#do I remember most of it after I've said it somewhere online? no

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

And one more.

Edinburgh, best parts, continued

- The Air B&B

Before I arrived in Scotland, I told myself repeatedly that I have to remember, it isn't a magical fairyland. I know I've been romanticizing Scotland since I was friendless ten-year-old who became an obsessive Harry Potter fan for several years, where the plot is that you can be whisked away from your friendless life and go somewhere cool and magic, by getting on a train that takes you to Scotland. This has definitely skewed my perception, along with all the folk songs about their magical Wild Mountain Thyme. But you have to remember it's just going to be a place like any other. My Air B&B is in a suburb a 50-minute walk away from the Edinburgh city centre (because, you know, money - I got it for quite cheap), and suburbs are boring no matter where you go, so be disappointed when you're staying a normal boring suburb that's just like any other place. Okay?

That's what I told myself. Then I woke up on that first morning in the Air B&B, looked out my bedroom window, and took this picture of the back garden:

Even their boring suburb is a magical fairyland. My Air B&B was lovely, the woman who ran it was very nice, that was great.

- Canal walk

I did get stuck staying a 50-minute walk from the city centre, because I couldn't afford accommodation any nearer than that. But it was quite nice. Every morning, I left around 7 or 8 AM, and walked into town. Arrived by 8 or 9 AM. Explored the city until noon or so, when my schedule of shows would start. It was a nice schedule.

But even the walk into town was pretty. The whole walk was on a path that ran along a canal, with bridges and old buildings, and I listened to a lot of Bobby Watt along the way, because in Edinburgh, even the boring suburbs are nice:

- The city in general

Holy fucking God. I saw a lot of Edinburgh on Google Earth before I visited there in person (I spent way too much time on Google Earth in Edinburgh, over the several years that I spent planning this trip), and I saw that the place looked really cool. Like, and I'm sorry I keep saying it, a fantasy novel. The old buildings, the cobblestone streets. I kept telling myself that while anything can look cool on the internet, I have to expect it to seem more mundane in person. Everything seems like just a part of everyday life, when you're there.

But when I got there, it was far, far more amazing than it seemed online. No amount of comedy routines about "tourists think Edinburgh is some beautiful thing, when actually it's full of alcoholics vomiting in the street" could take away the magic of it. It's my favourite city I've ever seen.

I mostly walked everywhere I needed to go in Edinburgh, and one day I took a bus down to the ocean, but when I had to go uphill in pouring rain to get back from the shore - and I was worried that if I walked or waited for buses I wouldn't get there early enough for David O'Doherty, to be first in line for best seats - I got an Uber. I asked my Uber driver if he hates living in Edinburgh during August because all the tourists ruin his city, and he said no, he likes the extra business (I realize I shouldn't take his answer as representative of most Edinburgh locals - their answer is probably different if their income doesn't depend on tourists who will pay a premium to get to sit slightly closer to David O'Doherty).

He asked me if I'm American, based on my accent and I said no, Canadian. He was extremely apologetic, as he (correctly) assumed that it's highly insulting for a Canadian to be labelled an American. I told him not to worry about it, as I've been known to make a hobby of horrifically offending Kiwis by telling them they sound Australian.

Anyway, after that conversation, as I had established a rapport with this friendly local, I told him that I'm sorry to ask such a tourist-y question that he must hear all the time, but I'm curious - do you get used to it when you live there? The beauty of the city, the hills and the castle and the limestone buildings; the fact that they have buildings older than (the colonized version of) my country that are owned by Starbucks or whatever, because they have so many historic buildings that even their shitty chain stores are using them. Does that seem beautiful to people who are used to it too?

He said that stuff does seem normal when you live there, and that he finds it interesting to see it through tourists' eyes every August, and remember that most places are not like that. But that sometimes when he's walking by the castle, he'll look at it and think "Damn, this is a beautiful city." And I think that's cool.

Well, I've abandoned this post's one-picture-per-bullet-point policy some time ago. Here are a whole bunch of them.

- The Royal Mile

This had all the cool stuff about the rest of the city - beautiful sandstone buildings, stone streets, amazing views. But it was also the centre of the comedy festival, so it had all this other magic going on there too. And I don't mean the magicians. The magicians were annoying. I like whimsical, metaphorical, vibe-based magic, like a city that feels like it's straight out of a fantasy novel, where the amazing art that I've fallen in love with for years - the art that usually just lived on my screens and in my headphones and felt like messages from a far-off land across the shining sea - on this street, that art is all around us to the point where it's thick in the air. I like that kind of magic. Not the kind of magic where someone stands in an already unfeasibly-crowded street and plays irritating music from a speaker while waving fire around. There was some of that on the Royal Mile, and I realize that is part of the art we're supposed to be celebrating, but when I say that it's cool to be surrounded by the art I fell in love with, I mean British stand-up comedy. The kind where one person stands behind a microphone and tells tenuously interconnected stories of increasing thematic depth, as God intended. Maybe I can let in a sketch or character piece or two, if they're very good. But I'm never going to come around to wanting to see magicians.

Anyway. If you ignore how doubt my previous paragraph will cast on this claim, I do mean it when I say I found the whole "art festival" thing fucking cool. I'm not an artsy person. I was an athlete in high school. I was an athlete in university. I was a coach ever since. Almost all my friends in real life are athletes and coaches. I'm used to being the one nerd in a friend group, and the fact that I'm into any kind of remotely non-mainstream media or live performance, makes me a bit of an oddball among the people I know. On the other hand, when I go to online places that celebrate the nerdy stuff I like, I immediately become self-conscious about how I feel like a jock who has no business being here, because I don't have the theatre kid background to what clowning is or why clowning is, and I don't want anything to do with magicians. Or puppets. Puppets creep me out.

So being in that weird in-between, the Edinburgh Festival was a rare chance for me to be somewhere in person that's entirely dedicated to the nerdy stuff I love. It definitely made me feel like a Philistine jock, by comparison to all the artsy people around me. But I loved it. I loved seeing where all this stuff comes from, having proof around me that this does exist in the real world. Feeling immersed in it.

The Edinburgh Festival is incredibly immersive, and I think that's what made otherwise-annoying things seem fun to me. Except the magicians who got in everyone's way in the middle of the street - they were still annoying. But besides them, I liked it all, even stuff I otherwise hate. Crowds. I was warned about the crowds, I was braced for the crowds because I hate crowds (see: my review of London), but on the Royal Mile, I loved it. I just kept marvelling at how many people were there for the same thing, all these cool people who love this cool stuff, gathered in one place. Also, it helped that even when the streets were packed, the Royal Mile was closed to vehicular traffic, so there was enough space for the crowds to spread out a bit. There were no areas where I felt like I couldn't stop walking, unlike in central London.

Also, it was cool to think of the history of that place. The real-life history was cool in all of Edinburgh, but the Royal Mile had history of all those old comedy stories, that comedians tell about what happened at festivals-gone-by, or my favourite comedy shows that got recorded (officially or... otherwise) at festivals gone by. It was all there. How cool is that?

I got lots of time to explore that area, luckily. On a few different mornings, I walked all the way from Arthur's Seat to the castle - the whole length of the Royal Mile. Which hopefully made up, physical health-wise, for spending 7 or 8 hours of the afternoon/evening/night sitting down watching shows. Luckily my blisters had healed by then.

- Ceilidh dancing

I said I was going to write about the best parts of my trip to Edinburgh that were not covered in the spreadsheet with the list of shows I saw. The one event I attended that did not get into that spreadsheet was Ceilidh dancing, because it wasn't a show, it was a participatory event.

I very nearly didn't go. It was such an out-of-character thing to sign up for. I mean, I've loved listening to traditional Celtic folk music since I was a kid, and I love watching people do that type of dancing. I've never been to a Ceilidh before, but I've seen plenty of people do impressive traditional dancing at folk festivals, and it's great fun to watch. To watch. I don't actually do that stuff. Like I said, I am not artsy. It's not my thing.

When I booked my Edinburgh events, I figured it's not like I'll get another chance to do something like a Ceilidh dance, and at least there's no chance of running into anyone I know, who would see how awful I am at dancing, so I may as well try something unusual and see if it's fun. I thought that while buying the ticket months in advance, but when the actual night arrived, I began to panic at the thought that I have no artistic ability whatsoever, and that extends to the art of dance, and I should just go to a pub instead.

But I went, and I'm so glad I did. First of all, I got more than my fill of an interior Harry Potter building, in the room where the evening took place:

I'm pretty sure they held Hogwarts balls in there. Anyway, then we spent two hours trying to follow instructions from a guy shouting at us about dance moves, and none of the tourists knew what they were doing, and I had a fantastic time. It was all these different people from all over the world. Will go back this year.

- Posters

This goes back to what I said about the Edinburgh Festival being immersive. I know I shouldn't put this on the "best parts" list, because I'm sure it has an awful environmental impact, in addition to being probably a bad sign, in terms of the festival's integrity. That it's supposed to be a cool offbeat fringe festival, but instead it's become all about PR and advertisement, including bigger and bigger posters that are surely contrary to the spirit of an artistic collective.

On the other hand. It was pretty fucking cool to walk all over the city through that. It really did feel like one giant theme park, dedicated to stand-up comedy (apologies to the many people who live in the city and might not want it turned into a theme park for 1/12 of the year). It was everywhere.

I'd heard before about the Edinburgh posters, of course. I'd heard comedians talk about planning their posters, getting them printed, having them put up, deciding how many to get. There were also, of course, stories of having their posters defaced or torn down, of seeing this happen together comedians.

I'd been a bit confused by this before, but I'd been picturing pieces of paper taped to lamp posts and things like that. It seemed like a lot of fuss over some pieces of paper. If someone tears down your poster, just print another one and tape it back up, right? And by "print another one", I mean "hook up your laptop to a printer somewhere and press CTRL+P".

Nope, it turns out we're dealing with something far bigger than that. Giant cardboard things that fill entire walls, entire tunnels. And sometimes, they just grow out of the ground where there's no wall at all:

I hate to turn this post into even more parts, but Tumblr has just informed me that I've hit the 30-image limit for a post. So I'm going to post this, and I'll add one more part later, as that will reset the image allotment.

I’m planning my 2025 UK (and, this time, Ireland) trip, and I’m really really excited about it. But as 2024’s come to an end and we all do retrospectives, I thought it would be interesting for me to look back on my 2024 UK trip now, and see what, with a few months of hindsight, still stands out as the best and worst parts.

Reasons why I’m making this list: 1) it’ll be helpful, when planning for next year’s trip, to know what cool things I want to repeat, and what uncool things I want to try to avoid, and 2) I miss my trip and want to mentally re-live it by making a list and looking at the pictures again.

My 2024 trip was divided into three overall parts. Part 1 was five days in London. Part 2 was taking trains – London to Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Glasgow, Glasgow to Fort William, stayed overnight in Fort William, then Fort William to Mallaig, Mallaig to Glasgow, Glasgow to Edinburgh. Then Part 3 was five days in Edinburgh for the festival.

