#if I had every day free at my computer I'd probably be doing this more

[segreid-persona-builder]

Sorry I've been taking kind of a break from this blog btw! Because of the fact that I can only easily link to archived coining posts on desktop, that only leaves me about two days a week to be able to get stuff done, and sometimes I want to use those days for rest or my other hobbies instead!

[doyoulikethis-videogame-song]

Hello,

I'd just like to clarify a few things going forward, because I think a few people might be upset or confused, and this is a silly gimmick blog, so I don't think there's any need for that.

I post submissions exclusively in the order I receive them. I have only added or inserted songs in three cases:

The first two songs posted on this blog.

#69, where I inserted 'Weight of the World' from NieR:Automata.

The song would not upload to tumblr, and I have typically replaced it with a random fromsoftware song off the top of my head, because I already have the OSTs on my computer.

When I receive multiple songs from the same game in a row, I try my best to space them out between multiple songs. This has typically been every 4-6 songs in the past. I am going to extend this number further as it appears to be a source of frustration for some. When I space out songs, I do not consider DLCS/Extras as new games, so they will be spaced out. I DO consider new entries in a series as new games, so they will not be spaced out. This means you may get a song from Dark Souls I and Dark Souls II right next to one another, but never two songs from Dark Souls I.

I also understand that many are upset that their submission has not been posted yet. At the time of creating the google form, I already had the first 1000 slots of this blog lined up. I now have 4581 additional submissions from the google form, so please understand that it will probably take me a while to reach your submission.

As for how I should remedy this:

Posting more songs each day. I am planning to increase the number of songs I post each day soon. However, I would strongly prefer to not exceed more than five songs a day. This is entirely a personal preference: I often found myself annoyed when my feed was filled with nothing but polls from the same blog, that would post 7, 10, 15 polls a day or even within the same time slot. I love poll blogs, but I also wanted to be able to enjoy taking the time to listen to the music on each one. I created this blog primarily because I wanted to hear new music and find out about new games I've never heard about before, and I wanted others to share that experience. In my opinion, if you don't have the time to listen to each song posted, then it sort of defeats the gimmick of the blog itself. That being said, I will increase the number of songs posted sometime within the next two weeks.

Closing Submissions. I did not want to ever have to close submissions (because I didn't really see a reason to if I was going to post all the submissions eventually), but I now understand it may now be necessary. Starting on 9/7/2024, I am going to close the submissions box, and I am going to reopen it for the first week of each month, every month, only. The google form will remain the only way to submit requests. Hopefully, this will allow individuals who are especially excited to see their request posted gain a bit of an upper hand.

In the end, there is only so much I can do. I am only one person and I do have a life of my own. I am very happy so many people are enjoying this blog, and I will continue posting for as long as I can. If you are not enjoying this blog for any reason, feel free to unfollow it, block it, and make your own. It's nothing personal.

[greenwitchfromthewoods]

tacos. l Marcus Moreno

Summary: he would like to invite you for a drink

Warnings: none, just fluff, sweet words, mention of alcohol, mention of pregnancy

A/N: I think this guy deserves everything sweet and good. I wanted something boring, I got it. scribbles.

He didn't know when exactly it all started. Only after some time did he notice that the shiver running down his spine at the sight of you was not the beginning of spine problems, but something else. This scared him a little. Back problems would be better than emotions he wasn't ready for.

After a short time, "those chills" were accompanied by speech problems. Every time you talked he felt like he was talking nonsense and he definitely started stuttering a few times. Even Missy noticed this when she visited her father at work a few times.

"You should go out with her." she said, looking at her dad with amusement. "Otherwise you might have a heart attack or something."

Marcus looked at his daughter from behind the computer screen, where he tried to hide his embarrassment at his behavior. He had just introduced his daughter to you for the third time, although not long ago you had taken her to a nearby ice cream parlor while he had an urgent meeting.

"Stupid idea." he muttered, "Besides, you're too young to even talk to me about such things. Too much TV!"

"My classmates have more courage than the Heroic leader." Missy grumbled under her breath and disappeared behind the book. "Ask her. She likes you too."

Marcus cleared his throat, pretending that his daughter's words had no effect on him at all. But that was a lie. He tried to focus on the screen, but he couldn't see anything because her words kept ringing in his head: "She likes you too." Marcus Moreno felt he was in trouble.

Only after a few days did the opportunity arise for him to talk to you and try to do what his daughter was talking about. You were sitting in the cafeteria eating your lunch when Moreno hesitantly approached you.

"Free?" he asked, pointing to the chair next to you.

"Yeah, sure. What's up?" you smiled, "Tough week, huh?"

"A little. Listen, Y/N." Marcus shifted in his chair. "Miracle Guy invited everyone out for drinks this evening. Are you going?"

"I don't know." you replied, digging into your plate with your fork. "I don't know if I want a drink or a hot bath and some nice music."

Too much information!

"I see."

"But if you want to go and you don't have anyone to leave Missy with, I'll be happy to sit with her. It's no problem."

"I... What? That's not what I meant." Marcus laughed nervously, "I thought... B-Because if you w-wanted to go, I'd love to... B-But if you d-don't want to. That's fine. M-Maybe I'll just..."

A small frown appeared between your eyebrows as you tried to understand what exactly Moreno was trying to tell you.

"Is everything okay, Marcus?" you asked with concern.

"Everything's fine. Why do you ask?"

"Because you started stuttering and I don't understand at all what you want to tell me."

He adjusted his glasses and shuffled his shoes. He was clearly stressed, but it was so cute it made you smile.

"I..." he choked out, but that was probably all he could manage.

"Would you like to go for that drink with me?" you asked, saving him from his problem.

"I'd love to." he replied on an exhale, "But what about your bath and nice music?"

"It can wait.

He stretched with a quiet sigh and rubbed his face with his hands. At first he didn't know what woke him up, but when he looked at the other side of the bed he immediately understood. He was alone.

He got up and put on his glasses and started looking for his lost treasure.

"Baby?" he muttered hoarsely as he walked to the bathroom door, "Are you in there?"

The door was slightly ajar and he could see faint light. It was still dark in the bedroom, so it must have been early.

Marcus hesitantly walked in and a smile immediately appeared on his face. He noticed you lying in the bathtub, there was a pleasant scent in the air, a mixture of a bath bomb and some kind of relaxation candle.

You had your eyes closed and your airpods in your ears, so you couldn't have known that he had walked into the bathroom and found you in this pleasant situation.

Every day he found himself thinking at least once about how beautiful you were and how lucky he was to have you in his life. The fear that he was no longer suitable for relationships and love was overwhelming for him. He was completely focused on being there for Missy, and now he had you too.

Marcus walked over to the bathtub and crouched down. Still nothing. Only when he brushed a clumsy lock of your hair did you open your eyes and look at him, charmingly sleepy.

"Hi." you whispered, taking your headphones out of your ears. “Why aren't you sleeping? Did I wake you up?”

"Naah. I guess I missed having you around." replied "Are you having fun?"

"I couldn't sleep. I wanted to relax a bit."

"It's been happening to you a lot lately." Marcus remarked, "Do you think that's..."

"It's normal. Totally normal." you interrupted him by ruffling his messy hair with your wet hand. “Don’t panic.”

"I'm not panicking!"

"Mhm. You're just caring, aren't you?"

He took your hand in his and kissed the back of it tenderly. It always made you emotional, and it was the same this time. Marcus was the giver of your most heartwarming moments. And for some time there have been more and more of them.

"What are you listening to?"

"I don't even know." you replied quickly and he immediately frowned and looked around for your phone. You didn't have time to stop him because he already glanced at the screen.

"Ohh! Baby, really?" he looked at you in disbelief. “We talked about it. You shouldn't do that.”

"True crime podcasts are just so addictive." you replied innocently, "Just a few episodes."

"You're starting to scare me." Marcus shook his head in disbelief.

He peppered your shoulder with kisses, making you tickle. He put his hand into the water to check if it was warm enough, but the temperature seemed to be satisfactory.

"How long will you stay here?"

"Why do you ask? Are you afraid I'll swell up like a sponge?"

"You won't get any bigger, will you? Is that even possible?"

"Marcus!"

Your husband laughed and narrowly avoided your hand that tried to grab him.

"How can you talk like that to a woman who is carrying your child?!" you were outraged, although you wanted to laugh with him. “You have no heart, Morena!”

"You know that for me you are always the most beautiful in the world. In any size."

He moved closer and put his hand in the water again, but this time he found your rounded belly. It delighted him every time, no matter if he was looking at you or touching the place where his son was growing. The baby moved as if it sensed his presence.

"He's been more and more active lately at night." you sighed, "I'll soon turn into an owl."

