#i only remembered i’d made it bc my housemate just got to this part of acol

[antaripirate]

made this a couple months ago and forgot to post it🫢 (it’s so dumb)

[homosociallyyours]

@ha-larry-us and @livqueer tagged me to do this! Here we go :) 

1. what is the colour of your hairbrush? light amber wood color

2. a food you never eat? beets, tho i keep trying

3. are you typically too warm or too cold? neither, usually my body regulates temp well. but being sick that’s a little different and i never know if i’ll be shivering or having a hot flash

4. what were you doing 45 minutes ago? going back and forth between instagram and tumblr

5. what is your favourite candy bar? uhh maybe a snickers or a 100 grand bar

6. have you ever been to a professional sports event? i went to the Oakland A’s gay day a few years ago with co-workers. It was really fun!! but i could never attend a serious sports event to cheer for a winning team. 

7. what is the last thing you said out loud? "come on, ding dong, you can do it” --said to my dog who was hesitating jumping down off the chair where she’d sat while i washed my dishes

8. what is your favourite ice cream? McConnell’s salted caramel and chocolate flake. or anything that’s a mascarpone or goat cheese base. yum. 

9. what was the last thing you had to drink? decaf yorkshire with milk

10. do you like your wallet? YES! i have a scarf that has a secret pocket in it! it holds cards and other small essentials and it’s very sneaky. 

11. what was the last thing you ate? granola with milk

12. did you buy any new clothes last weekend? nah bruh i haven’t bought new clothes in ages!

13. the last sporting event you watched? i watched the last season of GLOW when it came out. that’s as close as i get. 

14. what is your favourite flavour of popcorn? chicago mix babyyyy! cheddar and caramel together at last. 

15. who is the last person you sent a text message to? my housemate, it was the landlord’s contact info​

16. ever go camping? YES, and i miss it!! i used to camp regularly and really love my pseudo-glamping life: cooler full of good food, a double high air mattress, and a tent that allows you to stand up in the center (to change clothes). i haven’t gone since coming to california, which is a total bummer. 

17. do you take vitamins? yes, vit. D and fish oil daily, ideally i would have a good multi, PS, and maybe a couple other things, but i can’t afford them all right now. my minimum is a D though, since yr body really does NOT get it from sun exposure. i know it sounds silly but vitamins are basically the concrete you pour in a hole to stabilize a beam (yr food). they’re very good and they help a lot! 

18. do you go to church every sunday? NO, thank goodness! i even stopped having to go with my family when i visit them. 

19. do you have a tan? no, and i rarely do. SPF all the way. 

20. do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? pizza please

21. do you drink your soda with a straw? only fountain sodas with ice

22. what colour socks do you usually wear? bright/mixed colors

23. do you ever drive above the speed limit? occasionally, but i’m pretty careful and definitely don’t do it in residential areas. 

24. what terrifies you? zombies (seriously) and loss/lack of control of myself

25. look to your left, what do you see? the side of the couch and the blank wall. 

26. what chore do you hate? doing the dishes

27. what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? the crocodile hunter

28. what’s your favourite soda? cherry coke or dublin dr. pepper (the cane sugar kind made in texas) orrrr cheerwine

29. do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? i drive thru everywhere except in-n-out, where it often takes less time to walk in. 

30. who’s the last person you talked to? my housemate and i had a little conversation, but i messaged with my bff earlier and that was a real conversation. 

31. favourite cut of beef? umm i really like cooking a ny strip, but i don’t necessarily have a favorite

32. last song you listened to? "fancy” as sung by bobbie gentry bc instagram didn’t have the reba version. WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE, just so you know. 

33. last book you read? my friends, i have a confession. i haven’t read an actual book in ages. i used to read A LOT and then when i got sick it was like my brain said NO THANK YOU and i just stopped. i still read loads, it’s just mostly fic or articles. that being said, i just finished i must admit i thought i’d like to make you mine by @disgruntledkittenface and it was EXCELLENT. 

34. favourite day of the week? Thursdays. like for as long as i can remember. it was hamburger day when i was a kid, and now it’s thursday hersday. and of course it was must see tv night all thru my adolescence. 

35. can you say the alphabet backwards? i mean i probably could but why would i want to?

36. how do you like your coffee? with whole milk (and if i’m doing it myself, a little cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar)

37. favourite pair of shoes? my dog face flats (they’re bob’s for dogs, you can maybe google them) even tho they are really worn out now

38. at what time do you normally go to bed? between 4-7am. i am a cryptid, please do not look at me

39. at what time do you normally get up? between 2-5pm, again i beg you to look away and judge me not

40. what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? sunsets!! (SAME!!)

41. how many blankets are on your bed? 4 right now. 2 super soft, 1 electric, and 1 duvet/comforter. 