Part 1: London

Best parts of London, listed in whatever order they occur to me

- Trains: There were so many trains. The stations were cool. The tracks were cool. The seats were cool. The vehicles were cool. The speed with which you could get around the city was cool. The “Mind the Gap” voice was cool.

I joked before I left on this trip that this is like the stereotype that says all autistic people are 8-year-old white boys obsessed with trains, and then there's a cute/inspiration porn story in the local paper about the little autistic boy who's all excited to meet a train conductor. I said I'll be like that when I go to Edinburgh and see all those comedy shows, because in this simile, I am an 8-year-old white boy and these are my trains.

Then, once I actually got there, I remembered that trains are also my trains. Some autistic stereotypes exist for a reason. For example, I am a 34-year-old autistic white woman, and I fucking love trains.

- Highgate Cemetery

So beautiful. I wandered around it for nearly an hour, just appreciating all the history. And it was really cool to see Douglas Adams' grave - I left two pens, from my dad and I, as we used to read his books together. I went there mainly because I was interested in Douglas Adams, but was amazed by how lovely the whole place was.

- Taskmaster house

Obviously that was cool as fuck. I also went on a walk by the river to where they have the bandstands where they did location tasks for the first few seasons. I took this picture by holding my phone up over a fence:

- Really good non-shawarma on park bench

A couple of years ago, I heard Nish Kumar recommend a specific Montreal shawarma place on The Bugle, because he performs in Montreal sometimes. I'd never been to that place, but I was a bit skeptical of his recommendation, because I've tried shawarma outside my own city, even in other big cities, and it's always terrible. My city has a lot of shawarma places, due to various factors that mean we have a high Arab immigrant population, so I've gotten used to quite a high standard of shawarma. I know several people who've grown up in Middle Eastern countries where shawarmas actually originated, and told me that our city has their favourite shawarmas in the world.

So, I wasn't sure about Nish Kumar's recommendation. Not because I thought there could be no good shawarma in Montreal (that's not where I live, but it's a big enough city so it'll have some good stuff, better than Toronto), but because I was not sure if I should trust someone from England to know how shawarma is meant to taste. I hear British people talk about kebabs a lot, but they never mentioned shawarmas, so I figured they don't really have shawarma there. Just kebabs, which are not the same thing.

Having said this, when I went to Montreal to see some Just For Laughs shows in 2023, I tried the shawarma place that Nish had recommended, and it tasted amazing. So I had to admit that maybe he does know what he's talking about. I told all this to my friend who lives in London, and when he went to a Nish Kumar gig long before my UK trip, he went up to Nish after the show, and asked what his favourite shawarma place in London is. Nish said some place called Kebab Kid, and I put that on my list of places to visit, to see if England does have good shawarma after all.

So I made a special trip out there. I traveled pretty far out of my way to get there. I took some trains, and then I walked about forty-five minutes, across quite a lovely neighbourhood, enjoying how pretty London is. I arrived at the restaurant, and became a touch concerned that the place I was using to prove to England does have shawarmas and not just kebabs, was called Kebab Kid. But when I went inside, they did have shawarmas on the menu. I ordered one.

The guy behind the counter asked me if I wanted chili sauce or barbeque sauce. I said no, because... obviously. Obviously you don't put those on a shawarma. He said, "So no sauce, then?", and I realized those weren't optional extras, they were the only sauce on offer. No garlic sauce, no hummus. I said... okay, barbeque then. He put misc. salad in there instead of pickles and turnips. It was so clearly not a shawarma. It came with fries, even though fries obviously do not go with shawarma.

Skeptically, I took it down the road and sat down on a park bench to eat. And God, was it ever delicious. It wasn't a shawarma. That's absolutely not what a shawarma is. But it was a very, very good chicken sandwich. A guy sat down next to me and chatted to me for a while. He asked what I was eating, I said a shawarma, and he said he's from Turkey and they don't have proper shawarmas here, not like at home. I said yes, I can see that. They absolutely don't.

But it was a really really good chicken sandwich and I ate it in a really pretty park, surrounded by pigeons, and had a genuinely nice chat with a random stranger, and it felt sweet and peaceful, and I liked it a lot.

I told myself I was going to keep each item on this list pretty short, just a couple of quick sentences to explain them. I did not expect the first list item to make me break that rule would be a shawarma place. I'm going back to the rule now.

- Sunday roast

I flew all Saturday night. I arrived at 8:30 AM. My wonderful hosts picked me up at the airport, I showered and changed and dropped my stuff off at their place, and then, while fuelled entirely by adrenaline and no sleep, I accompanied my friend from a British comedy message board, whom I'd just met in person for the first time, to a pub with a Sunday roast.

I've been informed that he chose this pub specifically because it has a great Sunday roast, they're not all as good as this one. But this one was very, very good. I had horseraddish for the first time. I had Yorkshire pudding for the first time. I was very surprised that this things called pudding was just bread, until I tasted it, and I decided that anything that delicious can call itself whatever it wants. It was the perfect way to start a trip.

- My wonderful hosts

It's weird to write this part because he'll probably read it. But I stayed in the spare room of a guy I'd met two years earlier on a comedy message board, as I've said many times, I cannot believe lucky I got in messaging a guy because I just wanted a few old comedy recordings, and ending up with a wonderful new friend (and more comedy recordings that I could have imagined, that's cool too). We spoke regularly for a couple of years before my trip to the UK, which is relevant because, as my dad pointed out, it's inadvisable to stay with a man from the internet you've not met in person, but if he's been talking to you most days for two years, that's a lot of work to put in just to lure someone to your house to murder them. There are easier ways to murder someone. So it's probably fine.

He did not murder me. He has a wife whom I'd not spoken to before but she was so incredibly nice; I'd been slightly concerned that she might be put out by having to play host to some woman from Canada whom she didn't know, but it wasn't like that at all, she was so friendly and welcoming, and so was her husband of course, it was super cool to meet him in person and spend time with both of them, it was great. And they had three cats who were the absolute best cats in the world. I won't post a picture of the cats here, because, you know, those are other people's private cats. But they were excellent cats.

- The Bill Murray, Nish Kumar

Many, many hours of my favourite comedy I've of my favourite comedy I've ever heard was recorded at The Bill Murray pub, for Angel Comedy. I was so excited to see the venue in person, and I was not disappointed. I saw a Nish Kumar WIP there just before he went to Edinburgh, and holy God, it was one of the best evenings of my life. I arrived at the pub an hour before the show, partly so I could awkwardly hang around the door to the comedy room and get the best seats (I achieved this, of course), and partly because I wanted to spend time in that building, to take in the history.

And it was full of history. The walls were covered in pictures of great comedians who've performed there. There were murals with drawings of comedy legends. And the actual comedy room was perfect - small and intimate, definitely good at those technical things that I don't have enough expertise to know how they work but I know good ones when I experience them (sight lines, acoustics, comedy-conducive lighting). And I watched Nish Kumar perform an absolutely fantastic version of one of my favourite stand-up hours ever. It was a perfect night.

- Crystal Palace

I spent one morning in Crystal Palace. I ate breakfast. It's a very very pretty neighbourhood with cool little buildings and a sense of history and everything that I romanticize, when I romanticize the UK. It had a big beautiful park with dinosaur statues. I went into a cool independent bookstore, which has hosted performances by some of my favourite comedians ever, and I bought a beautiful children's book to donate to the autism centre where I worked at the time. If I'm honest, those hours were the ones I most enjoyed in London, aside from the time at actual comedy shows/venues. I just wanted to have a look.

Pictured below: not a tourist attraction (according to Elis James, who is wrong), but some cool dinosaurs

- Cambridge

On one of my days in London, I got trains to Cambridge and back. At first I was pretty disappointed in the place, because it had so many tourists that I couldn't really appreciate anything. But then I paid about 10 pounds to get into the grounds of St. John's College, which had an entry fee because it was one of the extra beautiful colleges. It was also Douglas Adams' college, so I'd wanted to see it anyway for Britcom tourism reasons. But holy God, was it ever gorgeous. I felt like I was in some sort of unnamed British fantasy novel.

The gardens. The old buildings. The history. The picturesque rooftops, the river with boats punting by like a postcard. The stained glass in the chapel. The courtyards that seemed from another world. The pillars. This was exactly what I wanted when I said I wanted to go to the UK and see "Harry Potter buildings". Not filming locations from the movies, I don't care about that. Magestic buildings with fantasy novel vibes. Also, you know, all the genuine history there. Douglas Adams, and I hear the history of Cambridge University might even go back slightly further than the 1970s.

I also ate lunch at a pub called The Eagle, because it was called the oldest pub in Cambridge, and I think that's even true (as in, I didn't just wander into any pub that had a sign saying "oldest pub in Cambridge" outside, I looked this up beforehand). Because I like history. The pub was so cool on the inside, and yes I'm aware that that's probably not even because it's several hundred years old, it's because they made it look that way so they can trade off tourists like me. I know that - that any pub that's several hundred years old is a Theseus' Ship situation. I don't care, the pub was beautiful. And I had an amazingly delicious lunch there.

- Regent's Park

One of the first places I went when I got to London. So much amazing comedy history there. Pretty park, I enjoyed walking around the pretty park. But I mainly enjoyed looking at the theatre, even though we couldn't go in, and standing on the spot of some of my favourite nights in comedy history, it was fucking cool.

- ABC Comedy, Romesh Ranganathan

This is another very cool comedy club in London, where a lot of really really awesome comedy has happened over the years, I've gotten to experience a lot of it from Canada via the magic of technology but was so excited to be there in person. And I saw Romesh do an hour-long WIP there (I think it was less WIP, and more just messing around and saying whatever came up), which was really funny and a great time. Weird to see someone so famous in person. He was taller than I expected. His reputation is for the grumpy thing, but he's so funny when he says something silly and then gives the crowd a huge grin. It was loose and great fun.

And thought I'd been told before that it's a small room, I was amazed to see in person, and confirm how very small it is, giving how regular it is for big names to perform there (Romesh Ranganathan, for a start). Just like the Bill Murray.

- All the big pretty buildings in the Parliament area, and St. James' Park

I spent a few hours wandering around the big pretty buildings in the Parliament area and St. James' park. It was old and nice and impressive. I kept walking by Big Ben and saying "There's Big Ben!" like in that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

- Square Mile neighbourhood and Leadenhall Market

Another time, I spent an afternoon wandering around a neighbourhood that I believe is called Square Mile. It had a lot of little alleyways, and I'm a sucker for little alleyways. It had big and impressive buildings that I enjoyed looking at. I went into a pub that had chandeliers.

