#and that i'd found someone local who would go with me instead of having to be awkwardly alone

[tardis-stowaway]

I got to see Vienna Teng live! She's one of my all-time favorite musicians since I learned about her through fandom back in the aughts, but this is my first time seeing her perform. I'd thought I might never see her in concert when she spent several years no longer doing music full time and rarely playing shows, so I was beyond thrilled when she went back on tour.

It was a really wonderful show. The venue was small, so I had a good view. She played a mix of songs from across all her albums, including a number based on shouted audience requests. Not every one of my favorites was included (I was especially sorry not to hear Gravity or Stray Italian Greyhound), but there were a lot of songs I adored that were there.

The one cover she played made me gasp in excitement. The Lost Words Blessing is an achingly beautiful song about trying to retain connection to nature, expressive language, and hope in a time of grief and change. I love in its original form, and it suited Vienna perfectly.

Here's all the songs I can remember that she played (though other than the first one and last two I'm not sure about the order):

Augustine Homecoming Antebellum City Hall The Tower Whatever You Want Blue Caravan No Gringo Oh Mama No Lost Words Blessing Harbor We’ve Got You (new double song with two melodies meant to be layered) Eric’s Song A mini-song that is mostly written for her toddler that went something like "Before We Go On Adventures, First We Try to Pee" Never Look Away Green Island Serenade Level Up Grandmother Song

[kedreeva]

Okay so, I don't think I've spoken of the saga here yet but! Gather round. I shall tell you a long story about the bird I just acquired and why she is VERY IMPORTANT.

At the beginning of last fall, I started looking into quail genetics a little more, because I got tired of not being able to sex my Celadon quail by their feathers. Originally I thought I could kill 2 birds (ok maybe more) with 1 stone and order nice jumbo wild type (which MANY places advertised as wild type jumbo) hatching eggs, and this would help me put some size on the Celadons (jumbo) while also making them feather sexable (wild type). Perfect!

But then I come to find out that pretty much all jumbo lines are jumbo BROWNS, as in they all have the sex linked brown (SLB) gene. So, I was a little confused and a LOT annoyed because I wanted to work specifically with the wild type color/pattern. No mutations just straight, plain wild type.

And EVERYWHERE I looked - major production hatcheries, private breeders through websites, Facebook groups, local swaps, craigslist, e v e r y w h e r e -

People ONLY had SLB.

This spring I came across a video showing about the differences between SLB and wild type and I figured if the person who made it can tell, maybe she will have some. So I looked her up (not in a stalker way, her farm name was stamped on the video and took me to the website), and what luck! She was in Michigan! Upper Michigan, so still a hike, but not California, y'know?

So I shot her an email and explained that I was looking for WT and that her site said she bred them and that people could do local pickup. She responded yeah she's totally got a bunch! And I said great, I'm also in Michigan, albeit far away, but I don't mind driving 7+ hours each way, because I really need actual, trusted WT for sure birds for my celadon project, can I come pick them up?

Cue the most frankly bizarre email chain in my short life. As soon as I mentioned that I was going to drive, or perhaps that I had a genetics plan in place, she got super sketchy and started saying how she hadn't really paid as close attention to SLB vs. WT, that it mattered less than she thought it would when she started, that I shouldn't focus on that either, and also that "fawn celadon is practically unheard of" in the hobby and "you should focus on a clean Tibetan because it's hard to find without roux in it) implying that I should concentrate on those things instead. And concluded by telling me if I really want WT, to contact this other person (why happens to be someone I can't stand). It all sounded VERY much like she didn't have wild type males, after all, and had thought I didn't know the difference so it wouldn't actually matter. But, it does. It actually matters a lot to me.

So I messaged back to say, well, I don't want to do any of those things, I specifically want to work with this set of genetics and you said you have them so I shouldn't have to go to anyone else??

And then she went radio silent for a week. I kind of figured I'd called a bluff, and that she was one of dozens of people I'd contacted who'd said they had WT only to find out they had SLB. I get that it's difficult to see the difference, but this particular person was the president of the American Coturnix Breeders Association or whatever (found out it's actually just a club formed by her and her friends a year ago, so not as impressive as it sounds, considering they don't actually DO anything- no putting on shows, no newsletters, no certifications, no public breeder directory, no finished SOP, nada), so I kind of expected she should know what she's talking about, if anyone does.

Eventually, after a week, she responded that she had been judging at a county fair, but she had a few heterozygous males (WT het roux, which is fine) and she could set a hatch for me for more if I wanted to come at the end of the month, but she's in WI now, not MI. I said sure, since where she was in WI was actually closer than where she'd been in the UP, and we arranged date/time.

The day of, my neighbor friend, Jude, comes with me for company/keeping me awake through the 15 hours driving round trip. It's a pleasant enough drive. We arrived at a cutesy little house on the edge of town that looks like anyone's house in a neighborhood, with a spacious lawn. The person meets us and takes me around the side of the house to a 6x6x1.5 or so chicken tractor, where she's got some male coturnix. She pulls the available males for me to look through and... fam, they ALL looked SLB, to me.

Now, she swore to me up and down that they couldn't be anything except WT het for roux, because of the way she is breeding them. But I've put these birds next to my SLB males and if I didn't have my males banded, I would not ever have told the difference between them. I still picked up 4 of them, because I will give it a go- worst case, I can produce plain Roux hens/plain Roux males for use in breeding later, best case they do actually produce WT hens and they just LOOK SLB and I have to figure out what the differences are. I don't want to leave without seeing her hens, which she has told me are all WT (which is why the males HAVE to be het for it), and she takes me back. Now the hens, the hens are easy to see the difference. White bellies first of all, but the chest feathers are also wildly different! The shafts are white, the dot around the shaft is dark, ringed in red, ringed in white. On an SLB, the shafts aren't white, it's just a black dot surrounded in a red feather, and the belly is all red/buff/cream, not white.

This is what an SLB hen looks like:

So I take a nice long look to memorize the color, and thank her for showing me and meeting, and we head back home.

I do fecals when I get home because all of the males are VERY thin, no meat on them at all, and since she said she'd been feeding Purina (garbage for fowl feeds), I figured that was why, but no- HUGE coccidia loads in all of them. So I treated them and got them on a better feed. They immediately began putting on meat, and they're find now.

The rest of this summer, I have spent going to local bird swaps and inspecting all of the quail I could find, hoping to find one (1) actual wild-type phenotype bird. Hundreds and hundreds of birds, I have pawed through them all, being super obnoxious to the owners I'm sure, holding and inspecting males. I found ONE suspected WT male (and this is a HUGE "suspected," he could very well be SLB with low red expression). I compared him when I got home and I'm doubting myself still, so I don't know if I will ever actually pair him with the SLB hens or if I'll just wait til I have a roux set.

Regardless, it's been a dry season for getting what I want. It's been a dry YEAR. Yesterday was another swap and more hundreds of quail and me pawing through all of them.

Until.

My eyes landed upon.... her.

If you've only lived in an area that has american crows and not ravens, you find yourself wondering if crows are ravens. You see a big crow and you think wow! maybe that is a raven! It could be a crow, but it's seems bigger so maybe it's a raven. But, if you take a trip to a place with ravens, and you see one for the first time, you realize that there is no question, when you see a raven. When you see a raven in person, there's no question and not only is there no question, you wonder how you could ever have thought a crow was a raven. It's laughable, while looking at the raven.

That's how finding this bird felt. I'd been picking up every SLB hen and going maybe this is actually WT? It could be SLB but maybe it's WT? But the second I laid eyes on her in the middle of a pack of SLB with some mixed colors, I knew I was looking at WT hen, and I can't imagine how I ever thought maybe an SLB hen was WT.

Here's a better photo of her chest and belly (she's beat UP from her previous home, the back of her head and most of her rump are plucked clean from males). You can see the white shafts and the white belly.

And some other pics of her, showing the grey-brown on her side and back- VERY different than the SLB hens

I can't express how stoked I am about this bird. This is the first time after a LOT of effort and time, that I have felt confident I am holding the bird I want.

She's also the indicator that I have a LOT of work ahead of me.

My end goal is to have birds that look like her, weigh 12-14oz, and lay large, blue eggs. I have birds that lay large, blue eggs, I have birds that weigh 12-14oz live weigh, and now I have at least 1 bird that looks like her, which means I can make more that look like her. The first step is cleaning the color mutations out of the celadon line without losing the celadon eggs. This is going to be a bit of a nightmare, BUT, I have a friend helping me out with getting a few celadons that are either WT or SLB (I'm guessing SLB all things considered) to start the work with. I will work over the winter to get a few more actual WT birds here, and to start crossing out the celadons with the SLB jumbos to clean out the other feather color mutations. Once I'm down to just SLB and celadon for mutations, I can clean the SLB out with the WT and roux lines.

This project will likely take me a good 2 years, maybe 3, to complete and then test breed to ensure I haven't lost the celadon gene and I don't have any hidden recessives lingering about. But just having the fucking materials to do it all on hand now is a huge step forward from where I was when I decided to start the project.

[thatbadadvice]

Dear Advisor,

I tend to be a very reserved and shy person so making friends is super hard. Recently I’ve been wanting to socialize more , but I genuinely don’t know how. Is there any advice that you have that can make me look more approachable and not be scared to talk to people. I’m so stressed about being alone and not having any friends, but I just find it so hard to go up to people and make a conversation. I tried once but it became super awkward. I just really need good advice from someone on how to approach a person and continue a conversation.

Dear Awkward Anonymous,

It would be so easy to get into a whole deep let's-skeetshoot-therapy-on-the-internet session and try to help a total stranger unpack all of the GA-FUCKING-ZILLION ways in which social awkwardness shows up in a person's life. It seems easy, and it even seems meaningful and worthwhile, but to do so I would have to presume a bunch about your life, and make a bunch of assumptions about the ways in which my own experiences maybe/probably track with yours, and it would be a whole big wank-fest, and frankly ... it would be awkward. I'd be like you, standing there at the party, hoping that what I'm saying resonates or lands or even vaguely tracks with anything a stranger has ever known or experienced, presuming (probably rightly!) that it doesn't, and then flailing and blaming myself when I didn't emerge from the interaction with all the world's gold stars.

So here's what: stop talking to other people as a primary social occupation. Going up to people and just talking is fucking terrifying. The Bad Advisor says this as a Certified Extrovert™ who rarely shuts the fuck up.

Instead, find a thing to do with other people that involves some sort of task or goal or activity. Talk about the thing you're doing together, when you're doing it. If it feels okay, maybe introduce one or two of your own relatable-to-the-activity experiences in the process. See who picks up on it. Ask the people who pick up on it genuinely interested questions in response. This is what we awkward people call: engineering a conversation. It is the way, I am told, humans make connections with other humans. I have seen it work in my own life.

Depending on where you live and your ability level and skill set, I bet you have some options! You could seek out an open board game night, pub quiz session, knitting/quilting circle, or mutual aid meetup that's looking for volunteers. Especially look for social activities with strangers that involve a dedicated, pre-prescribed activity (such as a hiking or mall-walking group, stuffing envelopes for a political candidate or cause you care about, planting trees at your local park, or tasting tea/wine/beer/etc.). (Somebody is going to say join a ballroom dancing club or suchlike; I am personally terrified of this, but if you have a higher tolerance for strangers touching you and fewer than two left feet: it's literally an option. Line-dancing, on the other hand ... absofuckinglutely.)

Even if what's available in your area isn't your precise and specific interest, it might be worthwhile to check out something you are decidedly meh about -- you might not be the only meh person there. You can bond over shit that's boring or shitty with other people who find it boring or shitty! Some of my best friends, arguably my very best friends, came out of experiences we mutually loathed or found at least moderately and mutually miserable.

