#for legal reasons this is a joke. and also being posted at 2am my time.

[thecatspasta]

Do you think the corporations will realise that we will care about their straight ships if they're not a girl fawning over the first guy she sees and getting married within the year and it being treated like a good thing or is this thought process too advanced for them to handle right now.

[galaxietm]

popping on to give some updates!

- updated blog icon to match @peachiiihearts (ily dew) - updated pinned list for june bdays (with the exception of my own, but there's several muses whose bdays i'm excited for, so hopefully i can hop on to do stuff for them) - considering updating blog header?? not sure - trimming down muse list in the background, will probably post what muses i'm dropping soon(ish??) - working on getting muse pages finished so i can share carr.d link, may just share carr.d link without the pages being done. - a few more oc pages are done, others have been started

other general updates below the cut, somewhat unrelated to rp stuff but adjacently related to blog status i guess? feel free to keep scrolling if you'd like! no pressure ♡♡

tl;dr / me attempting to condense it all here. i haven't been around as much due to mental health (probably the second biggest reason) as well as stressing about money-related things; i don't want to bring that energy and such onto here so i've been avoiding it, more or less. i've been working a lot the last two weeks, in part so i can catch up with rent and try to get ahead of that and bills, and i think i'll start to have free time in about a week / week and a half (as my birthday this month comes up, funny enough lol) since i've been all over the place due to work, that's why some of my activity is all over the place. my shifts at work vary from overnights (think 10pm to 6am) to early mornings (around 2am - 7am, 4am - 9am, etc) and sometimes somewhat close to each other- so i really mostly have time to come home, eat, wind down and relax. so if i hop online, it's moments like now (where it's like, 2:30am-ish) for a little bit before one of my early shifts.

have also been dealing with random aches, pains and headaches as well (woke up with a really bad migraine a week ago when i was gonna try to be online / try to write, so that didn't happen) so i've been attempting to self-care while i can, and i'm trying to get up the courage to reach out to a few therapists for consultations so i can finally like. i dunno- try to get that part taken care of since my last therapist didn't work out and it's been a while. i'm also trying to fit in getting new glasses, since i've had my current pair for, uh- way longer than i should have.

but anyway. aside from the stress and still slow recovering from the legal stuff with evicting ex-roomies early this year (as well as avoiding the attempts of updates people have tried to give me about them, because there's people who have been attempting to tell me about them lol) i've been slowly doing better. trying to do what i can to fix up my place and trying to get things in shape on my end. i've been far happier without them here, i can actually relax and like. start to get to know myself and be myself again. it's been?? a little bit bittersweet, honestly. complicated feelings for different reasons, i guess. i had to hide parts of myself because of the first set of roomies, and i didn't get to bring those parts back for a while.

i've been finally watching through some anime on my backlog and i've been resisting the urge to joke about possibly writing dungeon meshi characters or others- but there's a few characters i've picked up (one i'm finally indulging myself on trying to write lol) and a few that that i'm waiting until i finish trimming the muse list until i decide to pick them up- for my own sanity, really. i'm trying to be less attached to them and more 'do i get to write for you aside from saying i'd like to? then bye' about some of them.

but anyway. i hope all of you have been doing well. think of this as a bit of a vent post? i haven't done one of those in a while, haha. it's been an interesting year, but hopefully soon i'll get to be active here again- i really miss writing, so hopefully soon i'll be able to get back on here and just. write and interact with some of ya'll again.

if you'd like to try to keep in touch better, i've got a disc.ord i can exchange with mutuals.

[goldenpixel]

can u talk more about the feral boys smoking and examples of why u think they do? i’ve Always thought especially sapnap has, and him and dream probably smoke a lot together irl (also the way dream always clears his throat??) but i haven’t had anything to really back it up to other people other than a Feeling. idk if ur the same but .. yeah

Honestly, for the most part it is just a Feeling, I like to call it my Gaydar for Stoners, but Sapnap especially I’m like 100% sure

