#i kinda miss the old site lmao

[james-p-sullivan]

i keep seeing the phrase ‘flop post’ like are some of y’all not just screaming into the void here?

[starculler]

feeling like a teen (upgraded) as I rip old CDs onto my computer and save songs from YT

[endlessthxxghts]

Joel Nye, The Science Guy

no outbreak!Joel Miller x afab!reader || W/C: ≈4.6k

"Is he really choosing coffee right now over having you? I mean, not to toot your own fucking horn, but seriously. Who would delay an orgasm for some coffee? Apparently, Joel fucking Miller would."

Summary: Joel stumbles across an article online about the effects of coffee on the body. Determined to uncover the truth, he tests the hypothesis with you as his subject.

Contents/Warnings: Any physical description of reader is neutral (no size descriptions). Joel is bigger than you though (but he’s fucking huge in general, so…). No age mentioned for reader or for Joel. Implied established relationship. No matter what age, Joel is a grandpa when it comes to technology. Mentions of Amazon LMAO. SMUT 18+ MDNI (mutual masturbation on the phone, touching yourself in the workplace, dirty talk, sexting [kinda], ..kitchen activities…reflections…, finger fucking, lots of liquids, squirting, cumming untouched, drinking coffee with an ulterior motive!, allusion to further sexual endeavors). Please let me know if I missed anything!

A/N: Happy New Year, my loves! I just got done rewatching TLOU for the millionth time while drinking some coffee, and for some reason, this was born. I have no idea wtf this is, so don't ask me.💚 Also let’s thank @javierpena-inatacvest for titling this silly thing for me hehe. Fucking iconic. I love you, bestie.🥹 Here's to my first fic of 2024, and to many more! I hope you enjoy.💚

MASTERLIST

Joel’s number one favorite sensation every morning was when the first drop of the bitter, black liquid met his tongue, consuming all his senses into nothing but pure coffee. It was one of his favorite things—past tense—because then he got to experience what it was like waking up to you every morning, what it was like tasting you every morning. The first drop of you blessed his tongue one year ago, and he never looked back.

That is, until now. 

You had work today and Joel had the day off, a rare occurrence. You forgot to set your alarm this morning, so you broke from his hold in a rush, leaving him nothing but a sweet kiss to last him the day. 

Usually your mornings together are spent tangled in his sheets until he leaves you with less than twenty minutes to get ready for your day. Too addicted to the way he makes you feel, you mastered the art of quick change, using the rest of your time to do your morning skincare routine. This, you’ll never skip—subjecting yourself to a few scoldings by your boss because of it.

Joel allowed himself a few more hours of sleep after you left, his body needing extra rest from his unusually crazy day at the job site yesterday and from the way you pounced on him as soon as he came home. You promised him it would be you doing all the work, but like the addicting little thing you are, he couldn’t help but take charge so he could watch you fall apart over and over and over again. 

Joel pulled himself out of his bed, a chill running down his body from leaving the trapped body heat of the sheets. He was hard, of course, and usually you’re there to help with his morning problem, but apparently today’s full of rare events for Joel. He grumbles to himself as he makes the way to the bathroom, not wanting to take care of himself without you, not anymore. He could wait for you to be home, but he knows he’d be a leaking, grumpy mess all day—God forbid he has to interact with another human in that aroused, frustrated state. He checks the little clock you bought for his bathroom counter when you moved in—so I can watch the time when I get ready for work, you scolded him when he made you late for the first time. 

11:48 the clock displays; twelve more minutes until your break. He can wait twelve minutes. You usually close your office during your lunch, don’t you? Maybe he can call you. He might as well do his own morning routine while he waits. Joel’s old morning routines consisted of brushing his teeth, then washing his face with soap and water. Though, upon witnessing his wretched routine the first morning you two spent together, you were utterly appalled at his actions, forcing him to the store and spending the first half of your morning educating him on proper skincare. His morning routine went from four minutes to fifteen with your influence, but because he didn’t want to be a minute late in calling you, he shaved three minutes off from his task. 

As soon as the clock hit twelve, Joel plopped himself in bed, leaning against the headboard, and reached for his phone, immediately dialing you. 

Two rings later, and your sweet voice fills his ears. “Hi, baby,” you say. He can hear the small smile on your face. 

“Hi, darlin’,” Joel rasps, his voice still groggy from the lack of use. 

“You just wake up?” You jokingly scold, knowing damn well what the answer was. You like when he sleeps in. He deserves the rest from all that hard work he does. 

“Maybe,” he tells you. You can hear the smirk on his face now. “How’s work goin’? On your break now?”

“Work is… definitely going,” you huff. “And yeah, I’m on my break now, which means I’ve got an hour to counterproductively stress about these reports that have to go out.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” he tells you softly. But then he’s smirking again. “Can I help?”

“Help?” you repeat.

“Yeah,” he states like it’s the most regular answer ever. “Lemme help de-stress ya,” he adds, his voice dropping an octave. 

A heat consumes your face, but you remain calm. “Yeah?” You breathe. “And how would you help me, cowboy?” You ask him as you swiftly stand from your desk to lock your office door and close your blinds. 

“I reckon you just locked that door of yours, huh?” He asks rhetorically, knowing you better than you know yourself. Not even your past lovers would be able to pick up on the slightest of changes in your voice when you’re aroused. Joel picks up on it instantly. 

“Maybe,” you repeat his sentiment from earlier. 

“If I’m remembering correctly,” Joel says as he rubs his hand over his tenting bulge in an attempt to ease his ache. “You’ve got a couch in there, baby?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Well, you know what to do next, babygirl.” 

Glancing at your door to make sure it’s really locked, you make your way to your couch, unbuttoning your jeans in the process and shucking them down as your ass meets the cushion. Fuck, you’re already soaked. 

“Where are you?” You ask him, your fingers ghosting your core over the wet patch on your panties.

As soon as the words leave your mouth, your phone buzzes. Joel sent you a text. An image. Clicking it, a breathy little whimper escapes you. “Fuck.” He’s leaning against the headboard, legs pushed open, his thick thighs on display. He’s just wearing his boxers, and his hand is inside, gripping onto his length. His leaking, angry tip is showing from the top of his boxers. A little circle catches your eye, and- oh. It’s a live photo. You hold down on the image, and you see his hips jerk into his hand. “Fuck,” you say again, your pussy twitching in excitement yet frustration that you can’t have him inside you right now. “I need you so fucking bad, Joel,” you whine into the phone as your fingers finally dip inside. 

“I need you, too, baby,” he groans, “I’m fuckin’ dyin’ over here.” He sounds so pained. It riles you up even more. Your fingers speed up at his words, breathy moans escaping you. You circle your clit a few more times before reaching lower and dipping your middle and index finger inside of you. Joel hears the faintest sound of a squelch, and the grip on his cock tightens. He pulls his boxers completely down over his thighs, his cock completely free, and he tugs at a slow, teasing pace in an effort to build himself up the way you normally do for him. “Let me hear you, baby, let me hear you touch yourself for me.”

Lord, you hope your room is sound proofed enough because without any hesitation, you’re putting him on speaker and setting your phone down near your cunt, pumping in and out of yourself faster and deeper for him to hear. “J-Joel, f-fuck,” you stutter, “I- I’m-”

“You’re close, baby, I know,” he says soothingly. You can hear the slick sound of his hand speed up. Your other hand falls to your clit as your fingers continue inside. “Let go for me, mi amor, soak those fingers as if it were my cock fuckin’ you,” he rambles. “Just like I know you can, baby, atta fuckin’ girl.”

With the help of his filthy mouth, your body seizes up and you’re seeing stars, your eyes falling to the back of your head as you remove your hand from your clit to slap it over your mouth in an attempt to stop the high-pitched, purely pornographic moan of his name from escaping the walls of your not-so private office. You can hear the moment Joel cums, too, a painful groan roars from his throat as you hear the movements slow but get slippier with each pass over. 

You’re on the phone for a few moments more, listening to each other’s breaths, slowly fixing your clothing as you let your heart rate return to normal. 

“Joel,” you finally have enough strength to say. 

“Yeah, darlin’?”

He hears a faint knock on your door. You pull the phone away to lessen your volume on his end. Just a moment, he hears you call out. “Gonna need more of you when I get home.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Joel replies more than happily.

After your phone call, Joel cleans and dresses himself up and heads to the kitchen. 

Joel can’t help the way your words bounce around his head. Gonna need more of you when I get home.

