#like... I've never. NEVER. had a problem finding hobbies/things to do that bring me a crazy amount of joy

[running-in-the-dark]

I had a conversation with my mother about making art, specifically painting, today. she's been trying to get back into it after quite a few years, and she's said something similar to me before but this still confuses me - she said she doesn't enjoy painting at all. the process isn't fun for her and she doesn't like the result and back when she used to paint more (usually on stuff like plates or furniture, and usually copying something exactly) the only part she liked was selling the product/giving it to the person who commissioned her/getting money for her work, basically.

it's just completely baffling to me that she still wants to keep trying it (as a hobby) then. I have (too) many hobbies and I enjoy them all, at least most of the time, or I just.. wouldn't do them? I don't understand why she wants to do this so badly when she's never enjoyed it, the process frustrates her, it stresses her out and so on. like, either do the thing you like (selling the stuff you paint) or just find something else that you do enjoy doing?!

though apparently this is how she feels about most things - she knits but doesn't like it, she reads books but that makes her fall asleep so she doesn't like it, she has the TV on most of the time but doesn't like that either. so maybe the hobby itself isn't the problem here.

[my-great-big-book-of-fan-fiction]

L Lawliet X F!Reader Smut Oneshot

VERY SMUTTY SMUT, 18+

FINALLY finished! This was so fun to write, but I've been so distracted recently that I haven't been able to work on any of my hobbies. I apologize for going AWOL for like, what, a month? Anyway, hopefully finishing this will be the start of bringing writing back in my life. Enjoy, L fans, and let me know if you have ideas for more!

Warnings/contents: Oral (reader recieving), PinV, cowgirl, happy trail, slight amounts of biting, and a very tired man

L has been working far too much, and it's showing. Not only has he not been leaving the CTV screens, he's stopped sleeping all together. Not even at his seat. For someone so smart, you'd think he'd know to take better care of himself.

Well, tonight, he's finally returned to your shared bedroom, only to retrieve some important flash drive. You were laying upside down on the bed, your legs propped up on the headboard and your hands busy with a rather riveting game of snake.

As soon as you heard him walk in, you perked up, flipping around and watching him with intent, your phone playing a sad little song at your loss of the now irrelevant game. "Hey! are you done working?"

He had his hands in his pockets, his steps light but slow as he felt weighed down by his lack of energy. "I'm never done working," he answered simply, walking to the nightstand and crouching down in front of it.

He opened a drawer, which contained a safe. He typed in the 12 digit code, opening it and finding a few small files and three flash drives...none of which were the right one. "I put it right here...did you take the red drive from this safe," he asked with slightly narrowed eyes, turning to the left to face you.

"No...is something missing?"

He examined you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, taking in everything about you. This was the problem, he could never tell if you were lying. Whether it was that he was so infatuated with you he couldn't imagine you lying to him, or if you were simply that good, It was frustratingly inconvenient. Perhaps you simply never lied...that was the delirium from not sleeping speaking, most definitely.

"Are you lying," he asked simply.

"No, unfortunately. I wish I had it...I can help you look," you say sweetly.

"I will find it myself...thank you," he nodded, throwing the polite thanks on the end.

"If you say so," you say in obvious skepticism.

He stands back up, looking down at you as you laid back once more. "Do you doubt my ability," he asked challengingly.

"Well...no...It's just..." you look back up at his big, tired eyes, his face discreetly shifting back and forth between curiosity and annoyance.

You look back to your phone. "You've been so tired, you're running on fumes...I just don't think you're in the right place to be effectively searching for and finding things...or, remembering where you put things...or...doing detective work..."

Silence.

You slowly look back up at him, already wincing at how he must look. When your eyes met his, he just seemed...surprised?

"Do you really think my lack of sleep is affecting my efficiency in a palpable way?" He seemed to be considering the notion.

"I do. Very much so."

"Well...I don't have time to sleep," he mused lowly.

you could work with this. "Would you at least shower? It could help you relax, get your mind off things. It'd only take, like, what, 20 minutes?"

He thought about this.

"I suppose it may assist me in 'getting my mind off things'," he sighed. "Fine. But I'd like you to look for that flash drive while I'm gone," he said firmly. Even without the team around, he still acted like he was your boss. You looked up at him with raised brows.

"...please." This energy deficit was making it harder to engage in social conventions, it took a level of consciousness he did not have currently. Another reason he needed sleep.

"Sure," you said with a smile, sitting up. "Go on, go shower, I'll start looking right now," you assured, standing and guiding him to the bathroom. He walked on his own, shutting the door behind him.

You sighed, turning to face the room, scanning it, your brow furrowed. Then, the water turned on. You glanced to the door. You could hear the rhythm of the raining droplets interrupted by him getting in.

With a deep breath, you relax, walking to the nightstand and opening it back up. You typed in the code to the safe, It was a seemingly randomized combination of the numbers within you and Watari's respective birthdays.

Reaching into your bra, you pulled out the flash drive, placing it atop everything else. You'd have to confess and apologize later, for tricking him. You really just needed a reason to get him away from his computer.

With a satisfied huff, you laid back down, continued your game of snake, and waited for him to get out.

fifteen minutes later, the bathroom door gently pushed open, and out L walked, seeming slightly better. he had a towel wrapped loosely around his hips, a slight and sparse amount of black hair barely visible above the pristine white of the fabric. Another towel was slung around his shoulders, catching the water dripping from his spiked black hair.

perfection.

You sat on the edge of the bed, smiling happily at him. "Hey, how do you feel? Better? About the flash-"

"I'd like to have sex."

Your mouth hung open for a moment, the suddenness shocking you. You supposed it was because he was lacked so much energy before, because him being so direct wasn't rare in the slightest. Meanwhile, he simply stared at you, waiting for a proper response.

"Right...right now?"

"Do you have any other plans?"

"Well, no," you say, laughing a little. "I thought you were tired. You should be tired."

"I am tired, but I've come to the conclusion that sex with you would be beneficial, more so than the shower, and more time efficient than proper rest."

You just laughed even more, giggling at his frankness. "Sure, yeah...so, I'm assuming you'll want to get straight to things? make it quick?" Nothing was unexpected with him, that was for sure.

"Well...not without foreplay. I'm not completely helpless," he muttered, his brows furrowing slightly at the insinuation he wouldn't. He could tell that's what you were thinking.

"Is that so? Here I was, thinking you'd leave me high and dry," you tease.

He took a step closer, before putting his foot up and onto the bed next to you and leaning over you. His hands were at his hips, the natural placement for him after so much time putting them in his pockets. "Do you think that lowly of me," he asked softly. His eyes were half lidded, staring deep into yours as if he were reading your soul, and his lips were parted, slowly taking in air, his breath warm against your face, so impossibly close to you.

Your skin was warming, blood rushing to your cheeks and nose as you take in the sight before you. Then, you smile, bringing your hands to cup his face. "You're trying too hard," you taunt, planting a gentle kiss on his lips. He closed his eyes, and when you pull away he leans in farther for a beat, as if he's trying to chase you. His serious expression disappears, and he sits up just a little more. "Am I," he asked, genuinely, cocking his head a little in curiosity.

He just makes you giggle, he's so funny without even realizing. "Yes," you laugh jokingly, nodding for a moment before you calm down. Then you lean in a little more, glancing down at the foot propped up on the bed, and quietly say, "No. It's nice, fun...but, I'd rather you just be yourself." You tilt your head up, your lips brushing against his, before you give him a true kiss.

He closes his eyes, a shiver running up his spine, and when your mouth opens to slide your tongue across his bottom lip, he gladly opens his own. Your hands stay to the sides of his face, and his eventually make their way to your shoulders. You stop for a moment, scooting backward. Without even thinking, he sits completely on the bed, just to follow your lips, and as a reward you waste no time kissing him again.

