#it's been a long hard career on the internet learning about this though

[marticoresims]

Custom career - Psychologist!

I edited LientebollemeiS2I's Psychologist career, changing nearly everything about it. What stayed are links to uni majors, the icon (which is also a uni major) and some inspiration for chance cards. IMO this career has a strong Maxis vibe, with "start from nothing" first levels, NPC references and silly chance cards.

Each level title has a number added to it, like in this mod.

The 4 skills required for this job are: Logic, Charisma, Cleaning and Creativity.

IMPORTANT EDIT: With LientebollemeiS2I's guidance, I also edited the GUID of the career and changed PTO (paid time off) back to default. Now you can use both our careers at the same time! The GUID is: 0xC6A05A9D. In case you need to check if you have something that uses the same one (it was generated, so might repeat).

DOWNLOAD (SFS)

List of levels with descriptions:

Psychology Books Enjoyer Lvl 1 You'll take any book that has anything to do with the topic of psychology and devour it instantly, hoping this knowledge will be useful some day.

Internet Mental Health Advisor Lvl 2 You dive into web forums to find the most interesting psychological cases and comment on them. Your aspirations are high, but you don't have the skills or degrees yet to become a real therapist. One can dream, though!

Social Bunny Lvl 3 You've actually made it to a real mental health institution, and not as a patient, but as an assistant… sort of. Don't forget to be the fluffiest bunny out there because what you're doing here is really helping other Sims. And all you ever wanted was to help others, right?

Therapist in Training Lvl 4 It's been hard, but you've made it to an actual psychology path. Just stay strong and you'll definitely open your own private practice office one day.

Social Worker Lvl 5 Whether it's leaving children home alone for too long, starving them or not dressing them appropriately to the weather… you'll be there to collect them and find more responsible families for them. It's a tough job, but it's something you have to get through in your training.

Private Counselor Lvl 6 You've finally made it! You're officially a therapist and working in your private office. Now, your mission is to care for your clients in the best way that you can. So don't stop educating yourself!

Psychology Researcher Lvl 7 Your passion for psychology is never-ending. You've decided to take it to the next level and do important research to contribute to the science. Good job!

Personality Specialist Lvl 8 During your research, you've grown very interested in the depths of Sims' personality. What can change it? To what extent is it genetic? What's that thing about werewolves?

Clinical Psychologist Lvl 9 Regular therapy practice and deep research were not quite enough for you. Now it's time to make real diagnoses, assist psychiatrists in their work, and make the world a better place. Keep on learning and you might become the ultimate Therapist.

Therapist NPC Lvl 10 It's time to deal with the real Wretched Outcasts and Doddering Deadbeats. In order to do it, you needed to learn teleportation, hypnosis and partial invisibility. If someone is in crisis, you're the Sim they'll always turn to.

As for clothes and cars (or lack thereof 👀), you'll have to see for yourself in game 😎

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Hope you like it! I've always wanted a therapist-like career in The Sims 2.

Made with Bidou's Career Editor (now part of SimPE).

[centrally-unplanned]

Since I was talking about the "cellphones & boredom" topic earlier, here is the kind of "actually making a case" that some people are doing. The plural of anecdote isn't data or anything, but as someone who works in this field the academics quoted are reflecting a pretty consensus opinion across universities in my experience. Students legitimately cannot do longer-form tasks that they could do in the past, even up to students from high-ranking schools. I lean towards this being a true phenomenon, though the scale is TBD.

Is it because schools are "teaching to the test", as the above article outlines? I don't personally think that is the biggest driver, but I see the causal pattern here. I am generally skeptic of "generalizing education" - people learn in school, it is real, but they don't learn that much, and most of the traits people think school is "teaching" come from a grab bag of sources. But schools definitely teach you how to succeed in school! Being a Student is a skill, people are generally motivated by grades and the like, and so you learn "what works", and schools have absolutely been shifting their expectations. I would push back against the "lowering" them understanding, at least naively; a lot of students in those "great books" classes would sparknotes those fuckers and bluff through it, and so modern assignments can be better targeted. But schools are also responding to students, and parents, and there is a lot of pressure to "meet students where they are at" and pass everyone in the class; I can imagine this dynamic playing a role as well.

Of course it could also be the cell phones, I think they play a role too. But I would posit another causal mechanism - why read the long books? I mean I like long books, but even I these days will skip text sometimes that I can tell is filler and stuff. The internet has taught me not to fear long books, but to be efficient in my consumption, I know what I want so to speak. And that does make me read less of them.

And let's be real, 90%+ of the students, after their Great Books intro college seminar, never read books like that again. These classes did inspire some people, but never made a nation of readers out of most who attended. And that failure is positioned alongside a general trend of the "liberal arts" educational value declining to be replaced by college-as-career-advancement. A transition that is occurring because, overwhelmingly, the latter side was correct about the priorities they should have. Reflected back in culture, of course, like now one's peers also don't value reading long books, right? They talk about podcasts instead or w/e. But still, I think that is what makes putting this genie back in the bottle hard - students are probably correct to understand "reading long, dense books" as something with a minimal payoff for them.

If there are society-wide consequences of that, you can make the case - though since so few were ever readers post-college, I am skeptical. Or at least they are going to be more complex than this narrative puts out. But I am open minded on this one still, definitely a development to follow.

[bellestarot]

Yujin & Wonyoung (IVE)'s Friendship Reading

February 01, 2025

Right Now

Their relationship seems very professional at the moment. In fact, they got close in an unexpected way, as if destiny had somehow brought them together in the same group, leading them to have the same career or something like that.

However, there is a lot of ego, insecurity, and sometimes even jealousy between them regarding each other’s achievements. They try to hide these feelings, but it’s something almost impossible to control, especially in their career field within the entertainment industry.

They are very magnetic people, attracting many others, and they are quite popular. That’s something they have in common. They both have an image they work hard to maintain, but a lot of manipulation occurs to create conflicts between them, to make their careers falter. There are people who actively try to sabotage them and also prevent them from cooperating, pushing them to fight.

They don’t have much time to meet each other either, as their professional environment—perhaps even their own company or boss—seems to orchestrate rumors and competition between them. There are many manipulations in place to limit their interactions, their outings, and their chances to truly get to know each other.

It’s unfortunate that they aren’t truly close or have a solid friendship. One of them has tried to build this bond before, but it didn’t work out as it should have.

How Yujin feels towards Wonyoung

She feels very sad and deeply hurt because she knows they had an opportunity to become close friends, but it didn’t happen. It was like a missed chance, thrown away by one of them—or maybe both—when they were younger. She feels frustrated. She wants to reconnect and build a friendship, but at the same time, she thinks it’s better not to. She fears rejection.

She used to be much closer to her when they were younger. She has memories of the past, like when they trained together, and she recalls the bond they had. Over time, they drifted apart, mainly due to popularity. Too many eyes watching, too many people judging and criticizing them—it made them start losing a sense of who they really were. External influences played a huge role in shaping their image, making them grow apart.

Still, she admires her a lot. She sees her as a fair and honest person. If you need to hear the truth, she’s the one to talk to—because she never lies. She is very righteous and has a strong sense of justice. She is also very mature for her age, having learned early on how to navigate this industry, how to care for and defend her image at all costs.

She respects her sincerity the most. She isn’t fake—she may be many things, but never fake. And even though she appears strong, she is actually very sensitive. She sets boundaries in her relationships and protects herself a lot. She cares deeply about her family and the things she has built.

How Wonyoung feels towards Yujin

There might be a man involved between them. He seems to have a lot of influence and a strong ability to manipulate. He is mature, but it appears that he has been shaping her opinions about the other girl—and not in a good way. She likely doesn’t realize that he is trying to cause conflict between them, attempting to make them enemies rather than colleagues. He does this subtly, but with a clear intention to create problems.

However, deep down, she enjoys her company. She finds her presence comforting, almost like a familiar warmth. She believes she gives the best gifts and genuinely cares about others, especially their group members. She admires this about her, though she rarely expresses it. She keeps these feelings to herself, mainly due to past issues.

Their relationship has suffered, mostly because of the internet and external opinions. At one point, both of them felt uncomfortable around each other for a long time.

But now, she likes her. She thinks she’s a good person to talk to, and she is open to giving their relationship a second chance. She sees her as someone loving, talented, and full of kindness.

She wishes they could reconnect because she feels lonely and hurt by the emotional wall between them.

Near future to them

I don’t see them becoming best friends and living happily ever after. I see each of them going their own way, and if they do have any kind of relationship, it will be purely professional.

Even though there is a lot of ego involved and many unresolved issues from the past keeping them from reconnecting, they will feel a sense of sadness and loss.

I see their connection remaining strictly professional—both carrying a lot of ego, with one of them being quite uninterested in maintaining the friendship. I see both of them getting into relationships.

In their lives, I don’t think they will stay in the same company, maybe not even in the same group. I see relationships becoming a major focus for both of them—one getting married, another having a very public romance, things like that.

[regarding-stories]

Terry Pratchett, "Moving Pictures"

For a long, long time I've been a huge fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, many of which I have read so often, my softcover editions are about to fall apart. Recently, for a long distance flight, I selected a few to read and ended up rereading "Moving Pictures". And boy, is that one good. It's almost line-by-line genius, Pratchett in full stride.

But what makes it genius and Pratchett's series good? Let's have a look.

The Light Not-Fantastic

My first encounter with Pratchett almost drove me away. I was a huge Douglas Adams fan at the time. (Which didn't prevent me from tearing "Mostly Harmless" apart and tossing it.) I just loved his way of taking things to their logic but unreal end, that kind of humor. Knowing that, a friend recommended me to read Discworld.

The internet had just shown up and the first people were sharing e-books, which at that time meant text files, not scans, which made reading them (and keeping track where you were) about as much fun as pulling teeth. I tried reading "The Colour of Magic" and it didn't click. And looking back, I can tell why. On the one hand, my friend and I probably had different expectations of a book. And in his first books, Pratchett just hadn't learned to work his magic yet.

You don't start at the start, that's what.

"Moving Pictures" is not the first really good Discworld novel. That honor goes to "Wyrd Systers", number 6, chronologically. From there forward Sir Terry started to seriously knock them out of the park. He also knocked out a lot of books, but he was not simply prolific, he also was a really good novelist.

Discworld, in turn, is known for its "sub-series," each featuring a particular set of characters prominently. And "Moving Pictures" is the start for the Wizards' series. In order to become the start of its own thing, though, Terry had to rescue the wizards from his own worldbuilding mistakes. Magic featured prominently in the early books of the series, which in turn were the most "fantasy" ones. But there was a problem.

Burning down what you've built, again and again

The first two Discworld novels - "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" probably see the most world-building in the whole 41 books Sir Terry wrote set there. But thanks to main character Rincewind, we see most of that in the rearview mirror.

The core cast of these two novels consists of Rincewind, the world's worst wizard and coward; the Agathean tourist Twoflower, and a monstrosity called the Luggage, a many-legged chest.

But whenever any place or situation is developed, Rincewind will just run away from it, and the Luggage after him. This leads to a storytelling that feels heavily like the "and then" style, hardly pleasing.

Rincewind makes a poor protagonist, and would prove to be largely unsalvageable. The only novel featuring him as main character I find truly worth reading is "Interesting Times" (#17), though you could argue he was co-starring in that one. As late as #22 ("The Last Continent") Pratchett proved that these stories can be severely lacking, and in the whole run of Discworld I consider that one story the low point in mid-series. Again, we see Rincewind run past things spoofed and satirized that are meant to amuse us, and nothing really comes together. His best appearance is as a notable side character in "The Last Hero" (#27).

In fact, most any (surviving) character from early novels will become a side-show to better characters created later, enshrining them in the end as beloved cast members. But it's easy to see why Pterry had to give up on Rincewind as the lead of his books. He just makes it so terribly hard to establish anything. And the whole humor of heaping so much misery unto one character quickly gets old. The errant fool is not enough.

Career Dead-end

The other early mistake was to establish wizards as having a murderous hierarchy.

Climbing the career ladder for wizards meant offing somebody on the step above them, which made wizards ruthless, inventive, and some degree, funny. But out of the wizards from the early novels only two survive: Rincewind and the Librarian, a wizard turned into a mon... I mean, ape (!) who likes it so much, he remains as such. The first has no chance of rising (or stopping) and the second holds a position he's near-ideal for and which his new form is even better for.

The Librarian became one of the most beloved characters, and that's probably where Sir Terry took his hint for changing things for the better. With "Moving Pictures", the career pyramid for wizards ends at Archchancellor, and by putting a sort of keystone there holding everything in place, everybody kind of settles down. Unseen University becomes a lot more like a regular British university in terms of eccentric professors (or senior wizards) and suddenly you can have this fantastic, growing side cast you can develop.

Characters all the way down

And developing a great cast is what Discworld became all about.

Novels #6 to #10 are:

6. "Wyrd Sisters" (kicking of the Witches) 7. "Pyramids" (standalone) 8. "Guards! Guards!" (starting the Watch sub-series) 9. "Eric" (a Rincewind-ish novel) 10. "Moving Pictures" (reinventing the Wizards)

While Pratchett coins or really deepens some great locations (Ankh-Morpork, Lancre, Ephebe) in these novels, the true stars are the characters populating 4 out 5 of these.

All these series are marked by a likable, quirky ensemble cast that bounces dialogue off of each other. And Pratchett starts to color more inside the lines by wrapping all of these in one plot instead of a series of humorous events. Combine this with his witty observations about human nature disguised as descriptions, and a winning formula was born.

And while he had cast recurring through most of his novels, "Pyramids" proves that even that is not necessary for a great book. It's entirely self-contained.

Bloated thaumocrats

The majority of his "series" revolve around their protagonists, yet some do not. The Wizards are practically always the side show to whoever is leading the story ("Moving Pictures", "Lords and Ladies", "Soul Music", "The Last Continent", "The Last Hero", etc), but they enrich every story they're in by simply mucking about in their own way.

While filling a lot of pages, the wizards actually don't play any kind of central role in "Moving Pictures". They're just a humorous addition, really, not plot-essential except for providing transportation once. And yet, all, the pages they fill, they fill them quite well. Like their robes, really.

This patterns persists until the end. The wizards may get their own story thread or may be utter side cast, but are never quite cast aside. They co-star with Death and Death's granddaughter, Susan; Rincewind, the witches from Lancre, even. And they have an endless amount of cameos. They come front and center in "The Science of Discworld" - or do they become sidelined by Science itself...?

They will definitely become part of what makes Discworld feel alive, this sense of being able to walk into a place and they will be there, caught up in their own thing (most likely: eating big meals and bickering).

This happens with a fair share of great Discworld characters... Nanny Ogg might be called upon as a midwife, Vimes of the Watch may end up part of a military campaign in a distant land, same for the newspaper from "The Truth". They become the movers and shakers of the world, and they end up in a lot of places.