Consider especially finding an activity where you yourself are the manager of operations and/or have a designated task to take care of that is unique to your position! This doesn't have to be complicated or skill-dependent; can you become a voter registrar in your area? Well, bam! You've got paperwork people have to fill out and a good reason to jibber-jabber with folks who have to ask you the questions. Other ideas: join your local neighborhood association board, become a notary public, or see if your local pet rescue is looking for intake line volunteers. Do you have a trustworthy, especially outgoing friend who might agree to play "social glue" for you a couple of times at their activity-centric events? Make it explicit! Ask them if they'll play friendly wing-person for you at their D&D game, fantasy sports league, or some such.

Alternately: Do you have a unique and fun and shareable skillset you can share with others? Are you pretty good at drawing, programming? Simply a font of endless Merlin or NFL or Real Housewives knowledge? You might start a local Discord or other online social group to discuss and share your interests, then move it to the real world in a few weeks once folks get comfortable. You get the idea.

Most of all: Look for stuff that has more-than-just-talking opportunities available outside the designated group jam for you to maintain connections. Perhaps a group chat, a Discord, a Slack, what-have-you, where you can take more time to consider and draft your responses and posts? Connections with humans get made a thousand ways, and talking raw-dog with strangers is but one.

It takes a true social unicorn to be simply good at talking and only talking to other people. There are some of these one-horned wonders out there, to be sure — but let me assure you that the vast majority of folks want to be accepted and seen just as much as you do, and they're staring at the ceiling at night thinking just as much (more, probably) about all the weird, wonky shit they themselves threw at you than they are anything you ever said to them.

[thesweetestofdreams]

a date at the pumpkin patch.

pairings: poly!marauders x reader (820 words)

warnings: should be none, just a fall date with the boys

a/n: I couldn't let the idea of walking through a fall fair with the marauders, so please enjoy a seasonal fall treat. P.S. If you so happen to have any requests or ideas I'd love the chance to write some for you

Fall leaves crinkled underfoot as you walked through the dirt path of the pumpkin patch. A local affair of corn mazes and caramel apples that you'd looked forward to all year. "I want to find the biggest one. I mean almost too big to carry," James said, arms spread wide to emphasize his declaration.

"You do realize you'd have to find a way to bring it home, Prongs." Sirius said, hand lazily intertwined with James's as it swung with his movement. 

"And all the way up the stairs" you added. 

"How about a regular pumpkin, one that won't swallow our entire flat?" Remus tried, ever the voice of wisdom, but James just waved away all of your comments. 

"Found it," James said, gesturing to the massive pumpkin sitting in front of the four of you as you turned. It was a part of the pumpkin growing contest and it most certainly wouldn't fit through the doorway to your home. 

"If you can pick it up then you can bring it home," Sirius joked. Remus sent him a half serious "no he can't" glare. 

"Do you think they'd let me?" James asked, looking around for the owner of the gigantic beast of a pumpkin. 

"Surely not," you mused. The mood of the evening had you walking an autumn high. Everything smelled like it was sprinkled with cinnamon through a fresh wind. It bit at your cheeks and chapped your lips, but you didn't care. You were with your boys in an orange wonderland, everything painted gold by the slowly sinking sun.

You slid into James's side, settling next to your living furnace. 

"Are you cold, dove?" Remus looked at you scanning you up and down like he was looking for the cold sticking onto you somewhere. 

James squeezed you into him. "We can go home if you want," he said, pumpkin forgotten and concern wrinkling his brow. 

"No no, the haunted corn maze starts at sundown. Sirius has been looking forward to it all day." 

"Don't worry about it doll," Sirius said ready to pack up the car in a moments notice. Your boyfriends with all their love could be a bit overconcerned. 

"I'm okay promise. Especially next to James," you said feeling warmer by the second. 

"Okay well if you do want to go just say the word," Remus said. 

"We won't let her freeze Moony," Sirius said patting a hand to Remus's chest. "I'll show you."

Part of you thought he might come kiss you. He always joked at the heat coming from your cheeks when he did. It stroked his ego too much but you couldn't help it. Instead he guided you all to a small booth. Paper cups full of amber cider sat in lines pouring tiny plooms of steam into the air. Sirius bought three ciders and one hot chocolate for Remus. 

"And here I thought you were going to kiss me," you said as he passed you the cup. He halted it in front of you not giving it up. 

"And who said this was free hmm." He cocked his head to one side, smug as you smiled. 

"Not a fair trade," you said even as you leant in for his waiting kiss. 

He pressed cold knuckles to your cheek. "She's fine." You took the cider feeling the hot cup make quick work on your numbing fingers. 

James downed his cider far too quickly and denied any accusations of burning his mouth. As you made your way towards the haunted maze he confided to you that he did indeed burn himself. If only there were someone that could kiss it better he whispered into your ear. 

The sun set and James and Sirius went into the haunted maze. 

You and Remus sat together on a bench nestled against the fiery gold treeline. "You would tell us if you wanted to go home right?" Remus asked, rolling his hot chocolate cup in his hands. 

"Of course Rem," you said. It was true. "But why would I want to go home? This feels like a dream." You rested your head on his shoulder, feeling like you were exactly where you needed to be. 

"A good dream." He nodded, you felt it ruffle your hair.

Sirius and James would soon come and join you insisting it was too cold to stay any longer. The two would deny it later, claiming the maze wasn't at all scary enough, but you swore you heard them scream a few times. 

The four of you went home with three small pumpkins and one James-approved larger pumpkin. The rest of the night was spent with warm blankets and old movies you'd all seen a hundred times over. You fell asleep lazily untangling the knots in Sirius's hair.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 93 (Finally Coming Clean)

When Conrad arrived home on Friday night, Ash was in the city. He took a shower, joining Heather in the kitchen while she cooked dinner and talked about Ray Pierce, the Landgraabs' driver who she'd met that afternoon. "He seems as nice as Ash says. It's just annoying I had to find out about him from my son and not his father."

Conrad didn't say much; he couldn't exactly chastise Malcolm for keeping secrets from her. Lavender was awake and Conrad practiced sitting with her for a while, putting her to bed as the scent of chicken stir-fry wafted up the stairs.

He went to the kitchen, smiling at the setup of food and candles at their dining table. "You didn't have to do all this." He kissed her cheek. "What's the occasion?"

"The occasion is, I love you. I just wanted to take away a little stress from your day."

He frowned, and his hands went limp around her waist. "Heather, I need to tell you something. The case I told you about that's been driving me crazy...I backed out of it yesterday morning."

She looked at him, confused. "Maybe that's for the best. But it's not like you to give up on a case."

"I had to let this one go. It was kind of...it wasn't an official case. I've been looking for someone off the books for close to six months."

"Why? Is it someone you know?"

He nodded, and she followed him to sit across from him at the kitchen table. "There's so much about my past I haven't been able to tell you. I should have said something long before I moved in, but I'd convinced myself it was totally in my past and would never be an issue."

"What is it?"

"Do you remember that woman who was looking in our windows when you were pregnant? I wasn't sure at the time, but I got the cameras as a precaution, regardless. She started texting me after Lavender was born."

"Who is she?"

He took a deep breath. "She's my ex."

"Conrad, what does she want?"

"Me. She only wants me. But she can't have me so she's..."

"Is she dangerous? Is this the college girlfriend who cheated on you and broke your heart?"

"Same one. Her name's Ximena Bonilla and she's a little...erratic. But she might not be as dangerous as the people she associates with."

"Who does she associate with?"

"Selvadoradian cartels. She's a drug dealer."

The shock and confusion on Heather's face turned to anger. "How do you know her?"

"I met her when I was in college. She said she was a student and convinced me for almost a year. She was raising her kid brother, Rafa, by herself and escaped being trafficked by the cartel by running drugs for them instead. When I found out the students were her customers, I should have broken up with her. But I was in love and I wanted to keep her safe. I didn't leave. I got deep enough that I met some of her bosses and knew about some of their operations, but she cheated on me and it broke the spell. I finally left her, but one of their ops went bad and one of the guys they picked up gave my name to San Myshuno PD."

"Conrad, you don't have a criminal record. I looked you up after we started dating."

"You hacked the police database, too?"

"No...I did a public records search after River made a joke about a hacker and a criminal."

"To this day, I don't know how my father did it. My file's locked under clearance even I don't have, same as anyone else on the force with a past, but Landgraab Security's always had contacts at San Myshuno PD. He pulled enough strings to wipe my record clean and transfer me into the academy. I had to give them a couple names in exchange - street dealers, local guys. No one that would really upset the cartel. But the force had to look like they were managing crime in their city, and that's the only reason I became a cop and not a complete screw up."

"Is the cartel after you? Or just your ex? Did you give them her name?"

"I never gave them her name. I couldn't, because I didn't know what would happen to her little brother if I did. She tried to get me back after I left, but I knew it could never work out. When Gord was still a puppy, she cornered us outside my apartment to get my attention when I brought home another girl. I got a restraining order, but when it expired and she stayed away, I thought she was finally gone for good."

"So why is she back?"

"She asked for my help to find her brother."

"Is her brother even missing?"

"He is missing. He's wanted by San Myshuno PD. I wanted to help him before he was arrested and sent to prison."

"But you were looking for him under the table, as a favour to your ex who sounds obsessed with you? No wonder Gord hasn't left us alone since Lavender was born. He always knew what was going on with you, didn't he? And you never thought to mention any of this to me?"

"Heather, I wanted to, I-"

"Were you going to help this guy avoid prison? How? Criminal connections?"

"Nothing like that. I was hoping to be able to talk to him, encourage him to go back to finish high school, find a solid job, and maybe convince a judge to go easier on him. I really thought I'd be able to find him in a few weeks, maybe a couple months, and we could all move on again. But uncovering leads has been impossible, and his sister's not a reliable source. I'd even started a file on Ximena because I thought once I found her brother I could finally get around to what I should have done more than once and turned her in. But I could see what searching for Rafa and keeping it from everyone was doing to me, so I finally told her yesterday I was done."

"You've been in regular contact with your ex and didn't tell me? And not because there's something between you but because she's dangerous? Conrad, that's worse."

He nodded. "I know it is. I know how not saying anything makes it look, but I'm so ashamed of that chapter of my life. My bad decisions killed my father. After he got me into the academy, his heart got weak. Two heart attacks, and he died within months. As long as I live, I'll know the stress I put him under was the cause."

She was quiet, nervously playing with her food. Neither was hungry anymore. "You should have told me this."

"I'm so sorry. The longer I kept it from you, the more I feared telling you too late to deserve understanding. I love you so much, and I never wanted to do anything to lose you."

They were interrupted when Conrad's phone started beeping. This time, it was work, but he read the dispatch and his stomach dropped.

The phone shook in his trembling hand and Heather stood. "Conrad, what is it?"

"There's a dead body at the pier. I've got to go back to work." A bone-chilling shiver ran down his spine. His heartbeat quickened, as though he knew what he'd find when he reached Fisherman's Wharf. "I'm so sorry, Heather. I want to keep talking about this, but I can't."

She nodded. "I understand."

A pit formed in his stomach. "Will you do me a favour? I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but will you leave for your parents' place in Henford tonight? Don't wait until morning. I'll probably be working all night and I'd rather know you're safe outside of town."

She uncrossed her arms in shock. "Do you think your ex is involved with the body at the pier? Is that why you want us to leave? Lavender's sound asleep already, but you want me to wake her and take her an hour on the Simmerloop when you invested in those security cameras?"