That neighbourhood had Leadenhall Market in it, which is an exception to me not caring about places where the Harry Potter movies were filmed, because it's not just where they happened to film Diagon Alley the movie, it looks like how I pictured Diagon Alley in my head from the books. There were a bunch of little market areas like this in London, which I liked. But this one was my favourite:

- Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub

I spent nearly three hours in this pub. I ordered several alcohol-free Guinesses, because I was trying to stay away from alcohol throughout the trip. I was there by myself. So why did I spent three hours in a pub, if not for the alcohol or the company? It was just one of the coolest buildings I'd been in and I wanted to be in there for longer. I was in a basement room where I couldn't even get internet, so I couldn't even browse on my phone. I just sat there, for hours, alone in the room, and it was fantastic.

The pub had several different rooms, as you move downstairs, and one of the rooms was totally empty so I sat down there. This definitely sated my desire to see the other type of Harry Potter building - rather than the big and majestic ones that could be a wizard castle, this was a dimly lit basement that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1600s, which is apparently when this pub was built. Knockturn Alley. Okay I'm done with the Harry Potter references (to be clear I did not, and would not, do any official Harry Potter stuff that could generate profit for the author because fuck her - I didn't even do any unofficial Harry Potter stuff like the Edinburgh tours or pictures with that Kings Cross cart - I just wanted to sit around in old buildings and feel like I was in a fantasy novel).

This gave me the thing I wanted to find in tourist attractions, but didn't. I visited some large old cathedrals, and wanted to feel a sense of history and magic and the gravity of a place like that, but it was packed with other tourists taking pictures, so I couldn't get into it. I sat in St. Paul's Cathedral trying to feel magic, and finally said to myself, "Yeah, God's not here" and left (metaphorical God, I'm not religious, but I'm often impressed with the weight of human wonder that goes into religious architecture). I found the Cheshire Cheese just after that, sat down in that old building, and felt all the stuff that I'd wanted to feel in the church but failed.

I'm genuinely glad there was no internet signal down there, because I took out my phone, and did write a whole big Tumblr post in my notes app, figuring I'd post it when I got back upstairs (okay, I didn't just stare at the wall for three hours). That magic of the building overtook me. That post was so incredibly cheesy, even for me. It contained the line "I didn't find God in a church, but then I found God in a pub," because apparently I thought I was John Robins now. And that's one of the less cheesy lines, since I'm willing to share it now. I think there were a bunch of reflections in there about struggling with my drinking problem, but written in ways that only made sense while sitting in that room. The rest of the post will be thankfully lost because I got upstairs, returned to the real word, said "this is bullshit" and deleted it. But I hope that this year, I can go back to the magical pub where the real world doesn't exist.

- Other pubs

I didn't drink at all in the UK (okay, I had one beer in a pub by the ocean on my last day in Edinburgh, but literally only one pint), and it wasn't the first time in my adult life that I've gone two whole weeks without alcohol, but it was the first time I've done that and found it easy, because things were going so well that I didn't even miss it. I did, however, drink a lot of alcohol-free Guinesses. Because I sat in a lot of pubs and wanted something that at least made me feel like I was drinking.

The worst part of London was the heat and the crowds and the fact that everyone moves so fast that you're not allowed to stand still for half a second without people getting angry at you for blocking the sidewalk, and there weren't a lot of options for refuge from that. A lot of the restaurants seemed to be takeaway-only, or just a few tables, and were always packed. So a lot of times, I found myself ducking into pubs to get out of the heat and the crowds. The pubs were old and nice and quiet and comforting, and I enjoyed sitting in them a lot.

- Egg Sluts

Okay, I'm going to change the tone a bit from the darker, drinking problem-based stuff. I had a fucking excellent breakfast sandwich in a place called Egg Sluts. I did not take a picture, but it was so good that I have to go back there in 2025. I'm a big fan of the egg + meat-based breakfast sandwich, and that was probably the best one I'd ever had.

- Sausage rolls

The first time I ordered a sausage roll from Gregg's, I did it while giggling about how I feel like a character in a story that was told on a panel show. The WILTY people are always making up stuff about Gregg's and sausage rolls. What a cute British thing to do. I'm going to eat a sausage roll on a train. This is so British.

The second, through, by my best estimation, 504th time that I ordered a sausage roll in Britain, I thought, "Fucking hell, am I ever glad we don't have these in Canada. I don't think I'd have lived to this age if I had the option to order them all the time. Sausage... in bread... it's brilliant. Why didn't we think of this in Canada? We must never think of this in Canada. This needs to remain a treat abroad."

- Lamb being a common food there

Here, it's a delicacy, often not available in places that serve the more common meats like chicken, pork, and beef. Some places offer it, but for a higher price than the same dish with another meat. Britain just puts lamb in everything.

- On a similar note, one day I went up to the roof of a high building and ate a lamb kebab while looking out at the entire city, and that was very nice:

- The Soho Theatre

Same deal as the other comedy venues - cool place full of comedy history, I've heard so much stuff from there and loved getting to see it in person and physically be in that space. Also, the walls were full of posters from shows that had performed there over the years.

- The London Underground when it was not packed with people

Fun stuff. Sometimes it was all dark and felt like a sci-fi movie. The cars made fun noises and went fast.

- I saw Daniel Kitson live twice, a couple of nights apart. One of the times, I met him after the show. My brain shut down and I forgot all the words in the English language and he stood there looking at me and I couldn't speak to him. He performed what I think is one of the best shows he's ever done, and I got to see it live, and that was cool as fuck. So incredibly cool. But oh my God, I felt terrible later that night (and the next day, and the next few days) when I realized how badly I'd Got It Wrong when I met him.

It's okay though, because I did eventually manage to look at the pictures my friend took, and those pictures confirmed that he at least found the situation amusing (I could not confirm that at the time as I was physically unable to look at him):

Worst parts of London, listed in whatever order they occur to me

- The British Library

It might be unfair to call this one of the worst parts of my trip to London, because it was still pretty cool. But most of London was good, so by the standards of that, this was… weird. I went on the day I arrived, right after the Sunday roast, when I’d flown all night and not slept in well over 24 hours by then, so that definitely did not help. I took a guided tour of the place, and the tour was super weird. Our guide was obsessed with telling us that the government had secretly killed Alan Turing. Every part of the tour was basically a way for him to bring it back to that subject. Which almost sounds like a gimmick, but the guy seemed quite serious about it. He also told us several facts that other people on the tour pointed out were incorrect (not just the conspiracy theory thing, but factual stuff like confidently mis-labelling what language certain books were in). The whole thing was just weird, and the fact that I was reaching “asleep on my feet” territory made it feel like a weird drug trip.

- The heat

I realized a few months before the trip that this would be taking place in the middle of summer, and I need to factor in how much I cannot stand being outside in the middle of summer. I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it. My body cannot stand excessive heat. I am meant to live in Arctic temperatures. Where I live now, the weather has been mostly between -10 and -20 degrees Celcius for the last few weeks, and that's about where I feel comfortable. As soon as it starts going above 0, I don't like it.

London in the summer was well above 0. To be fair, it was slightly less hot there than it was at home. I was told that I was there during one of their heat waves, but even their heat wave temperatures were not quite as hot as what I get at home on a regular mid-summer week. So that would normally be nice. But at home, I'm not usually walking outside all day, for several days in a row, in the middle of summer. I'm usually hiding in my house with a fan blowing directly on me and cold wash clothes draped all over my body, telling myself that autumn will come soon.

So. Summer tourism might not be the best call for me. I got very miserable being in the heat for so long, and that made everything else harder to deal with. The crowds. The blisters on my feet. I could stand them all more easily if my body were not in horrible pain from the elevated temperatures, dealing with the sensory nightmare of sweat everywhere. Not to get too graphic or anything.

- The crowds

Oh my God, the crowds in London. I already covered most of this when I wrote about crowds before, but fucking hell, it was bad. The whole sidewalk. I'd often been surprised when I saw people on panel shows talk about how much they hate people who stop walking on a sidewalk ("pavement"). "Why don't you just go around them?" I wondered. Well now I know why - you can't! You can't go around them. There is no area of foot traffic that's not full of people. I think it was the lack of ability to stop moving that bothered me even more than just the proximity to so many people, but both were bad. And worse in the heat.

- I got awful blisters all over the bottoms of both feet on my first day there, and they didn't start to heal until after I'd left London

I still don't know why this happened. I mean, obviously it was because I was walking around all day as a tourist. But I had a job at the time where I was on my feet all day, so it's not like I wasn't used to some of that. I had good shoes. New enough to still be good, old enough to be broken in. I think I'm maybe just not used to walking on paved surfaces for so long. They were hard on my feet.

The blisters started to get better when I spent a couple of days on the trains to and around Scotland - got off my feet for nearly two straight days, just sitting in the train seats. Also, at the Edinburgh train station, I "bought some plasters from Boots", which I found to be an amusingly British thing to do. Those helped. So it wasn't such a problem when I was walking all around Edinburgh.

But for those five days in London, I couldn't put weight on either foot without it being in terrible pain, and obviously that's not ideal for an holiday where I walk around a city all day. The worst was in Cambridge, as I walked around that utterly beautiful St. John's College, and kept thinking... I wish I could be here without it causing excruciating pain to the bottoms of my feet. Then I could enjoy it more.

I need to look up good preventative blister stuff before I got back in 2025. At the very least, I'll bring some Band-Aids ("plasters") with me this time and put them on when it first starts.

On the best-of list, I put pictures of each bullet point. Be grateful that I'm not doing that here. Because I did take a picture of them one day, so I could have a record of how bad they got (seriously - the ran all the way across). But I'll spare the public that.

- Covent Gardens

Oh my God, I hated that place. I planned to spend a few hours there because there was so much touristy stuff that I figured I should see, but it was awful, for the reasons I've already outlined. Heat, and no escape from it. Giant crowds. Blisters on the bottoms of my feet. Walking around this busy square.

I went to get a something from my UK trip pictures folder to put here, but it turns out I didn't take any pictures in Covent Gardens. I was so miserable that at no point did I think "I want to save this for posterity". I'm not doing that place again.

- Buckingham Palace guard changing

The palace itself was cool to look at, but if I went back there again, it wouldn't be when they change the guard. It turns out the Buckingham Palace guard are just Mounties. We have Mounties at home. It was a bunch of guys dressed as Mounties doing the guard-changing routine that the Mounties in Canada do, but with fucking thousands of people gathered all over the square and the streets so you couldn't get anywhere near it to actually see. It might have been cool if I'd been able to get near it - I enjoy watching the Mounties do their thing sometimes. But I'd rather just go look at the pretty Palace sometime when it's not so full of people.

- St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral

I was looking forward to this stuff because as I've said, I like that kind of architecture. But the number of tourists meant that vibe-wise, it felt more like a very fancy shopping mall than the site of centuries worth of humans trying to connect to the Divine.

- The London Underground when it was packed with people

Extremely uncomfortable, do not recommend.

- The show I saw at the Soho Theatre

It wasn't very good.

I was going to add parts 2 and 3 of my trip on the end here, but this post has got too long, and I know Tumblr has a limit to the number of pictures you're allowed to add in one post. So I'll just post this one now, and then I'll add the other parts in a reblog later. This has been a fun exercise in remembering stuff.

