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monstersandmaw · 4 years ago

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Evening to ya, Ghosti✌️😆

Sorry if the wording sounds silly, but I wanted to ask if you know any rituals I could do for the New Years. 🤣 Christmas hasn't been exactly an easy time for me for various reasons and I tend to get the holiday blues pretty bad, and for a long old while New Years has felt very similar. I'm doing my best to feel hopeful and to have some faith for the new year, but it's turning out to be trickier than I anticipated. So I wanted to ask for suggestions as to do anything that could help feeling more hopeful, I dunno. :3

Though feel free to ignore this if you don't have the energy for it. I hope you had delightful holiday however you celebrated!!! 😊💖💖💖💖

Hey anon! (it’s now afternoon here in the UK, and it was morning when I started this! I got a bit carried away). I don’t know that I’m necessarily the right person to ask about this, but here are some ideas of things I’ve found helpful/centring/calming anyway which you could draw from. Other folks, please feel free to chime in with your favourite ways to put the old year to bed and welcome in the new one!

(first of all, I’m sending you lots of virtual ghostli hugs to help drive away those holiday blues. That sucks, and I’m so sorry it’s been so tough for you.)

Here’s a rundown of what’s below, and I’ll put in a ‘keep reading’ so that it’s not an incredibly long post! Some of it is more on the ‘spiritutal’ side of things, and others are just mundane and practical things.

Congratulate yourself on making it through the clusterfuck that was 2020

Make some tea and meditate on what’s been and what you wish for

Go outside, be still, and breathe deeply

Let go of negative events and thoughts by writing them down, then safely burning the paper

Disconnect from social media for a few days (or however long you’re comfortable with)

Start a bullet journal

Write lists of goals for 2021 and then refine/distill them down to 3 manageable objectives

Commit 100% to 6 months of positive change

Pick three dates/months in the year when good things will happen, and make them happen (including growing veg/fruit)

Light a candle on the full moon or New Year

Ok, so, first of all, you’ve made it through this year!! That’s no small accomplishment, given the sheer volume of absolute shite that has been flung at us from all angles, no matter where in the world you live. Celebrate that. Seriously, I’m not being flippant. Take a moment of stillness wherever you are, be ‘present’, and just think about the fact that you’re here, right now, reading this post. Not everyone is here any more for one reason or another, but you did it. Congratulate yourself and celebrate that. Treat yourself to a slice of cake (or something you really enjoy) specifically to celebrate making it through 2020.

Make a cup of tea (try a new blend or recipe perhaps, or stick with your absolute favourite), or make a comforting drink of your choice. As you pour the water into the cup, breathe in the steam and enjoy the scent of it. Try and imbue all the positive things - memories, achievements, moments etc. - that you encountered this year into the tea/drink, and think about them growing in strength as the tea steeps, and envisage them continuing on to next year too. When you drink the tea, you take the positive thoughts into yourself and they become a part of you. You could try it in the morning with a caffeinated drink (if you enjoy those) and let it fuel you for the day, or you could try a herbal tea at night to let the good vibes steep overnight while you rest. Make it part of your daily routine; a private meditation.

Go outside and find a quiet spot somewhere and either stand or sit and just soak up the atmosphere. If there’s a tree nearby, think about the way its roots are planted in the earth, its trunk stands tall, and its branches reach towards the sky. Feel that space inside you. Breathe deeply in and out, visualising your lungs filling to the deepest parts, starting at the bottom. Count to four for each inhale, and six out (or whatever you’re comfortable with, so long as the exhale is longer than the inhale). This will help to still you and calm you.

If you have something fireproof (can just be a ceramic bowl), take a piece of paper and make a moment to write down all the negative things about this year, using a pen that you’re comfortable with. If you’re not one for words, draw pictures. You can make it really beautiful or just scribble it all down - it doesn’t matter. Get that shit out. Look at it for a while and read it through, mentally letting go of each thing as your eyes pass over it, then light one corner (carefully!!!) and let it burn somewhere with good ventilation (a cooker hood is good for that, but outside is better). Visualise all that negativity being swallowed by the universe and let it go. My favourite line from the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf comes at Beowulf’s funeral when a Geat woman is singing her grief at his passing to the sky, and there’s the simple sentence: “Heaven swallowed the smoke.” How beautiful is that? The sky swallowed up her grief as she poured it out to the universe. The negativity might take some time to vanish from your life (it’s not going to disappear at the same time as the paper, sadly!), but watching it go can be the first stage of letting things go. I did this last year, and I’m only just letting go of the last things on that list, but it was a start, and it made me feel more at peace.

Disconnect from social media. I know that with so much more happening online this year out of necessity, we’ve become even more dependant on our phones and computers, and it’s wonderful that we have this chance to connect with people when we can’t see them face to face, but social media can also act as a crucible for negative feelings. People usually post the best or the worst aspects of what’s going on for them or what they care about, so it leads to a skewed view of both the world and of what’s going on amongst our connections. It’s easy to start feeling insignificant next to someone else because of their achievements or their looks etc. and it’s also easy to start to get a bleak outlook when the news is full of terrible stories and people are reacting to it in a volatile and often knee-jerk way. Take some time off - uninstall the apps, or put the limiter setting on, or just step back - for a day, two days, a week, whatever you’re comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be forever. If you use those platforms to talk to people, tell them what you’re doing, and give them another way to reach you if they need. No need to isolate yourself completely!! Think about how you felt before you started it (write it down?) and do the same afterwards, and compare. If it didn’t work for you, then that’s fine too.

Start a bullet journal! Now is the perfect time to start bullet journaling. I first started this year when I felt like time was slipping through my fingers and my life was out of my control, and it’s really helped me to get a sense of order back. It’s not the magic cure-all for procrastinators and time wasters, trust me, but it can help to organise your mind as well as your day, and keep track of your habits etc. It can be literally whatever tool you need it to be. There’s a trend on social media - particularly Instagram and YouTube - that shows off these gorgeous journals that are basically works of art in themselves, and while it’s absolutely fine to aspire to that if you want to, the essential point of the bullet journal is to be a tool. You can buy print-outs from Etsy if you don’t fancy doing your own spreads. But don’t get completely hung up on pretty spreads and layouts because you won’t use it fully then. If you’ve got ‘new book fear’, like I did, make your own! I literally started my journaling by folding a few pieces of paper over, slapping a few stickers on them to cheer them up, and writing some lists. I didn’t buy a ‘proper’ journal until July 2020 when I’d got the hang of what I wanted out of the tool, and how to use it. I adapted one or two things, and I’ll be changing one or two things for next year, but it was a good way to start.

Here are two ‘minimalist’ journals and styles that I found helpful when setting mine up. They focus on usefulness and practicality, rather than overwhelming, artistic spreads and cutesy designs. I’m about to do a ‘plan with me 2021’ journal video for YouTube, so I’ll put that up when I’ve finished it, in case that’s helpful.

Elsa Rhae

Pick Up Limes

Write down the things you want to achieve for 2021. These can be more abstract concepts like ‘more organised’ ‘healthier’ ‘start a business’ etc. Then, when you’ve got as many things as you’d ideally love to achieve/accomplish/manifest (don’t hold back at that stage), take another piece of paper and choose a maximum of six from that first lot to focus on, and below that, choose just three absolutely essential things to focus on. Make those your things for 2021.

Now, this one is a personal one for me, so it may not be applicable at all to you/others, but I’ll share it anyway. For me, I need to make some significant lifestyle changes for my physical and mental health. So, I’ve decided to commit to 6 months of really hard work to bring about those changes. Time is going to pass anyway, from January to June. Six months will come and go anyway. Where will I be in six months’ time? I could be physically and mentally exactly where I am today. That thought is super depressing to me. Or, I could devote 200% focus, commitment, and energy, and bring about those changes, and be the ‘me’ I want to be in six months’ time.

It’s like the adage of ‘given a week to write a speech, it will take you a week, but given a day to write the same speech, it will take you a day’ - your brain will tell you it takes the amount of time that you have at hand to accomplish the task, and that’s simply how long it then takes. Use those three things from the 2021 list above, and commit to making those three things happen.

As an aside, tell someone (whose opinions you value) that you’re going to do this. By telling someone, you’re helping to cement the idea in reality, and you’ve got a support to turn to if it gets rocky, someone to cheer you on, and someone to celebrate with who knew what a struggle and commitment this was to you in the first place.

Pick three points in the year where good things will happen. Book yourself something nice, save up for something and have it delivered then, or tell yourself that you will have achieved [x] by May, or September, or December. For me, it’s a working draft of my novel, and certain health goals by October, but make it yours, and keep those points fixed in your mind. It will help 2021 not to be one amorphous mass of time, and will give it structure and form. You could also choose to grow something in a pot - lots of vegetables can be grown cheaply from seed in a pot on a windowsill, and you’ll have something tasty to eat at the end of it!!

Here’s a slightly gentler idea to finish with:

On New Year’s Eve take a moment to yourself, go outside if it’s not raining or too cold etc., light a candle, hold it (safely) in your hands, and be still. It doesn’t have to be exactly at midnight, but it will help your focus if it’s dark. Otherwise, go to a quiet part of the house and turn the lights down so that the candle flame is your focus. As before, think about what you’ve achieved this year, and be honest, not just negative! It’s very easy to say ‘oh I didn’t achieve anything, it all sucks, it was all awful’, when there will be tiny victories tucked away in there, I promise you, even if it was the toughest year of your life. Then think about where you are at the moment, mentally and physically. Acknowledge that state of being. Look at it with honest eyes. This moment is not for anyone else, so you don’t need to colour it one way or another. It’s for you. If you’re finding it hard not to be negative, be neutral. Let those thoughts come and go, and then turn your mind to the future. Mentally feed those negative thoughts into the flame in front of you, one at a time. Say it out loud if that helps, but do what makes you comfortable. Let the light from the flame fill your mind and your heart, and think about your intentions for the new year.

Tonight (30th Dec) is a full moon, so if that is significant for you, you may wish to do this tonight instead of tomorrow.

I hope that some of that gives you some inspiration, and I hope that people will chime in with their own new year’s rituals and habits. Be honest with yourself but not harsh, and be positive but not unrealistic. This year has been one hell of a ride, and we’re not done yet... Here in the UK, we’ve got the highest numbers of Covid that we’ve ever had, we’re in the harshest lock down (Tier 4) and can’t visit anyone, and we’re also going through Brexit (which is proving a nightmare for everyone, especially small businesses...).

Control the things you can control, and learn and employ systems to ride out the things that are beyond your influence. And take heart - you have a family of folks on here, all across the world!

#new year ritual #new year #resolutions #new year resolutions #rituals #ritual

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clevercatchphrase · 4 years ago

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2020 Year Review~

2020. Pretty unique year, don’t you think? It’s the first year since 2002 to have only two different digits in it. After 2022, this won’t happen again until 2111. Yep. Absolutely nothing more interesting than that.

Anyway! It’s time I reflect on my 2020, look back on my yearly goals and rant about things that happened to me this year. I made a post like this last year, where I went over my 2019 goals and talked about what I accomplished and what I didn’t, and it’s only fitting I do the same again this year. Read more under the cut for a random stream of consciousness ramble!

