#ngl i love how you can edit tags now instead of having to delete the whole fucking thing

[keichanz]

thank you all so much for your kind words and support, my dear friends. i'm doing alright. to be honest, i'm actually more irritated than upset to have lost my job, because the means in which it happened is absolute fucking bullshit.

i'll give a watered down version of what happened if anyone is curious. also if anyone is curious, i gave a bit of a life update, too.

warning: this is gonna be long lmao #sorrynotsorry

basically a few weeks ago i got sick and couldn't work, so i requested a leave of absence. it was approved for two weeks, from the dates 1/31/24 to 2/14/24. my work computer would be locked during that range, so i would be unable to sign in and work.

during that time frame, i had been receiving emails from my work that required me to complete a task confirming that i would be returning to work on the 15th. those emails were delivered to my spam folder, and i wasn't even aware i was supposed to be getting any emails, so i never even thought to check there.

on the 15th, when i went to sign into my computer, i discovered that my computer was still locked. during the last week, my supervisor had been off of work as well because he was also sick, so all of my calls and texts to him were unanswered. also wanna mention i didn't know he was off because i wasn't told. anything.

so basically, nobody told me shit, i didn't complete the required task because i didn't know i had to, my work was like "welp we didn't get this from you so we're taking it that you don't want to return to work, so you're terminated" and there you have it. i lost my job because of their fuck up and in turn they're saying it's my fault.

pretty fucked up, yeah?

but anyway. i honestly can't say that i'm terribly upset. i'd grown to hate the job. it was too overwhelming, and i've learned that i just cannot handle a call center job. i've known this for a while now so for the past few months i've been applying everywhere for a job where it'll still be an office environment because that's what i have the most experience in, but being on the phone constantly isn't a requirement. remote and onsite jobs because i can't afford to be picky.

and some good news, i have an interview friday morning :) it's actually a remote hybrid position, at least that's what the ad said, so i can definitely work with that. might be good to get out of my house every once i a while. working from home has turned me into a bit of a hermit lmao.

now on to the life update. it's been...difficult. my new year did not start off very well. literally on new years day, at about 8 am, i was woken up to the unpleasant sounds of a cat throwing up a hairball. fellow cat owners, i'm sure you all know the sound. so i got up to make sure he was okay and that he got it out of his system. instead what i found was a trail of phlegm and romeo struggling. then he darted off to another part of my house, and i followed after him, worried.

i'm gonna give a little warning just to be safe: the next part mentions blood.

i will never forget the sight that greeted me when i found him and over a month later the image still haunts me. romeo's front was covered in blood, with the stuff literally pouring from his mouth and i fucking screamed and i SPRINTED to my bedroom to get my phone to call the emergency vet. i made an appointment to bring him in, and when i went to check on romeo again, he was in the same spot, however he'd managed to pass a fucking massive hairball. he seemed to be breathing okay and didn't seem to be in any pain, so not knowing what to do, i called my mom and i was sobbing as i tried to explain what happened. she and my sister (who's now living with my parents temporarily but that's another story) ended up coming over to make sure i was okay because when i tell you i was hysterical when i called her, i mean it. i was barely coherent and crying so hard she couldn't understand me.

while i waited for them to arrive, my boyfriend (who i was in a sleep call with and i woke his ass up) kept me calm until they got here. i love that man seriously.

ashley looked romeo over since she'd worked with cats before when she worked for the ASPCA and told he's going to be okay. they managed to calm me down and convinced me not to go to the emergency vet in the city as it'd be a $200 fee. my mom called my local vet, left a message (as they were closed because of the holiday) and we waited for a call back. romeo was still doing okay and i cleaned him up the best i could. guys the amount of blood was...concerning. like seriously i was terrified to see him like that, i seriously thought something was wrong. god it was awful and i'm pretty damn sure i have some kind of PTSD from it. christ.

when the emergency vet called back, she said that romeo is going to be okay and the blood is probably just because the hairball was larger than normal and it aggravated his esophagus. said to just keep an eye on him, try to get him to eat something easily digestable, and if he's still vomiting, to call back and get him in today via emergency services.

so now, moving on. obviously afterward i made an appointment for him at my local vet, and it was discovered there that Romeo had a large matted hairball in his stomach. the vet had no idea how long it had been there, but it definitely needed to be removed, so he was scheduled for surgery. his surgery was about a month ago, and he's recovering very well. i'm beginning to wonder if that hairball had been the culprit of him constantly throwing up because now he's acting like his usual self of having the zoomies and he's throwing up less hairballs. so he's doing much better and i'm grateful, tho i'm still keeping a very close on him because fuck i NEVER want to go through that again. damn cat's gonna give me an ulcer with how much stress he put me through.