"Heather, please," he begged, reaching for her hand across the table. "If she's anywhere near Brindleton Bay right now, I can't focus on work if I'm worried about the two of you."

Heather looked at him with sad eyes as their fingers brushed against the wood-top table. Betrayal was written all over her face, but she nodded toward the uneaten food and pulled her hand away. "I'll pack this up in the fridge and then I'll take her. Do you think you'll make it to Henford at all this weekend?"

"Heather, I don't know. I hope so. But I can pack this up before I go. Thank you for cooking. I'm sorry we couldn't enjoy it."

"Me too," she snipped. "Good luck. Be careful."

Heather couldn't look at him and Conrad wouldn't press her. As much as he wanted to run after her and beg forgiveness, a deadly crime scene called him to the pier. ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 1 Summary | Gen 1 Start

NOTE: Heather doing a semi-romantic dinner setup wasn't a flirty gesture, but she has the caregiver personality type. I can't remember if this is from a mod or an EA feature, to tell you the truth. I think it's a mod. Conrad has the jester personality type, which I think suits him, too. Conrad is really responsible and respectful which suit his proper trait (which was learned after younger mistakes), but jesters trend toward mischief/"foolish games" in addition to being jokesters. EDIT: It's WonderfulWhims/WickedWhims that adds this!!

WCIF Poses Used? Dinner Table Talks by @herecirmsims. I don't even mind the clipping because their kitchen table and chairs didn't quite fit the dimensions, because the poses gave me the expressions I wanted. I tried way too long to try to get the teleporters in the middle of the chairs, but I got close enough for me. Just ignore the fact that their chests were in their stir-fry for 90 per cent of that convo! Thank you so much for creating and sharing! 🙏

[drdemonprince]

Hi Devon! I read your work published on substack on autism and asexuality (really great stuff!) and then found your Tumblr and came across your own experiences navigating sexuality and kink, and they made me wonder if you have any advice for a fellow asexual on the spectrum who struggles socially but is interested in experimenting with sex/kink for the first time? People usually find sexual partners on dating apps or at the club but that seems so daunting I've been entertaining this fantasy of finding a community of people with a virgin fetish just so I don't have download tinder

Abandon your fantasy that anything fulfilling will occur without a massive amount of work. Running one's own sexual life requires a high caliber of communication, negotiation, and self-promotion skills, as well as a significant amount of time and experience. If this is worth it for you, venture forth! If not, maybe now is not the right time.

I will have a much more in depth guide on cruising written sometime soonish, but in the meantime I do have some tips.

Do not use fucking Tinder. That is an incredibly vanilla, heteronormative site. You might have a negative impression of your chances finding what you want because you've only had a glimpse of the most normie places and your friends' experiences with them. To find the kinky, experimental kind of sex you want, you'll instead have to educate yourself, and go looking for the freaks.

Fetlife is a good place to start. It will be overwhelming to navigate at first, but keep pressing. Fill out your profile with your interests, take a few sexy photos (whatever that means for you), and join local groups. Follow people who post things you find interesting, read lots of posts. Pick up some books on leather and kink history, and study up. Jack Rinella is a favorite of mine, but I am deliberately keeping my recommendation list lean so that you will dig for what you are interested in, yourself.

Look up local groups interested in rubber, leather, kink, etc, find local dungeons, attend local munch events (these are low-pressure social hangouts with no kinky play, but for kinksters to meet eachother), and find out where the gay bars are in your area that have backrooms in them, as well as cruising spots. Check out spaces where people do kinky or sexual stuff together and just watch.

After considerable information gathering and self-searching, put yourself out there and take agency over your own sexual life. Message people you find interesting, and I do mean just interesting. Learn from other bottoms if you're a bottom. Trade stories with other subs if you're a sub. Learn techniques from other Doms if you're a Dom, or some combination of all these things if you're verse or switchy. If someone shares some interests with you and seems compatible, make a specific suggestion for play, like: Want to meet up and practice our rope tying? or Would you like to practice your spanking technique on me? or I don't like having sex, but I'd love to use you as my personal footstool.

Remember that you get to set the terms for the engagement, and the other person does as well. If they reject you, that means consent has successfully happened, everybody gets a pat on the back, good job. The same goes for you. If all you want is to drag a human puppy around on a leash, don't settle for someone who keeps pressuring you for sex. Just end the interaction. There are a whole lot of freaks out there with a whole array of interests, and most people who are kinky eventually learn to be gracious and work with what a prospective partner is into, but we also all have our dealbreakers. That's fine. You don't want to play football with someone who insists on tackle when all you want is touch. It's the same thing. This is just silly pretend games. So find someone who wants to play a game you want to play.

And yeah, you can expect it to take about two years to really find your footing in this world and really know what you want and how to articulate it successfully, at least. That doesn't mean you won't have enjoyable (or at least interesting, informative) experiences along the way. But it is a lot of work. I find it is better to lead off with realistic expectations because many people rush out hoping that someone will just magically appear who will fulfill all their desires, and that's not how the world works. Every person that you speak to in a kinky context is a full human being with their own anxieties, sexual traumas, shame, areas where they lack experience, and desires that might strike them as impossible to realize.

In kink, you have to learn to navigate really complicated interactions with each one of them as its own independent thing. A lot of us make the mistake early on of thinking everyone else out there is a more seasoned, confident, sexually voracious being than we are, and that all we have to do is find the right person to give us a good time. But with our actions and negotiations WE make it a good time, us and our partner of the moment, together.

If you don't put the work in, you get nothing out. But the more you reveal of yourself and stay present in the interaction and honor it as the specific, unique thing that it is, the more benefits you reap -- not just sex or kinky play, but friendships, community ties, self-knowledge, and social skills.

Have fun out there! I hope you learn a lot.

[captainsophiestark]

The 60s

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Day 9 Prompt: "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Summary: Klaus wiped the memory of the love of his life after hundreds of years together to try to protect them from Mikael. Now, however, his ex has their memories back is going to find their boyfriend. Even if he is in someone else's body.

Word Count: 2,215

Category: Angst, Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I was going to kill Klaus Mikaelson.

Unlike the other thousand people who'd probably had that thought in the last week alone, however, mine was actually justified. For hundreds of years, Nik and I had been together, happy, and in love. We'd wandered the world together, side by side, having each other's backs through thick and thin. Out of everyone in the entire world, I was the only one he'd always trusted, completely, without a doubt in mind.

And then Mikael had shown up one time too many.

Nik and I had faced him a few times, and he had firmly held the spot of 'my least favorite Original' for literal centuries. We'd always come out shaken, but fine, until about a hundred and fifty years ago. That time, he'd gotten Nik cornered, so I'd jumped in to save him. Mikael had almost killed me instead.

We'd managed to both make it out alive, thankfully, but Nik had been foaming at the mouth with nerves and fear. I'd tried to calm him down, but it hadn't worked. He'd gotten too scared, so for the first time in our entire relationship, he broke my trust. He compelled me to forget him, and to go somewhere else, far away, where I'd never be put in danger by him and his family again.

It had worked, unfortunately for me. Until recently, when something had happened to break the compulsion and bring my memories back. At first, I'd been terrified that it meant Nik had died. But, after a little investigating and compelling of my own, I realized he'd been body-hopping with the help of witches. Something about it must've shaken his compulsion loose, and allowed me to remember.

It hadn't taken me long to track him down to Mystic Falls, Virginia. I couldn't help being a little proud of myself for finding him so quickly; it helped that I knew him well. I'd arrived in Virginia last night, and managed to track down Nik's exact location and hiding place just as quickly. He'd apparently taken over the body of a history teacher at the local high school. Who would I have been to miss that opportunity?

With a little more compulsion, I'd convinced the front office staff to let me into the teacher's history class. I found a seat to one side of the classroom, then settled in to wait for Nik to show up. I almost blew my cover when, a moment later, the spitting image of Katherine Pierce walked through the door.

I knew he'd come to town for the doppelgänger, but it was still surprising to see someone who looked just like Katherine. Apparently, that lie we'd planted about the Curse of the Sun and the Moon had been working out pretty well. She sat on the other side of the room from me, flirting with another vampire and sitting with her witch friend. I sighed, already ready to leave the classroom, when Nik finally walked in.

The teacher, Alaric Saltzman, was tall, with brown hair, and dressed in something I could almost see Nik wearing normally. He strode through the open door with a "hello class" and went right to his desk like it was any other day. I snorted.

"What... are we learning today?" he mused, flipping through his history book. He hadn't looked up once; hadn't had a chance to see me yet.

"With the decade dance tonight we've been covering the sixties all week," a girl in the front chimed in. Nik looked up.

"Right. The sixties."

For the first time, he turned, and I thought his eyes might finally find me. Instead, they found the doppelgänger—Elena—like a heat-seeking missile.

Understandable, since we didn't think she existed. But still annoying.

He glanced from her to the open classroom door, then turned to the board. I huffed a sigh and rolled my eyes. What was he gonna do, just grab her and run? Much too obvious for his style, and we both knew it.

"The uh... the sixties," he started, mentioning the decade for the third time now as he turned around to write the same words on the board. "...I wish there was something good I could say about the sixties."

I covered a snort with my elbow. I almost raised my hand to say something like "Maybe they would've been better if you'd still had me with you", but that was also too sloppy for my style. Too many students asking questions, seeing me, and too many enemies possibly getting hints about Nik.

"They actually kind of sucked," Nik continued. "Except for the Beatles, of course, they made it bearable."

His eyes strayed to Elena's witch friend, and my heart squeezed in my chest. Nik was recounting memories that didn't include me, when I should've appeared in almost all of them. The hurt was only semi-manageable because I wasn't looking at the love of my life's face while hearing this, too.

"Uh, what else was there? The Cuban Missile... thing. The uh... we walked on the moon, that was, uh... Watergate."

"Watergate was the seventies, Ric," Elena chimed in with a fond smile. "Uh, I mean, Mr. Saltzman."

"Right," Nik continued, a familiar edge to an unfamiliar smile. His eyes never strayed from Elena. "It all kind of... mushes together up here. Sixties, seventies. Thank you, Elena."

I watched him teach the rest of the class in a way that could only be described as 'playing with his food'. He said Elena's name another time or two, savoring it in a way I recognized as him relishing in victory. I was happy to see him happy, but the added side effect of him being so wrapped up in doppelgänger nonsense meant that he still hadn't noticed me.

I tried not to let it get to me. Especially since it had given me the best opening I could've asked for to scare the daylights out of Nik and get just a little bit of payback.

Once the bell rang, I stood and hovered at the edge of the classroom. Nik dismissed everyone and said goodbye to the class, saying a special, specific goodbye to Elena and watching her leave. It wouldn't have been terribly obvious to anyone with no reason to suspect 'Alaric' was not who he said he was, but it was ridiculous to me.

Nik moved to the door to look out into the hallway as the classroom emptied of every single student except for me. He watched Elena go, his back to what he thought was an empty classroom, giving me exactly the opening I wanted. I crossed the room quickly but quietly, using all of my vampire skills to keep him from noticing me until I was right next to him, almost shoulder to shoulder.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I said, right into Nik's ear. He'd jumped and spun around at the first word, but now stood frozen, his mouth open in shock as he stared at me. I grinned. "You know, whatever you were planning to do to the doppelgänger. At school. In a human body. While she's surrounded by supernaturals. That's just a bad idea."

"Y/N..." he breathed, voice barely above a whisper. Then, he surged forward, wrapping me tight in his arms and spinning me around in a hug. He moved backwards into the classroom, and I slammed the door with my heel just to avoid any prying eyes.