You stay like that for a while, making out while he sort of straddles your legs in his usual crouch, until he moves past your mouth and to your jaw. It surprises you for a moment, but you quickly adjust, your hand moving to his damp hair to steady yourself.

He leaves wet, meaningful kisses up your jawline, his hand sliding up to your neck to hold you in place. "Did you know," he starts, planting a kiss to the spot where your ear meets your jaw. "That the ear is one of the most sensitive parts of the body," he finishes, kissing at the shell of your ear and sucking on your lobe for a moment. He wasn't even trying to be overly sexy, at least not in his words, you could tell he simply said it because your ear made him think of it, but the candidness of this moment that was so L made you melt...especially because of his soft, low voice.

"Is that so," you ask, your voice wavering a little.

you could feel his smile against the skin of your ear as he left another impassioned kiss to the shell. "It appears it is," he hummed, his voice dropping ever so slightly. Maybe he was trying.

You could do nothing but let out a nervous giggle, your back arching upward until your chest met his. You turned your head, your ear no longer accessible to him, and planted a kiss to the side of his neck. You could feel him stiffen, his breath catching in his throat. You kissed him again, this time slowly, and his hand moved to be in your hair, the other planted firmly on the top of your hip to steady himself.

You take the moment to remove the towel around his waist, glancing down to see just what you were working with...and there he was.

He was fully erect, around 6 inches, the pale pink tip beading with pre. Perfect. You almost reached out to touch him, to please him, but...

Finally, and rather suddenly, he mutters, "Sit back....please."

You don't argue, you just...do. You sit back from him. You could have kept going, just to tease him, but just in case he was overwhelmed, you sat back.

He wasn't overwhelmed, to your delight, and you knew because he leaned forward and brings his lips to your clavicle, placing a gentle but impassioned kiss there. He hears your breath catch, and as he looks up at you with his usual moon-eyed stare, he catches the way your nostrils flare, and your lips part. "You are aroused," he states softly, his hands running up your sides and under your shirt.

"I am," you titter, his cool hands sending a shiver up your spine as you watch him intently.

"If you take your shirt off, I may be able to assist you," he hums sarcastically, a slight, gentle smile across his face.

You roll your eyes, a big smile on your face as you remove your shirt, setting it aside. You take your bra off too, and your pants for good measure. The only thing left on you is your underwear, something that, as he trails feather light kisses down the valley of your breast and the center of your abdomen, he carefully removes with his thumbs and index fingers. By now, he's on his knees and bent forward completely, his hands holding your legs apart as he brings himself to be face to face with your aching folds.

he gazes up at you, not in question but in curiosity, almost a way to tease you. do you want this? how badly? you really want this, don't you?

He slowly licks his lips as his eyes flick back down to what was before him. He sticks his tongue out, giving a long, tentative lap up from your entrance to your clitoris. as his tongue slides up your clit, beneath the hood, your hips buck, just enough to let him know you're excited. With that, his lips lock onto it, his eyes half lidded as he lavishly sucks and laps, soft groans reverberating through you ever so gently as he pleasures you.

He always seems to enjoy this as much as you do, and with each moan you release, he responds to you with a particularly angled prod of his tongue, or a vibrating groan in return, rewarding the crescendo of your sounds.

Your hand finds its way to his hair, nestling in the soft black stands and gently pulling at the base. At the feeling, he releases a breath he seemed to have been holding, the air fanning against the skin of your thighs and lower abdomen. The sturdy grip he has on your hips tightens a little, and as your hips stutter with the eventual arrival of your orgasm, he looks back up at you, his eyes peering, examining, daring you to look anywhere but at him. You can't help but to stare back.

With one final lap of his tongue, you finish, back arching, head tossing back, your voice ringing through the room in what he can only describe as the song of the angels. He helps you through, gently sucking on your clit, and when you finally come down from it, he pulls away, licking the fluid from his chin and upper lip. It was sort of endearing, watching him do something that looked so...stupid, to put it bluntly.

You laugh despite your panting, smiling as he sits back with his knees rather relaxed compared to usual, not to his chest, although arched halfway there. "you were...considerably louder than usual. has it been a long time since you've experienced an orgasm?"

you almost wanted to chide him for asking a question that had such an obvious answer, but you supposed it was good he didn't negate the fact that you could self pleasure. "Nope. I guess you could say I've been saving myself for you," you sigh teasingly, crawling closer, over his legs, bringing your face and hips above his, respectively.

He instinctively takes your hips, looking up at you with a thoughtful expression. "Why would you do something like that," he asked disdainfully.

You laugh a little. "Does it matter?"

He pauses, looking to your hips. "I suppose not. It makes no difference to me," he muses.

You smile down at him with endearment, your hands sliding to his shoulders. No time to waste.

You lower yourself down his vehemently leaking cock, his grip tightening around you as you push yourself past his tip.

he leaned forward, his knees coming up, your body now between his chest and his legs as your hips met his. he wasn't especially girthy, but his length more than made up for it. You take in a breath, steadying on his shoulders, and slowly slide upward.

He watches with a sort of aroused fascination as you begin to ride him, his eyes not leaving the sight of your body taking his dick in and out, watching and feeling every twitch, listening to every sound, the variations, the angles, everything perceived. You wouldn't think he was enjoying himself all too much, given the fact he was only releasing tempered pants and the occasional hum, but it was his attention that gave it away. Nothing besides his work, and now you, has captured his attention so quickly and so intensely.

If he weren't so tired and in need of a proverbial "quickie," he'd have you in as many different positions as possible. He has a need to see every facet of you, to know how you look and feel and sound in every angle and situation...but, for now, the usual cowgirl will do. And it does, it does rather nicely.

He only looks up at your face when he takes notice of your own noises, growing in volume and desperation. Of course, when he looks up, he can really only see your tits, bouncing away, and he really has no choice but to lavishly suck on your nipple. a formality, truly. The sounds and expressions that elicits is simply heavenly.

He grips your hips tighter, and as the air from his nose fans across your chest, he thrusts himself up. You cry out, his tip unexpectedly hitting your cervix, and all you can do now is shift back and forth as he thrusts up, peer into his large observant eyes as he tongues your breast and uses your body as he wishes. The sight, the feeling, the sounds, it was all too much for you. You moan louder and louder, signaling an orgasm, and the moment his tip pounds a particular spot, you're done. Your hips buckle, your body shakes, and best of all for him, your walls constrict.

in mere moments after you, he begins to truly moan, his cheeks flushing as his orgasm grows closer. After one particularly fast and hard jerk of his hips, he's calling out your name, his teeth pressing into your chest as his lashes flutter, his cum releasing within you in quick spurts, riding the wave as your hips roll against his.

He said this would be quick, a way to relax while staying time efficient, but fortunately he was too tired to take his own tiredness into account. He fell completely asleep beside you, his head pressed into your chest and his legs pressed to your torso as you stroked his hair. He'd sleep for the next 14 hours, and while you got up to pick up the slack at work, get something to eat, or use the restroom, you always returned to him.

I genuinely looked like coraline's dad writing this. I had fun, but wow was I lethargic. I'd like to do this again though, hopefully when I'm feeling more determined!

Taglist: @cheekyweekymouse

[armoreddragon]

how did you first get into making this stuff? do you enjoy it?

There's a lot of possible answers here.

For a couple years after college, I worked at a laser engraving and cutting shop. Leather was a material we knew we could cut, but nobody ever asked for it, so I looked up some basic info and put together some masks as demo pieces. Then I got fired for unrelated reasons, but decided to keep going with the masks on my own. A decade later, I’m still going.