42. describe your kitchen plates? the classic 70s/80s unbreakable plates, some with the gold flowers around the rim and some with the tiny olive green ones. truly i think i have only seen a plate like this break once in my entire life. i bought these at a store in nyc (i definitely overpaid BUT it was still like $20 for 6 or 8 plates that will never break)

43. do you have a favourite alcoholic beverage? a properly made sidecar is HEAVEN, ok? so good!! but you gotta use good brandy and fresh lemons and i would get one if i could go back to my fave nyc bar and have pietro (a very good bartender) make me one. but really the thing that i will always want and have difficulty turning down is champagne/sparkling wine in the style of champagne. 

44. do you play cards? yes! i used to play all the time with my ex. don’t so much any more but i still love it when i get to! 

45. what colour is your car? dark orange

46. can you change a tire? YES!! @ha-larry-us when the quarantine is done I will show you!! it really isn’t too hard unless your bolts are on super tight. 

47. what is your favourite state/province? California, i think. though part of me wants to name a southern state because I was born there and the mountains feel like home. 

48. favourite job you’ve ever had? the one i currently have but am physically unable to work at right now-- cheesemonger at a worker owned grocery store

49. how did you get your biggest scar? i was borrowing stage makeup from a friend in another dorm before our choir performance. the door was usually propped open, and so when i left the building i sorta jogged down the steps and pushed really hard on the door with my momentum. it was NOT propped open, and I put my right arm through the glass (and knocked out two more panes with my knee and foot). the RA was training to be an EMT and helped me get cleaned up. I didn’t get stitches, but the scar is very long (maybe 3 inches). the best part of the story is that i went to make sure the choir director knew i wasn’t performing but would sit in the audience, and her response was ��we don’t have time to give you sympathy.” she was having a rough year but DAMN that was an ice cold response to an injured 18 year old.

50. what did you do today that made someone else happy? hmm probably just chatting with my bff. that makes both of us happy, always. 

IDK WHO TO TAG!!! who is the sort of person to answer 50 random questions?? @alienfuckeronmain maybe? how about @slowdownsugar? hmm maybe @crinkle-eyed-boo and uhh @pompomoffinland. And you, friend!! YOU who is sitting there really wishing you were tagged, I am definitely tagging you!!

[listoriented]

Caesar 3

Ancient History

Ah, can you smell it? The dew on the grass? The vacuum in the office? It’s the games, they begin with a different letter now, so everything seems different. A completely superficial kind of different, sure, but that’s what we’re all about. And yet, C commences with perhaps the oldest (intact from manufacture date) game yet to hit the list, a game which also happens to be set two and a half millennia ago. Artificial newness meets two kinds of old in this heady, confusing stretch of an introductory paragraph.

Handily for me, I was just on a bit of a city-builder/management games kick last month, dabbling in Islanders, nodding my head at Surviving Mars, glancing nervously at Oxygen Not Included. Unhandily, these tooltip-heavy games could only skew my expectations wildly for the difficulty that was to come.

In the background this week, cake. Also The International, my annual re-engagement with Dota, at the same time as finals approaching for the ASL - a mini e-sports glut, basically, which I’m hoping to keep half an eye on while trying to crunch through a thing for uni. Oh bountiful electronic joy.

Where/When/Why: Caesar 3 is our first encounter with the expansive Humble Sierra Bundle, from August 2016. At the time I was playing the Batman games and starting to consider how much of a long-term problem ad-hoc adding thirty old adventure games to the library might one day be. But I wanted the Gabriel Knight games (they were faves of Charlie, my housemate at the time) so I did it anyway, dumping $15 on the whole lot.

Who/What: This third iteration of the Caesar series came out in 1998. The series was developed by Massachusetts-based Impressions Games, and is apparently considered to be part of a broader City Building series that included games set in ancient Greece and Egypt. Impressions went through a series of acquisitions and folded in 2004, though wikipedia suggests Tilted Mill (who are still operating, I think), are something of a successor in terms of employees and game style.

Prior experience: Though I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed it as a kid, I don't think I've played any of the series before. AJ mentioned having repeatedly played a demo on his family's PowerMac 180 back in the 90's, so it's possible I encountered it then (both our families were Mac families, but his were the first to have colour). Roy also claims Caesar 2 was a game he grew up with, something of a replacement experience for Civilization. I more recently remembered Caesar 3 mentioned on 3MA's deep dive through the best strategy games of '98. But it's otherwise an unknown to me, and its apparent historical popularity and current familiarity to everyone else is weird and unexpected.

Veni Vidi VVVVVV: We begin with an isometric screen of grass, trees and rivers. This makes sense, because it was made in the 90s, back when life itself was still isometric. Actually before that we begin with a comfortably awful CG intro vid, giving us a rose-tinted overview of Rome's rise to power. I would expect/want nothing less. The campaign begins in tute mode, handing us the role of colony-planner during Rome's expansion in Italy in the 400 BCs - supposedly we answer to Caesar, even though IRL it’d be another few centuries until Julius Caesar happens and the name 'Caesar' becomes a term for ruler. Of course we're only pointing this out because we're a pedantic knob looking to fill some space, and we want you to know how smart we are, and we’re persisting in writing as though we are plural.