Original vs sequel

"Moving Pictures" is a great novel in itself. Since it introduces a whole set of characters (the Wizards and Gaspode), it feels quite alive and uses them to their full extent in terms of funny. The unofficial sequel, "Soul Music", however, is not as good.

"Moving Pictures" and "Soul Music" have basically the same plot. A group of people does a kind-of forbidden thing inspired by an infectious idea, movies and rock n' roll music, respectively. Eventually this threatens to bring down the weak fabric of reality. There are differences, of course, but they're so similar even in the construction of their titles, it's hard to argue they're not related to each other.

In "Moving Pictures" our protagonist is a stand-in for Errol Flynn, but the scenes are so well-described, that even without knowing a lot about early Hollywood or the black and white era, you can have a lot of fun with the book. (A lot of what most of us know about the silent movie era is usually from a few iconic clips and not from having watched a full length movie, after all.)

"Soul Music" has a stand-in for "Buddy Holly", and it's quite on the nose about that fact, in comparison. It's quite on the nose about everything, considering. It reads much more like a satire or parody than "Moving Pictures" does, as if Sir Terry had a much shakier grasp on the topic of music. When it came to "Moving Pictures", he certainly had one of how to shape stories and their magic which might explain the difference.

I mean, come on. "Soul Music" tries to reuse jokes out of the movie "Blues Brothers"! In case you haven't seen this classic, the jokes just hang there, in a weird way. While "Moving Pictures" is enhanced by being able to recall the scenes it references, the humor is all there, baked into the situations itself. It's organic.

"Soul Music" then suffers from the fact that Death plays a somewhat pivotal role in it. The closer Death is to being central to the story, the less engaging a story becomes... it takes Pratchett a long while to write a truly compelling, funny, riveting story that features Death and Susan at its core: "Thief of Time" (one of the best Discworld novels, no doubt). Which is also their curtain call as protagonists. Some people really like the Death novels, but I find Death as a character at his best when he's not front and center. Ironically, the anthropomorphization of the end of all things is poison to most stories he's applied to a greater extent.

"Soul Music" is one of the novels that is actually summed up by the statement I loathe in most Pratchett softcovers intro pages. "Satire at its best" - by some book review in a paper somewhere, meant to sell the book. "Soul Music" largely remains satire, it doesn't develop a life of its own. "Moving Pictures" feels like it moves beyond satire and tells a story just bursting with character.

How is "Moving Pictures" beyond satire? Take the scene with the animals that get drawn to Holy Wood because they match cartoons of the early era. They're allusions to "Tom & Jerry" and the "Looney Tunes/Toons", just as Gaspode and Laddie are references to "Rin Tin Tin" and "Lassie".

But they are on the page merely for a few lines and they immediately develop their own personality. Because they resent the stereotypical names they are given. It's dead funny and funnier than mere satire. The animals don't act like the characters they're meant to represent (unless made to do so by Holy Wood magic), but they become this disgruntled community doing their part, full of an attitude of their own instead of copycats.

In ways I find hard to explain, "Soul Music" doesn't come together like this. To me, it feels like a greater love shines through the pages of "Moving Pictures" than its lesser successor, the magic doesn't quite come back. It still reads well, but I'm much less likely to pick it back up.

Usually one wouldn't even comment on this in a sequel, because that's how it goes for most follow-up books or movies. So much so, we gladly remember those that buck the trend. It is a credit to Terry Pratchett as a writer that he not only was able to create so many good stories, but so many of them sequels featuring a similar cast.

[onlydylanobrien]

James Sweeney talks ‘Twinless’, getting intimate with Dylan O’Brien & our culture’s obsession with twins

Queer filmmaker James Sweeney writes, directs, and stars in Twinless, a wild and sharp dark comedy that’s been taking this year’s Sundance Film Festival by storm.

Co-starring internet boyfriend Dylan O’Brien in dual twin roles (as well as Gilmore Girls‘ Lauren Graham & The Nightingale‘s Aisling Franciosi), the film’s logline—��two young men meet in a twin bereavement support group and form an unlikely bromance”—is deceptively simple.

We wouldn’t dare spoil the film’s bold narrative turn that takes its story into thornier, more thrilling territory, but suffice it to say, it had the premiere-night audience gasping with glee, locking us into a film that brilliantly explores loneliness, grief, codependency, and, yes, the weird thing a lot of people seem to have with twins.

If you happened to see Sweeney’s feature debut Straight Up—a “rom-com” about a young gay man who hates sex so much he decides to start a relationship with a woman—you already have a pretty good idea of the unique tonal balance he can pull off, not to mention his incisive outlook on sexuality, identity, and obsession.

But even still, we guarantee Twinless will floor you—and make you even more certain that Sweeney is one of the most exciting voices in filmmaking working today.

Amid all the buzz, Queerty caught up with him at Sundance in Park City, Utah to talk about bringing his film to life, and his lifelong fascination with twins that inspired this singular story. And, of course, we had to ask him about his intimate (in more ways than one) collaboration with O’Brien, and how their bond produced quite possibly the best two performances of the young actor’s career.

QUEERTY: Twinless has grown out of this idea that’s been with you for many years. Can you tell me about its origin story, and how it’s evolved in the time since?

JAMES SWEENEY: I wish I could pin the light-bulb moment, but I’m sure learning about Twin Bereavement Support Groups is where the initial concept came from—though I don’t really remember when it happened. I can tell you, timeline wise, I grew up, obviously, being very interested in twins: Craving a twin for Christmas, not getting one, being disappointed, having the fantasy of running into a long-lost twin somewhere. I did date an identical twin and then, after we broke up, I wrote the first draft that year. So I’m sure there is connective tissue there, but clearly I blocked it out. [Laughs.]

Maybe it really was the the prevalence of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen that made a lot of people of our generation obsessed with twins. And, as someone who’s dating an identical twin, I know that he gets asked all sorts of strange questions about it.

Yeah, and throughout my research I’ve heard all the anecdotes and the annoying questions that twins get asked, and I tried to incorporate that, especially into the the support group. Being a twin isn’t a monolithic experience—everyone’s gonna have their own. Also, being an identical twin is different being a paternal twin, but yeah, I think culturally we are very fascinated with them.

We’re huge fans of your previous feature, Straight Up, as well, and though these are very different stories, I can draw some lines between the character you play in each, especially in the sense that they are both thorny, complicated queer men. I’m wondering—and not to use too harsh of a word—is whether or not your characters are ultimately “likable” or “unlikable” something you have back of mind in the writing process?

I’d say it was a lot more challenging with this film. I mean, I’d agree Todd in Straight Up is persnickety but I think I had a lot more trepidation about how I portrayed Dennis, because I knew we’d be walking a tonal tight rope, and how people received me would really influence the ride of the film that they go on, especially the third act. But it’s hard because you can’t really try to be likable, you know? This is the cliche thing, but as an actor you’re just trying to play the moment, to play the truth of it. So I guess, really, where I focused on it is in the writing and trying to make both characters feel real—their chemistry and reasons for being friends and seeing their conflict, both healthy and unhealthy—throughout. I think people can sort of imprint themselves on the characters. Because I’m different from Dennis, but I relate and I empathize with his flaws, because I have flaws I’m not proud of. And I have things I wish people would forgive me for, and that I struggle with forgiving others for, so I think that’s something that hopefully feels universal.

And of course there’s your co-star, Dylan O’Brien, who is phenomenal in these dual roles. I sounds like he was pretty much all-in from the minute he read the script, so what was that experience like from your point of view—knowing he was invested and ready to commit himself to your vision?

He’s been performing in a number of wonderful independent films lately, but when we met I think he was really just—because he was coming off of two major franchises—starting to curate the career and the stories that he really responded to. So it’s interesting how our working relationship and friendship has evolved throughout the years. But I’d say initially, when we met, I think I was most taken by the ownership he took over the role and the characters, and it just instilled me with so much trust, like, “Oh, he gets it—he understands my voice inherently, he came prepared, he watched my first film.” And I felt like we were so on the [same] page tonally, because we are traversing a lot of different shifts in tone and genre. And, being familiar and a fan of his previous work, I knew that he had so much dramatic and comedic range, so I was really excited. And also I felt like, because it wasn’t something that people hadn’t seen from him before, it made me feel less pressure, I guess, like we could fly a little bit more under-the-radar, which I think was easier for me [because] I deal better with lower expectations. [Laughs.]

Of course, he’s got a dual role here playing both straight twin Roman & gay twin Rocky, and in a recent Variety interview he talked about working on a “gay scale” with you to calibrate his performances. Can you talk a little bit more about what that is, and how it was referenced on set?

The “gay scale” is not so much—because obviously there’s not one kind of being gay, right? I think where I was coming from is, oftentimes when straight actors play gay, I think there can be a reticence to lean into femininity. They’re like, “Oh well, we’re just like them, I’m just going to play myself.” And obviously there are a lot of straight-passing gay men. I felt like, for this particular character contextually, it made more sense for Rocky to be more comfortable with both masculinity and femininity, and I wanted that to to feel authentic in his performance. And I think, once I gave him permission to do that, it was like switching a light—it was really transformative.

How early on in the process were you and Dylan starting to have conversations about that element of his performances? I know he initially came on board a few years back, so did you talk about how he’d play this gay role from the jump, or was it something where he showed up to set and was like, “here’s what I’ve got!”?

You’re actually reminding me: I didn’t see it until we were in Portland together, but in our very first conversation, we talked about that because I did want to make sure—I needed to know that this isn’t just an actor who’s like, “I want to show my range and do this crazy thing.” So we talked about how we saw the differences between Rocky and Roman, both in styling and posture, because one thing that he felt, that he wanted, that I always supported was having time in between characters so he could have a physical transformation. Just due to budget and scheduling constraints, we didn’t get as much time, but we got a few weeks between, and I think it really does manifest. But also just the headspace that he’s coming from was just as integral because, you know, he’s playing identical twins, so they need to look like the same person. But we did talk about it from the very first conversation.

And it goes with out saying that there are a lot of people—and even, or especially—a lot of gays who have very strong feelings about Dylan, who I imagine will be very thrilled to see him in both roles. In terms of the more intimate scenes involved, how did you navigate what you two would be comfortable with?

Without spoiling too much, I’ll just say he was always so game for every scene. There were two things where I’m like, “Are you sure you don’t want to take that out?” And he’s like, “no!” [Laughs.] He is aware of the gay community. He’s like, “Yeah, why are the gays so obsessed with me.” And I said, “I think there’s just a lot of straight white actors they like.” And he’s like, “No, I think it’s me in particular”—that’s not literally what he said. [Laughs.] But I don’t think it’s just gay men, because I’ve been with him in public spaces, and I’ve seen a lot of fans freak out over meeting him. I think there’s a very “everyman” quality about him, which I do think he’s really good at making people feel seen. And so I think, when people watch him in interviews, they feel like, “Oh, I could be friends with that person.” I think he’s really observant.

And I think that comes back to what you were saying about how intentional he is with the projects he’s choosing now, and he brings so much of himself to those. Yes, he’s a movie star, but he doesn’t feel like this larger-than-life person.

Well, I think that’s the way he lives his life as well, because he’s a private person, so… maybe I should stop talking about him. [Laughs.]

You’re also directing yourself, of course, which you also did for Straight Up. Did you feel more comfortable doing so this second time around? What did you learn from doing it the first time that you were able to apply here?

I guess it’s, in some senses, a muscle—the more you do it, the easier it gets. Was it easier? Yes and no. Todd [from Straight Up,] I think is a bit elevated in terms of the cadence and the rhythm and the posture. That was, I think, more of a physical and character transformation for me. Whereas Dennis, I think, was more emotionally challenging for me. So they were both challenging in different ways. I think Straight Up being so dialogue-heavy, my focus was being as prepared as I could be to make sure we were hitting the comedic beats here. Here, just it being a larger scale film, I was like juggling a lot more balls that I really relied on the work that I did in the script—because I didn’t always have time to come to set memorized. [Laughs.] So I kind of just had to trust that I knew the character. So even though I think I’m very different from Dennis, I do think there’s maybe more of myself in the performance, if that makes sense.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about a very specific needle-drop in this—a song I maybe hadn’t thought about in two decades: “Crazy For This Girl” by Evan & Jaron. What a throwback! Was this song just always in the back of your head for the film? Where’d you pull it from?

That was the one song we pre-cleared. I mean, we needed to because they sing along to it, but was very excited that we got that song for the movie. But it’s an iconic twin song, right? They’re twins! We also had another song, “Mother Mary,” and they’re twins. We have some sibling songs—obviously Ham—so, you know, we tried to be a little bit clever with our soundtrack. And we were trying to integrate some nostalgic touchstones because, you know, that’s the era when I think Roman was closest to his twin. So even the crush song we use the Halloween party was another nod to that, or or the bunk beds, or playing Chubby Bunny—we tried to have a motif of going back to when times were simpler in Roman’s head, and more pure.

Lastly, I know Straight Up premiered at Outfest in LA back in 2019, and now Twinless comes to Sundance as one of the may “LGBTQ+” films in the program, so I wonder what it’s meant for you to have your work embraces and supported by the queer film community?

Straight Up was on a platform theatrical release with Strand Releasing: We opened it to New York on February 28 2020, and then a couple weeks later, nobody was in theaters—we were supposed to be in more cities. So, yeah, I think in my mind, when we premiered at Outfest, I was like, “and maybe in two years I’ll be on a panel!” [Laughs.] Obviously, the world had other things in mind. But, at the festivals that I had such a great time—both queer and non-queer—because I got to do a whole regional festival run in the fall of 2019. I mean, I’d say it was really challenging putting this film together. And I go back and forth with—like, I’m happy for the film to be classified as a queer film because it’s so infused into the storytelling, but my hope is that anybody can enjoy the film. But I guess that’s also how I feel about every queer film that I like! Yeah, post-Outfest, I also feel like a lot of queer filmmakers that I’ve admired who have seen my work now have become colleagues. So, yeah, Straight Up definitely changed my life. I’d often heard, sometimes, the sophomore feature is the most difficult on, and I’m like, “well, hopefully not for me!” [Laughs.] But I’m just so grateful to be here at Sundance—we’ve been on such a long road on this film. To have the reaction on that opening night, and to be here with my cast and crew, is… I’m just over the moon.

