#gonzo writing

[darknerdygonzo]

These are the few actual tweets before I was banned 4 3 years from the platform for being a  hostile troll on the platform were are nation’s mentally ill and weak took hold. Now with that site’s liberation by papa Elon I feel it’s time to have a rebirth possibly?????????????   I have my tweets archived fully on my minds.com page  at  http://www.minds.com/DarkNerdyGonzo besides what I post here.... I will never go out kindly into that sweet night as long as I live

[coolthingsguyslike]

After two years on The Edge, involuntary retirement is a hard thing to cope with. I tried it for a while, in Woody Creek, but three weeks without even a hint of crisis left me so nervous that I began gobbling speed and babbling distractedly about running for the U.S. Senate in '74.

[feyinvestigations]

Hullo to Batman fans, warrior cats fans, and the remarkably large overlaping group,

Anyways!!!

Cornish Rex (left) vs Maine Coon (Right)

[typingatlightspeed]

you don't have to answer this if you want, as it's about a potentially iffy subject, but…

something i've been wondering ever since i started reading is: how prevalent is queermisia in the universe of monstrous intent? i know from reading that queermisia (queerphobia) isn't so commonplace in the universe that any of the mercs experience it (not that they have to) but i am curious on what exactly your angle is on it. despite being an au, monstrous intent is pretty canon-compliant. you clearly love tf2 and its lore!

in tf2's canon, saxton hale and soldier hate hippies, and presumably all they stand for—which means not just the anti-war sentiment, but free love and all the queerness it entails. which would not be much of an arousing thing to include in series about queer monster porn, but it exists in canon, which is why i'm curious. i can't remember if it's brought up at all in the fic series, but do you interpret saxton hale and soldier's hatred of hippies only being because of their anti-war beliefs, and nothing else? or do they not really hate hippies at all in the monstrous intent universe? and again: how prevalant is queermisia in the universe of monstrous intent? how much if it exists, if it truly exists at all?

again, you don't have to answer this if you want. i was just curious ajajsnsksnsjsjdjdjjd

Oh it's no problem! I was actually pretty excited by this ask when I saw it this morning and have been rotating my phrasing in my head all day at work, lol. I have a bunch to say on the matter! Also ty for noticing how canon-compliant I try to keep MI. It's something that matters a lot to me, where it's basically only an AU in so much as there's a stronger focus on supernatural elements (something already existing in canon) and my take on the BLU team themselves, but even then I try to keep them as close to canon as I can in characterization with my spins on them, with just little variations (except Soldier by and large being chiller; maybe undeath is good for him that way lol). I like a canon-compliant AU. It gives me a really strong framework upon which to build, a playground with lots of slides and monkey bars lol.

I'll fully answer under a cut so as not to destroy people's dashes, lol. This gonna be wordy. Especially because I made myself a cocktail after I got home from work so I'm going to be much more annoyingly wordy with a light buzz lmao.

The queerphobia of Monstrous Intent doesn't get addressed directly often, much like most bigotry, simply because the mercs tend to be pretty isolated from most of society both in their day-to-day life and job, and their role as people on the fringes to start with, but I've established a few things. Aside from the kind of monstrous bigotry Pyro tends to face, the other -isms and -phobias do exist, but to a far less dramatic degree for the time period. And with much less institutional power.

In "Gratitude" Scout's brother Lou is revealed as being married to a man, his husband Wally, and reference to same-sex marriage having been somewhat recently legalized is made, and that it was a direct result of it being legal in Australia.

Australia in canon is shown as being an incredibly advanced utopia of giant, buff, moustached himbos, bimbos, and thembos, powered by super science and Australium. It looks pretty utopian, and the fact that they elect their sovreign through fist fight suggests that it's likely at least somewhat a vanity position and that's it. Maybe governance is done via fist fights, but I like to imagine they have little need for singular sovreigns. In my mind, Australia's always been a global economic power thanks to Australium and super science, but because of the near-complete lack of scarcity this causes in Oz, rather than creating false scarcity like you see in the US and most of the world to justify Capitalist policies, they said yeh, nah, and instituted something a bit more Democratically Socialist. Not lucky enough to be something further Socialist or Communist than that because lbr they're still an economic world power, but enough that they're not scraping by on an individual citizen's level, leaving room to uncouple bigotry from politics because the average citizen's pocket isn't being picked by every level of government and business, so those in power don't need to deflect the ire of the privileged proletariat onto the marginalized proletariat. This is a bunch of leftist buzzwords to say that Australia probably ended up much more socially progressive much sooner than the rest of the major world powers for its time period. Not to say there aren't social problems, but they're probably different or at least greatly diminished compared to the United States, for example. I'm sure the aboriginal population would have some words about how much ancestral land they don't own, for example.