So, first things first, let’s look at my 2019 goals;

Finish paying off that last student loan

Put more stuff on my redbubble

Illustrate my own fan fics

Sew at least one stuffed animal

Make an enamel pin

Read one new book a month

Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make

Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch

Boost my patreon

Paying Off My Last Student Loan: Going down the list, I am proud to say that I FINALLY paid off all my student loans! (and not a moment too soon. The last payment I made was literally days before the first quarantine rolled out). It took me roughly 4 years on my part-time paycheck to pay off all my loans, and once I finished, I had no money to my name (literally; I had less than 1k as emergency money in case of car troubles or health issues). Heck, I’m STILL living at home as a save up for a place of my own. Finally paying off all my student loans DID activate my secret 2020 new year’s resolution, which was to adopt a cat! I did this too, literally a week later! She is the best thing that’s happened to me this entire year and I love her so much and she is the snuggliest cuddle bug I’ve ever met. I’m so happy she’s in my life now~

Put More Stuff On My Redbubble: ah ha ha ha… I thought I did this, but then I went and checked, and it turns out-! I did not. I made art I intended to go on my redbubble, but haven’t put there yet. They are all drawings of some OCs from a game I want to make, but because I haven’t progressed on making the game this year, I never got around to putting more stuff related to it on my redbubble. At the time of writing, there are 7 days left in December, so I guess I could go and put it up on my redbubble right now, but without context on where the characters are from, there wouldn’t be much point, now would there?

Illustrate My Own Fan Fics: Another goal that I was so stoked to actually do… and then just didn’t. Gee, I wonder why I couldn’t find the energy or motivation to do it this year? Truly a conundrum. (Hey, you know what? If Ghost Switch counts as a fan fiction in a visual form, then I am doing GREAT on this goal. 2.5 years in, 1 of ~4 arcs done, and still going steady~)

Sew At Least One Stuffed Animal: Okay, I have a valid excuse for not doing this one. I even knew which stuffed animal I wanted to make, and had the pattern drawn out and everything, but I had no money for materials because I had just paid off my student loans. And then, by the time I did have enough money again, quarantine was in full effect and I couldn’t go out to the fabric store. I’m still trying my best to stay out of public places even if the rules are laxer now, because I don’t want to catch the plague even if everyone in my goddamn city thinks and acts like the problem is over already. Even if they’re all wearing masks, even if they’re staying 6 feet apart, I still don’t want to risk it. I will stay inside until health experts give the all clear, and when that day comes, then I will buy some fleece and make a plush.

Make An Enamel Pin: I ACTUALLY DID THIS ONE. TWICE! Halfway through quarantine, I was feeling anxious and depressed about my job and how they were planning to have me work with the public despite climbing infection rates and positive covid cases. I didn’t quit then, but in a desperate move to try and become self-sufficient, I went to madebycooper and made two enamel pins based on some butterfly dragons I drew last year. They’re on my etsy store now! I even went out of my way to open a P.O. box just to start a small business! I haven’t sold a single pin yet, and I’m actually really nervous to sell my first because I don’t trust the efficiency of the postal system thanks to the actions of the GOP that really screwed them over this year! (If you would like to see my enamel pins, click here!)

Read One Book A Month: I did this! With dragon books I bought a couple years back! In fact, I read FOURTEEN dragon books, and still have more books for next year to read! The 14 books I read this year were:

The Hive Queen

The Poison Jungle

Wings Of Fire Legends: Dragonslayer

Dealing With Dragons

Searching For Dragons

Calling on Dragons

Talking to Dragons

The Bronze Dragon Codex

The Brass Dragon Codex

The Black Dragon Codex

The Red Dragon Codex

The Silver Dragon Codex

Dragon Strike, and

Hatching Magic

To be honest, I had read The Red Dragon Codex years ago when it first came out, but completely forgotten what it was about. I remembered liking it, and I knew the reading level was on the lower side, but the whole dragon codex series was pretty good! So far, the Silver dragon codex was my favorite, and black dragon codex was probably the worst! Hatching Magic was also really slow and bad and had plot points that went nowhere, but the book was written in the 80s, so I don’t know what I expected. The Dealing with Dragons series was very charming and great for the most part, save for one line in the last book that really rubbed me the wrong way, and all the Wings of Fire Books go above and beyond in this third arc. The second legends book could be a little tighter, though (sky and wren are the best duo and I want a book solely about them, but I honest to god do not care about leaf and ivy’s stories.)

Write one Page of any story every day/ complete at least one fic: I… did this? Okay, I kinda cheated near the end of the year. I was keeping up the one page a day thing for the first four months, but then the world went to shit and my schedule and habits got disrupted and I fell off my good track record. I completed 7 out of roughly 12 one-shots I had planned for this year (my goal WAS supposed to be one short a month, but… you know how it happens) I kept trying to catch up on this goal all year, but the days kept piling up…. Until November hit. I managed to write over 250 pages for Nanowrimo, and I consider this goal a win. 365 pages of fiction in total, which averages out to about one a day~. SHUT UP IT COUNTS.

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make: Another goal I didn’t have the mental energy to commit to this year. Truly a mystery to where all our willpower went in 2020.

Fully Finish Scripting Ghost Switch: still haven’t done this one yet! The Snowdin arc is completely planned, but I just haven’t gotten around to getting the other areas. I’m not worried, though. I know all the major plot points I gotta hit, it’s just weaving them together in a way that flows nice is the final task. I’m not too worried though. I don’t expect to finish the Snowdin arc for another year and a half, at the bare minimum.

And my last goal of 2020, Boost My Patreon. I did this at the beginning of the year, but then very intentionally stopped about a third of the way through. It didn’t sit right with me to tell you guys to donate to me when suddenly EVERYONE was financially strained from layoffs or being furloughed. I told my patrons the same, and if you ever need to stop donating to me to take care of yourself first, then by all means, please do. I would feel much better knowing you’re using your money to see yourself fed and housed instead of given to me (where it is pretty much only used to buy gas for my car, honestly)

Welp! That was all my goals for 2020! I achieved 4 out of 10 goals plus 1 secret goal! Pretty much the same ratio as last year, but now this time I can blame all my failures on the pandemic! I don’t feel so bad about myself anymore~

ON TO 2021!

I have 11 goals for the new year, again some rolled over from this list, and some from even older years. They are, in no particular order;

Read 12 new books (roughly 1 book a month)

Finish the first draft of 2019’s Nanowrimo project and rewrite it

Script TDV

Finish Scripting Ghost Switch

Build A Comic Buffer

Sew 1 Stuffed Animal

Finish 1 Song Comic

Make another Enamel Pin

Finish 2 short original comics (this one counts as 2 goals)

Finish the 5 remaining one-shot fics

Now to go into depth on each one, more for my own sake, really. I want to know exactly what I have planned for each goal this year, and sometimes just looking at a short list doesn’t capture all the smaller details.

1)Read 12 new books. Same as last year! I The only difference is I might not be able to make it all dragon-related books. (I try my hardest not to buy from amazon anymore, but half-price-books doesn’t always have the obscure stuff I’m looking for)

2)Finish 2019’s nanowrimo project. If you read my 2019 year reflection, you’ll notice I said I wanted to do some original writing. And I did! The story I wrote for nanowrimo back then was a story I’ve been toying with since 2017, but it was only last year I finally got pen to paper. Now, you may find it odd that the keyword says “finish”. You may think, “but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for nanowrimo?” and to that I say, WRONG! I wrote 50k words for nanowrimo, but the draft was only about halfway complete. I was kinda discouraged about what I had written last year, because I didn’t like how it was coming out, but I did manage to get it half done. Now it’s time for me to bite the bullet and just finish the thing so I can finally revise it and make it into something I DO like. (It’s still gonna be hella long, tho. That’s what I get for trying to write an epic fantasy, I guess.)

3)Script TDV. TDV is the abbreviation of the game I want to make. I… still need to do so much for this project OTL… In addition to getting the story solidified, I still need to draw art and game assets, and learn how to code for it, both of which are no small task. I keep having some sort of new year’s goal related to this on my list, and every year I just don’t hit this one. Will 2021 be different?

4)Finish Scripting Ghost Switch. (Or at the very least, get the waterfall arc completely written out). I have a plan to break this down into simpler steps, by focusing on just one arc for a month or two. Every major arc has 2 to 3 parts, broken up by flashbacks, and if I can just finish one section a month, then I should have the entire thing scripted by the end of the year. It’s not a difficult pace, but seeing if I stick with it will be the real challenge, as it is will all my goals it seems.

5)Build a Comic Buffer: I’m actually working on this one right now! Since I paid off my last loan and got a new job this year, my current Patreon goals are kind of out of date. They had all been centered around me paying off that last loan, and working towards full-time employment, but those are both completed now! So instead, I would love to get to a place where my patrons could read pages at least a week ahead, and to do that, I need to build a buffer. And since I’m working 5 full days a week now, I can’t afford to fall behind. But you can’t fall behind if you constantly stay ahead! I would like to have… a 10 to 12 page buffer. That’s roughly 3 months’ worth of pages to always have on hand in case I get swamped with work, or something. Right now I currently have a buffer of 3, which will cover me for half a January, which is better than not having anything at all, but still not the best. (ultimately, I would love to have a buffer so big, I could queue them up for the whole year. Wouldn’t that be something?)

6) Sew one stuffed animal: same as last year. ASSUMING the plague gets under control in 2021, I don’t expect to get to this goal until the summer at the earliest.

7)Finish 1 song comic: I have 7 song comics planned. One is a gift, one possibly for wandersong, one is a collab that’s currently in the works, but I’m waiting on a friend to do their part before I can continue mine, 2 are UT related, and 2 (well, technically 3, but one is the collab) are KH related. It’s one of the UT ones that will probably get finished, if I’m being honest. It’s completely story boarded, and now I just need to ink and color it. I would like to get it done for UT’s 6th birthday, since I made a song comic on the fly for the anniversary this year, and it was fun, and I’d like to do it again! So, look forward to that next september~

8) Make another enamel pin: I have a dolphin design I’d like to make because dolphins are cute, if not little murder machines. (need to save up some expendable income first, tho. THESE THINGS AIN’T CHEAP TO MAKE.)

9 and 10) start and finish 2 original short comics: I’ve got some comic ideas I want to do, but I need to get them written out first. I don’t think either would be too long. Each maybe a couple “episode’s” length, if envisioned on a website like webtoons or tapas. They’d both be heavy in allegory, but not overly drawn out (hopefully)

11)And lastly, Finish the 5 remaining one-shots I had planned for this year but never got around to. I’m going to try to write one every other month. Pure self-indulgent shipping fluff. If I finish these 5, then maybe I’ll ask other people for more prompts and ideas, which I’ve never done before. We’ll see how it goes~

Also, Like last year, I’d like to look at everything that’s happened to me this year, though to be honest, I’m not sure how much I remember/how accurate it’ll be. God, I don’t even remember what January was like. Who was I back then? Who were we all back then? I guess I’ll start my yearly retrospective in march because, heh, god we ALL know what started happening in march.

Firstly, I paid off my last student loan! Then a week later on March 18th, I drove half an hour out of my city to adopt a cat and I love her and it was the best day of this year for me. Spring break is just beginning this weekend, but the attendance at the zoo is shockingly low this year. Apparently, a lot of people watch the news, and they’re all taking precautions about social distancing. I wasn’t too disappointed. Fewer people at the zoo, the easier my job is for me. I was looking forward to getting some free overtime on spring break, since I’m broke after paying off that loan, and I’m a cat parent now and have a furry child to feed. Monday rolls around. My manager calls me and tells me that the zoo is going into lockdown until further notice. I worry for the birds I take care of, but understand it’s for everyone’s safety.

For two months I sleep in and watch way too much YouTube. I join a couple writing discords. I have nightmares about my birds escaping their enclosure and I dreamed one of the security guards I really like at the zoo gets covid and has to go to the ER. I woke up really upset.