"As long as you don't bring dead mice to our bed, I think we'll be fine. The deadline is getting closer every day."

he chuckled, "Are you hungry? I could make you something."

"I feel like tacos."

Moreno tilted his head and looked at you in disbelief. Every day he was grateful that you went for that drink back then, but now he felt like he had achieved some level of mastery. He didn't know he could ever be so happy again.

Missy loved you, and you absolutely adored her, and when the two women he loved were so close, what more could he want. His mother was over the moon that he had finally found a woman who gave him such happiness.

If this was heaven, he wanted to stay here forever.

"Okay. Get up, baby." he said, reaching for a plush towel. "Let's do this. Let's go out for tacos."

"Are you sure?" your eyes widened and a smile lit up your face.

"Who cares? My woman wants to eat, it's my responsibility to meet her needs."

You got out of the tub with a little help from Marcus and wrapped a towel around yourself. Now he could easily hug you and kiss your soft lips.

It was good. It was great. It was addictive.

Every day was not enough for him. With you he wanted more and more. He felt as if his heart was about to explode.

"I love you, baby. You know that, right?"

"I know." you stroked his cheek tenderly, “And it goes both ways.”

☆☆☆

Thank you for your time.

[rearranged-fanfic]

(Update 6/3)

Sit down a spell, weary traveler. Come and sit by my fire; bask in the warmth of the flame and rest your aching scrolling finger. You'll be sitting a while, for I have a tale to tell:

Okay, so I've had a Toshiba laptop for the better part of ten years. Maybe a little longer. That laptop has survived being struck by lightning, submerged in a bathtub, and literally having a whole bookcase topple down onto it. I thought it was immortal...

I was sadly mistaken.

About six months ago, I noticed that the typing was getting sluggish. I'd patter away at the keyboard and the letters would appear with a bit of lag. That's fine, since I use Dragon to talk-to-text for quite a bit of my writing. I really only use the keyboard for final assembly, editing, and doing quick rewrites. So, it really didn't bother me. Fastforward to April, which we will call The Great Depression. The time discrepancy between typing and having letters appear on screen became a whopping 40 seconds. Yes, I timed it.

But that was okay, because I could still use my Dragon headset.

Until I couldn't.

It would connect, but the words wouldn't appear on screen. I made sure that all of my programs were up-to-date, and that everything was working. The headset connected to my family's computers just fine. So that meant it was something wrong with mine.

Without being sure if it was the hardware or software at fault, I backed everything up to OneDrive and Google Docs.

I factory reset.

Twice. To no avail.

Over the next few days, my laptop stopped registering any keyboard input at all. It got to a point where I wasn't able to turn it on or off.

Taking it to an electronics store to get repaired didn't help, either. No luck. They said that it would be more cost effective to just buckle down and get a new one, since the age of the laptop meant that I would probably be constantly maintaining it.

My poor Toshiba died kicking and screaming, putting up a fight worthy of an epic ballad.

I saved up for a few weeks, got a new laptop, and went through the rigmarole of getting all of my programs back on it. My files are in order. My life is in shambles (but that's normal, LOL).

I DID do some story work without my computer, but... it's bad. Like, I'd die in shame if I posted anything that I thumbed in. So. Many. Spelling. Errors. How people write on their phone is beyond me. That's a talent I simply don't possess.

At this point, I'm thinking of renaming this story "HIATUS" lol. JK. But I'm seriously peeved that this happened after my last big break. Why couldn't the Depression and laptop breakdown coincide nicely? I guess that's too much to ask of the universe *Shakes fist at the sky*.

I'm creating a damn bingo card for every stupid thing that happens to me while I try to write. Because this is getting ridiculous. I broke my fingers, there was a total solar eclipse, I had a major-ish mental breakdown, and my computer bit the big one. With a free space, that's a bingo. Let's hope I don't get a blackout before the end of 2024.

I doubted the fanfiction curse. I really did. But it's apparently real. And this writer's curse has teeth, people. It bites hard.

I have my MerMay two-shot pretty well done (because I was typing it during The Great Depression), but the next chapter for REARRANGED is still rough. Crimson Chapter 3 is halfway done, but who knows how long that'll take.

The bottom line is that I'm alive and still working on the stories. The next update on this blog will be the posting of several chapters for a few different works. Fingers crossed.

Also, I'm very, very slowly answering the comments in my AO3 inbox. Some of them were pretty lengthy, so it might take a bit. Oof.

If there ever comes a time that I drop this fanfiction or am unable to continue for whatever reason, either I or my husband will be posting the entirety of my outline, as well as anything that's been pre-written for you guys to enjoy. That way there are no questions left unanswered or mysteries unsolved.

[diobrandosbitch]

I'm humbly requesting something for our melon man Melone. I don't know if you do just gn!reader but I'd like female reader if that's okay;;; Say he made reader mad about something but didn't apologize cause he thinks he's in the right. So they leave the house they live in together and he figures they'll just come back the next day after cooling down. But they don't. And not for probably another 3-4 days either. They were just THAT upset because the subject was something sensitive to them and he offended them. They needed that time away. But then happens that downward spiral in situations like this as the days go on. They haven't texted + called him and he can't use Babyface because he doesn't have the proper kind of sample he needs. So he's left wondering if they're okay. They come back of course, this isn't some run away from home or kidnap thing;;; just a real bad spat where Mel was a dumb dumb. I'm sorry if I was too specific with this chdjwndkchd. I'd like if this was an imagine but I don't mind headcanons instead if you wanna do that 👉👈

Sorry this took forever, but im back in the game now. It may be a little rough, but that's what happens when you stop writing lol. Anyways, If you enjoy this please feel free to leave more la squadra asks. Im obsessed with these men. (prolly ooc)

Melone sat at his desk, tapping erratically at the keyboard of his computer. His hair was unkempt from the numerous times he ran his fingers through it, bloodshot eyes, and gritted teeth as he tried to focus after one too many sleepless nights. His once cold, and calculated exterior, now threatened to come apart at the seams.

What if she had been captured by the boss? What if she was in trouble? All these questions plagued his mind, but one stood out.

What if she’s never coming back? 

“Damn it all!” He swiped the machine off the table, head in his hands. He doesn’t even remember what the argument was about in the first place. He should have just set aside his pride and apologized; after all, she made it so stupidly clear how much it hurt her.

“Where could she be?”  All efforts to find her had been exhausted, even babyface was futile as he never took a sample from her per request. The one time he agreed to something like that and of course this is the outcome. Logically, it had only been three days, sure a lot could happen in that time, but it's not like it was a week. Yet here he is, his body threatening to cave in to every emotion he’s been trying to bottle up.

“What do i-”

Keys began jingling on the other side of the door, locks turning causing Melone to jump and whip his head to that direction. The door slowly creaked open, which caused his heart to drum in his chest faster than he thought possible.

“Melone? You here?” He shot up from his chair, catching the leg with his foot and stumbling over it.

“Shit! Melone are you okay?” She rushed over to him, dropping her bags as she did so.

When she was close enough he pressed his face into her torso as he held her tight.

“Im sorry. Im so sorry i should have thought about what I was saying, I should have realized it was upsetting you, I- Im so sorry just please don’t leave me.” She smoothed his hair, raking her fingers gently through it. She looked around, taking note of the disheveled look of the room that perfectly mirrored the man in front of her.

“I didn’t realize my leaving would affect you like this. I just needed to clear my head for a few days and I didn’t want to say something I would regret. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She lowered herself to be face to face with him on the ground, cupping his face in her hands. 

“I suppose we’re both terrible when it comes to emotions, wouldn’t you say, bella?” She let out a half-hearted laugh, nodding her head.

All of the repressed emotions he held onto came through as tears began flowing down his face freely. She wiped them away with her thumbs and he nuzzled into her touch.

“I was so afraid you weren’t coming back. So much was going through my mind, amore mio.” 

“I’m here now, Mel. And I'm not going anywhere.”He placed a long kiss to her palm and she smiled softly, leaning forward to meet him in a kiss, letting out all negative emotions, all worry fading. He pulled back, gazing at her features with soft eyes and mouth agape as he took in the sight of her.

“You’re beautiful, Tesoro.”  

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

(feel free to ignore this one b/c there's too much asexual complaining/hopelessness in this lol)

Sometimes I'm like "I'm not a real asexual" because I worked really hard not to be one.

I don't believe there's a way I can have a happy life if I don't fix myself. I tried to act like it doesn't bother me but it does. I was so sick of feeling like something was dead inside of me that was alive and well in everyone else. It was destroying me, depressing me, it was too much.

Idk how to say this but at some point I had to fix myself and grow up. I'm in my 30s and I have to compromise or become a different person or else I'm gonna get left. No kids, no ring, no nothing. And that's not the life I want. That's not the life I can afford! My friends are all getting married off and sharing expenses. Soon, I'll have no more roommates. Perpetual rejection can lead me right in to homelessness.