but wait, there's more lmao. not cat related, but something i've also been dealing with that i thought had been resolved last fucking YEAR. so, last year - actually around this time in february - i received a notice from the IRS that i owed over $3000 to them because my 2021 tax return did not match what is in federal data bases. and i was like uuuhh what. i had my dad look it over because im dumb when it comes to this sort of thing, and it was discovered that my social security number was used to claim unemployment benefits for the year 2021 in fucking CALIFORNIA. it's unclear if someone in the unemployment services in CA fucked up and typed in somebody's social wrong and used mine instead, or if someone in CA is deliberately using my SSN, but in either case, it's being used to claim UI. so i had to contact the unemployment services in CA which is called employment development department (i'll be calling it EDD) and guys lemme tell they are fucking IMPOSSIBLE to get a hold of. they are so understaffed that if someone is unavailable to take your call the automated system goes "sorry no one is available" and it just disconnects. so i had to call so many times to get myself into the damned queue, and even then the wait is nearly 30 minutes.

so i finally managed to get a human being, i explained everything to him, and he was able to confirm that yeah, i see the claim, you obviously don't live in california, and he told me to submit a fraud report stating that i don't live in ca, i have never lived in ca, i have no attachment to the workforce in ca, ect ect. i so submitted it, and then that was that and i thought that was the end of it and i didn't get anything else from the IRS for the rest of the year.

it was not.

the only reason i realized that this issue had NOT been resolved was because when i went to check the status of my federal tax return because GIMME MY DAMN MONEY I NEED IT, i got a message saying my refund had been "applied to overdue tax obligations" and i was like HELL NO so i called the IRS and yep they confirmed it was because of that stupid fucking unemployment bullshit and after yet again explaining everything that happened, they instructed me to call the EDD and ask for them to send me a corrected 1099 G form so i can in turn send it over to them then after that fill out an identify theft affidavit. so yet again, i called the EDD five million fucking times, managed to get in the queue, waited an ungodly amount of time to talk to a human, only to be told that lol sorry they can't prove that the claim isn't fraud just from what i told them so they can't send me a 1099 G form. im like?? BITCH I DON'T EVEN LIVE IN CALIFORNIA I NEVER HAVE YOU LITERALLY HAVE MY SSN CAN'T YOU LOOK THIS SHIT UP??? but nope they don't have proof so i was told i need to file an appeal on the "disqualification on the claim" (whatever tf that means) and submit ANOTHER fraud report.

so i did both of those things, then filled out the 14039 form (identity theft affidavit) and now i have to wait until march 4th to see if it was accepted and if i'll be getting my refund. which i desperately need because lol i haven't paid my rent this month :')) whoops.

moving on. since about last may, my kitchen has been getting renovated. so currently i do not have a kitchen. i don't have an oven, a kitchen sink, or even storage. well i kinda have storage because my cabinets were recently put up, but i can't use them all yet. i havent really been able to go grocery shopping and i've been living on microwavable meals and a LOT of takeout courtesy of doordash. it sucks because i MISS my kitchen, i wanna cook meals and actually fucking CLEAN MY HOUSE, but i can't. my dad has been amazing since he's the one doing it, and i'm forever grateful to him. my kitchen is about i'd say...maybe 80% finished. we're working on putting in the new flooring right now, so after that, i'll have my stove and sink again. it's nearly there!! i'll post pictures of the before and after is anyone is curious. so yeah i haven't had a kitchen for like almost a whole year lmao. it's been tough :'))

SO.

there you have it, folks. what i've been dealing with for the past month and a half. it has been stressful AF and please god i just need a break uuugghhh. but anyway, i applied for unemployment and waiting to see if i'll be getting anything from them as i continue my job search. hoping the interview friday goes well. i'll post an update if anyone is curious enough i suppose.

.....so i didn't mean for this to get so long lol thanks for sticking around to read the entire thing if you did. i'm glad some of my followers still care ❤️

i love you all and thanks for supporting me after all these years. grateful to have you guys and call you my friends.

anyway i'm gonna go play some DayZ and kill some zombies.

peace!

welp

lost my job lol

[doctorofmagic]

I find it so sad and upsetting to see the Clea tag here on tumblr being SO full of people complaining about her and being upset that Stephen didn't end up with Christine... I just want to read some new people appreciating Clea now and her fans being happy, and yet I'm finding so much negativity 😔 I love Christine as well and I was so happy with what they did in MoM with her character and her relationship with Stephen, and yet palmerstrange fans are all so angry. These ship wars are so stupid, kill all my joy of being in fandom.

PS: Anon who sent me the Palmerstrange ask, I’m sorry but tumblr got dumb and deleted your post as I was editing this ask. But luckily enough I was able to answer your whole question before it got deleted. Sorry :/

Okay *sighs*

First of all, I'd like to say that I understand where both preferences come from, even though I've always been biased because of Cleaphen (even when it was just Victoria and Clea, I always rooted for Clea because I knew how deep Stephen loved her - and yes, Stephen is poly-coded in canon).