“And I’m definitely gonna need a fuck ton of you today,” he mutters to the bag of Colombian coffee grounds he pulls out of his kitchen cabinet. He refills the machine with water, inserts a filter, pours two heaping spoonfuls of the ground beans into the compartment, places a mug, and hits start. He goes to put the coffee away, but it’s then he feels how lightweight the bag is starting to feel. 

Genuinely, he begins to panic. He needs to order more, and he needs to do it now. He cannot go a day without his precious coffee. The brand he orders is online only, and usually he would wait for you to help him place the order, but he doesn’t want to risk hitting the cutoff for same day delivery. 

Joel isn’t that old, and he certainly grows with the time period, but when it comes to technology, he’s worse than your 97-year-old grandmother who attempts to group FaceTime both of you every night. Sure, he knows how to send you pictures, but that’s the extent of his ability. Truly. With his coffee in mind, though, he puts on his bravest face and opens Safari. He searches for the website you’re always on. A, he types. M. A. Z. 

There! Amazon. He clicks the website, not knowing the app is already installed on his phone. He sees the smiling logo, and, proud of himself, he smiles back at it. 

The smile is quick to fade, however, because the intricacies of working the website is giving him heart palpitations. He sets his phone down and reaches for his reading glasses in his pocket and slides them on. He picks up his phone again. 

The thing about using Amazon on a phone through a search engine, though, is that the website is constantly glitching. So when he types in the word coffee, he has zero idea how he ended up on a completely different website, his original search lost in the complicated webs of the internet. 

It takes him a moment to realize what he’s reading, but once it registers, it’s way more interesting than his original task. 

Women reporting intensified orgasms after drinking coffee, the headline read. His eyes begin to scan lower. Researchers concluded there was a “correlation between caffeine and sex” after testing its effects on rats.

Oh, yeah, he’s intrigued. 

After reading the article, Joel restarts his original task and ends up ordering a larger amount of coffee than he normally would. In the name of science, he rationalized with himself.

Satisfied with his accomplishments, he grabs his mug and takes the time to enjoy his cup of pure caffeine. He needs the energy after all.

You get off promptly at 4pm, not wanting to spend any more time in your office—especially with the way you’ve been buzzing with need ever since your noon phone call. As soon as you park, you see an Amazon delivery person dropping off a box. They don’t ring the doorbell, and you know Joel doesn’t pay attention to the delivery notifications.

You get out of your car, leaving your things to get later. You reach the front porch and unlock and open the door first, bending down and picking up the box second. 

Joel greets you at the door, immediately cursing himself for not paying attention to the door, resulting in you doing the heavy lifting. He knows you’re more than capable—Hell, you could probably handle his job better than he can—but his Southern upbringing is too deeply rooted into him to allow anything less. 

“Hi, my love, I’m sorry, I coulda brought that in, baby,” he tells you as he takes the box from your grasp, giving you a forehead kiss as a trade off. The warmth of his lips physically relaxes you. 

You two walk towards the kitchen, Joel sets the box down on the counter. “I just parked as they dropped it off, honey, it was no biggie,” you reply softly. 

“I know, baby, but you know I-” he starts. You don’t let him finish as you grab him by his biceps and pull him into you, your arms finding their home wrapped around his neck as his grip completely wrapping your waist. Your lips slot together in a slow, needy embrace—your tongues slowly breaching each other’s mouths. You swallow the groans escaping his throat as you pull away from him. 

“I know,” you say breathily, eyes as dark as his morning coffee. “Won’t do it again, promise,” you smile, knowing this is the only false promise you’ll ever make. At the rate of how hard you work him in other things, carrying a few heavy boxes is the least you could do every now and then. “Now, please undress me, baby,” you whimper, your hand skating down the front of his body, your deft fingers sliding into his waistband. 

With one arm around your waist, another claws at your top, untucking it from your jeans to lift it over your head as he kisses and nips all over your jaw and neck. He turns your body so that your ass meets the counter, pushing his hips into yours, silently telling you to jump up. 

Too eager, you don’t realize the trajectory of your jump, and your ass smacks the package, causing it to almost slip off the edge. The impact to your rear surprises you enough to pull away from Joel and look back. Apparently, your brain is already turned to mush because you completely forgot about that box’s existence. 

However, now that you’re looking at it, you’re confused. You haven’t ordered anything recently. Did Joel order something? But he doesn’t even know how- 

“You okay, darlin’?” Joel asks, pausing all his movements. 

“Did you order something?” You ask.

His cheeks go red. “Yeah.. we were runnin’ out of my coffee ‘n I didn’t want to not have any for tomorrow or for later ‘n I wasn’t sure what time you’d be home to help me-” 

The bubbly sounds of your giggles are what cut him off. “What?” He asks, slightly defensive and slightly giddy at the sweetness blessing his ears. 

“You ordered something!” You exclaim. “You ordered something! And you were successful with it!” You’re gasping for air, speaking your excitement into his chest as you wrap yourself around him. 

“Don’t make fun a’me,” he pouts, grabbing your chin with his thumb and forefinger, giving your face a little scolding shake. 

“Oh, baby, no,” you coo, your laughter calming down because of the pain in your cheeks from smiling so wide. “I’m not making fun. I’m so proud!” your voice raises back up, as if you were talking to a baby who hit their first big milestone. 

He rolls his eyes. “Baby, don’t be like that,” you say as you lean in to give him a soft kiss. He gives in, of course, and he deepens it. “I really am proud,” you say as you attempt to pull away. 

He doesn’t let you. “Yeah, yeah,” he says sardonically in between kisses. 

Your hand drags up and grabs at his jaw, pulling him away so you can speak. “Now you don’t have to ask me to order things for you anymore,” you say with a smirk.

“Mmm, I don’t think so,” he breathes, trying to push against your hold on him. “Worst experience ever, I even-” 

He cuts himself off because he was so caught up in you when you got home, he forgot about the little detour his internet experience took him on today. 

Women reporting intensified orgasms after drinking coffee. 

“Actually,” he redirects. “Can we have some now?”

Your eyes pop out of your head in astonishment. “Right now?” you ask in disbelief. 

He gulps. “Y-yeah, right now. That okay?”

You don’t see why not besides the fact that his erection has been perched right against the soaked fabric of your panties for the last fifteen minutes and you’ll probably go mad if you don’t actually get relief in the next five minutes—but yeah, sure. Why not?

“I guess?” You say. Or ask? You really don’t know anymore. 

Is he really choosing coffee right now over having you? I mean, not to toot your own fucking horn, but seriously. Who would delay an orgasm for some coffee? Apparently, Joel fucking Miller would.

You’re not really a coffee person. Sure, you have a cup here and there—mostly iced and from your favorite local shop on your way to work—but compared to Joel, you are nowhere near the level he is. 

“How do you want it?” He asks, his back turned to you as he prepares two mugs. 

“Rough,” you mutter, slightly annoyed. You can feel the slick in your underwear start to get cold—and dry. 

Joel briefly turns around catching your eye; he points to his ear. “Say that again, sweetheart?” 

Fuck. Okay, maybe you’re being a little too bitchy. You rise from your seat at the counter, perching yourself right beside him, reaching your hand into his curls to give him a little head scratch. “I’ll do it, baby,” you say. “Thank you.” With your hand still at the back of his head, you guide him to look at you as you stand on your tippy toes to give him a soft kiss.

The coffee, honestly, wasn’t that bad. Yeah, you put your usual creamer and sugar, but you put slightly less—curious to get a glimpse of the natural flavor Joel loves so much. You could get used to it like this, you think. One thing is for sure, though: the brand Joel buys is fucking strong. You’re on your last sip, and you are struggling—you can feel your heart pumping out of your chest, and you swear you feel like your entire body is pulsing. Like you can hear your blood coursing through your veins. You don’t tell Joel because you don’t want to sound weird, so you shrug the feeling away and take your last sip. Perfectly in sync with you, Joel finishes off his coffee and reaches for your mug to also bring to the sink. 

Quickly letting the faucet run into the mugs so the coffee doesn’t stain, Joel speaks up. “How was it, darlin’? I know you don’t really enjoy coffee the way I do,” he notes. 

“Actually, baby, I really enjoyed it,” you say with a genuine smile. 

“Yeah?” He asks, a boyish grin sneaking past his lips.

“Yeah,” you reassure. “It was really strong, though,” you add. 

“Strong?” he asks, eyebrow quirked. 

“Yeah, um-” you start, unsure of how to describe it. “I don’t know, I just- I’ve never had coffee make my entire body feel like- like it’s buzzing or something. I don’t know,” you ramble. 

