#i don’t know much about this IP but i know he will take good care of the character

[accio-victuuri]

you learned horse riding, bajiquan, and other skills for this film. what was the biggest challenge in taking on this role?

[luna-rainbow]

Thanks for your answer for the last ask.

What is wrong with the writers of the new MCU material? Do they just hate Bucky, especially the writer of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier (he's NOT the Winter Soldier anymore!)? Did Bucky kick their cat or something? This hatred and victim blaming is not justified! "Oh Bucky's just a cray-cray psycho killing machine with cool metal arm but probably belongs in a padded cell. Lol he says he had no choice such a lame excuse..."

Soo…I don’t know if people still remember the rumours from back in 2021 and I don’t know how much of it is true, but my guess at it is this: there were supposed to be two main writers on the series. Spellman was supposed to take Sam’s story, while the other guy wrote Bucky’s story. For whatever reason, the other guy quit before he finished, and didn’t give the writing team enough time to put things together.

From a story craft point of view, Bucky’s story in TFATWS reeks of first-draft-ism. It’s a scattered plot of events that don’t quite string together, and a self-contradictory characterisation that hasn’t yet been smoothed over (but was made a little more believable by Sebastian’s efforts). You can tell some central character themes had been planted in the first draft — the PTSD, the guilt, the messy way he’s trying to relearn how to interact with people (Yori, Sam and later the Wakandans), the struggle with breaking free of his past. These were all strong, interesting character beats for Bucky to work through, and it honestly could have been a good story. And I think that’s when the original writer bailed.

When Spellman picked up this draft, he was pressed for time, he hadn’t watched CATWS and he never thought he’d needed to know about Bucky’s story, so he reads TheMovieSpoiler summary of the movie and tries to piece the rest of the story together. But Bucky’s not his priority nor his interest. There’s already beats of the story that were planned and have to be there for IP reasons. So beyond what was already in the first draft as mentioned above, Bucky is made to be the fall guy to make the rest of the plot happen. Zemo’s release — well we can’t make Sam help break out the criminal that killed an African king so we’ll make Bucky do it, who cares if it makes no sense for his character. The counselling session — the show’s few moments of levity, doesn’t matter that it makes no sense but hey, forced homoeroticism is hilarious, isn’t it? The Wakandan three-way fight — I may be remembering this wrong but I think Skogland said it was one of the first scenes that she had planned for. That fight had to happen, and again Bucky was made to provoke the Wakandans to the point Seb had to step in and say, almost literally, “he would not fucking say that” to make them wind back the animosity between Bucky and Ayo. Sam’s suit — oh no we can’t have Sam asking for it himself that would be too egocentric, we also can’t have Wakandans offering because well, not like the plot actually made Sam a strong ally for Wakanda, so we get Bucky asking for Sam’s suit to be made minutes after he fixes his mistake of releasing Zemo. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense if it’s Bucky doing it, cos I really think by this stage Spellman didn’t give a shit about a character that wasn’t supposed to be his responsibility in the first place. It’s like when you’re doing group project and your teammate bails on you, you’re gonna do just enough to get that pass but you ain’t putting in the effort for a distinction cos just looking at the unfinished work is pissing you off. So then Bucky also becomes the token white male who pushes all the wrong buttons during the few token racism scenes cos we gotta make Walker have some redeemable qualities and he’s already a dick so we can’t make him racist too.

So instead of having a thoughtful story about a veteran trying to grapple with his guilt and PTSD and lack of agency and making some mistakes along the way, you get a weird disjointed plot of some guy…with some bad dreams…who randomly does things for no good personal reason…who gets made the butt of the joke for the stuff he’s experienced cos he’s got a metal arm and super soldier serum how hard could it have been he just needs to go and apologise for killing people while simultaneously having multiple poignant scenes portraying his lack of agency.

Every writer who tells you “a hero is only as interesting as the villain” just secretly wants to write a simpable villain. And when that writer isn’t very skilled, you get the disaster of TFATWS where a lot of effort is spent on making Zemo funny and personable, and Walker nuanced and sympathetic, instead of making either of the titular heroes funny or personable or nuanced or sympathetic. And yeah, I really don’t think Spellman ever cared enough about Bucky to want to make him sympathetic…or a hero. Remember when he said Bucky pulling open the van door was the first time Bucky has ever been a hero? Fuck right off with that.

[hislittleraincloud]

“You care more that she doesn't fit your perception of a young woman with a possible influence on her fans who doesn't "use" that power…..”

“Leave the girl alone and stop insulting her intelligence, integrity and take on the world.“

“She's just doing what she loves as her job. She lives her life and is not hurting anyone.”

Meanwhile she let her fans destroy her supposed “best friend” career and reputation and basically said he and his character wouldn’t be missed in her Vanity Fair interview or how she ignored their romcom they had together.

(I know OP is talking about her influence on politics and rightfully so, she could have a big impact on politics, just like how Taylor Swift’s influence and endorsement did.)

But she also has a big influence on how her fans act. And the fact that she doesn’t say anything on how they treated him and STILL treat him? And how they continuously insist that she’s gay even though she hasn’t said so? It’s disgusting and she rightfully deserves to be called out for her behavior.

I don’t give a flying fuck if all she does is care about her job, is a workaholic. The way you handle things in times of crisis or serious situations is a poor reflection of your character and self and she desperately needs to work on that, fire her PR team or both.

It’s truly changed the way I see her and I’m starting to not like Jenna as much as I used to. She’s become someone she isn’t.

If I recall, she said it is a "weird redirect" and that "with so many new characters, it will get lost", re: Xavier's absence. Which to me — again, I'm not a White stan, but I'm preeeeetty sure you are — just tells me they're pulling the whole DISTRACTIONDISTRACTIONDISTRACTION! game with that shitload of new characters, and Ortega is playing along. As EP she didn't seem too concerned about saving Ogawa's or the Watsons' jobs either, so...her powers much more likely than not don't go that far. She may be The Face and Burton might love working with her, but not all celebrity EPs are given that much power. Sometimes it's in name/title only, or are lighter in responsibilities than the ones who have to do all of the gruntwork.

But let's talk about those politics. Ortega comes from a conservative Roman Catholic background. Her book has a whole ass faith (religion) section. She was indoctrinated good, because that's how it is in a lot of Latino families. Her father is a cop, too...not just a businessman, as some websites love to say. He's still a cop, as of 2023.

Do people think Jenna's real wide on the left and subscribes to #ACAB? The girl was posting pro-cop/cop sympathy on her Facebook when she was a Disney teen. The Ortegas will always be on that side of the blue line, as well as on the side of Euro-colonization Jesus.

There's always some faith-based language saturating her mother's captions and comments, and Ortega has consistently stated that her mother is a very important figure in her life. Don't people who don't have faith or are non-believers comprehend those that do/are? I'm not sure that they do.

Well. We still have a few years to watch as she grows into real adulthood. I suppose we'll see how she continues to handle fame and the power that comes with it. Until then, I don't think we can blame her for anything surrounding the White situation, or the letting go of the others. She was more than likely told how the studio, the main showrunners, and the other actors should be handling it, since she's the big star of the show and can't be pissing off anyone else at the moment/souring people on such a lucrative IP (like Cynthia Erivo recently did).

[doodlenoodleboi]

hi hi hi!!! im a sucker for nakedtoaster, and if you dont mind, could you write some headcanons about toasty with a trans fem reader/MC? I think he of all BP love interests would be understanding because they themselves are also trans. thank you so much!! :3 -🦋

︎ ୨ৎ⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ♥︎ ⋅ TOASTY!! ♡︎ ୨ৎ⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ♥︎ ⋅ ˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪

Authors note: If I understand you right, I think you naked, toaster as a trans as well. I don’t see him like that, but if I was a head of yours I will accept it and go by it for these head cannons. By the way i’m a gender fluid, pansexual, I like getting request like these, even if I don’t truly understand them sometimes. Because me myself am already confused with my gender identity.

Naked Toaster with a trans woman as his significant other!

◦ You being a trans woman does not change the way he loves you. It only changes the way he helps you, he can help you with.

◦ If you haven’t transitioned surgically, of course, he’ll remind you to take your supplements if you have them.

◦ If toast was trans he would appreciate reminders to takeoff his binder if he had worn it for too long if he hasn’t had surgery.

◦ Toast being friends with xyx is rather chaotic and funny, given the fact if you were to ever get any Internet hate best believe xyx is coming to troll them. While Toast might just relay their IP address.

◦ If you’re not the confrontational type when it comes to your pronouns, Toast to make sure to correct people in every in every setting.

◦ I don’t know if this projecting, but I feel that if toast would go off of presenting and doesn’t want to miss gender a person they usually go with they/them.

◦ MATCHING CAT EARS you can’t tell me if you’re a person that likes inherently feminine things, that he won’t put cat ears on you maybe just for a picture he would practically beg for you to do so.

◦ Toast canonically presents is non-binary and oddly enough likes things like pink even if he uses pronouns He/ They. He will most likely warm up to your pronouns in no time.

◦ Once again for the people in the back he make sure everybody respects your pronouns!

◦ Toast appreciates when you helphelped dye his roots, him being a natural blonde does help the appearance of his roots to the strawberry blonde but after a while, it looks weird so he needs to dye it.

◦ He might hate it at first, just give him a minute he needs to color to fade.

◦ Before you guys get off discord and you do tell him that you are a trans he reacts rather calmly, or doesn’t know what to say to that. (Yooo me too! Jk) nonetheless he loves you unconditionally.

◦ As a CEO and everything goes smoothly, he would offer to pay for your surgery if you’d want one. Because truly he fell in love with your soul, not your body.

The end!

That last one was fucking sad but like in a good way like I want someone to love me like that!

Sorry that was kind of short <3

This is how I see Toast if you care… I couldn’t find the credits for the artist on Pinterest so this is not mine! Tell me if you can find the artist.

[plague-karm]

You know when you find a character from a certain thing and you’re mostly fixated on that character and not the thing they’re from as a whole? Yeah that’s basically what this is, don’t worry I’ve done research but again I have to preface, I am still VERY inexperienced for writing characters from pre existing IP’s. That and the concept for this has kinda spiralled out of control so I’ll be posting it in several parts (which is what the hadalpelagic zone tag is for!)

Before we get into anything crazy though I might as well introduce our expendable trio!

Bentley Graham

Age: 25

His voice claim is Jack O’ Connell

The self proclaimed leader of the group

Beyond competitive, always sees as argument as a chance to get better at being an engaging talker

Easily the biggest extrovert of the three

Has dreams of becoming an entertainer in any way he can, has thought of several game show concepts but he never put them out there because he’s a huge slacker

Wholeheartedly believes that it can always get worse! :D

His hair is IDENTICAL to Sebastian’s when he was human, that definitely doesn’t make their relationship even more antagonistic than it already is

Does work as a standup comedian and loves performing for others

He lost his family in a house fire accident when he was younger which lead to him being orphaned, that day still haunts him so he’s an on and off alcoholic as a result. He also hates fireplaces

He’s very protective of his friends as a result of survivors guilt

ALWAYS wears button ups, you’d have to force him to wear a normal shirt

An absolute nightmare to be around if you’re not on his good side, he WILL prey on your weaknesses

Always coming up with crazy ideas that he loves to rope the other two into

He sees potential in everyone and years to crack every shell he finds

Lena Draxler

Age: 24

Her voice claim is Marina Diamandis

Very blunt and weary due to years of masking but becomes a lot more silly and joyous when she’s comfortable with people (unmasking is love, unmasking is life)

Has an unnamed motor disorder, it’s more apparent outside of the facility due to the conditions outside

Was constantly pushed to do better at studying by her family due to them not wanting to take care of someone who was “lesser” than them, she ran away from home at 16 as a result

Oblivious to a comical extent

Her eyes are identical to Sebastian’s when he was human, he tends to stare a lot because of this

Is half Italian on her mothers side but she lost the accent after she ran away, she can still speak it fluently though

Collects rocks

Works as an accountant (what can she say? She loves the numbers)

Gravitates towards people who she knows can protect her

Scene fashion fanatic, she has the hair and everything

Has a debilitating fear of needles and hospitals

Social chameleon, can talk to pretty much anyone if they’re tolerable enough

She holds people’s hands when she’s comfortable enough with them

Valen Garcia

Age: 22

His voice claim is Harvey Guillén

Puppet enthusiast, wants to make puppet shows for adults and children when he’s older

The only normal one lmao

The best person morally out of the three but he has no qualms with screaming at someone if they insult his friends

Worried for his friends

He was almost kidnapped when he was younger so he has a debilitating fear of the dark because of that

Full of whimsy!! :D

The Trio As A Whole

Bentley and Lena have known each other since childhood and they met Valen because they all went to the same university, they’ve been losing braincells together ever since

Bentley managed to get his own apartment and Lena moved in with him after she ran away

Lena and Bentley have been in an on and off situationship since she was 16 and he was 17, no one knows about this except for them, the reason they started it is because they felt incredibly lonely and they were willing to do anything to alleviate the pain…even if it meant getting down and dirty, because that’s what friends are for, right?

Ever since they graduated they’ve been aimless party animals who don’t know what to do with their lives

Valen moved in with them after graduation

They get drunk or high almost every night, they’re dealing with life so well

One night in a drunken haze they’re given envelopes with the Urbanshade sign up sheets on them, Bentley was dared by the other two to sign them, and he did! What could go wrong?!

Everything.

Everything went wrong.

[davekat-sucks]

I do have to say that anon who soeculated on Dirk’s role does have a good idea for where the plot may be going and the setup for Dirk’s ultimate session, although I never considered the horrorterror session, generally because I have a hard tike taking it seriously. What’s notable as well is apparently it was 48 players that made the 48 zodiac signs of Alternia, but that got retconned to 288 signs of Hiveswap. What I think Dirk is doing is two-fold.

1. Dirk states in the epilogues this is being done to maintain the existence of their Universe. Homestuck is shoulder-deep in metatextual fuckery so of course the characters treat the in-universe existence of canon as real and like a story they exist in. If the story ends, the characters will decay away into unobserved, undefined, and untended void of irrelevance. Without us, the audience to pay attention to the narrative and characters of Homestuck, Homestuck doesn’t exist. Of course, narratives need conflict, and Dirk makes a new session to run a new overarching story that keeps Dirk and Rose in focus, and in a sense the cast alive. It could have gone a lot of different ways but Dirk is better at abrupt action than long term planning, the real plan comes from the second reason.

Earth C is the Cherub’s birth planet. Billions of years after Earth is ruined, a cherub will lay the egg of Caliborn and Calliope inland a ruined field somewhere on the dead planet, with only communications via a radio tower that transcends the narrative… Hussie’s IP server!

Of course, the earth now orbits a red giant with all the water evaporated and food wasted, so they are cared for by Gamzee who got sucked into the black hole caused by Lord Jack’s big-ass head implosion in [S] collide, giving that version of Jack his one true purpose: to die and transport the cherubim guardian to the right place.

Now the next requirement for Earth C to house the Cherubs is all the immortal Gods to be gone. Inevitably over the course of 3-4 billion years the beta and alpha kids, Kanaya, and Calliope are going to have to leave Earth C and never come back. Something happened for them to be gone. The cause doesn’t matter, only the effect is destiny. Dirk was nesting the Cherubs, he just had to pull their biggest threat off the Earth.

One final addendum, I don’t know what Dirk’s successful species is gonna be, and if the HICU will actually let the species exist and build the new sburb session or fakeout kill them in classic Hussie trolling style. What matters is Dirk gave the species a name: Sartyr, amd looking at sillhouettes it looks to be a bipedal anthromorph, much less a squid creature. I don’t think the HICU has the balls to do the horrorterror session.

They don’t have to, they heavily implied Dirk is dating Rosebot and fans on r/homestuck avoided the topic to talk about how good the art is and how the update is finally getting the ball rolling and how the sequel writing is finally good, stuff we’ve all heard before. The HICU posted another 12 pages of a monthly update where something almost happened and fans ate it up. This is Homestuck now. Where something almost happens, and then we wait a month for something to almost happen again.

That really seems to be the case. Before under Hussie and Whatpumpkin, the bad art and story were noticeable within each update. It's been routed in our brains that every update would be this. James Roach and HICU took advantage of it by getting to focus on the pretty art first before the story because most of us would skim through the text. Nobody would actually pick up on what it is going on until they read it 3-6 more times to let it sink in. It was like this before for many new readers of Homestuck. Most would look at the pretty picture or flash and less reading on the text. Vox's Let's Read at least makes it accessible for those who struggle reading, but even they don't update frequently and are at a certain stopping point where others need to go to the webcomic to continue. And I think a person watching the LR Homestuck and having to go back to the webcomic during ACT 6, is probably not a good experience for those entering the series. It's funny back in MSPA Forums, talks of incest was banned despite the themes of said incest being a common thing in Homestuck. And it was TOBY FOX who made The Baby Is You to troll at the mods that tried to cease the topic of incest. People may have known Toby Fox wrote some crazy funny m-preg song and it got relevance again thanks to a modern Pokemon game, but I don't think people actually knew the context and history behind on WHY he made it in the first place. And now we got people too scared to speak about it openly.

[destinyc1020]

You are right, fans shouldn’t compare actors. But when as fans you see other actors having movies that aren’t well received by critics or don’t do much money at the box and You don’t see the media writing essays about how bad they performed, then you see Tom and how everything he fails is overblown, how his play was insanely criticized because his co star was black, when other actors have had black leads and nobody blinked an eye or cared. We as fans see this and feel that is so unfair to Tom. If Tom had been the lead in a movie like Challengers, I can bet on that the media would had written essays calling him a flop because the movie underperformed at the box office. It seems all the actors have a free pass but Tom is not allowed to. Even NWH having the other Spider-Men, instead of becoming something good, help to create this narrative that he is not good enough and Sony should do more movies with the others.

If Tom had been the lead in a movie like Challengers, I can bet on that the media would had written essays calling him a flop because the movie underperformed at the box office. It seems all the actors have a free pass but Tom is not allowed to. Even NWH having the other Spider-Men, instead of becoming something good, help to create this narrative that he is not good enough and Sony should do more movies with the others.

I'm sorry, but I had to stop reading when you claimed that "Challengers" "UNDERperformed" at the box office.

Last I checked, Challengers did pretty well at the box office! Especially considering that it was a film that wasn't based on a franchise, a sequel, and wasn't part of a huge IP and had an original screenplay.

I mean, these smaller films are doing pretty well imo. It probably did BETTER than expected actually.

And since when has Tom had a box office film that was called a "flop" Anon? Seriously.... I'm waiting. From what I've seen, most of Tom's films since Spiderman have done pretty well at the box office? Maybe CW would have been a flop had it actually come out to theaters, but it didn't.... it went straight to streaming. 🤷🏾‍♀️

So which imaginary film is this that you've said Tom has had come out to theaters, and he's been called a "flop"? I swear sometimes you all just make stuff up. 🤦🏾‍♀️ The Avengers films did AMAZING at the box office, the Spiderman films did awesome at the box office, Uncharted did amazingly well (even surprisingly well) at the box office. Sooo...... 👀

And what actors are you saying get a "free pass"??? I just posted an article where Tom Hardy's film with Austin Butler got called a "flop". Tom Hardy didn't get a free pass did he? 🥴

Look, you can't take these media articles this seriously. EVERY single actor has had a bad review of their film or TV show at SOME point in their lives. Guess what... they're still acting!