Source: queerty.com

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

When Donald Trump flew to Pennsylvania for a 9/11 anniversary event this week, he brought an unusual companion: a 9/11 conspiracist named Laura Loomer. Loomer has been a quasi-journalist on the fringe right for about a decade, with a penchant for saying things that make even hardened MAGA types recoil. She is a self-described “proud Islamophobe” who has cheered the deaths of migrants and called for Muslims to be banned from driving for ride-hail apps. She ran for Congress twice, in 2020 and 2022, and failed both times. More recently, Loomer has called Kamala Harris a “drug-using prostitute” and warned that, if she wins, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.” Despite all of this, Trump has long displayed a soft spot for Loomer. He endorsed her House bid in 2020 and, in 2023, tried to offer her a spot on his campaign — only to back down after aides revolted. Undeterred, he hosted her at Mar-a-Lago afterward, repeatedly boosted her content on Truth Social, and traveled with her on the 2024 campaign trail.

It’s not clear what Trump gets out of this relationship. But his ties to Loomer have become a major controversy since the 9/11 event, with some of the former president’s closest allies speaking publicly against Loomer. “The history of this person is just really toxic,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the HuffPost. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — who claimed a Jewish family was using space lasers to start wildfires! — thinks Loomer is a bridge too far, calling Loomer’s tweet about Harris and curry “appalling and extremely racist.” (Loomer responded by accusing Greene of sleeping with a “Zangief cosplayer.”) It’s hard to take these condemnations all that seriously. Trump and his vice presidential pick have spent this week pushing a nasty conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating people’s pets that appears to have inspired real-world hate crimes. If you’re worried about racism and conspiracy theorizing, maybe take a look at the top of the ticket. But what makes Loomer different from Trump is that she has literally no filter. She says the quiet part out loud, every single time. The more time Trump spends with her, the harder it is to deny that his thinly veiled bigotry is anything but the genuine article. And that, for the Republican Party, is a very big problem indeed.

Who is Laura Loomer?

Loomer isn’t a household name for most Americans, but she’s been a presence in the conservative media ecosystem for quite some time. She first attracted attention in 2015 when, as a college senior at Barry University in South Florida, she secretly filmed a meeting with administrators in which she attempted to form a campus club supporting ISIS. The video was released by Project Veritas, the conservative group that specializes in (questionably edited) sting videos. Loomer worked for Project Veritas during the 2016 presidential campaign and learned to build a career out of political stunts. She grabbed the national spotlight in June 2017 when she stormed the stage at a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in New York that dressed the Roman general like Donald Trump. The disruption earned Loomer a booking on Sean Hannity’s show.

“You were making a very strong point. I applaud you for what you’ve done,” Hannity told her. Loomer parlayed the notoriety from the Julius Caesar incident into a kind of internet celebrity on the pro-Trump right. The problem with celebrity, though, is that it can give you too many opportunities to show yourself. And Loomer proved to be someone with truly out-there opinions. After an ISIS supporter killed eight people with a truck in November 2017, she went on an Islamophobic rant on Twitter, blaming popular ride-hailing apps for employing Muslim drivers. “Someone needs to create a non Islamic form of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver,” she wrote. The two services subsequently banned her, the first of many bans from high-profile tech platforms.

[...] This particular cocktail of hate speech and conspiracy theory misinformation became the hallmark of Loomer’s political style, prompting bans from major social media platforms. The straw that broke the camel’s back on Twitter, for example, came in November 2018 when Loomer tweeted that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) supported female genital mutilation because she is Muslim. In response to the ban, which came a year after Twitter stripped her blue check mark (then something given to notable people rather than a badge to be purchased) as punishment for similar false and offensive claims, Loomer physically chained herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York while wearing a Nazi-style yellow star. It’s worth noting here that Loomer is Jewish but has long had tight links to the white nationalist movement. She is, for example, close with the avowed anti-Semite Nick Fuentes who dined with Trump in 2022, and once broadly boasted that “I’m going to fight for white people.”

Presenting herself as a victim of Big Tech censorship, she found allies in popular far-right publications like Breitbart as well as in Washington. In December 2019, then-President Trump retweeted a Loomer supporter calling for donations to her campaign. In May 2020, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr calling on him to open an investigation into Loomer’s Facebook ban. She was reinstated on Twitter after Elon Musk’s purchase of the site.

[...]

Why Laura Loomer matters

There is a reason that Laura Loomer has even Marjorie Taylor Greene panicking, and it’s not just that the two reportedly have personal beef. It’s that Laura Loomer makes the rest of the Republican Party look terrible. For decades, right-wing flirtation with racism has taken place through dog whistles and coded messages. Ronald Reagan’s attacks on “welfare queens” didn’t involve actual racist slurs but conjured up a mental image for some white voters of a poor lazy Black woman exploiting taxpayer dollars to live comfortably. Liberals would call this rhetoric racism, conservatives would say liberals are just trying to shut down legitimate debate, and round-and-round we went. [...] But after capitulating to Trump, the GOP fell back into its old habits. No matter how outrageous Trump’s rhetoric and even his actions became — from the Muslim ban to family separation — liberal critiques were met with the same kinds of dismissals. Trump’s rhetoric about immigration and crime can’t be racist, they would say; he’s just speaking the language of forgotten Americans left behind by globalization. Liberals, they’d say, are making everything about race when it’s not.

Vox gives an insightful overview into the right-wing MAGA shill that's too toxic for even MTG and virulently anti-Islam hack Laura Loomer.

See Also:

MMFA: Donald Trump and “pro-white nationalism” pundit Laura Loomer: A guide to their relationship

MMFA: Trump amplified Laura Loomer on Truth Social over 20 times in 9 months

[a-babe-without-a-name]

sorry if this is intrusive im just curious and u dont have to answer but what do you do for work?

I don't mind. I don't know if y'all can tell, but I'm a very open person. Probably more so than I should be on the internet. Anyways, as of today I have three jobs. But! I'm very excited that today is my last day of having three jobs, and tomorrow I'll be back down to two.

Job #1 is as a Gallery Assistant at a community art gallery. I started working here the summer before senior year of college. I was very lucky and got the job through the art department at my school (which I was heavily involved in even though I was only minoring in studio art). I love it here, it's the reason I didn't move after graduation and It's the reason I'll probably stay in my town for a good while.

I've met so many incredibly people, I've been given a lot of opportunities to learn and grow and I've been out right told by the co-curators they want me to take over for them when they retire. Which is crazy to think about. Art has always been a part of my life, but I never saw a career in gallery art. I want to work in film, and that still is my long term goal, but being able to work in any creative field is a gift that I'll never turn down.

I'm very grateful to work here and they even gave me another position as Artist Coordinator for the Art Fair & Festival we host every year. It's a huge event, this year we had about 340 applications and we invited about 220 out of those. COVID killed the numbers a few years ago, but when I was digging around in the files we've had almost 500-600 applications a year before, which is crazy and I hope to get us up to those numbers again. We actually just sent out acceptance emails yesterday, meaning we also sent out rejection emails and oh boy can some people be nasty when they get turned down. Luckily, though, most were very understanding and asked for feedback on their submission as opposed to being mean, which was nice.

The only down side about the gallery is, because it's non-profit, the lack of hours. On an average week I work about 8 hours, during the winter slow season post Christmas I work about 4 hours a week. There a times when I get more hours, if we have events happening or if we have shows that need to go up/come down I get to work on that. And then around the Art Fair I work alot. Still, it's not enough to pay bills on it's own.

Which brings me to my second job, retail *sigh*. I don't hate it as much as I used to (thanks meds for mellowing me out haha), but it's necessary for me to be able to pay rent and all that. I was recently promoted to manager, which was the best possible thing for me. I got a significant pay raise, benefits, and the most important part FULL TIME HOURS. I'm guaranteed at least like 32-36 hours a week, something like that, but normally I have more. Is it going to be hard for me to sacrifice 40 hours of my week working at an outlet mall catering to entitled tourists? 100%. Does it kill my soul to be making a billion dollar company more and more money every day? You betcha. But, a gals gotta do what a gals gotta do. Luckily, we had a transfer from a California location and they are SO COOL. Transmasc, neon orange hair, cool clothes. Very much my kind of person, and we clicked very quickly. I work for a brand that you'd expect to have alot more alternative people working at, but that is NOT the case. So it's nice to finally have someone that GETS IT.

Anyways, I just started as manager, and it's fucked up because U had been begging for more hours for months and just not getting it. This is how I ended up with a THIRD job. It's a food service job at a local chain place. Easy enough but pays like shit. I only got it because I needed money and wasn't getting enough hours at my retail. Then 2 days after starting the manager(full time) position at my retail job opened up. It really sucked to tell a place that was already struggling to hire good people and very short staffed that I'd be leaving about a month after starting. But they understood and were very nice about it. Tonight is my last shift there (4:30 - 10:30 PM KILL ME) and I'm glad to not have to work in a kitchen any more, though I'll miss the highschoolers that act like I'm the coolest person ever just because I'm a couple years older, lol. For all the shitty parts about it, It was a pretty fun work place. Lots of just fucking around and joking, very chill, which is only fair when the pay is 14.25 an hour RIP.

Anyways, really long way to say I work in an art gallery, a retail store, and (for one more shift) at a fast food place. I'm excited to be making real money at the retail job, and also devasted that my writing time is going to be SLASHED by like 75%. I'm hoping that writing will come easier when I can spend my free time actually writing instead of worrying about paying rent or putting gas in my car or buying groceries.

This is a boy reason why Chapter 9 of SNTM isn't out. May was packed with job applications, roommates moving in and out, and friends graduating. And June was packed with racing between 3 different jobs.

July will be better. July will be calm and simple and I'll have time to write and everything will be okay.

[gallavich-annise]

Shameless Rewatch Thoughts!

The Sins of My Caretaker

I can't remember the exact point I got on board with "this show is my life now" first time round. Through lots of season 2 I was frankly confused as to why I was watching, and it was definitely the promise of future gifs that got me through the worst bits. 

But season 3 kicked things up to an astounding degree and I know that by episode 5 I was definitely contemplating starting this side blog (though it was season 4 before I caved). I remember looking forward to episode 5 in particular because of gifs. 

And... Isn't episode 5 just a work of art? This is where I could really see all that shameless could and should be. It's chaotic. It's way too full of happenings but it's amazing and beautiful and so so good. 

So what do we got? We have Jimmy having an existential crisis while Fiona worries about the water being shut off for a day, dealing with animosity at work, and having a body buried in the yard. We have Debbie dealing with bullies at the pool. We have Carl learning about gay sex for the first time. We have Lip being a dick to Mandy. We have Jody and Sheila doing their shit. Kev and V look into other options when they can't get pregnant. And! We have *drumroll* Ian and Mickey! 

Deep breaths. 

So I'm going start with my least favourite plot, which also conveniently is the least connected to everything else. 

Sheila has regrets! Jody's kink has been uncaged and now he is ordering a shit tonne of kink gear and sex toys and Sheila is a bit out of her depth. She's like "I know I'm a bit out of the mainstream but jeez". 

Her latest hospice patient is a nun who's taken a vow of silence, so Sheila finds herself confessing a bit of her woes... 

And first... I don't really care. I think it's established by now that I'm not that invested in Sheila and Jody, and this turn made me roll my eyes a bit. I didn't think it was done in a particularly funny way, and it was definitely intended to be. I was just... "Hey look, it's the consequences of your actions". I felt a bit sorry for Jody, but he's only in it briefly so it was hard to build sympathy. But Sheila's confession has this bit where she says "did I convince him to overstep his boundaries or an I helping him build new healthy ones?" And like, it's the first one Sheila, my dear. Please. Stop. 

And the comic "twist" was that the nun has a prayer blog so even though she doesn't speak, she has written all about Sheila's transgressions on the Internet. And... Well that's unethical behaviour for a nun, vow of silence or not. And it's not even that funny. 

Sheila ditches her outside a church and I'm pretty sure that's the end of her hospicing career. 

I don't have a lot to say about it otherwise. It does do its job of progressing Sheila and Jody's plot, while giving them a complete story for the episode... So if I'd liked this story it would have done a good job of it? But honestly Sheila's best bit in this episode for me was when Frank trundles through looking for power tools and she's the only one in the whole episode to ask "Frank? Why are you orange?!" (Because his hair has been spray painted... I'll get to it).

So next! 

Debbie, who can now hold her breath for 112 seconds, hangs out at the public pool. Now, Debbie is darling, of course, but I don't actually know what she hoped to get out of hanging out at the public pool. She might be there for swimming, which is fair enough. She might be there to check out the popular older girls (which is also fair enough as long as she's not creepy about it). But the show, never one to handhold, doesn't really say. She's sitting by the pool and reading, and checking out the older girls... And the camera view makes it mostly look like Debbie is lamenting that they all have curves and bikinis and she's in a one piece swimsuit. Because she's 12. And doesn't have many/any friends, which is very sad. 

So first... Frank did that whole rant in the previous episode about city kids and was very racist about the non white kids she'd encounter and now, one whole episode later, we see her hanging out at a pool that seems exclusively occupied by white teenage girls. Which is... A Choice, I guess. It's an issue Shameless has in general with diversity (and accurately representing the area they've set the show), but while I know they're not concerned about making Frank look like a racist asshole, it is a bit odd that he's so very very wrong about demographics as well? Or that they just decided to ignore it. Even Frank in this episode congratulates Debbie on her 112 seconds and then makes a comment that I don't remember at all but I think it was about teenage drama queens or something? White girls. Anyway, it's weird. 

That aside, this plot is actually done well. 

Because the bullying is realistic in a way that hurt me to my soul. There's no reason for it, they pick on Debbie because she looked at them and she's a slightly awkward pre-teen redhead with freckles. It's sad and it's real and it's sad that it's real. I felt so sorry for her, especially in her confusion when they ask if she's a lesbo. I never made any of Debbie's choices, but I identify so hard with her in that scene that it was painful. 

(Though a shout out for her iconic debate club response to "are you a lesbo". I can't remember the quote well enough even to paraphrase, but I love it.)

Now they've told her to grow some boobs, because they're dicks. And a self-conscious Debbie steals one of Fiona's bikinis and stuffs the bra with socks. It's so naive and sweet and, again, realistic pre-teen girl stuff. But she looks so awkward in it and you can see the stripes of the socks through the white bikini, especially after the mean girls tell her to go for a swim and she does. And they have put ketchup on her seat and call out "period".

I hate these girls. Hate them hate them hate them. Viscerally. Just why do kids do that kind of shit? I still don't understand it, but it happens and it's awful. And I felt every single ounce of Debbie's absolute mortification. Emma Kenney is such an amazing actress, especially in these early seasons where Debbie really got to show off her range. 

Next we get her stalking home and blowing off Molly and Liam. And she's upset at dinner, until Carl says it's because she got her period at the pool and she runs upstairs and locks herself in the bathroom. 

Which is where we get one of the rare but beautiful Fiona and Debbie sisters scenes. 