I've always enjoyed making things. The focused calm of working a craft, the challenge of finding the problems that need solving, followed by the satisfaction of holding in your hands something that hadn't exited before. It’s hard to beat that feeling. If you haven’t done it for a while, I highly recommend making a habit of it.

Sometime in college I realized that if I kept making things just for myself, I would eventually run out of both space in my closet and money in my bank account. So I took the best photos I could of what I had, and started posting it up on Etsy.

In high school ceramics class, I had an idea to try and make a flexible dragon skin out of little bits of clay, all glazed differently. I had no idea how to do this. A friend of mine was like "Yo it sounds like you want to look up how to make chainmail for that." She was right.

I work in architecture by day, and the decision to do that was unrelated but definitely related to my crafting obsession. Designing a kitchen, a café, a house, takes months or years of work, most of which is tedious details like picking tile patterns or looking up exactly what order to layer different sealant tapes to make sure the walls are watertight. Designing a crafting project gives me a creative outlet that is immediate. I can sit down for an afternoon and take an idea from a sketch on trace paper, to a final mask formed up out of leather. There's an excitement to that. A reminder that, yes, I can make cool stuff quickly, without needing to sink two years into a project.

For a while I worked to teach myself to draw. I managed to get pretty decent at sketching from life, with a moderate understanding of anatomy and perspective. I liked art, so I thought I wanted to make art. But I struggled with it. If I was drawing something from my imagination, no matter how well I managed to put the lines down on the paper, I would ultimately look at it and just be sad that it didn't exist in the real world. So eventually I gave up on the drawing part, and focused on the part I seemed to actually care about.

I can't envision a version of myself that doesn't make things. I think on some fundamental level, I measure my worth as a person based on what I put forth into the world. I don't know what else to do.

When you decide to turn a hobby into a business, it of course takes some of the delight away. It's no longer something you do when you want to relax and have some fun. It becomes an obligation, to make and ship orders on time, to pack up your stuff and bring it to craft fairs, to track your expenses and file your taxes, to stay on top of the constantly changing social media landscape. But it also lights a fire under your ass. You can't just keep making the same thing you made three years ago–you have to keep making new stuff, keep improving your techniques, keep reaching for new ideas that have never been made before. You lose some of the joy, but you gain a lot of satisfaction.

All through my childhood I filled my closet with little handicrafts kits, that I got as gifts or that caught my eye when following my dad to the art store. Calligraphy, wood carving, weaving looms, boondoggles, spirographs, knitting, crochet, fancy nautical knots, sculpey, and more that I can't remember. After all those different things, I’m so glad that I found a couple specific crafts that really grabbed me, that take enough work to develop expertise, that have expansive enough applications and possibilities, that I could devote a decade or more of my time to focusing on them.

I’d been interested in the furry fandom ever since little fantasy reading teenager me tried looking for stories where the dragons were the main characters, and I found people online who were doing just that. There’s a powerful do-it-yourself attitude that’s baked into the core of the fandom: The world isn’t giving us the art that we want, so we’re going to make it ourselves. I keep having ideas for things that I want, that don’t exist yet. If I want them to exist, I have to be the one to make them.

My dad was a photographer, and I spent many childhood afternoons with him in his darkroom in the basement, delightedly washing negatives, turning them gently over in their canisters of chemicals, sitting still in the dark as Dad unspooled the sensitive film, squinting in the red light as the projected images magically re-emerged on the clean white paper. What could be more amazing, more normal, more right, than having your own little space to work such magic for yourself.

In about 2008 or 9 I ordered my first batch of metal scales, with the idea of trying to make a dragon tail in time for Halloween. It took probably a couple weeks to figure out how to make it, and within a week I had thought of how to do it better and disassembled the entire thing. By the 3rd or 4th time I'd rebuilt it, I thought that it was probably good enough that I wouldn't feel embarrassed to post it online and see if someone might want to buy it.

Of course I love working on these things I make. But I don't think that's exactly why I make them.

[thezombieprostitute]

Music in the Air

A/N: Written for Vee's Holly Jolly Challenge (@sstan-hoe). Reader is implied fem, "girls like me". No physical descriptors used.

Prompts: Bucky Barnes - My house, my rules. The Christmas music stays on.

Summary: You and Bucky discuss poinsettias.

Bucky's arm was having problems. Again. In all the years he had the arm he never really got to understand how it worked. He could figure out how to fix a lot of things, but his arm wasn't one of them. That's why he was glad he had you to turn to. You had quickly become his go-to engineer in the Avengers Tower. You were a rare and delightful combination of "not afraid of him" and "not overly friendly". You would smile, but let him initiate the conversation when he wanted.

At least, normally you were his favorite. Ever since December started you only every played Christmas music in your lab. He was still trying to get used to how much the holiday had changed and the music was, well, a lot. Especially when you were always listening to some kind of heavy metal Christmas music and he had only ever heard Christmas music sung a capella or maybe a church organ.

"Do you really need to listen to that music all the time?"

You smiled while working, "I did the respectful thing and waited until December before I started listening."

"Yeah, but it's just so..." he struggled to find the words.

"Non-traditional?"

"Jarring."

"Well, Sergeant Barnes," you reply, setting your tools down, "My house, my rules. The Christmas music stays on. However, I am willing to switch it for something that's maybe a little more your speed."

You walk over to your laptop and open up your playlist. It takes you a minute, but you finally find the song you're looking for and press the play button. As the speakers sing a lighter, slower tune, you turn back to Bucky, "you should be grateful. I don't turn off Trans Siberian Orchestra for just anyone."

Bucky blushed as he smiled, listening to the song. It was very different from what you had been listening to. For a start, there were lyrics. They told the story of a poinsettia named Percy and how had been overlooked and abandoned but grew and shone when given love. He almost smacked himself for having empathy for an imaginary plant.

To distract himself he said, "I'm surprised you like this song. It's so different from what you were listening to before."

You smile and respond, "it's a childhood favorite. This song just really hit my heart in a way no other Christmas song did. It stuck with me so much that, even in college if I saw my flowers for sale that were wilting or on their last legs, I'd buy them. Just to make sure they had love before they fully wilted."

Bucky looked at you with a softness in his eyes before you shook your head, "I know, it's stupid. I was an adult, I should've known better but some things just stick with you, you know?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "I know. Did you stop buying flowers because you kept getting them from dates or something?"

You chuckle, "I stopped because I had to prioritize my budget. I can't remember the last time I had flowers in my apartment. But thank you for the compliment."

"What do you mean? The guys you date don't give you flowers?"

"Girls like me don't get dates, Sergeant. I'm not whatever enough for guys to ask me out. Whether it's my size, my intelligence, my hobbies, there's just always something that keeps guys from asking me out, let alone bringing me flowers. But, again, thank you for the compliment."

You set down your tools and start putting them away, "your arm is all patched up. Hope this fix lasts you at least through the end of the year. I've got a lot of projects to finish up before the end of the year so I might not have the time to take care of you."

"You're not staying here for Christmas, are you?"

"I am," you nod. "My family celebrates holidays on days that aren't the day of so that we can avoid traffic and last-minute shoppers. So I set up an office lunch for the people who either don't celebrate, have nowhere to go, or whatever other reasons. Mr. Stark has been very generous with the budget for that."

"I'm glad you won't be alone on Christmas," he gives you a gentle smile.

"How about you," you ask. "You're welcome to join us if you'd like."

"Sam is insisting on taking me to Louisiana," he replies.

"Good," you assert. "I'm very glad you also won't be alone on Christmas."