I worked HARD to train myself out of asexuality after 14 years of regular arousal training and making myself be in normal relationships. And when I finally feel like I'm a normal person and I can leave this behind me, someone will complain about not having sex in a few weeks and I will blue screen like a broken computer. Like what do you mean that upsets you.

My desires will never be that strong no matter what I do. I could never get MAD or pent up because I haven't..... used someone else's body for pleasure. No matter what I do, I don't feel like I need it need it need it. I'm just not built to slobber all over another person and have that be most of my personality.

The asexual in me is very okay that I don't live like that, that I don't actually have those strong desires. But real life situations I get into every day remind me I must be broken. No one I've met in the wild relates to what I feel inside. No one. Just people online that's it. And that hurts so much more soooooooo so much more. I feel like the biggest freak on the planet. I hate this shit.

And, I feel like I have to sign up for another ten years of arousal training trying to fix myself even more until I get it because I can't support myself on a single income household in ten years I just can't. I need to be partnered with someone who isn't going to cheat on me and leave me in the dust because of who I am. And I can't handle false positivity with that because it has happened to me 8 times. One of my exes suggested surgery or drugs or conversion therapy and I hate that I'm considering fixing myself medically but I feel too burnt out and hopeless to not try it.

I'm so sorry you're going through such a difficult time, Anon. And it can legitimately be very hard to be asexual. One big thing though I'd like to point out is you keep talking about how you're wrong, but all the problems you point out are societal. Society makes it hard to thrive when you're single (both financially and socially), society makes it hard to have less conventional looking relationships. You are not the problem, Anon, the way our current society is built is the problem. It's external, not internal. And it can feel like you need to fix yourself, but you'll always be reaching because at the end of the way society will always still be the part that's actually broken.

I know you've probably heard people speak out against conversion therapy (and it is still conversion therapy when you're doing it to yourself), but one of the big issues with it that doesn't get mentioned as much is that it doesn't work. You just can't change who you are on such a fundamental level. And people go through these therapies and usually all they accomplish is becoming more traumatized and more confused. I know this is difficult, Anon, but this isn't a viable long term solution.

What I would really encourage you to do is find someone to talk to, it sounds like money is tight, but you can take advantage of free mental health services like 7 Cups, The Trevor Project, which are queer and asexual friendly. And they will help you navigate not just how to find self-acceptance, but financial planning and life planning. Even if you don't feel ready for this yet, please do keep this resource in mind.

There are other aces out there, it seems like there's not because once again we live in a society that keeps our orientation from us, and therefore keeps us from each other. I live in a city of 50k people, that means, even if we go by the most conservative estimates, there's at least 500 other aces in my city alone. Our orientation is kept from us, and a lot of aces don't even know there's a word for their experiences and a community. And this may sound like more hopelessness, but the other side of this is that asexuality is becoming more well known all the time, more local communities are starting to appear. Sometimes people can find other aces through local lgbtq+ chapters or Pride events. Sometimes there's an in-person asexual meetup group near you. Some major dating apps now let you put your orientation as asexual and filter for other aces. Even outside of dating, connecting to the asexual community can be really healing.

Sometimes it can seem like you're the only one, and because of how ingrained it is in society dating and sex go together, allosexual people who we date can sometimes act in a way that makes us feel like what we want isn't possible. If this happens multiple times in a row, our brains are pattern based, you hit this wall enough time, your brain says 'there is no going through this wall', and it will feel true whether it is or not.

Another thing you should consider looking into is what government programs exist in your city/state/province/territory/country. A lot of time there's financial resources out there that aren't very well advertised, especially if you're in a lower income. And often they depend on people seeking them out themselves. It won't hurt to do a few google searches or check what local organizations exist.

I know this is probably a lot, and I things probably feel very bleak for you right now, Anon. Unfortunately you can't flip a switch and suddenly accept yourself, you can't just fix society and wealth inequality. My advice would be though to try and take things one step at a time. And don't be afraid to reach out. And feel free to send as many asks here as you like too.

Take care, Anon!

[seth-burroughs]

yakou for the ask meme? (i also hate what the fandom has done to him so i trust your rc opinions. keep up the good work)

Thank you anon I'll do my best🙏

Yakou:

favorite thing about them

How he's a fucking loser but pulled off the most elaborate murder plan just to get revenge for his Dead Wife and stabbed Dr. Huesca not once but like three times and was fine with dying afterwards if it meant that bitch is gonna die too. And now he's stuck with him in the restricted area for an indefinite period. Oh well

Not my actual favourite thing about him (because I cannot choose man) but I really wanted to point it out because I don't see enough people talk about the sheer BLOODLUST that guy had in chapter 4 like holy shit good for him I think he should be allowed to kill murder & destroy whoever he wants

least favorite thing about them

Nothing comes to mind, I'd say he got underutilized but that's the case with most of the characters here tbh (mdarc feels kinda rushed 😔😔) and Yakou is not THAT bad compared to the peacekeepers it's like. It's fine!

favorite line

Can't really pick, probably the chat Yuma had with him in the prologue, but there are a lot

brOTP

Him and the NDA, but especially Yuma his best pal buddy bro ziomek morda mordeczka Yuma who never remembers to get the fucking groceries.

OTP

none tbh

nOTP

Uhhhhhhhh yakou/seth, yakou/yomi. honestly i'm not big on any Yakou ships can't imagine him in a healthy romantic relationship (viviakou toxic sludge is fine though)

random headcanon

Makes the best fucking spaghetti sauce you ever ate in your entire life. But he puts like an entire garlic in it and you can choke to death on the smell. Also he's a trans man. Usually I don't really hc male characters as trans men etc (rather I go the other way, like a canonically female character being a trans man, non-binary et cetera) but both he and Vivia fit the vibes so! Let's goooooo.

unpopular opinion

I HATE HATE HATE the common fandom hc of Yakou being a father figure to Yuma or the whole NDA or to any character. The vibes aren't aligning on that one, he's their extremely tired boss/acquaintance/pal/best pal that lets them do terrible things to his budget if they torment him hard enough. And also because I constantly see Yuma getting treated like a 12 year old, no guys he doesn't need an adult male role model and father figure, he needs his 6ft tall 1000+ years old death god gf back from the book and to explore his much more attractive rich and successfull perfect homunculus clone's body that'll fix him I believe.

Also: I'm all for NDA found family (even if we didn't get much of them from the actual game...) but please stop making them like. a nuclear mom dad and their beautiful two children family it doesn't have to conform to any rigid roles pleaseee sometimes you're found family and fuck each other it's FINE jeuss. I was about to say something but I'm having a real one right now qhat what I forgot what I typed I suggest you forget too.

Anyway him and Yuma play minecraft together they pull of the most complicated redstone mechanisms and once every few days his house gets burned down by Desuhiko who logs into Yuma's computer while he isn't looking. He always leaves behind a very visible trail of cheeto dust on the keyboard however Yuma would never snitch on the boy that makes him warrior cats pride pfps free of charge so he just tells Yakou it's a hacker

song i associate with them

Generic old songs on the radio. I don't have any

favorite picture of them

h-HELLO???

[lastweeksshirttonight]

A few months ago, I was talking with @tellthemeerkatsitsfine and brought up the casual idea of rewatching Last Week Tonight in its entirety and blogging about it. She told me she thought that would be a great idea, and thus, my brain immediately started panicking. "People will SEE your LONGFORM WRITING! You might have to be VULNERABLE and OPEN and people might see you as more than a Pez dispenser for John Oliver content!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!!" My anxiety is clearly very fun and very logical.

Anyways, the idea lay dormant, held at bay by anxiety, until recently - I have a brand new computer, free time, and a real desire to try and write something more substantial than "i cannot" on this blog. For real, my longform writing is not that bad! I hope.

With that context out of the way, here goes a new experiment for me - revisiting every past episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Will this be any good? Who fucking knows. But we're doing it. Strap in.

Last Lee Tonight (wherein Lee rewatches Last Week Tonight for an undetermined and probably nonexistent audience) Season One, Episode One

(original air date: 4/27/2014) Major topics covered: POM Wonderful vs. Coca-Cola; the 2014 Indian election; the NSA

"Welcome, welcome, welcome... to whatever this is."

My enduring memory of Last Week Tonight starting is my mom calling me and angrily asking me why "that guy you like" was on a billboard, like I'd personally been responsible for him getting his own HBO show. I don't know why she was so angry about it, I just remember responding with something along the lines of, "maybe other people think he's hot too?"