I started and finished BBS for the first time. I also replayed and finished KH2 final mix for the first time. It had been about 5 years since I last played KH2 before my PS2 died, and it was like coming home~ I also finished tearaway, and played and beat Ryme for a second time (which I can’t remember if I did that last year, but it was a fun experience regardless)

Mid-June, and I’m allowed to start going back to work, be it on reduced hours. The zoo is still closed to the public, but I’m loving it! I get to work with full-time keepers and do full-time keeper things. It’s so much fun not having to deal with the public. August starts to creep up and there’s a rumor that the zoo will be opening to the public again, which I’m not stoked about. I don’t want to go back to standing in one exhibit all day, talking to guests who don’t listen to the rules or to me. 2 of my younger coworkers (who had both only been there a couple of months) get chosen for full-time positions, while I get passed up which really pisses me off. My other 2 coworkers quit when they think we might be reopening because they cannot risk catching the virus due to at-risk family. I am now the last keeper in the interactive bird exhibit.

I keep working, the zoo slowly opens, but with me as the only interpreter in our interactive bird exhibit, we can’t open because I can’t run the entire exhibit by myself. So my exhibit stays closed. September comes and goes, and then October starts. Now there is more serious talk of opening my exhibit before the end of the year because the zoo expects to bring in larger crowds for the Christmas lights event in November/December. I ask if I get hazard pay or health insurance since I’m doing full-time hours until they hire more staff. They say no.

I immediately start searching for a new job feeling incredibly indignant/hurt/slighted/insulted/used/abused/ALL the negative feelings at my job. I had been there for 4 years, but never got a chance to work full time, while the two newest hires who had only been there 2 months both got moved up. I can’t help but feel they were holding one mistake I made two years ago against me and never wanted to give me a chance. (that, or they knew I was reliable when it came to showing up for work in such a volatile position that sees a lot of new faces, and they didn’t want to bother going through the process of hiring someone new) I don’t want to risk my life working around guests who don’t wash their hands and don’t properly distance. I don’t want to gamble with my health when they won’t offer me health insurance because I’m part time.

Mid October, I get an interview for a full time job and get hired on the spot. I peace out at the zoo 2 weeks later, literally 3 days before they planned to open my exhibit to the public. It was a close call for me to escape before they opened to the public (and pettiness was only partially the reason I dipped out so close to opening). Sorry new hires who are now in charge of the bird feeding exhibit. I taught you the best I could in the short time I had. If the managers are struggling with what to do with one less person, I can’t say I feel bad. I can only hope they delayed opening/closed you down again for your own safety. You are not lightbulbs. I really hope the higher ups stop considering you as replaceable as one. Will I go back to the zoo to visit? Probably. But not for a year at least.

I started my new job the very next day after I quit the zoo, and have been there ever since, (which isn’t that long yet, tbh. Christmas day was my 2 month anniversary). It’s full time, but it’s also a small business, and everyone’s hours this year have been on the short side due to the plague. I understand, though. They don’t want us to work if they can’t afford to pay us. Everyone is nice enough, though some people smoke and it’s hard to avoid them with how frequently we have to go in and out, and I really don’t want to get lung cancer, sorry not sorry, please and thank you. Also, with such a small team, gossip is certainly harder to go undetected, so it’s a relief knowing people don’t talk behind one another’s backs.

I participated and beat my 4th nanowrimo in a row, I made TWO apple crisps on thanksgiving, and made baklava on Christmas and both of these recipes were my first time making them, and they both came out adequately! I voted the first day of early voting, and I did an art trade/collab with two of my friends for my birthday! (normally we would have done monthly “art days” where we get together and do art projects for fun because we’re adults and we can spend our time together however we want, but the plague said otherwise this year) We drew pokemon and it was fun! (hopefully I can show you all the results soon. At the time of writing, I’m still waiting for the last two colored parts to get back to me)

I reached 100 pages on my undertale comic, and finish the first arc out of…! (im not sure. It’s either going to be 4 or 5, I haven’t decided yet)

Over all, I managed to stay healthy as far as I know. I wasn’t as productive as I wanted to be this year, but then again, who was? (don’t answer that. I don’t need that kind of comparison in my life right now)

Will 2021be any better? Honestly? I don’t think so. Not right away, at least. Just because a new year is about to start does not mean the slate is completely wiped clean. The change of the calendar year doesn’t magically make all our current problems disappear. Covid will still be here and cases will still climb when January starts. Small business will still be strained when the month rolls over, police will still go on murdering innocent civilians and getting away scot free, amazon and disney will still be monopolizing all consumer goods and media, and I can’t help but feel like there’s an impending shit show about to go down on inauguration day. I do hope things will get better, though. It’ll be arduous and unpleasant, but I do hope things will improve, because sometimes hoping is all you can do.

Good night.

#long post #new year's resolutions #year review #year retrospective

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 5 years ago

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days of the week are going to seem even more unreal next week because I have Monday off (Seward’s Day) and most people don’t, but anyway, yet another probably unrealistic list of things I’d like to get done, including everything I did today already crossed out to make myself feel better:

drop off mail-in ballots for muni election

visit one of my ISP’s few open stores to trade our apparently very old modem in for a new one

haul our recycling to the actual recycling center, since I take most of it to work and recycle it there but that’s obviously...not happening now

donate my very small amounts of extra PPE to the city (a box of nitrile gloves I didn’t need, four N95 masks we must have bought last year when the wildfire smoke was so bad, a pair of safety glasses I honestly have no idea where or when I got but considering I only use mine with my rotary tool I don’t need two pairs)

make a post on a local Facebook group to see if anyone can use an old but unopened box of latex gloves I just found in my car, because the city won’t take them out of (completely reasonable) allergy concerns, and I can’t use them either because I have a mild latex allergy myself (which is how I know I must have bought it at least a few years ago), but I’d prefer not to just throw them out if anyone can possibly use them

close some tabs...by saying “fuck it” and buying some stuff...but like, it’s mostly from Etsy and similar independent shops that are maybe hurting because of all the canceled conventions so that makes it good timing, right??

put away clothes

cut?? my hair?? I was told that trying to give myself a pixie cut is “mega hard mode” of self-haircuts and I’m sure that’s true, but other people have told me “yes, fuck it, cut it off, hell just buzz it” and I don’t think I have...anything with which I could actually buzz it...but I do have scissors and a hatred for my current hair that deepens with every passing day, so like...how bad could it possibly be, especially since virtually no one is going to see me for another two weeks minimum

write up an actual will, with my dad’s help because he’s a lawyer and he did do this professionally. also turn my notes on a supplemental “here are my preferences for what happens to my not-monetarily-valuable shit, and yes I’m sure this isn’t legally binding but if you deliberately ignore it you’re a fucking asshole” letter into an actual letter that I can like, print and keep with the will

related: adjust the beneficiaries on my life insurance policies at least a little bit, because...well, coming up with stuff when you can’t imagine it being used for a long time is one thing, and thinking about it some more in the middle of a fucking pandemic is another thing entirely

also semi-related: see what I have with American Income Life because I honestly don’t know (it’s also super cool how they always had to meet with me in person once a year to check that everything was accurate and try to sell me other policies, but now of course that can be done over the phone)

put together a hospital go-bag, because...it wouldn’t be hard, it would basically just be my existing overnight bag with a few additions, and it’s something else that I’m maybe not super likely to need but I’m also really going to want it if I do need it

make a list of exercises I should try to do regularly, from PT and just in general

make some changes to my Etsy shop because like...I have no idea how long the supply chain for extremely nonessential things like Funko figures will stay the same given, you know, the fucking pandemic, so I need to at least add notes like “if you want a custom for the love of God message me first, otherwise I cannot possibly guarantee that I will be able to get the parts you want within a reasonable amount of time or possibly at all”

finish the thread about free games that I meant to finish...a week and a half ago (I mean it’s not like I think anyone’s actually waiting for it, but still)

leave more voicemails for my legislators

post photos of some recent...art things...I did with @erlkonigstochter and family

type??

maybe even try to write???

write some postcards to voters, finally, given that this is a thing I definitely can do and I’ve been meaning to do it for ages?

answer a very old email?

post at least a few recent things in my drafts, this really shouldn’t be hard

make a spiced-tea mix

...........okay so I know this is an even longer list than usual but a) I’ve already done a few of them, b) some are very short, and c) I wrote a whole fucking paragraph for some of these list items so like...maybe the list looks worse than it is?? (not likely, but I can pretend.)

#for future reference #plagueblogging #death tw #I mean I did mention wills and life insurance

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popculty · 5 years ago

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Surviving the Coronapocalypse: A Masterpost

Living in the current coronavirus capital of the U.S., I’ve been thinking a lot about how woefully unprepared my city was, and how I can help other people who will likely be in the situation we’ve been in within the next few weeks or months. There have been a LOT of posts - from memes to crap advice to solid advice to a misspelled hashtag that somehow blew up without anyone noticing. It’s been all over the place and kind of overwhelming, honestly. So instead of reblogging a million individual posts, I wanted to consolidate some of the most useful information/resources I’ve come across into one handy, update-able reference post. And because this a pop culture blog, there’s gonna be plenty of that sprinkled in. This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list, by any means - that would be impossible, considering how many angles there are to this thing and how quickly it’s evolving. But feel free to use this as a starter, and add to it as you come across other resources worth sharing.

First, protect your health:

1. I can’t believe in the year 2020, 150 years after germs were discovered, that we have to even say this, but: Wash your hands, people. This seems obvious, and we hear it constantly, and yet I keep seeing people use hand sanitizer like it’s the same as hand-washing. Not-so-fun fact: IT ISN’T. Not even close (so double fuck this guy!). First of all, it’s only effective against some types of germs. Secondly, it does NOT kill or remove those germs, it just temporarily neutralizes them, allowing them to resurface later. Hand sanitizer should only be used when hand-washing is not an option. It’s better than nothing, but is not a long-term habit that will save you. If you are going to use hand sanitizer, it needs to contain at least 60% alcohol to be effective. Alcohol, however, dries the fuck out of your hands, and germs love dry skin because they can hide in the cracks. So it’s important to moisturize afterward. But I’ll say it louder for the people in the back (esp. men who still haven’t figured out how bathroom hygiene works and then wonder why they’re dying at much higher rates from this): JUST 👏 WASH 👏 YOUR 👏 DAMN 👏 HANDS! 👏 Scrub for 20-30 seconds, like Kristen Bell told you. There are a million memes for this. Find one that speaks to you, or make your own, and use it.

2. “Social distancing” - By now we’ve all heard of this, and it’s a good thing for everyone to start doing right about now, regardless of whether or not you are feeling symptoms, because as Idris Elba just reminded us (bless), many people do not show symptoms, for weeks or even ever. So: try to stay six feet away from other people as much as possible. If you can’t avoid getting close to people, just make it quick. The latest info is that it’s not airborne (thank god), but transmitted via droplets (i.e. from coughing), so it really doesn’t matter whether you’re inside or outdoors.

3. And now a word from my infectious disease specialist mom who is working on the front-lines of this: 📣 If you have symptoms (fever, cough, shortness of breath), stay home and take care of yourself like you would if you had the flu. Do not go out in public unless you absolutely have to, (i.e. you are literally dying and require medical attention) and if you do, WEAR A SURGICAL MASK. IF YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCING SYMPTOMS, YOU DO NOT NEED TO WEAR A MASK – THEY SHOULD ONLY BE WORN BY PEOPLE WHO ARE SICK/COUGHING (to stop those droplets), AND BY HEALTH CARE WORKERS. DO NOT HOARD MASKS FOR PERSONAL USE - THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY USELESS TO YOU AND IT DIVERTS THEM FROM THE DOCTORS AND NURSES WHO ACTUALLY NEED THEM. 📣 Thank you.

