#and yeah there’s still really old 2010s humor in it but it still has its moments

[royaltea000]

Guys here’s a link list of that old Hetalia Nordics cosplay series that I was reminiscing about a while back ago - a classic from my time… 🚬_(TwT ) original cosplays by FabrorEstersPojkar - we salute our soldiers o7

It’s my favorite cosplay series ever and you can really feel the passion and care put into this project - they got translators so every country spoke their own language throughout and everythin dude, that’s effort! If you do check it out lemme know how you liked it! :)

Intro/world meeting parody- 【[APH] [COS] Hetalia 北 區欠 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/jkOFrN3

Starts getting into history- 【 [APH][COS]Hetalia的北區欠2維/京/海/盜時代 part 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/jpuNeTR

【[APH][COS]Hetalia的北區欠維/京/海/盜時代2-part 2-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/Yc1CDMd

【 [APH][COS] Hetalia北區欠3 -卡/爾/馬/聯/盟part 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/IBytvwu

【[APH][COS] Hetalia北區欠3 -卡/爾/馬/聯/盟part 2-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/TgREPxM

【 [APH][COS]Hetalia北區欠4波/羅/的/海/戰/役part 1-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/5F5EK3n

【[APH][COS]Hetalia北區欠4波/羅/的/海/戰/役part 2-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/wU84HYl

Bloopers/BTS:

【 [APH][COS] Hetalia北區欠系列作品的花絮-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/Ie1HBr4

(Bloopers 1,2,3 included in a row in description)

[pinkelotjeart]

I think one of my media hot takes is that I don’t mind when a story ‘dates’ itself by using modern things in the story. Like yes, using referential humor is usually bad because it’s not particularly funny outside the reference. But I think using modern slang kinda has a charm to it in a way I don’t see other people appreciating.

“But it’ll be dated in a few years,” if the story takes place in a specific year it’s only natural that the story will take to its ‘time period.’ So it’s not as much as dating it, and more just showing off the culture at the time.

I think the persona series is such a good example of this. Like how persona 4 takes place in the 2010’s and the idea of owning a big tv was still a novelty to the point it’s kind of a plot point.

Or how in persona 3 the temperance arcana has this really cringy old internet way of speaking. It’s endearing because these games are so clearly shaped by the time they were made. Yeah it feels old, but the fact these games still have older technology, and the characters act like teenagers from the 2010’s makes sense because that’s when these games take place.

Idk, stories aren’t made in a vacuum and I think you’ll always have remnants of the time that the story was made in, so I like it when a story can embrace it’s time period so openly.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Heyy me again so about the creepypasta thing, I just wondered if you can do Ben drowned with a gen z reader platonically? It's okay if your uncomfortable doing it ><

Ben drowned x gen z!reader (platonic!)

not uncomfortable at all! love that im getting ben drowned requests since i enjoy him a lot and kind of want to write for him more; just strictly platonic ..which reminds me, i need to draw him again soon! gonna answer this then take a break and get back to requests yipe!

admin is still sold on the idea of ben being confined to electronics most of the time so i can easily see him gaining access to your devices so he can pester you whenever he wants; though this may get a little annoying since youre... well still alive! you have a life

whether or not the reader is a creepypasta themselves or is a normal person is up to you! i think both can work, though i must say the idea of the reader being just some random person is really funny. like can you imagine? you get some haunted virus but the ghost is chill an you guys become friends

i do think ben can only mess with devices, i dont think he can mess with like. any internet browser stuff.... which segways me to my next idea; the og creepypasta came out in 2010, majoras mask came out in 2000, so putting it in the middle lets say ben died in 2005.. bro has missed a lot. youre going to have to fill him in on a lot of stuff, and boy let me tell you hes going to be going nuts

tell him about the new legend of zelda games. i think he would be hyped. throwing admins hc of ben being sick and tired of LOZ due to being trapped in the game out the window, admin needs this boy to get joyous!

he probably pesters you and asks you about the dumbest shit, does it on purpose because he thinks its funny

sometimes you guys play video games together, bro is absolutely astounded by how far games have come since he passed away. i think he would go insane over five nights at freddys. fill him in on the lore

going back on the video game stuff and playing together, just know that hes going to break the game and cheat + hes a sore loser, soooooooo...

do you think sometimes he comes and tries to spend time with you more and more over time because hes been stuck for years and hasnt really had many people to talk to? like yeah hes an angry spirit, but even angry spirits deserve friends!!!

ponders

probably messes with you by messing with your recordings if youre trying to make a video/tiktok/reel/what have you

probably interjects his own texts into your posts, never really says anything harmful, just messes with spelling or adds dumb messages

honestly its not your SM account/blog, its yalls shared account/blog now/j

stuck with old 2000s humor but i think he would absolutely love present day humor and how unhinged its gotten, though quick warning hes going to start quoting stuff

definitely quotes the sticking out your gyatt thing, hes going to drive you insane with it and hes going to laugh at you

do not play roblox tycoons with him hes going to bully small children

you guys play a horror game together on roblox and you can hear him freaking out through the speakers (likely using an old device for him so youre not fighting for control over one device)

absolutely DEVASTED when you tell him club penguin shut down

just know hes punching the metaphorical wall

on the rare chance ben is able to pull himself into the real world for a brief period of time, you guys probably do the same stuff hes just physically there for a short time!

make him touch grass while hes out, bro hasnt touched grass in nearly 20 years. this isnt even a haha "hes chronically online" joke, he hasnt actually touched grass in years due to circumstances

closing this with a hit of angst that made me go :( but imagine that it starts out as you guys being around the same age (well... close enough, since ben doesnt age anymore due to being a ghost) but overtime, you obviously grow up and have less and less time for him and :(

like owie

"what happened to us? we used to be best friends?" audio but its you two SOBS AND CRIES

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Mod Talks Mini:

//Hey, so I want to just send a little bit of a message to people, because there's something I need to let everybody know in a professional and calm manner, since I've been seeing a lot of controversy and messages online from people about this sort of stuff.

//Don't worry, this isn't anything serious, but I'm saying this for the sake of everyone's safety out there. It is kind of an edgy topic, so I will keep it under the cut.

//I don't really know how I should start this conversation, but I guess I should be giving a bit of backdrop for it.

//I recently found an old article online (several years back, I'm not even sure how I found it) talking about some other internet article pricks dissing Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, for those who don't know.

//As everyone no doubt knows, South Park is notorious for its irreverent humor, often crossing lines with its dark satire, inappropriate jokes, and willingness to offend...basically EVERYONE. The show touches on sensitive topics like religion, politics, race, and SO much more.

//Parker and Stone have been judged harshly for their edgy, boundary-pushing humor, with some labeling them as cynical or insensitive, but the article I read was explaining that despite the controversial content they create, Parker and Stone are known to be down-to-earth and good-natured in real life. They’ve spoken about how their intent is often to challenge norms and provoke thought rather than to offend maliciously.

//And I can confirm this, because a few years ago, I watched this video that has always stuck with me, because these guys know what it is they're talking about, and it's why their shows and all the other stuff they make together are so successful.

//This however, also got me thinking about some people that I follow on AO3, and...Yeah, I know that's a weird jump, but let me explain.

//Archive of Our Own is one of the most prolific fanfic and writing websites on the internet right now, thanks to it's simplicity, and a few other aspects, but I realized that on that website, it is also grounds for some of THE most fucked up writing I have ever seen.

//I think we've talked extensively about LadyRedHeart on this blog before; very much still one of the BIGGEST examples of this. Most of her content consists of rape, pedophilia, torture porn, incest, and about every horrible variation of NSFW content you could think of.

//What I read in her stories, because I have read some of them, is repulsive. But...I've also come to realize very quickly that RedHeart herself is not the genuinely fucked person that she seems to be in her writing.

//And then there's myself. In the past, I've been harshly criticized for writing characters like Kuripa, and even my portrayals of some of the canon characters, even though it's all supposed to be my own take on it. I remember people being really upset when they found out what happened to Hibiki, and then Himiko, and I had to deal with a lot of shit from some people back then.

//But it's fine. It all worked out in the end.

//But then there's the complete inverse of this, and this is the important part, because this is some of the stuff we need to keep our eyes out for. But this is also the more sensitive part of the post, so avoid the next 8 paragraphs if you don't like hearing about this. But here are a few examples:

//Bill Cosby is an American comedian, actor, and producer who was a major figure in entertainment, particularly in the 1960s through the 1990s. He gained widespread fame for his stand-up comedy and for starring in shows like The Cosby Show. The show was groundbreaking for its positive portrayal of an affluent African-American family and earned Cosby the title of "America's Dad."

//Cosby's legacy was severely tarnished in the 2000s and 2010s when numerous women came forward accusing him of sexual assault, drugging, and misconduct. These allegations spanned decades, with many women claiming that Cosby had drugged and assaulted them, and he was eventually convicted for it.

//Jimmy Savile was a British television and radio personality who became famous for hosting popular TV shows like Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It from the 1960s through the 1990s. For much of his life, Savile was seen as an eccentric celebrity and philanthropist who raised millions of pounds for charity, particularly for hospitals. He was widely respected and even knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his charitable work.

//However, after his death in 2011, numerous allegations of sexual abuse came to light, leading to investigations that revealed Savile had been a prolific sex offender for decades. He abused hundreds of victims, both male and female, many of whom were children or vulnerable adults. Much of the abuse occurred in institutions like hospitals, schools, and even the BBC studios where he worked.

//John Kricfalusi is a 68-year-old renowned Canadian blogger, illustrator, and former voice actor and animator. He is the brains behind several popular cartoon shows in the 1990s and early 2000s. Kricfalusi is best known for creating The Ren & Stimpy Show, which ran from August 11, 1991, to December 16, 1995.

//In 2018, Kricfalusi's reputation suffered after Robyn Byrd and Katie Rice, two former Spümcø employees, accused him of grooming and sexual harassment. The pair went on to say that they had been minors at the time.

//And then of course, there's fucking Dan Schneider, a more recent example. He's a television producer, writer, and actor best known for creating and producing several popular Nickelodeon shows aimed at teens and preteens, such as All That, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, Victorious, Sam & Cat, and Henry Danger. His work was highly influential in shaping children's programming in the late 1990s and 2000s.

//However, Schneider has also faced controversy, particularly regarding his conduct behind the scenes. In 2018, Nickelodeon cut ties with him after a long partnership, due to I believe now confirmed allegations of inappropriate treatment of young actors.

//The point that I am trying to make here, is that judging a person's character based solely on the content they create can be problematic for several reasons. And it's not fair to judge a person based on what they do, or what kind of content they make, or for what audience, because in some cases, that can be dangerous.

//In their work, artists and writers frequently explore a wide range of themes, concepts, and emotions that might not always align with their own ideals or worldviews. Through experimentation and investigation, art can enable creators to push limits and question social conventions.

//The context in which content is created is crucial. Factors such as cultural background, personal experiences, and the intended audience can significantly influence the content. Misunderstanding this context can lead to unfair judgments.

//Many creators view their work as separate from their personal identity. Their content may reflect characters, scenarios, or viewpoints that differ from their own. This separation is essential for creative freedom and exploration.

//And people are multifaceted. A creator may have both admirable qualities and flaws, and reducing them to their work can oversimplify their character and experiences. Preconceived notions about a creator can lead to bias, impacting how their work is received. It's essential to approach content with an open mind, allowing for a fair assessment of its merits and messages.

//Content that sparks controversy or discomfort can lead to important conversations about societal issues. Engaging with such content critically can promote understanding and awareness rather than condemnation.

//Anyway, I ranted about this for way longer than I should have. tldr; Stay safe, don't judge people.

[jodilin65]

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2010 Woke up to find myself up a pound despite all the running and hunger I went through yesterday, so fuck it. Why kill my knees for nothing? Besides, I’m piling on water like crazy, I’m bloated to hell and back, and my titties feel like they’re about to explode, not that I’d personally mind it if they did. Yeah, some days I really hate being a woman. Today’s one of those days that serves as a reminder as far as just which gender God favors.

Anyway, work is still going well for Tom and they seem to have plenty of it to be done. They’ve even hired more people. I’m getting less worried about them letting him go anytime soon, but still not too hopeful of them hiring him on since temps are more common these days than regular workers. Everybody wants temps so they don’t have to pay them for holidays and give them insurance. :( Oh, well. I haven’t been insured in 8 years, so what’s 20 more? One of the best things about being uninsured is that I won’t know it in time to try to save my ass if I got cancer. Therefore I’d get to exit this crazy world a little sooner than most. Sounds funny and crazy, but it’s true, LOL.

I am eating another granola bar even though I shouldn’t, but like I pointed out in the last paragraph, every negative has its positive. The best thing about being fat is that you don’t have to worry about getting fat if you’re already there. With a 29” waist at just under 5’, I’d say I’m there. :)

I still may set up my own site sometime, but I realized that if I do I may not get as much traffic there because most people who are looking to read other people’s journals/blogs go specifically to journal/blog sites, not some privately-owned site that just one person runs. I guess I’ll stick around a little longer now that they’ve got their shit together here at least somewhat until they go and fuck it up again. I’ll set my old journal private again, but keep backing it up. I keep forgetting to do it every day anyway and usually do it every 10 days since that’s about all I can fit into an entry.

Maliheh’s such a disorganized slob with a shitty memory that she’s paying a fortune to have someone come and organize her shit today, LOL. And she hates doing laundry so much she’s been known to buy underwear at Walmart to get out of having to do it, LMAO! I didn’t know an admitted bitch like her could be so funny. She needs a wife! She asked how many loads of laundry it would take to do my clothes (just my clothes). As I told her, before my folks sent all the clothes they sent I could carry them in both arms. I told her I’d shoot pics of my drawers and closet, minus Tom’s shit of course, so she can get a sense of what it’s like to be organized. As I told her, if I haven’t worn it in a while or it’s too big/small, I usually Goodwill it.

She said she’s got a picture of her and Karen Carpenter from the 80s before she died of anorexia. I told her I want to see it and she said that when she finds it, she’ll share it.

OSU finally identified themselves as a woman named Christine. In my last entry I said I would love to “meet” some of my regulars who come around just about every day but who have never left any comments.

Today I got a message from Christine who said she was one of my regular readers who has not previously engaged in commenting and has been following my blog for approximately a year after discovering it on MD. She said she appreciates my humor, honesty, and the opportunity to peek into a life distinct from her own. Additionally, she's of a similar age and finds it intriguing to read about the experiences and perspectives of women in her age group and considers it more captivating than the fixation on teenagers prevalent in culture. She feels a sense of connection and relatability with the content, she told me.

So I guess if she’s my age and usually bookmarking in from OSU she’s some sort of teacher or staffer there as opposed to a student.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010 My knees felt like they were on fire after running like the devil was chasing me for 25 minutes. Tomorrow it will be half an hour. The numbers on the scale are making up for the pain, though. :)

Today I will be doing some cleaning and then I’ll try to get over my writer’s block. I should do some language studying, too.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010 Other than nearly choking to death this morning and taking a nap to screw up my schedule, I’m having an ok day. The melatonin supplements usually only hold my schedule for a week or two at the most, but I think I’ll still probably crash in the early evening as planned. I still feel kind of groggy. I wasn’t even going to do an entry today.

Alison’s comment about the guy living above her vacuuming every day got me thinking about the times either just myself or both Tom and I lived in apartments, duplexes and motels, and I am so, so glad those days are just a nasty memory! We got one extreme after another, mostly college kids and freeloaders. If vacuuming was all we’d gotten, we’d have had it easy, but we heard everything! Our neighbors practically let us know it every time they farted. We met in April of 1993 when Tom bought his house from one of his brothers after he moved into his new wife’s house. I joined Tom in September of that year thinking it might be nice to have a child with him within a year or two. Six years later we moved out of there with me hating kids after what they put us through while we were there! Yeah, first it was Mormons, then it was a black C-8 family and finally a Mexican C-8 family before the welfare bums drove us out of there. Yeah, God picked out the perfect neighbors for us, and it was their behavior I had a problem with. Not their color or anything else, just so I make that clear up front.

Kids will be kids. We were all kids at one point, so I understand. But I also don’t understand. Kids of today – and even a decade ago – aren’t what the kids of 30 years ago were. Most of us were taught manners, respect and discipline 30 years ago, but it seems that’s become a thing of the past. Why is it a fact that when old trends return for a while, they’re either bad ones or ones that are neither good nor bad?

Either way, this is why I remain forever determined to buy a place (if we ever do get that luxury) either out in the country or in a retirement community. People simply cannot control their dogs and they cannot control their kids, and so the only way to escape it is to remove ourselves from the mainstream altogether. We may still get some barking from a distance, but oh how nice it is to escape the car stereos, the 5-hour basketball games within arm’s reach of the wall of our place, the footsteps, the TVs, the doors slamming, and so much more!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2010 The dogs went crazy from 4pm onward yesterday when Jesse took off as he usually does on Friday nights. I just didn’t expect him to take off 3 hours earlier than usual.

The only dream I remember having was one where I was marveling at the fact that we were suddenly living in a roomy, modern house. Until I heard all the chaos just outside. I looked out the side window dismayed to see tons of barking dogs just a few feet away and tons of screaming kids just a few feet away on the other side of the house.

Played around with Andy on Formspring and Twitter, spoke to Maliheh last night (she has turned out to be one damn good buddy), and Nane’s on Facebook right now. So I guess I might get some new wall decorations over the weekend. :)

I guess this wraps up this boring entry. Sorry I don’t have anything more and exciting to say. Guess I’ll edit my last book and work on my current one.

Later��

Aw, Nane got offline without contacting me. But the weekend isn’t over yet, so we’ll see.

Maliheh mostly told me about how she’s been cleaning her place, walking every day, hoping it doesn’t snow, and having trouble falling asleep. She was so sweet at one point, telling me she’ll try to be a good friend, she’s there to talk to, and she understands my desire to escape this little trailer and wished that herself for two years. But she certainly doesn’t miss sleeping in her cold, cramped truck and having the cops tell her to move when she had no place to move to.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2010 Doesn’t look like my “sniffies” have been sent yet. I ordered 100 perfume oil samples from my favorite smelly site, but according to my account, they’re still working on it.

I added my maiden name on Facebook. When I first set up the account they didn’t have a place for maiden names. I wanted it included in my name in case anyone decided to look me up who knew me before I left the East and got married, but these days I don’t give a shit who may be looking for me.

Last night as I was falling asleep I was thinking of all those who have encouraged me to go for my dreams throughout the years. And while I know they meant well, I don’t think some people realize that not all of us have the blessing of simply picking what we’re good at and what we want to do and then simply “going for it.” Some of us are simply trapped by fate in a sense, and can only do so much because of our circumstances. It’s sort of like a paraplegic dreaming of becoming an Olympic runner. The thing that sucks with me is that it seems to be life’s simplest things that are often out of reach for me, and this really bothers me. It bothers me because it makes me feel all the more singled out and picked on. Even though I’m far from the only one who had an abusive mother, for example (though it still has a way of making me feel “punished”), most people don’t have such fucked up melatonin levels that they can’t even keep a damn schedule. I try to tell myself that things could be worse. And they could be. But sometimes they’re bad enough. But yeah, there are worse sleep disorders than mine, some of which can even be deadly. If your melatonin levels are that off you can fall asleep in a second without warning no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Tom worked with a guy in Oregon whose mother had this problem. Her doctor gave her a medication assuring her that it’d keep her from falling asleep while driving, yet she fell asleep behind the wheel anyway and her car went off the road, killing her instantly.

So yeah, some people have it worse than me. But that’s not the point. The point is that I totally believe without a doubt that I was given the type of sleep curse I have and my driving phobia to hold me back in life. Especially the sleep curse. I feel like I was put on earth to be an asset to others. It’s like I do a better job of making others profit than myself. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for those I care about. If it’s within my means, I would do it and I wouldn’t expect anything in return. But I’m as selfish as I am generous and as indifferent as I am compassionate. If I don’t know you, I don’t give a shit if you’re having a rough day, and no, I don’t want to help you or give to you in any way. If that makes me a bitch or a bad person, then so be it.

Back to my point about not being able to simply “go for it.” I would love to be able to find something I enjoy doing online where I don’t have to worry about schedules and transportation that wouldn’t pay slave wages like MT. I’m just as willing and capable as anyone else of working just as hard. But something up there has been sure to place me in a position where opportunity simply can’t knock. Not on my door anyway.

Right or wrong, my old attitude used to be that some money was better than none, and that may be so in desperate cases, but we’re not desperate right now, and so now I want to be paid fairly for my time and work or else I won’t bother at all.

I dreamt I spoke on the phone with Dad and that my rat grew wings and could fly. It’s a good thing that one can’t be a premonition, LOL, cuz I swear I’d cut those wings off so fast! He gets around and into shit just fine without them.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2010 Jesse came down yesterday at 3:30 to blanket the pipes since it’s been freezing at night. I was surprised when he took off yesterday afternoon for a while and the dogs remained quiet. But not surprisingly, he took off today, probably to his parents’ house, and took the peace with him. I don’t know if the dogs went off for long. I didn’t want to know, so I slammed the sound machines on.

Tom decided to light the pilot on the main heater. Even though the blower’s still not working, the pilot will help give off extra heat and doesn’t take up much propane.

Anyway, I guess Jesse’s trying to retire instead of going on disability. I’m just glad we no longer have to deal with the 5am - 9am barking sprees anymore. Thank God for bad backs!

I swapped messages with Maliheh, who isn’t doing anything today, but a little cleaning and walking. Otherwise, she’s just going to pig out and relax.

She confirmed that she is an only child, saying that this might be the reason she’s selfish.

I had to laugh when she said she went camping twice and both times there was a tornado. So we both hate tornadoes.

I’m feeling the opposite with her as I once felt with Marie. I wish I would hear from her more often, even though I hear from her every day. It also kinda sucks that the feeling’s not mutual. But since I’m still the only one flirting, I’d say she’s still not attracted to me.

Said hello to Nane in a PM, who hasn’t appeared to have been on Facebook all week.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2010 I’m so pissed at this site and all its damn tech issues! Just when I thought they’d gotten the problem with changing background pictures squared away, it’s back with a vengeance. I had to reset it with one of their boring designs, so if you see some lame shit like this for a background, I didn’t lose my sense of creativity. I just couldn’t change the fucking thing.

All the problems are making me think of leaving, but that’s just the problem right there; all sites have problems, so where could I go? It seems that every single site I’ve ever used has changed things around periodically. Why can’t anything ever stay the same???

Tom said that when he has more time and gets a permanent job (hopefully where he’s working now), he’ll set up a site for us. I’ll miss having such a detailed tracker, but I really look forward to being my own boss and never changing anything unless I want it changed!

I have to laugh at how some people have been better at figuring me out than I myself have been. Maliheh’s pretty sure I’m starting menopause while Cindy’s pretty sure I love Maliheh. Well, I’m not so sure about Cindy’s theory, but love is never a bad thing so why should I worry if there is a touch of love beaming from me across the country and over to someone I envied the hell out of yesterday for having near 80º temps while I froze my ass off in the rain. I guess anybody worthy of a 19-year crush deserves at least a little love for hanging onto my heart for that long. Yeah, she’s one tough lady, LOL.

She said she’s not visiting her relatives in the Midwest this year for the holidays because she doesn’t want to get near snow again if she can help it. She said she told them that if they die in the winter, don’t look for her to attend their funerals. See, I’m a bitch, she added, and I told her she was actually sweet and kind compared to me, who refuses to attend her parents’ funerals for the 3 basic reasons I explained (because I’d only beat the shit out of anyone that started shit with me, my being there couldn’t bring them back, and I can mourn them from here just as easily as I could there).

The weather has been terrible here, but I’m so glad I’m not in K-Falls now. Yeah, the Klammers are at -2º now, LOL. Yesterday there was tons of rain, wind and fog until late morning. Then the sun finally came out and the wind settled down. We were supposed to get down into the 20s last night but only made it to 32º, not that that’s still not bad enough. The mice didn’t like it. Yeah, I think we have a mouse in here, so I set up the traps under the sink. This cold just sucks, though, and I might add Maliheh’s state to the list after all.