Fiona has so much going on in this episode, but she actually takes the time to check on Debbie, which she doesn't always... And it's understandable, normally. But when Carl mentions periods you see her go "shit I need to deal with this" and mentally adjusting her priority list. And it isn't that, but she still gives Debbie a pep talk. Tells her some girls are jerks but she shouldn't take their shit. And this is a Gallagher pep talk and it's a sister pep talk, not a mother pep talk. And I love that. I love the way the show shows the way Fiona's relationship with her siblings walks that line between parental and sibling, and the way it's different for each of them and depending on circumstance. Because their relationship is blurred and Fiona is a willing guardian but not a parent, and she never had good examples either.

And Debbie is ugly crying in the bathroom but lets Fiona in for a hug. Such a good scene for both of them.

The aftermath? Debbie isn't going to take their shit. Her scenes are all intercut with the buildup towards the episode climax, and it's all so tense and beautifully done. There is so much going on, but this is one episode where I really didn't mind because it just made the final fallout feel apocalyptic. It was incredible. I'm going to talk more about that at the end, though. 

For now, we'll just say that I do not endorse violence, even against bullies, but weighing herself down and half-drowning a girl who was mean to you is a genius use of Debbie's newfound breath-holding skills and is another great example of Machiavellian Debbie. I'm here for it. On TV where I know no one really got hurt. 

So I'm going to go to Molly next. It kind of feels with Molly like they were trying to speed run what they did with Ethel in season 2. Have a character come in, say off the cuff things that make you think "man that's fucked up" and be friends with Debbie and then leave (both to free up space in the narrative and to have it be another person who leaves Debbie, willingly or otherwise). And for various reasons it doesn't work as well as Ethel, mainly because of the "speed running" part. Ethel worked because you saw the horrors gradually unfold. Molly is trying to dump them too fast when there's too much else going on.

Molly also bugged me because of all the assumptions people make. Like Fiona says words to the effect of  "you're a boy whose mum pretended and raised as a girl because your mum hates men" and... Where did she get that information from?! Is she assuming things or does Mandy know more than she'd originally let on? Mandy uses "he" pronouns throughout despite not wanting to tell Molly that she's AMAB. And it's really difficult to even talk about this without falling into the same transphobic traps the show is playing off. It's all weird and gross, and done so flippantly as a small part of a huge episode and I just think "why? Why have this at all?". You wanted Lip to rescue Mandy's sibling, fine... But this is just another layer of stuff added to make viewers go "what the fuck?"

Does it bother me that Molly was raised as a girl without her knowledge or consent? Yeah... Because of the knowledge and consent part. None of the Gallaghers engage with that, and as I said last time that's okay. That is in character for where and who they are. But the show seems to be trying to make me think it's inherently fucked up to raise a boy as a girl without actually engaging with the details that make it fucked up... It's all just a bit icky. It's fucked up that Molly thinks she's going to get a period and breasts when she hits puberty... The truth is going to fuck her up regardless of what gender she decides she is. But the whole thing is put there to point and laugh at, and I kind of roll my eyes at it. 

So anyway. Molly is only a small part of this episode and mostly it's jokes about the girl penis thing. Wearing a particular dress to hide her bulge. Having morning wood. Whatever. 

I find it sweet that Molly is still there even though Carl is back, because Fiona initially said she had to go when Carl got back, but in really she's not going to kick out a vulnerable young kid with nowhere else to go except the Milkovich house (and I can only imagine that finding out about the 'girl penis' situation made it even more essential to keep Molly away from Terry). So points for Fiona there. But she is still adamant to Lip and Mandy that they need to find somewhere for her and soon.

Mandy in this episode is a bit weird. I don't really know what they were going for. She's suddenly and completely devoted to Lip, feeding him and doing his laundry and stuff. And Fiona makes a crack about Lip having a spouse. Mandy's attention is almost entirely focused on Lip (she does his laundry but isn't generally helping with the rest of the house stuff). She's hooked on him. Lip describes it as "weirdly clingy" and I can't help but agree. Like, Lip is an absolute dick to her in this episode and I won't excuse him either, but Mandy is pushing boundaries without having conversations. Which isn't in and of itself ooc, because growing up a Milkovich isn't likely to instill those values, and it does follow on from the way she latched on to Ian in "Aunt Ginger".  So actually I've talked myself around and this isn't weird, it's just an over-extension. Nevermind (is it obvious I don't plan these things 😂). 

So while it might not be ooc for Mandy, it is a bit much for Lip. And that is also understandable (but he doesn't need to be such a dick about it). It's been obvious from the outset that they've had different expectations. Mandy knew about Lip being somewhat hung up on Karen... But now she's stepped things up a notch and he's really not prepared to deal with that. He treats Mandy awfully, by brushing her off at every available opportunity, rolling his eyes behind her back, and generally being short and snappy with her. 

He has a conversation with Kev while they're on a road trip... And... Well first the framing and scripting of that scene is weird because they're in the middle of a long drive, paused to top up the water in the overheating van. But... The script makes it sound like this is the only conversation they've had the whole ride. It's fine, but it stood out to me, especially because this is one of those fully loaded episodes that's doing so much with the space that every minute has to be load-bearing. So it was a little clunky. But we get the end of Kev taking about the incident with his wife, and then he asks how things are going with Mandy. Lip describes her as "clingy" and Kev asks a couple of questions and pronounces them ghetto married, which Lip says he hates. I liked that it's Kev he has this conversation with, after the scene in season 2 where Kev waxes lyrical about girls refusing to sleep with you without realising Lip's talking about Karen with Jody. It felt like a nice mirror. And Kev is also the one to say "Karen really did a number on you". And someone needed to say it, so I liked that.

Next we get Lip declining movies and weed with Ian and Mandy, and I now wish I'd looked more closely at Ian in that scene to see how hard he's side-eyeing his brother. We've had the scene where Ian is in bed while Mandy is trying to climb into bed with a reticent Lip ("Other people exist maybe?!" Is a very Brothers line. I loved it. And also as a "hey maybe the gay guy in the corner doesn't want to watch heterosexual sex between his brother and best friend" it's Very Valid emotions).

It all comes to a head the next morning in the ice cream van (aside: I'm so happy to see the return of the ice cream van, it's a beautiful side gig and almost a character on its own. I'd love to see a minisode series of ice cream van capers). Mandy turns up to help. Kev is like "yes please roll joints, stay and help Lip while I go to work" and Lip is like "go away". It's very awkward and Mandy is upset and a little bit... Willfully clueless here? Like how is she not seeing how annoyed Lip is even before he snaps and tells her to go home to her own house (y'know the one with the abusive dad)?

Poor Mandy, you deserve better. If only you could have met Lip in, like season 9 when he had his shit a little bit more together you might have been a good couple. As it is, it's great drama but I hate it for her. 

So she runs off to her aunt's place (leaving Molly with the Gallaghers, which is fine but makes it even more of a dick move from Lip) and it's up to Ian to call him out on his bullshit. And I love Ian's talk here. He doesn't say he has to be a better boyfriend. He doesn't say he should love Mandy. He just says: if you want to be with her, treat her better. If you don't, break up with her. Which is about as fair and real as you can possibly get. He cares about them both, and I love that he doesn't pull punches but also doesn't try to force his brother to do one thing. He just wants Mandy treated fairly, even if it gets her heart broken. Go Ian. You are a good friend and brother.

And Lip. Well, he thinks about it over hard manual labour digging up the lawn. And... He calls Karen. He leaves an angry vitriolic message that is, I guess, his attempt at getting closure for himself. He tells her to stay away forever. As a viewer this means he's still thinking of her, that he saw that Kev was right.

Then... He goes to try and make things right with Mandy. Admits to being a dick. Doesn't actually apologise for it, but he admits it which is something. I always hone in and notice the non-apologies in TV shows because sometimes it feels like it's intentional and sometimes it seems like the writers don't know what an apology actually looks like. In this case I think it's more the former... It's the characters that don't really know what an apology looks like, which feels realistic. Not like either of them have ever received a proper one. And doesn't that little thought make me super fucking depressed? 

(I have a little Lucius from Our Flag Means Death in my head dancing in here to say "and yet the words 'I'm sorry' were never used, did you notice that?")

Anyway, we get Mandy's beautiful "I'm not a tool so you don't get to treat me like one" which is an amazing line. In context, I kind of cock my head on one side about it, because he was ignoring her and being emotionally distant, while not refusing her offered help, so I guess it works... But in specific the argument came from him telling her to go home rather than hanging around and helping him do stuff. I dunno, "tool" possibly wouldn't be my word for how he was treating her. But it's fine. It's still a great line. And I totally wish Mandy kept that sense of self-worth through season 4 and 5. Sad face. 

Lip makes it up to her with a mini firework display under the L. It's pretty, and Mandy looks at him with even more love and devotion and it makes my insides hurt. Lip looks happy, too, but he's looking at the fireworks while Mandy looks at him, and... It's intense the things that framing makes me feel (especially because JAW kind of looks a bit dorky-cute rather than actually hot there and it's funny to me that Mandy is like "yes please take me now"). 

Anyway, as with most of the plots in this episode, that did a great great job of doing a satisfying episode arc while leaving conflict for next time (as we know Lip isn't getting over his issues just like that, but we're leaving them in a better place). 

Kev and V have another little arc in this episode. V goes to the doctor about her fertility issues, and the doctor says that nothing is impossible but she was basically letting her down gently if she gave the impression that V going to be able to get pregnant naturally. 

So I was listening to the South Side Rules episode covering the season 2 bit where they first find out V probably can't get pregnant, and they pointed out that most doctors wouldn't do anything until they'd been trying for a year. At this point in season 3 it probably has been about a year, maybe. So it makes it weird that they had the earlier stuff. I wonder if there was something going on behind the scenes to make them do this plot line... But it was a weird choice anyway. And especially weird to have it sandwiched in here. 

We have a conversation between Kev and V about "maybe it's not meant to be" vs "I want to fight for this". We have a discussion about how expensive it would be to pay a surrogate. And we have them asking V's mum to be their surrogate, all in the span of an already packed episode. A few days on, I'd entirely forgotten that all of this happens here in this episode, while everything else is going on. It's ridiculous. 

Emotionally, I found the whole thing neutral. I know it's a common struggle, but it was one I was fortunate not to share, and if it had been? I think I would have been fairly sanguine about it. I was never one of those people who knew beyond knowing I wanted to be a mum, so I don't know how hard I'd have fought if it had been more difficult for me. 

But it's fine as a plot. I get it. I just found it a bit overloading in context with so much else going on. And Kev and V are involved in other plots, even if just as friends and counselors! So it's not like they needed their own thing right now. Whatever. 

They ask V's mum Carol to be their surrogate. They seem to have a conversation about it *while Kev is masturbating into a turkey baster* and... Okay, I get that they probably had a conversation about this earlier off screen but the way that felt rushed made me cringe a bit. Like... I hate that they seem to be rushing into it without even pausing for breath. But whatever. This bit is still less weird than what it leads to, so I'll deal and move on. 

The rest of the plots except Ian and Mickey are pretty interconnected, so I'm gonna do Frank, Carl, then Fiona and Jimmy. 

The opening of the episode shows a city employee in a high vis jacket spray painting the Gallagher front yard. Including a passed out Frank. This is why Frank spends half the episode with an orange stripe down his back until he steals a tank top from Jody... But his hair remains orange. And the high vis jacket guy says what we are all thinking: "fuck you, Frank".

The guy tells Fiona that they're going to be digging up the lawn and shutting the water off for a day. He doesn't say which day... He says "in a couple of days". The timelines of this episode are canon-typically confusing and this is clearly "couple" in the colloquial sense of "anywhere between 2 and 5 days" because the episode takes place over at least 3 days. 

But anyway, Fiona worries about laundry and washing up and showering and drinking water. And Debbie is the one to say "what about Aunt Ginger?"

You know, the body we have buried in the yard. 

I love that it was Debbie that has this thought. Because she's the one that cared most that OG Aunt Ginger was dead, and the one that wanted to know where she was buried. And Fiona knew but didn't think of it because of more immediate practical concerns. But obviously a body in the yard being dug up is a problem. And Fiona rightly makes it Frank's problem. 

I really liked the scenes with Frank and Fiona around this. Because she's worried, because she's potentially an accessory, but she puts it on Frank because he has no job and it was all his fault. And Frank understands the issue, especially when Fiona gets more graphic about prison in her motivation. But he doesn't remember where he buried the body exactly, so he has to dig around, so he goes hunting for help and power tools. 

Before that he goes in to ask his children for help, and my favourite Lip line of this episode goes to "I'm busy." "Too busy to help your old man?" "Yes. Forever." 

Frank abuses Sheila's distraction to take Eddie's ride on lawn mower and various tools, and he digs with help from Carl and Little Hank, who is apparently back, inexplicably and very briefly... One of those cases where the continuity is almost harder to explain than its lack, because if he's still around where has he been for the last half season?! And why is he just here to dig for one scene?! But it doesn't really matter and I don't care enough to talk about little Hank. 

Next day, after another reminder from Fiona, Frank goes to the Alibi and spins a yarn about Grammy Gallagher's buried gold... Which most people ignore, but Tommy and Dan take him up on it (Dan is the guy with one arm he attempted to scare Sheila with in season 2. I had to look up his name). I enjoyed that Frank gives this impassioned speech and most people are just like "Meh, no". Because they know Frank and don't give a shit and think he's probably lying. I don't know why Tommy and Dan go for it, but they do... Sufficiently bored I guess? And they dig and dig and find nothing. Not gold nor bones. 

That's really it from Frank. He disappears at that point to make space for Fiona and Jimmy drama, and doesn't show up for the dramatic events of the following morning. It's a bit weird now I think about it, but I didn't notice at the time because so much is going on there isn't really space for Frank and his usual bullshit.

So a brief aside for Carl. 

Carl witnesses an exchange between Jimmy and Ian, which is admittedly confusing even when you know the context! Jimmy stares at Ian's crotch and Ian tells him to, you know, not do that. "Not thinking about your cock. In my dad's mouth." And I'll come back to ~that~ because yeesh. But Carl is confused. Like, why would your dad be licking Ian's cock?! Fair, my boy. Fair question. And Jimmy dissembles because a) it's a fucking awkward thing to explain to *anyone* b) it's not his job to talk about sex with his girlfriend's brother and c) he's really bad at it. He tells Carl Ian's not gay (ie lies to the child), which I get, but annoyed me... Like at least get him to ask Ian instead?! He fails to answer the questions and then he just runs, leaving Carl to ask... Frank. 

I love that Carl is just plain curious. He's not disgusted, he just doesn't get it. We've seen he watches porn so presumably has at least some awareness of how her sex works (and I don't approve of him learning about it from porn, but I'm fine with a 10yo understanding the mechanics) but no one ever explained gay sex to me either, so I kind of feel for Carl in the face of Jimmy's confusion and horror. I never had the guts to ask the questions, so go Carl! 