Going back and watching this first episode now is extremely weird. As you can probably tell from the list of topics covered above, the show hadn't yet settled into its now famous format, and instead bounced from topic to topic like an R-rated Daily Show. It's not a terrible idea for a show structure. There's some clunkiness to this early iteration of LWT because of it, especially given that there's no commercial breaks to aid with transitions, but it's perfectly watchable. Its weirdness lies almost entirely in the fact that I (and everyone else watching it now) know it's going to become something very different very quickly.

It starts like most LWT episodes start now, with a recap of random shit that happened last week. There's a lot going on in this section - John talks about the banner week for "unrepentant racists and recording devices" as he briefly covers Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy, multiple popes being canonized as saints, and Obamacare websites failing to meet demand. This is a very 2014 series of headlines and they are blasted through in about 5 minutes. Weirdly, John doesn't devote any space to what Cliven Bundy actually said to piss people off that week (and if you aren't familiar with Cliven Bundy, the man is rancid so it could have been a lot of different things), but does show a clip of him being introduced on a morning show holding a dead cow. As you do.

The breakneck speed of this episode is startling coming from our current LWT state. The Obamacare website bit, which takes about 3 minutes in total including the Lisa Loeb cameo, is the kind of thing that they would spend 20+ minutes on in future seasons/episodes. I do love Lisa Loeb and forgot she sang a song on LWT telling Oregon how much their Obamacare website sucks. (One of my favorite songs of all time is "Falling in Love". You should give it a spin.)

From there, we go into the 2014 Indian Election (and, briefly, the 2016 Presidential Election, which, at the time, was 926 days away. JEB!), which had only been discussed on the McLaughlin Report at the time despite being the biggest election on the planet. Its primary focus is the two leading candidates, Rahul Gandhi, described by John as "wow that guy is handsome", and Narendra Modi. John does something intriguing with this piece - it starts very jokey and surface-level before taking a hard turn into discussing Modi's potential involvement in a literal massacre of thousands. I wish John did this more often nowadays. I get that it's probably hard to execute when everyone expects LWT to be the most depressing 'comedy' on television, so a sudden swerve like that is far more expected, but it was a really deft turn that clearly left the in-studio audience unsure of how to react. Moments like that are worth seeking out.

A moment that has occupied my brain since I saw this nearly ten years ago - "how dare you say I take money? How dare you say I take money? How dare you say I take money? How -"

Our first "And Now This" is John McCain telling the same joke about Russia over and over and over again. Repetition is a secret theme of this episode.

We now move on to Pom Wonderful vs. Coca-Cola, or "why two beverages are fighting each other in the highest court of the land". I'm calling this segment Pom Wonderful vs. Coca-Cola bc of its Wikipedia designation, but this segment is far more about food labeling, a subject near and dear to my celiac-ridden ass. Pomegranates, as it turns out, cannot help you cheat death, and Minute Maid has less than 1% pomegranates in their pomegranate juice. The kind of health claims companies make with their foods are still batshit, and it's wild that I have to struggle through reading whole lists of ingredients to try and find gluten while companies pretend their Pop-Tarts are actually beneficial to anyone. This also gives us the first instance of John Oliver urging the audience to do random acts of social vandalism, by definitely not advising them to put fake health claim stickers on food products. I wish I could find the "contains 4 whole pomeranians!" sticker, I definitely used to have that.

A second "And Now This" is a taped segment about cheerleader mistreatment in the NFL. This is also infuriating to behold. I hope things have gotten better for cheerleaders, but given that this is the NFL, I doubt it.

This feels the most like a modern LWT segment, in that it could easily be retitled "How is This Still a Thing" and would only need minimal changes to work. Seriously, pay cheerleaders the money they deserve, they're athletes too.

Finally, we move to the NSA, and John interviews General Keith Alexander, the former head of the NSA. It is obviously important for me to tell you that John is in a different suit for this.

(Is there some sort of discount store for weird orange vases)

Information security and privacy was a huge cornerstone of the early years of LWT, and yet I'd somehow totally forgotten about this interview. This is basically a TDS field piece, as John questions General Alexander about what the NSA is actually collecting from the US public. He's pushing Alexander hard, and this makes a great companion piece to his later interview with Edward Snowden. There's even insets of reporting on NSA wrongdoing! It's almost indistinguishable from the things he did on The Daily Show, and since I've been in a very nostalgic headspace for that show, I appreciated it.

John admitting he'd abuse the hell out of NSA clearance is hilarious. As is John saying the Washington Football Team is a slightly less tainted brand than the NSA.

As a collective experience, I stand by saying that it's very weird to watch this now. At the time, though, this was exactly what I wanted out of a John Oliver-led show. It'll be interesting to see how this show shifts into its current form over this first season - since I haven't rewatched these episodes in ages, it'll be a "new" experience for me too.

Random notes:

Lee obviously focuses on important things corner: Light blue checkered shirt with blue solid tie and gray jacket is a solid look for John. He also is between bangs and no bangs, giving me a brief period of time to mourn the loss of #bangsappreciationhours. 8/10. Interview suit is more staid but blue is still a nice color on him, 7/10.

It's funny to see the pop-in social media boxes being used for their actual purpose of sharing links, and not for John randomly calling something "#feminism" or being mad about Fifty Shades of Gray. The show has evolved in ways both big and small.

The parts of this episode I was able to find on YouTube are so bizarre. Neither of the main segments seem to be there, but LWT's YouTube channel had the portions embedded above, which, aside from the interview, are such WEIRD things to highlight. I know a lot of these used to be on YouTube, too, but it looks like they've been culled.

Christ the Tumblr post formatter on desktop really hates when I try to click around to edit long ass posts.

Please let me know if this is actually any good or interesting, I truly don't really know if this is of value to anyone.

[discipline-your-body]

An honest look at my eating habits and weight fluctuations

I'm going to start with senior year of high school. I did very intense dieting and went from ~115 lbs to lowest weight 89 lbs. However, over the summer I gained all of it back, after crashing from restricting so intensely.

I didn't weigh myself in college. In the first part of college, from living on campus I was much more active and eating on the healthier side but not perfect. The last year of college, moving into an apartment, I was much less active and eating worse, I was gaining a little bit of weight. I finished college around 135 lbs.

Post-grad and first full time job, it was a very active job, outside of work I was doing LOTS of walking/hiking. I had less time to eat, plus I was conscious of my meals and meal-planning. I lost 15-20 lbs without even realizing it. I was back to ~115 lbs. I was not regularly weighing myself and I remember feeling really surprised when I saw such a low number.

At 25-26 years old, I weighed myself again and was back to the 130s. And then it became the 140s. And then I saw a photo of myself and couldn't believe it was me. I told myself I'd do better. And then it became the 150s.

At the time, I was in denial. I thought I was eating exactly the same as a few years ago. I was utterly confused. I thought it was maybe just aging, just a part of life. But lets be honest.

I was not regularly exercising, wasn't going on daily walks anymore, wasn't doing any workout routines (maybe a 5-minute workout every once in a blue moon?) I was spending most of my free time at my computer writing or on my phone doom-scrolling.

I fell into a habit of getting breakfast takeout every day -- between Wawa, Dunkin, and Starbucks. Every day. Also, I was often ordering "large" drinks instead of medium or small. That's at least 600 calories for breakfast.

I started having two lunches at work every day. One lunch I would pack ahead (at least 500 calories), second lunch I would buy at work (around 400 calories).

Every dinner was either pasta (700-800 calories at least) or takeout (up to 1000 calories.)

Assuming I didn't have any snacks in between, that's at least 2200 calories a day. And that itself doesn't even seem like a huge amount, right? Well my BMR was probably 2000 at most. That means at least 200 extra calories a day. Not too bad, right? But that means 73,000 extra calories a year. And with each pound equaling 3500 calories, that equals gaining 20 lbs in one year. Perspective!

Keep all that in mind with how I was not working out consistently. I had a job in which I was on my feet most of the day and had to push and carry very heavy things. But that did NOT equal a true workout.

The two year period of my weight gain, I was depressed and going through a lot of horrible things. I was in denial about a lot, not only my weight gain, but other things going on in my life. I could not honestly look at myself in the mirror and admit that any eating or activity habits had changed.

Seeing the number on the scale go up, seeing myself look different in photos, no longer fitting in my old clothes and having to go up two sizes, was not my final straw. Finding out that I had Lyme disease with two years of symptoms that I chose to ignore, that was my first hint. That was what lead me to the doctor, who told me that I was on the borderline of overweight and could lose some. That's what put me on a diet/calorie restriction for the first time in ten years.

I restricted for two months and I lost 5 lbs. But it was so hard and the weight loss was happening so slowly. I lost patience and gave up. I told myself I'd just eat better and be more active. So I didn't count calories, but I just tried to make healthier choices.

One year later at my next doctor appointment, she weighed me again and told me I had gained 5 lbs more from my previous appointment. So the tiny amount of weight I lost between then, I gained double! And THAT was my final straw.