You really shouldn't have been surprised to see the poinsettia on your desk the next day. There was no note, but you suspected. It wasn't very big and it had started wilting, but you loved it nonetheless. You gently hugged the plant and promised to give it the best of care for as long as it needed. After a week it was like a brand new plant, bright and strong. Doesn't hurt that you asked the biolab techs for help and resources.

It made Bucky's year to see how big your smile was, watching your poinsettia grow and how much you clearly loved it. It took him a while after to gather his courage and ask you on a date but your quick "yes" reassured him. Neither of you would ever be alone on Christmas.

[wyrddogs]

Out of curiosity, how did you get started doing urban ratting? It looks like fun to do socially but really awkward and weird to try on your own.

(I spend like my entire day job thinking about rodent behavior and decision-making, especially in the context of predator-rich environments; I feel weird about how interested I am in ratting as an activity but also I am wildly curious about this stuff on the pest control end too.)

Short answer: I connected with someone in a hunting terriers Facebook group.

Long answer: I got Kermit with the intention of doing sports and field trials (recreationally putting up rabbits) and that's it. My friend is a hunter and as I've gone on outings with her I've gotten more and more into the hunting scene. (I still do not consider myself a hunter. When I'm by myself I am not capturing/killing the rabbits that I put up. I do have a hunting license though.)

NASDA became a thing when Kermit was wee so I wanted to try that sport out. We bought some rats and built some hides and I trained him to find them. I did a bit of NASDA but ultimately found it boring and quit. But my hunting friend told me that she had done some farm abatement work once with her dachshunds and oh my god I wanted to try that.

I joined a couple of Facebook groups for working terriers and dachshunds and basically lurked there for a few months. One day someone in my city asked if there was a ratting group they could join. There wasn't, but another person said she was going out solo with her terrier and was happy to bring some people along with her for experience. I asked if I could come too and she said yes.

Then it turns out the OP never showed up or posted again, but the solo ratter and I became friends. We invited a couple of other people out and they got hooked, too. Eventually we formed a core group of four people, with three others who semi-regularly rotate in. Occasionally we'll invite other interested people out, but we're pretty picky about who we bring along. We have a small social media following now, and get randos asking to come out, but yeah, we're picky. We like our small, close-knit group.

I will say it is much, much easier and safer to go out in a group than by yourself. A single dog will miss a lot of rats. What works best is to have at least one locator/flusher dog (this is Kermit's job), and multiple catcher dogs. Our founder mentioned that we have much, much better luck as a group than she did solo.

And people we run into on the street have been overwhelmingly positive. We say we're doing pest control and they respond with varying levels of fascination, delight, interest, etc. We've had workers invite us back to places we've visited. Security guards will let us into restricted areas. We get tips from our social media followers. We've made house calls. This weekend we're going to try our first barn abatement.

There are people who get really angry and cuss us out, and one guy acted really threatening towards us once, but they are in the small minority. We carry pepper spray and have taken self-defense courses, but haven't had to use anything.

So yeah, it's a lot of fun! It's a weird little hobby but it helps with the urban pest problem and takes you on lots of unique adventures.

[findafight]

Hey, I saw your discussion about the Hellfire club conflict and thought I would give my take as someone who was in club for a RPG campaign and a friendship group DnD thing as well.

In club based RPG they tend to have a certain number of players who can play each week (basically how many the GM/DM can handle or difficulty based) and you sign up in advance of the session. I was a fairly regular player and still missed major lore events since only so many could play. I would assume Hellfire worked similarly to this based on the fact Hellfire had more members than we saw (in the photo) and that Erica was let in so easily. I think if I had signed up for a session then couldn't make it they would get a fill for me but if it was something where I needed to be there they might change things that would happen.

However in my friend group DnD they would only have someone else double and play my character on non major sessions.

The show weirdly frames it like the problem is doing sports and trying to be cool in a way that's kinda weird. It should be more of a conflict of them both having an important club based event on the same day and wanting the other to attend. That makes more sense. In being non neutral in the narrative they make Lucas look better and everyone else look worse (even though they are siding against Lucas, some of the audience won't see sports as a threat the way they want us to).

They make what should be a tragic conflict of interests into a Us versus Them rhetoric regarding nerds and jocks. Steve didn't quit sports for his redemption arc. They already established Jock not equal to bad. It doesn't work.

Oh interesting! Thank you for bringing that up. I still think that would be incredibly weird because wouldn't they have to explain what has happened to everyone who wasn't there at the last/last few sessions? But I guess my experience has been heavy rp fun time/dramas than fighting rp? So maybe it would work better if the kind of DM you have puts more emphasis on battle than protecting annoying Prince's or accidentally meeting ones estranged parents haha.

My uni dnd club just has multiple campaigns happening I think but I've never actually gotten a chance to join (busy with uni) so maybe that is how it goes! I appreciate this insight, that's really interesting.

Yeah I agree, by using the narrative to frame it as Lucas betraying the party or nerddom or whatever it just makes me think everyone is being a pretentious jerk to him for having a non dnd hobby. It could have been a sad thing where he's like oh guys... I wish I could come play DND and I wish you could come watch me play...it's the finale AND the championship game... This blows. and Dustin and Mike could have gone "okay man we'll take really good notes and find your sub for you! Get Steve or your parents to video tape the game, I'll set up my double cassette player to record the radio on a timer too. Oh! Maybe we could record the session? That way even if we can't all be there for both, we can still know what happens!" Just!! Show that they care about each other!

The show's insistence on nerd v jock dichotomy and of it being good v bad is frustrating. You're right Steve showed that! He changed in S1 and in S2 we see him playing basketball! He was captain of the swim team that year apparently too. And he has already changed to be better. But the show often forgets Steve is actually a complex character or can be more than comic relief or that he is also a human who needs medical assistance when hurt so maybe we shouldn't be surprised that they forget he disproves their own point of jocks=bad. Smh

[runthepockets]

Honestly, as a man, I think most of my greivances have been with online leftism and the attitudes the queer and feminist spaces have towards men in them have been more damaging than almost anything else in my life. I've stopped thinking about my middle school bullies, and everyone knows my abusive mom and ex girlfriend are insane, but the attitudes I'd been faced with on the internet as a teen still seem to sit with me.

It's the constant judgement. The perpetual social hierarchy of how men are only ever oppressors and be wrong in situations. "Never trust a man who says all his exes are crazy, be wary of men who speak poorly of their mothers" while women who say all their exes are crazy and speak poorly of their fathers are only ever met with sympathy and the usual "lol yeah men are trash". Masculine hobbies and modes of presentation being put down to uplift feminine ones, "when you see a 10/10 girl with a 4/10 guy" comments just cus the guy looks like a dude who works at Target rather than a goddamn movie star, penises and facial hair and deep voices are yucky disgusting, The Ick, "hate when big groups of men are laughing, what's so funny, rape and misogyny?" Videos of dudes crying and talking about how they're having a hard time is just met with ridicule and emasculating commentary from both men and women who posture themselves as kinder and smarter than the status quo, "weh weh raise the male suicide rate they're all rapists and abusers anyway", other dudes siding with women who do this shit cus they're more concerned with being One Of The Good Ones than they are having a fucking spine or a sense of individuality, not realizing they're just the male equivalent of pickme girls.

Idk man it just hurts me. I've been abused by a lot of women, had my sexual advances blown wildly out of proportion because the women in question either regretted engaging with me later or wanted to keep running with this narrative that they have no agency and are perpetually victims in their own lives even though I haven't really done anything to make them believe this, and all it gets me in these spaces is blank stares and awkward silences, when I know if the genders were flipped I'd get nothing but endless support. I'm not as upset about one of my exes making false rape accusations against me as I was as a teenager, but I'm sometimes nervous around bringing it up in leftist spaces at all because I figure folks are just gonna find a way to warp it and make me feel like I imagined the whole thing and that my ex had every right to be a shit to me because she's a girl and girls doing anything is Girl Power, even when it's actively harming others.