That said I imagine just like happens in real life, cities and large population centres tend to be more egalitarian than rural communities, which tend to be built around old-fashioned family structures and such. So while an Aussie bloke walkin' around with another bloke on his arm wouldn't bat an eye in Sydney, maybe it would out in the Mundys' neck of the woods. Sniper's mom mentions in "Approval" that they accepted Sniper being pansexual, which suggests that it's more scandalous a thing in their community. Considering farming communities tend to rely strongly on having lots of kids and big families to have a lot of hands to tend the farms and take product to market and whathaveyou, it makes sense that comphet is probably still kind of expected out there. Same as bigoted attitudes being looked past if someone's an able hand and willing to work cheap, for swagmen and such. Again, Sniper mentions in "Approval" that his dad threatened to shoot a swagman who was saying bigoted shit about an aboriginal man who was also working as a hand for the Mundys, so it exists, but far less violently than the US, especially for the time period.

In how I percieve Australia's impact on the world in Monstrous Intent, I imagine they were mostly an economic power til post-WW2, when so much of the world ended up connected by the conflict, and Australia's superscience and weapons technology became much more well-known, that they ended up a more central figure on the world stage. Kind of like how the US went from being kind of isolationist (aside from how much it was fucking with Central and South America and continues to today) to a global power with massive economic sway and lots of cultural imperialism. But instead of getting anywhere near the Cold War, they looked at how other countries treated their people and went "Strewth, no, you do WHAT to your gays? You do WHAT to your people of colour? You do WHAT to your women? Shit what year is this, 1897? You backwards cunts!" and dragged their closest economic allies into the Australian 20th century kicking and screaming on a social front. So by the late 50s the US was no longer institutionalizing their queer people, and by the late 60s marriage equality was passed into law, thanks to Australian strong-arming.

But here's the thing. Before that? It was still like America was. Queer people were being institutionalized, blacklisted, imprisoned, chemically castrated, the works. And even though Scout was a kid during it, Soldier and Engie were very much not.

It's been offhandedly mentioned, but BLU Engie is homosexual, and in his 20s (during college and his time on the rigs as a roughneck), he was a fixture of his local leather/bdsm scene. Engie was a leatherman, and a dom, and guaranteed has fought the cops on more than one occasion during a raid. He came of age during a time when being queer was punishable, and it's coloured the way he interacts with things. He's just now getting used to being public with his orientation. And even then he's still a Southern man at heart so PDA is deeply uncomfortable for him off-base. On-base at this point it's kinda whatever he's put his dick in damn near every one of those men lmao. But when he was younger he was part of a gay culture that performed hypermasculinity as a defense mechanism against violence and bigotry and effeminate stereotypes. That culture absolutely still did exist in the 40s post-war.

For Soldier, who fetishizes the military in a lot of ways, I'm sure the allure of being surrounded by a bunch of fit fighting men with little privacy afforded had its own pull, lol. Aside from simply his powerful blind patriotism and bloodlust, after all.

Soldier's complicated. Soldier as we know is delusional-levels of patriotic. He's a nationalist, without really understanding why that's bad or what that really means. He loves America, America is the best, everyone should want to be American, everyone should be American, because America is strong and beautiful and the greatest nation on God's Green Earth, Amen. But, like, that's as far as his understanding goes, lbr. The man couldn't tell you what Capitalism is, other than it's what America does, oorah. He's been told Communists hate America and hate Capitalism, which is what America does, so Commies Are Bad (which is basically what your average American understood of the situation at the time anyway ough). He probably had no idea Australia's pressure is what legalized same-sex marriage in America, just heard it was legal now and was proud because America loves him as much as he loves her and is always giving him new freedoms because America Is All About Freedom! Why wouldn't you want to be American? You get all these freedoms, and the purple mountains and their majesty, and redwood forests!

But BLU Soldier in particular has enough internality to understand that it wasn't always this way, and he's grateful. As far as he's concerned, he's been fed the line that soldiers go to fight for American freedoms. So if he's been given more freedoms, it's because the troops fought for them! And he loves war! He loves violence! Fighting was the only thing he was ever good at (to somehow draw a comparison to Gray Fox from MGS of all people), and he's given his life and his unlife to it. He lives for war. So when hippies smelling like patchoulli oil and dressing all counterculture with their loose flowy clothes and long flowy hair and YOUNG PEOPLE SLANG tell him he's wrong for loving war and loving America, he will BE OFFENDED and GET VIOLENT.