Nik finally pulled back, eyes wide and a vague smile on his face, like he was happy but didn't actually believe this was real. I smiled back at him, even though he didn't quite look like my Nik, and gave his hands a reassuring squeeze.

"How... how is this possible?" he asked, his voice still quiet, like any loud noise might shatter the moment. "How are you here?"

"I still don't totally know. But I think, when you moved into this... teacher body... it was enough for your compulsion on me to break."

Nik's face fell immediately, as it should have. I frowned, the immediate happiness of finding Nik having worn off.

"I can't believe you did that to me, Nik," I said, taking a step back from him. "It was supposed to be the two of us, through everything. Against everything. No matter what. How could you betray that?"

He gave a frown of pain, taking a half step towards me before thinking better of it.

"You don't understand. My... Mikael... almost killed you. If I'd been the cause of your death-"

"Okay, first of all, you would never be the cause of my death. You know how I know? Because you would never kill me." I stared at Nik long and hard, and although he looked away from my gaze quickly, I never did. "Second, the only person who would've been the cause of my death was Mikael. You are not responsible for a bad person trying to kill me."

"Unless that bad person is trying to kill you to get to me." He said it quietly but firmly, looking up at me with a rueful smile from lowered lashes, like he'd just said some checkmate truth we'd both been avoiding. I put a hand on my hip and glared.

"Actually Nik, no, it's still not your fault. It's the bad person's fault. That's it. And before you start telling me it's your fault for dragging me into it or whatever, I could've left. I didn't want to, and I still don't want to. I've seen every level of crazy your life has to offer, and I'm signing up for all of it.

"And Nik, before you try to tell me how much you'd miss me if you lost me, you did lose me! By letting fear drive you to compel me out of your life. And I also lost you. I guess I've been generally content for the past hundred and fifty years, but I've never been totally satisfied. Because something is missing. I've known total and complete happiness, and it's whenever I'm with you. This immortal life isn't worth living without you, Nik. Don't try to tell me it is."

He stared at me for a few long moments, then pulled me to him again. Unlike the first hug, this time our feet stayed planted firmly on the ground, wrapped tight in the strong hold of each other's embrace. I sighed as Nik rested his head against mine, moving his mouth right next to my ear.

"I'm... I'm sorry, Y/N. I shouldn't have done that to you. I was just... terrified at the thought of losing you."

"I know. But Nik, we're nothing if we're not together. I need you to promise me you won't do that again. The two of us, side by side, for eternity. That's it, alright?"

He pulled away, hands holding my arms tight as he stared me straight in the eye.

"I give you my word."

Slowly, a smile spread across my face, a new warmth growing in my chest. Not once, in hundreds of years, had Nik ever broken his word to me. We were going to be okay.

He grinned back at me once he noticed my smile, then leaned in to kiss me. I stopped him, jerking back a bit, and he gave me a concerned look.

"I love you, and I am so happy to see you again, but I'm not kissing you until you're back in your own body. I have no interest in kissing this rando you've possessed."

Nik grinned, and although it wasn't his body or his smile, I swear it looked exactly like it was supposed to.

"Fair enough. I don't think I want you kissing this 'rando' either. What do you say we get out of here, and do what needs to be done so I can get back into my body, break my curse, and kiss you properly?"

"...Not in that order, right?"

"No, not in that order."

"Then deal."

Nik smiled and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as we headed towards the door together. I had no idea what the next part of his plan was, but once I was caught up to speed, I knew we'd be putting it into action shoulder to shoulder again, and all would be right with the world.

"You know, you're a shit teacher," I mused as we headed off into the high school together. Nik shot me a look as he kept leading me towards whatever destination he had in mind.

"Do you remember much interesting information to teach children about the sixties?"

I shrugged. "No. But I could probably fake it better than you. Watergate."

"I was in Australia, Watergate was a low priority."

"I was in Greenland, so... checkmate."

He just shook his head, a smile finding its way onto his face all the same. I was the only one in the world Nik trusted endlessly, the only one who could find him in a matter of days no matter where he was in the world, and the only one who could get away with giving him shit with absolutely no repercussions. And now that I had him and my memories back, I was never letting him go.

****************

TVD/TO Masterlist: @elenavampire21

[copperbadge]

Sam, how did you find your therapist and build such a good working relationship? Every attempt I’ve made at therapy seems to fizzle out after a few months… and no therapist has ever understood the RSD aspect of my ADHD, which makes it all feel a little worse every time I try.

I mean, I think really we're still building it -- I haven't had her more than a couple of months and functionally it's been an every-two-weeks situation most of the time because we keep having to move/cancel. I don't know that I can really speak intelligently to building a relationship with a therapist because this is the first time I've ever done it where I was an adult and in control. As for finding one...

Chicago has a group called Clarity Clinic, which is like a WeWork for mental health professionals -- they offer scheduling, billing, and IT/office space to local people who I think are mostly independent operators otherwise. They have a directory that is highly filterable, so I found my psychiatrist there by filtering to stuff like Adult ADHD and medication management. He's great, but he didn't want to be my therapist and I didn't want him to. When I decided on therapy, I asked him if he knew anyone he could recommend, since he knew what my deal was in terms of personality, behavior, etc.

So he gave me a couple of names of fellow Clarity Clinic folks and I had a look on the website and chose the one that sounded like she'd get on best with me. I think I struck it lucky to be honest -- she's young (compared to me) and has ADHD, and she's very familiar with disability discourse, spoon theory, etc, even fandom to an extent. If I were to go looking today I might look more at therapists who specialize in twice-exceptional individuals, but she's good enough with what I'm aiming at that I don't want to change.

So the best advice I have is if you're being treated for other stuff by someone you trust I'd ask them, but also look for someone experienced with adult ADHD, and I'd look for someone on the younger side who's more likely to be understanding of neurodivergent needs. (I also recommend filtering to queer-friendly therapists if you can; I didn't necessarily need that but it means they're likely to be generally accepting and probably have more liberal politics. With the caveat that in shady places like BetterHealth, "LGBTQIA" counselors are sometimes homophobic creeps with an axe to grind.)

Building the relationship has taken proactivity on my part -- ensuring that I always have an appointment on the books (we book out about six weeks in advance now, because we know one of us will likely need to cancel/rebook at times), making sure that I have either an aim for treatment or at least something to talk about, etc. I think in your case probably having a list of things you want to deal with, so that you can check some boxes up top, might help.

I would definitely open with "I have ADHD and I need help with [aspects of that]; I also have RSD and I need to work with someone who respects that diagnosis and understands how to help with it." I went into mine saying "I have ADHD and I'm also struggling with some really big emotion, so I'm looking for help with those, but also like...I'm not really sure what therapy can offer. I've had some bad experiences in the past but they were all when I was a child, so I'm trying to explore some options." Her reaction was a combination of sympathy and a discussion of the kinds of things we might work on, which helped a great deal.

But yeah, I think it starts with establishing right from the jump what you want and need, and then spending time making sure that you both stay on top of that until you find a rhythm. We're still finding our rhythm, but it's getting easier as I'm learning to be clearer about what I want and more comfortable with being a participant instead of someone therapy just happens to.

[varlaisvea]

this pisses me off so much. i can't talk to this person.

i am the fucking vestige. i am the fucking hero of motherfucking nirn okay? you're telling me i can't do fuckall about 95% of the beggars in tamriel? you're telling me that i, defeater of molag fuccking bal, can resurrect myself and others from death at will on the spot, but i cannot give some of my infinity food or infinitely-obtainable moneys to literally anyone who asks me for it?

if you talk to this person begging outside the bank in skingrad, there's no option to give him money. this is all he says:

truly no person deserves to live in poverty, but in my real actual life i have to walk past people in need all the time without the ability to do anything about it. we all do, literally and figuratively, every day. that's how the world is, and eso is meant to be a living world. but also in eso i have infinity food in my bag of holding that means absolutely nothing to me. if this dude were one of the tiny handful of beggars who are interactable, he would ask me for 69 gold nice. that's how much they ask you for. like?? i spend more than that for a lazy wayshrine transport. i literally throw away a meal and a drink every goddamn day for my fucking crafting chores. why not give me an opportunity to be kind, just because? it doesn't have to go anywhere, i don't need an achievement, in fact i would not even want to know how many times i have helped someone. i play this game to feel nice feelings and that would give me a really nice feeling. just let me do it.

not only that, this isn't consistent with the eso i play, you know? my experience of the eso playerbase has been almost laughably kind and supportive for an mmo. for years. literally since the beginning. my experience has been that people are almost universally willing to help if you ask for it. like instead of berating people who ask dumb questions in the zone chat, people will kindly answer the question and give tips. i once saw someone advertising a 'non-LGBTQ' guild in the zone chat, and the zone chat lit up with people telling them they were playing the wrong fucking game. i gave someone 10k gold a couple weeks ago bc they asked for donations in the local area chat. that's nothing to me. i'd have sent more if i'd not just spent all my money on furniture. which is something i am able to do bc someone once sent me A MILLION gold for saying something nice to them. they said it was nothing to them; they didn't need it. it changed my eso life, like allowed me to stop grinding to buy the house i wanted and start farming things that sold for high prices, so that i could make more money to buy cool furniture for my house. like? that is the unobtainable fantasy of most people under the age of ~50 in this country the usa? to start actually saving money, so you can afford a cool home and do good shit for the world? and someone just did that for me bc they didn't need it? i pass it on whenever i can. it's nothing to me. and i am by no means alone in feeling that, in fact i feel it's the leaning of most people i've interacted with in eso, in my guilds or just randos waiting for world bosses to respawn during events. in general, i've found people are nice bc it makes the game nicer for everyone. it's a good way to be in the world. that's literally the eso i play! fuck offffff let me feed people goddammit!

[olderthannetfic]

I do love this season just because the wank that you can see emerge in FFA. The most recent one of course is from BFE and Yuletide! For anyone who did not know:

In 12-25-2023, someone made a comment in a treat they received, saying that there were "issues" with their main gift and that the treay literally saved their day. Of course nonnies would investigate this! What was so wrong with the main gift? What were the issues? Obviously something about the recip DNWs, right?

Well... No, not really.

The main gift was fine. It was a canon divergence AU, that the recip okayed in their letter. It was also whump about the fave character of the recip, also okayed.

So, perhaps, a new DNW? That's a possibility, it happens! And nonnies leave it at that... Until fucking 01-01-2024 came and the recip commented on the main gift... Fucking. Stupid. The recip complained that the fic was an AU, and that that was the issue. The problem: they okayed CANON DIVERGENCE AUs, they did not want "AUs that change everything, like coffee shops" and the like. The author responded the comment (yes, the comment moaning about this was left IN the fic) with screenshots of the letter, the DNW and what the recip okayed. The real issue? The recip does not know how to fucking write. Why on earth would you say "I'm okay with canon deviations/slightly alternate timelines" and then complain that the author DID a deviation from canon. That's not knowing how to write what you actually want.

The recip responded. "Well, congrats. You could have completely ruined someone's Yuletide." Then, they went to Twitter and wrote "I'm glad that it got me and not someone who is more deeply affected".

You are deeply affected. You went to thanks the treat as "saving your day", waited until authors revelations because of paranoia of the gift being "a revenge from Yuletide mods" (yeah, I'm serious), then complained in the FIC itself and went full shithead to the author pointing out your poorly worded letter, and then made bunch of tweets about it in what nonnies described as and "insufferable teacher about to send a formal complaint to the local administration" tone.

If y'all want to see this full, dememe "Dragonlance" (yes, it's from that fandom...). The first chunk of the wank is from 26/12, and the other chunk from 02/01.