Other than the time that Sapnap straight up told Tommy he was high (which a lot of people write off as a joke, but I firmly believe he was just a little too high and forgot Tommy was streaming, which would explain Tommy’s “huh? This is weird and strange and has definitely never happened before” type of response), there’s also the time that Sapnap was on Dream’s stream and he lit a Hot n Spicy McChicken on fire with the blowtorch that was in arms reach of his set up (what other reason can you think of for a 19 year old to have a blowtorch in his bedroom - on his desk that he likely spends most of his time at - if not for dabs?), and then there’s also that one time pretty soon after the blowtorch thing that he could be heard igniting a lighter in the background while Dream was talking. And that’s just the things that I can think of off the top of my head

Dream is much more subtle about it, but if we look at his behavior in other people’s streams, especially Sapnap’s since they moved in together & Train’s latenight streams, you can’t count the amount of things he says/does that could very easily be attributed to him being high/a stoner. The big thing that I can think of right now is whenever he asks Sapnap if he wants food or Sapnap brings up their eating habits. I know that this can be explained away by them being young guys living on their own, but that combined with Sapnap being all but confirmed and Dream being very open about his mental health (weed can help anxiety, depression, and adhd among many others), just makes me think that he and Sapnap get absolutely blazed together. (also how he hesitates and giggles a little bit whenever someone asks him if he drinks or does drugs)

I think George used to smoke a ton, and probably still lights up sometimes, but not to the same degree that he used to. George was a party animal in college and statistically, British youth actually smoke more than Americans do, despite it now being legal in America. This one is not based in any fact at all, solely just an observation combined with the vibes, but every single one of George’s outfits that we’ve seen him wearing outside of his home are stereotypical seshfits (comfy outfits for the purpose of being as comfy as possible while high)

Most of my stuff for Karl, like George, could just be because he’s a busy gamer boy, but I’m gonna list them out anyway. First, every solo-Karl alt stream I’ve ever caught, he’s been absolutely schlumped playing some mindless game like slither.io, and idk about any of my fellow weed partakers, but when you’re alone, being slouched and stoned at 2am-5am playing something like that is one of the greatest things ever, especially when you’re listening to the music that he almost always is playing. Then there’s that photo I posted a while ago with Karl and Mr Beast eating the Dream Burger, where Karl looks absolutely blasted, and I’m sure if we were to go back through old photos, videos, vods, whatever, there would be many many more just like that photo. And remember that old photo of Karl when he met Valkyrae? He looks like the epitome of the nerdy kid in high school who everyone thinks goes straight home, does his homework, and then plays video games until school the next morning, but he actually has a major smoke sesh before the gaming starts, and if you’re the lucky one to figure this out, you’ll suddenly have access to the highest quality weed that that school will ever see

Quackity is the one that I’ve got the least proof for, just because he’s always so Quackity. Like, if that boy is smoking regularly, it’s gotta be pure sativa, or he’s just timing it perfectly that he’s rarely high on stream, and probably never on his own streams. I’ve actually been meaning to go back through his vods and see if I can find any substance to it other than vibes and the fact that I firmly believe the feral boys have had smoke sesh calls more than once

If anyone wants to add or refute anything, feel free!! I love discussing this stuff, cuz it’s almost certain that we’re never going to get clear answers cuz they need to keep up their mostly family friendly images. Swearing and sex jokes are one thing, but if parents were to find out that they openly smoked weed a lot of kids would 100% be banned from watching them

[onewhoturns]

six sentence sunday 9/1

(I lied, it’s not six sentences, it’s my excuse to post the beginning of the bartender au so FUCK IT HERE WE GO)

It’s half past 1 on a Saturday night. Technically, Alex should still be on shift at The Island. Instead, she’s waiting outside a dive called the Kanaloa, phone in hand, combat-booted foot propped against the brick wall behind her. Somehow she gets away with not wearing heels to work. The waitresses have to wear them, but Alex is behind the bar and, therefore, no one sees her feet. Ergo, no heels required.

(Or so she argued to her employers, and they accepted because no one really wants to face repercussions for a sexist dress code, and technically there may have also been some legal issues around appropriate footwear for dealing with breakable glass. Either way, she won.) 

“Alex!” 

Blue hair is blown out of her face with a little puff as she slips her cell into her pocket, grinning at the approaching duo before Ren already has his arms around her. 