Someone who grew up and came of age in an environment with strict rules for appearance, grooming, and behaviour, combined with fetishizing and glorifying the military, which is even stricter with how someone presents their appearance, probably isn't gonna vibe with hippie aesthetics, too lol. Which is funny, considering he's absolutely all about free love and is open about expressing it, as opposed to Engie who is much more stifled about public expressions like that. But then Soldier is also way more likely to start AND end a fistfight if someone gives him the wrong kind of look, and is happy to challenge people to try. After all, he's dead. And his capacity for violence is not tempered by adherence to social norms nor politeness.

Saxton Hale is whole different can of worms, whoof. Yes, he is Australian, true blue, but he's also very American. Which is to say that MannCo was founded and based in the US. When Barnabus inherited it, that tied the Hales to the US, no matter how Australian the family may be. Based on Barnabus, his son Billious, and Billious son Saxton's size, moustaches, and accents, there's no doubt their roots. It does suggest, however, that in spite of owning a company headquartered in America, the Hales raise their families back in Oz. Barnabus had the advantage of inheriting as a grown man, but Billious, looking like he did, clearly didn't come up in the US. Same with Saxton. So I'm assuing they kept their homes in Oz, and did a LOT of commuting to the US for business, or at least kept their families there, making sure their sons were raised proper, true blue Aussies by their mums and other family members. So it makes one wonder just how present their fathers were in Billious and Saxton's lives. Though I also get the feeling that Billious spent most of his time in America compared to his father, based off his appearance (suit, hat, clearly more a businessman than an adventurer like his father and son, though maybe that implies that when Billious took over his father saw to rearing Saxton? I quite like that, actually...).

SO HOW DOES THIS AFFECT SAXTON'S VALUES??? WELL.

Coming up in Oz, Sax probably has the socially progressive values of most Aussies, including an openness about queerness in general. Saxton's pansexual and doesn't care to hide it. Why would someone get mad if he's got a bloke on one arm and a sheila on the other? Unless he'd nicked bloke or the sheila from some other bloke or sheila, but people aren't property, mate, so you've likely earned them leavin' you for a fine specimen of manliness like SAXTON HAAAAALE, yeh?

But his economic values? Less so. Man's a fiscal conservative, a Capitalist, drilled into him by his father and grandfather, the ceos of a powerful weapons company. War is his business and business is good, and free enterprize is his god-given right as a man who inherited his business by fist-fighting his father for the title! Just like any proper Australian inheritance! He takes the propensity for fist-fighting for positions and to settle disputes into a might-makes-right worldview only exacerbated by being a guy who manufactures guns for a living. He may have come up in Oz, and traveled the world, but he did it fighting, always fighting. Violence is his way of interacting with the world. It's joy, it's fun, it's horseplay. It's how he makes his money and maintains his business. So of course he's going to take umbrage to fucking hippies telling him war is evil.

But just as much, Sax clearly doesn't like idleness. He's brimming with energy at all times, always doing SOMETHING. Always coming up with new products, always coming up with new business ventures, always fighting someone or something, always jumping out of planes or through windows or breaking something for the sport of it. He IS the grind, in business and in play. Everything is MAXIMUM EFFORT because nothing else is fun or engaging. Hippies, these comunally-living, jobless, economically-divested, itenerant, peace-loving protest-mongers, are the opposite of everything Saxton values. He doesn't care if they could be fun at a party, with booze and good drugs and loose sex partners, he'd have to listen to them TALK POLITICS, and that would end up with him caving in skulls immediately. They're sanctimonious and insufferable to him, worldviews completely incompatible, plus they don't want him to go fight cougars with his bare hands and who the hell doesn't want to go fight cougard with their bare hands? Bleeding heart cowards. This is all ignoring how a frustrating amount of actual irl hippies of the time period were middle-class white kids doing poverty tourism for the cheap drugs and easy sex, eventually going back to their old lives once they got bored and turning into the conservative middle class elder boomers many of us loathe today, casting a pall on true believers who were out there actually doing political protests, community work, and mutual aid. Nothing but respect for ACTUAL hippies, though. Especially the old ones still engaged and doing activism. <3

I was just about to publish when I remembered that I did forget to mention something: Monstrous culture! Which is to say whether there is queerphobia amongst monsterkind like there is among humankind. I feel like if there is, it's in the more human-like and human-linked creatures, but by and large queerphobia isn't A Thing overall in monstrous culture both as a vague overarching concept and in smaller cultures within. Monsters tend to be long-lived, ancient, separate from humans in a lot of ways, and of course shunned or outright persecuted by many religions. So their values likely don't align with a lot of the bigotries of humans. They care less about who is fucking whom and more about where their next meal or bargain is coming from. Though of course, things outside of the norm can always be good mildly-scandalous gossip.