Moral of the wank: really, write your DNW well. If you okay something and then receive that something and instead of reflecting that you poorly worded your yes and noes or you found a new DNW or whatever you choose to go to the author an be a full shithead, you really can't fucking complain and play the victim here. Thank god this person said it'd be their "last Yuletide". With recips like that I'd hate to participate at all.

--

Sheesh!

I've occasionally written my requests poorly and—even more occasionally—had this result in fic that wasn't to my taste, but there's no need to be a baby about it!

This sounds like a version of the "no extreme kinks" problem: People often assume everyone else understands some vague concept like "AUs that are too AU" or "Sad endings that are too sad" or "Kinks that are too kinky" without really trying to elaborate on what it is that bugs them. I admit it's not always easy to explain this succinctly, especially if you want to avoid the dread "Only write for me if you're skilled"-sounding letters, but most people can do better than this.

It sounds like maybe they have a weird idea about the boundary between "canon divergence" and "AUs that change everything".

[scarabsinthestardust]

I wanted to share a story. It's one of those distant memories that you mostly forget about until it gets dredged up, one way or another. Like those memories you block out until your therapist pushes you to look back, to search for whatever incident altered your mental state and and caused your initial trauma.

In middle and high school, I wrote a lot. I had countless notebooks filled with silly, fictional stories, mostly dumb fantasy stories about cliche "main character" girls with red eyes and emo vibes. I was more likely to be writing during class instead of actually paying attention. I'd never let anyone read them, though, except maybe a select one or two people.

I started writing a new piece, a fantasy about a kingdom of winged demons and the human girl who gets captured and imprisoned by them. Looking back now, it really was dumb. But it was going to be THE ONE. This was the one I was going to turn into a book. This is the one I would send to get published, that would make it onto the shelves at my local Barnes & Noble.

In my junior year of high school, I got into a relationship. I fell in love, gave up my virginity, etc. Ultimately, I stayed with him for three years. Even though he was never physically abusive, he definitely was on an emotional level. He would tear me down constantly. When I would share my dreams, things I wanted to do, things I strived for, he would tell me that I was being stupid and that it would never happen. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until later on down the road, after our relationship ended. When my loved ones would tell me I was in trouble, that he wasn't treating me right, I brushed it off. "He wouldn't do that. He loves me. That's just how we are with each other." When I did finally end it, it took three tries. I'd cave when he threatened to kill himself and I'd forgive him - a classic manipulation tactic. But I did finally get out, and moved on.

During this relationship, however, I was still writing. I'd reached 27 chapters of my book, probably hundreds of hours of work put into it. After an argument with my boyfriend, he went onto my laptop and erased all of it. I was young and didn't really know anything about "backing it up" at the time. So it was lost.

I tried to rewrite it, but I couldn't get it to flow again. Maybe it was because I was just so discouraged, but I couldn't get the words to come. So I stopped.

That was around 2011/2012. I didn't start trying to write again until December 2023.

It started with some silly video game fanfiction, but just writing again was making me feel a sense of happiness I hadn't really felt in a long time.

Then I found Greta Van Fleet, and immersed myself in that fandom. I fought a little, I guess against the stigma of a grown woman writing fanfiction about real people. I was embarrassed. But as the words and ideas started flowing again, a short little Jake fanfic turning into a multi-chapter story, I realized this was what I needed. So I kept going, kept expanding. I let someone read them, and she had nothing but good things to say, eventually convincing me to post it online.

I was terrified to put my writing out there publicly, for strangers to see, but the response has been awe-inspiring. To read all the lovely feedback from people that are AMAZING writers themselves, it was such a surreal feeling. And it's pushed me to keep going, even when it gets a little hard or I get stuck, I just keep writing. Because that's what I want to do, what I've always wanted to do.

So, to all the people that have taken the time to read what I've put out there, you're wonderful. I appreciate you all more than you will ever know.

[kal-sharok]

Hi!! If you’re willing to talk about it/up for it I’d love to hear more about the slavophobia BioWare has in relation to their dwarves. No pressure at all of course bc I’m sure it’s taxing, I’ve just not seen this before and would love a resource to reblog about it if that’s okay. Thank you love your blog ❤️

hello! im actually glad you asked, i'll try to be as coherent as possible 😅 and no u i love yr blog!!

i'd like to preface by saying i don't think bioware invented anti-slavic sentiment in games or in general and isn't the only company, game or otherwise, perpetuating it. it's found all over the western world, most notably in western europe (where we're still regarded as 2nd class citizens, pairs really well with imperialism towards people outside of europe imo), but it also gained a significant boost thanks to the red scare in usa in particular (and continues to thrive thanks to the absolute chokehold mediocre american media keeps everything else in the world in).

im also no social sciences expert, but i do have first-hand experience on the short end of the stick and a couple of books in my have read list so let's say im qualified to rant on 🤭 it turned out quite lengthy so i've hidden it under the cut below!

when it comes to bioware, the first hurdle is already at their utterly haphazard character naming policy. there's a considerable number of dwarves who bear names that range from mockingly slavic-esque to full-blooded backwater serbian, now in yr local fantasy rpg! examples:

gorim saelac. while i do appreciate they tried to give a dwarf a mountain-y name (gora is basically any kind of steep pile of rocks with trees and dew and wildlife over it), "gorim" is how you would say "i am burning" in multiple slavic languages. this is one of the rare ones that are not hurtful and are hilarious instead (and tbh naming him goran, which is what i assumed they were going for, would probably be more ridiculous in the long run. for example i still can't take jowan seriously despite my love for the mage origin bc someone really yassified jovan and thought nobody would notice. wrong!)

lucjan and myaja. these two (along with maybe wojech "we couldn't spell wojciech" ivo) are the classic example of non-slavs butchering the hell out of slavic names bc it suits them better, which is also something commonly experienced by all non-western cultures and communities and a worldwide sign of disrespect. the in-game pronunciation during the provings gave me a physical rash. "myaja" in particular is still in my top 5 wtf moments in origins bc 1) what kind of stroke induced spelling is that 2) it reminds me of kids speaking dialect A mocking kids' dialects B by adding y sounds (which is what set the dialects apart in the first place) at unnatural spots and 3) maja /ma-ya/ would've sufficed perfectly for ethnic coding if that was the sole purpose of her character. do better! sure it was 2009 but from the little i happen to know about the world beyond the atlantic, you're just bound to run into someone of slavic descent in alberta (maybe not exactly polish but anyone would give you a closer phonetics match than... this). it's kind of amusing how 3 of bioware's founders have very slavic surnames and this keeps happening.

bogdan vasca. we don't know anything about him apart from the fact bianca davri was forced into a marriage with him and that his very dwarven parents considered him to be 'a gift from the god' (which is what his name means. theodore would be an equivalent) when naming him. the same clan of dwarves that preserved castes topside (which is why the marriage was arranged) and thus are likely to either believe in the stone (that they do not worship as a god) or nothing, certainly not a very human god with a very human, quite possibly mage (a completely alien concept from common dwarven pov) prophetess and a very human doctrine of considering anyone not human as lesser. the jokes are writing themselves at this point.

all of this naming business falls more into petty territory rather than being outright offensive, but it does bring us to the more serious manifestation — typecasting. the western media simply cannot fathom slavic people in roles that are not violent, volatile (i.e. berserkers, though there are other influences in there), constantly infighting and better off killing e/o (i.e. the diamond quarter, the merchants' guild, the carta) and relating back to thievery, addictive abusable substances and trafficking (i.e. the carta, but also official channels of lyrium supply from orzammar to the rest of thedas). as a slavic woman, it was exceptionally painful to see bioware join virtually everyone else in depicting us as women whose major purpose seems to be to engage in prostitution and surrogacy lite (i.e. noble hunters, most evident in beraht's grooming of rica brosca into the role of one). while these practices are tied to societies of woman-hating — and orzammar, if not all of thedas very much is one — i just take incredible offence in someone naming them integral (dwarven birth rates and the blight anyone?? i hated every moment of that) for a society that's previously been coded with people like myself in mind. of course im going to relate to how someone who looks like me is treated, that's the very purpose of casting. doesn't help bioware's cause that the bulk of npc's with slavic names tend to be lower-caste or castless - with exceptions such as some minor noble houses (houses ivo and harrowmont, possibly meino too) and branka (who's again smith-born and a whole villain).

by only allowing us to fulfill such roles, we are effectively barred from actually engaging storytelling to spend our eternity on the writers' back-burner. hell, even the witcher has been sanitized for the western eye (despite literally being made in poland) and i am yet to find a piece of modern media that doesn't reduce baba yaga to a quirky chicken-legged aesthetic (while also forgetting she's specific to the eastern slavic people). not to mention that if tevinter and par vollen are truly inspired by byzantine and the ottoman empire respectively, guess which mfs were both their vasals. now guess who built the deep roads and guess what tevene mages need to fuel their magic. if dwarves have already been declared the slavs of thedas, let's at least give them/us some space to be such.

[helloliriels]

It's WIP Wednesday!

Liri, Liri, oh so cheery

How does your WIP garden grow?

🥰 Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, STELLA!!! I'm currently reviving several WiPs (and super excited about them!!!) THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!! (and now i feel like i have some accountability):

Six Impossible Things - John finds a list hidden in a book ...

(I Thought I Knew) The Shape of You - tentacles happen

Antagonish - a non-TEH compliant return fic 1st ch already up

The Shape of Us - another 1st ch up fic that i am continuing

FTH fic for thegildedbee (making progress!!!) - it has morphed again (a collage was an excellent way to put it!!!) and I have a good feeling about it this time! It will be something brand NEW!

Christmas in Honeycutt - thinking thinky thoughts ... and may get a few scenes written soon! Found my way forward!

Sleepless in London - may start to jump around writing scenes and see what happens *crosses fingers* definitely have a way fwd!

Paint Me Like I'm Yours - John is taking an art class. Sherlock volunteers to model. Explicit. (yes, im finally going to finish it and POST dammit!) 😎

Spin the Bottle - explicit jumper chapter insert I teased (2 yrs ago???) and wrote three or four times, but never shared (only im taking the jumper authorship back). and going to move it to my psued. see how this works ... 🤞(oh god)*takes deep breath*🤞

We'll see what happens!!!!

And then a few new prompts jumped into my mind:

Sherlock Moves the Furniture - (jeezus) ... this one is happening! (apparently)

An Annual Engagement (TBD) - Sherlock visits the office every year, to fill out papers and other formalities. This year he runs into someone interesting, and wonders if he has to wait a year to see them again?

Prompts I'd love to read but not gonna write, have at!

Invitation Only - Unilock. John gate crashes a party at a posh house and spends the evening hiding with another gatecrasher (or so he thinks). Turns out to be the guest of honor. Embarrassment and misunderstanding ensues. Sherlock crashes John's next party in return to try to win him over.

Twisters AU - John is a YouTube star and local storm wrangler with a New York journalist riding along for the storm season, when a gorgeous outsider shows up from London (?) making waves in the rival teams camp. Who is this guy? and how the hell is he always one step ahead of John's team? (I wonder if we can beg @discordantwords for this one instead??? haha.) (kidding not kidding) i would eat this up for breakfast.

Something Missing - Sherlock has a habit. Stealing. He only steals what he needs. And has rules. So many rules. About the houses he steals from. About the frequency of theft. An egg or two here. A cup of milk there. A scoop of laundry detergent. Never enough to get caught. When he frequents a couples house (Watson's) and figures out the wife is not what the husband thinks ... he begins to wonder about his rule of not interfering in his hosts lives ... ?