“Thought you were gonna go pink?” Her oldest friend tugs at a loose strand of hair, sharing her grin. 

“Thought you were gonna go vegan?” She smirks, smacking him upside the head. 

“Ow! And yeah, I did. Briefly.”

Alex laughs and hugs his companion. “Hey, Nona.”

“Hey Alex.”

“So, Miss Night Owl finally managed to make some time for us, huh?” Ren is giving her a hard time again. Par for the course. She doesn’t mind it. 

“Look, when you guys are only free on the weekend and I’m working 8-4… Or if I’m picking up an extra half-day? I mean, no offense, but I’m not gonna wake up at 11 just so we can grab brunch,” she scoffs. 

“Oh, like you’re so much better than brunch.” 

“Keep your avocado toast, hipster. If I ever get roped into brunching, it’ll only be for bottomless Bloody Marys.” 

“Or mimosas,” Nona pipes up, helpfully. 

“Yes, exactly Nona. Mimosas will also do, thank you.” Alex gestures to Ren’s girlfriend, giving him a see, I told you, kind of look. He just snorts. 

“So, why aren’t we meeting at your place?” Ren is actually holding the door for her. Obviously, Nona has gradually trained him into manners. Good for her. Only took, what, eight, ten years of on-again off-again highschool sweetheartdom to get him there?

Nona goes in first, and as Alex passes she makes a gesture at Ren, mouthing ‘whipped.’ It’s good for him, though. Nona’s the calm anchor to his frenetic hyperactivity. And beneath all her jibes and smirking, she’s really happy for him. They finally seem to be taking things seriously. Years of starting and stopping for school, of phone calls at 2am because there’s a guy on her Instagram, are they dating? Is she dating someone? (You’re not actually together right now, Ren. YEAH but I LOVE her!, etc) -- finally, they’re living in the same city again. And have actually moved in together. Or-- well, that was actually probably a year ago, now. They’d settled in Seattle and she… had yet to make the trip. Whoops. But luckily they came here!

“It’s called the Kanaloa! Like the thing on Edwards Island, right? A throwback to Camena! Besides, I wanted to spare you the herpes,” she tosses the comment over her shoulder, overtaking Nona to lead the way to a booth in the corner. The place is a classic dive: dart boards, pool tables, smoke somehow always hanging in the air even though no one has smoked in a bar in… years. An actual honest-to-god jukebox. It’s a shame the place is kinda dying out. Ah well, shit happens. Gotta keep with the times. 

Nona snorts a laugh (ah yes, the training has gone both ways), and Ren smirks. “What a way to talk about your workplace, Al-”

“Oh shut up,” she punches him in the arm. “I meant this.” She gestures to the glitter clinging to her skin -- her shoulders, her cheeks, her cleavage (because of course there’s cleavage, she’s a bartender at a club for god’s sake, how else would she get tips? People like some skin and being given just enough of a hard time. She’s not gonna deny them that if it pays her rent). “It’s go-go night for the month, and they just love the stuff.” She’d have it in her hair for at least three more days. 

There’s half a second’s pause before she turns narrowed eyes on Ren again. “Wait, are you saying you think I wear this on a regular basis?” Admittedly, yes, the shirt is one of her favorites, but the pink and white PVC skirt? Yeah no. Never. It is reserved specifically for go-go night and only go-go night. She bought it as a joke at a thrift store and ended up using it in a Slutty Power Rangers Halloween costume (college, don’t ask) and it sat in her closet for months before the Island became a gig, and go-go night became a thing, and… Well. The rest is history?

“I never see you,” Ren whines. “And all your photos are of, like, cocktails and puns. How am I supposed to know?”

Alex rolls her eyes but - fair. “Well. You’re here now. So let’s have a drink and catch up, mkay? I’m technically supposed to be back on shift in like an hour, but Mick said she’d cover me and-- well, if you want, I can probably sneak you guys in if you wanna crash some poor fuck’s party on the floor. There’s enough noise and flashing lights that you can just commando right in there.” She already knows the answer. Ren, of course, is intrigued because he might have had that phase in college of going to raves and taking too much Molly and… yikes. Nona - ever reasonable - is already grimacing at the idea of a club at 2am. 