[jankwritten]

Percy lived with Jack and Bitty???!!! Your brain🤩🤩

OH YES HE DID HEHEHEHE

Percy's side of hockey AU needs A LOT of work (it was written before Spotlight, so it's kind of the precursor, and contains a lot of stuff that's been rewritten or changed since then) but his past with Jack and Bitty will Remain.

Percy was a MESS when he first got brought into the NHL. I haven't decided if I want to change his backstory (originally he was scouted out like Jack was and given a contract, but that was before I had a better idea of how the NHL actually works LMAO) but he basically wasn't going to make it in hockey, and was going through a massive life crisis about it.

So then, of course, that's when he got called up to be a Falc. Percy, who at that point had only ever lived with other people like his parents and Annabeth, had NO CLUE how to take care of himself. Apparently that's the reality of a lot of hockey players who grew up in the system, and so I think Percy would also have a touch of that "I kind of don't know how to do laundry please help me" stuff.

He doesn't get an apartment in time and is basically living out of a hotel for all of training camp, at which point Jack is like "dude. you're a good player, a really good player, but you're a mess off the ice. what the fuck is your deal." and after Percy explained his whole situation, trying to laugh it off in the typical Jackson way, Jack said, "There's more than enough room at my place, as long as you don't mind the, uh. baking."

anyway jack and bitty are two of Percy's best best friends and they all still hang out and have dinner together etc etc. I have plans in my rewrite of Percy's AU (tentatively called So We Meet Again) for them to know Annabeth as well, and have met her multiple times and whatnot.

Annabeth Shitty and Lardo in a room together the world implodes and then explodes.

[the-depths-of-the-coral-sea]

Super Spectacular 250 Follower Event!

Welcome to the garden⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ Unlike the previous one, however, this one is filled with everything but flowers★*⁠.⁠✧!!

Musical Mushrooms 🍄

“If you call out to them, they'll call out right back!” Q&A★ Ask me quite literally anything about my interests, my faves, you can even give me a topic or character to analyse, as long as I'm already familiar with them! But nothing too personal(age, height, etc)!! Though if a certain question makes me uncomfortable, I won't answer it.

Limit: none, can send multiple questions per ask✮ 𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

The Frog Pond 🐸

“The frogs love to hop around on the lily pads. They make the cutest sights ever!” A moodboard★ Send in a character of your choice from a fandom in the intro post, and I'll make a moodboard for them!!

Limit: one moodboard per person⭒⋆☾⋆✧

Fairy's Cottage 🧚‍♀️

“The fairies are always whizzing around and spicing appearances up with outfits they seem to pull from thin air!” Custom outfits★ Request any fictional character of your choice(doesn't have to be from a fandom of mine) and some accessories or clothing pieces(e.g. santa hat, short-sleeved purple shirt, etc.) or let me edit some probably strange outfit onto them!! You can also provide a theme(e.g. witch, wizard, hatsune miku, etc.)!!

Limit: multiple characters in separate asks after i've finished the first one⋆｡‧˚ʚɞ˚‧｡⋆

The Magic Mirror 🪞

“It's said that at the very bottom of the pond is a magic mirror that reflects the true nature of your soul...” What reminds me of you★ Drop an ask and I'll include something that makes me think of you!!

Limit: one per person ࣪˖ ⊹₊ ⋆

portal to the intro post+speech utc★!!

WOW. 250... this feels so unreal honestly😭😭 the story of how i joined tumblr is kinda mediocre lmao. basically, it was the only social media website that was accessible on my school computer, so i set an account up with my school email(for confidential reasons). why? because i had, and still have, a lot of thoughts. especially interest related!! but most of my irls dont listen and i have lots of limitations for posting on whatsapp. so i decided to put my thoughts, fandom and non-fandom, onto here!! a blog for anyone that wants to hear me out★ then i got into rp and started making online friends, finding people i admired(cough @/artist-kreating-stuff and @/catihere cough), and soon, tumblr wasnt just a place for me to put my thoughts. it was like a second home. somewhere i really connected with. since then, ive made more friends and found more people that i look up to and am too scared to approach off anon, and it's been fun!!! ive been here for... eight months? seven to eight months. ive made memes, theories, etc. and i have no regrets :) love you guys so so much, hope youre all doing fine, and remember, im always right beside you in spirit, offering you hugs and love<3

thank you so much for 250🫶🫶

[femslashfeb]

HELLO ALL

TLDR

No reblogging from the blog this year - posting prompts tomorrow the 31st

For the past few years I've very much struggled with reblogging everyone's activity in the tag. So this year I will not be doing so.

(OR maybe I will? I just don't want to commit)

Even if I knew how to make a bot that reblogs - a lot of people still use the unique tag to tag outside challenges. So I've always had to hand submit. However it became too stressful for me and for the past few years I ended up avoiding it until later weeks or even months.

If you noticed I didn't finish reblogging last year so- I've just given up on that.

Honestly I've struggled a lot with depression for the last 7 years or so. It's been harder and harder to find my way back to tumblr. It doesn't help that my phone can barely handle the amount of apps it already has.

My main account @puff-pink hardly ever updates because of my big sad. And I don't know if I'll ever get back on the horse in the same way I did before.

Some of you know me as an artist, and tho I still churn out subpar art for my day-job I've struggled a lot to make art for myself during my depression. Partially because one year I overworked my hand - and still deal in continual wrist aches. Even the weeks I don't pick up a drawing tool.

I intended this challenge for myself and maybe the small fandoms I was in at the time. But it took off among writers and creators of all types across all fandoms.

One year I even tried to tally the most popular fandoms but there were honestly too many to keep track of- and I stopped after the first three pages of submissions.

I don't claim to have invented the concept of FemSlash February. Before I started the prompts I swear I had heard the phrase somewhere. Tho not sure where. Perhaps it had been amongst my friends on Skype. Back when I had online friends and Skype(I'm still not sold on Discord🤷‍♀️).

However that January I thought it would be fun to partake in a challenge of some kind. But scouring tumblr and the general internet. I could only find half hearted efforts on fanfiction sites from years past.

I'm so proud of all my Sapphic creators on here that have partaken every year. Even if I've never shown favoritism or awarded anyone. I do notice those that actually complete the challenge AND those that keep coming back each year(looking at you H20 writer(I don't remember your username but there's a mermaid writer that's a writing machine)). I truly am proud of you especially in my shriveled state of creativity. Thank you for your efforts. For your hype. And for your love of women of all kinds across all the universes.

Each year I'm surprised to find even more categories I never thought to include. From mood boards, to doll photography, to ofc the classic art and writing. May your pencils forever be in union with your sister mediums.

On that note. There is a strict NO AI GENERATED ART or writing this year.

Not that I could physically stop anyone who does use AI. But I do not want that sort of thing associated with this challenge. It's become scarily good in 2023 to the point it can't always be identified. So I simply ask for the honor system when it comes to AI generated creations.

That being said. If you've made it to the end of this post:

Prompts will be posted tomorrow.

I usually prefer to give yall more of a buffer, but I've been busy. Both with Big Sad, rescuing some feral cats, my own life, errands, chores and work.

If you're still here- here is a preview of the first three days.

FEB 1 - black

FEB 2 - spring

FEB 3 - cake

The 14th as usual will be some sort of Valentine romance type theme(haven't decided specifically yet) and as always there will be a Rest Day.

Expect some repeat prompts. In the past I tried to avoid them but idc anymore.

It's also a Leap Year this year so expect one extra prompt to throw off the symmetry of what's normally 28 days.

Thanks for coming back this year. And thank you to those that still check on this blog.

❤️🧡🤍💜🩷

Keep loving girls

-PuffPink

[cardicoven]

hi!! could you share any of your experiences interacting with persephone? or how has it felt to communicate with her? or even just fun anecdotes. ive given her an offering and im so happy to worship her... but god theres so little info or people talking about her!!!

Hey! So thanks for the lovely question, its great to hear that your reaching out to Persephone and are looking into worshipping her. I've been working with Persephone for around 3 years, giving weekly (often daily) offering and have maintained an altar space for her throughout that time. I say this not to boast or seem all knowing on the topic but to give some small context on my practice with her. Like many others my practice and worship of Persephone varies with the seasons, I feel her most strongly in Spring and Summer. During this time when light her candle I feel her presence, almost in that way when a Parent/Mentor/Guardian looks in your direction and you feel their eyes on you. When I leave offering during these months, I often experience feedback sometimes emotional, rarely I'll hear an affirmation, 'Thank you' or 'how thoughtful' kinda thing. When I call for her assistance in ritual I feel her behind me, sometimes guiding my hand, or I'll smell/taste something she advises for the ritual, only for the feeling to pass when I lay my hands on the herb/oil/item suggested. When it comes to divination she a dedicated card in my Tarot the 10 of Pentacles (which in my deck is the Pomegranate 10 of Crops, I use the Bottanical Deck link) and in my experience she's always happy to make it appear when she has something to say during Divination. In Autumn and Winter my experiences with her is very different, she feels distant, less patient, she's in the Underworld and has stuff to do. I don't feel her when I light my candles or leave small offerings. Only when I Invoke her and ask for her help in ritual do I feel her presence, its powerful, not stern per se but business esc, she's there to help and her time is not to be wasted. During this time I only invoke her when I really need her, most often in death work, or partially important banishings/protections and I always have a sizable offering at this time. That's not to say Persephone is not comforting or compassionate towards me in the colder months, her attention is elsewhere, and her responsibilities are with the dead.

That's all little heavy so here's a fun Anecdote. A few Years ago, myself and some witchy friends had a Party, there was plenty of drinking and debauchery (we were celebrating a friends bad break up). During a lull in the evening we pulled some cards and did some Tarot, nothing serious just good fun freaking out a few non-witchy friends, nevertheless Persephone had a word or two to share on the breakup, and while I don't remember much of it, it consisted of pointing out the Guys flaws and highlighting my friends strengths. After we put the cards away my friend asked how she should thank Persephone for her insight, I said leave her a wee offering, pour a shot out for her outside. My friend did so and said the following 'Thank for your wisdom Lady Pomegranate', before going back inside and passing out. I guess it's the thought that's counts.

Just gonna finish this off with a small list of recommended Reading since Anon is just starting out, and hopefully it might be useful. I'll link to Goodreads, but you should be able to find copies of these online somewhere if you try to. o Persephone's Pathway by Jennifer Heather: link : a wonderful exploration of Persephone from a modern pagan perspective but not without flaw. (my review) o Greek Religion by Walter Burkert: link : Currently making my way through this, it's academic and a heavy read but so far enlightening. o Old Stones, New Temples by Drew Campbell: link : an older book about Hellenic reconstructionism, reading it atm, so far its heavy but good. o Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion by Ellie Mackin Roberts: link : On my reading list, 'This volume presents a case for how and why people in archaic and classical Greece worshipped Underworld gods.' o Hellenic Polytheism: Household Worship by LABRYS: link : I haven't got around to this yet but it's comes highly recommended. Hope this helps, and thanks again for the ask.

