I might as well fuck up more" and shit like that is what ruined me. There is no "I'll start tomorrow" anymore. I'm done with all of that. If I realized this before and didn't tell myself every other day "okay you can eat all of this now but tomorrow we eat nothing" I'd already be super skinny. I sabotaged myself.

Trust me guys if you have this type of "restrict/binge" eating d1sorder just fucking stop doing that to yourself. You will gain more weight if you keep telling yourself "just one more day of eating like that and then I'll starve for a week". Yes you'll lose weight but you will gain it just as quickly. I have 5 years of experience with this. When my eating d1sorder started I was 16yo and 65kg. And 5 years later I managed to gain 12kg. Don't repeat my mistakes. I still want to be really thin but that is not the way, it got me nowhere, I ruined my body, I will fix it tho. As long as it takes. So what if it will take me a few months longer to reach my goal, if I keep going like I have been then in 5 years I still won't be at my goal. So better to get to 58kg in 6 months than to be at 75kg in 5 years. Quick results aren't always good. I understand you want to lose weight as soon as possible I do too. But I promise you, unless you have a typical restrictive disorder (without binging) then you will be much better off doing it slower

#anorexik #eating disoder things #tw ed rant #thinner is better #model thin #tw ed diet #meanspp #4a4

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traceofexistence · 6 months ago

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as someone who is both diabetic and on a diet currently, here some truths

if you need to lost 10~20 kilos the process will be SLOWER and harder. than when you have to lose let's say 100 kilos.

your age matters also, the older you are the harder you lose weight.

I'm in need to lose 15~20 kilos at the moment. I will be losing about ~1 kilo per week, and some weeks I wont lose any, the target is 3-4 kilos per month.

the slower you lose, the easier to maintain later.

3 key factors with diet is moderation, food combinations, multiple meals along the day

moderation of course has to do with portions, and how much of something you use in your food.

combinations are so important, for example if you have meat in your meal, combine it with a salad/veggies, and not with pasta, or potatoes, or bread.

meat is a really good source of protein and energy and it helps with diets because you dont feel hunger.

with diets you shouldn't feel hungry.

and that's where multiple meals comes in

every good diet suggests 5 meals per day (breakfast - snack - lunch - snak - dinner)

very important, eat bread in moderation, if you have diabetes, try to avoid it all together, unless it's whole grains or whatever. but if you just diet, try to eat less bread, because bread bloats.

when my doctor gave me the list with what it's okay to eat, and what I should either cut out or minimize in my diet, he said one thing to me:

"cook your food the way you used to, just avoid certain things that tingle your diabetes" his philosophy was that diet shouldn't feel like a chore, but you should still be able to enjoy eating, because especially for diabetics the things you can eat simply decreases so if what remains is not cooked to be delicious, who is gonna want to eat it. so the diet fails.

the other day I had artichokes grilled in the oven with just oil and salt and pepper, and they were the most delicious food in existence (though im biased as I love artichokes)

for recipes I would suggest to look up Mediterranean cousin spain, italy, greece, turkiye. those cousins have many balanced recipes many with veggies and beans etc, that taste incredibly good, and they are not complicated to make.

try to avoid processed foods, the fresher your food the easier it makes your diet.

also another keys point

dont stress about it

there are days you wont lose any, there are days you will gain even.

dont calculate calories too much.

dont step on the scale all the time. once a week is enough.

if your friends asked you out on a saturday night to eat burgers, go and eat them, and you will make an effort the following days.

alcohol is not your friend, a lot of weight gaining comes from alcohol.

do not guild yourself and dont allow others to guild you about what and how much you ate.

stressing out and being unhappy, doesn't help you metabolize what you eat at all.

dont let others dictate how you diet.

and last but not least

cravings are the worst. you will have them, and sometimes you will need to get that fucking chocolate bar down your throat. as long as you are able to resist most of the times, you are fine. you are allowed to have sweets after all even as a diabetic. just again in moderation.

guilt and stress dont help

enjoying your meal, and filling content after it is what helps ;)

I know this is a tiny part of the wider problems born of diet culture, fatphobia, classicism, and racism but like god the idea that "healthy" food must inherently taste bad has completely ruined us as a society.