Ren turns his bright-eyed hopeful look to Nona, then smiles ruefully. “We’re probably gonna pass.”

“Should you be drinking mid-shift?”

Alex scoffs. “I drink on shift. I’m running at like BAC .02 most of the night,” she jokes. 

Nona looks troubled, and Alex quickly walks it back. “Kidding. I don’t drink much outside of work, okay? It’s not-- I’m not just spending all day drinking. It’s just part of the job.” And daytime is for sleeping, anyway. And laundry. And running Postmates. And checking Craigslist. You do things to make ends meet, right?

She doesn’t like the look Ren and Nona are exchanging. It’s that we need to talk about Alex look. She got that a lot at the end of senior year, when she was spending more time tagging along with anyone else than talking with her own family. She got that the first time she dropped out (for like one semester! One measly semester! She made up for it in a summer term, God, calm down). It makes her mouth sour, and she immediately tries to smooth it over. 

“Look, I’m sorry you guys came all the way down here just for a couple hours. We can…” She grits her teeth and tries not to grimace. “We can get together tomorrow before my shift.” 

“For…” Ren has cast aside the worried look in favor of one more amused, watching her jaw tic.

“For…” It takes everything in her not to scoff. “...brunch,” she grumbles. As soon as it’s out of her, Ren is laughing out loud and she sticks out her tongue like it’s covered in something disgusting. “Ugh, God, can’t I just get you guys some drinks instead?”

Nona shoots another look at Ren, and it’s another one she’s seen too often. The do you make enough to be treating us, two full-time Adult Employed People, to drinks? look. 

She huffs out a laugh. “Oh my God, calm down. I got this.”

-

(Oh hey look, here’s an aesthetic board for this that gives some more story) (And look at that, we’re posting it on AO3)

[presumenothing]

on haibara in the dog lovers kidnapping case: a throughly unscientific review

aka @deductionfreak slapped me with the hatchet so now i’m legally obliged to write the essay. bearing in mind that i’ve never written meta before and that it’s also 1am but now or never so leggo

(for reference, this is file 290-292/ep 233-234)

((also: am reading the raws, so salt this for my probably-flawed comprehension))

[morning eta: mangadex link in case anyone would like to read along]

zeroth of all, context for the case: this directly follows the bus hijacking, about 10+ days later in-universe per conan’s dialogue

ALRIGHT SO can i say first of all that i like how this case starts, bc the mental image of haibara and agasa dropping off the kids (conan included) before going to park is just plain hilarious. have a nice day at school crimefighting y’all

not so fun: haibara half-hiding behind agasa and looking warily around, and that’s before arthur (the dog, not the author) barks not-nicely at them. which at least lets us learn that they both pet a doberman just this morning!! pls tell me this is at least a semi-regular occurrence bc yes it should be.

unfortunately that’s the last of the warm fuzzies we get for a while bc haibara herself proceeds to give one of her chilly monologues. you know the kind. in fact she does it three times this chapter and all aloud within the others’ earshot, which is unusually many? even for her? but we’ll get to that later (probably, i’m not writing an outline for this or anything). anyway, line 1, regarding arthur:

“an odd one out, a dangerous person… in my case… to the contrary, it might actually not be an error…” (仲間外れの危険人物…私の場合…案外勘違いじゃないかもしれないわね…)

which is a similar sentiment to what she expressed in the previous case, i.e. the bus hijacking, that she’s dangerous and Does Not Belong. but just as important is her subsequent action when conan reacts – she brushes it off like she’s joking and absolutely refuses to engage. (uncoincidentally this combination of commenting about a lack of belonging then deflecting happens almost identically in higo’s intro case.) 

somewhat ironically neither her nor conan seem to notice that the db have in fact realised and are plotting away, though their attempts to interest her in picking a gift only begets line 2, this time about doyle (still not the author):

“because if i, like marie, were to vanish with the dew on the guillotine… just like her beloved dog tisby, you too would chase after me and throw yourself into the river seine, wouldn’t you?” (だって私がマリーのように断頭台の露と消えた��…彼女の愛犬だったティスビーみたいに、私の後を追ってセーヌ河に身を投げてくれそうじゃない?)