Anon 1: I was avoiding the tags but your message made me curious and since I lack self-caring, I checked it out and yikes, yeah... I understand where they come from and I respect their sadness for having their ship wrecked but uh...

It's okay, they may not accept Clea now but who knows? They can always change their minds, especially if they see that Stephen is happy (which is really a sign of love).

I mean, I've been there in other fandoms so I know how it feels, but it's not like I didn't appreciate the new possibilities cause, luckily, I'm able to multi-ship so all good.

But true, true. Ship wars are the stupidest bs in any fandom. Also if I was THAT obsessed with canon, I wouldn't have a fic with 14+ ships featuring Stephen lmao. It's not that serious. Besides, canon never stopped people before, me included 😭 90% of my ships are not canon, so what?

Anon 2: At this point, I'm just glad they introduced her instead of using Christine as a variant, ngl 😭 this concept of variants in the MCU just set everything on fire. It worked so well on comics but now, like, I'm not commenting on THAT. I refuse to do so. But okay, okay, at least she's here!! Also I really don't see that Stephen's story will end in DS3 when we're having a fourth Thor movie coming and it won't probably be the last? I strongly believe we'll have so much more of him, and consequently Clea.

Anon 3: Thank you for your kindness! Yes, yes, let's always support older women and their amazing work! I'm just glad to see more of this on screen. There's still a long road but the more vocal we’re about it, more often we’ll see them represented.

Anon 4 who asked about Palmerstrange: look... I really tend to avoid ship discourse on my blog because I know it hurts people's feelings so I'd rather not to, even though the opposite is not always true. Besides, I liked them in the What If? episode, although I agree that MCU!Stephen and Christine were portrayed in a way that their relationship wouldn't be rekindled. But that's just my interpretation. People ship for less. Crack ships exist. Who am I to judge people's preferences? (except pr0-sh1pping. That's definitely not my cup of tea.) In my opinion, when Christine kisses Stephen's cheek in the first movie, I knew they wouldn't end up together since I understood that moment as a gesture of platonic affection. And the fact that Stephen clings into her memory is because he needs love, and her memory is all he has left. But then again, that's MY interpretation. Doesn't mean I'm right.

What I'll criticize, though, is people coming for Clea and saying all kinds of nasty stuff when first loves are hardly endgame irl. It feels real to me. The point is, I agree with you, but it doesn't invalidate Palmerstrangers who felt compelled by their story on screen because it was their interpretation when consuming said content.

--

In any case, my point is, it's really hard for me to validate or invalidate people's preferences when it comes to shipping because, as I said, I'm able to ship Stephen with every character in the Marvel Universe, it works in my head regardless of canon. But that's just me. There are ships that I really dislike in the MCU and have strong opinions on them but you'll never hear about it 🥴 and this is why I avert my eyes to this kind of discourse.

(truly, this subject feels like walking on eggshells oooooof)

[dreamyarcana]

hey hey im new to the arcana fandom thing going on here,,,,, any tips on how to grow a beginning blog

Hi! Welcome to the fandom, I’m so glad you’re here ^°^ if you want feel free to DM me your url or send an ask and I’ll add you to the master list I have to update!

Firstly, like, believe it or not, in the first few weeks or so I pretty sure I considered just like deleting my blog because there wasn’t much going on in terms of activity and it didn’t really seem like people were interested because there were so many other good blogs? Thank goodness I didn’t, haha.

it takes a lot of motivation and work sometimes to grow a blog I’m ngl lol but here are some general tips

1. Try to focus one posting one particular kind of post instead of doing everything - I started out with just doing headcanons and now I kind of do a mix of everything except art and I take requests now. 2. Tag everything and be organized as best you can. I do a shitty job of it tbh but my first few tags always contain “the arcana game,” “the arcana,” and whatever characters are involved in that particular post. I also tag the type of posts it is i.e. “dreamy headcanon” “dreamy edit”3. Interact with other blogs :D personally, if you ask me via DM, I’m more than happy to promo you or talk to you!! A lot of people are extremely shy, so sometimes it might backfire depending on what type of person you are. I’m an extremely extroverted person, so I’ll come off too strong sometimes ;;4. Be kind and open to your followers - I know one or two non - arcana blogs where the mods are just kind of condescending to their followers and it breaks my heart because followers are what makes the blog. Personally, I tend to look up to the blogs that are open and people who appreciate their followers; therefore I try to do the same :)I absolutely love and appreciate every single follower I get on all of my blogs because they are so supportive ^°^

I hope this helps you and thank you for the ask! Good fortune to you ^°^

[serenagaywaterford]