[mkarchin713]

DC Prompt: It’s Time to Play the Music

Battison on the Muppet Show.

That is all.

[artistic-gay-walrus]

Muppet doodle dump :33

[rpfisfine]

i would love some book recs linda since ur writing is so scrumptious

Omg...you really think so.. 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕 thats so kind of you to say i really genuinely appreciate it more than i can express and i love answering asks like this one so of course no problem here are some of my fav books of all time:

lolita, despair, pale fire & invitation to a beheading by vladimir nabokov

pretty much everything by hunter s thompson but especially fear and loathing in las vegas & hell's angels

the legacy of luna by julia butterfly hill (i recommend this book with all my heart it will change your life!!!!)

a single man by christopher isherwood

the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake streamline baby by tom wolfe

the stranger & the fall by albert camus

the unexpurgated diary (1931-1932) of anaïs nin

one hundred years of solitude & love in the time of cholera by gabriel garcía márquez

infinite jest by david foster wallace

three novels: molloy, malone dies + the unnamable by samuel beckett

catcher in the rye by joe salinger

to kill a mockingbird by harper lee (kind of a really obvious english major choice tbh but i just rly rly love it)

and the ass saw the angel by nick cave and the godfather by mario puzo aaaaand i think that's everything

[deedeedeedeedeedeedee]

The Death of Cringe and the Need to Create

When it comes to your passions, all external factors are nill, everything building inside of you is what matters. What you want to create, what you want to put out. Who are are. What matters to you. What people matter to you, why they matter to you and why they push what you do but not in a self conscious sense. I think to be ourselves we need to eliminate all shame, I sure haven't. But I think trying is the first part of success.

I was thinking about people like Jim Henson but also a voice actor in an anime in watching. And at first I thought, how could I even compare them, but then I thought? Why does it matter?

If the movement of our centers is motivated by the passions of our core, does what we participate in have more of an impact or what we create have more of an impact if it drives us so deeply?

Without feeling self consciousness or shame from the outside world. Just the need to create, to participate, to be a part of something.

We've created this term "cringe" which at its base is a degradation to most things, an insult to intellect, to ones own hobbies and talent. The word in it of itself should never have been created. What does it mean? It's a cork in a bottle for a driving force of the inate need to create and be a part of the world that people have. If simply "being" is cringe then why do we exist? Why can we not have so many different parts of ourselves, the parts that are considered "cringe" by society and the parts that are considered "cool" or socially acceptable? It's ludicrous. 

We always try to separate things from being too "online" or being "grounded" to reality. I think we can be all of those things. I think you can learn a few languages, dip your toes in it during one hour of the day while drawing fanart of your favorite characters the next. You can start to learn an instrument for a few hours and write fanfiction that the world would deem 'cringey' by today's terms. You can make music and songs based on your favorite ship, you can learn to sew, you can make an edit, you can make a webcomic. You can write a screenplay, you can act, you can film. You can do all these things at once. It doesn't matter and the notion that you must choose to be "cool" or to suppress other parts of yourself is ridiculous. Why are we so obsessed with separating ourselves between the two worlds because we think something is more "wholesome" or we think it makes us more intellectual or "grounded"? The enjoyment of things seems to only be accepted when certain people show it to a larger audience. I think enjoyment of your passions deep in body and soul is what matters and if you are fulfilling your mind with original characters and the nuances of fandoms online while also studying the intricacies of languages then you have accomplished life! We are people! 

You can make puppets! Make skits! Make the puppets say whatever they want! And that doesn't even have to be it! That doesn't have to be all you do because life is that rich, you can do everything! We do have time! We have love and care and passion and intelligence and beauty, and we have the eccentric and the bold and the loud and the tall and the quiet and the brave and I think that's everything Jim Henson created. He was never a fixed object. He created and he moved and he MADE something. He touched the barrier between reality and the soul right in your ribcage.

you can do everything! We do have time! We have love and care and passion and intelligence and beauty, and we have the eccentric and the bold and the loud and the tall and the quiet and the brave and I think that's everything Jim Henson created. He was never a fixed object. He created and he moved and he MADE something. He touched the barrier between reality and the soul right in your ribcage.