4. If you can stay home, stay home. Simple as that. Sure, flights are cheap and we all love a deal but at what cost, Becky?? Just because you can fly (you’re young! you’re healthy! you’re feeling lucky! you *hair flip* just don’t give a fuck!), doesn’t mean you can’t show some goddamn personal restraint and concern for your fellow (elderly, at-risk) human beings. If you won’t listen to me, listen to Wonder Woman. Participate in the #stayhomechallenge and #dontbeaspreader.

5. Inform yourself. The news is doing a really good job of sowing general panic and not much else. And obviously, the situation is literally changing everyday, but here are the basics you should know, via handy infographics. To keep up with the latest, I recommend this interactive map and Science Vs., an investigative science podcast that is currently doing a series of episodes on the ever-changing COVID-19 situation. It does a really good job of painting a picture of how this virus actually spreads, who is at risk, and what a pandemic would actually look like. The “Pandemic” episode of Explained on Netflix is also proving incredibly prescient right now.

Be a decent human being:

The truth is, if you know the facts, coronavirus isn’t actually that scary. What is scary is uninformed people acting impulsively and selfishly. Like, there is no logical reason for the run on toilet paper (coronavirus doesn’t even make you shit!). The reason there is no toilet paper in your grocery store is because a handful of excitable people panicked and bought up all the Charmin they saw. Then other people panicked when they saw the empty shelf and thought, “I guess I should be stockpiling tp too ??” So they did. Then other people came to the grocery store, saw the empty shelves, and posted pictures of those empty shelves on social media. And now everyone in the entire world is freaking out about toilet paper, for no goddamn reason. This scarcity (of tp, of Purell, etc), is a human-created problem, not an outbreak-created problem. Whereas, if everyone had remained calm and bought only what they needed, we could have avoided this entire headache. But people are gonna people, I guess. (If you’re still freaking out about toilet paper though, you should really just invest in a bidet, which is far more sanitary and better for the environment anyway.)

All this is to say: Think before you act. Stop tweeting pictures of empty shelves - you’re only fueling the fire. And don’t use the climate of fear and uncertainty as an excuse to act like a shitty person. When things return to normal, your actions right now will be remembered by those around you. So:

1. Take a look at this graph. If you’re healthy and young (under 60), don’t be a dick. Before you snatch every last roll of toilet paper or bottle of cold remedy off the shelf, considering leaving some for the grandmother behind you who’s probably terrified and has only just now risked leaving her house for this one grocery run, only to find the shelves bare.

2. Moreover, instead of getting swept up into the panic-buying and selfish hoarding, consider buying/delivering groceries for the elderly and at-risk, who are unable to leave their homes. Find out what volunteer opportunities have sprung up in your community to specifically address outbreak-related needs.

3. Donate to food banks - People who have been furloughed from their jobs will have an even harder time putting food on the table, and kids that depend on free school meals will still need to eat if their school is closed.

4. Support local businesses. Big businesses will weather this just fine, but your mom-and-pop store down the street? Your local grocer? They’re hurting already and might not be able to survive weeks or months of low sales or even closing down for a period of time. So...

Buy from local stores rather than big chains as much as possible.

If you are eating/ordering out, choose local, and especially Asian restaurants, who are really hurting right now, and because again: YOU CANNOT GET CORONAVIRUS FROM FOOD. YOU’RE JUST BEING RACIST.

If you don’t want to eat out at all right now (probably advisable), buy gift cards to local restaurants for yourself or others – This will support struggling business now when they need it, and then you can cash in on them when things calm down a bit.

Likewise, if you have tickets to a play, show, etc that gets cancelled, consider not asking for a refund and instead making that a donation to your local stage company, independent cinema, arts center, etc.

If you live in a city where a large event with many local vendors gets cancelled, find out if there is an alternative pop-up event to support those vendors, or buy from them on Etsy. Many artists and craftspeople depend on one huge, annual event like a fair or Con for their entire year’s earnings, so having that event postponed or cancelled is a huge financial blow to them. For example, when Emerald City Comic-Con got pushed til August, this lovely Twitter thread popped up to support the artists.

Maintain your sanity:

The other big thing we are starting to realize is that this social distancing is going to cause a loneliness epidemic in countries that are already some of the loneliest in the world. We don’t know how long these measures will be in place, so we need to prepare ourselves, mentally/emotionally:

1. Take a breath - Even worst-case scenario, this isn’t the end of the world. Try to keep perspective. Apps like Happify, Calm, or any of these can help keep obtrusive thoughts at bay, provide guided mindfulness meditations and breathing exercises, and help center you when you feel like the world is spinning out of control. This is likely going to be a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself and be proactive about your mental health.

2. Stay connected – We have more ways to keep in touch virtually now than ever before.

FaceTime, Marco Polo, Discord – Use technology to check in with your friends and family.

Podcasts are a great way to feel connected to others right now. Death, Sex, and Money just did a listener call-in episode, which was a good reminder that this outbreak is affecting people differently across city, state, country, race, class, gender, and ability. Another one of my faves that is going to be applicable to more people than ever in these coming months is The Hilarious World of Depression, in which comedians like Rachel Bloom, Solomon Georgio, and Margaret Cho talk about mental illness and comedy. In one especially relevant episode, Mara Wilson talks about how people with anxiety tend to handle crisis much better than neurotypicals (which explains how I’m so zen right now...)

3. Keep busy - Not being able to go out and socialize like we are used to is likely to make a lot of us stir-crazy. But there are a ton of things you can do and see from the comfort of your own home.

Go on a virtual museum tour, or see the Palace of Versailles.

Take a soothing, 8-hour virtual drive through Iceland.

Watch operas at The Met.

Explore NASA’s stunning media library.

Tackle your book list.

Start writing that novel (or finish that fic!)

File your taxes (Get that return!)

Do your spring cleaning.

Plant a victory garden to reduce the strain on producers and avoid crowded stores.

Binge the shows your friends keep telling you about (follow this blog and podcast for recs!)

If you have kids, here’s a list of all the free educational courses being offered right now.

Libraries may be closed, but you can still get free ebooks, music, movies and TV shows on the Hoopla app, and movies on Kanopy for free if you have a library card or are a student or teacher.

Some upcoming theatrical releases have been postponed (No Time to Die, indeed), but others, like Emma and The Invisible Man, will hit streaming platforms immediately, so you can still get your new movie fix.

So many things to do! Try not to see it as being confined, but rather as an opportunity to do all the things you’ve been putting off. If getting shit done makes you feel good, do it! But hey - remember that you really don’t have to be productive right now just because capitalism tells you to. This is also a great time to be still and relish doing absolutely nothing.

4. Perspective - Remember that this is not the only thing happening in the world right now (psst, the U.S. government is using this distraction to fuck with our privacy, AGAIN.) Also, this is not the first pandemic humanity has endured and it will be nowhere near the worst, so soothe yourself by reading about past pandemics and how we got through them.

Alright. Back to covering pop culture for me (we’re gonna need escapism now more than ever). I’m not gonna even try to update this regularly, that’s just too daunting. But I encourage you to add to this and share as needed in the coming weeks/months.

Stay safe out there, and

#coronapocalypse #coronavirus #resources #advice #health #self care #orig

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sleepypotatostudio · 5 years ago

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PLEASE HELP

I really didn't want to resort to this... I feel terrible and pathetic

In October my boyfriend and I lost our jobs at a local theater, they did it via email the day before we were supposed to come in for our shift and gave no reason. We had just gone to a UNPAID company meeting at 8 am the day before where they didn't feed us and talked about using us for free advertising. We didn't even complain because we were so tired from closing the night before and hadn't actually gotten to sleep. Not even all their employees showed up to this 'mandatory' meeting.

It was heartbreaking to realized we didn't matter. I was starting to realize it a few weeks earlier when they started talking about making US buy non-slip shoes if we wanted to keep working. This was because the company had just been sued by another employee who slipped and fell on the job. we were making minimum wage and could already barley afford rent, we couldn't have afforded they buy the shoes anyway so I guess I can feel a little blessed considering I had not bought them yet.

I’m so thankful my boyfriend has another job and has been doing his best to support us both(I can't thank him enough), but it’s not enough to keep us going anymore. I've been desperately applying for work from home jobs but no one seems to want to hire me. I can't bring myself to work another retail job after I quit my job at Meijer in July after 5 years of basically being tortured (being payed less then their new starting pay and doing my managers jobs for them). My boyfriend saw how bad I was being treated and told me I had to stop, it was killing me and I didn't want to admit it. I’m so grateful he helped me build up the courage to leave but unfortunately we have run out on money and are not making enough to pay next months rent or bills anymore.

Please consider commissioning me to draw your portrait, here is the link to my Etsy shop that has listings (https://www.etsy.com/shop/SleepyPotatoStudio) I even have a The Last Guardian art doll listed that is ready to ship out!

If you not looking to commission me and still want to donate out of the kindness of your heart <3

PayPal- paypal.me/sleepypotato

Cash App- $MeganBlochowicz

Venmo- @Megan-Blochowicz

I will be forever grateful for your kindness, even if it's just $1 it will help.

And PLEASE I understand if you can’t donate anything but if you could reblog this post it would mean just as much to me <3 <3 <3

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transrightsjimin · 6 years ago

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i now am on like -470 euros and a couple of cents on my bank bc of the bts tickets etc and bc i was stupid enough to both not make my loan bigger for one month AND to buy useless things and prints and buttons of my illustrations that i absolutely dont have the money for AND also i waited long w paying rent so i thought i had more money left than i did =___=

i hope that €150 from the health care budget i recently requested will b approved and arrive soon bc i have only 30 euros to spend for the next 2 - 2,5 weeks (minimum i can have on my bank is -500) while i have food for abt 8-9 days stored and i mean 30 euros is way more than enough to buy groceries for a week with but who says i wont get another bill in the meantime? speaking of which i just realized i still need to pay 17,50 for my autism care thing

good thing(??) is tht when my art stuff arrives i can go sell that

but jfc i dont need to worry abt this rn, i have to worry abt my bachelor thesis proposal and essay tht r soon!! i also have my sociology exam on monday but im trying to accept that ill have to take the resit for that anyway bc i really had no time or energy or concentration left to read for that and paper proposal is the most urgent

ALSO lmk (like pm me) if you wanna order my buttons with monster mouths on them?

€1,20 for each

€6 for all 6

like i dont want pity or anything bc this is just bad financial management on my part but i wanna make sure i wont get in trouble for it anyway hjkgjfhdgs

also orders will go through etsy but i just wanna know if friends r interested jkhfhjf

#rambles #school stuff

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auspicixus · 7 years ago

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I hate to do this

but im suddenly going to be facing a lot of financial difficulty

I know. you dont want to hear it, i dont want to say it, but I’m seriously going to struggle this week and the next.

I need help.

The situation:

I’m a mentally & chronically ill disabled trans/nb 18 year old person, who has no job, no benefits, and no external help.

I was hoping to get a summer job but ive had a lot of epileptic fits and dissociative periods recently which i think is due to my BC pills (theyve been having a lot of negative effects on my body which also happened last time i was on this specific pill, but i ignored them since i was also going through a horrible patch in my life).

those two problems alone mean I’m unsuitable for a job - lest we ignore the fact that: I cant drive/ride a bike, I wouldnt get a job in time to help with my current financial issues, the rest of my mental & physical health is suffering as of late and its a mess, and there are no jobs which i am qualified or suitable for in my area anyway. if only i wanted to be a beauty therapist. since i cant drive, i cant even do a ‘choose-your-hours’ job like Uber/Ubereats/Deliveroo/Yodel/etc.

I dont qualify for disability since my regular doctor refuses to listen to me since im “just a hysterical girl*”. More than half of my health concerns have been “noticed but not diagnosed”. I am not medicated for most of my issues. my only prescription is for inhalers for asthma. thats it.