The first mission is tick-the-boxes easywork, but from there it gets tough quickly, withholding info in a way that just wouldn't fly two decades on. In the second I got stuck in a strange loop, constantly some hundred citizens short of the mission requirement and no understanding of how to break out. It seemed that even though I'd run out of arable land, my city wasn't making enough food due to a lack of labour, yet not having enough food also seemed to mean that more people wouldn't move to my town. It took me a few restarts to crack this threshold, with no real understanding of what I'd done differently other than build some extra granaries (did the game mean I was producing enough food, I just wasn't storing it properly?), and opting to not build a lot of the extra luxury buildings that became available suddenly halfway through. Rinse and repeat in the third mission, just with different problems on a larger scale, ad infinitum.

The game has an usually hectic cadence to it, for a city-builder. Things go wrong frequently, buildings collapse and burst into flames, people get sick, gods get angry because you forgot to build shrines to them, the months canter by, taking your denariis with them, and there's no functional pause so no way of stopping the ongoing collapse while you go hunting for problems or work out where the best place is to put this senate or farm or next row of houses. Little cartoony figures rush up and down the roads, moving goods around or putting out fires, something visually akin to an ants nest. The eponymous Caesar is constantly angry and disappointed because we haven't met his expectations. Everything is always on fire, for reasons that are not always clear.

If I was a little smarter at this point, I would have remembered that the internet, well, exists, and I would have gone looking for help a little earlier. One of the first tips this LP suggested was to bring the game speed down, which was something I didn’t even know I could do, because it’s an option tucked away in a menu rather than front and centre in the UI where, as a 21st century player of games, I usually expect it to be. 

I've played Caesar 3 for four hours or so and I still feel like I'm a long way from understanding it. Every time I open it I make a new and important discovery about how things are meant to work, and then I feel like a fool for not realising this earlier. Progress is incremental, barely visible. Experienced players make Roman towns that look very different to mine. The systems are there, complex and surprisingly extensive but hidden, and the game doesn't seem to have much interest in making things easy. It's no bad thing that we expect games to be better at teaching us how to play them than we did in '98, just IMO. But it's a fun city-builder, if a somewhat stressful and difficult one for someone who grew up with the more forgiving Maxis variants, and in a parallel life I stick with it and learn a valuable lesson in patience and persistence, if not anything particularly useful about history. 

next is Caesar 4

[augchamp]