“Huh,” he says to no one in particular. “I mean, it is one of the stronger roasts,” he tells you. Is this because you were already severely worked up beforehand? It can’t be the placebo effect—he didn’t even tell you about his discoveries. 

Guess there’s only one way to go from here. 

Not giving you a chance to respond, his hands find your waist, pulling your back flush to his chest. He kisses your jaw, trailing his lips down the juncture of your neck and shoulder. Your head falls back onto him, your eyes fluttering shut as you give him full access. His fingers skate across the front of your jeans, your shirt already untucked from his earlier attempt. Your hips buck into his hands in response, a whiny little please leaves your mouth. 

“Shh, I got ya, sweet girl,” he rasps in your ear, his drawl licking a heat up your spine. He adjusts himself so he’s the one leaning against the kitchen counter, your body entirely relying on his support to keep you standing. 

He’s unbuttoning your jeans and right away you’re reaching for the zipper, helping him pull your bottoms down in one go. 

You’re shaking in his grasp, too pent up with a need your body doesn’t know what to do with. “Relax, baby, I’ma take care a’ya,” he says with a nip to your shoulder, his middle and ring finger already finding their place running through your soaked folds. 

Your eyes shut at the sensation, your breathing erratic and vocal. He drags your slick up to your throbbing bundle of nerves, circling with a precision only he knows how to provide. “F-fuck,” you moan. His other hand slides down to your sex, his two fingers going straight for your entrance and sliding in with ease with how much is pouring from you. “Fuckfuckfuck-”

“Gonna cum on my fingers, babygirl?” He’s pumping in and out of you at a languid pace even with the squirm of your hips. The stimulation on your clit never falters. “I can feel that pretty pussy flutter ‘round me, darlin’, I know she’s close.”

“J-Joel, please,” you let out, your head bobbing back and forth, unable to keep its heavy weight up.

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s using his foot to kick your legs further apart, settling yours on the outside of his, and then both of you are dropping to the ground. His back is to the wall of the kitchen island while you land perfectly spread open atop his lap. Not worried about his or your balance anymore, he fucks into you harder, applying more pressure on your clit—the kind that makes you want to force your legs shut but you can’t, not with the way his own legs are keeping you open. “Open your eyes, sweet girl, need ya to look at yourself when you fuckin’ soak me.”

You open your eyes immediately and cast your eyes downward to his hands on you. “Nuh uh,” Joel tuts. His hand working your clit comes up to your jaw, your slick dampening your jaw as he guides you to look straight forward. Your reflection stares back at you from the dark oven window. Even in the dull image its showing you, you can see the way your pussy is glistening in the fluorescent kitchen light, the sweat dripping down your temples, your fucked-out face with Joel’s dark gaze ravaging every part of you. 

Everything—all of your senses—is completely Joel, Joel, Joel, and before you know it, you’re gushing into his hand; his newfound liquid gold ever since he met you, collecting into the depths of his palm, all while you’re roaring and thrashing out in pure bliss on top of him. 

The sight, sound, the feel, everything—just like you—consumes him whole. His lust takes over now, and his hands aren’t stopping. They continue their pace—their assault—on your sensitive core. He peers down over your shoulder, and his cock grows impossibly harder at the messy, slippery sight before him. “Christ,” he mutters under his breath. “Gimme one more, c’mon,” he breathes in, your scent beginning to linger into his nose, crawling into his skin and finding its home there. “I know you can gimme one more, baby, always such a good fuckin’ girl f’me.”

Your head is nodding furiously as you fight with your eyes to stay open and locked on your reflection. Your babbling, spit thick and coating every inch of your mouth as you try and respond. Mhm and one and more and fuck break free from your mouth, giving all the green light Joel needs to know he isn’t going too far. 

You turn your head to face Joel, your hand flying to the back of his curls and pulling him for a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue—an intermingling of each other’s spit as you swallow the other’s coffee-tinged breaths. 

He feels the flutter in your cunt once more, but this time it’s stronger, tighter. The way you’re clamping down on him sends him into a frenzy, his hips rutting his erection into your lower back at the feel of your warmth wrapped around him. “C’mon, baby, let go, I feel you,” he encourages. 

“Fuck-!” A high-pitched gasp turned whine comes out of your mouth as your entire body goes rigid, your pussy uncontrollably fluttering and spasming as Joel fucks you through your high. All you see is white, your body is engulfed by a tingly feeling that only describing it as TV static could do it justice. Your breathing is deep and shallow all at one, but more notably, you feel wet. Completely and utterly soaked, you can feel liquid pooling at your asscheeks and on the hardwood floor. 

You finally gather the strength to look down—Joel too, and he steals the words right from your mouth. “Holy. Fuck.”

You two stay there for a moment, trying to gather your thoughts on what the fuck just happened, and finally, you speak first. 

“I just-” you start. 

“You did,” he finishes, equally as shocked. Amazed. 

“How are we gonna-”

He rubs your thighs. “Can you stand?” 

You think for a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I’ll get up first. Then I’ll pull you up. Just don’t move, I don’t need ya slippin’ on-”

“Yeah, okay,” you stop him, feeling slightly embarrassed about it all. 

He stands up, avoiding the little puddle below; then he pulls you up, kneeling to pull your underwear on for some sense of emotional comfort. “Hey.” He nudges your face with his hand to look into his eyes. “That was fuckin’ incredible. Ya hear me?” Heat washes over your entire face. You say nothing. “It was so fuckin’ hot and sexy and so so beautiful, I’m fuckin’ lucky to have witnessed somethin’ so heavenly, darlin’.” He pulls you in for a kiss. “Ya hear me?” he repeats his question, softer this time. 

The embarrassment washes away in an instant. “Well,” you look into his eyes, a flash of trouble dancing across your orbs. “Felt fuckin’ incredible, too.”

“Yeah,” Joel says, grabbing and guiding your hand down to his cock. “It did feel mighty incredible,” smugness written all over his face. 

He dips your hand inside his pants, and you're met with his half-hard, sticky length. “Joel, did you-”

“That I did, baby, that I did.” 

A moment passes, and you burst out into laughter for the second time tonight. Only this time, Joel joins in, completely taking advantage of how sweet the comedown always is with you.

“I think I oughta drink more of that coffee,” you say out of the blue, taking Joel completely off guard as he finishes wiping up your… spill. 

“Why?” he asks, trying to maintain a normal tone.

“I swear, Joel,” you whisper as if there’s other people listening in. “I swear that coffee is the reason I finished so… intensely,” you finish, your eyebrows raised in intrigue and curiosity. 

“You really think so?” Joel asks, a victory smile threatening to escape him. 

“Yeah,” you tell him. “I think we should test it out. You’re off tomorrow, yeah?”

“Well, I am now.”

End note: The article Joel stumbled upon is a real article LOL. Here it is, in case any of you were interested. The article is from 2023, so by all means, picture 56 year old Joel. I’m imagining him a bit younger in this lil AU, but there’s no explicit age description, so imagine whatever the hell you want😘. And in case you were wondering: yes, he ends up telling you about his intentions behind wanting to drink coffee first. Let's just say... you both end up getting hyperfixated on trying to "prove" this theory even though you both damn well know what the result is. ;) All my love, I hope you guys enjoyed.💚

Be sure to follow @endlessthxxghtsnotifs to stay up to date with my stories!!

Utilizing my taglist a few more times just to have a slow transition to my updates blog! @katiexpunk @janaispunk @farmerlarrry @mellymbee @jobee403 @soavenuepenguin @rainbowcosmicchaos @untamedheart81 @lilynotdilly @babygal-babygal @pedritoferg @pedrostories @akah565 @getitoutofmymind @axshadows @survivingandenduring @joels-shitty-puns @its-nebuleuse @axshadows @yorksgirl

[muirmarie]

I'm really close to a little ao3 milestone that I think is neat, and it made me think about how long I've been posting fics on different sites, so I went and looked, and my first fic posted on the world wide web was on ff.net on:

Which!!! Is twenty years!!!

And then my first fic posted on ao3 was:

Which is fifteen years! I just think that's neat haha 😊

Anywho ideally I'd post a fic when I hit this little milestone, but I think there's a good chance I might hit it tonight or tomorrow, and I don't think any of the fics I'm working on will be close enough for that. I also really wanna get the screenshot, so I keep checking on my stats every hour or so lmaooo /sigh

It's not a big thing, but it's kinda a big thing for me! I just want the screenshot lollll

Anywho I wish I'd known this January was my 20th year anniversary of posting a fic, but I'll try to remember for next year, when that baby becomes old enough to drink!!!