(*I’m not a girl.)

The problem:

During the next 7 days, I have the following coming out of my bank:

£15 for my packer* - 22-23th june

£5 for a monthly donation i make - 25th june

£5 for travel to a medical centre to have my BC pills assessed and changed. i might even have to pay for new medication if i have to go to a pharmacy to get them and they cant verify my NHS exemption, id need to pay +£8.80 or whatever NHS prescription is currently. additionally, if this medicine doesnt work, or something else arises, i may need to go back on thursday (so an extra £5 plus the chance of even more med costs). - 25th june

£5 for travel to college - 27th june

plus £??? for food the days i’ll be out (about £5 a day)

why is this a problem? because i get £30 weekly on mondays from my parents (and I cannot ask for more as they are hardpressed for cash anyway), i currently only have £5.45 in my account, and my account is an U19 account, meaning I cant have credit. i have no overdraft. i have no parachute. this is non-negotiable.

these costs (*my partner offered to give me £15 to cover the packer - but it might not make it to my account in time) will take me to no money in my account, and i havent even factored in the cost of getting food to generally eat while at home (upwards of £5), or any other bus rides i might need (£3 locally, £5 elsewhere).

This is how you can help me:

Promote me & my shops: If you can’t buy or donate, please reblog and share this post!

Help me clear out my Etsy: I’m officially going to be closing my Etsy shop as soon as my handmade items & unused stock are sold. Their fees are just too much, and my handmade items are not getting the traction they need.

Visit my RedBubble store: This is where I aim to make money from now. I would like some suggestions on what I could design for it, if you can help with that.

Donate to, or share, my GoFundMe: Donations given here will act as a temporary cushion for if I struggle to make ends meet. I would rather have other donation methods for the time being, but if you wish to fund my transition directly, please do not hesitate to donate here or bookmark it for later.

Request custom art from me: I’m currently open for custom sigil designs. I’m also working on my general art, which will allow me to open some other customs.. Examples can be found on RedBubble.

If you are LGBT+ and are interested in unique sigils, please fill out this survey! It’s a little long, but its really all I need to know to plan my next batch of sigils!

I also accept donations through Paypal (please ignore the fact that it has my deadname on there).

It might be very short notice, but any money raised now will help me through this week and the next.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

#please read #please reblog #etsy #redbubble #gofundme #important #in need #please donate #please share #donations accepted #customs open #commisions open #art commisions #custom art #commision info #commissions

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catbatart · 7 years ago

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This Month in Cat-Art.

Hey guys! Happy New Year’s Eve!

A quick break down of my schedule for this coming month- This week: I’ve been sick since Thursday so I still have a commission or two in purgatory. I will be taking today and tomorrow off (part of my New Year’s resolution is to LEARN TO TAKE BREAKS NOW AND THEN) but I intend to finish those up Tuesday/Wednesday and work on Patron commissions that week.

Store: I JUST relaunched my Etsy shop! There are only a few items on it now, including a physical copy of my Inktober coloring book and some Last Chance prints! If you like my work and are interested in buying copies of my personal pieces, I highly recommend you check it out!

Streaming: HOWEVER, I will be starting SCHEDULED STREAMS this Friday (Jan 5th) evening! The plan is to stream Tuesdays from 10 am EST to 4 pm EST and Fridays from from 4 pm EST to 10 pm EST. The exact hours may end up changing slightly as I get a better feel for this but the days and approximate times will be the same!

Commissions: I will NOT be taking regular commissions for January due to a convention at the end of the month! They WILL open at the beginning of February though because I really wanna do Valentine’s day commissions. >w> I might try some YCH to practice poses. Is that something that might interest people?

Comic: Sadly, my patreon dipped back beneath my comic goal this past week. The silver lining is I have a bit more time to write the script and thumbnail chapter one (thank goodness...) I plan on releasing character profiles as voted on by patrons HOPEFULLY once a week starting next week!

Patreon: Wow wow wow, guys. Again, I cannot express how baffled and happy I am that you have all helped make my patreon such an unexpected success. You’re all utterly amazing. I’ve already been eyeing things like stickers, buttons, and pins to add on to backer rewards. With the new year, I plan on dedicating more time to making this worth it for you guys! After a Delightful Christmas Poll, many of you said you’d be interested in NSFW pieces accessible through my patreon, so it’s looking like that may be in store for the future. ;)

Anyway, enough rambling for now.

Thank you guys again so much for your continued support and love!

#commissions #patreon #update

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daniellethamasa · 5 years ago

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Hey all, Dani here.

Greetings! I usually like to do these monthly wrap-ups on the first of the month, but I had a couple post office delays with the delivery of my OwlCrate and a Book Loft package, so I decided I would wait one more day since the shipment tracking said I would get them both today. Thankfully they arrived a few hours ago, so I was able to put the finishing touches on the post.

April was actually a really good month on the being in home and watching shows, reading books, blogging, and playing Animal Crossing. Granted, it was also a lot more stressful in terms of going into work, and I have a feeling that it’s only going to get worse on that, as more and more people are deciding that they are tired of the restrictions of social distancing and now with mandatory wearing of masks, so they are taking their unpaid leave and just not dealing with it. Unfortunately it means those of us who are left have to work even harder, which is physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. I’m now actually finding myself wishing that the factory would just close for a week or two until the manpower struggles lessen a bit, but I don’t think that will happen. It’s immensely frustrating. I don’t want to be there with everything going on, but I can’t afford to take two weeks without pay.

But today’s supposed to be a pretty nice day, so I think Damian and I are maybe going to go to a state park that has some pretty nice and wide hiking trails, so we can get outside and walk around a bit. We’re obviously taking our masks with us too. I bought some of Etsy, getting him a Slytherin mask and me a Ravenclaw one. I ordered a couple others but those haven’t shipped yet.

As usual with my monthly wrap-up, let’s start off by checking in on my overall goals for the year.

Reading: I read 30 books in the month of April, 10 of which were manga volumes, two were re-reads, and three were novella length. Overall that takes me to 101 books read already in 2020. Still, I’d say that is a pretty good month of reading. I should probably count up how many pages that is. Okay, I did the calculations, and only counting finished books I read 8,707 pages in April…but really I’ve probably read a few hundred more if you include unfinished reads. Overall though I’m super happy with that. I successfully completed my requirements for the OWLs Magical Readathon, so all I have to do is pass the NEWTs in a couple months and I’ll be a Trader of Magical Tomes. I also participated in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, and that was a whole lot of fun. Plus, I am currently in the middle of the Calendar Girls Springtime Whirl, going until May 11th, so I’m hoping to read a few more books at least for it–I haven’t achieved a bingo yet, but I’m really just having a good time trying to read to fulfill random prompts.

Blogging: It was the best month on my blog so far this year, and pretty close to being my best month in the history of Mousai Books, in terms of stats anyway. In terms of number of blog posts, this was definitely the best month overall…but I’m going to dial it back a little bit, because there’s no way I can keep doing like 10+ posts a week. It’s not sustainable for me right now. But I do still feel pretty good about continuing to have posts up pretty much every day. I wrote up 46 blog posts in the month of April, which is impressive, but it was also a whole lot of work. I did really enjoy the content though. I had a lot of books to talk about, and I especially enjoyed my National Library Week posts.

Writing: Well, I wrote a lot of blog posts, though that doesn’t count on the creative writing front. I was all excited about jumping into writing my book and then the world went to crap and I can’t get in a good mind set to write, so I’ve focused my attention on reading, and more study of the craft of writing. So it’s progress, but it isn’t progress in a trackable form such as increasing word count.

Conventions: Right now we are waiting to see what’s going to happen with Gen Con in late July/early August. It is a massive convention, so we’re expecting there to at least be a ton of restrictions. Lexington Comic and Toy Con ended up being postponed again, this time to June 18-21, and then it was just announced like yesterday that the 2020 convention is being canceled. But we both really want to work with Colorworld Books again, so we’re hoping that Cincinnati Comic Expo in September will still be good to go. My friends at Colorworld Books are trying to continue with their business as a digital affair, but 99% of the profits were made from attending conventions, so this has been a struggle for them. If you want to go check out their online store, that would be great. They have metal art prints and bookmarks, geeky t-shirts, and books. Oh, and you can use ConLife30 for 30% off of all metal, or CORONACON for 10% off any shirts. Oh, and they have actually started doing Colorworld LIVE convention style events just about every week. They gather up three or four awesome voice actors, hold a livestream panel, then a VIP panel for anyone who buys some signed merch, and of course you can get shirts, metal art prints, and more with characters these actors have portrayed. It’s pretty cool.

Okay, I guess I should start with wrapping up my time with the OWLs Magical Readathon. I was going for the Trader of Magical Tomes career path, which required me to read 4 books. I ended up changing one of the books from my TBR out because it was taking me so long and I worried I wouldn’t finish it in time. But, other than that, I was successful in reading all four books, so I’m ready to continue my Magical Tome training in the NEWTs later this year.

I’m also in the middle of the Calendar Girls Springtime Whirl, which is a bingo inspired reading challenge running from April 13-May 11. Once the reading challenge is over I’ll share a post with an updated bingo board covering all the categories I completed.

All right, let’s run through everything I read in the month of April. If I have a review up, I’ll also include the link back to that post.

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare — 4.5 stars

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie — 5 stars

The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett — 4.5 stars

Manga Classics: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Po Tse — 4 stars

The Queen of Raiders by Sarah Kozloff — 5 stars

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane — 5 stars

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren — 4 stars

You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle — 3.5 stars

The Library Book by Susan Orlean — 5 stars

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron — 5 stars

Hickville Crossroads by Mary Karlik — 4 stars

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley — 4.5 stars

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition Volume 4 by Natsuki Takaya — 4 stars

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman — 4 stars

Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin — 4 stars

Witches of Ash and Ruin by E. Latimer — 4.5 stars

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone — 5 stars

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey — 5 stars

Fairy Tail Volume 8 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin — 4 stars

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer — 4.5 stars

Fairy Tail Volume 9 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming May 4, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 10 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming May 18, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 11 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming June 1, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 12 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming June 15, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 13 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming June 29, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 14 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming July 13, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 15 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming July 27, 2020)

The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold — 3.5 stars

The Honey Don’t List by Christina Lauren — 4.5 stars

Whew, that was quite the list of reads for the month. Seriously I had a lot of fun reading this month and definitely found some books that are contenders for my Top Ten Reads of 2020 from April to June, so that’s great. Unless something bad happens, I have a feeling that this will be my best year of reading in a long time.

All right, next it’s time for the book haul portion of things, starting with the OwlCrate unboxing.

I think I’m really going to enjoy putting together the Moony puzzle, and the book sounds rather interesting. Clearly I enjoy having another notebook, as those are handy to have around. Same with the tote bag. And Damian really likes the wooden phases of the moon banner, so I gave that to him to add to the decorations in his man cave. I actually do like the OwlCrate version of this cover better than the original. The people are a bit closer and bigger, and the cover has this wonderfully eerie glow to it, almost as if it is bathed in moonlight, which is great. Plus those sprayed edges.

And, before I get into the rest of the books for my monthly haul, I want to talk about some other purchases I’ve made lately.

The stickers I bought off of Redbubble and they are from a dozen different artists. A few of the stickers are for Damian (and he already put them up in his man cave) and the rest are going on my art wall collage. The metal art prints are from my friends at Colorworld Books, and I love the metal art, but it is not easy to capture their beauty in a photo because of the reflection of light. Maybe I’ll think of doing a little video of them in my Instagram stories or something. I might pick up some more art this weekend. We’ll see.