But we can move and we have this ability in us to shoot the stars from our fingertips. To make people in corporate buildings at their 9 to 5s turn their heads when they hear a song they like, to make old men smile when they see a mural down the street, to make some child look up at you when your dancing and say "this, this is what life's about." To have a child who has nothing at home, but connects to the characters they see online, in their favorite animated media or comics, to be able to see the charcater drawn several times by several artists sharing the same love for a character over and over so they can be inspired to do it as well. That's enough. It's golden honey dripping from our hands. It's an electrifying understanding that rips through us from head to toe yet we do nothing. Be something, do something, yet don't feel bad for doing nothing. Be love. Be a change. Be yourself.

If you have a means. Do it.

[analogwriting]

currently obliterated and playing beer pong. I'd be lying if I said something wasn't cookin

[my-ants-are-anxious]

I'm gonna talk about shows in my brain right now, and if you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them! (Especially if you see these in a different way!)

(For context, these are shows I watched when I was young, and I'm just revisiting them in my mind, so I'm probs getting things wrong)

Okay, so-

Hey Arnold: We seek to understand each other and ourselves. By existing in community with one another, our lives will be richer. Be curious about the beauty in the world, and be brave! My only complaint is that Helga feels far too interesting to not be the main character. Also, the background art is so pretty!

Doug: I truly love the honesty in the character writing, the playful art direction, and the willingness to grapple with difficult emotions, often resolving in messy ways. When I was young, it depressed me to think I might be a Doug (in personality/character). Thought I am dorky, and I love daydreaming, like our titular character, it has delighted me to no end to find out that I'm just as much of a Judy (moreso, even)!

Recess: As a child, I felt filled with joy at the rebellious zest for life of this group of friends, and a fair bit jealous. As I look back, I am a bit depressed imagining a group of rebellious kids slowly stop their fight against "the system" and beginning to drift apart. I don't have any other thoughts here, and I carry both that sadness and that joy with me now, post-reflection. Idk, I just like grumpy buds.

The Muppets (Main show, Muppet Babies, Treasure Island, etc.): I mean, baller show. I really just want to talk about Gonzo (adult-me understands child-me's fascination with the character much better now), but I will refrain. I've decided to complain that Oscar the Grouch was not a member of the Muppets. The Muppets have plenty of great complainers, a few wise-guys, and at least one Monster, but they really could have used a Grouch.

Ahh! Real Monsters! (Not sure if this is the right spelling, but I'm not looking it up): We, as humans, would be so far ahead if everyone could have witnessed thus (joking, mostly). I love this show. I feel kinship, true fellowship, with just about every character in this disgustingly beautiful work of art. My tiny child brain really thought I might have a shot at living in the sewers and dumps as a monster, and that got me through so much, tbh.

Sorry for the many-words, I hope this letter finds you well.

[madmonkeydisorder]

Yeah!

The world is on fire!

Emotions boiling under koślawy sufit in Turbo peak fire consuming sofa under huge temperature so need to evacuate seating to find chill out the stokes road potholes draining secret tunnels inside your mind silk rotary counteraziem overgrown roots here to the tree..

Ceiling ok?

I worry your full capacity breakup me in half Alf’s covering lamp shade hades radeo eon Leo amadeo!

Leonsjo nefiu listen bisem głosem semiotycznych upartyfiksacja stationary stations status Ty silny beamicrondowody burn evidences yo burn motherfucker burn the roof is on fire!

Firanka działa nie dzida a laguna legumina Ty mina sina dziedzina rodzina nationalizen

Resin soil soul Oi!

Oi!

Roy batty typ dark star in dope show slow down

Get down make love

Love krove

White dove peace on movie travie Transeffamilia

Gięć piec dziesięć piętnaście Gietow a Ashynbeher green glass American night club whisky bar boss got glass ashtrayentity transformers mars Star Wars speedy bumper cars

Last dance remember number rumor semaforum dyktando dopamina dope hope pentones

Krasna jasna górska murowana mova trava Miele languicz flexi Xiono onyxy Styksu supły sanie Sanoka Nuka cola boją Troya nie boją się boksują

Wymiotniki deklinacja przymiotnika styki kilka klika klinika zdrowia psychicznego karta horo owa uparta pełna vital signes on the ambulances driving nearest A&E all night waiting list piss off!

Service police & prison officers probation and on top of that diploma resotialisation so correction institution this fight lasting whistle ratting chimney wind bells bumping in dumb booms about hostacia ststion to station automation my inkarnatiohm ohm soho koko koka oko yoko ono nome om ohm mmm!