Enter Frank. And... Again I love that the show occasionally gives Frank these nice moments with his kids. Like we had him with Debbie helping her hold her breath, and here... Frank isn't hugely forthcoming with details (which is okay, Carl's only 10 so maybe the anatomical diagrams can wait for later) but he answers the question plainly and without bigotry. And we get the "he's probably attracted to his build first" line. Frank: I have no other redeeming features but at least I'm not homophobic. I find it weirdly compelling that we get these flashes, and the scene was very funny.

Carl asks everyone except Ian or Fiona. Ian would probably nope out and run. Fiona would either give him a half-sensible answer or tell him off for being nosy. So the show focuses on Carl asking Little Hank who is either *woefully* misinformed in a way that might be hilarious if it didn't make me wince, or he's a dick (he tells Carl one penis goes inside another). Then he asks Lip "I need to know where the gay weiners go". And I can't remember exactly what he said but it was classic Lip trying to be helpful without actually being helpful. It was some analogy that made very little sense to me... Carl still seems confused.

And that's that for this episode (though I have flashbacks of his part in the following episode, only because it was used directly adjacent to the most horrific bit and it gave me emotional whiplash... But that's for next episode).

Oh, the only other Carl thing is that Frank tells him his cancer is cured and he's fine. I almost forgot about that because it's done so offhandedly and very Frank-ly because Carl tries to say he can't help with the garden because he's sick with cancer. I still feel sorry for him, but I am glad Frank doesn't keep the pretense up longer than necessary.

So... Fiona and Jimmy. 

Fiona has a lot of different things going on this episode. It starts with her morning head being shit because her boyfriend is too preoccupied by mental images of his dad sleeping with her brother (every day my obsession with Shameless leads me to write entirely new sentences... And that's even before I get to how I feel about any of that). 

She worries about laundry and the water going off. She worries about the body in the yard. She is grumpy at Lip about Molly's continued presence, and about Mandy's spousal behaviour. She has two incidents at work that continue the thread of her coworkers being unhappy that she isn't blowing the boss. Tacks in her coin drawer, and they plant cigarettes and lock her in the bathroom to make it look like she was taking an illicit smoke break. But she blows it off and doesn't get cowed by their shit. 

I understand why she stands up to the coworker who's bitter because her little sister was going to get the job, and Fiona bites back with "I've got five kids to feed". It's excellent and very Fiona. I don't quite understand why she doesn't just extend her blackmail threat to say that Bobby has to stop being a skeeze entirely?! They don't even have to report him or get him fired. I guess the fear is that if he's not getting regular head he'll leave or stop being "nice" in the other ways... 

But that's almost incidental in this episode... I can't remember how that plot wraps up, but this episode is just continuation and the rest is for later.

Then Fiona gets home to find the lawn destroyed but no body found. She sets everyone to digging, helps Debbie after her pool bullying experience, and then she gets to digging too.

And here I feel like I need to cut to Jimmy. 

Because Jimmy in this episode almost feels like he's in a different show. And I actually kind of like that? Because he's from a different world. But I do get pissed off with him a lot too. He is distracted and hung up on his dad being gay, and rethinking every interaction he observed between his dad and his male teachers and friends. And it's... Weird, but not unforgivably so. Like, I get that it's a shock, even if he's not especially homophobic (shout out to V's line "you wear designer jeans and coconut hair product, that's like gay flypaper" which made me laugh despite myself. It's a stereotype and it's bad but it's also funny, sorry). 

The spiralling is well performed, and the only thing that makes it bad is that Fiona's life is falling apart beside him and he doesn't even notice. She's obviously used to being the strong one so she thinks it's fine even though he's shouldering none of the usual load. She's not entirely unsympathetic, at least at first, even if she's perhaps not as "there there darling" as Jimmy Steve might want. 

To my mind, no one is concerned enough about Ian at this point. Like, Jimmy's issue is that his dad is sleeping with men, and even though "sleeping with a teenage boy" is mentioned, no one seems overly concerned about the teenager part. Once again this is the "Ian seems fine so it's probably fine" effect. While Jimmy feels like everything he knew is collapsing. 

He gets drunk. Kev tells him to stop whining. V says "no one died or got injured" and no one cares about Jimmy Steve's pain. 

It's a bit like with Debbie getting ignored because her issues are "needs attention" rather than "survival-related problem needs fixing". But unlike Debbie, Jimmy is a whole-ass grown man. In fact, in this very episode, Debbie has to cook breakfast because Jimmy's too busy staring into the middle distance. Like, I know he's not their actual parent but he has been taking on those duties and you have to keep them up even when life hits you in the head! Sure you're having a bad time... Kids still need to eat. Ugh.

So when it all comes to a head? I was right there with Fiona. 

Like, I don't ~entirely~ disagree with Jimmy's comment about "my tragedy is bigger than you tragedy". Suffering one-upmanship is generally not helpful. If it hurts, it hurts. There is a case to be made there, perhaps... But Fiona's problems genuinely are immediate and life-threatening and not just about her. 

He goes on about how he's supported her and as soon as he needs it she's too busy. Which might sound superficially like a valid argument, but it's not like Fiona stopped needing the support in the meantime. She stopped leaning on him as much, which is about as much as she can do at this point. If she tries to support him too, she will collapse! So any point he might have had is just in him being an entitled dick.

The argument is beautifully done. Because a clear-headed unstressed Fiona could probably deal with it a lot better. And a not-drunk Jimmy would probably rally a bit like a drunk friend whose drunker friend needs to be taken home and have their hair held back. But they're neither of them at their best and Jimmy completely avoids the very real stakes in order to whine about his being in shock over his dad--again a situation in which no one is dead or injured or at risk of losing their house or getting arrested. He's a massive dick. Fiona yells back "I am literally digging up a body" is a raw line. And Jimmy needed to take that kick in the ass, help dig, and maybe have the more mature conversation later. 

Instead he runs away, and sleeps with Estefania. Ugh. Fuck you, Jimmy Steve. 

Also, I'm still so angry that Estefania doesn't have a personality beyond "horny". Just why?! 

Long story short, I really loved that argument, and while my better angels are telling me not to shit on someone's emotional reaction to a particular situation, Jimmy Steve is a fictional character and I think he's whiny and needs to get a grip, at least for the duration of the current crisis. If your friends are hemorrhaging, you don't complain about your papercut, even if it is really painful. 

At the end of the day, Fiona and Lip are the last still digging. Though they apparently nearly forget to bring Liam in?! Which is such a tiny moment I almost didn't notice and then he's there on the path outside the house and Lip sees him and it's like FUCK?! I just... Cannot think too hard about those moments because they're so effective at driving me absolutely insane. It's all fine.

Lip says "don't worry about your dweeb" and attempts to reassure Fiona, which is cute. Fiona goes inside and collapses. Covered in mud and still wearing boots on her bed. Shudder. But before she falls asleep she calls Jimmy, who doesn't answer. Awww, I guess. Sorry, Fiona, I believe you're in love and stuff I just think he's a dick. 

Aaaand... I'll come back to the next day soon.

Because it's time for Ian and Mickey!! 

So we've already covered breakfast the first day with Jimmy being a bit of a creep and Ian walking away. Later that day, Ned-Lloyd comes by the Kash and Grab to creep on Ian a bit and ask him to rob his house. 

Once again I'm a little bit awed by the cognitive dissonance in this show that could have the stuff with Blake and Lip going all out to prove her guilty while Ned gets barely s second glance. And it feels like a show problem rather than the characters as well. The homophobia thing probably? Like, both this and the episode after basically follow the old convention of "balancing" out any kind of happiness with a horrific injury and/or traumatic event. 

Getting ahead again. 

Ned faces no consequences for sleeping with a teenage boy, except his son being a bit shocked. To the point where he feels like he can continue. He asks Ian's forgiveness (presumably for him getting into bed with Lip) and Ian shrugs it off, but refuses a kiss... The latter probably as much to do with setting as anything. But it's in there as a nice contrast for later. 

Ian agrees to rob Ned's house. Presumably he makes a list of the things he wants, because I wouldn't remember it. 

And then first thing next morning we see Ian and Mickey at their little assault course, Ian doing his drills. Aside from the "live weapon" thing, it's a cute scene. It's early. Mickey has come out to hang out with him. There's no sign that they've banged or are about to. It's a nice little aside that does a lot to imply what's going on in their relationship. Time together when they don't need to be. 

As we all know, Mickey also looks super fucking hot in that scene. Sitting on that platform with his arms out, smoking and shooting. Just. Perfection. 

Ahem.

Mickey agrees to the heist and then asks the beautiful question, oft-quoted in fanon "I don't know what you see in that geriatric viagroid". Which is a single line, accompanied by a near-perfect delivery, that tells you so much about Mickey and what he's feeling. When Shameless hits, it hits. 

The reply "he isn't afraid to kiss me".

A pause here to recall the way Mickey's lips twitch, and his little frown. He's so fucking good. 

He says nothing. It's no surprise what happens next!

The next morning they bring a van to Ned's house. Iggy is there too, along with an unnamed Milkovich. 

I don't know what to say about this scene because I'm sure it's one of the most watched scenes... Mickey agrees to no guns, and goes off with Iggy... Then runs back to plant one on Ian. 

The kiss when it happens is so out of the blue and darling and shot at such a weird angle and it's wonderful and I. Need. More. I just want more early Gallavich, dammit! Is it so much to ask?!

The thing about it, is we have so little context for Mickey's feelings, and so few scenes between these two. We've seen them roughhouse and hang out and work together and chat, but only briefly. Only in snippets. We haven't seen surprisingly tender moments at the end of sex. Haven't seen Ian bug Mickey for a kiss and be turned down, or else staring at his lips wanting to ask but not doing it for fear of a repeat of season one "kiss me and I'll cut your fucking tongue out". Fanfiction is delightful for filling all these egregious gaps. But it is sad that we didn't get more on screen. 

Instead, giddy adrenaline-spiked Mickey tries to steal a clock (where's that post about Mickey thinking he can lift a grandfather clock with the power of love?) and it gets dropped on Iggy and they wake up Candace, who shoots at them with a shotgun. 

I like that she immediately clocks that they've been put up to it by Ned. They run. She shoots Mickey in the ass. 

"You got shot Mickey!" "Yes I fucking know I got shot!!"

I love them so fucking much it's genuinely hard to live a normal life sometimes. 

(Good job I'm not pretending to be doing objective media analysis, right?!)

They run to the Gallagher house. Ned meets them there and... The kitchen scene is so beautifully done. The kids at daycare crying. Ian and nameless Milkovich carrying Mickey in and holding lamps. Ned still finding time to sass Mickey and Mickey telling him to fuck off. Except please take the bullets out of my ass first. Which, tbf, he does. 

Only Fiona, who is outside digging, hears the screams. 

And okay, another deep breath here. Because this was one of the most amazing, beautiful, tense and dramatic scene so far in the series, I'm gonna say. Not the most emotional... But the way all the chaos comes to a head is damn near perfect, and I think it cemented Shameless as a major part of my personality. 

We have the shots of the CPS woman outside, a rookie by the looks, getting ready to come in. Sees the van and Mickey being hauled in, she needs a minute. We see Molly stealing a bikini and dancing in the living room. Daycare kids everywhere. Field surgery in the kitchen. Fiona finding Aunt Ginger's bones in the yard! Debbie nearly drowning a kid.

Carl casually lets in the CPS woman. 

Fiona comes in. "Ian what the fuck?!" "I can explain!"

Debbie barreling through the door, jubilant, exultant. "I nearly drowned a slut! ... Nobody Effs with Debbie Gallagher!"

And the fall. The realisation. As Fiona and everyone else gets it. Oh fuck it's so good. So so good. Moment of all time. The whole episode builds and culminates in that moment, and it's incredible. Every element of it works and I love it incomparably.

But let's just add a "fuck you, Frank" in here for good measure. And a note that CPS clearly took a couple of months to investigate his claim? Which I guess is not unreasonable for case loads and underfunding and stuff, but jeez... Sad that it takes them so long to look into situations that could well have been a lot more abusive and/or neglectful than this one.

So... That was the end of a whirlwind of an episode. I love this one. It's definitely one of my favourite episodes, certainly pre-season 4... But there is SO much going on. It's a wild ride. I love it and I wish I had a chance to breathe. 

But I don't think I'm gonna get it because next up is 3x666. One of the list of episode numbers that I'm sure every Gallavich fan remembers.

Anyway. I have to stop. These take so long. And I mostly enjoy it, but I do kind of feel guilty about the amount of time I'm spending on it. It's gonna be kind of fun doing season 4 and 5 where I can compare with my initial watch thoughts though, even if I was less... Obsessively thorough first time round. 

Until next time. 

[insipid-drivel]

Hello, I'm new around here, I don't know why this is labeled 'im sorry', I don't know if you'll ever see it. I'm just a greek mythology nerd, having her bi awakening in a conservative, homophobic family. I'd just like to say, you, Biz, your alters, your dog, even, inspire me so much. I see Drowning Flotsam in Wine and I marvel at your ability to write emotion and build character, while I string together sentences and doodles in an attempt to communicate. Here on tumblr, seeing your medical updates, I can only imagine what pain you feel and have felt. I could and I would never pretend to have felt it as well. I look at your posts and give as much love to them as I can even when I'm the only one to do so, because you deserve it. One random internet stranger's support isn't a lot, though, especially when that stranger wants to poke and prod and ask questions.

I'd like to say hi to your alters, and ask how many of you there are, if it isn't any trouble.

Most of all, I'd like to say thankyou. For being my favourite Ao3 writer, and for reading my unnecessarily long ask.

Thanks, A ball of insecurities.

Oh wow, so the ancient html I used to build my blog is finally crapping out! I just updated my blog for the first time in many years, so hopefully the strange "im sorry" and other stuff are fixed. It used to just say "Ask". Yikes.

I'm going to send you a DM just to get that ball rolling, because tumblr's UI sucks and can confuse the crap out of long-time users as well as new ones >_> That way, you can message me privately and we can talk one-on-one if you prefer to communicate that way. Tumblr used to let you reply privately to asks sent by users that aren't set to Anonymous, but it seems they've gotten rid of that feature. Boo.

It's incredibly touching and meaningful to hear from anyone at all, especially about my writing and how it intersects and interacts with my DID. I've really been bowled over by the messages you and other readers have left that have been nothing but flattering, kind, and curious, when I've spent most of my writing career pretty much flying under the radar and going largely unnoticed. Drowning Flotsam in Wine is literally the first work in general (including both fics and original works) I've ever written get the kind of hits and responses that it does, and it really has been breaking me out of a very, very long dry spell where I've had no inspiration to write anything at all.