I'm sure me being black and trans plays a big role in this too, but again, 1) I'm not a fan of putting emphasis on my marginalization for brownie points, 2) I actually am straight, masculine, gender conforming despite those marginalizations, so there's really no identifiers for me to hide behind and claim "false comparison" over, I actually am all those things that online queer and feminist spaces take issue with and it still sucks and has actively done damage to my self esteem over the years and 3) I've seen other men-- cis, white, whatever-- of all backgrounds talking about their frustrations with this too. It's just another form of socially acceptable bullying and I kinda hate it.

People ask why I go stealth irl, why I don't go out of my way to befriend a ton of queer and liberal people my age, and why I'm adverse to communities that pride themselves on being diverse and all accepting and shit, well this is why. Cus every time I talk about a problem or criticize reactionary sentiment in those spaces, I'm met with me just being ~a pathetic man who's too sensitive to letting marginilized people vent~, I'm told that I'm part of the problem, I'm told that if I stopped being so rape-y and entitled and if I just fell in line like a good little man that I wouldn't have any of these problems, no actual solutions or sympathy, just condescension.

Yeah, of course I identify with bro culture, speak highly of masculinity, and entertain playful douchebaggery after years of that. That stuff saved my life and isn't hostile to my existence or my desires. I'm loud, energetic, assertive, with a hazing / controversial sense of humor and morality, there is no timeline where I'm going to be defanged and docile and see it as acceptable to walk all over someone for things they can't help, no matter how "privileged" they are. These subcultures let me be a man in a way a lot of online (and honestly, irl) leftist spaces aren't really willing to allow or deal with.

[oncetherenowhere]

They're mourning doves. We have lovely new mourning dove neighbors. One of them stays perched over our screen door, she doesn't flutter away when I come and go; she cocks her head and stares at me every time. I speak softly to her whenever I see her. Good morning. I'll be on my way.

Work is fine. My two immediate coworkers are still lovely. The other coworker is still frustrating.

It's really making me dread going to work, especially when my coworker M isn't there; he doesn't say anything to me in front of her, only on the days when she isn't working. That leads me to further believe that he's intentionally messing with me. She believes me, of course- she even told me that he'd done this to another employee a few years ago, and they quit out of frustration. She's actually pretty mad about it. It's kind of nice to have someone angry on my behalf. This is the first workplace where someone has been mean to me, and it isn't being brushed under the rug, so that's good at least. I asked her not to say anything yet, because I'm hoping I can try to resolve it myself.

My plan? The next time he snarks at me, or makes a rude comment, or micromanages, I'm just going to...say something. I've been practicing different things I can say. None of them are rude in turn, just firm and polite. If saying something doesn't work...or if I freeze again and just take it...I'll have to bring it to the owners.

The problem is, I think he's been particularly mean to be because I told the owners once before. He didn't get in trouble or anything like that; if anything, the owners seemed surprised, like they thought I had misinterpreted his behavior. They both told me they thought he was very nice and sweet. I agreed that he had the capacity to be so; part of why his actions had been disorienting was that we had been on good terms for months! We would chat, we were chill, then one day, his demeanor changed. I looked back into our last normal conversations to make sure I didn't say anything off, but to my knowledge, it feels like it happened for no reason.

I guess their comments do sound like it was being brushed under the rug after all, but M is fierce, and said she won't like it slide again. It...feels nice to have someone in my corner. She makes me feel protected, which is something I've very rarely felt.

I'm just afraid that if I try to resolve the situation, and it gets worse...I have issues with this job, but it's also very flexible, and I'm good at the work. I don't think I could find another job in the industry like this. The nature is laid back- or was, I guess- and I just don't think I can adjust to a new job in a new place with its own problems...not again, at least.

My ideal situation would be not having to work for a living in the first place. I'm tired all the time. I have so much I want to do that I just can't. All my hobbies during the week are self-care focused so I don't burn out. It leaves very little time to write or draw. I run, I stretch, because I know the exercise helps me regulate, but then the exercise takes me out, too. I feel like I spent every weekend doing very little to compensate.

I feel like that art piece...that machine that's constantly trying to sweep up its own oil spill. There's just always Something. I'm floundering to hold myself together, it takes constant effort. Regulating myself feels like a second full time job.

I've been having bad dreams about a different place I worked, where something similar to this happened. It started with comments and rude remarks. Then it turned into physical threats and genuine bullying. My boss at that time didn't believe me. It turned so hostile I had to quit. I just don't want that to happen again.

It's going to sound so self-pitying, but I don't know what it is about me that causes this to happen. I never tell people I'm autistic anymore because it leads to bad things, but it seems like people are just able to tell. I've gotten singled out to be bullied at every place I've ever worked, every year in school...

I think it's my looks, too. I look a bit strange. I have huge eyes, and a very small mouth, round cheeks- my nose was broken as a kid, so it's got a permanent tilt. I look awkward. I've always been told so. If I was attractive, I think I could get away with my oddities. The fact that I'm awkward and weird looking? Nuh-uh.

Anyways, I've got to get ready for work. So...we'll see how that goes. I really don't want to go today. Augh!

[doomed-prophetess]

what do you think of reynold eckart? since he is slowly developing better, do you think he's still worthy of forgiveness ?

I stick to my original opinion x. His "redemption arc" already started out on the wrong foot. It can't get better because as so to speak the foundation is already laid out wrong. Reynold is only behaving that way because Cha Siyeon is acting like a "good" victim and being calm and polite in literal unimagineable circumstances. If she had been a "bad" victim and he had been confronted with the ugly sides of recovery and her relapses, would he have made an effort to understand and help her? The Eckarts only know how to thrown money at a problem. I've never seen them do emotional labor. How is he developing better? Explain it to me so I can understand. To me it doesn't look like he is trying hard enough to become a better man. He doesn't attempt to spend time with her. Inviting her over to tea to talk about each other's day would be a nice start. If he isn't good at talking activities like riding together or visiting the theatre/opera would have been good enough. Anything that shows him he is interested in her. Stop. Buying. Her. Forgiveness. He could be trying to find out her hobbies or what kind things bring her joy now (since it has become apparent that her tastes have changed). Right now Reynold doesn't do anything about the ugly rumors that still persist, he doesn't introduce her to his friends and distant relatives. Shouldn't he help in clearing her name and make connections. Friends? She needs someone besides her family. Isn't it selfish of them to deny her that connection, especially now that the Eckarts know she didn't lash out unprovoked at others? He wants to be forgiven without having to sacrifice anything meaningful. A friendly gesture towards Iklies would have been a friendly gesture towards her. But he, they still feel threatened by the idea that Penelope could be more friendly with others than them.

An apology is the bare minimum, but he didn't apologize genuinely, non-defensively, responsibly. He did not take responsibility for the damage he caused. Reynolds apology is bad because he discounts and dismisses the injury and most often than not defends or minimizes what he did.

the classic “yes…but,” blame-deflecting apology:

chapter 44

chapter 87

chapter 52

I believe this is the only time where he actually says sorry.

What is wrong here?

Well, for starters at first the way he delivered it. Reynold is mumbling it barely audible while passing her on the training grounds. Penelope has to ask him to repeat himself to even hear it. His apology is unspecific. What is he apologizing for? He says it's for speaking harshly. No, that's obviously not what he actually meant. Reynold isn't even admitting his mistakes and stating precisely how he hurt her. He isn't encouraging her to share her pain, doesn't give her the feeling that he is safe to talk to and willing to listen to her complaints with an open heart.