As part of the bookhaul portion of today’s post, I need to do a shout out to The Book Loft of German Village in Columbus, OH. After some requests on social media, they complied and decided to offer a Malamarkus Mystery Box. You pay a single price for the box, tell them in your order comments what genres you would like, and then they fill the box with items such as books, a tote bag, bookish pins or stickers, etc for you. I have purchased two of these boxes, and it’s really fun to get a package where you have no idea what books they will select for you. The first box I ordered I gave them the genres of Epic Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Manga, with a couple examples of authors/series for each. I loved the selections so much that I picked up a second box, asking this time for fiction that makes me feel like I’m playing Dungeons & Dragons.

What’s really fun about both of these boxes is that they ended up having books for both Damian and myself. In the first box he got Dr. Stone because he watches the anime and wanted to try the manga, and The Starless Sea because I already owned a copy. In the second box I gave Damian The Last Wish, Heart & Shadow, and The Shadow of What Was Lost, again because I owned all of them already. What is really funny is that I had just bought and received that last one from my Barnes & Noble order a few days ago. Oh, and Damian also got the tote bag because I already have one–in that exact same color.

Okay, now for the standard bookhaul segment of the post.

Along with picking up the two books in her Dasreach Council series that I didn’t have, I also was able to buy that lovely Beauty and the Beast stained glass cloth mask from author Josette Reuel as well. We are now required to wear masks while at work, and I wanted to have a selection of cloth masks instead of relying on the disposable paper ones they are going to hand out at work. Though I’m still trying to figure out a good/easy way to be able to get a drink while also working on the factory floor, because the masks make you overheat even faster and that means you dehydrate even more.

Finally I guess it’s time to talk May TBR. I am sort of participating in Moody May, hosted by Kathy from Books and Munches and Destiny from Howling Libraries, and the whole point of Moody May is to read whatever you are in the mood for, which is perfect for mood readers who don’t like TBRs. But I’m sort of a mixed reader, because I enjoy having a somewhat planned TBR and then picking up mood reads to supplement my reading. So, I have made a rather ambitious TBR, which will probably be supplemented by shorter mood reads.

See what I mean? This stack of books is massive. Why am I doing this to myself? Honestly it’s because I seem to pick up thick fantasy reads as the weather gets warmer. I don’t even know how many pages are in these 10 books. So, yeah, I was curious and checked and those ten books are 6,276 pages.

Now that doesn’t include the fact that I’m in the middle of three or four other books that are also around 500 pages each. What can I say? I do love a good lengthy read, especially right now when my weekends are not filled with running around or playing D&D for hours and hours.

April Wrap Up and May TBR Hey all, Dani here. Greetings! I usually like to do these monthly wrap-ups on the first of the month, but I had a couple post office delays with the delivery of my OwlCrate and a Book Loft package, so I decided I would wait one more day since the shipment tracking said I would get them both today.

#Anime #ARC #Book Releases #Books!#Conventions #Gen Con #Manga #manga review #Movies #National Library Week #Reading #Reading Challenge #Tabletop Games #Video Game #Young Adult

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defunctblogtobedeleted · 5 years ago

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12/16/19 9:24am - post emo karaoke, journey of a day alone talking to myself

I fucking love emo karaoke

I love going out and getting compliments and being called pretty. I love my bartender who cuts a few drinks off my tab because I sit outside and smoke cigs and talk with him. I love people who ask if I’m in a band. I got invited to be in this couple’s band last night. Hope something happens with it lol. I love getting girls numbers even though I don’t really plan on hitting them up. I love boys complimenting my hair.

Last night was sweet. I keep not getting a full head to toe picture of my outfit which is annoying, but I have been getting filmed doing my songs every time. Maybe if I put enough on the internet someone will see me and think I deserve to be a singer like justin bieber lmfao. (shrug) I’m vain enough that I love watching myself.

Got to hang with peter and his new gf susie. Hadn’t seen him in forever, that was sweet. Tried to bounce to Ruby afterward to make out with some non binary girl like last time I did emo karaoke but alas it was deader than dead. So I came back to the end of the emo show and ended up getting a ride home from some friends who gave me like 5 bags of milanos. fucking sweet.

I also flirted with the host of the event last night and asked her out and got her number but she’s emotionally unavailable unfortunately. And it seems like she’s very busy. But still gotta shoot that shot lmfao.

This is my attempt to be productive. I’m sitting in bed naked. Well in a robe and slippers. Not watching the end of my anime though I might take a break soon. Trying to do as much productive shit as possible because I finally have a day to myself. It feels kinda nice, tbh. When you’re with someone all the time you don’t have a lot of time to just... sit. Kinda digging this idea of getting some space from jill a little more.

I’m gonna do a dumb arts and crafts project where I want to put some velour or fuzzy material on some socker boppers for bdsm cooldown I don’t know why but it’ll be funny.

Also I’m trying to research if silicone lube or oil based lube is better for long term butt plug wear but it’s hard to find the results I need.

Hm. Research is going well. Not on anything I ought to be looking into like my UXR but in general lol. Maybe I’ll check in later

______

9:58am

fuck I wish I still had that fabri tac. I don’t want to buy a new $10 bottle just for one project that seems excessive. Found a good alternative for pretty cheap though, hopefully that’ll work. Socker boppers project is go lol.

accidentally unplugged my laptop and started working on some flogging skills for a bit. Can’t figure out the hand pattern for florentine though, this calls for some youtube videos.

Also I realized I should totally just ask my gay buddies and pet play buddies at slosh tonight what kind of lube I should try out next. duh. Of course they’ll know better than some dumb website trying to push a product.

Gotta tumble dry some laundry real quick to fold these pants up. laundry is neverending blegh. Maybe I should do this week’s just to get ahead of it before the holidays? meh.

I wonder if I’ll look back on this and be like “wow it’s really neat seeing some nice stream of consciousness writing. I like being able to put myself back in that state of mind and really remember what my life was like” or if I’ll be like “wow this is the pedantic scribblings of a narcissistic bore” lmfao. I guess only time will tell. Maybe I’ll get killed by Trump 2020 neonazis for being a polyamorous pansexual democrat and they’ll go back and read this like it was the diary of anne frank and this will all just be part of the precursor like how they included some of anne’s boy stories. Are diaries really of any literary merit other than documenting something of historical significance? loliunno

hm. I wanted to improve my eye makeup but there’s really not all that much that I found you could do with just eyeliner. I kinda wanna get some pretty eye shadows but I’m not sure if I should do that in person or not. I still wanna look like that pretty trans girl in Euphoria sometime.

Decided I’d throw away these Nori Maki snacks that I have from hawaii still. They were best by like october but they’re like sealed and they’re just rice crackers lol. But mmm seaweed wrapped rice crackers coated in this soy sauce shit? Soy sauce is just one of the best flavors on the planet I think. Does soy sauce compete with like pesto and hoisin as one of my favorite sauces? You don’t really think of it as a contender but yknow when you have some GOOOD soy sauce and it slaps a little bit? Idk how they make it or if they even do make it but they have this stuff in a little container at grand asia market and it tastes so much better than kikkoman. Like it’s richer or something. Yum.

Maybe I’m just hungry lol. Getting the diet back on track is like 50-50. On one hand I took a nice fast day on saturday just ate some nuts and stuff, got some brie and salami to take to work to go for some super light and non-expensive days. But on the other hand last night I got sick of salami and cheese cuz i was drunk and ate a cookout burger and fries. I ordered fries for myself for the first time in months, blegh.

Okay too much nori maki this has gotta go lol kinda makes my stomach feel weird. But good idea for a vehicle for soy sauce flavor lol. I kinda want like... soy sauce gum right now.

Lol that’s enough about soy sauce.

______ 10:25am

Damn. My new cheetah ears came in. but they’re not really cheetah ears. They’ve got that yellow with the dots, but they’re way too long and pointy. Kinda would make for a nice fennec outfit or something I suppose, but definitely not for my kitty needs. I think I might have gone too hard on my 2nd+3rd tail+ears, and now everything is just gonna look shitty in comparison. The curse of balling out is you’ve gotta keep up the lifestyle 😹 But no matter. People call my leopard print cheetah all the time anyway, it looks close enough. Plus snow leopards and cheetahs both have rounded ears anyway. Which is something most people on etsy don’t seem to get lol everyone just makes triangles all the damn time.

So that’s a bust. I’m so happy I can just throw money at stupid shit and not care about it like this. I wonder how crazy I’m gonna go if I DO end up working at google. Me? With ACTUAL amounts of disposable income? OwO Damn maybe I should start actually working. Nahhh not yet.

Gotta play with some magic the gathering shit really quick lmao.

__________

1:27pm

uhhhh I just played a lot of magic the gathering. I got 15 wins so cool? got up to gold? Idk if I have the determination to go all the way to mythic this month. Or any month. I wonder if I’m fundamentally winning less games or if I’m just not as excited? My win rate couldn’t have been THAT sick, could it? I guess there was the streaks of playing RDW and mono green where I would win 7-0 in a half hour. Those were good days lol.

Hrm. I’m gonna procrastinate by moisturizing my hands now. Watching this guy play a cool dimir control deck, I could get behind playing something like that.

I guess it’s like I’m not a pleb for magic anymore, so I don’t feel motivated to unlock the cards. But I’m not rich anymore either, and I can’t just play every single deck I want because I got lazy with it. I gotta just maintain and try to unlock all the cards next set and get ahead of the game again. 👌🏻👌🏻

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buckybee · 8 years ago

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Once a bee learns to fly

Written for @acespnminibang

Author: ifonenight / buckybee Artist: Thette / @bold-sartorial-statement Rating: Mature Pairing(s): Dean Winchester/Castiel Word Count: 5195 Summary: Cas, ace as they come, hand makes sex toys as a job-slash-hobby, and wears things that make him feel pretty in his spare time. He’s doing well all by himself, but when a client, impalabatmobile-67, asks for a special tutorial, Cas will find himself intrigued. Author Notes: I wanted to write a story where Cas didn’t care for sex at all, but still enjoyed some things that society associate with sex. And how he lived it. Links to fic and art: FIC/ART

Mid September

The water was warm on Cas’ skin, chasing the last residues of sleep away. He tilted his head up, letting the spray hit him on his chin, nose, eyes, a last goodbye to the cozy atmosphere of his bed, and then turned the shower off, stepping out onto the worn out carpet. He shivered at the cold room - save money, save money, save money - and hurried to cocoon himself in his big towel, one of the only luxuries he allowed himself.

Mornings had always been hard for him. Waking up was really one of the worse parts of his days, which probably told something about himself he didn’t want to analyze too deeply. But alas, it had to be done.

He yawned, pulling on a soft pair of pants and an old sweater, and wandered in his tiny kitchen. Time to start the day, apparently.

Sitting at the kitchen table some time later, a cup of coffee and a snack on hand, Cas felt definitely readier to start his day. His laptop was silently coming to life in front of him, and he put his password in, lazily watching the enlarged photo of a bee appearing on the screen.

It was a nice picture, good quality and a lovely subject, and he smiled faintly at it; that had been a nice summer, the year he had taken it, mostly spent bonding with his sister and coming to terms - good terms - with his sexuality. It would always be a fond memory, captured in an almost monochrome photo.

As soon as all the icons settled on the screen he opened his browser, starting to type in the address bar - he need to check his email, couldn’t postpone his assignments any longer - but his eyes were caught by Tumblr’s little square, listed between his favourite websites on the home page.

He hesitated. He really should’ve started working on his essay, but he still had a week before he had to turn it in, and seeing how his business was doing wasn’t exactly the most irresponsible thing to do. Just a couple of minutes, ten at most, and then he would face the first, blank page of the essay.