That day, I joined a weight loss app and decided to fully commit. It's now been a little over three months and I've lost 10 lbs. I'm just a sliver above the healthy BMI bracket. I'm now 145 lbs, which I don't think I've been since 2-3 years ago.

My biggest lesson I've learned right now is that we have to be honest with ourselves. We make so many excuses. We don't want to see the ugly truth. It's far too easy to turn a blind eye to weight gain. But your body wants your attention. We don't listen to our bodies!

A lot of times you think you're hungry when you're actually tired. Make sure you get enough sleep. And late evenings or nights, when you're craving a snack, it's likely your body is actually telling you to go to bed early.

Fast food breakfast adds up. Starting the day with 600+ calories is just setting yourself up for failure. Do NOT order "large" drinks and expect to have a small body. Even "medium" drinks are risky. Lattes are basically milkshakes.

Walking helps out more than you'd think. Making exercise a DAILY habit is essential.

Weight gain has much less to do with age, far more to do with habits, and we like to blame aging as an excuse for not being in control of our health. The metabolism doesn't slow down until your 60s.

Stop accepting free food from work. Stop buying your lunches from work. Work doesn't care about your health and wellness, they want to sedate you with sugar and salt.

Longer post than I expected :) but basically, I accept my actions and take accountability for my weight gain and health decline. I am making an effort and putting in the work to do better!

[nateascendingskies]

The Personal Experiences of Pixar and Elemental

Leaving a showing of the crew at Pixar and director Peter Sohn's latest film, Elemental, I was struck by how personal and certifiably unique the film was - no, not necessarily because of its story or even its characters (though the latter felt like a great inverse and even echo of the similar Zootopia), but because of how its themes of the immigrant experience, the duties and expectations of familial traditions, and even the feeling of multicultural love were conveyed or explored.

Much like how I have felt and seen myself in classic Disney and DreamWorks characters like Nick Wilde, WALL-E, and Hiccup Haddock, Ember and Wade spoke to me in ways I wasn't necessarily expecting or even considering walking into the theater some 2 hours earlier.

Like the literal flaming young woman that is Ember, I find myself in an interesting position in my life. While I have not necessarily found myself in the burden of following in family footsteps, I related very much to the idea of having to control one's temper in stressful situations. In the retail environment I have found myself in, I too have been overwhelmed by the constant hustle, bustle and flow of customers - all with their own wacky, weird and wild requests I probably wouldn't have even considered had I not stepped foot in a Home Depot for 8 hours every day. Oftentimes, I need a softer, creative, and often free-spirited side to awaken and comfort me when things get rough or tough sometimes. And, of course, that's where someone like a Wade comes in.

Like Wade, I do find myself easily crying at the most emotional of things - I do happily and readily admit. Yet, like the big ol' blob of water he is, I also find myself finding some clever solutions to problems I never once considered encountering. In addition, I do have a family and a creative community around me who have gone their own wacky and unusual ways, pursuing their own computer science or radiological techniques while I still try to find my own way around the world - living the dream as a writer for a film or motorsport publication or an archivist for a studio like Pixar, perhaps (funny, ain't it?).

Even then, it wasn't just the personal connections that I found in myself that drew me in. For the longest time, I had been longing for a Pixar film that felt like a true back to basics approach - the product of one voice guiding a similar creative team of thousands. Much like 2021's Luca, this was it - but on a big screen scale I didn't even think I wanted to see again. It felt refreshingly simple, pared back, even - which let the visuals carry the story even more than usual.

I didn't need any dialogue about butterflies, car windshields, code violations, blunt yet hard hitting racial allegories, games about making others cry, or depressed clouds trying to play visually trippy basketball equivalents (trust me, it all makes sense when you see the film) to keep me invested - all it took was a kaleidoscopic trip through a flooded old train station to find a flower that could survive in water and fire, some literal crowd waves at a sports stadium, and a literal familial flame to guide me through this weird world of living elements that Sohn and his team had created, showing more than saying what he had seen as a member of an immigrant family and perhaps even as a smitten romantic himself. Besides, as someone who spent a year in Oregon watching some of the best glassblowers in the world practice their craft, I couldn't help but smile watching that all come into play as a gift that Ember realized she had.

If anything, the flaws and traditional story beats the film had only served to draw attention more to what made it work - as a romantic comedy about literal opposites attracting, an unexpected tonal blender of comedy, drama and romance, and as a beautiful reflection of never really giving up on the dreams you discover and find as your life changes. I mean, if you told me I'd find a home at a Home Depot as a job I loved 5 or 10 years ago, I'd call you nuts! If you told me I'd come out of a film as mismarketed as Elemental listening to its beautiful score from Thomas Newman and admiring it mere hours after seeing it in a way that even Across the Spider-Verse couldn't match, I'd call you insane! And, perhaps most importantly of all, if you told me that I'd have a renewed hope, admiration and appreciation for the team at Pixar after how critical I was about their position in my last post - well, then you'd probably call me an unbelievable hypocrite with something stuck in my head. But that's just the way things work - and I couldn't be any happier to be wrong.

Plus, it made me more determined than ever to chase my own animated dreams. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna see what I should doodle next…

[bi-bats]

18, 43, and 78 for the Fanfiction Writer Asks?

Oh my god Jpeg!!! Hi!!!! Thank you for the ask 💖💖💖 Sorry in advance for turning this into an essay but hopefully you enjoy it and thank you!!!!

18 - Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research?

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, honestly. It tends to feel like homework sometimes, but I'm a huge reader and I love reading comics. It's just hard for me to find time between working full time and the D&D campaign I'm writing/DMing and the academic article I'm writing and being in a relationship and figuring out grad school/future stuff. Basically, I'm a really busy person but I just want to read and write fic all day 😭

As for which required the most research that I've already started posting, I'd have to say Know Yourself. I had to read Battle for the Cowl, and I still have to read Final Crisis (is that a spoiler? 👀). I basically did no research for Rooftops & Bookshops (I feel like it shows) but I did read quite a few summaries.

But the fic with the most research I will have to do is definitely the fic I'm going to talk about in the next question, for which I'll have to read Red Robin, Under the Red Hood and some of Tim's Robin run. Probably more, but it'll be worth it.

43 - Is there a trope or idea that you'd really like to write but haven't yet?

YES. So many. I want to write one bed and also time travel and also identity reveal (thank you jaytimweek for forcing me to do it providing me with the opportunity). I actually have two ideas for identity reveal, one of which will hopefully be up for jaytimweek. The other identity reveal is definitely going to be my next long fic. I already know it'll be near 100k words and I PROMISED myself I wouldn't start working on it until Know Yourself is fully posted except for the epilogue (so a few months 😭). The identity reveal longfic is also going to be a soulmates fic 😈 and I think it might technically not be a love square but also it sort of will be? OKAY IF I SAY ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT IT IM GONNA SPOIL SOMETHING NEXT QUESTION

78 - What motivates you during the writing process?

Honestly, I feel sort of shitty being like "people's reactions," because I shouldn't base my worth as a writer on how many kudos/comments I get, etc., etc., and no one reading this should feel any pressure to comment if they don't want to, but when I get to see how someone reacted to my work??? OH that's the stuff.

I tend to be my own worst critic with everything, but especially my own writing, so every time I see a new comment, I have the urge to run to my computer and write. I basically get high off comments, especially when it's from authors I love to read!!! (@ you jpeg. Detective Timothy Drake and the Mysterious Case of the Unclaimed Dildo lives in my head rent free. That fic is a masterpiece.) There's just something about knowing that a writer I love enjoys my work. It really makes me feel confident in my writing, which makes me want to write more.

Also serial commenters!! I'm looking forward to what you think of every new chapter. Also people who just comment ahsjslakhdslkab or second kudos or a heart emoji. And people who post those really long comments theorizing or asking questions or copy/pasting quotes with their reactions??? My favorite. Satisfies the desire I have to watch everyone read my work so I can see them react to it.

Basically, knowing that people are enjoying what I write and want to read more is honestly the biggest motivator for me, which is why I tend to post chaptered stuff. I need the push to keep going, or else my piece would rot in my drafts (like some of my unposted works that I'll resuscitate one day)

Also if anyone reading this has ever commented on one of my fics, just know I think we're besties now. Come say hi. Even if you haven't commented and just want to motivate me to write more! Come say hi!

[mollybecameanengineer]

✨🌻💝 for the fic writer ask :)

Thanks for the ask, @lilolilyr! Here is the orignal post.

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

I have two answers for this. (As you all probably noticed) I've recently become fixated on the X-Files, but before that it was Star Trek: Voyager, so most of my fic is for that show. But I'll give one from each, because it's hard for me to consolidate the two. I was in a very different mental space writing Voyager (circa 2015-2017) than I am today.