For many years, I really thought I didn't matter, and that nobody would ever really care about what I had to express with my writing. I've always admired authors that are able to reach out and touch people through their art on profound and deeply personal levels, but never really thought of myself as one that could achieve anything like that with an audience.

As for my alters that are presently feeling perky and talkative (we're all still pretty tired this early in the morning - Alex usually wakes up first), they say their various forms of hello! From normal ones like "Hi!" from Alex, to Marchosias saying something so wildly inappropriate that I'm not going to put in a public post while simultaneously throwing him into horny jail for the 347th time this week <3

Yes, he really is Like That.

When it comes to my alters, I have over 25-30, but it's hard to pin down exactly how many I have when I know that there are a number in the back of my mind that choose to not interact and generally avoid me so far, which is fine. Some of them are shy and not ready to talk to me, while others only perk up and interact under very, very specific circumstances. Others still either don't know how to properly interact with people while "in front" and are still learning, or are just too unpredictable and instinct-driven to let wander around too much.

For the most part, my primary "active" alters that are almost always as awake as I am at any given time are 6: Alex, Marchosias, Aever, Cassandra, Odd, and Sal/Luci. The name I use for Sal can vary based on context. In Drowning Flotsam in Wine, it's "Luci", for reasons that will be revealed later and involve some spoilers for the fic! So Sal he remains (and generally prefers, anyway).

It's seriously just mindblowing to have my writing called anyone's-favorite-anything, and I seriously get choked up thinking about it. I've been writing since I was a very, very small child and started writing novel and epic-length works when I was around 17-18 years old. It started out as an exercise to help my autistic little brother get through school, where he struggled a lot with reading comprehension and grammar by the time he was entering middle and high school. Now, it's as much of who I am as my own legs.

More than that, really. If I had to choose between losing my legs or my ability to write, the legs are gone. I use a wheelchair anyway.

Funny enough, it was my mom that got me into writing in the first place when I was still younger than 9 years old. My fascination for storytelling began when she opened up a Word document on one of those ancient brick-style PCs when Windows 95 was still the go-to OS. She'd write a sentence, and then have little-me come in and write the next one, and so on until a passion was born.

I'm really sorry that you're going through your bi awakening while dealing with a conservative and intolerant family :/ I'm truly hopeful that you're able to find some peace and consolation in reading and interacting with other queer people like me in friendly spaces like Ao3. Homophobia is wrong, bi erasure is fucking gross, and who and how we love each other should never be the subject of judgment and ridicule.

Here's Tama! Tama thinks biphobia and bi erasure are bad, especially when it means her bi friends are feeling too down to give her treats and throw her favorite ball for her.

[randadrives]

"But. . . How do you make money?"

Once upon a time, questions like: “How do you live that way? Where do you get money?” were considered rude. I don’t mind it too much, because I understand where it stems from. I understand I live outside of a societal norm (though being a nomad has increased in popularity over the years). Some people wonder, like I once did, because they want to know if it’s something they can accomplish. I’m not a trust fund child. My parents didn’t gift me some large amount of ridiculous money that I am squandering irresponsibly. I'm in no way a financial advisor. And I have no hack on how to make money while living a nomadic lifestyle. However, I can offer some insight on how I live this way, and how I have seen others live in a similar way. 

At the end of 2023 I was working my dream job and being paid well to do it. There was a fresh new badge waiting for me with my new detective number on it. And I was the unhappiest I had ever been, so I was on my way out the door. It was difficult to walk away from a place that was soon to be giving me about 100k annually if I would just stay long enough to reach the top pay. I had never dreamed of that kind of salary being in my grasp, and especially not at 31 years old. I had no bachelor’s degree, I didn’t go to college for years, I had no connections with important people to get me there. I tried really hard to convince myself to stick it out a bit longer, but it did not take me long to learn that the grass really is not greener on the other side, and I was not built for the mental stress of the career I had chosen. I needed a drastic change, and I needed it soon. I am proud of my past self for being the penny pincher that I was post-divorce (even if it was from money trauma). For the first couple years after graduating the police academy, I was working several part-time jobs making low pay. Despite receiving a substantial raise after struggling financially, I never increased my spending habits. Which leads me to the first financial habit of my lifestyle:

Live below your means

It’s easy to go from making $15 an hour with no overtime or benefits, to $33 an hour with great benefits and plenty of overtime opportunities, and change your lifestyle. Buy a more expensive vehicle, treat yourself to more clothes, eat out all the time, go out for drinks with coworkers every night, buy dumb shit on the internet as a hobby, etc. Easy, but not ideal. I am a paranoid, “what if?” type of person. I like to be prepared, and I don’t like feeling wasteful. I paid off my vehicle so I didn’t have a car payment anymore, and I continued to live, for the most part, like I was still only making $15 an hour. I did not take out more debt unless I absolutely had to. If I did, it was low interest debt, like a vehicle loan, and not high interest credit card debt. All that money I wasn’t spending was going into a savings account. Not a good one, just a regular savings account with virtually no compounding interest, but it was still piling up. Once I finally decided to leave my job, I had a decent cushion to fall back on. It’s not magic or a secret, just live below your means and prioritize. I had to say “I can’t afford that” or “that isn’t in my budget” frequently, and I had to mean it. And I still do that. Fortunately, I have done some research since then and know more about High Yield Savings accounts and investing, so I like to think even though I’m making a fraction of the amount of money I did then, I do better at making it work for me. An extension of this habit is:

Prioritize wants and needs

To live this lifestyle, it takes drive. It takes making and committing to a decision that travel and living intentionally are more important than having things. I have become a person who doesn't like to receive physical things as gifts, because they take up too much space, they weigh too much, and I have to create a place for new things in my small living space. I like the types of gifts that are edible best now, but honestly, who doesn't? When I talk about priorities, I probably have a different vision than others. I don't need a new cell phone every two years when the one I have still works. I don't need to purchase new things when they can be fixed for a lower cost. I also prioritize higher quality products. I invest in a more expensive item up front if I know it's going to last longer, not needing replaced all the time because it was cheaply made. On the flip side, there are many things I choose to purchase used, and occasions I have bartered or traded to get something new I want. Even within the community of people who live nomadically, priorities can be vastly different. One of the most important things in my budget personally is fuel money, because I like to move around and explore. Others can park their rig in one spot for 2 months and be perfectly content, having a way lower fuel budget than me. Also, it may seem like common sense to me now, but I feel it necessary to point out living in a vehicle or in a camper CAN be quite a bit cheaper than owning a house or renting a living space. Your bills tend to decrease the more you downsize, if you're doing it right. Priorities also range because people are bringing in vastly different incomes. There are digital nomads, working remotely in their careers, there are retired couples living their dream of not working to live, and there are those of us working seasonally.

Seasonal jobs, side gigs, and work camping

Work camping is an employment opportunity just about anyone can do, with seasonal contracts being popular amongst those who want to explore. It was a great way for me to ease into this lifestyle with a direction and some stability for a few months, offering me a spot to stay and co-workers to lean on. I joined a website and a Facebook group to find a job and had several phone and Zoom interviews before landing one in an area I had my heart set on. I accepted a housekeeping position at a campground in Moab, Utah. That gave me a direction to drive so I wasn't just wandering aimlessly, and a free place to park as well as a paycheck. While there, I also did pet sitting and dog walking on the Rover app for extra money. I took one work camping gig after that, in Yuma, AZ, and I continued using the Rover app. I will probably look for another work camping position in the future, though right now I'm taking a break from it. Some people line these up so that each season they're in a different location with a guaranteed job, going north to south, or east to west as the year goes on. I prefer housekeeping because I like to work alone now and prefer minimal interaction with other people. But there are also desk positions, maintenance, management, bartending, events coordination, and many more. This lifestyle requires flexibility! Working in campgrounds is not the only way to work seasonally. There are ranches, farms, hotels/resorts, tour guides, National and state parks, etc. Some even provide housing/lodging and some offer campsites. Other types of side gigs could be DoorDash, Uber, house sitting, and many other independent contracting jobs. Creativity is another requirement. I have come across travelers who own businesses and offer services cleaning and fixing RVs, photography, officiating weddings, jewelry making, and just about anything else one can think of. The opportunities for work on the road are endless! For those retirees who don't want to earn an income but want to help and stay busy, volunteer opportunities are everywhere as well, such as camp hosting in state parks.

The elusive remote job

I won't skip over the topic of digital nomads. I searched for and applied to remote job listing for months before leaving my career. I continued to search and apply for months after. Occasionally, if I get bored, I'll begrudgingly open my laptop and do it again. . . Unfortunately, I haven't had the best experience. I do know others who have, but much of the time it appears these are jobs in companies they already worked for, or there was some type of "connect" to land the opportunity. I would love to encourage people to try to find a remote job and hit the road, but for many it's just not realistic. The same goes for content creation. It really works for some of those who live in their vans or truck campers, and they spend full time hours working on brand deals and creating videos for YouTube and Instagram, but for me and many others, it's just not a realistic goal. I'm not discouraging from either of these paths, but acknowledging they are not easy ones.

Choose where you park wisely

Sure, there are folks who live full time in their rigs at various campgrounds, but I am not one of them. That goes back to the "living below your means" thing for me. That is not within my means, unless I'm working at said campground and they're giving me a free or discounted spot. Finding free places to stay is much more my speed, which is why I spend so much time in the western part of the States. Public land is abundant there, and it's easy to find through apps, a search engine, or even stopping at the offices of forest service to ask. I invested in solar to be able to do this - a higher cost up front that has saved me money in the long run. When I do need a break from dry camping and want to run electricity and do maintenance tasks, or if I'm in an area of the US where there just isn't much public land, I will usually choose a lower cost type of campground such as an Army Corps of Engineer (COE) campground, a state park, county park, or city park. With a little research, you will find that these places offer full hook up or partial hook up campsites in awesome areas at a fraction of the cost of commercial campgrounds.

Cheap entertainment

Staying at these types of locations leads us into how much money hobbies cost. Like anything else, this can vary greatly based on the individual. I enjoy hiking, nature, sightseeing, historic sites, reading, writing, watching movies, stargazing, building fires, cooking, and a lot of other inexpensive hobbies. My hobbies are accessible because of the places I camp, most of the time being right in the center of all things outdoorsy. I have found free museums, inexpensive zoos, and made friends with other campers and nomads so I have people to sit around a fire and talk with. Being a cheap date is a perk in this lifestyle. I truly never feel like I'm missing out when this country has so much to offer. A long time ago I let go of any need to impress people with what I can purchase, and choose to spend my time seeking different views in nature.

When people ask me the intrusive questions like "but, how do you make money?" when discovering I don't live in a house or have a full-time job, I don't typically go into as much detail. More often than not, they are just being nosey, or they won't believe me anyway. It's more fun to answer with "I sell photos of my feet online," and shrug it away.

[mayonnaisetacos]

What has happened ever since Saturn has entered my 12th House!

Let me give you some context about my chart, first and foremost: I'm a Virgo Sun, Aries Rising, and Pisces moon. My moon is in the 12th house, which opposes my Virgo sun. My Mars is also in Virgo, so that's also being opposed in this Saturn transit. Alright, lets continue..!

Gone To Therapy For The First Time: I hit a very harsh hurdle in my life. A lot of social circle changes were taking place, and things were indefinitely ending. I was extremely fearful of getting into therapy, but something made me bite the bullet. You'll read what exactly has changed for me in this post!

Started My First Ever Job: I was beyond scared to start my first job, since I was often fear mongered about the outside world.

Ended Long-Term Relationships: Specifically, I've ended two. One of them, 5 years, the other.. a year and a half... maybe? It was made clear to me through very uneasy feelings (such as fear and anxiousness), endless conversations with these two, and constant bickering that I should move on, and drop them both.

Created a More Solid Foundation With My Spirituality: I've been functioning with my spirituality out of truth, realism, and skepticism. Not that I haven't before, but its been more implemented in a way. My belief in spirituality, my workings, etc is more solid than ever!

Started Learning How To Drive: ...with no fear attached! I remember when I was 15 yrs old, I'd constantly have anxiety attacks behind the wheel, I wasn't ready in the slightest. Now though? Absolutely no fear. This was such a big milestone for me, along with me getting my first job!

Starting Thinking About Moving Out Seriously: In the past, I was extremely scared of the thought of moving out. Now, I'm suddenly more comfortable with it. I feel fearless to move in with my boyfriend!

Changed My Identity And Mission On The Internet: So, for anyone who doesn't know, I Vtube. I used to say "Im a Vtuber", but recently I've noticed that doesn't resonate with me anymore. I started showing my face a lot more, and let my real name be known. I feel this need to show myself to my full potential, and my full range. Btw, by "mission" I just mean what content I want to create :) This is also something I heavily feared.

Been Separating From My Mother a Lot More: Adulting is hard when you have a helicopter, or codependent, parent. I've been forcibly separating myself from my mom, teaching her that I'll be perfectly fine without her in all of my corners. This is yet ANOTHER thing I was extremely scared to do.

Seriously Thinking About How To Provide Solid Foundations For All Of My Projects: Almost, in a way, thinking about permanence? In terms of my future, specifically career. Thinking about especially the financial plan I have for my future business.

Seriously Thinking About Going To College: I've never been a very college-fond person. I've always despised school, however recently I've been thinking about what degree I want to MAYBE use in order to have a very solid career later in life, no matter if I'm employed under someone or I end up becoming the entrepreneur I dream of.

How Is This Accurate?

Saturn: - Restraint - Maturing - Lessons - Academics - Reality - Wisdom

12th House: - Endlessness - Dreams - Emotions - The Unconscious - The Creative Mind / Left Brain - Spirituality - Permanent Endings - Loss - Fear

The Constant Themes I Experienced So Far: - Breaking of ones fears. - Breaking free from restraint. - Truth seeking / Seeing extremely clearly. - Karma being served. - Maturing / Adulting. - Heightened intuition, more visions. - Clearer retrospect. - More healthy realistic thinking. - Learning how my energy alone can shift my reality. - More fearlessness in general, once I got the ball rolling.

My Conclusion:

When you put both of these together, the energies of the old collide with the concept of mature growth, aka the new. This Saturn in Pisces is extremely beneficial for anybody who is not resisting to Saturn's lessons!! And this is coming from a girlie who was born on their Venus line!! So yeah bitch, accept Saturn's movement!!! I've grown so much. In conclusion, this transit has affected me positively. The opportunities I was given were shown to me through my own efforts. I was shown what I can do, and more. I am STILL being shown what I can make, change, initiate for myself. Thank you, Saturn!!

[badwritinghabit]

Chef's Kiss | Carmy x fem!OC x Luca | Chapter 4

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist | Ao3

Warnings: Mentions of suicide, Carmy panicking

Word Count: 2,501

Summary: Sophie and Sydney bond over dealing with Carmy's bullshit. And Sophie and Carmy get close in the kitchen.