Last night I dreamt that I let the rat run around loose in some huge building somewhere. When I didn’t see him for a while I began to panic, even though rats always find their way back to their owners and don’t get “lost” like other rodents would. This is the second dream of this nature I’ve had of him, so like Tom said, it’s just warnings not to let him outside, even though he’s been oddly fascinated by the idea of it. It’s kind of funny, though, how he goes to the door like a dog begging to be let out. I open the door just a crack so he can sniff the outdoors, but not wide enough for him to slip out, even though he wouldn’t go anywhere and would be ok so long as I was with him to keep dogs, cats, raccoons and skunks away. Ever since he waited on the porch for us while we bombed and then in the car with us when we got back, he’s been wanting to go outside.

That damn rat sure raised some hell yesterday! He jumped on the shelf and I told him to get down. He decided to ignore me and so I went to pull him off. While I was pulling him off he pulled one of my Indian dolls off and broke her thumb. So while I was looking for this bitch’s thumb to glue back on, he swipes my cotton candy lip gloss. If I didn’t love him so much he’d have gotten his way with going outside, only I wouldn’t be around to guard him against the enemies!

This is the quietest winter we’ve ever had at this place. I knew the dogs would no longer bark non-stop from 5am - 9am like they used to when Jesse worked, but I expected them to at least bark every time he went out somewhere, yet they don’t other than on Friday nights. It’s a sign of the “end.” Meaning that we’ll be leaving soon. Yeah, I don’t get it, but I’ve lived in enough places to have noticed a strange pattern. Things seem to be at their quietest when we first move somewhere as well as right before we leave. But it makes no sense for us to leave what’s probably the cheapest place in the area if we’re just going to buy a house in less than two years.

Ok, I’m off to work on my story and looking forward to the long weekend with Tom, my ratty, and sugary treats my waistline definitely doesn’t need, as well as lots of thoughts (both explicit and not) of someone very special. :)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010 Ever want to beat the shit out of someone? I mean just totally beat the shit out of someone and rip them apart limb by limb? Yesterday was boring, though I kept busy. At one point, however, I was just doing whatever when all of a sudden this intense anger came over me and I suddenly had the urge to kill. It was the weirdest thing. I wasn’t angry about anything in particular. In fact, I wasn’t even angry at all. I just wanted to kick some ass, but not just anyone’s ass. Not an innocent being who never did anything to me and certainly not someone I care about. No, I wanted it to be some sick asshole that would really deserve a good beating. But my strange desire to attack and torture passed as quickly as it came.

It’s raining like crazy out there and no doubt snowing up in the mountains where Tom works. He said it was weird how it instantly changed on his way to work yesterday. He was driving along wet roads when all of a sudden there was 6” of snow.

They say I either go at something obsessively or I don’t bother at all. For the most part, this is true, and while some may say that’s not exactly a great way to go, it’s that obsessiveness that got me where I am today with the languages. But I still feel like I’ve got a long way to go and I probably always will feel that way no matter how much I learn because I’m just like that at times. I was doing journal entries in Spanish and Italian at Lang-8, but then I’d either forget to do them there or would be too busy so I ended up slacking off for a while. Maybe I should get back into it.

Yesterday was a dead day online. I didn’t hear from anyone. Not Maliheh, Nane, Alison or Kim, though Dieter was a little rude to me. Yeah, that’s another strange thing I don’t get. We were talking about living in Europe vs. the USA, and he was saying how he loved living in the middle of Germany because he was close to so many countries. I was saying that since California’s practically the size of all of Europe, I didn’t have the kind of variety he’s got, but there was certainly a wide range of climates around here. That’s when he went off on me for no apparent reason saying we “Americans” forget that we came from those “little countries in Europe,” and he would not indulge in that any further.

Like I said, kinda rude if you ask me. I almost dropped him, but then I just didn’t bother to do anything. I’m certainly not going to mention it to Nane and risk pitting them against each other should she agree he was rude. Besides, she has nothing to do with it anyway.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2010 We’ve got a couple of wet days in store for us, then it’ll warm up and get sunny, at which time Jesse will no doubt be out making a racket of some kind.

Hopefully, I’ll get some work done today if the rat can leave me alone long enough. The freedom junkie just loves to be out running around and climbing all over me when he’s not off exploring and getting into things by himself. Rats are supposed to be nocturnal, but he copies my schedule and is up when I’m up. Most of the rats I’ve had do this. He’s jugando in the living room now.

I’d decided that even though money doesn’t mean what it once meant to me, I’m going to make $3 a day on MT Monday - Friday. That way if I ever do want something, I’ve got $100 a month to spend and that’s not counting savings. Our savings is going to take forever to build up, though, when things like car insurance creep up on us, but oh well. I’ve pretty much figured for a while now that having a few grand in savings is just a dream, no matter how much we make.

Although they didn’t say they’d hire him on, Tom’s boss said she told the temp agency he works for that they’re really happy with the job he’s doing. This is nice, but it doesn’t mean much without being hired on and given proper benefits. It’s like with me and my writing. All the people in the world can tell me I’m good, but it’s not the same as actually being paid for my time and work. That’s why I gave up on Helium, though I still can’t seem to lose my stars, LOL.

We went to the IHOP yesterday morning. He got bacon, eggs and pancakes and I got steak, eggs and pancakes. The steak was a bit tough and the waitress a bit loud, but otherwise it was very good.

Andy came out and told me he was the one asking the weird questions on Formspring and would keep a good variety coming. I figured it was him, but hopefully I won’t get 30 questions a day. I’m too busy for that! And when the economy picks up a little more I’ll be even busier when I go back to sweeping and psyching out the wins!

I received a surprising amount of attention and wall decorations from Nane yesterday, LOL. Back when she was in Turkey and wrote on her wall, I thought she was saying her flight home was canceled when she was really saying her balloon flight was canceled due to rain. So as a joke, I sent her a balloon heart for her to “fly” back home in next time she’s down there, hahaha.

She gave me her email address to send her a copy of my story when it’s done after I reminded her that I can’t send much at a time on FB. She said she didn’t know what to make of the first part of chapter 1 because it was a conversation and asked what it was about. I explained it to her in a PM while she got herself another glass of wine, but yeah, the first part of the chapter was all dialogue. So I’ll send her the story in its entirety once I’m done proofreading it in about a month.

I laughed at how she said to “kick the rat’s ass” when I mentioned him getting into things. And how she was in the mood to “cancel” some people on FB and said that 6 people had to go. I’m glad I wasn’t one of the ones she axed, LOL. I guess she wasn’t too happy with someone who put a silly love-you-forever video on her page.

I had to laugh at her confusion too, between the time differences and my schedule. She asked, “Girl, don’t you ever sleep?” We chatted twice, once at the start of my day and once at the end. She said she herself was a real night owl, even though she can’t afford it since the boss man was waiting for her in the morning.

I told her that thanks to her I could now recognize Greek and Turkish writing, and she said she read somewhere that she was a Greek God in a previous life which must explain her affinities to the Mediterranean and that someday she’ll be buried there.

She said her first vacation was to Florida when she was 19 and she loved it.

Besides “good looking” and “gorgeous” and “hottie,” I called her a Greek Goddess on my way out for the night. She laughed and smiled at that one.

Today I put a musical heart on her wall and said I enjoyed our chat yesterday, though she hasn’t been on FB yet that I know of today. She spends most of her time there late at night and right now it’s only after 6pm in Germany.

I wondered if she came into my blog at 7am her time this morning, late last night my time. She asked what kinds of contests I used to win and I told her about OLS. I also sent her the blog entry link containing all my wins. Ironically enough, that entry was accessed yesterday, but the hit I got that I suspect accessed it had no city, state or country info. Tom said that if she’s using a unique browser or device, the tracker may not be able to make sense of it. Yet when I traced the IP# it said it was in Texas, so I don’t know what to think.

It looks like Dieter recently viewed my blog based on the fact that I got a Germany hit from FB, he never appears to be online on FB unlike Nane, and the hit was up in northern Germany by Denmark. Nane, I believe, is in southern Germany, just outside of Munich heading towards Austria and Italy.

I’ve also got a regular in Kansas now that’s got me bookmarked. Wonder if they know Maliheh?

My “plea” for my regulars to step forward and say something (like my OSU fan) failed to do me any good. I figured it would, but I thought I’d try anyway.

The dogs just “bumped” into the bedroom, something I hope they don’t make a habit of, thus risking waking me up.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2010 Maliheh went to a bar to attend a gathering for the guitarist friend of hers that recently died, and she said that may’ve accounted for why she was in such a bitchy mood. She was glad she went but didn’t want to at the same time. She said it was hard seeing the guy’s wife, his friends, and hopes there won’t be many more of those things to attend.

I wish I could be around to be of support to those I care about who are far away. I mean in person. Not just online or by phone. I wish I could be there to hold them when they’re down and smile with them when they’re up. I love being a wife to Tom, but I sometimes wish I could be one to someone else as well if that makes any sense. Ah, the impossible dreams and desires we often possess! But some things just weren’t meant to be, like it or not, and so the best I can hope for is for our electronic bond to continue growing and maybe – just maybe – a future visit someday.

I know some people prefer to be left alone when they’re down, but I still wish I could be more available than I can be from a distance if ever I was needed or wanted, if that too, makes any sense. And then there’s the what-might-have-been game I still play at times. Could things have worked out then or now? It’s still hard to imagine they could have, LOL, only because we’re so different and I would think that no matter how hard I tried to keep the peace she’d be bitching at me for just about everything and anything. I can see her maybe putting up with my not driving, but my funky sleep schedule? I doubt there’s more than a handful of people that could deal with that, although I once had a dream where she was telling someone she liked the idea of it because then she got to have more space to get more things done during those times when I wasn’t around to distract her train of thought as much. But that was just a dream and reality is still reality.

I dreamt we moved. We’d been on the road for quite a while, but don’t know where we were heading.

Nane surprised me with a couple of wall decorations on FB the other day. The same dream catcher I once sent her, and a colorful Fantasie Herz (fantasy heart).

Although no one’s abused the shoutbox, I decided to turn it off simply because I don’t need it. If someone wants to leave me a comment, they have enough other places they can leave them.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010 Wow, Maliheh’s up late tonight. When I got up at 10pm I saw she hadn’t hit my blog at all or left any messages, but I know she said she was to be busy. But then she came in at 3:30 her time.

I sent a message but didn’t hear back from her, so she probably either just woke up for a while or was just going to bed.

I’m looking forward to a weekend of fun, relaxation, and no housecleaning or cooking. Just a couple of loads of laundry and that’s it. I’ll probably do some writing and language studying, though, cuz that’s what I do. Today I’ll be pigging out, tomorrow it’s IHOP day, then next it’s back to dieting and exercising. I just may have to run indoors because we’re having a wet spell again.

I heard Jesse on that dreaded ATV yesterday morning, but he didn’t get noisy or anything like that. I’m wondering if maybe he’s just bringing outgoing mail or something down to the box by the main road.

Although it’s Friday night, the dogs are quiet. Maybe he didn’t go into Sacramento.

I’ve noticed for a while now that I have some regulars who have followed this blog consistently for a while yet have never left comments. I’d love for some of them to step out of the shadows and speak up for once. I’m just curious as to who they are, how they found my blog, and what it is about it that keeps them coming back.

Yesterday I got a message from a Helium staff member complimenting my articles and saying how good they were for a newer member. Then today my writing score shot up again and I’m back to having two stars, even though I haven’t been writing articles because I’m sick of getting just pennies for them. But I gotta admit it’s funny as hell that I remain starred without even trying while so many complain they can’t get stars, they have their articles deleted, and even their accounts shut down.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2010 When I updated my status as I usually do when I first get up, I checked my stats and saw that I had just missed Maliheh. Since it was after midnight where she is I figured she’d gone to bed and so I wasn’t going to bother checking for messages. It’s a good thing I did 15 minutes later as there was a message from her she sent after checking again not long after I updated my status. So she was obviously looking to see if I’d get up before she crashed. :)

No fair! The 5-cast says it’s going to be in the 70s where she is, but we’re going to drop to the 50s, then the 40s, and get rained on. Definitely not what would come to mind when I’d think of California.

She said she’s still feeling tired but managed to get out for her daily half-hour walk. She said she hates running and would rather stand at the end of a runway and let a 747 fly up her ass, LOL. Love that one!

She asked what I thought of the X-rays at airports and the pat-downs, saying Al-Qaeda gets a good laugh out of it every time they hear about another unhappy flier. ��You probably won’t talk to me after this,” she said, “but I say profile and stereotype away.”

I told her I not only agreed, but they should keep the crazy mother-fucking extremists outa this country who weren’t born here.

“I like the way you think,” she said, LOL, and that the subject would make a great article. She said Germany just told them to learn their language and become a Christian or get the fuck out of their country. They’re also bringing the IQ down over there.

She may’ve lived in more states than I have. In the message I sent for her to have for when she wakes up, I asked what order of states she lived in and at what ages. I know she lived in Hawaii for a while, but it was too costly and they hate whites, so she couldn’t stay there. She doesn’t know if she’ll be in NC all her life but knows she won’t go where there’s cold, snow, earthquakes or tornadoes.

She asked what the desert was like and said she wouldn’t mind finding a state with no state tax.

Where MyOpera was posting to Twitter but not to FB, now it’s posting to FB but not to Twitter. rolls eyes Whatever.

Someone stumbled across this blog by searching for “pet tapeworm,” LOL, from when I said how nice it’d be to get a tapeworm to help eat my weight off.

I’m pissed at Helium because I’m not only getting pennies for thousands of words, but they extended one of the Marketplace articles till the 20th. Now I rank 12 of 21, so I’m really getting my ass beat good. I hope the other one stays closed, though I don’t see how I stand a chance there either. So it’s ok that I’ll eventually lose my star because I don’t want to work for nothing.

I taught the rat how to climb my leg for treats like Tinkerbell and Blondie used to do. He’s so cute!

I’ve had a tough time trying to motivate myself to do any Turk work (at least it pays more than Helium even though it too, is slave wages) and I realize that the reason isn’t just because we’re not desperate now. It’s also because money just doesn’t mean to me what it used to. Don’t get me wrong, I still love money and would be thrilled to have a ton of it. It’s just that after going through what I went through years ago – and getting sick of a bunch of space-hogging dolls I’m sick of dusting – it tends to change one’s outlook on things. It’s just not the huge priority and obsession it used to be for me.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2010 Hello, ladies and germs.

The submission deadline has ended and now I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Still getting some rather interesting questions on Formspring and still pretty sure most are from Andy.

Didn’t hear from Maliheh yesterday, but she was in my blog once. The day before she said she had an upset stomach and a low-grade fever. Hopefully, she isn’t too sick and will be better soon.

I both do and don’t like some of the new changes on MyOpera. I hate change in general and I just wish they’d leave a good thing alone. If I didn’t like MyOpera the way it was I wouldn’t be there. At least they got the picture-uploading problem taken care of. It was taking forever to load pictures and backgrounds.

The countdown they added is ok too, but even though my account is set to PT, it had already dropped a day when I got up and checked at 7pm.

I don’t like how they grouped things that used to be laid out and within easy access, and I don’t like how you have to hover over the friend and inbox icons with your mouse to see if anything new has come in. Before, a number would appear at the top of the screen.

I sent Nane the first part of chapter 1, but as I told her, it’s not completely edited yet and cannot be sent on Facebook if she decides she wants to read the whole thing. FB just doesn’t allow for long messages. I told her that if she’s uncomfortable sharing her email, fine, I can send it a chapter at a time on LM, but it’ll take 25 messages to do it.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2010 Swapped messages with Maliheh. :) She’s consistent but not obsessive like Marie was, and I like that. She’s smart and interesting, too.

We only swapped a few messages because she had an upset stomach, but she wanted to say she hoped my day went well and she liked what I wrote. Awww. :)))

I told her I got a direct hit from Greensboro and asked if she knew anyone there. She said no, and that she hated it there. The town sucked and the people sucked, but wouldn’t you know she found the world’s best damn salsa there right before she moved.

Andy said he’s getting a kick out of my Formspring answers, some of which are goofy as hell when I don’t know the answer to something like why the US never took up the metric system.

I asked Nane if she wanted to read my last book once it’s edited, and she replied by saying she likes to read, no, she loves to read. But what exactly am I asking her to do?

sighs Is her English not as good as I thought it was? Or am I just so focused on other languages that I’m lacking in my own?

I’m now in the running with two articles, each paying $56 if either of them is selected for publication, which doesn’t look good. One currently ranks 3/16, the other 8/17. I still have a few articles in the #1 spot. They really love the rats and crushes, LOL.

I gotta laugh when I hear some people complain that they write and write and write, but they still can’t earn a star. And I basically quit writing except for these special assignments that actually pay what they’re worth (if I’m selected), yet I’m still “starred.” LOL

taps head thoughtfully Do I or don’t I put certain southern states on the “list?” Yes, no, I don’t know, maybe so. Hmm… I like the idea of being safe from hurricanes yet closer to the beach. I’ve been two or more hours inland for over 18 years now! I also like the idea of being closer to those I care about, but I do like being where it’s drier. The only time it’s not dry here is when it’s actually raining.

I’ve lived long enough to know that a lot can happen in 588 days, which is how much longer we’ve got to go to cash in on his pension and hopefully get to pick a state and where we’re going to settle down in it, so it’s way too soon to go making any decisions. And like I said before, if he’s making a lot of money we’ll want to stay here which would also be ok since this isn’t MA or OR and we don’t have hard winters here. If we’re back to being broke, then we couldn’t go anywhere anyway, so heading east or even down to the CA or NV desert would be out of the question. I don’t know yet what state it will be, but it will definitely be either a rural or a senior community that we end up in. I can’t stand the chaos of the mainstream – barking galore, loud stereos, rowdy kids…

Why am I gaining weight again, and why is it so damn hard to keep it off? Am I not running enough? Eating too much? But I swear I’ve been eating a reasonable amount! I guess “reasonable” just doesn’t matter when you, like most Americans, are naturally fat. And a natural fatty I am. The only time I could stay thin without trying was on and off as a kid and throughout my 20s. I do, however, get carried away on some days. I’m only human. But why is it that not dieting for most people simply means that they don’t lose weight while not dieting for me means I gain weight? I’d be 500 pounds by the time I hit 50 if I had 1500-2000 calories every single day, even if I kept running.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2010 Opposites attract. Or do they? Most people don’t seem to think so, but I think they do, even if that “opposite” I may be attracted to isn’t attracted to me in return. I personally find it boring if someone is too similar to me. It’s like buying two collectible dolls that are exactly the same. They can be nice, but isn’t one enough? Being opposites keeps things interesting and allows us to learn about new ways of thinking and doing things. We can learn about places we’ve never been to and activities we’ve never done. Sure you want to have some things in common, and that’s ok. Believe me when I say I’m glad Tom doesn’t smoke either!

But most people want duplicates because they are often uncomfortable with the unknown and so they prefer to have what’s familiar to them and that’s ok, too. Me, I just like the fascination of learning new things from those who are different than me and have had different experiences.

I didn’t realize this till now, but it turns out that even though no one can read anyone else’s article, they’re still ranking the ones up for publication. When I saw I was #5 out of 14 I sighed and said to myself, “Is #5 really the best you can do?” With 4 of them ahead of me, it’s not likely mine will be chosen.

Made some smashed potatoes as I sometimes call mashed potatoes. They were great once I got the amount of garlic salt just right.

The rat was so funny when I was preparing dinner the other day. He tends to hang out in whatever room I’m in, and so he did a fine job of keeping underfoot when I was in the kitchen, eagerly catching any crumbs I may’ve dropped. He’d stand on the top of my foot and hug my leg as if that’d get him any treats any faster, LOL.

My hair seems to have shot out of my head another inch practically overnight. When it starts getting below the waist is when I really start feeling the weight of it and it becomes a real pain in the ass. Who knows, maybe I’ll hack it to my shoulders before I can sit on it yet again.

Molly’s finally getting sick of me. She used to come to my blog an average of 15-30 times a day, but today it was twice, yesterday none.

Got a new fan that’s got me bookmarked in Dublin, OH. I checked and it’s just 11 miles away from Columbus where my OSU fan is. Wonder if it’s the same person.

Maliheh and I swapped messages. It’s kind of going to suck when I start sleeping later, but oh well. We’ll catch each other when we catch each other. I’m just amazed at how accepting she is for what once seemed like such a cold, insensitive bitch. She hasn’t even questioned my screwy schedule.

She’s really into TV, unlike me, but it’s nice that she has something she enjoys. Especially since it doesn’t seem like she has much else going for her at the moment other than her teaching job.

I had a really funny thought. I know it’s a crazy, crazy thought to think, but I can’t help it. back when things were heated up with Marie and I and I began to think there was a real possibility of us eventually meeting and getting it on, I remember thinking to myself how hard I’d have laughed had someone told me that the next person I’d have sex with might be her. But imagine how much harder I’d have laughed if someone else had stepped in and said, “No, it won’t. It won’t be Marie D. It will be Maliheh B.” Not saying it ever will be for real. Just something funny to think about.

I still flirt with her even though she doesn’t flirt back. She must not mind, though. :) She did answer when I asked her if she had a certain type of appearance she preferred in a woman and she said no.

Now she says it’s Barnes & Noble that publishes unpublished authors, and that I might not make much at first, but that in time I will.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010 I let everyone know that I will no longer be discussing Maliheh in my blog. Not what we talk about, not my dreams, not my thoughts, nothing. Just that we talked or something vague like that. There will no longer be any details. After all, a journal is supposed to be about my life, and even if you may be part of my life, your life should still be up to you to decide whether or not you want to share it.

I’m actually thinking of stopping public journaling. It was fun for a while, but now I’m not so sure. Whenever I think I’ve got it clear as far as what’s ok and what’s not, I find out I was wrong and someone gets mad or disappointed. Well, the last thing I want to do is upset anyone! I really have to wonder what’s wrong with me at times. I used to live for getting on people’s nerves, yet now it seems I upset them without even trying, that’s how good I apparently got at it. I will think about it for a day or two and then make my decision.

Maliheh said she’s not mad at me and she knows I wasn’t deliberately trying to upset her, but she’s disappointed with my talking about her so much. Even if it’s nothing personal and is something as trivial as how she’s got to rake her yard, whose business is it? She commented on how I said I found out what she did for work, but couldn’t say. Why say I found out in the first place?

I’m sorry I disappointed her, but there is some good in this as well and that’s that now I no longer have to worry about upsetting her and wondering if I edited enough of what I wrote about her before posting it online since I will no longer be posting anything.

I woke up hot at 2pm because we’re having a warm spell. That would’ve been fine if I’d been smart enough to remember to leave my window cracked and the fucking fan on. I just have to be on nights now. :( I’ll have to remember to pop the lower rod out and lift the light blocker so I can open the back window before bed as we’ll be around 70º all week. I forgot to write about that, but yesterday we got the light-blocking kit for the back window. It does a great job and it’s so easy to take in and out, too. Wish I’d had it years ago. I just hope that with weather like this, whatever racket Jesse makes won’t wake me up!

I also had a dream my purse and rat were missing.

Speaking of rats, Nane posts a lot of music videos on her wall and she left a message attached to one of them saying my rat would love this one which I almost missed because I’m hardly on FB anymore. The only reason I went in was that I got an alert that Mitch posted to my wall. The video was shot in an old, rundown and abandoned building, though this rat would love to explore anywhere and everywhere.

Shortly after I got up we did the 3 scratch tickets we got and ALL of them lost. :(

At least I had a good run.

I answered the 60 Formspring questions I still think are from Andy, and soon Maliheh and I will have our nightly chat which can only be discussed in my offline journal.

Later…

Chatted with Maliheh. She was telling me she heard that Kendall, who makes an electronic reader that you can read books on, also publishes stories and they pay the authors, too. But according to my research, they only publish educational stuff. I doubt they’d find “Nadirah” tossing “Joni” on the bed and giving her a night to remember very educational. I’ll keep looking, though.

I was even brave enough to tell her Tom and I don’t sleep together. Yeah, that’s something that’s not in my blog and very few people know. I guess I don’t bare my soul as much as some people might think I do.

She helped with a couple of the Formspring questions, too.

She said she’s going to sleep in, even though she can’t sleep in till 2pm like she used to.

I “liked” the video Nane posted, left a comment, then sent a message asking if she’d like to read my book when it’s done. I told her not to hesitate to say no if she’s not interested or too busy, and that I won’t think she’s mad at me, LOL.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010 Ah, I really have the best of both worlds – a great hubby and a great cyber girl. I sometimes wish she was more tangible and less cyber, but cyber’s better than wondering about her as I did for 19 years.