For The X-Files: Keys,Wallet, Phone. It's the first one I wrote for this fandom, and it's very different than anything I'd written before. One of the asks on here was 'which fic would you like to be a podfic?' and this one would be my answer as well. It has a lyrical quality that I really like and I think would be great read aloud.

For Voyager: My baby, The Lament of a Daughter. This is all B'Elanna backstory... the culminations of years and years of thinking about this character. This, and The Sea of Gatan are probably some of the best things I ever wrote.

🌻what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going?

What makes me give up? Two things: anxiety and lack of head space.

For the anxiety bit, this is why I stopped writing in 2017. Trying to improve and what not was just driving me insane. This is also why, despite the fact I want to, I'll likely not participate in exchanges. When the prompt is right, it's magic. But man, it can really get to me if I can't think of anything. So this time around I've been posting things unbetaed (which likely leads to way more typos, sorry) but this has really been a path back to joy for me. Just write and release.

On lack of head space: I have a job that could consume every moment of my life if I let it. I have an idea for an original novel, which I started writing, but I found my mind was always preoccupied with it, and I wasn't thinking about my research (and therefore not making progress.) So, I don't really know what to do about that. The problem is less one of time, and more about have to pick and choose what I think about. (Which might be a weird problem to have.) It seems to work better for me to write short things to get the idea out of my head, and then move on. I am looking forward to a stage in my life where this won’t be an issue anymore.

Moving on to what makes me keep going: it’s fun (if I'm not busy being my own worse enemy). I like getting my thoughts out of my head and I like the reaction others have to those thoughts. Most of my stories are about something that is going on in my life, so it’s cathartic (or amusing, depending on what it is) to put OTP of the week in those situations. Sometimes I wonder if I could write professionally, but I do that would remove the fun and the joy. I do like my job, but there are for sure times that are NOT joyful.

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Well, I didn't expect people to like Qualifying Life Events this much! I wrote it in like an hour on Monday when the internet went out, so I couldn't do work. (Well, really, I should have been reviewing papers, which were saved on my computer, but see above comment on not concentrating on work so well these days.) In general, all the pieces I’ve quickly written and posted have been way more enjoyed than I expected. They tend to be silly little things (ex: The Case of the Nip Slip, The Joy of Cooking, and the above-mentioned Qualifying Life Events). I have other pieces that took way more effort, but they are just as enjoyed as the short silly ones. So, I think it’s been freeing to break the association of my effort to other people’s enjoyment (which is probably a capitalistic way of looking at things, anyway).

(Aside: for some reason, the tumblr editor isn’t spell checking, which is a huge issue for me. So I had to write this elsewhere and paste it in and Tumblr was being a dick… Why is this editor so bad?)

[tallestcat]

Challenge #1

This challenge has to do with the bad hand we were dealt. I felt like I had a manageable hand.

My health was a concern. My parents were old when I was born, 40 mom and 45 dad. Who knows how my health will be in the future because they decided to be old parents. Mom was always kinda sickly and I knew I inherited something not amazing if her health was like that. I'm often tired and was never able to run long distances. I struggle with ADHD and paying attention. I still can't run a mile but have to jog/walk it. I don't have any structural health problems or diseases.

I felt the most insecure in my education. In elementary, I tried really hard to do well in school. I would fill out those huge Costco Grade X workbooks and collect the moneys from mom and grandma. Ok, I did it all for money. I would read tons of books and compete to get many leaves on the reading tree (grade 5). I came in 2nd. To be fair, I had to compete with the girl who brought a book to our Girl Scouts Christmas party and anti-socialed us to re-read Harry Potter. She's hilariously and fittingly a Librarian now.

I wasn't bullied but I could see being the weird vomit girl could cause me to be bullied. By middle, I was struggling with anxiety but that horrifying type where I would vomit a lot. I would get the cold sweats, rapid heart beat, and my hearing would intensify. It destroyed my health and body. Something about Catholicism and Catholic school didn't sit well with me. I'm glad my teacher was so understanding, the school nurse wasn't. The first time she called my mom to pick me up, she told her nevermind because I was reading a book while waiting lmao. I should have seen a doctor, psychiatrist, anybody. I was already very skinny and losing my breakfast or lunch every few days if not everyday is very extreme. By 7th grade, I was more comfortable with that school. Going to public school would have been a nightmare, I'm glad I stuck it out.

My mom didn't want to pay for the nice Catholic high school all of my friends were going to. It was beautiful and a mile from the beach, we just couldn't afford it. In middle school, I was playing too many video games and totally forgot about school. Grades and studying were not a concern. I didn't appreciate school and didn't deserve to go. I think a lot of people my age are like this. I did the homework, did the schoolwork, did the projects, and never studied. I went to the local Catholic school, very fucking good for sportsball and that's about it.

By high school, I made some friends but not close friends. I stopped caring about school but did the same as middle school. I went to an ok state school after getting rejected by my first choice. I was obviously not going to get a 3.5GPA to enter the nursing program, so stupidly switched to premed. I got a rude fucking awakening after skating by in school for so long. I was too dumb for premed but finished the degree.

I actually had to study to get good grades. Instead of letting that destroy my self-worth like I've seen it destroy others I learned how to study and be productive. I didn't think 'whoops got a B+ in intro to intro to chem, guess I better drop out of college.' It probably didn't effect me because I knew I was kinda dumb and didn't put much stock in being 'naturally smart' the way mom likes to blow smoke up my ass. Keeping in mind, she's the one who went to UCLA. I don't know their rank in the 70s but it was #14 in the US and News Report for Global University rankings in 2022-2023. Sooooo whatever mom. From then on, I knew I had to put the effort in. I just knew I had to graduate and min wage jobs are not my jam.

I switched to computer science, got the degree and am now working as a programmer. It's not even really programming. I'm not at a big tech company and I probably never will be but I want to. Damn, do I want to. I want the free lunch. I can't even be a charity case hire because there's no free money anymore.

I'd say I have achieved things many others haven't but I'm still dissatisfied. I got my degrees, I got my name on a research paper, I got a very high impact project, I got a cute bf and we're getting married in about a year. My limiting factor is still my time management and my ability to work hard, which is why I'm doing the 100 days of productivity and ill do another 100 until I get what I want. Nobody is standing in my way, it just me and my brain and a quiet life of no impact and mediocrity waiting in the wings. I'm not underappreciated or overlooked for opportunities, they're out there I just need to get started.

[umichenginabroad]

So much yummy food at home + in Berlin

Dobrý ráno,

Since I'm traveling on the weekends, I've been starting the week by catching up on all my homework and miscellaneous errands. My Tuesdays are half days, so I'll typically head to the library and grind out my assignments. Last week, I also decided to get groceries because I've been spending wayyy too much money on my trips and eating out...

There's all different types of grocery stores in Prague, ranging from supermarkets to little corner stores. My favorites have been Tesco and Albert primarily because of their location and selection (+ both have rewards cards). Shopping was really overwhelming at first; most of the products don't have English on them and packaged goods look a bit different as well. But the camera feature on Google Translate has definitely come in handy! I probably took like 50 pictures to translate when I was there. The first time I went shopping I was looking for sweet potatoes (sladká brambora) and fully though I had bought a normal potato (brambor) lol. Oooh also as a little tip, the baked goods section is super cheap and makes a great snack or meal (Lidl definitely has the upper hand to both Tesco and Albert and it's close to where we have classes).

Tesco grocery haul -> stuffed peppers & Albert's raspberry pastry

Over the weekend, a group of us headed to Berlin. I've never been to Germany before and wasn't really sure what to expect. All I knew was Berlin has wild nightlife and a ton of history due to World War II. I'd have to say both were true :)

We took a free walking tour on Saturday of some of Berlin's top attractions. It was fascinating to learn more in depth about locations like the Holocaust Memorial, Reichstag, and Berlin Wall (pictured below). For example, the preliminary fence that would later become the wall was basically built overnight. The government forced young men to construct it and by the time they realized what they were doing, it was too late. I'll definitely be doing more of these tours in other cities I visit, and if you ever go on one make sure you remember to tip! (about 10 euros, for reference)

I've never seen the sky so pretty -- sunset at Brandenburg Gate

The rest of the weekend was more exploration of the West and East sides. We managed to hop on every form of transportation (S-bahn, U-bahn, tram, bus), yet we still walked so much that my feet ACHED every day. The weather made it that much harder haha; it was cloudy, snowy, and freezing cold most of the time. I still had such a good time though!! The people made the experience for sure <3

Out and about, day vs night (ft the Berlin TV Tower)

Also, cannot rave enough about the food. Currywurst, brautwurst, döner kebap, and pork knuckles are a few of the iconic Berlin foods were had. Kebap is DELICIOUS, and we had it twice. All you could hear on our bus back was us munching on our kebap hehe. There was also so many other cuisines! We tried Indian, Taiwanese, and Japanese, and they were equally as delicious 😋

It's actually so nice to be back in Prague and kinda crazy that hearing Czech again came with a comforting feeling. I get to see some friends from home next weekend, so look forward to what I'm up to in London with them!