[fandomwritingbit]

I don't know about you, but tests and all that scary stuff is coming around for me next week, and all year I've been having horrible little thoughts about William lately.

So get this, lets say you actually study for that type of stuff (i know i don't) and you just can't get the information to stick in your head!

✨Magically!✨ You or Will, idrc comes up with the bright idea on how to get it to stick in your head by sitting on his dick and reading or going over whatever you've gotta remember

i might've read this somewhere butttttt, i'm a needy little whore at 1 am lets goooo

Before I forget, I love your fics and I have never submitted one before so...! As usual, drink your water, eat some food, and remember to get rest! unlike some of us Lastly, don't forget to sexualize your favorite old man/woman/other

Hi, thanks for the request, this one was an absolute joy to recieve, I love all your little asides lol. Please feel free to send others!

Exams season is a killer and I really hope you get what you want out of it, just remember that tests and numbers and shit don't define you as a person Xx

That being said, whilst this may not be the most optimal way to study, its certainly the most enjoyable...

william afton x (gn)reader

A/N- Reader's between 18 and early 20s. William is a neighbour, for my plot convenience lmao.

You're sitting at the kitchen table to do some studying today, rather than barricaded in your room as usual. You'd read something online about a change of scenery being good for remembering stuff and because your parents were out it seemed a good opportunity.

With each passing minute, you dawned to the conclusion that that post was bollocks because it wasn't working.

You had your laptop open in front of you, surrounded by a frankly obnoxious amount of papers, trying to wrap your head around content for an exam tomorrow. But each time you wrote a line it was like your mind was rubbed blank, Men in Black style. It was so frustrating, and you knew you should have done it earlier but, good god, why was it so hard to remember anything?

So engrossed in feeling inadequate, you flip the laptop shut angrily, tilting your head back so it touched the chair in anguish. Defeated. It was as you did this that you clocked a figure in the kitchen doorway, making your body jerk up-right and turn round in one fluid moment.

Keep reading

"Mr Afton, how long hav- what are you doing here?" you blurt out, quick to try and compose yourself, you weren't physically or mentally ready for guests, especially ones you'd been casually hooking up with since you moved back home.

"Just dropping this off for your dad. I didn't want to interrupt cos you seem to be... trying not to cry?" 

He laughed as he said the last part, moving over towards you and helping himself to a chair. Pushing all your papers to the side without asking. "What's wrong then, been missing me?"

Usually you'd laugh at that but you just shrug at him, half angry at his expression and half at your situation. "You know, I could fucking cry." You do manage a laugh, but its shaky, "Because I'm going to fucking fail this fucking exam because I can't drill any of this shit through my fucking thick fucking skull." You rattle off quickly, each use of 'fucking' harsher than the last.

...

You hadn't really meant to let any of that out. But frustration had taken hold a bit too strongly there.

Afton just stared at you for a few seconds, his lips pressed into a hard line and you could tell he was trying not to laugh at you. You were a bit unsure how you'd react if he did.

After a few moments of silence you place your forehead in your hands and mutter 'sorry'.

"You're alright. Though you shouldn't be studying whilst you're upset, no wonder nothings going in."

"...If you tell me to calm down, I'll lose it." you say, head still in hands, laughing a bit at how much this was bothering you, it was an exam, a booklet of paper, what kind of melt would be this upset. Literally everyone else, you suppose. You take a deep breath.

"Right. Uh when's the test?" he asks you, half looking at a sheet of notes, his interest quickly peaked.

You laugh shortly. "9am."

"Then you've got... What, 20 hours? You've got time to calm down and revise." He put his hand on your shoulder, "You, sweetheart, need to relax."

You swat his hand away, laughing at his cockiness you could tell where this was going, "That's why you came over then? Heard dad's car door shut and your shoes were half-on I'll bet?"

He flashed you a smarmy grin, "You're not far wrong." You shake your head, messing about with this prick was the last thing you should be doing, but the first thing you needed.

"You know, if this type of revision isn't working for you... I heard that associating information with a sense can help you remember things."

You could hardly believe him, seeing you upset and still vying for what he came for. A risky move, Really. You suppose it took cojones, could have made you want to grab a hold of his, or squash them under your shoe.

"Oh yeah?" you ask sarcastically, "What are you suggesting?"

~

You're not sure how long it took for fresh marks to appear on your neck and your pants to be around your ankles, but you quickly find yourself sitting on his lap and letting his cock slip inside you.

As familiar as the low grunt from behind your ear was becoming, the feeling of him stretching you open always surprised you.

You raise your hips up and press back down again, moaning slightly, he let you slowly ride him for a few moments before, just as your rhythm increased, he grabbed your hips.

"Easy," his voice was thick, brushing against your neck, "You're supposed to be fucking studying."

You groan your protest, a hair away from booing him. "What is it you study again?" His question makes you laugh and you lean back against him with your back arching, causing him to grunt. He gripped your hips harder now forcing you still.

"Fuck 's sake. History."

He hummed in your ear, thinking for a minute, whilst your body throbbed around him desperate for some kind of stimulation. "And what's this on?" He could tell you were aching for something so he pushed you forwards, dragging you back, the angle allowing him to press so fucking deep.

"Come on, sweetheart."

"Civil war. Spanish."

Your gruff answer mirrored his growing frustrations.

"And uh... I don't- who won that?" The fact he couldn't move inside your tight hole was making him white-knuckled with restraint.

"-Nationalists."

With your one word answer that was enough studying for the both of you. He started to move your hips along him, letting your eager pace take over.

You knew that you were going to be up all night doing this now, but you didn't really mind.

[prettywordsyouleft]

2024 Writer's Wrapped

Thanks @blizzardfluffykpop for being so kind and tagging me in their wrap up. I'm not sure if this is going to be an amazing one compared, since I've written very little this year, but I think it's important to look over what I have achieved, considering I have some ambitious goals to get back into writing more in 2025 (life playing ball and not throwing anymore curveballs withstanding).

Tagging @noona-clock because I know B is still writing, and any of my other wonderful mutuals who write who see this, have a go!

Anyway, here is my Writer's Wrapped.

First Fic of 2024:

Every Damn Time - Park Jinyoung x female reader (published 30th April)

You can tell this entire year has been really hard for me and my mother around her health as this was written at the start of the year, I didn't have time to post it until April. At this point in time, Mum had been pretty dizzy from medication and just really unwell, and I remember writing this story out through tears on my phone in bed to calm down enough to go to sleep. Whilst this wasn't anywhere near as bad as it got, writing or reading really helped me endure everything that went wrong this year for Mum. And of course, I turned to Jinyoung for comfort. If it's not him, it's Kyungsoo lol.

Last Fic:

Missed Me - Park Jinyoung x female reader (published 7th November)

The fact that Jinyoung got me writing again thanks to his military discharge still makes me annoyed. But I'm glad I'm writing again, so I guess this story was a necessary evil. It's technically not the last thing I've written this year, as I have two stories to go up in January already, but it's the last thing I've posted in 2024.

Longest Fic:

Business or Pleasure [M] - Jung Jaehyun x female reader (1608 words)

Yeah, I still cannot believe I wrote a dedicated smut scenario either. Let alone post it online, but here we are.

Most Popular Fic of 2024:

Personal Torture - Bang Chan x female reader (has 127 notes currently)

I still dread returning to the gym thinking about this. I had to quit to take care of Mum full-time soon after writing this as I just couldn't do everything in a day, and now I'm wanting to improve my health so I can look out for myself anddddd definitely not getting a personal trainer any time soon if I return. But I love this story. And if you love Chan, well maybe you should look out for 2025 👀 a series I started like 2-3 years ago is FINALLY getting posted...

Personal Pick:

Well, there's only one fiction left that's not posted above, so let's pick it now.

Roll Into Me - Park Chanyeol x female reader

I dunno why I wrote this, just that I was enjoying playing around with how far I could take my suggestive content without cringing.

*whispers* Business or Pleasure is actually my favourite of them all, but the less said on that, the better.

Total Fics Written:

Five published on here. Two that are unpublished and will be shared next year. Several ideas written down but no progress on yet.

Total Words Written:

4975 - way more than I thought I'd get done.

I also have a fictional world that I write on for my close friends. And I think I did about 3-5k there earlier in the year. I'm really behind in that world actually >_<

Top Artists Muses:

Annoyingly, we know who is my top muse.

In Conclusion:

2024 wasn't the year for me to write, but a year to survive. One that I had pockets of creativity to endure what a shitfest it was for me and my family. Equally, it showed me that writing is helpful, and that I shouldn't feel like I can't do it anymore because I read books now. It's kind of a snobbish sounding response that, but what I mean is, I know I don't have the backbone to publish a book anywhere. I couldn't handle someone like myself who reviews books on the regular trashing anything I write. So I decided, I just can't write anymore somewhere in amongst that thinking.

But I can, and I don't have to publish a novel to prove that. I just have to write in what capacity I choose to.

Let's hope I can give this blog more love in 2025, try new things, keep expanding on what I enjoy writing, and just rediscover my love for writing whilst enduring the grief I'm living through with the death of my mum. I think it will be a cathartic experience.

[florenceisfalling]

Lego

at some point in my youth or something i obtained a lego tupperware for sandwich-holding purposes. i straight up cant even find a picture of the exact one online. its just a sandwich tupperware but with a lid that looks like a lego. its yellow and clear. it holds a sandwich effectively. a lot of my school lunches were in that specific tupperware. i was not cool enough to be a lego kid and i have no idea why i have it.

not to throw a curveball in the story, but i collect dead bugs. moths especially, and my best find was a polyphemus moth on the porch one day. my mom and i both got so excited over it, but i needed to stay outside longer so i just put said moth gently on a potted plant and planned to grab it before i went back inside. i forgot it, sadly, and by the time my mom remembered and went out to see if it was still okay, it had become significantly more crumbled. my mom promised me that if she ever found another polyphemus moth intact, she would keep it for me. i still have the crumbled one. i don't keep my bugs very well preserved, sadly; i need to change this, genuinely.

another, far more jarring curveball: my mom died a bit over a year ago. she was sick, but it was still unexpected. dad drove her to the hospital after i helped her into the truck. for a few minutes, i did watch her stop breathing and go unresponsive before we were able to wake her back up, and this gave me a really awful scare. she seemed to be doing better by the time dad drove off, but i was so panicked i burst into tears immediately and called my fiancee. i paced around the house and outside, walking in circles around the perimeter of the yard, rambling to her. and about the same time my mom died in the truck, or a little while before, i walked out to the back porch and saw a perfectly intact polyphemus moth sitting on the ground right in front of the chair my mom would always sit in on the porch.

my brother had dreams on his way to the hospital about her in the back yard too. it was her last gift to me, i think.

like i said, i'm bad at preserving bugs. sadly, her last gift to me has since lost its antennae and taken a little damage, i do intend to get it better preserved someday, probably by someone who can actually do it more professionally. for now i've got a painting of it.

but i did need somewhere to put it when i found it, and the first container i found in my house was that lego sandwich box. that moth is still very carefully packed between paper towels in a stupid plastic sandwich box. it does keep it pretty safe, actually, its a good size.

every time we get a fire drill on campus, they tell you not to grab anything. however, i would rather be dead than alive and lacking some of my most important belongings, so i always grab my backpack with my laptop - its nearly always two inches away from me anyway, my computer is like a vital organ to me - as well as my mom's bible, and that polyphemus moth. its always tucked safe in its container rather than on display, which is great when you're trying to exit a potentially burning building.

this does, however, have the admittedly funny side effect of having someone laugh ask me why i brought a neatly packed sandwich during an emergency every single fire drill.