His personal blog’s dashboard appeared on the screen, full of kittens’ videos and fandom posts, but he managed to resist the temptation and ignored them, quickly changing blog and switching to his professional one.

Dildos, lingerie, padded handcuffs, floggers, feathers, they were all there, showing up nicely in his layout. And he had had fun making every one of them.

His business was simple and entertaining, yes, if a bit unorthodox. Handmade sex-toys, not too expensive but of good quality, simple yet original, seemed to be well liked out there.

He had started making them for friends, fellow students who came to know about his art-and-craft skills by his brother.

They were the ones that actually suggested to expand his work to something less innocent than stuffed animals, only half-seriously. He treated it as a joke a first, giving a sparkling dildo to a girl as a birthday gift, making the toys funny rather than useful, but it turned out he was actually good at it and he had slowly got more and more requests, until he had decided to make a little business out of it; he had also started to offer advice and tutorials after a while, for free. He didn’t earn a lot, but it was still something, and it was nice.

Despite the endless teasing his brother subjected him to every time he saw him, Cas was quite happy with what he was doing.

It wasn’t fancy, or big, but it was a nice way to help paying for his everyday needs. And it wasn’t really demanding - he only had to do what he liked to do, and he usually found a way to include his work in his classes’ researches, and that made things pretty interesting.

His askbox warned him he had almost fifty new messages; opening it, he began to sort through them: a dozen were specific orders – mostly for dildos and collars; some were from shy anons exposing their problems with their sexuality or gender and asking for someone to listen – and he would have to answer them before the next day, as he didn’t like to leave that kind of asks lingering more than it was necessary; one was from a customer who hadn’t understood that this blog was only a catalogue and that, unless it was a custom made order, clients were to go to his Etsy, linked at the end of each toy post, and in his description, and in his FAQs, and buy his stuff there; finally, there was a request for a tutorial.

He send back a short reply to the inattentive customer, redirecting him to his shopping page, and then, curios, he scrolled up to the tutorial request.

impalabatmobile-67 asked:

hi! uh, i know this probably sounds weird, but can you make a tutorial for edible panties? i tried to make them myself but they, like, melted before i finished them, but your tutorial are always easy to follow so maybe i’ll understand what i’m missing here. i get it if they’re not your thing, don’t worry. thanks.

Edible panties. Well, that was new and he would have to do some research before giving instructions to anyone, a couple of tries maybe, but yes, it was doable. And kind of interesting, as he usually found new things to be.

Sex-aced-it answered:

It’s not “weird” at all, don’t worry. On the contrary, quite vanilla , I’d say. I will have to investigate a bit on how to make them, since it is new to me as – I suppose? - it was to you, but yes, I will make a tutorial about it.

Are you interested in underwear in general or panties specifically? And will they be for male or for female bodies? I don’t know if this will influence the product, but better safe than sorry. Were you thinking of classic candies and sweets or something else for the food? Let me know.

He checked the message again, and then sent it. He got up to make a peanut butter sandwich, taking his time to spread the butter meticulously on the bread, and took a bite while settling in front of his computer again. He refreshed the page automatically, his mind already on the essay, when he spotted a new message at the top of the page.

impalabatmobile-67 asked:

thanks man, you’re awesome. i guess underwear in general’d be fine, but my panties are for a guy. candies&sweets are good.

Before he could have done anything, another one arrived, and then another.

impalabatmobile-67 asked:

didn’t mean mine like *mine*, only that i asked for them. and, uh, can you not show my url when you’ll do the tutorial? it’s kinda personal. i probably sound like a repressed guy but my little brother is on tumblr as well and i don’t want him to see this.

impalabatmobile-67 asked:

sorry, i’m rambling. u didn’t need to know that.

Cas sighed a little and hit the ‘reply’ button again. This guy didn’t seem a jerk, only a little… lost. His essay would have had to wait apparently some more.

Sex-aced-it answers:

Again, please don’t worry. You don’t have to justify your actions with me and I’m not going to judge you. I completely understand wanting to keep your own business private. Have you already thought about the design? I could help you with that too if you’d like.

Unsurprisingly, impalabatmobile-67 answered only a couple of minutes later. He really had a piercing imagination.

They chatted for almost an hour, exchanging ideas about the shape and the size and what kind of flavors Dean would have preferred. He seemed nice, and when they said goodbye, Cas had a little smile on his lips.

Early October

“Do you have the munchies?,” Gabriel asked, and Cas could hear some sort of admiration in his tone.

“It’s for a project,” he answered distractedly, examining a licorice strip and carefully lowering it inside a paper bag.

His cart was full of similar bags, stuffed with candies. He wasn’t sure he could add them to the panties, actually, but Halloween was close anyway. Better safe than sorry.

“A project?,” Gabriel answered, amused. “For you porn blog?”

“It’s not a porn blog,” Cas answered automatically, passing the cart to Gabriel so he could ring everything up.

Gabriel snickered but didn’t press on. It was a familiar banter by now, nothing they couldn’t recite in their sleep.

“What is this project about anyway?,” Gabriel asked, giving Cas his change and rummaging on his desk, triumphally popping a lollipop in mouth once he found it.

“Edible panties,” Cas said, hiding a smile when Gabriel choked on his own spit. For all his flamboyant sexual life, his brother was definitely more of a prude than Cas himself was.

“You’d be such a perv, I swear,” Gabriel muttered, and Cas gave him a dirty look.

Gabriel rose his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know, you can be a perv right now, too,”

Cas just grabbed his bags and got out the shop, giving Gabriel the middle finger on his way out.

The ingredients were spread on the table, resting on a cheap table cloth.

Cas eyed them dubiously. The recipe seemed easy enough, but he wasn’t sure how resistant they could actually turn out to be. Or comfortable. Or igenic. Honestly, the idea of eating something that had rested on someone else’s crotch made him nauseous, but he guessed that once you swallowed what came out of a person’s genitals, you could brave anything.

He picked up his phone and shot Dean a message. They had abandoned the inbox a while ago and were using Tumblr’s messaging system now.

Sex-aced-it

I’m starting. I cannot guarantee a satysfing result though

Dean’s answers was almost immediate. Cas had warned him that he was going to try today, and apparently Dean was eager to know how it was going. He seemed very invested in these panties.

impalabatmobile-67

don’t worry 2 much about it man

impalabatmobile-67

i mean if they turn out a mess u can still eat them

Cas’ nose scrunched up and he looked down again at the table. The whole ensamble just didn’t look that appealing.

Sex-aced-it

If you say so

impalabatmobile-67

don’t u guys like sweet things?

Cas frowned down at the screen, leaning his hip against the table.

Sex-aced-it

What do you mean?

impalabatmobile-67

all those talks about cakes… made me wonder

It took Cas a moment to understand Dean’s allusion, and he found himself smiling when it clicked.

He could still go a little on the defensive sometimes, when the topic of his sexuality came up - and who could blame him, really? - but he found these sort of jokes funny, if a little cheesy.

impalabatmobile-67

im more a pie kind of guy myself

Sex-aced-it

Don’t you like cake at all?

impalabatmobile-67

oh I like cake alright at times ;)

Sex-aced-it

What was that wink for

impalabatmobile-67

like… cake as a metaphor for… someone ace?

impalabatmobile-67

nvm, it was dumb

Cas stared at his phone, the text clear on its white background. He admittedly wasn’t the best at social interaction, and social clues, in certain context, could be somewhat a mystery for him, but he most certainly wasn’t stupid.

Dean and him hadn’t started talking that long ago - a month at best - but Dean had been friendly and their interactions easygoing. And, sometimes, very clearly, flirty.

Not much, nothing over the top, just a joke here and a compliment there, but it was still more than Cas had done in some time, and definitely not something he usually did with his clients.

Dean seemed nice, though, and funny, and a little cute. Cas had always had a weak spot for cute boys.

But it still was only something to put a smile on his face after a tiring day - he didn’t stop to consider the implications, because he didn’t think there would have been any. Besides, an internet romance, without even knowing what Dean’s last name was, or where he lived, or what kind of skeletons he hid in his closet - Cas was brave, and he was reckless, but he had learnt self-preservation along the way. And this? This was not something he could endorse in in good conscience.

But here Dean was, with his lame lines and flustered-looking backtracking, and Cas’ walls had never been that solid to begin with, honestly.

He had started tapping an appropriate reply when a new message appeared under the last one.

impalabatmobile-67

so are u gonna try to make them??? i’m getting old here dude

And just like that, the moment was lost.

Late October

Parties at Charlie’s were always very liberal, very queer, and almost always tipsy, at the very least.

Cas, throwing back a shot of vodka, mused that Halloween was the least probable time to be an exception to the rule.

His corpet was starting to squeeze him a little too much, and his ankles ached, but there was no way in Hell he would have given up his costume now. Well, thinking about it, maybe the shoes could go, the stockings were the important part anyway…

He tried to lift his right foot and unfasten the lace of the stiletto, but the room suddenly started to shift and here he went, falling from his heels with an empty glass in his hand and oh god please let there not be any sharp edges on his way down-

Something strong and firm collided with his chest, but it was a gentle blow, and Cas found himself staring at an illustration of a yellow bat.

He looked up, questioning, and green eyes blinked down at him, surrounded by a black mask with pointed years.

Cas started giggling.

The masked man frowned and straightened him, passing an arm under his armpits to help him support his own weight.

“Are you okay?” he yelled in his ear, trying to make himself heard over the music, but Cas was laughing too hard to answer.

The man rolled his eyes - so green - and started to drag him over to the stairs that led to the upper floor. Cas weakly hit his cheek to get his attention. “Bridal style, bridal style!” he hooted when the man turned toward him, trying to throw his leg over the man’s arms and managed only to send them both staggering against a wall.

“Dude, I’m not bringing you upstairs in my arms,” the man grunted, tugging him on the first steps.

“But I’ve been saved by Batman!,” Cas protested, gripping the man’s shoulder for dear life now that they were climbing the stairs. “I demand it!”

“Jesus, you’re really in the part of Frank, aren’t you,” the man muttered, but Cas, a little dizzy, a little nauseous, could still see the amused smile on his lips.

He didn’t remember much after that.

"God,“ Cas lamented, trying to get his coffee machine to work. The smell of beans only had already cleared his head a little, but now he needed the real deal.

"Tell me about it,” Dean’s voice said, equally roughed, from Cas’s phone’s speakers.

Charlie’s Halloween party had been hard on Cas the night before, and apparently Dean had had a similar experience, if his pained tone was anything to go by.

“I was at this friend’s place,” Cas said, finally managing to turn the machine on. The scent of strong coffee rose from it, lazily diffusing in the air, and Cas had never known a sweeter blessing.

“Did you just moan?,” Dean’s voice came, a little belwidered, but Cas ignored it.

“I guess I had a little too much to drink,” he continued, pouring himself a cup of coffee and sighing in it, inhaling the fumes. “And then Batman saved me when I was about to fall on my face, and then I blacked out.” He reverently had a sip, and had to actively force himself to keep quiet, this time.

It took him a moment to realized the line was silent on the other side.

“Dean?,” he asked, catious, and Dean cleared his voice over the static.

“Were you wearing a Frank-N-Furter costume, by chance?,” he asked, voice neutral, and Cas froze.

“How do you know that?” he replied, confused and a little scared, but Dean didn’t say anything.

“Dean?,” Cas pressed, even though he should have had hung up, turned off the phone, what if Dean was a stalker, what if-

“Do you know Charlie?,” Dean finally said, and Cas’ heart almost stopped.

“How…?” he asked, and he heard Dean’s breath rushing out of him, amplified by the speakers.