We swapped a few messages which was so nice, and the more I get to know her, the more I admire her. We talked about our likes and dislikes and things like that. When I mentioned her being the star of my blog she said something about her 15 minutes of fame coming to an end. I read this part of her message a few times and tried to read between the lines. Is she really saying she thinks her fame will come to an end, or that she’d like it to? But then I remembered just how outspoken she is and how she doesn’t hold back. Really, she’s not afraid to tell it like it is, LOL. And she didn’t tell me to put a lid on it or anything like that. Even so, I will still be careful what I say and start keeping most of the dreams to myself. I have so damn many anyway, not that I’m complaining, LOL. I love every dirty little minute of them.

I know some people think she likes me too, but if she does, she hasn’t said anything and so I have to automatically assume she just likes me as a friend. Hey, I guess I’m just interesting at times, LOL, with my not knowing that Wally World was Walmart. Yeah, she and Tom got to laugh at that one, but that’s ok. I kinda got to laugh at her when she didn’t know what LMAO meant. :)

She cracked me up by saying she ran out of ass wipe, and hey, what’s a girl to do? Drip dry? She didn’t think so! And so she went to Wally World and said the whole town must’ve been there, LOL. Poor girl. She swears as much as I do, too.

We talked about the weather here and where she is, and it got me thinking. Not only does it suck that we probably won’t ever see each other again, but sometimes I wish some of my friends (or someone that was a little more of a friend at times) lived close by. Not just for obvious reasons like hanging out together every now and then, but so that one could be there for the other when times got rough. Had Andy, Paula, Jessie or some of my cyber friends been in Sacramento those hours we were homeless, I’m sure they’d have let us borrow a corner of their living room floor and given us something to eat. Then again, I didn’t have any cyber friends back then. This was in the fall of 2007 and I didn’t start “meeting” people online till the summer of 2008.

I teased Maliheh about being stuck with me because it would’ve been all over for us by now. Yeah, Tom went and looked and we would’ve just received our last check next week had he still not been able to get a job. Yeah, we were coming down off of tier 4. That damn number I hate so much. Then I’d have gotten a lobster and we’d have gone to a casino, gambled it off, and left it to fate. If we walked out penniless, we’d have come back and ended it since I never could make it on the streets, and he would never leave me alone to die on my own in that particular case. If I became terminally ill, that’d be different. So I wouldn’t be editing my story, my rat would have to go live with someone who may not love him enough, and once again Maliheh and I would be history had things not worked out. It’s almost scary to think about how many things could’ve gone wrong along the way that could’ve prevented us from making it. Funny, as they say, there’s a reason for everything.

And so the would-be dead woman lives on to say she really wishes at times that she didn’t have ADHD. Things are taking me so much longer than they should because I can’t stay focused and so I end up wasting time because I jump from task to task. Yeah, I live a challenging life at times. But medication is a definite no-no even if I were insured. Not with all the side effects they bring, some permanent like the tardive dyskinesia I’ve got to live with for the rest of my life that the quack shrinks didn’t tell me about until it was too late.

Maliheh’s got what I thought she said was 11 magnolias in her yard, but what are actually 11 trees with 3 being magnolias in it when I went and re-read the message, and so she has to go out raking leaves tomorrow and do some housecleaning, too. I said I was sorry I couldn’t help and that I would engage in a leaf fight with her if I could, LOL. Yeah, I’d be naughty and really get my boss going! She must have a good-sized yard for all those trees. I hope she’s in a house and not a duplex, for her sake. I told her about the nightmare we went through in the Oregon duplex. When you can’t even get any peace living next to one single old lady, where can you get it from?

Let’s see… what else? She too, hates religion and the people in the Middle East cuz of the way they treat their women. She hates how the humidity there makes her hair so curly, so out comes the straightening iron when it does. I thought she had naturally straight hair.

She usually walks briskly for 35 minutes a day except for when it’s really hot and humid, and she once worked the cornfields in the Midwest to get money for clothes for the new school year. Did she come from a poor family or something? The pictures I once saw of where she lives suggests she doesn’t have much money.

She used to love to tan by the lake but didn’t swim because she doesn’t really like the water.

I wonder if she even lived in Hawaii because she mentioned the natives hating outsiders which made it rough, whatever that meant.

Once again I can’t help but wonder about the jinx-writing thing. I’ve deliberately tried to jinx-write things into happening, like how I once had a character get rich. But it seems I can’t make life imitate art. It just happens by accident, even if “Nadirah” doesn’t quite see “Joni” the way she sees her. It’s weird, though. Just weird.

I’m so glad the boss said I could keep the prank in the story now that I’ve changed the name, year and location. Yeah, with one click I changed her name 1066 times. Changing the prank would’ve been a HUGE job since it’s so much a part of the story. As I told her, it’s reality turned bullshit.

Because she hates the cold and snow, she doesn’t miss Sunderland and Amherst, but she misses the clubs and dancing, saying the 90s had great dance music. But one thing we do agree on is that the 70s had the best music!

She mentioned chatting (I assume she means with our webcams) and this idea both excites and embarrasses me. Of course I’d love to see her and hear her voice. But then she gets to see how fat, old and ugly I look these days with my dorky little pink glasses. Can’t see shit without them, though. I’m two-toned too, LOL, since my hair is dark blond on top and light brown on the bottom. But I’m never going to be young and skinny again or have good vision, so what the hell.

Tom will have to help me set things up for chatting. Other than chatroulette.com, I’ve never done this before, and that site only allowed people to see each other, not talk to each other. You still had to type to each other. But I’m not sure exactly what it is she’s talking about, so I’ll wait till I hear back from her.

I really do love our chats, though my schedule will eventually roll forward and I’ll be asleep at the times we’ve chatted so far. Guess we’ll just have to chat at other times or wait till I’m awake at those hours again. At least our schedules won’t always clash.

Got over 30 questions on Formspring today and I still think they’re from Andy. They’re written like he would write them, though saner than usual. They were interesting, but I didn’t know how to answer some of them like what requirements does it take to be a mortician? So I just made up goofy answers.

Tom and I had loads of fun playing with the rat, who seems to love to try to lick the lotion off my legs after I apply it. He’s been biting more when he gets playful, but it’s ok because he doesn’t hurt us. If he does start getting rough we tell him to ease up and he does. He’s such a sweetie. A troublemaker, but a sweetie. He was out for hours exploring and climbing all over us.

Fortunately, there have been no more bees in here since we bombed. The rat was out at the time, and so I’m sure I had to be the only one in the world to mace a bee while trying not to step on a rat, LOL.

I’ve thought about it and decided what to do as far as Helium goes. Spending hours of work for pennies isn’t my thing. So instead of doing articles, I may do the ones Marketplace Approved Writers are eligible to do whenever they happen to have any available I can do. And that’s only if I get selected for publication with my first one. Remember, I’m up against the best of the best. If they all come and kick my ass, I’m not exactly going to feel like getting up and trying to kick theirs back.

I’m just one of those who isn’t meant to make much money. The sleep curse alone tells me that. I totally believe without a doubt that it was put on me, along with the driving phobia, to help hold me back in life. It was just a miracle that I got someone like Tom who accepts me as I am. Most relationships are so much about what you can contribute to them financially and materially. So what if you might love them as they are, be a good listener, and make the person laugh when they’re down? And so what if you might be a good housekeeper and good at supporting them emotionally? It’s all about making money these days, and hey, I love money, too. I just don’t put it above and beyond love, good health and happiness.

Well, I may not make the amount of money the average person makes, but if only I could get insured, get to a sleep clinic, have them diagnose it (wacky melatonin levels are supposed to be easy to diagnose), then get my disability benefits reinstated! It may only be a few hundred a month, but I feel I am rightfully entitled to those benefits. I know I am.

In another week or so I’ll start trying to aim my schedule for that evil 4th in case Tom and I want to go anywhere that day. Even if we don’t, I know my folks will call that day and if no one answers all day, they’ll worry. They’ll constantly be checking the news for anything about NorCal being rocked with a giant earthquake, even though we’re not on any faults.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2010 Let’s see… in Realityland, my parents sent a $25 IHOP GF, Tom’s fine, the rat had fun clothes hamper diving, I talked with Maliheh, I might have “influenced” Alison to feel and sleep better, and then I ate too much. Not at the IHOP as we have yet to go. Just wish I could make my southern hottie feel better too, but she’s further away, and I’m new at this long-distance influencing thing if Aly wasn’t just a coincidence. Time will tell.

In Storyland, Alison was kind enough to suggest some really good Arabian names, both of which Maliheh likes, and we’ve decided to go with Nadirah. She’s not Arabian, BTW, just her name is. Aly and I both love unique names. No Marys, Kathys, Sarahs or Karens allowed in my books! Anyway, I will slowly comb through the manuscript, not just for errors, but to make the changes my boss wants made. Then someday when Tom and I have our own website, I just might put some of my stories up for sale there.

Tom had his jeans lying on the futon and the rat tried to pick his pocket. Tinkerbell managed to get his wallet out, but not Tinkerboy. Not yet anyway. I was drawing Figure 8’s on the floor and he was chasing my hand, as usual, and climbing all over me. Made a real rats’ nest of my hair too, LOL. He’s a klepto, so I’m careful where I leave things. When we lived in Oregon we were going to walk to the store. Tinkerbell was asleep in the closet and we agreed she’d be ok there since the store was close and we’d be back in a few minutes. But then when I went to get the list which I had thrown on top of my shoes by the door so I wouldn’t forget it, it was gone. The little devil had dragged it into her cage before heading off for her closet nap.

Haven’t heard from Mitch or Dorian in ages. Wonder what’s up with them?

Maliheh and I talked about music. Tom was a trombonist in the Air Force, so they’re more the musician type than I ever was. Words, foreign and not, are more my thing. And when I am involved in music it’s either to sing or just listen to it. I told her I could picture us laughing and teasing each other, me with her spelling and grammar and her with my lousy guitar timing and math abilities. She said she’d never laugh at the timing thing but has to try not to laugh when some of her guitar students sing off-key, as mean as she knows it is. That’s when I told her I could never be a language teacher in person. I’d never be able to keep a straight face listening to some of these people learning English. But by just listening to sound files on a computer, I can laugh all I want. And I do. :)

She had to pay $130 for a new car battery and doesn’t even want to get in her car and go anywhere tomorrow for fear of something not being right.

You can say anything you want to the people there so long as you say “bless their hearts” afterward, so she learned.

She also would never want to own a place again after owning two trailers because then she has to pay for anything that breaks. That’s definitely the worst thing about owning, but at least you can do what you want when you want to do it and not have to worry about pesky landlords that may want to do shit when you’re sleeping.

She also told me what she has for breakfast which was kinda funny, after saying we have a bit in common after I said I can’t eat much after I first get up. She mixes OJ, a banana and a raw egg in her Magic Bullet. A raw egg, LOL? That can’t be good for her cholesterol levels. I just may try it someday, though, even if that’s got to be something like a 300-calorie breakfast, and even that would be too much too close to whenever I got up. My coffee’s just 35.

In What-if-land, it’s like I said before where I have mixed emotions about things. I have no regrets about leaving the East and meeting Tom. I like my life overall, though it isn’t perfect any more than anyone else’s.

But what if? What if things had been different when I first met Maliheh? What if I hadn’t been such an ass? What if I’d been a little better looking? What if we made it big together singing in a band? LOL, I’d have loved the money, but I’d have hated the traveling, all the people I’d have to deal with, and the fame. I live like a hermit for a reason and it’s not because I don’t drive and can be a strange, eccentric and unique little bitch.

She really is one tough and talented lady, and the more I get to know her the more I’m surprised by having more in common with her than I’d have guessed. Sure, we’re different in some ways. She can at least keep a damn schedule, she can drive, and I doubt she’s crazy enough to have a mannequin standing in the corner of the room, LOL. I meant it when I told her I was a one-of-a-kind! But unlike Marie, she herself is anything but crazy. No wonder she probably doesn’t like me in that way. You know the rules – if it’s crazy, it likes me. If it’s sane, it doesn’t.

I’m also surprised by how many things I guess wrong about her. I’m usually pretty good with people, but I’m getting more wrong with her than I am right, LOL.

It’s strange thinking that when she was last in L.A. (if I’ve got my times straight), I was right under her nose in Arizona, though it was about to become more like under her chin when we dropped down from Phoenix to Maricopa, not far above the Mexican border.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2010 They’ve been Formspringing me to death again, LOL, with nearly 50 questions. I’m still trying to guess who it could be, though most do seem like questions Andy would ask and more his thing than anyone else I know. It’s fun trying to guess who it is, but not frustrating. So whoever you are, if you’re reading this journal (and I think you are) you need not step forward and identify yourself unless you want to. Most of them came in at what would have been around 9pm in Germany, but they just don’t seem like they’d come from Nane. Andy would ask something like, “Do you think cow farts are bad for the environment?” along with most of the questions, but who in the world would ask me how I got so damn good-looking, LOL? I studied the questions, the spelling, the grammar and the overall writing style and I’m still leaning toward Andy. What’s weird, though, is that he’s never hit me with so many questions at once. I first got 29 questions. Then while I was answering them, I got hit with 13 more. That’s the second time a batch came in while I was answering questions. I just don’t get how they all came in at once. They can only submit one question at a time.

I’m listening to KD Lang right now. I like some of her songs and she has a beautiful voice. How can a woman who looks so manly sound so womanly, LOL?

I was surprised (yeah, that woman is full of them) with a message from my favorite lady. Didn’t expect it cuz I thought she was busy today. She told me what she does for work. Yup, she’s a music teacher.

She also told me the other reason she was worried about my story being posted as it was. Duh! I really am stupid at times! Why didn’t I think of that one myself? Yeah, it’s about the world’s close-minded bigots. Even without her last name, her first name is unique. It’s kind of sad. Not just for obvious reasons, but if she ever met Miss Right (if she hasn’t already), she would probably be afraid to marry her no matter how much she may want to just so she wouldn’t have to worry about the shit that went with it.

I’m sure that had I been totally straight I’d still be ok with gays. What the hell would I care about who others slept with? Sometimes I just wish I didn’t have this nearly 20-year-old crush because it’s pointless, but it’s also loads of fun at the same time. :)

Some of you know that I had a thing for one of the guards in the jail I was in a decade ago and that they had a thing for me, too. She practically had to spell it out for me that she liked me, though, because I’m always afraid to assume things that may not be true. As you also know, I’ve done that before, and so I try not to make the same mistake and let my wishful thinking get me carried away into thinking or believing what isn’t true. My point? Well, I know this isn’t the case, but at first I was worried that the only reason Maliheh was being nice to me was that she felt it was the only way to ensure that I kept on respecting her request not to publish the book with her name in it. But now I know better, and just for the record, I prefer to run and hide from those I may not get along with unlike 20 years ago when I preferred to get even. The shit for neighbors we had in Phoenix was a different story. I wanted to ignore them, but at just a few feet away, they wouldn’t let me.

It seems I misunderstood her, though. I thought she only wanted the name, year and state changed only if I were to post it online or try to sell it, but that if it just sat there in Word doing nothing, it didn’t matter. But she expressed a desire for it to be changed either way and said she’d hate to see me “waste my talent,” blushes with flattery and that I should try to sell it when it’s done. That goes to prove that no, the idea of me profiting from it was not a concern like some had thought it might be. She wants me to make money doing what I love. The problem is it just isn’t that easy no matter how good you may be because there’s just so much competition out there. Why, I’m not sure, for as I told her, most people hate to write and aren’t very good at it. But I do enjoy it, it’s in my blood, it’s who I am, and so I can’t stop whether or not I get paid. All I can do is keep improving any way I can and make sure my spelling and grammar are right on and that it flows well. If it doesn’t read smoothly and you gotta re-read a sentence of mine more than once just to get it (assuming you aren’t incredibly stupid), then I didn’t do a good job as a writer.

She read my running article, too. :) And again I am both surprised and flattered. :) I just didn’t think she’d be interested. I hope these entries aren’t too long or too boring for her.

Going back to her unique name, I wonder if I should start omitting my dreams of her. She hasn’t asked me to, but it’s something to think about.

I’m gonna let her pick out her new name for the story when she gets a chance. She said Malika (I’m still trying to keep her Arabian as we not only need more books with lezzy leads but also with more Arab/Jew couples to help promote tolerance there, too) is not exotic enough. I don’t like Nada which is also a Spanish word for the word nothing. I really don’t think she’d like to be called nothing any more than her real name. Nashita is a definite no-no. I doubt she’d want any “shit” in her name either.

She’s almost an inch taller than me – woot! She’s 4’ 11½”. I usually like ladies to have dark hair, dark eyes, and be taller and heavier. Hey, three outa four ain’t bad! The number on the scale could be changed, but with Twix candy bars and fried chicken running around out there in this world, it ain’t gonna change much. I must seem like a real blimp in comparison, muscular or not. :(

She’s just amazing appearance-wise. It all goes to hell for most of us when we hit 30 (for me it was 32). What made her such a fluke of nature and so damn privileged? I wonder.

Today I had the runs twice and more palpitations. Strangely enough, though, my heart settled down after I talked with Tom and had some decaf coffee. Oh, can’t forget the bad news she had for me and that’s that I may have perimenopause based on my heart palpitations. She said it takes years to go through and so do the hot flashes, vertigo and shit like that. She could have a point, though I haven’t had any hot flashes or vertigo. She said vertigo got really scary for her when she was driving.

Why can’t I just turn 65 instead of 45? Then I could be past menopause, older than Tom (since women live longer and he’s 8 years older) and eligible for Medicare. And hey, if I’m not all that great-looking now, why not get even uglier, LOL?

If she’s right, though, and someone had told me a year or so ago when this first started that she of all people would be the one to diagnose me, so to speak, I’d have laughed my ass off so hard, LMAO! I told Tom what she said and asked if he thought she was right and he said she very well could be from what he read about it. I’m the right age. I also asked if he thought God hated women. He said he didn’t know about that. I sure feel like something sure seems to hate us!

Ok, that’s it for now. Now I’m off and editing, wishing my arms were long enough to reach out and hug my GF.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010 Someone in Italy found this blog by doing a search for “Italian foster parents,” LOL. I still miss mine, but I can’t find them. There are no obits on them in MA, but they are old and the halfway houses they owned are gone now, so I doubt they’re still alive. :( I was the only minor there back in 1982 and the only foster kid they ever had. If they are still alive then they’re not in MA. They would be in their early to mid-80s today.

Anyway, I got a little down last night. I do that at times, but fortunately it isn’t too often lately. Sometimes I just feel stuck in a rut and like life is one big waiting game where I’m waiting for things that never happen or take forever to happen. Or wishing for the impossible.

Maliheh surprised me again with an email message. It seems she was waiting till I got up. She knows that when I first get up I usually reply to comments. She said she was having a hell of a day with car trouble, and what’s wrong with trailers? She’s lived in them before. And I’m only trash if I tell myself that and she doubts anyone else thinks so, but if they do I don’t need them in my life. This was in reference to my last entry saying I sometimes feel like trailer trash going nowhere in life.

Later…

A 6-year-old girl sent out into the hallway of her school gazes through the window in the door to her classroom. Long braids trailing to her tush, she watches with a big grin on her face as the teacher and students tear up the room in search of the glasses she hid on her not-so-lucky fellow classmate. She knows where they are, but she’ll never tell.

They eventually find them hiding behind some books on a shelf, but she is still laughing, even though she knows she’s going to have a seriously sore ass come later on that afternoon.

Yeah, that 6-year-old was me. And yeah, I was a real little shit at times, LOL.

I forgot to say this in my last post, but at the end of my day yesterday I got hit with lots of palpitations. They’re annoying, so I hope that doesn’t happen again or at least not too often. I mean, I’m sure it’s gonna happen again as the damn things seem to have become a regular part of my life. I just wish they wouldn’t come so often at times.

Swapped messages with Maliheh. I cannot believe how often we’ve swapped messages! And how much she’s shared with me. It’s still not much, but it’s more than I expected to ever learn. I still can’t believe I’m talking to Maliheh B of all people! I just can’t believe it, like wow! grins with delight

It’s amazing just how far we’ve come in such a short time. Life is strange at times. We couldn’t get it right when we were practically neighbors, but here we are, so far away, yet closer than I ever would have thought we’d become even though she doesn’t like me in the way I like her. And yeah, that kinda sucks, but it’s also ok at the same time. Her liking me as a friend is better than nothing. Talk about having mixed emotions, though! I’m glad I got the hell out of New England and glad I met Tom, but sorry she and I didn’t work out.

It’s amazing and even funny in a way to learn that the so-called mean bitch really is human after all. And as she herself is no doubt learning, so is her troublemaker. Yeah, maybe we’re not so “opposite” after all, just like I told her.

Learning about her has been an interesting and fascinating experience. I really thought she’d turn out to be little more than just a mean little asshole all wrapped up in a pretty package.

Although I don’t know when it was, I was surprised she was homeless twice in L.A. She said she met this really nice guy who helped her out by showing her how to get one-day-old bread, where to get the right food from the garbage can, etc. He got up at the ass crack of dawn and collected cans and bottles for 7 hours until he had enough to get dinner with. The man really worked for a living, she said, and to this day she has a lot of respect for him. She took a night job so she could park her car in a park and sleep in back of it. I’m surprised she could do that there without anyone bothering her or the pigs telling her to move.

She said this is why trailers seem like a palace to her. I told her about our miserable 36 hours of homelessness a few years ago (assuming she hasn’t read my bio) and how the motel room seemed HUGE when we could return to it.

She might have a bug from being sneezed on, and so I’m doing spells to help kill it. I asked where she’s been that she’s being sneezed on, and guessed her job to be in law enforcement, though I know that’s not true. I just don’t want her to know that I know she gives guitar lessons. Or at least I think she does.

Before she crashed she said not to let the asstrolls get to me, LOL. I like that one!

Her saying she thinks too many people have been sneezing on her sure got me thinking about a question on Formspring where someone asked: Can you get sick if an old lady sneezes on ya?

Was it her? Hmm…it was well spelled and written for her. She may have potential but is otherwise a lousy writer like Marie was and I often have to re-read things to get what she’s saying.

I think of her a lot. She’s always there in my mind. When I write, she’s there. When I’m out running, she’s there. When I’m doing the dishes, she’s there. When I’m in the shower, she’s there. When I’m out running errands, she’s there. When I’m in bed, she’s there. blushes Well, not literally, but I can dream, can’t I?

I wonder about her life, past and present, and I picture us in all kinds of scenarios. I’ve never been the “man” in any of my relationships with women, so even though I think I might be bigger I let her take care of me, so to speak. I’m sure she’d at least like bossing me around, LOL. I imagine us hanging out together talking, laughing, joking, maybe working out together, singing, listening to music, doing things on the computer, and yes, that too. Even I know that Fantasyland just wouldn’t be complete without that. And so that happens on the moonlit path of my imagination quite frequently.

Once again I can’t help but think about how life can sometimes imitate art. I write this book about us reuniting, falling for each other, etc. Then we reunite for real. I don’t think she’ll ever fall for me, but still. We’ve become friends and it’s just really weird that the same kinds of things aren’t happening but they are.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2010 I got up at noon and was kind of bummed, though not surprised, not to find a reply from Maliheh to the message I sent her telling her I was thinking of her and to have a good day.

“What did you expect?” I asked myself. “You know the feeling’s not mutual. You may never hear from her again. Get over it and move on.”

Well, the feeling may still not be mutual, LOL, but I did hear from her later. Not saying what she said, though. :)

I slept solidly for the first 6 hours, but in the last couple of hours, I woke up often. At least it’s been quiet around here. Too cold but quiet.

Still not sure what to make of all the Formspring questions I got yesterday. Not much has come in today so far, but I don’t think they’re all from Andy. Some of them seem like questions he’d ask. He and I both have that sick, crazy sense of humor, but some of them seem like they could be from a teenage girl. If that’s him, though, trying to throw me off, he’s done a great job, LOL.

I’ve wondered about Nane, Maliheh and Marie, but this doesn’t seem like Nane or Maliheh’s thing. They’ve been weird, interesting and fun. I hope they come back, though receiving 30 questions a day 3 times a day is a bit much.

Later…

So, it’s true. Maliheh not only played the guitar and was a roadie manager in a band for a while, but a singer, too! So she lived out one of my old dreams for a while. Why does this make me sad? Huh? Why am I still saddened by people getting things I haven’t even wanted in like forever now???