Resinnerd dork red racing sunglasses raise my confidence in appearance I look so good these days say how are you today day by day may I have your name dame Americankapadocja stacja do stacji akcji am mama ama don’t like me since I told her off defending my best mate to save her name bully got mouthy hyperminimalis noisensesionz lii I bee maya haha ale jaja haja jak stąd do Ok do miasta jeden chuj lub autobus odchódzi pod Radom uff śladem Ziuty!

Ziuta gdzie jesteś!? Ześlij gromy ogromny thunder burdel pogrzebane bany za jazdy

Travska braki uzupełnia full moon punkt punki kicalifornikation ionic iOS Nicon kicamerki kinglish klishes per lashes Paris in first trip to Paris hot summer out of cage our prison son and daughter left building finding gold but I found London Town seeking zero line slime taktyki

Statystyki styki trybiki rybnicki oddział psychiatryczny niebezpieczne typy creepy Monty Python visualisual resultants observation starvation resistation transportation aus gang nam style ay!

Hay! High?

Are you high!?

Yay I’m gay!

Gay! Im gay too!

You know I will tell you a secret. I’m lesbian too..

Fuck off you fuck fuck off lesbian? I see that mini dickhead won’t be here in the morning

Yeah! That’s right!

Let’s stuff the pipe smoking morning cloudozole

Howl!

[mx-piggy]

Promoting my poems and website- with a hope of getting more subscribers- by sharing my favourite line from each poem (links included)

Romeo and Gillette:

Paint me, stain me, rip me apart.

I Wonder:

I wonder- if you notice- if you wonder why, if you understand, or if you at least try.

A Writer of Sorts:

I could bleed a pen dry, prick my finger to supply my own gory ink

Pen Against Paper:

[...] as out bleeds my inky heart.

Nocturnal:

[...] You’re not even a speck in the distance, nor a stain on the celestial tapestry. You’re merely a flea amongst titanic stars.

I Am No Narcissus:

I am drawn in by the allure of catching a glimpse at the grisly unknown, or the dreaded all too familiar.

War:

It distracts the peasants from the famine, frost and plague.

Wow, you really enjoyed those excerpts of my poetry, huh? Well, why not visit my website, Mx Piggy, for more poetry. Additionally, I've published two essays to the site, one about Gonzo's queerness and another about Heartstopper season 2. I have some essays that I hope to get back to working on, too, which are about Ghostwatch, Mulan and my NLOG phase.

To be fully transparent, as excited as I am to work on my website, it would mean the absolute world to me if more people were subscribed to it or interested in it. I have one subscriber, which I get because I am literally just some guy on the internet with a humble 100-ish followers on Tumblr. But, if you check it out and like what you see, I'd love it if you could subscribe to it and let me know what you think.

But, a quick content warning, some of my poems deal with heavy subjects. For example, 'War' looks at transphobia, 'I Wonder' looks at gender dysphoria and 'Romeo and Gillette' looks at self-harm. The warnings haven't been displayed on the website because I'm not sure of the best way to do it without it, but if anyone thinks it's worth doing, let me know! Again, I'd really like some feedback on the website by having you let me know what you like and what you don't, and anything you think I need to add/improve.

Thank you in advance to anyone who actually goes and checks out my work!

[badgerthethirteenth]

"Sneaking into the Gold Class Experience by paying for it"

Alternatively: Experiencing the briefest bout of the rich lifestyle made me realise just how poor I actually am.

Long read under the cut.

My husband (Toky), my sibling (Sigma) and I went to see the Five Nights at Freddy's movie at the cinemas. For The Bit, we decided to try out our local cinema's 'Gold Class', because Toky thought it would be really funny to go really high class and fancy to go see the FNAF movie (and it would avoid having kids in the theatre). My sibling, who has a membership with the cinema, facilitated us buying tickets so we got them for a whole like 5 dollars cheaper each. Not too shabby.

But as we left the tiny, luxurious cinema, it suddenly dawned on us - in Sigma's words, "the vibes were off".

And they were well and truly off.

We arrived at the cinema through the generosity of our father, in his little white box of a car with chipping paint, and were dropped off outside the cinema. Neither of us had eaten for a while, but that was okay - I am on a pseudo-diet, Sigma had a soylent shake not long before we left, and Toky doesn't eat nearly as much as we do. Since Sigma had our tickets ready on his phone, we just meandered near the place where we were supposed to hand in our tickets.