Some people HATED the "Venom" films. Well guess what? Tom's 3rd Venom movie is STILL coming out in the future.

Like seriously y'all.... 🙄

You are right, fans shouldn’t compare actors. But when as fans you see other actors having movies that aren’t well received by critics or don’t do much money at the box and You don’t see the media writing essays about how bad they performed, then you see Tom and how everything he fails is overblown,

Please see my points above ☝🏾

how his play was insanely criticized because his co star was black, when other actors have had black leads and nobody blinked an eye or cared. We as fans see this and feel that is so unfair to Tom.

Now hold up. ✋🏾

I know you're not going to blame the racist hate that Fran got from weirdos online, and put that as "proof" of Tom getting crapped on?

SERIOUSLY Anon? 🤨 That's a horrible take. Not to mention, it's very insensitive and dismissive to Fran, when SHE was the one who was at the brunt of the backlash and hatred. 😒

Anything that I've read about Tom's play had nothing but good things to say about Tom's performance! Maybe some didn't care for the austere vibe of the stage set, or didn't really care for some of Jamie's decisions with regards to this play, but I rarely saw anyone criticizing Tom's acting in the play. And if the crowd size is just a snippet of how people felt about this play, then I'd say that most of the general public liked it? 😅

The play sold out in HOURS with just Tom's name being announced Anon. 😒 Idk how anyone can say that this was a "flop".

With regards to Tom's other projects on streaming platforms, I actually recall TDATT getting pretty good reviews? 🤷🏾‍♀️ And with Cherry and TCR, the critics may have had issues with the Russo brothers and their directorial choices, or with Akiva and his writing or his refusal of wanting critics to mention DID in their reviews, but that's not TOM'S fault Anon.

Anon, as long as an actor is an actor, they are GOING to get bad reviews. It's just a fact of life.

Every actor has a "flop" at some point in their career. Even the great Meryl Streep. Yes, even Mr. Timmy Chalamet. 😏

"Bones & All"... hello?? 🥴

But look, there are plenty of smaller and indie films out here that aren't MEANT to be box office kings. They are just made for the art of film. "Saltburn", "Challengers", "The Bikeriders", "Bones and All", "Kinds of Kindness", etc.

I think fans need to stop looking at Tom's work as always needing to be on the level of Spiderman success and acclaim. Just be happy for Tom that he's doing the types of work that he wants to do! 😊

Whether critics like it or not, oh well!? 🤷🏾‍♀️ I'm sure Tom isn't taking on projects for critic review. Most actors take on roles because the script or the story appeals to them in some way.

[the-au-collector]

I have no backing for this but I feel like every post about KH I’ve been making lately has been very negative??? Idk I reblogged a post today and realized it was really really negative? And like. I don’t like KH3. I stand by that. And it’s because I fucking love this series. I love it’s characters. I love how much of a madman Nomura is.

But. I can also feel the lack of love that went into KH3. That’s not to say there wasn’t any love. The world designs are phenomenal (did you know they modeled a specific city block in San Francisco for San Fransokyo’s level? I need to post that comparison soon). The gameplay, while too flashy and breaking the flow of gameplay constantly, looks really good. The game looks good. It feels good to play. I hate the game yet it’s my most replayed KH game to date.

Yet I can’t help but feel like Nomura was tired when writing it. He was tired of these characters. Tired of this arc. He wanted to move on. I don’t blame him. He’s been working on the Xehanort arc for around a decade. Damn, I would be tired too. But it’s a problem when I can feel that tiredness in the story.

And it permeates the story. The sequel-baiting. The bringing up things out of left field. Fucking Verum Rex. It’s just. KH3 feels tired. It feels tired of its own IP. It feels tired of the arc it’s supposed to be ending. It feels tired of Disney and Sora and the characters we’ve been following for years.

Idk, I mostly just feel disappointed about KH3. At this point, I’m just tired of it. I loathe the game because I love the series and I hate how lackluster of an ending KH3 got because Nomura got tired/wants to do other things with the series (*side eyes the hideous rebrand of Versus XIII as Verum Rex*). This series is near and dear to my heart and it’s just sad. When the game came out, I felt betrayed. There was too much coming out of left field. Too much focusing on what was ahead instead of closing off arcs. It was too little too late.

We waited thirteen years—and for what? For Sora to be sent left and right with no direction across 6 Disney worlds? For everything to be wrapped up in a nice little bow with little to no struggle or emotional agony that all of the previous games have consistently given us? For Sora to just be able to fix things with no consequences? For every world Sora was sent to to feel inconsequential (and I can see the effort there. I can see so, so much effort to make something. Each movie featured has themes of loss and sacrifice but it’s just not there in KH3)? For Sora to not even take a front-seat in most of the story? He’s just there, a vessel for the player to watch events that he has nothing to do with unfold? What happened to Sora, the main character? Why does no one want to involve him on anything? Now he’s just the dues ex machine all the important people get to call when they get in trouble. Where’s the setup? Where’s the payoff? Where’s the hours of Lea agonizing over Roxas and Xion? Where’s Aqua and Ven trying desperately to save Terra, knowing he might be too far gone? Where’s Sora, facing up against the biggest foe of his life, who’s supposed to be the most conniving, deceitful man ever? It all just gets shoved to the end, barely mattering outside of a single world.

The worst part is—I know Nomura can write something good. I know he can do the setup and payoff. He explained why Mickey was shirtless in KH1 for Pete’s sake! He did really good at Union X’s story and making us really care about the new characters we have never met! He made impeccable Disney Worlds in Dark Road that had plot relevance! I know he can make something good, great even! So why didn’t he with KH3?

Sorry for the long post. Figured I’d explain some of my disappointment in KH3. I really do love the series, and it’s what makes KH3 so disappointing and bad to me. I know this is a 5-year old conversation but I’d figured I’d put my 2 cents into the pot.

[xarrixii]

Chapter_23 : "Conscious" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CW: previous chapter | beginning | masterlist

━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼

“Hey, you.” A familiar voice scratches from somewhere. “R&D sends its thanks. Half the guys in the main data vault have never seen fire controlled so precisely before. Jackstalk fucked you up good, huh?”

Harlow stirred, eyes gently resting on Dawn.

“I’m not the greatest bedside care, but Liam’s busy making sure the cops don’t have anything on the situation yet. I’d say other people would stand here, but…” Dawn shrugs, complacent. “Sorry. Touchy. Uh⸺ Permission to help? You’ve been out for a while, and Liam was insisting we don’t touch you besides actively open wounds.”

He gazed down at the red-soaked bandage around one hand, flexing it against the sheets only slightly before it erupted with pain. “Yeah, yeah, go for it.”

“You need meds? I’m sure Doc would happily oblige.”

“I, water, probably.” He barely remembered a thing, just the noise of electricity flying around him. Dawn nods, whisking herself away and returning with tea instead.

“Doc said cold water would fry you again, and I don’t know if you like water warm, so this was the next best thing.”

Harlow lets a laugh escape him. “I’ll trust the guy with the degree.”

Dawn sets the cup on a table, moving to adjust the mattress.

“No, no, I can probably⸺”

He moves to push himself up, shock ringing throughout every last nervous cell he probably had working. It definitely was not his muscles falling asleep. Someone had zapped him half to death.

“That’s why I was doing it. If it helps, Doc snuck pain meds into the tea when he thought I wasn’t looking. How does this thing even work? He said it was simple…”

“Doc’s the guy in the doorway?” Harlow feels as though he’s set himself on fire. Dawn swivels her head.

“Doc! A little help?”

“I’ll take it from here.” He strides into the room, taking Dawn’s place beside the bed and shifting the upper half more vertically. Dawn left, leaving only Doc’s piercing gaze as he went for the sink behind a cupboard door. “Jackstalk sends his condolences. He thought you were a similar threat as Raijin.”

“Clue me in, will you?”

“Raijin’s the guy you mutilated in yesterday morning’s rainshower. I had to set an appointment up for the bastard the moment I saw it.”

“When did I…?” Harlow watches Doc dry his hands, walking back over with a pair of gloves he strings on. The memories come back in a wave. “Raiden. Where’s⸺”

“Gone.” Doc is blunt as he picks up the tea.

“Gone?”

“Amaterasu sent out a search party last night when Liam came to the new tower with you slung over him. If it brings you any solace, her little signal’s making her walk in flats today.”

Harlow’s heart pounded, recalling the reason he’d fought Raijin in the first place. No. No.

“Don’t dwell on it right now. There’s nothing anyone will let you do about it until you’re moving again regardless. Here.” Doc helps Harlow with choking down some of the tea. “Need anything else before that kicks in?”

“Who is… you said their name was Jackstalk?”

“He⸺” Doc’s voice filters out with his thoughts drifting off.

He takes in a sharp breath of air, coughing.

“Kid,” Liam rushes over. A patch covered one side of his jawline. “Doc said the tea probably hit you back under. Didn’t expect the aftermath of Jackstalk to be that detrimental. Kicked you out for an extra two days. What kinds of soup you like?”

“Hold on.” Harlow lifted a strained arm over his chest, taking in a few moments. There was an IP drip and heart monitor now. “What’s all of this for?”

Liam slowly blinked, looking at the monitor before staring back. “You almost died.”

“Wait, wait,” Harlow coughed a few more times, pain racketing out from his chest. “What, what do you mean I almost died? How the hell did, I was fine before I passed out.”

“Amat⸺” Liam paused. “The initial search party came back with nothing.”

Harlow connected the dots from there. He hadn’t expected much himself, only something bordering on hope. Raiden woke up, spotted waving on a rooftop, speeding down a highway, anything. Then he remembered his last conversation with Doc. “Everyone keeps talking about this Jackstalk guy like I’m supposed to know who they’re talking about.”

“I think it’d be better to just meet him. First, soup.”

“Anything is fine. I’m not picky.”

“Right. I’ll come back with soup. And Jackstalk. Especially the soup.”

“Some part of me liked you better when you were being an asshole.”

“There’s a difference between being an ass and being an asshole, and that difference is whatever the difference between me and you is.”

Harlow chuckled as Liam left, drifting out again.

“Mmm,” Harlow was uncomfortably jerked awake, the lonely rumbling of a ceiling fan overhead.

Sunset filtered in through a nearby window, his phone vibrating against the nightstand. This time, there was no one waiting around him. He raked a hand through his hair, shying back at the pain it brought. There was a calendar on the wall he assumed Liam had been marking off. September 20.

With a groan, Harlow sat up and picked up the phone, stifling down just how much everything ached.

“Hello?”

He sank back into the pillows at the voice that responded. “Where are you?”

“Out.” He could almost smell the way his mother was smoking out on the balcony.

“And that is not home, why?”

That was not a question he knew how to answer.

“Harlow,” the name grit through her teeth.

“Mmm?”

She hung up the line with an irritated grumble, allowing Harlow to pull the phone back and look at all of the missed calls. Another coughing fit exploded along his lungs suddenly, phone slipping from his hand and clattering along the floor.

The door creaked open, Liam helping him sit upright again. Liam set the phone back on the nightstand.

“Don’t⸺” He shuddered out. “Don’t. I’m fine.”

“Urban,” Liam said with a tone alike to that of when he’d been begging him to retreat with the rest of Cinder.

“Has anyone found Raiden?”

Liam’s face dropped. It was all the answer he needed. “Will you stay awake long enough for me to make you food?”

“I can try.”

He left the door mostly ajar to a view of the hallway, television left on. The news was apparently still covering the old Cinder building collapsing, despite several days passing. He couldn’t exactly blame them, the police must’ve been losing their minds over it.

Shit. Raiden’s dad.

Harlow reached over for his phone again, biting back the pain as he opened it up and speed-dialed his number. It picked up relatively quickly.

“Urban, Christ. Where have you and that rascal been?”

“It’s… it’s complicated. Um… you can’t tell anyone.”

“We both know⸺ One second, Urban.” Garry Roy shouted back at the rambunctious Ty in the background before returning. “We both know what happened the last time I agreed to that, but what’s up?”

He didn’t realize how difficult this would be until it came to it.

He decided to leave out most of the details.

“Raiden went missing.” Whatever Garry had been doing, he stopped. Strain hacked away at his voice. “And I’m pretty sure it’s my fault.”

“Urban,” Garry’s voice was even, “I can almost certainly assure you that there is no way something like that could be your fault. Unless you yourself threw them into the back of a van and drove it off a cliff, it couldn’t have been you.”

Damn it.

Liam came back in holding a tray, frowning at the phone. “Kid, come on. You can barely move. Focus on yourself first.”

It was very easy to strangle the phone free from his hand, and Liam held it up to his own ear. Liam stayed silent for a few seconds. “Amaterasu’s looking for Raiden. Hold off reports for as long as you can, keep the building incident away from their name. It doesn’t matter how, that’s how you’re going to disconnect the two.”

After a few more seconds, Liam tapped the phone off and gave Harlow a look of pity.

“Look, kid. I don’t care what anyone says, as soon as you get your strength back, if you want to help us look for them, I will let you in a heartbeat. Please eat something.”

Liam left again, keeping the door open only by a crack.

Harlow brought his knees up to his chest and started crying.

next chapter

━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▲ missing a content warning? let me know

[jodilin65]

TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2016 For the second time, Twitter locked my account saying I was violating the TOS.

No. Fucking. Way.

The first time, yes. I got to trolling around a bit and let my mischievous side get the better of me. But this time? No chance. I combed my recent tweets and nothing – nothing – violates the TOS. So it was a glitch or they were just fucking with me.

That’s ok, though. No need to play these games with them. I simply verified my number to unlock the damn account, let Twitter have it, and then deactivated it just like I planned to do in a few days anyway when my sweeps subscription expired.

I have my secret account that’s protected. I’m careful not to use names, links or email addresses to cause a Google search to point it out, but I don’t think Google indexes private accounts. Even if it was found it wouldn’t be the end of the world because no one can see my tweets.

I will use this account just for me. Just a place to express thoughts and experiences in a snappier, less detailed way than I do in my journal. There are too many people out there who just can’t handle some of the things I have to say anyway. Remember, if you don’t conform to popular opinion, you’re racist, crazy or whatever it is society has decided you should be, and I don’t need to hear it. No matter how much complaining people do, I’m not going to be anybody other than myself. So a private Twitter account is fine with me.

Later…

Although I'm not sure why, my bad ear has been worse lately. Tom suggested I check into a pain management specialist, saying that maybe there’s a simple technique that could help it just like the emotional tapping helped with anxiety and other things. It's tempting, but I'm so sick of all the damn doctor's appointments.

Although he always tells me not to worry about money and that my health is most important to him, which I really appreciate, it's hard on both of us. He has to take time off from work to take me to these appointments, and I have to juggle my schedule. The more appointments I have, the harder it is. I always wonder how I'm going to handle getting old and to the point where I need to go to the doctor constantly.

As it is, I might have to get to my dentist sooner than September because a tooth is irritating me, and waiting too long could be the difference between a filling and a crown in my case. I need to ask my dentist if I should go back to using an old-fashioned non-electric toothbrush. Because I have soft enamel, maybe electric toothbrushes aren't a good idea.

Not surprisingly, it looks like this new diet is failing and my weight is going to reset itself, scared to lose or not, and yes, after what I read, losing is definitely a bit of a scary thought when you’re on what's been a Jekyll-and-Hyde medication for you. When it's in the proper dose it is virtually side-effect-free. Just a little too much and all hell breaks loose.

Anyway, I don't know yet what I'm going to do about my ear and teeth. I just want to get tomorrow's appointment over with and see what she says first before I decide, and I'm sure tomorrow's appointment is going to spawn more appointments, as usual. Appointments for me seem to be like cockroaches; they multiply big time. I’m guessing she's going to want to test my estrogen levels and who knows what she may want to do about me possibly having sleep apnea. She might even want to do a pap smear and God knows what else.

MONDAY, MAY 30, 2016 Ok, now I think Andy peeked in on my blog. The hit appeared to come from Longmeadow, as has happened in the past when he’s viewed me, but a closer check of the IP# shows it to be a Springfield IP#. Could’ve been connected to the M’s, though I doubt it. Pretty sure Andy uses Firefox and has Windows 7.

If it was him, what was he looking for? I mean why bother? sighs I matter to those I should matter to, and unfortunately I also matter to those I shouldn't matter to. I’m not going back, though. I’m DONE with those from my past. I just wish they were as done with me.

I plan to kill the Twitter account Kim and Aly know about and I’m going to throw out one last test to see if Kim’s still following right before I do, and I’d be willing to bet just about anything that she is. I could keep that account, but I have the other one no one knows about and it can do what any other account can do. So why keep an account Kim gets to play victim with by blocking every new account she creates?

Seriously, though… Kim, Aly, Andy, Maliheh, Nane… we’re forever done. And if Tammy and I ever have another falling out in the future, that’s it for us, too. Andy is who he is just like I am who I am, and while he’s got some good in him, I don’t like him for the most part. Same goes for Aly.

Went for a bike ride this morning as well as yesterday. It was nice save for the barking mutts that tried to break free of their leashes and chase us. Saw lots of ducks and turkeys out and about.

Tom did a lot of yard work yesterday. Virginia was out at one point and she said it was too hot to be out working. It was a warm one, alright, in the 90s. Tomorrow it’s going to hit 100°.

We discussed ideas for hiring someone to get rid of most of the stuff on our lot and what we want to replace it with. We’re still a ways away from doing this, but the thing we hate most is the ugly Cypress trees alongside the carport. I can’t wait to see a woodchipper swallow those things up. We’ll eventually put white plastic lattice (wood rots and needs repainting) in that area. We’re also going to replace the bark with white rocks, but aren’t sure what plants we’ll put in that area. The front will be leveled out and a retaining wall will be put up.

We looked at different things at the hardware store, including what to block the rat(s) from getting under the couch. We’re thinking baseboards may be our best bet.

We also went to Goodwill. I got a cute purple glittery squirrel figurine with “jewels,” and a dark purple skirt with a black stretchy waistband.

Last night I dreamed we were living in what may’ve been an apartment or condo. Our place seemed pretty big. As I was walking closer to a large window I said to Tom, “This is such a beautiful view that I almost thought of moving my office in here till you get close enough to see that.”

“That” was part of the building which was L-shaped.

Since our place extended out further than the people above us, I could step out onto our porch, patio, balcony, or whatever it was and see up into their place. They too, had spacious windows. I could see a telescope sitting in front of one of them.

Tom was telling me he never wanted to work again in another dream and I said I wished we could find a way to survive without money, but couldn’t think of any way to do so.