[jazzpostsrandomthings]

My introduction to FFXIV

Hey, after posting the thing about the stress test server a few weeks ago, I got an idea to try and go down the memory lane, trying to recall everything that had happened during the time I've spent playing Final Fantasy XIV. I hope that someone would find my story and experiences interesting. After all, I found out that I enjoyed seeing other people's reactions to the game itself as well.

But in order to tell my story, I have to start somewhere. And I can't find a better way to do so than to tell you how I learnt of the game in the first place.

Not sure when exactly did it start, but I remember my friend mentioning that he was playing FFXIV during Summer this year, I think. I wasn't too interested, after all I had prior experience with MMORPGs like Aion, Tera, Black Desert, ArchAge and even that Digimon Masters Online or whatever was it called, and I didn't go further than level 30 in any of them (which meant I was playing for less than a month or a month and a half at max for Aion (the 2010 version prior to becoming the cash shop simulator with no story) and Digimon Masters). Why was I trying so many MMOs out in the first place? Well, my mom is actually into MMOs herself so I was visiting the titles she was playing as well (minus Digimon Masters) to help her and just find a title I would like, but it never clicked so I thought that maybe I wasn't into online gaming in the first place.

So when I heard that my friend was playing an MMORPG that was also a part of a franchise I didn't know much about, I kinda wanted to join... but I hesitated, knowing that it would probably end the same way as it did for five other titles I've listed above.

Fast-forward to the beginning of September 2023, September 2nd to be presice, when I saw some hentai-loving douche from a Russian Megaman Discord server saying how much the old gaming and MMOs sucked in comparison to perverted gachas he was playing with and how the critically-acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV was actually trash. Needless to say, the guy was banned for posting hentai there. But either way, what he said about FFXIV was actually a good advertisement for the game so I remembered what my friend was saying and decided to reach out to him, saying I am willing to give it a shot. I did mention that I might not stay for too long here due to my track record with MMORPGs, but he said it was fine and that I can leave if it doesn't light up the spark in me in a month. He then made a group DM with a friend of his who actually was a person I saw on a different server a few years ago so that was neat.

I made a SquareEnix account that same evening, downloaded the game and then logged into the Free Trial for the first time, getting hit with this game's version of Prelude (even though I wasn't a fan or FF series, I knew the tune) and feeling a sense of tranquility, staying on the screen for a few minutes and continuing to listen to it while fiddling with settings.

I watched the opening cinematic (it was great but I was wondering if the game even had Japanese voice acting because I like playing games and hearing their original language, be it English, Japanese or something else, just a personal preference) and got to the character creator. I was looking at the races, finding a liking to exactly the three of them -- cat-eared people with furry tails known as Miqo'te, tall and slender horned people named Au Ra and short child-like folk with long ears by the name of Lalafell.

Also I was struggling a lot with trying to read most of the race's names at first. It took me at least a few weeks to memorize them even.

At first, I wanted to make Axl as a cat boy here, thinking that I probably won't stick for long anyway (and I did make him in the game later, I still have his preset saved), but I decided to actually choose the race none of my friends picked up (one was a Miqo'te, other was an Au Ra), so I went for a lalafell and made my boy Pi from ROCKMAN ZERO - Chapter: AXL here to the best of my ability. One of the two friends was certainly really happy I chose a potato according to her messages when I had announced it :D

After getting freaked out by the game asking what my deity was (picked Oschon because Pi has a thing for exploring and learning new stuff about the world), I decided to pick the Healer class, before getting told not to do that because it would make early combat really annoying, and then my friend told me I can go for Arcanist since it would become a Healer class at level 30. Needless to say, I went for the book, then chose the Atomos server because my friends were there (ping wasn't bad here at all, even though everything tends to freeze rarely due to my internet provider screwing me over) and thus had set my eyes towards the seaside jewel of Eorzea -- Limsa Lominsa...

I didn't know there was a different opening for each of the city-states at that time so I had some flashbacks to ArchAge when my character, Pi Peataan (I REALLY didn't think much while giving the character a name), but then we had actually arrived to the city and... I realized I underestimated my PC with the potato graphics settings I had supposedly set for it. Those bushes took me out of it for a moment.

So, I arrived to Limsa, fixed the graphics, met Baderon Tenfingers (still giggling at that name), took notes that pirate speak is indeed quite hard for me to read quickly, then went to the main plaza with giant aetherite where I was met by my friends, the self-proclaimed 'emo catboy' Miqo'te Summoner/Scholar and an immensely tall black-scaled Auri Dark Knight. They greeted me, which made me feel all shy because before that I've only seen these people as 2D avatars and text messages, and now they could ran around me and kinda interact with me... ahem. One of them added me to the friends list (other couldn't, he was still in Free Trial), and then went their own ways while I had one hour left before the bed to explore the city.

I didn't know yet that you don't need to do yellow quests so i just picked up all the quests that were available in Limsa before proceeding with the main quest. I was getting lost in this giant city A LOT, which was the result of me having what I call "topographical cretinism", but I was... enjoying it. I ended the day without setting a foot outside the starting area, but I was looking forward towards tomorrow to explore some more, drifting to sleep while the main menu theme kept ringing in my head, accompanying me into my dreams...

Hope you enjoyed this entry. I will try to continue this series. I had a lot of fun remembering the details of the first day of FFXIV for me and what was I feeling during it all. Playing through it again with my friends that cannot play FFXIV or don't want to sink so much time into an MMO, and looking through the backlog of messages and screenshots in Discord I left while going through all of that certainly helped to assemble these memories back in a proper order.

Next Entry >>

[sea-of-dandelions]

Hiiii hello I saw your tags I'm climbing in here to ask about daisuke and okame ^^

i hold you. my most reliable mewtual. oblig spoilers for the entire series

Daisuke and Okame are two of the five main characters of the book trilogy Shadow of the Fox (written by Julie Kagawa, published 2019-2020)

Okay a little backstory on the plot itself. It's set in a fantasy version of Japan, Iwagoto, and heavily influenced by Japanese mythology. It follows a half-kitsune, Yumeko, and a demonslayer, Kage Tatsumi (and their group of friends that they pick up along the way. Mentioning Reika here. She's the head miko at this one really important shrine I can't remember the name of).

Essentially, there's this scroll that can summon a dragon and make a wish to alter reality every 1000 years or so. And after last time, it's been split up into three(?) pieces, to avoid. like. the possibility of someone being able to make said wish in 1000 years. Tatsumi has been sent by clan (the Kage/Shadow Clan, samurai iirc) to retrieve the pieces, and allies himself with Yumeko, who also wants to protect the pieces.

this is literally the best photo I can find of the map online. i cannot find a good photo of the english map. have fun.

Now. Taiyo Daisuke is a noble of the Sun Clan. Related to the Emperor of Iwagoto. An excellent swordsman. Refined, courteous, cultivated, etc etc etc, but disagrees with nobility's prejudices and way of life. And like. Tartaglia levels of bloodthirst here. iirc he went around Iwagoto as Oni no Mikoto and challenging people to duels for shits and giggles. One of the reasons he joins the group is specifically to fight Tatsumi. Has kinda a "neither of us can die until I get to duel you" relationship w him.

Hino Okame is a ronin. Snarky, sarcastic, annoying, loyal to a fault. Archer, gambler, alcoholic. I think some of his backstory was revealed in book 3 but that was the first book i read and it's been about two years since i've read it. I remember he has an older brother he feels very guilty towards. VERY important though, mentioning he refers to himself as an 'honourless ronin dog' several times throughout the series.

Initially, there's a lot of tension going on between the two. I mean. Nobility and ronin. See the above two paragraphs, their personalities conflict in several ways. It's mentioned several times that Wow nobles are dicks to everyone else. so like. what do you expect. Initially, Okame calls Daisuke by his last name (Taiyo). Eventually we see that Daisuke is Not Like Other Girls Nobles, and treats commoners as equals, even Okame.

HOWEVER there's a scene (in book 2, iirc) where the group is travelling to the Steel Feather temple (somewhere in the mountain range). The Confession Scene. Middle of the night. Daisuke and Okame are talking underneath a tree.

It's pretty blatantly stated that they're star-crossed. With like. The whole social status difference and everything. Okame (and likely several other people) would get killed if someone were to find out the Taiyo nobleman was kissing a ronin. being considered less than human and all. yk how it goes.

But they still kiss. Under the moonlight. Tada.

Unfortunately, since this is third person limited with a POV swap between Yumeko and Tatsumi (and Suki in the third book, who is, for all intents and purposes of this post, irrelevant) and you're just Aware that this private scene is being watched by Yumeko (foxed, thank god, but still).

BUT from this point on, Okame calls Daisuke by his first name. And idk when exactly this starts, but Okame starts referring to Daisuke as a peacock, and to himself as a dog. I think it might've came up in the confession scene

As I mentioned earlier, Daisuke is, well, Daisuke. In addition to wanting to fight Tatsumi, his preferred manner of death is to "die a glorious death in battle". Noting here that while Okame being as brash as he is, gets scared shitless and is very vocal about it.

etc etc their relationship progresses over the course of the series, beta couple to Yumeko and Tatsumi.

Nearing towards the climax of the story, they're going up a mountain (pointing to the map. territorio clan de la luna. moon clan territory.) and they're trying to stop the bbeg from summoning the dragon. They get ambushed halfway, Okame is incapacitated, Daisuke stays behind to fight the oni while Yumeko and Tatsumi continue forward.

Briefly. before i recount this entire chapter. Okame gets fatally wounded, Daisuke ends up having to stab himself to defeat the oni. They bleed out in each other's arms. Fully 1000% cuddling soaked in (mostly) their own blood. And depart to Meido together. And later say their goodbyes to Yumeko together. Daisuke gets his wish to die a glorious death and Okame keeps his promise to stay loyal to Daisuke.

And most importantly, by the end of book 3, Okame's petname for Daisuke was 'peacock'.

[harmonyckrs]

Day 11 of Twisted Strangetown: The Police Are Actually Doing Something

THE PREVIOUS DAY

NAME: TYBALT CAPULET

LIFE STAGE: TEEN

STATUS: UNKNOWN

SPECIAL NOTES: The most recent victim of the disappearances, and the the eldest child of the surviving Capulet family.