One of the staff approached us, and in that friendly tone all customer service staff who have to deal with asshole clients used, greeted us. We were obviously polite and friendly back, inasmuch as our collective autism-generated social awkwardness would allow it. She asked if it was our first time, and I, eagerly, said it was. So she ran us through how it worked.

We were invited to sit down in a lounge with some tacky but not unpleasant couches and some armchairs that I'm sure weren't comfortable, but they could have been, and we were given menus to peruse. She informed us that she would take our orders, and during the movie, she would bring them out to us. I had already resolved not to purchase from the menu if I could help it, such is my allergic reaction to spending money, but I was curious.

The last time I had ordered cinema food from one of the more 'luxury' types of deals was when my brother insisted that I see the movie 'Belle'. I forget how much the mediocre three chicken strips we had ordered costed, but it was far more than I would consider reasonable - the movie was excellent though.

The menu I saw gave me little hope of it being different. Certainly spending $5 (AUD) on a quality hot chocolate at a restaurant is one thing, but I was certainly not going to do so here, tempted as I was. $9 for a milkshake. It was $21 for a halloween-themed Baileys cocktail, which, sure, booze is expensive, but when you're already paying double the standard ticket price, seems outrageous. I think I even saw a menu option that was about $25, which I have no doubt would have been smaller than ordering something from a nearby restaurant.

I briefly, oh so briefly, considered getting a milkshake or a white hot chocolate (the chocolate being white, not the temperature). But my resolution was firm, and thankfully neither Toky nor Sigma wanted anything else - Sigma, maybe, but due to financial circumstances I have to cover Toky's expenses (which is fine because Toky only asks for the occasional snack or dinner and doesn't play Warhammer).

The woman came back with a menu, and asked if we were going to order anything. We, awkwardly, told her that we weren't, with Toky commenting 'we're too poor to be rich'. She nodded in a way which told us that she knew the feeling too well. I felt sorry for her, having to deal with the types of people who could spend so much on a movie ticket and all this overpriced mid food.

When we were escorted - escorted! - to the cinema and to where we wanted to sit, she informed us that there were buttons on our seats that we could use to summon someone to take care of our whims. I had seen a dashboard outside the cinema where there appeared to be little lights between seats - now I knew their purpose.

We sat ourselves down, Sigma, myself and Toky, in that order. The seats had little switches that we could use to make them recline, so I did the first thing I'm sure everyone does and find out how far back it would go. As it turns out, it went so far back that had I decided the movie was so bad it wasn't worth watching, I could easily sleep through it.

Sigma had earlier checked to see if we had the cinema to ourselves - we did not, a group of four had gathered in the back corner. No problem, we thought, likely someone else had decided to commit to A Bit when seeing the FNAF movie.

Nope. It was a family of four. A mother, a father, and two kids. I never got much of a look of them - looking at people fills me with a paralysing fear of being looked back at - but they certainly didn't seem of a lower economic status than us. Toky was disappointed that the one thing we wanted to avoid - children - had managed its way in. I had wondered who in their right mind would spend $40 a head for anything other than The Bit.

The advertisements we saw showed more than ever what kinds of people would do that. People that I would consider 'rich' by my standards.

The first advertisement was extoling the grand benefits of Gold Class and all the benefits it would bestow. We got an advertisement for some kind of expensive alcohol, or perhaps another Gold Class thing talking about the signature cocktails. There was another advertisement for a... car owner membership club? I forget which manufacturer it was, I want to say Lexus, but one of the cars they showed, proudly, was one of the ugliest luxury cars on God's Green Flat Earth. I think there was another alcohol advertisement - we also got to see ads for the new Wonka movie which I have zero interest in seeing, and a brief snippet for a movie I was 100% certain I had seen as a fake trailer in a Quentin Tarantino grindhouse special (Thanksgiving, if you're curious).

Eventually, the movie began, and the vibes returned to normal, as Toky and I would nudge each other and point out the references, and I would occasionally repeat comments Toky told me to Sigma. This is not a review of the movie, but if I did have to briefly summarise it: 7/10, I had fun, set designs and costuming was amazing though.

During the movie, I noticed that the family had occasionally summoned the workers to cater to their whims, which was fine? That's part of the service I guess, and I was too busy enjoying the movie and needing to pee to worry so much about that.

The movie ended and I felt satisfied with what I had seen - I was expecting absolute dogshit bad but I was happy with what I got. We gathered our things and limped our way out and to the toilets. Something, however, caught my eye first - the leftovers from the other family.