I guess that's enough to be going on. There are a few more, but I'm unburying myself from the loudest first. THANK you STELLA for asking!!!!! (god that was a long answer) bahaha! - xoxo Liri

[valleyfthdolls]

Ryoko and Sumire doodle

Rambling under the cut

I keep going back and forth on what I want the characters' names to be. Specifically, in terms of the Aishi family, the only source I've found suggesting Aishi to be a real last name says it only exists in Bangladesh, but it is a first name both in India and more importantly Japan, and its meaning is symbolically relevant enough that I kind of want to keep it. The name I'd been using as a replacement just means "white rock" which isn't really interesting. I also have gone back and forth about the whole "they keep the women's last name" thing. Right now, I'm thinking that instead of the Aishi family's condition being localized entirely within one bloodline, it's more like real-life mental illnesses (specifically modeling it after ones I have experience with like BPD which caused me to initially relate so heavily to Ayano) and is based on growing up in unhealthy environments and suffering other traumatic occurrences like abuse and abandonment. I do like that the family, according to the wiki, canonically runs a textiles company which is the in-universe explanation for the Aishi family taking Ayano's mom's maiden name, and I do plan on keeping that because I like Ayano as a seamstress, but I think I want to have the Aishi surname come from her father.

Re: Ryoko, Ryoba is just a word, it just means a double-edged blade, and it was chosen as a "feminine" version of Ryobo, which is also just a word. Ryoko on the other hand is actually a name, and one whose notable meanings include "cool (also used for "unsympathetic") child", "enduring (also used for "invading") child", or "wise child". For her specifically, I imagine it being spelled 凌子, which would make it "enduring child". Mitarai refers to washing or "purifying" yourself before entering a shrine, and is sometimes translated roughly to "please wash your hands", which was one that made me laugh for quite a while. Regardless, I chose this because I like the idea of washing as purification for someone like Ryoko who is literally washing blood off her hands.

Ryoko has a perm because those were popular in the 80s, including in Japan. I didn't draw it great but eh.

Sumire's school uniform was swapped out for a from-memory doodle of a ripped-up kimono. It turned out frankly abysmal, but that's where the "ghost girl in a white dress" trope originally began. Also tying to old depictions of onryo, Sumire's body fades out the closer to her hands and feet it gets, except for the one ring finger.

The "string of fate" between them mostly represents that Ryoko was the one to kill Sumire. It turning black as it approaches her is of course representative of Sumire's death. The way it's tangled around her is kinda like. She was wrapped up and caught by it, and unable to free herself kinda deal.

I imagine Sumire is kinda like. barely there, just enough that her presence can kinda be felt. She's hardly conscious or aware, but she's confused and angry, and that bitterness can be felt through the whole school. It's the feeling that someone is always persecuting you, always looking down on you, always waiting with bated breath to see you suffer. If she were more aware, present or powerful, she may attempt to seek revenge on Ryoko by killing Ayano in a very gruesome way, so that Ryoko feels the most pain and trauma she is capable of feeling from her daughter's death.

[viiviidlights]

Another drabble that has NOT been proofread... also something I'd like to use in a greater rewrite project if I ever get to it and uses just a wee bit of my own headcanon. erm... enjoy? do note that most of the dialogue though is directly pulled from canon twst, just mildly adjusted to suit my needs...

Yuna found herself in a strange hallway when she awoke. There were many doors in the hall, each one labeled with incomprehensible names and times. Yuna also noted that her surroundings seemed to be in perfect greyscale, including herself, and a grainy effect danced in her vision at all times, like an old film.

Additionally, posters also lined the walls, each one depicting rather peculiar scenes.

Some of the posters depicted scenes that she swore she had witnessed in her dreams, with those dreams themselves having been shown in movies she watched as a child. Others seemed to depict moments in the Heartslabyul dormitory or times throughout the school day. Two posters in particular caught her eye. One showed a strange woman with a stern expression and the other had a set of children that Yuna couldn’t recognize, as the faces had been blurred in the unfamiliar landscape around her.

Voices seemed to faintly escape through a door at the end of the hallway, where a faint light flickered through.

“Happy eighth birthday, …” An older woman’s voice could be heard, followed by the innocent remarks of a child. Yuna found herself curious, and decided she was going to enter the door that the voices came from.

When she crept through the dark doorway, Yuna was greeted by sprawling theatre seating. Rows of velvet chairs lined the floor and the faintest sound of a rolling film could be heard. The screen itself, Yuna thought, was strange, as whatever was playing on it had a strange vignette effect over top of it. The voices that she had heard, Yuna also realized, had been coming from this screen. The woman that Yuna heard speaking seemed to be talking about a ‘healthy’ diet that Yuna thought was far too strict for a child that had supposedly just turned eight.

The oddest part of all, though, was that the theatre was completely empty, except for one person: a boy. Yuna held back a soft gasp when she noticed the young man’s tell-tale red hair.

What was he doing here, she thought, as the Housewarden of Heartslabyul turned his head and beckoned for her to join him.

Not wanting to potentially anger him further than he just had been, Yuna complied with the request, and carefully sat down in one of the dark seats beside him.

The silence between them felt thick, as Yuna had no idea where to begin speaking to him, or even where she was at the moment. How did one exactly start conversing with someone who had just been on the verge of killing her and all of her friends in the blink of an eye?

“You know…” Riddle spoke up, startling Yuna from her thoughts. “I’d always wanted to try one of those tarts… the ones with the bright red strawberries.”

Yuna wanted to ask where this was going but felt as though she was going to instead be better off keeping her mouth shut. Was this what people called “getting somewhere” with someone?

“There was a local cake shop that had them in the window… They shined at me, like… like forbidden jewels, they twinkled…”

Yuna had no response, and simply nodded, continuing to watch the “film” on the screen. The woman was now structuring lessons for the child, who Yuna quickly realized was the point of view by which the film was shown through. Even quicker, though, she realized that the “child” giving this story to her was the very same person sitting beside her, and that the terrifying woman in the film was his mother.

“I was studying everything, down to the very minute,” He spoke. “If I didn’t understand something, the lessons would be extended until I did… That was ‘normal’ for me…”

“Jesus, Rosy,” Yuna spoke up. “You say that that’s normal for you but… that level of micromanagement is insane for any kid, let alone an eight year old…”

“It wasn’t like I had very many points of reference. I didn’t have very many friends growing up and… never mind that. You’ll understand here shortly.”

The film then cut to the child, no, a young Riddle taking part in his studies when two children show up to convince him to join them.

The kids from the poster, Yuna realized, It’s that Chenya guy and Trey…

“So Trey and the cat guy were your first friends then, yeah?” Yuna asked as she tilted her head curiously.

“I suppose you could put it like that, yes,” Riddle replied somberly. “That was the first time I had been approached so openly by anyone my age to play with… I daresay I had the best time, being able to play with them… I learned and experienced so many different things. After that initial encounter, I had begun to sneak out daily to join them instead of studying.”

“So even ‘The Law’ himself found time to break the rules once…” Yuna mused, eliciting a displeased huff from her sole companion in the theatre.

“Not just once,” he admitted, albeit begrudgingly, as he gestured to the screen. “We had gone to visit Trey’s family’s cake shop once I had told them about my experiences with sweets, or lack thereof…

I remember going with them and seeing through the window; a bright-red strawberry tart on a white plate. I told you before that the berries on those tarts shimmered like forbidden jewels; well this one was no different. It shined brighter than any gem possibly ever could.”

Yuna watched, perplexed, as the Housewarden’s face began to light up. She was surprised that he could make such an innocent expression, though she supposed that knowing what she knew now, he still had a childlike air about him. It had just been taken from him far sooner than any child should know.

“It was so sweet, Prefect… it was like… like nothing I had ever had before. With each bite, I slowly became more entranced,” Riddle’s face fell startlingly fast. “until I had completely lost track of the time around me.”

Yuna jumped as angered shouting came from the screen. She could feel her blood pressure beginning to rise with each instance of Riddle’s mother appearing. Yuna swore to herself that if she ever met this woman face-to-face, someone would need to hold her back from throwing hands on the spot.

Her heart sank, though, as the apologetic pleas of a young Riddle cried out, only to be silenced by a stern rejection and the decision that the child would be managed far more than he already had been.

“I really only had myself to blame, though,” Riddle began again. “Because I had broken the rules, my favorite time of day had been taken away from me. And so I swore to never break my mother’s rules again…”

“But that’s not fair to you, Housewarden Rosehearts. You were just a kid-,” Yuna started, only to be cut off by her companion, his voice coming out tense and strained.

“But she was the most accomplished mother in the city, which meant that she was the most correct!”

“That’s not…”

“But that’s why I have to wonder,” Yuna watched as Riddle’s hands begin to tremble as his voice wavered. “Why… why does my heart hurt so much?”

“Riddle…”

“I want to eat a tart! It’s my birthday. Can’t I have some just this once?”

Yuna hesitated as she watched the Housewarden of Heartslabyul as he began to break, tears forming in his eyes as he barely contained himself.

“I want to play outside all day long! I want to make lots and lots of friends!” The tears had begun to flow in full force now as Yuna watched quietly, nodding her head as she determined her next course of action. “So tell me, mom, please…

What rule do I need to follow to make this pain go away?”

It was an odd sight. Yuna had never seen anyone break down like this in front of her before, let alone someone she barely knew and, quite honestly, had had less than favorable interactions with her. And yet, she couldn’t help but offer a moment of comfort to her senior as he sobbed.

“Goddammit…” Yuna murmured, rubbing small circles on her companion’s back; a gesture that she found comforting as a child but could only hope offered the same degree of warmth and safety that it gave her.

He was just a kid. She thought, barely containing tears of her own. He was just doing what he thought was right- the only thing he knew… goddammit.

Yuna sat like that for a while, saying nothing but offering whatever comfort she could to the Housewarden. Eventually, Riddle ceased crying and sat up.

“I think you should be going now, Prefect…” He said softly as he turned away from Yuna, back towards the screen, which was now blank. The film was over.

“You’re right,” Yuna replied, standing up from the seat. “I’ll be taking my leave now, then.”

Nothing else was said as Yuna quietly made her way to the door.

She could’ve sworn, though, that she heard a soft “thank you” from one of the rows as she stepped into the darkness, and she smiled, hoping that for once she had done something right

[popculturebuffet]

2024 Election Special! 4 Election Themed Episodes Reviewed! (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! It's election day when this comes out and i'm okay. I'm fine... honest

Yup not the least bit worried that against all odds and increasingly deranged behavior a petty dictator is going to win the election, deport god knows how many innocent people, destroy trans rights and swallow democracy whole yup yup i'm... i'm.. fine. But I could use a break and had the idea with Kev to do a big election specail. And we'll be doing this every two years.. i'd keep it to four and skip midterms but in deciding what I was going to review we found a LOT. Election Episodes are some of the funnest episodes on tv and a popular as hell theme that can be done both to tie into a presidetnal election that year or just for funsies and can be done on so many levels. They can be a big subplot, as many a sitcom do, or in these cases an excuse for fun shenanigans and political satire. THey also provide a nice break.

So for your pleasure we have four episodes from the 90's that show both how politics have changed.. and how they somehow really, truly, depressingly haven't and need to. It'll be both a depresing look at how we got in the position where one of our options is a destructive tyrant, and a fun break from that possible nightmare scenario that I deeply hope dosen't happen and instead we'll all be celebrating Kamala's victory. So join me under the cut as I look at some classic cartoons and try not to get too depresed.

A Goof of the People (Goof Troop, Season 1 Episode 37) Good old episode 37.. in a row. I haven't watched a ton of Goof Troop but I like what i've seen and frankly when Kev told me what this episode was about after watching it.. I HAD to review it at some point. Trust me folks this one is bonkers in the conkers and it is glorious.