---

Dear Diary,

Tybalt Capulet is missing.

Because of this, school has been moved online. Grandpa decided to install some security cameras around the house, and Juliet and Mercutio won't stop spamming each other with insults in our homeroom's group chat.

I've also been hearing a lot of police sirens lately, which is strange considering Tybalt isn't even the first person to disappear. Why did it take him disappearing for people to sudden give a shit? Is it just because he's from a rich family that people care about or something? That'd be really fucked up if that was true.

Grandpa also got a call from Olive and I overheard them talking about Tybalt for a bit, saying all those dumb flattering words that people usually say about dead people before Olive mentioned that she noticed him leave the house at 3 am and turn towards the area with the condos. I'm not sure why Grandpa decided to put the call on speaker, but maybe he's losing his hearing and either way it helps me a lot. Grandpa and Olive started talking about the condos and its residents, consisting of the Curious family, Dina's sister, some guy whose wife disappeared a while ago, Ripp and his family, and a gym bro turned mythologist.

And that made me remember something! That mythologist was named Cyd, and Ms. Broke said he would have info on fairies. But Grandpa was being paranoid about me potentially disappearing, so I decided to try to get in contact with him. Unfortunately there's like no info on him at all besides some stuff about him being the founder of the "Dognatchi" technique, which I remembered doing with Dad as one of the few moments where he acknowledged my existence without yelling at me. I guess I have him to thank for that lol

After this I decided to call Ripp, only for it to end up voicemail along with this random guy telling me not to call again. Weird ass voicemail but whatever. Since Ripp wasn't available to investigate Cyd, I decided to just call Dirk only to find out his dad's trying to suck up to Kent in order to see if he can use him to get Dirk into private school, and Dirk's trying to befriend Ms. Heiress herself since Kent brought her along.

Good for Mr. Dreamer! I didn't think there was anything more to him other than liking art and fantasizing about a married woman, but it seems like he's not a total loser!

Unfortunately that does mean there's nobody else who can investigate for me. Angela's further away than I am, and considering how Dustin is right now I'm not sure if it's a good idea to ask him. I guess I'll just wait until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, somewhere else...

"Congratulations, Brandi, for being the first to befriend a fairy. As a reward, I can grant you a wish..."

THE NEXT DAY

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Hi this is about where Harry said about a flat tummy. It was in Heat magazine in the UK in 2011. It was a print article and not online - but I’ve linked a contemporaneous tumblr quote of it. There’s also some tumblrs reacting to the interview at that time.

He’s asked his favourite body part on a girl and he said “a flat smooth stomach is always nice”. He also mentions that most of his girl friends have been blonde, but a good brunette is always nice.

It’s so funny to read the older, non guarded, interviews. He comes across as cheesy, cringy and not a gender neutral pronoun in sight.

##########

Thanks, anon. Your link was to another blog, and I didn't want to send trolls there. I looked for another source but couldn't find one, so I'm just going to paste the transcript here. If anyone remembers this interview or has a link to it somewhere else, please provide it.

Also, massive grain of salt. It is a transcript of an interview that was supposedly done with Heat Magazine. The original blog who transcribed it deactivated in 2012:

Heat interview with Harry Styles... WEEK FIVE

Heat: What's your nickname?

Harry: Curly.

Heat: Loves?

Harry: Sleep and food. I like fine dining, like at The Ivy - the shepherd's pie there is unbelievable.

Heat: Hates?

Harry: Smoking, drugs, Niall's farting.

Heat: Favourite position?

Harry: Missionary? No, I'm joking.

Heat: Describe yourself naked in just three words...

Harry: A bit disappointing.

Heat: If you were invisible for the day what would you do?

Harry: I'd like to say something cool, but I'd probably run into a girls' changing room at least once.

Heat: Blonde, brunette or redhead?

Harry: Any, really. Most of my girlfriends have been blonde, but a good brunette is always nice.

Heat: Legs, boobs or bum?

Harry: All of them. But I'm more into legs and bums.

Heat: Skinny or curvy?

Harry: Curvy, so there's more to grab on to!

Heat: When did you have your first kiss and who was it with?

Harry: I can't actually remember... I think it was with a girl at school when I was 11.

Heat: Do you have any distinguishing marks on your body?

Harry: I've got four nipples. I think I must have been a twin, but the other one went away and left its nipples behind.

Heat: When were you last naked?

Harry: This morning after my shower, then twice afterwards. [Smiles.] I like these questions - they're a lot more daring then we're used to.

Heat: Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?

Harry: I don't know. I do quite like having a girlfriend as it's nice to have someone to spoil.

Heat: Have you ever dumped anyone by text or e-mail?

Harry: If I said "no", I feel like I would be lying. I think I've done it on the phone.

Heat: What's your favourite part of a girl's body?

Harry: Well, a flat, smooth stomach is always nice.

Heat: Where would you take heat on a date?

Harry: Wherever heat would like to go. Maybe we'd go to The Ivy as the food's nice there and it's got a good atmosphere.

Heat: And what would we have for pudding?

Harry: I don't know. Whatever "afters" she'd let me [give her]!

Heat: Rate yourself out of ten for looks, personality and sense of humour...

Harry: For looks, I'll give myself a generous seven. Personality-wise, I'll go for eight, because I'm a hoot! I have an extremely morbid tone, which is very good for being sarcastic. [Laughs.] And as far as a sense of humour goes, I'll give myself a nine.

[medleymisty]

Tagged by the very awesome and cool @nigmos!

are you named after anyone? - My mother has said that she knew a babysitter at some point in her life with my name? I don't know for sure though.

when was the last time you cried? - I can't remember specifically but probably the last time I thought about cats not being happy and safe.

do you have kids? - nope

do you use sarcasm a lot? - No. I don't really get it, being probably somewhere on the autism spectrum. Sometimes I say really obvious sarcastic things and I tell the spousal person, "I was using sarcasm!" to make sure he knows. ;)

what sports do you play/have you played? - None, really?

what's the first thing you notice about other people? - If they're nice or not, I think.

scary movies or happy endings? - Both! I like horror and I also like silly stories that end happily.

eye color? - I think sort of hazel?

any special talents? - I used to be good at writing! The spousal person says I am good at petting cats. :)

where were you born? - North Carolina, US

what are your hobbies? - playing Sims and Elder Scrolls Online, taking pictures, watching Korean dramas with the spousal person because he's probably also on the spectrum and that's been his special interest since 2019, learning about humans and why they do the things they do, listening to podcasts at work about kdramas or debunking pop science or the history of how current cultural myths came to be or about how cults and other high control groups work, and petting cats.

do you have any pets? - Currently we are at 8 cats. In 2014 we found a pregnant stray in our backyard and she had six kittens and we kept the whole family, and there is one surviving member of the four cats we already had when Pixel showed up. Yes, we have approval from our vet, who called once to tell us that we're the best cat caretakers she's seen.

how tall are you? - 5 feet, 7 and a half inches

fave subject in school? - English and science. I actually got better grades in science than English, despite the aforementioned used to be good at writing thing.

dream job? -  The job I've had for...18 years come September. Taking pics and virtual tours of real estate. I get to drive around by myself most of the day, listening to podcasts, and I get to take pictures and see some cool properties and set my own schedule mostly. It's nice.

I tag anyone who wants to answer these questions!

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Mildly annoyed at my body.

Probably venting. Mostly complaining. Some medical talk.

I kinda want to get a second shift job, but I just got a raise and starting this month, I will be making really good money. Like, double minimum wage money. I don't think I'll be finding that wage anywhere else with no college degree and only 5 years of office experience...

I want to put more of my books on the shelves, the ones still boxed in the living room and the basement. Go through the comics I probably have no real attachment to, maybe offer them up somewhere. Put the books I keep thinking about that somehow didn't get their boxes marked "FAVE" and thus weren't put upstairs when I moved. They're in the basement. I KNOW I have more books by my favorite author. I've been wanting to reread the ones I haven't unpacked.

But I just ate. I can't go up and down the stairs, let alone carrying 2+ boxes and unpacking them. Not to mention, some of them are practically buried in others' boxes... I can't exert myself by moving them around, either. I might be able to reach the ones by the shoe rack, but I don't remember. I can't stand up and bend over to look.

For my stomach AND my back reasons. Ever since I had the neurology appointment, during which they twisted me in ways that made my mostly-fine back start hurting at a Level of 5/10 Again, and when I said it started hurting they kept twisting and asked if it still hurt. Yes! Fuck yes, it hurt WORSE!

And it still hasn't entirely calmed down. The pain now is worse than it was before the appointment. Even two weeks later (or is it three?). Even with lidocaine patches and muscle relaxers. They want me to start steroid shots. (And do physical therapy again, but I already spent most of my PTO built up this year on Sisu's vet appointment and my teeth. I need to build up more hours for things in April, a concert road trip and taking the day of the solar eclipse off because I absolutely REFUSE to miss the eclipse, when I live conveniently RIGHT in the path of totality! I can't take 4 hours off work every week because the PT only has appointments during my work schedule.)

I need to do at-home physical therapy exercises more often anyways, but I can't lay down (let alone lay on my side for 10 minutes) after eating, and by the time my stomach's done making me uncomfortably aware of the food I've eaten, I need to go to sleep.

And tomorrow, I want to watch some panels at an online convention and go grocery shopping and clean the pet cages and shower. Maybe sweep my room and do dishes. I'm still debating if I want to wake up at 10am for a panel on something I've often wondered about (thanks in large part to the name of a roller coaster at Cedar Point), but that will sacrifice about 4 hours of sleep.

Precious sleep. Which is ALWAYS a struggle working first shift. When I worked 3pm to 11pm, I slept for 9 hours every night, no problem. (I was constantly exhausted for Other reasons, but sleep wasn't the problem.) But working first shift? I have to fight my body tooth, nail, and pharmaceuticals to get it asleep before 11pm. Half the time it doesn't happen. The meds make me sleepy, but won't KEEP me asleep.

I take melatonin, L-theanine, herbal supplements (valerian and lemon balm and passionflower and lavender), magnesium citrate, and an anti-depressant and muscle relaxer, all in the desperate hopes that I MIGHT be able to sleep for 8 hours a night. (I struggle with delayed circadian disorder. It's not insomnia, because I can easily fall asleep and stay asleep if it's within my body's natural circadian rhythm. Sleeping about 1-3am, waking about 10:am to noon.)

It isn't the ADHD meds that keep me awake because, once again, due to my stomach being a Little Bitch^tm, I can only take them when I'm having Really Good Days with my stomach. Which is, at most, about 1 in 5 days. It's rare that I CAN take them 2x a week. Let alone every day.

At the core of it, if I didn't work 40 hours a week and didn't have to ride a bus for an hour each way to and from work and didn't have to wake up at 7am every day, I'd have more time and more sleep to endure and work around my stomach's issue with Being Active After Eating, and work around Needing to Sleep or I feel Dead On My Feet.