You know what would be cute, actually - I never cross-posted that fic to ao3. What I should do next January is I should post the original, unedited one, and then write a new version of the same story, for how I write now. That would actually be so fun???? I don't care that it's DEEPLY self-indulgent, I'm gonna try to remember to do it, it's less than 2k, it wouldn't be a big deal!

This is just a ramble lmao. I'm just feeling especially fond and loving about writing fanfic tbh. Truly best of hobbies <3 I missed it so much when I stopped, even when I was the only one stopping myself. It's nice to remember how lovely it is to love doing something!

[akajustmerry]

genuinely wish i could confiscate the term white passing from certain people because almost every time i've called out racism or orientalism in a popular piece of media or fandom people throw the term at me to invalidate the points i am making about racism. no one has ever called me white passing on this site as a means to constructively call me in on a point i've missed because of how i look. like i will never forget when i was calling out the orientalism in the first dune movie and someone shared pictures of my face with my posts on some zendaya fan reddit and i had dozens and dozens of zendaya stans in my mentions and inbox for months saying that cause i was white passing i had no right to call dune racist and so many were making fun of how i looked calling me lena dunham and even went to my old youtube channel and left hate comments about my appearence and how i was actually white and race faking, etc. i am still kinda mad that during those weeks not a single mutual or follower stuck up for me but i digress. the point is a lot of people just throw the term white passing at poc who call out racism because they think that you have to be a certain type of poc to call out racism but the thing is....anyone can call out racism lmao.

[bentosandbox]

Ambience Synesthesia tutorial blog

rambled this out because I didn't have inflight wifi otw home and the turbulence was too crazy to draw

Buying the ticket

erm so they only dropped the tickets like slightly less than a month before lol kinda insane

The concert tickets were sold on Damai so you need a CN number or know/pay someone with one who'd buy it for you which is what I did by recommendation (A tier 1280 + 400 'service fee' [apparently it would have been cheaper if they only helped you half way or something but i wasnt gonna risk running into a payment hiccup so]) Iirc they sold it in two batches but I don't remember the ratio split between first and second wave…

I got a ticket for 5/5's afternoon show (so the second last performance), I DID meet an oomf who said they managed to snag a ticket for themselves on their own (without a Professional Ticket Snatcher) so its not too impossible to attain on your own I think??? (I didn't get a CN number until like 2 days before I flew back home soo)

Professional Ticket what?? Uhhh apparently there's a whole industry/scene for this you look for listings on xianyu/taobao etc for people to buy on your behalf, you have to give them your real name and identification number (so for foreigners it'd be your passport number) for verification purposes during entry so yknow yea

getting there

You could cab directly to the venue but my friend signed us up for the free shuttle bus (they had freebies last year but not this time) and before we boarded they gave us like free water and bread (apparently free raincoats too on rainy days) which was nice of them but also insane because. the venue doesn't allow you to bring food/drinks in so a lot of people were leaving A LOT of unopened bottles near the gate and I saw a venue staff just throwing them all into the bin (HOPEFULLY JUST TO CARRY THEM AWAY IN ONE GO AND NOT FOR STRAIGHT DISPOSAL….) They drop you off near the venue but you don't go in directly, there's a 'Doctor break room' where most people are seated waiting to be ushered in batches into the venue, but also a lot of people standing around on one side of the room swapping/offering merch

merch swap

ive been told this is a very concert culture thing but i feel like its kind of different because a lot of these are so high quality ike…you could sell them at Artist Alleys but here they are just distributing for free if you have a E2 60 blorbo lmao or whatever (there seems to be a tiny…? minority that prints official art but most of them seem to be handdrawn/made)

i was too unprepared for this lol i did exchange some of my old stickers (missed out on a collapsal plastic fan bc my brain lagged when the guy asked me and i went to my auto 'sorry i dont have any merch' response' :( regretted this bc the room got a little hot from the amount of people in there and i was wearing like 3 layers with that fan on my mind)

from people watching a lot of trades are arranged beforehand on weibo/other sites unless you're willing to yell WHO WANTS TO TRADEEE/anyone wants freebies (a lot of people were also wearing 'Feel Free to Swap Merch/Ask for Freebies' tags) which i was definitely not brave enough to do lol… met up with an oomf i got to know from last dec when i attended an arknights only and they gave me some birbs and charms (bottom of post), there was someone who got a free LGD zine and charm from me bc i posted on wb that id give a free copy to anyone with a Mod 3 swire/swummer LMFAO

I had 2 more people to meet but, uhhh so I bought an esim for mobile data and it would intermittently lose signal here and there which was a little annoying when getting coffee but it just died entirely when i reached the venue and it was kind of Dire because i was waiting for one more friend who was coming over from the fes and i couldn't contact them lmao. told the friend i came with to go in first because I thought if my food got confiscated at least my oomf could see it beforehand LOL

waited outside in a light drizzle for an hour trying to trouble shoot my data to no avail and ended up borrowing a staff's wifi hotspot to get my entry qr code (I actually bought a second data roaming plan on my local sim but i quite stupidly did not check the country coverage and only learned later that night that 'Asia' doesn't cover China kuxiao) she was so nice i was (bow emoji) so sorry to trouble you im a stupid gaijin and she was like no its ok enjoy shanghai!! pien

spent a good 30min next to this board praying for data to no avail

the show

erm anyway because of that clownery above i more or less missed the first piece (the one w the goated hoho) but at least i wasnt the guy next to me who went for a bathroom break right before starset came up

The live singing this year was definitely an improvement I think… I can't really remember the setlist off the top of my head but I'm sure someone else has already listed it out, there were a couple of new pieces that weren't related to the concert groups like a Babel/Kazdel?? one sung in Latin, a Victoria…? one (in victorian ofc) also an Amiya (? just remembering by the visuals they used lol) one in Japanese

ohh yeah so almost every track would start with like a faction logo transitioning in from 3d to 2d which was cool but also amusing because it was honestly bringing quite the 'I will Make Your Company Logo Into 3D Fiverr' vibes

Since I missed the first piece idk if any of The Dreamer(s) got 3D models but The Pilgrim(s why are they all singular) had Kaltsit playing on that piano (there was also a replica of that piano on stage the white one complete with 'Arknights' text on it lmao) and Siege being cool running around in 3D (and ofc Eureka during her denpa number) it was very cool but man... its a pity the other characters in the group just get their live2d png during the beginning and effectively get sidelined lool compared to say Phenomenal Agents idk if i like this tradeoff but that eureka bit was so good sheesh #NOVAFIVE⭐ULTRALIVESWEEP

The other stuff was really great too looking at you Lone Trail medley…!!!!! I might be wrong but I... assume... you're encouraged to karaoke bc they always show the lyrics on screen… I couldn't even hear myself anyway but it was very fun singing songs you can't get on joysound/etc with a whole crowd going at it too (even if most of them would only sing 1-2 lines of the chorus)

Mary Clare did Radiant (they had the lyrics scrolling on the sides very cool) and iirc the Throne group's song...? Radiant was so fun live

Starset did Monster > Telescope and when the latter ended they were like Bye! and we(?) started yelling ENCORE--awkwardly because idk how they do it here (I was half expecting it to be JP style 'an-call-roo' but a bunch of us just yelled en-core en-core here and there until they returned to perform Infected) speaking of yelling.. between every piece when they had to switch sets people would just yell memes or skill names (like Dage's) to pass the time or sth i barely caught half of whatever they were memeing about

did i forget to mention anything else uhhh originium rock turntable for Guide Ahead's boss theme/Dossoles Lobby and they had IS4 medley live throat singing very cool also the dancers they got for silbenherze's boss theme good stuff...

iirc after starset was like a behind the scenes video of how HG prepared for AS and a recorded lowlight video saying some stuff that i forgot LOL just some thank you message basically. 9.5/10 bc no missy/shu EP live

i just realised i forgot to display all the merch from the A tier ticket but w/e. light stick photo ft. merch swaps/gifts from friends and strangers 🥹 (the iffy lenticular card was literally dropped into my bag by an iffy coser (wearing the LT outfit..?!) while waiting for the cab LMAO)

[rydengg]

lmaooo not me remembering in 2016 when I was so down bad at a weekend gig I bought another one of your clips instead of waiting until I was back home and took like an hour downloading at like 300kb from the gig wifi LOL

I don't miss old internet speeds for downloading clips in general I wonder if uploading them used to take an age too lmao

oh definitely. back around that time i kinda had to wait to do uploads until everyone in my household had gone to bed so i could have complete command of the wifi. not so much to quicken the upload speed - it was more that the rest of my household would notice the internet slowing down & assume it was a router issue and reset it. nowadays many sites will pick up where the upload left off but back then it was like “nah it didn’t upload all the way so it’s fucked! sorry! better luck next time pal!!!” & you’d have to start the upload again. nightmare nightmare absolute nightmare.