Later…

I wasn’t kidding when I said people can’t take a day off from the outdoor projects here and that includes holidays. I thought it was Bob at first, but the house behind his is being worked on. Kinda disrespectful if you ask me.

We worked on the master shower, but the stems and valves need replacing. For now, Tom got it so it doesn’t drip.

Sarah got a promotion at work, so I’m happy for her. We all are.

When I read that a friend lowered her LDL score by 50 points by losing 28 pounds, I figured maybe it was time to rethink weight loss. It’s just that I haven't been able to lose the 30 pounds I could stand to lose since 2009 or so and so I figured it was just meant to be there.

But then I got an idea. What if I just went by the scale and didn’t count calories or try to space out food throughout the day? Meaning this: I typically gain 2-3 pounds throughout the day and lose 1-1.5 in my sleep. So this means I would make sure I went to bed about a pound above what I woke up at and would likely be down the next day even if it were just by a couple of tenths.

So I would have my coffee and maybe something small like a yogurt a half-hour after getting up. Within an hour or two I’d eat more. That’d keep me going for a few hours and then I’d eat again with fruit as “fillers.” It was important that I stop eating 4-5 hours before bed in order to give my body time to drop to a pound above what I woke up at.

In the past, any diet I’d try would fail within a few days, and this one still may too, but after 5 successful days and 3 lost pounds, it does look a little promising.

So what threw a dart in my excited little balloon and popped it ever so loudly? A medical problem I read about. I began to wonder if losing more than just a few pounds could affect how my medication affects me, and if it could invite the killer anxiety I had back all over again. It seemed logical in my mind to assume that the bigger you are, the more thyroid hormone your body would need.

Sure enough, I found a complaint by someone on my exact same dose that had no problems for 6 years. But then when they lost 25 pounds they started experiencing the same symptoms. Now I’m not so sure I want this diet to continue working. :(

Typical damn doctor too, who tried to convince her it was just a “panic attack” and recommended Paxil. They also refused to allow her to go to the lab, saying she had to wait 4 months for her yearly blood work. Shame on that doctor! So many of them just love to take the easy way out rather than deal with the problem. Come on, anyone who went to med school should know that her weight loss would very definitely affect her thyroid levels and cause her symptoms. If your thyroid works normally it adjusts on its own when you gain or lose weight. But when you’re taking it artificially, the body can’t adjust to its new weight. It’s a no-brainer, and I’ve never been to med school. I swear some of these doctors can be just as bad as cops and lawyers!

This really shoots down my excitement, though. I don’t want to take the slightest chance and risk suffering all over again, even if it was just for a minute. That’s how bad it was. Looking back in my journal to when we attempted to get me to tolerate 88s, I started experiencing tightness in the chest a week after bumping up to this dose. By week two the extreme anxiety was kicking ass.

Even if she’d gone to the lab, though, perfect numbers aren’t always “perfect.” Everyone’s different and you can’t lump everyone into a set of numbers. I can see if those numbers are extremely high or low, but sometimes they have a bracket that’s a little too narrow.

Even though she posted her concern 8 years ago and she’s a total stranger, I felt so bad for her. Just so, so bad!

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2016 Life is great and I’ve been feeling great, but I do have a couple of things to be a little ticked off about. Let’s start with the Internet since that one’s simple. It was fine when I got up, but once I got out of the shower and prepared something to eat while watching Slasher (LOVE that show) on Netflix, I found it was out cold.

Looks like it’s back now, but this is part of why I upload from Word. That and the fact that whatever content you put on a site could disappear at any given moment if it were hacked or shut down.

And now for the lab. Yeah, these doctors and billing departments really need to be a little more organized. We waited nearly an hour for nothing. There were no screaming brats or anything like that, but who wants to spend Saturday morning sitting in a chair with a bunch of strangers?

A vampire I’d never seen before eventually called me back. I told her I would require a butterfly needle. They didn’t have any butterfly needles at the moment, she said, and then she starts typing on her computer and points at the screen to show a balance of $72. She asked if I wanted to take care of that now or be sent a bill.

Confused at why we’d suddenly owe this amount, I asked her to get Tom from the waiting room to see if he knew anything about it. Since we still couldn’t figure out why Doc O was listed as having orders since she just released me now that I’m stable, or why I’d need to be tested again when I was just tested weeks ago, we agreed to cancel the order. She deleted Doc O, too. It was ridiculous to pay extra for tests that were totally unnecessary. My TSH, T3 and T4 couldn’t change in 6 weeks unless I stopped my medication altogether. I take 75 mcg daily and that’s the way it stays unless my TSH score ever drops below 1.0, something that would take a long time to happen if it’s going to happen at all.

Anyway, since Doc A’s the one working for us and not the other way around, we’re going to let her know… enough of the thyroid shit for now! Although my peri symptoms have been much better, I just want to deal with that right now. Not thyroids or cholesterol levels that are far from dangerous.

But yeah, it’s amazing how much better I’ve felt both physically and emotionally. I’m not 100% perfect, but it’s been way better. Can’t say for sure if the emotional tapping plays a part in it or not, but it definitely makes me wonder. My sleep is more of an issue now than hot flashes, dizziness, or racing heart.

So other than a house in Hawaii on the beach, I have virtually everything and anything I could want in life. Well, except for evenly colored hair. At Walmart yesterday I was browsing through hair dyes when I spotted a coupon sitting on the shelf for $2 off Preference dyes. So I thought I’d try one, and damn is it weird! It’s cream-colored and feels almost like you’re putting a thin layer of oil on your hair. It was very hard to saturate all the hairs. So from now on, I’ll have Tom dye it or I’ll just go to a salon.

SATURDAY, MAY 28, 2016 It wasn’t Andy that looked in on my blog. It was Kaitlin, Kim’s friend.

That’s it? That was fast! Yeah, Jackie’s place already sold. So I guess we’ll soon know what we’re in for. Please don’t let it be loud vehicles and tons of company! Or worse, like the people on the opposite side of the circle who used to leave their dog out overnight in their carport and had little kids living there. I really hope they’re as peaceful as the people who just moved in next to them. Hopefully, it’ll be all women. Men tend to make most of the noise. Not that they can’t use loud power tools in their carport, but I sure am glad there’s no garage there. Garages definitely seem to raise the chances of more than just cars being parked in it.

I thought Bob lost his mind for a minute yesterday. I was arranging clothes in drawers and closets, and when I looked out the back bedroom window I saw him standing at the edge of his property swinging a golf club. I don’t know anything about golf, but he sure seemed to know what he was doing. He’s very strong and fit for an 86-year-old and never seems to run out of energy. Anyway, I quickly realized he probably got a new club or a new grip or something that he was just testing out.

He and Jim still go on morning walks together, and golfing about once a week. Virginia goes out a couple of times a day but is otherwise as non-active as you can get.

I both hate and love our new front loader, but mostly love it. I didn’t yesterday, though, when the detergent pod got stuck in the seal. It was a real pain in the ass to have to wipe out the gooey mess, so now it’s liquid detergent only. Tammy says pods can ruin the machines anyway. Well, they sure are more expensive. I’ll keep using them in the dishwasher.

I ran an empty quick wash to get rid of the rest of it, but these washers don’t fill with water the way we thought they would. There’s no water line across the door, and when the clothes are washing they don’t appear to slosh around in water or anything. It just looks like wet clothes tumbling round and round.

Meanwhile, I love how you don’t need to set a load size, how much water it saves, and all the cool features it has. The timer is kind of meaningless, though, cuz it will often get stuck on the same time, then suddenly drop several minutes. It just gives you an idea of how much time is left.

Last night I dreamed that I awoke to find someone’s arm draped over me. It seemed to be meant to comfort me. I was on my side with my back facing them, whoever they were. I didn’t seem too alarmed in the dream and I seemed to have an idea of who they were. What amazed me was how they managed to slip into bed and put their arm around me without waking me up.

The arm seemed young, strong and feminine, and when I woke up for real I couldn’t help but ask, as incredibly silly as it may seem… was that really just a dream?

FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2016 Got a blog visitor from Springfield. They've got Comcast like Andy has, but I don't think it's him because the person has an Apple iPad. They also have the Safari browser, which he once tried and hated. Pretty sure he once mentioned having a neighbor that had an Apple computer of some kind but I don't think it was an iPad. Ginger, was her name. He’d complain she’d talk too much about nothing but was otherwise a helpful neighbor. It's possible he looked in on me through her or through someone else, but not likely. I think he’s as done with me as I am with him. Plus, how would he get to my blog link if he’s got me blocked? Then again, there are other ways to get it.

Kim is definitely not reading my blog. She would’ve changed the handle of the account I mentioned if she was. I’m curious to see how long I hold her interest on Twitter, though. I’m going to tweet casually till my sweeps subscription expires, call out a handle, see if she changes it, then deactivate that account for good.

Later…

Poor Tom is now working 12-hour shifts. They’re changing the way they do things at work, so that’s why. We’re so glad a 3-day weekend is coming up! It’s mad money, but we need time together more than we need money right now.

Going to stop treating the two toenails I was treating for discoloration. For one, they’re not that bad anymore and I think it was irritating the big toe. This is the one they cut the ingrown nail out of. I noticed a brownish strip along the base of the nail and it stung like a cut would sting. The toe also felt warmer than my other toes. So yeah, I’ll take a break from treating it. It’s summer (finally) and I hate naked toenails anyway. Hot pink with silver glitter here I come!

They had our water off for a brief period yesterday, and I saw the woodpecker that annoys us every now and then. From what I read, they’re most annoying from March through May, so hopefully the damn thing will take off soon. I scared it off yesterday, so maybe it will be too afraid to return.

Ironically enough, since applying the emotional tapping routine to the dizziness, I do seem to be less dizzy lately. Still get fatigued at times, though. I was thinking of trying it on other things as well. It’s not limited just to anxiety. It’s good for anger, depression and other things. If it works, I will definitely wish I could hug the hell out of Stacey!

If nothing lasts forever, please tell me this feminine itching and burning won’t last forever either! Tom thinks I won’t notice it as much once the peri is done. I hope he’s right! The things I use for it help, but it’s not a cure-all, just like baby oil doesn’t cure my intermittent earaches. So I’m tapping to keep the anxiety away, plus pain, fatigue, dizziness and weight. I have lost a couple of pounds, yes, but I think it’s just water, as usual.

Finally heard from Tammy yesterday after I emailed her. I don’t know if it’s Facebook not delivering messages or her just forgetting things due to all the shit she’s going through, but I feel so bad for her either way. Her last surgery was a bust, she’s on more painkillers and steroids, and her feet are all swollen. It’s like the doctors are making her worse instead of better much like my first team of doctors. :( She has an appointment on the first too, and I guess they’re going to discuss a couple of surgeries in June.

Speaking of Facebook, another reason not to be too thrilled with them was the sad “memory” from a few days ago. According to my yearly memory for that day, Simone would now be with us for one year had I not had to go and have breathing issues. I still miss her. Life was harder with her and she was a noisy pain in the ass but she was also a lot of love and fun.

One of Kim’s friends sent me a request and I accepted it (a beautiful black girl who also went to the Willie Ross School for the Deaf), but I had to unfollow her because she posts like crazy, LOL. She seems really nice, though. I was briefly tutored there when I first became a ward of the state. I think you have to be at least half-deaf to get in there. Well, I scored that one easily enough.

Just so my fine readers know, I met Kim in 1991. She was the nurse at the ER I was in when I had a bad asthma attack. As she was leaving while I was waiting for a ride home, I commented on the book The Joy of Signing I spotted in her hand. She was learning ASL, which I’d learned in my teens. This was back in Massachusetts.

Tom and I joke about cleaning the carpet and going Japanese. We’re going to hire someone to clean it since it’s been two years since it was installed, and rather than buy our own carpet cleaner, we’ll just stop wearing shoes in the house like the Japanese folks because that’s what tracks in most of the dirt.

I need to take more detailed notes of my dreams. I had a Valleyhead-related dream but can’t remember it. All I wrote was “VH.”

Then there was something about a clogged toilet and me stepping outside the bathroom to find several people in a long, narrow indoor pool nearby.

The last dream involved Karen, an old lady in Texas who’s been reading me for years. It seemed like it had to do with her getting old and me assuring her I’d be there for her somehow.

THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2016 Slept ok, though I don’t know if I had a massive dizzy spell in my sleep or if I was dreaming. Real or not, I seemed to be fighting for balance, unsure of which way was up or down. I definitely had dreams of a few people from the past I don’t care to remember – Aly, Paula and Barbara.

I was at Aly’s house and had to be there for some reason that was beyond our control. First she got pissed at me for turning the volume up too high on her laptop, then she got pissed when I accidentally said something her father overheard that she didn’t want him to know.

Paula was texting me and enclosed a quick video clip of some football game. This was something I knew her to be into, and while I didn’t care for that particular sport, I was surprised she was in touch with me.

Barbara wrote me a letter by hand, but I don’t know what it said. It didn’t seem to say anything bad, though.

We’re finally getting back into the 80s and I hope this is finally it and that summer is finally here to stay. Summer’s been teasing us big time this year, with unusually cool/wet weather that I’m totally sick of. I want to be running around barefoot in shorts and tanks, not bundled up in robes and slippers.

I LOVE being back to being anxiety-free! I only feel a little bit on Monday mornings as he’s leaving for work. I MUST do what I can to keep it this way! I can’t take any more levothyroxine and I can’t take anything new other than some form of natural hormone therapy remedy. I just can’t risk inviting that God-awful anxiety back all over again. I just can’t do that to myself and put myself through possible torture all over again. My thyroid’s just ever so barely out of the normal range, and I can’t believe my arteries could be that plaqued up this young. I just want to focus on the peri when I see the doctor next Wednesday.

How stupid can I be? Of course I can test to see if Kim's reading my blog! All I have to do is mention one of her fan accounts in a post. I just edited a handle into tonight’s entry. If she sees it when she gets up/online, the link will change. I never knew if she was avoiding my blog due to its tracker, or if she was getting around the tracker somehow. Now I’ll know and can stop wondering.

Anyway, I slept 8 hours, took a nap, and I’m still tired. Ugh.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016 Began watching the series Slasher on Netflix. It’s pretty good so far, though they’ve only got one season there.

I couldn’t get into CSI: Miami, but CSI: New York is ok. Not as good as Criminal Minds and Law & Order, though.

Fell asleep yesterday without lorazepam, but as usual, I woke up and needed to take it to get back to sleep and into a deeper sleep as well. It seems that without it, I only go into a light sleep and I wake up constantly. My HR reflects this on Fitbit. I’ve learned that if my HR doesn’t drop to around 68-70, I’m not going to sleep soundly. It never got under 73 last night. So now I’m taking the stuff more for sleep than for anxiety until my doc puts me on some kind of hormonal replacement therapy to help with these shitty peri symptoms. I’ve been a little less dizzy, though, these last two days, so that’s good.

The door slamming has begun at Jackie’s house, but it looks like it’s just that dumpy white pickup that’s been coming around a lot lately. You can only see the house by appointment only, so at least there won’t be any open house to deal with. That’d bring a lot more traffic.

Saw an article warning people in Pinal County, where we used to live in Arizona, about the Mexican drug cartel. They suggest people arm themselves to be safe. So glad we got out of there when we did! Not just because of them, though, of course. We were total sitting ducks for evil, and it would have only been a matter of time before evil struck again.

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2016 So much for feeling better. My ear’s bugging me again, I’m a little dizzy, and here we go with the extreme fatigue again, too. I just don’t get it. Why do I suddenly feel as if I’ve been drugged? I have things to do today. I can’t afford to lie around in bed all day. Fatigue isn’t as bad as dizziness, but both can be debilitating.

Aly tweeted that slightly creepy Fitbit friends are awesome. Yeah, she would think that, now that I know what kinds of people she prefers as friends. I mean I’ve always known this just like I always knew Mary was attracted to abusive men. But now I really know.

So then what’s wrong with Aly’s friend Brianne? I figure there’s got to be something wrong with her since they’ve been friends longer than we were friends, and Aly prefers them crazy/creepy. Well, it’s her problem, and while I know it doesn’t matter, I can’t help but wonder about something she said that makes no sense at all. She said she left Prosebox to “sever ties.” As in not wanting to use a site I use.

But she remains on Twitter and Facebook? I’m still on those sites, too.

The only thing I’ll miss about her is her intelligence and excellent memory. Not to sound like a know-it-all, but there is just so, so much stupidity in this world! I know people can’t always help/control their intelligence levels and that I should be more patient and tolerant of those not as quick to catch on, but having to explain things over and over really gets to me at times. Things I know damn well I already told them or that they probably read in my blog. Seriously, when someone asks me about something I already told them or wrote about I honestly want to beat my head in the wall. If you’re going to take the time to ask someone something, take the time to listen to the answer! I can see if you’ve got learning/memory issues, but it’s hard to believe that many people out there just don’t get things or remember much of what others say.

I suppose I could blame some of this on Facebook. I honestly don’t think Tammy's getting some of my messages there. She asked what happened with Andy and I, and I was like, seriously? But I’ve written about it and I swear I mentioned it to her. I’m thinking maybe some of the messages didn’t make it to her and she might’ve missed some posts, some of which I actually deleted. I was still surprised, though. Time to email more and Facebook less?

I took 39 lessons during the first two days of my Italian review, but the fluency counter is broken. No matter how many lessons I do and no matter how well I do on them, it always tells me I’m 15% fluent. Others are complaining about the same thing.

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016 Reactivated my old Twitter account just long enough to do a test. I’ve always been curious… if you tweet to someone and then deactivate your account, does the person still see your tweet? So I tweeted to one of Kim’s fan accounts, asking why she follows me, then deactivated again. She’ll answer my Twitter question by whether or not she changes links.

She hasn’t found my newest account because I’m not blocked from any of her accounts there.

I’m also curious about her own schedule. Assuming she will see the tweet and that Twitter’s probably one of the first things she does when she comes online, this will give me a sense of when she’s up. I thought Aly once said that she was up late and slept in. She seemed to come online around 11:30 AM her time.

Actually, she might not see it from what I just read. This makes more sense because I tweeted to her around midnight her time when I thought she might still be up. But maybe not. I’ll know tomorrow morning for sure.

Later…

Feeling better so far today. I was up a long time but slept well enough. I’m trying to see if the same emotional tapping that helps with anxiety can help with dizziness. It’s supposed to help with a number of things.

My ear isn’t bugging me today, at least as of yet, and it’s too soon to say how dizzy I’ll be.

Made quite a bit of progress on my story yesterday, went for a long walk, and did some cleaning. I also blogged and took a few Italian lessons as part of my review plan. You know, the usual stuff.

What’s a great way to practice your Spanish writing? Just jot notes on what dreams you remember in the language! Maybe I’ll alternate between that, Italian and German.

My dreams were strange and senseless. Tom chose a bunch of incense sticks and fragrances for me, and I snuck up to a house where a towel had been left just outside the door and started painting it. When a woman opened the door, I slid back behind a bush as she turned to say something to someone inside the house.