....though with the raise, maybe I'll be able to get my temps again, and once I get my license, have the budget to start paying for gas and parking downtown...? I figure that's another $200/month, at least, but even if I break even with what my cashflow is NOW, I'd get about 80 minutes of my life back every day. That actually sounds really nice...

But currently, as it stands, my schedule is perpetually packed and my body is perpetually fighting me on doing Anything Ever. =_= Not to mention, the ADHD making it really hard to overcome that executive dysfunction...

It's just frustrating, wanting to do So Much but needing 2 weeks to recover my social battery after being at a wedding for 5 hours. I can't catch up on sleep when my duplex neighbors are massive inconsiderate assholes who blast music every Saturday morning. I want to wake up a little early to hear a really interesting topic discussion tomorrow, but it comes at the cost of spending the entire next week exhausted from sleep deprivation.

Where's the Quality of Life when the amount of life you can live is so small, you can't fit a lot of Doing Things in it anyways?

Worst of all, I've been too exhausted to write, whether that's roleplaying or fic. I'm lucky if I can come up with 5 words for my Pokemon character to tag on a blog post. I can't come up with New Things Happening very often. I really desperately want to continue some Old RPs with Dove, but my brain is fried mush. It's burnt on the outside and just a gooey mess on the inside. I can't jog it enough to Imagine New Things.

I'm not exactly depressive. I'm having fun at the convention this weekend! I'm glad for the 5 words I can scrouge up on the Pokemon RP blog! I'm eating good food and stealing every minute of personal time I can get! I'm watching Teen Titans and ATLA with my roommates once a week! I only have minor complaints with my actual job duties! It's not All bad.

I'm just frustrated that working 40 hours a week is so fucking much to work around that it's a chore all its own to try fitting my life around it without sacrificing sleep health.

Fuck capitalism.

[caluski]

I got an espresso with milk and it was SO cozy, its an artsy cafe with man many paintings including one on the ceiling and drawings and decorations strewn about (think, maximalism, walls covered in art, shelves covered in little decorations and fairy lights etc. But genuine, it wasn't like one of those super Instagrammable things you could tell this was just something someone liked instead of algorithmic coolness)! The drink was very nice, i was sleep deprived so i needed the warmth and the caffeine, and the music was whatever the lady running it put on YouTube. It did a lot of abrupt mood transitions as she queued up songs she liked regardless of cohesion which was very charming tbh! I hung out for a while to gather warmth and good vibes.

Ohhhh milky espresso is such a wonderful thing truly...... And the place sounds heavenly, I love it so much when they put up teeny tiny lights all over the place, it might sound cliche but it's the best thing, something truly unbelievably cozy about it, making you feel so at home and peaceful, with the place bright and lively but also unusually festive, like every silly little boring coffee is an event worthy of celebration, with every order being the most special thing the place could experience... And I love love love places that put up art, whether its some very personal stuff like something staff themselves have made or maybe their friends and family.... or the local artists, like the paintings and photographs and collages bought from universities or small galleries.... Its very lovely and genuine..... And while I feel for you regarding music being "unfit" for a café, I also just like you find it quite charming when staff plays their favorite playlists and albums! It's so adorable because while I usually am armed in my own earbuds in cafés, I also take notice of music playing and it's very cute when baristas and waiters play whatever they like. I think it says a lot about the place, that it's somewhere they feel safe enough in to stray away from some "corporate friendly" royalty free music, and it's specially so adorable when you see them behind the counter, talk about it and laugh and sing along or even switch back and forth to show each other the tracks they like... Its so so so cute.... But yeah I also get it if it's something you personally don't like, it can really throw u off the rhythm.... But it reminds me of when I saw żmijka, the café we stopped by actually seemed to be playing hozier's greatest hits (I assume from spotify) when we popped by.... I think his music, as beautiful and moving as it is, doesn't fit the casual feeling of cafés much, but it was so so so so wonderful because it was just around the time I was exploring his discography for the very first time, and I remember it was just few days after he dropped "de Selby part 2" as a single, but before "unreal unearth", and i remember I kept frowning and whining about it a little bit, but Żmija laughed and said that she remembers I disliked him, because Miłosz also wasn't a fan of his music, and i wondered, ah, is it a transmasc thing, then, such a sudden connection to a stranger.... But obviously, a few weeks later as unreal unearth has dropped, I couldn't just not listen to it, plus I loved that EP of his so much, similarly to Rose I loved "all things end" so very very much, it's such a beautifully moving track...... I think he's very talented, I mean I always knew that, it was more of a "hate the way he's spoken about online" thing, but my goodness...... Anyway, I do miss cafés so much, so so much... I've been living very modestly this past month, I wonder if I could go somewhere tomorrow, have an oat milk cappuccino and raise it to your name dear anon..... For now, I am logging back out, but thank u so much for sharing this, as always, I really appreciate it.... Please support your local non-chain cafés as much as you can, while I personally think the starbuckses and costas and neros look so so beautiful, there is still so much soul and love in the tiny little shops basically run by a few people with a passion..... Love u anon stay good and safe

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

right so that moment has passed and now it turns out i do want to discuss my thoughts in some more detail lmao

like ok to be fair i'm an outsider to all this; i am not and never have been active in cpunk or -adjacent spaces. and i definitely feel like i have not seen the epicenter of this whole drama, since like. in browsing random disability blogs i have in the last week encountered multiple people whose posts for months have been 90% complaining about This Shit, and yet i have not encountered very much of the Shit in question at all?

like. i've seen a whole bunch of posts that go something like, "i can't believe abled NDs* have the gall to call us ableist bullies just for saying that chronic illness and autism are different experiences!", or like, "no matter how clear i make it that i'm talking about physical disability, all my posts end up with a billion notes tagged 'adhd' or 'depression' or whatever. why they gotta make everything about them! let us keep something to ourselves for once!", &/or c. usually in that order. but like... without the obvious middle stage where they argue on their blogs with actual objectors to this "let this be just for us" plea. so like maybe they've deleted most of those posts, or maybe the central example is on some cpunk bnf's blog which i just haven't happened to click on yet. idk. but my point is

that from my outsider's perspective it feels like a huge and sudden escalation? to have gone from "ugh not every post has to be about you; read the actual words i wrote, don't just pretend they said something else that you like better!" to, like, "in case you needed more proof that all abled NDs are ableist scum" rallying-the-troops type posts

and wow! i hate it! i cannot actually imagine a level of vitriol from The Other Side that would justify this bullshit.

i want, like?--i sorta hope that somewhere i've missed there's like, a long manifesto from the aforementioned (hypothetical) cpunk bnf about why they and their friends have suddenly decided that neurodivergent people don't count as disabled. even if i probably wouldn't agree with it, i'm still like. that should exist. you can't just start Asserting stuff like that, at people you know will take offense, without explaining anywhere why you've adopted these different discourse norms.

(or i mean--you can, but if you're not trying to escalate conflict then you really shouldn't.)

but.......... also it makes sense. not morally! but. logically. it seems to be a common problem with any echo-chambery discursive space? i remember when i was ~18-21 and much more Online, i would drink some shiny new kind of SJ koolaid and then forget within weeks that people who hadn't drunk that koolaid didn't know what it tasted like.

e.g. after that post that's like (i'm paraphrasing) "the expression 'boys will be boys' should be replaced with 'bad parenting leads to assholes'" got super popular, for years whenever i heard someone say "boys will be boys" i assumed they were either endorsing or deliberately mocking the sexist baggage with which i associate that phrase. when... no, pal; it's a common phrase. you have zero information about what it signifies in random strangers' minds

so like, i'm guessing that's what's gone on here? like like like, backing up a bit: i sympathize with and frequently feel for myself these people's rancor about mental illness (and, though to a much lesser extent, autism and adhd) being the public face of disability. and particularly the thing where like--

ten or fifteen years ago, when i first encountered awareness-raising activism about mental illness, a lot of it took the form of "you wouldn't download a car"-type comparisons with injury, illness, and/or central examples of physical disability. as in, like, rebuffing "your [mental illness accommodation] is just a crutch!" with "imagine telling someone on actual crutches that they shouldn't rely on a crutch" &c.

when what their intuition told them was about physical vs. mental or visible vs. invisible illness was really more about acute vs. chronic illness.**

and like a. this mistake is very annoying, since it leads to a lot of mentally ill/invisibly ill people assuming incorrectly that physically disabled/visibly ill people don't get doubted and belittled the same way they do, when uhhhh guess again.

but also b. it means that while from my perspective it seems super mega obvious that mental illness is the public face of disability in 2023, many people who care a whole lot about activist efforts on behalf of mental illness but who don't know much about other kinds of disability activism still, erroneously, inexplicably think that the reason they don't see as many campaigns like this for other kinds of disability is because physically disabled people are seen/accepted already and don't need to fight for that the way mentally ill people did/still do.

when like.

...this is such a tiny example but i'm bitter about it so: the other day on my university campus i saw a fundraising booth about support for mental illness. you can't log in to our canvas page without seeing a mental health hotline pop up in the corner. nearly every professor i've had here has at some point gone on a tangent about how important it is to support mental health. many times we've had little impromptu class discussions about the unique struggles faced by people with (always this phrase) "invisible illnesses like depression." my school is really really loud about how much it cares about student mental health.*** and i don't think any of these people know that when i encounter these pronouncements i feel like my own experience has been overlooked

so yes, ok? it pisses me off also when mentally ill/neurodivergent awareness-raisers, activists, and people generally think it's like. an underdog move. punching up, if you will. to reblog posts about chronic pain/other phsyical disability and add "this can apply to mental illness, too!" as if that's a mindblowing revelation to us stuckup, old-guard invalids when like. y-yeah, we know that mental illness also sucks. many of us (raises hand) experience it ourselves, and even if we haven't? we too have seen the internet. the mental illness experience is way more legible to the general public than ours is, so it's really fuckin annoying when people co-opt descriptions of our experience to be about theirs.

but like. the fact you (a physically disabled blogger) have now had this conversation with your (also physically disabled and blogging) friends doesn't mean you get to treat people who weren't in on that conversation like hopeless reactionaries??? this is like me in 2012 seeing the term "friend zone" as a red flag no matter who flew it, even though 2011 me had used that term nonjudgmentally and had no inkling of its entitled/sexist undertones.

like i can remember the exhaustion of communicating with waves of internet strangers who can't be bothered to backread your blog a few pages before commenting on some viral post but. th-that is the thing that's occurring here?? multiple waves of people who, each, individually, see something that without context looks inflammatory. not one wave of pigheads who refuse to listen.

*their term, not mine. don't like this at all myself. see previous post

**though to be fair, i don't doubt that plenty of otherwise-healthy people have been accused of "attention seeking" even for, like, a sprained ankle. or for still audibly sniffling when they come back to work after having had the flu. some people are just....? dicks? just dicks. if you can imagine a bad behavior, it's probably common somewhere.

****does this decrease the rate of mental illness in our student body? hahahaha no, probably not