[alertarchitect]

I... Think I'm experiencing one of those moments of wistful nostalgia that leads to the road of constantly missing and wishing for "the good ol' days," even though I know that line of thinking is what leads to a lot of the "look at how great the US was before black people could vote! Hell, before women could vote!!" nonsense conservative reactionaries spout, but... There's just something weird about feeling something and not realizing what it is until you've almost gone through it completely. Especially since there's this weird sense of mourning tied to it, which you'll understand in a bit if you choose to read on. I'll put a full explanation of what I mean below the cut so my nonsense rambling won't fuck with your tumblr scrolling. CW, I'm going to be talking about Rooster Teeth, which involves some of the controversies that came up towards the end of its lifespan, so if that stuff (including discussions of homophobia, grooming, and abuses of power for sexual favors) triggers your trauma response and/or you were a victim of certain parties who were fired from the company for good reason in the last few years of RT (if you know, you know, and if you don't, well I'll get into it under the cut), feel free to skip this for your own safety.

So, I was a Rooster Teeth fan in one way or another for a very long time. I first watched Red vs. Blue when I was, admittedly, far too young to do so (I was born in 2000, and I was watching it on YouTube on the first iPod touch I owned that had the YouTube app back when the icon for YouTube was still meant to look like an old CRT TV... Yeah, far too young for that show lmao), around 2010-ish got into Achievement Hunter thanks to the Halo Reach Fails of the Weak series, which lead to their Minecraft series, then I had a massive hyperfixation on RWBY (though I didn't realize it was a hyperfixation due to being very uneducated on the ADHD I knew I had because I was a kid, was scared out of agreeing to get medicated by my mother when I was diagnosed at around 6-7 years old if I'm remembering the time frame correctly, and was taught the idea that you "grow out of" being neurodivergent) for the first 4-5 seasons or so. I was even a Rooster Teeth FIRST member for years when I started working.

Now, obviously, I took a bit of a step back from watching them around 2020 or so when the controversy around Ryan Haywood being a grooming creep who allegedly succeeded at having physical relations with minors (while married with kids btw) using the power dynamic of them being AH fans as an entry point to conversation and a way to coerce them came to light - and I ended up staying with watching RT in general, though I was far more into Achievement Hunter in particular at the time, because I felt they had shown that the people around Ryan didn't know he was a piece of shit and genuinely felt disgusted, betrayed, and overall appalled at what they learned about him. I also ended up maintaining my FIRST subscription, which was yearly anyway so I couldn't have really paused it at the time since they already had my money, but I decided to stay with supporting them because I liked the content and getting the early videos, exclusive series, and other stuff through the app and website.

Fast forward to late 2022. Now, at this time, I was dealing with the massively first-world problem of liking the content RT was producing, though not as much as I used to because things had changed a lot and I missed a lot of the "IRL fucking around in our offices" stuff that seemed to have gone completely by the wayside by that point, but I was also up-to-date on all of the stuff on their site that I cared about watching and so I started watching more stuff on YouTube again since, once I had started paying for FIRST, I had basically made RT into my primary content source to get my money's worth out of it. I listened to a lot of the podcasts that were kinda branched out from the AH space, such as Off Topic, Face Jam, and F**kFace (no, I'm not self-censoring, that is how the name of that podcast was stylized), the exclusive stuff related to those shows offered through the subscription, basically all AH content, and more.

I was basically current with all of it, because earlier in 2020 I was kinda in friend-group-limbo, where I was finally trying to find groups of friends away from just being in groups that I was introduced to by my sister where everyone just knew me as her younger sibling, and it was only around early 2022 that I actually started getting into the consistent friend groups I have now that I would consider some of the people I'm closest to in my life, including the group that I met my boyfriend in - partially thanks to a somewhat-depression-fuelled obsession with Destiny 2 that started shortly after the release of the expansion The Witch Queen. Due to my mostly-friendless life before then, not really knowing anyone IRL outside of family, the one friend group I thought I'd be able to stay in (a FFXIV FC I stumbled my way into) turning out to be fairly transphobic leading to me just straight-up ghosting them and quitting that game, and all of this being around the time that I finally quit League of Legends - which was both a toxic presence in my life that I was no longer enjoying but was also the main avenue I had for meeting and hanging out with friends - I ended up spending most of my free time thanks to the pandemic on a few, specific things. Those being 1) Zelda BotW on the Switch I purchased with my first-ever tax return since I had only started working in 2019, 2) my mostly fruitless-at-the-time pursuit of finding people who actually liked and knew me for me, not just my association with my sister, and 3) watching lots, and I mean LOTS, of videos on Rooster Teeth.

Seriously, through both of my failed attempts to go to college, the COVID-19 lockdowns, multiple personal events that led to me being pushed out of former friend groups not-so-subtly by my sister as I was trying to be a part of her groups a lot thanks to me not really knowing how to find people to interact with IRL or online for a variety of reasons, losing multiple good jobs that paid me much more than I get at this shitty retail job thanks to my own inability to handle having a full-time job without being constantly late to shifts and shit (seriously, working full-time hours makes me feel like absolute shit and I don't know if I'd ever be able to actually handle going back to a full-time job, which is why I really want to try and set things up to start streaming and turn that into something to supplement my part-time work enough to be able to live off of it and get away from my mother who is... not great), and multiple short-lived relationships that I still mourned over fairly heavily (to be fair, I had figured out I was pansexual, but I only realized in the past couple of months thanks to my BF that I'm demiromantic... plus I just didn't find any potential partners who understood my troubles with not being able to constantly message back and forth 24/7)... Watching a bunch of Rooster Teeth content was my comfort space, even when I didn't actually have my own space due to cramped living conditions for about a year at one point. It was what greeted me at the end of a long day of work, what got a chuckle or two out of me at my most depressed, what really defined (to me) some of the humor I love to this day of just friends fucking around and doing bits, I could forget some of the serious shit in the world that was going on for just a short time with the nonsensical stuff that just went into straight-up weird territory that really started rearing its head with the Morning Show Show (but was very visible with stuff like Last Laugh), and more. So I watched it all, voraciously, insatiably. I was caught up on everything until early 2022, when I started getting into Destiny 2 and actually, y'know, having friends again, so I missed a video here or there I'd catch up on later, usually as something to listen to as I went to sleep.

Then Kdin Jenzen made her post detailing all of the horrifically homophobic and transphobic bullshit she dealt with during her time working there, none of which I knew about because it had happened during times I was either too young to fully remember or during times I wasn't really watching RT. A "nickname" used for years (during which time people knew she was queer, btw, though she hadn't come out as trans yet and idk if even she realized that specific detail at the time) that was born from the f-slur. Horrific crunch that basically everyone in the company was subject to, constantly, which didn't change even after she was hospitalized with fucking pneumonia. She wasn't getting credited for videos she worked on. Then, she came out as trans, and the treatment got worse, where she'd deal with the same levels of overwork and crunch time while getting isolated off in a corner to do her work because "people had no idea how to deal with a trans woman," only there to do far too much work while simultaneously getting pulled out like a trophy as if to say "See? We're inclusive!!!" despite her horrible treatment and isolation.

In short, even though there were "a handful of good people" as she put it (with who being apparent by who she gave positive responses to at the time when they publicly apologized for their past behavior - some noting they had done so privately in the past and felt a public apology was still in order - with others being given rather harsh ones, including Geoff Ramsey, a founder whom she called out for never using the power he had as a founder of the company and as someone very high up in the company to do anything to stop the bullshit she and so many others dealt with at RT over the years), the company itself was absolute dogshit. So, I did what anyone should do in that situation - I felt absolutely sick to my stomach because I felt as if I, a queer person, had been duped for years on end by an inclusive PR image, set my FIRST subscription to never renew again, couldn't even stomach watching what they released during the time I could still watch ad-free until my subscription expired, pulled all of my RT merch out of my closet (all of which I ended up donating to a local Goodwill except for one shirt, though there's another one I regret getting rid of now), and proceeded to unfollow a lot of the RT people I had been following for years at that point en masse, with the exceptions of those Kdin personally responded well to.