Second, he assumes that he possesses the right to be forgiven, even expected to be forgiven and third that he, after lowering himself to this point, deserved to get a sorry from the injured party for being reasonably upset at the injury that he caused. He thinks that their offenses are equally wrong. “I’m sorry I did something wrong but you’re no Mother Theresa either." About time you apologized, says the offender” Lastly, before or after admitting a wrong he always puts part of the blame on another, the maids, his brother, Penelope. It's very childish. After her trial he says he is not his brother (blames person number 1 or states him to be worse than him) and that he had believed Penelope if she had told him (blames person number 2). And then doesn't even say I'm sorry for not helping you afterwards, even though she could have been easily sentenced to death had she not defended herself. Penelope deserves more than a simple sorry, but she doesn't even get that without any buts and you were in the wrong too!

[birdylion]

Musings on: visiting woman-centric spaces and ballroom dancing

I went ballroom dancing for the first time in years. The event was organised by a local feminist association and was said to be open for everyone but cis men. It was a queer-friendly space, that's why I went, but I wasn't too sure about my place there.

Indeed the group turned out to be very focused on female(-centric) identity, which I don't have, uh, at all. So of course, I got misgendered a lot - it's much easier to pass as a man when there's NOT the contextual assumption that most, if not all, people there will be women. (The nonbinary, inter and trans part seem to be a recent addition to the association's self-understanding, and very far from the mind of most people there.)

But I found I didn't mind their assumptions about my gender too much, because 1. I am by now secure enough about myself that I don't need outside validation, and 2. while the space itself appeared to be woman-centric, there was a lot of variety among the people there (from very femme to about as masc presenting as me - the latter an older nonbinary person who was one of the few to instantly gender me correctly), so I got the impression that everyone was allowed to be their own self. It was a very queer space, and I didn't feel like I had to prove anything.

I did feel welcome, I didn't feel like an intruder (which had been one of my worries) - but I didn't feel like I belonged, either. The space was advertised as being "for everyone but cis men", but in practice was more like "for women and people close to womanhood". I knew before that I'm a man, that my transness is binary. Being in that space reminded me how much this is true. I have a working sense of justice and enough insight to know why it matters so of course I'm a feminist, but I'm one from the outside perspective. (This is the abridged version of how I relate to feminism, anyway.)

*

It was the first time I got to dance the lead role, that was great!

I've always loved ballroom dancing since taking the first class back in my teens, but always having to follow was getting on my nerves. As my skills grew, I felt more and more uncomfortable with it, and so I ended my training. I used to be pretty good, but I never learned how to lead, so now my movements look like I know what I'm doing, but I can only lead the basic steps and maybe one figure.

This was now a very low-stakes, easily accessible way of trying it out again, this time from the other side. I went alone, but the above mentioned nonbinary person soon set me up with others. Apparently I looked like I knew how to dance, because then a very good dancer asked me and I got to dance my favourite dance of all time again, the quickstep <3 and by the end I had about 5 people who wanted to dance with me. I was told that I have a very good posture and also that my leading felt good and comfortable, which is a great compliment considering I was doing it for the first time. With the good dancers, I usually let them lead because then we could do the more advanced stuff. Even though it has been almost 10 years since I last danced regularly, my body remembers. I wouldn't want to dance only as a follower, but for the handfull of dances now, especially in this environment where switching was normal, I didn't mind as much as 10 years ago when that was the only thing I did.

I was there to try out dancing lead, and ... omg it's so great. I really enjoy it - yes, leading into the figures, but also keeping an eye out on the dance floor, looking out for my partner, making sure we're not crashing into anyone, planning which figures to dance next. It brings a level of mental complexity to the dance that I enjoy very much.

I'm seriously thinking about taking a class and trying to find a permanent dancing partner. (There are problems such as me having enough hobbies already, and not knowing which class to take - I'm too advanced for a beginner's class, but having never learned how to lead into the figures, there's a lot of stuff from the advanced courses I probably don't know. I feel it would be good to learn from the ground up, but at the same time fear I would pretty soon be bored in a beginner's class.)

I think, (re-)learning ballroom dancing outside queer spaces, back in the old heteronormative world where I first learned it and then trained seriously, would be a wildly different experience now than it was then. I think it would actively bring me joy now, if I danced the role that feels so much more natural for me AND were allowed to exist in the gender role that feels right for me, at the same time.

All in all, a thought-provoking event with the benefit of renewing my live for ballroom dancing.

[goombasa]

Learning to Read for Pleasure Again

When I was in elementary school, I hated reading. It was really hard for me to learn, and I always felt like an idiot when I struggled to read words that it seemed like everyone else was able to read with relative ease. Or at least, that's how it appeared to me. This changed when I hit middle school and I became very ravenous for books. This continued through high school as well, and I was actually a pretty avid reader, mostly of genre fiction, but I also developed an acute interest in nonfiction about topics that interested me (this mostly consisted of computers, writing, and behind-the-scenes books on various mediums I enjoyed).

But when I hit college, there was a pretty big shift in my habits. It wasn't that I didn't have the free time to read, though classes definitely took up a lot more time for me than they did before. I just felt like I had to focus so hard on everything else around me, that I had no time to read for pleasure anymore. Add to it, this was also when I started my foray into first putting videos up on youtube, which slowly consumed more and more of my schedule as well. Even when I was home for holidays or vacations, I felt so tired and unmotivated, I couldn't find the energy to crack open a good book, even one that I had read a few dozen times already. I hadn't stopped consuming media either, that was for sure. I still played video games and watched movies and television regularly. I still made time to indulge in my brother's eclectic musical tastes (our house was filled with burned CDs that featured a hearty mix of ska, reggae, new metal, and classic rock), and I also took any opportunity I could to just catch up on sleep.

And then after graduation, this persisted, not helped by the fact that I fell into a very deep depression after coming home from college, that would last for a good two years before I managed to start actually getting up and doing stuff again. And while I did manage to do a lot to right myself and actually taking care of things, find myself a job, and get myself into something resembling a healthy work-life balance. I'm still working on wrangling all my various hobbies and interests and actually focusing on one thing at a time. But one constant that remained true through all of this time is that I still couldn't bring myself to start reading for pleasure again. I tried, multiple times. I tried setting aside time during various parts of the day, I tried rewarding myself (something very difficult when you figure out that if you're in charge of your own rewards, you can reward yourself whenever you want), I even tried easing in with books I had already read several times over, books that I loved and knew that I could get through easily, hoping to make it into something of a habit.

None of it worked, and it's been a great annoyance for me for a long, long time.

Recently though, since I started keeping track of the various media that I finish and consume over the year, I've started to make a conscious effort to start working through various backlogs of mine. Shows, and games, and yes, books that I've had sitting around for forever. It wasn't until I started trying to work through these backlogs that I realized how much of an accumulation I had. I think everyone has that issue with something, where they're constantly buying new things (usually on sale), but never actually does anything with it. I'm like that most often with books. You ever gone onto Thriftbooks when looking for a particular fantasy author? Dangerous stuff when you can get classic fantasy paperbacks for like less than 4 bucks a pop. but it gets to be a problem when you don't actually do anything with them.

And now, after about five years of working as an assistant librarian, I finally feel that spark coming back. I'm still a mess when it comes to time management and actually setting aside time to work on projects or just enjoy myself. But I am making a much more concerted effort to actually start reading again, specifically for myself. And it feels nice. I've been having building anxiety issues for the last few years (who hasn't, given everything that's happening in the world today), and it is remarkable, the escapism that reading has afforded me. It's a rather different feeling from what I get from a movie or a show or even a video game. I can feel immersed or engrossed in what I'm watching or playing, sure, but reading evokes a different sort of feeling when I'm essentially forced to imagine in my mind's eye what it is I'm seeing or hearing. In a way, it allows for a level of detachment from my surroundings that a visual medium doesn't provide, at least in my opinion.