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raspberry-pudding · 8 months ago

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3/9/24

I'll go ahead and admit that I gave in and smoked a little last night. But not nearly as much as I might have if I actually had weed on hand. I scraped up just enough out of my grinder to fill a chillum once. I did really good for most of the day though, which is at least better than I've been doing by waking and baking. I didn't smoke the chillum until after dinner, maybe around 6 PM. It was just enough to give me a buzz, but didn't keep me stoned. Which is probably a good thing, that's the least I've smoked in a day in a long while. Waking up this morning I don't have a headache and I feel pretty good; my head feels clear.

Something I've noticed from trying to quit in the past is how the beginning of the second day I'm already feeling back to normal. I already feel really good and full of energy. Granted, I did smoke yesterday, but I guess it wasn't enough to affect me the next day. Really, that's the place I'd like to be at -- maybe only smoking once or twice a week and not smoking much when I do. I'd like to quit, but I also wouldn't mind a healthier relationship with the substance. I just wonder if that's possible for me to do, or if I need to just cut it out of my life.

More below the cut for those interested.

When I talked to my fiancé about quitting, of course he was supportive but also thought quitting cold turkey could go wrong. I've tried quitting cold turkey in the past and I agree, it seems like I almost always immediately relapse and go harder. He suggested I get the weed, but make it really inconvenient to access once I have it.

I'll admit right now, I am going to get weed today and I am going to smoke a joint today (mostly because this is my last day off before returning to work for the week). But, I have a plan. I plan to preroll a few joints and put them (and any leftover flower) in a lockbox I recently bought for another purpose. I'm then going to put the lockbox somewhere in my basement -- my least favorite place to go in the house which I will avoid at any and all costs. Maybe this part is silly, but I'm going to be keeping the keys for the lockbox in a code safe we have. Every bit of weed is going to be so inconvenient for me to get to that I'm hoping I now only smoke when I really, really want it and not just out of boredom or habit. Putting it in the basement, I hope, should be a perfect place for it. I've put off tasks around the house for several months just because it involved going to the basement.

The joint I plan to have later, I don't plan to smoke until around 5 or 6 PM. Another of my bad habits lately has been smoking way too early in the day. I've been waking and baking like I'm on vacation. Worse, all last week I was smoking before going to work which I typically don't like doing. That's how I realized how bad it's starting to get again. I can't work stoned, I hate working stoned -- to me it's a private pastime that I don't want anyone to know about. Yet every day last week I was walking into work stoned. Luckily this week I'm all morning shift so there is no time to smoke before work.

On another note, my Instagram lately has been filled with people who do have the healthy weed to life/work balance. Or, at least they appear like they do. Every time I see it I get so jealous. Why couldn't that be me? Why can't I just smoke it and continue being normal, or even have it actually improve my life. I see so many stoners who have a consistent routine, who can still exercise and get shit done. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just be cool like that? Why do I smoke weed and get lazy and unproductive and get my entire life-force sucked out of me. Why do I have the brain chemistry where I smoke weed and then my entire life falls a part? Like, I can't do anything I used to anymore.

I guess they're influencers, and like any social media influencer there's a group of people watching and wishing they could be like them. I wonder how many other people watch these peaceful stoners with perfect, colorful, and serene lives and wish they could have that relationship with weed. I wonder if those influencers even truly have that relationship with weed, or if they're just good at acting.

Is there just something wrong with me? Is there something I'm doing wrong? I want to fix myself so bad. I want my ambition back.

Like I said yesterday, what makes it harder on me is that none of my friends who smoke weed feel the same as me. So not only are these influencers living perfect lives while smoking, but my friends are too. Though, if I'm being honest, at least two of them I suspect are struggling like I am but don't admit to it. I won't say anything to them though because we all have to go on our own journeys -- but they will continue to tell me how weed can't be addictive.

I feel so alone on this journey, which only makes it harder to quit. I hope one day I can find someone who's going through the same as me. If for any reason, just so I can feel like I'm not being dramatic, or to validate how awful an addiction to weed can be. To make me feel like my struggles are real and not silly.

Every day I worked last week it was in the 70s and sunny, but every day I've been off it's been cold and rainy. And the same is about to happen this coming week. I miss being outside in the sun and in my hammock.

Iris🪻

#marijuana addiction #weed addiction #tw substance abuse #tw addiction #recovery #recovering stoner #soberity #self help #diary

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