She said she was glad she did it but it was time to move on. The lead guitarist died of a heart attack a couple of weeks ago and was a good friend, and she said it’s been hard on her. She said she had mixed emotions about watching a DVD of one of their gigs. She also has permanent shoulder damage from toting the PA systems all those years. Now she only performs for benefits.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2010 Thank God rats come with collapsible rib cages. I accidentally started to sit on the poor guy!

When I awoke to 22 questions on Formspring my first thought was that the troll was on a roll over there now too, but these questions, as incredibly weird as some of them may be, don’t seem like the troll’s style. But clearly, it’s someone who knows me. They know I’m Jewish, they know what town I live in, and they know I have a sister. I’m surprised there were no questions about my GF. And I hope she doesn’t mind my calling her that, though my very outspoken boss will surely let me know it if she does, LOL. Thanks to whoever left me the nice comment here saying she probably wishes I’d succeeded in killing myself. I deleted it, and any more shit like it will be deleted as well.

Despite having the period from hell and the cold 50-something-degree weather, I made myself get out and run.

My competition for getting my article chosen and published for $56 is climbing. I can’t see what the others have written, though.

Tom just had me cracking up after I said I missed having incense around. “So get some of that instead of sniffles or whatever it is you said you wanted to get,” he says. Well, those “sniffles” are really “sniffies.” They’re perfume samples.

Later…

Geez, they hit me with 20 additional questions on Formspring! Is it Andy? Yeah, it probably is. When I tried to ask if it was him a few days ago, he simply replied with, “Isn’t Formspring supposed to be anonymous?” And he insisted I was just trying to get “info” out of him, whatever that meant.

But some of the questions don’t seem that Andyish. It could be that he’s just trying to throw me off, but while asking if Cheryl Ladd’s vagina speaks to me at night and what gay men eat for breakfast may be more his style, the person asked what I meant by saying “just two words lying under carpet” when I left a strange answer to one of the strange questions. But he should know and remember this joke clearly. It’s from an old Stevie Nicks song where it sounds like she’s saying “just two words lying under carpet,” when it’s really “dusty words lying under carpet.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2010 I’m signing in a little blonder than I intended to be and wondering just what kind of temporary insanity I may’ve suffered in my sleep last night.

To both my surprise and Tom’s, I actually look good as a blond. With my fair skin and green eyes, it’s ok so long as it’s not super blond. I just wish it covered evenly, but while it’s dark blond on top, it’s light brown on the bottom.

As for the loss of sanity; I don’t know what happened. As tired as I was I couldn’t fall asleep till 3am, but that’s part of what this kind of sleep disorder entails. I hadn’t slept much for the last few days so I knew I would sleep forever, and I did. I didn’t get up till 12:30. But when I got up the little notepad I keep by my bed in case I remember something to write about or to do after I’ve shut down for the day, was on the other side of the shelf above the bed, and the first few pages had been torn out and thrown on the floor.

WTF?????????? Just WTF was that all about?????????

Tom said I probably had a dream about writing something down or something like that, but all I remember is dreaming about living in a two-story place where it snows, which isn’t going to happen unless Tom was offered a job that paid at least $30 an hour, and twirling around in a long, full-skirted dress, then stopping to wave to someone off in the distance.

The biggest shocker is that Maliheh and I have sort of become friends! Here’s what would get me dumped by her in a heartbeat, though, if she ever found out about it. Yeah, I know it’s rather devious of me, but it seemed to be part of what drew us together and finally got her talking to me. I pretended to have another troll on my case and made them appear to have known her at one point or someone she knew. Again, I know it’s wrong and I intend to be totally honest from here on out.

This was when she told me she had 16 friend requests pending, including mine, but hasn’t felt like adding anyone and is thinking of shutting down on Facebook due to all their problems, and we agreed to keep in touch on Yahoo.

As I said online, I will use my best judgment as to what I say about her in public. I guess she wouldn’t mind trivial things, but if she tells me anything personal like what she does for work and things like that, it won’t be mentioned. I may be Miss I Don’t Give a Shit and she’s Miss Private. We both may be bitches, but she’s definitely not as “talkative.” We’re even different where we’re the same – she’s a mean bitch and I’m a crazy bitch. :) So even in Bitchland we’re as different as night and day. I guess that except for Tom, I don’t attract opposites but they attract me. :)

I asked what she thought of the story and she said she didn’t read it because she hates to read and has eye issues.

The first thing that came to mind was yeah, right! I think she did read it but just doesn’t want to admit it because she doesn’t want to have to critique the story and say what she liked/disliked. I asked Alison and even she doesn’t buy it, though I’m sure she does have an eye problem.

I admire that she had the balls to admit she’s a bitch and would never win Miss Congeniality, and as I told her, I accept her as she is. I always try to accept those as they are. If the person’s abusive, that’s one thing, but if they’re just being who they are, that’s another. Even she said that if her speaking her mind and her not liking child molesters, rapists and murderers makes her a bitch, oh well. As I told her, though, if those things make her a bitch, then she’s an AWESOME bitch!

She likes this reality show called Amazing Race and was pissed that the football game went longer and delayed the show.

I get the impression she’s single, but who knows for sure?

I realize I may’ve guessed some things about her incorrectly. I guess I better not assume too much where she’s concerned, LOL, cuz she sometimes comes out and surprises me. I really didn’t think she’d care one way or the other about my articles, but she not only told me she read them but that she thought they were good. This was quite flattering! I was practically dancing with delight and grinning like a mad idiot for hours, LOL.

In regards to the one I wrote on teen suicide, she said: Nice article on the suicideyou wrote. I v always said an alcoholic is one drink away from being a drunk and a person who has tried suicide is one thought away from being suicidal again. I don’t believe it ever leaves a person..you just keep it under control. Buts that just what I feel.

I told her it’s so true. Every time the shit hits the fan in my life I think of suicide.

She said she has trouble falling asleep but is fine once she’s asleep and I told her to think of me and she’d fall asleep and that I’d will her to sleep and that she better dream wet and wild, LOL. Yeah, I flirt with her at times, and while she tolerates it, she hasn’t flirted back. I agree with Alison when she said she must like me at least a little to communicate with me. I hope so anyway, LOL.

I also realize that she may not be as indifferent as I thought she would be as far as what happens to me. A few days ago I’d have told you she’d probably shrug and say, “I don’t care,” if someone told her I was hit by a car, but now I’m not so sure anymore.

She’s smart, too. Anyone that can put up with that Mac crap she’s into has to be somewhat of a brainiac, LOL. Even those Crapple keyboards suck! Most of my favorite programs simply weren’t Mac compatible, and so I went Mac and was quick to go back. :)

Yesterday she said, “It’s Saturday and that means I have to go to work. Do you know what I do for work?”

I said my only guess was that it was music-related cuz of how her friend said he used to play drums for her and knew her from the music scene, but other than that I didn’t know where to begin as far as guessing what she does.

Sure enough, she didn’t tell me. But she did answer one of my questions, believe it or not. I asked what her favorite color was. She said someone got frustrated with her last week that asked that because she doesn’t have a favorite color.

I exchanged emails with Alison and a few messages with Nane on Facebook. I don’t feel the excitement I used to feel when something would come in from Nane, which suddenly seems to be more and more all of a sudden, but it’s still nice to hear from her.

Yesterday we got two crossword tickets. One lost, the other won $12. Not the hundred or more bucks the dream premonition suggested it may be, but $12 is better than the free ticket or $4 I had been winning before.

Tom and I were having a rather hilarious debate yesterday while we were sitting in the car having burgers and fries when we were bombing. He thinks I could run longer, but not faster than him.

I laughed and said, “My ass you could!”

“Leg length makes a big difference,” he added.

“Yeah, but I’m fitter and I’m lighter. I suppose you think you could kick my ass, too.”

“I didn’t say that, but I could run faster.”

And so I told him he was welcome to let me show him how easily I could leave him in the dust whenever he’s ready. :)

After eating we went to a drugstore and browsed around. I ended up getting a 10-pack of flavored lip gloss, and some scented lotions that were on sale: Sun Blossom and Flower Passion. There’s glitter in it which looks cool. I didn’t realize this at first till I looked down and saw myself sparkling, LOL.

Unfortunately, we had to leave the rat on the porch cuz his cage wouldn’t fit in the back of the car. When we got back we had to wait for a half-hour so he sat in the car with us and explored the front and middle sections of the car.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2010 It’s after noon now, so I feel confident they’re not going to turn off our power today, and I don’t hear anyone working out on the main road. At least not from what I could hear when I walked up to an open window.

Interesting Formspring questions I got. It’s obvious whoever asked them knows at least a little about me. Hmm…wonder who they could be from and why they chose to be anonymous?

Last night I sent Maliheh a message. But what did I get? Nothing as usual. So again, fuck it. Just fuck it. I get the message! I will fuck off and never bother her again. I was so very flattered to have her follow my blog regularly, even if she didn’t care about me personally, and I guess I still am, but what’s the point? I just don’t get it. If she can dislike me enough to ignore me, then why bother with my blog? It’s like she ignores me but she doesn’t. WTF is up with that??? Fuck trolls and fuck those who don’t give a damn about me! Just fuck ‘em! At least I’m the one who’s warmer now – na, na, na, na, na, na!

I swapped messages yesterday with Eileen and Nane (OMG, you mean somebody actually cares?!) who told me in all caps that she wasn’t mad at me and added lots of smileys. She too, noticed the messages weren’t going through and that the chat feature was broken. As I told her, once I saw that everyone was ignoring my messages I knew that all those people couldn’t be mad at me, LOL.

Helium may be more promising than I thought now that I’ve learned more about my status as a Marketplace Approved Writer. You can write about certain topics that pay (if they select your article to publish) an average of $30 - $90 and require 200-2000 words. The only catch is that they don’t have many of these and they pick the topic. You also have to follow their writing guidelines. You can’t just write it however you want. You have to mention specific things.

I submitted one article and the submission deadline is the 17th of this month. Then they have till the 15th of next month to make their decision. I’m trying not to get too hopeful since these other Marketplace Approved Writers were given that title for the same reason I was – because they were thought to be good. And some of these writers are a lot better than me so I’m up against some serious competition and not likely to succeed. If by some miracle I do, however, then I’ll have made $56 for writing a 429-word article that took less than 15 minutes.

My writing score dropped to 91%, though I’m up a dime in ad revenue. While that may be piddly shit, the cool thing about it is that I don’t need to do a thing to get it. Just being a Marketplace Approved Writer is all it takes!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2010 The first part of this entry was written by hand at 1pm:

I’m writing this by hand and will type it up later when the power is back on. Yeah, we’re having another one of those because they’re working on the main road. I’m starting to worry this will become a regular thing. Fortunately, I can type around 200 WPM, so it shouldn’t take long to type and post this.

I called Jesse from the cell shortly after it went out at 11am. He was home, though it took him a while to answer. An hour later he came down to tell me he just talked to the electric company, and they said the power would be back on in an hour. I hope so because we’ve got a lot of shit in the freezer! At least it won’t be 90º today. Just around 80º instead. It’s a gorgeous, quiet sunny day. It’s days like this, especially since it’s already November and I had to sleep with the window open and the fan on last night, that makes me think we don’t live in such a bad climate after all. But in a few days, it will be cold and rainy and I’ll be dreaming of some nice tropical place.

The power’s now been off for two hours. I was hoping that starting to write by hand would jinx it into coming back on, but nope. Not yet. I also got tired of sitting around bored out of my mind and doing nothing.

Maybe I should go fix my broken windsock.

Tom’s got to get crossword scratch tickets for sure. Especially after last night’s dream. It must’ve been a big winner because it seems like he had half a dozen or more words. What was funny was that two of them were swears, but they were perfectly acceptable. It said so in the rules, LOL. The weird thing was that we didn’t know the amount we won right away. It was something that had to be looked up. Some time seemed to pass in the dream and I asked Tom, “Did you ever look up to find what we won?” and he said no, he’d just take the ticket in tomorrow.

I got to thinking of certain people, and I am so tired of giving and getting nothing in return. Everyone’s ignoring my messages despite my asking them to reply. One can only meet others halfway so many times before they say “fuck it. Just fuck it.”

I’ve offered my friendship to these people, they didn’t want it, so now it’s time to move on. I’ll think of them from time to time and I wish them well, but I’m sick of reaching out to others who simply don’t give a damn. Tom gives a damn and that’s what’s most important. I’d rather only he care than for 1000 others to care. Those others would’ve been just bonuses, though nice ones. But if I’m not good enough for you, why should you be good enough for me? Because you might be good-looking? I don’t think so!

I’ll be here if they ever change their minds, but for now, why come to my blog or anything like that if you don’t care?

I’ve cleaned the bathroom, trimmed and polished my fingernails and toenails, and now I don’t know what else to do other than to write and play with the rat. Why is it he comes to me when I call him, but he ignores me when I tell him not to go where I don’t want him going?

Someone’s chainsawing now. I hope Jesse doesn’t spoil the peace with the damn bulldozer, but I don’t think he will.

I just went outside and whoever’s sawing is in back.

The leaves of the Trees of Heaven are turning gold and soon they’ll fall off.

I’m starting to think that what they told Jesse is wrong and that the power will be off till around 4pm like last time.

Before the power failure, which was kind enough to wait till after I got up, I saw that my writing score made quite a jump to 95%. I have 4 articles at #1 too, and am up to 6¢ in ad revenue.

I’ve been seriously slacking off on story writing because I’ve been busy focusing on articles. I’d write part of my story by hand, but I don’t remember where I left off. Guess I’ll start another one!

This part was written now:

The power was off for 4 hours and didn’t come back on till 3pm. And all those people I thought were ignoring me just didn’t get my messages (I’ll write about it later) because Facebook is fucked up for the millionth time. :(

I told Maliheh, who’s apparently getting antsy for my next update, that I sent her a message on FB last night and to please reply, but that’s one person I don’t expect to hear from.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2010 To me, Maliheh’s coming to my blog has become like a special meeting place for us. A place where we meet, acknowledge one another’s existence and keep in touch. It doesn’t make up for the lack of contact but it’s something.

I tell myself that someday I’ll forget her and I’ll move on. Someday I’ll go back to being not mean and not a prankster, but not forgiving and not friendly. While I understand Maliheh will totally disagree with this, Maliheh’s worst fault was making me feel led on and then cruelly dumped before I was even given a chance. Before we were given a chance to become anything together. But as she said 19 years ago, she wasn’t interested in me or becoming anything. Can I blame her for my being too stupid to figure that out? It wasn’t her fault I let my own hopes and desires prevent me from seeing that the attraction wasn’t mutual. And it’s certainly not her fault I handled it all wrong and started prank-calling her and letting Fran get her number so he could threaten her. The point I’m trying to make is that I wish I could stop caring for those who don’t care about me! But I’ve been in love and lust with those who basically don’t even know I exist a few times in my life. I know this happens to everyone at some point, but it still gets old.

Damnit! There goes Jesse on the fucking bulldozer. This was after he gunned the motorcycle 3 or 4 times in less than an hour for seemingly no reason at all, and went zooming around on the ATV. Yeah, I figured the peace couldn’t last a whole week. What the hell is he doing up there??? I doubt he could be clearing space to build anything since the steepness and trees don’t leave him much space for building, so what could he possibly need to bulldoze for so many hours at a time? He hasn’t got enough room up there for farming either, so I just don’t get what he’s doing other than being a major annoyance.

People have been messaging me to suggest I edit the story like Maliheh wanted and re-post it. Oh, but it’s a lot more work than you think! For example, if I change the name Maliheh, I’ve got to come up with a similar name since one of the neighbors accidentally referred to her as Maria, or change that, too. There’s also the part where I tell her the meaning of her name. Well, that’s another thing that would have to be changed. So one change usually leads to several more. I may as well just put all my energy into creating fresh stuff.

I made a whole cent on the writing site so far. Yeah, lucky me, huh? But I know I really have more than a penny since the accounts don’t reflect most things till the end of the month. After that, I’ll probably quit.

I don’t get why so many people say they can’t even achieve one star. In just a day I got two, so I don’t understand why they’re having such a hard time. If you just use proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation and remember to use paragraph breaks, there shouldn’t be a problem.

We’ve been having warm days and cold nights.

Every now and then I search for what new stuff may come up on Maliheh, and I wonder if she’s a guitar teacher or some sort of musical instructor based on a comment of hers I found on a public post.

Later…

That penny in my writing account is ad revenue – duh! I forgot about that. Like I said, I’ve got to wait till the end of the month to see what I’ve earned, but the good news is that all but one of my articles is in the top 5, and 3 of them are in the #1 spot!

Other than a few minor annoyances from Jesse and having a bee scare the crap out of me that managed to break in, I feel very ignored and abandoned. Not by Alison and Kim, but I feel like everyone else is ignoring me. I was hoping Nane would “like” some of the pictures I uploaded (at least Marilena did) after I’ve “liked” some of hers, but nope. Not a peep out of her. No messages, no comments, no liking anything, no responding to the chat I tried to initiate. Nothing from Dieter either in response to a German question I asked him, who “poked” Alison, so she told me.

Even Mitch and Eileen are ignoring me and that’s totally not like them at all, though I know they’ve been to my blog.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010 Once again I’m contemplating leaving Helium. First, though, I got my Marketplace Approved Writer badge in just 3 days. This is for writers they feel do a better job than most and they give them this so that they stand out to publishers. This is quite a compliment as I know some people can’t even get one star and others aren’t even allowed to write for Helium in the first place.

But when I saw I still had two stars yet still $0 I was like whoa! I’m working for free. Then I delved more into the payment and earnings and how it all works. Now it looks like I have to get “selected and published” to get any money if I’m reading things right, and the most I could earn from an article is $2.50 but that’s only if I have 5 stars, something I can’t imagine I’ll ever have. Only the best of the best achieve even 4 stars. My articles are only worth a buck with two stars.

Some girl on ripoffreport.com said that before they made it a rule to pay only those with at least one star, she wrote for them for a year but could never achieve a star. Then she tried to cash out at $20 saying she couldn’t achieve a star but wanted to cash out anyway and close her account, but they wouldn’t let her and so she could never get her $20 or the articles removed. They just kept telling her to get that star she could never get.

So I’ll really have to think about whether or not I want to keep writing there. Praise isn’t something I care about, but money is. I’d rather 100 people tell me I was lousy while I at least got paid for my time and work, rather than 1 person tell me I’m great and not receive a penny.

Marie unblocked me on Facebook but hasn’t added me back. If she tries to I’m not going to accept it this time around. I wish her well, but I think we’re better off just getting on with our lives.

Later…

Tom and I read up on Helium some more and clearly, I can make more money on MT, but I decided to give it another month just to see what happens. This is because they select, publish and pay their writers on the 24th of every month. So I won’t know for a while if I’ve made any money yet.

Jesse’s been amazingly quiet despite the warm weather we’ve been having. Just heard the motorcycle a couple of times today and that was it.

We’re going to have to bomb this weekend since the creepy-crawly count is on the rise.

Let’s see… what else? Not much other than receiving 19 views from my stalker today. But I got an extra one from someone special.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2010 Now that the rat is settled back in his cage (after practically dragging me around the place by the hem of my robe for nearly half an hour) I can make an update.

I’ve hidden my friend list thanks to crazy Molly going down the list and harassing them and thanks to MyOpera’s lack of willingness to do anything about this crazy mother-fucker. Yeah, my karma for adding Maliheh’s friends. Only I simply added them. I didn’t go and harass them. I did discuss the book with one of them and ask another how they knew Maliheh, but that was it. So the karma doesn’t quite fit the crime.

Incredibly, Jesse did give us a day of peace yesterday. I heard some loud vehicle up there at around 9am today so he might’ve just been getting propane.

Tom and I were joking about getting our own piece of land, hauling this trailer out to live in till we built a better house, then laughing over the thought of Jesse’s reaction to coming down here one day to find nothing but his hideous strips of fake grass and a big bold “bet you need a beer now!” spray-painted in bright letters along a part of the mountainside that mostly consists of rock and dirt, LOL! Yeah, you can really let your creative side fly when you get pissed at someone, LOL, even if it might get you in trouble at times.

I talked to my dad this morning. Mom was out getting a part on her car fixed. I was telling him I dreamt that Tom and I were in Florida last night. It was surprisingly dry and cool for being Florida, but I loved it and wished we could move there. As I also told him, I don’t know why we didn’t just go to their place in the dream, but instead we went to an abandoned motel to save money. We weren’t there long, though, cuz some guy with a tow truck came and told us to get the hell out or else he’d tow our car away. So we started packing as fast as we could, but the more we packed, the more we seemed to have left to pack.

I was saying how we still hope to buy a house in a couple of years but don’t know what state or if it’ll be in a rural or retirement setting. I asked if he thought barking dogs would be an issue in a retirement community, and he said no. He said they have a Homeowner’s Association where he can technically go in his neighbor’s backyard because it’s his land too, but he can’t leave a dog out there.

He also lives where most dogs are considered household pets unlike the West, and so that’s why I worried that dogs would be left outdoors 24/7 even in a retirement community out here, but he doesn’t think it would be that way if that’s what we go with.

He said just pick a state we feel we’ll be happiest in, and as I told him, that’ll depend on how the money is at the time. It’s kind of a Catch-22 when you think about it because if he has a good job at the time, we won’t want to throw it away to move, yet if we’re broke at the time we still couldn’t move anyway. So I think we’ll probably be in NorCal all our lives even if it’s too cold half of the time. I just don’t want to risk getting into similar jams like when we moved to Oregon and then here.

I told him Jesse’s out of work due to a bad back and getting on my nerves with bulldozers and his fleet of various vehicles, and he said maybe he’ll hurt his back some more soon enough. I laughed and said that was exactly what I was thinking, LOL.

He asked about restaurants here and as I told him, we don’t go out to eat much since it’s too expensive. He said they have too big of a variety to choose from where they are, but that it doesn’t cost them as much because they get senior discounts. They can’t eat as much as they used to, he said, so they take the rest home.

Dad’s now down to 188 pounds, saying there was once a time he was 217. I told him Tom lost 50 pounds. He’s now down to 235 and dropping. I’m still between 125-130 because I just can’t discipline myself to stick to 1000 calories day after day after day. I wish I couldn’t eat as much, but if it weren’t for money and weight gain I could and would eat all the time. I love to eat!

Ma’s at 160-something and trying to lose a little weight. That’s still not too bad even though she’s only about 5’ 3”. She still has to take two shots of insulin a day too, because she’s diabetic – ugh!

I asked him if he thought the health care reform thing was a joke or if it would really kick in since we don’t know for sure that Tom will have a permanent position anywhere in the near future since they’re getting harder and harder to get. It’s like the whole damn country’s nothing but temp workers these days! He said they’ve got to do something and take care of their own instead of doing so much for other countries as a way of maintaining friendly relations.

“They should quit kissing ass and just send a cute little e-card instead and show their friendliness that way,” I said, and he agreed.

I told him about Helium and said I didn’t expect it to pay much but I’m giving it a try. I almost quit. It just seemed like a lot of work and steps you had to go through in order to achieve one lousy star, and the last thing I want to do is work for a damn star and not money. But when I woke up this morning to check for a stats update, I found I had two stars and a writing score of 87.58%. Two of my articles rank #1. So maybe I’ll stick with it a while longer.

Instead of Marie dropping in on my blog from time to time like I told her to in that one message I sent her before accepting her friend invite, she dropped me as a friend and blocked me instead. I guess she really wants someone who will basically devote their entire life to her, but this is cool. Now I know I don’t have to worry about her bothering me. Instead, I’m being stalked by Molly. Hey, someone’s gotta stalk me, huh? It just can’t be anyone as good-looking and as sane as Maliheh or Nane. beats head

Well, Jesse’s around. I went into the kitchen for some water when I saw Whiskey outside. I went out and said hello and patted him for a few minutes.

[honeybee-island]

Back on Tumblr after a 7-year break

I’ve recently started to make an effort to come back to using Tumblr. I haven’t used Tumblr in 7 years, and by the end of our relationship in 2016 It was already very damaged. But recently I came back to Tumblr and I felt like it still had that spark I felt when I was a teenager, that inspired me to write this text about my relationship with Tumblr as a user who has been here for 13 years.

Context

I was a 15 year-old black girl, late bloomer, nerdy girl who had unlimited access to a computer and lived very far from most of her friends.

Started a Tumblr account as a recommendation from a friend who had found some interesting “fuckyeah[topic]” blog (yeah it was the fuckyeah[anything] era). My first thought when I look back at my experience using Tumblr is “I had FUN”. I remember laughing so much, participating in so many discussions.