Then a man was arrested inside a large building for trying to steal an ostrich. He was seated in a chair as the officers chatted nearby. He glanced up at me as I walked by and I hoped he wouldn’t suddenly dart out of his chair and grab me or anything.

I then opened the door to a tiny windowless room, wondering if perhaps I should’ve waited till he was taken away so he couldn’t see where I was staying.

SUNDAY, MAY 22, 2016 Went to Denny’s last night and will definitely not be going back. It was busy even at 3:00 in the morning! Furthermore, the service sucked. Things took forever and got screwed up along the way, so I slammed them on Yelp. The food was ok, though the oil the fries were cooked in was probably older than this house.

Had a hot flash while I was there too, though it didn’t last long.

Stopped at Walgreens after that. Got a cute, colorful tunic that’s almost 70’s looking with its wide lace sleeves that are gathered above the elbow. I also got a pink floral scarf.

Just because I personally don’t identify with any religion doesn’t mean my stomach’s forgotten my Jewish heritage, which means a tendency to be lactose intolerant. Therefore, I’m drinking my bottle of low-fat chocolate milk a few swallows at a time.

Kim (probably Aly, too) was following my Twitter account religiously. I did some tests to prove it and she failed miserably. We’re not friends anymore so there’s no reason they should be playing looky-looky. Yes, I could’ve protected the tweets, since changing links is pretty useless. There are numerous ways to find accounts with new links/names if you’re computer savvy enough. I’ve found many things on various people without actually doing anything illegal. The reason I didn’t just protect the tweets, though, was so that Kim - unless she finds the secret account I created - would be denied the opportunity to play victim by blocking me from her dozens of fan accounts.

Man, I am just so fucking sick of even thinking of them. The only reason Kim hasn’t contacted me is that the coward can’t do it anonymously. I’m sure she’s getting a royal kick out of reading this, but I am NOT going to hold back in my own blog and I am NOT going to default all posts to midnight like I considered doing. This was to keep them from knowing my schedule, but you know what? I don’t give a shit if they know when I’m awake or not. I’m not on as many social/blog sites these days, so the only chance they get to play their blocking game is on Facebook and Blogger, assuming they’re not on Prosebox or LiveJournal. I’ve become the same recluse online that I tend to be in person. It’s just easier that way.

I don’t doubt that they’ll spend hours hunting down my new Twitter account, but since Kim can’t resist playing vicky vicky, I’ll know if it’s found because I’ll be blocked on all her fan sites.

You know, the more time that passes, the gladder I am that my “friendship” with Aly fell through. Both liars are two peas in a pod for damn sure with the only difference between them being that Aly’s smart and Kim’s not.

I wonder, though… If Aly’s friends with Molly, as I suspect, then why didn’t I see any accounts of hers on her follow list? Why don’t I see her on my tracking list? Molly is either dead, doing an unbelievably damn good job of hiding, or those in charge of her are doing a fabulous job of keeping her offline.

I also wonder if Tammy's gone a bit Andy on me. She asked what happened with me and Andy, and I’m like, seriously? I wrote about that and mentioned it to her, so why would she ask that? This isn’t the only time I’ve noticed this flakiness in her, though she’s always had a bit of a flaky side. She’s not dumb, but she’s not always quick to catch on or to remember things.

OMG, I just felt the weirdest sensation in my head. It’s like a rush came over it and I went deaf but also didn’t. I wondered if I’d pass out or if this was it… I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack. Heart got a little racy and I felt a little anxious, but my guess is it’s tied in with the peri. I hope so! I hope nothing else is going on with me that I don’t know about. My bad ear has been driving me crazy lately, and I still have feminine itching. I hope my former young and inexperienced doc, hot or not, was right in that it’s not due to an infection but enlarged hair follicles from all the shaving I had to do as an exotic dancer way back when.

I had some honey turkey and it calmed my anxiety.

I also felt a bit short of breath and then had another sensation run through my head sort of like when you get tired and are about to fall asleep. Sleep. That’s something I miss doing normally. I may not have been able to keep a schedule most of my life, but the sleep itself used to be normal. I was always a bit of a light sleeper that needed to sleep with sound machines on, but otherwise, I didn’t wake up a million times. I still sleep an average of 8 hours, but it’s sometimes hard to fall asleep and I never sleep straight through. Some nights/days are worse than usual. It took me forever to fall asleep last time around and every time I thought I was about to knock off, I’d float back up to wakefulness. This fucking sucks and my doc’s still a week and two days away. Gotta hit the lab next weekend, too.

SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2016 Every now and then I watch random YouTube vids at the end of my day when I’m too tired to do anything productive yet not ready to sleep. I watched one vid sentencing two 25-year-old black girls to life for beating a 3-year-old girl to death that belonged to one of them.

The reaction was classic. One fainted silently, the other hit the floor hyperventilating loudly. Both had to be wheeled out in chairs.

Mama nigress screamed like a hyena and tried to push forth to one of the monster nigresses. “That’s my baby!” she screamed as she was led out of the courtroom.

Yeah, well, her “baby” killed a child in cold blood. Just wondering how that must make her feel, but if she’s like most mothers, she probably believes the death was an accident. And if the killers are like most killers, they too, would believe, or at least say the same thing.

As one who has always been curious and fascinated with the human mind, I just wonder if these people are even capable of feeling any guilt if they can at least admit to themselves, that they killed an innocent child.

Later…

It seems the only time I’m not dizzy these days is the first few hours of my day. It really sucks. While it’s nice that I read that only 5% of cases of dizziness are serious, and I’m pretty sure that this is related to perimenopause, I’m not going to rest assured until I see my doctor. She’s still 11 long days away.

I didn’t take any lorazepam before bed and therefore I ended up sleeping shitty. I don’t remember having any hot flashes or my heart getting too racy, but it’s like I was “startled” awake halfway through my sleep. As Tom said, we definitely gotta check into the possibility of sleep apnea. After lying there a while, I finally took a lorazepam. If I’m going to need to take it before bed at least while I’m in the peri stage, fine. It’s such a low dosage.

The only problem is that I’m still prone to side effects and don’t know if I’d have the guts to even take anything she may recommend to help me. I’m going to have to with the dizziness, though, cuz it’s just too frequent. I looked at some OTC stuff online (not that I want to take anything before seeing her) and they listed all the major symptoms except for dizziness. The only mood I saw mentioned on the OTC stuff was “irritability.” Nothing about anxiety or depression. Most just said mood swings, which I take to mean when one is being a bitch.

We’re having the strangest weather in all the years we’ve lived here. Another cold snap along with rain. It almost never rains this late into the year. Every time I think summer is here to stay, we end up having to put the heat on. So here I am bundled up in socks and a robe when I would rather be barefoot and sleeveless. If all goes well we’re looking at possibly moving to Florida in about 8 years instead of 12 since Hawaii is almost certainly out of the question.

They just laid off half a dozen or so people at work, so Tom should be safe for at least another year.

The Bluetooth speaker still stutters when reading audiobooks, but does a good job with music. Since it was cheap, I’m using it in the bathroom rather than sending it back. Why not listen to music while I’m showering?

Wish Tom was up. I’m a little lonely and depressed, but I need to learn to cheer my own self up. I may not be suffering like last year, but it still sucks. I’m dizzy. I have no energy. My ear’s been bugging me more. I can’t sleep. I’m borderline anxious/depressed at times, and tonight I’m cold, too. :( Is it really going to get better for me?

Later…

Who do I want for president? I’ve been asked this a few times. First of all, I’ve never bothered to vote because I’m just not big on politics in the first place. I do tend to prefer to see Democrats in power more than Republicans because Dems are less hateful towards women and gays.

As a bit of a sexist, I’m inclined to want Hillary. The only woman I was glad to see fail was Palin because of her narrow-minded bigotry and her being all about family when her own family was a pretty pathetic example. Oh, the hypocrisy.

To me, a woman should have the right to choose, and there are no “norms.” It doesn’t matter if you’re single with/without kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re married with/without kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay and single or gay and married with/without kids. All that matters is love, respect, fairness, acceptance, honesty and consideration. So… just because you may be straight and married with 2.whatever children, it doesn’t make you “normal” or “correct.” You’re just straight and married with 2.whatever children. Period.

What I don’t support is the growing tolerance and favoritism of our more problematic groups. Therefore, while I don’t care for Trump’s hatred of gays, Jews and women, I do support his views on immigration and Muslims. The only problem is that there isn’t much he can do about these things. Presidents can’t just make laws. So how does he think he can keep Muslims out of the US?

In the end, politicians are all the same. They’re all liars. They all fail to do what they say they’re going to do. And they’re all just greedy, power-hungry, self-serving little beings on the planet.

Anyway, we went walking earlier but it was a bit chilly so we were only out there for 15 minutes. There were tons of little flies since it recently rained. I’m hoping that this is FINALLY it and summer is going to kick in to stay. It’s predicted to be a mild one, which is both good and bad. It’s bad for the solar-heated pool and could invite more outdoor activity, but it’s good for the electric bill, sleeping and working out.

I’m not as dizzy today. The only bad thing is that Jackie’s house is for sale. Goodbye, quiet neighbor. Hello…?

I just dread all the vehicle door slamming I’ll be in for as the house is shown and the newbies move in. That house is closer to us than the women who moved in next to them, which thankfully, have been nice and quiet so far. But can we get that lucky again with this house? They have no garage, but you can never know what you’re in for till you get it. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people parked alongside our driveway till they get settled, too.

What will be next to go up for sale? The house in back? Geri? Geri doesn’t seem that old, though, and I’m guessing next door has another decade or so left in them.

Slept better last night, and am looking forward to a late dinner at Denny’s. Might stop at Walgreens after that, too.

I swam in the ocean in my dreams, and then I showed off my new manicure to a huge woman. Pink flowers and green leaves adorned my nails. They’re blue with magenta glitter in reality.

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2016 A woman’s vid of her threatening and scaring the shit out of her toddler for losing her charger went viral. The shit got off on a bond set not much higher than mine was for a fucking letter. That’s so damn American, isn’t it? Thank God she didn’t actually hit the child. Then her bond would’ve been half of what it was.

Relaxing after a 45-minute workout. Checked in on Facebook real quick. As usual, what little of my feed I glanced at was just friends commenting on people I don’t even know.

First I went on a 27-minute walk and my average HR was 130. I felt great. Just a little dizzy once I got to the gates. I only saw one turkey along the way as the sun was setting. I was chilly at first cuz it was pretty windy out, but as expected, I warmed up once I hit the first curve (down the main outer street).

Once home, I guzzled some water, downed a smoothie, then hit the Bowflex for 15 minutes or so.

My wireless Bluetooth speaker with the color-changing LED lights arrived and the first time I used it after it was paired with Dot (Alexa’s now in the bedroom) it fits nicely on the treadmill tray and sounded fine. I got it so I could listen to audiobooks without having to blast the shit out of Alexa in order to hear it over the treadmill’s motor. The second time around it stuttered and I don’t know why. Not yet anyway.

The original plan was to dump my Twitter account and create a whole new anonymous account no one knew about. But then I did a poll, out of curiosity, to see if anyone was reading my tweets that actually liked doing so. I asked if I should keep the account or no, and I got one vote saying yes. Yeah, but was it from a random person who just then stumbled about my account or someone I’ve actually talked to before? shrugs I guess it won’t hurt to keep the account either way.

Aly was surprised and confused that I accepted her apology and forgave her, and I explained to her why. If I hadn’t been close to her, or had she done something huge like harmed Tom or burned our house down, that’d be different. I also can’t forgive those who can’t admit their mistakes and apologize. “I’m sorry” and “I love you” are said to be the hardest things for many people to say. But why? We ALL fuck up and we ALL love someone.

So yes, I’ve forgiven her, but not her friends. I am content to move on as non-enemies with all of them rather than try to resume the friendship with Aly, especially now that I know she doesn’t like me. I like her; I just wouldn’t be able to trust her. I would also worry about every little thing I said to her, wondering if I was being too blunt and, without wanting to, hurting her feelings or angering her.

It's just a bit sad that I had to find out what she and Kim really thought of me in the way that I did. I learned through Kim’s anonymous contact on Ask till I figured out it was her, and I learned just what Aly was thinking of me through her tweets. Now don't get me wrong. No one's obligated to like me. People can hate me all they want or at least not like me. I only ask that people tell me if that's the way they feel and not pretend otherwise till they either finally break the news to me or I catch them admitting it anonymously or elsewhere. I don’t bite. Don’t be so afraid of me. I’m not going to beat you up if you tell me you don’t like me or don’t want to be friends with me anymore.

As I also told her, she’s not a bad person. She just has some flaws just like the rest of us. :)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2016 Went out walking yesterday evening, saw a key was missing from the package pickup box, doubled back and got our key to our box. Sure enough, my display cases were there. So now 62 of my 104 fairies and animals are in cases and curios.

Having fun with PinDown which I discovered last night. It’s a way to copy full-sized pins to your hard drive, and even other people’s pins/boards on Pinterest. It’s free, and its only limit is that you can’t DL boards with over 300 pins unless you pay 99 cents a month.

Slept shitty and was a little dizzy earlier, but nothing major. I dreamed some rather unpleasant dreams, too. In one dream we lost everything and had to stay in a huge room with lots of other people until we could afford our own room.

Then I was walking around a crowded building topless, but no one seemed to notice.

Then I was sitting in some classroom or auditorium and realized the small notebook I’d been journaling in wasn’t with me. I glanced at a similar one on a nearby desk and asked the person who sat at it, “Is that yours?”

When they nodded in confirmation I took off running to find mine since it contained a lot of writing that had yet to be digitized.

In the last dream, I called some Italian girl I liked who had returned to Italy from visiting the States. She didn’t seem too excited by my call. I decided to call again next year and see if I had a better chance of a long-distance relationship with her, LOL.

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2016 Although mild so far, the dizzies are back. So I’m only allowed two good days in a row every now and then? Pretty sad, and well, I’m just wondering what the fuck I ever did to deserve to suffer. It’s better than anxiety, but suffering is suffering and it all sucks just the same.

Thought more about some things Aly said in her apology to me. Ok, I’m aware that I can be critical at times, but I still don't see how I could have brought her to “dark” places. Could it be that she was already there? Hell, the girl had a lot of shit going on in her life. I’d be in a dark, depressing place too, if I had a rare blood disease, even if I was sure I would beat it in the end. From what I read, depression is a very common symptom of cancer, among many other things.

At this point, however, while I appreciate her apology immensely, does it really matter if she thinks I was causing her depression or not? If she wants to move on then I will let her. I agree it’s for the best, but for different reasons than she does. I agree to move on because she’s lied to me more than once and I don’t think I could ever trust her again other than with an occasional, “Hello. How have you been? What’s going on in your life?”

For her, it’s because we’re too different in the way we think and handle things. I personally don’t mind those who are different than me so long as they don’t try to control or change me, but I respect and accept that we all have our ideas of what makes or breaks a friendship.

I truly did try my best to be there for her, and I never meant to offend or depress her. I know this and that’s good enough for me. :)

Kim and Molly are really all she needs for friends since they definitely have much more in common, and having common ground matters a lot to her. They may not treat her well, but at least they make her happy.

Not only is it true that crime doesn’t pay but that crime makes no sense. Why isn’t violence taken very seriously in this country???

I was furious when I read that actor Wendell Pierce was released on just a 1K bond for assaulting a woman. A 1K bond! Mine was over 2K. Ok, so I’m not black, male, rich and famous, but I’ll never understand why violent crimes, unless it’s cold-blooded murder, aren’t taken seriously and why it’s not non-violent crimes that matter. If that cock does any time (and I’m sure it won’t) I’m guessing 10-30 days. Maybe 90 if it were white or female. It makes me sick, but… on the bright side, I know that if I were ever provoked into an attack and forced to defend myself, they’re not likely to do shit about it as long as my attacker’s white. Of course I’d be fucked if they weren’t white cuz then they’d play the race card, and who do you think would be believed?

There also seems to be no logic within sentences for non-violent crimes. I’ll bet if I’d get a lot less for breaking into one’s house and stealing thousands worth of stuff than if I hurt your feelings or pissed you off with words you didn’t want to hear.

Had strange dreams last night. Tom checking under the hood of the car. Peering over a retaining wall in which people walked single file through 4-foot-deep water. Turning around to be sucked up by a whirlpool in a half-tube sort of like a water slide, and then Barbara living beneath me in an apartment building.

Yeah, that Barbara. The one from the NHA. Only she didn’t live next to and above me, but just below me. She also didn’t have the oxygen tube in her neck as she does today. I doubt she’s been living in apartments for years. I’m sure the bitch has a gorgeous mansion. God truly does seem to bless the evil. Really, what kind of coward knocks on the door threatening someone she knows damn well she could’ve beaten at the time and that was very ill with lung issues?

Oh, how I would love it if she came to my door now, with or without her little ox tube. I have 50 – almost 60 – more pounds on me now, am healthier than I was back then in most ways, and definitely have the focus and temper to take her down a peg or two.

But that’s just the thing… God’s not going to put an old bully in front of me He knows I could now get even with. He always, ALWAYS protects my perps. Once again, though, this is even assuming he exists, and once again I have gotten off-topic.

Not much more to the dream. I was chatting excitedly to her and some older woman about a washer I was excited to be getting.

Just found her on Facebook. Why is it I sometimes search for years for someone just to not find them, then bam! There they are. I sent her, her husband David, her daughter Jen, and another relative, the same piece of my mind knowing that at least one of them would probably see it. And tell Barb if she’s not the one. grins mischievously

They all have the ‘add friend’ option disabled. Probably don’t want to be friended for their money. Then again, Barb’s Daytona Beach house looks rather ordinary. Her little “necklace” also doesn’t seem to be hindering her ability to live life to its fullest and have some real fun. Ok, so maybe she can’t jump in a swimming pool, but other than being fatter (about 180 now), she can probably do almost anything else. I told her:

Remember me from the NHA? I would LOVE to see you come running to my door threatening me now. What a coward you were to threaten someone who was then 90 pounds soaking wet and rather ill. But now I'm a 150-pound weightlifter, very healthy, and very ready for you. Come to NorCal, Barbara!

MONDAY, MAY 16, 2016 Another dizzy-free day. Not sure how long it’ll last, but I’m enjoying it while it does. The doctor said I could come to see her sooner, and I’d like that, only I still have to do the lab a week before seeing her, and Tom would have to take more time off to take me. He already put in to have the first off, so since the earwax kit seems to be helping, I’m going to just hang tough for the next 16 days, as I told her. She said it was possible earwax could be the cause and recommended Debrox, another OTC de-waxer. I’ll keep it in mind if the one we have doesn’t continue to help. I just did the last treatment.

I slept better last night too, again having taken a lorazepam before bed.

Giving my brain a break having finished the Dutch course before I begin reviewing my Italian.

We went for a bike ride even though it was pretty hot. The hat I got in Mexico saved me. My pink sparkly cap would only blow off my head, so I wore my Mexican one because it has a drawstring under the neck.

