#anyway. i'm cool. i'm normal now.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: ODD THOMAS by Dean Koontz.

This was a reread for me! I remembered it being An Inspiration for one of my own novels (which I'm revising now, which is why I am Returning To My Inspiration Roots), but hooo boy did I forget Exactly How Influential it was. The syntax, the tone, specific images ("apocalyptic crimson," neon and sixth sense, aimless wandering for a guiding Feeling about bad things, hello????)--Odd Thomas is 100% Driscoll's precursor, and I think they'd be friends!

Odd is a fantastic fry-cook who can also see dead people (they don't speak)(he doesn't know why)(he helps them when he can) and strange shadow creatures that portend horrible violence. He gets premonitions and weird feelings, and he uses those to try to stop a massacre that's been haunting his dreams for years. (The Goodreads blurb is better; I'm not sure how to distill this sanely, but I love it so much--it's weird, it's fucked up, it's funny, it's sweet, it's unhinged.)

Overall, this held up well! There was more fatphobia than I remembered (published in 2003 whomst??), but I do still really love Odd, and it hurt A Lot to know what was coming--couple instances of neat foreshadowing that I didn't pick up on my first read, and I was still delighted by many of the phrasings and humor. Still an all-time fave series for me, and I'm glad I revisited it!

[heretherebeturtles-comic]

DID YOU KNOW THAT ANDY SURIANO TALKED ABT YOUR COMIC ON INSTA???????????

YEAH I SAW IT!

really cool!!!!!! nice things were said about my art and story!!!!!! i am so flattered!!!!!!!!!! i am still figuring out how to react to it all!!!

[orb-weaving]

Recognition

[cosmicsodaz]

[destructo-range]

helen design ref sheet!!!

anyway this is long overdue. have some helens 🫵

in order:

Image 1: Helen Richardson during the events outlined in MAG 47, before meeting Michael and entering the hallways (with blazer then without)

Image 2: Helen Richardson during the events outlined in MAG 47, about midway through her journey through the hallways then when she gets spat back out

Image 3: (ignore why it's not chronological, I can't change it for some reason) the Distortion post MAG 101. On the left the appearance she takes on most of the time, on the right the one she takes on during MAG 187: Checking Out.

Image 4: (again, ignore why it's not chronological, I'll try to fix it) Helen Richardson giving her statement at the Magnus Institute during MAG 47 (with blazer then without)

anyway please do read the annotations I put a ton of thought into this /nf they're transcribed in the alt text if you prefer that

HELEN 🌀🌀🌀🚪🚪🚪

[blueskittlesart]

cold fruit in a hot kitchen (so i had this great watermelon last weekend)

[automatonknight]

here's the prick i was talking about^ i have so many thoughts and notes about him but they're mostly incomprehensible so when i organize maybe them i'll post them who knows

[threediamondhoes]

Oh shit wait, I can post this here can't I?

Anyway have my first foray into RPF, based on a set of gifs that Jo @blacktofade posted like right after the charity stream. I was going too insane over it to know whether the timelines were right and it has been almost a year now so I'm not going to go back and check now slkdgjlkds

This tiny thing then spiraled into a bunch of crazed DMs between my partner and I and maybe one day I'll write something based on them but for now, *shrug emoji*

Jimmy repressed a shiver, reminding himself that he was on camera, that Scar was watching, that thousands of people were watching from a dozen different cameras, that he had to say something, because Scar had said something.

He scoffed with his whole body and Tangos hand slid along his back, but didn't fall. Tango didn't drop the contact, just held his hand like it belonged there. Worse still, even Jimmy didn't drop his arm immediately, soaking in the proximity while he could. He wasn't sure if he could swing another hug like this until they were saying their goodbyes, after all. Tangos hand pressed against his spine, leaving everywhere his hand wasn't feeling cold and neglected.

Jimmy could feel his fingers spasm a bit against Tangos shoulder blade, and the moment passed. They had to break away.

Tango grinned at him and had to rush back to Zed, to clumsy cooking, to the livestream they were all participating in. Jimmy forced a grin at Scar and went back to his chair, still feeling the press of Tangos palm on his lower back. As he kicked at Grian's chair, earning a shriek and causing Grian's game avatar to drop her combo, Jimmy wondered if Tango had been half as affected as he was.

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[caluupin]

been catching up on TGAA/DGS !! :D

[keeps-ache]

hold my heart, hold it gentle

[4bsurdcreature]

But like, what do the spikes feel like?

[yujeong]

.... You know... Vegas canonically making sure to check if his pets are healthy in all aspects of their existence is something that has such potential for pure *filth* and I need to dissect it a little bit. (Warning: this is going to be gross. I'll be talking about excrements. I'll be describing things in detail; not much, but enough to probably make someone gag, so skip this if it's too disgusting for you to read.)