Back then, Tumblr had an immense community dedicated to Mean Girls and Harry Potter, that produced lots os content that was hilarious to my unsophisticated 15 year-old taste.

Development

I’ve made friends through Tumblr. Me and Reem have been friends since circa 2010, and we have plans to meet IRL soon. We started our friendship my exchanging essay-long updates about our lives through Tumblr’s “ask” feature for months.

We shared interests in music, cinema and, literature, specially a passion for the band Arctic Monkeys. We lived with 10.000 kilometres of distance within each other.

Through Tumblr I learned about books that impacted by coming-of-age years. I was introduced to writers who were references for me for years like Oliver Sacks and Kurt Vonnegut. (I was also introduced to John Green so… maybe it wasn’t always so worthy of my time).

I started to learn about cinema on Tumblr. Through the little GIF-making culture it was possible to admire scenes from movies and get curious about watching them. I remember finding about genres, and aesthetically interesting scenes.

Tumblr was the first digital platform where I started to produce a curatorial practice through the things I posted and retweeted. Since I had a personal blog, I loved to scroll through it and try to imagine of sense of who I was would people get from those publications. Would they be able to get a sense of my humorous side? My interests? (But never questioned if I was overstating my interest on the Arctic Monkeys, lol)

Tumblr was the last platform I used where I had a sense that the context I was scrolling through actually mattered. That’s why I couldn’t get adapted to using it on the phone. On the phone you just scroll to get distracted, not to focus on something.

When I started using Tumblr, smartphones were not yet ubiquitous. When I logged on Tumblr I used to read all of the posts until the last one from the last evening because it was worth it to catch up with the conversation.

In October 2010 Tumblr changed its color to purple in support for the LGBT+ community. And that was before the performative ally ship turned pride month into a meme about how disingenuous these types of manifestations by corporations have become after they gained the status of a profitable marketing strategy.

I went to a Tumblr meet in my city. It was terribly badly organised by a guy who thought it was a good idea to meet a STARBUCKS!!!, but I had an awkward blast! I’ve made a friend who then I went to college with and we’re still connected and we always have a laugh when we think about the Starbucks Tumblr Meet.

Taking some distance

Around 2010 I decided to delete everything I considered mildly embarrassing from my posts because I was scared of it being dug one day for some reason. I really regret that, I deleted over 8.000 posts.

After that I spent a few months using the platform only to see some funny memes and share them with my roommate. We used to go to bed every night and exchange tumblr memes through our fonts for around one hour before bed every night.

I think by those years the “endless scroll” mentality was catching up with Tumblr users. Interactions were rarer, lots of self-deprecative content, ironic meme, and I eventually just stopped using the platform altogether.

But I never really abandoned Tumblr, I kept coming every couple of months to do some specific research on a topic (Tumblr still has the best results for certain fandom content and discussions. For example I found the Tumblr discussion about Severance (2022) to be much more insightful and fruitful than the one taking place on Reddit).

The comeback

Today I’m 29 years-old and I came back to Tumblr. My life has drastically changed since the first time I really used this platform. I’m married, I live in a different continent, I don’t listen to the Arctic Monkeys anymore, and most of all: I’m exhausted of social media platforms.

The world is also not the same since I started using Tumblr… and, obviously, Tumblr isn’t the same! There arelot’s of bots, there’s paid content on the feed. It has this experimental feature called Tumblr Labs which looks like a project to implement things that look like they envision creating a platform for people to invest in becoming influencers in.

But, despite feeling uncertain about the righteous future of the platform, I still felt a bit nostalgic coming to Tumblr, because it still works at a slower pace than, say, Instagram, or Twitter. Many of the posts on my timeline requires me to take the time to read them, sometimes I feel inclined to contribute to the conversation.

This feeling of scrolling slower actually feels more relaxing. On Tumblr I don’t follow celebrities, or influencers, or brands. I follow people who will say things I care about. I don’t follow for numbers, for social pressure, or “engagement”, I follow them because I want to get more of the narrative they’re talking about.

Tumblr is a place that instigates people to invest in their interest, go deep into the things they find interesting, and it would be sad to see that lost to anxiety-inducing social media culture.

Anyway, I think I don’t really have a conclusion on what I want to say. I’m happy to be back, I’ll try to be around here more often. I hope to find some people to connect with.

[silvermoon424]

"Toei dropped the ball in promoting Crystal". If this ain't the truth and it makes me so mad. Sailor Moon is internationally known due mostly to the anime and it feels like they did diddly squat to promote it to new fans. The only PR it ever got was from fans excited it was returning. Toei WTH!?

And I'm also sad all we get for the dream arc is two movies both cause of the wait for it to come to the states and cut content. It's the most different from the 90s and the 1 I prefer and I hope they adapted it nice.

I'm also worried for Stars as well because we don't even know how they plan to adapt it. With KNY at least the train arc wasn't that long and they adapted it nice but so much happens in the final arc I want it to get a tv season but then that would throw off the flow of things. Tv series, then movies then tv series? Ugh. Did we ever get a reason why the dream arc was a movie and not a tv season.

TBH I didn't really like Crystal. I just liked the humor and art style from the 90s better but I wish Crystal was treated better. I feel it shoulda had more poured into it then an average seasonal show. Fans expectations were let down and it really drove a wedge in the fandom which was the saddest to me. Just wanted to give my 2 cents. Thanx for listening.

Preach, anon. That's something that's always really bothered me too: Crystal's seeming disinterest in creating new fans. This is Sailor Moon, a beloved worldwide phenomenon. I get that it'd be harder to capture that magic again because the 2010s/2020s are so different from the 90s, but I firmly believe that Sailor Moon is timeless and younger generations (or hell, even older people who missed out on the phenomenon in the 90s/early 2000s) can and will enjoy it.

Like, I'm living proof of that. I got into Sailor Moon in 2008 at 13 years old- in a really stagnant period where nothing new was being made and nothing was promoted. I literally only found Sailor Moon because someone's signature on a random site had a picture of Rei in it and I thought she was pretty. Yet I still fell in love with Sailor Moon, I felt its magic. Crystal could have easily been something that created scores of new fans, especially in its native country of Japan (where the Precure series is still going strong).

Yet Toei was more interested in capitalizing on older fans and nostalgia. They did very little to promote the series or engage with people who were unfamiliar with Sailor Moon. Everyone should have been talking about Crystal, like they did for FMA Brotherhood. But the hype for Crystal was mostly contained to the preexisting Sailor Moon fandom itself, which is really sad. It really can't be said enough: Toei fucking dropped the ball.

It's also really frustrating to see the differences between magical girl properties Toei actually cares about and Sailor Moon. Precure gets awesome animation every season, 2 movies per season, tons of advertisements and merch, beautiful and unique transformation sequences for every Cure... the list goes on and on. Sailor Moon Crystal gets merch and remakes of the 90s anime transformations and that's pretty much it. I love Precure, but it wouldn't even exist without Sailor Moon. Like I said in that previous post, Sailor Moon has made Toei untold amounts of money and they've been so disrespectful to it ever since it stopped being one of their primary cash cows.

Also, I'm worried about Stars too. It really needs to be a season but like you said it would be super weird if the format got messed up like that so it will probably be a couple of movies again (if it ever gets adapted at all). And I'm pretty sure no official explanation has been given as to why Eternal was a 2-part movie instead of a season, but fans speculate it's because season 3 of Crystal was unprofitable (thanks to Toei dropping the ball on seasons 1-2 and killing off most people's interest) so they went the cheaper route of shorter runtime.

Also yeah, speaking of someone who has been active in the fandom for over a decade, Crystal really drove a wedge between fans. A lot of people (including myself) felt the need to defend it because we'd been waiting for it for so long and some people felt the need to voice their (understandable) frustrations and anger. Everyone seems to unanimously agree that season 3 was good (and reception for Eternal is warm based on what we've seen of it) but the first two seasons were brutally controversial.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-5th Place

Up until now, I’ve been pretty iffy on which show went where on this list. However, from here on out, there is no doubt in my mind the ranking is almost perfect (or, at least, to me it is). 

Just keep in mind, this next pick isn’t as cute and innocent as it might look.

#5-Camp Camp (2016-)

The Plot: Camp Campbell is a place where kids can go to do anything! Like space camp, theater camp, art camp, magic camp, and also other magic camp! It’s a dream come true...except for a little rapscallion named Max, who was forced to go there by his crappy parents. With the help of his two new friends, Neil and Nikki, the three of them will make it their life's mission to make life a living hell for their two camp counselors. Or, at least, it’s their life’s mission until the end of the summer.

This is the first and only web series on this list, and it is made by the (in)famous production company called Rooster Teeth. And trust me when I say that Camp Camp is the best show Rooster Teeth created ever since they started working on Red vs. Blue. And I can think of a couple reasons why.

Reason number one is the show’s comedy. Just like Rick and Morty, Camp Camp relies on being absurd and dark to get a laugh out of audiences. However, there is one thing Camp Camp has that gives it an advantage: The fact that it’s a show on the internet. There’s a lot of jokes that writers are not allowed to get away with on television. But on the internet, it’s all free game, baby! You want to make jokes about Hitler and the holocaust? Go ahead. You want a young cis boy to ask when he’s going to get his period? Go ahead. You want four kids to get scarred for life after catching old people having sex? Go right the f**k ahead. Because this is the internet. A place that is impossible to make kid-friendly, no matter how hard certain websites try! (And in case you’re wondering: Yes, all of those examples I just listed are actual jokes within the show. So have fun.)

With the benefit of having little to no filter, Camp Camp’s sense of humor allows it to go further with its jokes while having competent enough writers knowing the definition of “too far.” Because believe it or not, there is a limit that this show has with how far it’ll take its humor, and rarely does it feel like it crosses it (and it’s usually Kerry Shawcross’ episodes that crosses the line, oddly enough). Now, as I’ve established in my Rick and Morty review, not everyone is going to find these types of jokes funny. But for the most part, I personally think Camp Camp is hilarious. In fact, out of a fifty-nine episode line up, there is a total of ONE episode that I felt was low on the laughs. And like most good comedies, the best jokes come from who’s saying them and not what's being said. People need to remember that humor comes from the characters. Otherwise, when the gag goes to the wrong cast member, you’ll end up having people respond with, “but that’s not what this character would do or say.” In fact, the only time when a joke falls short in the show is when the wrong character says what is already a funny line that’s just misplaced.

And seeing as how we’re already talking about the cast, now might be a great time to mention that Camp Camp has the best group of characters Rooster Teeth made since the first thirteen seasons of Red vs. Blue. Like I said with Rick and Morty, I prefer to have a series with a moderately large cast of characters, as it offers writers enough room to work with so the series doesn’t become stale. And boy, does this show have a lot to work with. Everybody starts off with a personality that’s simple and serves the purpose of making a joke. But as the Camp Camp goes on, the more that these personalities grow and the audience gets to learn more about them. Even characters who seem like they’re only useful for the same comedic bit eventually become more complex as the series progresses. The best example is Dolph, who starts off as a source for Hitler jokes. But in the episode “The Candy Kingpin," we see that he’s also a little kid who’s just lonely and naive...while also still being the source of Hilter jokes. Now, at a glance, it might seem like there are too many characters, and it can certainly feel like it at times. Luckily the writers are smart enough to know which characters need more focus and which ones can be used for comedy. For instance, Space Kid doesn’t seem that complex in the slightest, but he’s a source for comedy, so he doesn’t need to be. Besides, the writers can develop any characters it wants whenever they want to. Because if Max and David are of any indication, this show has the best character development in any Rooster Teeth series.

I’m not kidding when I say that the relationship between Max and David is the best thing about the series. They start off with a simple dynamic: David is the happy go lucky optimist who gets in the way of Max’s pessimistic schemes. There’s nothing too noteworthy at first, and the majority of the episodes are just Max screwing over David and David keeping Max in check. However, the showrunners found a way to make their relationship more intriguing with each season. (Kinda spoilers ahead) Not only does Max learn that David understands how rough life can be, but, realizes why David has the determination to stay optimistic in the first place. And once David learns why Max is so jaded, he begins to work with Max through a new angle. In fact, the second they’re both on even ground, the two of them stop working against each other and learn how to work with each other (kinda spoilers over). Now don’t get me wrong. David still gets on Max’s nerves and vice versa, but there’s still a small amount of respect shared between the two. This is what I loved about their dynamic: Their development isn't blatant, but it still exists. In Red vs. Blue, it feels like Tucker’s development seems to take a step backward and forwards with every other season. And in RWBY, it feels like Yang is a different character after experiencing a traumatic event. This is understandable given what happened to her. But seeing how her having a sense of humor, which is everything likable about her personality, left after this one moment, it can be a bit disappointing (especially since Yang seemed like a person who hid her trauma through comedy). As for Max and David, everything that is likable about their personalities is still there, only now seen through a different light. This may not seem that impressive, but considering how Rooster Teeth has handled character development in the past, it’s pretty great.

Here’s another thing that may not seem as impressive as it really is: The show’s animation. I am amazed at how this series manages to have a television-quality of effort. Now, that may not sound like a compliment, but considering that this is a web series, it’s pretty darn impressive. Most online animated shows barely stick to a weekly schedule and the ones that do only manage to have episodes lasting for 3-5 minutes. So, seeing as how Camp Camp can have 12-24 minute long episodes once a week AND still managing to look good is a testament to how far internet animation has come. There’s also a surprisingly large amount of detail added into the show. I’m not talking about the characters themselves, as they have pretty simple designs. What I am talking about are the little things that the animators added in. If you pay attention to the props, backgrounds, and even things they wrote in, you’ll notice a whole lot of things that would have flown over your head otherwise, such as great jokes, continuity nods, and even sublime foreshadowing when it comes to season three.

So as you can tell, there’s a lot to like about this series. So you’re wondering why it’s only #5. Well, my reasons are more pitiful if I’m being honest. You see, Camp Camp is aimed at adults, but it doesn’t feel like that at times. Like I said with my Final Space review, most writers think that for a series to be considered for adults, you have to use sex, drugs, violence, and cursing. Now, in all fairness, those aren’t really meant for kids. And understandably so. However, if you take all of that stuff out, then what’s stopping this show from becoming kid-friendly? Not a whole lot, especially since there’s a handful of episodes that have plots I’ve seen in other kids' shows (“Jermey Fartz,” “Eggs Benefits,” and “Night of the Living Ill,” to name a few). Personally, I believe that for a show to be for adults, it requires two things. One is to have writing that may seem boring to kids but interesting for adults. It's also important to have stories/plots that kids are not ready to fully understand yet. If you fail to do both, then there’s nothing stopping a twelve-year-old from watching your show and enjoying it just the same. And I should know because I was twelve when I started watching Rooster Teeth’s content in the first place.

Also (and this next complaint is less pitiful and more problematic), it's not good with how whitewashed the voice cast is. I get it. A voice is a voice, and the color of the actor's skin shouldn't matter...except that it does. Because if you're going to go the route of having a diverse cast of characters, then you might as well go all the way by having their voice actors be people of color as well. And don't get me wrong, these actors do a perfect job for their respective roles, both for the dramatic and comedic moments. But, as this series started coming out in 2016, long before current events, it still bothered me that a character like Nerris--

--was voiced by a woman like Barbara Dunkleman:

Yeah...That’s a big yikes.

So while it may not exactly be the best example of an adult series and definitely needs some recasting, Camp Camp is still one of the best shows in the 2010s. It has impressive animation for an online series, has hilarious comedy, and even better characters to enjoy. And seeing as how this is only #5, that can only mean that the shows can only get better from here.

(Side note, is it bad that two seasons of this show made me connect to the characters much better than the first six seasons of RWBY? Because I certainly think so.)

[spongebob-connoisseur]

ughhh sorry for the rant but i hate those people who are like “i miss the old spongebob, like if you agree!” like i agree with everyone can have opinions and if you generally only like the first couple of seasons of spongebob that’s fine but a lot of people who say that are those same people who don’t even watch spongebob anymore, or the people who expect so much from spongebob squarepants who’s target audience is guess what kids, it’s not a deep show, why do people expect so much from this show i do not understand or they are the people who don’t actually give the newer episodes a chance and only watch those “modern spongebob sucks” videos from the early 2010s and be like yep still relevant 😒 nostalgia can really get the best of people

Oh don't worry! I don't mind and I get what you mean and I really experience it.

Yeah people who put down modern spongebob the most are usually people who haven't seen it in a long time. I remember this goes on all the time on the official spongebob instagram. People go at it all the time talking about how modern spongebob is trash whenever they post somwthing about an upcoming episode or a modern clip from the show.

I don't get why they are like that. Also anyone who opposes them, they harass. They harassed a minor who said "oh its not bad, you just haven't seen it in a long time" and they made weirdly sexual comments and told them they are r*tarded and don't know what they are talking about. They are like "I did see modern spongebob! Its trash!" But they haven't seen the show since 2006 and are too stubborn to give it a chance or recognize that their tastes simply changed.

Or people who make easy clickbait posts or videos "like if you agree modern sb sucks" or looong video essays about why modern spongebob is bad with no actual facts besides "I don't like it because the style of humor is different and not personally catered to ME"

Nostalgia really does get the better of people. Classic SB was definitely a gem and some post movie episodes suffer from seasonal rot but you have to control yourself when it comes to nostalgia.

Also the fact that the kids who grew up with the later seasons now accept some post movie seasons as when SB was still ""good"" just proves this is nostalgia. It used to be just the fiest 3 seasons. Now they include 4 and 5 and sometimes even 6 because the kids who grew up with the later seasons see them as still spongebob because nostalgia but they don't see their hypocrisy when they hate on the latest seasons and the fact that its simply a matter of taste. People hated on the second movie for hell and back but with the third movie, they now praise the second for its own thing rather than previously as a comparison to the first movie. They criticize the third movie for the EXACT same things they criticized the second for (minus camp coral) it's all nostalgia.

At this point the show isn't the same. It refreshes itself by adopting new styles of humor. Even with the same writers and all, it won't be the same because no one can stay the same after 22 years otherwise it'll suffer seasonal rot as it did before. It has to adapt and change as time goes on.

People complain now how its too expressive and trying too hard to be Ren and Stimpy while the storyboard artist from Ren and Stimpy works on the show. And hadn't the show always been expressive? Or do you only want expressiveness based off of nostalgia? Hadn't you complained before how the show lacked expression from seasonal rot? Shouldn't this be a good thing?

I also hate how they always look for people to blame. They bullied Casey Alexander off the show. They harass Stephen Hillenburg and try so hard to invade his space while he was alive to ""save"" the show, and after he died still try to harass his family and any writers who were close to him. Now I see people trying to blame Doug Lawrence for ruining the show. They harrass recently hired individuals to ""save"" the show, they harrassed innocent individuals (artists, writers) for decisions Nickelodeon as a corporation has personally made with the show. Can't they see they are causing more harm then good?

If you only like the classics then that's not a problem but you need self control and recognize its not just for you. People still enjoy the show, its made for children but it still has a charm for the adults who still enjoy it. Its a show peopled work on to pay off their bills.

They think they are defending Hillenburg's legacy but I doubt he wanted people to behave this way over his brain child of a little happy sea sponge living in a pineapple under the sea.

[the-princess-with-pancakes]

A few words about Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey

I know right? they changed the title after almost a week of screening. What a plot twist.

I was pretty hyped about this movie. No mather the trailers, they were just fine, but the cast and what I was hearing about this, made me very excited. After changing the head of DCEU (or The Worlds of DC (what a weird name)) every movie coming out with the DC logo was remarkably good. Aquaman (2018) was a lot of entertainment, Shazam (2019) was fun, Joker (2019) was great and emotional at times, it didn't win two Oscars for nothing (but I'm still #teamdriver). So what about Birds of Prey: And the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)? (I like the old title better)

Now we get to the good stuff, so watch out for *SPOILERS*.

The characters, especially the main one, are the best thing about this movie, so we are gonna start with the One and Only Harley Quinn. This is one of the greatest character redemptions in the last few years. She was an awful character Suicide Squad (2016), her only two roles were to look sexy and try to be crazy. That's no way to treat such a wonderful antiheroine. But this movie changed it completely. She finally got some depth. She finally doesn't like she's from a teenager's dream and she finally is funny. About her depth, they added Harley a good between movies' midstory. Which is good, but not great, because I still want to see, how the Joker sents Harley to space, she would be saved of course, but it would be entertaining. No one said this can't be done in future movies tho... Coming back, the few scenes, where she tells Black Canary drunk, that the Joker broke with her, or when she destroys the Laboratory, or when she watches TV with the kid, it shows, that she's human, not just a 1-dimensional disappointment. And combined with Margot Robbie's acting talent and her love for the character, she plays, it makes the movie great of itself. But she's not the only great thing in this picture and that's the best part. Seriously, I can't talk about her enough, so just one more thing, the costumes, wow, wonderful. More of that, please.

She's not alone tho! Not in the third act at least. I mean the Birds of Prey. Because they fight with her. You know. I'm pretty satisfied, how they have written these characters. Although they have a lesser role, then the original (better) title would say, but, that's not really a problem. Black Canary (my Injustice 2 main BTW) is great. I haven't seen that character anywhere else then Injustice 2 and Young Justice (2010-), so I can't say much about it, but I heard she's different here. I don't care tho, she's great, a very well written, after Harley, probably the best-written character here and the second with most screen time. She's badass but also warmhearted. It took me a bit, to get used to the design, but the actress does such a wonderful job, I can't be less mad about it. Montoya isn't the best, but she's still fun. Who cares about the age, when the actress plays as well as she can and does a great job? She's based on detectives from 80's cop shows, so not much to say about here. She's just good. The Huntress, I haven't seen such a badass character made fun off so much, without hurting her image. Such great work from the writers' side. Just explicit.

The humor is the third-best part of this movie. We'll talk about the second-best in a second. The jokes mostly got me. I'm not a big fan of in-your-face humor, I like more the background jokes, but I have to say, I found most of them really, really funny. The sandwich scene was for me a little too much, but for example, the part in the police station was just the best. Or at the carnival.

The choreography during combat is just amazing. As I remember correctly, people from the John Wick team were hired, to do the stunts, so it looks astonishing. Each of the main characters has a different combat style, which just adds to the visual madness of the fight scenes. And the R category adds even more to it. Watching so many legs brake in so many directions, hurt even me.

So there were like two villains. One side villain, but we're gonna talk about him first. I like Victor Zsasz from the Gotham (2014-2019) tv series and that's really the only expression that I saw of him till now. He's different, from what I can remember, less of a silent type and more of a talking psychopath, but he's still enjoyable to watch. He got nothing on the Black Mask tho. Ewan McGregor was a great casting decision. I haven't seen him earlier playing a villain, just the good guys, mostly Obi-Wan, but the job he does here is amazing. You can see, he has so much fun, like it was his childhood dream, to play a face-cutting gangster. My only problem with him was, that he's a little underused.

But that gets into the "bad stuff" category. The movie is great, but the is no movie without flaws. And the biggest is probably the plot. It's basic. it's just a race after a diamond. The backstories of the protagonists were much better. But it's not a big problem tho. The characters, action, and humor are on such a high level, that that doesn't even bother much. The saddest thing for me is the underuse of Black Mask and Bruce (the hyena named after that hunky millionaire Bruce Wayne (I wrote it with a smile on my face)).  After a while and a lot of thinking about it, I got to an impression, that the underuse of Black Mask in the third act (or the final fight for the most part) was that to show, that he's not the unstoppable, evil monster, that his describing himself as, but just a guy. So I let myself to turn a blind eye on that. But WTF writers! You have a fucking hyena, that we see in like two scenes and doesn't even rip two guys into pieces. I'm mad about it. And why one and not two? The more hyenas, the better.

You probably heard from the internet trolls, that that's just a big budget propaganda movie. It hates guys. Another Charlie's Angels (2019). Yeah... No. It doesn't. Showing strong female characters isn't a propaganda. It does not tell you, that man are the worst and you should hate them. I can't understand why someone would even think that. I saw the 1-stars wave on IMDb and got a little affraid, but don't worry. It's a wonderful movie, not for everyone, but definietly not like the basement trolls descibe it.

The SPOILER FREE zone is active from now on.

So to sum up. It's a great movie, with funny jokes and action like from a John Wick movie. It's not for everybody, but it's just better because of it. Because it is its own movie. And that's a not seen very often in blockbuster superhero movies. (Can we even call it that? It's not that big bugdet and it's about antiheroins) If you haven't yet, go and watch it. It deserves a little boxoffice boost.