Catherine Jiang Computer Science Tech Career Accelerator in Prague

Czech Words

Dobrý ráno - good morning

sladká brambora - sweet potatoes

brambor - potato (different endings for singular and plural forms)

[kinosternon]

I posted 71 times in 2022

That's 56 more posts than 2021!

20 posts created (28%)

51 posts reblogged (72%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@kinosternon

@bluejayblueskies

@natsume-ss

@dduane

@tanoraqui

I tagged 70 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#haruka nanase - 8 posts

#free! spoilers - 6 posts

#for my own reference - 5 posts

#writing advice - 5 posts

#free! the final stroke second part - 5 posts

#albert volandel - 4 posts

#ikuya kirishima - 4 posts

#rin matsuoka - 4 posts

#free! the final stroke - 4 posts

#about the writer - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#itll be /better/ with a single sentence saying 'and then time passed' than a long drawn out scene that fought you every step of the way

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Okay, I'm doing it.

I'm writing a summary for the last Free! movie.

12 notes - Posted April 30, 2022

#4

@demigardess

Hello, I was your secret santa for @natsume-ss this year! I really enjoyed your prompts, so I hope you can enjoy this fic as well ✨

Title: Peace of Mind Relationship: Gen, Natsume Takashi & Tanuma Kaname Prompts used: Gen fic, any kind of reveal fic

Summary:

He felt frozen, caught between two answers. The first, the easiest, was also one he could never say: It's fine. I'm already taking care of it. The second answer was the one that pertained to what they were really asking, he knew. And the answer was: I have no idea what to do for him right now.

read on AO3

13 notes - Posted December 27, 2022

#3

NaNo 2022: not writing exposition or dialogue but a secret third thing (epistolary novel)

14 notes - Posted November 1, 2022

#2

Official online Nabari Kuji!

Kamatani Yuhki announced recently on their Twitter that a new company is holding an online kuji (lottery) for official Nabari goods! It's rare to see something like this come out so long after a series ends, and I want as many people as possible to get the chance to participate. (According to the site's Q&A, you can register through a third-party company to have prizes shipped internationally, though I haven't tried this myself.)

All the prizes are random, and use official manga/promotional art—prints, badges, magnets, and so on—focusing on a variety of characters.

The kuji runs from today (August 19th, Japan time) through September 30th, 2022. You see what you've won right away after purchasing, but the items themselves won't be shipped till late December, and international shipping will probably cause further delays.

Link coming in reblog because I'd like this to show up in the tag.

17 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Walthrough: Reposting your old FFNet fics to Ao3

In light of recent rumors that FanFiction.Net might be receiving little/no ongoing support, and could suddenly disappear one day with very little warning, I wanted to offer a resource that might help preserve another fic or two. Just in case.

I'm already keeping a private collection of favorite fics from FFN that I can't bear to lose, but this tutorial isn't for saving other folks' fic. Instead, this tutorial is for people who might want to republish their own fic to Ao3 in a streamlined, relatively painless way.

Using these steps, I was able to upload an entire 16-chapter fic, with all the correct original formatting and without doing any fussy HTML editing, in about an hour. (And that was while making up the steps as I went along!)

What you'll need:

A link to your old FFNet account URL OR the those of the fics you want to save (no login necessary)

Access to a working Ao3 account

A web browser, permission to download zipped HTML files, and an unzipper (most computers have these by default)

How to save your fic for posterity:

Copy the link to the first chapter of the fic on FFN that you want to save. (Right-clicking the title of the fic on your profile and choosing "Copy Link" will do this.)

Go to https://fichub.net/ and paste in the URL. Press Export, then click "Download as zipped HTML." This saves your entire fic at once, no matter how many chapters, with formatting intact. Everyone thank the team who made this tool, because it's amazing.

Navigate to your downloads (or click on the pop-up that'll probably appear) and open the zipped HTML file. It will probably open in your default browser on its own, but you might need to tell it to open by right-clicking the unzipped file and choosing the desired browser. The resulting file should have all the chapters of the fic laid out one after another, with clear breaks between each chapter and the original HTML formatting (including section breaks).

Post a "New Work" in Ao3. (Can't import with FFNet, sadly, which is why this tutorial exists.) Add the title, relevant tags, and summary. (I used my FFNet summary with a note that the fic is crossposted.) Backdate the fic if desired by choosing a publishing date from around the time the fic was written.

Here's the magic part: Switch to Rich Text Mode in the "Work Text" field, then copy-paste the text from your first chapter into the Rich Text Mode window. (Note: You may see the stray space appear around italicized/bolded text, and an extra line break tends to appear between section breaks. Otherwise, though, the formatting is generally very well preserved.)

Optional detail: Hit "Preview," then "Save Draft," then "Add Chapter" to avoid posting any of your chapters till you have them all set up and ready to go.

Side note 1: Don't put an endnote on the end of your Chapter 1. Or if you do, go add a chapter 2 first, and then go back to add a chapter 1 endnote. Otherwise it'll end up at the end of your fic instead. It's a fixable outcome, but an annoying one.

Side note 2: If you use a pseud to post, you'll need to be careful to select the correct pseud for each chapter you upload, or you'll end up being listed as the author twice, once under each pseud you selected. If you notice this happening, it's because you've missed switching one in one or more chapters. This is fixable by checking the author listed under each chapter heading using the "Entire Work" button and keyword searching the username you're trying to get rid of.

While I didn't find a way to post all chapters at once, you can do it pretty quickly in the right order, without skipping, by doing the following steps in a loop:

Press "Entire work" at the top of the page.

Use your browser's "Find in page" function for the text "post chapter".

Hitting the "Post Chapter" button that appears.

Just continue the loop until there's no more "Post Chapter" buttons.

Once your chapters are all uploaded, you're done! Congratulations.

A final note

I know that this latest rumor might be blowing certain hints of FFNet's siterunners' inactivity out of proportion. I know that Ao3 isn't everyone's favorite (though I don't agree with most of those people). And I know, most of all, that some folks would rather some of their older fics not see the light of day anymore, for whatever reason.

But look. I'm a trans guy who used to be a teenage girl who (enthusiastically) wrote Twilight/Doctor Who crossover fanfic. I get it, and yet I'm still managing to stun the part of me that cringes long enough to preserve my stuff, because I think that fic should survive whenever possible.

There are options to help make the cringe factor more manageable. Use a pseud for your older stuff (like me), or to minimize any connection to your current account, you can use the Anonymous collection or the Orphan Work function as soon as you're done posting. Do whatever you need to feel comfortable.

But remember that every creative work is a victory just for existing. Please, if you can, find it in your heart (and your schedule) to preserve your work. Past!you worked hard on it, after all. And besides, you never know who might stumble across it someday exactly when they need it.

(PS: Please let me know about any other FFN preservation efforts, by the way! Hopefully this is all blown out of proportion, but you really can never be too careful.)

376 notes - Posted September 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cat3ch1sm]

💚| FINALLY GUYS MY BRAIN CAME UP WITH ANOTHER IDEA FOR A SMUT A ROUND OF APPLAUSE PLS

・❥・in this fic, l has done some research and wants to test it on you... *insert lip bite emoji*

PART ONE doesn't really contain a ton of smut, but part 2 (and maybe three)...😀😀

also ft. dominant y/n???

no but fr guys why don't we have a lip bite emoji

AND WHILE IM ON THAT SUBJECT WHY DONT WE HAVE A PINK HEART???

wait im getting off topic

OKAY OKAY IM GETTING STARTED NOW

╰┈➤

"One of these days you're just going to drop dead, you know that?"

You were draped across the back of L's swivel chair, arms wrapped around his neck as you peered over his shoulder, wearing a bored expression as you watched L click endlessly through countless documents and security footage in his never-ending search for Kira- or, rather, to prove Light Yagami was he. It was late, probably close to midnight if not after, and the members of the task force had all turned in for the night per L's wishes. Misa Amane and Light apparently still had yet to return to the hotel- Misa was likely holding the brooding prodigy hostage somewhere at a fancy restaurant, yammering about how they should totally go on dates more often. The room was completely dark except for the glow of L's computer, reflecting in his wide dark eyes and illuminating your skin and his in bluish-white light.

The only reply L had was "Perhaps," as he continued to scroll through the endless list of criminals that had been killed by Kira that day, hugging his knees to his chest as always. "And when I do, you all will know that Light Yagami is Kira."