Although I’m not fond of the limited skipping, I like Pandora more than I thought I would. They seem to have a bigger selection than AP.

Last night I dreamed I was at some outdoor event that may’ve been a concert of some kind. We were in this covered area sitting at one of many tables. It was dark and the people appeared as silhouettes.

I had to pee and wove my way through the people sitting at their tables and toward the bathroom. I leaned a hand on one table to steady myself and a woman went off on me for it. Not sure if she swore at me, but I sure swore at her all the way into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Outside I could hear two women talking about finding someone in particular to discuss the matter with, but I didn’t care. They’d been rude and I’d reacted.

SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2016 One of Mike’s sons replied to my message saying: Fuck you. I'd threaten your life but you living is the most perverse torture anyone could conceive. My parents are both saints you sick little puppy dog. You will be reincarnated as an aborted baby. Good night silly bitch.

Wow. That’s pretty vicious for what I would expect of a son of Mike’s. I’m surprised he didn’t block me. I never heard any more from the obvious nutjob, so I didn’t block him. I just replied with, “Good one. Good night to you, too.” That’s all I have to say to this one cuz this is the type of person to stalk the shit out of someone if you piss them off bad enough.

How can I be reincarnated if I was aborted, though? LOL

Today was much better as far as the dizziness goes. Maybe my ear really was a factor, but I don’t expect to be perfect. In just over 2 weeks I will discuss it with A. Like Tom said, though, O would never have released me if she thought it was anything serious.

I still miss the me that had little more than just allergies, earaches and toothaches. I had no idea peri would bring me so much hell. Not too much anxiety or racy heart lately, though, and those are the worst symptoms one could have, so that’s good. Just some hot flashes, fatigue, shitty sleep, and a whole lotta dizzies.

Last night I slept better than the night before because I took a lorazepam before bed. I definitely tend to feel better during the day if I’ve slept well the night before

It was a fun and productive weekend overall, but Sunday was definitely better than Saturday cuz I felt better. The only thing we didn’t get to was changing the washers in the master shower. He fixed the motion sensor light in front, changed the wiper blades on the car even though it shouldn’t rain for months, and did a lot of landscaping. He also cleaned the air conditioner’s filter.

One of the coolest things is that after a year and a half of studying nearly every day, I have passed the Dutch course, completing all the lessons within the “tree!!!” Next up is Italian review.

I just wish weekends didn’t go so fast. I still don’t like being alone for long periods at a time, and despite the big bucks it brings, Tom is really hoping for little to no OT this week, but that’s not usually how it works.

We had an AMEX gift card, a Best Buy gift card and a Chili’s gift card. We decided not to go to Chili’s because it was Sunday and would be too crowded. We’ll save that for a weekday.

We went to Best Buy first where Tom got blue earbuds to listen to music at work.

After that, we went to Target. It wasn’t as crowded as Walmart, of course, but it was still fairly crowded, and oh, those screaming brats.

It was still fun to get out and do some shopping even if we didn’t really need anything for the most part. We got over $100 of stuff yet it only cost us $30. He did get a really nice pair of what we guess is called pruning shears. They sort of look like these giant metal cutters. He also got new wiper blades for the car.

I looked at sheets both in the store and on Amazon because we could use a couple of new sets, and I honestly don’t know where to begin. Every type of sheet at every price has conflicting reviews. So who am I to believe? I try to go by a ratio of good to bad, but sometimes that one bad review just seems so awful that I am hesitant to take a chance on the product.

I asked a lady at the store where the slippers were and she said they didn’t have any now because that was a seasonal thing. Not even a second later, I turned and crossed the aisle and there were a few scattered pairs mixed in with the pajamas. I grabbed a pair of slip-on slippers with an open back since the cheap fleece ones I got from Amazon aren’t the greatest.

I also got a pack of neon-colored ankle socks in six different colors, and a gorgeous necklace where the chain is gathered with a small gold clasp at the chest and then two chains dangle down toward my bellybutton, each with a clear crystal hanging off the ends.

Lastly, I got a fat Barbie with burgundy hair that wears a blue dress that matches her shoes and her eyes. She’s from the Fashionista collection. Barbie has gotten amazingly realistic, diverse and beautiful over the years and makes for great decorative pieces, IMO.

We both got some treats and some frozen goodies.

Last night I dreamed I was in what may’ve been a fairly busy restaurant. A young waitress asked me to see if I got any bad vibes from someone in section 3. I agreed, but once I got to section 3 I realized I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to see what kind of vibes emanated from, as the waitress hadn’t specified any specific person.

It was nighttime in another dream, and I went to use a commercial bathroom somewhere. It was a large bathroom in a large store, sort of like what you’d find in Walmart or someplace like that. Suddenly I realized the floor was wet and I only had socks on my feet. I went down the rows of stalls hoping for a dry one I could get into in my socked feet, but there was water everywhere. The dream people did not want me emptying my bladder, haha.

At night when the traffic has died down, I love to relax in bed and listen to my audiobook. I think I’ll go do that now, even if that sometimes makes me tire down earlier than I’d like.

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2016 Saw fairly recent pics of Mike M and his wife Daryl. I hate to say it, though neither one ever did anything wrong to me, but they both look great for their age, as do their sons. Mike just has a slight gut and Daryl probably doesn’t look great naked, but she otherwise looks fine.

As hurt and as jealous as I once was over his choosing her over me, things really do work out for the better in the long run. Yes, some people truly do seem to have it all, but I wouldn’t trade Tom for the world! He wouldn’t have been abusive, but he would’ve definitely been all wrong for me.

I wonder, though… was Daryl really the only one? Ok, so he didn’t like me because I was troubled and you know the rules for me… no serious, OMG kinda lust allowed. But if he could fall for one student, couldn’t he have fallen for others? I just find it hard to believe he hasn’t cheated on her at some point, but what’s really amazing is that they stayed together all these years. He was about 25 and she was about 16 when they met. Now she’s a year older than me while he’s a year older than Tom.

Of course I couldn’t resist playing with Daryl and the sons (couldn’t find Mike’s account) on Facebook, not that they’ll get the message. And Kim, too.

I’m only keeping my Twitter account till June when my sweep subscription expires, so I might as well have some fun.

Found some more fan sites of Kim’s through Facebook. It’s gotta be driving her crazy that I can still tweet to her on blocked accounts, LOL. A definite glitch Twitter oughta fix.

Later…

Wow! Aly apologized to me on my-diary a couple of days ago and I didn’t know it till today. I rarely log into my-diary anymore. She apologized for tweeting the less-than-kind things she tweeted before cutting ties with me. She admitted she shouldn’t have lied and kept things from me like she did, and that the reason she dumped me was due to my being overly blunt and critical.

She’s right. I can be very stubborn and opinionated at times. But I never in a million years meant to intentionally bring her down or offend her in any way. I had NO idea I was having that effect on her and I’m very sorry I did.

It’s easy to swear we’ll never forgive someone who burned us that we were never close to, but it’s usually easier said than done when it comes to those we were close to. She said she could probably beg at my feet (though she also admitted she was doing it more for her than for me) for forgiveness and still not get it, but of course I forgive her. We had too many good times for me to stay mad at her forever, and I told her this in my reply to her. I really do appreciate her apology.

I feel bad for attacking her in my blogs and on Twitter like I did, but piss poor excuse or not, I was hurt and angry. I really thought we’d always be friends, but as they say, nothing is ever guaranteed in life.

We don’t have to be the friends we were before or reconnect anywhere, but she’s welcome to say hello every now and then. I agree with her on how different we are. We’re both writers and liberals, but definitely different. I couldn’t be “close” friends with her again because she’s lied to me more than once and put a bit of a complex on me as far as being friends with anyone goes, but it would be nice to touch base every so often. I’d like to know how she’s doing in life.

I deleted the nasty tweets I made in regard to her, and out of respect for her, I also deleted the nasty ones meant for Kim. I know Kim’s been looking in on me, which I don’t mind, but I totally admit that Kim hasn’t done anything wrong to me in years, and yes, Aly’s been leaving me alone too, just like she said.

So… my heartfelt apologies to BOTH Aly and Kim for my part in things. Both can message me on Twitter if they’d like (I adjusted my settings). Still don’t think I could ever forgive Kim, though, and I definitely don’t ever want to be friends with her again. All I’ll do is quit picking on her.

Later…

I was supposed to be enjoying the fact that I have nearly a month between doctors’ appointments. Instead, my appointment can’t come fast enough. I felt like shit all day and it was only till I’d been up 10 hours that the dizziness finally started to ease up a bit. I messaged A for any advice she may have for me until I see her.

I did manage to get out with Tom for a 15-minute walk, but don’t know if I’ll be up to Bowflexing tonight or not.

Funny because (and I know I wrote about this) I had a bad feeling that after the shit with the levothyroxine/extreme anxiety was resolved, I would be faced with a whole new problem. Unfortunately, I was right. My vibes, intuition, or whatever you want to call it, are rarely wrong.

I also have a feeling this will be an issue for another year or two before I am faced with my next long-term problem. The pattern is scary and obvious. All my problems are long-term and tend to last more than a year. First I wanted those I couldn’t have. Then I wanted to be a singer. Then I wanted a baby. Then it was the freeloaders. Then it was poverty. Then it was the anxiety. Now it’s what I’m still guessing is perimenopause. Well, if it’s true that this typically lasts 4 years, then I’m about halfway through it. Two more years of misery… and then what? Will the next problem be personal, physical, emotional or financial?

I’m still retaining water. It’s like I didn’t lose it all after my last period. I wonder if that’s because this period was shorter, and if it means I’ll be early next time around.

The only thing that’s been better lately is the anxiety, but since that’s the worst thing I’ve experienced since living here, I can say that the dizziness is the lesser evil.

Anyway, I’m really grateful for Aly’s apology. We don’t have to be friends again, but it really went a long way toward making me feel better, and I have no desire to pick on them. Really, I’ll behave!

Although still leery of mingling with many people online, I may go public again on Prosebox as I miss seeing all my visitors. Even though I didn’t know who the hell they were, it was still kinda neat to see all the visiting countries.

On Friday, a coworker gave Tom some candy apples that were leftover from some kind of fundraiser or something like that. He had the chocolate caramel one and I had the cinnamon caramel since he’s not big on cinnamon. Neither of us ate the humungous green apples, but Cappy’s eating some of them, along with leftover traces of caramel. Hey, a rat will eat anything.

In one of last night’s dreams, I was out late at night. The neighborhood and houses didn’t look like here in the park, but they were. I saw the neighbor we don’t have pull out that night and hoped they wouldn’t spot me for some reason. But they did because as they turned they caught me in their headlights. I had my glitter wand in my hand at the time.

Then it was daylight and I looked up to the top floor of what may’ve been an apartment building. Don’t know if we lived there or not, but in the windows of the top floor were what I thought were posters of various people at first glance until one of them moved and I saw that they were real people.

In another dream, I wore a long light-colored dress. I might have been in Florida visiting family. I went to use the bathroom and realized there were bloodstains on it like I’d had an accident during period time. I wondered if anyone had noticed and if I should change or not.

I was out by a pool next (probably in Florida) dressed in shorts and a tank. Tammy and Sarah showed up. Tammy got into the pool and began chatting with whoever was already in the pool. Sarah sat on a lounger next to a few other people.

I walked up to Sarah and could sense that she’d rather not talk to me. I pretended not to notice and said that it was too bad I’d forgotten my swimsuit and was tempted to go into the pool in my clothes. She said that’d get me in a lot of trouble.

I said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Then in a soft but somewhat snotty voice, she said, “What do you want to do?” as if to say, what the fuck do you expect me to do about it? You’re the dumb one who forgot your suit.

“I don’t know,” I said with a laugh, “not be so dumb next time?” and walked away.

Then there was the pill dream, but it didn’t get me anxious because I knew Tom was home. It was weird. I was licking a bunch of small round white pills that looked like lorazepam from the palms of my hand as I was chatting with a couple of women somewhere. They looked at me with concern.

“Don’t worry. I’m not committing suicide,” I said, trying to reassure them. Then I told them what the “pills” were, but don’t remember what I said.

FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2016 “You have won the…” said the email in my dreams. I awoke before I could finish reading it. If it means anything, then I’m sitting on a bigger win than just some fancy LED lights. Those arrived yesterday.

Yesterday I felt like shit, but better after Tom got home and cheered me up. I was dizzy as hell and had pain in my lower left gut, which is still present today. If it doesn’t back off soon enough I can always ibuprofen it away. Wish it were that easy with the dizziness! The only good thing is that this period was definitely lighter and shorter.

Just like they said, though, in their list of 34 symptoms of peri symptoms, expect weight gain. I’ve been up a few pounds for the last few months and I can’t get back down. I don’t look much different, though, due to exercising, but there’s zero chance of me ever losing the 30 pounds I could stand to lose. Zero chance. At least I know I’ll never turn the heads of any perverts looking like I do. I’m walking on the treadmill in 5-minute intervals. Don’t want to let this shit get me out of shape and drive my weight up even more.

So I spent the day dizzy and the evening rundown. I laid in bed for an hour or two listening to my audiobook, then fell asleep early. I slept a little longer and better (without the lorazepam I had planned to take), but I’m sure the fatigue will hit me soon enough.

Tom looked in my good ear in case that one had wax built up in it, and it does have some. He’s going to pick up an earwax remover on his way home. He said that when he was around 25 he couldn't stand, walk or drive and thought something was really wrong. Turns out he had a ton of wax buildup in his left ear.

We don't think wax is the only problem since I still have perimenopause, but if this is a contributing factor, then I hope that this will help. I just want my energy back! I used to have an abundance of energy except for when I was PMSing. Now it seems I’m often lacking the energy. I’d have a lot more of my story done if it weren’t for the lack of energy. Now I just get occasional bursts here and there. I’m dizzy, I’m fatigued, I sleep shitty most of the time, and therefore my mood isn’t always the greatest. It's not like I'm sitting around bawling my eyes out; I just don't feel the pep I'm used to feeling. Instead, I'm sitting around worried about my health and it's a different kind of worry that's worse than the kind of worry back when we were on unemployment. Really, it was so much easier being poor. I know I shouldn’t worry too much because as far as I know, nothing I have is serious. But I’m just a natural worrywart. Not just about the here and now, but the future as well.

I realize, however, how much worse my life could be. For everything I bitch about that has occurred in my life that hasn't been fair or that has been a challenge for me, what if I had been right? What if I had truly been meant to be alone all my life? I honestly can't see myself handling this on my own. I think I would have either killed myself or ended up a permanent resident of the Looney Bin. No matter how much I may suffer, I will never have to go it alone and that right there is a lot more than many people out there can say for themselves. I may not necessarily believe in God, but it definitely seems that some things are meant to be while other things aren't meant to be for different people. We're not all meant to be tall, we're not all meant to be parents, and we're not all meant to have true love and find our soul mates.

Love and lust are two different things, and well, we ALL lust for people here and there throughout our lives. I'm just glad that I didn't get the opportunity to act on that lust like when I was back in jail or something because even though Tom and I were more or less done with the intimacy and had become friends like many long-term couples, I think I still would have felt guilty had I done anything.

Here’s something to bitch about… they turned our fucking water off again. Yeah, I knew we were due any day now. Roto-Rooter and some truck that says Ditch Witch has been working all week at the house diagonally from us. What sucks is that they were here till after 6pm yesterday and so I worry the water will be off all day.

I swear we’re OUT of here when he retires! Gorgeous or not, I’ve had it with this place. The only things we’ve escaped here are the screaming kids and barking dogs. I’ve had it with the water games, the loud traffic/machinery/equipment, and the constant landscaping. That’s just not what an adult community is supposed to be all about to me. We’re too close to the mainstream too, so we hear car stereos. It’s just not as maddening as it was in Phoenix and Oregon. Yes, it’s better here than being stuck for another decade in Jesse’s dumpy little trailer, but this is still bullshit.

So are my health issues because I feel like they’re robbing me of enjoying the park’s positive features. I’m still afraid to walk around it alone at times, but lately, it’s more due to the dizziness than anxiety. The anxiety hasn’t been too bad. It’s the fucking dizziness, hot flashes, and fatigue that are the main issues!

The more time that passes, giving me a chance to reflect on things, the more I see the mistake in reuniting with Andy back in 2010. I will never be his friend again and the same goes for Alison. There are three rules I intend to live by.

Do not forgive.

Do not take back old friends.

Do not make new friends.

Just looking out for myself. :) There are simply too many selfish, negative, judgmental, phony liars out there. It may not be as fun, interesting or as adventurous with my cyber friends now down to less than a dozen, but it sure is safer this way. I'm too old for the drama. Right now I just want to get my health back on track. That’s much more important to me than my friend count.

Water’s back on now. The toilets are “screaming.”

Last night I also dreamed I was sitting in some cafeteria somewhere eating French fries and something else. Andy happened to walk by and for some strange reason, I hid my French fries because I didn't want him to see that I was eating junk food. A split second later I realized I didn't give a shit what he saw and what he thought and resumed eating openly.

THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2016 The police make me sicker and sicker. There are cameras everywhere these days and it’s like they don’t give a shit. I think they’re these invincible gods who can just beat the shit out of whoever they want. If violence is what they want why didn’t they join a wrestling team instead or take up boxing?

I have less than 10K words of my book written as I still have moments where I don’t feel all that great. Was pretty dizzy yesterday and it’s back again today. Also found a discrepancy too, as all of us writers find here and there. Shane put Markayla’s bike in his trunk and drove her home one rainy day, only I forgot to have him return her bike after dropping her off! LOL

Seriously, though, this dizziness is driving me crazy. I worry about it getting to the point where I pass out. Nothing I do seems to help. Why can’t I just have a fucking break?! It has been so hard for me to really enjoy this home since we bought it nearly three years ago as I have suffered so much here. Just so, so much. Is there a health curse on this place or something? It’s hard to enjoy a place when you feel like shit so much of the time and when it’s noisy most days, too. This week’s annoyance has been Roto-Rooter.

I hate wanting to do this or wanting to do that and then finding I’m just too dizzy or I don’t have the energy. While I’m pretty sure this is the perimenopause, not knowing for sure and not knowing how long it’s going to go on makes it really frustrating, even depressing. I try not to think… What if I have something serious that’s going to kill me? But if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. I doubt that’s the case, though.

Fitbit says I didn’t sleep as shitty as I did. I slept terribly. I kept waking up like crazy. Finally, I got up when Tom got up and took a lorazepam so I could sleep a little longer and deeper without waking up as much.

Maybe I can lie in bed and work on my story by using speech-to-text on my smartphone in an email draft and then I’ll copy it over to Word later on.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2016 Slept ok last night (without lorazepam) if you consider waking up 5 times and being restless 25 times “ok.” This is what Fitbit said, anyway. This is the first time my HR hit down in the 60s in nearly a week while I slept. Upon waking up I wondered if I went from having tachycardia to bradycardia when I saw the number 58 before I realized that was the number of steps I had taken between midnight and when I got up, and not my HR.