this time she doesn’t even wait for conan to react before deflecting right off.

both these lines basically neon-light sign that she’s still stuck in the mentality aka cloudy-with-a-chance-of-death fear from that bus hijacking – that she ought to disappear so as not to endanger the rest, and no one should rather miss her. and agasa’s description of her behaviour since essentially confirms it: not wanting to leave the house, not eating properly, apparently not even sleeping well. yes i am in fact crying inside

in return we learn that conan had in fact called to say that the bus passengers’ background checks cleared (probably why he was surprised that she’s still wound up now). also, he’s in fact taking her dire predictions of “the org will murder everyone around me/you if they find out” at least somewhat seriously. unfortunately haibara does not hear this part.

finally after doyle disappears (and haibara does actually participate actively in the following search, which i bet a virtual dollar is more interest in anything than she’s shown for the past ~2 weeks) we get line 3 after conan suggests that doyle might’ve hidden somewhere in fright:

“that’s true… to live afraid in hiding, with the terror that you may be found eventually, there’s nothing quite as harsh…” (そうね…いつかは見つかるかもしれない恐怖に怯えて隠れ住むぐらい、辛いことないもの…)

pleasant thoughts indeed. but interestingly, this time when conan reacts and tells her to cut it out, she actually engages to respond. third time’s the charm? or more likely because he asks if she’s sulking only about the possibility of assassination nbd which probably suggests to her that he’s not being as serious about this as she thinks he should be. this is reflected in her calling him “an optimist without any plans” before reiterating the danger they face if she’d been found out – without knowing that conan had said almost the exact same thing very seriously to agasa literally just hours earlier.

but of course! she wouldn’t! because conan responds by cheerfully reassuring her that she definitely Has Not Been Discovered. sometime later (aka in the jodie & heiji case) she will learn via overhearing that conan’s hiding org-related things because of his promise that she needn’t worry, but at this point she takes him at face value and responds with perfectly comprehensible incredulity: “how can you say something like that!?”

and his response (which she’s shown to be briefly surprised by) starts to negate that idea of him being a zero-plan optimist, because he has in fact considered and dismissed the possibility of someone from the bus having targeted her.

…by detecting a lack of killing intent with his detective-y senses.

alright, so maybe he’s only half an optimist with even less of a plan. reassuring.

(two notes here:

one, conan’s answer here is absolutely inconsistent with his earlier words to agasa, where he reasoned more logically that (a) any Org agents that might’ve been coincidentally on that bus shouldn’t have noticed Haibara’s presence, and (b) it’s been 10 days they would’ve murdered us all long ago otherwise. which points to him not being as certain of things as he claims to be here, but that shouldn’t really be a surprise to the readers.

two, if it’s not already obvious, haibara’s evaluation of conan at this point is not as accurate as she assumes it to be – a revolutionary concept that we later revisit via her thoughts in the post-bloody valentine murder-by-vcr case.)

anyway, they proceed to brush things off with some collective salt, and haibara stalks off declaring that she’s 100% done with detectives it’s almost 2am, i’m allowed to paraphrase??

after which case resolution happens, etc etc, followed by what is inarguably among the top 10 Best Haibara Panels ever, but tl;dr – 

the three lines collectively show that the fear and doubts/thoughts of escape raised by the bus hijacking didn’t miraculously end just because conan physically saved her and told her not to run (her accepting that doesn’t really happen until the higo intro case but that’s a whole ‘nother post which i am def not writing), but the subsequent conversation starts her re-evaluation of both conan himself and the idea that… well… you don’t have to be blindly optimistic to be optimistic? or at least not end-of-the-world pessimistic?

which – and this is important – still does not solve everything: if nothing else the ever-lurking possibility of pursuit still remains in her mind as of the subsequent case (aka genta’s barbershop adventure) and arguably only gets partially resolved during the later cases as brought up above.

and on a last note: how Good™️ is it that what finally breaks her doom&gloom mood is reaching out to reassure arthur that nobody is mad at him anymore? at which point the db reveals their topsekrit plans to cheer her up because they’re good children who deserve many good doggos, and i should sleep before this degenerates any further into drivel? responses welcome, i’ll figure out what to tag this in the morning. presume out