You nodded slowly, subconsciously realizing that your remark was probably not made at the most opportune time, and winced internally before brushing it off.

"I appreciate the amount of passion you have for your work- but why can't you share some with me every once in a while?" One corner of your lips turned up in a slight smirk as you released L's body and stood up straight, crossing one of your ankles over the other.

L stopped typing for a second, and his head tilted to the side slightly. He didn't turn to face you, however. "Hm. Actually, now that you bring it up, I have been conducting some research and, if it is alright with you, I'd like to test that research." He brought his thumb to his lips, leaving only one of his pale and veiny hands free to type. "I believe now would be the best time to do that, seeing as everyone is either asleep or not present."

You raised a brow in skepticism, but your tone, as usual, remained even and mostly monotone. "Research? Does that mean you want me to be your lab rat?"

Now L turned in his swivel chair to face you, wide eyes peering up at you blankly, his hands resting on his knees now. "Precisely."

Your eyes narrowed as your patience began to thin. Normally you were pretty perceptive, but L was being cryptic and it was seriously difficult to uncover any hidden meanings when it came to him- which meant you had to be blunt, something you weren't fond of at all.

"Why is it good that everyone's asleep? And why am I your test subject? If there's anyone you should be testing things on, it should be Amane."

The only word to describe what you thought of Misa Amane was... annoying, which pretty much went for everyone else on the task force with the obvious exception of Matsuda. But she was difficult to avoid as she, A: was a suspect and B: believed that since you and she were the only girls on the team, you were supposed to be best friends- despite being polar opposites. It was safe to say that such a fantasy was a pipe dream- you had never once entertained the idea of such a relationship with such an airheaded and simple-minded girl.

L's expression turned disdainful and his tone derisive. "I am not interested in Amane whatsoever. Now, would you please stop being difficult and follow me up to the bedroom?" He removed each of his legs, one by one, from the chair and stood up slowly, back hunched as usual with his hands in his omnipresent jean pockets. The back of the chair, surprised at the loss of L's weight, slumped backward with a meagre creak.

You chuckled wryly, taking a deep breath. "Difficult? I'm hardly being difficult, only sensible. You brought this upon yourself, behaving in such an oracular manner. Honestly, this feels very... serial killer-like." Your nose wrinkled with distaste.

L cast you a contemptuous but slightly amused look before trudging towards the elevator inside the same room, you walking briskly behind him. "Don't you think a remark like that is rather inappropriate for our current predicament?" he queried matter-of-factly, letting his tongue trace lightly over his lips thoughtfully.

Now a complacent smirk tugged at the corners of your lips as you noticed the motion, a sliver of teeth glinting behind your own lips. "You're likely correct."

It was only after the two of you had stepped into the elevator and begun ascending that you stopped to wonder- why did L's research need to be conducted in the bedroom?

╰┈➤

"Lay back."

Your brow arched but you didn't object as you cautiously laid yourself out on the bed on your back, hands folded over your stomach neatly in your usual composed fashion. "I can't say I like where this is going," you informed L, stubborn as usual, eyes gazing at the blank ceiling above you. The room was dimly lit only by the golden luminescence of a small lamp; it bathed the room in a comforting, nostalgic aura.

The detective lifted both eyebrows and then let them drop again. "Hm- that won't do," L remarked absently. He stood over your body at the foot of the bed, the tip of his thumbnail snagged in his teeth. "I will need your full and clear consent for what I'm about to do."

Your face suddenly contorted into a somewhat agitated expression and you abruptly sat up, propping yourself up on your elbows, to face L directly. You'd never liked when people tried to act shifty with you- especially not someone of L's caliber. It was patronizing, to say the least.

"Just tell me what this is about, L. I'll probably end up consenting anyway- no need to be so evasive. I'm happy to be of use."

L stared at you, his eyes dark and empty, for a few seconds. "Alright. Lately, I have been conducting some extensive research on the pleasure points of the female body- and if you don't mind, I'd like to test that information."

You kept your expression neutral- although you couldn't help but grip the blankets that covered the bed a little too hard.

Now it seemed obvious. "Like I said- I'm happy to be of use." you assured L nonchalantly, your tone even; you just barely managed to keep the shudder from your voice.

"I hope you won't be too uncomfortable- I will try to accommodate you as much as possible." There was little emotion in L's voice- but you didn't miss the almost undetectable anticipation emitting faintly through his tone.

"I know you will. Now, I suppose you'll be wanting these off?" You made a suggestive tug at the black suit jacket you had on, lightly running your fingers over the buttons of the white shirt you had beneath it. The shirt was nearly transparent, and didn't do a very adequate job of hiding your prominent cleavage or black bra.

"Yes- I will, as a matter of fact," L deadpanned, advancing closer towards the bed. His voice was airy and his pronounced Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as you heard him swallow thickly.

Casually, you slipped off the jacket, then the pants, and folded them neatly and placed them on the floor beside the bed. You were now left in just the blouse and tight black shorts- which, coincidentally, didn't cover you up all that well either. Suddenly feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious, you slung your hair over your chest and crossed one exposed leg over the other. Then you peered up at L expectantly, watching his eyes.

"This okay?"

"This will be fine, thank you. I will remove the rest as we go."

Well, that was blunt.

"Remove the-?"

L gently sat down on the bed and motioned for you to lay back down, to which you obliged, feeling somewhat dazed. The sudden droop of the bed with his delicate weight was somehow refreshing; reassuring. You placed your hands back on top of your stomach and pursed your lips.

The room was silent as you felt L tenderly lean over your body until his head was mere centimeters from your neck; you could feel his warm breath swirling along your skin, and it was only because he was so close that you were able to detect the hitches in his breathing. It was a little endearing, knowing L was actually nervous to do this with you, to pleasure you.

After all, L was, in fact, human.

And suddenly his wet lips were on your neck, just below your jawline- hot swipes of his tongue accompanying it. An involuntary shiver jolted your body as you felt his thumb trace across the nape of your neck; his touch felt like a feather.

Meanwhile, L's stoic expression changed into something resembling a child who has tried something new and found that they had a penchant for it. Your skin was saccharine, like a freshly ripe fruit- and he found it intoxicating.

Mostly experimentally, L administered another lick, this time utilizing more of his tongue rather than just the tip, and you couldn't help but let out a soft, breathy gasp. Apparently pleased with your reaction, L straightened up a little, assuming his typical sitting position, and peered down at you on the bed with those eyes of his. You averted your gaze to the side, the sensation of L's lips still tingling on your neck as you felt your face heat up.

"I propose a challenge," L stated suddenly, gazing down at you innocently, cocking his head to the side. "To make things more... interesting."

You couldn't help but smirk despite still feeling a little flustered. "Oh? What kind of challenge?"

L's legs dropped so that he was now sitting on his knees, bouncing the bed a little, and swiftly leaned in toward you until his pointed nose was mere centimeters from yours. "I suppose you expected that I would progress further in my experiment than just your visible body. That being said, I believe that you may orgasm at some point."

Now you openly laughed, an amused and quizzical look on your face. "Cocky, are we?"

"Yes," L replied without missing a beat. "You're aware of my superiority complex- therefore it should be no trouble at all. Now, your challenge is simple- don't climax." It was amazing how blank L's face still was, even blatantly talking about making you cum.

Jesus.

"What do I receive if I complete this challenge successfully?" you queried curiously.

L paused, biting down on his thumb. "You can be free to do whatever you want with me the rest of the night."

You tilted your head with a faint smile visible on your lips. Suddenly, L looked quite submissive, curled up in his frog ball on the bed- and briefly, you wondered what he would look like completely ruined, white lips parted and face flushed.

Anything you wanted with him?

"And if I win," L continued, snapping you out of your increasingly sinful thoughts, "it will be vice versa. I will be able to do whatever I please with you- all night."

Wow. So L did have things he wanted to do with you- or rather, to you. It almost made you want to lose, just to see what he had in mind... But the notion of getting to have your own way with L was too enticing. But, as it was turning out, the stoic L had some pretty sinful thoughts himself.

"As for the ground rules- you are not permitted to block any of my advances on your body- unless you genuinely do feel uncomfortable, in which case I will cease immediately. And don't think that I can't tell when you're lying, Y/N." His voice had taken on a vaguely taunting lilt. "Do these terms sound fair to you?"

"They sound fine."

"Lovely. Now, shall we begin?"

AYOOOO

so i was thinking about trying something? maybe having u guys vote on who should win the challenge- y/n or L- and then what should the winner do with or to the loser ;)

idk but if y'all wanna ask or comment here then that would be pretty cool! if nobody asks then I'll just come up with everything on my own:)

okay byee! keep an eye out for part 2 and feel free to request another fic/headcanons!