Sophie started building a friendship with Sydney, the sous chef in Carmy’s kitchen. Their short time cooking together at The Beef acted as an introduction and when Sophie ran into Sydney at a farmer’s market, they reconnected and ended up spending the afternoon together. They wandered the market and eventually decided to chat over coffee and pastries at a coffee shop nearby.

The two bonded over their experiences in restaurants, exchanging stories. Sophie learned about Sydney’s catering experience and her time in culinary school. Sophie shared about her time in San Diego, how she missed California but had to admit Chicago had its own charm.

Sydney updated her about the restaurant. Carmy and the crew at The Beef had found money Mikey was hiding in cans of tomatoes. And they were planning to rebuild into an entirely new fine dining spot, with a window to keep hold of their roots and still sell their famous sandwiches.

Sophie was happy for them. Carmy had talked about his dream to help Mikey turn the restaurant into the Bear for so long. Syd was also excited to be working in a restaurant more fitting of her experience. She deserved the role of CDC and Sophie was thrilled for her.

“I needed this,” Sydney sighed into her coffee mug, looking at Sophie after she vented some of her frustrations. “Carmy is driving me insane.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s been even more unresponsive lately. And I know after his brother– I mean, I can’t imagine.” Sydney had quieted. “Tina was telling me how close they were. How Mikey had been a little unstable but no one ever expected–” she trailed off and Sophie went cold.

“Richie told me he had passed but I didn’t realize.. he- Mikey killed himself?” Sophie asked, feeling her heart start to race.

“You didn’t know? Oh shit. I assumed since you and Carmy were friends you must’ve– it was all over the internet too. With the Beef. There was a couple articles. And Carmy being Carmy…” Sydney was clearly uncomfortable, feeling guilty for spilling something she worried she shouldn’t have.

“No it’s okay, Syd. Carmy and I hadn’t really talked since he went to work at Noma. And I hadn’t really kept up with his career,” Sophie regretted not trying harder to keep track of where he had ended up.

“It’s hard because I know it explains some of this. I can’t blame him. But also, this is my future too. I can’t risk my career if he isn’t all in. And he keeps leaving me hanging.”

“You are absolutely right. Even if he has a reason it doesn’t make it okay for him to abandon you,” Sophie agreed, head still spinning with the news of Mikey’s suicide. “Damn, sorry Syd. I wish I could help. I don’t think me talking to him would be any help though.”

“Did something happen between you? It seemed like you two were talking and now you’re avoiding each other,” Syd said, leaving it open for Sophie to respond.

“It’s a long story. We had a bit of a disagreement,” she paused. “But I wish I knew about Mikey. My dad– uh. My dad also took his own life. A few years before I met Carmy actually. So I know what it’s like,” she said, softly. “Should have given him the benefit of the doubt. He has other things on his mind,” she explained.

“Oh I’m so sorry Sophie,” Syd was instantly sympathetic and Sophie nodded. “I’m sure you and Carmy will work it out,” Syd smiled at her encouragingly.

Sophie hoped she was right.

---

It seemed as though Sydney must’ve said something, done some urging, because Carmy called Sophie a few days after they spoke. He asked her to visit, to come see what they were doing with the new restaurant. And to discuss their decor decisions. He said she had the better eye for art and design. She disagreed, Carmy was one of the most detail oriented people she’d ever met. But she did enjoy it and it was a good excuse to put what happened behind them.

Her visit was fairly short and Carmy was quiet, as usual. She learned a little about the stress of kitchen prep, getting all of the permits, making sure the new space was up to code. She met Carmy’s sister Sugar and offered her help where she could.

She still felt a little awkward around him, a little annoyed at him and herself. But she wanted Carmy’s restaurant to be successful. He deserved it.

She left before they could ever interact without Sydney or Sugar also there.

---

Weeks later, Sophie received a call. Carmy’s voice sounded through her phone. “Soph. I– I know this is sudden. But I have an idea for a dish and I was hoping I could cook it for you.”

“A new dish for the menu?” she asked, confused.

“Yes. I had this idea and I couldn't get it out of my head. Could I come over? I want you to try it.”

“Oh– of course, Carm. Tonight?”

“Yeah. If that’s okay,” he sounded unsure. As if he just realized he was making a strange request.

“Yeah. That would be fine. You can come over whenever.”

Carmy called when he got to the front door and she found him outside, looking slightly flustered, holding a giant bag of groceries. She grinned at him and led him upstairs.

“I won’t get in your way but let me know if you need help. Or a taste tester,” she said. She walked back to sit on the couch and tried to work a little on her laptop.

Something about the sounds of Carmy cooking in her apartment made her feel at peace. Like all of the nights in New York, shuffling around in her tiny apartment, cooking into the early hours of the morning. She missed it. The comfort of just having him around. Eventually she stopped pretending to work and found herself just looking over at him while he cooked.

“This feels a lot like New York, doesn’t it?” he asked, as if he could feel her attention on him.

“I was just thinking about that”, she admitted, walking over and leaning against her kitchen island to get a better view of his cooking. She hummed. “Do you remember that night we made those god awful ginger prawns?”

Carmy laughed, loudly, caught by surprise. “Fuck, I forgot about that.”

“My roommates were so mad. Our apartment smelled terrible for a week.” She shook her head with a grin.

“This smells amazing though. Almost like–” She stopped for a second when she saw the chicken and herbs in the cast iron skillet on her stove. “Chicken Paillard?”

“It is. A little bit of a twist. Because you used to be obsessed with potatoes. And bacon lardons.”

“This is like our lazy sunday dish.” She was astonished. “But French.”

“A little French. A little Danish. Mostly just– our dish. It’s what I want the Bear to be. All of the things I love.” Sophie blushed at the softness in his voice.

He had started plating it, his hands sure as he placed the chicken over the salad of greens, roasted veggies, and crisped polenta– alongside the small caramelized potatoes. An herb and lemon scented pan sauce carefully poured over the top. He turned and handed it to her.

She bit her lip but took the plate and looked it over. Devouring the details, the mix of colors, the golden potatoes and the bright greens and the crispy, browned chicken. She took a bite.

“It’s amazing,” she said, knowing she was blushing. After another moment of thought, she looked up at Carmy with wide eyes. “I remember these potatoes. The Danish recipe.” He had cooked them for her the night he told her he was applying to Noma. She remembered so clearly sitting and watching him cook for her. Sad about his possible departure but happy for him. He was so excited. And he deserved good things.

This dish was all of it. It was New York. It was them, sitting in the kitchen at 2am laughing over complete nonsense because they were so exhausted they had become giddy. All of the quiet joy they had found amidst the chaos. She took another bite. Then she slid the plate over to him. He reached over and took a bite as well, looking at it thoughtfully. “You’re too talented for your own good,” she said, voice too intense for what she meant as a way to play off how much it meant to her. For him to make this dish.

He smiled at her, his own cheeks flaring pink. “I’ve been so fucking lost. Making the menu for The Bear. Syd has helped a lot but we’re both just taking swings wildly, trying to make something memorable. But for some reason this afternoon I couldn’t get our chicken dish out of my head. And I wanted to make something that felt like that. I wanted it to feel like your kitchen in New York.”

Her heart pounded. She was getting caught up in him again. She didn’t want to mess it up. She knew what he was going through. With Mikey. Didn’t want to make things worse for him.

“It’s perfect,” she blinked and looked away, trying to cut the tension. “But you improving on our dish feels a little like that terrible Bobby Flay show,” Sophie joked, lightly. He huffed out a laugh before looking at her with his unbelievably emotional eyes. “I think this is my new favorite dish,” she said, thoughtfully. His eyes lit up and she decided to tell him just how much she loved his cooking– had always loved his cooking. “For years my favorite has been that veal saltimbocca you made for us on our last night in New York,” she admitted quietly, hoping he didn’t feel odd about her obsession with his food.

“That was your favorite?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah. Are you kidding me? It was simple but perfect. Back to basics, that’s what we talked about back then, remember? I was so annoyed with fine dining then, turning everything into foam. I feel like that conversation, that dish changed my career. It has stuck with me ever since.” She realized she had rambled, gotten too passionate, and bit her lip.

Carmy had stepped closer to her. “That day– those dolma you made? I tried for months to get that recipe right,” he said to her, eyes burning into hers. She felt the air leave her lungs. It had changed– the energy between them. Her hands gripped the edge of the counter, nervous. “And those caneles– I get a canele every time I see it on a menu now.”

She blushed, feeling nervous energy shoot up her spine as he stood in front of her, hands on either side of her hips against the counter. “I remember wanting to make something so you wouldn’t forget me when you were off traveling the world,” she responded softly.

He was standing so very close and shifted even closer, she moved slightly, making space between her legs so that they were on either side of his hips. Her heart pounded. He moved his hands and the feeling of his palms on her thighs burned through her jeans. “It worked.” It was a whisper.

And then his lips were on hers, the taste of lemon and smoke still on his tongue from the dish. He was soft and gentle, hands unmoving on the outside of her thighs. But she wanted more. She lifted her hand and tangled it into his hair.

Her thoughts had found her here numerous times before but none of it compared to the reality. The feel of his lips against hers. His hands as they smoothed up from her thighs to her hips, pulling her against him. His hand traveled up the curve of her back and cupped the back of her neck, fingers entwined in her hair. She was burning, every inch of her he touched suddenly alight.

And then it was over.

He pulled back and she found herself looking into his eyes. Something had changed. He was pulling away again.

“Wait.” He stepped back and pushed a hand to his forehead. “Shit, I shouldn’t have.” He was panicking, eyes wide. Gripping his hair, he turned and cursed to himself.

She reached out to him, still breathless. Her brain struggled to catch up but something kicked in, seeing Carmy’s clear distress. “Carm, it’s okay. I know you are about to start a restaurant. Not a good time to make things complicated,” she said, quickly changing to comforting mode. She was still thrown for a loop, her lips and fingertips tingling from the kiss. But she was worried about him. “It’s fine,” she said, again. Trying to mollify whatever feelings he was having. Remembering what she learned about Mikey. Knowing he must be so fucking exhausted with it all. She didn’t want to be another problem.

“No.” He shook his head, hands running through his hair. “Fuck. I ran into Claire. From high school.” She recognized the name, of course. The two had talked about their childhoods and she came up. “We ran into each other and then I helped her move some furniture. And she took me to a party.” He had let go of his hair and it fell across his face. He looked disheveled and broken and apologetic. She realized what was happening. He was choosing Claire. Then why did he kiss her?

Her heart raced. Shame burning the pit of her stomach. But she forced herself to respond. The embarrassment and hurt could come later. “Oh that– that’s good, right?” She asked, her voice sounding much more clear and confident than she expected, even with the stutter. “I know what she meant to you,” she said when he remained silent.

Why did you kiss me? She wanted to ask. Wanted to rewind and have him take it back. It wasn’t fair to do this to her. Make a dish for her. For them. Kiss her. Then say he was with someone else.

“I’m–fuck.” His hands were shaking. “Fuck I’m so sorry, Soph.” He walked over to the table and grabbed his jacket. “I’m going.” And he ran out the door.

She stood there in the kitchen as he left. Eventually she turned to look at the plate of food. Their relationship on a plate. Their hopes and dreams as young chefs. The little safe friendship they had built. She grabbed the plate and threw it into the trash.

She felt tears streaming down her face before she realized she had started crying. She walked over to her couch, grabbed her cellphone from the table, and called Mallary.

“Hello?” her sister’s voice answered almost immediately.

“Mal,” Sophie’s voice wavered, a sob escaping before she could help it.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“He kissed me.”

[sasquapossum]

Software can be a harsh business, and no segment more so than games. Anybody who goes into it should expect to encounter mostly negative sentiment. It has long been known as a rule on the internet that people are more likely to express disagreement or condemnation than agreement or approval. Right here on tumblr dot com, I've gotten so tired of the scolds and pedants (cops at heart even though they say ACAB) that I've considered leaving more than once. In four decades online I've never found a venue where the rule doesn't hold ... but I digress. Back to games. Let's look at some recent examples of how I've written about the games I've played.

I've been kind of hard on Baldur's Gate 3. On the other hand, that's against a background of most people positively frothing with praise for it. It's sitting on a 96 score at Metacritic, in a three-way tie for best of the year, with an 8.9 user score. I'm seriously not worried about anyone's ego being bruised. Au contraire.

I've criticized many things about Diablo 4, but also stood up for them more than once when I felt criticism was unjustified. They don't deserve an 8.9 user rating for sure, but nor do they deserve the 2.1 that they actually have.

I've generally praised Deathloop, even though most people's reaction (6.5 on MC) has been lukewarm at best. "Arkane's weakest game" is a common refrain that I don't think is deserved. Take a look at the reviews for Redfall (which I haven't played) to refute that. BTW, "this was so bad it hurt my opinion of 3 different companies" might be unkind but it did make me laugh anyway.

Game developers, designers, and product managers need this kind of feedback. They need to know not only that people like or dislike a game, but how much - which we convey via the strength of our language. They also need to know which parts people like or dislike. That's how they make the next one better. The one thing I will never do is just say "this game rocks" or "this game sucks" without any elaboration. That is truly unhelpful, whichever way the sentiment runs.

Part of the reason I can say this with such confidence is that I've also been on the receiving end. I was in the industry for over 30 years, covering a dozen companies and even more products. Every single one was attacked from one direction or another. Near the end of my career I was a maintainer for a semi-well-known project. I was one of several, but my particular role within that group included being its public face. I gave the most public presentations. I engaged the most (by far!) on social media. I often had to deal with criticism that was harsh and untrue and very public. Sometimes it even came from people who were my "stablemates" on a related project in the same company - people who I had considered friends, who should have known better, whose own work had its own flaws which I had avoided discussing publicly out of professional courtesy. Nothing I could say about a game, as an outsider, will ever compare to those stabs in my back.

As I said, it's a brutal business. I learned to develop a thick skin, to ignore the hyperbole and try to engage with some of the other criticism in good faith even when I didn't believe it had been meant that way. The products I worked on got better because of that. If any game developer or designer can't handle the kind of criticism I've given, I suggest that they are in the wrong business and/or the wrong role.

[rainepuddles]

I remember when I was younger, I was absolutely convinced I would become a superhero when I was older. I distinctly recall being 7 and me and my cousin had a balloon, I wanted to make a wish with it.

We went outside to set it free, and before I set it go I whispered to the balloon

“I wish to be a superhero” and then let it go, hoping it would come true.

My cousin looked to me confused, but I think I told her it wouldn’t come true if I shared it.