[yeoldontknow]

Totem

Author’s Note: this story is entirely an act of fiction. it contains strong, mature themes and features subjects which may be triggering or uncomfortable to read. these themes include, but not limited to: themes of abduction, references to ptsd, extreme trauma, and paranormal activity. please take these warnings seriously and do not read if any make you uncomfortable. | this story is written as a script, rather than a traditional prose fanfiction. even though its unusual, i still hope you enjoy it <3 happy spooptober! Pairing: Hoseok x Reader (oc; female) Genre: horror; suspense; thriller; haunted house au; light romance; au Summary: What follows is an account of YouTube vloggers Euripet3s1 and theJungProject. This is a report of the last known whereabouts of Jung Hoseok. Rating: M Warning: themes of abduction/ghostly possession; references to ptsd; extreme trauma; paranormal activity; explicit language; non-explicit nudity; graphic situations Word Count: 5.5K

Towards the end of my research for my Ph.D, I became fascinated by what has recently been cited as the "second wave" of realism films in production, thanks, in part, to the advent of creative social websites like YouTube and Vimeo. The introduction of reality and scripted reality television, alongside its relatively unilateral conjunction with the internet, sparked a new direction in filmmaking that prided itself on low budgets and the autonomy of immediate authorship. 

Where Vimeo encouraged, and favoured, well produced filmmaking and art house developments from a range of semi-professionals to professionals, YouTube saw a strong dynamic shift in what eventually was defined as vlogging. Video series like Marble Hornets, Fewdio, and curiously chilling uploads by users such as EverymanHYBRID became cult canon amongst internet users. Instead of humour posts, video game plays, and make-up tutorials, users sought creative expression in 'noise aesthetics' and the horror genre. 

On April 30, 2010, YouTube user Euripet3s1 (full name: Y/F/N Y/L/N) uploaded a video entitled #184-190 to her channel of 12,413 subscribers. It would be the final upload she would make before deactivating the account three weeks later, eventually removing herself from social media altogether. The video itself is an account of her trip to England to visit fellow YouTube vlogger and boyfriend theJungProject (full name: Jung Hoseok), who was residing in the country while finishing his degree, depicted through seven pieces of footage taken from video cameras and mobile phones. 

Euripet3s1's channel was a comedy and lifestyle channel, in which she would present everyday information in a humorous way. Therefore, the unsettling events in the final video left both fans and casual viewers stunned. Avid fans of the Marble Hornets series were the first to draw attention to the video, before it went viral on hundreds of forums, including Reddit and BuzzFeed. When the users’ account was deactivated, the video was removed from the website only to resurface two months later by user TwerK (full name: Kim Taehyung). There are only two videos on TwerK's channel: #184-190 and Help Explain This. 

Help Explain This was filmed in August 2011 and is the last surviving footage of Jung Hoseok.

Numerous attempts at paranormal investigations have occurred in the last two years with no results. Psychics have been brought to every location depicted, though their efforts have been futile. The pocket watch in the film has been defined, by paranormal researcher David Kelwayne, as a totem. To quote David:

 "A totem is an item left behind by the dead which they had ascribed deep personal meaning or symbolism during their life. To come into contact with a totem is to contact the spirit attached to it, even if said contact is relatively erroneous; to become connected to the totem is to become connected with the spirit, often permanently" (Seeking Answers: Beginner's Guide To The Paranormal, 54)

This report exists only to present the video as it was found, in its untouched manner, for archival and historical purposes. The research to be found on the events, people, and locations involved has lead many in vast circles and down endless rabbit holes. It is my hope that the academic world will provide its resources for the many seeking answers about what truly happened to Jung Hoseok during that week in April. 

 ~~

Editor’s note: Heretofore, the speakers will be quoted using their first initials rather than their usernames.

#184

Duration: 1:46

[Exterior. Night-vision mid-close up of dirt path. Leaves cover the ground and crunch audibly. Feet remain in view as two persons walk the path in brisk, even steps. A low male voice is heard, his accent distinctly Korean. ]

H: Are you filming, Y/N?

[A second voice speaks, female. She is American]

Y/N: I have no idea. Your camera is weird.

H: It's no different from any American camera. It's a SONY. Has the green dot gone on?

Y/N: Well, it's different in the dark. Yeah, it has.

H: Then it's filming. Point it at your face, dummy.

[Camera is lifted and spun towards the holder's face, the night vision on the camera giving her a blue glow. She is young, no more than 24. The fringe of her hair gets caught in her eyes, trapped there by the hood of her sweater. She smiles brightly, waving at the camera momentarily.]

Y/N: And so we meet again! Today I am joined by theJungProject -

[camera pans left. A young man, also no more than 24, is walking briskly with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He squints at the light of the camera and pulls a face by sticking out his tongue]

- say hi, Hobi.

H: [nods once] Hello, Tiddy Harem.

Y/N [sighing]: Must you call them that?

H: [shaking black hair out of his eyes; he sniffs, not looking at the camera] You have thirteen thousand subscribers and 12,950 of them are men. Yeah, I'd say it's a harem.

Y/N: [snorting] I do not have thirteen thousand. And that's an insult to my fifty female subscribers.

H: You know I’m playing. [sniffs] You have fantastic tits, though.

Y/N: You’re literally disgusting. [turns camera back to her face] So, as you all remember I landed last night in Heathrow, after which I got embarrassingly drunk on incredible beer. We spent most of the day being hungover before getting on a train from - what station was it?

H: [in background] Liverpool Street.

Y/N: Right, yeah. We got a train from there to here, [pulls camera back to wave hand, denoting surrounding location] which is apparently Suffolk…specifically Sudbury. We had a grand idea to go to the Borley Rectory because I'm in England and apparently that means it's okay for Hobi to go on a midnight ghost hunt.

H: I'm not ghost hunting, I'm just…exploring.

Y/N: [faces camera; raises one eyebrow]

[Camera turns off] 

~~~

#185

Duration: 7:08

[Interior; night. Camera pans from left to right as Y/N breathes heavily. The windows of the rectory are shattered. Leaves scatter the concrete floor. What little furniture existing within the house has been tattered and worn over time, the sheen of its once extraordinary grandeur decayed with dust and time. Y/N walks to her right, into a small dining area. The camera pans over a wooden table that is badly scratched, three long distinct marks marring the mahogany. A hand comes into view, Y/N’s, as she runs her fingers over the marks. The camera pans up and to the left, showing cabinets that are missing their drawers. She leaves the room, slowly walking towards the foyer. A mirror hangs on the wall, the light reflecting off the glass into the lens. She waves.]

H: [distantly; calling] Baby, come up here.

[Y/N head turns right, facing the direction of Hoseok’s voice. The camera turns right as she walks straight back toward a carpeted staircase. Slowly, she ascends it, her footsteps quiet and muffled by both the camera and the foliage. She sniffles. As she approaches the landing, a painting of a pasture comes into view. It is crooked. When she reaches the landing, the camera moves from right to left. There are three bedrooms]

Y/N: [loud whisper] Where are you?

H: [voice from left] In here.

[Camera passes through a doorway. Long shot of Hoseok at chest of drawers to the left. There is an empty bed on the right side of the room, the mattress bare and torn. The video pixelates for approximately two seconds, correcting itself. The windows of the bedroom are in tact, though the carpet has been ripped up from the floor in a seemingly random pattern. Y/N walks to where Hoseok is standing. Atop the chest are several items: a broken hairbrush, a small empty picture frame, an empty ring box and a pocket watch. Y/N zooms in on the pocket watch. Hoseok picks it up, his grip indelicate. Y/N turns the camera, and zooms out to a medium close up of Hoseok’s face as he inspects it]

H: [whispers] This rectory had hundreds of residents before it was condemned. I wonder whose this was.

Y/N: [also in a whisper] Hobi, this place was destroyed by a fire in 1939. Isn't it weird to you that there's still…..things, objects…belongings in here? Nothing seems terribly ruined.

[Pause. Hoseok does not reply. Y/N returns the subject to the pocket watch, appeasing him by maintaining focus on the object though her discomfort is evident.] It looks really old. Can't be from any time after 1920, look at the design. Early surrealist or something.

H: [humming in interest] How do you know that?

Y/N: I’m taking art history for my electives. I’m just saying it looks like something I’ve seen.

[The camera zooms back on to the pocket watch in Hoseok’s hand. There is a patch of dirt along the rim of the cover, but an intricate design of intertwined clock hands and numbers is distinct.]

H: This is mental. You know the more you look at it, the more it resembles a kind of face. Like from a masquerade. 

[Long pause]

Y/N: I don't see it. Where are you looking? 

[Hoseok’s thumb comes into view. It presses the button on the side to open the watch. The cover pops open with a soft click, revealing an elegant Victorian clock face.]

H: Too much to ask for it to be working, isn't it. [laughs]

Y/N: Probably needs to be wound. 

[Hoseok closes the pocket watch.]

[Cut. Interior. Y/N thuds down the stairs after Hoseok, hands clasped and both laughing They come to a stop in the parlor. Hoseok inspects bookshelves, looking for something or nothing, running his fingers over the dusted wood. Y/N turns the camera away and zooms in on a picture frame. It is badly singed. The image of a woman, who looks almost sad, is barely discernible.]

Y/N: [muttering] Something about this……isn't……

[The sound of piano notes echo loudly through the room. Y/N screams loudly, swears, and is visibly shaken as she turns toward the noise. Hoseok sits at a piano by the back of the room, playing Erik Satie's "Gnossienne No. 1." He is chuckling. Y/N approaches him.]

Y/N: There's a fucking piano?

H: [plays uninterrupted] Scare you, did I? 

Y/N: Hobi, is there anything about this that's ok? You said this place was destroyed by a fire and has been abandoned. Logic this out for me: why would there be a piano in a burned down house? Wouldn't the city have this cleared out?

[Hoseok shrugs]

Y/N: I think we should go. 

H: Don't want to spend the night here? We haven't seen anything yet.

Y/N: I paid £35 for a train ticket to this hell. I'll cut my losses and say we’ve seen plenty enough, okay? 

H: [expression softening, he stops playing. The silence is deafening.] Okay, baby, we can go.

[Cut. Exterior. Y/N and Hoseok walking along a residential sidewalk. Hoseok is holding the camera this time, pointed at Y/N in a long shot. Night vision is switched off, faces now illuminated by street lamps they pass. He whistles seductively.]

H: [whispering] Don’t tell anyone until she watches this guys...but I think I’m in love with her. [He turns the camera to face him. The camera zooms out to fit his face.] I mean it. [He looks over the camera to her.] I love her.

Y/N: [distant, off camera] What are you whining about back there?

H: [laughing, he catches up with Y/N and aims the camera at her profile] Say what you said again. 

Y/N: [biting her cheek, but smiling nonetheless] I said you're a twunt.

H: Look at that! Y/N has spent 30 hours in this country and is already adopting its language. 

Y/N: Yeah, well you are. Tell the audience what you did.

H: [turns the camera to his face and holds it out. His leather jacket is unzipped, revealing A Horrors band-tee shirt] I've been a naughty boy. [His other hand reaches into his pocket. He pulls out the pocket watch] Y/N’s upset with me because I wanted a souvenir. 

Y/N: It's not yours, Hoseok.

H: [turns his face to Y/N, camera still aimed at himself. He puts the watch back in his pocket] It's technically not anyone's. Besides, this is one thing we could at least fix. 

[Camera turns off]

~~

#186

Duration: 2:01

[Interior. Hotel bedroom. Y/N sits at the desk provided, laptop open as she uploads footage from the video camera onto her computer. Her back is to the camera. The pocket watch twirls in front of the screen. Hoseok hums. The camera flips, revealing his face. It is clear he is filming on his iPhone. He starts to mouth lyrics to "Don't Stop Me Now," which is playing in the background. He flips the camera back to the watch.]

Y/N: [turns her head quickly over shoulder] Holy shit, come look at this.

[Hoseok drops the pocket watch and hoists himself off the sofa. He is wearing plaid flannel pants. He approaches the desk, leaning against the back of Y/N’s chair and extending his arm as he films.]

H: [kissing Y/N’s head off camera, voice muffled] What is it?

Y/N: You tell me. [looks back at Hoseok, anxious]

[Y/N has Final Cut open. She presses play on footage taken earlier in the evening. She has selected footage from when he ascended the stairs and entered the master bedroom. It plays without sound.]

H: What am I looking for….I don't…

Y/N: [quietly] Just wait. 

[The footage shows the camera panning through the room. As it comes to the bed, the footage warps, revealing a figure wearing black sitting on the mattress. It turns to look at the camera. It is wearing a white mask. The footage warps again. The figure is gone]

H: [reels back] What the fuck is that?! Did you put that in there?

Y/N: [turns to look at Hoseok] No. How would I do that? 

H: [words unsteady] I don't know, you're the film wizard. I still use iMovie. Maybe you have clever special effects or something. 

Y/N: I can assure you that I have no idea how to superimpose an image that clear onto digital footage. I took one semester of New Media, I'm hardly advanced.

H: How did you not see it when you were filming?

Y/N: I don't know, the camera went all pixelated when I was filming but I just thought the battery was running low or something. 

H: You better not be having me off.

Y/N: [brow furrowed, disbelieving] What does that sentence even mean? 

H: Is this punishment for taking the pocket watch?

Y/N: [pursing her lips briefly before she speaks] I'm really not that upset about the pocket watch. Why would I do that?

H: Whatever. Let's just go to bed and forget about it. I don’t want this to turn into a fight.

Y/N: Fine by me.

[Video ends] 

~~~

#187

Duration: 0:53

[Interior. Mid-Day. Close up of Y/N’s face. She stares at something out of view. Behind her, the scenery has changed. Band posters line the green wall, gig tickets and setlists framed next to them. This is what many assume is Hoseok’s bedroom.]

Y/N: [whispers] He's been like this all morning. I have no idea what the hell is going on. He was fine yesterday when we got back from Borley. Fine when we went to lunch, fine when we went to The Borderline for the Lescop gig. Now, he won't stop staring at that goddamn pocket watch. Look.

[The camera is flipped, again the film is from an iPhone. Hoseok sits shirtless on the bed, hickeys dotting his neck and collarbone, the pocket watch in his left hand. He stares almost impassively at it.]

Y/N: [loudly] Hobi.

[Hoseok does not respond]

Y/N: [louder] Hoseok, what the fuck are you doing?

[Hoseok does not respond]

Y/N: [mutters quietly] Jesus Christ.

[The camera tilts and wobbles, tipping down for a moment as Y/N bends to pick something up. A shoe is thrown in frame and lands on the bed right next to Hoseok. Hoseok lifts his head, dropping the watch. He smiles]

H: Want breakfast, baby?

Y/N: [long pause; quiet breathing] Uh huh.

[video ends]

~~~~

#188

Duration: 3:21

[Exterior. Mid-Day. Extreme long shot of Hoseok as he stands in front of a wooden sign that says Boxer's Lake. From the pockets of his leather jacket he pulls the pocket watch]

H: [looking over his shoulder; calls] You sure this is a good idea.

Y/N: [loudly; voice garbled by wind into microphone] You should have seen yourself, Hobi. It's gotta be the watch and I don’t want to go back there to return it.

[Hoseok reels back and throws the watch into the lake. He stares after it, shoulders drooped and jaw tense]

[Cut. Interior of a car. Hoseok is driving. Y/N points the camera at his face.]

Y/N: How do you feel?

H: Like my soul has been ripped from my chest.

[Pauses. Looks at Y/N]

H: [bursts into laughter] Chill out, baby. I feel fine. 

Y/N: [laughs weakly]

[Cut. Interior. Hoseok’s kitchen. Y/N films as Hoseok brews tea.]

H: You want any, love?

Y/N: Nah, water is fine.

H: [looks up at camera] Are you going to film everything? 

Y/N: We have an interested audience. Need to keep them satisfied. And besides, I’m only here for a week. I want to remember everything with you.

H: [begins to pull off shirt, suggestively wiggling his eyebrows.]

Y/N: [laughter] Don’t start with that!

H: [straightens and flattens shirt] You said satisfied! Y/N: [still laughing] Yeah, well, that’s just for me and I’d like to keep it that way.

[Hoseok bites his lip, happy, and walks to a cabinet to the left. He makes to open it, but his attention is brought to something on the counter beneath it. He pauses. His hand slowly drops from the knob of the cabinet. The colour drains from his face]

Y/N: What?

[Hoseok brings his eyes to the camera, lips parted. He is visibly disturbed. He lifts his right hand. He holds up the pocket watch. Y/N’s breath becomes heavy and labored]

H: [voice small] What the fuck.

[Camera shuts off]

~~~

#189

Duration: 8:32

[Interior. Mid-Day. Hoseok’s car, again. Y/N holds the camera as Hoseok drives, lens pointed out the windshield] 

Y/N: Slow down, Hobi.

H: [voice hollow] No. The fucking watch is ticking…and existing. How is any of what just happened possible?

Y/N: I don't know, I don't know.

H: This is fucking twisted.

Y/N: What are you going to do?

H: Leave it in a field? Pawn it off? Whatever, as long as it's far away from me.

Y/N: Why not burn it?

H: Any fire I make wouldn't get the metal hot enough.

Y/N: Just don't get reckless. [Pleading] Please, baby?

[Cut. Interior. A Pawnshop. The camera pans along a shelf. Various objects come into focus. A door opens and an older man comes into view from the back of the store. To the left of the frame, Hoseok walks over and introduces himself]

H: Hi. Uhm, I'm Hoseok. I need to sell a pocket watch?

[The store clerk looks from Hoseok to Y/N]

Clerk: Get your mate to turn the camera off and then we can do business. 

[Cut. Interior. Hoseok’s car. Y/N has rested the camera on the dashboard, pointed at the passing scenery]

H: WOOOO! £650 for a shitty old watch!!

Y/N: I think the fact that it was still working was what sold him.

H: Who knows how long it will work for. We practically robbed him.

Y/N: You practically robbed him. I almost got thrown out for having a camera.

H: Eh. He was probably drunk from boredom. I would be, too, if I had to sit in silence eight hours a day. 

[Cut. Interior. Night. Hoseok’s kitchen. Hoseok presses play on his answering machine as he takes off his coat. Y/N sits at a chair at the kitchen table and zooms in on a Sainsbury's frozen dinner.]

Y/N: Mmmmmm.

[In the background, a voice is heard on the answering machine.]

Recorded Voice: Mr. Jung. It's Geoff. You sold me a watch not two hours ago. I’d like to make it clear I don't appreciate being fucked with. [Y/N brings the camera around, landing on Hoseok who is paused at his refrigerator staring at the machine, frowning.] I get enough shit in my town, and I certainly don't need non-locals breezing through and pulling pranks. I'm giving you twenty-four hours to return the watch or my money to the store. If you don't, I'm calling the cops and we can settle this with legal action. [Machine beeps]

[Hoseok remains paused at the refrigerator - frozen. He begins to visibly tense and Y/N gets up from the kitchen table. She approaches him slowly, before Hoseok slams the refrigerator door shut and rushes into the living room]

Y/N: [shouts] Hoseok!

H: [yells] Where the fuck is it? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT WITH ME?

[Y/N enters the living room and turns right. Hoseok is standing in front of his mantle, hitting his chest with the flat of his palms. He stares at the ceiling and screams]

H: [still yelling] YOU CAN HAVE YOUR FUCKING WATCH BACK, I DON'T WANT IT.

Y/N: [yelling over Hoseok] HOSEOK, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE HERE.

H: [looks at Y/N] Of course there is! How else would any of this be happening? [Turns abruptly and heads down the hallway. He disappears into his room.

Y/N: Fuck’s sake. 

[Y/N follows and enters Hoseok’s room. Hoseok is pulling books out of shelves. He abandons that project and quickly goes to his bed, where he up-turns his mattress]

H: [yelling again] WHERE IS IT, HUH?

Y/N: Hoseok, calm the hell down!

[Hoseok turns and rushes past Y/N. Y/N follows]

Y/N: Hoseok, ripping up the house isn't going to solve anything!

H: It's not in my room, it's not in the kitchen. It makes itself known, right? It wants to fucking be seen. The goddamn ATTENTION WHORE.

Y/N: It's an inanimate object, Hoseok, stop!

[Hoseok stomps into the kitchen and picks up his jacket. He pauses for a moment, softening, and reaches into a pocket. He pulls out the watch]

H: [staring at the watch] Something…someone…whatever…wants me to have this. I don't. Fucking. Want it.

[**In the recorded footage, a voice is heard. It clearly says “But you took it.” Neither Y/N nor Hoseok reacts to it and neither has spoken. This voice was pointed out by YouTube user Sarkozam12**]

[camera turns off]

~~~

#190

Duration: 8:00

[Interior. Night. The couches and chairs have been removed from Hoseok’s living room. Two pillows are placed on the ground, side by side, beneath the coffee table where a ouija board as been set up. The scene is lit by numerous candles along the floor and mantle. Fingers over the microphone cause muffled noises and garbled sounds. Hoseok enters from frame right. He sits, in jeans a tee shirt, on one of the pillows. He takes a swig of cider before setting it next to him. He looks slightly above the camera.]

Y/N: [off camera] This is a terrible idea, Hobi.

H: [solemn] Is the camera set up?

Y/N: [pauses, sighs] Yeah, it's just about.done tightening the tripod.

H: Good.

[Y/N enters from the bottom of frame left. It's a long shot of the living room. Y/N sits next to Hoseok. They look at each other briefly. Hoseok draws his eyes away and onto the Oujia board. Y/N’s brow furrows, and she reaches to twine her fingers with Hoseok’s. The contact has him return his gaze to hers, smiling before he leans in and kisses her deeply. Pulling back, he kisses her knuckles three times. Hoseok’s expression hardens]

H: [quietly] I love you.

Y/N: [smiling; quietly] I’m still not used to you saying that. [pauses] I love you, too.

H: [inhaling deeply] Let's do this.

[Y/N pauses. Hoseok looks at her, concerned.]

H: Don't tell me you're quitting on this.

Y/N: [looks at the ground] Ouija boards are scary, serious shit, Hoseok. I don't think we should fuck around with this. We’ve already fucked up so much shit.

H: [shaking his head] I fucked up. And I just don’t know what other choice I have.

[Y/N pauses briefly, hesitating before leaning in to kiss him once more. They whisper to one another as they break apart, kissing for a few more seconds before separating fully. Pulling her hand from his, she sighs and places both hands on the planchette. Hoseok follows suit and does the same]

H: [uncomfortable] What do I say?

Y/N: [loudly] Is there anyone here with us?

[They remain quiet and wait. The planchette does not move.]

H: What if we contact Zozo? That's the opposite of what I want.

Y/N: [giggling, though her sense of amusement is unconvicing] Don't be stupid. 

[Both are silenced by the planchette which has started to move in swirls across the board.]

H: Is that you?

Y/N: No, I'm barely touching this.

H: [shaking his head] It's not me.

[The planchette stops on the word 'Bye']

H: [pauses] Well, that's sinister.

[The video warps into pixels and corrects itself. Three candles have been blown out. Y/N is panicked]

Y/N: What the fuck did that?

H: [loudly] What is your name?

[The planchette moves, quickly. Y/N says the letters it stops on.]

Y/N: L…A…I…R…R…E. D…D…D…E…A…T…H.

H: Lairreedddeath? The hell?

Y/N: I'm busy focusing on the part that - [The video warps. the masked figure from #186 appears behind Hoseok, getting closer after each pixel correction. A white hand with sharp nails reaches for his neck. It disappears] in the fire?

[The Marimba ringtone of an iPhone goes off]

H: Shit. That's mine.

Y/N: Leave it.

[The planchette spins out of control and falls from the table onto the floor. All the candles are blown out at the same time, though there is no wind to disrupt the atmosphere. The camera shifts to night vision. Both draw their attention to the bright light from the camera]

Y/N: Does your camera shift modes automatically?

H: No, what -

[A loud thud is heard, the sound of a door slamming open to the left, its metal knob hitting the wall. The door to what is considered a broom closet has flung open, but its interior is black and occasionally blurred by pixelated static. Y/N turns to look at the noise, but Hoseok disappears from view. We hear him scream]

Y/N: Hoseok?!? [Y/N searches frantically for where the sound is coming from. She turns her attention back to the door, eyes wide in alarm.] Hoseok? 

[Y/N gets up and approaches the closet but the door slams shut. The lights of the house come on. Y/N opens the door to the closet. It is just a closet. The tripod falls over. The screen goes blue and flashes NO BATTERY]

~~~

Given the found footage nature of the editing and the allusion by Hoseok that Y/N was proficient in film editing, at least once mentioning the capability of using special effects in post production, many of the initial viewers of #186-190 believed the story of Hoseok’s disappearance was a clever hoax. While this report remains unbiased, it is important to point out several facts. 