It's been a long road to this point, but I am glad to say that I've reached it. Slowly, but surely, I am finally settling into a pattern of pleasure reading, and it's been doing me a lot of favors in terms of keeping my anxiety at bay, and I don't feel like I'm just binging something to binge it like I do when I'm watching a lot of series nowadays, I feel like I'm giving a certain level of investment when I sit or lay down to read in the evening and it's rapidly becoming a form of decompression for me. And hey, I'm finally doing something with that library card of mine. Ironic that I spent so many years working for the library and I never once took advantage of the fact that I was surrounded by plenty of amazing reading material, I just had to give myself a good kick towards actually looking through it.

If there are any fellow lapsed readers out there who are feeling similar, I wish I could offer advice, but as I said, I've tried and failed many times to reach a point where I can get back into reading for me, and there's nothing wrong with not getting back into it. But the benefits are well worth pushing yourself to trying to get back into being a regular reader. There are a lot of stories out there begging to be read, and in a day and age where media can so easily be taken away from you, there's a lot of comfort to be had in the physical feeling of a book in your hands.

[speakingagain]

I have two jobs.

I don't even want to work one job.

I want to stay home, be a recluse, and work on random hobbies and sleep and forget I exist and everything just cease to exist around me and-oh I'm depressed.

Neat.

I wish I had an off button. Or a remote to pause. I took an extra shift tonight, despite working overtime at my full time job and 40 hours the last week at my part time. I also haven't slept more than a couple hours the last three days. I shouldn't be surprised I'm feeling more depressed right now. I mean, it's 4 am, and I have nothing to do while at work for another hour. So what else can I do except think?

And we all know thinking is a dangerous game. Leads to dark parts of my mind that I'd rather stay hidden.

And most of the time it stays hidden, and I can ignore it for the most part. But I also generally get a semi regular amount of sleep. So.

I gotta find some coffee. Maybe a snack. But I also don't want to eat. I just want to go to bed, but that's not going to be possible until after 6 pm tonight. I have a shift at 8 am.

And my mother kind of pissed me off. She constantly nags me about not having enough money, or not doing enough. And then when I'm working overtime and two jobs, she tells me to quit working so much. I made a joke saying I hope they let me go home early for my 3rd shift. She got pissed and yelled at me to stop, saying I "made my bed and I need to lay in it." I know that mom. But we all dream for the day our manager asks us if we want to go home early.

It's impossible to win with her sometimes. Granted, I haven't cleaned the kitchen like she asked. And it's only getting worse. And she has every right to be irritated with me. But my mom is so passive aggressive and impossible to please.

I don't want to deal with her anymore.

I want to live on my own.

I want to live.

But I also want to cease to exist. Not like, "grippy sock time." But I just want to stop being. I want to pause. I want to disengage with the world around me. Fuck I want out of this shit.

I want out of my brain.

I did a therapy assignment yesterday. My therapist is confused about my time line of trauma. I think it's funny when she tries to hide her genuine surprise about all the trauma I've been through. Anyways, she asked me to make a visual timeline of my life.

I made a PowerPoint. The portions including my childhood began to become a little overwhelming. So I added memes to cope. Lots of frog memes. I guess some things never change.

I may need to redo a good portion of it. I left out lots of details, and good things that happened....I can only really think of like two good things though?

I have another session this weekend. I've been trying to find things to bring up for my next sessions like throughout the week. This week, I've got nothing.

She gave me one task, aside from the time line thing. I told her I have a bad habit of holding onto tangible items and struggle with throwing things away and told her about my ex's box of shit he gave me.

She asked about how I feel about thinking about throwing his things away. It made me want to panic, so she asked me to go through the box to see what I might consider getting rid of.

I haven't. Haven't even looked at the box. I don't want to. And it's Thursday. My session is Sunday. I work every day in between, but not Sunday. But Mom wants to go to the mountains Sunday.

I could use a day in the mountains. To breathe.

But fuck me, if I'm not exhausted and just hoping my body will stall like a shitty car. Leave me on the side of the road till I can afford a tow. Sell me on eBay if you can't fix me.

This got deeper than I meant it. Anyways, I don't want to touch the box. I know I should. I know it will do me a world of good in the long run. And she didn't even ask me to throw anything away. Just to consider finding an item that I'd be okay throwing away.

This shouldn't be so hard. This shouldn't give me this much anxiety. This shouldn't be a problem. This shouldn't be MY problem.

He cheated. He abused. He stole. He financially ruined me. He left me in the dust. Why is this my problem?

He should be the one hurting. He should be the one with the anxiety, holding onto my gifts, and perfume and pictures and notes. He should be the one with the problem. He should be missing me.

Why isn't he missing me?

I think I found my session topic.

[coolnightmarerunaway]

Often imitated never duplicated

I find myself greatly amused by some in town. People who joined my old social circle.

One man who very cheaply attempted getting my attention to no avail, got a chip on his shoulder. He found a girlfriend very similar to myself, only lower on the social scale it seems.

I've been laughing at him since he returned with the attitude problem and the girlfriend. I had no idea until recently the gf has similar interests; politics, hobbies and sense of humor. What we don't have in common is obesity, bottled blonde hair, heavily tattooed, drama, temper, and what appears to be emotional "distress" on a regular basis. The gf was tagged in an old lady post implying she is a little loose and troubled. What an accomplishment this man has made. A woman half the town has had 🤣

It seems he has been doing extraordinarily well since getting with this lady. And it's her money that is funding him. He is using her finances to bring him up on the social hierarchy. He is has fake as the crew he is trying to join. The interesting thing about this crew, they don't really seem to like each other but yet they push all that bullshit support narrative. Just don't expect them to be there when you actually need somebody.

Even the 'planned wedding' is a copy of James and myself right down to the dress It seems! I've never watched anything like this before.

Mr man, when he is not staring at me, he tries to keep his back to me; of course watching reflections.. His gf is often too busy staring at her cell phone. She has already made comments about his neglect and behavior.

There is a story about him and his ex-girlfriend being burnt to the ground. I need to revisit that conversation with a friend of mine to get the full story.

March 22, 2024

[in-my-feels-probably]

This is for your celebration event.

The character I've chosen (romantically) is Lucy Gray Baird from TBOSAS. I love her because she's sweet, a great singer, beautiful, enjoys the outdoors, and seems like a genuinely good person. I love how she loves to be free and knows her way around the woods. I love how she sigs when she has something to say and not just to perform, even if she does love that too.

Me, well, I'm a southern bell lesbian who grew up on a farm and in the woods. I enjoy taking care of animals. I love reading and drawing during breaks. My favorite music genres are pop and folk. I have 5 dogs. I'm 5'3, have a ton of freckles, and short hair. That's really all I can think of for myself.

Thank you so much for reading my request. Have a Happy New Year. <33

hi!

thank you for participating :)

lucy gray would very much feel like you’re her twin flame. you’re so similar to each other, and the simple things that made her happy made you happy too.

she’s such a free spirit and an outspoken person. but she’s also gentle and loving and compassionate, and shed see pieces of herself in you. and the fact that those are things about her that you love, that would make her so happy because it’s the things about herself she values most.

she’d find you so endearing too. like absolutely adorable. with your (i’m assuming lol) accent, and your aesthetic, and your love for the outdoors and animals. you’d share so many hobbies, it wouldn’t be hard finding something in common for you to do together.

you’d ALWAYS go and watch her perform, whether it was on her own or with the covey. and you’d always love listening to her write songs, always doing your best to help her when she’d ask for your input.