jackaby fan ending bc i am still tORN UP

[in which viv isn't quite satisfied with the ending of a certain novel. thanks to @rfjackaby . hope you enjoy!] That isn't quite the end of my story, though. Everything following the blinding light, up until Charlie was kissing me on the front porch of 926 Auger Lane later that day, was a blur of colors. Auras and people and emotions and footprints all blurred together into a fine mess of vision. I didn't marry him. Not right away, at least. Instead Charlie Barker moved into the bustling household, newly refurbished, and slightly less cluttered. The library wasn't mine, per say, but I spent a lot more time in there than my employer, who preferred to spend most days either outside or in bed, with rare in betweens. ​​​​​​Jenny tended to float in and out of her house, instead opting to accompany Jackaby on most of the walks, God knows where. She was a vibrant pink whenever she returned from those expeditions, I will say. I asked Charlie once, and he had also noticed that she seemed more... Alive. I gave Douglas better access to the pond. It's quite interesting to observe him in the new pond, still figuring things out. I realized why he had chosen to stay that way, and briefly wished I too was a waterfowl. Briefly. Charlie learned how to make the best tea in all the world, I dare say better than mine. He brought me cups of it throughout the day, and at some point throughout gallons of tea, my butterfly feelings for him faded, replaced with a sense of calm. A sense of home. There was one moment when he brought me a cup of tea late in the evening, and leaned over to kiss my head, when neither of us blushed, and neither of us shyly glanced away. I kissed him back. That's how I knew I loved him. As for I, I changed in some considerable ways after our events. Lucky for me, things were unsettlingly calm for the next two months, a time where I could grab for bearings of the new colors and senses and smells and feelings. I noticed I, however, became grayer. Duller. Sharper around the edges, and now I had perpetual bags under my eyes, even as I smiled. The vision was overwhelming, exhausting, and occasionally made me frustrated enough to break down into tears. I knew I'd have to live with it, though, and if I did get upset, it was away from Jackaby, and away from Jenny. I grew comfortable with Charlie's shoulder. I knew if my employer saw me at those breaking points, he would keep himself up at night, and he'd already done that enough for too many years. It was heartbreakingly beautiful the first time I saw him grin, ear to ear. I don't think I'd ever heard him laugh the way he did just a few weeks after he'd passed the vision on. He was happy. He had color in his cheeks, and a spring in his step, and when he shot me a grin, I knew he truly was enjoying life for what it was. And for me, it was all worth it. What wasn't worth it, were the amount of inside jokes among my three housemates, who dubbed the catchphrase "I didn't die for this". It became something they immediately bonded over, and laughed about, and something else to make me crack a smile and roll my eyes. As the years grew on, we all grew on each other. From the time that Jenny took Charlie to see the things she'd chosen for her wedding (which she insisted I try on her dress), to when Jackaby and I decided to bake a cake (you do not want to hear that story), we were no longer just a group of odd faces. We eventually became a mystery quartet. Oh, how we pissed off Marlowe. We became quite the team, however, where we each played to our strengths, and helped support the others' weaknesses. We had a few bumps in the road, times where we almost died, or got eaten, or got banished from another kingdom, but it was, for the most part, exceptional. The Mystery Quartet wasn't unbeatable by any means. We were just remarkable by all others. Months became years, and cases stacked up, and our friendships and romantics only grew for others in the group. There was one instance where I threw myself in front of Charlie and Jackaby, where I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to flicker out. I could see in the others' faces that they did too. It was another year before Charlie proposed to me. He knew that I knew. Several weeks leading up to it, he'd discussed things with me, desperate to be sure I was involved in our conversations on the matter, but not quite saying when he would ask. He asked when I made us both a cup of tea after a long day. It was one of my favorite memories from there on out, one I could remember almost without the filters of color and smears of emotion. I set a glass down on the table in front of him, sat down beside him, and leaned on him, as he leaned on me, before he whispered: "Please tell me you'll marry me, Abigail." "Of course, Charlie. Of course." I had held onto the ring after he'd been revived, and he never had asked for it back until that moment, only to slide it onto my finger, lean on my shoulder, and drink his tea. We got married in the fall, a few friends attending, among those were Jackaby and Jenny, and Miss Lydia Lee. I wore Jenny's dress. She cried. It was another few years before children even entered our minds, another few years of adventure. Neither Charlie nor I were quite ready to settle down when I became pregnant, and though it turns out that you probably shouldn't be investigating a resurfacing of a certain redcap while six months pregnant, all ended safely. I didn't throw myself headfirst into danger. ​​​​​​ When I held our daughter for the first time, very few were present, among those were Charlie, Jackaby, and Jenny. I let Jackaby hold her. He cried. We raised strong children on 926 Auger Lane, four of them, to be exact. Freckled, curly haired children they were, but they were fiercely kind and stubborn, and I knew that we had gone right somewhere along the lines when our oldest son rescued a wood nymph from certain doom, and his the creature in his bedroom for months. The first expedition our children went on was catastrophic, and that was simply to a fortune teller, so when Jackaby and our oldest daughter returned from her first official dealings with the paranormal, covered in mud, you can bet I asked if anything had been set on fire. There hadn't been, but something that did set alight were my daughter's eyes, at the young age of thirteen. She'd seen things I hadn't until I was well past my thirties, and that scared me. It also instilled confidence, though. My story is never quite over, just as the Seer's isn't. I truly hope when I die, it's long after my children have learned the love and death of life, and that my daughter will be strong when colors blur before her own eyes.

[biggamebrass]

lg anon, i'm so sorry it took me so long to respond! my housemates and i are moving, so it's been really hectic around here. let me respond to your two asks separately.

part 1

last we talked about myself? nothing much is new. i mean, i'm dating a great boy (who isn't the boy i've been talking to you about GASP. more on that later.) and i'm moving to a beautiful new house with my friends, so that's great too! we move tomorrow! ah! i also finished the school year with my beautiful kindergarteners, which is so sad - i miss them so much and i'm already SO bored not having work! having summers off isn't really all that it's thought to be - especially when you can't really travel or do anything with those weeks!

last we talked about the boy? hm. nothing much is new. we didn't talk for the last three weeks at ALL. literally nothing. not a text, a phone call. nothing. so i sent him a message last monday on a complete whim explaining how frustrated and upset i was about it. the gist of the message was that i still feel super strongly about him and always have, and i'm sad that - although i always knew he wasn't ready for anything - what we had turned into what it is now - which is nothing. he didn't respond to it for a couple hours, and then i came back to my phone and had four missed calls from him, and a voicemail. he was so upset i felt that way.