So right away a local factor from Slimeco is putting out enough polution to kill Goofy's garden and blacken the sky. When prompted by max to go give these fellas a talking to he meets the CEO , a sludge monster, figuratively and literally, Fenton Sludge who is livid Goofy would suggest he'd loose 3 cents of profit and throws him out.

The saddest part is the part about a ceo not doing the right thing because it'd cost pennies is entirely accurat... as is that most CEO's these days are captain planet villians. Even the ones in favor of the environment make threatning tweets abou ta presidenttial canditate or creepy overtures to someone already in a relationship under the misguided assumption endorsing a candiate is a come on.

So Max suggests his dad run for mayor. And I do love Max's position as hype man this episode: he can't do anything as a kid.. but he can convince someone he can and I love the faith he has in his dad: Goofy may fuck up just getting out of bed in the morning, but he's an honest kind guy who does the right thing and Max knows that and respects it.

So goofy runs for mayor and as a result we get a classic how to short, as he reads a book on it. Naturally with Corey Burton, who has kept the role of the how to narrator to this day, doing the narration. I forgot he did this as far back as goof troop but i'm greatful. Shaking hands, kissing babies insue. Goofy dosen't seem to get to the chapters on graft, dancing a little sidestep, or crushing your enemies and see them driven before you. He gets enough to be a compitent politican though.

Pete finds out about this and laughs it off.. till he realizes Goofy's anti polution platform is popular, and thus he can steal it and get a limo and wear hawiaan shirts and fancy top hats. He'd be a god I say A GOD.

Pete's Family isn't convinced since Pete removes smog regulators from his cars for no paticular reason, says recycling is for suckers and assinated archduke ferdinand. They buy his blantant lies about having decided to change and the race is on: Goofy VS Pete. Despite blatantly reading off a script Pete starts to gain traction, but Goofy's still ahead.

Sludge is angry and I love how over the top they play him: They lack subtley in thier anti green aseop but it's refeshing to see a ceo played as such a tounge in cheek hammy nightmare. His solution is bribes but Goofy is too clean. So he decides to lean on pete as pete just has that "takes bribes gladly" energy about him, which proper research backs up. I love the scene of Pete taking the bribes too, putting them in his pants and Sludge just telling him to have at it. Jim Cummings gets to have a LOT of fun this episode and makes me want to watch more episodes to see more of pete's antics on his performance alone.

So pete does a full 180, baby, and even does a hackneed political stunt diving into a lake to show it's toxin free and proven wrong. Oh if every republican doing a stupid stunt actually paid conseuqences for it. Goofy is still winning so Sludge goes with plan D: Frame him. If your curious plan A was do nothing and hop ehe looses, plan B was pete, and Plan C was : Find some dirt on him. But Goofy dosen'tk now what a prostitute is though i'm sure he'd be a lovely customer. Pay extra, complinment his escort, bring his own condoms, good at sex. I mean look at goofy. Goofy fucks. You know it, I know it, we all know this as a fact but no one ever talks about it and it's about time someone talked about it again.

So Sludge hides toxic waste in goofy's garage and Goofy has no idea what ot do. Thankfully sludge left a literal slime train and Max encourages goofy to go kick his ass. Sludge is ready to throw hands, only for a sludge monster to rise out of the barrels in goofy's garage, go to the factory and call him dada. Then goofy kills this innocent child with a jar of clean air he kept since he was a lad that was set up later but I didn't mention till now because shut up. This also cures sludge who agrees to stop poluting and open a ballet school.

So Goofy wins and while it probably never comes up again, is mayor for the rest of the serie sand for eons. The time of God Emperoror Mayor Goofy is upon us LONG LLIVE THE FIGHTERS

So this episode is very over the top and really fun. While the commentary on polution is about as subtle as a brick

The politics bit is savier, showing how politicans will gladly sell out their morals for bribes. It's not subtle about that either but in a time when Batman the Animated Series couldn't have the mayor be corrupt because THINK OF THE CHILDREN, the fact they got away with this is notable and it's cahtartic as special intrests have only gotten more brazen these days. A sollid episode that delivers some peak pete, a goofy villian and a how to short. Good stuff

All the Duke's Men (The Critic, Season 2 Episode 8) Onto the most obscure show in this bunch and one of my faviorite Adult Cartoons the critic, a short lived cartoon by at the time former simpsons showrunners Al Jean and Mike Reiss, before Al Jean would be god emperor of simpsons for a few decades.

The Critic is a show I loved, covered before but was reluctant to cover this time as between my valentine's special a few years back and now John Lovitz sucks a whole lot more, having gone full alt right and appearing on fox news. That said I realized watching this that while Lovtiz is a major reason for the shows success, he's not the only person and i'ts a deservice to all the other talented people on this show, who wrote it and made it to stop loving it just because it's stars an ass. I can sidestep that for rosanne, I can sidestep it for the critic. Jon Lovitz can suck but he can't make this show suck.

That said whlie I love the Critic on rewatch for this All the DUke's men is a wobbly ass episode. I remembered it for it's best jokes and Duke's run for president, which is one of the funniest thing the show did. I never really reflected on the fact it's weighed down with dated refrences, from Michal Dukakais to Ross Perot who they made funny regardless of the refrence before

It dosen't help the first joke of the ep is a lazy mashup of Risky Buisness, Interview with a vampire and rain man.

The episode starts strong with a simple premise: Jay, our titular critic, helps his son Marty win class president. I don't mind this as a launch pad and i'ts great for gags, especailly from the principal of Marty's School, a delightfully cruel asshole with a distinctive laugh.

The problem is the subplot overstays it's welcome, lasting for about half the episode despite adding nothing to the duke plot, which is more intresting and coudl've used more time. It got plenty, but this is such a choice premise I know they coudl've done more. Instead we get "marty's class dosen't want to work". We get some great gags out of it: like Golden Age Simpsons, even a weak critic episode is packed with iconic jokes. Jay assures his son a real politican dosen't goof off and eat candy.. only to think of regan

Thankfully we get way more of Duke Phillips jay's box. Duke is an egotistical southern billionare played wonderfully by the late charles napier. And yup an idiot bilillonare running for president for his own ego and power sounds familiar, and the sad part is Duke would still be a better president. Though i'm sure he'd also be good friends with Hannibal Lecter. The diffrence is even being a movie character, Hannibal Lecter could plausably exist in the critic universe.

While it starts a tad slow once we get to act 2 the episode picks up and dosen't really leave off. The final gag of marty's subplot is great, with him only able ot mak ea horses ass ("Your watching fox, give us ten minutes and we'll give you an ass"), that gets set on fire and destroys cats ("And nothing of value was lost") and once i'ts gone we get some really good jokes. Highlights, since it's so rapid fire include Duke promisnig a group of zombies "the most human flesh since rosevelt", finding out Doris, jay's makeup lady is there to find a husband, Duke finding out the irish can vote and rethinking his poster

And using the EVIL EYE on a reporter. While jay is initially happya s Duke's speechwriter, figuring he can use his powers for good he gets uneasy. This is proven right as Duke's vp candiate is Jay's father Franklin.

Franklin.. is the best character on the show. Duke is an easy second.. but Franklin is primarly there to be a joke machine. Mildly senile, Franklin's primary role is to get into weird shenanigans, from mistaking a scarecrow for Wilson from home improvment, to trying to pull a missus doubtfire to see his children more often ("You can see them anytime" "Well who wants to do that?"), gluing everything to a celing, makign the worlds first fishmobabywhilrmagig, dancing his his underwear and destroying genuica in a hellicopter with a small child. And that's just a small list of great shit Franklin has done. This character is comedy gold and I wish we'd gotten more seasons or more spotlight episodes

I also wish he was in this one more as I forget HOW late he comes in, only having a few scenes. However as typical for Franklin he only needs a few to kill it: i'm not exagerating when I say EVERY second this character is on screen is funny. He rips off his hair because he "won't wear this toupee anymore".. only for jay to point out he dosen't wear a toupee "I will from now on. He follows up a fairly witty defense of his vp run by putting a stocking on his head and declaring "now let's rob that banks", pops into position for the debate with a cartoony sound effect, and declares "As the first black female head of the ku klux klan i'd like to say america stinks!". Capped by Duke's response "This might hurt us more than it helps us." This is all in the span of about two and a half minutes and it is delightful.

The episode resolves wobbly as Jay is reluctant to fire his own dad and again I wish we'd had more time with this subplot. If nothing else than to get more of Franklin and Duke interacting as this is the only time they do all series and even then they dont' share one conversation.

The ending though is one of the funneist scenes of the show. It starts with an apocalypse now parody that while a bit fat jokey, still makes me giggle and I quoted it from memory easily with kev

You know with all the musicals based on movies these days I really would watch an apocalypse now musical. But it's comedy gold. Duke interupting the show and wanting Jay to fire his dad Causes Duke to fire him from his campaign and go rogue. Duke's whole speech is great from his horrible polices (Regan: Reganomics is making a comeback)! to one of my faviorite jokes in the series

Duke then goes to put on some leather and go get spanked, having sunk his campaign. If only he ran in 2016. If only.

All the Duke's Men is uneven as hell, but still has some of the series best jokes. Plot wise it's a mess, but joke wise despite some very dated refrence humor, it fucking nails it enough times to make up for it. THere are better episodes, but this one's still worth a watch. And to my delight I found out the series is now on Tubi. Tubi: Thank god you exist you beautiful free channel. I'm not even being paid to shill for tubi i've just grown to love it more and more as more and more shows with no other home get added.

A Head in the Polls (Futurama Season 2, Episode 3)

Honestly i'm happy to get the chance to talk about futurama more. I haven't gotten to a ton and i'ts one of fox's best shows and revisiting this episode, i'd never noticed how good this one was. This episode is DENSE with jokes. Futrama was at peak simpsons level of joke density at this point and it's glorious: The characters are settled so they can just rattle them off, starting with a scary door segment brilliantly spoofing time enough at last (A Twilight Zone episode I never really liked as the ending feels overtly cruel when the character at the center had done nothing wrong, but I like as a parody as it points out he could just lead large pring.. thene sclates it with him loosing his eyes, then his hands, then just falling apart and oh hey look at that weird mirorr.

Fry and Bender are sidestepping the ongoing election. And fry's incredibly stupid opinons on voting have aged like fine wine in a cellar paired with a very nice cheese.

Yeah given the sheer mind boggling number of people who are planning not to vote to stick it to the man and protest the fact VP Harris probably won't put pressure on Isreal if elected. Which is bad, not going to sugarcoat it. We need to put pressure on her if she's elected to make sure she actually does something. I can't guarantee that will do anything but you know what I can guarantee won't do anything positive? Not voting.

Yeah I need to take a second to talk to all of you who are planning not to vote like fry here. Short version:

Long version: There are millions of immigrants and trans people whose lives will be worse and have their lives and futures taken away if Trump gets elected. All of our lives WILL be worse under Trump. That's not an assumption, that's not me castrosphsing that's fact: Trump is loosing it, which is remarkable given he was always unhinged but apparently there is depths to which he can sink, calling hannibal lecter a good friend, dancing for forty minutes for no reason, shouting about eating dogs in a way that geninely hurt the community his running mate made shit up about and refused to take back, and plotting ot murder his enemies and drink their blood. He hasn't SAID the latter yet but you know he's thinking it an dyou KNOW he's one rally away from saying it. Even if he wasn't he's a vile racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, selfish, hateful, greedy, sad, spiteful hateful asinine creature a pupil with no scruples who knew better than the teacher and I've taken as much from him as any man can. We barely survived 4 years of him and millions didn't thanks to his turning COVID into a culture war. We will ikely not surivive a second trump presdiency that will last until he somehow blows the earth itself up or chokes on a chicken bone. Whichever comes first.