So much for thinking returning to my vitamins would help with the dizziness because it’s back today. Well, maybe I’ll at least have fewer dizzy days. But WHAT the fuck is causing it? Low thyroid? Inner ear? An infection? Perimenopause? My guess is still the last one. My thyroid’s ever so barely considered low, Doc O doubted my ear is the cause, and so I’m going with peri unless I find out otherwise. I just want to hurry up and find out and do something about it (that hopefully won’t kill me along the way), but I have a few weeks before I see Doc A.

She replied to my message and said that she’s actually testing my thyroid the week before since I’ll no longer be seeing Doc O, and then I have to be “evaluated” before I can have any other blood tests.

I don’t get it. My thyroid was just tested less than a month ago, so why does she need to test it again so soon whether I return to Doc O or not?

Met with a couple of unpleasant people from my past in Dreamland last night. First was Maliheh. I asked her if she ever figured out why she dumped me without even so much as the courtesy of an explanation. I mean even Alison, as cruel and as unwarranted as it was, told me she was dumping me.

In a matter-of-fact tone of voice, Maliheh said, “No, but I think I’m on the verge of figuring it out.”

Then Kim called. No, not the one in MA, but the crazy one in CT. It was funny too, cuz even though I never heard her voice in real life, I recognized it as Kim and seemed both surprised and happy to hear from her.

Then I dreamed that I overslept for something important (a doctor’s appt?) and realized I’d have to make a point of attending whatever I failed to attend that day tomorrow morning no matter what.

Next, I was running up and down a long corridor in a place we lived in with what looked like a miniature pony, only the playful animal seemed to be made of plastic. It was like a blow-up toy or something, haha.

Then I heard Tom’s voice as he came walking down the corridor toward me with some (grocery?) bags in hand.

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2016 The vitamins seem to be helping with the fatigue, dizziness and even my sleep, though I did “cheat” and take lorazepam before bed. Tonight I’ll see how I do with nothing. I even feel calmer. Yesterday my anxiety was borderline, threatening to bubble up under the surface.

I finally got my period too, a week late. From what I read about perimenopause, the average woman goes through it for 4 years. Most of my symptoms seemed to set in around 2014, so I guess I’ve got about 2 more years of torture.

Did a load of laundry and took some pics of the new washer for people on Facebook to see. The link is public. I was wrong in thinking it cost $750. It was $825 because we got the larger capacity. It also has a 10-year warranty.

The timer isn’t always accurate, though. Sometimes it’ll get stuck on the same time for several minutes, then suddenly drop a few minutes.

The test strips held up wonderfully to being mopped. No warping, color bleeding/fading or anything like that. If they still look this good in a few months after we’ve had a chance to recover financially, we’ll go ahead and redo the floors.

Cleaned my toe rings in the ultrasonic jewelry cleaner.

Jazz music really is calming, as they say. Maybe that’s because it’s so boring. I play it to relax and drown out outside sounds, but prefer something more upbeat when I’m cleaning. I’ve got a smooth jazz station going now.

Dreamed that I was on the phone talking to someone when I noticed a two to three-inch “knob” sticking up and nearly protruding through the skin where I once broke my arm. Panicked, I wasn’t sure if I should call the paramedics or Tom, who was at work.

Hope this isn’t a bad sign for me, but I don’t get any bad vibes from it, so I don’t think so.

MONDAY, MAY 9, 2016 Won a pair of LED work light bars in an instant on Amazon. Nothing too exciting. Really didn’t want to reactivate my Twitter account yet again, but it’s the only way to enter most of the Amazon sweeps because they force you to follow someone first, and it’s a way to share pics with non-Facebook friends. Photobucket is just way too damn slow.

So I spent like half of yesterday feeling fatigued, and about two-thirds of it feeling dizzy. Today was my second date with the Flintstones infused with extra iron, and today I’ve felt better. It’s too soon to say returning to my kiddy vitamins is helping, though. I do, believe it or not, still have some good days where I don’t feel all that bad. If I can just go a week without such kick-ass fatigue and dizziness, then I’ll think that yes, I really shouldn’t have stopped taking them.

Anxiety continues to be minimal compared to last January and earlier, but it’s borderline at times. I’ll have a flash of it where in that split second I’ll swear the butterflies are gonna fly up in my gut, but don’t quite make it.

I slept as horribly as usual last night. The first two hours I kept waking up like crazy. Finally, I got up and took a lorazepam, which Tom thinks I should stop taking. He thinks that may be making it worse. I don’t think it is, but just in case he’s right, I’ll try to just deal with the constant waking up without resorting to anything. I still wake up with the lorazepam; just not as often, and I sleep sounder with it, too. Without it, I don’t sleep as deeply and I wake up more often. I don’t have anything scheduled in the immediate future, so sleep isn’t too critical right now.

I did get a message from A’s office saying to keep my appointment with her on the first, and to go to the lab a week before seeing her, but in the nurse’s garbled message I swear she mentioned TSH testing, so I sent the doc a message online to confirm that this was for hormone/estrogen testing, and that I plan to discuss that with her as well as the possibilities of having a mild case of sleep apnea.

I had a dream last night that gave me another story idea. It was like I was watching the dream through the eyes of this homeless woman. She broke into a vacant hotel room so she could take a shower and sleep in a real bed. The room had two beds. A few hours after she crashed, a gorgeous woman walked in and she begged her not to call the office after explaining that she was homeless and all that. She promised to stay out of the way and be as quiet as a mouse if she’d let her stay.

The beautiful woman identified herself as an FBI agent and agreed not to say anything if the woman was willing to help her with the case she was working on, but I don’t know what that “case“ was.

SUNDAY, MAY 8, 2016 Last night, in the midst of the typical shitty night’s sleep, I awoke from a dream of the vigilante girl telling me the doctors missed an important test. In reality, they didn’t, but I sure hope the dream wasn’t a sign of anything as my negative dreams about Tammy were.

She called yesterday and hasn’t been doing well at all, which would explain the dreams. She laughed at the one where she was really skinny and said she wished that one were true. LOL, that’s the thing about dream premonitions; you don’t usually dream of exactly what’s going to happen, but you do get enough negativity to tell you something’s amiss. I’ve only had a few dreams play out to a T or close enough to it. A couple were negative and a couple of others were positive.

Anyway, she’s having more back surgery on Monday and hoping for the best.

I’m now at the point where I dread going to sleep. Tammy took an OTC thing called Estrogen that she said helped her a lot and that they’ve also got one for sleep. This is good to know, but I don’t want to do anything till I talk to my doctor. I still think I have mild sleep apnea at play, too.

Of course, she thinks I should be on Lipitor being in the medical field as she was. Yeah, I’m sure she’s right, but right now I’m not going to let anyone “give me any Lip”. ;)

Just a few hours into my sleep and I awoke right as this intense dizziness swam through my head and my heart was beating hard and fast. Fitbit said it shot to 146, but I don’t think it was much over 100. Anyway, I felt like I couldn’t breathe no matter what position I lay in, despite being able to sit up or open my mouth wide and suck in a deep enough breath fairly easily. I had that lump-in-the-throat feeling. Tom thinks I probably just panicked.

In my sleep?

Later…

LOL, dumped Twitter again, but found one of Kim’s fan sites on Facebook. I then shared one of her pictures and quickly deleted it from my timeline, knowing she’d know it was shared and not be the least bit happy about it. Sure enough, she did what Polly did and went private. I’m sure she (and probably Aly) constantly checks to see if I reactivated on Twitter, haha. It’s all I can do to keep from doing so, but I know I really should move on. They never gave a shit about me. Why give a shit about them?

Going to attempt to once again get my journal caught up. If I’m not busy, then I’m busy feeling like shit. The fatigue and dizziness have really been sucking the juice out of me and driving me crazy. As usual, no matter what I do to try to help myself, nothing improves it. I did, however, restart my kiddy vitamins with iron, so if that can’t help, maybe my doctor can figure it out for me. For now, it comes and goes at random. I hadn’t had any dizziness for a few days, but then I had it all day today until a little while ago.

On top of perimenopause symptoms, I have the PMS from hell. My period is now 5 days late and I have enough water on me to fill a swimming pool with. I won’t even bother with how sore my boobies are.

Despite how I felt, we got a lot done today. We went on a walk this morning and then to Walmart where I splurged on a few cute dolls before hitting the grocery section.

We later went to Petsmart too, and they didn’t have any rats. Instead, they had this really cool parrot of some kind that really seemed to like me, haha. It followed my movements back and forth along the long cage as if it really wanted to be my buddy. Not for $600! And not for the ungodly loud sounds they make either.

I’m starting to think the rat we have now will be our last pet for a long time to come. We’ve had something like 7 rats since coming to this state and only 2 of them have been friendly and sociable. The rest have been shy as hell. That’s the problem with the chains. Those stores don’t give a shit about the animals. All they care about is selling them. So they don’t take the time to handle them from the get-go so that they’re not only used to but actually want to be handled by people. Tinkerbell and Blondie were raised by kids till they were sold by small non-chain stores.

Then I looked and found a local “rattery” that breeds them for temperament and health by being sure to handle them as babies. Tom was impressed with them, too.

We finished backing the bookcase with the flooring/wallpaper and it looks awesome! I was worried the stuff on the shelves would be lost against the busy flower/rock design, but they actually stand out better. We’re both surprised at how good it looks. It looks a lot like a rock wall with scattered pink roses sticking out of it.

We had some extra scraps left over that we threw on the kitchen floor to see how well they hold up over time to traffic and mopping. The stuff is more durable than we thought. At first we thought they were just typical stickers that would tear easily, but nope. I even dropped a horse figurine on a section by accident and it didn’t even pierce or dent it. So China-born or not, it’s not cheap shit.

If we do decide to do the floors with this stuff, I think a less busy design would be more appropriate.

Loving our new front-loading washer, even if we hadn't planned on one till next year and it’s kind of screwed up our finances. Not sure if we really need a new dryer, though. They may not match at all sitting side by side, but as long as this dryer works, I see no need to replace it. The next and final appliance that needs replacing is the oven.

Anyway, they said they’d deliver it between 8am - 10am, but they came at 7:30. It was a couple of Mexican guys and I loved listening to and understanding all the Spanish they exchanged with each other. It wasn’t much, though, as they did most of their talking to us.

Interesting how they hauled the old one out and brought the new one in. The old one weighs about 150 pounds. The new one is about 258 pounds. It’s definitely bigger than the dryer! They put these harnesses on and then ran straps around the washer, which they then hooked to their harnesses, and that’s how they carried it out. I really thought they’d wheel it out on a dolly.

The floor was filthy, of course, so we cleaned it as best we could. We found a couple of old cat toys, a small screwdriver, and the tub drain that Simone stole and hid. All this time I’ve been wondering where it was.

They didn’t need to put the new hoses on that we got, so we’ll keep them as a backup.

It’s a direct drive so we won’t have to worry about it going off-balance since the drum is connected right to the motor.

The guy asked if we’d ever had a front-loader before and we told him we haven’t. He then said he calls them the high-maintenance washer. Not something I liked the sound of, LOL. He then explained that it was very important to keep the seal dry to prevent mildew. He also said that it’s important to clean it periodically otherwise it’d “smell like sewage.” As soon as I heard that I really hoped we wouldn’t regret getting the thing. He said the seals are $300 and that doesn’t include labor.

The rubber gasket is a bit of a bitch to towel dry afterward because there’s a crease in the center of it. In fact, a couple of my kiddy-sized ankle socks got caught in this groove, so we got a mesh laundry bag for things like that.

You have to leave the door propped open afterward to ensure the whole interior dries out. I love how it lights up too, but after a few seconds of not sensing any motion it goes out.

After 30 washes an indicator lights up to let you know that it needs to be cleaned. He gave us a sample to start us off with. I guess you just throw it in like you do with detergent pods. Liquids, though, have a drawer you pour them in.

He started a quick wash going on his way out to remove the chemicals they coat it with to protect it until it’s sold. People were complaining about corrosion, so that’s why they started using chemicals on it.

After the quick wash, we did a full load (amazing the capacity this thing has) and had fun watching how it works. The door’s a smoky color rather than clear, but since I dress mostly in bright colors, I could see at least my clothes well enough. It almost seemed like there was hardly any water in it and like it was just damp clothes tumbling around. It does use less water than top loaders.

We’ll have to try the steamer sometime for stained clothes and see how well it does. The thing spins faster than I ever knew a washer to spin before. Although it’s quieter than our old one, the sound of the mega fast-spinning was a bit weird. The clothes were definitely not as damp as they would be coming out of the old washer.

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2016 So psyched to receive our new washer today! Not much else to update other than the dreams I had last night. Last night where I finally got a decent enough night’s sleep without the constant waking up. No hot flashes or beatathons either, but we’ve been having a cool spell, so that helps.

Oh, shit. Alexa just said there’s a 76% chance of rain today. I hope it won’t interfere with the delivery and all that, but I don’t think it will. It rained yesterday too, and while I hated the cold and the gloominess, I loved the peace and quiet. It’s sad but true that unless it’s nighttime, raining or super hot, you don’t get much peace here.

I’m a little worried about Tammy. As I told her yesterday on Facebook, she’s been in a couple of sketchy dreams so I was wondering about her. Well, she hasn’t gotten back to me, and she was in more dreams last night.

In one dream I met her at a hotel somewhere. She appeared to be shockingly thin. I told her I wasn’t sick, just tired. Then she and Mark were suddenly at our house and I wished I’d had more of a chance to tidy up first.

In another dream, I was living in a 2-story house with my parents, though I don’t think it was either of the Longmeadow houses. They were out somewhere one evening when I forgot to put the rat in his house before getting into bed. As I was falling asleep I told myself he would be okay, but then I decided to get up and secure him in his house so that my parents didn’t accidentally step on him when they got home.

Then there was a dream where I met Mitch, a UK cyber friend, in some public building somewhere.

In the last dream, I was sitting in a car with someone as I watched a guy in his 20s slowly exhale smoke from a cigarette. A young boy of perhaps eight or nine years old was eagerly blowing at the smoke as the guy exhaled. I found the scene rather sad and disgusting, but not surprising, knowing how most people are these days. An adult would make a game of their smoking with a kid.

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2016 Again I slept shitty, waking up just a few hours into my sleep. This time I needed a lorazepam to relax me back to sleep. If it isn’t hot flashes or “heart attacks” waking me up, it’s nightmares. It was a very long and detailed dream that took place in my childhood home, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

We’ve been having all kinds of Internet problems causing the connection to either hiccup or run really slow. Comcast sent a message saying they had outages in the area and were working on it, but then when Tom checked my computer he found I was connected to the wrong Wi-Fi. He disabled all the ones I shouldn’t be connected to, and now I’m back up to speed.

Also, my computer stalls whenever I right-click to copy or pin something to my boards and that’s annoying as fuck, too.

Called Dr. A’s office as instructed after seeing O for what will hopefully be the last time, and requested labs for hormonal testing. I was told someone would get back to me, but no one did. Oh well. It’s nothing that can’t wait till I see her on the first.

So now for my series of dreams. Most were brief, but one was long and detailed. I think I might have had one to do with hormone testing, but can’t say for sure.

Then there was a quick dream where I was giving an interview about sweeping, and I guess I was discussing a win notice because I was saying how I didn’t think to check my spam box that day. In reality, though, I check it every day and don’t expect to win ever again, so I’ll quit sweeping in early June when my premium subscription expires. This is just like last time; I started off winning, then nothing.

Next, Tom and I were temporarily living in some huge hotel or apartment building of some kind. He had to go down several floors, through some hallways, and through a series of doors and gates to get out of the building. The only way he could get back in at the end of the day was for me to be there to let him in. I hoped I would remember the way.

The lower level of the building had many stores and shops and I thought, wow, I could spend thousands shopping the day away here.

But then I looked down and realized I was in some kind of uniform with the number 6767 on it and knew I too, had to get to work.

The real nightmare was in my childhood home. Funny too, cuz this isn’t the first dream I’ve had of someone breaking into that house, even though no one ever did in the 13 years we lived there.

Tom and I lived in the house and I fell asleep in the back right bedroom. I thought I was hearing my sister’s voice in a dream when I realized it was actually someone else’s voice somewhere inside the house.

I shot out of bed, down the stairs, and out the front door. It was just about dark now, and I stood outside the screen door swearing into the house at the intruder. Yet I wasn’t brave enough to face them on my own and instead ran down the driveway and toward the street, knowing Tom would be home from work any minute.

The street suddenly turned into a parking garage and I realized the intruder could follow me there, and then I heard a sound. I hoped to hell it was Tom, and it was. I spotted him taking a box from the trunk of the car and told him I couldn’t swear to it and may’ve been dreaming, but that there could be an intruder in the house.

He calmly followed me to the open front door and I told him I wanted to go in ahead of him. “That way, if God forbid anyone rams a knife in our direction, I get hit and you’ll be spared,” I said.

We went straight up the stairs and checked all 4 bedrooms. Nothing. I then breathed a sigh of relief, even though we never checked the ground floor or cellar.

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2016 Went on a quick walk/jog with Tom. It’s damn chilly out there!

Tom read an article on a fitness study they conducted. They had half the participants ride a bike for something like 45 minutes a day, while the other half sprinted 3 times for 20 seconds with 2-minute breaks in between. They concluded that the sprinters were just as fit as the riders, proving what I’ve always known and believed – more is not better.

Having so much fun trolling Aly and Kim on Twitter. As a test to see if Kim was really reading my tweets as I suspected she was, I tweeted: Kim, I want that Rockapella fan account name changed NOW! Do it NOW!

I knew that if she saw it, she’d run and change the name, thus rendering the link to it useless.

Sure enough, it was gone within an hour. ROTFL! That’s one seriously obedient slave. What if I told her to jump off a bridge? I oughta make up fake fan accounts to demand she change now that I’m not able to find more of them… Kim, I want that Gloria fan account name changed NOW! Do it NOW! LOL

I guess I’m living proof that you’re never too old for immaturity or Barbie.

As I’m sure the trolls would want to know, I slept shitty but better. I crashed earlier than I thought I would because I was just so exhausted. I slept longer, though I still woke up often, and one of those times I was hot flashing and my heart was thumping. I had to sit up in front of the fan for a few minutes, as usual. But the good thing is that I made it back asleep without lorazepam. Not having the stress of upcoming appointments helps.

Had a dream that we were living in some dumpy old house. Tammy visited, and I’m not sure if she told me it’d be the last time she’d visit our house or that I’d ever see her, but either way, it wasn’t a very pleasant dream.

Then I had a strange visit with Dr. A in the next dream. She had me lie back on the exam table and lift one leg at a time and hold it at a 45° angle for as long as I could. As the time ticked on by she was impressed with how long I could hold it up as fit/strong as I am.

And then a guy and a baby went tumbling down a huge rocky mountain in the scariest dream. I don’t know where this was supposed to be or what I was doing on the mountain, but I knew they couldn’t have survived the fall.