i spoke to him on the phone the next night, and we talked for an hour. the gist of THAT conversation was that he would be lying to himself, and to me, if he didn't tell me that all my strong feelings about him are not fully reciprocal - he feels the same about me. "you're beautiful, you're funny, you're smart, you have a great personality and you're one of the greatest people i've ever met". he said that he feels terrible that just because he's not ready, we stopped talking. he acknowledges that while it's not an excuse, he was busy with work and kind of stopped reaching out. he reassured me that just because we didn't talk, he never stopped thinking about me and would sometimes sit there wondering what i was up to, and he took complete ownership for not reaching out in those moments. he asked me if he ever said, or did, anything that let me to believe that he didn't want to hear from me. he told me that he has never been, and will never be, upset when i reach out. he assured me that i can call or text him WHENEVER, and he will always be stoked to hear from me. he told me that he was really upset and almost cried when he read my message because he never wanted to make me upset or make me feel that way. he told me he wished he was ready, and he sees so so so much potential there with me. he told me more things too, things like his want to have a friendship with me for now, he wants me in his life and he's so happy to know me. i've been beyond patient with him, kind, caring and he told me over and over to never change because he thinks i'm truly the most incredible. that was sweet.

it went on for an hour, but that was the gist. it can all be words, but idk. he's such a great guy and that conversation made me so sad. but at least he's still around. the weeks we didn't talk, i thought that was it, and that it had fizzled and i'd lost him from my life. good to know i haven't?

thank you so much for weighing in about everything i've told you. i think honestly i am okay being friends with him for right now, who knows what the future holds.

that being said, it makes me a little wary about my current relationship, because i'm still sitting here thinking that i'm in it "until this boy is ready", but the boy i'm with is also the most incredible. he's kind,  he knows how frustrated i am with the way my housemates leave my house and he says things like "i'll always keep mine clean so you have somewhere safe and tidy to come to when you feel overwhelmed." he knows i'm stressed about moving, and texted me last night just a simple "good luck tomorrow, you've got this!". things like that. he's hilarious, we have the same sense of humour and both enjoy listening to each other's stupid humour all the time. he buys me incredible dinners, always cooks for me. my housemates went out for vegan ice cream one night when i was at his place, and i was sad i missed it so he took me to the grocery store and bought me a tub of vegan ice cream so i would feel happy. he makes so much time for me - even the original guy, the one i've been talking about, only saw me once a week. i'm not dissing him for that, he has an insane job and is always busy, but this boy makes so so much time for me.

he makes plans too! so many boys don't do that! they just say "hey, wanna hang?" and throw a movie on or something. this boy calls with a plan. let's make dinner. LET'S MAKE THIS SPECIFIC DINNER. and then he'll buy the groceries and come pick me up and we'll make it together and then he'll plan the movie or whatever and just ugh. it feels so nice. he's so cute too, he's come to the door when he's picked me up before and chatted with my housemates which is something most guys DEFINITELY wouldn't do, meet all the friends and all that so quickly, but yeah! they all love him, def support me and him lol esp. after everything i put them through re: boy #1.

anyways, he's great. i'm a little worried about it, because i still 100% believe that if the first boy called me and asked me to forgive him and he was ready, i would def leave and go to him. but maybe that will change, idk. ugh. it makes me feel shitty, i don't want to hurt this boy at all. maybe i shouldn't even be in anything. whatever, we'll see what happens. realistically, i don't think boy #1 will do that anytime soon so it's okay.

part 2

first of all - don't apologize! i'm so glad that although you originally followed me bc derick, you've found another outlet in my blog. that makes me selfishly so happy. i'm glad you've realized that within yourself - that you're not ready for a relationship. we've been talking about that a lot in my house lately. so many people want to be ready because they love love and want love, but sometimes it's important to acknowledge within yourself that you're just not ready for it. no matter what you see in someone. it's especially incredible that you're able to separate your desire for dating and your reasons for dating - which aren't necessarily what they're supposed to be. i think it's human nature to want those things, so don't beat yourself up over wanting it. it's a great idea to want to grow and change that perspective before you find a partner.

you're right, it's great to be one of those people that boys are interested in. i've been there and it's def an ego boost. but at the same time, it's sad because while there's all this interest, you still can't find it within yourself to find someone you're actually compatible with, and then it all means nothing. it's better to do your own thing and wait until someone comes along that TRULY appreciates you. you know?

don't regret the things you've said to friends, or the way you've thought about them or acted. it's great you've taken ownership of the reasons behind why you feel certain ways, and have been able to turn it into hard work for school, and on yourself. that takes a big person! which i already absolutely knew you're capable of!

it's so great that you realize relationships that you may have had were pseudorelationships, its huge to be able to tell the difference. if a boy wants a relationship, or a girl! or a person! you'll know. who knows, maybe you ARE ready to start looking again, now that you're aware of all these flags within yourself.

i'm SO happy to hear that my posts somehow helped. they were meant as just an outlet for me to express my frustration over boys and people, so it's so beautiful to hear that someone out there was actually reading and appreciated. honestly, i don't present myself in a certain way, and who knows? that may be it. boys can certainly pick up on authenticity. the media tells you to act a certain way, present yourself a certain way, as a "woman". but that's not true in regular "real person" life. boys, a move everything, just want someone true to themselves. if that's one thing i can pass on, i'll take it. it's SO important. be yourself, and the true "quality" guys will stick around. :)

(and don't apologize for being envious, you're human. we all are. wow you're amazing.)

i'm sorry that boy was shit. you'll find a good one soon, if you're anything like how you talk to me on here, people will appreciate you SO quick.