It's fine to be disapointed, it's fine to not like who your voting for. But not voting only hurts YOU and tons of innocent people your saying you don't give a shit about. I learned this the hard way: I voted third party pissed Bernie got edged out by the democrats in favor of someone who while not NEARLY as bad as trump, is still an objectively terrible person.. .and while I don't blame myself soley for Trump winning, I do still regret voting jill stein.. not helped by the fact it's very clear she sucks at this point but I digress. Not voting just to make a flashy point does nothing to actaully make said point as not enough people are going to risk another trump regime to be marytrs. Or as a wise asshole once put it

You probably didn't expect a strong rebuttal of "just don't vote man" assholes but my patience with them has worn out and it was barely there to begin with.

Back to the future, where not tolerating Fry's apathy, Leela drags him to a political convention showing off all the diffrent parties. This is a buffet of great gags starting with the presidental candiates both being clones of the same guy.

It's a gag that's aged shockingly well considering the current state of the Republican Party

As it highlights an issue I HAVE had with the democratic party: It's refusal to actually go as far to the left as it's constiuncy wants, trying to always pull more towards the middle. So the joke hits and makes this the perfect accidental metaphor for what happened to politics: the bland figures who always populated it tried to treat politcs as it always had: one party get sin power, the other gets in power, things shift back and forth, instead of "One party wants democracy, the other party wants a dictatorship". As a result a dangerous asshole marches directly into office... through the wall after killing several people.

Backing up we get a lot of fun sight gags here: There's the bull space

moose party

Good to see Bullwinkle surivived this long. I thought he was dead. The green party

Just.. never not going to love this pun. And even the antisocialist party which I'm sure is just tucker carlson's head ranting in a soundrpoof booth for several hours.

We get a fun gag with the non conformist party, but my faviorite here is the NRA, the national raygun assiocation which wants to end wait times for mad scientests and whose rep has mutated anthrax "For duck huntin" just the way he says it.

So Fry is at least intrested in politics when the plot pivots, bu tI like this opening set piece as unlike most simpsons-style opening set pieces, it comes back around. For now Bender finds out thanks to an alluminum mine collapse that the owner plans to pave over and get on with his life, Bender's body is now woth a lot of money. So he sells it.

The concept.. is so dumb it works. From Bender telling a dog that pees on him "You just lost forty dollars" after offering to pay it not to whiz on him (The confedence sells it) to his little car he drives around in, they find a lott tof fun shit to do with Bender as a head. I paticuarlly love him insulting everyone then having to ask someone to carry him to the head useum. I also love the head musuem having big named stars, character actors and tv actors... though the gag of their section being run down is one of those things that reminds you "OH yeah it's the 90's when this was written".

Bender runs into NIxon who misses his flebitus ridden body and Bender talking to the presidents heads makes him miss his own. I love his nightmare of binary and his fear after tha t"I saw a two"

A nice little thing I noticed this go round is that there is in fact a two in bender's nightmare

So bender goes back to get his body regretting it. And while the turnaround is quick. i'm fine with it. Bender had a nightmare, wants his body back, but it's already been sold. Simple, gets us along, and gets us to my second faviorite gag of the episode

That smash cut is so amazing. As is the fact it's just.. there. THey just move on with the plot with fry naked for a scene. Bender soon finds out where his body went: Richard Nixon. And look while this episode is great as is, this last act is one long excuse to let Billy West ham it up to high heaven as Nixon. They clearly loved his goofy impression of the goblin in the pilot and just let him go off. We get Nixon singing feed your head ("I'm meeting you halfway you stupid hippies"), saying i'm not a crooks head, he had to say the thing, and sweating on the debate stage as he's asked if he'd still candy from a baby. And is reminded he's under truth o scope, something I badly wish we had. I also love it going insane when he says "I certainly wouldn't harm the child". I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out the third best joke of the episode:

And just to prove their on a fucking roll , the next part has the gang sneak in to see nixon, which leads to the best joke of the episode, and one of my faviorites of the series, one i've played on a loop after rediscovering it. Unlike the others i'm not going to use morbotron for this one as while the gag would still be funny enough you REALLY have to hear Billy West's Delivery

Every part of this gag is perfect: Nixon calling Bender a "drugged up communist", the fact Checkers is also somehow in a jar and looks adorable and just how fucking angry he sounds. He is so livid over the slightest yelp from his good boy.

So our heroes have no choice but to break into the watergate. And the gag about "They give you a discount if you've been here before".. makes no sense. Nixon didn't break into the watergate. He gave his most unhinged minon orders to deal with the election and it spiraled from there. I would love to see G Gordon Liddy's head one of these days by the by. The man is more of a paranoid asshole than nixon and that's saying something: over the course of behind the bastards 6 party I learned he set himself on fire (Something I wasn't sure if Gaslit made up or not but nope) repedetly, constantly brought up the nazis ANY time there was a plan to a horrifying and comical degree, and spent a good chunk of time romaing around his neightborhood beating up teenagers. Like Nixon the man is both one of history's greatest monsters and a cartoonish weirdo we can point and laugh at.

At any rate our heroes ALMOST pull it off.. almost then fry gets caught in some magic tentacles and we get the most iconic part of this episode.

This is going to be trumps victory speech if he wins swear to god. Unless we can get Sir Anthony Hopkins to play Hannibal Lecter again long enough to get him to resign. They are good friends. Maybe even Brian Cox, he's just as good and frankly I don't think Trump's observant enough to tell them apart. Plus with Brian Cox he's strong enough to just whap him on the back of a head with a candal stick and tell him to fuck off the second his back is turned which solves the problem anyway.

Bender records all this because candiates were capable of being ousted for being blatant corrupt monsters back then

But as is the standard now Nixon.. still wins thanks to a giant kille rdeath machine. or you know appealing ot bpeoples most base instincts. Either way

And hopefully not a chilling vision of things to come. The episode itself is fucking great though: while the trump presidency helped it age gracefully it has good things to say about voting (ironically leela forgets to vote) how similar parties can be and the dangers of people like Nixon. It also has that naked jump cut, nixon yelling at a dog and going into people's houses at night to wreck up the place. It's a fantastic episode and one i'll defintely be rewatching again.

Season 2, Episode 20

So onto our only live action show of the special, and like animation we were spoiled for choice

Which is a valid stance and better than the republicans stance of "We want to tell you what to do with your body."

But Kev went with dinosaurs for reasons and i'm not inclined to turn down muppets, especially since we haven't covered Dinosaurs. I should do a block of those next year.

For those not familiar with it: Dinosaurs was a family sitcom following well. dinosaurs made by the jim henson company. It has a ton of great muppets, bodysuits and other good stuff and is esentially what if the flintstones were even more cyncial

Okay take about ten percent off Mark Russel's take and you really do have it. The show isn't subtle, but it is funny, and has great performances and I now want to check out more. If you want ot learn more Youtuber Jose has done a retrospective on it.

For now we're covering the election episode as Earl, the head of the house and your standard sitcom husband and Fran, his wife played by the late great jessica walter are taking their youngest child Baby Sinclair to get a name that's not just baby. I love how they lampshade it too: earl is morfitied it took them so long and fran recaps season 1 in pointing out why they've been too busy.

I do love how they build up dinosaur culture: while there are obvious anlaogues to us there seems to be uniqyue stuff baked in from what i've read, and this episode showcases it and sets off the plot well: the elder, basically president but in a more mystic way with a wizard robe and everything, picks a name. HIs name for baby is "Aaah Aagh I'm Dying You Idiot" Also he's dying. Sure i't sa concidence.

This name dosen't go over well with Baby. Which i'd care about if Baby wasn't an annoying catchprhase machine who should be left for the wolves. Or I guess this guy

So fun fact this guy also shows up in the opening.. and having not seen dinosaurs, I had no idea wha tthe fuck this thing was. I still don't but at least I know it's a recurring monster that's also some kind of demon that ate Earl and his son RObbie once.

So with the elder gone a dark force rises to take his place, JP Richfield, head of wesayso corpration and corrupt asshole played to perfection by Sherman Hemsley. While he'd love to just be elected elder, it has to APPEAR fair so he picks an idiot to run against him who somehow looks worse. Naturally earl gets the job and agrees to take a dive.

How he does it.. is shockingly funny. He sings how lovely to be a woman from bye bye birdie, a musical I dearly love> That song.. I do not. I mean Telephone Hour, You Gotta Be Sincre, One Last Kiss, Lotta LIvin To Do, all bangers but that one just.. isn't. Earl however fucking belts it well. The joke shoudln't work as it could easily fall into the trap of "GET IT A MAN ACTING FEMININE IS FUNNY AND WE'RE JUST A TENSY BIT TRANSPHOBIC". It does slightly, but holds up decently due to how much Earl commits to the bit and how fucking weird that.. that's what Jp Chose to have earl do, showing he both deeply loves bye bye birdie, that it exists here somehow, and that Earl also knows all the words. It hasn't aged perfectly, but Stuart Patakin commits to the bit and tom fisher in the suit gives the thing way more physicallity than I thought possible.

SO earl's family is naturally ashamed of him.. granted that's thei natural state but willingly throwing an election to a corrupt billionare is a bit far even for him. Thankfully he has a guilty nightmare that shows his family out on the street thanks to Richfield that turns him around. Dinosaurs REALLY said EAT THE RICH and tha'ts awesome. I mean they may of not sait it outright but they imnplied it hard in how the rich just want to make themselves and thei rbuddies richer and everyone else can go screw.

So Earl decides to genuinely run.. and by that I mean blather nervously to his interveiwer edward r hero, who interviews both candiates alongside normal dinosaurs anchor howard handupme, one of the best names in all of fiction. When that fails he's told by Robbie to just dance a little sidestep, and we get a great scene of earl just.. ignoring interview questions and talking about his children. Which is as hilarous as it is deeply sad that that shit works. I also like the headline afterword of they bought it.

Robbie has doubts and says a line that's just. so damn cutting and relevant "Winning an election dosen't mean your qualifeid to be president" Preach sister, preach. Earl has another nightmare and decides to tank the election.

The result.. is comedy gold as Earl fully comes out as a massive dumbass who is not qualified at all. Please don't vote for him. While RJ is pissed of that Earl accidently outs his election fraud. Edward R Hero laments that is this REALLY the best democracy can do? A choice between an idiot and a despot? Given that really was our choice four years ago, I can relate.

Thankfully the dinosaurs instead vote for hero, the world is saved and Baby is named.. baby while Earl laments he could do the job

This episode is solid. On the nose as hell but fun. I may of not had a lot to say, but I did enjoy this one and wouldn't mind covering dinosaurs again sometimes. It's got that muppet charm with an added bit of cynism tha'ts unique. It feels like a more succesful version of land of gorch: same ambition and adult audience (Though still watchable by kids unlike land of gorch), but with that muppet style

Episode Ranking: A Head in the Polls And the Winner Is A Goof of the People All the Duke's Men

Note that none of these episodes are bad. Their all enjoyable slices of election episode with some stuff to say. But they all also say the same thing: voting is important, and evil triumphs by good men doing nothing and poltiikcs has sadly alwasy been like this on some level the republicans just stopped putting up a pretense of giving a shit about basic decency. So thanks for reading and

So register and please vote for kamala harris and tim walz, the crazy taxi ticket and I mean that as the highest compliment. I"m gonna put on some leather and go get spanked, goodnight everybody!