Now it’s time to take my Dutch lesson and enjoy the peace before the daily barrage of landscaping hits the scene. So damn annoying and disappointing!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2016 Been wanting to do an update but battling severe fatigue that’s been slowing me down. Got great news, though. Dr. O kicked me out! Now that I’m stable and now that we know my forever dose is 75, Dr. A can take over from here unless there's a problem. She called in a year of refills for me.

My T4 numbers are right where I feel best. Any more and all hell breaks loose with the heart-pumping mind fuckers from hell. Although unlikely, there's a slight chance I may have to break a 25 in half and take it once a week or so to make it like I'm taking 81 mcg (88 is more than my body can handle, partly due to size, perimenopause, and tachycardia) but that would only be if I went back to 0.9 which would invite a lot of the hypo symptoms back. I do best between 1.1 - 1.3.

As nice as she was during the 1.5 years I struggled to get regulated, I hope I'll never have to see her again. Traffic and parking in downtown Sac are a nightmare anyway.

Again, she was, IDK, uncomfortable with me maybe? I don’t know if I imagined it or not and of course it doesn’t matter either way, but it’s strange how she made me feel rushed and like she didn’t want to deal with me. It was like there was something about me she didn’t like. I saw her 6 times, twice in which I was alone. Both times I was alone she acted this way. I wonder if she was bothered by or got the wrong idea from my Facebook holiday message to her last year, but again, it doesn’t matter. It was also the first time she didn’t go off-topic. She usually makes at least some small talk unrelated to the reason you’re there, but she didn’t even ask something like how my weekend was.

She asked a few routine questions and told me to remember to take my meds every morning on an empty stomach and that if I forget one day, double up the next day. I won’t forget, though. I have a routine now. Where I used to get up, pee, and go straight for the coffee, I get up, pee, take my pill, tell Alexa to set the timer for 30 minutes, then I browse the net until it’s coffee time.

My only complaint is the perimenopause symptoms beating up on me. We talked about that too, and she knows that I’m going to go to the lab soon for hormonal testing. At least they're annoying and not terrifying. Gonna undergo hormone testing soon. It’s been driving me crazy. I sleep shitty, I get dizzy, I get fatigued, I get hot flashes, I get everything. Anything’s better than extreme anxiety, though, where you’re terrified to be alone and you feel like you’re going to die.

Not surprisingly, my period is a day late, though I still think I’ll get another one due to how sore my boobs are and the water I’m retaining.

Later…

Not impressed with the 3D flooring which is really two large panels of wallpaper. I think they’ll look great backing the bookcase, but it may actually be a real pain and end up costing more than regular vinyl tiles to get a protective epoxy covering and all that to keep it from scuffing up.

Maybe some of the other designs look more 3Dish, but I don’t think this one looks very 3D at all. The gray rocks are huge and the pink flowers look stretched, so I think it may’ve been too large of a design for such a small bathroom, half of which is always covered with a bathmat.

They wanted to deliver the new washer yesterday morning, but since we were to be out at that time we rescheduled for Saturday. For just $15, they’re going to haul the old one away. We’ll add the matching dryer later on, though this one works fine even though it’s older than the washer was.

Anyway, I had zero energy when I got up. Tom convinced me to eat more, drink more water, go back on my kiddy vitamins, and exercise less. I did, after all, lose 1.5 pounds in less than 2 days. I have the weight to spare, but not eating definitely makes me sluggish. Some days all I want to do is eat while other days I’m just not that hungry.

Had one of his chicken melts and while it was just average tasting, it was like a wonder drug. Suddenly all my energy returned. I made a list of all I wanted to accomplish today so that if I got hit with dizzy spells or fatigue, I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not getting more done.

So I walked around the circle a few times, said hello to Bob and Jim, and noticed water spraying up in the air about 4’ high on the other side between two properties. Busted pipe? That was my guess, though they haven’t shut our water off yet.

I took my Dutch lesson (just 15 more to go!) and did 15 minutes on the Bowflex so as not to push myself and overdo it.

I only remember bits and pieces of last night’s dreams… cleaning in a “day” jail, dreading a walk in the snow, handling gel cushions like the one I’m sitting on, though they were smaller and lighter, and singing part of a Selena song.

Now after eating again, let’s see if I can muster up enough energy to get back to my story. I’ve been neglecting Shane.

TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016 Right or wrong, I’ve been having loads of fun playing with both Aly and Kim on Twitter. Once I get bored with that and have had my fill I’ll probably deactivate. What’s hilarious as hell is that you can still tweet to those who have blocked you as long as you know their handle. Kim keeps changing hers every time I find one of her many handles, but Aly’s given up on changing hers. She has gone private, though.

I noticed she updated her profile picture on Fitbit and she not only looked like she’s aging fast but looked utterly pissed and mean as hell. She changed to her cat as soon as I mentioned that, and after mentioning that, she went to a default male avatar.

Found out how they knew my “peak hours.” Aly was keeping tabs on that on Fitbit. Even though she disconnected from me there and you can’t block users, you can still see each other’s accounts. Therefore, I made almost all my data unavailable to the public eye. Once I drop off of Twitter she should never know when/where I am online since I’m going FO on Prosebox and putting other blogs on hold for now. The only thing I can think of she might be able to see would be the last time pics were pinned on Pinterest, but that’s only if she remembers the link. I changed names there, but the link is the same.

MONDAY, MAY 2, 2016 Decided that I may not be writing publicly for a while. Not due to anyone in particular but just because I miss writing for me. I just get tired of having to filter, edit, sensor and change names/locations. I’ll miss all the visitor traffic, but sometimes even I like a little privacy.

For now, I reactivated Twitter and might reserve that for bitching about those who’ve wronged me or that I just don’t like. In blogs, it’s like you’re bitching to those that read it, be it a few people or many, but on Twitter, it’s like you’re talking out loud to yourself.

As wrong as it may be, I couldn’t help but point out to one of Aly’s Canadian friends that she forgot to delete two of her accounts. Kim’s fan accounts are still visible on Prosebox too.

She shared a link to a pin about alkaline-based foods that are better for people with Hashimoto’s. I saw the name on the pin was Rachel M and checked out her boards. She had one with several places she’s traveled to, and well, she’s a travel agent. Then I clicked through to her Facebook page and she has reviews and “likes” of places in the part of Florida she lives in. So it’s probably her.

She’s an ordinary-looking blue-eyed blond, though her hair could be dyed. I only saw one face shot. The account is otherwise very private. For some reason, I thought her name was Rose Louise and that she had dark hair and eyes.

Tom woke up early and his being up and about, even if he’s in the other room watching a show, has perked up my mood.

SUNDAY, MAY 1, 2016 Lowe’s could guarantee a Tuesday delivery on that LG washer, but not in the afternoon (seeing O in the morning). Best Buy can, though, on a Maytag washer that’s a little bigger and costlier, but its extra features and extended warranty were worth the extra $50. It’s a $750 “sidewinder.”

Sure enough, not a word from Tammy about my lab results. Not much to really say about that, though. I’m going to hold off for now on statins as my numbers aren’t dangerously high, ask about perimenopause/sleep apnea testing, and get refills on my thyroid meds.

LOL, Aly and Kim moved their stories off Prosebox and Aly tweeted how “good it felt to officially cut ties with Prosebox and she’s never looking back.”

Haha, Miss Melodramatic makes it sound like Prosebox was a prison sentence of sorts she was forced into and finally escaped.

She says there are so many other better blogging sites out there. Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say there are “so many” that are better, but there are better sites, yes. What I like best about Prosebox is that I can have multiple “books.” But Prosebox lacks features that most other sites have and that would be cool to have, like customizing backgrounds with pictures of our choice rather than a few boring pre-selected options. It would also be nice if it had a search feature.

I don’t like the promises of upgrades that never come and I liked it better when you had arrows up top to scroll through entries. I also liked having drafts be in the book they were meant for rather than all thrown together.

With Prosebox you also have to scroll through pages and pages to get to older entries on books with many entries, but on sites like Blogger, which would be the site I’d choose if I could only blog in one place, you can pick the year and the month within that year in a second.

Still, I do love Prosebox even though I may change my mind and decide to leave someday.

I know I’m probably being unwise and immature by continuing to read her tweets, but perhaps I do it because some are just so ridiculous that they’re funny. Ever stumble onto a bad movie that’s so damn bad that you can’t stop watching it BECAUSE it’s so bad? Well, I guess Aly’s just really that bad. ;)

Another interesting tweet she made to Kim was that it was “hard to be totally happy, you know why, but I’m free of that.”

Let me guess… that has something to do with me? She is the one, after all, who “freed” herself of me by dumping me. I just have yet to get why. I’m usually pretty honest with myself and good at looking back and seeing where I messed up with life or people in general. Things I should’ve said or done differently or maybe that I shouldn’t have said or done at all. But I honestly can’t see what it was I did, other than not be crazy enough for her, to deserve being dumped. She did mention negativity, but what’s “negative?” Not having the time or the desire to text back and forth with her every single day? Being honest? If a doctor tells her patient they have an illness or a disease, is that being “negative?” Or is that just being honest?

She taught me a HUGE HUGE lesson, though, and that’s that anybody can appear to care about us that thinks we’re nothing but shit. I almost let go of everyone else left in my circle so I wouldn’t have to suffer the pain and frustration of finding out someone else has been thinking the same false and horrible things about me that I thought would always, always be a special part of my life. But instead, I refuse to punish the innocent. If they emerge, well, there’s not much I can do about that. But I can close the door to future friends.

Now the question is what to do from here. Some have suggested that I keep living my life as I normally live it, while others suggest backing off of social media and privatizing as much as I can.

Hmm… but I have no idea if they’re reading me or not. Kim did mention my “peak hours.” How would she know what those were unless one of them or both of them were keeping an eye on me?

But there are never any blog views from Stafford Springs or Papillion or tweets in regard to anything I say. Then again, the tweets about her dietician encouraging her to keep as active as possible, then mentioning moving stories from Prosebox right after I publicly said she got kicked off for bashing me (she didn’t, though) and probably cheated on her step count do seem a bit coincidental.

And how would I “hide” if I chose to so they couldn’t know my hours? The only sites I use right now are Prosebox, Blogger, Pinterest, OLS and Facebook. I could go FO on Prosebox, queue my Blogger posts to post at the same time every day and privatize this month’s board on Pinterest. To my knowledge, no one outside my circle can see when I’m on OLS or Facebook. So unless I’m missing anything, that’d throw them off my schedule, which changes regularly enough.

But would it be worth doing all this? I always try to be as selfish as I can, so to speak, and live my life for myself. That means using what sites I want to use and how/when I want to use them. So for now I think I’ll carry on as usual, but still haven’t decided if I’m going to reactivate my Twitter account. If I do it will be just to express my thoughts and experiences; not to contact or communicate with anyone.

[accio-victuuri]

my thoughts on xz’s spring festival debut and loch 📝

“Every role leaves something in me or takes something away from me. The character of Guo Jing is very powerful. His perseverance and persistence subtly gave me a lot of support and faith later on.” - xiao zhan

just a few disclaimers before i start:

1. i’m a cpf. this is a cpf blog but i also identify as xz and wyb’s career fan. meaning i care about the impact of their works to the general public. i’m tagging this post with xiao zhan on it cause it’s mainly about him, but if you already hate cpfs, then save yourself the trouble and scroll along. if you still read this and wanna say something, do it on your own blog.

2. this is not the place to compare xz and wyb’s spring festival bo debuts. nor is this a place for conspiracies.

3. i haven’t watched loch. i am not well versed in the whole lore behind it.

okay, now i can start 😅😅😅

As soon as XZ was announced to play the role of Guo Jing in Tsui Hark’s new movie — we all knew that it’s a great opportunity and at the same time, a huge responsibility. Legend of The Condor Heroes is a beloved story/franchise with multiple remakes so this movie had to bring something fresh to the audience. Tsui Hark is a celebrated director, but it’s not a guarantee of excellent results. I’m personally not familiar with his works ( yep, cause i’m uncultured lol ) so at the time i was okay, cool. However, i trusted the people both fans and the public who had mostly good things to say.

It was also pretty obvious that this movie will be screened during Spring Festival. It’s a no brainer. A big IP and movie like this should be released during the biggest box office day in China.

You also have Xiao Zhan. The god of wealth. A traffic star who brings in the money and is a talented Actor. He also has a solid and dedicated fanbase.

However, to those of us who are familiar with how the SF box-office works, fans alone cannot sustain it. The key is to capture the General public’s favor to grow the numbers and to get more cinemas to screen your Movie during the SF holiday. They call it “word of mouth�� — when people give good reviews, more people will be encouraged to give it a try. If you are someone on SF holiday, you can probably watch 1-2 ( 3 at most possibly ) movies from the lineup. So it’s critical that LOCH will come up as something you would wanna watch based on what you read online ( or offline ) even if it’s not your 1st choice. I was hoping LOCH fans will come in, but i was also afraid cause they will be the most critical. They know the source material, they possibly watched all the iterations, so they will be the toughest to please.

The showing came later than we anticipated but it was fine. Editing and all the special effects always take up most of the time anyway. ✨

Weeks before the holiday, Nezha 2 announced it was gonna join the Spring Festival line up. This alone was a sure bet that this movie was gonna dominate the Box Office. no question. It’s a popular character and a family-friendly film. A first choice kind of movie if you will. There’s also Fengshen Part II with it’s own set of fans and considering how big the first movie earned, you would think they were gonna come back for Part II.

LOCH still prevailed tho, The pre-sale numbers dominated 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

in reality, these are mostly fans. which is not a bad thing at all. having LOCH at the top of the pre sales creates a good buzz around it. if you are someone thinking of what to watch, and don’t know much about the line up, it would be good to pick the most anticipated film 🫶🏼

(this photo does not represent the final numbers before opening)

I wanna add too that this year’s promotion for SF movies is next level. They have really done well in making sure that the public knows what movies are out there for them to watch.

The first day for a movie like LOCH with a big pre-sale will show a small rise because people who wanna see it on Day 1 mostly have bought it already. It was still steady tho, It broke 14 box office records which is mostly for the martial arts genre ✨

There are also mostly positive reviews about XZ’s performance like this one ( i will share more on my blog as they come ) and critics. Which is fine. we know it’s not gonna be all praises anyway. One review that went high up on HS was from Nanfeng daily, which is more of a discussion on the story’s flaws. I won’t share it here anymore, but the article was talking about the weak plot and how the two leads having basically no chemistry. I also looked into this other blogger ( who is pretty consistent with reviews and not just one who popped up lately ) one which I think fairly described the shortcomings —-

The film adapted the content of chapters 34-40 of the original novel. It is a story about the integration of the martial arts world into the post-war world, involving the love line of Guo Jing and Huang Rong + the national war line + the martial arts line. The main part of the martial arts line is the previous situation before the 34th chapter, which is the foreshadowing of love and war. It can't be less, nor more. The question that needs to be considered here is how to explain so many martial arts stories before, flashbacks? Arrange information in the lines? Connect events and insert back? Or is there a more clever method?

As a result, The Legend of the Condor Heroes didn't think so much, and just went straight to the "PPT". The first hour was a long, fragmented and incomplete account of the story, and the two leading actors took turns to read the narration to tell the previous story. This is not called The Legend of the Condor Heroes, but "Reading most of The Legend of the Condor Heroes in x minutes".

This is not enough. I don't know if Tsui Hark is taking revenge on someone. It's already a PPT, and the two protagonists are reading letters to each other in the air, with narration superimposed on narration. The audience is like a class in the first half.

AGAIN. I haven’t watched the movie but I think, i get where this going. It seems to me that the screenwriter should have done better. Xiao Zhan can only do so much hard work and bring in talent, but if the story is all over the place, it’s gonna be hard to market to a random viewer.

As of writing, LOCH is on HS and the topic is about the supposed deleted scenes. Getting rid of those didn’t help the flow of the story obviously. There is a post going around that talks about that I will partly share below:

In the original script, Guo Jing's expedition to the west and return to the south are closely integrated. The complete character arcs of all the main characters in the movie, the Western Expedition is also in the film.

The film has spent a lot of effort and resources to visualize Wu Mu's will, war, and animals. The essence of the play, this entire section was taken away for review, and a lot of the plot needs to be reviewed later. The dubbing of the previous part continues, and some memories and inserts of the previous part are added. The broadcast becomes even more fragmented, resulting in incoherent plots.

Guo Jing experienced the suffering of all living beings in the war, and Huang Rong's role of leading the Beggars' Gang is gone, and the early adaptations make it even more miserable.

Some of the character arcs are incomplete.

Then it goes to talk about the cuts ( censorship ) caused by sensitive subjects that may cause diplomacy issues.

We still have a few more days for things to take a turn and I will update this blog for that. LOCH can also run even beyond this season and get more Box Office numbers. I have to admit this post i’m making is premature cause we are only days in, but by experience, the early days will usually tell you what’s gonna happen moving forward.

( as of writing, nezha leads with 1.5 billion and loch at 500 million )

A few more points:

• The film was promoted heavily around Tsui Hark being the director. It didn’t live up to expectations and this is why some negative reviews are coming. This is such a big production with lots of moving parts and it seems like it didn’t all fit. Some antis are saying that XZ fans are “blaming” again but this time i guess it’s valid. i’m not saying XZ was perfect either, i’m sure there is room for improvement but he can’t fix the story.

• 🍤🍤🍤 were too confident. it’s not a secret that I have no love for these sea creatures but they were boasting a lot. AND NOW HERE WE ARE.

this has always been my frustration. the karma is getting them. but is also directly affecting XZ who worked hard on this film. who didn’t tell them to do these nasty things. i also see people who wouldn’t even consider LOCH cause at some point 🍤🍤🍤 were rude to their bias before.

it’s like, people wanna see the 🍤 fandom fail. not xz. just the nasty 🍤🍤🍤 who offended a lot of people online at some point.

my god. they really don’t deserve XZ 😭😭😭😭

• the issue of unfair screening times and slots are also being brought up by fans. all i have to say is, welcome to the spring festival clownery. welcome to the movie world, you all must be new here. it doesn’t mean people can’t complain and be frustrated. what i’m saying is LOCH isn’t the first movie to experience this. it happens every year. it happens every big film holiday. this is not the land of dramas where streaming and rating works. Movies are different. if there is anything I learned, it’s more vicious.

• some are also complaining about cinemas refunding their tickets saying there is technical issues. only to find out that they are replacing the showing for a different movie. this is so shady 💀 but again, it’s all about the money. T___T

• the theme of the movie is also not popular at the moment. TH was saying it’s time to bring back films & stories like this again. I found this article that explains my point:

Jin Yong is an idol of previous generations. In their eyes, he has gradually become a tall but distant statue. Tsui Hark's embrace of Jin Yong's IP again is an outlet for the film market to seek a breakthrough in the predicament. He tried to add mainstreaming, genre innovation, traffic stars and other means to revitalize Jin Yong's IP. There is a logical component, but there is also the possibility of success and risk.