NOW onto derick. i'm so thrilled you see him the way i do and really have stuck around to be there for him like i am, it's beautiful. yay! i don't have much to add on what you said, i just absolutely love the way you're worded it and it's all SO true. you're bringing tears to my eyes - yay! i love it, love him, love you!

it's so great to see that people appreciate him for who he is. i get a lot of shit from people when they hear that he's my favourite player because he's a "has been", he's been through "every team in the league lately" etc etc but if you REALLY look, you can see how much value he has.

above it all, i'm so happy that derick was able to serve as that for you - someone to see and understand that no one is ever "done", you just have to stick tot what you want and what you believe you can do, and that good things will come. i'm so happy that you've been able to find a career for yourself that you feel comfortable and good in. yay! i'm so happy for you.

thank you SO much for these messages. you're incredible. always remember that. 💛💛💛💛💛

[vinegarcoffin]

hi folks. im coming back to this account. a lot of things happened. 

this february i ran away from my family’s home to live w/ Sunn (my bf). we were hoping his landlord would let me live there since im his partner and shed previous allowed couples to live there but unfortunately after a week where i was staying there she decided she didnt want me there bc she was very strict about zoning laws and didnt tell anyone abt this beforehand so i was effectively homeless.

i stayed with my friend Earth for abt half a month during which time the landlord was “””deliberating””” whether or not she’d actually let me live there. Sunn and i were sure she’d say yes (she’d indicated such herself) but she decided to spring it on us that, due to laws she never elaborated upon, it was literally illegal for me to live there even though i was his partner and shed allowed partners to stay there before. (i feel i should make it clear that he was living in a separate part of her house that she rented out to people so the laws probably had smth to do with how many people were allowed to live in one house. i still never found out what exactly those laws were and she never elaborated.)

i always had a roof over my head (many times staying illegally w/Sunn and being very sure that his landlord never saw me) but i changed places of residence i think three times during that span of time. it’s very hard to keep count. i was staying (illegally) with three other people (they were aware of my presence and let me stay with them, i just wasnt allowed to) when quarantine happened.

even though I wasnt living with Sunn at that time, i was still able to see him bc my housemates understood the situation and were okay with us breaking quarantine for that reason (we were all rly conscientious abt social distancing and hand-washing and cleaning and that kind of thing), and since i cant drive, i needed someone else to buy my groceries for me, so Sunn would take me on grocery trips with me. and since he had a v small fridge and i didnt have a lot of space for food at the place i was staying, we had to make grocery trips rather often. after going grocery shopping we’d spend some time at either my place or his (ostensibly to put away groceries, really bc we wanted to be around each other because we were both losing our goddamn minds and being around each other was the only thing that gave us any idea where our minds even were.) 

i made another unofficial move after that and then right when i was going to graduate, i moved into what was going to be my official long-term place of residence with another roommate. i didnt get to see Sunn very much during this time and i honestly hated it a lot. the roommate was kind of an unstable person and he didn’t take the pandemic very seriously, which rly scared me, but he was never violent or anything so we just stayed out of each others ways.

during that time i impulsively threw away my benzodiazepines bc i was scared i wouldn’t be able to get my therapist to write me another prescription (this was when healthcare was still closed). withdrawals were shit and i honestly wanted to return to this blog during that time but i’d forgotten the email associated with it (whoops) and couldn’t log in. (i’ve since remembered the email hence why im here.) i stopped self harming the same day too, more or less bc my boyfriend told me to stop. that was really hard bc it was one of my few sources of pleasure and i had barely anything else i enjoyed. Sunn introduced me to 100 gecs during this time and i listened to their album 1000 gecs pretty much every day, sometimes multiple times in a row. i didnt get to sleep til 5 AM most nights bc of withdrawals and insomnia resulting therefrom. 

in May i finally got to start HRT (i was supposed to in March but the doctors at the LGBT center i had gone to to make my appointment decided not to let me because covid). i’ve been on it for three months now. 

i relapsed after a month or so after realizing i was not a functional human when i was sober and i didnt like who i was when i was sober. fortunately by then i’d had a phone meeting with my psychiatrist and she was able to give me another script for klonopin. by that point Sunn had moved into the apartment with me (the agreement was that he’d do so after graduating - we were both graduating that year - the only reason he waited was bc he couldn’t handle moving and his school workload at the same time, which was understandable). he didn’t like that i was relapsing and i disliked it even more but we both understood why i did it and i havent tried to get clean since then and i probably never will.

we were more or less stable and more or less happy for like two months until our roommate - we’d all agreed we’d live there together for at least a year - decided to move in with his partner and left us with absolutely nothing in the way of help w/finding another roommate or anything and no apology at all. 