So, ok. The whole fandom has had ideas about how Pete could be getting cleaned at the safehouse. Most of what I've seen is Vegas taking him to a separate room to clean him up or to give him a shave - lovely fics out there, I have to say - and I agree with that idea. The room doesn't have anything in it for Pete to wash himself - - which brings me to the toilet issue. Look. The show didn't even touch on showering, so the very valid question of "How was Pete going to the toilet?" would never be explored, no matter how interesting that would be. (To me. It'd be interesting to me and maybe 2 other people, but still.) I have already explained in this post just how utterly disgusting the safehouse really is as an environment (specifically the room Pete is being held at for obvious reasons), which brings me to this, because one idea I had for the toilet issue was... Vegas leaving a bucket next to Pete to use for his, um, needs. (Generally, I'm very into Vegas humiliating Pete during the safehouse days as a torture method. I believe the dog bowl scene speaks for itself.) Now, one issue in regards to this is the fact that Pete wasn't eating. When your food intake decreases, it leads to constipation, and I can just *imagine* Vegas losing his mind whenever he returned in the room to check if the bucket was full and only seeing piss in there - not much of it, too, because Pete sure as hell wasn't drinking any water. Of course, the next step is dragging Pete to the bathroom to do it there, right? He has to make sure his pet's digestive system is working properly, which means... Vegas staying in the bathroom to watch Pete, checking the contortions on Pete's face, the change of colour on his cheeks, hearing his subtle moans and groans and gasps from his efforts to do the thing, seeing him struggle, sigh, maybe shed a tear or two from the pain. ^This isn't meant to be sexual btw, but it also is in a way, because it's Vegas we're talking about here. Vegas is attracted to all of Pete, to everything coming out of him (heh). So, he watches. He doesn't let Pete touch anything in the bathroom. He doesn't let him flush. He takes him back to the room, locks him there and returns to the narrow space to inspect. He spends minutes staring at Pete's excrements, at how small they are ("Don't they feed them anything at the main family?" he wonders like a hypocrite), he lets the smell invade his nose and does his best to not frown, maybe he lowers his body to have a closer look, to check the colour, the texture and everything else - he wouldn't want Pete to have diarrhea or something, right? - and after spending so much time down there that his knees are starting to hurt, he gets up and pulls the string to flush the toiler (idk why I imagined this type of toiler for the safehouse, but stay with me.) And then, he realizes the toiler isn't functioning properly and the excrements stay there, and suddenly, the morbid fascination he had turns into anger. Why aren't they going away? Why are they still here? So, he pulls and pulls and pulls, maybe he breaks the string from how forcefully he's pulling it and he yells in frustration - worthless piece of shit, can't even flush a fucking toilet - so he ends up grabbing the bucket he'd given to Pete, filling it with water and pouring it in there to make the excrements go away. He succeeds the fifth time, drenched in sweat. See? he says to himself. Maybe you can deal with your shit after all. But this can't continue, he thinks. So what if, in Eileen fashion, Vegas thinks that the best way to deal with this problem is by force-feeding Pete laxatives to help him release the load? And what if that solution makes Pete's stomach worse? What if it leads to him vomiting (which is another result of not eating), making Vegas lose his mind even further? What if Vegas' actions create a circle of grossness he can't escape from? I can go on and on about this, but I'll stop here, I think I got the point across lol. VegasPete are so gross (affectionate) (derogatory) ❤️❤️

[mixmangosmangoverse]

Hello I'm randomly thinking about Healin Good PreCure for the first time in years and looking back at how wildly people misunderstood the point and expected every other season to follow a plot point that's very specific to it

[l0ganberry]

Now I definitely know I'm going to hell.....

Sorry not sorry

[loverboybrightsideghost]

hey there - I've been thinking of listening to rqg thanks to all your excellent posts about it, but I've never listened to an actual play show before. can I ask. how do you do that. are there seasons? is it all one story and you have to start at the beginning?

RUBS MY EVIL LITTLE HANDS TOGETHER!!!

but genuinely, i'm glad you asked! when i saw rqg from the outside before listening to it, i was also not really sure what it was.

rusty quill gaming is one long campaign (through not all actual play podcasts are!), and it is called "erasing the line." there are four seasons, although the seasons don't really have an equal number of episodes between them (season four is the longest). each episode is about forty minutes to an hour long, and they have mid-episode breaks, so if you can't listen for that long, you could totally pause it in the break and come back later.

you should definitely listen to it in order, and i suggest starting with the episode 0 metacast. moment of truth, i did not listen to that episode again on my relisten, i am listening to it now as i write this, but i do believe it contains Important Lore to understanding the story world, so i highly recommend starting there.

there aren't content warnings on the early episodes, but i think you can check the fandom wiki for a specific episode to see them, as fans have added them there (not sure if they're there for every episode though).

also there are kind of official transcripts on their website, but i am not sure how accurate they are as i have not read them. i know it was a Whole Deal with rusty quill (the company) to make transcripts, because they didn't do them from the beginning in 2015 and especially with something like actual play it can be hard and time-consuming to transcribe, and as there are over 200 episodes (including specials), there was also a big backlog. all this to say that there are transcripts, but i don't know if they are complete or very accurate.

apart from that, i will say that it is a little slow at the beginning, but if you give it a chance you may end up loving it :)