—

you’d go down to the lake together, bringing her guitar along. you’d sit on the dock together, lucy gray’s head resting on your shoulder as she absentmindedly plucked the strings. you’d finally glance over at her, nudging her shoulder.

“hey…you alright?”

she’d perk up, quickly nodding. “i’m alright. why, do i not seem alright?”

“you seem a little…far away,” you’d say, gesturing to her guitar. “and you’ve been playing that same riff for about ten minutes now. it’s beautiful, but it sounds like your stuck. what’s wrong?”

“just can’t figure out what i’m trying to say, that’s all,” she’d murmur.

this was a problem she’d run across on occasion. but she was so talented, it never took her long to figure it out. and this one has been bothering her for a while now, so you decided to take her mind off of it for a little bit as you sat up straighter.

you’d smile, feeling a little bold. “say something about me, then. you haven’t done that yet.”

her cheeks would flush, but she’d chuckle, setting her guitar to the side. she’d hook a finger under your chin, smiling as she watched you shy away from her gaze. she’d hum, rubbing her thumb across your cheek.

“i’ve written plenty about you, darling. you just haven’t heard them yet.”

you’d grin, glancing down at her guitar. “well…i’m listening now?”

she’d smile with a light chuckle. “yes, you are.”

and just like that, she’d be back to her usual self, slipping her guitar back into her lap and playing a tune you had heard before but were just now getting the lyrics to.

—

thanks again for participating! i hope you liked this :)

[tellmesomethingaboutit]

About being a late bloomer

The world goes fast. Fast enough to see how late one can be.

It's THE article, the one which inspired my will to write, the one from which this whole idea first surfaced.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of thinking (and a lot of writing, that goes without saying) and I came to realize "late" is such an absurd adjective. At least for us young adults. Being late to a gathering with some friends, arriving late to your parent's Friday night diner or getting late to work are affordable kinds of "late"'s, even if those imply a lack of punctuality. But why do we keep getting pressured to finish our degrees, become parents, taking out a mortgage ? You are never safe from a condescending comment thrown by an older person or, ironically, from people the same age as you. It's as if they wanted to show us their superiority, how they hold their stuff together, in their perfectly fabricated reality. And I know I sound judgmental, but we're passed the politically correct as of now on.

I have found myself in situations where I could not control my speed, whether it was related to learning or to certain stages in my life. And after listening to a podcast (cf. "Quand la vie devient une course", Océane Andrea), I just contemplated how far I had come already.

Because, whether we like it or not, life is not as simple as movies or books let out to be. Life is made up of stunts and pitfalls that intervene on the path of life, like a stroll on which one tries to walk peacefully. But that's the point of a hike : to try to walk peacefully, to find serenity in what you observe. It is above all something that is supposed to bring happiness. But then the walk, which we start off naively enough, becomes a track. And there, you have to perform, be the best in your field, not let yourself be beaten, push your limits. It is at this point that I wonder at what stage the ride stopped. How did I get there?

It wasn't supposed to be a race. I was walking around and, despite some obstacles, managed to find my way contentedly. You never know where you're going, but the fact remains that most roads lead to Rome. Without a clear route, I understood how and why I was moving. This is not quite the case anymore. The only thing I still know is that I want to maintain a state of peace, a certain happiness. But in the end, I don't understand it. I can't function rightfully under pressure. And I believe it's the case for most of us humans.

Challenges are one thing, they give us hope and will. I have always loved putting goals for everything (even if I couldn't reach them) : school, hobbies, work... Defying myself in some of the fields I love was never a problem. On the contrary, the pressure emanating from certain unjustified or purely useless comments (because they didn't push me up the ladder) just made me want to give up. Maybe that's why I've never been able to finish anything in any of my chosen fields.

So, what is exactly being a late bloomer ? There's no such thing, in my opinion. We all struggle to get ourselves where we want to be, timing shouldn't be part of the main drivers to get there. I don't even want to include any scientific articles to explain what it's like to be 'late'. It's true that if we could perhaps understand it, we could 'move forward better'. But, in my opinion, the answer won't sound as miraculous as it lets out to be and will probably be no better than a YouTube video advocating methods to stop procrastinating.

Far be it from me to want to appear out of touch with reality or to want to exclude myself from has been decided as standard. I just think that time shouldn't define us as people, our temperament or our personality. Being late on certain points, on certain events or in other areas does not constitute mental retardation. It's actually the difference in our timelines that's so interesting about each of us.

So, it's THE article, the one which inspired my will to write. Because I have been considered 'late' my whole life. I never knew what I wanted to do because I didn't know where my passion lied. But with time, I came to realize there wasn't a 'good or bad moment' to start something you're passionate about. Maybe I'm not so late after all...

[fff777]

I saw this writing tag game. I wasn't tagged but it looked fun :3

What is your absolute all-time favourite idea you’ve ever had?

I really think it might be my current fic, the Laytao historical AU. In its current form, I don't think it's as polished as most of my other fics, but I am still quite attached to the original idea that this fic came from. The fic in its current form is extremely different from what I had initially hoped to write. But all variations of it are equally dear to me.

Maybe it's because this idea was combined with a setting that I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about and it gave me a lot of ideas about it.

What is your favourite part of being a writer? Which parts could you take or leave?

I guess my favourite part is just being able to articulate an idea. I like sharing things I like. I also find that writing fic helps me organize and contextualize my thoughts about things, whether it's about the ship or the setting or other themes in the fic.

My least favourite part...basically the actual writing lmao. To be honest, I don't really consider myself a writer. I struggle to write and I don't actually find it fun the way I find my other hobbies fun. I also have a funky relationship with words that I won't get into here, but words don't really touch me the way I think it touches other people and so it makes it difficult for me to convey things without cringing sometimes.

What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

My biggest motivation for writing is to just realize my ideas. Words are magical in that you can bring basically anything to life and it's kind of fun that I can conceive anything in the world and just. Write it lol.

What is your favourite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

I don't know if this is recency bias but I am rather pleased with most of my most recent works. What a copout answer lmao. But I like them for different reasons.

Sulay cambunnies: I liked this because it kind of made me feel braver about writing the kind of porn that I enjoyed.

Seho historical AU: I liked this fic for a lot of reasons. It was my first long fic and taught me a lot about writing. I liked that it was a big happy ending fic. I was aiming for cute and fluffy and from the comments I was proud that I was able to convey that in a historical setting where the expressions of love can be quite different.

Kaixing SDOC: I liked this fic because it's as close to canon timeline fic as I've ever written lol. I just never thought I could write anything realistic and this fic kind of helped me realize how I can do that.

Laytao historical AU: Oh man. I already mentioned that I really love the idea that this fic is attached to and that is a huge reason of why I love this a lot, as imperfect as it is. I put a lot of thought into the trajectory of the story and while I still don't think it's perfect in its final form, I'm still thankful to this fic for giving me a vehicle to explore those themes.

What is your favourite out-of-the-box quote?

I don't really have any? But I did share this recently with a friend.

It's from a not-yet posted chapter of the Laytao historical AU fic.

"It was bitter, as it always was. But bitterness was never a problem. Yixing could always tolerate it. Good things must always be suffered through."

Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

Probably Yixing in the Laytao historical AU fic. He's very patriotic and lawful, unflinchingly so. In today's political climate, that is not a popular attitude. This kind of character is not at all uncommon to the genre, and to the general culture, as folk heroes that act like this are revered. I do think that Yixing has a personality that is somewhat like this. But I don't know him, only the side of him that is presented to the world.

Personally, this way of thinking is not for me. But I think it's not so uncommon to come across people like this in the world.

If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

I think I'd be a little awed that I managed to write these more ambitious pieces. I read fic for a long time before ever trying my hand at it.

Tagging whoever wants to do this!!!!!