we tried finding a new roommate and got some promising leads until our roommate dropped on us that he had signed a thirty-day notice for the lease to end and unless we were able to give proof of income (which we hadn’t been required to before but were suddenly required to now ig), we’d have to leave. he told us this ten days after he’d done it. he’d done that w/o our knowledge or consent. we weren’t able to make that happen so we looked into other housing but couldn’t find anything before the day we had to be out.

fortunately Earth and their family were willing to let us stay with them again (they’d recently bought a trailer that they were going to keep in the backyard and rent out to anyone they knew who wanted or needed to stay there). the trailer was sort of a disaster; we had no running water (only bc the water wasn’t working, they didn’t keep us in those conditions on purpose) and the AC died during a historically bad heatwave. the place we had been looking into moving into with a REALLY cool roommate we found that said we would probably get to live there turned us down bc although Sunn had found a job by that point and both the prospective roommate and I both have SSI (we’re both disabled) we didn’t make QUITE enough money for them.

we finally found a place and we moved into it yesterday. we have a roommate whose name is Izzy. they’re very stable and i don’t think they’re going to do anything awful. i’m afraid of them but that’s just bc i’m afraid of just about everyone i don’t know too well. Sunn’s at work three days of the week (he works from home two of the weekdays and he gets weekends off) and i’m here to cope with the isolation and also reblog trauma stuff that i don’t feel comfortable reblogging on my main blog. i think that’s all i have to say.

[persional]