The younger generation of audiences who are not Jin Yong fans have not actually broken off their understanding of the martial arts spirit, but they have chosen new works as carriers. For example, the audio novel "Snow Sword" labeled as "martial arts novel" has been played 2.92 billion times on a certain platform, which is far more than the number of audio books of Jin Yong's works. To some extent, the "traditional chivalry" written by Jin Yong is quite different from the "cool martial arts" that the new audience likes, which combines magic, games, and VR.

In fact, from the pre-sale results to the current box office results, it can be seen that the market and the audience still have high expectations and sufficient space for martial arts themes. The altruistic spirit and noble character naturally carried by the martial arts spirit will still make young people curious and have a strong desire to follow and imitate. For the filmmakers, the difficulty of the creative challenge is far greater than the market opportunity-the care and empathy for individual growth, the assumption of social responsibility, etc., still need the work to provide a new interpretation.

After Jin Yong passed away, someone said, "It's not the end of an era, it's the beginning of an era." What this sentence means is that the spirit of martial arts will never become obsolete, but it needs to be updated from time to time. In addition to constantly exploring new forms of expression of martial arts, we must also strive to find new soil for the spirit of martial arts to land. Only in this way can the spirit of martial arts remain high and vigorous in the hearts of generations.

• the goal for xz ( and wyb ) is to be popular and liked by the general public. having a solid solo fandom definitely has it perks but situations like this — they should have a good reputation. the movie/drama must also be exceptional for it to “get out of the circle”. a movie they make should not be “a movie for fans” but for everyone to enjoy.

Let me wrap this up with some good news tho, because international fans can make a difference. To the countries that are going to have screenings, you can contribute by watching and sharing your reviews! 💕 it’s the essence of fandom, to enjoy the content and be happy with the experience. it’s too easy to get caught up with the competitive nature of the SF movie season cause it’s a favorite topic on weibo, but it’s better to celebrate Xiao Zhan’s Spring Festival Movie debut 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I have absolute faith in XZ’s strength as an actor and that time will tell us the truth. right now, the black propaganda is strong cause they have to manipulate public opinion really quick ( i’m not saying all negative reviews are antis but you know what i mean & viewers are expected to be extra critical of XZ cause of how famous he is! ). His talent will shine through. He will have more movies/dramas that are gonna be better than this and we are here to support him. Box-office numbers is not the measure of XZ’s success in playing Guo Jing. I haven’t seen it but knowing XZ’s care for the characters he plays, seeing the training he went through — he did him justice.

-END.

[jack-bytez-genuine-corner]

Why did I talk about Hogwarts am I dumb!?!?

I just realized I commented on Hogwart’s Legacy so now I need to put this out there:

* Spend your money however you want

* The best thing that COULD happen to the game has happened, which is that it’s PR has been trashed heavily and in a very public manner, so if you think it sold too much remember the point was to get a conversation going, and it’s STILL going, so amazing job to all the active participants

* No ethical consumption under capitalism, but explaining and reasoning why giving royalties to a TERF is bad is a good thing to do and I would argue brave. The goal isn’t to STOP purchases, it’s to make people AWARE and hopefully that’ll lead to them and others taking small actions to better the world for everyone.

* There were queer people who were into the series and those who aren’t, my husband was and distancing from it has been harder for him than for me because he was a MASSIVE fan while I was born too late to get into it and never really cared. Everyone has a different relation with media and so be careful with how you talk about those people because the wrong words could turn someone who would be a potential ally into an obstinate enemy.

* Remember to transition from the game to talking about other bad things Trans people have to unfairly deal with: A good example being the discrimination Trans streamers face daily that isn’t treated as well as the people who are being told “No, I don’t like you anymore cause you played this game on stream” because one of these is a very real problem that people shouldn’t have to put up with, and the other is people being petulant children. Other examples being TERF operations in the UK that Rowling promotes which should be ended as soon as possible.

* Small factoid, even though no one will really care: Rowling only gets royalties, not actual cash, while the devs and publisher put in a Trans woman as a focal character and actively tries to diminish the antiemetic undertones of the Goblins. Things change, and properties change, with the times, so while it is important to lambast Rowling, don’t forget that she doesn’t “Own” the IP anymore and that was what drove her to her first massive public meltdown, her second being suspiciously timed with the game’s original delay. And yes, just like Fantastic Beasts this COULD end up with the game selling poorly... Or it might not affect sales at all, who knows.

* The target is practically just JK Rowling and her supporters, so don’t go throwing hands with everyone who talks about the game. It’s a waste of energy for you and a bad image for everyone else. Instead focus on things you CAN control, educate others, and ideally use the momentum from this to launch a very real change. Things are practically GUARANTEED to sell loads if they get tons of marketing, so don’t let that discourage you from making a real change in your own space, even if that change is only on a personal level.

Background about me is that I’m gay and married, neither Trans nor Jewish so I’m NOT an authority on any of this and I’m just throwing my cents into the large hat. I posted several replies on the matter but felt like I should write a long post of my thoughts incase anyone comes looking to discuss or harass. I didn’t feel right just leaving a bunch of random, unsolicited comments and then saying nothing at all, but nuance is hard on the web and even harder in a heated environment. I’ll try not to divulge into the cesspit that is the game’s current PR standing because you basically can’t say anything without being pinned one way or the other, and in earnest it’s better for me to not worry about that video game and instead focus on my studies, my life, and my found family.

[pronounmelon]

I’m. Genuinely really sorry for that. Like, actually. I don’t actually know any hacking terms or really programming terms in general. I can’t program jackshit. I don’t know what I need to do to prove that??? Honestly I shouldn’t, just. Really sorry.

also, while what I sent you was inappropriate and I will not do it again (I will not interact with you privately period), considering it “rape art” is….??? If. If that’s how you take the implications of me drawing pregnant people in 5 seconds with no further thought behind it??? Im sorry for sending it but let’s not mix up something generally inappropriate to send people and straight up rape art.

My dad knows about the resume thing. Calling probably wouldn’t have done anything there, he does know, and I have fixed it. He had me delete personal information from my blog and I try to be careful now. I’m a terminal oversharer, and honestly, that could have ruined. A lot for me. I appreciate concern for my safety, I think I have it handled now?? I’d appreciate not having people say they IP logged me to prove a point in my inbox. but admittedly it was none of Rusty’s fanbase that did that!! Good job at least not doing that. I still really don’t like the person who did that. That stupid ask being sent to me was also a long time ago, so. I don’t actually care much, irrelevant. Just like. Express concern for my safety in a healthy way. Which, the person I’m responding to sort of did?? Like they didn’t brag about logging my IP in my inbox. God maybe I do care about that.

I also used my age a lot, mostly because at the time that was actually relevant, I had just become acquainted with people who had had very personal things shared about them over LB drama. It was essentially the most immature way I could put “it would be a stupid idea to do that to me”. I say immature and stupid because it was. There’s no reason I should have done that, nor that it would really move that sort of person. I had assumed for awhile that Rusty was the type of person to do that (mostly given things she had said to younger people on Instagram in the past) but simultaneously honestly wanted my bullshit acknowledged. My motivations will be assumed, but honestly it’s the same reason I do alot of things when I lack a filter. It’s “I have no idea. I’m sorry I just literally have no idea why the fuck I did that.” There’s no reason for you to like me. I don’t care. I have you blocked for a lot of reasons and I’m not even directly responding to you. Just. Thoughts out.

im still immature. I’m still stupid. I can’t even say I’m not those things anymore. I’m like…. 1% less so??

apparently white fox is some hacking guy…??? Well shit she probably did have a good reason to think I’d do that, I’ll give her that

I would not have done that though

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Vanessa headcanons because i love her dearly

She once fell down the escalator at work because she wasn’t paying attention. The whole band saw her do it. They thought she died because she didn’t get up. In reality, she was too embarrassed to move. She broke three ribs.

Monty: Superstar? More like Falling Star!

Caffeine addict

Always shows up to work with a cup of coffee, and if she doesn’t have it, everyone still in the establishment tries to stay as far away as possible because they just Know she’ll be cranky without her caffeine fix

Once took a 5 Hour Energy to get through the night and actually thought she was dying

She has a bed full of plushies

But she gets embarrassed whenever anyone sees them

“Haha, they’re given out for free at work and I felt like they would dock my pay if I didn’t take them”

“I don’t get those??”

“SHUT UP JAMES”

Her eye bags are big enough to hold bodies

Poor eating habits

She’ll drink her weight in coffee and eat one (1) cheese stick and then consider it good for a month

Really wants a pet cat but is afraid she won’t be able to take care of it

She’s slowly losing contact with a lot of her friends due to her job. She’s up all night when everyone else is asleep, and when everyone is awake during the day, she is sleeping. She tries to stay up and go out with her friends, but she’s always grumpy and exhausted. So she drifts apart with everyone she’s close to, which in turn kinda makes her even more depressed than she already is.

She actually doesn’t mind sleeping during the day. She feels safer waking up randomly to daylight rather than to darkness. It makes her nightmares slightly less worse.

Still, she misses hanging out with people

She calls her nightmares “daymares” because they happen during the day

It’s the little things that keep her from going insane

Sometimes people will come over in the middle of the day, like a delivery person or some salesman or maybe her landlord, and she answers the door looking completely bedraggled and exhausted because she was woken up

Her freckles usually aren’t very prominent, since she doesn’t spend that much time in the sun because she’s sleeping during the day, but when she does go out, they appear a lot more. Freddy, Chica, and Sun think her freckles are adorable and they are always like :0 when they see them

Cuts her own hair because she had a Traumatic Moment the last time she went to get a haircut

“I, uhh,,, so the last time I went to get a haircut, I was really sleep deprived because of…things…so I was kinda out of it. When the stylist asked what I wanted done, I completely blanked and went ‘snip snip’ while doing a scissor motion with my fingers.”

Monty and Roxy were screaming laughing

Glitchtrap used to send her photos of herself taken through her monitor’s camera

One time he turned on the camera when she was on her computer and she was able to see herself being recorded

She hasn’t recovered from that one just yet

It got so bad that all of her monitors are now covered in tape

He sent her stuff like her address, IP address, license plate number, and social security number

There was also a lot of blackmailing, where he threatened to leak out incredibly private and embarrassing information about herself

Goes to work severely sick because “I’m not a quitter”

Definitely into D&D but can’t find anyone to play with because of her work schedule

Chews pen caps

Has a habit of clenching her jaw all the time, then complains about jaw pain

Shitty posture

Back Pain

She’s really hard to give gifts to because she doesn’t feel like she deserves anything. She just has this urge to insist that she didn’t need anything. She’s still grateful, though, even if she sometimes forgets to say thank you.

So fucking emotional, especially when she’s tired

An angry crier

When she feels unsafe, she sleeps under the bed

Sometimes will play golf in Monty Golf when she has nothing to do at work. Celebrates when she gets a hole in one.

Will sing and maybe dance along to the music she’s listening to during work. She actually has a pretty nice singing voice.

[dmwrites]

“I cannot believe you forced me into this, Joe.” Cleo hissed, taking a swig of wine.

“Cleo, networking is important even for dead people. And please, it’s Joest for the evening.” Joe took a white powder compact out of his suit pocket and dabbed at his face and beard.

“I do network! With hermits! These beings are rotting.” Cleo put down her wine and fixed one of the straps of her satin black dress.

“You are also rotting.”

“That is besides the point.” Cleo muttered, taking another swig of wine. “I just can’t believe you got in here.”

“Cleo.” Joe put down the powder and picked up his whiskey. “The art of makeup and faking confidence does wonders for getting me where I need to be. Plus, the people who live beyond death are a group of people I feel would be a good resource and creative partners. I work with you, and we get along, don’t we?”

“I tolerate your existence.” Cleo told him, but was interrupted by a gravelly-voiced and brazen ghost swagging up to them.

“YO! Cleo and that idiot that I hate! I didn’t know you were coming to this shindig! Who let you two out of the trash cans you live in, huh?”

Joe sighed. “Hello, Beetlejoest.”

“Fuck off, Beetlejoest.” Cleo said conversationally.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Beetlejoest held out his hands defensively, green smoke coming out of his ears. “No need to get sassy, Cleo girly! Just making conversation with you and your masquerading friend here! I couldn’t help but overhear you making fun of good ol’ Joe here, and I couldn’t help but agree! I think you need some good ol’ Beetlejoest in your life, to add that thrill you know you need!”

Cleo bent down slightly and grabbed the knife she had strapped to her thigh. “Nobody makes fun of Joe except me, so you better go back to whatever corner of hell you slithered from and leave me and my definitely ghost friend alone.” She jolted forward, knife held out, and Beetlejoest jumped backwards.

“Alright, alright, I’ll leave the losers club alone. Hope no one finds out about the beating heart in the room.” Beetlejoest did his best attempt at a sneer and slunk off, grabbing an entire bottle of vodka as he went.

“For goodness sake, Cleo!” Joe slapped her her hand until she put the knife back. “You don’t want to upset that guy- he has the hermitcraft IP address!”

“I could take him any day.” Cleo muttered. She smoothed her hair and resumed her calm and bored expression. “Okay, I’ll behave. Who should we go network to then, hm?”

Joe clicked his tongue, looking around the room. The dead were standing or sitting at high tables scattered about, all dressed up in their nicest business attire, chatting with one another and handing out their business cards. Of course, for the dead, business attire was mostly ballroom clothes or rotting t-shirts. The dead aren’t very good at caring.

“What about that being?” Joe pointed out a smaller blond figure wearing a dirty and tattered red sweater.

“Wow, that looks exactly like Grian from behind.” Cleo said. “Grian isn’t dead, is he?”

“No I think he’s a bird, although some birds do have death imagery associated with them.” Joe said, stroking his beard and getting white powder all over his hand. “We could talk to him. Maybe it’s his secret twin brother, Groan.”

So the two gathered their drinks and ventured from their table at the back of the room and made their way over to the red-sweatered fellow, who had their back to them at a table by themselves.

“Pardon me, can we join you, fellow dead person?” Joe asked.

The being sat up straight and turned to face them in a disjointed, jerky way, and Cleo couldn’t help but to gasp.

“I’d love company!” The being said.

It was Grian. But it was very much not Hermitcraft’s Grian. Yes there was that blond hair and the red sweater and those black eyes. But this Grian had papery, pale skin and a wicked oozing wound in the side of his neck. And, most horrific of all, this parody of Grian had a black felt Mumbo Jumbo style mustache sewn to the rotting skin of his upper lip and cheeks.

Cleo grabbed two nearby stools and sat a stunned-looking Joe on one before settling herself down on the other.

“Um, hi there. What’s your name, fella?” Cleo asked, trying to sound as normal as possible.

“Well howdy, I’m Grien! That’s G-R-I-E-N!” Grien pointed at a little nametag he’d attached to sweater that said just that.

“Grien.” Cleo said in disbelief, eyes narrowing slightly. “No relation to a guy named Grian, I suppose?” As she said it she knew it couldn’t be true- no one with working nerves would sew something into their skin like that.

“Grian? Oh, no, no, that’s not me. Who is that? Haha!” Grien’s eyes looked everywhere but at the two of them. Cleo’s mouth fell open. So was this actually Grian? “And who are you two?” As Grien spoke, the mustache began to droop, pulling on the string and the holes in his face they were looped through. The effect was horrible, and Grien didn’t seem to notice.

Joe took over speaking for them. “I’m Joe H- I mean Joest, and this is my friend ZombieCleo. We live on Hermitcraft, you may have heard of it?”

“Hermitcraft… no, can’t say I have!” Grien’s mustache was completely covering his lips now.

“You got something…” Cleo whispered, gesturing to his lips.

“What? Oh!“ Grien felt for the mustache and chuckled. “Ah, this thing, always coming loose!” He opened his mouth and stuck his fingers behind his lip, pulling on a black string and tightening it.

“Here’s our business card, we gotta go now!” Joe’s voice was at least an octave higher, and he threw a business card down on the table, grabbed Cleo’s hand, and took off into the crowd.

“Holy shit holy shit holy shit!” Cleo whispered, eyes wide, as they got back to their corner.

Joe shivered, putting his hands to his eyes as if to block out what he’d just seen. “There’s no way that’s Grian.”

“But there’s no way it’s not!” Cleo replied. “Like clearly ‘Grien’ was hiding something related to Grian, he was being so cagey.” She downed the rest of her wine. “Ugh! You would think dead things wouldn’t get to me anymore, being dead and rotting myself, but that was alarming to say the least.”

Joe shivered. “It’s like Grian and Mumbo had a person baby and it went very wrong.” He took a sip of whiskey. “Let’s never work with that guy.”

Cleo snorted. “Agreed.”

——

Interested in this headcanon of Grien from 100hrs in hardcore? I wrote another fic involving him!

[theliterarywolf]

You know, I have no race in the Bluey smut argument going around right now (I don’t watch Bluey and also I’m sex-repulsed so no smut for meee), but I will say that there are some really hypocritical arguments going around. One person I follow on Twitter for her mostly good takes on stuff was retweeting and posting about how people shouldn’t make Bluey smut… and not five posts before she retweeted a drawing of Kanga from Winnie the Pooh with fat tits and called her a milf. Like… what.

(Sorry, Bluey anon and I meant to include the 1 and 2) You know, me PERSONALLY I’d rather not see people making smut of cartoon characters for kids and it weirds me out a LOT… but I also recognize that A) this is the Internet. B) Rule 34 was a term coined for a REASON. C) You can’t stop people or not expect people to not draw porn of this stuff. So I honestly don’t care what people do just so long as it’s properly tagged and hidden away.

(Took me a while to get to this ask because half of it only appears on mobile and the other half only appears on desktop0

The thing of it that a lot of people either don't get or refuse to understand is that if you personally feel uncomfortable with the notion of R34 for child-friendly IPs? That's more than fine. Hell, more often than not you'll find people that agree with you.

However, it's the attitude and approach that some people have (i.e.: the 'this material has no right to exist!'/you're all perverts trying to prey on children!'/'Look at this groomer!') that more often than not causes the animosity.

Case in point: a few years ago when the first bubbles of the current fanpol environment started popping, I remember one person cajoling on and on because they were disgusted by people making R34 of The Loud House.

Interesting note, however? I was almost agreeing with them! I was personally squicked out by the idea of people lewding those characters and so I remember pretty much trying to tell them 'hey, let's ease back and stop attacking people so we can look at the issue again'.

Just for the person to turn on me and call me a pedophile because I ship Soriel (Sans and Toriel from Undertale) and SidLink (Prince Sidon and Link from Breath of the Wild). Which, 1. None of the characters in those ships are underaged (though I do remember some idiotic discourse about 'oh, Link is technically older than Sidon so it's grooming' and 'oh, well, Sans is short so that means he's child-coded).

So they successfully burned any bridge they could have had with me and even though I was more upset about them screeching to all their followers about me being a pedophile (since that was around when I still did writing commissions and I didn't need the bad publicity), in the back of my mind I ended up thinking 'Well, fuck you too then; I hope more people draw smut of Lucy and Lincoln [REDACTED] while Lora and Leni [REDACTED] each other in the corner!'