9) No. 1 here. Three days later... Apparently, I'm good at this. #not // Just finished the "Russian Doll". It was enjoyable. Loved how they took a good, old, clichéd trope and turned it into sth fun and touching. That upbeat OST didn't hurt either. Anyway. a) "Then sometimes [fangirls/boys]’ll annoy me so much that I end up liking the complete opposite of what they like. Dunno why." Kinda same, LOL. b) "[Westworld] another shot but when shows get overcomplicated, they’re not much fun anymore"

10) Tbh, I'm not sure if I'll watch S3, I'll probably watch the pilot and decide. Overall, S1 >> S2. I'm usually a fan of plot twists, but they're getting tiring at this point. Almost as tiring as "Once Upon a Time"'s fucked up genealogy tree. (Ugh, since I went there... What a ridiculous trainwreck of a series that was. I tried getting into it for all the good femslash/fanfiction, but I ended up on Wiki + Youtube for summaries/clips instead, bc YIKES.) c) "IIRC, her character was my fav (other

11) than Clementine lol)" Clementine has SUCH potential! I adore her. Honestly, she should've gotten WAY more screen time in S2, but alas. Ngl, I kinda shipped her with Maeve (even though I liked Maeve's canon love interest too). d) "The only blogs I block are ones that are gross, RP, or spam" Spam + porn blogs are an automatic blog for me. With actual people, I'm usually (keyword: usually) more lenient. E.g., if someone gets into drama all the time, I'll probably ignore or unfollow them.

12) I used to keep a blog (not on Tumblr) for sociopolitical issues, which ofc attracted plenty of creeps that started threatening/harassing me. Those I did block. As for RPers? Hm. Generally, I don't mind them, but I DID have a bad experience with one of them once: they privately asked me if I wanted to start an RP blog with them. Well, since i. RP was never really my thing, ii. I didn't have enough time for a new blog, I politely declined. All good so far. But, as it turned out, they wouldn't

13) really take the hint. They kept messaging me again and again and again, while taking a more aggressive tone each time. They ended up deleting their blog for unknown reasons, so I didn't have to block them. e) "HOLY GROSS… I just got up and a centipede fell off me! "Holy shit, those things are HUGE! A friend of mine often gets these kinds of "visitors". That's why he basically sleeps with a bug spray next to him, LOL. f) "For Emily to do those things, you don’t do those crimes without being

--------

LOL NO WORRIES, MY GOOD DUDE! Take all the time in the world. This is all fun and games (and nobody’s losing an eye) :D 

Russian Doll, imo, was just you know, a tight little show. Well acted, well paced, well directed, well editing, well written. Was it the best show ever? Nope. But it was solid. I really appreciated how they kept it tight and didn’t drag it out. A show like that can easily get tiring really quickly because of the basic concept. But almost every refresh was actually fresh. It moved at a good clip and ended right when it should have. And I appreciate that in a show, lol. (Mostly cos I’m accustomed to UK shows.)

Okay, you may have talked me out of S2 lol. Mostly, overcomplicated? Nah. Less Clementine? Very nah. But....ARE YOU ME? Seriously. I totally shipped Maeve/Clem as well! Again, not that I didn’t appreciate her canon partner cos that was fun too. I honestly thought I was like one of 2 people ever to dig Maeve/Clem, lol.

(I can’t speak to OUAT cos I think I’ve seen one episode of that ever and I had to nope right outta there. But I did watch those scenes with Ruby and Dorothy and had friends into Swan Queen -- which makes the most sense in that whole show, or what I know of it anyway.)

Why are people such creeps? I honestly don’t understand online harassment. “You don’t agree with my opinion on some issue, therefore I’m going to send you death threats!” ??? But yeah, RP blogs... part of my reasoning too is so I don’t have to see 600 of their posts in character tags. I like my searches to be clean and not have back and forths between RP blogs talking to each other. (OMG it was so bad in GoT fandom for a while. Yet another show that I gave up on after 2 seasons lol.) It’s funny you mention that story about an RP blog cos I feel like... a lot of RP blogs I’ve had run-ins with also had no idea how to accept a “no”. A few did, which was nice. But some just don’t understand “Please don’t.” or “Please stop.” And just bombard me with notifications of them carrying on conversations on my posts. (Which generally I actually have no issue with and it’s tumblr and public so really, what can ya do? But normally, people have something to say and that’s cool. There was one post that was like my own character analysis thingie and an RP group took it over and weren’t even debating or discussing my points but literally just using the photo as fodder for, on top of everything else, a character conversation of a NOTP of mine (which I outlined in the original post I’d made). It was just like... There is literally no reason to jump on my post. The photo I used isn’t even that great lol.) ANYWAY. I sound like a child whining about fandom but ... lol, that’s why I now appreciate the block feature. Sometimes.