im only getting drunker and im outta content so im gonna write a post for sober me to stumble upon one fateful day and the post is gonna be about laurel i really miss them and i dont know where we stand at all im really bad at casual unlabeled things i was bad at polyamory im bad at it ! i realized recently we had 2 first kisses and they called the 2nd one “the real one” im in l*ve maybe not really but i keep thinking i think bc it’s conditioned in me i don’t like the time before you get to say i love you why cant i just tell everyone i love them all the time except like friends that im not that close to who will just say it like thats not ideal. they said and then repeated that they want to see me as soon as they get back and it’s like that reassurance i keep coming back to and i hate being the one to always text back but most of it is im fucking bored theres like 3 people left here who will voluntarily hang out with me. im so glad i dont lie that takes so much of the weight off of my social interactions to just be like yeah im gonna tell the truth rn. the first time we had s*x laurel said promise me one thing just promise me you won’t break me into a billion tiny pieces just promise me you won’t lie to me. and i was like i have some extremely good news for you because i only ever lie to myself. i like them a lot. a Lot. kissing them feels like being on a roller coaster which i know because i went on a roller coaster a few weeks ago and as we started to freefall i thought this is exactly what it feels like to kiss laurel. i feel like their name shouldn’t be capitalized so that way the beginning can be the same as the end like a marble rolling around in your mouth that starts and then ends right on the tip of the tongue even though technically one is a light L and the other is a dark /l/. im drinking my last four loko tonight and hoping to get schwasted and hoping to stop needing to drink in order to go to sleep soon. not my last of all time i should clarify just the last one we have in the fridge. savannah gets back on tuesday late night on tuesday and laurel gets back at some point on wednesday im not sure what time and im afraid to ask i think i’ll ask just a day or two before so there’s kind of... because savannah and i are planning to hang out a lot that day and also to get dinner with savannah’s cousins and although i dont think it would be the end of the world if i left in the middle of dinner it obviously won’t be ideal. im listening to my cancer season playlist and honestly it’s really good. i really don’t want to eat this apple pie i’d rather just have another quesadilla or better yet some fried rice. i guess i could microwave more peanut noodles but i kind of hate those at this point like theyre a little disgusting no ? i started writing this post bc i saw a post about someone’s favorite thing about girls they said it was ‘the way they stroke you’ and i thought about us holding hands and holding each other and their freckles and the coconut oil on their face and how their eyes are brown in the center and green on the edges  and how i don’ t deserve any of it im not sure if we’re anything close to dating but i still strongly contest savannah’s assertion that she thinks it’s just physical theyve said ‘i really like you (too)’ they said ‘i romanticize you’ they came to me house after i made that song, that song got me laid and i think about that all the time and it’s not like we always have sex sometimes we just sleep together in the same bed and i feel so real with them it’s so hard to feel like im not just slipping into the version of myself that somebody wants me to be and i realized after a year with adrianne i realized there are parts of myself that i’m putting on which aren’t parts of me at all there are parts of me! there is a height to the frequency to my voice! there is a demureness because she wants a woman and i can’t be butch and hers at the same time but i don’t feel like that now and im trying really hard to be real and i hope theyre doing the same i hope theyre not... once they came over with another friend after a party and once our friend left and we were kissing on the couch they started crying and i just wanted them to feel safe it’s so rare that someone is crying and you actually get to hold them. they were crying and im thinking about duck butter now because it’s usually me who isn’t real even if im not lying im not being myself and this time it’s not me so it can only be them and i never know how they feel or what they’re thinking and they’ll say something like uh yeah i like you or they’ll kiss me, once i was kissing them goodbye as i left their house and their housemate saw us it was so funny and also the first time anyone else has seen us kiss idk im not sure where we stand i asked about it probably too early when we were high i said what is this what are we doing and they said i don’t know but i like it. so like i really don’t know and i gave them a chance and i don’t know what to do like maybe they really think it is just a physical thing and they feel roped in but there have been times when they said things that absolutely were not required and i was like oh Hm? im just trying to be fucking real but theyre not great at communicating,, fucking air signs am i rite, theyre a gemini and i think about that all the time how ive dated 2 pisces and 2 leos, we don’t know each other which savannah has pointed out and the thing is im sure savannah is like just concerned for me but it comes off as if she’s not supportive of the relationship at all and im worried that shes jealous idk i know there are a lot of people who like laurel bc uhhh theyre hot and incredible and smart and hilarious and. everything god theyre such gf material. im so alone rn no one will even fav mine tweets. im a huge fan of the improv comedy team at our school, they recently changed their name to princess wolfpipe which is objectively a bad name but before it was fellatio rodriguez yeah porn bots get at me, anyway they didnt like that it was like 5 whiteys with the name rodriguez attached to it which is fair like very woke very reed of you sure. hhhhhhhhhh i just remembered they read my anthro essay and like.,, had sex with me After that. god. hell. wow. i must not be that bad at essays after all even the ones i half-ass. chrome is underlining so many of the words in this post little do they know im a linguist and a literature major. anyway i think i could be drunk enough now to admit ive not eaten pussy in like a week and it is in fact wearing on me at this point like im literally that tweet about the person stirring som e mac n cheese and passing out but it’s been honestly a week if that they left on the 3rd right so ya 8 days. ok i feel less bad about that bc i also definitely hadnt **ten them **t like that day i dont think we had rly like giggly sex at their house i think the night before and i drove them to work early in the morning and theyre so nice to me they know to wake me up with kisses which is so important bc im so... im so fucked i like them so much but im also just a fucked up person and i dont deserve thme. i should get alcohol prescribed for me. for sleep. and social anxiety. made a tweet about it, deleted it. made a quesadille! ated it !, imagine if i didnt eat so much especially while drunk. my body wants me to be huge but i want to be dead i want to be nothing. words are so bad whoever invented words im sure theyre dead they shoul be revived and shot again. ok so im eve drunker now and i’d like to say i want to hear them come again honestly i want to literally put my tongue insid eof them and hear them say my name i want to hold the folds of skin around their hips i want to hear them gasp i want to taste them i want everything i want to stroke their hands and kiss their fingers and their forehead i miss them so much i hate being physically far from everyone i love i want to sleep in their bed i want to fall asleep with our arms wrapped around one another unless i have to turn away and they understand adrianne never understood. i want them i really hope they still like me it would be so fucking sad for the chemistry to only go this way likea reaction that only goes inreverse so we’re left in the end with these raw materials like. like oil and water that can never relaly combine? like two molecules that can only lie next to one another but will always spring apart. i love their house i love their housemates i love the way they offered to make a powerpoint about food waste i love their goat milk and asiago cheese and cabbage pancakes fried rice i love the face they make when i run my fingernails over their scalp i love their voice i love their favorite shirt because it’s several sizes too big and all their clothes are black im not as much of who i am as they are and im not sure i ever will be because it’s willpower and money and i need to find other things in my life to want other than people who will always leave because literature tells us desire is always more than we think it will be and we will always be creating these overexaggerated versions of what ife will really be i need to finish proust i need to make somebody come i need to see their mouth open i need to kiss them i need cherries and enchiladas i need the ants and fruit flies to get the hell out of my house i need more alcohol and higher blood pressure and to divorce my family. how long does it take to be disowned. do i owe it to the people around me . i want kiss i want the moment when they came into my house on their fucking??? lunch break to kiss me and say yeah remember when kim kardashian posted a selfie and kanye west said hey im coming home now. and they pushed me up against the wall and their fucking fingers, i got my vibrator out afterwards and ive had to use it a few times since just thinking of us and the dream their housemate had where they came in and said hey stop having such loud sex even though it was really okay god almighty we should have louder sex this post is paragraphs long and it’s probably all my thoughts but im gonna keep going because i think about their fingers and their skin and mouth and voice and freckles theres no way they think about me this much im fucking pathetic i should probably kill msefl no one thinks about anything this much. but then again i guess i don’t it’s just condensed i have other things to do just what do i Enjoy thinking about it’s fucking being gay and tlaking to them listening to their music hearing them talk about having to lie down because of a fiona apple song such a fucking mistake to get involved with me no im the fucking worst im that fucking crazy girlfriend who won’t let go from the moment you lead me on im ucking hooked it’s so pathetic im extremely drunk just as a disclaimer for anyone who finds this. thats probably enought.