Fast forward to now. I'm going to assume we all know that Rooster Teeth started the process of being fully shut down by Warner Media earlier this year, partially due to low revenue, partially because I don't think Warner could stomach having anything media-related they own have content anywhere that wasn't on HBO Max. As of now, the website is basically fully non-functioning, with just a farewell video and a simple goodbye message iirc. The only way to get many videos that were FIRST-member exclusive over the years is via the Internet Archive, and with recent rulings, that may very well be in jeopardy if the people who end up with the various RT IPs decide to have them pulled for one reason or another. Yet, because of a tangent in a conversation I had with my boyfriend after playing some Warframe, I started wondering what had happened to the various people and channels I used to follow...

So I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. I'm even following some of the ones that were decent people at a bad company that have gone independent, sometimes buying the old RT IPs they were associated with, now... but something just feels off. I felt empty. And now... I realize what's going on. I'm feeling this sense of nostalgia for a specific period of time in the history of Rooster Teeth's content production, during which I may have been at one of the lowest points of my life, but those videos were a massive source of solace during. I'm also grieving over the loss of a fucking company that I didn't even really care about anymore, but in some part of my mind I kind of did because of how formative some of the videos it produced were to me. I'm watching the post-mortem of a company that helped define so much of what we know as the modern internet thanks to its start as one of the last vestiges of the old internet before everything became overly monetized and corporate, for better or for worse - months after everyone else that still cared has already processed it.

I'm grieving over the final, 100% irreversible end of one of the last things that - again, for better or for worse - was a constant source of being able to see something new that fit within formats I was used to seeing since I was a kid.

If I wanted to see an actual let's play that had more than the bare minimum of editing done for a VoD that isn't just constant, over-the-top bullshit, had actual interaction between the people in it that showed they were at least work friends, that had all of the POVs in one video instead of needing to hop to 17 different VoD channels to see everything... Those videos were what I would turn to, more often than not. Like I said, new videos but in formats I loved. Now... even though I haven't watched anything like the old AH videos in almost 2 years since Kdin's post, I'm feeling this... Gap. A void. If I want to watch gameplay, chances are it'll be a VoD of someone I like watching, yes, but something like that lightning-in-a-bottle of the old AH stuff where everyone was in a room together and you didn't have to watch multiple VoDs to see everything you wanted to see... I genuinely don't know if that really exists anywhere anymore.

And thus, I grieve a part of my childhood and young adulthood that is gone forever. Sure, I can buy an external SSD and put copies of all of the old videos I liked on there for me to watch whenever I want, such as RvB or a bunch of the old AH stuff (I could probably even find the FIRST stuff that was never on YouTube if I really tried), it doesn't change the fact that, though some vestiges of what once was will live on through different podcasts and channels made by the few decent people that were left in the ashes of the dumpster fire that was Rooster Teeth, new stuff made like that is, quite possibly, gone forever unless someone were to get enough money scraped together to be able to try and do something like it again - and it's unlikely it'd make enough back to be around for long in the modern age of content creation and consumption. Hell, to my (fairly limited, admittedly) knowledge, even before RT was shut down, the main channel they owned that I'm nostalgic for now was essentially shut down - Achievement Hunter was retired and the people that remained made something called DogBark.

It's a part of the unending march of time - things come and go, no matter how much of a constant they may seem in the background of your life, even if you aren't engaging with them how you used to. But even knowing that... This one's hurting a bit as I finally process it. Especially as I take the time to write a post about it to be able to get these thoughts out of my head and off of my chest without directly weighing down those around me with my glum rambling about a shit company I didn't even watch anymore going under. It just feels... wrong, in some way. Hell, I'm anticapitalist as shit, but because of how formative those videos were to me for so long, I'm mourning the shutdown of a shitty fucking company that was a WARNER MEDIA SUBSIDIARY!!!

The human mind is a hell of a thing to have to deal with sometimes, huh...

[inmyhorrorsera]

S5E7 "Hybrid Creatures" thoughts

That's it. Those are my thoughts.

.

.

.

Kinda...

I'm kinda used to the writers putting Nadja in situations and see what it sticks, but (un)holy shit its so obvious that they don't know what to do with her character. What we do in the shadows learn how to write women challenge.

I don't know if the Guide even appeared. My stream stopped a couple times and I have to refresh so maybe I missed her (if not see previous point because it also applies to her).

LOVED Nadja's kitty hair buns, love to see that at least the hair and costume department still cares about her.

The line about burning the school made me roll my eyes, not only because that story doesn't make sense with what we learned about her childhood, but also because I can FEEL when tv shows throw lines with the specific expectations of them being gifed, become memes, etc.

I know it's stupid to discuss about the ethics of Laszlo's experiments on the dick and balls show but in this episode I was all 😬😬😬 about it. Like, I don't give a shit if it was done with comedy purposes, animal experimentation is one of the subjects I will never find remotely funny or make jokes with, specially if we start thinking... How much consent Guillermo gave for Laszlo to straight up play with his DNA in this way? He has nothing to say about it except for a confused frown or looking panicky at the sight of the creatures?? More important, if Nandor did this exact same thing the past season and created the hybrids with a Djinn wish or whatever, how would the fandom have reacted??? (spoiler: waaay more angered than when everybody's fave Laszlo does it).

The work of puppetry and digital effects was good as always, nothing bad to say about the team behind the cameras that puts all their hard work and craft on this, sadly, mid storyline.

Despite how little I care about mAd ScIenTiSt Lazslo plot, the moment when Guillermo believes he won't help him anymore was truly heartbreaking just by looking at his face. You can see he really has all his hopes in Laszlo finding a 'cure'.

I wish the whole thing about Guillermo being incapable of killing the hybrids hit me harder (as if we didn't saw him luring innocent teenagers so they can get killed in the literal pilot).

Sorry but that lady character didn't work for me and the "Helen the Magic Johnson" joke was unfunny and kinda old :/ i wonder if half of the wwdits fandom even got the reference (also lmao shameless product placement, you can tell they needed the money to pay for the cgi used on the creatures).

Colin was like his season 1 self. I bet the wwdits reddit ate up that shit.

See also: Laszlo calling Guillermo 'Gizmo' again. Hated it.

Colin becoming the stereotypical 'cool' white liberal teacher was hilarious specially when he said the cliché "history is written by the oppressors" line because that's where the parody becomes too obvious. This is the guy whose dna results on s1 were "100% white" after all. AND YET some people here are still celebrating and repeating it as this 'so true bestie 😔✊' moment without realizing the show's laughing at you, not with you. But hey, this is the we don't get satire even if it bites on our ass site. Imagine fans celebrating when Kendall Succession shouted "fuck the patriarchy!" in front of the paparazzi for being a #feminist. That's how wooosh the moment went over some of y'alls heads.

Nandor and Colin at the museum felt a little tackled on, but at least Nandor annoyance at his personal items being displayed was fun.

And Colin being friendly (dare I say…sweet?) with him at the end again gave me a happy smile. I'll never guessed this season was all about the Colin and Nandor (Condor??) era but I'm all for it.

Biggest Mild laugh of the night: Nandor mannequin having male and female lovers on the display, the dude is wearing Calvin Kleins!

I can't say much about Guillermo leaving the hybrids at the senior home because it's a overused ending for wwdits at this point. Seriously, when this show doesn't know how to end an episode they always do the same shit: Leave the characters that are a problem in a different place. It happened with: Topher at the zombie sweatshop, Jim the vampire as the volleyball coach in Tucson, familiar Benji in a different city/state (forgot where), The Baron and the Sire in the countryside, Derek working at Sean's MLM, Freddie!Marwa in the Uk. They have done this ending 👏🏼lots 👏🏼 of 👏🏼 times👏🏼already!!

Having a wank?! The setup and payoff for this joke really worked.

Next episode seems interesting.

Anyway, I am once again asking for the Djinn...