Firstly, it is true that Jung Hoseok went missing from his shared home April 25, 2010. The phone call received on his mobile during #190 was from his mother, mentioned in Y/F/N Y/L/N’s police report, who had not seen her son since April 11, 2010. Secondly, the pocket watch, and the clothing in which Hoseok disappeared in, have never been found. Until August 2011, the footage captured during #190 depicted the last known whereabouts of Jung Hoseok. 

When Y/N deactivated her account, #184-190 was removed from YouTube in accordance with YouTube’s privacy policies, however not before user TwerK had downloaded the video to a flash drive. In June of 2010, the video was uploaded to Kim Taehyung’s channel, with reasons citing the urgency for fans and interested parties to continue to study the video - i.e in search of clues or proof of a hoax. It is worth noting that while there is a well documented friendship and romantic relationship between Euripet3s1 and theJungProject (ie: both were subscribers to each other's channels, the earliest comments on each party's videos date back to 2008, Euripet3s1 tagged theJungProject in a video called Top 10 Films of 2009, etc) TwerK did not subscribe to either channel, nor has he confessed to knowing either personally. 

It is because of these reasons that the footage in Help Explain This is, in a word, astounding. The film itself was uploaded with a description consisting of a personal plea from Taehyung to help explain what he had caught. Once the video was live, Taehyung experienced a brief period of notoriety on the internet, while simultaneously going under fire by those close to Hoseok who called his video 'tactless and offensive.' 

It is also worth noting that Y/N has become reclusive since these events and has not been available for comment since late 2010, on advice from her therapist.

~~

Help Explain This

Duration: 4:03

[Interior. Mid-Day. Footsteps thud up the stairs of Borley Rectory. The camera is pointed at the landing, but the painting is gone. The person arrives at the landing and he speaks. He is Korean.]

T: Okay. So. Kim Taehyung here. I’m sorry in advance for any English mistakes, but a few subscribers wanted me to visit the rectory while I am here on vacation. Yes, yes, I know it's weird that my YouTube channel only has one video on it, but some of you on Reddit convinced me to make this.  Here we are [Camera pans right to left, light pours in from holes in the ceiling. The home appears to be empty.]. Exact same spot where Euripet3s1 stood. As you can see there is no painting on the wall. Ehm.

[He turns to his left and enters the bedroom, panning the camera right to left as Y/N had done. A naked figure stands in the back right corner of the bedroom, his back to the camera, facing the wall]

T: Again, the room is completely empty. The walls are badly burned. I know you all want to believe this was a hoax, but there's no way these two had the budget. You can't even get up the stairs easily without worrying about falling through.

[He turns left, zooming to an extreme long shot. The right side of the room out of frame.] 

T: This is where theJungProject found the pocket watch. No chest of drawers here. [Camera pans down, showing his feet] You can see the boards of the floor are burned. I'm too afraid to even put weight there. [He presses his foot to the floor, retracting it immediately.]

[Raising the camera, he turns the camera back to right, slightly, showing the whole of the room. The figure from the corner has turned around and is standing naked in a full body shot. The camera pixelates. The figure is now close to the lens, able to be viewed from the middle of the waist up. His mouth and eyes are wide open, but blackened as though holes. The figure is clearly Jung Hoseok.]

T: That's it, then. Sorry the video was so lame.

[He turns and leaves the room. The camera does one last pan from the landing back to the room. The foyer below is empty. The room he had just exited is empty]

Fin.

Author’s Note #2: The locations in this story - Borley Rectory, Boxer's Lake, Liverpool Street Station, Suffolk, and Sudbury - are all real places. Borley Rectory was known as 'the most haunted house in England' and it did get severely burned in 1939. There is actually a woman who haunted the building named Marie Lairre. 

[haddocktree]

Dean DeBlois Talks the Care and Feeding of Flying Reptiles

The writer-director of DreamWorks Animation’s Oscar-nominated ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’ reflects on his long and loving journey creating the epic animated trilogy.

By Jon Hofferman and Dan Sarto | Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at 11:29am

In 3D, Awards, CG, Films, People, Virtual Reality, Visual Effects | ANIMATIONWorld | Geographic Region: All

Oscar and Annie Award-nominated ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,’ the final chapter in DreamWorks Animation’s epic animated feature trilogy, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Images © 2019 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

At this point, neither the How to Train Your Dragon animated feature film franchise, nor its longtime writer-director Dean DeBlois, needs much of an introduction. The epic adventure series, which debuted in 2010, has been both commercially successful and critically acclaimed, with the first two installments garnering an immense number of Annie Award nominations and wins, as well as being Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominees for Best Animated Feature. (How to Train Your Dragon 2 won the Golden Globe in that category in 2015.)

This time is no different: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has been nominated for an Academy Award and eight Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, and has won accolades from the National Board of Review, the Society of Voice Arts & Sciences, and the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, among others. Produced by Brad Lewis and Bonnie Arnold, The Hidden World delivers a heartwarming message about overcoming intolerance wrapped inside a tale about growing up, facing the unknown, and learning to let go. It also answers the burning question of what happened to the dragons that once populated the earth and lived in cooperation with humans.

So, as awards season rounds into the home stretch, and DeBlois faces his third round of Dragon-mania, it seemed like a good time to talk with him about this reptilian saga that’s become such a central part of his life.

AWN: In a presentation that you gave at the VIEW conference in October, you said that in general, you’re not very enthusiastic about sequels because, if you've done a good job, your story is told, and a follow-up can feel like an unnecessary add-on. What about How to Train Your Dragon made you feel that it provided an opportunity to do sequels the way they should be done?

Dean DeBlois: Well, I think it was a combination of three things. One is that I was a Star Wars kid and I loved the expansiveness of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I felt they took characters that I loved, expanded their worlds and increased the adventure, the peril. The characters were kind of maturing and growing up, and it had a big impact on me. And I saw in the Dragon world and its cast of characters the potential to do something similar. The world could be expansive, and we could grow up with the characters. In the time that it takes to make an animated movie, our fan base could be aging with the characters, which wasn't really something that I'd seen done before – where you take a cast of friends and then grow up with them. We would leap five years into the future and find a new organic problem that felt important and universal. So, that was part of it.

Then, I think it's also the conversation that I had with [Dragon books author] Cressida Cowell. Even though the narratives are quite different in the films and the books, I loved the idea that she was taking on this challenge of explaining what happened to dragons and why they aren't here anymore. I thought that was really intriguing, but also kind of gripping and emotional. The opening line of her very first book is, "There were dragons when I was a boy." That suggests they're gone. What happened to them? So, I loved taking on that challenge.

Finally, just being able to explain certain mysteries that were inherent in the first film. What happened to Hiccup’s mother? Is Toothless the last of his kind? If so, why? Just the idea that we might be able to take organic questions that we didn't have time to explain in the first movie, or didn't feel the need to, and make them into important questions in the context of the trilogy. As if we'd gone back in time and planted them there.

AWN: The emotional center of the storytelling in the films is the growth of the characters, their becoming adults and taking on adult responsibilities, even though they're still young. That’s really the best part of the films.

DeBlois: Yeah, it felt organic to me because I was thinking about what problem I could graft onto 15-year-old Hiccup that felt important. He now has his father’s love and admiration, he has the respect of the town, he has the attention of the girl he was secretly pining for, he has an amazing dragon that he could fly around on, and he ended an age-old war. It doesn't feel like a character who could have a problem until something really eventful enters his life. We needed to go to another rite of passage, which just naturally led to a 19-year-old in search of himself, when you've got two domineering parents of contrasting philosophies. A character who's on the run from his destiny at home, only to return to it with a renewed sense of self, was an appealing tale to me.

AWN: There's a large number of characters in the films, and they play pretty central roles. How do you ensure that you give them enough screen time and develop them enough so it feels that they really belong and have a reason for being there?

DeBlois: It's really tough and I don't know that we did, to be honest. I think that a lot of our characters are underserved. If we had a longer movie, if we could make a 120-minute movie instead of a 90-minute movie, we might be able to explore them more. But oftentimes the characters do become support characters. We do our best to give them moments, give them a laugh here and there, or give them a starring turn. But when you have an unwieldy group of characters, it’s really tough because you're always fighting the ticking clock of budget and time.

AWN: Speaking of characters, what makes a good villain and how do you determine how villainous to make your villain?

DeBlois: That is a very good question and I don't know that I have a very good answer. I struggle with villains. I find them boring if they just want power or money. Unless there's a bit of empathy in their desire, it just falls flat for me. Drago was meant to be a really interesting villain in How to Train Your Dragon 2. There was going to be a sea story that followed his survival and how he became marooned on an island that was home to a very aggressive dragon. He had to befriend this thing in order to fly off the island and get back to his armada. It was a very touch-and-go relationship because they were both very headstrong, but in the end, they established a mutual trust, and it changed him. Even with all of his heinous crimes, when he arrived in the third-act battle, he took the side of the dragon riders, fighting his own former cohorts. I liked that idea because it took what was admittedly a one-dimensional character and gave him complexity. But we didn't get to do that because, again, taking the time to do that story properly would have compromised Hiccup’s story. I regret it since I really wanted to do something interesting with that character.

We channeled some of that frustration into the development of Grimmel [in The Hidden World] and making him a villain for the times – an intolerant elitist who’s trying to crush blossoming ideas of peaceful coexistence. But he’s also a character who’s fun to watch onscreen – he has a kind of playful sensibility and likes the sound of his own voice. Enjoys the hunt, enjoys cornering his prey and forcing it to make desperate decisions. He’s a character without empathy, but he has a sense of humor.

Dean DeBlois.

AWN: To turn to the production side, did you use any virtual camera work or any tools that helped you visualize how you wanted to shoot this?

DeBlois: Yes, [cinematographer] Gil Zimmerman and his team – the layout team who provided us all the previs and the final layout of the movie – would go down to our mocap stage and pull up rough versions of our sets and don the outfits with the little ping-pong balls and actually work out a lot of their own choreography. So, if it wasn't a flight scene, if it was something that had a physical space where they could really block for action, they would come up with ideas that way. It's always dispensed with when it gets to animation, but the ideas are there and then the animators start from scratch.

AWN: How extensive was the previs? Were you using it more for storytelling or was it used more for camera and layout?

DeBlois: On this film, we started to invite the layout department into the storytelling. In other words, if there was a sequence that depended on visceral, kinetic movement – something that's hard to suggest on drawn storyboards – we would talk out the beats of the script pages with Gil Zimmerman and the assigned previs artists, and they would go off and develop it. If we knew there was going to be flight involved or some kind of complex set, we would either hand the sequence entirely to the previs artists or involve them really early.

I found I really liked this step and how far it has come in recent years, where so much of the finished idea can be represented quite clearly and closely in the previs. It used to be awkward to look at – characters that would slide across floors, and blank expressions, and robotic movements. It’s come such a long way that it’s something you can include in test previews with audiences, because it's full of color and it has lighting… it’s a very exciting new tool to use.

AWN: Like many top animation directors, you're going to be moving over into the live-action world. Have you always wanted to go this route? You've been directing animated films for a long time.

DeBlois: Yeah, after Lilo and Stitch, I took a look at my personal hopper of ideas that I was working on and I would say three-quarters of them were live-action. They felt like live-action films. I decided to go out there and just see if anyone was interested. I sold three of them. It got close with a start date on one of them, but they all kind of went on ice when there were administrative changes both at Disney and Universal. It was an exciting and frustrating period and it just feels like an itch that I didn't scratch. So now I have that opportunity to return to the world of live-action and hopefully get a movie going. I do so with caution because I know that so many things can fall apart very quickly in live-action, whereas in animation we tend to commit to the idea of making the movie, even if you have to change out people in the process.

AWN: Do you feel that your experience in animation gives you specific skills that you can apply in live-action production?

DeBlois: I think my storyboarding background definitely gives me the ability to communicate ideas clearly and visually represent them. Having spent so much time on the story side of things, writing as well, I feel as though I can clearly communicate the story we're telling and engage other people in contributing ideas and making it better. I think in any sort of filmmaking enterprise you need somebody who's going to be the guardian of the story, but still be open to great ideas, and I feel like I've been honing that skill over the years.

AWN: Last question. How does it feel to say goodbye to dragon world – after three really well-done, well-received, expansive, beautifully animated features? You completed the trilogy, you told the story as well as it could be told. What are your thoughts looking back on this huge body of work?

DeBlois: I'm very proud that we were able to reach the goal that we had set for ourselves, that we didn't have to creatively compromise much, and that we did it with largely the same team over the course of a decade. It's bittersweet because not only have we come to love the characters and the world, but we really like working together. We don't know if we're ever going to be arranged as that crew again. People have gone on to different shows, some have left the studio. It was a bit of a gamble to dedicate so much time to a trilogy, especially in the ever-changing landscape of studios. There were five changes in leadership on Dragon 3 alone. With every person that comes in, they have their own sensibility and their own tastes. And so, learning to work with each person and also giving them ownership can be tricky. Luckily, we were able to keep our North Star in sight and deliver the ending that we wanted.

[sebastbu]

My Top 40 Movies of the Decade

***just my opinion***this list is not set in stone either***

1. 12 Years A Slave (2013)

What Steve McQueen has managed to do with this movie in nothing short of the best thing art is capable of. He takes the horror of humanity and turns it into a heart shattering tale of the best of humanity. A film that could have sunk easily among the brutality it contains, instead soars with Solomon’s survival. It is one of the most life-affirming, uplifting works of art I’ve ever seen. It makes you cry, it makes you shout, it makes you cheer, it makes you breathless. In short, all the things movies are best at. Not just a definitive movie, but a definitive work of art.

2. The Act of Killing (2012)

This has my vote for the best documentary film of all time. What begins as a transfixing profile of the mass murders responsible for the 1965 Indonesian genocide quickly transforms into a Brechtian nightmare as director Joshua Oppenheimer somehow convinces these men to stage scenes for a fake movie reenacting their crimes. As the film progresses you can hardly believe what you’re witnessing. Horrifying, yet you can’t look away. Oppenheimer holds your attention for every second. What’s captured for film here is truly unique, ground-breaking, soul shaking. A statement about the banality of evil as profound as Ardent’s essays. 

3. The Tree of Life (2011)

Malick has reached his final form here. An organic art form, pure cinema, visual poetry, whatever you want to call it. Nothing but a movie could be this. The images he crafts here are as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had watching a movie, and probably ever will. In exploring childhood memories, Malick’s style perfectly matches his subject manner. He use of ellipsis and fluidity mirrors the way memories flash through our heads. It is as if we are witnessing memory directly, unfiltered. This movie will move you in ways you didn’t know a movie could. 

4. The Social Network (2010)

That Facebook movie? Hell yeah that facebook movie. What Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is take what could be a standard biopic, or dull tech movie, and made it into an epic tale of betrayal, greed, friendship, coming of age, and identity. Ross and Reznor’s score pulses, as does the dialogue. This movie starts the instant you press play and it doesn’t let you catch your breath for one second until the very end. Endlessly quotable, perfected acted. A masterclass.

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

What can I say about this movie? Every shot is perfect. Every joke, beat, pan, zoom. Well, I guess I’ll say this. This movie disarms with its charm, its facade. But at its heart is a wrenching tale of loss, nostalgia, and the fleeting nature of everything, especially those we love. A jewel of a film. Anderson makes sure you’re cozy and then pulls the rug out from under you, and suddenly you’re crying. 

6. The Master (2012)

Career best performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Lushly shot. Greenwood delivers another ground breaking score. PTA has made an aimless film about aimless characters that nevertheless is riveting. At the end, you may not know exactly how far you’ve progressed, but you’re sure glad you went on the journey. 

7. Drive (2011)

This is not an action movie. It’s a love story. The now famous dream pop soundtrack. Ryan Gosling doing so much with so little. Refn’s breathtaking cinematography. Diluted dreams. Crushed hopes. Silent gazes, filled with more emotion than dialogue could ever render.

8. The Revenant (2015)

An achievement of pure cinematic insanity. I still have no idea how they got some of these shots. A brutal, thrilling story of survival among nature’s cruelty. Inarritu’s camera is like magic in this film, uncovering the previously thought not possible. 

9. La La Land (2016)

A reinvention of a genre that somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too: a nostalgia trip that also subverts expectations. Right up there next to Singin’ in the Rain, in my book at least. How on earth was that only Chazelle’s second ever movie? 

10. The Lighthouse (2019)

TELL ME YE FOND O ME LOBSTER! WHYD YA SPILL YOUR BEANS? IF I HAD A STEAK ID FUCK IT. That about sums it up.

11. Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon Ho has made a beautifully twisted psychological thriller that is also hilarious, touching, and a lasting commentary on class and social mobility. 

12. The Florida Project (2017)

Baker’s approach of setting this story from the viewpoint of children makes it a glorious romp through a world of innocence as well as tragedy, and also makes it all the more emotionally impactful.

13. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

It’s all about the cat. Alongside the Coen’s mastery of dialogue and the side character, as well as the beautiful folk music, this film acts as a deeply moving portrayal of depression, and how sometimes we are our own worst enemy. 

14. Moonlight (2016)

Expertly crafted. Expertly acted. Expertly shot. A gorgeously rendered coming of age story. I’m not really the person who should speak of its importance. I’ll just say: it is. Very. A movie that will stun you. 

15. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Practical! Effects! Yeah, that really is Tom Hardy swinging fifty feet off the ground on a pole as explosions go off behind him. A feminist, post-apocalypse, road trip movie brought to you by the director of Happy Feet and Babe 2. What more could you want?

16. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

A wonderful celebration of childhood and of fantasy. Anderson crafts a world you want to return to again and again. Anyone else get jump scared when they realized Lucas Hedges was in this??? 

17. Arrival (2016)

I love Denis Villeneuve’s films for so many reasons. The most important I think is that he balances entertainment and artistic depth so well. Like all great scifi Arrival is not really about aliens, it’s about us. 

18. Inception (2010)

A film that runs on all cyclinders. Smart, funny, jaw dropping, just plain fun. Nolan manages to build some surprisingly moving moments as well. 

19. Gone Girl (2014)

Ah Fincher and his twists. Rosemund Pike at the top of her game. Ross and Reznor return with another gripping score. Around the narrative, Fincher creates a fascinating portrayal of the media and marriage, one with endless twists and turns. You never quite know where it’s headed.

20. Sicario (2015)

A second thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he does point of view characters better than anyone else. 

21. Enemy (2014)

A third thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he plays with genre and narrative structure unlike anyone else working right now.

22. Incendies (2010)

A fourth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he’s given us some of the best female lead characters this decade.

23. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

A fifth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he somehow managed make a Blade Runner sequel work. Here’s hoping for Dune. 

24. The Look of Silence (2014)

The companion film of The Act of Killing. Oppenheimer does it again, this time focusing more on the victims of the genocide. Groundbreaking cinema.

25. Shame (2011)

Slow clap for Michael Fassbender. Slow clap for Carey Mulligan. Slow clap for Steven Mcqueen.

26. Hereditary (2018)

Using horror to examine mental illness and family trauma. Aster has made a new classic of genre, taking it to new heights.

27. Under The Skin (2014)

How to make a movie about an alien descended onto earth in order to capture men and engulf them in her weird black room of goo? Make a very alienation movie. Chilling. Otherworldly. Haunting. 

28. Son of Saul (2015)

In making any holocaust film there’s always the risk of feeling exploitative. Nemes’s radical camera work, focusing almost entirely on the main character’s face in close up leaves this concern in the dust. The horrors enter only at the corners of the frame, while humanity is firmly centered the whole time. An important film everyone should see. 

29. Whiplash (2014)

As visceral and heart pounding as the solos performed, the film as a whole is a perfectly made portrait of a obsession. 

30. Amour (2012)

Haneke takes his unforgiving approach and lays bare a topic with incredible emotional depth. The result is deeply moving without ever being sentimental. I’m hard pressed to find another film about old age that is this poignant. 

31. Birdman (2014)

A whirlwind of a film. A high wire act. The long takes turn it into something more akin to a play. A pretty damn good one at that. 

32. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2011)

What’s Chekhov doing in the 21st Century? He’s in Turkey. He name is Nuri Ceylan. 

33. The Favourite (2018)

Lanthimos turns down his style and turns up his humor. The result is the best of both worlds: a dark, twisted tale of power and a hilarious parody of monarchy and British costume drama. 

34. Phantom Thread (2018)

PTA delivers again. What could easily have been another tired tale of the obsessive artist and the woman behind him is instead a fairy tale-ish ensnaring of two people’s ineffable pull towards each other. 

35. A Hidden Life (2019)

Still fresh in my mind. Malick’s late style is given the backbone it needed in the form of a relevant tale of resistance and struggle. A meditative, prayer-like film about the power of belief. 

36. Prisoners (2013)

A sixth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: his movies have layers, but only if you look. Otherwise, the ride is pretty great as well. 

37. Manchester By The Sea (2016)

A masterclass in doing less with more. 

38. Foxcatcher (2014)

Bennett Miller does biopics unlike anyone else. That is to say, maybe better than anyone else working today. 

39. The Witch (2015)

Eggers’s first foray into historical New England horror. A chilling commentary on the evils of puritanism.

40. The Kid With A Bike (2011)

The Dardenne brothers managed to make a gut-wrenching tale of childhood, masculinity, abandonment, the power of empathy, belonging, and redemption in 84 minutes. Here’s a suggestion. Watch this movie. Then watch it again. A better use of the same amount of time it takes to sit through The Irishman. Oh wait, no you still have 30 minutes left over. 

[spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia]

SpongeGuy Reviews Every Disney Cartoon Ever!: Big City Greens (1.1 and 1.2): “Space Chicken” and “Steak Night”

This is easily one of the most underrated cartoons ever because it focuses on comedy. Jesus Christ. That, and Cricket has an arc, and I’m gonna prove it here.

Big City Greens is a comedy oriented show that is sort of a sleeper hit for the network, at least, in ratings. Fan reception has been mostly positive, but not the best, and the reason seems to be a lack of story, because the 2010′s have been dominated by this, and apparently only Loud House and maybe We Bare Bears can truly succeed with such a formula (maybe Clarence? I don’t think it succeeded as well).

The show is about the green family moving to the big city, each Green slowly improving each episode while retaining their core characteristics so that jokes can still be told at rapid fire succession. And I’m gonna show you how (specifically with MC Cricket, who gets too much hate imo. Yes, this is a slightly personal review because I really like this show and I hope to work on it one day).

SUMMERIES:  Cricket enlists the help of Tilly and new friend Remy when he comes up with a plan to impress his new neighbors by launching a chicken into space.

The Green's traditional Steak Night is threatened when Cricket accidentally leaves the steaks behind on the subway.

COMEDY: 3 Out of 5 (”Space Chicken” and “Steak Night”)

While not the first chronological episode, this is very much a pilot of sorts, so you can see that just like the voices are still getting fitted for the characters, so are the jokes. The fact that they are still good jokes is pretty impressive to say the least!

As the trend of character focused jokes is at its height here, most of the jokes derive from characters being themselves and how they interact with each other and their enviorment. This leads to Cricket causing shenanigans (we’ll get to that), Bill stressing over everything, Tilly being herself (always a good thing) and Alice mostly complaining and being paranoid.

And like all comedy, execution is key; These are good character types, one just has to make them click.

And again, while the comedy isn’t yet at full strength, it’s still really funny! There are lots of great incorrect quote fodder material, lots of great voice acting, lots of exaggeration, and it makes it feel like a cartoony jumble of fun! And this is BEFORE it gets really sharp and crazy!

But, tbh, comedy isn’t the best thing in these episodes. Arguably the show’s greatest strength is that even when the episodes aren’t the show’s best, the characters shine.

CHARACTERS: 4 Out of 5 (”Space Chicken”) and 5 Out of 5 (”Steak Night”)

Again, as I said, these are the first episodes, they’re not gonna be perfect, but the characters are already almost fully realized and likable, that is an ACHIEVEMENT.

To prove this, I’m gonna go through each one and show you how the show knows with what quantity and in what role each one should inhabit in every episode!