After I stopped believing in magic and superhero’s, I moved onto idols. Internet celebrities, who built their careers on sharing their stories and interests. I laughed and learned more about people like me. More about who I was, who I wanted to be.

I always got told I shouldn’t reach for a goal like that, I never understood back then. I thought it was easy. But it was my dream.

Now I understand where those people were coming from. Some of them had first hand experience with the real world, their dreams crushed by hardships amounting to nothing. Warning me that if I tried too hard, I’d fall so hard I’d never get back up.

Others just thought I was just having unrealistic dreams, and brushed them off.

For a long time, I thought they were just being pessimistic.

But now I know.

the higher ups, the corporate world’s, the control, the destruction of creativity, the murder of people.

And now, I’m in place where I feel like everyone else is oblivious.

All the strangers here in the place go on about their lives, happily. While I’m over here staring at the red strings attached to my hands and wings, and the white strings attached to everybody else’s.

Do they not see it too? Why is everyone so happy.

I stare at the state of this place in horror, as headlines pass my face like a whirlpool of colour’s, feeling more outcasted than ever. And yet, I can’t even think of feeling outraged. I feel numb, sad but at most…. I feel…

Determined

Despite everything, knowing that the whole world is against me makes the fire in my soul grow stronger. I want to fight harder now. All the love inside me refuses to die.

Now that I think about it, I’ve always known I wanted to share myself. Even when I thought I was a superhero, I wanted it because something in me told me that I was just… supposed to be something bigger. Even when I was so young.

Even though I still look up to those online personalities as inspiration and a dream, I’ve been using stories to help me as of recent.

Characters with similar issues as me, practically holding my hand and pointing me towards a path of infinite possibilities. Sharing similar pains of loss, control, betrayal, loneliness. Characters who comfort me in my saddest hours, who I know would tell me that I have the willpower of a warrior and I’m something special to share. Stories about forging a different path then one designed for them, or healing from insufferable pains.

These people have followed me everyday, telling me that I’m not alone.

That add fuel to my beautiful, warm fire.

And that is the long story for the dream that has stayed for over a decade. It was hard to realise the importance of it all until now, but I don’t think I can look back. I doubt it’s unimportant, I doubt it’s impossible.

And I doubt it’ll die anytime soon.

I remember back when I was younger I was obsessed with yo Kai watch. After I finished watching the series, I watched the music at the end credits and immediately went to my backyard and sung the song into my bushes. I thought if I did it loud enough, a yo Kai would pop out of the bushes XD

I did it over, and over, and over. Nothing happened.

[veliseraptor]

hi Lise. I really like your writing & blog- I don't have a tumblr, but I like to check in with a few blogs related to my interests. lately though, I've found tumblr’s moral purity/callout culture & discourse exhausting. I feel like it's affecting how I think about everything, making me paranoid to trust/like/learn from people & media and scared of becoming misinformed if I step away. do you have thoughts on how to handle this? asking bc you’ve survived tumblr for years & seem like a kind person.

I don’t know that I’d call myself a “kind person” but I at the very least try to act like it.

Oh man, I don’t know that I have a great answer for this. What I’ve done is a combination of aggressive curation - I basically never go in tags, I’m very careful about who I follow and who I talk to, I overall try to steer clear of discourse posts or discourse in general and try to keep my bitching to a minimum and well tagged so that people can avoid it. I make liberal use of the block button. 

Then the other prong is that I just shut it out. Which is, I think, an acquired skill! I feel like I’ve gotten better at it, over time - better at filtering, better at recognizing bullshit, and better at knowing to pay attention to the people I trust and my own research over noise from strangers. It’s been about...I think a lot of it has to do sometimes with...you know how you learn to recognize conservative dogwhistles? I feel like I’ve learned to recognize fandom dogwhistles too, and therefore know when to tune things out. 

Re: the information thing - people yelling at you on the internet is not actually a good learning environment. It’s much more productive to, if you’re worried about being misinformed, do your own reading and your own research, and, again, parsing signal from noise. 

And some of it is just...giving yourself a little bit of trust/benefit of the doubt. Recognizing that we are all fuckups who fuck up sometimes, and that most of the time it isn’t malicious, and more important than not fucking up is how you react to fucking up. Life is a process of learning and growing eternally, etc. etc. and so on. You can’t anticipate everything. You can’t know everything. No one is born woke and no one is woke all the time.

The last thing, and I’m afraid this really just may be something that comes with time because it’s something that continues to come with time, for me, is learning to give fewer fucks about loud and angry strangers on the internet. Sometimes you just have to look at someone telling you that you’re a genocide apologist because of your fictional character preferences and go “yeah, okay, but I know that’s not true and I think you do too, deep down, and I’m done with this conversation.” Let it go.

But yeah, I think a lot of my strategy really does just boil down to finding ways to filter it out altogether. Curating my follow list and becoming more aggressive with the block button were two of the best choices I ever made about my Tumblr experience.

[here2bbtstrash]

birthday drabble 11 - jjk

@ryujinsfemaledog asked: 18 + 25 + jk 🤭🤭

pairing: jungkook x reader contains: smut!! camboy!JK & camgirl!reader, they're ~just friends~ (who fuck) tho, JK has fangirls lol, chat-controlled vibrator, multiple orgasms, minor overstim, the smallest bit of dirty talk, condomless sex, DVP with a sex toy, crying after sex summary: your camming partner thinks he can handle your new toy.

want more? check out all my birthday drabbles here! requests for these are now closed 💜

Your comments have been a fucking disaster since you started camming with Jeon Jungkook.

There are your long-term viewers, mostly creepy straight dudes, who are pissed that you don’t solo stream as much as you used to. Those are easy enough to ignore, and the block button is your friend for the ones who stray a little too far into straight-up delusional territory.

There are your favorite group of viewers: the ones who are either some flavor of queer or just indiscriminately horny, and beg you both to fuck them, often with extremely creative suggestions. They regularly get into bidding wars (encouraged by you, naturally) to come up with the freakiest scenarios possible, trying to see who can get Jungkook to blush so hard his ears turn red.

And then there are the new viewers, who are specifically there for Jungkook, and love to demand that he leave you because they could treat him soooo much better. His “bunnies”, he’s affectionately labeled them. You have to roll your eyes and make a gagging face off screen when he says it. Who does he think he is, Hugh Hefner?

Yeah, your comments are a mess. Your bank account’s doing pretty good though.

You aren’t actually dating Jungkook, but you don’t need the people of the internet up in your business like that, so you let them think what they want. He’s been a good friend to you for a long time, and when you started casually hooking up, you learned he was great in bed– great enough that you felt a little sorry keeping it all to yourself.

So one night, after enough liquid courage, you admitted to him what you actually do for a living. As a long-term sex worker, you’ve heard just about every reaction under the sun to your career: you’re going to hell, that must be so sexy, oh I could never do that… but of course I support you. Blah blah blah.

Jungkook is the only person who’s ever surprised you with his answer: he leaned in, puppy-dog eyes wide, and whispered: “I’ve always wanted to do that."

That was when you knew you’d have fun with him. Though fun doesn’t quite seem like a strong enough word to describe it as the remote control vibrator shoved up inside of you works two back-to-back orgasms out of you– your second and third of the stream.

You’re spread out on the bed, propped up on your elbows so you can still read the chat, and everything from your neck down is shaking from the effort of staying upright despite the sheer pleasure rolling through you. You throw your head back as you cry out, doing your best to keep your legs wide for the camera as your pussy pulses again and again and again.

“Fuck, baby, was that another one?” Jungkook gently caresses a hand over your thigh as you writhe underneath his touch. He loves to play up the couple-y shit on stream, and you get it; his demographic eats it up. You could do without the pet names, but it’s not a big deal. He’s sweet, and really good at checking in with you.

It’s just a little hard to respond when you’re losing your shit. “Y-y-yeah,” you manage to gasp out, chest heaving with effort. “Two… oh fuck, t-two in a r-row.”

“Do you need a break?” His hand creeps closer to your core, ready and willing to remove the toy at your command. You squeeze your eyes shut and shake your head as your walls continue to flutter.

“No, no, no.” You say emphatically, doing your best to jiggle your tits to punctuate the words. When your eyes blink open, Jungkook shoots you a small knowing smile, his face turned away from the camera so that only you can see it. What can you say? You like to put on a show. “I need more.”

“I’m sure they can give you more.” You can barely think, let alone read, so he leans forward to check the screen of your laptop. “Thank you so much for your donation… JKDumpThatBitch69.”

You quickly close your eyes again so your audience can’t see them roll back in annoyance. These fucking girls, man.

“I’ll think about it, bunny,” Jungkook says with a shy laugh, and you don’t even have to look at him to know he’s shooting the camera a playful wink. You slowly open your eyes as the vibrations trail off, and you run a hand down over your cunt and the toy tucked inside it, mostly to make sure it hasn’t fucking fallen off yet.

“You always know how to make me feel so good,” you whimper for the camera, chasing the phrase with an exaggerated hiss as you squeeze your pussy lips around the vibrator.

Jungkook has told you that you oversell it sometimes– he’s the only one who’s seen both sides of you, so maybe he’s right. But when you glance over at him, he’s clearly enjoying himself, as indicated by the outline of his erection now straining against his tight black briefs. His tongue darts out to lick his lips, and you can’t help yourself.

“Come here, baby,” you stress the pet name on purpose, an inside joke between the two of you because he knows you lowkey hate them.

An anticipatory grin spreads over his face. Jungkook always looks so excited that he gets to fuck you, and you can’t deny– it’s quite the ego boost. You inhale sharply as a gentle round of vibrations rolls through you, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. Tilting up to read the screen, you rock your hips against the bed with a soft groan of appreciation.

“Thank you,” you have to squint to make sure you’re reading the name right, “BothOfYouTopMe420. Hear that one, babe?”

Jungkook has stepped out of frame to slip off his briefs and is now squeezing a healthy amount of lube into the palm of his hand. Your eyes drop heavy-lidded to watch the way he spreads it over his cock, knowing good and well the camera can’t see him: this part of the show is only for you. His tip is already starting to leak precum, and you bite down on your bottom lip at the sight as the toy continues to rumble inside you.

“Yeah, I think you’d look pretty good in a strap,” he says, loud enough that the stream will pick it up, and you laugh a little, not expecting that comment out of him.

“Maybe we can try that next time,” you tease. “Now will you please come fuck me?”

Stepping back into the shot, Jungkook kneels down on the corner of the bed, gently grabbing your legs and shifting you to the perfect angle for the camera. You’ve run the numbers on this– your content performs substantially better when his ass is in the frame. The people want what they want.

The toy has stopped buzzing for now, and you know exactly what everyone is waiting for. You’re a little jealous of the view they all have, that they get to watch Jungkook’s muscles flex as he braces himself on the mattress on either side of you, but you lose that thought entirely as he starts to push his length into you.

Nope, you correct yourself, you actually don’t give a shit about the view. Getting fucked by him is way better. They have every right to be jealous.

It’s definitely a stretch to take both him and the toy, but the lube does its job, and the three orgasms have certainly also helped get you relaxed and pliable. There’s barely any pain, you want him so bad.

“Feels so good, baby,” he groans, and you have to bite back the urge to tell him to buckle the fuck up.

The tip jar dings, and you brace for impact, but some kind soul clearly decided to go easy on you and give Jungkook a chance to get used to the lowest setting. You’re grateful for it, especially because you can already feel his cock twitching inside you, pressed tight between your walls and the toy.

“Oh fuck,” he moans, his hips starting to roll. “Do you like it, baby?” Translation: Is this still okay? It doesn’t hurt?

He’s too good to you. You nod your answer, lifting up to find his lips with yours as he starts to properly thrust. The two of you don’t do a lot of kissing when the cameras are off, and you always forget how nice it is, his lips so soft and warm. It’s good for the stream, you tell yourself, but your heart squeezes in your chest all the same.

When you hear the tip jar ding again, you know you won’t get lucky twice. You pull away from Jungkook with a smile, your muscles tightening in anticipation. “Get ready, baby.”

He talked a big game all morning about how he’d be able to take it, how good his stamina is, so you can barely hold your laugh in at the way his eyes roll back in his head when the highest setting kicks on. That’s what he gets for underestimating the bunnies.

“Oh my god–” Jungkook gasps, “oh my god.”

The feeling is insane even for you, and you quickly lose your ability to focus on him. You drop back against the bed, your back arching and your still-sensitive pussy shuddering at the intensity; you know the way you pulse around him only makes it that much harder for Jungkook to hang on.

“Fucking shit, baby,” he cries, rutting desperately into you, animalistic. “Yeah, so good, so fucking good, agh–”

The way he grinds against the toy pressed firmly into your g-spot is more than you can take, and you can only moan as you feel yet another wave of pleasure crest inside you.

“I’m coming, fuck,” you breathe, “I’m coming.”

Jungkook’s pace increases, ruthless now, as your walls squeeze tight around him and the vibrator, pushing the intense buzz so far into your core it makes your fucking teeth chatter. He doesn’t have the breath to say anything, but you can feel his cock pulsing inside you as his release hits, too, ropes of warm cum spilling out of him to fill up your already overfull cunt.

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” Jungkook finally manages to groan hoarsely as his head drops onto your shoulder. You can't believe he came that fast. As smug as he can be about it, his stamina is typically impressive.

You tip your head up when you feel something wet drip down your collarbone, wondering if he lost it so bad that he’s drooling on you. With one hand, you gingerly lift his chin up to look at you, only to realize a few tears are streaming down his face.

“Oh my god, Jungkook,” you say, momentarily forgetting your pet names. “Are you okay?”

He smiles shyly, clearly embarrassed, balancing on one arm so he can wipe his face with the other. “That was just really fucking intense. Fuck.” He turns to look at the camera, and you hide a giggle behind him because you know his fangirls are going to love this shit.

Jungkook drops his voice into the low end of his register, so fucking ridiculous that you have to bite down on his shoulder to keep yourself quiet. “I’ve never cried during sex before, but I guess there’s a first for everything.”

Once you've swallowed your laughter down, you release his shoulder to seek lazy kisses from him, smiling against his mouth, until you’re both a little more recovered. When he slips out of you, ducking out of frame once more to pull his briefs back on, you recenter yourself on the bed. Your walls continue to flutter tenderly as you move with the toy still inside you.

“Look at that pussy, so fucking messy,” Jungkook groans softly as you spread yourself wide for the camera again, his cum glistening as it leaks out of you onto the sheets. “How many rounds was that? Four?”

You trail a finger through your folds and bring it to your mouth, nodding at his question as you taste him on your tongue.

“God,” he laughs, “we’re about to break our own record. Think you can go for five, baby?”

Leaning back on your hands, you quirk an eyebrow at him, at the fact that he even has to ask. You’re a goddamn professional.

“Bring it on.”