[six-of-ravens]

aloha friends and people who left annoying incorrect opinions on my posts, raistlin is a waif he is the waifiest waif it doesn't matter if his twin is a brick shithouse you are WRONG I am kinda sorta back. maybe only for one tipsy night, but who knows. listen, I'm 1.5 ciders in and feeling Properly Tipsy as opposed to last night when I drank jack and cokes for the first time in a while and just felt nauseous, so I'm Thriving atm. ANYWAY.

i feel like i have cleared some cobwebs from my brain. kind of. mostly i redownloaded bc i have the irresistible urge to natter about my life. tbh i considered deleting tumblr for a while bc there are some things about this site (but also social media in general) that annoy the absolute shit out of me, and also i feel like I dedicated too much ~mental energy~ to this site in the past (not to sound like some new age crackpot) and I need to cut down on how much scrolling and getting mad about other people's incorrect opinions I do. However, there are a few beloved mutuals on here that I miss talking to and also tumblr is kinda Home, y'know?

anyway TLDR I'm back, kinda. might still delete the app during the day so I can focus on IRL shit instead of being a zillennial social media addict, so I apologize if I miss messages etc but. yeah. for the sake of my mental health I have to be better at self-policing. Also, no longer going to allow myself to use the For You tab, so sorry if I don't see your posts bc tumblr only served them there. I can't control it lmao. frankly the algorithm here just ain't good enough and I don't want to cry AGAIN bc a video of a naked woman jiggling her stomach with a caption about how much she hates herself and wants to lose weight came up on my feed. Frankly since this is tumblr I'm not sure if that's porn or self-harm, but either way, fuck off with that shit, man! I kinda hate my body too and I don't wanna see that!! I don't want that in my brain!! Hence why I quit and went to ig-only for a while. My IG is all pottery and miniatures and painting and European travel vlogs it's so PEACEFUL!

now onto the fun stuff, a list of things I consider interesting that happened in the past 3ish weeks:

have done a whole lot of reading lately: Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh which is weird and off-putting by very worth reading, then a reread of the Unicorn series by Vicki Blum (always a delight) and finishing Princess Jellyfish (there's quite the plot twist in the last few books but overall it's a delightful series), then my hold for Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk came up (extremely interesting and worthwhile read, especially after listening to the No Dogs in Space punk series, very sad ending though bc of course a lot of the punk musicians passed away young), and now I'm rereading The Mermaid's Secret and The Dragon Prince by Vicki Blum as a palate cleanser, and then hopefully I'll start the LoTR reread I've been meaning to do for a while. So yeah I read like 16 books in 3 weeks. this is the power of quitting social media.

Also I've kinda discovered that I'm just pretty... disenchanted with all book-fandoms online. it's just so...kinda annoying? nowadays? just the same old drama over and over and I don't caaaare lol. Read what you want, at whatever speed you want, idc, none of it matters. I read for funsies after work. Some people read 24/7 because being a book blogger is their career. Some people are 17 and still have the mental stamina to read a 500 page book in 2 days. Idgaf if you read Maas or Austen or Sanderson or whatever, there's no moral high ground (except maybe not giving Sanderson money bc WOW BYU is a shitty organization). Also I don't necessarily want other people's opinions on what I read or if a book I just bought has "mixed reviews" or whatever (unless the person is a mutual whose opinions I value lol). So I might start posting on the book blog again but just....not interact with booklr. Torn between the desire to communicate with others and the desire to keep my hobby all to myself and free from unnecessary judgement or bullshit.

Finally rearranged my bookshelves, by ~vibe or whatever~. Might post photos tomorrow but the living room is once again in a state of chaos since I started gardening today.

On that note, started my garden! planted some veggies, herbs, and a whole boatload of tomatoes in seedling trays (listen, MacKenzie seed were on sale 3/$5 today at the store and I'm weak for weird tomato variants and herbs. Still need to find rosemary and fennel though). Have more stuff to do, but I'm going to give the seedlings a couple weeks to get started and then maybe plant everything else Easter weekend. Last year was nice, garden-wise, but this year I really hope we don't get 30C weather in May. My allergies cannot handle it 😭

saw the Alien/Aliens double feature our cheap theatre put on and it was a DELIGHT

we also got a record snowstorm that weekend, which sucked bc it was the same week I'd had a random friday booked off (previously for traveling with my aunt, very glad that was cancelled now) so I basically did none of the other things I had planned.

also after said double feature, had to make my first 911 call. luckily I rot my brain with true crime All Day Every Day so I handled it like a pro 😤 (i am fine it was for another person, and uh, it turned out to not be so serious once the emergency people were able to get them to stop crying hysterically and realized this poor person was just intoxicated, underdressed for the weather, and a bit lost)

discovered the health foods store near my place has a bunch of funky herbal teas for like $5.50 a box so I've been going a little nuts there. I LOVE FENNEL TEA IT'S SO GOOD. ALSO LAVENDER MY BELOVED! they also have a bunch of local coffee blends, and I'm seriously considering getting a coffee bean grinder so I can try them

saw Lisa Frankenstein the week after the Alien double feature at that same theatre, it was fucking excellent I laughed my ass off, also at that theatre you can get your ticket and snacks and drink for the same price as a Cineplex ticket, it's excellent

finally watched Saltburn, which was great. love the Donna Tartt vibes. i watched it while somewhat drunk off Soju, which I think is how it's meant to be viewed.

also started a Ghibli rewatch, to justify not cancelling my Netflix just yet (I know I know, I should but I technically can afford it and it's my emotional support streamer you know? how else am I going to instantaneously watch Gilmore Girls on a bad day?) So far I have only watched Kiki's Delivery Service lol

Also, funny anecdote: last week I got my period and was VICIOUSLY craving alcohol. like I went to the store and bought the most bizarre range of random things (soju, honey jack, and mead...and then proceeded to drink them at my normal rate lmao). Realized afterwards this is a combination of my usual craving for sweet things + my very stressed coworker constantly joking about how we need to crack a bottle of something when this stressful project is finished. At the time however I thought my uterus was trying to make me an alcoholic.

Did my budgeting with my new rent and discovered that I'm actually fine, because I had DOUBLED A NUMBER SOMEHOW! and I basically had $150/month freed up. I'm so smart. I continue to procrastinate my income tax though (shhhh I have another month....)

Started writing a vague story about two women hiking to a portal to elfland, which is located near an abandoned train station. There are cultists called vampires living at said train station who are such a fucking delight to write (not real bloodsucking vampires tho, they are currently eating paella 🥘). It's fun and weird and I'm having a good time with it.

started listening to a podcast called No One Should Believe Me about cases involving Munchausens by Proxy, which is very interesting. the host has a sister with (alleged) MbP and genuinely wants to get her (and of course her kids) help, so it's actually a really good, compassionate take on an issue that's usually played for shock value. I have to listen to it slowly though bc it's Heavy

started knitting again! made 1 dishcloth and started a second. have decided I'm going to take these into work when I have a few done. If my boss won't buy us proper cloths then I'll pawn my knitting practice off on them lol

there is a lot of early road construction near my office since, aside from that random snowstorm, it's been a mild early spring. be glad you haven't had to listen to me rant about that lol

finally bucked up and got a duvet cover for my comforter that was lowkey falling apart at the seams. it's a good comforter aside from some light "my washer is evil" damage so I'm happy I can stuff it into a (less expensive) duvet cover instead of having to replace the whole thing

[marley-manson]

For the fandom meme!

17, 22, 25 (tried to balance out the negative with some opportunities for positivity but also … curious about 25 lol)

Thank you!

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Fic with unhappy or ambiguous at best endings. I was thinking about the most memorable fics I've read the other day, the ones that really stuck with me, and a lot of them have dark endings. And I kinda miss how common angst fic without a happy ending used to be, I feel like it's gotten a lot rarer across the board. Like while reading old Mash fic pre 2015 or so, I'd say the majority of what I saw was miserable in tone, and usually had a downer ending even if it was funny. And I have fond memories of a lot of lj era fandoms where, even if it wasn't a majority, a lot of fic was fans exploring dark/angsty scenarios with no happy ending in sight.

And especially when it's of the 'character makes bad decisions that are perfectly in character and understandable' type. Gimme an agent of one's own demise, I absolutely love it. Like, my favourite type of escapism is reading something and going 'lol glad I'm not this guy,' so yeah, I hope the fandom atmosphere shifts again eventually to encourage more dark and tragic stories alongside the happy escapism. Or I get into a dark fandom with lots of this type of content again lol, if it's out there in abundance somewhere and I'm just missing it.

Also aside from dark endings, characters making each other miserable for a long time before it gets better slowly and with difficulty. Though tbf these types of fics aren't easy to write lol and idk if they were ever super common. But still, I'd love to see more of them.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

HMMMM this is hard actually lol. Idk if I have an answer for Mash, I don't feel like there's a universally neglected aspect of canon that I like.

lmao ykw I'm gonna resurrect one of my oldschool petty fandom complaints for this: am I seriously one of the only people whose Labyrinth-related teenage sexual awakening was dominant rather than subby? It's not completely ignored, but boy was femdom a minority dynamic in a sea of femsub in that fandom considering the climax of the movie was "I would be your slave" and "You have no power over me."