Let’s start with the least important character for now: Alice, the grandma. Alice is right now serving only as a comedy tool, and most of the time she is just a comedy tool, as it’s rare for an episode to show other, more fragile and lonely sides to her (but since this show rules, we do get those). The show knows that right now Alice can’t impose since she isn’t important to the main story, so unlike a lot of shows who basically mandate a character must have a big role in every episode regardless of importance to the actual plot, Alice features just as much as she should, quickly showing us who she is (a crabby but deep down loving old woman) and supplying some laughs with her core personality, endearing us to her while she serves no real role.

Then there’s Bill, here really to serve as Cricket’s Superego. If Cricket is the flawed MC with leanings towards good and bad, and Tilly is his soul, Bill is his nagging concious, always worrying, stressing and disappointed. Bill is an understandably nervous man, post divorce, two wild kids, a mother who is very tough on him, things just don’t go well for him. Like Cricket he also wants to be loved, but he has a different way of doing things. In fact, one could argue that Bill is what Cricket could become if he lost his core, and Nancy, the mom (who we WILL GET TO) is what Cricket could become if he never learned a lesson (not that Nancy is a bad person, but she too is a mess). Bill is a great character since his role is the least fun, but he still gets to tell jokes and be an entertaining presence (but trust me we get to see that later in a way better way).

Tilly is the cutest character in the show and an absolute treat. But unlike other “cute” characters, Tilly has a personality, an edge, and flaws. She is a fully realized character, and she serves a special role. Tilly is Cricket’s big sister, but only in name, as she operates more as a younger sister. This is due to her childlike innocence, which culminates in amazing lines and ideas like saying “I have seen danger... And I love it” and wanting to be the queen of rats.

But Tilly’s real role is as Cricket’s soul. Nearly every character in the show reflects or contrasts with Cricket in one way or another (as said before, Bill is Cricket without his fun core, Nancy is Cricket if he never changed, and to add to that, Alice is Cricket if he was only selfish, and Remy is Cricket’s fanboy, almost enabling him and proving his good and bad sides by still showing that Cricket cares). But it is Tilly that serves as Crickey’s soul. She both appreciates his wilder, more troublesome nature, and his risk taking caring side, but she knows that balance must be maintained. She is not perfect: She screws up a lot, and can get selfish and lost. But when it comes to Cricket, she knows what he needs. The world keeps wanting to change him or to love him, but Cricket’s problem is that he needs balance most of all.

And so we get to Cricket. The fandom is quite split on him at times, seeing him either as a lovable scamp or a troublesome jerk. The fact of the matter is: That’s the POINT. He’s not perfect, or horrible, he’s both. Cricket is a boy learning how to balance childhood and adulthood, how to be fun and serious, caring and selfish in a good way, risky and cautious. He tries to launch a chicken into space because he wants attention and love, but also because his dad wants to make a good first impression and Cricket truly cares. He wants to hold the steaks to get praise for being responsible and to perserve family tradition, but he tries his best to save the steaks because again, he cares. He both thinks of himself and of others. He can be malicious and self serving at one point and genrous and loving at the other.

We as viewers love to criticize characters for being callous the moment they make a mistake. But when said character is like, 10, we need to be more forgiving. And slowly slowly, episode after episode, one can see that Cricket is learning (Season 2 will be a prime example for that, can’t wait to show you).

So yeah, Big City Greens is a show about growing up, disguised as a funny hillbilly show. Pretty impressive ;)

STORY AND HEART: 3 Out of 5 (”Space Chicken”) and 4 Out of 5 (”Steak Night”)

DAMN IT I always sum up in characters! God, what do I say now, outside of these being slow but still fun pilots with good story ideas on how to introduce the characters that manage to show contrast, fun dynamics and a loving but edgy family despite everything without sacrificing humor or fun, and that these are only the first ones and we get way better episodes after this and Big City Greens will have a way higher ranking soon?

..Oh, that might do it.

Thank you @chrishoughton​ i hope this review satisfies you! :D

FINAL SCORES: 10 Out of 15 (”Space Chicken”) and 12 Out of 5 (”Steak Night”)

Bingo bango.

Next time we have Sofia The First? OOHHH! CRAIG GERBER IS A GOD THIS SHOULD BE FUN!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/194d3gsPrhlOsFPYsXU-lJirY4sWncrBl/edit#

[whoareyouandwhyshouldicare]

To all my fellow LoVe shippers who are feeling down I have one thing to say.

I can’t make the last 8 minute of season 4 disappear but I can recommend some really great LoVe fanfiction that will make you feel at least a little bit better. So without further ado here are a few of my favorite LoVe fics!

A Hard Habit to Break  by  mskatej   Nothing gets Veronica over her failed relationships better than Logan Echolls.    

...And Long For You  by  AbsolutelyIris It was moments like those Veronica wished she could be like Lilly- storm into his house and curse and yell and damn him to hell before demanding he fuck her...and like with Lilly, he would gladly, if reluctantly, do so.      

 “Any Love Is Good Love, Baby”  by wily_one24   Apparently, Hollywood was wrong, the devil did not wear Prada, the devil wore butch black boots and tiny little skirts.                                

The Best (and Only) Kept Secret in Neptune  by  vixleonard Even when they hated each other, Logan and Veronica just couldn't stay away from each other.                     

The Burdened Vessel  by  vixleonard   Veronica needs a favor only Logan can help her with.              

Every Belt That Ever Hit Someone (Is Still Made to Hold Something Up)  by igrockspock   Logan doesn't get any votes for Most Changed at the ten-year reunion, which is bullshit when you think about it.  In the past ten  years, everything in his life has changed.  He's joined the Navy, dated a pop star, and figured out that Dick Casablancas can occasionally behave like a real human being.  Only one thing hasn't changed: he's still in love with Veronica Mars.  Oh, and he's suspected of murdering his girlfriend.

"Fear and Loathing in Neptune"   by wily_one24 Veronica Mars was going to get herself laid. Series  Part 1 of Any Love  

A Fine and Endless Cycle  by kartography A freshman year at Hearst and the cyclical nature of love                                         

Fireworks by AliLamba Veronica is technically not a virgin, and awkward results ensue. An AU version of LoVe's first time.                

For the Sake of a Friend by jacedesbff   What if Logan and Veronica were involved in a secret relationship throughout the events of Season 1?     

The Game of Trust  by Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra)   This time Veronica really did trust him, and she knew how to prove it...    

Getcha, Getcha, Getcha, Getcha  by  Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra) Veronica and Logan prank each other. Really, it's shameless the way they flirt...  

Give Me The Ocean  by scandalpants   Post Season 3 AU.  Veronica decides what she really wants.  Spoiler: it's not Piz.                                              

Home Is Where The Heart Is by: lv63   AU preseries and forward, begins in season 1. this story is all about veronica and her friends. angst, mystery, humor and romance, LoVe and MaDi. summary in prologue. 

I Hate You Because by: SilverLining2k6   Mid 1X3 - Meet John Smith.    Logan, Veronica, a pool, snark, and a made up drinking game.

i knew you were trouble when you walked in  by youcallitwinter   And, it's just—  Logan had always been her intense high-school romance, sure. But she had, somewhere along the way, in some secret corner of her mind, convinced herself that was all he was; a high-school romance. Explosive, powerful, passionate, and bound to burn itself out eventually

(Im)Perfection  by  AbsolutelyIris The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.                

In a World by: my shangri-la   A/U! Exploring the 'what ifs' that could have happened if Lilly Kane hadn't been murdered, and her secrets ��� and others – had come out anyway. Pairings: Lilly/Logan, past Duncan/Veronica, eventual Logan/Veronica. (Story begins with Lilly as a senior, the rest are juniors.)

In the kind of world where we belong  by  Anonymous  There was always something missing.  A Lilly Kane sized hole in both their hearts.  Instead of going to see Aaron Echolls on October 3rd Lilly decides to comfort a friend and their lives change forever.A very smutty OT3 take on what might have happened if Lilly had lived.

Kid Things  by sowell   5 years after graduation, Logan comes back to Neptune to ask Veronica for help.                      

King of Mars  by: HGRising   AU. In which everyone has a story to tell but not everyone gets the chance. And, things make more sense from a different perspective. Ever wonder why Veronica Mars was Lilly Kane's best friend? There's redemption for some and condemnation for others when the secrets come out. And everyone's got a good one.

Landmine  by  AbsolutelyIris It needed to be forgotten, and quick.             

The Long Way Home  by  AbsolutelyIris   "We should take the long way home." 

Matching Pink Bikinis  by  Anonymous Veronica and Lilly wear matching pink bikinis to Logan's for a pool day.  This is pure threesome smut, folks.                

Pink Lemonade (Logan/Veronica/Lilly)  On a trip to Honolulu, Lilly manages to bring Veronica out of her pink, frosty shell. Spoilers/Warnings: This is a threesome fic and therefore includes some femslash.        

Playing Hide and Seek With the Truth by: jenwin23   Continuation of the Truth series. The kids go back to school. Old issues remain while more secrets will be revealed, relationships will change and lives will crumble.

The Real Thing by: Josielynn   AU. Logan and Lilly are off again/on again. Duncan is dating Meg. Veronica was never friends with Lilly. Logan sees Veronica in her soccer uniform and wants to date her.

Scotch on the Rocks (A FanFic Tribute)  by kmd0107   A long time ago...there was an incredibly hot LoVeLy trilogy fic (Pink Lemonade & Sex on the Beach) started over on Live Journal that never got its third part.  This is a tribute to what that might have been.   Logan POV of the evolving sexual and emotional relationship between himself, Veronica, and Lilly.              

Scourging Fire, Blazing Soul  by Nerdyesque   What if Veronica didn't grow up with the 09ers, but came into their lives prior to Lilly's death? How would her presence affect Duncan, Lilly, Logan, the Kanes, and the Echolls? Also, who is Veronica without Keith Mars' loving protection?      

Sex on the Beach (Logan/Veronica/Lilly) NC-17 Lilly's chapter in my Drinks Series. Nobody wants to talk about what happened in Hawaii, and it's driving Lilly crazy. How could she possibly make what happened less awkward? By making it happen again, of course!        

Some Truths Hurt by: jenwin23 Jumping off point: V gets Duncan's journal in Echolls' Family Xmas. AU from there but many canon events happen too. All characters in the VM-verse make an appearance, but it is a LoVe story. In script format-but give it a try, it's well written.

The Third Kane by: Mac-alicious   Lilly, Duncan and Veronica Kane rule the social scene in Neptune. The three are loyal and inseparable. They once believed there was nothing that could come between them. They didn't count on Logan Echolls.

Time, Make It Go Faster Or Just Rewind  by  kmd0107  Logan being ‘the real-Logan’ is so familiar that she almost can’t help but give in to it, even if it’s just a one night pass.   She’ll embrace this moment out of time and the walls and armor can go back up tomorrow.AU from 1x4 Wrath of Con              

Truths Too Big to be Told  by: jenwin23 Sequel to Some Truths Hurt. It's summer time and more than the weather is hot. Neptune is embroiled in class warfare, Veronica is looking into the mystery of another dead girl, the fallout from Lilly's case continues, and more secrets will be revealed.

I’m also throwing in some of my favorite MaDi (Mac and Dick) fics because Dick needs a hug too.

The ABCs of Mac and Dick by: jenwin23   The ABC challenge with Mac and Dick. Created for Madi lover at VM Santa 2010 at livejournal. Cross-posted. In letter order, not in chronological order.

Bodycount by: BIFF1   Cassidy and Mac meet a little earlier and a little blood-lust gives him an entirely different problem when it comes to forming a real relationship with Mac. AU with MAJOR season two SPOILERS! Mac/Cass, Mac/Dick, Mac/Cass/Dick

Casablancas Kryptonite By: BIFF1   "You just don't get it. She's like kryptonite or something." Dick looked at his brother and thought about those blue eyes that cut and the way her mouth twisted around insults. Yeah maybe she was kyptonite. Casablancas kyptonite because isn't he just as weak.

Casual? By: BIFF1   It's just sex. Casual sex. no attachments, just good hot sex. But that was the summer and now school is about to start up again and Veronica's back from Virginia and can tell that something is up. They can stop, no problem...

The Charm Bracelet by: DalWriter   Future Fic. Who Knew Prince Charming Would be Dick Casablancas? Mac reminisces as she looks at a charm bracelet Dick gave her.

Commitment Buffers by: BIFF1   Dick and Mac live with Logan and Veronica in their attempt to have some sort of commitment buffer between them. Only problem with the arrangement is that Mac and Dick tolerate each other at best which is a big improvement as far as their concerned. However living in such close quarters may prove difficult when it becomes obvious that they may actually sort of like each other.

Dark Day by: BIFF1   It's Cassidy Casablancas' birthday and the two people closest to him are falling apart. She just wants to hide away from the world for the rest of the week, just drink and cry and be with someone who gets it and no one gets it more than Dick. Not as angsty as it sounds, promise. Now complete with happy ending!

Electrify by: BIFF1   A guilt trip from Logan has landed Dick in a crowded tent with Mac. With a lightening storm raging outside he can't sleep and it appears neither can she.

Rendezvous by: BIFF1   A collection of one-shots. In which Dick and Mac are forced together by fate or friends and hook up. Because I apparently really like writing them hooking up.

Secret Santa By: BIFF1   Saw this homemade sweater from hell prompt from VMficRec. It's a November challenge but I couldn't help myself. Just some fun when Mac pulls Dick's name for Secret Santa. She figures a six pack and porn until he makes a big deal about not wanting anything handmade. She can't really help herself, she spends the month knitting Dick a sweater.

[vantemei]

"what do you think happens when we die?"

jeongguk sits up and looks over at taehyung who lies on the roof next to him, eyes still staring up at the stars. jeongguk looks away for a moment, his brow furrows and he licks his lips once- twice, before he can gather the courage to look back at his friend.

"i don't know tae. what do you think happens?"

jeongguk is hesitant to lie down again, afraid that if he takes his eyes off of taehyung the older boy might fade into the haze of the night. it's an irrational fear but it takes root in his throat and works it's way down until it weighs heavily in his stomach.

"i think we forget everything."

jeongguk remains silent, hoping taehyung can read into the questions unspoken in the air. he can. of course he can. because he's taehyung and no one knows jeongguk better than taehyung.

"i think we forget everything. everyone. i think our souls are like dandelions and when we die; when we take our last breath, all of our memories - our whole lives - scatter in the wind."

there's silence for a few moments and jeongguk closes his eyes. he focuses on the sound of the wind as it rustles the leaves of the large maple tree that grows in his backyard. it's the same tree they used to climb up here so they could watch the stars. the leaves are fiery red with autumn but the ends are starting to yellow and brown, a sure sign of the even colder days ahead. it's already cold enough that jeongguk feels the bite of it through his thin hoodie. taehyung isn't even wearing a hoodie. only his pajama pants and the t-shirt he brought to sleepover in.

it's their last two weeks before school starts again and jeongguk's noticed taehyung's distance over the last few days. not necessarily a distance from jeongguk himself but a distance from life in general. taehyung's eyes no longer light up at the mention of their first year being in high together, jeongguk finally old enough to join taehyung. he seems more quiet. it makes jeongguk feel afraid. afraid that his friend is sad and he doesn't know why.

"i don't want to forget jeonggukie."

"what?" jeongguk shakes himself out of his thoughts and is surprised to see that taehyung is sitting up next to him, looking for all the world he might cry as he looks down at the younger boy.

"i don't want to forget you. never. you're my best friend."

"you're my best friend too taetae!" jeongguk scrambles to sit, hands reaching to join with taehyung's, already stretched towards him, and he winces at the grip of his hyung. it's doesn't hurt but he wasn't ready for it so feel so desperate.

"then do you promise you won't forget me? ever? that no matter what happens you'll always remember that we're best friends?"

"of course hyung! how could i ever forget you?" there's no humor in jeongguk's voice. nothing but baffled sincerity as he clutches taehyung's hand tighter and feels the sinking feeling grow stronger.

taehyung smiles and for the first time all day, it reaches his eyes, and suddenly the fear is gone. jeongguk sees his smile and smiles back, eyes crinkling and laughter tumbling out of his lips to match his hyung's because he knows as long as taehyung is smiling than everything will be ok.

 everything is not ok. taehyung is gone two days later. jeongguk finds out from his parents and they console the crying fourteen year old as long as they can before he locks himself in his room and cries himself to sleep.

taehyung's father had gotten a job offer in america and his parents, not wanting taehyung to have to make such a drastic move in the middle of high school, instead sent him to live with his grandmother back in daegu. taehyung had known about it for a week. jeongguk bites back the betrayal and cries, promises to the picture on his nightstand that he'll never forget his taehyung as long as he lives. the picture is the two of them at the beach, the summer in middle school when taehyung had gone on vacation with jeongguk's family to seongjeong beach. they're both smiling at the camera and taehyung is holding up a peace sign in one hand, completely unaware of the crab jeongguk is about to throw on him moments after the picture is taken. it's one of jeongguk's favorite memories.

the years go by. jeongguk makes it a year and a half into high school before he makes his first friend. a boy by the name of park jimin who is the same age as his taehyung. jeongguk's received no word from taehyung. he checked the mailbox everyday for six months before his family moved to a new neighborhood and their old was demolished and turned into a playground.

jimin is nice. he make jeongguk laugh and they become close friends quickly. jimin isn't taehyung but it's ok because jeongguk still has taehyung. tucked away deeply, hidden inside his heart in a place no else can touch.

when jimin graduates he cries. jeongguk laughs and pats him on the back, congratulating him for all his hardwork and his acceptance to seoul university. jimin promises to text him everyday he'll visit on the breaks. jeongguk send's him off with a smile that isn't aas forced as he thought it would be.

two more years pass and now it's jeongguk's turn to graduate. jimin comes to the ceremony with one of his friends, jung hoseok, in tow. jeongguk and hoseok become fast friends as well and they celebrate with jjangmyeon and cake. they help him pack his bags for university and two months later jeongguk wipes tears from his mother's eyes as she sees him off at the train station.

university is hectic. it's much more work than high school but it's so much more free too. jeongguk can finally pursue art in the way he's always dreamed to. he sticks close to his small circle of friends. jimin and hoseok convince him to join the dance team and he meets yugyeom, another first year who bonds with him about being the youngest in their separate friend groups. he meets namjoon in the philosophy lecture he wishes he never signed up for. the older boy is the TA and the smartest person jeongguk has met in his whole life he thinks.

he meets namjoon's boyfriend yoongi two weeks after he meets namjoon. he showed up at the older boy's dorm room to ask for help on his midterm and walked in on them sucking face on the couch. that was the first time jeongguk ever saw namjoon curse. yoongi took to jeongguk like grouchy old man takes to a cat he finds cute. he looks out for jeongguk and makes sure he's ok, even treats him to lamb skewers once in a while, but if you ask him about it jeongguk is a brat who'll never get a penny out of him.

jeongguk meet's seokjin when he needs a model for his art project. naturally, jeongguk decides to ask around the acting majors and hears about seokjin through the elders instagram. it's nerve wracking to show up at the cafe where he's supposed to meet seokjin but he orders an americano and waits patiently. it doesn't take more than ten minutes for the elder to show up, waving to jeongguk as he quickly hangs up a phone call and orders something that sounds like it has more calories than an entire cake.

"sorry i'm running a little late, my dongsaeng is being a brat because he lost his key to our apartment again and needs mine. i hope you don't mind, i told him he could come by and get it. it's won't even take a minute."

"yeah no,it's no problem."

from there the conversation flows smoothly and the agree on a date later that week for seokjin to come by the art building to model for jeongguk's first sketch.

it's twenty minutes into the conversation that the bell above the cafe door chimes and a burst of cold air brushes against the back of jeongguk's neck. a wave of anticipation floods him and he feels his mouth run dry as seokjin stands to wave at whoever entered the cafe.

"tae! i can't believe you lost your key again, i hope you know if you lose mine i'll kill you," seokjin teased with no malice in his voice.

footsteps approach the table and pause just beside jeongguk. "of course i won't hyung, i just left them at bogum hyung's again when we were working on that math project yesterday,"

his voice is deep. much deeper than it used to be. and his daegu drawl is tucked away beneath a well practiced seoul accent but jeongguk could pick that voice out in an air raid.

his head turns slowly and he's glad because if he thinks if he turned to quick then he would have been blinded by the beauty that radiates from the boy that stands beside him. he's changed so much but at the same time not at all. his eyes are the same brilliant amber and his skin the same sun-kissed honey golden glow of countless summer days spent outside.

his hair is different. instead of the deep natural black its a brilliant fiery red that reminds jeongguk of that night on his rooftop, the leaves of the maple tree brilliant against a backdrop of stars. kim taehyung stands in front of jeongguk every heart fluttering thought and warmth giving memory he expected him to be and more. his amber eyes widen when they land on jeongguk for a split moment and jeongguk feels his heart in his throat, the same way he did so many summers ago. 

"i'm sorry to interrupt your meeting with jinnie hyung. i'm kim taehyung, it's nice to meet you."

there's a stutter in jeongguk's heart, eyes flicking over taehyung one more time to be sure that it's really him but- yep. there's not a single doubt in his being that this is taehyung- his taehyung. so why is he-?

"ah, i know...hyung, i must look very different since then. it's me, jeongguk,"

taehyung's eyebrows draw together and seokjin glances between them for a moment before excusing himself to the bathroom.

"i'm sorry, have we met before?"

it feels like all the air's been punched from his chest and if he wasn't already sitting, jeongguk is sure his knees would have buckled.

"it's.. it's me...hyung?"

something about the way he says it, about the look on his face, makes taehyung's eyes go thin and his eyebrows turn up in an expression halfway between sorrow and regret.

"i'm sorry, did we...did we know each other? before 2010?"

2010? that's the year taehyung left. why is he asking that?

it takes a moment for jeongguk to gather his answer, to reclaim the breath that was stolen from him.

"that was the year you moved. because your parents got a job in america. you... did you really forget me?"

taehyung looks pained and jeongguk almost wishes he could take back what he said but at the same time the desire to know burns in him, a seven year old flame lit with love smothered in bitterness. bitterness at being left behind and, apparently, forgotten.

"i... i forgot everything actually. everyone." taehyung swallows and his eyes flicker across the room, over jeongguk's head, everywhere but jeongguk himself. "i was in an accident, when i was fifteen. the day i moved from seoul to daegu i was in a car accident and i lost all of my memories. all of them....i'm.. i'm sorry i don't remember you jeongguk-ssi, but... maybe we could be friends-”

"all right kids, i'm back! did you miss me?" seokjin's sudden reappearance makes both of them jump but relief is clear on taehyung’s face and he visibly shifts towards the elder, one hand sliding into the pocket of his long brown coat and the other reaching for seokjin, clenching tight around the keys seokjin slips into his palm.

"i'll see you at home hyung," taehyung's shoulders are tense as he turns to leave and jeongguk almost wants to call out to him, to hope desperately against all sense that maybe if taehyung sees him again, just once, he'll remember.

taehyung looks over his shoulder, eyes sliding over jeongguk's frame with the same guilty, sorrowful look, and the hope is dashed."it was nice to meet you again, jeongguk-ssi."

and then he's turning away, leaving the cafe much faster then he came in and with a much heavier set to his shoulders. seokjin says a few more things, asks about a specific time for them to meet and what kind of outfit or color palette jeongguk would prefer, but jeongguk can't really focus. mind to far gone, completely out the door with the beautiful boy who had kept it out of his own reach for seven years and had broken it in a mere second.

it's all he can do to politely wave goodbye when seokjin checks his phone and makes a small excuse about needing to buy dinner before leaving the cafe in almost as much a rush as taehyung, no doubt to comfort said man who had his tragic past dragged up by- to him- a mere stranger. he spends the afternoon in a daze, muscle memory guiding him to his dorm room where he brushes past his roommate and lies on his bed, eyes running over the picture he has set as his home screen. it's a picture of him and taehyung. it's the picture of them at seongjeong beach, wide smiles on both of their faces and the sun setting in the background.

he remembers the day taehyung left. the empty feeling that had consumed him when his mother had sat him down and told him that taehyung's parents had gotten a job offer in america they just couldn't refuse, and because of it taehyung had been sent to live with his grandmother. jeongguk thought of what taehyung had said on the rooftop that night, so many years ago.

"then do you promise you won't forget me? ever? that no matter what happens you'll always remember that we're best friends?"

"hyung... i kept my promise. i never forgot you, so...why did you forget me?"

for the first time in six years, jeongguk cries himself to sleep.