They must have taken, like, a bite or two out of everything, because there was so much stuff left behind. Most of a basket of wedges, some uneaten pieces of chicken, popcorn littering one of the seats, and I'm pretty sure I saw a half-melted, half-broken choc-coated ice cream.

The sheer waste of it all shook me. If I had spent what looked like roughly $100 on food alone, I would have made sure not a single crumb of it left. But no, it was just... there. Part of me wished to scoop it into a bag and take it with me, but I didn't want to risk infection, especially in this post-covid world. So, begrudgingly, and with great sympathies for the crew who would have to clean it up, I left it be. At least we had no waste of our own.

We left the cinema with little fanfare and made our way to a nearby burger joint that Toky and I had sampled during our Barbenheimer excursion. We knew the food was good, but we hadn't tried the frozen yoghurt part of it, so we had resolved to do that to.

As we munched down on our burgers - Sigma and I with our plain as hell meals and Toky with his spicy one - we discussed our experience. The movie, we had agreed much before, was fine, nothing special but better than we were anticipating, and the art direction was incredible in it. But more importantly, we discussed the Gold Class affair.

Toky summarised it in the most beautifully succinct way - he felt like he had snuck in, jumped the fence so to speak. We all agreed that we had felt out of place, and we mused on the parts that hit us the worst. This is/was also during a time of great financial awkwardness, between me not getting my Centrelink payments due to not having enough hours at work because my boss literally can't give me the hours because ???, and discussions of maybe, potentially, being able to buy a cheap flat somewhere nearby if our father does some shenanigans with his money.

We were feeling really poor as of late, and this Gold Class experience had shown us the kinds of things people with a great deal of disposable income can do. Like, for instance, pay double a standard ticket price to get basically the same experience, with a slightly comfier seat, and the capacity to spend more money on buying food and also to bother minimum-wage staff to bring you more food in the middle of a movie.

It was eye-opening for us all, I think, seeing how people we could only aspire to have the income of lived. And we decided, collectively, to never do it again, because there was no way we could live like rich people do.

It was poetic, really. We started the experience off sampling the life of the well-to-do - blasted with advertisements of things only the wealthy would even consider - only to take a bus home because as we currently are, none of us can afford a car, and only one of us has had the time to get a learner's permit.

Maybe one day, I'll be able to afford being able to go to Gold Class for every single cinema experience, but I know for a fact that if I had that money to burn, I'd just go see twice as many movies. Because even if I have the money to be rich, I don't think I could stand to see myself waste $100 worth of perfectly edible food yes I'm still mad about that holy shit!

Anyway, that's my long ramble done. Hope you enjoyed the read!

[amoralcrackpot]

For millennia, the sun has scared, confused, and mercilessly killed mankind just for the thrill. It abandons us during winter and abuses us come summer. And due to a seemingly endless, wholly passive-aggressive silent treatment, its reasoning for all this will likely remain a mystery for years to come.

But one mystery is finally solved.

A lack of orifices long left us unable to properly take the sun's temperature, leaving scientists to simply guess. But a collaboration between Apple and Frito-Lay saw the first manned mission to the sun in a heroic search for answers.

Unfortunately for 12-year old Daniel Lamb, from One Toilet, Indiana, and winner of the Doritos "Fun in the Sun Sweepstakes," this was a one-way trip.

"I just wanted a PlayStation," said Daniel in his final message, crying like a little baby.

As any parent who ever left their child in the car during a grueling heatwave so as to pop in for a quick root canal or colonoscopy might already know, children are often too stupid to turn on the A/C or crack a window.

But stupid children aside, there's also the matter of fuel.

"Have you seen how poor an iPhone's battery life is?" said Penny Pincher, Apple's V.P. of Tax Evasion. "And don't even get me started on the excessive cost of bundling our ship with a charging cable."

But while the incineration of a young child left his family mildly upset, scientists now know the sun is, at the very least, hot enough to do the same to aluminum and glass.

[foryouramazementandconfusion]

hopefully this doesn’t double post but gonzo keeps appearing on the front of my Sad Girl Songs Playlist and I had to make this because he’s so chinese satellite by phoebe bridgers coded

“you know i hate to be alone. i want to be wrong”

[feyinvestigations]

SOON-ish

[Image ID: a small frame of a much larger digital art piece. The Image shows Darius, turned away from view. He is wearing an earring, a purple gem stud with a long golden chain attached to another purple gem. His hair, beard, and sideburns are all made of purple slime. in the folds of the slime, two green eyes are looking at the viewer. END ID]