25. common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing

Not specific to a fandom: why must everything be gay???? because it's more fun, next.

(also it isn't, ao3 was created in large part as a haven for gay fic that often got purged from other archives, go to literally any other fanfic site and het will reign supreme as it always does.)

[katzirra]

Aggressively rubs my face, complaining about anything in life feels so tedious compared to what's going on in the world. World events and disasters and genocides and just fucking everything make you feel so small and worthless. Like god damn I feel guilty for thinking how stressed I am because HAHAH COULD BE WORSE, BITCH. WHICH is kind of a weird thing the internet really uh, perpetuates. Which is kinda what people get at when they say take care of your mental health.

Like I'm staying as up to date as I can but it's... wow it's hard to stomach, and it's hard to know what to do when you're in a financial spot lmao... Fucking god damn. Like carrying on like normal is really hard because there's that thought in the back of my mind right now about how upsetting it is realizing so many people can't do that. Will never do that again. It's like tv static in my head lately low key saddening me more and more.

But yaknow that just sounds like I'm complaining about a world event, but it's not. It's just...a profound sadness. Saturating things. I find myself just kinda sitting lately unsure what to be doing that feels... productive in this time. Not really feeling, uh, creative or happy. I dunno. Low simmering fear as well tbh.

That wasn't the topic I was planning to post about uh... FRIVOLOUS UPDATES I GUESS... I USE TO DO THOSE, YEAH? IDK WHO CARES ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE THESE DAYS TBH LOL

Taking a break from Xig because I'm just ..out of it and need the expectations off me for a second.

Having anxiety even checking my art blog because people weirdly correcting me/giving me a compliment that's shorter than a correction and making me come off rude telling them I'm not wrong makes me anxious as hell :))) so I end up avoiding my own haunts!!! How fucky is that.

I am almost done with my small sketchbook?? I was fixing a few pages up before hitting a few dried out Copics, which lead to me checking all of them to see who I needed to fix/replace and uh... relocate them in my office. Which became redoing my pen pouches and seeing if those got fucked up. Hopefully I'll finish that and start scanning. 2018-2023... with huge gaps in there lol...

I miss doing art I liked. Its kinda stagnant atm so I might take the rest of the year to do studies on angles and shit tbh. I need something. It all feels same same.

Uhhh figuring out some dental stuff - bought myself a bougie electric toothbrush and I think my old one's timer was fucked up and making me brush too long?? Which is bad!!! So this new one already has my teeth feeling better 👏 mom's genetics have me terrified!! My teeth feel better after two brushes??? insane.

Getting bloodwork done Thursday so hopefully figuring some shit out about my weight and health :))) I'd like to lose the like 20-45lb I mysteriously seemed to gain over the past few years??? Uhhh??? And figure my periods out, money has just been BAD since Hannibal's surgery....

Having panic scares about if my job is going away in December or not and hating every job listing I see online so I gotta look for whatever listing sites exist outside indeed. Also something this decent with the same pay :)))))) so that's on my todo list... again.

Box spring is busted on my bed, so hopefully I don't have to replace the mattress just yet because of the previous point AND THE FACT I JUST STARTED GETTING TO SAVE FOR MY PC..... first world problems but fuck, dudes. Vakarian is fucking suffering sometimes... :(( but we'll see because MATTRESS PRICES.......!!!

I cleaned my office and room and that made me feel like I've accomplished something for myself so that's... something.

Trying to focus on things. Depression cocktail is going on..... money, job, housing, health, the world... it's all so much all the time, man.

[implausiblyjosh]

Since Twitter is falling apart, I was looking through old tweets and in my last moments on that site I’m learning that someone tried to dunk on me for running an Actual Play set in the DC universe.

There’s other incoherent posting about how I’m a pick-me, trying to make me answer for random other Twitter users I don’t know, and saying the reason I don’t get engagement on Twitter is because I’m courting racists for clout, with all this set off because I said they shouldn’t misgender my friend and spread lies about them. But the opening tweet to that whole thread amounts to “lmao this dude roleplays as Superman with his friends online”

You cannot get that kinda posting anywhere else online. Twitter will be missed… I guess.

[pfqsewers]

i haven't been on in a while but a lot of the recent updates are so jarring to me skdjfskjdf. these are probably things people have said already but oh well lol

a lot of the new art is great but it just doesn't fit imo? like the new professor holly portrait lowkey feels so angry compared to the v nice happy full body art literally right next to it on the lab page lol. a lot of the mod portraits look more intimidating than welcoming now too

also the new sprites are. ok. i get maybe saturating the colors but i miss old amaura :(

i was never in the forums before and i peeked into suggestions to see what it was like and DARN some of the mod responses to suggests are BRUTAL for a site that's supposed to be kid friendly. imagine being 10 and suggesting a little minigame and literally the owner of the site goes "seems kinda boring." and nothing else. doesn't even reject the suggestion just leaves it hanging there. (i realize the person who originally did do this post likely wasn't 10 but based on the userbase pokefarm claims to serve, they could have been).

honestly this is my biggest gripe - it genuinely looks like niet kinda does whatever he wants, which would be fine if he didn't hide behind the guise of "doing what's best for the expanding community" after only one post asks for a certain change or whatever. half of his reasoning in this forum section contradicts itself anyway lol

i remember loving this game before and i still enjoy the mechanics but i just did not remember there being this much drama on here lmao

i think there has been drama all the time

[technomaestro]

Astrology asks: sun, aries, taurus, sagittarius, aquarius, pisces, 9H

sun ⇢ name 5 things you like about yourself?

My beard, my luck, my ability to make a fantastic meal for folks, my determination, and my ability to tell a great story for folks around a table when I GM a game of D&D or some other TTRPG.

aries ⇢ are you an impulsive person?

Absolutely not lmao. While I would love to have more "Fuck it, we ball." moments in my life, I'm way too methodical and way to anxiety ridden to not be constantly over-analyzing things and planning and prepping for stuff; I have pretty bad ADHD so if I don't do that, my life kinda falls apart a bit.

taurus ⇢ what's your favorite food?

I'm a major foodie so this is a VERY rough one to answer, but there's always been a special place in my heart and in my stomach for Shepherd's Pie and the various Cottage Pie derivatives. I had one in Australia with lamb and roo and it was a formative experience for me as a kid.

sagittarius ⇢ what places would you like to travel in the future?

This is a wild one because I'm actually like, in a position to think about this in actuality but I've had this longstanding goal to take a few weeks and hop across the Atlantic over to Europe and travel around it, seeing ancient sites and the Northern Lights. But I also want to visit other places, like go back to Australia now that I'm an adult on my own and can explore on my own, or see places that fascinated me as a kid like Machu Picchu. But honestly, I'd like to go visit the people I've met online and actually see them in person - while seeing history is important to me, so is seeing the people that have made life worth living.

aquarius ⇢ do you consider yourself an antisocial or social person?

By all standards I'm relatively anti-social. It's not that I don't enjoy talking to people, but I'm incredibly introverted and prone to not talking to folks for so long because I'll not have the energy to respond or miss their text or my ADHD kicks in so I forget to reply and then it becomes way too long to talk to them again. I'm working on it though.

9H ⇢ what languages ​​would you like to learn?

Italian, Portuguese, Korean, and Old Norse are the four that I've been toying with learning for a while. Progress is... slow with them however with how busy I've been.

[nullmagica]

when i was 12 or so i used to frequent this old online chatroom titled some weird shit like "purify online", and i knew this girl on there. she was named peroxy on here. she was cool and funny and had the same interest in the dark and mysterious as i have and we were like best friends. they knew us as "those two really fucking creepy girls" and we played into that persona lol. she had this pfp of a anime girl or something that kinda started to look familiar to me over the years. we were like connected to the hip we were ATTACHED to one another that we might as well be the same girl haha. we were best friends but then she just vanished. and i never seen her since. heres a image (its not the real one though lmao)

so there i was, missing my friend dearly. of course i moved on. i gained irl friends, met lucie, the gist. but her disappearance set something in me. i dont think i was the same since she vanished. i remember her last messages and posts. she was talking to someone, not anyone here, but a third person. an onlooker. she dubbed him a "watcher" who was always on the site. i miss her. i miss her so so much. one day ill find her again i have to i gotta.

might come back idk