“I think,” Dean said, very carefully, “that we have a common friend.”

Early November

The coffee-shop was crowded, but not unbearably so. Cas was sitting at one of the tables, near the window, nervously watching the street. Anxiety hadn’t really kicked in, but he was still a bit tense.

Rationally, he knew that this wasn’t like meeting a stranger, nor a person he wasn’t certain he could stand, but it was a big deal for him nonetheless. This was a relationship he had invested times and energy and feelings in, and if it didn’t work… He didn’t really want to think about that option.

Discovering that he and Dean lived in the same city had been kind of a shock.

Everything that Cas had been cautious of, that he had protected himself from thanks to the hypothetical distance between them, and the net’s impalpability, had suddenly came to knock at his door. Young feelings, still fragile and new, that were slowly twisting themselves inside Cas’ blood vessels and shooting right toward his heart, hidden among blood cells and oxygen.

And what was Cas supposed to do with them?

Meeting today had been a jump in the dark, that Dean had agreed to make with him. It had made the abyss a little less scary.

Still, perhaps arriving half an hour before the actual date hadn’t been the smartest idea he had ever had, since the more he waited, the more he freaked out. He sipped his water, checking his watch; he wasn’t supposed to be there for ten more minutes. He took another gulp, and then promptly choked on it when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

He sputtered, coughing and trying to breath some air in, feeling the light weight of fingers gently rubbing his back.

“Cas? Are you okay? Come on buddy, don’t die on me now.”

Eventually managing to breathe again, he turned his head up to see Dean smiling down at him, eyes actually a bit worried, and still so, so green, and really, Cas realized, everything could be really going to be just fine.

“Assbutt” he rasped, cautiously taking a sip from his bottle and glaring at him.

Dean’s laughter was so much more breathtaking in person than on the phone.

Mid December

“I’ve been hurt before,” Cas said, quietly, on their maybe fifth or sixth date, while they were having dinner at Cas’ place, on Cas’ comfy carpet. A sort of indoor pic-nic.

Dean watched him attentively, warm and reassuring, but Cas kept fidgeting with a loose thread on the carpet, not looking up.

“When I was young, by my own doing, trying to feel things I couldn’t feel, and later, by partners who said that they understood and that sex wasn’t a requirement when instead… it was.”

He could see Dean’s hand twitching to reach out, but they weren’t yet at a point where they could just understand what the other needed without asking, and Cas was particular about touching.

Hiding a smile, Cas brushed his fingers against Dean’s, and let him squeeze his hand in his own.

“I need you to understand, Dean,” he started, trying to make his voice firm.

No matter how happy he was with himself, how comfortable, there was always a little voice in his head that whispered to him he was being selfish, unreasonable, when he did this kind of talks. But he had built himself so much stronger than those ugly murmurs, now. Let them come. He was not afraid.

“We will never have sex. Ever. I won’t start liking it just because I’m with you, and I won’t do it just to make you happy.”

He looked at Dean, trying to see any sign of discomfort, but Dean’s face was blank. It happened sometimes, when Dean wasn’t ready to let others know what he was thinking, but it wasn’t necessary a sign of something bad.

And then Cas felt fingers drawing gentle circles inside his wrist, and relaxed a little.

“No matter how turned on you get by something, if you try to pressure me in any way… I won’t react nicely.”

Dean still didn’t say anything, and Cas smiled quietly at him, bringing Dean’s hand to his lips to kiss it lightly.

“You can get turned on, though, masturbate, whatever you need. I’m not sex repulsed, just indifferent towards it in general. Moreover, I don’t mind being in a open relationship, if that’s what you want, but we would need to establish clear rules in that case, and it’s an another whole conversation,” he added, interlacing his fingers with Dean’s. “If you want to stay with me, these are the conditions. I’m done with my speech. Now it’s your turn. Did I weird you out? I didn’t mean to.”

Dean looked at him for a couple of seconds more, and then nodded. “Alright,” he said.

“Alright?,” Cas echoed.

“Alright,” Dean said, and grinned at him with his golden, beautiful eyes, and Cas, somehow, trusted him.

Late January

“I still can’t believe I got to do this,” Dean murmured against Cas’ skin, in the quiet of Cas’ bedroom.

Cas shivered a bit at that and settled better against Dean’s chest. “Doing what?,” he asked, even though he knew exactly what Dean was referring to.

“Touching you, smelling you, hell, even seeing you.” Dean traced light circles on his covered belly with his finger, resting his chin on Castiel’s shoulder. “Are you okay with this?” he asked, loosening the hug.

Cas grabbed his arm and tightened his hold again. - I am - he answered, turning his head for a kiss.

Dean gave it to him, and Cas thought that that Heaven his mother was always talking about when he was little could be found much easier than she thought. And then distracted himself because thinking about his mother in that moment seemed really a waste of time.

When they separated, both of them smiling like the idiots they were, Cas hold out a hand and gently freed himself from the embrace.

“Wait there,” he ordered, pointing the bed. While Dean obeyed, he took an anonymous bag out of his drawer and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He wasn’t completely sure of what he was about to do, but then again, when ever had he been completely sure about anything? It didn’t matter. It was for Dean, and for himself, too, and if it didn’t work out, well, nobody would be seriously hurt. A bit embarrassed, sure, but he could live with that. Dean would have never made him feel inadequate.

He undressed, folded his clothes, and opened the bag.

He took the stockings out first, feelings their softness between his fingers. They were beautiful, white silk and lace, and he couldn’t wait to wear them.

He put them on, careful not to break the texture, and spent some moments admiring his legs. Smooth and elegant, just like he liked them.

The white panties, adorned with black lace, were next, and he shivered a little at the feeling of them on his skin. He took his time adjusting them, and when he felt like they were good, he took the neutral lipstick out of the bag and turned toward the mirror above the sink.

His lips were chapped like always, but he couldn’t do much about it. Besides, Dean had never complained.

He uncapped the lipstick, and squeezed the tiny bottle to put some on his index finger. Watching his reflection in the mirror, he applied it on his bottom lips, and then pressed his lips together to spread them on the whole mouth. He cleaned the area around it a bit and smiled at his face in the glass, satisfied.

The thing was, Cas liked to be pretty. He liked to wear things that made him feel sensual, even though he didn’t care for others’ attraction toward him. If you asked him why, he probably couldn’t have explained it, but then again, the reason behind it wasn’t that important. It was all about sensations and nerves’ reaction to stimulus or something like that.

Dean had already seen him in flimsy clothes, but it was a costume, at the time. Just a mask, not the real Castiel, just being himself, in pretty lingerie. Showing off to his boyfriend in a way he never purposely did with anyone else.

Because Cas liked to be pretty, but he didn’t really like the attention that came with it. Or the expectations.

With Dean, though? Cas knew that Dean would look straight at him, and see exactly what Cas wanted to show him.

He turned to the bag once more, biting his lips. One last thing, and then he would be ready: a pair of black high heels, sleek and shiny.

The action of putting them on went less smoothly than the others - he stumbled and nearly fell into the tub, and had to yell at Dean he was fine and not to come in - but finally, everything was in place.

Taking a deep breath and shaking his head a bit, as in to clear it, he squared his shoulder and exited the bathroom.

Dean looked up from his hands in his lap and did a double-take, freezing on the spot.

Cas waited for his eyes to roam oh his body, taking him in, searching for what he could find sexy, but they remained fixated on his face, instead, without wandering even a little bit.

Actually, Dean seemed not be breathing at all.

It would have been hilarious if Cas hadn’t been so nervous.

“Dean?” he asked, finally, uncertain.

That seemed to shake him out of his trance, and he coughed, cleared his throat, and then diverted his eyes, fixing them somewhere on the wall.

“Cas, fuck” he answered, his voice lower and rougher than usual. “This is harder than I thought.”

Yeah, that wasn’t helping his nervousness at all.

“You said you would have liked it.” Cas said, confused and a bit mortified.

Dean let out a weak laugh. “I do, Cas, and that may be our problem here.”

Cas frowned, but after a moment, it clicked. It wasn’t difficult to understand what Dean was worried about, really. Cas should have anticipated it.

He approached the bed slowly, as if not to scare Dean, and sat next to him.

“Dean,” he called gently, and Dean shot him a look, but he apparently couldn’t maintain it.

“Dean,” Cas said again, taking of of his hands in his own. “You don’t have to be ashamed of your attraction, just like I don’t have to be for the lack of mine. I wore this because I knew you would have liked them, and I also knew how you would have liked them, and done it anyway. Your erection won’t make me uncomfortable.”

Dean twitched at the word, and Cas laughed quietly against his cheek.

“Stop worrying so much,” he said, kissing the side of his mouth. “You won’t hurt me. I promise.”

“I just,” Dean said, but didn’t continue.

“You just?,” Cas repeated, nudging him, with his cold nose against Dean’s neck.

“I just don’t want to do something, without meaning to, and scare you off,” Dean finished, looking at the ground.

“Oh, Dean.” Cas grabbed Dean’s face in his hands, gently, forcing him to look at Cas in the eyes. “Let me lead, okay? I promise I won’t let anything bad happening to us.”

Dean’s eyes were still doubtful, a little afraid light shining in them, but he nodded, and Cas released him.

“I feel good like this,” he said, taking back one of Dean’s hand, putting it right on his legs, on the soft fabric of the stocking. “I wore all of this as much for you as I did for me. Will you look at me, Dean? Tell me how pretty I am?”

Dean took a deep breath. “You’re always pretty, Cas.”

Cas stand up, letting go of his hand, and moved in front of him, between his knees. He put his palm under Dean’s chin and tilted his head up gently. Dean finally, finally, met his eyes on his own.

“Tell me again, like this,” Cas ordered him softly, smiling. Dean stayed still for a moment more, and then, surrendering, he slowly, hungrily, let his sight slide all over Castiel’s body. Cas felt it like a caress all over him, tender and butterfly light.

Once Dean’s look had reached his feet - and he had gasped loudly - his eyes met Cas’ own again, and they were dark and full of heat. “You’re beautiful.” he said, voice rough and full of awe. “So fucking beautiful, Cas.”

“As you are, my love,” Cas murmured, and letting himself be laid out on the bed, admired as a work of art, he thought that, yes, no matter how much it took for him to reach this point in life, it was well worth it.

July, years later

“Sam,” Cas groaned in his phone, blindly patting around on the bed to wake Dean up. Dean grunted and swatted his hand away, cocooning himself against Cas’ back, warm as a stove. Cas tried to roll away but Dean sneaked an arm around his middle, lightning fast.

“I hope this is important, Sam, it’s eight a.m. on a Sunday.”

“Sorry!,” Sam exclaimed, excitedly, not sounding sorry at all. “But I think I found an investor for your shop!”

Cas abruptly woke up, finally managing to disentangle himself from Dean, whose protest was apparently to slobber all over Cas’ pillow.

“What?,” he asked Sam, putting a pair of pants on and quietly exiting their bedroom.

“Yesterday I went to this corporate party,” Sam answered, talking one mile a minute, “and there was this very rich european lady who I somehow ended up talking about your project and she was really interested in it!”

“Somehow?,” Cas asked, distractly, heart pounding.

“Well I may have done some research before the party… But who cares, her name is Bela Talbot, ace as fuck, very kinky. Loves your idea. I’ll drop by later to explain everything?”

“Yeah,” Cas mumbled, still dumbfounded, and the line went dead.

He felt Dean padding into the room and then hugging him from behind.

“Everything’s alright?,” he asked, voice deep from sleep.

And Cas’ face broke into a smile, toothy and huge. “Yes. Alright.”

#asexual!cas #ace!castiel #asexual!castiel #ace!cas #acespnminibang #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #meus codex #ace character

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